Authors Electric

I am going to interrupt the countdown of metafictional comics this month to say a few words about one of my favorite holidays: Thanksgiving (I'm afraid, though, that Groundhog Day has pride of first place in my holiday hierarchy). I don't know if they celebrate Thanksgiving in the UK. Maybe the Canadians do (Any Canucks out there want to chime in here?). Maybe y'all were thankful for the extra space once we left. Maybe you were thankful for all the cool stuff we sent back. I mean, you have to admit that potatoes, corn, and kidnapped Indian maidens are pretty damned awesome. Or maybe you were just thankful to have us gone. Either way, I suspect that even if Thanksgiving is observed over the pond and beyond, it probably isn't given the gluttonous extravagance we make of it over here. All day eating all the turkey and dressing you want. Turkey sandwiches galore until yuletide? It's a gourmand's dream. Sure it's no Christmas or Halloween, but that...

Don't you flash your close-ups at me, matey       I wasn't sure what to blog about this month.       After a quick and slightly upsetting look at my sales, I thought I might talk about the unpredictable nature of bookselling. After all, hits always, always come out of the blue. Aside from exhaustive efforts to boost word-of-mouth, and/or saturation media coverage, there's nothing anyone can do, for certain, to sell a title. If there was, the nation's publishers would never have printed an unsuccessful word... [insert raised eyebrow here]...       No, that's a total downer.       I thought maybe I should talk about the way the new Kindle, the little 'un, seems to be taking the mickey with its screensavers. All those close-ups of pens and typewriter keys and printing blocks. It's as if the cheeky whatsit is sitting there saying "ha ha, look at all this old tech, you don't need them...