City of Legends

I am letting you all in on my plan to, sometime this summer, retool "101 Great Love Poems" and either put out a similar volume, while dropping the original from my catalog, or re-issuing the book with completely reworked selection.

I have always felt the book was soft, more of a marketing experiment than a real attempt at putting out the truly great love poems.

My editor may like the idea.  Or she may kill me.  Or she may quit.  We’ll see.

But I am telling you all, first.

Oh, and it is not your imagination, I am cleaning up this massive blog…

Next month, when loveaddict hits the streets, expect some other changes.

After repeated threats on my part to this effect, I am taking out of print the entirety of my books with iUniverse.

This means:

• from an unexpected quarter
  
• love gods of a forgotten religion
  
• 101 Great Love Poems

will all cease to be available as new.

I am cannibalizing the first two to provide a few works for loveaddict (and because the covers now offend me), but have never really been happy with either one.  The third is mostly a bastard child of The Panther Cycles and as such is out of place in my catalog.

I have also been very unhappy with the course that iUniverse has taken over the years, since I was grandfathered into their organization when they acquired Writers Club Press.  It is a tough decision, as 101 Great Love Poems has been one of my best sellers and is the only book of mine currently available in hardback, but I feel it is time.

Later this week I will be presenting you with a preliminary list of what poems will be rescued as these books go dead.

The new CD, blister, continues to take shape. 

Well, it’s Thursday and I have a lot to do…

but I don’t really feel like it. Getting over my first real cold in some time, dealing with my Grandmother’s stroke, mild upheavals at work and the fun of life in general.

The show, this week’s FROM OUT OF THE CITY podcast (available at RADIO CITY OF LEGENDS and iTUNES Music Store for download or subscription. void where prohibited by law) is all but in the can. This is good.

The poll I set up to help guide my choices of works for the Valentine’s Day podcast is cranking along. No huge surprises. Again, vote early and vote often. I set it up to allow multiple choice and re-votes every 1 hour.

I see where the lovely and talented Nordette Adams went ahead and used the facial transformer on her AD site. Very cute.

Still a little miffed at Authors Den. They set up their own podcast, including CHAPTERS, POEM OF THE DAY and "OPEN MIC". The latter specified basically open reads, and I don’t do open microphone reads, except where it suits me. (Really attractive hostess? Where’s the sign-in sheet?) So I direct them to few of my works, incuding some full chapter reads from THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES. They put a couple of my full-production pieces under OPEN MIC and ignored the chapter reads.

I’ve always had a red-headed stepchild relationship with AD. I remember about a year ago I got an email about a special program they were running for longtime members (I was a very early member…) but when I contacted them to take advantage of it, I was told it was a mistake for me to have been included on the mailing…but they’d give it to me anyway, since I had received it. Yeah, classy.

I get to call iUniverse in a couple of weeks and pull the plugs on two of my books, FROM AN UNEXPECTED QUARTER and LOVE GODS OF A FORGOTTEN RELIGION. They’ve both been solid sellers, but both are long in the tooth, and have covers featuring she-who-must-not-be-named (according to her lawyer), so I am avoiding any further harrassment and burying them. An hour after they go off distribution, you know that the value to collectors will skyrocket. Hmmm…maybe I should buy a stack and hide them for a few months.

Besides, both books have the same substantial editing error in them that I categorically refused to pay the publisher to clean up, so, screw ‘em.

I am leaving 101 GREAT LOVE POEMS with iUniverse, as it is my best-seller to date. Besides, I like their work on the hardbound edition and will probably put them back to work for my 101 GREAT EROTIC POEMS later this year and the annoying 101 GREAT METAPHYSICAL POEMS in a year or two, not to be confused with 101 GREAT ADULTERY POEMS and 101 GREAT I-SHOULD-HAVE-SEEN-IT-COMING POEMS.

Maybe 101 GREAT SELF-INDULGENT DRIVEL POEMS? That might have to be a double-thick book.