BeWrite Books gay romance author Jay Mandal can never be accused of walking when he can run. His energetic and imaginative promotional efforts have made him one of the most popular writers of gay fiction in the UK, frequently at the dizzy heights of Amazon sales charts for the genre.
His books are among BeWrite's four-figure top sellers, and The Dandelion Clock alone has recently been checked out of local libraries more than 100 times.
Best Gay Romance 2010 – ISBN 978-1573443777, published by Cleis Press – is out now, featuring a short story by Jay, The Food of Love. Another Jay short, Chiaroscuro, was published in their 2009 anthology.
Apart from their sheer literary quality and sensitive treatment of the subject matter, frequent publication of short stories and poetry, and regular contributions to major gay print media has been key to the success of Jay's BeWrite Books novels and anthologies.
Said Jay: "In the last twelve days, I’ve written one piece of flash fiction; a poem; a 1,000-word short story; and added over 3,000 words to my novel-in-progress. I don’t know how long this creative burst will last so I’m trying to make the most of it."
And that, folks, is the way to do it. NM
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Friday, 15 January 2010
BeWrite Authors Are Revolting
The silver-haired and eye-shaded editors at BeWrite Books (with more than 100 years of professional pen-pushing between the three of them) are old-fashioned scribes at heart ... but now they’re spearheading the greatest revolution in publishing since the invention of the printing press 550 years ago.
They set up their independent publishing house at the start of this century to produce books in time-honoured ink-on-paper form. But now they’re among the very first to have their authors’ work presented on the entire range of fancy new electronic reading gadgets and even mobile phones and iPods.
With revolutionary new technology, BB titles can be read as of now in all NINE digital formats on any computer or portable reading gizmo anywhere in the world from the top deck of a
“And to think,” said sixty year old BB editor in chief Neil Marr in
Seventy-four-year-old BB senior Editor Hugh McCracken in
And BB poetry editor Sam Smith in
Over a hundred new books by authors all over the world have been published in paperback by BeWrite Books (www.bewrite.net), but – regardless of their grey hairs – the go-ahead publisher insisted from the start that there should always be a covering ebook version that could be read on screen. They produced what’s known as a Portable Document Formula file (PDF) of each title released. But the PDF had its imitations because perfect layout couldn’t be guaranteed on the fifty or more portable reading devices on the market by the start of this year and on mobile phones and iPods.
So BeWrite Books’ grey beards got smart and teamed up with
Their authors – ranging in age from early twenties to mid eighties – have become literary pioneers; among the very first writers in history with an author voice loud enough to reach anyone, anywhere, any time.
Said Neil Marr: “It’s hard to believe that I was brought up paying library fines for overdue and dog-eared books by Dickens, and here I am editing work that a bushman in the Kalahari can read on his cell phone in between kangaroo hunts or whatever occupies his time in the deserts of
“2010 is a revolutionary, watershed year in the presentation of literature. Every publishing house, editor and author must embrace the new technology or be content for their books to gather dust on a shelf somewhere.”
BeWrite Books Technical Director, Tony Szmuk in Canada, said: “We always considered ourselves ahead of the game, having made those PDF files available for computer screen reading since our launch ten years ago – but the sudden explosion in the popularity of ebook reading on the new portable reading devices, mobile phones, iPods and what have you over the past few weeks woke us up to the fact that we were in danger of becoming dinosaurs in the new age.
“Did you know that the massive Amazon online bookstore sold more ebooks than paperbacks and hardbacks over Christmas? Forty eight ebooks are sold on line for every hundred physical books – what we now call ‘treebooks’ because they depend on chopping down so many acres of vital forest each year. It’s something we’ve got to take seriously. Our authors certainly do, and so do a growing number of our readers.
“The insurmountable problem we faced was the near impossible job of converting our books to the mind-boggling range of digital formats necessary to present them perfectly on the full range of reading platforms. Then we came across Mark Coker and www.smashwords.com.
“Mark’s system means that we need to specially prepare a title for digital conversion only once, and his magical technology converts it almost instantly into every current format for every single electronic reading device known. Then it’s out there for anyone to download with a few taps on their computer keyboard or to dial up on their phone. And more than fifty BB authors were keen to join us in the experiment. We’re happy to see their titles among the first in the world so widely available.
“Here’s a prediction: any author who doesn’t follow the lead of our ladies and gents simply won’t have a readership in five years’ time.”
Smashwords founder and CEO, Mark Coker said: “A bemusing number of e-book reading machines have suddenly been released – everything from the massive-selling Kindle, Nook and Sony Reader to devices from more obscure manufacturers – and they all require special formats to display books as their authors and publishers intended.
“That’s where my team and I stepped in to find an answer to the problem. BeWrite Books and their authors are among the first to have realised that the future of literature is much more than ink on paper. It’s more and more becoming a matter of the courage to experiment with brand new technology to get their message out there to a modern world.
“They tell me that this is the greatest revolution in literature since Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1450. Well ... maybe. I’m just glad to have BB’s authors along with me while we try to promote good literature to more people than in the history of the printed word.”
BeWrite Books titles are available in ebook and paperback at www.bewrite.net, all major internet bookstores, and on order from your local high street book shop. For a full range of ebook formats go to www.smashwords.com and key ‘BeWrite Books’ into the publisher search in the left margin of the home page.
Monday, 7 December 2009
Our Latest Title, due December 10th: The Movie by Bosley Gravel
Stewie A. Smithee lives in a small town ... but he thinks big.
Behind the counter of the local grocery store, he plans to break into the movie
business by writing, directing, producing and filming his masterpiece Sci Fi
flick, Cannibal Lesbian Zombies from Outer Space - versus - Doctor Clockwork
and his Furious Plastic Surgeons of Doom. And the only thing small about that
epic project is its budget.
The whole town - many promised starring roles - rallies round: Apart from the
local police chief and his brother the judge, who'll stop at nothing to sabotage
the shooting of the outrageous, sexy movie on their prim and peaceful patch.
And there are other major headaches for Stewie ... a cast of unruly friends,
a morally-challenged cousin as his PA, and a luscious fiancée with a
script of her own and a tough deadline: "Your film's in the can before
our wedding day - or you're out of the picture!"
There's a whacky wisdom, an endearing innocence and a thrillingly encouraging
message of optimism in Bosley Gravel's hilarious tale of dead-end, small-towners
breaking all the rules and battling all the odds to earn their place in the
big picture. In times of global gloom and doom, The Movie reminds us just how
much can be achieved with a dream - and the sheer guts to chase it. Gravel's
drum-tight prose make the pages turn at the rate of a smile-a-minute.
The Movie is the most indecent thing to ever disgrace the city of Podunk. It
features lewd acts by paid sex workers and glorifies the occult. It encourages
lascivious and lustful behavior between half naked, sexually confused women
and the living dead. Even five minutes of this will turn moral folk's stomachs.
Sheriff Lyle McNutt. Podunk Observer
The Poison Garden of Dorelia Jones by Valentine Williams
The garden of Dorelia Jones flourishes with strange poisonous plants - but her
mind is as full of poison as her garden. This venom permeates everything she does.
About to be made homeless and disinherited by her mother, Dorelia plots and schemes
to ensure her own survival and comfort. A marriage of convenience turns out to
be anything but for her unfortunate husband who has to suffer being ostracized
by his family and then haunted by Dorelia's murdered mother. Even an exorcism
fails to rid the house of the wickedness Dorelia has unleashed.
A Gothic fantasy, craftily plotted, about parasitic relationships, mushrooms,
and the power of suggestion.
The Blue Man Dreams the End of Time by Michael McIrvin
Sonny, a drunken convenience store clerk living uneasily in a relationship with
twin sisters, woke up naked and blue. Not sad, but actually blue from head to
toe.
A warped warning from a former CIA colleague? A message from a deranged hit
man that he and those he loves are marked for death? Or is his blueness a more
invidious omen?
Sonny's search for answers will lead him to a perverse reconciliation with
his former bloody role in geopolitics - and his destiny - on the bloody trail
to Chiapas.
Along the way he will befriend a people struggling to survive, reconsider the
nature of terrorism and the drug trade, and decipher an ancient Mayan vision
of the end of time.
He will also meet another former CIA operative who doubles as a jaguar shaman,
a Mayan holy man whose prophesies include Sonny, and a mysterious boy whose
role in his people's future is both mythic and deadly.
Sonny's flashbacks to his gore-stained government work in Mesoamerica, including
the act for which he was 'excommunicated', constitute proof of power's inhumanity,
but his darkest revelation is that violence and greed are the true mechanisms
of history.
Michael McIrvin's high-octane, intelligent novel is an immaculately researched,
powerful indictment of brutal counterintelligence, including torture and murder,
an exploration of how ends are achieved by a nation-state. This book is frighteningly
timely.
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