We Sign Author Matt Watts! Selling Books in Richibucto; David Gerrold's Voyage of the Star Wolf, Independent Publishers Group, and More...
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Being the 19th edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
Let’s start with some more big news, shall we?
Matt Watts Signs with Donovan Street Press Inc.
We are super pleased to announce that author Matt Watts has signed with Donovan Street Press Inc. to publish his terrific post-apocalyptic tale Hope of the Wasteland.
Matt Watts is now the second author officially signed with Donovan Street Press Inc.
CBC Radio listeners, watchers of television and viewers of movies may already be familiar with the work of Matt Watts. I devoted an entire chapter of Adventures in the Radio Trade to Matt, having been privileged to work with him there. As I mention in the book, never before had I felt so sympatico working with anyone; we were completely on the same wavelength and it was just so much FUN recording and mixing radio plays together. Which is why I’m delighted to be able to work with Matt again after all these years, publishing Huey and the Wasteland under the Donovan Street Press banner. Matt could have taken this book anywhere; I’m grateful that he saw fit to place his trust in me and Donovan Street Press at a pivotal time in the development of this budding company.
For those of you perhaps not as familiar with Matt and his work, here’s his official bio:
Matt Watts started his career as a stand-up comedian and writer in television and film; most recently working as a writer on The Kids in the Hall for Amazon Prime. He co-wrote and co-starred in the critically acclaimed 12-episode CBC series Michael: Tuesdays & Thursdays, which earned him WGC and CSA Award Nominations for writing in 2011. A second season, titled Michael: Every Day, aired on CBC in January 2017.
At CBC Radio, he created three series: In Steve, The First (2005), a slacker wakes up to find he's slept through the apocalypse in this dark four-part comedy. Steve, The Second (2006) details the story of the son of the original Steve. Canadia: 2056 (2007) centres on Max Anderson, the American liaison on board the only Canadian spaceship in an otherwise American space fleet headed toward a galactic war.
In 2015, Matt’s short film Portal to Hell!!!, starring the late, great, Rowdy Roddy Piper, premiered at TIFF and went on to win awards from festivals around the globe.
Matt and I both love post-apocalyptic fiction. I was weaned on books like George R. Stewart’s Earth Abides and David Brin’s The Postman (the book, not the movie!). Matt’s own Steve the First and Steve the Second series on CBC Radio are both set after a nuclear war has wiped out civilization. Being Matt, though, his version of armageddon is quite a bit more amusing than either Stewart’s or Brin’s, for the listeners, at least, if not the characters. Although not officially available on CBC Radio, it is possible to listen to the entire series here.
Hope of the Wasteland, Matt's first novel (about time!), sees Matt revisiting his favourite themes: anxiety and the post-apocalyptic wasteland. Donovan Street Press Inc. can’t wait to make it available for you all. We are aiming for a pre-Christmas 2024 release.
Selling Books in Richibucto… or not…
Last weekend I was in Richibucto, NB for the big Mother’s Day Craft Fair. Tables were $35 each. My sister Susan Rodgers decided to come up from Summerside, PEI to join me and sell some books of her own. Our sister Kathy Gillis decided to come up for the day as well, along with my wife and her sister Caroline and even our Sheltie Wendy (not pictured). So it turned out to be kind of a big family outing.
“How much do I owe you for the table?” Susan asked me early on.
The table was so inexpensive that I said, “Ah, don’t worry about it.” She already had the expense of the Confederation Bridge; although it’s free to get to Prince Edward Island, you pay about $50 every time you leave. (Although it turned out our mother paid for that… thanks Mom!)
Now, my sister Susan is a rock star. She’s not only a writer of books but a maker of films and television shows. She’s a pretty decent cook too. And she’s quite personable. Charismatic, even. I watched in awe as she charmed just about everyone that came to our table. Soon she was racking up the sales.
Now, take another gander at that picture above. Note that her side of the table is all her fiction. Angsty romance, she would call it. Women’s fiction. Whereas my side of the table is all my books. Two science fiction and fantasy books, one memoir about CBC Radio, and one book by our Dad, short fiction about growing up in rural New Brunswick.
This was the day before Mother’s Day. It was billed as a Mother’s Day Market. I’m not entirely sure why I thought I’d do well.
Before long Susan had sold almost three hundred dollars worth of books.
I had sold ten dollars worth. That was two $5 books (my mini-version of Other Times and Places). And I’m pretty sure one of those sales was a pity sale.
I resorted to desperate measures. “We have a special on today,” I told one customer. “If you buy one of my books, Susan here has promised to do ten push-ups.”
The woman chuckled and quickly moved to Susan’s side of the table, where she immediately bought seventy-five dollars worth of books in a bundle tied up in a ribbon, and Susan didn’t have to do a single push-up.
(Note to self: bundle books in ribbons.)
At the very last instant, a gentleman ran up and purchased one of my father’s books, making my total take $35. The table had cost $30. So, I made my table.
Still, I had a good time selling books with Susan, as I always do, and I reminded myself that these events are not about selling your books. They’re about selling your sister… I mean, yourself. :-)
Afterwards, Susan generously said, “I feel like I should pay you for my half of the table.”
Ungenerously, I said, “The businessman in me feels like I should accept!” (Which I did. So I MORE than made up for the table.)
(Note to self: next time, invite Susan to sell books at a science fiction convention.) (She’d probably still do amazing!)
Review: The Voyage of the Star Wolf by David Gerrold
One day many years ago I attended a science fiction convention. I don’t remember which one. It was at a hotel near the Toronto Pearson International airport. The first thing I did was visit the dealer’s room, where they sell books and science fiction related memorabilia.
I had a specific reason for visiting the dealer’s room. I had been looking for a certain book for some time. This was before the days of Amazon and ordering whatever you want online and receiving it within a day or two. The book I sought was by David Gerrold, and it was called The Man Who Folded Himself. I wanted it because I love time travel fiction, and I knew that book is considered one of the best time travel novels ever written.
I considered it a long shot that I’d find the book in a dealer’s room at a science fiction convention, but you never knew, so I approached a dealer who looked like he had a good selection and told him what I was looking for.
He laughed and said, “Not only do I have the book you’re looking for, but David Gerrold, the man who wrote The Man Who Folded Himself is standing right next to you.”
I turned around and lo and behold, David Gerrold was indeed standing right next to me.
Okay, yes, I was at a science fiction convention, but I’m pretty sure not every such convention harbours copies of that book along with the man who wrote it. And even if he did happen to be at the convention, what are the odds he’d be standing right next to me at that very moment?
It was super weird, but also super cool. I was tickled pink and told David Gerrold so. Honestly, he didn’t seem quite as impressed as me at the coincidence, and actually seemed rather uncomfortable. Detecting his discomfort, I kept our interaction to the bare minimum. (I don’t blame him for this discomfort; I imagine being accosted by a complete stranger can be rather disconcerting). I asked if he wouldn’t mind signing the book, which he did, and then we shook hands and parted ways.
The Man Who Folded Himself did not disappoint. It’s an original take on time travel and a pretty cool book.
But this post is not about that book. It’s about one of David Gerrold’s other books, kind of a Star Trek clone called The Voyage of the Star Wolf.
The fact that David Gerrold is riffing off Star Trek with Star Wolf is completely understand given that he’s responsible for one of the most famous and enjoyable episodes of the original Star Trek series, The Trouble With Tribbles, which he’d pitched to the producers when he was only 22 years old and still in college.
In fact, given the title’s similarity to Star Trek, and some of the characters, plot points and setting, I wouldn’t be surprised if any similarity was completely intentional. The captain of the Star Wolf resembles Captain Kirk in resourcefulness and character and the fact that his last name begins with the letter K. There is a security officer who more than resembles Worf from The Next Generation. An war-mongering enemy that could just as easily have been Klingons. A doctor is a prominent minor character; doctors always figure prominently in Star Trek. A character even says at one point: “For some reason I have the feeling that this is not going to be a happy enterprise,” obviously a play on Star Trek’s famous starship.
So yes, I’m pretty sure that Gerrold was deliberately riffing off of, and probably even responding to, Star Trek, in particular The Next Generation. Perhaps The Star Wolf is his idea of how The Next Generation COULD have been, kind of like how Ronald D Moore apparently responded to the alleged rejection of some of his ideas for Star Trek: TNG with his phenomenal Battlestar Galactica reboot.
The Voyage of the Star Wolf is not quite phenomenal, though. In terms of originality it’s nowhere near in the same ballpark as The Man Who Folded Himself, which was written (or at least published) seventeen years prior. Star Wolf is a lot of fun, though. It’s eminently readable; I read it over two or three days. If you like the general idea of Star Trek (starships having perilous adventures), then you’ll probably enjoy this. It’s suspenseful, snappily written, and occasionally funny, but not especially deep and there isn’t a whole lot of character development. 3.7 out of 5. (Don’t ask me how I came up with that; just feels about right.)
Yet Another Book Distributor…
Regular readers will know that I’ve been exploring book distributors the last few newsletters, the better to understand how that side of the business works. And Donovan Street Press Inc. is actively seeking distribution. Before I start approaching distributors, though, I want to be able to compare them all. There aren’t that many, certainly not many that service small outfits like ours, so I’ve been tackling them one by one.
Today we look at this company:
Independent Publishers Group (IPG)
Founded in 1971 as a small press, these guys now represent about 1000 publishers. At first I assumed that although they represent publishers ranging in size from “quite small to very large” they would not be interested in a tiny, new publisher like Donovan Street Press. They state that they are specifically looking for “established indie publishers with an ongoing publishing program.”
However, they also clearly state that “the quality of individual titles is much more important to IPG than the number of titles on a publisher’s list.”
Alrighty then. Give us another year or two.
Apparently, to enquire about their distribution services one simply has to either phone them or fill out their little message box.
They are a “a top 10 supplier of book content to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, independent bookstores, libraries, and specialty markets, in addition to thousands of retailers globally.”
In 1987 they were acquired by Chicago Review Press, which had about 200 titles at the time. IPG has grown since by acquiring and merging with several other distributors, such as Paul & Company in 2001, allowing IPG to distribute directly to universities, Trafalgar Square Publishing, representing about 20,000 titles, Midpoint Trade Books, and International Specialized Book Services, an academic book distributor.
According to IPG’s CEO since 2016 (though he’s been with the company since 2006), Joe Matthews, the publishing industry “is consolidating because distribution rewards scale, requires expensive technology, and demands high-level access to customers.” (Not sure when he said that, and full disclosure some of this info is from Wikipedia.)
So, these guys are definitely on the short list of distributors to approach when the time is right.
Donovan Street Press Books (So Far!)
Adventures in the Radio Trade
"In dozens of amiable, frequently humorous vignettes... Mahoney fondly recalls his career as a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio technician in this memoir... amusing and highly informative." ~ Kirkus Reviews
A Time and a Place
“Entertaining, chaotic adventure.” ~ Publishers Weekly.
A note as well that the hardcover version of A Time and a Place now features the new cover, and is available at a much less expensive price than before.
Other Times and Places
“ …a lovely little collection of sci-fi and fantasy short stories, fun and well written.” ~ Charles P. Kelly
The Deer Yard and Other Stories
“Partly memoir, partly fiction, The Deer Yard is more than merely a good read …well-written, gentle stories, well worth reading.” ~ Ottawa Review of Books
Coming Soon
The Gates of Polished Horn by Mark A. Rayner.
Huey and the Wasteland by Matt Watts
Re-Creative: the Podcast
Our podcast Re-Creative (hosted by the author of this newsletter, Joe Mahoney, and author Mark A. Rayner) is currently on a brief hiatus, but will resume shortly.
Appearances
Taking a bit of time off over the summer, but I’ve already booked three craft fairs for the Fall
This has been the nineteenth edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
"Selling Books in Richibucto… or not…" is my favourite Assorted Nonsense story!
We all know the pain of not being as popular as Susan Rodgers.
Author Benoit Chartier would throw me a bone before he cleaned out their wallets. Maybe Susan could do the same, inviting them to consider time travel or memoirs before moving in for the kill.
Benoit and I would also do things like chant, "BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS!"
Or "Do you have books?" "OMG, I LOVE books!" dialogue during slow bits.
Congrats on signing Matt Watts. You can tie him and Radio Trade up with a ribbon.
DSP is growing! I certainly remember listening to the two "Steve" shows when they first aired, so Watts sounds like a good addition to the team.
Hopefully, you'll start distributing other Canadian authors needing distribution soon.