That was something. For all of the stories you hear about authors busting their humps to get word out about their books, I’d say flying to another city and doing five events in three days while eight months pregnant trumps them all. Last night’s party was a fitting, fulfilling end. All of the readers were great, and the crowd actually stuck around on a Sunday night to hear the two bands, which is a rarity. The best moment of storytelling, however, may have come when Judson Claiborne told of his great grandmother, whose husband shot her twice in the face, and she plugged the hole in skull with her thumb and walked to the hospital. It was that kind of night.

Thanks to everyone who came out to any of the many events, and particular thanks to the ludicrous Brian Costello Show with Brian Costello, and the beautiful Writers’ Workspace for hosting Susannah. And of course to the home-away-from-home Hideout. It had been too long.

Today is featherproof’s third birthday. No, no no. It’s fine. Seriously. We didn’t expect you to remember. We didn’t tell anyone because we didn’t want to make a big thing of it. But we do have an itch to celebrate something, so we’ve declared the upcoming end of week Susannah Felts Weekend. She deserves it, having earned praise around the country, and now stopping in Chicago for a three-day spree. Here’s the calendar for her whistle-stop tour:

Small Press Month Showcase
Friday, March 28, 7pm-10pm, Free
SAIC Ballroom, 112 S Michigan Ave.
With readers from Answer Tag Home Press, Cracked Slab Books, Dancing Girl Press, Fractal Edge Press, March Abrazo Press, Puddin’ Head Press, Switchback Books

The Brian Costello Show with Brian Costello
Saturday, March 29, 3pm, Free
The Empty Bottle
With Mark Bazer and “Dan the Fan”

Author Coffee
The Writers’ Workspace
Sunday, March 30, 3pm, Free
Discussing anything you like over coffee and homemade, baked feathergoods

THIS WILL GO DOWN ON YOUR PERMANENT RECORD Release Party!

March 30, 2008 07:00PM
The Hideout
1354 W Wabansia
$5

With readings by:

Susannah Felts

J. Adams Oaks

Patrick Somerville

Eileen Favorite

And music from:

Judson Claiborne

and The Pawners’ Society

But while you await the weekend, help us celebrate the birth of two beautiful new mini-books:

All My Homes, by Paul Fattaruso (author of the forthcoming, mind-blowing Bicycle, as well as other awesome books.)

and

Sunday Morning in 1982 by Susan Petrone (you may have recently read her in Glimmer Train)

And while we have you here, we’ll just let you know quickly that Saturday at 1pm, you should tune in to Re: Sound on WBEZ, 91.5 (or wbez.org), to hear one of featherproof’s two dads, Jonathan Messinger, discussing The Dollar Store and reading a story. And on Saturday, April 5, the other daddy, Zach Plague, will read as part of the Oops! series at Heaven Gallery. And then on April 9, Messinger will read from Hiding Out and some new work at Roosevelt University’s Gage Gallery at 5pm.

Happy Susannah Felts Weekend, everyone. And happy birthday, us!

First off, a great write-up in the Nashville Scene of This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record. It’s exciting when the book gets out there and some really thoughtful pieces pop up. There’s a terrific interview on the Venus Zine site, as well. Press of the world: Let’s keep it coming.

A couple other book items caught my eye today. Kevin Kelly has an interesting spin on The Long Tail theory for independent artists, claiming that it only takes “1,000 true fans” for an independent artist to make a living, something that’s more achievable now with the internet allowing for broader outreach and more immediate “fan”/artist contact. It’s an interesting idea, one that shoves aside the notion that at an independent artist needs a “hit” to survive, and therefor don’t have to “aim for the short head of best-sellerdom.” The idea is that if an artist has 1,000 “true fans”–defined as people who will buy anything you produce, rabid and enthusiastic appreciators of your creativity—and each of those true fans spend $100 a year on your work, you can make $100,000. It’s an interesting idea, and one that certainly seems achievable for, say, a musician (if one assumes that the true fan would buy an album, merchandise and concert ticket) or visual artist (whose paintings or sculptures or prints, etc., would sell for more than $100). I don’t see how it could work so well for an author, unless you write numerous books a year and have the time to invest in connecting with 1,000 true fans. But it’s an interesting idea, even if it makes me a little uncomfortable with how cozy it makes creativity and marketing. But that, I suppose, is how it goes now. Hat tip to CCLaP for the link.

Also just saw that Wired has made fantasy writer Jeff VanderMeer’s new book, The Situation, available for free download. Free downloading is all the rage right now in publishing, sort of, and one thing that Featherproof is definitely looking into (though, of course, we already do it our own way with the minis). When Random House put Charles Bock’s novel, Beautiful Children, for free download last week, 15,000 people grabbed it, reportedly. Free downloads seem like such a great way to promote the book. It doesn’t really suffer from the same problem of music downloads, at least not yet, because most people don’t want to read a full novel onscreen, or as loose 8.5×11 pages printed up at work. They’ll read just enough to decide if they want to buy the book.

VanderMeer’s book is even more interesting because it’s not even 50 pages long, which is probably just about the maximum length people would read onscreen or on print-out. So you could argue that this is one book that people might download for free, and then never buy. But then, VanderMeer is precisely the type of author—well-established, award-winning, blogs, writes in a genre with Internet-savvy readers—with a rabid enough fanbase that would both download and buy the book. To my mind, this was a deft move by PS Publishing: It’s received a ton of attention for a fantasy chapbook. A chapbook!

I don’t know why, since I don’t know anyone involved, but I’m happy for all parties. It feels like a step forward. (h/t to Galleycat)

A great interview with Susannah Felts over at {hed}sub/head, a Birmingham book blog.

Two thoughts:
1. Susannah is really good at talking about writing in a way that’s interesting to both writers and readers. I classify that talent as rare. As rare, I’d say, as her writing talent.
2. {hed}sub/head is an awesome name for a website.