- The Rifter Subscription & installments, Ginn Hale
- Lord of the White Hell Book One and Book Two, Ginn Hale
- Wicked Gentlemen, Ginn Hale
- Feral Machines, Ginn Hale
- Lord of the White Hell Book Two, Ginn Hale
- Lord of the White Hell Book One, Ginn Hale
- The Rifter Subscription, Ginn Hale
- Wicked Gentlemen, Ginn Hale
- Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet Subscription
May 2011 Bestsellers
Tags: Bestsellers, Ginn Hale
We’re readying the final few items for our subscription drive. One of those items is an affiliate program so that you can place widgets on your blogs/sites/t-shirts and earn affiliate fees on any readers you send our way. It sounds incredibly easy to talk about and is apparently incredibly hard to code. Luckily for me Michael is doing that part!
For fun this month I gave Ginn Hale her own bestseller list. Not surprisingly The Rifter Subscription is still #1 on both of our lists but in between Ginn’s titles, it turns out we sell lots of other books but . . . more magazines: interesting! I combined the subscriptions and the individual issues for the second list. Showing my bias: LCRW would have been #6, aww. Good thing we’re adding another couple of magazines soon, Something Wicked, Electric Velocipede, maybe Realms of Fantasy, as well as another that’s truly exciting!
Thanks again for going Weightless!
May 2011 (Ginn Hale bestseller list)
May 2011 (everything else!)
Welcoming Weird Tales
Tags: Ginn Hale, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, subscriptions, Weird Tales
Today we added two new magazines courtesy of Wildside Press: Weird Tales, edited by Ann VanderMeer, and Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, edited by Marvin Kaye. Individual issues are $2.99 and 4-issue subscriptions are $11.95. Although it was first published back in 1923 Weird Tales has already proved popular right out the gate:
The 357th issue of Weird Tales magazine is a celebration of short fiction, with a selection of great new stories by Karen Heuler, J. Robert Lennon, Karen Tidbeck, N.K. Jemisin, Peter M. Ball, and Mark Meredith. Features include The Eyrie, Lost in Lovecraft, and an interview with Caitlin R. Kiernan.
The fifth issue of Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine — a special Holmes Fiction Issue — features an amazing new Holmes short novel by Carla Coupe, “The Adventure of the Haunted Bagpipes,” plus great Holmes stories and features by Bruce I. Kilstein, Mark Wardecker, Gary Lovisi, Paula Volsky, Marc Bilgrey, Stan Trybulski, Len Moffatt, Robert Eighteen-Bisang, Lenny Picker, Alan McCright, and M J Elliott. Our biggest issue ever, at 196 pages!
Today is also the second Tuesday of the month which makes it a big day for the nail-biting readers of Ginn Hale’s huge serial novel, The Rifter. Part 3, Black Blades was sent out to subscribers this morning and Part 4, Witches’ Blood is now available for pre-order.
You can catch up with Ginn Hale at reviewsbyjessewave.com on Wednesday, May 11th. She’s also been sighted on Goodreads in the What will happen next in The Rifter group.
We’ll have more pre-orders available soon on Weightless, starting with Small Beer, then adding more. Today we added Geoff Ryman’s excellently odd science fiction novel The Child Garden and Lydia Millet’s The Fires Beneath the Sea—first in a new middle-grade series inspired by A Wrinkle in Time and other classic novels.
And that’s it until next week. Thanks again for coming by. As ever, if you have suggestions, questions, or comments, email or post them in the comments and Michael or I will get back to you as soon as we can.
Keep it weird, indie, and Weightless!
A huge week!
Tags: Apex Magazine, Chelsea Station Editions, Fantasy Magazine, Ginn Hale, Invisible Publishing, The RifterAll around the world Ginn Hale fans are reading the first installment of her massive new serial The Rifter. You too can join the legions of subscribers here. Or, if you’re more the single-issue type of reader (I know you’re out there), here are links to the first installment, The Shattered Gates, as well as to preorders for the next couple, Servants of the Crossed Arrows and Black Blades. And if you’re of the speculative (or nail-bitey) kind, there’s a handy Goodreads group, What Will Happen Next in The Rifter?
The Rifter isn’t the only subscription we have going. You know how I’m always saying we have more sekrit good stuff coming? Here’s some of that stuff! This month we’re very proud to announce we’re adding two more fantastic monthly magazines, Fantasy Magazine and Apex Magazine.
Fantasy Magazine, which just underwent a redesign, is edited by that superstar editor guy John Joseph Adams and the March 2011 issue features George R. R. Martin, Holly Black, Genevieve Valentine, and Tanith Lee. Not a bad set of names to kick off with!
Apex Magazine has the stars, too and Issue 22, edited by award-winning writer Catherynne M. Valente, features fiction and poetry from Darin Bradley, Jessica Wick, Kat Howard, Mike Allen, Nicole Kornher-Stace, Sonya Taaffe, and Veronica Schanoes.
We should be adding back issues of both these fine zines later in spring. Just wait, more zines they are a-coming. Alt.Indie.Fabby.Mags.R.Us.
This week we also added two publishers: Chelsea Station Editions and Invisible Publishing. For the former, we launch with three fascinating titles:
True Stories by Felice Picano
From the co-founder of the path breaking Violet Quill Club, comes a new collection of memoirs . . . Throughout are his delightful encounters and surprising relationships with the one-of-a-kind and the famous—including Tennessee Williams, W.H. Auden, Charles Henri Ford, Bette Midler, and Diana Vreeland.
The Wolf at the Door by Jameson Currier
From the award-winning author of Where the Rainbow Ends and The Haunted Heart comes a witty tour de force of spirits, spooks, and sinners, a supernatural roller coaster set in the Big Easy.
Bob the Book by David Pratt
Meet Bob the Book, a gay book for sale in a Greenwich Village bookstore, where he falls in love with another book, Moishe.
and from Invisible, a neat indie press from that lovely place just north of here (Canada!), we have a magic realist novel and a zine anthology:
L (and things come apart) Ian Orti
A small flat sits unoccupied above Henry’s café. When a woman comes to rent the room, Henry’s world begins an unusual transformation. As they grow closer the city itself is affected, changed, and slowly dismantled. Unsure if he is a victim of his own senility, the chaos inches closer and Henry suspects it may have something to do with the woman upstairs and the stranger she is hiding from.
Ghost Pine: All Stories True Jeff Miller
Miller has published the zine Ghost Pine (originally Otaku) since 1996. Ghost Pine: All Stories True collects the best stories from the zine’s first thirteen years as well as over fifty pages of new and previously unpublished material.
And that is it! There’s enough here even for our biggest readers—Doug!—so much so that I’m not sure what we’ll have next week. Actually, that’s a half-truth at best, sorry. We have some lovely news coming about who and what we’ll be adding.
As ever, thanks for choosing Weightless! This little site only exists because readers choose to fill their readers with books and zines from indie presses and we all very much appreciate it.
February Bestsellers
Tags: Bestsellers, Ginn Hale, subscriptionsAs expected, with the launch of The Rifter, February was indeed the month of Ginn Hale. If it wasn’t for that plucky little zine jumping in at #5, it would be an all hail Hale list. Phew. Just below #5 there were quite a few titles almost making the list. With all the new publishers we’ve been adding there are quite a few books just beginning to be noticed. With all these magazines being added, there are a ton more “Also by” titles appearing on the right hand side. Bull Spec #4 is a great example as up pops The Homeless Moon, Spicy Slipstream Stories, Jabberwocky 5, and more. So it’s easy to find more work by new (or favorite) authors.
We launched this store onto the wild internet seas a year ago and we’re beginning to find our sea legs—although I still make mistakes that need Michael to fix, eek! We have some good-sized publishers to add soon and some literary journals should be appearing. I like adding subscriptions (although it makes for a hairy few days at the end of the month!) so there will be more of those and by next month we hope to have a redesign to reflect the larger size of the site and to make books easier to find. As ever email or comment if there are things you want (or don’t want) to see.
And thanks as ever for choosing independent DRM-free ebooks & Weightless!
February 2011
The Rifter preorders
Tags: Ginn Hale, subscriptions
We’re very happy to be able to offer preorders to Ginn Hale’s huge serial novel The Rifter!
You can preorder the first episode, “The Shattered Gates,” or you can subscribe to the whole thing: 10 issues, 10 months, massive amounts of happiness all round.
When you pre-order either the first episode or the subscription you’ll be emailed a link (which of course will not work until March 8th) and it will appear in your My Library page. And on March 8th, the first ep will be emailed your way!
As time goes by there will be more options—partial subscriptions, new episodes, and so on. In the meantime, enjoy!
New Ginn Hale!
Tags: Ginn Hale, Lethe Press
This is an awesome week! Yesterday we released the Lightspeed Magazine subscription and today (at last!) we have a new book from Ginn Hale.
How exciting is this? Ginn has topped the Weightless bestseller chart every month this year. Even when Wicked Gentlemen was knocked off the #1 spot in August it was by . . . Feral Machines by Ginn Hale.
So even though December’s bestseller so far is the Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet Subscription we’re sort of expecting that something else will be at the top by the end of the month. And what might that book be?
How about Lord of the White Hell Book One!
Publishers Weekly says it’s
“An intricate world, well-integrated social issues, believable sexual encounters, and an interesting mystery make this dense, languorous tale appealing for any fan of romantic fantasy.”
You can download a PDF excerpt from Blind Eye Books’s site or just jump right in here. It’s available in PDF, mobi, lit, and epub. DRM-free? Mais oui!
Sharp-eyed readers will notice we’ve also added 4 more titles from Lethe Press—if you like Ginn Hale, maybe try some Diana Comet.
The week’s awesomeness will continue in the next few days with the launch of titles from a new international publisher, Typhoon Books; fourteen titles from Prime Books; and perhaps a variation on the Lightspeed subscription since someone asked about a 6-month option.
And, whisper it, but on December 26th everything will be 25% off!
In the meantime, here’s what everyone has been waiting for: Lord of the White Hell Book One.
New Ginn Hale
Tags: Ginn Hale
We just got the word that the ebook release for Ginn Hale‘s Lord of the White Hell is December 21st.
Here’s what people have said about it so far:
“An intricate world, well-integrated social issues, believable sexual encounters, and an interesting mystery make this dense, languorous tale appealing for any fan of romantic fantasy.”—Publisher’s Weekly
“Lushly detailed, with believable, fully developed characters, this fantasy with homoerotic overtones is reminiscent of Mercedes Lackey’s Vanyel novels and should appeal to a similar readership.”—Library Journal
Mark your calendars!
And, thanks to all you enthusiastic readers, November has been our best month yet at Weightless. Thank you!
What I Didn’t See + Unicorns! Pegasus! Kittens!
Tags: Fairy Tale Review, free ebooks, Ginn Hale, Karen Joy Fowler, site update blatheringsToday we’re very happy to release the ebook of Karen Joy Fowler’s awesome new collection What I Didn’t See and Other Stories. Karen’s stories are some of the best you’ll read in any genre: science fiction, fiction, historical, alternate history, fantasy. . . . Two of the stories here received Nebula Awards and “The Pelican Bar” received the Shirley Jackson Award. It’s a subtle and stunning collection and I think this might be the first site the ebook is available on (I’m probably wrong!). Hope you enjoy it!
We’ve been working away on a few things trying to see how we can bring lots of presses on without us having to put in more than the occasional afternoon every three or four weeks (come on, it’s publishing, we’ve got tea to sip and deep obscure novels to flash around coffeeshops).
And: we’ve been talking to Blind Eye Books about making 2011 the Year of Ginn Hale and being able to publish something new every month. It will be gobsmacking! All will be revealed later this fall. It will be huge! A rift will form in space time! (At least in yours and ours!)
The new Red Issue of Fairy Tale Review is coming soon. We also need to add Michael’s (et al) Homeless Moon chapbooks. There are more magazines to bring on board. Still working on electronic subscriptions—anyone who has a good fix for this, feel free to email us!
I remembered a story that Kelly and I published a while ago, “Sea, Ship, Mountain, Sky” in Altair, that I doubt will ever end up in any book (besides The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror) so we’ll probably put it up here as an ebook. That will be an interesting experiment to see if we should do more of that sort of thing. What do you think the price should be?
In the meantime there are Unicorns! Pegasus! Kittens! What does it mean? I have no idea! But you should go here (check out this url: http://unicornpegasuskitten.com!) and download the DRM-free completely free ebook with stories from Wil Wheaton, John Scalzi, Cat Valente, Rachel Swirsky, and many others. The book is free but please consider making a donation as it’s a fundraiser for the benefit of the Michigan/Indiana affiliate of the Lupus Alliance of America. You can also donate and get a tax receipt for it here on Gretchen Schafer’s donation page.
Feral Machines, updates
Tags: Feral Machines, Ginn Hale, LCRW 22, site update blatherings, TK TK TK, Wicked GentlemenI know that in the lonnggg years since Wicked Gentlemen came out, a lot of readers have been waiting for Ginn Hale‘s new book. The good news is that her huge new novel, Lord of the White Hell comes out in print next week—although it’s so big it’s a two-parter, and the second part comes out in September. It won’t be out as an ebook for a while but for the nonce we have the next best thing: an exclusive ebook of her novella Feral Machines from the Tangle anthology.
This week sharp-eyed readers might have noticed some updates around here. A neat one is the addition of Google Previews: this means that any book on Weightless (or at least for now, those with ISBNs) that’s also in the massive Googleplex database—such as Hiding Out or Redemption in Indigo—can now be previewed on the site. Yay for excerpts and browsing!
We tidied up the sidebar so that you can instantly get results for authors/titles/&c. and added a featured book at the top—starting things off with that bestselling Wicked Gentlemen seemed like a good idea. We also have a “lifetime” bestseller list running in the sidebar. That should change over time into a weekly list, but for now it’s a note on the overall bestsellers on the site. Sort of wacky to see that LCRW 22 is on there. But, hey, great ish of a great zine.
Next week, no promises, but we hope to have Fairy Tale Review for you. It’s a beautiful journal full of excellent stories and art—there may even be a free issue you can check out first. And soon we’ll have the new Daily Planner 2011 and Karen Joy Fowler’s awesome collection of stories, What I Didn’t See (get the print book here). But those are all the future: for now, enjoy Feral Machines!