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NEW YEAR NEW THEME

So here’s how behind I am: this site has been running the WordPress Twenty Eleven theme since 2012 or so. Now that the Twenty Twenty-One theme has just shipped, I decided to upgrade to the Twenty Twenty theme.

A few features and differences:

  • A lot more space and readability, with better typography (I think)
  • Much easier to read and navigate on a mobile device.
  • The stuff that used to be in the sidebar has moved to the bottom of the page. Look below to see things like archives, links, recent posts, and all that jazz.
  • I nuked the little “share to social media” stuff because nobody ever used it.
  • There is a privacy policy. This is stupid and useless, but at some point Google will probably ding me points because I don’t have one. Bottom line, I don’t collect data, and don’t sue me.

I think that’s it. Let me know if you see anything obviously broken.

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I have a new zine out

I have a new zine out.

It is called Mandatory Laxative #14. It is about lunchables and satanism.

It is 20 pages long. It is printed on an inkjet printer. It is as lo-fi as possible. I didn’t even spell-check it.

It contains the following “stories”:

  • Pain Is Only Temporary (Unless It Is Chronic)
  • A Scene Where A Guy Goes To A Colonics Clinic, Falls In Love With The Cashier, And Almost Ends Up Shooting A Fountain Of Coffee From His Ass
  • Sleep Letter Zero
  • Letter to Freddy
  • I Am A Satanist And I Like Toast Because It Is Cult And Evil
  • Someday This Could Be You
  • I Love Lunchables
  • Late At Night With Dwight Dingleson
  • Remember the Alamo, Motherfucker
  • Two Men Discuss Low Calorie Pizza Before A Ritual Satanism Killing
  • This Knife Means Fucking Business
  • Chili Sweats at Aerie #666
  • The Inevitability of an Accidental Saline Enema

It is listed on Goodreads here.

It is not available on Amazon. It is not available as an ebook or a PDF. It’s barely available at all. It is a limited edition of about 30 copies. If you really want a copy, and you are in the US, paypal me $4 and your postal address. jkonrath at rumored.com.

 

 

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Yes, I have a new book out now

Yes, I have a new book out!

No, it’s not like the last one!

No, I don’t have a snazzy elevator pitch to describe it in a sentence by saying it’s like this movie meets that movie! I don’t write those kind of books. Actually, I did write one of those books, my last one, and it was sort of silly. So let me assure you that this book isn’t like that.

This book is titled He. It consists of a hundred short microfiction pieces. Each piece begins with the word “He.” Like my book Atmospheres, the pieces are related, but if you flipped the book open to any random piece, you could read just that and read it and then LOL and put the book back next to the toilet and finish your business.

(For some reason, a lot of people read my book on the toilet. Maybe the toilet is sort of like my Hot Pockets or Pringles can/tennis ball factory. I don’t know. I’m just glad you read the books.)

The book is funny and dark and offensive to everyone, including you. I’d say sorry, but I’m not.

I realize this is a bad description, and I should have thought of a better title instead of He, and books with more color on the cover sell more, blah blah blah.  I don’t give a shit.  I write what I write.

I took the cover photo on the way to Area 51 this year at KonCon 2015. Just think, if you would have went, you could have your picture on a book. Also, I hope you like my new author photo. I’ll leave it as a surprise.

The links:

The book is on Kindle Unlimited, so if you have that, you can read it for free. It is also on Kindle Match, so if you buy the paperback from Amazon, you can download the book on Kindle for free.

No plans for an audio book. (You probably should check out the Atmospheres audio book, though. It’s pretty awesome.) No plans for a not-Kindle ebook.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to for the last year. Please, please, please, share the shit out of this on your face places or whatever. If you review books, get in touch. If you know anybody at Kraft Foods who works on Lunchables who can get me an endorsement deal, get in touch. Thank you.

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More book stuff

Okay, so more details on The Memory Hunter:

  • See the last post about it.
  • The release date is 9/1/14
  • It is 320 pages.
  • The cover is amazing.  I said I wasn’t going to reveal it until the Facebook page got 100 likes, so go like it.
  • There is a preview of it, which consists of the first five chapters.  It’s absolutely free, but you have to be on my mailing list to get it, so you should join it.  I only mail out once a month at most, so it’s not a high-volume thing, and you find out first about my new books and stories, and get free stuff.
  • The book has a web site: http://rumored.com/thememoryhunter/ It is a work in progress, but it has the book description on it, and will be updated once the book goes live.
  • I’m waiting on a physical proof, which shows up tomorrow.  The interior layout is all done, the cover is done, the kindle version is done, and the Smashwords version will be done momentarily.  I pretty much just need to push a couple of buttons and the book will be live.

Very tired right now.  I haven’t slept well in weeks, worrying about getting this book done, trying to find places to tell more people about it.  There was an earthquake last night, which caused no damage, except to my sleep.  I’ve been burning all of my time with final edits and photoshop madness and submitting files and filling out forms.  And now it’s all about googling places that review books, and pondering ads, and trying to reach out to new people, and basically everything but writing.  It’s all part of the process, but I want to get back to actually creating.  Soon.

Anyway, get ready.  The next update will probably be that the book is out.  I will be leaking more things over at Facebook.  And please, sign up for the damn list.  Tell everyone you know.  This book is going to be huge, and you’ll want to check it out.

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Updates on the next book

Okay. It’s about time to give you some more updates on the next book, because the release is imminent. The book is being edited right now, then it gets designed, goes through production, and all of that pain-in-the-ass stuff.  And then you buy it. Right?

Okay, so here are the latest updates. I’m putting them in a bulleted list, so hang on:

  • The title of the book is The Memory Hunter.
  • I have been posting daily updates on its facebook page, giving little hints about the book. You should go like this page, and tell everyone about it. I have only been giving out more hints as the page gets more likes.  So, go: https://www.facebook.com/thememoryhunter
  • I have also promised that the first people who will find out about the book will be the subscribers to my newsletter.  Also, I will be sending the first few chapters to my newsletter subscribers. That means you really need to subscribe to my list.  I only send mail a few times a year, and I almost always give out free stuff when I do, so do it.
  • This book is not some bizarro stream-of-consciousness plotless thing about how I shit my pants at the county fair during a riot. It is not like my other books. It is a plotted novel. It is extremely plotted.  It is so plotted, Michael Bay would say “god damn, that is plotted.” You could seriously write a Syd Field book on plot based on this thing.
  • That’s not to say it’s not like my other books. I think if you read the first ten of my books, you will find a lot of similarity and there’s the same kind of humor and twisted stuff within this.
  • In fact, there are a lot of connections between this book and my other books. There are recurring characters, places, concepts, and items from all of my books, even the nonfiction ones. I have seriously Frank Zappa-ed the fuck out of this.
  • I’ve also named a bunch of minor characters after some of my best supporters. I’ve given some of you warning about this, but expect to be called out on facebook about this, or maybe I’ll leave them a surprise until the book is published.
  • It’ll be on the Kindle, and of course in print.
  • This book will be available on most of the Smashwords-enabled platforms, which includes the Nook, Kobo, Apple/iTunes, Scribd, Oyster, FlipKart, and some others I’m forgetting, as well as the Smashwords store itself.
  • It is just over 80,000 words, so a full-sized book. I haven’t finished the layout yet, but I estimate it to be about 300 pages in print.
  • I will post more about the description and synopsis of the book later, but the tease so far is that it’s absurdist cyberpunk. It takes place in Seattle in 2007.
  • The cover is amazing. The picture above is a tiny clip from it. You have to see the whole thing.
  • If you review books on Amazon, Goodreads, or a blog, I absolutely need to talk to you now.

This book is a huge change for me, and I am really proud of it. I hope you will like it.  I’ll tell you more when we get closer, but you absolutely need to sign up for the mailing list and go check out the facebook page for more news.

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general news

My new book, Thunderbird, is now available

Over the next few months, I chipped away at The Perkins Declaration: a 1400-page, ten-part handwritten epic that told the secrets of a military tribunal executing a group of Pakistani filmmakers who were shooting a DeLorean biopic movie in rural Iowa before getting nailed by the Department of Agriculture on charges of aggravated sodomy and interstate commerce fraud. It was a love story, sort of.

I’m proud to announce that my ninth book, Thunderbird, is now available. It’s a 26-story collection of short stories and flash that blends Kafkaesque insanity, paranoia, nightmare surrealism, and scatological dystopia. It’s got FDA drone strikes against weight-loss clinics, amputee porn, a celebrity kickboxing match between Yo Yo Ma and Manuel Noriega, and hobby shop exorcisms.  It takes place in Jeff Spicoli-themed restaurants, indian casino abortion clinics, and the bizarre landscapes of extreme heavy metal album covers.  It’s filled with insane humor and nonstop non sequitur references to pop culture, medical technology, military machinery, and GG Allin albums.

If you’re a fan of plot-driven detective stories with relatable characters and realistic, believable scenarios, you will not like this book.  This is experimental, demented, obscene, and a lot of fun.  I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you enjoy reading it.

Check it:

Thanks in advance to everyone who helped me with this, especially Ray Miller for his help on the cover, and John Sheppard for all of his various editorial advice.  Please, check the book out, and help me spread the word!

 

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Summer Rain, now on kindle

So I spend all week editing a book that’s set in Indiana University, and my news feeds explode with news about IU basketball. Weird how that works sometimes.

Anyway, I’m proud to announce that my first book, Summer Rain, is now available in a new edition on the Kindle, and will soon be available in print on Createspace.

This is a new third edition of the book, which contains some very light edits to correct minor typos.  There was also one change in book three involving Bloomington street directions that nobody ever caught, but now the ordering of streets when driving from Mitchell and Atwater to Colonial Crest is correct.  (Sorry, OCD.)

For those who have never heard of this before, my first book is a fictional account of a summer I spent in Bloomington, Indiana in 1992.  Bloomington is one of those midwestern college towns that normally has something like 40,000 students, and overnight in May, it becomes a beautiful little ghost town of nothing but townies and people stuck in summer school.  This was the point in my life when I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, and was about to flunk out of school.  I was dead broke, just got dumped, dealing with some heavy depression issues, and doing my fair share of self-medicating with barley and hops-based compounds.  I was also deep in the world of underground death metal, writing letters to obscure bands in Sweden and Japan, trying to publish a zine, and DJing a late-night show that nobody listened to.  And this was the apex of the internet, the beginning of the explosion of technology that’s making it possible for you to read this crap.  I worked with computers, these giant VAX mainframes, and ancient Macs and PCs.  So I spent a summer trying to figure out what the hell to do with life, if I could ever make money on music or if I should pursue this computer thing, and of course always trying to figure out love and romance and sex and friendships and everything else that constantly burns at a 21-year-old’s brain.

This book is huge – 710 pages in print form.  When I first self-published it in 2000, the cheapest I could price it was $29.99, and I made almost zero money on it.  But it wasn’t about the money – I just wanted to do this as a tribute to all the people who knew me back in 1992, and to those who grew up in that era, slumming it on college campuses and hacking away at C and Pascal programs in the days before the web.  So now I’m very excited that I can avoid the dead trees and make this available for only $2.99.  This isn’t the kind of writing I do anymore – it’s very much “straight” literature, and a labor of love.  But I have a lot of fond memories of that era, and of putting this thing together.

And if you do like killing trees, the CreateSpace edition will be out soon.  It will be $15.99, which isn’t three bucks, but it’s cheaper than $30.  The book’s a huge chunk of wood, and you can’t get around the pricing situation on a 710-page book, but CreateSpace did make it considerably cheaper, for the same quality book.  And I finally get to ditch that godawful cover on the first edition.

A lot of people helped me with the book, and there is now a thanks page listing them.  Thanks to everyone listed, and if I forgot you, please tell me and I’ll update it.

Okay, here’s the link to go get it on amazon.  Thanks to everyone who has checked it out!

[Easter egg that nobody’s ever mentioned, probably because only three people bought this: the car on the cover has an Indiana front plate. Indiana doesn’t have front plates, or at least they didn’t in 1992.]

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general news

My new book, The Earworm Inception, also in paperback

You know that new book I posted about the other day?  Well, the print version is now available, too.  So if you’re not cool with all this kindle stuff and still like to read your books dead tree style, check it out over at amazon.

The print version is 134 pages, and costs $8.99.  It’s also eligible for Amazon’s current “4 for 3” deal, so if you go buy three eligible books, you can get this for free.

This book’s a collection of 20 short stories or flash fiction pieces, and is designed to be cheap and a good short read.  This book is perfect for those with ADD or ADHD.  In fact, it’s so good, you could probably just mail me all of your unused Adderall and I’ll just send you a free copy of the book.

And if you are down with the kindle version, it’s only 99 cents.  If you’re also an Amazon Prime member (and in the US, and have a physical Kindle, not just the app on your phone) you can read the book for free.

As always, every time you mention the book on facebook or twitter, write a review, or hit that like button on Amazon, an angel gets its wings.  (Unless you are a Satanist; then it goes to hell or something.)

The links:

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general news

My new book, Fistful of Pizza, is available now

I am happy to announce that my new book, Fistful of Pizza, is now available at the following places:

  • On the Kindle for only 99 cents here.
  • In print at Lulu.com for $8.74 here.
  • In print at Amazon.com for $12.99 here.

Here’s the answers to some questions about this:

What is it?

Fistful of Pizza is a collection of short stories and flash fiction including ten pieces that have appeared in other publications and were otherwise unavailable until now.  I wanted to make the book as cheap as possible; actually, I wanted to make it free on the Kindle, but I can’t do that because I’m not a big publisher, so instead it’s the cheapest price they will let me.

What if I think the Kindle is stupid?

I also did a print version, which is a 150-page pocket-sized book.  Feel free to read it on the beach or lend it to your friends or drop it in the tub or burn it or do any of the other things that people who complain about the Kindle say you can’t do with the Kindle.

Why is the print version so expensive?

Because of the whole tree thing.  I could do what big publishers do and make the eBook version cost $8.74, or do what the biggest publishers do and make the print book $8.74 and the eBook $21.99.  $8.74 was about the cheapest I could go on lulu.

Can I get a preview?

If you have a Kindle, or have a PC/Mac/tablet/phone with the Kindle software, you can get a preview of the book for free.  Go to the Amazon page here and click on the Send Sample Now button.  This will send the cover and the first two and a half stories to you.

Does this include that one story where the guy flies a jet into a Wal-Mart in order to obtain an erection?

Yes, it does.

Why does the print version cost more on Amazon?

Because Amazon hates you.

Is this book suitable for my kid?

Any book is a children’s book if you teach your kid to read early enough.  Whether or not your child should read a book in which Richard Nixon pisses into someone’s gunshot wound is really your call, though.

What is a pocket book?

It’s a 4.3 x 6.9″ book.  It’s roughly the size of one of those drug store paperback books.  I think it’s a neat size and have wanted to do one of these for a bit.  I have no idea why it’s that exact size; it probably has something to do with a fraction of a standard size of sheep used for its skin in England or something stupid like that.

What 19th-century French civil engineer who specialized in hydraulics is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower?

Jacques Antoine Charles Bresse.  It’s the fifth from the left on the northwest side.

Why is there a picture of you sodomizing a wax figure of Tiger Woods on the last page of the book?

The Sean Connery figure was out for maintenance at the time.

I’ve been your pal forever and would really like a copy of this book for free.  Can you give it to me?

If you drop me a line and tell me how you’ll help me sell copies to all your friends, sure.

Thanks for the support, and I hope you get a chance to read the book!

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Rumored to Exist eBook Now Available

“One day in 1971, Ozzy and Tony Iommi took 47 hits of acid and just outside of Newark, New Jersey accidentally found the giant tablets of gold from which the Mormon religion was founded.  They decided it would be wise to melt it into a giant bong and take it on the road with them in a converted tractor-trailer.  With the aid of an early prototype of the first Apple computer, they hired several technicians and wrote a text-based video game based on the works and philosophy of John Locke, where you used the paddle controller to navigate corpuscles through a maze drawn with *’s and %’s.  However, in the course of developing the first video game, they sold all of the gold plates to fund the venture.  And after another acid bender, Ozzy had a vision of Locke arisen from the dead.  He sold his Apple computer to buy thousands of gallons of pure, artesian water for the mammoth bong that did not exist.  Ozzy went insane, and in a few years, Ronnie James Dio was trying to sing ‘Iron Man’ to clubs full of disgruntled Sabbath fans.”

-from section 99 of Rumored to Exist

I’m proud to announce that my second novel Rumored to Exist has been released as an eBook in the Amazon Kindle store and via Smashwords.  It’s now available for only $2.99, in a new revised edition.  This is the latest release from Paragraph Line Books, publishers of fine outsider and absurdist literature.

Rumored to Exist is a collection of 201 vignettes or flash fiction pieces, loosely tied together into a non-linear narrative about a protagonist attempting to find meaning in a bizarre near-future world. It’s a densely packed stew of ideas flashed together, morphing between dreams, emails, conversations, and action. It’s a novel in the style of Naked Lunch, written for today’s short-attention-span hypertextual world.

Influenced heavily by Burroughs, Mark Leyner, Raymond Federman, and Hunter S. Thompson, I knitted together the dense patchwork of fiction over a seven-year period in a half-dozen cities across the US.

It’s also still available in its original print edition from iUniverse, but why spend $15.95 and wait a week to kill another tree, when you can spend under three bucks and check this out now?  There’s also a free preview available on both Amazon and Smashwords, so check out the first part for free.

More info

 

Buy it now

Details

  • 264 pages (print)
  • ISBN: 978-0595234769 (print, iUniverse)
  • ISBN: 978-0-9844223-1-9 (eBook, Kindle)
  • ISBN: 978-1-4581-0977-4 (eBook, Smashwords)