Tag Archives: Loisaida

Loisaida News!

(This was posted back in March, but I’m reposting because this week only there’s $0.99  sale at Amazon. And for those of you who prefer to spend your money elsewhere, it’s also available on KoboB&N and I-Books.)

Big Announcement!

New cover

No, I didn’t sell my very minor cult classic to Hollywood (yet), but there is news.  We (this is a team effort) are giving Loisaida a facelift. Changes are slightly more than cosmetic. There is a new cover on the electronic and will be one soon for the print version, and mo’ betta formatting on both. This time we hired a pro.  A few proofreading errors that had been long corrected on the ebook will finally  be fixed on the paperback, and a few more very newly discovered typos will be fixed on all versions. Additionally, for a long while the ebook was only available on Amazon, but starting NOW the new edition is on sale in other venues as well. If anyone is interested in the why: The paperback was printed through Lightning Source. Lightning Source charges fees to make changes; plus there’s an annual “set up” fee. Proof copies are very expensive.  Only a few paperbacks are sold a year, so with the fee it’s always a loss. Most of my paperback sales are through Amazon and since CS is an Amazon company they pay a much higher royalty for “in-house” sales. That’s reality. Not necessarily an endorsement. You will still be able to order a print copy of Loisaida from your favorite bookstore, but you’ll probably be able to get it at a discount (with the same payment to me) if you go directly to Amazon. Continue reading Loisaida News!

The 50 Review Project

Convention of Marion's Blog Readers

As those of you (both of you) who follow this blog know, I write books, and despite some good customer, zine, and blog reviews, nobody buys my books.

There are now officially a GAZILLION “books” out there. The odds of randomly coming across one of mine are 100,000,000,000,000 to 1 – and that’s science! Also I write stuff that is “genre-fluid” and would be more appealing to readers who mostly shop in bookstores (which don’t stock my books) and/or readers that read reviews in print magazines  or other places that won’t review them. Plus, some readers would still rather be caught dead with soiled and torn underpants than with a “micro-published” or self-published book. Or possibly my books suck only appeal to a very particular audience.

But there’s hope! Somewhere on the web I saw an article that my “luck” would change and Amazon would magically make my books more visible so more people would see and buy them if Continue reading The 50 Review Project

My Work and Welcome To It

Happy New Year.

In addition to bringing you essential information about topics like getting cheap seats at the Met Opera, and writing high quality television recaps over on Happy Nice Time People where I will be handling Downton Abbey beginning Sunday night (We yanks still haven’t seen season 5) and Better Call Saul come February, I also write the fiction.

Sometimes I even read the fiction aloud in front of people, like in this photo to your left taken at a real event in New York City!

I don’t usually come out and say “BUY MY BOOKS” because you wouldn’t listen anyway, but I am going to tell you about them now because I am desperate what the hell. You may have been coming here for years reading about my geriatric dog who had cushing’s disease, or some of my so-called “humor,” so I’m figuring you owe me would be really interested in my stuff which can generally be had in electronic form real cheap. (I can also be had in electronic form real cheap but that is another matter and you will need to email me for details.)

Here is a brief listing of the fiction o’ mine. You may be hung over and lazy today, so why don’t you go over to the Amazon and check out the reviews and upload the FREE samples:

Blood Diva –  This is the first time I have publicly come out on this blog as the author of this work. As many of you know, it feels better after you come out unless you live in one of the 29 states where you can be fired from your job for doing so. Blood Diva is a racy vampire novel for people who don’t necessarily like vampire novels. There is no “sparkling” here.  Opera lovers and classic cinema fans seem to like it as the protagonist is Marie Duplessis – the woman on whom Camille and La Traviata are based. There are cameos by Maria Callas and Louise Brooks. People who are NOT opera lovers love it too. Some people have compared it to Anne Rice and have called it a “game-changer.” The ebook is only $3.99 and the paperback is discounted on Amazon. You can read more about it and see some great offers on the book’s website.

Loisaida – Is a novel of gentrification and its discontents, set in Manhattan’s pre-gentrified East Village and inspired by true events, including the so-called “police riots” and a crime so ghastly it became the stuff of legend.  If you live in the East Village now and want to know what it was like then, this is the book for you. If you lived through New York City’s bad old days and still miss the edge, you’ll enjoy the read. The words “gritty” and “stunning” come up a lot in reviews. There is no way I can write about it without sounding insufferable, so maybe you should just read what other people had to say either on Amazon or here.

Schrodinger’s Telephone is a novella about grief and loss. Lizzie has the perfect life until one day she doesn’t. It’s nominally “speculative fiction” but mostly it’s a story you can read in one sitting on just about any electronic device, and it might make you cry. This is probably the least “controversial” of anything I’ve written. There’s no explicit sex or violence. Here is something someone said about it on Amazon:

“A beautifully-written novella, Ms Stein has captured the overwhelming loss of a loved one, along with the alternating feelings of despair, wistfulness, grief, faith, powerlessness, and hope of those left behind. The details, pacing, and construction are perfectly executed. A lovely, poignant story.”

The Death Trip is another quick read novella for those who hate to commit. It’s light reading about Big Pharma conspiracies and euthanasia. Paranoid? You’ll love it!

So, I know you got hit up a lot for charitable contributions over the last month, and I can’t offer you a tax deduction, but if you’ve ever been ENTERTAINED by any of my posts, please check out the fiction and if you don’t want to spend your hard earned monies, maybe you could tweet about one of these fine works or something. Much obliged.

Quiz, kids: Free e-book if you can answer me this.

I was having a discussion with my better half about Spalding Gray, the late great storyteller/performance artist. There was a story about him in this week’s New York Times Magazine even though he died in 2003.    There was also a documentary about his work made in 2010.

Back in the 1980′s and until the early 90′s I saw him perform many times in lower Manhattan, and once after I moved to Vermont when he was “on tour.”  His death hit me hard, in fact it seemed like it hit the whole City hard.  He disappeared one night, and was thought to have jumped off the Staten Island ferry.  His body wasn’t found for a while, so one could imagine him off on another adventure, the soon-to-be subject of a monologue. Sometimes, I still daydream that it was a mis-identification.  Spalding Gray is alive and well, in hiding, gathering some new material.

There’s a reference to him within the first 10% (the Kindle sample) of my novel Loisaida — A New York Story, which is set in the late 1980’s. He isn’t named, but there are several clues that it’s him.

Here’s the quiz, kids:  The first 5 people who can correctly (1) pinpoint the reference and (2) tell me which of his performance pieces it is referencing will get a free e-book copy of Loisaida in any e-book format, gifted to them or the person of their choice.

I’m figuring if you can get the reference or are even interested in trying, you probably are the audience I’m seeking and will enjoy the read.

DO NOT POST YOUR ANSWER as that will ruin it for everyone, but leave me a comment below letting me know you know. I will then email you giving you my email address and you can send me the answer.