Stacia Kane

Yeah, you can probably finish that sentence.

We’re not done discussing writer/reader relationships, I don’t think, but for today there’s some other stuff to talk about, including something I’m really, really excited about.

First, a couple of links. My pal Mario Acevedo, he of the fun books and incredibly dirty mouth, is doing a contest and chat over at Bitten by Books today, so head on over and enter to win some of his awesome work. And, you know, to taunt him and stuff.

Second, I’m not sure how many of you are aware of This Week’s Amazon Controversy. In a nutshell, this weekend Amazon listed a bunch of very expensive graphic novels at bargain basement prices. The pricing info was picked up by Rich Johnston over at Bleeding Cool–he’s @BleedingCool on Twitter as well, and you should follow him, especially if you’re the sort of geek who reads comics or has any interest in comics or movies or whatever, or who, oh, dreams about Batman, or who downloaded “Voodoo Child” by the Rogue Traders and plays it in her car and then pretends that she is married to The Master, and then we make the Doctor my sex slave…oh, um, I mean, if you were that sort of geek, which of course I am not. Ha, ha! No, not me! Um. Anyway, Bleeding Cool is a great site.

So Rich picked up the story, and lots of people–including the hubs–flocked to Amazon to order books. (In fact, if you checked the top Amazon sellers on Sunday morning they were all hardcover graphic novels, which was quite cool). Then Amazon started processing some orders, and sending out emails saying that if you ordered more than one copy of a book your duplicate orders were canceled, but they would otherwise honor the price at which you purchased the books. Which is great, right? Except that now they’re just canceling people’s orders altogether, without notifying them, or with a rather short email that basically says, “Yeah, too bad.” So some people got their books at the advertised price, but most are being told Tough Luck. Rich discusses the emails and the reactions of disappointed readers here.

BUT. Here’s the big news, which I really hope you guys will be excited about. I’m sure many of you know who James D. Macdonald is, and how much he’s done for writers everywhere. And, if you haven’t read any of his books you totally need to.

Anyway. Jim periodically looks into self-publishing methods, to help out writers who choose to go that route for whatever reason. A few weeks ago he asked if anyone had anything they wanted made into a book, and, since I’d been planning/attempting for ages to put the Strumpet series together and set it up as a book, I offered it to him. I wrote a new little intro, and he wrote some back-cover copy for me, and there you go.

Long(ish) story short, the Strumpet series is now available on Lulu as a paperback (mmp size) and as an ebook!

So for all of you who’ve asked me to do this, there you go. Have fun!

(Note: Yes, the series is still available on the blog here, and will continue to be. You do not need to buy the ebook or paperback to still access the series; I wrote it as a free blog series and it will remain so. This is just for those of you who wanted it to download all as one document for easy navigation, or so you don’t have to keep visiting my site to read it, or who like having a paperback, or whatever. Also, no, it is not available on Amazon or as a Kindle download; in the interests of keeping costs down we opted not to buy an ISBN, which means it won’t be listed in those places.)

So that’s it for today. We’re rather content-light, but given how Very Serious we were last week, and given how excited I am to finally have the Strumpet series out there in book form (It’s Alf! He’s back. In pog form), and given that I’m up to my knees in a new project…well. We’ll see how it goes the rest of the week.

So, I’m sad Dragoncon has ended. Not just because it was exciting and cool and I met some amazing people, but because the end of the show means Mark, Tiffany, and Synde will be leaving. I hardly got to hang with Richelle or Nicole at all, and they’re already gone.

So in my depression, I thought it might be fun to do a little shopping yesterday. I hadn’t had a chance to head down to the dealer rooms at all–I barely left the Hyatt, where all the dark fantasy stuff was taking place–and since I had no panels, and neither did my pals, I figured it would be a good time.

The dealer rooms were still busy and they’d marked down a lot of stuff; the better not to have to drive it all home, right? And a lot of it was pretty cool stuff, too. I was, being me, particularly interested in the corset sellers, since I love corsets and am always looking for new ones. I have four already and wore one on Sunday, so…a new corset from Dragoncon would have been pretty cool.

I didn’t see any I particularly liked in the first couple of booths–they were beautiful but nothing caught my eye–and when we got to the last and biggest booth, which was “Corsets by Casta Diva,” I was determined to find something I wanted.

I started skimming through the tags looking for 24s. I’d been at it only a minute or two when one of the women who worked there asked me if she could help me find something. We then proceeded to have this conversation:

Me: I’m just looking for 24s. Are they all grouped together, or–

Her: I don’t think you’re a 24.

Me (frowning): All my other corsets are 24s.

Now at this point, I feel as though I’m not only being told I’m fatter than I think I am, but that I am too stupid to know what size I wear or that I’m lying about my size. Not to mention it’s the last day of a con. I’m a little bloated. I haven’t slept more than a few hours since Wednesday night.

Her: Have you been measured?

Me: Not in–

Her: I need to measure you.

I didn’t feel the need to be measured, as I was measured when I moved from 26 to 24 by a very sweet lady at Fairy GothMother in London (where my other corsets came from). But her tone brooked no argument. She clearly expected me to obey or she would throw my fat ass out of the store. So I sigh and hold up my arms so she can measure me, thinking all the while that I don’t understand the need for this and I’m quite irritated by the whole thing. I don’t appreciate being told I don’t know what size I am. I don’t appreciate at all the implication that I’m lying about my size. And frankly, what the hell business is it of hers what size I buy?

So she measures me.

Her: That’s what I thought. You’re really a 25.

Me: …

Her (doubtfully): I guess if you insist on a 24, you can have one.

Me: Thank you.

And that’s when I turned and left. Oh, and informed my friends loudly that I didn’t need anyone else to be bitchy to me. Like that bitchy woman.

Which she was. What the fuck, man? I’m standing there telling you what size I am, and that all my other corsets are that size. But you still feel the need to measure me? And then to tell me that I’m wrong but you guess if I insist, you’ll condescend to give me the size I normally wear? I didn’t ask for your fucking help to begin with. I certainly didn’t ask you to measure me. I’ve been wearing corsets for several years now; trust me, I know how to wear them and what fucking size I am.

So there you go. “Corsets by Casta Diva” could have gotten some of my money, if they’d paid me the respect of assuming that as a regular corset-wearer I know what the fuck I’m doing, and hadn’t gone out of their way to Prove Me Wrong over an inch which is frankly due to con bloat, ladycycles (isn’t that a lovely little euphemism?), and drinking almost an entire bottle of Grey Goose–the big bottles–in three days.

It just ended things on a bit of a sour note. I was already sad that it was ending, and everyone was leaving. I didn’t need to be insulted and informed I was actually much fatter than I thought I was on top of it.

I’ll be back later to post a picture or two and to rant about something else, which had nothing really to do with me but which upset me quite a bit nonetheless.