Solstice Season

I had so much to do all year--formatting the books, rewriting, tweaking, writing, learning Photoshop (yikes, that was hard) that I didn't have much time to think.  Now things are slowing down just a little I've had time to consider where I am and where I might be in the coming weeks.  I decided not to publish the teen travel series from Berkley as it's too much work to get it to where I would be somewhat pleased with it.  I'm still on the fence about the companion book to Love After Lunch or whatever it should be titled.  I don't think I'll publish that any time soon. 

Amanda Hocking's experience gave me much to ponder in addition to the new situation we writers find ourselves in. As fast as you can write, you can have a book published.  I mostly love this very much.  I hope, not even to speak of others, I am not encouraged to revert to the speed I had when I started this career.  Taking time to reflect on the work is a good thing.  Even if readers don't care, I want to care.

It does seem like the current market is all about story and plot and not about depth.  Well, okay then.  I can strike a middle ground and please myself and my potential readers.

The winter Solstice occurs on Dec. 21.  Even the most rudimentary thinkers who lived in huts or caves could discern when the dark of the days ceased growing longer and began growing shorter.  Day lengthened and night receded.  Good for them!  So there was a celebration.  There was a renewal.  The evergreen trees were dragged out of the forest and paraded through town.  Yippee, life can return.  There is an organic reason to look to the future now instead of the artificial date of January 1.

I did a great deal of research and thinking about the story that became Blue Raja.  I think it will help me now.

I don't know how much I believe in astrology.  It's fun to play with.  I like tarot card, too.  My sun is in the 5th house which is the mark of the gambler.  I think being a writer at all is a pretty big gamble and maybe satisfied any further wish to gamble in my life but I tend to be a risk taker on my work.  Risks are not as huge as they were a year ago. 

If you write a book and can't find an agent or a publisher, you can be out 2 or 3 years of your life in an investment that won't pay off.  Plus you probably have written something to please agents and editors instead of readers.  Now you have the investment of the time it took you to write the book and the realistic hope it will find an audience.

This is such a good time to be alive.

Top Ten

Summer Horse got to # 7 on the charts at B&N today.  I'm not sure about the Louisa May Alcott publisher but think everyone else is published by a tradpub house.

Gee, that makes me feel swell.

Lady Snowfall

A Tale Of Two Writers (Minus One Plus One)

Now we have 2 writers both who have been dumped by their publishers. I feel sorry for them.

I've done my fair share of complaining, even on this blog.  I've been mistreated.  I'm often angry about it.  But when I saw there was real viability for ebooks, I sprang into action.  Critical acclaim?  Who am I writing for?  Readers.  I sell 1 copy of Bad Apple and I cheer.  I literally thank God.

Anyone here think Amanda Hocking is put out over having no critical acclaim after selling like 20,000 books so far this month?

If your book isn't selling it's because 1) it stinks or 2) it hasn't found its audience.

When I started this process in April, or actually last October when I put Impossible Charlie up at Smashwords, the market for middle reader books was negligible.  Charlie/The So Impossible Horse/Dream Horse still isn't selling well but Summer Horse continues to rise in the rankings.  Last time I looked it was in the 800's. Pretty great for a middle reader book that's over 30 years old.  Those girls in that book are now old enough to be Amanda Hocking's mother!

With each reader sold, the reading audience changes.  Today maybe no one gets Blue Raja.  In 6 months maybe they will.

Either write a different, more marketable book, hold your course with the books you have or keep wishing for the world that's gone by to return.

Years ago when I was in college, I'm so embarrassed to say, I wrote a story about a romance author.  It's impossible to say from this distance what I was actually thinking when I wrote it.  What was the point?  What was I trying to say?  Now, without a copy in existence, the business and tastes had passed her by but what choice did she have but to keep going.  I think it was about a woman who felt lost.  I think those two writers are like that romance writer.  They feel lost and scared and want the world they know (and that's been relatively good to them) to persist.  It's not.  I think the world we knew was largely an illusion but I'll put that aside for now and maybe forever.

That 20 year old me was stupid, especially in the specifics, because romances always sell.  They sell as well if not better than then.  I can name any number of women who have been writing romances for 40 or even 50 years and are still going.  Mary Higgins Clark tops the list.  Phyllis Whitney until she passed.  There is a good strong market for romances in ebooks.  Once retirement communities realize that the size of the font can be changed  in readers, the seasoned citizens will be thrilled to be able to read books without the hassle they experience now.

A number of years ago I took advantage of the local cable outlet and their local origination program.  You learned to use all the television equipment and you were free to make programs.  I was going to do a 1/2 hour playlet.  The script is at Smashwords for free.  Explosive Expose.  Go read it if you're so inclined.  Hundreds of people have downloaded it.  There was a nice man working at this cable place and we talked about the way entertainment was changing.  He was very convinced that the future was niche markets.  You don't have to sell zillions of copies, you sell to your fan base and you'll get a greater percentage of the $.  He was a visionary because ebooks didn't exist.  Youtube didn't exist.  I'm not sure Google existed at that point.  I don't think Amazon existed then.  We had just gotten out of Gopher at that point, I think.  If the www existed, there was almost nothing there.  Your own website?  Huh????

Times change.  Technologies change.  Tastes change.  Readers change.  What doesn't change is that everyone wants a good story.  Provide that and you'll achieve success.

I'm #942 I'm #942!!

Out of who knows how many ebooks (million?) there are at Barnes & Noble, Summer Horse is 942.

Overview -

Summer Horse

Product Details

• Pub. Date: October 2010
• Publisher: DashingBooks
• Sold By: Barnes & Noble
• Format: NOOKbook (eBook)
• Sales Rank: 942
• Age Range: 9 to 12

Excuse me while I go cry.

A Tale Of Two Writers

This has been an interesting week writing-wise.  With Bad Apple 2, I'm just about on the same day as the characters are in the story and, yes, it ends on Dec. 31.  I expect I'll be finished with the writing before then.

I have another idea percolating, unrelated to Bad Apple 3 caused by this week.

As an observation in general about ebooks, there is no greater cachet to selling one category over another.  If you sell well, it's all good unlike in the tradpub world where a big commercial bestseller is a lot better than a YA (barring the Twilight books).  You will receive greater accolades and credibility for Danielle Steele or James Patterson books than anything else.  This doesn't seem to be the case in digital.

This week Joe Konrath introduced us to Amanda Hocking.  She's 26, apparently never been published/gotten the Good Housekeeping Seal of approval from tradpub.  Up until just months ago agents were rejecting her if she was so lucky to get a response, but mostly ignoring her.  She decided to take her career in her own hands.  Now she's selling like 10,000 copies a week. 

No, that's not a typo.  She's selling 5X the books Joe Konrath aka The King of Kindle is selling.  She's writing very commercial fiction in a genre that everyone is clamoring for--yeah, vampires.  She has lovely covers and a good work ethic (edit edit edit) and obviously does what she does really really well.  Brava, Amanda!

A tradpub writer on a mailing list I'm on (nevermind I'm not saying more than that) just had another book published and even though it got excellent reviews, it's not selling well and she's experiencing dismay and despair.  "What am I doing wrong?"  She wrote to the list.  (The book is $26 and we're in tough economic times, let's start with that point.)  Everyone, feeling rightfully sorry for her plight, began patting her on the head and reassuring her.  No, she shouldn't quit, all will be well, just do more of the same.

Off list (because I am usually not a welcome addition to any discussion) I told her about Amanda and Joe and me.  I said ebooks are the future and she should explore what's going on, do some research and know that once tradpub collapses from its own motivated stupidity (I didn't say those exact words to her) there's a new life to be found with lots of readers ready to embrace good stories no matter where they come from.  I want to think I planted the seed of hope in her the way Joe and now Amanda planted seeds of hope in me.

I love Amanda's story.  It's better than Konrath's because he is traditionally published and has books out there and has an agent (I think it's actually an agent I worked with for a while, she was the "best" agent I ever had in one respect).  You have the traditional publishing model not able to comprehend what's valuable about Amanda, not able to see the potential in her projects, nor the stellar storytelling skills she possesses.  So in an overnight success type situation, altho it's months, she goes out on her own and without intention, proves them wrong.  What's not to love about this.

She delineates well on her blog the contributing factors to this success.  Go there and study.   We can all learn from her.  http://amandahocking.blogspot.com

This Has Nothing To Do With Writing

Unless I'm really more clever than I suspect and am able to drag it around to it by the end.

She's quite striking isn't she.  A little Natasha Henstridge action going on.  You know she's from some Balkanized country but you can't quite place it.  She's all the rage in European high fashion circles this month.  I don't know how long flavors last.

Maybe what you can't place is that she's a guy.  His name is Andrej Pejic and he's 19.

Cool.  If you're an elitist type European who hates themselves so desperately they want to disavow their culture, their religion and now finally their sex.

Boys will be boys.  Not on your freakin' life!  Boys will be girls.  Finally the women in Sweden can stop calling men "walking..." the p word.  I don't want to get too graphic because I have an audience of 9 year olds.

I've said it before and apparently I'm going to say it again and again.  Men are big, they can be like goats with a scent all their own which is so pungent it can make your eyes water, and they break stuff sometimes intentionally and sometimes accidentally.  They can be clueless and impatient and don't want to snuggle on the sofa and watch White Christmas every year during the holiday season.  They are altogether lovely, necessary and can possess the most amazing instinct for protecting others.   Another great thing about men is that they're not women.  They are the other.  That's how this system works.  The only thing as good as a real man is a real woman.

But there ya go.  I'm not an effete elitist who thinks people are cluttering up the planet and we should all die so the snail darter can exist happily.  And I'm not going to be writing books where the female character criticizes men endlessly yet bemoans the fact that no man is interested in spending the rest of their life with a whining, inconsiderate shrew.

It's Harder Than It Looks

That reminds me of the Led Zeppelin song Going To California that ends with the lines
Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams,
Telling myself it's not as hard, hard, hard as it seems.

No, let me assure you it's harder than it seems.

There is someone on the internet who's had a well-respected blog for many years.  I have been in absolute awe of him, copying phrases turned so well they would make a master craftsman jealous.  Heck I was if not jealous, dismayed by my own failings in comparison.

But one must press on with whatever meager talents they have, right?

Recently. this person published his own novel.  (Good for you!  And good that you Kindled it!)  So yes, I ordered it and Amazon says it's in transit (along with a cool book of recipes from a Boston bakery).  I've been a little trepidacious.  I expect to be blown away by the magnitude of his prodigious intellect and emotional depth but how will that make me feel personally?  I suppose I could lose a whole day of work on Burning Daylight while I nurse my wounds.

Then I read the first two reviews that came into Amazon on this book.  One was extremely positive.  Then other was not but it was astute and it made me believe the reader saw something quite accurately even though he also has vast admiration for this man.


The gist of the review was that whatever we see and admire so greatly in this man's blog, has not translated into the form and structure of a novel.

This novel writing trick--it's harder than it seems.

Today so much bad writing is successful.  Slap a story together about  whatever topic is currently popular and you can have a kindle bestseller overnight.   You can write mysteries about a donut shop, or anachronistic historical fiction.  You can appeal to an audience who doesn't know any better because that's about all there is out there.  But to do it well, that's harder than it seems and apparently even someone with greater intellectual wattage than I possess and an Ivy League education, can stumble.

This quote from the Academy Award winning screenwriter Karl Luedtke can be switched with any number of professions.  It's like the "Police Work/being a solider/being a firefighter/being a whatever is 99% boredom and 1% sheer terror."  I like to believe it originated with him but maybe it didn't.  "The easiest thing in the world to write is a screenplay.  The hardest thing in the world to write is a good one."

The easiest thing in the world to write is some crap novel.  People do it all the time.  Smashwords is flooded with them.  The hardest thing in the world to write is a good one.

Shop Vac from Jarrett Heather on Vimeo.

Gatekeepers

Here's a quote from Severn House's  website

Submissions--We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. All submissions should come via a literary agent. 

Yeah, blah blah blah.  Who needs you.

Then I thought if after 15 books published by highly respectable publishers, a stint in television and a WGA award, I can't get a real agent and a real publisher, what the heck is going on?  

 What did I say?  You know what I said.  I said "Screw it!  I can do it myself."

The publishers and agents have delusions of grandeur.  They can afford to cast me off for not meeting their requirements.  Okay.  Cool.  Multiply me by any number of midlist, perfectly competent storytellers who are saying and feeling exactly what I am and turning happily to ebooks.

Let's spin that scenario out a couple years.  More authors are made to feel like dreck and leave this tradpub treadmill scam.  Who's left?  Noobies.  The reading public will have still more crap books they can ignore.

I read (never mind I'm not going to be specific) a historical novel of some kind and it was shockingly anachronistic.  This author has published quite a number of books.  I thought it was unreadable, historically inaccurate and far too chatty and shallow for me to invest my time in.  Luckily I got it from the library.

This is not the first experience of mine like this.  And this is supposed to be tradpub at its finest, doing what it does best, what stupid writers can't do for themselves aka research and edit.  Okey Dokey.

 About an hour ago I was reading a mystery (I'll give you that much) and the English character complained about the French.  These bad feelings between the 2 peoples has only existed for about 1000 years.  Remember

1066?

Normans -1

Anglo-Saxons-0

But the other character in the scene said in response "You're a racist!"

No, nothing of the sort.  The Brits and the French are both Caucasians.  Same race.  The character might have been a countryist but not a racist in any real definition of the word.

I might not read further than this, it's too stupid for me to deal with.  Luckily, another library book.

I can't get past the idea that you could have a whole mystery series based on a donut shop.

http://www.doverpublications.com

I'm # 15 I'm # 15

The sprites of website navigation smiled kindly on me and I determined why Summer Horse sold so many copies yesterday.  It's #15 on the bestseller list for kids 9-12 at B&N. 

Since I don't know how or why that happened, I can't tell you or me how to make it happen with any other book.  Give it the best cover and the best description you can.

I can tell you things I didn't do.  It wasn't reviewed (there's a site for reviewing ebook kiddie lit???).  I posted announcements months ago at the Kindle Forum and Nookboards.  I think between the 2 maybe 10 people looked at the post.  (Ditto for Dream House, a total bore).  I didn't go around like a maniac talking it up.  I didn't have a link in my sig pointing everyone to it.  In other words, I did nothing to help it.  I was too busy and the whole scrambling around the net doing something I find distasteful is a snooze to me.

I find it annoying for writers to keep clobbering people/potential readers over the head with their desperate attempts at drumming up readership.  I am so wrong as proven by Konrath's sales as well as Karen McQuestion's and others.  This is the proven way to success.  But it's not in my personality.  So I don't do it.

I'm #? I'm #?

Summer Horse is fast out of the gate and running down the track ahead of everything else everywhere.  But esp at B&N.  So I said to myself "It must have made it onto a list where people are seeing it."  After 15 min. of looking --boy is B&N ever hard to navigate--I gave up.  SH must have made it onto a list but what do I care.  I made donuts today and created a new blog for Jewish Writers.  We need a showcase, we need a place of our own. Once it's presentable I'll give you the link.

Happy Chanukah.

Not Low Maintenance or I'm #82! I'm #82!

This is a top addition to the post.  I don't make a big deal of trying to find out where any book is in rank because I figure if I break into the top 50,000, with the off-genre women's books or children's books I do, then I'm really doing good.  I can only take so much of comparing myself to Joe Konrath's wild success before I have to eat quite a lot of 72% chocolate and bolster myself back up.  But I happened to go check on NLM and it's

• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #17,662 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #82 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers > Legal
  •  
  •  

Does it belong in this category?  Blame it on the way Amazon has it set up.  Yes there's a murder.  Yes there's a sort of mystery going on.  Yes there's definitely a legal component big-time to the book.  Is this anything, anything at all, like a John Grisham book?  No.  This is a romantic comedy.  But there's no classification for that.

I'm grateful to all you readers who have purchased this book.  I hope you have enjoyed it.  No one's complained so I guess that's a positive statement.

Back to the original post--

If the deciding factor of a book's worth in tradpub is 20,000 units moved then probably they were quite correct to reject it continually and Not Low Maintenance is one big stinko novel.

If the deciding factor of a book's worth is its ability to engage the reader, then they were quite wrong indeed.  Today marks a new month and there was NLM as predictably the first title sold.

Summer Horse, originally published by Atheneum as Nicki & Wynne, comes with a pedigree since it was published by one of the top houses at the time.  Someone, that would be Jean Karl the well-respected children's book editor, believed it to be a very good book. It does continue to surprise me as my strongest seller, out selling everything.  Sorry, Kate!

I suppose in years gone by, in the age of Malcolm Cowley, he could take a chance on a crazy manuscript written on a roll of paper with no commas.  The writing was vibrant.  It told a story that hadn't been told that way before.  It was an important work.  Oh heck, let's publish On The Road because it deserves to be published.  And 60 years later we're still talking about Jack Kerouac.

That mentality doesn't exist anymore.  A book's intrinsic worth isn't important.  Sales are.

Isn't there a way for tradpub to bring books to readers that are worthwhile but might not sell 20,000 copies?  By the towering remainder tables and such books offered by Dollar Stores and Amazon sellers,  suggests someone is choosing these sure-sellers quite badly.

There are so many reasons why writers are, or should be, turning away from tradpub.  Yes, I know there is the cachet of having what's assumed to be the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval from a "real" publisher.  It's a rush.  When Disney called my agent about Charlie (aka Dream Horse) I was beside myself "Disney knows about ME?!?!?!"  You're not going to get that from epub.  The thrills are different.  And satisfying nonetheless.

I'm #1 I'm #1!

Well Charlie is anyway.  Charlie aka Dream Horse.

It's great.  I'm told this helps you get found.  I admit that I don't know how any of it works.  (And I wish B&N would have a similar rating system)

What this also suggests is that Children's Books is not as dead a category as it was over the summer.  I expect that after Christmas that may even change more.  eBooks are certainly a great value and during tough economic times for people who don't find reading something other than a book a chore, this is wonderful.

I got a nice email from B&N about the Dream Horse/So Impossible Horse situation and they said they'd fix it. That would be lovely.

Back to Bad Apple 2 after this very nice treat.  

• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #15,383 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Lifestyle & Home > Home & Garden > Animal Care & Pets > Horses > Riding
  • #2 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Sports > Individual Sports > Horses > Equestrian
  • #5 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Children's eBooks > Animals > Horses
  •  
  •  

Strange Times

It seems like the world has collectively gone nuts.

 Ystenes  http://www.flickr.com/photos/ystenes/with/5045516430/

Dream Horse

This is a day to talk about problems.   We'll deal with Amazon first.  Their problem is it takes quite long for anything to go live. I forgive them.  They have a help department that actually responds.

Barnes & Noble.  They have a big honking problem over there.  Anything you upload goes live very fast, YAY!  If you have a problem with anything--forget it.  There is no help to be had anywhere.  If you email, I think their "support" is in Mumbai.  You will get an answer from someone with a foreign name and the answer is a form welcome letter.  I found a phone number. Simone knew nothing.  She gave me an email address.  It was dead.  I went to the site and found another email.  It's been about 5 days and they haven't gotten back to me.

What's this huge issue?  The first book I epubbed was Impossible Charlie at Smashwords.  That was a year ago.  When Smashwords started their premium distribution thing, what did I know.  I said ok.  After all B&N was closed to independent publishers and you can't get to Apple without a Mac.  Good deal. 

Soon I began to notice that Summer Horse was way outselling it.  I thought maybe having the word Horse in the title would tell readers this was about a horse, while Impossible Charlie could be about a chipmunk.  I renamed it The So Impossible Horse.  Time passed.  B&N began PubIt.  I noticed things I published there but not Smashwords were selling incredibly well.  I unpublished several books from Smashwords in order to control them more efficiently at B&N.

One element B&N has in their favor is that you are allowed 2000 characters to describe your work but only 400 at Smash.  Well that stinks and I think it affects the sales. 

Summer Horse is doing great at B&N (nothing at Amazon--I'm not understanding that whole thing).  I realized about 2 weeks ago "Where's Charlie?"  I had unpublished it at Smash but it was still listed at B&N and shouldn't have been.  That's when I started trying to get someone to pay some attention to me and get The So Impossible Horse unpublished at B&N so I could republish it through my account.  Right now if anyone buys it, there's no conduit for me to be paid since the Smashwords connection was severed.

There is no one at B&N apparently.  I finally wrote to Smashwords and Mark Coker said Smash would eventually have longer descriptions, but sorry as he was to see me go (I still have books there, just not epub or mobi versions) he would try to get B&N to unpublish.

Hasn't happened yet.  So over the last 2 days, I did another pass thru Charlie, which for B&N is now called Dream Horse.  I also added a lot of neat photos as illustrations and uploaded that this morning.  I'm sorry to have 2 virtually identical books there and will go back to the description to DH and say it replaces SIH but can't think of another way to get Charlie live and under my control at B&N.

This is terribly unprofessional of them--even though I love their customers to pieces.  They started PubIt with absolutely no conception that any of us would have questions or problems with the service.  It took Lee Goldberg almost 2 months for his novel to go live and he couldn't get any response either.  So I'm not the only one who has experienced trouble.

#6

That would be Sweeps in the screenwriting category on Amazon.  My pal pointed out I'm right next to F. Scott Fitzgerald.  (It's all about writing for television, it absolutely belongs in that category.)

I have much to be thankful for this holiday.  I would like to be specific (because Rabbi Pliskin says you should be).  I would like to thank Jeff Bezos for creating Amazon and all that means.  Not only can I get any book I want, last time I placed an order I got a pasta machine and a new gasket for my pressure cooker and a book of Rabbi Nachman quotes.  Is this great or what?

Not only the convenience of shopping, there is the whole ebook thing which has changed and improved my life in immeasurable ways.

I can write anything I want to.  I don't have an agent or an editor telling me it won't sell 20,000 copies.  If it sells 5000 or 500 or 50 I'm thrilled.  I get to say what I want to say.  I get to tell the stories I want to tell.  I don't know what epublishing would be without the Kindle.

So, yes, I am filled with gratitude.

Dig Deeper

Indian Pudding

I grew up in Connecticut.  (Don't bother looking for me there, I'm gone.)  I thought Connecticut was New England but it's not actually anymore.  I'm not sure any of New England is still New England but I suppose some remote towns in Maine might be.


When I went to college in Massachusetts, this strange dessert was eaten out there.  Indian Pudding.  What the heck is it?  It was dark brown and served warm with a spoonful of vanilla ice cream.  I hate vanilla anything.  Eventually I tried this glop.  Delicious.  There's the strong taste of molasses balanced by the sweetness of the ice cream.  The cold of the ice cream against the heat of the pudding.  The substance of the cornmeal (sort of like a polenta).   This version seems to have originated at at the time of the molasses trade to the colonies mid-1700s but it obviously was made earlier, possibly with maple syrup, quite possibly with no sweetener and as a savory, not as a dessert, sort of a frumenty.  Made primarily of cornmeal and molasses, it could be made over an open fire (or the stomach of an animal like haggis).  It requires no skill or special equipment.  It could be stirred with a stick with Pootatucks looking on.

There are, like anything, several versions, some with eggs, some with raisins, but this one is the best.  You're supposed to scald the milk first.  Do I look like someone who's going to bother with that?  If you said no, you're correct.  You can make it in a microwave, and I've done it but I can't really remember.  You could probably make it on a stovetop instead of baking it just the way rice pudding can be done.

Use a large buttered baking dish.  You can cut this in 1/2 if you'd like.  You need to be a responsible adult and keep an eye on it.  I'm guessing it'll take about 2 hours at 350 degrees but your mileage may vary up to 3 hours.  It'll set up, but don't overcook because it'll set up more once it's out of the oven.  Serve with, yes, vanilla ice cream or whipped cream, or custard (very nice).

  2/3  cup yellow corn meal                  
  4 1/2  cup milk                              
  1/4 cup butter                            
  1/2 cup molasses                          
  1 teaspoon salt                              
  1/4 cup sugar                             
  1 teaspoon cinnamon      

What does this have to do with writing?  I have to eat, don't I?  

              

Thanksgiving Again

I'm still writing Bad Apple 2, I've started to research for another project and between the news of the day and everything else, anything I could say wouldn't be appropriate for a mixed audience.

I'm trying to sort through the massive change that's transpired over this year.  For at least half of my career, I could pitch an idea and if it was liked I would go forward.  For the other half I had to write the whole thing before it was considered.  You might think writing the whole thing came first.  No, it came last.  As if the fact I have published a good number of books already said nothing about my ability to write a book.  (I have an analogy here but I'm not going to use it.)

I really started to hate this business and not want to write anymore.  I prayed to not write anymore.  Then the great blessing of ebooks arrived and over the course of the year, I started to love the process of creating a book.
You can't pitch anyone an ebook, you have to write it.  So if I'm not getting the balm of money to write a less than pleasurable book, I should love the project.  I'm sort of right back to the beginning of my career when I loved what I wrote and that was the reason for it.

I don't know what I'll write next.  Bad Apple 3 probably.  Just Kate is my bestselling book at B&N, followed by Summer Horse.  At Amazon it's Not Low Maintenance.  This doesn't tell me anything.  A Young Adult book, a Middle Reader book and a Women's Fiction atypical love story that doesn't follow the romance formula.

How lucky that all these books are finding an audience.  In the world of tradpub, this kind of shotgun approach is frowned upon.  And Joe Konrath proves me wrong every day.  Stick to what you're good at.  Stick to the one thing.  We can't pigeonhole you if you don't stick to one thing.  That tyranny is dead.  Although I'm sure it's still very valid advice in epub--get a lot of books under your belt about vampires or brutal killers and the audience will find you.

The next post will be the recipe for Indian Pudding, something required at this time of year.

Holographic Singer

She's more realistic than some of the current crop of so-called entertainers.  The song's pretty good, too.
I watched several times.  Is this really a hologram?  Apparently it is.  Apparently it's not some CGI trick.

I find myself not quite knowing what to make of it.  What does this herald?  On one hand I'm fascinated by the technology that's being demonstrated.  On the other hand I have concerns about our diminishing humanity as it is.

Done or Not

No, I'm not done with anything at the moment.  But I was ruminating on the speed of digital publishing.  In the old days, the process took so long that there at least should have been time to rethink aspects of the book.  I don't know that it happened, the books I've read lately that were traditionally published were so horrid that I'm surprised an agent and editor read the manuscript at all.  No, I'm not naming names.

Does digital publishing encourage writers to write faster and with less precision?  I think the answer has to be yes in the vast number of cases.  It's like the pulp magazines in the first half of the 20th century.  Stories were churned out.  Magazines needed to be filled, writers needed to be paid, readers wanted something/anything to read.

Now we have a somewhat similar situation where so many ebooks are at a bargain price--you couldn't buy a magazine for what many digital books sell for--there's great enthusiasm to put books up for sale that might have benefited with a little more time in the oven.  I suspect this will sort itself out.  Readers are anxious to get books for $1, or $2.99 tops, so maybe they don't see the seams and the unpolished prose.  Maybe no one cares anymore.  Or maybe some do and are desperate to read something that's not about vampires.  (Some explain the vampire thing to me, please.)


I still believe ebooks are here to stay, will only increase in sales and will sooner rather than later change the way traditional publishing operates now. 

http://www.frankwu.com/Paul-11.3.html

My Last Agent

This morning my agent and I parted ways.  I hoped he would be my last agent and he is but not in the way I expected.

My pal said agents are like the hula hoop.  Passe.
Certainly they are not required for digital publishing.
From a writer's perspective, everything that is wrong with the traditional publishing business is cured by digital.

In a business journal there was a longish article about Amazon driving the digital market.  It touched on the fact that print is declining while the trajectory of digital is improving.  I understand the reluctance some people have to this reality.  I feel it this morning.  Much of my life has been devoted to finding the right agent.  Having the agent.  Being annoyed with the agent because they won't do their job.  (To make it clear, the agent's job is to submit the client's work, if they're not doing that, they're not doing their job.  It's really simple and you might be surprised at how few agents can rouse themselves to submit the work in a timely fashion.)

I am doing a renewal of my website because it was so out-of-date.  I'm sure it's not as fancy as it could be but if all the links work, then I'm practically a genius in my own eyes.  Let me just say I'm using Expression Web and it's a terrific program.  I cannot explain how it can be a Microscoff product and not create the hairpulling hassles I usually accord MS.  But to be fair, so many people hate Vista and I've been running it for about 3 years with the only problem being that I don't know where to look for stuff I could find in XP.

To any veteran who might wind up here, or to any family of a vet, we all owe you a debt of gratitude.  Thank you for your service to this country.