Archive for December 2011

News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #13…

Friday, December 30th, 2011

#82:  On Wednesday, I tried to comment on one of Joe’s posts at Joe Konrath’s website.  Previously, I was allowed to list the URL for my own website or use my Facebook fan page.  Now you have to sign on to Google+ (I don’t use Google+ or much of anything of theirs anymore beyond their search engine and Chrome—they’re becoming a monopoly).  Conclusion: either Google is being undemocratic and tyrannical, or Joe Konrath has succumbed to the pressures of rampant capitalism.  My first suspect is Google since I use Chrome and they obviously know I do.  If this keeps up, they can also take their web browser and shove it where the sun don’t shine.  If Joe is the guilty party, then shame on him and I’ll ask everyone to boycott his website.  In any case, pox on the house of the guilty one—I intend to find out who it is and launch an attack!

It won’t be the first time.  When the CEO of GoDaddy published video of his elephant hunt and subsequent butcher job on the carcass, I cancelled my GoDaddy account.  It cost me money too, but that’s the way I am.  I’ve noticed that during the last two days (Tuesday and Wednesday) GoDaddy has run a full-page ad in the NY Times.  Could it be that their business is hurting?  I sure hope so.

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News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #12…

Friday, December 23rd, 2011

#74:  If you’re a patient consumer, you’ve probably read reviews of products when visiting your favorite online retailer.  If you’re a smart consumer, you’ll ignore those one-liners which state “this product is (no) good” and give the product five stars (respectively one star).  Book reviews on Amazon are no different.  A well-written review goes beyond the one line and explains what the reviewer found good and what she found bad about the product (book).

A similar criticism can be applied to ranking systems, especially on Amazon.  One or two bad reviews can skew the total ranking of a book (who can figure out their ranking system anyway?).  It’s similar to those car insurance rankings in some states where you’re golden if you’ve never had a moving violation but on some black list if you look cross-eyed at a traffic cop.  The Amazon ranking is just as unfair as your car insurance ranking.  Professors use something similar for true-false tests—plus one for a correct answer, minus two for incorrect.  Amazon’s system is probably worse than most professors’.

Bottom line:  for an expensive book (eBook price > $9.99?), read reviews other than Amazon’s; for an inexpensive book (eBook price < $4.99?), you might want to just take a chance (for $0.99 or less, what can you lose?).

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The Eightfold Way

Thursday, December 22nd, 2011

The media has become fixated on spontaneous symmetry breaking and the Higgs boson (the so-called “God particle,” a name that would surely make Mr. Higgs cringe).  The Higgs mechanism (i.e. the spontaneous symmetry breaking) is necessary to give mass to some of the vector bosons in the electroweak or weak and electromagnetic interaction theory.  Forgotten in all this media hoopla is the theory that led to the idea of quarks and gluons, the Eightfold Way of symmetries popularized by Mr. Gell-Mann.  (Note that I refrain from using the term “discovered.”  In theoretical physics, the math is “out there.”  You just have to figure out what math matches up to the experimental data.  Experimental physics is where “discoveries” are made.)

Now that I’ve had some fun imagining your eyes glazing over as if you’d just had tequila mixed with sleeping pills, let me say that this post is not about physics.  (My eyes are glazed too, because the above is hardcore physics, and I’ve been sipping my Jameson’s while writing like a madman.)  The Eightfold Way I consider here is the shining path that leads you to a finished novel that someone might want to read. It’s my distillation of rules for writing a novel—a distillation that is not the quality of a fine Irish whiskey, but I’ve put some thought to it and would like to share (I’d like to share the Jameson’s too, but the internet hasn’t discovered e-drinking yet).

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News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #11…

Friday, December 16th, 2011

#69:  Time is running out!  You can buy the entire “Clones and Mutants Series” (Full Medical + Evil Agenda) for $5.98 by using the Smashwords coupon on my “Steve’s Writing” page.  The coupon gives you Full Medical for $2.99 (normally $4.99) and Evil Agenda is already $2.99.  This is a holiday sale only.  Happy holiday reading!

#70:  Have you introduced your children to eBooks yet?  Want to be sure they’re not reading stuff you wouldn’t approve of?  Check out my sci-fi thriller for young adults, The Secret Lab, only $0.99 at your favorite online retailer.  If you like cats and enjoyed the young camaraderie in Spielberg’s Goonies and ET, you’ll probably also enjoy this novel.  I’m sure your tweens and young teens will.  It’s not Harry Potter in space—it’s the real magic of living aboard the International Space Station in the future.  Enjoy….

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News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #10…

Friday, December 9th, 2011

#61:  For writers, readers, and others who want to know a bit more about me and peek into my insane writing world, check out my guest post “When, where, and how do writers’ ideas originate?” posted yesterday at Erin O’Riordan’s blogspot: erinoriordan.blogspot.com.  Note:  Erin’s genre is a bit orthogonal to mine, but erotica and romance novels have a big following.  She’s a master of her trade, wielding her pen (or laptop) along with the best.  Clearly, we have a common interest, the business of writing.  Hopefully my comments resonate with readers and writers in all genres.

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The internet and the eBook…

Thursday, December 8th, 2011

I have made some noise in this blog about the fact that I’m going all eBook.  I have a list of reasons, but there is always that alter-ego of mine called “buyer’s remorse” who is telling me that I’m killing myself.  Read on, Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath, and console me.

Let’s enumerate the reasons again.  The top one is that I can’t afford to keep on paying for POD.  Even though prices have come down and service has gone up (I have no complaints about Infinity Publishing’s production of trade paperbacks, for example), for the same price I can produce multiple eBooks.  I have many stories I want to tell.  If this paradigm shift to digital publishing continues, eBook media is my most economical route.

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News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #9…

Friday, December 2nd, 2011

#50:  I hope you caught my guest blog post on Donna Carrick’s Carrick Publishing website.  If not, take a look.  It’s a brief look into my career as an indie author.  Somewhat related was my blog post “Why blog?” posted on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  These two posts are directed more to writers, but readers might enjoy this glimpse into what makes writers write.  [Note: Donna Carrick is author of the award-winning The First Excellence and her hubby, Alex, has several collections of short stories, one of which I reviewed.  I’m waiting for a collaborative effort—it should be good!]

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I want your XBox…

Thursday, December 1st, 2011

The crowds forcing their way into stores on Black Friday or Blue Thursday confirmed my prescient labeling of Thanksgiving and the day after as black-and-blue events.  People fought and were trampled, shots were fired, pepper-spray was used—it was as if we were in Egypt but with consumerism as the goal, not democracy.  What do people outside the U.S. think of us when we become so mesmerized by the ownership of goods?  “I want your Xbox!” or “That’s my wide-screen TV” takes the place of “Down with the military junta!” or “Out with dictator X!”

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