#153: Last gasp for relevance or a really neat idea?  Esquire Magazine recently announced that it will start publishing eBooks devoted to “men’s fiction.”  Besides the question in my subtitle, there are two other questions that jump to my mind here:  (1) Why in the world would an author want to (a) bury his struggle for name recognition in the shrouds of an irrelevant magazine and (b) let them rake off the profits to earn the measly royalty percentages that big publishers pay?  (2) What the hell is men’s fiction?

First, the question in the subtitle.  I don’t know if Esquire has an eZine edition (call it eSquire?).  Since it has a tradition of glossy fluff appropriate for doctors’ waiting rooms, heavy on the graphics and light on content, I don’t know if an eZine edition is appropriate.  I just know I wouldn’t buy an eBook just because it’s produced by Esquire.  Yes, I know they have a fiction tradition (notably the Napkin Fiction Project of 2007), but I still can’t get past the gloss.

If I had an Amazon Fire or a B&N Nook, couldn’t read very well (why then the Fire or Nook?), and graduated straight from comic books and Playboy to People’s Magazine and other mindless supermarket fare, I might go for eSquire, especially if they revive the Napkin Fiction Project.  Still, if the subtitle question were multiple choice, I’d have to go for the last gasp option (yeah!  I took SATs!).

(1) is rhetorical, of course.  If you’re an indie author, the answer is obvious.  If you’re an author that is not indie, I congratulate you for reading this newsletter.  (Or, maybe you’re just spying on enemy forces, planning your next attack on the indie world?)

(2) is interesting.  It opens up that whole can of worms about genres and subgenres and how meaningful or meaningless they might be.  Esquire is for men, of course, so they couldn’t very well call it women’s fiction, but I don’t even know what the latter is either.  Stuff like the Fifty Shades series I write off as mommy porn or suburban erotica.  Now that soaps are on the way out, desperate soccer moms need a substitute.  (Since I don’t need to court women’s votes as a political candidate, I can be a bit acerbic.  I’m not disparaging these women’s lives of sacrifice, by the way—just what they read.)

The problem is that men’s fiction can run the gamut from steamy porn to GI Joe shoot’m-ups to my own genre of sci-fi thrillers, with testosterone-driven alpha-male types being the common denominator.  In my own case, I’d like to think that both men and women enjoy my stories.  I know I have both men and women readers.  I also have strong female characters, some who will do a good job of kicking men’s butts if the need arises.  I guess that means that my opus is not a candidate for Esquire.  I’m not shedding any tears.

#154: Pushing the eBook envelop?  One thing I haven’t explored in this new eBook self-pubbing universe is multimedia.  One reason is that not all eReaders are multimedia compatible, of course.  Another is that people who have turned to eReaders have already made a big leap of faith by leaving their comfort zone of that physical page turning behind (I’m in that class myself).

My few multimedia efforts are not really my own, either.  Brilliant Donna Carrick, of Carrick Publishing, a wonderful author in her own right, has sagely added URLs for my website and all my novels in every eBook.  In some sense, that’s maximizing the multimedia, because it takes you to that wonderful invention by physicists, the worldwide web.  (Unfortunately, physicists also invented most of those fancy financial packages responsible for the 2008 Wall Street implosion and allowing Jamie Dimon et al to get into trouble still—but that’s another story.)  Howeverm, my books aren’t coffee table ones—no fancy graphics—and while some theme like Darth Vader’s might be appropriate for my arch-villain Vladimir Kalinin, I don’t have the money to pay John Williams for a sound track.

Nevertheless, many people have turned to audio and other multimedia things.  Book trailers abound.  You can certainly read your own book or make your own trailer.  I don’t recommend it, though.  Most of the homemade versions look…well, homemade.  Let’s face it.  Most indie authors need help with this stuff but obviously don’t have the financial resources that a NY Times bestselling author has (of course, it’s one of the Big Six publishers that have the money, not him).

This is why I was interested to see a note about a new company called Atavist, an idea spawned by three geek journalists with nothing else to talk about over beers.  Their product:  Multimedia story-telling for digital devices, which includes Nook and Fire, I suppose—certainly iPad and maybe even smart phones.  Is this the future of publishing?  I hope not.  I can see my life becoming very complicated as an indie author.

I’d have to learn about sound effects and visual effects, including fractal landscaping and model design.  I’d have to buy a synthesizer so I could produce my own soundtracks.  Or, I’d have to contract all that out.  In any case, I see the need for investing a lot of money I don’t have.  Maybe this is just a conspiracy by the Big Six, another attack on indie authors and indie publishing?  It doesn’t matter, of course—they are doomed.

#155:  Speaking of Nook….  I did my due diligence.  I gave away Evil Agenda as part of my 90-day exclusivity experiment with Amazon’s KDP Select.  I thank all readers who downloaded their free copy of that book as well as the free copy of Angels Need Not Apply.  I rationalized the give-away as an investment in name recognition.  Since I don’t have money for marketing and publicity, it was a cheap way for a few more readers to become acquainted with my writing.

Unfortunately, I have this idea that many readers who participated in the give-away already knew my name.  Maybe not.  It’s interesting, though, that the numbers correlated strongly with the number of regular visitors to my blog.  Coincidence?

I still believe that word-of-mouth is the best form of marketing.  It’s amplified considerably by the internet, of course—those words can go a lot further.  If you have read one of my books and liked it, read more, and pass the good word onto your friends.  I don’t care if you or they even borrow my eBooks from the local public library.  If you’ve read my bio on my website, you know my goal is to entertain.  I don’t expect to make a lot of money writing—the competition is too ferocious.

However, there is something that doesn’t make sense.  I noticed returns on my $0.99 young adult novel.  Come on!  That’s just being cheap.  Of course, if you’re a kid, I guess I can understand—you need a bigger allowance.  Time to pressure your parents for an increase due to inflation.  Put it that way and they can’t refuse!

OK, I’ll finally get to the point.  Starting June 1, Evil Agenda will again be available on Smashwords.  Since the latter distributes to B&N, Sony, Apple, etc (most everyone except Amazon), people with other eReaders can enjoy the complete “Clones and Mutants Series.”  (Silent fanfare of trumpets ensues.)  I try to entertain everyone.  If I have left pBooks in favor of eBooks, please know that it’s just because I can’t afford to self-publish those pBooks anymore.  However, artistic grants to do so would be gratefully accepted.

#156: FaceBook future?  I’m expecting bad things to start happening to FaceBook.  In some sense, they already have (new fan page format, timelines, all those ads running down the right-hand side).  Their move to NASDAQ fell flat on its $38 face.  There will be a frenzied push in those graffiti decorated halls of Zuckerberg and his little rascals to come up with a real business model, i.e. one that makes money.  I have a fan page on FaceBook.  I’m expecting pressure to shell out money for all sorts of gimmicks and gizmos that I don’t like.  GM pulled out its ads, saying they weren’t generating revenue.  Why shouldn’t I follow suit?  Procrastination wins for a while, but maybe not for long.

In libris libertas….

 

This entry was posted on Friday, May 25th, 2012 at 4:00 am and is filed under News and Notices from the Writing Trenches. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.