News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #66…
#378: Big bad Bezos. Most authors are sitting on the sidelines (including yours truly) wondering which gladiators, Amazon or Hachette, will win the skirmish. A few like James Patterson and other Big Five mouthpieces are calling for a government lawsuit against Amazon, but everyone should remember that Hachette is a French conglomerate and the other company Amazon allegedly is stiffing is a German one. Should the U.S. government try to referee a battle between feuding international corporations? I think not, it would set a bad precedent, and the calling for it is another Patterson whine that should have made yesterday’s list, especially since his attitude is so anti-American!
#379: Summer reading. Unless something’s settled in the feud mentioned above, readers can’t be sure they’ll get what they pay for, especially for summer reading. I’m not sure whether they can ever be sure about that because authors are still giving away freebies on Amazon that are good quality reads on one hand, mixed in with a lot of crap; and Big Five publishers are gouging readers with exorbitant ebook prices on the other, most of it just expensive and/or out-of-date crap (oh yeah, they only do that for classics, right?).
Here’s what I do: I limit my serious book browsing to Amazon. Bookstores—I’m talking about book barns and other commercial bookstores in bed with the Big Five, not your used bookstores or rare bookstores—just don’t carry all the books that might interest me. (I’m pretty sure none of Hachette’s will, especially Patterson’s, so it doesn’t matter that I can’t buy them on Amazon right now. Do you look to see who publishes the book when you buy? Right, you look at the author, title, cover, and summary or blurb, maybe a few reviews, also easier to do on Amazon, although the latter aren’t worth your time—see below.) I focus on ebooks under $5 to load up my old Kindle paper white for summer reading almost anywhere (yeah, it works in the sun—hmm, another Amazon product, go figure).
In case you want to save some time, though, let me recommend a few books for your summer reading. S. G. Redling’s Flowertown is only $2 at the time I write this. It’s a sci-fi, dystopian thriller that maybe hits a bit too close to home—just change the name of the chemical/drug conglomerate in the book to the name of any similar and current U.S. corporate behemoth and you’ll see my point (ones starting with D and M come to mind). Redling’s other books look good too—all under $5. Louise Penny’s Still Life is only $2.99 and provides an introduction to her Inspector Gamache series—very Canadian, but who cares? Other ebooks in that series are out of my $5 range—maybe next summer?
Sandra Parshall’s Heat of the Moon, $0.99, and Disturbing the Dead, $2.99, are the first and second entries for her Rachel Goddard mystery series. Parshall and Penny are what I call “quiet mystery writers,” finding mystery in quiet, out-of-the-way places you mightn’t expect, a la Agatha Christie (Inspector Gamache has a bit of Poirot in him, while Rachel Goddard could be a young Miss Marple, if you exclude what happened to her in Heat of the Moon). Mary Higgins Clark is probably the current champion in that book, but her stuff has become a bit formulaic for my taste. Parshall and Penny’s novels are full novels, though, not cozies, so they’re a real bargain. (I reviewed Parshall’s new entry into the series, Poisoned Ground.)
Before you suspect that I’ve decided to limit the list to female authors and recommend some boring Jane Austen tome, let me single out some male authors. Trending a bit more to the sci-fi realm, I can recommend James Corkill’s Dead Energy and Cold Energy, both $2.99. I reviewed the first and found it to be a lot of fun, so I’m assuming the second tale is fun too. (The second book is reviewed by GoodBadBizarre—see below.) For those in the mood for a good Tom Clancy-style military thriller, try Steven F. Freeman’s Nefarious or Ruthless, entries into his Blackwell Files series, and also $2.99. (The first is reviewed by GoodBadBizarre—see below.)
Want something a bit lighter? You might want to try Mike Nettleton and Carolyn J. Rose’s Hard Karma Shuffle, also $2.99, a hilarious trip into nostalgia. I should also say it’s a mystery, suspense, and thriller, in addition to side-splitting comedy. If you don’t at least smile with this one, you’re way too serious and need to get a life!
Of course, I can’t resist tooting my own horn! I have several ebooks at $2.99 or less, and all of them, except the Infinity ebooks (I have no control over their cost), are less than $5. I blushingly recommend The Secret Lab, a sci-fi thriller for young adults and the young-at-heart, at $2.99; Pop Two Antacids and Have Some Java, a short story collection, at $1.99; and Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape, another collection, at $2.99. The last two anthologies provide an introduction to the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series” (the latest entry in that series is Aristocrats and Assassins, at $4.99) and the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy,” respectively. Pasodobles even includes zombies and ghosts plus a complete novella with an ET protagonist, so it’s a real bargain (quantum mechanics or string theory isn’t a prerequisite). I have several other books at $2.99.
#380: Speaking of tooting my own horn…. I already mentioned Aristocrats and Assassins which reviewers have liked. Soldiers of God has also been completely rewritten and will soon be released as an ebook second edition. You will recall that it was the only book in my opus without an ebook version. Like Full Medical (also $2.99, by the way), I took the opportunity when releasing the ebook to give it a complete revision. Like Survivors of the Chaos and many sci-fi books, it’s long because of the world building, so you should start early for summer reading. It will be priced at $4.99, a bargain compared to the POD version. Coming soon!
#381: New books in “Steve’s Bookshelf.” I read and review many good books, but not all those good reads make it to this selective webpage. The new non-fiction ebooks I will add are a bit pricey. I didn’t include them in summer reading because they’re not light fare either, but you never know what people take to the beach these days! First is Michael Lewis’ Flash Boys, at $13.64; it’s the story of how electronic stock traders were scamming the public (I call it scamming although people are still trying to decide whether laws were broken—the SEC might act by the year 3000). Second is Michael Waldman’s The Second Amendment, at $12.99; this ebook makes the case for what I’ve long contended in my blog: The Second Amendment of the Constitution is about defending the citizenry with citizen militias and was never intended to allow for personal gun use, the reason for so many gun deaths in this country (the Founding Fathers would probably be aghast at current interpretations and outlaw the NRA, in fact).
#382: Wish I’d thought of that…. GoodBadBizarre.com, the review site mentioned above (Aristocrats and Assassins is also reviewed there), has created author interviews with a twist. Instead of just one author participating in an online interview, multiple authors answer the same questions over a period of several days. Steven F. Freeman, James Corkill, and yours truly are in the middle of this interesting adventure, definitely good if a wee bit bizarre compared to other online fare. You can follow our answers at that website (you can also read the reviews that have been mentioned). I suppose some authors might prefer to be interviewed by John Stuart or Stephen Colbert, but this sort of innovative internet interviewing suits ye olde introverted and often tongue-tied author to a T (no actual speech impediment, except that I often think faster than I can speak, just the opposite of Michael Moore—no relation). I would venture that it probably works well for readers too, who want to get to know their favorite authors better.
#383: Reviews and promotions for authors. The afore-mentioned website is a wonderful and refreshing exception to a growing trend among reviewing and promotional websites. The trend is ironic, in fact, when you consider all the Amazon haters out there. First, let’s be clear: Amazon isn’t about quality. They don’t give a rat’s ass about quality. They just want to sell things, including books, period. (Hmm, that’s one drone application I forgot about in last Tuesday’s post about drones.) Their whole review process stinks. In fact, most reviews on Amazon reduce to “atta-boy” or “I hate this,” are often written by friends and family members to increase the numbers, and should rarely be used by readers to determine their leisure-reading book purchases, unless they can determine that the reviewer really knows something about writing.
That said, why do authors pimp themselves by begging people for reviews? Because of the trend! Many promotional activities or review websites require an author to have anywhere from 5 to 15 Amazon 4- or 5-star reviews. Reviews that can be reduced to one line as mentioned above, or reviews from friends or family members, are DISHONEST reviews. (I generally exclude writer friends, or even writer enemies, from the list of reviewers the reader should avoid. Beyond gushy approval or jealous diatribes—in other words, reviews reducible to those two simple ones—who is more qualified to review a book than another writer who knows what writing a book is all about?) Readers should realize this and online businesses that have these requirements in their business model should be avoided like the plague by authors. Readers who fall into Amazon’s trap deserve what they get, I suppose—writers deserve it more, of course, because they injure themselves as well as readers.
I’m always willing to give a freebie ebook to a person willing to write an HONEST review—in fact, that’s the only way I’ll do it anymore. You can get close to a freebie without writing a review by using Amazon’s Prime or Lending Program, or Scribd’s lending services. I’d rather you do that than ask for a freebie and not write the review, especially if it’s only an “atta-boy” or “I hate this.” As long as Amazon and these other internet businesses use the model based on number of reviews, I guess authors will need reviews, but I prefer mine to be HONEST. Thank you for cooperating.
#384: The downward spiral of the NY Times. The recent firing of the NY Times female news editor seems a bit controversial. I listened to the speech she gave somewhere at a graduation ceremony after her firing. You can’t conclude much from a speech, of course, but she sounded like someone I could certainly work with as she offered good advice with good humor. This is maybe the most egregious incident in the downward spiral of this newspaper, and it certainly reflects the double standard in corporate America—a male boss can be forceful and demanding and the boardroom says he’s on his A-game; a female boss can be forceful and demanding and the boardroom says she’s a bitch and needs anger management lessons. I’m not saying that’s the case here, but if it quacks like a duck?
The Times is also notable for choosing sides in favor of the Big Five publishers, first in their reporting of the government’s lawsuit against Apple, and now in the Amazon-Hachette controversy. I scanned their report on the latter—not much mention was made about where the two companies they’re defending are located. They also have a good relationship with James Patterson (how much did his ad cost him?—oh yeah, he’s a one-percenter) and present a completely biased view of his far-out positions—the truth probably lies somewhere between James Patterson and Joe Konrath, although I’d error on the side of Joe.
I only look at the NY Times Book Review now when I want to practice keeping the vomit down—it’s a complete propaganda vehicle for the Big Five. Sure, you’ll see Xlibris, iUniverse, Author House, and a few other POD publishers there—they don’t like ebooks—but guess who those publishers belong to? Same for small presses. There might be occasional exceptions—like I said, I avoid reading it, so maybe it’s all indie by now (do I hear a laugh track?). If I had a bird, their Book Review would go into the bottom of his cage.
You’ve probably noted that in my blog posts I often disagree with a Times editorial. I guess that’s a plus—I can find something to write about by disagreeing with their pundits! Their motto, “All the news that’s fit to print,” is now laughable too, but they still do a better job than network TV. I guess that’s something too. Yet there seems to be a concerted effort these days of carrying political correctness too far, and the Times is one of the public perpetrators. Oh yeah, he’s a serial killer who tortures his female victims before he kills them, but he had an abusive childhood, you see, and that excuses him [Note: I wrote that before the UCSB killings occurred—a bit prescient, I suppose]. And so forth. This downward spiral is sad. Soon we’ll only have rags like the Post, Enquirer, or Guardian. Maybe I should kill my subscription to the Times and subscribe to People’s Magazine?
In libris libertas…
