What’s the optimum price for an ebook?  Depends on whether you’re a reader or a writer, of course.  For readers, the optimum isn’t $0!  You might think it is, but it isn’t.  Writers are going to stop writing if you expect them to give away their ebooks.  Sure, you might find an ebook in promo for $0, and, given the number of ebooks available at that price, you might read for a lifetime without paying for any ebooks.  But there are authors you might be missing (I’m one of them) if you’re waiting for their ebook to be $0.  And no author is going to give ALL his ebooks away for nothing.  Even indies have costs they have to cover.

Promos ($0 or reduced prices) are often only for first books in a series too, no matter the price, so, if you finish that $0 ebook and want to read the next one in the series, you’ll be paying more than $0.  Moreover, the meaning of series is changing.  I don’t condone this, but authors are writing series now that are really one big story arc—individual ebooks in such a series don’t stand alone; they’re not complete stories, and to complete them the reader has to fork up money to continue.  (Yesterday, I reviewed such a book.)  If I’m in that situation as a reader, no matter the cost of the first installment, I won’t continue, but many readers will want to do so, and they’ll pay for it.

In a stable economic system (ebook publishing might not qualify as stable, of course), there’s a tug-of-war between producers (authors, in this case) and consumers (readers, in this case).  This settles down to some stability point where the consumer is willing to pay what is needed for the producer to keep producing.  Unless that stability point is found, one side or the other is going to remain dissatisfied.

The traditional publishers’ agency model isn’t stable in that sense.  Many avid readers (my definition of avid reader is one that reads at least one book every two weeks, on the average) won’t pay traditional publishing’s ebook prices, especially when they see hardbounds and trade paperbacks at $14.99 and the corresponding ebook at $12.99, for example.  Everyone knows it costs less to produce an ebook—the price should reflect that.  Moreover, because most indie ebooks are $2.99 to $4.99, the reader will often prefer foregoing the traditionally published ebook and buy three or four indies.  In addition, those traditionally published authors are often formulaic old stallions who should be sent to the glue factory—the smart reader knows he can find new and exciting entertainment at a better price.

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[Note from Steve: These reviews are growing a bit.  I’ve written enough novels and read enough books to be opinionated about what I read.  Basically I’ll choose to review a book I’ve casually read (my “official reviewing” is done at Bookpleasures) if there’s something I like enough to recommend it to my friends, i.e. all readers of this blog.  That’s true of the first two reviews here.  Although I don’t like to review a book here if I don’t find any redeeming qualities (I will do that at Bookpleasures, though), I’ve decided to include one of those from time to time too (the last review is an example), because I don’t want my friends, the readers of this blog, to raise their BP while reading an author who really screws up.  Mind you, these are just my opinions.  Yours might be different.  I can only provide fair warning.]

Surface Tension.  Christine Kling, author (Ballantine, 2002, 2007; Tell-Tale Press, 2012).  This ebook is a reissue of the 2002 original.  I’m happy to see it.  First, it shows that even thrillers have long legs, so maybe some of my own ebooks will still be entertaining readers many years hence—this one certainly entertained me.  Second, it shows a migration from the Big Five.  I don’t know who owns Ballantine now, and don’t particularly care, except that it’s undoubtedly one of the Big Five.  But the author has decided to go her own way and reissue in what looks like an indie ebook.  ‘Nough said about indie v. traditional publishing…for now.

This novel is the first in the Seychelle Sullivan series.  Seychelle and brothers Pitcairn and Madagascar were named after islands, a quirk of her father.  That’s a bit of weirdness I didn’t need, but I guess it shows the family likes living on the water.  Sey is part-owner of the salvage boat Gorda and runs her own salvage and towing business.  In the opening chapter, she dashes off to get first dibs on the salvage job for The Top Ten, an expensive sailing yacht captained by her ex-boyfriend and ex-Navy SEAL Neal Garrett, only to find a woman’s body on board—his new squeeze—and Garrett missing.  Thus begins Detective Victor Collazo’s stalking of Sey because she’s his first suspect; he’s a Fort Lauderdale cop.

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Ideological truth is an oxymoron.  We spent the last two centuries debunking ideologies—all the different –isms, like Marxism, Nazism, Zionism, Socialism, Communism, and so forth.  We are still fighting some of those.  They’re like shingles—dormant viruses that awaken from time to time to attack the body politic.

This century we are increasing our understanding of how the human brain works.  It has a marvelous capacity for reason and logic, often creating great thoughts, inventing new technologies, and making works of artistic splendor.  It also has a nasty way of getting its wires crossed, short-circuited, and contradictory to common sense and logic.  The latter problems can often be described as brainwashing when it comes to ideologies.  Brainwashing can be inflicted by others, or it can be self-inflicted.  Ideologies are often the tools for doing both.

Small-minded people become easily addicted to ideologies.  The latter provide a closed system of minutia that’s attractive to such people, easy solutions for problems perceive in their lives, real or imagined, simple solutions that ignore complexities and conflicting relationships to other problems.  An ideology is a one-size-fits-all approach to a small life of parochial thought that allows people to get on with their mundane and sometimes suffering lives.  Ideologies encompass religion; they’re all the opium of the masses.

We can’t be too vocal in our condemnation of power-hungry demagogues who exploit these weaknesses of simple-minded people.  A radical iman preaching jihad is the scum of the earth.  But a Marxist preaching about how wonderful the world will be when workers rule, or a priest telling impoverished peasants their reward will be in the hereafter, these are in the same class and deserve condemnation too.

But those who swallow this malarkey also deserve condemnation.  They are negating their human potential to do and create great things; they are living a life of lazy intellect by accepting ideological truths as fact.  There are no seven virgins awaiting the suicide bomber; there is no worker’s paradise awaiting the Marxists’ followers, only a brutal dictatorship of the proletariat; and there is no place among the angels awaiting the pious and exploited peasant.

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Remembering 9/11 shouldn’t be a NYC event, or events at the sites where the four planes crashed.  It should be a national and world event.  Nearly 3,000 innocents died that day at the hands of Muslim jihadists, most of them Saudi Arabians who graduated from that country’s religious schools.  Bin Laden, the planner and cheerleader for the terrorist dogs, was also Saudi.

But we can’t blame one nation or a respected worldwide religion for this attack.  We must blame a terrorist ideology that exploits poverty and ignorance to brainwash its adherents and condones the torture and murder of innocents.  Religion is just the cover story—no true religion can ever condone such treacherous deeds.

We must carry on the fight against terrorism, imported or domestic.  At the same time, we can never forget the innocent victims of these terrorist attacks or the friends and families who are still grieving.  Too many Americans have forgotten.  No one should, because we are all targets now.  To give up the fight would dishonor the innocent victims’ sacrifice.  Their murders won’t be avenged until terrorism is stopped.

I lost friends and a relative that day.  I won’t forget.  You all know me as a compassionate and progressive person.  But I have no compassion for terrorism or its practitioners, only loathing.  On this day, I’ll try to get beyond that, though, and just remember who we lost on 9/11.

And so it goes…

You’ve probably heard me speak of it.  Like that famous intruder into the three bears’ lives, this principle describes “getting it just right.”  In writing, it means looking for balance in your prose.  Zen is looking for a metaphysical balance, but many things in our lives need balance.  In particular, even if readers don’t actually look for it, they’ll sense that something’s amiss if it’s not there.

Of course, that perception of unbalance in a novel is subjective for both reader and writer.  One reader, upon finishing my very first book, Full Medical (now in its second edition as an ebook), told me I handle dialogue very well.  That might have spurred me on to write more dialogue than anything else, but I believe in the Goldilocks Principle—a balanced approach to writing fiction is very important to me.

There are many things going on in a novel—plot, characterization, action, romance, dialogue, and narrative (description of settings, flashbacks and back story, and world-building) are some of the important elements.  Although mysteries and thrillers are closely related, the balance needed between these elements is different for each one.  Mysteries need more attention to plot and characterization.  Thrillers tend to have less characterization and more plot and action.  Sci-fi might require a lot of world-building.  Some authors get so caught up in one element that they lose sight of others.  If the plot or story gets lost, for example, it’s a disaster.

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[Note from Steve: This is the continuation of a series of short stories inspired by my favorite songs.  Some you might know, like the Billy Joel classic, “The Piano Man,” motivation for the first story; others, like this one, homage to “Zamba de Mi Esperanza,” sung by the Chachaleros, are a wee bit obscure (and possibly no longer available).  They’re freebies for readers of this blog…until they appear in a short story collection, that is.  The Argentine zamba, sometimes written samba (technically a mistake and one I made in the title of one of my ebooks), isn’t a dance, as Wikipedia claims, and shouldn’t be confused with the Brazilian dance.  Enjoy!]

Zamba Argentina (cont)

Copyright 2015, Steven M. Moore

When Marco arrived, he saw the German Karl Brandt talking to the Sub.  Is he complaining about me?  He regretted his slipup.  While it was true that South American countries had provided safe haven for many Nazis during and after World War Two, some Germans, like Italians and other nationalities, had just been fleeing the violence in Europe.  Because of his family’s history, though, he firmly believed that the influx of people leaning toward fascism had sowed the bitter seed that led to the Junta and their Dirty War.

He put such thoughts out of his mind and called Interpol.  His friend there promised to dig into the lives of Klaus Ihlenfeldt, Melissa Brentwood, and, for added measure, Karl Brandt.  His friend said it would take at least a day.

He also had a contact in Scotland Yard.  He called and asked her to check on the British side of the victim’s life.

Someone turned on lights.  It had started to rain again, bringing gloom to the port city and the office.

He was reviewing the case file and the new forensic information when two shadows created from the flickering fluorescents fell over the papers.  He looked up.

“Inspector, I learned you’ve already met my old friend, Karl,” said the Sub.

Brandt smiled at Marco.  The Sub wasn’t smiling.

“Yes, he was good enough to let me get about doing my job.  What can I do for you, Brandt?”

“Just saying hi to Raul and checking in with you.  Any news about the case?”

“If you have contacts with the German police, information about the victim and her husband would be helpful.  Forensics and ME results show this wasn’t a robbery gone bad or a random act of violence.”

“I concur.  Someone wanted Melissa Brentwood dead.  The two are married, by the way; she didn’t take his name, but that’s common nowadays.  Anything else I can do?”

“I might interview Herr Ihlenfeldt again today.  He was distraught yesterday, so I’m assuming he wasn’t thinking too clearly.  He has problems with English and Spanish, and my German is worse than my English.  I was planning on taking a translator, but if you’re there, it might be better for him.”

“Of course.  Set it up.  Give me some warning, though.  Our Ambassador tends to improvise on his schedule a lot.  So far he’s sleeping off cocktails and canapés at La Casa Rosada, but that could change at a moment’s notice.”

“Understood.  I’ll give you fair warning.  I’ll keep you posted too.  Or, do you prefer to handle that?”

The last question, aimed at the Sub, who had been staring out the window at the downpour, caught his boss by surprise.

“No, you can inform Karl of developments in the case.  We need to avoid any international repercussions, of course.”

“Of course,” said Marco.

***

Marco entered the interrogation room and recoiled a bit.  A witness had come forward in response to the police request for information, no questions asked.  He was a slovenly dressed bald man with a straggly beard turning to gray who seemed at ease in the old wooden chair that was probably older than Marco.

“I’m told you have information about our victim.”

“What’s in it for me?”

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Item. Taxes.  First the EU with its VAT, now Japan with an 8% Consumption Tax.  It’s becoming more and more difficult to market ebooks in other countries (all bad-news bulletins from Amazon affecting KDP Select authors).  I can’t say I make many sales there (dribs and drabs, but that can describe all my sales), but here’s the thing: many of my stories are international in scope and I think overseas readers would enjoy them as much or more than U.S. readers.  I have an international outlook, not a provincial one.  My blog posts show that and more—I’m often critical about decisions taken by our government and often look outside the U.S. for sanity checks.  My points of view were formed by many years living and traveling abroad.

That said, I’d like to have a chance to reach non-U.S. markets, even to have my novels translated.  These taxes are barriers to realize that, just like sales taxes are barriers in this country.  But the main problem with sales tax, VAT, and Japan’s consumption tax is that they’re regressive—they hurt the poor more than the rich and incrementally add to the growing gap between the haves and have-nots.  To put it into a reading context, shouldn’t everyone have a chance to read a good book?  These regressive taxes, like property taxes, are ways for incompetent and wasteful governments to steer their budgets to the black from the red on the backs of the poor.  Both readers and writers should speak out against this.

Item. Ebook piracy.  David Segal, in his The Haggler column in last Sunday’s NY Times Business section, wrote an interesting article about ebook piracy titled “Rousting the Book Pirates from Google.”  His claim is that Google’s Play Store, a self-publishing channel, has become a way to upload fake ebooks pirated from legitimate sources.  These days I question anything in the Times about indie publishing, but I haven’t heard about a Google response beyond the flimsy one reported on in the article.  It does bring up the issue of book piracy again.

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Occasionally the NY Times finds interesting news it deems fit to print.  Any time Stephen King writes something about the writing business, I read it.  I don’t like the guy’s stuff much, but I think his book On Writing should be read by every writer, new or established—it’s his most important opus.  The Times article by King, “Can a Novelist be too Prolific?” appearing in the Sunday Review section (8/30/15), is an important addendum.  Note the Times didn’t put it into their Book Review section or Business section, places that would make more sense.  But who said the Times editors know what they’re doing.

I quote from two paragraphs toward the end of the article: “As a young man, my head was like a crowded movie theater where someone has just yelled ‘Fire!’ and everyone is scrambling for the exits at once.  I had a thousand ideas but only 10 fingers and one typewriter.  There were days—I’m not kidding about this, or exaggerating—when I thought all the clamoring voices in my mind would drive me insane.”  “My thesis here is a modest one: that prolificacy is sometimes inevitable, and that it has its place.  The accepted definition of the word—‘producing much fruit, or foliage, or many offspring’—has an optimistic ring, at least to my ear.’

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[Note from Steve: This is the continuation of a series of short stories inspired by my favorite songs.  Some you might know, like the Billy Joel classic, “The Piano Man,” motivation for the first story; others, like this one, homage to “Zamba de Mi Esperanza,” sung by the Chachaleros, are a wee bit obscure (and possibly no longer available).  They’re freebies for readers of this blog…until they appear in a short story collection, that is.  The Argentine zamba, sometimes written samba (technically a mistake, and one I made in the title of one of my ebooks), isn’t a dance, as Wikipedia claims, and shouldn’t be confused with the Brazilian dance.  Enjoy!]

Zamba Argentina

Copyright 2015, Steven M. Moore

            “Who’s up?” said the Sub-Commissioner.

Marco looked up from the report he was writing.  It was the Sub’s idea of irony.  The rest of the squad room was empty.  “I’m your man, I guess.  But I was writing a report.”

“Later,” said the Sub.  “This one’s a German tourist.  The embassy wants swift action.  The Deputy Chief wants swift action.”

“And so you want swift action?”

“You guessed it, Atahualpa.”

The Sub was referring to Marco’s Native American blood.  His father was a Porteño, but his mother was from Salta.  Only his mother was still alive on that side of the family.  Too many family members on both sides had died in the Dirty War when the Junta made anyone suspected of being connected to the opposition “disappear.”

The Sub had a strange sense of humor, but Marco didn’t mind—he admired the man.  He’d come up the hard way from poverty and had been a shaker and mover when the new Policia Metropolitana de Buenos Aires was created.  The capital’s Scotland Yard was modeled after the London Metropolitan Police and the NYPD.  It had a zero tolerance policy, but the port city’s civilians trusted it more than the Argentine Federal Police, known for high levels of corruption like the Mexican Federales.

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[The celebration of issue #100 is now history, so some chest-thumping is back.  Well, that’s newsy too, and I don’t spam readers with email newsletters like many authors, so you won’t find most of my personal news anywhere else.  News about the publishing business is more op-ed like—comment on those items if you approve or disapprove.]

Item.  Feedback is important.  Lurkers abound on the internet.  This isn’t a negative term for the most part, by the way.  I’m a lurker myself.  I read a lot of opinion and discussions in social media groups and on blog sites, but I feel compelled to comment only in a few cases when I see that something is missing and I can add to the discussion.  I’m also reluctant to get on a soapbox—that can really muck up an interesting discussion and take it down culs de sac.  My soapbox is here for the most part.

But feedback is important in those discussions, and it’s important here.  I realize that readers of this blog and/or my ebooks (there doesn’t seem to be much correlation there) don’t have a lot of time to write extensive comments here or anywhere else.  Up to now, my only feedback is via stats I have on hits and visits to this website.  There’s a steady uptick on those, and I thank all new visitors to this site for stopping by.  But if you have opinions about my ebooks, which often treat controversial themes, or blog posts, you’re free to comment, whether at the end of posts (more public, of course) or via the contact page at this site (more private, because I never divulge emails—this newsletter is part of the blog, and I don’t have separate ones).  Join the conversation—it’s what makes this country great!

Item.  No reaction?  I was surprised I didn’t receive any flak from my post “Our Narcissistic Society” this Tuesday.  How can I interpret that?  Like I always do, I guess: readers are so busy they don’t have time to comment, whether they’re disapproving or not.  Or, maybe I’ll be e-punished and e-boycotted?  Surprise!  There are so few readers of my ebooks that an e-boycott against them wouldn’t even be noticed.  Readers of this blog can e-punish me by no longer reading this blog, but because there isn’t much correlation between the numbers of book pages borrowed or books sold and the numbers reading this blog, that’s like slapping me with a cooked udon noodle instead of a Barry Eisler karate chop.

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