Or maybe not? A new movie considers “Everything, Everywhere, All the Time” (that’s the title!), and the article “Workings of the Multiverse (Latest Version)” by Dennis Overbye in the “Science Times” section of the NY Times (Tuesday, April 26) is essentially a movie review. I might be wrong, but that movie sounds like my sci-fi rom-com A Time Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse.

My novel began as a just-for-fun short story I wrote (that essentially became the first two chapters of the novel, if memory serves), but both hark back to my academic career. (For that reason, I sent a copy of the novel to the fellow I sold an A/C unit to years ago when we were both grad students—he’s now chancellor at an important university. I hope he had fun reading the novel and remembering our shared experiences in a quantum mechanics class!)

Note that both that Times reporter and I used the term “multiverse,” not “metaverse.” Lord knows why Zuckerberg chose the latter as his new trademark. “Meta” is short for the latter that conjures up metaphysics, ESP, and all that, while “multiverse” appropriately conjures up “The Many Worlds of Quantum Mechanics,” a consistent interpretation of the foundations of the theory created by Hugh Everett III about the same time Richard Feynman invented quantum electrodynamics (both were students of John Wheeler at Princeton). (If it conjures up Dr. Strange’s new movie, you’re too much in the Marvel Universe, which is pure fantasy!)

One of my motivations for my short story and novel was to avoid the paradoxes of time travel (that might be a motivation for the reviewed movie as well?). My two time travelers jump from universe to universe within the multiverse, but some universes have events similar to our own past while others have ones that could be a peek into our own future.

And why is the novel a rom-com? The “com” part is easy: The story doesn’t take itself too seriously (a lot more serious than Dr. Strange’s, though), puts the principal characters in humorous albeit dangerous situations, and pokes fun at our past, present, and possible futures. The “rom”? None of that schmaltzy crap like in The Time Traveler’s Wife! There’s romance brewing between the two protagonists, although it’s a bit bawdy at times (a la Benny Hill, if you’re not too young to remember that British import, i.e. funny and bawdy, with some pokes at spy thrillers because protagonist Gail is not only a genius but also a female James Bond). Sci-fi and be both romantic and comedic, although my more serious works usually don’t emphasize either one. (You can think of the novel as a sci-fi version of Skinny Dipping.)

I experimented with the novel more than the short story. I wanted to see if I could carry tongue-in-cheek humor throughout the run of the novelistic marathon. I also wanted to give the two main characters equal parts—Gail, the sexy scientist, and Jeff, her more serious Black techie. (Of course, that latter is an experiment itself. Most literature, even comedy, is misogynistic, so I purposely reversed the roles!) To help accomplish that, I alternate between first-person Gail and first-person Jeff. (That might be as confusing as those jumps between universes, I suppose, but, in the spirit of Gail’s “time machine,” the novel was a literary experiment.)

I had a lot of fun writing the novel. I hope you have as much fun reading it. (I don’t know about the movie.)

***

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A Time Traveler’s Guide Through the Multiverse. Enrico Fermi wasn’t the last physicist who was both an experimental and theoretical genius, but Professor Gail Hoff will never receive the Nobel Prize. She goes time-traveling through several universes of the multiverse, never to return to her little lab outside Philly. Jeff Langley, her jack-of-all-trades electronics wizard, accompanies her. Their escapades, both amorous and adventurous, make this sci-fi rom-com a far-out road-trip story filled with dystopian and post-apocalyptic situations, first encounter, robots and androids—all that and more await the reader who rides along.

At PubProgressive.com tomorrow: “Do we trust Elon Musk?”

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

[Note from Steve: You can consider this article a follow-up to my 4/22 post. Like my novels, the two articles can be read independently!]

Thank God for books! Even before Covid, I was watching less and less TV. Frankly, it sucks now! Except for PBS and few news programs on CNN (OK, ABC News offers some entertainment value as I count how many times David Muir says “of course”), there’s not much network TV has to offer. Cable is worse and has more ads than the traditional networks, and ads are soon coming to streaming video (Netflix saw its stock plummet after announcing that, and Disney+ soon will too if De Santis doesn’t kill the company first—how’s that lawsuit against that Florida fascist coming along?).

I’ve stopped watching sitcoms completely except for Bob [Hearts] Abishola. At least that one’s funny sometimes; all the others are forgettable drivel or just old. (You can still watch reruns of Mash, All in the Family, and Two and a Half Men. Those episodes are still funny, but really? How many times can you repeat them?)

Sitcoms are still better than game shows or contests. Although classics like Jeopardy and Wheel might have some medical benefit by keeping contestants and elderly people’s minds sharp, none of the first’s aging viewers could ever have the reflexes needed; in fact, most normal people don’t spend their lives remembering trivia that the show’s production team dredges up. (As an author, I often do have to dredge up some historical trivia for my stories, but Google is my friend…sometimes.) And the elderly would be better off doing crossword puzzles instead of watching Wheel. Other game shows are just gimmicky and stupid. Contests have also become drivel, with The Masked Singer probably the worst I’ve ever seen, recently stooping so low to have Giuliani as a contestant. I also would have walked off the stage in disgust along with Dr. Ken but that’s Fox for you, the channel I’ve always boycotted ever since they cancelled that show about time travel and dinosaurs!

In general, dramas have been the most damaged by ads and new and incompetent screenwriters, though, maybe more so than Fox. I’ll admit that an hour of a dramatic episode isn’t enough to develop a good plot, especially when you consider that time’s reduced to forty minutes or less when you account for tine spent on those inane ads. And a series might start out OK—for example, FBI looked promising—but then the new crop of screenwriters quickly run out of ideas and become formulaic (like Big Five authors!)—the plots become unoriginal, trivial, cliched, and irrelevant; and the characters become two-dimensional caricatures of real human beings, just icons and avatars of banality. The directors (do they deserve that name?) often try to solve this problem with “crossover episodes” (three FBI episodes in a row is a bit too much torture, though), a “solution” that turns a drama into a soap opera.

Of course (David Muir, are you smiling?), this is all just a trickle-down effect from Hollywood movies to TV. They’re all embracing the incompetent screenwriting from “blockbuster movies” (that usually means they’re bombs, like Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story) to rom-coms (“rom” all too often translates to unrealistic erotica or even porn, and “com” becomes bawdy behavior and bodily humor which appeals to no one who’s even half sane).

I’ll admit that Hollywood directors and producers, their screenwriters, and their actors are probably just trying to meet public demand, which summarizes a lot of negative things about the viewing public and the flaws of modern society. Huxley was wrong about soma in Brave New World: The public’s drug is TV. (Modern viewers probably don’t even know who Huxley was or why his book is important.) Of course (get out of here, David Muir), they might be watching TV drunk and stoned out of their minds, so it probably doesn’t matter much what they watch as long as it keeps them awake enough for the next drink or the hit.

Read a good book lately? Congratulations! I have too. Lots in fact. (That damned Amazon keeps count on my Kindle…maybe revenge for boycotting them when publishing my books?) Keep reading, my friends. It’s a lot better than what you’ll find on TV!

***

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Have I convinced you? Are you ready for some binge-reading? People often binge-watch an entire season of sit-coms or dramas. Ugh! It’s much more entertaining to binge-read the entire “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series of novels. Follow Esther’s many dangerous adventures, often driven by her desire to find justice for innocent victims and the exploited, obsessions often putting herself and her Dutchman, Bastiann van Coevorden, in peril. The two are twenty-first century versions of Christie’s Marple and Poirot, with Esther a bit more active and agile than the former and Bastiann just as cerebral but less pretentious than the latter. In Rembrandt’s Angel, Esther pursues a painting stolen by the Nazis in World War II; in Son of Thunder, she’s in a race to find the tomb of St. John the Divine; in Death on the Danube, she helps Bastiann run a murder investigation on their honeymoon cruise; in Palettes, Patriots, and Pillocks, she defends an American artist; in Leonardo and the Quantum Code, she struggles to protect an old friend whose code for quantum computers is pursued by three major powers; Defanging the Red Dragon is about China’s desire to steal software and hardware upgrades for nuclear subs; Intolerance begins a fight against right-wing terrorists whose mission is to purge migrants and refugees from Britain; and The Klimt Connection continues that battle against extremists after the couple’s flat is bombed. To binge-read this exciting series, you’ll have to do a bit of sleuthing of your own: The ebook versions are available wherever quality ebooks are solid (the above link takes you to them on B&N), but Dragon and Intolerance are only available in PDF format as free downloads on this website. The first three novels have print versions (seen in the illustration) brought to you by Penmore Press and Carrick Publishing. Numbers four, five, and eight are published by Draft2Digital and not available on Amazon. Enjoy!

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

“Inspector Ravenscroft” Series. Kerry Tombs, author (10 novels from Joffe Books). Many of my readers know that my “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” novels (see below)  have progressively become more in the British style as the series progresses. Maybe not so well known are my short fiction collections of tales written in the British style. (There are four: The first three are titled Sleuthing, British-Style and the fourth is simply titled The Detectives. See the “Books & Short Stories” web page.) I’ve binge-read entire series of British-style mystery novels as well and have become quite the fan.

Consider all that an homage to Agatha Christie whose seminal novels in the genre entertained me for many hours as a young reader, which led me to wonder why she never put her two famous sleuths, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, together in a novel. (I rectified that. Esther Brookstone is a twenty-first century and more agile version of Miss Marple while paramour and later husband, Bastiann van Coevorden, looks like David Suchet in his role of Poirot.)

One thing that makes this Ravenscroft series unique is that the novels are set in nineteenth century England, in contrast to my twenty-first century Brookstone novels; to be specific, this is the Victorian era. Let me warn you: If you’re expecting romantic nostalgia, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Instead, you’ll see the British Empire and the world for what it truly was back then—gritty, often deadly, and with crime occurring at all levels of society. Most of the series takes place in England, but one novel has Ravenscroft traveling to New York City, so the reader can see the international aspects of the squalor hiding below the surface of genteel societies of the time.

The main character, Detective Inspector Ravenscroft, comes from Whitechapel in London, an area of poverty and crime, leaving his post at Scotland Yard just before the series of murders committed by Jack the Ripper, to become a gifted and respected crime-solver in Worcestershire.

In his very first case, he partners with Constable Crabb, who accompanies and aids him throughout many cases. He also meets his future wife, Lucy; she even participates in a few cases later in the series.

I hesitantly approached this series initially—I’m not nostalgic for nineteenth-century life. But the series grew on me. I sailed through the novels, the epitome of entertaining and clever mystery “page-turners.” I felt a great sense of loss whin I finished the tenth and last novel, appropriately titled Ravenscroft’s Last Case. I hope that one day I might be able to thank the author for the many hours of reading entertainment provided.

And readers of this blog, please note the name of the publishing house that I also profusely thank: I’d wager that half the British-style mystery novels I’ve binge-read are from that publisher. They’ve been consistently good. (You will find a list of British-style mystery novels, many in a series, that I’ve updated with successive publications of Sleuthing, British-Style. If I offer another collection, I will surely add the Ravenscroft series to that list!)

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More binge-reading? You have the opportunity to do just that with the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series. Follow Esther’s many dangerous adventures in these eight novels (three are pictured), often driven by her desire to find justice for innocent victims and the exploited, obsessions often putting herself and her Dutchman, Bastiann van Coevorden, in peril. The two are twenty-first century versions of Christie’s Marple and Poirot, with Esther a bit more active and agile than the former and Bastiann just as cerebral but less pretentious than the latter. In Rembrandt’s Angel, Esther pursues a painting stolen by the Nazis in World War II; in Son of Thunder, she’s in a race to find the tomb of St. John the Divine; in Death on the Danube, she helps Bastiann run a murder investigation on their honeymoon cruise; in Palettes, Patriots, and Pillocks, she defends an American artist; in Leonardo and the Quantum Code, she struggles to protect an old friend whose code for quantum computers is pursued by three major powers; Defanging the Red Dragon is about China’s desire to steal software and hardware upgrades for nuclear subs; Intolerance begins a fight against right-wing terrorists whose mission is to purge migrants and refugees from Britain; and The Klimt Connection continues that battle against extremists after the couple’s flat is bombed. To binge-read this exciting series, you’ll have to do a bit of sleuthing of your own: The ebook versions are available wherever quality ebooks are solid (the link above takes you to them on B&N), but Dragon and Intolerance are only available in PDF format as free downloads on this website. The first three novels (pictured) have print versions brought to you by Penmore Press and Carrick Publishing. Numbers four, five, and eight are published by Draft2Digital and not available on Amazon. Enjoy!

At PubProgressive.com tomorrow: “Hey, Russians, who’s gonna pay for Putin’s War?”

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Amazon charged third-party vendors $103 billion in fees in 2021, which represents 22% of the company’s revenues. Guess what! Every self-published author and every traditional publisher (even the Big Five) are third-party vendors. This hurts everyone in the publishing business, more self-published authors and small presses than the Big Five publishing conglomerates that just shrug it off as the cost of doing business.

Of course, Amazon has been sticking it to the publishing industry for a long time. They make it out like it’s a “big deal” that they only take 30% royalties (if your ebook is priced at $2.99 or more). That’s the self-published author’s third-party vendors fee. The only thing good about that is the charge is per unit sold, not a one-time fee. (Third-party vendors of toilet plungers and Big Five books probably have an overall fee added to that per unit fee to make up that N%.) Otherwise, authors don’t get many services for that 30% rip-off, nothing worthwhile beyond a place to sell books. Every vendor on Amazon, which includes book vendors, has to pay for ads. (I wonder what percentage of Amazon’s revenue comes from that!)

Amazon is a danger to sellers and consumers for two major reasons: Not only do they make far too much money in third-party fees without offering any useful services, they’re becoming a huge monopoly. The A in USA might become Amazon if present trends continue as far as consumerism goes.

And think about this: Amazon enforces lower prices so that vendors end up paying even more! Consumers might love that, but vendors have to sell more units to stay afloat. This can seem attractive at first for the vendor as well, simply because Amazon’s reach goes far beyond most local distributors, but if the product is a specialized one, i.e. having only a small niche market to begin with, they would be better off creating their own website and selling their products there.

Authors don’t even have access to the meager services Amazon offers them unless they’re exclusive to Amazon. Most would be far better off “going wide,” i.e. avoid Amazon exclusivity and distributing to multiple book retailers and library and lending services (the latter lend books for the price of membership and often have a “to buy” offer if the reader wants to keep the ebook). Multiple retail sites usually imply more product sales in general. This tactic also applies to other product vendors who believe that the Amazon octopus will do so much for their sales that they forget about other retail outlets. Even selling products from a company website can do more than Amazon!

Amazon’s tactic is clear: They’re out to eliminate all competition. It’s a tactic that many big corporations have in this era of multinationals’ excesses and monopolistic attitudes. Giving them free rein to do this cannot be good for the US or the world!

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New freebies available. If you need lead-ins to The Klimt Connection, #8 in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, there are #6 and #7 in the series. There’s also the new collection The Detectives and the newest revision of my little course “Writing Fiction.” All these free PDF downloasds can be found on my “Free Stuff & Contersts” web page. Happy downloading!

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

While I read a lot of non-fiction (see some of my recommendations on my “Steve’s Bookshelf” web page), I avoid celebs’ books as if they were a more virulent variant of Covid-19. Of course, they might not even qualify as non-fiction because the excellent ghost writers hired are given the toxic task of putting lipstick on a pig, i.e. serve the PR function of improving the celebs’ images, which often means at least lying by omission.

Of course, these excellent ghost writers give the supposed “authors” of these books free rein to enjoy their narcissism in a more respectable setting than on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites. But the question must be asked: Can readers find anything worth reading in celebs’ books beyond a plethora of first-person pronouns? Maybe a better question: Can readers learn anything worthwhile beyond being blatantly narcissistic? Many readers know how to do that already, after all; Facebook is well-populated by them.

I should temper my critique slightly by saying that biographies and autobiographies by celebs could in principle be worthwhile. We can learn from someone who has lived their life well and made a difference because that can motivate a reader to do the same. In this sense, if the celeb is a politico or philanthropist, this can produce a multiplier effect.

Frankly though, celebs’ books wouldn’t even exist if the Big Five couldn’t make money off them. They feed off the celebrity of the “authors,” and use that to appeal to the prurient readers who are fans of such narcissists. The Big Five make a ton of money off those books, and I’m sure that most readers who read them rarely read anything else worthwhile. There are plenty of good books out there, even some published by the Big Five, and they represent a higher quality of reading entertainment.

My reading advice about celebs’ books is the same for all books; it’s a variation on that X-Files theme: Trust no celeb’s book! More than likely it’s trash. It’s also likely to have all the negatives I’ve mentioned above. Your reading time is valuable. Spend it wisely.

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Comments are always welcome. (Please follow the rules found on my “Join the Conversation” web page. If you don’t, your comment will go to spam.)

New freebies available. If you need lead-ins to The Klimt Connection, #8 in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, there are #6 and #7 in the series. There’s also the new collection The Detectives and the newest revision of my little course “Writing Fiction.” All these free PDF downloasds can be found on my “Free Stuff & Contersts” web page. Happy downloading!

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Hollywood aka Tinsel Town has always been self-absorbed and disconnected from ordinary life. Two things occurred at the recent Oscar ceremonies that can only reinforce that perception: One, many people were up in arms about Will Smith’s justifiable defense of his wife; and two, the Academy didn’t let Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy speak. Both show how obscenely sick the Academy is, and how sick our society has become, in general.

No one went after Chris Rock’s mockery of Will Smith’s wife, an insulting display from an uncaring comic on a par with ex-President Trump’s mockery of that reporter. Chris should have apologized to Will and his wife; Will had no need to apologize to Chris. Will did the noble thing and defended his wife.

Dissing Zelenskyy was also over the top. Hollywood pretends it’s so damn liberal and so caring about the world’s problems. BS! Actors, directors, producers, screenwriters—they’re mostly self-centered SOBs! At the very least, they live in a parallel dimension, disconnected from the realities of common people. They want to be like ostriches, effectively burying their heads in the sand to avoid the harshness of other people’s plights.

Compare Oscars night with Grammys night. For the latter, no one took sides in the Smith-Rock controversy; it was barely mentioned. (For counter balance, I would have preferred that someone went after Chris Rock, of course, and his style of comedy.) But John Legend and many other performers showed the world that musicians really do care, in contrast to Hollywood. Moreover, Zelenskyy was allowed to speak! The music industry is clearly better than the movie industry. Maybe that’s because musicians, like writers, have a moral spine that those in Hollywood lack? They believe in humanity more and can empathize with people’s suffering.

To these comments, I would add that the Oscars were otherwise dead and irrelevant to people’s lives, whereas the Grammys were alive and relevant in the lyrics and music of the songs. Like books, music needs no visuals—they both reach into the human soul, a lot more than the droll drivel that Hollywood now passes off as film art.

I suggest to everyone reading this post that you boycott movies, listen to music, and read books. You’re life will be much more meaningful if you do. I know mine will.

And this review of all of Hollywood will be my last movie review! It’s one that disses the entire movie industry. I shall never see another movie!

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The Klimt Connection. This eighth novel in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series takes a close look at the war between democracy and autocracy at the local level as Esther, Bastiann, and friends battle far-right domestic terrorists out to kill migrants and refugees. The HQ for all the action is an MI5 safehouse where the crime-fighting duo must reside because the terrorist bombed their flat. And, of course, art is involved, as a parallel case recalls the horrors of World War II. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold (just not on Amazon). Novels #6 and #7 are free PDF downloads (see the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page).

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

When I used to do book events (Covid has temporarily ended them), people would often ask, “Where should I start? What’s your best book?” Because I have several in my oeuvre and write in several genres—let’s call them mysteries, thrillers, and sci-fi, or their combinations—these are difficult questions to answer. When I hand someone my business card (I always carry a few with me), I often receive similar questions. So what are my answers?

First, I feel a bit like proud parents with several children must feel. Each kid is different, we love them all, and we try to have no favorites. At any particular time, one child might require more attention than the others, or remind us of pleasant but different memories. But really, after nurturing a kid for some time, how can we choose?

Second, there are too many criteria. Is it the first book that produced so much personal euphoria when it was published? (For me, that was in 2006, quite a while ago!) Is it the most meaningful book? Is it the one that nearly wrote itself? Or the one I struggled with and gave a sigh of relief when the novel-wiring marathon ended?

Third, I have no breakout books, so my choice could hardly be the book that made me the most money! It also can’t be the one where I got the most critical acclaim—I don’t have one of those either. (Critics rarely consider anything but Big Five books!) Good reviews, sure, but no famous book critic has lauded one of my books. And frankly, neither a breakout book or a critically acclaimed one would influence how I determine my best book. And I’m the author, so my opinion counts most!

Maybe binge-readers out there would prefer I name my favorite series? That’s also hard to do. I have a few of those too, and they’re all so different. I’m fond of the “Clones and Mutants” series but maybe only because Full Medical, the first book in the series, was also my first published book. I’m also fond of the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” series with its novels a mix of emphasis between thriller and mystery stories and interesting characters, but maybe that’s because the first novel of that series, The Midas Bomb, seemed to write itself (as did most of the books in that series!).

Maybe my best book is the most serious one? That’s an easy choice. Not only is Son of Thunder a metaphysical tour de force, it’s The Da Vinci Code done right, i.e. without Dan Brown’s appeal to hoaxes and Catholic conspiracy theories (okay, in my book, there are a few theories—that’s why that mystery/thrilled can be called historical fiction) but they’re based on fact). Of course, the last book in the series (so far), The Klimt Connection, is politically meaningful, so maybe that’s a tossup (see the ad below).

So…my answer has to be: I don’t know which one of my books you’ll like best! Readers likes and dislikes are all over the board. All I can say is the Steven M. Moore who’s just finished one novel-writing marathon is a bit different than the one who ran the previous ones. And that’s a good thing too: One has to grow with their children!

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Comments are always welcome. (Please follow the rules on the “Join the Conversation” web page, though. If you don’t, your comment will go into the spam folder.)

The Klimt Connection. This eighth novel in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series takes a close look at the war between democracy and autocracy at the local level as Esther, Bastiann, and friends battle far-right domestic terrorists out to kill migrants and refugees. The HQ for all the action is an MI5 safehouse where the crime-fighting duo must reside because the terrorist bombed their flat. And, of course, art is involved, as a parallel case recalls the horrors of World War II. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold (just not on Amazon). Novels #6 and #7 are free PDF downloads (see the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page).

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

I don’t dwell on either food or drink in my stories, but I can have some fun with them. In a sense, they both come under the writing category “settings” because what people dine on and imbibe is characteristic of the general area where the story takes place.

But is tikka masala or baklava characteristic of London? Yes, first because my character Esther Brookstone loves both, and second because London is a cosmopolitan city—Indian food is prevalent (London’s Brick Lane is famous) because India was part of Britain’s colonial past; and Britain, despite Brexit, is still part of Europe, so European cuisine is well represented (baklava is widespread in eastern Mediterranean countries and specifically in Greece).

Many big cities are cosmopolitan—I had my first curry in Boston and my first baklava in Bogota, Colombia—that’s the nature of large cities. When I write about dining in these cities, I worry about yielding to cliches; it’s natural to do that following the adage “When in Rome…” and motivated by the desire to provide local color. Readers presume the best pulled pork might be found in Savannah, the best clam chowder in Boston, and the best dim sung in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

Those typical, regional and ethnic dishes also allow an author to play against stereotype as well. A character invites someone out for a fancy dinner and says about the target restaurant, “I’ve found that X serves Y as good as any you can find in Z!” In fact, that might just impress the invitee even more because the inviter has found X.

Of course, beverages can play a similar role. I probably go overboard with teatime in my British-style mysteries (the “Esther Brookstone” novels have become more British as the series progresses), but teatime is still very much a part of British (and Irish!) life. And frankly, the real reason is that I like tea almost as much as I like coffee! (My fav tea is Earl Grey. And, living in Colombia 10+ years addicted me to the world’s best coffee.)

So…use the Goldilocks Principle: Just enough about food and drink, not too much, not too little…and have some fun with both!

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Comments are always welcome. (Please follow the rules on the “Join the Conversation” web page. Failure to do so sends your comment to the spam folder.)

The Klimt Connection. Did you miss this “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series addition, Book Eight in the series? It’s available wherever quality ebooks are sold (but not on Amazon). Better yet: Have a binge-read! Novels #6 and #7 are free PDF downloads. See the list on the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page where you will find other free fiction as well.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Authors have a variety of tools and using them throughout a story can make it more interesting. I’m better at dialogue than body language, but maybe that’s because I think the first is more effective than the second. But the second can be effective in a mystery, though, because it might contradict the first…and that’s one positive for using a variety of tools.

A good detective, for example, learns to read body language, especially in interrogations, because there are tells there that contradict a suspect’s words. I’m certain that most readers don’t have that ability; I certainly don’t. So, even if I describe some body language in a story, assuming I do it correctly, I have to ask myself  whether a reader will recognize “what’s being said” without me explaining. That goes against my general minimalist writing philosophy, where I like to give the reader just enough information so they can participate in the creative process. Moreover, it interrupts the flow of the fiction.

I suppose the use of body language can be considered an example of “show, don’t tell,” but “don’t tell” is referring more to excess narrative. Using body language is generally short narrative, but its overuse could be excessive and boring.

In the abstract, dialogue is better than body language, and, whether “writing experts” like it or not, that’s how human beings communicate. Your pet uses body language because it’s not human. Maybe some animals’ innate languages (chimps, dolphins, etc.) are mostly a mix of sounds and body language, but dialogue is more important for us simply because we are human. Writers are human; so are readers.

Perhaps what’s more important are the words used to describe body language and dialogue, direct or indirect. I’ve seen -ly adverbs overused for both, for example. The flow in the prose determines the quality of both body language and dialogue. If the use of either one hinders that flow, that’s not good. Even within a flashback or backstory segment, the flow must move forward. Flow isn’t a tool; it’s a process that’s supported by an author’s toolbox and much more important than any single tool.

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Comments are always welcome. (Please follow the rules on the “Join the Conversation” web page. Failure to do so sends your comment to the spam folder.)

The Klimt Connection. Did you miss this “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series addition, Book Eight in the series? It’s available wherever quality ebooks are sold (but not on Amazon). Better yet: Have a binge-read! Novels #6 and #7 are free PDF downloads. See the list on the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page where you will find other free fiction as well.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Draft2Digital (D2D) is the best way to self-publish because a lot can be DIY and they distribute your ebooks for you. I’ve done five ebooks with them now (the last, The Klimt Connection, Book Eight in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, was published March 18, maybe with the added motivation from two red ales on draft to celebrate St. Paddy’s Day?). I learn a bit each time I use D2D, so I’d like to pass on some advice I’ve developed while doing this.

First, let me state that I saw no references to the D2D-Smashwords merger when I published The Klimt Connection. I expected to see something, but the whole process was the same, and it’s easy. About Smashwords, nada, rien, zilch. (I suspect they’re still in beta-testing. They’ve been beta-testing a print option forever (so don’t use D2D if you want print!).

How smoothly the process goes depends a lot on how well you prepare and what choices you make, though. So…let me offer some free advice:

Cover. Yeah, I know, it’s the last thing authors usually think about. (I doubt the Big Five publishing conglomerates think enough about covers—some of the worst covers I’ve seen recently, not much more than PowerPoint slides, are on their books.) I’ve found it’s best to get into the writing a bit and take breathers once and a while to think about a cover. Even if you purchase a ready-made, inexpensive, but unique cover (bookcoverdesigner.com is a good source), getting a good cover takes some thought. That can be stimulated by sorting through samples. There are many prices to choose from, but don’t assume a higher price implies a better cover, because frankly many covers are over-priced (it’s a buyers’ market!). An ebook cover is just one .jpeg file from a graphics artist hungry to make some extra bucks, after all. The artist will put your title, subtitle (if any), and author’s name in suitable fonts and suitable colors for the background. Take the final result and store it in the same folder as your manuscript (MS).

Manuscript prep. Your MS must be tailored to D2D’s formatting engine. This isn’t hard to do, but your MS file won’t look like anything you might release as a free PDF either (which I do a lot). Don’t use page breaks; use four or five carriage returns instead. Don’t use tabs; set your overall indenting to automatic on the first line of a paragraph, and kill that indenting only for chapter headings and so forth, centering the latter after the four or five page returns, if appropriate (chapter breaks but not section breaks). You don’t need a title page or copyright page—the formatting software can do that for you—but you can also include your own instead. Same for front and end material. I pay special attention to the latter—mine’s complicated, and I try to make all my ebooks look similar. (I only let D2D do the title page, if that. After all, the title’s on the cover.)

Begin the formatting process. First, upload your cover, then upload your MS.

D2D formats your ebook. That begins with the previous uploads. You’ll see a preview appear in the D2D preview window. Now you have some choices to make. I just choose their standard ebook formatting. That’s fine for me, and I suspect some of the fancy options can cause problems because I won’t like the look. (A book is a book, so why all that genre-specific crap?) There are some options you might consider, though: Do you want a title page? Copyright page? Clickable table of contents? In The Klimt Connection, I ignored the title page, put in my own copyright page, and ignored the contents page.

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