[Note from Steve: In the collection Sleuthing, British-Style, I introduce DI Clarke and DS Blake in three short stories as a homage to British-style mysteries. While the following didn’t make it to novel status (as the British coppers might have wanted, and I suggested might eventually happen one day), or the self-imposed editorial deadline for that collection (as a test case for Draft2Digital), you might find the following short story equally entertaining.]

Mr. Gualchmai

Copyright 2021, Steven M. Moore

Chapter One

DI Clarke’s search for a new winter coat had been interrupted by a domestic squabble. Constables were taking the drunken bully to arraignment and jail, his family jewels probably still aching from Clarke’s well-placed kick; his bruised and battered girlfriend had been taken to the hospital, lucky that her only serious injury was a broken arm; and their two children were under the care of a family liaison officer, pending legal proceedings to protect them.

Clarke usually went into Oxford to shop if she had the time, so it had been lucky for the woman and her children she had decided to hit the smaller local Riversford shopping district first. The DI decided to celebrate one more win against misogynist brutes by enjoying a mash up in a small coffee bar she favored. Usually replete with noisy students from the various colleges at Oxford University, even that far out from the city, the spot was quiet now. Michaelmas term was over and few students were in the area. Some faculty had also made their exodus for the lengthy holiday.

The little café, if the spot with its four little tables and three stools at a counter deserved such an appellation, sat on a narrow side street, yet the locals looked for it. It was mostly empty now, and the street also empty of traffic. It was too early for Christmas shoppers, and the gray, dreary day wouldn’t have beckoned to many shoppers at any rate. She liked to shop in those conditions, though. The denser the crowds, the more obnoxious and pushy they became.

From her small table, she was in the perfect spot to see the explosion in the building across the street from her. Flames shot out third-story windows as they first engulfed that floor. The conflagration had seemed instantaneous.

“Say, ma’am, you didn’t pay,” said the waiter as she dashed out the door.

***

“You arrived quickly,” Clarke said to DS Blake. “Aren’t you supposed to be scanning those communication records?”

Logan Blake turned a bit red. “I met Sally for lunch. We were just down the street.”

Clarke only nodded and continued to watch the flames consume the building. But the brigade soon had the fire under control and carried out three bodies. Clarke recognized the assistant fire chief watching the exodus and moved forward. Blake followed.

“What’s the story, Archie?” she asked. “Gas leak?”

She’d recognize those watery blue eyes, fat jowls, and walrus-style mustache anywhere; they belied the man’s real conditioning. Huge Archibald Watson was an intelligent man who was strong enough to carry either Clarke or Blake down a ladder on one shoulder.

“Our team is just beginning what we do after any fire, Patty. For now, this looks like an accident. Maybe a shorted electrical wire? Building’s old, but fortunately mostly empty. The victims are the building’s owner, his wife, and son.”

“Tragic,” said Blake. “The building is in bad shape. I suppose the other tenants were students. How do you know the older male is the building’s owner?”

“Recognized him. Whole family died of smoke inhalation. Only the young lad has any burns. One nearest the apartment’s door, they tell me. ‘Scuse.”

Watson moved forward to meet a tall man who had just exited the building. They conversed a bit and then the fireman returned to the two detectives.

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[Note from Steve: Readers of this blog have already read about some of the publishing history of The Last Humans: A New Dawn. I continue the discussion of that ebook here, focusing more on the content in this post.]

My readers know that I often separate sections of a novel with a quote: Rembrandt’s Angel uses George Bernard Shaw quotes, Son of Thunder has quotes from St. John the Divine, and so forth (the third book in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” Series, Death on the Danube, is partitioned naturally by cruise days). I also use quotes for that purpose in my new post-apocalyptic thriller The Last Humans: A New Dawn (it’s less post-apocalyptic and more standard thriller than the first book).

When I do this, I have a lot of fun searching for each section’s quote. Mind you, these aren’t quotes about writing or publishing. I’ve collected plenty of those, but, while pithy, they rarely relate to sections of a novel. So my search continues.

My new book starts with the following quote: “The species will continue, whatever apocalypse we manage to unleash. It just won’t be much fun to live through.”—Naomi Alderman. That sets the tone of the novel. As in The Last Humans, we continue to follow the adventures of main character Penny Castro as she struggles to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. She has a family now (husband, an adopted child, two of their own children, as well as a Jewish patriarch), so the story isn’t just about her anymore.

And that’s where Senator and war hero John McCain comes in. Penny finds herself in a POW camp in a strange land in one section, so I start that section with a quote from Mr. McCain: “As far as this business of solitary confinement goes, the most important thing for survival is communication with someone, even if it’s only a wave or a wink, a tap on the wall, or to have a guy put his thumb up. It makes all the difference.”

Here’s my rationale for using this quote (taken from the end notes to the novel): “While this novel is about future politics (more like foreign relations and diplomacy, to be precise), I should add a word about my mentioning John McCain. Most of my readers won’t be surprised when I state that I disagreed with a lot of his political positions. He was honest about them, though, and, unlike some, a true conservative. He also believed in the dialogue so necessary to maintain a thriving democracy. Mr. McCain might have beaten Mr. Obama if he hadn’t rebelled against Republican heavyweights to choose Sarah Palin as running mate. Yet there are many good things that will forever set him above party politics too: His refusal to leave the Hanoi Hilton unless his fellow prisoners were also released; his answer to the woman who asked in the 2008 campaign if Mr. Obama was a Muslim terrorist; and his refusal to vote to end Obama’s ACA, which enraged President Trump—that decision saved millions of Americans’ health care, and I also see it as sweet revenge for Trump dissing McCain during the 2016 campaign for being captured during the Vietnam War (Trump sat that war out to take care of his “bone spurs”). His ultimate jab at Trump occurred in the 2020 campaign after his death when his wife endorsed Joe Biden and Arizona went blue for that Democratic candidate (the Dems also won a senate seat there [all but forgotten now because of events in Georgia]). Of course, that stance in the Vietnam War era is why McCain is mentioned in this novel. John McCain was a true American hero, and everyone should recognize that, no matter what political proclivities they have.”

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[Note from Steve: From time to time, I’ll post free short fiction here—short stories or novellas from A. B. Carolan or me. You can download more—see the list on my “Free Stuff & Contests” web page. This one from A. B. might be a fitting albeit humorous epitaph for 2020, or at least for the four-year aberration that was Donald J. Trump. If you don’t like that, you’re part of the problem…so please do not read this story.]

War Ruins

Copyright 2021, A. B. Carolan

“There was a conventional warfare fought on this continent, your excellency.”

K’Pak kicked aside some shards only to uncover more bones. “You mean non-nuclear? We know the natives had nuclear power. The defunct power plants are well-documented.”

“More so on other continents. Perhaps they didn’t know how to make bombs. Or didn’t want to.”

“That’s conjecture, and it would be surprising for primitives. I need facts, K’Glim. We’re scientists who deal in facts, not conjectures. The sooner you young people learn that, the better.”

“My team has prepared a briefing for you, your excellency. There are many artifacts and fossilized remains to back up our arguments. Armies were defending and attacking all through this continent, up and down the coasts mainly, but also in some central urban areas. Possibly an intense civil war took place.”

“Let’s see your evidence then. You must might have the first piece of interesting research for this planetary site.” The lead scientist spun around, his four eyes locking onto a distant figure. “What’s that?”

K’Glim followed K’Pak’s line-of-sight to where a two-eyed creature stood among some ruins staring at them. The young scientist rubbed his top two eyes, an expression of surprise.

“I believe he’s one of them, your excellency. A very young one.”

“How can that be? I thought the survey ship indicated they were extinct. We can’t colonize here if the natives are still around. And this continent is the only suitable one for that.”

Everywhere else the planet’s land masses were arid and inhospitable. The only usable land left was on this continent, with its huge river meandering right down its middle, draining most of the continent. Such a river system would be perfect for creating a self-sustainable colony.

Their ten-year task was to find anything useful for their museums, relics from yet another planet that they thought had committed suicide.

But if there were survivors?

***

K’Glim and many of the other students soon forgot about their back-breaking research; they trailed behind K’Pak and K’Glim as the young native presumably led them to his tribe. K’Glim heard some mutterings about walking into a trap, but he doubted the youngster was that devious. He had genuflected to K’Pak. Perhaps recognizing that the tall scientist was their leader? And with their firepower, no primitive tribe could stand up to them anyway.

The youngster didn’t seem to fear them, though, but when they arrived at the caves, some of his people did.

It was soon apparent that their civilization was partly intact. Of course, none of the equipment used in that civil war long ago was still around, but they had language. The tribal leaders pointed at their visitors and seemed to be having an intense discussion while the females moaned and swayed, prostrated on the ground, and even younger children eyed them with suspicion.

Soon a larger native separated from the group and approached the scientists. He was smeared in some ceremonial orange dye. He was older than the rest, so K’Pak assumed he was the tribe’s chief or shaman. His hair was dyed too and its layers were combed over each other to hide his baldness. He bowed to K’Pak and then pointed at all the scientists.

“Blue state?” he said.

K’Pak thought the native might be giving the scientific group a name, but he decided to get more personal. First rule about dealing with primitives: Establish a personal connection. He pointed to himself. “K’Pak.”

The native apparently got the idea. He pounded his chest that was covered with sparse, gray fur, belying the color of his hair. “King Donald the Sixth,” he said.

***

Comments are always welcome.

ABC sci-fi mysteries for young adults. My Irish collaborator, A. B. Carolan, whom I met when visiting Blarney Castle (I hope the irony is evident), also writes novels. The Secret Lab, The Secret of the Urns, and Mind Games all feature young girls who rise above their adversity to make a difference. They’re sci-fi because they take place in my sci-fi universe; mystery because the stories are in the grand tradition of Asimov’s sci-fi mystery novels and Heinlein’s Podkayne of Mars novella. They’re ideal reading for all young adults (they make for excellent reading and book reports for those doing remote schooling) and adults who are young at heart (or who need to find quality books for their home-schoolers to read). Available wherever fine ebooks are sold, and also available in print format. Go beyond Harry Potter to true sci-fi.

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

I finished The Last Humans: A New Dawn in the summer of 2019. Since then this sequel to The Last Humans has seems to have a curse on it. Let me list why.

First, I signed a contract for it in December 2019 with Black Opal Books. Version 1.0 of that small press provided an acceptable home for the first book, so, even with a buyout and reorg of the publisher, I incorrectly assumed Black Opal version 2.0 would be delighted to keep the series in house. Wrong! I should have been forewarned by the delays incurred in signing the contract (July to December 2019). After that signing, I never heard from them again. I eventually cancelled the contract.

Second, while I was able to squeeze my other orphaned book, Death on the Danube, into busy Donna Carrick’s schedule (Carrick Publishing) after Penmore Press discontinued the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” Series, she had no time available for The Last Humans: A New Dawn until later in 2021. I’ll admit patience isn’t one of my virtues; I don’t like to leave manuscripts that are already beta-read and edited (even before submission to Black Opal!) sitting around. Besides, both books had already suffered the ubiquitous delays associated with traditional publishers—even small presses usually have full queues. That’s part of their business model.

Third, I had no luck in finding another small press that could be a home for either Death on the Danube or The Last Humans: A New Dawn. Not surprising, I suppose. What publisher would want to take on a series without having the first books in the series in their catalog? Some authors receive a contract for an entire series. I haven’t…and don’t want one. I rarely know there’ll be a series ahead of time. Hell, I don’t even know whether a story I’m writing will become short fiction or a novel! Agencies rejected me; small presses rejected me (I found they were often nothing more than PODs that take a big share of the royalties). I became frustrated and paranoid, figuring it might be revenge taken against me because I’ve self-published so many books. Like any good detective or scientist, I looked at the evidence and made my conclusions.

Fourth, the “Last Humans” Series is post-apocalyptic sci-fi about the main character’s adventures surviving and fighting back after a worldwide pandemic pommels the planet. If I wasn’t sure whether readers would want to read about a fictional pandemic when they’re in the middle of a real one, how could I expect any publisher to risk publishing it?

Yes, the book seemed cursed! But my desire to publish the manuscript and then forget about it overrode all caution. I learned how to publish with Draft2Digital (with the test case Sleuthng, British-Style) and used that ebook aggregator to publish the cursed tale. Lo and behold, a fifth stage of the curse slammed me: There are a few gaffes left in the book either I or my beta-reader/editor missed (and possibly not an exclusive “or”—they’re not that obvious, so most readers will never realize they were made), and I’m the one who has to own them. I do so because I’m a perfectionist and always insist the author has ultimate responsibility for the quality of a book, especially if it’s self-published. (To be precise, D2D is actually something between self- and traditional publishing.)

It’s possible the editors at Black Opal version 2.0 would have caught some of these gaffes. Those at version 1.0 certainly made my life miserable with their content editing of the first book—they tried their darnedest to change the content. But I never heard from anyone at Black Opal version 2.0 after signing the contract, let alone their editors.

So this tale is cursed. Remember that if you see gaffes, and remember my odyssey described in this article. I prefer to forget about it! And this series! At least for now. (If you read it, you’ll see a trilogy is possible. Don’t hold your breath.)

***

Comments are always welcome.

Email newsletter. Interested in news about my writing life like that contained in this post? Do you want access to Smashwords sales of my ebooks? You’ll have to subscribe to my email newsletter. My online newsletter, “News and Notices from the Writing Trenches,” will no longer appear in this blog. By subscribing to the email newsletter, you’ll be able to receive news about reading, writing, and publishing as well as save on my ebooks. Although they’re all reasonably priced, the sales prices are even more of a bargain. If you don’t have a Smashwords account, consider getting one. You’ll have access to a world of ebooks, many not available on Amazon, including mine…and you won’t have that huge retailer breathing down your neck all the time!

The Last Humans: A New Dawn. You might still want to read this sequel, especially if you read the first book, The Last Humans—just for closure. Here’s the blurb:

Penny Castro survived the biowarfare apocalypse and created a family. Her post-apocalyptic idyll on their citrus ranch is interrupted by the US government’s plan to stop another attack…and get some revenge for the first one. Penny and husband Alex, along with others, are drafted to carry out the plan—in their case, forced to do so by the government’s kidnapping of their young children. But the enemy has surprises awaiting them when a submarine delivers them to that foreign shore.

By the way, and as far as I know, the first book is still available from Black Opal Books. I can’t afford to buy back the rights from them! And I don’t want to do so anyway.

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

In a previous article I posted to this blog, I wrote about my experiment with a new (for me) ebook aggregator, Draft2Digital (D2D), that allows an author to “go wide.” It’s now time to write about an even earlier experiment.

The D2D experiment involved The Last Humans: A New Dawn, my most recent novel and sequel to The Last Humans. This second and earlier experiment involves Death on the Danube, #3 in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” Series. I published that book with my reliable Carrick Publishing run by my good friend Donna Carrick, squeezing it into her very busy schedule, so here “going wide” involved the venerable book aggregator Smashwords, now D2D’s competitor. The experiment was a book trailer.

The two experiments are linked, though. I entered The Last Humans, published by Black Opal Books, in a Readers’ Favorite contest, taking the advice of good friend and author Keith Steinbaum; that post-apocalyptic thriller won a consolation prize, a free book trailer (better said, the cost of the trailer corresponded to that of entering the contest). Castelane, run by Kim McDougall, offers several resources for authors, including book trailers. Ms. McDougall was good enough to allow me to use the freebie for Death on the Danube. Here’s the link.

You might have watched some book trailers before. You can’t get away from James Patterson’s, for example; they’re even on network TV channels. (He has to pay for his, or his publisher does, and those TV ad spots add to the cost. Must be nice to have access to marketing funding like that!)

Like movie trailers, book trailers are teasers. They’re designed to capture readers’ attentions so they’ll say, “I have to read that book!” Without any qualifications as a critic of book PR and marketing, and modesty aside, I rather like my trailer. It captures the theme of the book well. I especially like the little segment about the swans showing how Esther and Bastiann were distracted on their honeymoon cruise by the murder investigation.

The important question about a book trailer is the same for all book marketing: Does it do any good? While mine was free as a contest prize, they can be expensive (especially in Patterson’s case!). As a reader, will you buy a book after seeing its trailer? I know some moviegoers are trailer addicts, but what about readers? Are you tempted by a book trailer? Do you even watch them?

Because of the cost, these are important questions. I’ll confess that my own book trailer is the only one I’ve really paid any attention to (I mute Patterson’s just like I do any TV commercial). And I haven’t noticed any uptick in sales figures for Death on the Danube. Maybe it’s too early to tell? And maybe other authors have good experiences with trailers I haven’t heard about. (Please tell me if you have. Because this is a new marketing element for me, I might be doing things all wrong!)

I prefer reading the book or watching the movie to viewing their trailers. While I’m as much a visual person as the next guy (I visualize fight scenes in a thriller, for example, in my own books as well as other authors’), a book trailer doesn’t turn me on anymore than a good book cover (which I pay little attention to unless it’s awful). There’s the audio component too, of course—I like the sound track in mine—but the total package, while pleasant if done right (and Castelane does it right), just doesn’t move me to buy a book. And, for the same price, an author can purchase a lot more conventional marketing help. But that’s maybe just my incorrect opinion.

Let me know what you think.

***

Comments are always welcome.

Happy New Year to everyone. This is the time for resolutions and changes. Here are mine that will affect this blog. First, “News & Notices from the Writing Trenches,” my long-running online newsletter, will no longer be published here. I will continue my email newsletter, which contains recent news about reading, writing, and publishing; information about my books and special sales (available only to email newsletter subscribers); and reading recommendations of other authors’ books. Second, I’m reducing the number of weekly articles from three to one. I’ve already eliminated op-eds (the election is over and it’s time for America to move forward and heal from both COVID and the nightmarish and evil aberration that was Trump), and reducing the number of articles even further will allow me more time to write. You might find that one weekly article to be a little longer and more pithy, though. All of this is subject to change, of course.

Death on the Danube. In #3 in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” Series, Esther Brookstone, ex-MI6 agent in East Berlin in the Cold War, and more recently ex-Scotland Yard Inspector in the Art and Antiques Division, is on her honeymoon with Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden. Their idyllic cruise down the Danube is interrupted when a reclusive and mysterious passenger is murdered. Why was the victim even on that river boat filled with couples, in a stateroom by himself? And who killed him? Esther and Bastiann are often called Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot by wags at the Yard, and this addition to the series might remind readers of Christie’s Death on the Nile or Murder on the Orient Express, but this mystery/thriller is very twenty-first century. So tour the Danube with Esther and Bastiann…and enjoy the ride! Available wherever fine ebooks are sold…and there’s also a print version.

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

[Note from Steve: The content below might seem unusual for the holidays, but I end this article with hope, as I usually do with all my novels. So Happy Holidays everyone…and my wishes for all of you to have a safe and prosperous 2021.]

From Crichton’s Andromeda Strain to my own More than Human: The Mensa Contagion and “The Last Humans” series (The Last Humans and The Last Humans: A New Dawn), apocalyptic pandemics have been part of sci-fi. Before COVID, real pandemics seemed to be things in the distant past—the bubonic plague is ancient history (although it and related diseases rear their ugly heads from time to time), memories of the Spanish flu were lost in the ashes of WWI, and Gabo showed love could be found in the cholera of Third World countries—so it has been up to sci-fi authors to remind the public of the potential perils, including the inability of health systems run by inept leaders to handle these plagues.

While COVID is deadly, my greatest fear has always been that recent advances in genetic engineering could also allow evil people to create a deadly virus that could be weaponized (of course, in the real world, there’s always that biolab near Wuhan!). In the Andromeda Strain and More than Human, the evil ones were ETs (they turned out to mean well in my novel, though). In “The Last Humans” Series, they’re US enemies, humans doing bad things to other humans. Of course, some COVID vaccines are genetically engineered too (based on mRNA, for example), so there can be a good flip side, but even the speedy and recent vaccine development would have a hard time keeping up with a new bioweapon.

Does anyone want to hear about fictional pandemics when a real one is going on? Depends. Certain sectors of human society are anti-science and would rather bury their heads in the sand, preferring to ignore real viruses and warnings related to fictional ones. Others are more open-minded and curious about the science. And still others, dedicated to having fun and not carrying about anyone but themselves, just ignore warnings and guidelines to continue their hedonistic lifestyles, endangering their fellow human beings.

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Both Draft2Digital and Smashwords offer authors the opportunity of “going wide,” i.e. distributing their ebooks to many online retailers in the US and worldwide, and even library and lending services. Why use them? It’s simple: the more retail places an ebook appears, the more chances there are that a reader will purchase it! When you consider B&N has a network of brick-and-mortar stores and Kobo in turn distributes ebooks via its deal with Walmart, there are multiplier effects going on too. Also, many libraries now offer ebooks to their borrowers, and several online services lend them out too. An author’s principal motivation should be to increase readership, and these two aggregators, which allow an author to go wide, offer that opportunity.

I decided quite a while ago that being exclusive on Amazon was a stupid choice for exactly the reasons mentioned above and this hard fact: Amazon thinks it’s the only book retailer and distributes to no one! Apple, B&N, Kobo, and many others sell many ebooks, and readers use those lending services too, including their public libraries. Amazon, by ignoring these other sales outlets, does no favor for authors. They still live in the 20^th century; authors, if only for the competitive state of this business now, must come into the 21^st.

Almost all of my ebooks are available on Smashwords and are therefore available in many places. In fact, I don’t sell many ebooks on Amazon anymore! However, due mostly to circumstances beyond my control (see last week’s article “Orphans”), I decided to try out a new book aggregator for me, Draft2Digital. I’d heard its software was easier than Smashwords’s meatgrinder (an MSWord file is input to software, and out pops various ebook files), so I thought it would at least offer a backup to Smashwords.

The scientist in me made me experiment with a short story collection. I usually give away my short fiction now (see the free PDFs listed on my “Free Stuff & Contests” web page), but Sleuthing, British-Style, a collection of three murder cases, allowed me to test D2D’s services. That test was successful after a few snafus corresponding to hurdles Amazon has erected (they use “quality control” as an excuse to erect them because they like to exploit authors maximally by forcing them to be exclusive). That behind me, I was ready to try a full novel.

The Last Humans: A New Dawn is the sequel to The Last Humans; the first book was traditionally published by Black Opal Books, and the second I self-published using Draft2Digital (some of the sequel’s publishing story is contained in last week’s article). With what I learned in my experiment, I was able to publish the sequel without a hitch. Moreover, I was pleased with the result.

How do these two aggregating services compare once authors have published their ebooks? It’s impossible to say precisely because I can’t publish the same ebook twice; I’m forced to compare apples and oranges. Upfront costs are about the same (editing and cover art). Death on the Danube, my last ebook published via Smashwords, is about the same length, though. (I paid for its formatting, so I won’t consider that cost—that’s one way to avoid their meatgrinder.) Book-launch marketing costs are the same too. So cost-wise, it’s six of one and a half-dozen of the other.

There’s a lot of overlap between the two lists of retailers each aggregating service distributes to (Apple, B&N, Kobo, etc.) as well as lending services, so there’s no reason to suspect that sales numbers would be very different. And, with Smashwords, I have to distribute to Amazon separately via their KDP; D2D did that for me. Of course, Smashwords and D2D take their part of the royalties—the latter’s seems a bit more, but again comparisons are difficult—and this bleed-off is nothing like the percentage of royalties a traditional publisher takes.

My conclusion: Both D2D and Smashwords offer an easy way for authors to go wide, so they really have no excuse: If you’re an author, you should do exactly that and forget about exclusivity with Amazon. You’ll reach a lot more readers that way! Period.

***

Comments are always welcome.

The Last Humans: A New Dawn. In The Last Humans, Penny Castro survived the biowarfare apocalypse and created a family. In this new novel, her post-apocalyptic idyll on their citrus ranch is interrupted by the US government’s plan to stop another attack…and get some revenge. Penny and husband Alex, along with others, are drafted to carry out the plan—in their case, forced to do so by the government’s kidnapping of their young children. But the enemy has surprises awaiting them when a submarine delivers them to that foreign shore. Available wherever fine ebooks are sold.

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

I still believe that small presses are a good choice for authors who want to publish their books traditionally—they at least offer some TLC none of the Big Five can provide (or is it the Big Four now with Simon & Schuster merging with Penguin Random House?). But many of them have become little more than POD outfits, due to economic hardships, so that old advantage of getting books in bookstores has all but disappeared (bookstores require books to be returnable, and POD books are not). Even the use of Ingram (rare now) doesn’t guarantee that as Ingram puts minimum run limits on the industry. Many small presses don’t require agents, not a bad thing per se considering how little agents do for authors, but publication delays are still a problem if an author wants to publish in a timely fashion.

Most small presses live on the edge. I call it the supermarket model because their net profits are determined by small per-item margins. If their catalog is small and/or genre-limited, they will have problems. If it’s too large, they still can because they can’t manage a big catalog well. Like grocery stores, small-press shelves have to be stocked just right to survive. In any case, very few small presses offer marketing help due to this business model, which hurts them more than their authors because they take the lion’s share of the royalties, a ubiquitous error because seventy-five percent of nothing is still nothing! (The Big Five publishing conglomerates have these problems too, of course.)

Traditional publishers offer less and less for the same share of royalties (authors generally receive between ten and twenty percent). With the possible addition of agency fees, it’s no wonder many authors turn more and more to some form of self-publishing, although most aren’t 100% DIY (paying for editing, formatting, and cover art is recommended). This was my case, so I tried traditional publishing because at least a small press usually pays for those upfront costs—their authors don’t have to pay for everything.

Unfortunately that “living on the edge” small presses do can lead to book orphans. This was the case for my Death on the Danube and The Last Humans: A New Dawn. The small press that published the first two books in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series would only continue with the third if I paid the upfront costs. The one that published The Last Humans never completed its contractual obligations for the sequel, primarily because of a reorg. Both books were orphaned. I self-published them, the second just last week and the first a few months ago.

Hindsight is often twenty-twenty they say, but I can no longer recommend traditional publishing to any author. The chances for bad experiences are just too great.

But what of that TLC I mentioned? In other words, won’t self-published authors miss out on some coddling that they’ll never receive if they self-publish or traditionally publish with a huge publishing conglomerate? Yes they will. I still value friendships made during my small-press adventures—relationships with editors, cover artists, and, above all, authors also published by them; these are all considered valuable experiences. But one has to move on—butting one’s head against a stone wall doesn’t help anyone’s storytelling!

***

Comments are always welcome.

The Last Humans: A New Dawn. In the first book in this series, Penny Castro survived the biowarfare apocalypse and created a family. In this sequel, her post-apocalyptic idyll on their citrus ranch is interrupted by the US government’s plan to stop another attack…and get some revenge. Penny and husband Alex, along with others, are drafted to carry out the plan—in their case, forced to do so by the government’s kidnapping of their young children. But the enemy has surprises awaiting them when a submarine delivers them to that foreign shore. Available wherever fine ebooks are sold.

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

I’ve always loved short fiction. I read many collections and anthologies as a kid and still do as an adult, and I subscribed to some well known periodicals or picked them off the racks when I could. When I became a full-time writer, and even before, it was natural that I’d think of publishing in ‘zines and anthologies and making my own short fiction collections.

First problem: It’s not worth my time to submit a story to a ‘zine. Remember the Cancer Stick man from the X-Files? That’s most authors trying to publish short fiction. The ‘zines are little fiefdoms run by editors with a stable of authors they favor—the race is rigged in their favor. And the editors are often autocratic people with closed minds who control their fiefdoms with an iron hand and have no idea what constitutes a good story. Moreover, even if you consider that paranoia on my part (it’s not when the evidence I’ve obtained over the years confirms it, of course), it takes as long to get a short story or novella published as it does a novel. This was true of the classic ‘zines (some still exist) and it has become true for most online ‘zines that have appeared. They’re all cliquish, and it’s hard for new authors to break into the clique. I don’t have time to waste on such things.

Second problem: It’s not worth the money. Publishing has evolved to the point where most writers find it impossible to make a living writing their stories (that’s true of most creative art nowadays), and doing it writing short fiction is even worse. Pennies per word means selling a short story means chump change that doesn’t even qualify as minimum wage when measured by the hour.

Given these two problems, I now prefer to give away my short fiction. When I start a story, I rarely know whether it will become a short story, novella, or novel. The first two I generally give away nowadays. There’s the unusual event where I’m invited to participate in an anthology; I’m inclined to do that for free, especially when it’s a good cause (Howling at the Moon is an example). That requires some time, but it introduces me to different readers and hopefully adds to the anthology’s success. But I’ve stopped publishing my own short fiction collections (Sleuthing, British-Style is a recent exception, but it was an homage to British-style mysteries that helped me get through the COVID pandemic and served as an experiment to test an alternative to self-publishing, Draft2Digital). They just don’t sell well in general.

Because some of my stories will entertain readers—reading snacks, if you will, to pass the time—I have included most of them as posts in this blog. When I get around to it, I gather some up and make PDFs I give away fro free ( see the list on my “Free Stuff & Contests” web page). I have no idea if any of this free fiction is popular, but giving it away allows me to have an outlet for material that doesn’t quite make it to novel status. (Some short fiction turns into novels eventually, and novellas are just short novels.)

A sports analogy might be applicable: Writing a novel is like running a marathon, a novella is a mid-distance race, and a short story is a sprint. Writing short fiction can be used to train up to writing the novel, where endurance is required. But the analogy isn’t quite appropriate for me because I don’t know what my story will become because I content edit as I go, and sometimes there’s no more content. Pacing is required for the novel (which one reason NaNoWriMo is a useless exercise in futility) as well as short fiction—that doesn’t mean counting words; it means finishing stretches of prose in a logical manner—it’s more a decision to know when to stop when your story’s limits are reached.

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Comments are always welcome.

The Last Humans: A New Dawn. This long-delayed sequel to The Last Humans is coming soon! Penny Castro survived the biowarfare apocalypse and created a family. Her post-apocalyptic idyll on their citrus ranch is interrupted by the US government’s plan to stop another attack…and get some revenge. Penny and husband Alex, along with others, are drafted to carry out the plan—in their case, forced to do so by the government’s kidnapping of their young children. But the enemy has surprises awaiting them when a submarine delivers them to that foreign shore. This thriller novel will be available wherever fine ebooks are sold…except Smashwords. Look for it. Ir’a an ideal holiday gift for the thriller reader in your family (maybe that’s you!).

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

I did it again! I forgot to post #185 here on my blog. My apologies to all readers of this blog. So I’ll start out by including points from that previous epistle, most of which my email newsletter subscribers have already seen.

Seasonal changes. Fall is an interesting time for me. As a kid growing up in California, I never experienced the wonderful reds and yellows of leaves or frost on the pumpkins. Fall just meant that I had to wear a light jacket to school and turn my mind toward football instead of baseball (basketball came later).

But there’s something about fall in the Northeast that makes me think of better times. Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I’m feeling there’s plenty to give thanks for, even in these trying times. There’s change too, as well as a coming together, as we begin to hunker down and prepare for another winter because most of those wonderfully colored leaves are gone.

Living here means observing continuous change, and with it comes the recognition that we’re all on spaceship Earth together, swinging around the sun and enjoying the great privilege of participating in this grand experiment called life. Relish it.

Reading. Sometimes our teachers and professors can encourage us to read. N. Scott Momaday, one of my English profs at UCSB (that was before he won the Pulitzer for House Made of Dawn—perhaps you saw him on PBS?), even taught me to love poetry. (I don’t write it well at all, so don’t expect a brilliant poem here!) Time spent reading these days has probably increased as we minimize our group interactions beyond Skype and Zoom and look for entertainment we can enjoy at home. And books are good choices when you need a break from streaming video and computer games too.

Yet reading isn’t just about entertainment, is it? Even in our reading of fiction, we can reaffirm universal truths and study human behavior, all while relaxing in our favorite chair. Reading is more like enjoying a savory stew; it’s a complex medium that makes readers think, much more so much more than streaming video or video games, and it’s entertainment as well.

Storytelling is a quintessentially human endeavor. Authors writing those stories that must be told, and readers enjoying them, represent the modern embodiment of that campfire tradition from days of yore. Borrow or buy a book today and enjoy the rewards.

Want better book reviews? Many readers browsing for a new novel to read on Amazon look at a book’s page and say, “This book has 100 [1000? 10000?] reviews, so it must be really good [popular? fantastic?].”

First, don’t believe all those people read the book. Even if the review says “verified purchase,” think about it: How many books have you started to read and never finished? Or never started? Second, examine those reviews. You’ll find that many are “atta-girl,” “atta-boy,” or “this is terrible,” and they’re shorter than most tweets on Twitter, so they don’t say much of anything. They usually don’t provide any more information for other buyers than a simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Third, those reviews are either four or five-star ones, or one or two stars. You might prefer a ranking that goes beyond pass-fail.

A good review—yours, if you have time to write it—would probably avoid all these problems, a short list of likes and dislikes and why. You know you don’t have to write an MFA thesis; you also know that those “book reports” you had to do once aren’t required either. By the same token, you can see how bad most book reviews are. You’re a reader, and you know that people just like you only want solid entertainment, information, and value in their reading material.

Choosing a book. So, if reviews are mostly worthless, how does one choose a book to read? Look at the book’s cover; if it looks like a PowerPoint slide, avoid it. Read the book’s blurb; if it talks more about buying the book than what’s in it, avoid it. Finally, use the “peek inside” feature to see if the author can actually write, and if you like her or his style. This process works whether you’re on Amazon or in your favorite bookstore or library (of course, in a public library, you don’t have to pay anything…unless the book is overdue!). What you like and dislike should always be your decision, not some reviewer’s! Or mine. (Or, even worse, some hollow endorsement by some “best-selling” author!)

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