#241: Who’s the reader?  I’ve heard that 60% of readers are women.  I suspect that percentage goes down if we eliminate genres like romance and erotica or combinations like vampire-horror-erotica.  Still, authors better not ignore women readers just like politicians better not ignore women voters (authors probably commit that sin much less than politicians).

Another class of readers I’d like to know more about is baby boomers, maybe distinguishing between retired and not-retired.  Presumably, retirees have more time to read than working stiffs.  I think it’s a myth that everybody retires to play golf or tennis.  I count many ex-colleagues who are readers.  I don’t know what percentage of all readers are retirees, or boomers.  You’d think traditional publishing would do something useful for once and determine these statistics.

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#235: Strong and smart female protagonists revisited.  While I’m sure all readers will like DHS profiler and analyst Ashley Scott and her older friend, ex-FBI agent Virginia Morgan, in my recently released The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan, female readers might also identify with some of the lifetime issues these two women face.  The two women have different solutions for these middle-agers’ problems.  Ashley, for example, once divorced and quite independent (for example, Ashley resents her daughter Jacky’s opinion that she is a doddering old biddy when she turns fifty), doesn’t know if she needs a man in her life or not and certainly doesn’t want to just settle for someone comfortable.  These, of course, are all subthemes as the reader plows through a lot of action and suspense.

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#232: Follow-up about Amazon reviews.  For more evidence that Amazon reviews in general represent meaningless information for potential book buyers (for more, see my three-part series a few weeks ago), consider the treatment Randall Sullivan’s Untouchable, a bio of Michael Jackson, recently received.  According to the NY Times, a group called Michael Jackson’s Response Team to Media Attacks wrote enough one-star reviews to knock the book off Amazon.  Whether you call this free speech or bullying, this is reprehensible action by this group.

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#227:  New sci-fi thriller goes into final editing.  The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan, a novel starring DHS agent Ashley Scott, is in its final editing stages.  I hope to release it sometime in this first quarter of 2013.  Readers will recall that Agent Scott is a friend of NYPD detectives Chen and Castilblanco, but she has been hounding me to feature her in her very own novel.  As the title hints, this one is related to Boomers dealing with retirement.  I hope your retirements will be more peaceful and quiet than Virginia’s!

The story is set in the tri-state area, mostly eastern New Jersey.  I wrote most of the book before hurricane Sandy, so I had to make some fast changes to include references to that once-in-a-hundred-years event.  One of the subthemes is gun control.  Some of that material reflected a personal worry that became reality with the Newtown massacre.  How can I write about guns and death and be for gun control?  Ask a cop, especially first responders in Newtown.  They often live in real life events similar to what I write about in fiction.  Most cops are still for stricter gun controls.  Maybe they’ve seen too many innocent victims?

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#224: Amazon’s new review policy.  I thought I’d see more action here.  Several writers have told me that they’ve lost reviews too—good legitimate reviews, not from family and friends.  My lost reviews correspond to writers reviewing and independent reviewers from online reviewing sites.  I guess Amazon can do what they want and the rest of the world caves.  I’ll have to admit—I don’t know what I can do about it either.

One irony here occurs when Amazon asks ME to review one of my OWN BOOKS.  I use Amazon’s easy gifting service to provide books for reviewers—and they count as book sales, of course.  But you’d think that they’d know enough not to ask the author of the book for a review.  Left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing?

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[Note:  Lots of news today…and comments on that news…for both readers and writers.  Enjoy!]

#216:  Books as Christmas gifts.  I’m not adverse to using the word Christmas and gifts in the same sentence.  Sure, Black Friday and Cyber Monday show that the holidays are becoming more commercial.  What isn’t?  For me, there’s little difference between tee shirts with the faces of Santa Claus, Christ, the Buddha, or Che Guevara—as Yoda would say, “Still commercial they are.”

However, reading is an educational, mind-bending, and exhilarating experience anytime.  Because people love to read, gift the readers among your family and friends—and yourself—some books.  With eBooks, I’m talking about just a download (counts for online sales?); for trade paperbacks and hard-bounds, FedEx, UPS, and the U.S. Postal Service come into play, but you do end up with something to wrap.

Are you looking for bargains?  My suggestion is to boycott the Big Five’s high prices, even for eBooks, and support indie authors.  You’ll get more bang for your buck.  Compare Lee Child’s eBook version of A Wanted Man at $13.99 to my Angels Need Not Apply at $4.99.  I’m not pretending to be Lee, but you just know Random House has inflated that eBook price to make more money for them, not for Lee (and maybe to drive readers to the other formats).  Lee’s a good guy, makes money off the volume of sales, and deserves all the success he’s had with Jack Reacher (see below), but I won’t spend more than $10 on any eBook—not even his.  You shouldn’t either.

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#210:  Show your appreciation with a review….  I just received a glowing review of Survivors of the Chaos from David W. Menefee, Pulitzer-nominated author and reviewer for BookPleasures.com.  Indie authors know what I’m talking about when I say how much I appreciate this review.  Thanks, Dave!

Readers of indie authors, you can show your appreciation for your indie author’s hard work and dedication to entertaining you by not only buying his or her books, but by writing a small review for Amazon or elsewhere, saying what you liked about the book (for more on this, see below).  Authors live for your feedback and there’s not any better way to do it than through a review.

#211:  Finishing a trilogy….  Survivors was the start of “The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy.”  Sing a Samba Galactica continued it.  I finished it off with Come Dance a Cumbia…with Stars in Your Hand!  Consider it my Foundation trilogy, although I’m far from being Isaac Asimov reincarnated.  What’s next?

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#204:  Just released!  My sci-fi thriller Come Dance a Cumbia…with Stars in your Hand! completes “The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy,” a vision of the future that you will find troubling, inspiring, and astounding.  Survivors of the Chaos, the first book in the series, starts in dystopia and ends with hope for a new future on a planet in the 82 Eridani solar system.  In Sing a Samba Galactica, the second book, humans find friendly ETs there and battle unfriendly ones on another colony and Earth, but if you thought they and their ET friends would live happily in the Galaxy’s near-Earth space after the Singer saved the Swarm, you were wrong.

This novel shows why we always have to be vigilant against those whose thirst for power becomes an obsession.  The protagonists—the tough, brilliant, and beautiful Silvia Kensington, the old warrior Brent Mueller, bent but not broken, and others—serve as my Second Foundation; the villain—Dimitri Negrini, an evil genius—my Mule.  They become forged in fire by the events portrayed in the first two novels and their struggles in this one.  Action, suspense, and intrigue are found in this star-hopping modern sci-fi saga that combines elements of space opera with new perspectives on today’s problems.

The entire trilogy is available in eBook format on Amazon, Smashwords, and soon at other fine online retailers (B&N, Sony, Apple, etc), just as soon as SW distributes.  I guarantee you’ll have a good read with this trilogy.

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#193:  Review of Malena.  Some readers might have noticed that I added Edgardo David Holzman to my list of up-and-coming authors for his Malena (see last Monday’s review).  If Edgardo never writes another book, this one still puts him high on the list of historical novelists.  I happen to love Argentina and its people but hate its juntas.  This is my common perception of most of Latin America.  Nevertheless, first and foremost, Edgardo wrote a good story—that’s what it’s all about.

I’ve also added Stephen Kinzer’s Overthrow to the recommended list of non-fiction titles.  Frequent readers of this blog know that I have mentioned this book on several occasions—I kept forgetting to add it to the list.  Error corrected.  This book offers thirteen case studies where the U.S. has overthrown legitimate governments, beginning with the annexation of Hawaii.  Our problems with Iran, Cuba, and much of Latin America can be traced to these heavy-handed policies.  Yes, indeed, we, as a nation, have blood on our hands.  Like Pontius Pilate, it doesn’t wash off easily.  Between Overthrow and Malena, you might develop a different perspective on American foreign policy.

#194:  Speaking of good stories….  Infrequently, would-be writers can find in Writer’s Digest (that damn apostrophe always seems to be in the wrong place) a few golden nuggets beyond the magazine’s money-making contests and obsequious attitude toward Big Six publishers, agents, and authors.  Ms. Elizabeth Sims often is the author of these nuggets.  I would like to recommend her article “How to Develop Any Idea into a Great Story” in the November/December issue.  While I can think of many ideas that don’t make a great story (we don’t need more paranormal romance novels about vampires, werewolves, or more YA tomes about boy magicians), this article, plus Elizabeth’s previous ones, with maybe my “The Eightfold Way” thrown in, are not bad ones for fiction writers to consider when writing and editing their books.

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#188:  Interview on “Phalanges.”  Gina Fava, also an author of thrillers, interviewed me for the Q/A section of her blog called “Phalanges.”  I will review her here shortly.  I also look forward to having her write a guest post for this blog on various topics.  Meanwhile, check out her website. (www.ginafava.com)  [Also, see my interview policy on my “Join the Conversation” webpage.]

#189:  Try a book.  I will soon have ten books (see below).  Maybe it’s time to try one.  They are all sci-fi thrillers, although some are more sci-fi than thriller, or vice versa.  There are three series:  “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco,”  “Clones and Mutants,” and “The Chaos Chronicles.”  The first books in each series are The Midas Bomb, Full Medical, and Survivors of the Chaos.  Try one of these.  Or, introduce yourself to my fiction with the YA novel The Secret Lab (for young adults and young-at-heart adults) or the short story collection Pop Two Antacids and Have Some Java—both are only $0.99.  [See “Books and Short Stories.” ]

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