“Summertime, and the livin’ is easy….” Less happening too for my newsletter. Gershwin’s classic song is hardly appropriate for modern lifestyles, though. Many people are heading off to vacation. Those can be hectic—the vacations, not the people (although people tend to live hectic lives these days, which is why they need vacations). The best vacation I can imagine? Sitting under a shade tree or under an umbrella on the beach or in a Paris café on the Left Bank reading a good book. Some people flock to theme parks where kids can ride crazy rides and puke up their hot dogs afterwards. Not my idea of fun. Been there; done that. Take my advice: pick a vacation away from the chaos in your life and get some quiet R&R.

Sure, visit Mother Nature (scenery, not Johnny peeing on your shoe) in our wonderful national parks; take a cruise; tour Civil War battlegrounds; visit Monet’s home outside of Paris; whatever…and wherever you can find some peace and quiet. And take some books along. (OK, all hard to do if you have small kids, but if they’re older, dump them in the amusement park and do your own thing. Or leave them with their grandparents. They’re always on vacation and are supposed to love their grandkids, right?)

Now that all parents are mad at me…. Kids too, I suppose, if they read this blog (it’s basically PG-13, with the exception of some short stories that are still less risqué than TV’s cable channels). Parents, what’s the best thing you can do for your children? Start them reading. It’s not easy to do today with all the passive distractions kids (and adults!) have, not to mention hectic lifestyles (softball, soccer, and hockey games, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, hang-gliding, and whatever for the kids with the parents carting them around while living on their cell phones because the boss expects you to be there for him 24/7) but language and the written word are important because they define us as human beings—losing them means losing our humanity.

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Not a bad list. Ann Patchett runs a bookstore in Nashville with Karen Hayes, presumably to promote her own books (maybe she doesn’t like them removed from the shelf at B&N either). The author of The Magician’s Assistant compiled a list of the “best books”—75 books from the last 75 years. I initially raised my eyebrows and shook my head, but, after perusing the list, I decided it’s not bad. Asimov (Foundation—but why not the trilogy?), Ellison (The Invisible Man), and Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451) are on it. So are Chandler (The Long Goodbye), Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five), and Le Carré (A Perfect Spy). Non-fiction books entries include Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) and King (On Writing—a course AND memoir, so I don’t know what’s being rewarded).

Of course, notably absent (an author’s and bookstore’s elite snobbery at its best—in Nashville!) are the indies: Howey (Wool) and Weir (The Martian) didn’t make the list. “But it’s not a list of bestsellers,” you say? Not so. Hitchhiker’s Guide and all the Harry Potter books (so why not Asimov’s whole trilogy?) are present—their only claim to fame is bestseller-dom. “It’s only literary fiction,” you say? Not so again. Consider the sci-fi books and non-fiction books.

Patchett should know better. Lists like this can only bring grief from naysayers…like me! (OK, it’s a good list, as far as it goes.) But maybe she thinks any publicity is good publicity (she might be right, considering the sorry state of American politics). In the C&W capital of the world, though, I’m not sure many people will care. The list appeared in Parade Magazine (yes, that pop culture Sunday supplement), so more than cowgirls and cowboys will read it. OK, I’m being nasty here and apologize—not to Patchett, but to Nashville. I actually love the place. It was better when Johnny and Kris were starting out there, though—I walk the line with Sunday morning comin’ down.

Megapacks? Ever bought one? I just purchased an Andre Norton megapack. She was a classic sci-fi author who won many awards during her life of writing. I read many of her works in junior high, so some of the stories in the megapack are a trip down memory lane. But there are ones that are new to me too. A lot of reading enjoyment for $10! The company that produces these has many more to offer. They are a good way to enjoy the classics.

All of science in one book? The NY Times will do anything to make money (besides trashing Bernie and praising Hillary, that is). I laughed when I saw the quarter-page ad for their Book of Science. Of course, it’s just a collection of science articles from the newspaper, as if you can learn about science from the Times! Besides, any book on any science topic, let alone a collection of Times articles, is dated even before it goes to press.

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Google allows piracy. I’m hammering this home. Go to that famous search engine and search for “book piracy through Google.” You’ll get an eye-opener, so much so that you won’t even need your daily infusion of caffeine. I can’t say they encourage it, of course. It’s just that they don’t do anything about it. They want to digitize every book that’s been written. I don’t know how that relates to them allowing piracy, but I’m suspicious. Like my detectives Chen and Castilblanco, I don’t believe in coincidences. See my post last Friday for an example of how I was personally affected. Pox on their house.

Microsoft buys LinkedIn. I’ve been ignoring LinkedIn for a while. Now I have more reason to do that. Microssoft will pay $26.2 billion for this white elephant, chicken feed for Bill Gates et al. Now LinkedIn will continue screwing people like Microsoft is doing with Win 10. If you have auto-updates for your desktop or laptop computer, you’ve probably been annoyed by those notices to upgrade. If not, Microsoft might have already taken over your computer and downloaded Win 10, and you couldn’t stop them.

I worked my butt off killing all vestiges of “Tile World” (Dave Pogue’s term—I love his books) on Win 8.1. Turns out a lot of people were unhappy with Win 8.1, basically Siamese twins of two different OS’s. Win 10 is touted to be a major improvement. I suppose I’ll upgrade—when I choose to do so, not Microsoft—but I’m leery. I’m afraid I’ll spend two more weeks of frustration again, getting things to work as I like them to. I don’t want Edge (the “new” internet explorer that doesn’t allow file extensions) nor Bing (as much as I dislike Google—see above—search engine Bing is a piece of crap). If MS Word and the el cheapo MS mail package don’t work, though, I might be buying a Mac in the near future. Or not—I hate Apple too. Gee, maybe I should go back to Unix (i.e. Linux)?

A Konrath twist on the book lottery. Remember IAC? The IAC (Indie Authors Coop) banned me because they felt my saying that having a successful book is like winning the lottery disparaged their members’ hard work. I never disparage writers’ hard work! Nowadays writing is a slog because there are so many good books and good writers competing for diminishing numbers of readers. Hugh Howey (Wool) and Andy Weir (The Martian) won the lottery—plain and simple—and they might not have worked as hard as other authors! (I found a lot of things to fix—both content and copy editing.) But who wouldn’t celebrate their good fortune? It gives us all hope of winning the lottery so we can keep writing and publishing more books.

Recently Joe Konrath offered a little twist on this lottery concept, and I quote: “Landing a huge publishing contract is like winning the lottery.” There are ways to hedge that, of course—you can be one of Stephen King’s relatives; or know Big Five stallions or mares through your parents, leading to lavish (and questionable?) endorsements; or have some other not-so-obvious leverage—but the Big Five, soul source of those huge contracts, typically only bet on the sure horse. Newbies, in particular, aren’t likely to win this particular lottery. So Joe champions indie.

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Summer is here! Not officially, but the past Memorial Day is often considered the unofficial start of summer. People were hitting the beaches in the tri-state area; many also remembered what that holiday signifies too. For the rest of the summer, in your leisure time, why not find a shady tree or park under your umbrella on the beach and catch up on your reading. Your choices are practically infinite with so many good books and good authors writing entertaining fiction and informative non-fiction—novels, short stories, bios, memoirs—it’s a reader’s world.

Amazon clamps down? The retail giant went after product reviewers paid by companies. It’s now using the info gained in that lawsuit to go after the companies themselves. Finally! This probably doesn’t affect all those suspicious book reviews, although it should. Amazon just considers books products, so why not consider book reviews product reviews. They do, of course. They don’t give a rat’s ass about the content of the review. They just want your ranking so they can calculate an overall rank.

Readers shouldn’t give a rat’s ass about the reviews either. Consider The Martian with its almost 28,000 reviews. If everything hasn’t been said beyond 100 reviews, something is wrong. Yet promo sites like BookBub key in on the number of reviews, so they’re also promoting excess. Even if all those reviews were legit, who’s going to read them? Readers, please, choose books by their blurbs, “peek inside” info, and even their covers—it’s much more efficient and probably more ethical. After all, it’s your tastes and opinions that count.

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A reading life.  I love Goodreads.  It has taught me that there are many people still living the reading life.

Goodreads had 26 million members in January, 2014.  Sure, the number of readers overall is decreasing—there are so many other alternatives for acquiring information and having some R&R.  That 26 million is worldwide, remember—the actual number of U.S. readers is smaller.

But people are members of Goodreads because they read books, so you wonder what else people are reading, whether they’re on Goodreads or not.  I imagine there’s a wide spectrum, from introverted recluses only interested in reading everything in genre X they can find, to readers who read much more than books or eschew them completely, preferring newspapers, magazines, online blogs, and so forth.

What’s your choice?  Do you visit this blog for the op-ed articles commenting on current events and the writing business, the book or movie reviews, author interviews, my free short stories, and/or this newsletter, or are you here more for news about my books?  I’d hope you’re here for it all, but it’s hard for me to tell.  Drop me an email to steve@stevenmmoore.com and tell me what you like (I never divulge emails to second parties).

Pricing.  Along with the above, how much are you willing to pay for a book?  Do you prefer ebooks or paper?  Again, it’s hard for me to know.  Some gurus are saying the price point of $2.99-$3.99 is no longer appropriate for indie books—readers are willing to pay more, associating price to quality.  OK, but are you willing to pay $12 or more for a traditionally published ebook, or close to $20 for paper?  Or, do you expect deals and, in the extreme case, expect your reading entertainment to be free?

The Exclusives. In my IAC (Indie Authors Coop) expose last week, I compared that indie group with two exclusive writing clubs, Authors Guild and International Thriller Writers.  Here are two others: Mystery Writers of America and Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.  You can pretty much assume that any organization that has “of America” in its name is exclusive and basically un-American.  They’re like Augusta National before Tiger Woods and that golf club in Scotland that excludes women.  Even if I could join them, I wouldn’t.  They give a bad name to writing, writers, and literature.  Period.

Book rankings.  I looked at them for the first time for Rogue Planet.  The book is ranked # 1 million plus in the Kindle Store.  That’s pretty depressing.  But it’s ranked # 3000 plus in several sci-fi/fantasy categories.  Also depressing.  Of course, you never know the total number.  Ranked M out of N: knowing M and not N isn’t much help.  So, I just reminded myself how useless Amazon’s ranking is.

Maybe readers pay attention to these rankings.  “Have you read the latest by X?” can become a mantra because both readers and writers jump on bandwagons.  Readers have that luxury; writers should avoid it.  Telling someone “my book is like X’s” is a writer’s admission of a lack of originality.  Say “my book is NOT bla-bla-bla” or simply give an elevator pitch describing your book.

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May this Friday the 13th bring you good luck!  (Sorry, PowerBall already has a winner.)

Goodreads polls.  They can be a lot of fun.  But I often start a discussion thread there that could be reduced to a simple poll because because I prefer to know the hows and whys from readers, not just a simple vote.  I’ll be reading or writing and certain questions will start haunting me that only readers can answer.  (Yeah, I know, I’m a reader, and I don’t have the answers, so maybe this isn’t too logical.)  So have some fun and join me at Goodreads, the place where the readers are.

Social media for authors.  First choice: Goodreads (see above).  That’s where the readers are.  Other authors want to sell THEIR books or capture YOUR readers, you’re supposed to also be a reader, so Goodreads is the place to spend your time over any authors’ forum, etc.

Choice to avoid: IAC (Indie Authors Coop).  More on this next week.

What about Facebook and Twitter?  Way down the list too.  People who spend 50 hours per week on Facebook aren’t reading many books, and both sites are dominated by narcissistic people climbing their soap boxes and e-shouting.  LinkedIn?  OK, some interesting discussion threads on book publishing have appeared there, but recently comments are cut-off or censored, and there’s a lot of soap box activity too.  Instagram?  Worse than the three just mentioned.

If you want to use FB, keep it restricted to close friends and family—or restrict it to an author page (what I do now).  Same for Google+ (I just share posts there, nothing else, because I can’t do that on FB anymore).

Best bet: Always go where the readers are.  Besides Goodreads, try out some lesser known sites where you can participate as a reader who also happens to be a reader.  You’re an author and not a reader?  How’s that work?

Classics.  A colleague in my old day-job once remarked that a “book is a classic when no one reads it anymore.”  He might have been referring to some of those tomes forced down his throat in high school English class.  Or simply to the idea that readers don’t relate well to books written before the 20^th century.  A rereading of some of those tomes you struggled through in high school or college might be in order, though.  I’m currently in the middle of A Tale of Two Cities, reminding myself why I liked it so much.  While Dickens’s other novels rate high on the blah and blah-blah scales, this is a good one.  A good film (The Count of Monte Cristo, The Jungle Book) can revive a classic; a bad one can remind one of the painful experiences in the past (Moby Dick, Les Miz, or any Jane Austen films).

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News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #120…

[Double feature today—anyone remember them?  Sometimes two B sci-fi movies in one day?  You have it here—this newsletter and two movie reviews.]

Series.  J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series is a pretty good example of how to write one—no egregious cliffhangers, and just a study progression developing a lot of the same characters from book to book and interesting new ones along with a new plot.  What she didn’t change from book to book was the theme of special magician boy fights bad magician.  By the end, I was tired of Harry and liked Hermione, who wasn’t the “chosen one,” a lot more.

The division of that last long Potter book into two movies, though, was an example of a Hollywood gaffe.  Rowling’s prose became overly detailed and more verbose as the series went on, so that last book could have received a Reader’s Digest condensation and be just fine.  Hollywood messed that up.  And now, by releasing Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them, a movie loosely based on Rowling’s 2001 book, they’ve created another gaffe.  Clearly they want more money from this franchise—or, is it Rowling?  Is she going to become the James Patterson of fantasy?

Reading forensics.  Stats about popular genres, readership demographics, ebooks v. paper, and so forth are hard to come by.  Amazon might have a lot of them, but they’re not sharing.  Traditional publishers might too, but same comment.  Here’s one “stat” from the past: the Harry Potter series motivated many kids to return to reading.  I can’t prove that wrong—I’d need the stats—but I can say that I think it’s malarkey.  My observations have led me to conclude that the number of people reading books is going down, down, down.  In other words, Harry Potter was a temporary thing, and kids are flocking to their smart phones and streaming videos instead of reading a good book, more than ever before.

Speed reading.  The last relates to speed reading.  Two jerks in the NY Times said no one can do it (I won’t even give the title of the article).  More malarkey.  What happens is that most people under thirty can’t.  It comes natural to many avid readers.  People with huge active and passive vocabularies can easily train themselves to do it.  I did.  I’ve noticed that my passive vocabulary is diminishing with age, but I’m still a speed reader.  That and touch typing were the two most useful things I learned in high school.  They’re both skills.

You also increase your reading speed with practice.  That’s one reason why most people under thirty can’t do it—they don’t have much practice so they don’t need the skill.  They’re into more graphical entertainment too and lose focus when reading text.  They’ve lost the ability to turn words into scenes in their head and to imagine how characters appear and act—they don’t want to tax their minds too much.  Reading exercises your mind and creates all sorts of good endorphins.  Not a reader?  Why the hell are you reading this blog then?

It takes money to make money.  OK.  I’m not whining about the stock market.  I’m complaining about BookBub.  Their prices for a thriller just went up.  I checked out sci-fi too—even higher (are there that many more readers of sci-fi than thrillers?).  Moreover, they have no special category for anthologies or short story collections, and I know there aren’t that many readers of them.  Of course, I don’t know what their algorithm is for price gouging—I mean fixing prices.

Like the NY Times’s algorithm for “best seller” and most of Amazon’s for ranking and what not, it’s a big mystery.  I just know that I can’t afford BookBub’s prices.  Yeah, I know, they claim you’ll sell far beyond what you pay (how does that happen for books offered for free?).  That’s why I titled the note this way: with BookBub, it takes money to make money.  Like all PR and marketing, you have to pay up front, and I can’t.  But, like all PR and marketing, they don’t really guarantee results.  Pox on their house!

Sales.  I’ll have a few of them this spring and summer as I prepare to end exclusivity on Amazon and add more books to Smashwords.  Beyond giving me the option to give my ebooks away (I don’t do that) or reducing their prices periodically, Amazon hasn’t done much for me except sit on my books.  Smashwords sells and distributes to other retailers, including Apple, B&N, and Kobo.  So watch for the sales!  One begins today: the whole “Mary Jo Melendez mystery series” (two ebooks) is on sale for $0.99 each, reduced from $2.99.  Celebramos Cinco de Mayo con María José.

My motto.  To provide you with entertaining books at reasonable prices.  All of my ebooks are low-priced.  My two Create Space paper versions are low-priced.  Here’s my Amazon page.

Free books?  Sure.  You can read any ebook in my catalog for free in return for an honest review.  To sweeten the deal, I’ll even through in another ebook of your choice for free—no review obligation, just a thank you for being a reviewer.  Query me at: steve@stevenmmoore.com.

In libris libertas….

[This is the post from last Friday.  I had to redo it because of a WordPress glitch.  My apologies.]

How to help your favorite authors.  1. Buy their books.   Those authors get off on entertaining you or informing you.  Reward them for activating those pleasure endorphins.  2. Review their books.  A simple review about what you like or dislike about a book and why informs readers and the author.  3. Follow them and share.  Both Amazon and Goodreads allow the first.  It’s much better than a simple “like.”  And most social media sites allow you to share, so do so with the blurb of the book and news about the author.  4. Recommend them.  Same idea as share, but you can do this with face-to-face too, with family and friends.  Even at the lunch table at work.  You talk about a good movie.  Talk about a good book too.  5. Offer to help.  Say kind words about the East Coast author if you’re in the Midwest or West, or in a different country.  Tell your local bookstore and library about the authors.

Do you do any of these?  (Adapted from Penny Sansevieri’s “5 Quick Ways to Help Your Favorite Author,” Author Marketing Experts.  I’ve taken the liberty to assume you have more than one favorite author.)

Freebies.  The only way you’ll get one is to write an honest review for one of my books.  There are 22 to choose from now.  But this newsletter and the rest of the content of this blog are free.  Readers and writers should check out the op-ed comments on current news, articles on writing and the writing business, book and movie reviews, author interviews, and free short stories and novellas.  Don’t want to scrounge around in the archives?  What can I say?  You want free but want it handed to you on a silver platter?  Get a life!

Pricing.  All my books are reasonably priced—sale prices really, compared to traditional publishing.  This is possible because by buying indie, you, the reader, eliminate all that bloated traditional publishing bureaucracy where most of what you pay goes to the publisher and not the author who writes the stories you love to read.  If you haven’t tried indie, don’t miss the opportunity.  In general, indie authors offer quality entertainment at reasonable prices.  Sure, there are crappy books out there, from both indie and traditionally published authors, but you can afford to try an indie ebook that is usually priced for less than a meal at McDonald’s.  The ebook is better for your health too.  Here’s my amazon page.

More on Patterson.  I’ll give the old boy credit.  He keeps inventing new ways to make money in the publishing world.  You’d think he was starving.  I was invited to take his writing course (I’m sure there was a charge, but I don’t remember the cost—I treated the email as spam), presumably so I can be as famous as James Patterson.  Or maybe he’s just looking for new co-authors to write books for him in his assembly line book factory?  Whatever the reason, Patterson has taught me more about what NOT to do than what to do in my writing career.  In particular, I refuse to exploit either readers or writers.  I’ll leave that to traditional publishing, their agents, editors, and authors like Patterson.

Paper books v. ebooks: the eco-argument.  Yeah, I know.  Many people want to hold a physical book in their lap, not an e-reader.  OK, I respect that.  But consider this: While POD (Create Space and others) eliminates some of the damage, the sum total of all paper books kills forests in the world.  E-readers are more toxic when discarded, but I’ve had my Kindle for years—e-readers contribute far less eco-waste than paper media.  Considering I average one to two books read every two weeks, that would come to between 26 and 52 paper books per year.  OK, I read a lot, but if every reader reads even 5 books per year, that’s a lot of paper.  Books will probably go completely electronic before newspapers, another contributor to forest depletion, but please do some eco-thinking.  I’ll try to provide POD availability in my catalog as budget permits, but my eco-thoughts keep one foot on the accelerator and one on the brake.

Follow-up on LinkedIn.  It’s worse than I thought.  Because I don’t use LI to find jobs, I was oblivious to the social media site’s unscrupulous tactics respect to job searches.  As outlined in the Forbes article, “Has LinkedIn Crossed an Ethical Line,” LI not only charges job seekers $29.95 to move them up to the top of the pile, regardless of qualifications, but, of course, charges employers for posting there.  Don’t waste your money.  Only a small percentage of job seekers actually found their jobs from job boards.  (My Indie Authors Coop is working out pretty well, by the way, as a good substitute for LI.)

Spring and summer reading.  Both books in the “Mary Jo Melendez Mysteries” will have a Kindle Countdown sale April 29 through May 6.  The sci-fi thrillers Muddlin’ Through and Silicon Slummin’…and Just Gettin’ By will both be priced at $0.99, reduced from $2.99.  And don’t forget my new sci-fi novel, Rogue Planet, at $2.99.  That’s a lot of spring and summer reading for only $5.

First book in a series.  If you’ve resisted jumping into the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series” because the first book was too expensive, fret no more.  That first Infinity edition of The Midas Bomb (I had no control over pricing) was replaced by a brand new rewritten and reedited second edition.  Now every ebook in the series is $2.99.  You can read the series in order or jump in anywhere.  It doesn’t matter because each book can be read independently.  Another reading binge you could have this spring and summer—six ebooks for $18!  (Note: The Midas Bomb is available in all ebook formats for $2.99.  There is also a paper version for $9.99.  I’ll slowly add the rest of the series to Smashwords too, which also distributes to many ebook retailers.  I don’t know about paper versions.  We’ll see how TMB’s paper version does.)

In libris libertas….

(UN)HAPPY TAX DAY!

Lee Child loves me.  Probably not.  Readers might have seen the quote from one of his books that runs across the top of this website.  His secretary approved that; I thanked her, not Lee Child.  I imagine his secretary also arranged to send out the marketing blurb on his behalf from Goodreads which recommends Steve Berry’s new book, The 14^th Colony.  Probably every Goodreads member received that spam.  Or, maybe just those interested in mysteries and thrillers?  I wonder how much that cost and how Child’s secretary managed to pull it off.

Child speaks about Berry’s Cotton Malone: “He’s a kinder, gentler Jack Reacher.”  Isn’t that nice!  I wonder if Tom Cruise will play him in the movie too.  I also wonder how much the ebook will cost relative to the paper version.  And are the old stallions in traditional publishing’s stables getting so desperate they have to endorse each other?  Sounds a bit like those modern academic composers who write music for other academics, the kind of music James Levine used to ram down our throats at the BSO.  OK, let’s play nice.  Let’s just say the old stallions have an exclusive club where they can munch their oats together and resist en masse being sent to the glue factory.

New voices.  The problem with old stallions like Baldacci, Child, Deaver, King, Preston, Patterson and others, along with old mares like Gerritsen, Grafton, Higgins Clark, and others, is that they’ve become formulaic.  Traditional publishing calls those horses a sure bet instead, of course, and will spend tons of PR and marketing money on them, from full-page Times ads and TV videos (Patterson is the champion of those), to Goodreads campaigns (the Lee Child email; Higgins Clark just had a full-page ad for a new book—I gave up on her books long ago because they’re just novel-length cozies).  Indie and midlist authors have to go it alone.  That doesn’t mean the old stallions and mares haven’t written good books—see my “Steve’s Bookshelf” for some of them—but their books listed there are not the kind of books that their rabid fans devour (for some reason, many readers like formulaic).

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Readers can be formulaic too.  Many writers become formulaic over time.  This is partly due to the same reason a K-6 teacher, instead of teaching each grade in succession to keep her or his teaching skills fresh, prefers to keep on doing the same thing, grade 2, say, year after year, over and over again—it’s the easy way out, and, if s/he’s successful at it (that becomes a less appropriate adjective with time, of course), why not continue?  In the writing world, a perceived market preference for a book series might contribute pressure to becoming formulaic too.  (That doesn’t mean series are bad.  It only means the author has to be careful with them.)

But readers can also become formulaic.  How?  We can all fall into a rut.  We love Baldacci and look for his books, for example, and resist looking for new authors who might write just as well…or better!  It’s only human to prefer the known and familiar over the unknown and unfamiliar.  In the process, a vicious circle is created, readers feeding off writers who produce more of the same, and writers feeding off readers who want more of the same: Baldacci à readers à Baldacci à readers…you get the idea.

But we have to consider all the good reading we might be missing!  In a perfect world, that’s what reviews are good for—they would allow us, the readers, to discover a new writer and allow authors to reach out to new readers.  It’s not a perfect world, though, so we have to deal with zero-content reviews that are little more than votes on American idol.  A smart reader will take responsibility of her or his reading and look for those new voices, using all info available on the book’s Amazon page at least.  In the process, s/he might be amazed at what’s out there!

Social networking.  Readers can meet other readers and authors, and PR and marketing gurus recommend it for authors because it contributes to name recognition, not just for indies but traditionally published authors too.  Readers, do you like to mix with nerdy authors?  Do you hate it when they self-promote?  Maybe yes to both questions, right?  Authors should also be readers, and, in that capacity, also get a bang out of just discussing different books and genres, whatever the marketing gurus say.  However, when a discussion thread says “no self-promoting,” follow the wishes of the group and moderator, please.  If you want to use one of your own books to make a point, say something like “not intended as self-promo comments.”  Readers, be generous and accept that—that reader/writer’s point might be valid.

So, what are the best social media sites for readers and writers?  Surprise!  They’re not Facebook or Twitter.  If you want to discuss books and writing, stay away from them as if they had internet ebola! Both of those are so dominated by people getting on their soapboxes that anything you post about books or the book business will be buried in a lot of online shouting.  Use Goodreads and LinkedIn.  Reserve Funny Bunch and Twitland for family, friends, trying to get a hot date (or any date?), and listening to rants, including Trump’s.

Goodreads has many groups dedicated to readers and reading.  They also have a few dedicated to writers and writing (authors, beware, other authors aren’t particularly interested in buying your books!—they only want to sell theirs).  LinkedIn groups, as you might expect, deal more with the business side of writing—editing, publishing, promoting, technical issues (are CSIs’ booties really Teflon?), whatever.  On both sites, I see authors promoting their books.  Most respect the rules and do it only where it’s allowed.  Many don’t.  The latter do no one any good.  And I don’t understand why they bother on LinkedIn—it’s not that kind of site.

Rogue Planet.  OK, I’m being repetitive and you’re probably tired of my self-promo activity, but this new novel mixing hard sci-fi with fantasy, is now available in all ebook formats (Amazon + Smashwords) and print (Create Space).  It’s set in the same universe as the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy” and the Dr. Carlos stories, but you don’t have to read these to take part in the swashbuckling adventures of Prince Kaushal as he goes after an evil theocracy on his home planet.  It’s my version of Star Wars, but maybe you’ll compare it to Game of Thrones.  I just call it a lot of futuristic fun.

May Day, May Day, May Day Sale. Mary Jo Melendez invites you to a Kindle Countdown Sale.  Before she adds her stories to Smashwords, making them available in all ebook formats, she’s giving you a chance to read Muddlin’ Through and Silicon Slummin’…and Just Gettin’ By at $0.99, reduced from $2.99.  That’s $2 off, folks!  Or, two exciting books for $2!  The sale will take place from April 29 through May 5.  This is absolutely the last time these prices will be reduced.  It’s the perfect time to begin stocking up on good summer reading.  (OK, it’s a wee bit ahead of time to announce this, but you wouldn’t believe the acrobatics I have to perform in order to schedule a countdown sale for an entire series, thanks to those Amazon KDP restrictions.)

In libris libertas…