Don’t think miracles are happening when I say that I finally found a NY Times “Book Review” issue that wasn’t better suited to paper the bottom of a bird cage. The October 24^th issue celebrated 125 years of the “Book Review,” a self-congratulatory pat on the back to the Times (I suspect no one else much cared). Still, as much as I hate the “Book Review” in general and its stupid formula to determine “bestsellers” that they guard as closely as Coca-Cola’s (and equally toxic), and their critics whose blather and twaddle serves the Big Five NYC publishers, I’m also a fan of history. (Strangely enough, I read more history than historical fiction.) Or is this issue just self-serving nostalgia? No matter; I perused this issue out of curiosity. (As an ex-scientist, this old tomcat is still curious.)

There are some old reviews, interviews, and essays in this issue that are worth noting, among them a review of Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (1912), an interview with Ralph Ellison (1952), and a few others. Also contained therein is the “First Bestseller List,” which, if anything, proves that the Times has consistently featured very little that appeals to my reading tastes.

But I found an essay by Kurt Vonnegut, “On Writing Science Fiction” (1965), that was perfectly delightful. (Hmm. The other two articles noted above also indicate my interest in sci-fi—Ellison wrote The Invisible Man.) Of course, I was just a freshman in college when Vonnegut’s essay was originally published, so it’s not remarkable that I missed it. I’d written my first sci-fi novel and some sci-fi short fiction before that, but I trashed the novel when I left for college; the short fiction either was packed away in boxes in my mother’s attic or lost.

Vonnegut has always been a hero of mine, mostly for his essays. A Man without a Country (on my bookshelf, both my physical one and the web page) is a classic collection of his essays—irreverent, cynical, and anti-status-quo opinion pieces, many about reading, writing, and publishing that often point out how stupid human beings can be (Einstein had the right idea there). I’m now wondering if I’d even written any sci-fi if I’d read his essay on sci-fi before starting on my publishing journey!

Like many of his essays, the one reproduced in the special edition of the “Book Review” is full of cynical commentary, most of it as true today as in 1965, if not more so, except for his laudatory comments (for Vonnegut) about ‘zines, Playboy in particular (okay, maybe “laudatory” isn’t the right word, especially for Playboy). (‘Zines now are useless for publishing short fiction, and anthologies and collections never sell well either.)

Vonnegut clearly didn’t want to be pigeon-holed as a sci-fi writer; I don’t either. In fact, I’ve probably written more mystery/thriller stories than sci-fi ones. (I’m double-counting here—for example, the “Clones and Mutants” and “Mary Jo Melendez” trilogies.) I’d like to amplify Vonnegut’s main points that go beyond the “sci-fi writer” label.

First, “writer” is too general a descriptor for what Vonnegut was, or I am. A writer can be anyone who uses language. A person writing for an ad agency or a greeting card company is a writer. “Storyteller” and “essayist” is a bit more specific yet general enough to describe what he did and I do. If you think there’s too much technology and science in some author’s stories, go ahead and call them sci-fi if you like, but they’re often just stories about human beings (or ETs)—the characters—doing some interesting and/or remarkable things—the plots. And I’d never call an essay—for example, this one—sci-fi!

So Vonnegut’s main point about storytelling is one I harp on a lot: Genres are just some key words now, among many others, used to describe stories storytellers tell. He doesn’t say this explicitly, but it’s implied and explains why he doesn’t want to be called a sci-fi writer.

In any case, I’ll keep Vonnegut’s essay around, if not this whole issue of the “Book Review.” There aren’t that many storytellers and essayists who have motivated me to tell my own stories and write my essays. Vonnegut is one of them.

***

Comments are always welcome.

Gaia and the Goliaths. This last novel (so far!) in the “Detectives Chen & Castilblanco” series is my only novel with an environmental theme. Russian and US fossil-fuel conglomerates are the villains, environmental activists are the victims, and Chen and Castilblanco’s homicide case that begins in NYC expands to involve a conspiracy of national and international proportions. This story also highlights much of the environmental debate currently going on and has the crime-fighting duo doing their best scrambling yet! Available wherever quality ebooks are sold.

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

Note from Steve: Missing my political posts? This blog now only has articles about reading, writing, and book publishing. You will find the missing political posts at http://pubprogressive.com; they’re still commentaries on social issues, politics, and other topics of concern that have more to do with my concerns as a US citizen and not my writing life. Please take a look.

***

Your voice (or style) might be influenced by other authors’. How can you not be influenced if you’re an avid reader? (If you’re not, you should be!) Still, whether you’re influenced or not, if your voice isn’t more unique than not, why bother writing?

Many things contribute to that voice! The themes and plots they wrap around that you choose as an author are two where you not only stake out your territory but also can use them to appeal to different audiences. Same for narrative, dialogue, and settings. All your chosen story elements can be individualized. I wouldn’t worry too much about genres, though, because you can leave those keywords and others who insist on classifying your oeuvre. In fact, every time you think they’ve pigeon-holed you, break out and do something different! It’s best to keep readers guessing about the next book. That goes even for a series.

Consider Canadian mystery writer Louise Penny. I stopped reading her Inspector Gamache series because, like many traditionally published authors’ series, those books were becoming formulaic. Now a surprise! She teamed up with Hillary Clinton to write a thriller. (I can guess who did most of the writing.) I guess old Hillary didn’t want to be outdone by her philandering husband Bill, who teamed up with formulaic James Patterson, but I didn’t much care for either politician, so I won’t read their fiction. (A tell-all where Hillary relates why she didn’t kick Bill out on his butt would be more interesting than fiction.)

In my case, I bet some readers thought that after Rembrandt’s Angel, Esther Brookstone and Bastiann van Coevorden would just continue solving crimes involving art. Son of Thunder, however, is entirely different as three parallel stories unfold and then coalesce, with religion playing a major role. (My only previous novel where the latter occurred was Soldiers of God, but religion is treated in an entirely different way in that story.) Then Death on the Danube had Esther and Bastiann on their honeymoon cruise and something like Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express occurs.

Did you think that would end the series? No, I continued to write about those two sleuths, having them solving crimes involving art, only art was trafficked in Palettes, Patriots, and Prats. Finally (for now!), having written Son of Thunder, the book Dan Brown should have written instead of The Da Vinci Code, I wrote about a Da Vinci code! Leonardo and the Quantum Code has a mathematical physicist developing new algorithms for quantum computers that are based on ideas found in a recently discovered Da Vinci notebook.

Say what you want about the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, you can’t claim it’s formulaic. Yeah, I know, I shouldn’t use my own books as examples, but I know them best! And this series illustrates what I mean by keeping readers (and critics?) guessing about your author’s voice.

Maybe some readers don’t like my changing voice, or Penny’s, for that matter. I don’t give a damn. I like to surprise readers! And sometimes the way a novel turns out surprises even me! I’m not the same writer I was when my first novel, Full Medical, was published in 2006. As my skills developed, my voice changed…and I’m proud of how it has changed, no matter what readers think.

***

Comments are always welcome.

Rogue Planet. I often taut this as a hard sci-fi and not just another fantasy version of Game of Thrones. Now there’s a lot of hype about Dune, as the third movie based on the famous Herbert fantasy epic is about to come out. While it’s much better than Thrones, it’s a bit long-in-the-tooth…and long! Rogue Planet is a more compact story—similar swash-buckling battles between armies and a similar flawed and royal hero, but everything is set in my usual sci-fi universe that I began in The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection. Of course, you can read it independently of that trilogy. (All my novels have that feature.) So if it’s epic fun you want, try my hard sci-fi, not fantasy! Rogue Planet is available in ebook or paper format wherever quality books are sold.

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

Horror stories come in all flavors, from the hilarious to the gory. Some call them fantasy, others sci-fi, and still others speculative fiction. Stephen King and Dean Koontz have made successful careers telling them, building on that genre’s founders, authors like Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, and H. P. Lovecraft.

I have to confess I’m not a reader of horror, fantasy, or supernatural sci-fi. Gore doesn’t turn me on; zombies, werewolves, and vampires turn me off unless they’re comedic fellows; kings and princes doing battle with bizarre creatures give me the blahs; and magicians, leprechauns, and elves, especially evil ones, generally just give me indigestion.

I’ve read all of Stockmyer’s “Under the Stairs” series, though; it’s a wonderful mix of sci-fi and fantasy (and probably the most neglected yet deservingly trumpeted series of its type). I’ve also beta-read much of my friend Scott Dyson’s work where his truly human characters, unlike King’s, have very human reactions to horror (like Stockmyer, another neglected author in my modest opinion).

And the latter points to my problem with horror stories: They all too often get lost in the fantasy world and lose touch of their characters’ humanity. That’s one reason why I don’t write horror stories, even though they become popular this time of year: It’s too difficult for me to lose the humanity in my characters.

Sure, I’ve written a few, mostly short fiction. You’ll find most of them in the Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape speculative fiction series (Volume One, in particular, which is available on Amazon, with Volumes Two and Three available as free downloads—see my “Free Stuff & Contests” web page). A few other pieces of short fiction might be scattered around here and there. Rogue Planet (see below) is hard sci-fi with fantasy elements. Yes, it has a prince who becomes king, but he’s very human (meaning he has his flaws), and there seems to be magic, but it’s all techno-wizardry.

I suppose this might all come from my childhood where dressing up for Halloween was an afterthought, a bit of drudgery other kids and their parents seemed ascribed to. “Oh, isn’t he cute!” never set well with me, especially when uttered by strange grownups. And later on I was more into the tricks than the treats! Just call me the Grinch that stole Halloween, I guess.

Covid has put a damper on Halloween too. We struggle with making it safe for everyone. Most of the kids who visit us aren’t vaccinated. We get more little kids now as our neighborhood becomes filled with Brooklynn ex-pats and their little ones, and they are indeed cute (I don’t sat it!) as we have fun guessing who their parents are. The elementary school across from us usually has a Halloween parade around the neighborhood. Last year they didn’t. Maybe they will this year.

In any case, I wish a happy and safe Halloween to you and yours.

***

Comments are always welcome!

Rogue Planet. I often taut this as a hard sci-fi and not just another fantasy version of Game of Thrones. Now there’s a lot of hype about Dune, as the third movie based on the famous Herbert fantasy epic is about to come out. While it’s much better than Thrones, it’s a bit long-in-the-tooth…and long! Rogue Planet is a more compact story—similar swash-buckling battles between armies and a similar flawed and royal hero, but everything is set in my usual sci-fi universe that I began in The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection. Of course, you can read it independently of that trilogy. (All my novels have that feature.) So if it’s epic fun you want, try my hard sci-fi, not fantasy! Rogue Planet is available in ebook and print versions wherever quality books are sold.

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

Settings are important in fiction. They represent the stage where the fictional drama takes place. Some of mine are real; some I imagine (the ET settings are obviously creations of my imagination); and some that seem real aren’t (Google Maps and Google Earth are an author’s useful tools, though). You can have some fun trying to guess what places I’ve actually visited (probably more than you think).

Most of Chen and Castilblanco’s cases begin in NYC, which I know well enough; it’s just thirteen miles east of us via NJ’s Route 3 and the Lincoln Tunnel, but those cases often expand beyond NYC and the tri-state area to the rest of the US and abroad. I know Europe fairly well too, as well as South America, Canada, and Mexico. My travels allowed me not only to learn about our wonderful human diversity (although my home state of California has plenty), but also to learn about different places.

But what I don’t know, I can imagine. If you’re going to write fiction, you need imagination You can write non-fiction without it…maybe…but it’s absolutely necessary to have an imagination to create places you haven’t yet visited, or characters living in those places, so that the fiction seems real to the reader.

One of the most interesting places I’ve visited is Ireland. In addition to being sort of an ancient homeland (for this half-blooded Irishman), it’s just a fascinating place. It’s also where I met A. B. Carolan, my reclusive collaborator, at a place called Blarney Castle (storytelling needs a lot of blarney as well as imagination). It’s odd that it doesn’t appear much in A. B.’s or my stories (his are sci-fi tales, of course). In Palettes, Patriots and Prats, there are a few scenes, and it’s rumored that Esther Brookstone had a wee fling there with some Irishman in Kilarney, but that’s not where those stories take place. In a novella that ends tomorrow, Declan O’Hara, the main character, is from Donegal, like A. B., but maybe subconsciously I haven’t wanted to spoil lovely Eire by putting lowlifes, ETs, or androids from my fiction there?

South America figures prominently in my fiction, though; I’ve both lived and traveled there. Colombia was home base for many trips to conferences in the US and Europe where I spent a lot of time before and after such events traveling and meeting people. I had two long stays in Italy and Spain as a visiting scientist that also served as bases to tour Europe, where you can hop on a train in the evening, sleep the night away, and wake up in a new country.

Perhaps the most obvious influence of my travels on my fiction is found in Death on the Danube. The book’s plot (except for flashbacks) follows a real and wonderful riverboat cruise (without any murder taking place, of course) down that ancient waterway. It would have been hard to imagine that itinerary on my own.

Authors should take advantage of such travel whenever possible. The more real the places in our prose seem, the more our readers will feel that they are experiencing new or remembered places too. That’s all part of the great adventure readers can find in books.

***

Comments are always welcome.

More than Human: The Mensa Contagion. Apocalypse and first contact are two ubiquitous sci-fi themes. I like to stir conventional themes and plots up a bit, though. Here first contact comes via an ET virus that kills at first (an apparent apocalypse that’s worse than Covid) but benignly creates Homo sapiens, version 2.0. What do these new humans do? They colonize Mars and later meet the makers of the virus, in a manner of speaking (this isn’t your normal first contact). You’ll have some fun with this one, and, like many sci-fi novels, it will make you think about possible futures. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold.

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

Note from Steve: How could I forget? October is a busy holiday month—Columbus Day aka Native Americans’ Day and Hallowed Eve (watch for those kiddies, whatever day your town celebrates it!). But the whole month is Hispanic Heritage Month. I was once so immersed in Hispanic culture (in Colombia) that I dreamed in Spanish even when I returned to the States. Of course, I enjoyed a lot of that culture as I grew up in my native California. So, readers, let’s celebrate all these holidays!

I can understand readers have different preferences for non-fiction, but their preferences for fiction often make zero sense to me. You see it in the NY Tines “Book Review” (I can only recommend that Sunday supplement for the bottom of your bird cage). “Oprah’s Book Club,” “The GMA Book Club,” and many others, where they think they can tell readers what to read and bludgeon readers with their opiniated schlock.

You’re probably thinking, “Just another disgruntled writer who can’t compete!”…or something similar. You’re wrong. Most of my opinions here (which none of the above values, of course) originate in being a pissed-off reader. Oh, I’ve tried to find some traditionally published fiction to which the above cater and that’s worthwhile to read: The blurbs and “peek inside” features (or browsing in a bookstore or library) tell me they’re nearly always formulaic, boring stories that some agent and/or acquisitions editor has decided fits their marketing ideas (as if they do much marketing except for their old formulaic mares and stallions ready for the literary glue factory).

Traditional publishers make it difficult to enjoy reading now. No wonder people have turned to streaming video and video games for their entertainment: They can’t find anything worthwhile to read because they’ve been brainwashed by traditional publishers and their media minions into thinking only their schlock is worthwhile.

Yes, Oprah and the cast of GMA are collaborators in this literary conspiracy: I ignored Oprah’s choices, and I’m ignoring Robin Roberts’s gang’s too. I know where to find entertaining, interesting, and profound fiction, and it’s generally not what they recommend or what traditional publishers try to shove down my throat. Amazon sneakily keeps tabs on what I’ve been reading. At least their bots are smart enough to know I don’t read fiction from the bureaucratically bloated traditional publishers (readers pay for that bloat). You’d think the latter and their sycophants would change their business model and start paying attention to what avid fiction readers actually read instead of trying to force us to read something else.

The last traditionally published book I read was the exceptional pleasant surprise (the review is found at Bookpleasures—it was an honest one, so I reported on a few negatives, hence author, marketing guru, or publisher didn’t want it reposted on Amazon or my blog); it was okay. The one before that I tried and couldn’t finish was Deaver’s stupid whatever-you-call-it written in reverse. He went downhill after Garden of Beasts; I suspect his publisher had a lot to do with that. I suspect a lot of old authors like Deaver don’t really want to be boring and formulaic, but their publishers force them to be. That’s how you get series like Deaver’s or Grafton’s. Or maybe authors like them just let their publishers do that to them?

Too many readers let traditional publishers get away with this. If you’re an avid fiction reader like me, please join me in boycotting traditional publishing by reading entertaining, interesting, and profound fiction from self-published authors. You’ll be happier. And don’t fall into the trap if another reader says, mostly to one-up you, “Have you read X. It’s in the NY Times bestsellers list.” That poor sucker doesn’t know what he or she is missing.

***

Comments are always welcome.

More than Human: The Mensa Contagion. Apocalypse and first contact are two ubiquitous sci-fi themes. I like to stir conventional themes and plots up a bit, though. Here first contact comes via an ET virus that kills at first (an apparent apocalypse that’s worse than Covid) but benignly creates Homo sapiens, version 2.0. What do these new humans do? They colonize Mars and later meet the makers of the virus, in a manner of speaking (this isn’t your normal first contact). You’ll have some fun with this one, and, like many sci-fi novels, it will make you think about possible futures. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold.

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

A while ago, as I was reviewing a book for Bookpleasures.com, something struck me. I was noting how the author’s style reminded of Michael Connelly’s early work, in particular the Harry Bosch books. The first, The Black Echo, came out in 1992, and I remember being impressed. And then I thought: Bosch is like my Detective Castilblanco! Not the same, of course, but similar. Harry was a tunnel rat in Vietnam; Castilblanco was a SEAL who had many missions in the Middle East, Afghanistan in particular. They both became detectives in big cities, Bosch in LA, Castilblanco in NYC.

I had to analyze this a bit further to put myself at ease. Had I inadvertently copied Connelly?

At the end, I decided there was no problem. After peeking inside some of those early Bosch novels again, I decided that the only things the Castilblanco books have in common with the Bosch books are those similar backgrounds of the detectives and their grittiness. Moreover, Harry is always local (at least in the Bosch books I read—I maybe read half of them), while Castilblanco’s cases usually start in NYC but often expand to national and international ones. Also, I’ve only reached #7 with Castilblanco, while Connelly is up to #19, last count. Still, eleven Bosch books were out before I published my first novel,  Full Medical (2006), and that was a dystopian sci-fi thriller, not a mystery/thriller. I didn’t write the first Castilblanco book, The Midas Bomb, until after the stock market crash in 2007-2008.

Harry doesn’t have the help of a partner like Castilblanco’s Dao-Ming Chen either. He has to do it all alone most of the time (he does get a little too close to an FBI agent). But both Bosch and Castilblanco are loose cannons sometimes, giving their superiors a tough time. That’s probably true of most innovative and successful cops who are detectives.

Bosch isn’t a hard-boiled detective like Sam Spade and Mike Hammer either; more of those old detectives is found in Castilblanco. My writing owes more to that old school than Connelly’s does—for Bosch, gritty, yes; hard-boiled, no. I call my prose minimalist writing, and it’s prevalent even in my sci-fi tales.

Does any of this matter? Of course not! Crime novels with their mystery, suspense, and thrills all have some similarities, but as long as they’re exciting, intriguing, and entertaining, who cares? I’m addicted to them, in both my reading and writing. And who knows? Maybe my Chen and Castilblanco stories influenced Michael Connelly? Nah, not likely. And I’m sure he doesn’t give a damn that I didn’t read his later Bosch books…for reasons I won’t go into here.

Yet this is a warning to all authors who are avid readers: Check every once and a while to see if your writing too closely mimics some other author’s. A little bit is okay, but even that can kill your own unique voice. I’ve always strived to maintain mine. Modesty aside, it’s not Asimov’s nor Connelly’s, just Steve Moore’s.

After all, you can like both Bosch and Castilblanco. Nothing wrong with that! (Seems like we need a detective whose name starts with A there.)

***

Comments are welcome.

The Chaos Chronicles Collection. This bundle contains three full sci-fi novels. Survivors of the Chaos begins with a dystopian Earth controlled by international mega-corporations that have resorted to private militias to police what remains of the collapse of Earth’s society; it ends with the third of three starships bound for the 82 Eridani system…and the first interstellar stowaway. Sing a Zamba Galactica is an epic history that goes from first contact with good ETs to a war against bad ones that have conquered Earth, but some strange collective intelligences also make trouble in the near-Earth galactic neighborhoods. If the first two novels are considered my Foundation tales, in Come Dance a Cumbia…with Stars in Your Hand! my Mule is the autocratic Human who wants to control all near-Earth space using ESP powers. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold.

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

The original Star Trek series had better episodes than any others in the Star Trek franchise. They’re dated now, especially if you’re looking for razzle-dazzle special effects. (They had to make do with what they had back then—literally!) Yet many of those original episodes were written by real sci-fi writers, not some young screenwriting novices. (The same can be said about the earlier Twilight Zone, even more so.) But The Next Generation‘s theme song was much more inspiring than the one from the original series’, hands down!

Written by the famous Jerry Goldsmith (the version I liked best was on a Boston Pops CD—”Pops in Space” I think it was called), it gave me goose bumps the first time I heard it. My ten-year-old son (he’s now forty-five) was even more impressed. It just held so much promise. The show delivered, with Jean Luc Picard matching my image of what a starship captain should be. (I had a hard time getting by Counselor Troi and Ensign Crusher, though.) Picard and Worf were my favorite characters.

But hearing that theme motivated me to watch every show. The stories were often disappointing, though, especially when compared to that magnificent theme song. The experience led me to conclude that it takes a whole team to make a successful series or movie. Good writers are needed as well as good music and good actors, writers who can spin good yarns week after week, a more difficult task than writing a movie’s screenplay…or just one novel.

The comparable challenge a fiction writer faces is a series of novels, not one. Like The Next Generation, an author’s series generally reuses many of the same characters over and over again. What changes are the plots and maybe the settings, and maybe the “guest” characters. The challenge arises because the ho-hums can set in. Like readers who read the books in a series, an author can become bored with writing about them.

This is one huge advantage self-publishing has over traditional publishing. For the latter, a publisher can get tired of a series even before readers and writer do. The publisher can cancel the series as a consequence. (This happened to me with the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series when the publisher wanted to end it with a trilogy. I knew Esther and Bastiann wanted me to create more adventures for them. I don’t know about readers.) The flip side of the coin occurs when a publisher wants an author to continue a series, even if the author is bored with it and knows subsequent novels will seem boring and formulaic to readers as well. The author often ends up writing little else, as in Sue Grafton’s case.

Self-publishing offers an author a lot of freedom when writing a series. Although my “Esther Brookstone” series is forty percent traditionally published, I self-published the last three books in the series. Sure, I completed the trilogy, even ensuring the third novel had a paper version, but I went beyond that for Esther and Bastiann. They deserved it, and I wasn’t bored with writing about their new adventures together as a married couple. I hope you aren’t either.

I’ll let someone else worry about theme music for the series when and if it becomes a TV series. I can suggest a few possibilities from classical music, but I’ll have to confirm those with Esther! She has a mind of her own.

***

Comments are always welcome.

Oktoberfests. I think my only mention of them is in Death on the Danube, and that only occurred as a reasonable facsimile at the beginning of Esther and Bastiann’s honeymoon river cruise (the beer gets to Bastiann, though!). We actually took the cruise that novel is based on in October through multiple European countries, so the reader can see most of what we saw by riding along with those two lovebirds. We didn’t have a murder on our cruise, of course, and there was no Interpol agent like Bastiann around to take over the investigation if we’d had one! This novel is in the middle of the five-novel “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, forming a bridge between the first two more international books and the last two, where the sleuths solve crimes on Esther’s home turf. Available in ebook and print format.

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

The exception is books! But first, a bit of history…

It all started with cable’s “On Demand”-type offerings (most cable companies had and have that), then HBO with premium movies, and now a whole Jurassic menagerie of streaming services and streaming bundles, a business so lucrative that even Disney jumped in and now competes with other streaming T-rexes. Expensive movie subscriptions, anyone?

And those video games! Lawsuits have been lost or won about who owns them and who can sell them, and they’re so popular that there are people now who make a living treating other people addicted to them. Big business creating cottage industries?

Your ordinary family movie matinee afternoon followed by dinner for four, even at McDonald’s, can easily cost parents $100 or more. That’s a hit on the old family budget!

Entertainment is big business in America, and Americans are willing to spend big bucks to get it.

What’s missing here? Books and reading! I still just make do with regular cable, mostly because I like to keep up on the news (CNN and network news) and PBS shows (new ones for the latter seem to have disappeared with Covid, though). But sometimes I look for a movie in the “On Demand” catalog, but I generally back out of there fast!

As Mr. Biden says, here’s the deal: Let’s say an “On Demand” service charges $3 for an old flick that I’ve missed (more chances for that now with Covid), and that movie lasts two hours. For $3, I can download a damn good novel that will take eight hours to read, say. In other words, for the same price, I get four times the entertainment! And that book is usually far better entertainment. Movie scripts nowadays are notoriously bad, often with no plot or interesting characters, just a lot of special effects. It’s incredible that I can buy a well-thought-out novel for $3, a story that’s almost guaranteed to be more entertaining than most movies.

Of course, I have to be selective, but I am for both media choices, and that’s another plus for books: There’s a lot more selection! There are more books because it doesn’t cost $100 million-plus to make a book. And with the book’s blurb and a “peek inside” (most online book retail sites have these features, and you use them also as you browse in a library, where a book is zero cost to you), I can home in and find a very entertaining book. Movie trailers all too often just show the few good parts of a movie, so I’ve learned to distrust them (same for book trailers, of course, especially James Patterson’s).

Conclusion: The best entertainment is found in books; the least expensive entertainment is found in books. Books are better. Period. Go out and spend a lot on other entertainment if you like. I’m sticking with books!

***

Comments are welcome…but see the rules on my “Join the Conversation” web page.

Oktoberfests. I think my only mention of them is in Death on the Danube, and that only occurred as a reasonable facsimile at the beginning of Esther and Bastiann’s honeymoon river cruise (the beer gets to Bastiann, though!). We actually took the cruise that novel is based on in October through multiple European countries, so the reader can see most of what we saw by riding along with those two lovebirds. We didn’t have a murder on our cruise, of course, and there was no Interpol agent like Bastiann around to take over the investigation if we’d had one! This novel is in the middle of the five-novel “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, forming a bridge between the first two more international books and the last two, where the sleuths solve crimes on Esther’s home turf. Available in ebook and print format.

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

[Note 1 from Steve: Missing something? For those of you who enjoyed reading my politically-oriented articles about current events in the US and around the world, you’ll now find them at http://pubprogressive.com. Please drop by if you’re interested.]

[Note 2 from Steve: If you’ve downloaded “Mayhem, Murder, and Music,” the free collection of short crime fiction—see the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page if you haven’t—you know that music often inspires me. It’s always been part of my life. I even attempted once to write a Broadway-style musical based on Huxley’s Ape and Essence (it’s now shredded—I didn’t get much further than a rousing march, “Seventy-Six Trombones” in an apocalyptic setting). This series of posts was also inspired by music. I might even repeat some of the songs from that collection! Enjoy.]

The version of “America” considered in this article isn’t the bastardization of the UK’s “God Save the Queen”; it isn’t the song that many in the US think should be the US national anthem either. It’s Neil Diamond’s song (yep, another one!). My roomie in college couldn’t understand how I liked Neil Diamond, One colleague at my old day-job thought he’s corny and anyone who liked him is too (including me). Tough. Musical tastes are as subjective as reading tastes. My feedback to them was always that Mr. Diamond is a talented songwriter who not only sings his own songs well but wrote songs for other famous soloists and groups. I have yet to hear a Neil Diamond song I didn’t like. So here’s another: “America.”

Some readers of this blog might remember that song as the anthem for the failed Dukakis presidential campaign. (Michael didn’t fail in his bid for the presidency because of the song, although it generated some anti-immigrant sentiment from the fascist Good Ole Piranhas even back then. Papa Bush played dirty by pulling that Willie Horton trick on Michael, and we were saddled with another Good Ole Piranha in service to the American plutocracy—Papa Bush was the cowboy’s VP; Reagan and Bush started us down the path to fascism.)

You might not remember the real reason Dukakis chose this song. Both he and Diamond were celebrating America as a land of immigrants, that is, our country’s diversity. This is an important theme throughout my novels, even in my sci-fi stories. (What’s more diverse than a bunch of physiologically different ETs and their strange cultures?)

No one ever accused Diamond or Dukakis of practicing cultural appropriation, though. (Papa Bush also played the race card with that Willie Horton ad, making a false equivalence between blacks and criminals to the delight of American racists who, unfortunately, can vote.) You might know I have no use for the anti-cultural appropriation movement. I celebrate our diversity and always have, long before Diamond recorded “America” in 1980. As far as I’m concerned, I equate anti-cultural appropriation sentiments to racist ones; they pretend just the opposite. (What!? An old white guy can’t like reggae?)

(more…)

[Note 1 from Steve: Missing something? For those of you who enjoyed reading my politically-oriented articles about current events in the US and around the world, you’ll now find them at http://pubprogressive.com. Please drop by if you’re interested.]

[Note 2 from Steve: My blog readers can consider this article a sequel to “I’m a failure…,” my 6/9/2021 article that’s about as equally positive and negative as this one. Read on if you want to learn more truth about this publishing business!]

I give up. No, not on writing—I’m addicted to storytelling and blogging (sometimes they’re the same thing). I gave up on traditional publishing (yeah, I tried it), and now I’m giving up on all those marketing gurus who promise everything and deliver nothing with their services.

Nearly all “book marketing experts” focus on Amazon now: Amazon this; Amazon that. We can help you get more Amazon reviews. We can help you with Amazon ads, key words, whatever. All this amounts to is a complete surrender to Jeff Bezos and his mega-monopoly that actually hurt authors more than help. And I don’t want Bezos’s bots screwing around with my books anymore! (I only leave my “evergreen” ones on Amazon because it would take a lot of time to pull them all down. I haven’t sold a book on Amazon in a long time! I’m now boycotting them.)

Those marketing gurus offer all kinds of “free” advice too (most of it involves using Amazon!). Believe me, I’ve tried most of it. It’s mostly worthless, especially if it’s based on using Amazon. About all you can do anymore that might do some good is a book-launch campaign to let readers know you have published a new book. (At least that might give you some useful graphics you can use in your own DIY promos.) Anything else is worthless. Period. Full stop.

Worse, the marketing gurus’ efforts are focused on one book (even though they offer the contradictory advice to write the next one, which I’ve done many times over). I tried to get BooksGoSocial to promote a full series (without using Amazon!), and they ignored me. Same for AME (a marketing service wholly dependent on Amazon it seems—do they work for Jeff Bezos?). Maybe their services produce results for some authors. Their advertising certainly implies that. But neither one offered solutions for my series. (BooksGoSocial has focused on NFTs lately. How stupid is that!?)

I can write a good story; I just can’t sell them. (That’s different from finding readers. Apparently some of those read pirated ebooks, but, of course, I’ll never know that number.) Marketing gurus don’t seem able to help authors like me who are in the same fix. They can’t sell books either. And their business models suck.

Even sleazy lawyers do pro bono work; for some of them, that’s all they do. Smack someone with a lawsuit, and the lawyer only collects if he wins the case. That’s because lawyers know what they’re doing. They work off percentages: Win enough cases, and they’ll get rich. Not so much who they represent, but they get something too.

Greedy marketing gurus want their money up front. There’s not one that does pro bono work. (If I were to go easy on them, I’d say they were just working under the delusion that they’re like Madison Avenue ad execs. Ha!) The reason is simple: Unlike the lawyers who know their business model works, book marketing “experts” know their business model doesn’t. So they just leech off authors by asking for their money up front even before doing a damn thing, and that’s all they end up doing for authors—take their money.

What’s an author to do? What I’m doing: Enjoy the storytelling and give up on all the rest. And you shouldn’t think a traditional publishing contract will help you. First, you can do much better with royalty percentages if you’re DIY. And traditional publishers won’t do a damn thing to help you in marketing either, unless you’re one of the privileged glue-factory-ready mares and stallions in their stables that consistently sell their schlock, tired and formulaic stories, to unsuspecting readers. And you should give the finger to marketing gurus except for those who are competent enough to run a good book launch. You’ll be a lot happier if you follow my lead.

By the way, give up on your dream of making a living with your storytelling. It’s unlikely you can do that now. Look elsewhere to make a living if you insist on doing it by writing (journalism or advertising work…or greeting cards?), or keep your boring day-job. You’ll be a lot happier doing that too, and so will your family.

I know some writers hate me for telling the truth about publishing. Tough. They have kicked me out of discussion groups so they can fester with their damn dreams, but they can’t stop me from blogging about my experiences. Some authors think like I do but are afraid to tell others, as if it’s some kind of stigma to tell the truth now. I’ve dedicated over two decades to putting my stories out there. I know the truth about today’s wacky publishing scene, and I’m not afraid to state it.

I always wanted to be a writer. Now that I am one, I’m happy enough. I’ve told many stories. I think most of them are good ones. The rest doesn’t matter except for warning you not to expect too much. You’re not likely to get it. It’s like playing the lottery. You might win, but you’d better just do it for the enjoyment, because you probably won’t win.

***

Comments are welcome.

“Mary Jo Melendez Mysteries.” A trilogy that’s definitely binge-able! Meet the MECHs (“Mechanically Enhanced Cybernetic Humans”). In the first novel, Muddlin’ Through, ex-USN Master-at-Arms, now working in security at a firm with Pentagon contracts, is framed for her sister and brother-in-law’s murders when a secret US agency covers up their incompetence in letting the MECHs be stolen by Russian operatives; Mary Jo goes around the world to prove her innocence. In #2, Silicon Slummin’…and Just Gettin’ By, Mary Jo finds a new job in the Silicon Valley, only to have CIA and Russian agents pursue her to find out where the MECHs are hiding…and someone else is also stalking her! In #3, Goin’ the Extra Mile, China kidnaps her family to make her reveal the MECHs location, and she must take on the entire Ministry of State Security in Beijing. Rapid action and intrigue await the reader in this series, available wherever quality ebooks are sold.

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