I have many friends who are avid…well, I’m not sure what to call them.  On a long commute or a plane ride cross-country, they listen to a book.  In other words, they purchase audio books instead of paperbacks or ebooks.  If the reader for the audio book is a first-rate master of the spoken word and not like my sophomore English teacher, that’s a fine way to read a few books.  In fact, it harkens back to the days before books when storytelling was a vocal tradition.

Poetry has more of a modern oral tradition.  Even if the poet writes his poems in silence, he’ll often be called upon to read them aloud.  That doesn’t work so well when the poet, like my sophomore English teacher, has a voice that is soporific.  Too often, poets and other writers don’t seem to be inspired by their own prose or they just don’t have the skills to read aloud and make it interesting.  Many parents do better with bedtime stories for their kids than some poets and writers do with public speaking.

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[Steve’s note:  Today we have an interview with Seumas Gallacher, crime fiction writer and master blogger.  His two novels (see below) have enjoyed a lot of success and he has won the Blogger of the Year award.  The following is taken from his blog (http://seumasgallacher.com/about/): Seumas “was born in the cradle of the Govan shipyards in Glasgow in the so-called ‘bad old days’ which were in reality the greatest of days, where everybody was a real character of note.  An early career as a trainee Scottish banker led to a spell in London, where his pretence to be a missionary converting the English locals fell on deaf ears.  Escape to the Far East in 1980 opened up access to cultures and societies on a global scale, eventually bringing the realization that the world is quite simply one large extended village.”  I’m sure you’ll find Seamus to be an interesting fellow.  I look forward to sitting down with him one day to debate the merits of Scotch whiskey v. Irish whiskey…hopefully with sampling.  Contact info for Seumas can be found at the end of this post.]

On Writing:

Steve: Why, how, and when did you start writing?

Seumas: An unfulfilled lifelong ambition just to ‘tick-off’ from the bucket list ‘writing a novel’ kicked in about 4 years ago. Prior to that, I’d dabbled with short story writing, and some teenage angst-riddled poetry, with some more elegant poems later in life. The novel became a crime thriller tale, and led to the next and now #3 is a work-in-progress, with at least another couple to follow—it IS addictive, isn’t it?

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Last Tuesday’s post was a bit heavy on Catholic humor—I’ll admit it.  All churches, synagogues, and other places of worship are often home to well-meaning people who enjoy giving a helping hand to people in need.  The emphasis is on “well-meaning people” and not the actual building, of course.  (In Soldiers of God, for example, one of the main protagonists is a priest who thwarts a terrorist attack by radical Catholics.  I admire people whose faith motivates them to do good deeds.)

No, in line with the interview yesterday, I thought that today I’d stay on the topic of writing and the writing business.  Don’t worry, though.  The title doesn’t mean that I have an old Borders or B&N store to sell you, though they’re generally in great locations for anything from an Apple store to a Victoria Secrets store or S&M store featuring “Fifty Shades literature.”  No, I’m going to write about setting or choosing locales in your writing.

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There are many wonderful things about ebook self-publishing that make it attractive to writers.  An obvious one that comes to mind is that the writer can minimize what stands between him and the reader.  I’m talking logistics, of course, as well as time delay.  One can consider a situation where event X occurs in the real world and there’s an ebook about it only a few weeks later.  After finishing a manuscript (MS), the delay needed to reach the reading public is minimal.

In fact, readers rule in this entertainment industry.  As a consequence, an author has to realize that every reader is different.  Whether a book becomes a bookseller because of some lemming-like mass psychosis (the Fifty Shades trilogy comes to mind), or because it was released at the right place and right time (Harry Potter comes to mind), or is the best literary offering since To Kill a Mockingbird (no recent book comes to mind), the reading public are the consumers who determine the success of a book.  Any author who tries to predict the future and bend with the stormy winds of literary fashion is crazy.  Writers should write the stories that come from the core of their creative being—if they resonate with readers, that only means that other people enjoy his stories.  This is where minimizing steps between writer and reader come in.

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There are serious book reviewers.  There are jerks who simply give a book a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down, as if a book were something like a pair of boots from L. L. Bean.  There’s everything in between.  When I ask, who qualifies as a reviewer, I really mean, who qualifies as a serious reviewer?

I’m talking about reviewing fiction.  Memoirs (too often close to fiction?), history, biography, technical, scientific, etc. are less likely to be questionable as long as the author of the review is objective.  Recently, a history of Jefferson was questionable and reviewers said so—some of those reviews might have been a bit subjective.  On the other hand, it’s hard to see how a book on quantum mechanics can be controversial (surprise, surprise! it can be, due to the philosophical underpinnings).

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[Note from Steve: Readers and writers here have the opportunity to meet Jim Kukral.  He has written eight books and his Author Marketing Club (AMC)  is a free resource for authors and readers to learn about book marketing and discover new books. Over 7500 people have connected with the club. You can join for free.  There are many ways his website can help you find your way around the complicated landscape of digital publishing.  I don’t usually write posts that might be construed as commercial, but Jim is also an author, so he knows a lot about the writing business.  Enjoy!]

Author’s bio: Jim Kukral is a 16-year Internet marketing professional who was recently named by Dun & Bradstreet as one of “The Most Influential Small Business People on Twitter.” Jim also serves as a Program Faculty Member for the University of San Francisco’s Internet Marketing Program where he teaches classes to students around the globe on the topics of internet marketing, web monetization and social media. In addition, SmallBizTrends.com chose Jim as one of 100 top small business influencers online.

Steve: Where do you think publishing is going?  Is traditional publishing doomed?  Are eBooks here to stay?

Jim: Traditional publishing will survive, but in a new form. The business model of “paper” is obviously going to go away. Not completely, but let’s be honest, the world is going digital. Yes, there will still be paper books, but far fewer than in the past. Traditional publishers will focus on books they know will sell and stop taking any chances on new authors. New authors will come from the indie crowd. They’ll prove themselves first, then the big publishers will try to swoop in and buy them up.

S: What about bookstores?  Libraries?  Can they keep up with the changing times?

J: I love the line from the Social Network movie. I’m paraphrasing here, where the character Shawn, played by Justin Timberlake, who was the Napster guy, says something like, “Are you interested in buying a Tower Records franchise today?” Same point here. Are you interested in buying a Barnes and Noble franchise today? Paper is on the way out. Libraries are already exploring e-lending programs and it’s great!

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Don’t get me wrong—I know Amazon is a business.  The management there has adopted policies they think will maximize their profits.  My complaint is that they also pretend they are helping indie publishers and indie authors.  I’m not saying that doesn’t happen some of the time, but they are certainly inconsistent.  They adapt policies and inconsistently apply them.  Reviews are a case in point, as we saw in Part One.

There is another aspect of their review policy—past, present, but hopefully not future—that is detrimental to all authors: treating books as just as another product, like shoes, clothing, appliances, toys, and so forth.  By doing so, a reviewer of a book becomes a reviewer of a product—all too often, a book reviewer also reviews other products, in fact, right on Amazon.  For product reviews, the buyer just looks at positives and negatives, perhaps disregarding the latter, if it seems to be just sour grapes or an isolated incident (yet, Amazon ranks that negative review higher than a positive one).

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[Note: This is the first post in a three-part series.  Enjoy!]

Amazon has gone over the top with their change in book review policy.  They have responded to the egregious practice where some authors ask family members and friends to write glowing reviews of their books.  These reviews often are little more than attempts to stuff the ballot box because Amazon’s algorithm counts positive reviews.  This practice, of course, offers no real service to readers and hurts authors who receive few but thoughtful reviews.  Amazon’s first attempt to correct this was to weigh negative reviews more than positive ones.  Now they’ve gone over the top.

Amazon, of course, caused its own problem.  It’s the biggest bookseller in the world, I suppose, so the ranking of a book on Amazon is a big deal.  It’s inevitable that some authors will try shenanigans to game the system.  There are two opinions here:  (1) That’s OK, because Amazon forces authors to do this; and (2) it’s morally ambiguous at best.  I suppose there’s a whole spectrum of thought between those extremes.  Joe Konrath, for example, one of the champions of self-publishing and now eBook publishing, has said he sees no problem with such chicanery (this is from the NY Times article mentioned below, so I won’t use quotes—I’m surprised Joe would say such a thing).  I tend to the second extreme.  You’ll find I don’t have many reviews (maybe a consequence of being too moral?).

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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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Just before hurricane Sandy came roaring into NJ like a banshee on the loose, we went to see Ben Affleck’s Argo.  As usual, we arrived early to get good seats.  Another early arrival commented that a friend (or was it a relative?) refused to see the movie—she never watched violent movies, he said.  That started me thinking.

To paraphrase Tom Clancy, the problem with fiction is it has to seem real.  He’s talking about military thrillers, of course, but that statement is true about many fiction genres (probably not fantasy or paranormal).  It’s interesting that Argo is a movie based on true events surrounding the daring escape of six Americans from Iran during the hostage crisis.  A CIA agent, Tony Mendes, engineered the escape from the Canadian embassy.

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