The more the merrier.  Born Lew Alcindor, NYC native Kareem Abdul-Jabbar certainly doesn’t have to worry about name recognition.  The 2.18 m (7’2”) NBA legend said in the Sydney Morning Herald (9/19): “…writing has basically been what I wanted to do the whole time.” Meaning?  He had a day-job (day-and-night-job?) that distracted him because he had to put food on the family table?  At any rate, we have something in common.  By the way, his new book, Mycroft Holmes, is #10!  I think they all are written with a co-author, this one with Anna Waterhouse (I couldn’t find much on her).  Anyone read this ebook?  I won’t be reading it soon.  It’s currently priced at $10.69 (Amazon Kindle), far above my $5 threshold.

Is the hype over?  I guess people came to their senses when they discovered that the MC in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was a Southern bigot and that the “new book” was just the original MS of Mockingbird rejected by the original editor.  Thankfully, the hype has settled down.  Maybe questions still linger?  Did Ms. Lee really want this failed MS released?  Did a greedy publisher take advantage of her?  Did the lawyer handling her affairs screw up?  We’ll probably never know.  I never liked Mockingbird, so I’m sure I wouldn’t like Go Set a Watchman.  I’m not even curious.  Correction: I’m curious to know the answers to those questions.

Jackie Collins.  Never liked her work.  She was the epitome of a schlock-meister with her steamy romances.  It’s hard to speak badly of the dead when she fought breast cancer, though.  The big C is one of the grim reaper’s most gruesome tools, no matter the form it takes.  And it seems to have incredible staying power in spite of the decades of research done.  Here’s to Jackie and all cancer fighters across our land and the world.  Maybe the 21^st century will see this often lethal weapon taken from the grim reaper’s hands.

An interesting discussion.  As an avid reader, you’ve probably noticed a new trend in ebooks—the $0.99 short story.  That’s right—one short story for $0.99.  Similarly, even traditional publishers are releasing excerpts from novels—two or three chapters designed “to hook the reader.”  In a Goodreads discussion thread, I objected to these practices.  I can’t say comments were overwhelmingly pro or con about these new wrinkles designed to capture readers’ attentions.  What’s your take?

Let’s do some math to initiate the discussion.  If you pay $1 for a short story of 5K to 10K words, are you willing to pay $6 to $12 for a novel of 60K words?  If you pay $1 for three chapters of a forty-eight chapter ebook, are you willing to pay $16 for the full ebook?  Pricewise, none of these are appealing to me.

And why would you do this?  If you want a taste of the prose, you can use Amazon’s “Peek Inside” feature.  Short story collections or anthologies—usually five or more short stories—often fall in the $0.99 to $2.99 price range (depending on word count, for the most part).  If the book is indie, a novel often sells for $2.99 to $3.99—by buying an excerpt for $0.99, you’ve cluttered up your Kindle and added a dollar to the price of your ebook.

I don’t get it.  One Goodread member said that the industry is still finding its way.  I suppose.  Maybe the dust will settle, and it will all make sense someday?

The Times’ nefarious agenda.  This last Wednesday, the Times came out with another attack on ebooks and, between the lines, indie writers who release them.  The article argues that the ebook revolution is over and people are returning to pbooks.  I have news for the Times they don’t deem fit to print: There are many readers who prefer pbooks still, and there always have been.  But let’s suppose the Times’ predicted demise of ebooks is coming.  Is this news, hardly substantiated by this biased article, front-page headline material?  Only if you’re the Times owners with their obvious agenda.  Does this make you question the integrity and impartiality of the Times other news?  You bet it does!  The Times nefarious agenda against ebooks, Amazon, and indie writers is self-serving.  I predict the eventual demise of B&N and their huge book barns, pbooks, and newspapers like the Times, who support this agenda of wishful thinking.  I’ll admit this might be wrong.  The Times never admits it’s wrong!

It’s not only a self-serving agenda, it’s a disservice to readers and writers.  For the first, the Times clearly wants to destroy the many options readers now enjoy.  I respect their right to freely choose their reading media–I only attack the NYC publishing establishment because they so clearly want to limit our choices as readers.  The Times is part of that traditional publishing and Jurassic paradigm; they feel threatened by the changes in publishing, so they attack those who threaten the paradigm.  That paradigm isn’t about serving readers anymore.  For writers, the Times wants to limit their options too.  They not only supported the publishers in their agency model scheme to control prices–Apple was the big loser there–but they’ve taken the side of the old war horses in traditional publishing’s stable, warhorses who need to shuffle off to the glue factory.  Preston, Patterson, and many other old nags, hiding under the Author’s Guild umbrella, attacked everything indie, and the Times was their cheerleader.

As an indie writer, I’ll never limit your rights to choose in your reading life.  As an indie writer, I’ll always attack those who do.  The Times has become enemy number one in that respect.

Any takers?  I’m referring to my proposal (yesterday) about changing the PR and marketing business model for indie writers.  I’m not expecting any takers.  They all want their money up front.  Buyer beware: testimonials lauding specific techniques are outliers in a rather dismal statistical distribution.  All writers play the lottery.  We never know what books will be successful; everyone has the same low likelihood of success.  There’s no PR rep or marketing person who can guarantee you’ll win the lottery.  You have to write because you love to write.

Chen and Castilblanco #6.  Family Affairs, the new mystery/thriller/suspense novel, will soon be available.  NYPD detectives Chen and Castilblanco continue their adventures in this sixth novel in the series.  Castilblanco’s relative Teresa and Nasir are an item, but Nasir kills Teresa’s taunting and jealous ex-boyfriend in a fight.  When they look to Nasir’s friends for help, those friends kidnap the two fugitives who become involved in a terrorist plot.  While the two detectives try to find Teresa and prove her innocence, a case in a different precinct involving a different Castilblanco relative surfaces.  The cop’s uncle, other detectives, and the Coast Guard help sort things out, including the connection to an old mafia family.  Look for it.

Future projects.  There’s one more for this year: The second edition of Chen and Castilblanco, #1, The Midas Bomb.  The beta-readers Carol and Debby have it; the cover artist Sara is conjuring up a brand new cover.  Ye olde mystery/thriller/suspense writer rewrote most of the book, bringing style and voice (hardboiled and Mr. C in first person) more in line with the other books in the series.  It will be equally priced too.  Of course, those readers insisting on paper can forever buy the first edition on Infinity; I’m not discontinuing any of my paper editions—I already spent the money producing these POD editions, so why take them down?

An ongoing project is my Mayhem, Murder, and Music series of short stories, mystery and crime tales inspired by music I love.  (This last Wednesday, you had Part One of “The Tightrope Walker,” for example.)  As they roll out, they’ll be free at this blog and archived in the category “Steve’s Shorts.”  When they appear in a short story collection, I’ll take them down here (Amazon requirement).  Until then, readers of this blog receive a special treat that non-readers don’t know about, a special treat just for you.

I’ll keep the projects for next year closer to my vest.  A teaser, though: there’ll be a Chen and Castilblanco #7, a new sci-fi adventure set in the same fictional universe as the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy” and the Dr. Carlos Stories, and maybe a few other surprises.  Those muses!  Always threatening me with their tasers.  Unlike Kareem, I don’t have anyone helping me write books—but why should I share the fun?

In elibris libertas….

 

 

This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2015 at 4:00 am and is filed under News and Notices from the Writing Trenches. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.