News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #106…
Item. Family Affairs. In case you missed it, #6 in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series” was just released. The title is the theme, but this is still a novel filled with mystery, suspense, and thrills. The yin-and-yang detectives (Chen is a conservative Asian with a Mona Lisa smile; Castilblanco is a tough but compassionate progressive who has become a Buddhist) have to solve two cases at once in this one before bringing the bad guys to justice…or even determining who the bad guys are. Available on Amazon in ebook format only. Reviewers can have a free copy in return for an honest review by querying me at steve@stevenmmoore.com; the ebook is also available via Net Galley.
Item. The Midas Bomb, Second Edition. You probably balked at the $9.95 price for the ebook version of #1 in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” and rightly so. I would, but it wasn’t my doing. Many readers have discovered that numbers 2 through 6 can stand-alone (this is true for all my novels), but maybe some didn’t want to start a series where the first ebook is so expensive. I empathize with that. So, lucky you, coming real soon you’ll be able to buy The Midas Bomb, Second Edition, for only $2.99, matching the prices of the other novels in the series! Look for it. (The original edition, available in both pbook and ebook format, will still be available; the second edition will only be in ebook format.)
The Midas Bomb is, of course, where the adventures of Detectives Chen and Castilblanco all began. If you have read other ebooks in the series, you won’t want to miss this one! In addition to the intrepid detectives, the arch-villain Vladimir Kalinin makes his first appearance here. His presence is felt in many ebooks in many different series. In this novel, Rolando Castilblanco has lost two partners and is adapting to his new partner, Dao-Ming Chen. You will also witness the on-again-off-again romance between Castilblanco and Pamela Stuart, who later becomes his wife in the series.
Item. Gardners? If you’re a UK reader or writer, you probably know all about Gardners. If you’re a Yank, maybe not. I didn’t. Smashwords’ new distribution agreement with this UK ebook provider to bookstores and libraries is welcome. First, it compensates for the loss of Oyster (I wonder what Google is going to do with it?). Second, Gardners’ business model is far better than Overdrives’. Third, iit opens up some new horizons for one’s ebooks in the UK. Starting Oct. 22, Gardners will start offering ebooks in the Smashwords catalog. Buyers and borrowers will have complete access. Because many of my ebooks are international in scope (about half are available on Smashwords), I’ve always thought that UK readers might enjoy them. This also might be a challenge to Amazon’s KDP Select. We’ll see.
Item. The Times’ continuing bias. The NY Times’ biased attacks on Amazon continues. As reported here, the Times’ expose quoting disgruntled Amazon employees was countered by the company’s other employees, and Jeff Bezos remarked that the Amazon described in the article isn’t the Amazon he knows…or wants. Now Jay Carney, Amazon spokesperson, and some editor from the Times are in a pissing war of words over the expose because Amazon discovered the main whistle-blower quoted by the Times was laid off and out for revenge.
Both sides here remind me of my kindergarten playground confrontations with bullies. In this case, Times staffers are the bullies. The newspaper’s reasons for going after Amazon are clear, of course: Amazon has made indie publishing possible to a large extent, and the Times is always on the side of traditional NYC Big Five publishers—as far as print goes, they’re one of them! I’m ready to cancel my subscription. When the WSJ starts looking less biased than the Times, you know something’s wrong.
Item. Are you a genre-addict? No negative connotation here, but for many readers, the old bookstore traditions linger on. Genres were created for bookstores’ convenience. The boss told the new hired help, “Put the mysteries there, the sci-fi and fantasy over there….” While you, the reader, might focus on just one genre, authors are mixing them up to confuse you. Paranormal urban fantasy, vampire erotica, alternate history, and so forth are a bit hard to classify and shelve if they’re pbooks (paper books, as opposed to ebooks). When I buy books, at a bookstore or online, I get confused—even the online bookstores and libraries selling or lending ebooks use genres to classify ebooks. I have to use the blurbs and the “peek inside” feature on Amazon, for example. I rarely use reviews. Too many offer zero information useful to me as a consumer. Problem is, I can’t come up with any substitute. Key words help. I wonder where B & N or Gardners puts the paranormal urban fantasy novels?
Item. There are no rules? In writing, this is has more truth than fiction. You should question whatever your old high school English teacher told you about writing. Note that I’m not talking about spelling and grammar here. Confusing it’s (contraction for it is) with its (possessive pronoun), there with their, and so forth, is still wrong and you won’t get away with it and/or annoy many people. English might have arcane rules for spelling and grammar (most “modern languages” have these arcane rules), but you want to appear literate if you’re writing literature, right?
No, I’m talking about storytelling, a tradition as old as campfires probably—or older. There are no rules for that. For some people, story A is good; for some, it is bad. There aren’t any rules to follow that will guarantee you every reader will think your story is good, so you have a lot of leeway. I’d say there are some general principles, though. A principle is different than a rule. It’s a bit like a lighthouse with a fog horn when you don’t know whether land is nearby because they save you from a shipwreck. My two principles are simple: aim for minimalist writing because no one likes an erudite or verbose style that gets in the way of telling a story; and use the Goldilocks Principle: aim for just enough of the traditional story elements appropriate to the genre, and not too much, maintaining a balance between them all.
The only English teacher I ever had who recognized those two principles was N. Scott Momaday (yeah, I had some crappy ones). I wonder if those principles are even taught in MFA programs. People focus on techniques, style, and other sorts of drivel, but when you recognize those general principles, all true storytelling requires is practice if you have a wee bit of blarney in you.
Item. Want to read my books for free? Once the second edition of The Midas Bomb is released, all my ebooks save one will be priced at $3.99 or less, so it’s hard to understand why those aren’t attractive prices (and my ebooks are healthier for you than a meal at McDonald’s). While I might do a Kindle Countdown on some next year, don’t look for free…UNLESS you’re willing to write an honest review. Every book in my personal catalog needs reviews, so I will send you a free copy of the book I choose in return for an honest review. Query me at steve@stevenmmoore.com. I’ll only use your email to send you the .mobi file via Amazon’s Whispernet (I can handle Smashwords too for other formats and about half my books, but that’s more of a hassle for you and me).
Item. Review queries. Here’s the flip side of the coin: I review ebooks. I receive review queries because I do. As an author, I know it’s hell trying to find good reviewers (see above). I struggle with it, worry about it, and then throw up my hands like everyone else. Maybe they all flock to blockbusters like Gone Girl and The Martian. These books and a few others are like black holes absorbing all the reviews. (Is Hawking analyzing that phenomenon right now?) There would be enough reviewers to go around if people stopped reviewing a book after it has fifty reviews, say—after that, what more can you write about a book that hasn’t already been written? But it is what it is. So, I need to state my review policy clearly.
For the foreseeable future, all “official reviews” will be done via Bookpleasures.com. Query there; don’t query me directly. You have more of a chance to get a reviewer that way—I’m just one guy, while Bookpleasures has many reviewing gals and guys. Moreover, I’m trying to finish multiple projects, and my TBRoR list is growing out of control (that’s “To Be Read or Reviewed” list). I have PR and marketing to do too; I also write this blog; and I have a life outside writing that often becomes hectic. You get the idea. In that TBRoR list are books I casually read for R&R (yeah, I do that occasionally too, and even if I don’t want to “officially review” your book, I might take note of it for a future R&R purpose—I don’t use reviews just to get free ebooks)—when I like a book, I might review it…sometime. For Bookpleasures, I generally give the book two reads, once as a casual reader and once as an author with an eagle eye for what has worked or not. You won’t get that kind of attention on an R&R book, but I’ll give it an honest review if I decide to review it—just don’t ask.
That’s my policy. I won’t treat your query as spam, but I’ll repeat this policy in my email response. It is what it is.
In elibris libertas….
