News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #118…
(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 14th 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).
Many indies and midlist authors, including myself, would get bored being formulaic. We just can’t write the same old stuff all the time, and we don’t have to do so—we don’t have all the weight of traditional publishing hanging over our heads. For example, I rewrote and reedited The Midas Bomb for its second edition to bring it more in line with other books in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” but each novel in that series is so different that you can read the books in any order—the different themes and settings in the novels keep them from being formulaic. Of course, until I stopped reading Child’s Jack Reacher books (they’re too expensive), I could and did read them in any order too, but they all began to seem the same: wandering Reacher meets bad guys picking on innocent, defenseless guys, and he saves their butts. He’s become a Spaghetti Western-type of character a la Clint Eastwood.
Readers should follow their favorite authors, formulaic or not, of course, but they should also try those new voices, meaning authors they haven’t tried before but who offer new and different stories for their reading pleasure. Who knows? You could find another favorite author to follow. And that would give you something to read when the old stallions head for the glue factory!
Time to boycott LinkedIn? Recent policy changes at LI are tempting me to make that decision. First, they decide to limit the length of comments on discussion threads. I got around that by writing two or more comments, one after the other. Second, they’ve begun to censor comments. I’m quite outspoken there against traditional publishing, for example. Those comments have been eliminated. Third, and ironically, I have so many contacts they periodically and annoyingly ask me to join LinkedIn Plus or some such thing—now it’s Lynda. Fourth, I’m getting tired of authors and marketers pushing their products there. If LI wants to censor something, why not censor those self-promo posts?
While I realize LI is free to run the site as they see fit, I don’t have to like how they run it. Maybe it’s time to pull the plug on LinkedIn? They’ve never done anything for me. I’ve only used it to participate in discussions about the writing business. I can do that elsewhere. And, if you want to contact me, you can do it faster and more efficiently via my contact page. Messages from LI just eat up my valuable time, whereas hitting reply on an email doesn’t. FYI to the world: I don’t have a secretary! (Of course, my boycott with LI can be like my boycott with Facebook. I can keep the account open but not do anything with it! Keeps’em guessin’.)
Series and book bloggers. I’ve generally given up on Simon Royale’s list—many are closed (i.e. swamped), some don’t want a query but a free copy of the book before they decide, and some will speed up the review…for a price (Simon wants only reviewers who review indie books for free—you should never pay for a review!—so the speed-up option gets around his req). What really irks me, though, is a reviewer who won’t consider a book from a series if it isn’t the first in the series. Huh? OK, I realize some authors don’t know how to write a series, but any book I write can be read independently from all the others, whether it’s in a series or not.
Reviews. In my review queries, I always thank reviewers for reviewing, though. As a reviewer myself, I know it requires motivation and time to write an honest, non-trivial review (many reviews on Amazon don’t meet that simple req). If you write a review, you don’t have to write an MFA thesis. Just say what you liked and disliked and why. It’s a lot simpler than you think. And it’s useful to both readers and the author to know this. Authors, give back to the community of readers and writers by writing reviews. (This is another complaint I have against traditional publishing—the authors tend not to write reviews. Ever seen a review by James Patterson?)
May Day Sale. Don’t forget the Kindle Countdown Sale of Muddlin’ Through and Silicon Slummin’…and Just Gettin’ By on Amazaon, April 29 through May 6. Both ebooks are $0.99, reduced from $2.99.
Rogue Planet. Have you checked it out? Think Game of Thrones or Star Wars where high tech replaces magic—it’s hard sci-fi with fantasy elements. It’s set in the same universe as the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy” and the Dr. Carlos stories and offers swashbuckling adventure, cosmic thrills, romance, and a theme that drips with relevance. You’ll have a lot of fun with it! Available in all ebook formats for $2.99 (Amazon and Smashwords) and paper for $10.99 (Create Space).
Reviewing my ebooks. Here’s my author page. You can read any of the books listed there for free in return for an honest review. In fact, to sweeten the deal, pick two and review one. Just send me an email query to steve@stevenmmoore.com. This offer expires June 1.
In libris libertas…
