[A heartfelt thanks to you! I don’t say it often enough here, but I want to thank every person who reads this newsletter, my other blog posts, and, of course, my novels and short stories.  My goal is to entertain.  If I’ve entertained just one person with any sample of my writing, I feel successful.  If I’ve made you pause and reflect, even better.  And, if you’ve enjoyed my writing, please pass a kind word on to your friends and relatives.  In spite of today’s internet marketing, word of mouth is still the best marketing tool an author can have!  Read on for some freebies.—Steve]

#323: Amazon promos of my new releases.  Just for you, my faithful readers of this newsletter, I offer this advance notice: My two new releases, No Amber Waves of Grain and Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape, are available as freebies on Amazon from Thursday, October 17, through Monday, October 21.  The first ebook, a sci-fi thriller, completes the “Clones and Mutant Series,” initiated by Full Medical and Evil Agenda.  The second ebook, an anthology of speculative fiction, contains the novella “Flight from Mother World,” several Doctor Carlos stories set in a future beyond that of the “Chaos Chronicles Series,” and many short stories about zombies, ghosts, weird and/or humorous situations, and unconventional sci-fi themes (please note that these short stories are no longer available in “Steve’s Shorts”).

Here’s the blurb from the Amazon webpage for No Amber Waves of Grain:  “Steve Moore’s new sci-fi thriller carries the reader beyond government conspiracies and political intrigue to world-wide suspense and action. His new addition to the “Clones and Mutants Series” features many players from Full Medical and Evil Agenda: Kalidas Metropolis and friend, two clones, and your favorite evildoer Vladimir Kalinin aka Rupert Snyder aka Sergio Battaglia, who will surprise readers of the first two books in the series. But this country-hopping tale also stands alone as a glimpse into a possible future where forces, both good and evil, aided by science and technology, fight to the death.”

You can download these two ebooks as a thank you from me for being patient about their release.  For No Amber Waves of Grain, why not download the entire “Clones and Mutants Series”?  At $6 for 750+ pages (est.) of sci-fi thrills, that’s a bargain you can’t miss for your fall hours of reading in front of that roaring fire!  Let me know how you like the new books (or any of my books) by writing a short Amazon review or dropping me an email.  Until Oct. 17, and after Oct. 21, these new books will be offered at $4.99 and $2.99, respectively, still a great bargain, but NOT free.  So don’t forget the promo!  And also don’t forget the two other new ebooks for 2013: Teeter-Totter between Lust and Murder and The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan.

#324:  Pox on their house!  I’ve griped in these pages about websites that ask authors to either pay for reviews or have X number of five-star reviews for their book on Amazon.  For all authors out there, the first is always taboo!  The free copy of your book should be enough for an honest review—that’s an industry standard for both traditional and self-publishing.  The second is just stupid!  How do authors, traditional or self-published, get reviews then?  It’s a vicious circle without any logic to it at all!  Suppose you’ve just released a book (see above).  Some readers will want to know the author has a new release, especially in the case if his previous books have earned good reviews.  Add to that the fact that too many Amazon reviews are made by family and friends (Amazon has no way of checking this—even having the same last name is not meaningful).  Whatever X is, it’s just a stupid and egregious requirement.

The above goes for all those websites that announce free books for Kindle.  The same comments apply.  Maybe many authors put a free book out there after a long time just to pique interest (nothing wrong with that, by the way), but, if the author uses the free promo to introduce a new release (see above), the book a fortiori will have no reviews and readers will not be able to enjoy a free copy of that new book.  These rules seem arbitrary and definitely not in the interest of readers or authors.  Readers and authors, please shun these websites like the plague.

The practice above is exactly why I hate a website like Ebook Booster.  Authors, did you know that the site’s list of websites for free promos has many sites that use one or the other unfair and stupid practice?  And they charge you for sending your promo info to each one of these sites!  Is this nonproductive whining?  Maybe.  I only use their list to pick a few sites that don’t use these unfair practices and listed the above promo directly with them (don’t worry, dear reader—your notice still beats theirs by a week).  For the price Ebook Booster charges, I can almost format another novel.  The shame!

#325: King versus Koontz.  These two authors have dominated speculative fiction (both horror and sci-fi) for some time.  I prefer the second author to the first, but I recognize that Koontz has fallen into a rut with his Odd Thomas and Frankenstein series.  Of course, King seems to be running out of steam too—his recent Doctor Sleep is the sequel to 1977’s The Shining and might be long-awaited by some, but I’m resisting.  I confess I’ve only read the blurbs, so don’t take this as a review, but I’ve never been a King fan.  I can’t say I’m a Koontz fan anymore either, although two Odd Thomas books appear on “Steve’s Bookshelf.”

I know both these authors have thousands (millions?) of followers, so maybe I’m being overly cynical.  There’s something positive in that cynicism, though.  Learning from all these “established authors” (I refrain from saying “old” for obvious reasons—this group is large, containing notables like Atwood, Baldacci, Child, Connelly, Deaver, Follett, James, McDevitt, Patterson, Rankin, and many others on my bookshelves), I’ve found three important meta-rules for my own writing: (1) I must always keep in mind that my job is to entertain the reader—he or she might be comfortable with my characters, but I can’t make my next novel has to differ from the last one; (2) every author, especially yours truly as an author who isn’t established, has a right to produce a clunker every once and awhile, as perceived by some readers and reviewers; and (3) the important thing is to keep on writing because I can’t do anything else that is as much fun.

These meta-rules are over and beyond the usual rules for writing a novel, or what NOT to do when writing a novel, as discussed in my blog post “The Eightfold Way” (this has also appeared in other writing blogs, but you will find it in the category “Writing”).  Believe it or not, I live—or should I say my writing lives?—by these rules.  I’m sure all the “established authors” do too, but meta-rule (2) takes the pressure off a bit.  Readers likes and dislikes are also very subjective.  Perhaps I should add a meta-rule (4)?  Something like “you can’t please all readers all the time.”  Some writing coaches would rephrase that as “knowing your audience,” but I can’t imagine a filter that selects readers who love sci-fi thrillers from the general population of readers.  Can you?

#326: New links.  If you go to my webpage “Join the Conversation,” you will see I added some new links.  The first three discuss the fiction writing business in general and the second two of the first three discuss mystery writing in particular.  I like to lurk on many blogs, but I’ve made comments on these when I see a post that triggers a response.  Konrath’s blog has gone over to guest bloggers (he sometimes comments)—he finally fixed things so you don’t have to be registered on Google to comment.  Those bloggers who insist on more than an email ID (two of these require you to prove you’re human) should realize that there are people who visit their sites with bad eyesight—I often have to hit the recycle button once or twice to find something that makes sense, and I’m decidedly not a robot.

The other new link, following Carrick Publishing, is Sara Carrick’s new website.  Donna and Alex Carrick founded Carrick Publishing.  Both husband and wife are excellent writers—Donna wrote the excellent mystery The First Excellence, which taught me a lot about mystery writing in general and China in particular, as well as other stories; husband Alex has several anthologies of funny, cynical, ironical, and whimsical short stories.  Donna does my ebook formatting, one of Carrick Publishing’s services (she also copy-edits).  Sara Carrick, an excellent graphics artist, has created my last ebook covers—you’ll see some of them displayed at her website.  I’m often resistant about pushing commercial enterprises here in this blog, but I highly recommend Donna and Sara.  I frankly don’t know what I’d do without them.  As you can see, with four books in 2013, we form quite a team!

By the way, the webpage “Join the Conversation” also informs you how to contact me—don’t be shy.  It might take some time, but I’ll answer most emails, for example.  And don’t forget to comment on blog posts—I have strong opinions, but I respect others’ opinions.  Express your point of view—just be civil about it.

#327: Tom Clancy, dead at 66.  Love him or hate him, Tom Clancy could spin a good yarn.  I read most of his books until he started collaborating with various authors and writing about privately funded vigilante-type secret organizations.  Mr. Clancy put story above all (see the quotes—one that scrolls across the top of this website and another on my webpage “About the Author”).  I still think his best book is Hunt for Red October (the movie was also excellent), but he left a rich legacy of military thrillers that made him famous everywhere.  He also seemed to know people that let secret details slip—these made his stories all the more authentic.  Or, was he just prescient?  Who can forget the Japanese pilot who took out a full session of Congress in Debt of Honor (did 9/11 terrorists get any ideas from this?  do you yearn for something like this today?  don’t even think about it!)?  Clancy was to military thrillers what Crichton was to science thrillers, and his protagonist Jack Ryan has become an iconic figure in American fiction.  You might call it pulp fiction, but he helped make thrillers an immensely popular genre.  (See yesterday’s blog post for more on Clancy.)

#328: Speaking of movies….  I had to wait until the fall to see some good ones, I guess.  Two new movies show Hollywood can still make them.  Although both were written by screenwriters and therefore don’t possess the tight plotting you’ll find in books (especially my own!), Prisoners and Gravity are definitely worth your while, even at these horrendous ticket prices.

The first is the best movie mystery I’ve seen in years.  It keeps you guessing right to the end.  The acting by all the principals, led by Hugh Jackman in a very different role, is spot on.  Have I read better mysteries?  Yes!  But Hollywood is not good at bringing this genre to the screen, so go and enjoy this exception.  Caveat emptor: there’s some brutal violence here that made even me, ye olde thriller and mystery writer, a bit squeamish.

The second movie shows that space exploration can still excite us, even on that big silver screen.  In fact, you have to see this one in 3D—it’s well worth the extra price.  I’ll never go into space, but this movie is as good as an IMAX documentary I saw on the ISS about giving you the feel of what it’s like “up there” (some viewers might want to take some Dramamine).  This movie grossed $55 million the first weekend.  (Some sour-grapes physicist complained that Sandra Bullock’s hair didn’t float—this ex-physicist thought her hair was cut short for exactly that reason!  A more important objection: the orbits of the Hubble and ISS weren’t nearly the same altitude, if I remember correctly.  Who cares?  It’s a good story!)

I seriously doubt that all those moviegoers to Gravity were aging baby boomers who watched that first Apollo landing or looked in awe at those first Hubble photos (featured in the movie).  Both the death of Hubble and the shuttle program were blows to all of us who see space as the final frontier.  I hope the film will revive interest in space exploration.  Warning: the “accident” depicted in the movie is far more tragic than the near one in the spacewalk depicted in my Survivors of the Chaos—I’ll say no more in order not to spoil the film.  By the way, Sandra Bullock does a great acting job as the space-faring medical doctor.  Certainly her best….

In libris libertas….

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 11th, 2013 at 4:00 am and is filed under News and Notices from the Writing Trenches, Steve's Shorts, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.