Item.  Go Set a Watchman.  Harper Lee’s first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird has enjoyed a lot of sales.  The publisher’s probably celebrating.  I compare this phenomenon to the Fifty Shades one: readers are curious.  But some are also irate.  Their beloved Atticus turned out to be a racist bigot and that genteel South isn’t so genteel.  I’m not surprised some people are turned off.  Some people don’t like to see real-life problems (racism in America, especially the South) portrayed in fiction, no matter which side of the problem they’re living on or their political outlook.  That’s why romance novels and cozy mysteries are so popular—they’re the equivalent of verbal Prozac.  Nothing wrong with that if that’s what gets you through the day or night—at least you’re reading and not watching mindless “reality shows” on the boob tube.

Item.  Don’t forget those bios.  I know many people who read these posts are more interested in what’s happening in genre fiction.  Next week I’ll mention James Gleick in a post—I read his interesting biography of Feynman, Nobel prize-winning physicist.  I’m currently reading a bio of Churchill.  It’s interesting to see that cultural icons had many of the problems and flaws seen in the general population.  It’s also interesting to see how they reacted to rascals around them, sometimes their reactions being equally rascally.

I read a lot of genre fiction, but Clancy’s warning is important in this context: fiction has to seem real.  Turning it around, some non-fiction, like bios, is so strange and surprising that you have to say, “I couldn’t write this stuff because no one would believe it happened!”  And, if you think More than Human: The Mensa Contagion is a saga, read the Churchill biography—it only covers from World War Two on, but talk about saga!  Stretch your wings sometimes and, like a hummingbird, flit from genre to genre.  It can bring new adventures in reading.  (Of course, don’t forget my ebooks—they’re also a blast.)

Item.  Amazon v. Walmart.  I was amused to see GOP candidate Marco Rubio use Amazon as an example of a technological giant that’s changing the retail industry.  Guess he never shopped in a Walmart.  Sam’s little enterprise is much bigger.  Of course, it’s a chain of traditional brick and mortar stores selling almost everything (probably not many ebooks, though), and hardly a pioneer in anything—just old-fashioned, cut-throat capitalism.  Amazon is an online retailer selling almost everything (and they sell lots of ebooks).  Walmart wouldn’t have served as the example Rubio wanted, of course.  I’m not sure working in either one requires a great technological, 21^st century education like he was implying, though.  I would have used Apple, Microsoft, or Intel as examples.  But his point was spot on: education in America is in a sorry state.  Conservatives’ ideas about how to fix it are different than Progressives’, though.  Hopefully they can find some middle ground.

Item. Passing the baton.  One item about The Daily Show I liked and neglected to mention in Tuesday’s post was the ubiquitous author interview.  Mind you, Stuart never had an indie author on his show (a major failing), but he did give some interesting books very good exposure, without frills and fanfare a la Opra.  Most were non-fiction, of course, and often treated political themes, but I met books and authors watching the show I wouldn’t have met otherwise.  Stuart’s barbs probed right to the core too.

Come to think of it, I shouldn’t applaud these segments too much—Mr. Stuart is obviously an upstanding, biased member of the club of NYC traditional publishing promoters.  He never talked about indie v. traditional.  It took another comedian, Melissa McCarthy, to show the vagaries of traditional publishing on her sitcom.  Stuart, for all his liberal pretense, would never bite the hand that feeds him.  So much for progressive thought.  And Colbert?  His first guest in his Lettermanesque new role is Jeb!  So much for progressive thought.  These two dudes went to the Dark Side long ago.

Item. More than Human: The Mensa Contagion.  Readers and reviewers: Thank you for reading my new ebook!  Reviews so far are encouraging.  One reader who didn’t write a review commented about “jumping around” in the second part of the novel, but a reviewer didn’t seem to mind this.  I guess everyone likes the story so far—it turns some common sci-fi conventions upside down.  Remember: you can have a free copy of this sci-fi novel in return for an honest review.  (This goes for ANY EBOOK from my catalog!)

Sci-fi authors: As I explained at the end of the book, treating long spans in a sci-fi saga is a challenge and doesn’t work well with some readers (see above).  I could have divided the novel into two parts and said so, but I decided not to do that this time.  The second novel would still have the same problem, if it is truly a problem—all three books in the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy” were equally challenging in this respect, and there I made the division.  The trick is to avoid those nefarious cliffhangers.  Weigh in if you have opinions pro or con about my two choices.  Note that I do have a sequel planned for More than Human at some future date.

Item. The disappearing reader.  The first of my two posts about reading in America offer some explanations for the phenomenon—to summarize, major distractions creating lack of interest.  Here’s another I forgot: that little calculation in yesterday’s post based on the number of Goodreads readers could be completely off base if the new online borrowing regimes are becoming popular.

Do you borrow or buy ebooks?  Amazon Prime, Scribd, Overdrive, Oyster, and probably a few others by now, permit this.  Royalties to authors are generally less AKA the borrowing services always take their cut (sometimes the author even has to pay to use them).  In some sense, they’ve become the new middle standing between author and readers.  That isn’t exactly in the indie spirit, but the same could be said about Amazon and Smashwords as retailers.

The only way an indie author can eliminate the middle completely is to sell books from his website.  Like PR and marketing, that’s not something I want to do because it takes time away from my writing.  Author, what’s your opinion?  Reader, are you only interested in the product (the book), or are you also interested in supporting writers who provide the product?  There’s probably a consensus that no one wants to give too much to the middle—that only drives the cost up to the reader and is detrimental for all authors—but there might be an optimum balance about how much of the middle is advisable.

Item. Public libraries lending ebooks?  Maybe you borrow ebooks through the public library?  Joe Konrath is developing a service designed to make that easier to do for indie ebooks.  (Unfortunately, that’s an exclusive club right now controlled by Joe and friends—also not in the indie spirit.)  My library only lends traditionally published ebooks.  Even worse, there’s no effective way to donate ebooks.  I keep donating copies of my pbooks (that’s author lingo for hardbound books and paperbacks—trade paperbacks in my case) because they get so much use, but I can’t donate the more recent ebooks.  What about your library?

Why don’t I release pbooks with my ebooks?  Cost.  Pbooks not only kill forests; they’re expensive to produce relative to ebooks, even at the indie level.  That’s why traditional publishers who price a pbook at $14.99 and the corresponding ebook at $12.99 are gouging consumers, not to mention their nefarious plan where they hope the reader will say, “Why not just buy the pbook?”—traditional publishing prefers that people buy the most expensive version.  Of course, I have to cede the point that a hardbound will last longer on library stacks.  Any library lending program of ebooks would obviate that advantage, as long as the library can lend the ebook forever (the traditional publishing business model doesn’t allow that), only one copy per customer to match the stack operation.

In elibris libertas….    

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