The Corner

US and A Today!

2013-04-09T13:23:00.002-04:00

Just a quick note.

Yesterday, I was featured on USA Today's Pop Candy section. Pop Candy is written by Whitney Matheson, and I've been reading her column for more than 10 years, so I was thrilled to be selected as part of her continuing segment featuring entertaining Twitter accounts.

This is the direct link to the actual write-up.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/popcandy/2013/04/08/follow-reader-twitter/2063243/

My happy little mug is currently on the front page of the Pop Candy blog, so that's pretty exciting too. I gather that this rotates pretty regularly, so click the link below soon if you want to see me on the front page.

http://www.usatoday.com/blog/popcandy/

Rusty Hinges

2013-03-13T23:09:00.001-04:00

Screech!

*Me pushing rusted door of blog open*

Yeah it's been a while since I posted.

I feel bad, because this blog was what started everything for me. So, I'm going to try and get it going again.

Since I declared my last manuscript dead about eight months ago, I went back to an unfinished manuscript I had started in July 2011. I freaking love this new book. It's really long. And I'm really close to finishing it. It's, um... long. But I think it's as long as it needs to be. It's a big story. It's probably as long as two regular-sized novels.

I'm really excited about it.

Also, what do you want to see out of this blog? Do you like to hear about the process a writer goes through? Do you like the comedy pieces? Do you just want me to shut up and keep writing my novels? Do you want me to stop writing entirely? (check out my 1-star Amazon reviews!)

Thanks for still being here. And feel free to chime in.

David

The Jackpot - FREE December 24 & 25

2012-12-24T08:55:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas Eve to all.

My book, The Jackpot, will be free December 24 and 25 on Kindle.

Click the cover over to the right to go to my Amazon page.

Happy holidays!

David

It Wasn't Supposed to be the Transitional House! It Was Supposed to be the One!

2012-11-15T21:32:00.000-05:00

Three years ago, my wife and I sold our first home, where we had lived since 2003. We loved that house.

It was a white colonial with a big, open kitchen, an enormous backyard, and a wrap-around country porch. The lot backed up to a large tract of land, part of a common area for the neighboring subdivision, that will never be developed. The downstairs had a great flow to it and made it seem larger than it actually was. Over the years, we put in new windows, new HVAC, some new appliances. It was home. You hear me. It was the place you wanted to be when everything else has gone to shit. The place you want to eat the Chinese food and watch The Sopranos on DVD.

The only problem was that the upstairs was about the size of a paperback book and with the addition of a second child, we decided we could use a fourth bedroom so we could have a dedicated office/guest-room space. We also wanted a neighborhood with a little bit more of a community feel to it -- as much as we loved our house, in all the years we lived there, we progressed to more than a hello-in-passing with only one neighbor. And it seemed like our kids (then 4 and 1) were the only ones under the age of 12 in the entire subdivision.

We put the house on the market in May 2009, and it sold in six days for close to asking price. Remember, this was when the housing market was in total shambles, which should tell you something about how nice a little house it was.

Selling that house broke my heart a little (actually a LOT), but we felt like it was time to move on and find the house we'd spend a decade or more in.

So with our house under contract, we started looking for a new home in the spring of 2009. We wrote an offer on one promising place, but within an hour, I started to regret it. Namely, we thought the kitchen was too small. Other things about it that seemed acceptable earlier that afternoon suddenly seemed mind-blowingly terrible. We pulled the offer before the sellers, who, luckily for us, were out of town, had a chance to accept. With the panic of pulling the offer still fresh in our minds, we saw a second house in a neighborhood we liked the very next day.

It SEEMED like the right house (which I started calling Winterfell from Game of Thrones, since one of the home's previous owners’ was named Stark). The house showed well. It was (and still is) a very fine house, well-built, no issues. It was in a great neighborhood with lots of young families, running paths, a clubhouse, and a pool. Great school district. And we gained the extra bedroom that we wanted. There was a trade-off, though. A kitchen with a much different layout that I was used to, and a far smaller yard on a less private lot. But after six years of mowing a huge yard, I was ready for a smaller one.

Or so I thought.

We put in an offer that afternoon, which the sellers happily accepted. It passed inspection, and there were just a few things we asked the sellers to fix, which they readily agreed to. And I never felt that twinge of buyers' regret like I felt with the house we pulled the offer on. But the weird thing was, as the weeks ticked by toward closing, not only did I not feel any regret, I didn’t really think much about the new house at all. I was very busy at work, and I was struggling with the mind-blowing pain of a herniated disk in my neck. And I was having a hard time letting go of the first house. I REALLY didn’t like the idea that someone else was going to be living in my house. I kept thinking about all the great times we'd had there.

Moving day arrived. Everything went smoothly. And just like that, there we were, in the new place.

Within a couple days of moving in, something started to nag at me. A sense of unease. Little things I hadn't thought through began to haunt me. The layout bothered me. .And guess who doesn't like small yards? Small kids! Eventually, I started to wonder if we'd bought the wrong house for our family. But I kept quiet. My wife seemed to like it, and I didn’t want to rock the boat. I hoped the feeling would pass, that it would just take a little time to get over moving out of our first home. After all, the house itself was fine. Nothing physically wrong with it. Plenty of space. And it was in a fantastic neighborhood. I was being unreasonable, right?

But the feeling didn’t pass. In fact, it grew stronger. I'd wake up early and lie in bed, wondering how I was going broach the subject with my wife. Would she kill me quickly, or would she make me suffer? A few months later, I finally admitted to her that I didn’t like the house and didn't see us living there long-term. Not the most joyous conversation we've ever had. But the damndest thing happened. She agreed with me. Renovation wasn’t an option -- the configuration of the house wasn’t conducive to a renovation job that we could ever have afforded. And I longed for my large private backyard.

And so we waited. And saved. And kept the place spruced up, not with an eye on making it more ours, but on getting ready for the day we'd put it on the market. We put in some carpeting. We put in a new HVAC system, which killed me to do, since I wasn't planning to be around for most of its useful life. And we watched interest rates and home values continue to drop, wondering which one would have the biggest impact on our decision.

Finally, in March of this year, we put Winterfell on the market and began looking for a new house. This time, we were ready. We made a long list of every single thing we’d liked and disliked about both homes we’d owned. (You'd think we would've done this when we bought Winterfell, right? Oops). It took six weeks this time, but Winterfell finally sold for a price we could live with. And we found ourselves in the same position that we’d been in three years earlier. House sold. No prospects on the horizon. But we refused to let ourselves panic. We were ready to move to an apartment if need be. No way were we going through this ever again.

About three weeks later, on our way to another showing, we stumbled across a house in our price range in one of our target neighborhoods that had just gone on the market a few hours earlier; it hadn't even gone into the big MLS database yet. It looked really promising. Our agent got us in to look at it that evening. The downstairs was spectacular – everything I could’ve hoped for. Awesome kitchen. Screened-in porch, a deck, AND a patio. Huge family room with a wood-burning fireplace (which we’d had at our first home, and had given up for a gas fireplace at Winterfell – for God’s sake, Winter is Coming!). The yard, huge and private. A quiet cul de sac. The same school district for the kids. Plus a bunch of other features I couldn’t believe we’d found in our price range. And the house had obviously been immaculately cared for.

Then we went upstairs, simply hoping it was half as good as the downstairs. Quite frankly, unless the upstairs had been engulfed in flames while we were there, I was ready to buy. And the upstairs was just as nice as the downstairs. We went down our super-obsessive list, and the house passed every test. We made an offer on the house that night, and it was accepted the next day (on one of my kids’ birthdays). As it turned out, we had a connection to the sellers – I had briefly worked with the woman in 2010. I didn’t get to know her very well before she left for another job, but she was very nice, and exactly the kind of person you’d want to buy a house from.

We closed on both houses a few months ago (on my other kid’s birthday), and the difference is like night and day. For one thing, I spent the month leading up to closing terrified that either our sale or our purchase would fall apart. Quite a bit different than 2009, when I didn't really think about the transaction at all. I freaking love this new house. It felt like home the minute the moving truck groaned its way out of our neighborhood, leaving us alone there for the first time.

We did make two sacrifices for this house, although I'm realizing that they're far less of an issue than I thought they might have been. First, we don't have a fenced-in yard for the first time in a decade. This means taking our dog out on the leash, but it also means immediate poop cleanup.

Second, we don't have a garage, which we had at Winterfell (but didn't have in the first house). But we rarely parked in the garage. Maybe a few dozen times in three years. And I never found myself wanting for one when we were in the market in 2009. It just so happened that Winterfell had one. And with each passing day, I grow more and more convinced we made the right call, just as with each passing day in Winterfell, I became more confident we'd made the wrong call.

I do feel bad that things didn’t work out with our now-former house. Buying and selling a house is a hell of a big deal, financially, emotionally, and mentally, and going through it much, much sooner than we’d anticipated made it that much harder. Especially since we'd been hoping to make it our long-term family home. Part of me wonders if it would’ve been impossible for any house to measure up to our first house. After all, that’s the one we brought our kids home to from the hospital. It’s where we spent our first anniversary. It’s where we hosted our first big Thanksgiving.

Don’t get me wrong, our family thrived at Winterfell. I made great strides in my writing career. My wife was promoted at work and continues to be a superstar. My kids are doing well (and truthfully, kids don’t seem to care too much where they live). We loved the neighborhood. We had fantastic neighbors, and I will miss the dads’ crew at the morning school bus stop.

But I can’t help but think that Winterfell was a rebound, a transitional house, something to bridge the gap between our beloved first house, and the one that I hope will be our family’s legacy home. Winterfell was fine, it served its purpose, but it was never quite home. I never became attached to it.

(Yes, I realize I’m writing about first-world problems here, so SHUT UP. NO YOU SHUT UP!)

Have you moved a lot? Have you ever moved much sooner than you originally planned? Do you believe in the idea of a rebound house?

Writer's Paradise

2012-10-30T21:57:00.004-04:00

In honor of all writers, here's a parody of Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise I wrote called Writer's Paradise.

Or maybe it's a parody of Weird Al's Amish Paradise, which itself is a parody of Gangsta's Paradise.

Either way, it's a parody.

P.S. - Being a lawyer, I actually went and did legal research to make sure it was OK to do a parody. Turns out parody enjoys a great deal of legal protection. Thank you, 2 Live Crew!

I actually thought about making a video of myself performing this, wearing a hoodie and whatnot, but trust me, I've done the world a HUGE favor by not doing so. Who knows. Maybe if this blog post gets 100,000 hits or something.

P.S. If anyone wants to perform this, feel free -- all I ask is that you give me credit for the lyrics.

________________________________________
As I click through the Twitter and the blog-o-sphere
I put down my iPhone but there's nobody else here
'Cause I've been Tweetin' and bloggin' so long
That my wife texted me and said that she was gone
But I ain't never read a blogger that didn't deserve it
Me, be treated like a spammer, no, sir, uh-uh

Better watch how you query, and you better not rush
Or you and your book might be lying in slush
I really hate to edit, but I gotta cut
As the word count grew, I saw the purple prose, dude
I'm the kinda writer MFA students wanna be like;
Eating Cheetos late at night,
Sunburned by my Mac's light;

Drinking a large coffee, living in the Writer's Paradise
E-mailing my book to me, living in the Writer's Paradise
Psyched about new mail, living in the Writer's Paradise
Sad face when I see it's from me, living in the Writer's Paradise

I got the dialogue, I got the backstory,
I got lotsa online friends, I'm going for the glory,
So I wanna be on the couch watching television
Too much House Hunters keep me from revision
I'm a deluded writer with book signings on my mind
Got red pen in my hand and red veins in my eyes,

I'm a desperate author, weekly blogger
And my Internet is down, so I jack my neighbor's FIOS,
Form rejection ain't nothing but an e-mail away,
Submitting to a small pub, what should my letter say?
I've written three books, but will I make it to number four?
The way my laptop is grinding I don't know.

I wear thick glasses, I'm so blind you see,
The typos we write, right there on screen...

Drinking a large coffee, living in the Writer's Paradise
Emailing my book to me, living in the Writer's Paradise
Getting psyched about new mail, living in the Writer's Paradise
Sad face when I see it's from me, living in the Writer's Paradise

E-books and the print books, print books and the E-books
Plot points, index cards and opening hooks,
Everybody's writing, but half of them self-pubbing
I read Pub Lunch, but I don't know what's selling,

They say I got to learn, all those agent blogs to teach me,
If their guidelines all conflicting, how can they reach me?
I guess they can't; I guess they won't,
They form reject; that's why I gotta keep the day job, muse!

Drinking a large coffee, living in the Writer's Paradise
Emailing my book to me, living in the Writer's Paradise
Getting psyched about new mail, living in the Writer's Paradise
Sad face when I see it's from me, living in the Writer's Paradise

I wear thick glasses, I'm so blind you see,
the typos we write, right there on screen...
I've got thick glasses, I'm so blind you see,
The typos we write, right there on screen...

Why it Sort of Doesn't Matter Who's President. Sort of.

2012-10-24T13:00:00.000-04:00

I paid very little attention to the 2000 Presidential election. I did not stay up late watching election returns, and I did not really care which candidate won. To be honest, it’s entirely possible I voted for George Bush. Looking back, I’m sort of glad that Virginia was safely a red state back then, meaning that the Electoral College system saved me from myself.

I was 27 years old, at the dawn of my career as an attorney, with no idea of what kind of lawyer I was going to become. I was in my longest long-term relationship (not that there had been that many, but this one seemed like it was going to last, and it has). I had this vague dream of someday becoming a novelist. I’d gotten a couple short stories published.

Several weeks later, George Bush was declared the winner, and we all know how that went. I voted for John Kerry in 2004, but you could see a Bush re-election coming from a mile away.

Against a terrible backdrop of 9/11 and two wars, the truth is that a lot of stuff happened to me during those eight Bush years, a lot of good stuff that far outweighed my disgust with what Georgie-Porgy was doing at the controls, and some bad stuff that I'd rather not go through again but made me wiser.

I ran a triathlon. Got down on one knee and proposed marriage. I wrote my first manuscript. Shattered my right arm and wrist playing softball. I got married. Went to Hawaii. I couldn’t find a literary agent. We bought our first house. I wrote my second manuscript. I still couldn’t find an agent. We had a kid and fell in love with him. Quit writing completely. Had a complete career meltdown. I wrote another book. I tried several different areas of law. Some jobs were good. Some were not so good. We learned how to host a big family Thanksgiving. We had another kid and fell in love with her.

A few months after our daughter was born, Barack Obama swept into the White House.

More stuff happened to us since then, although, admittedly, at a slower pace than during Bush’s presidency. We sold House #1. Bought House #2, regretted it almost immediately. I had some success writing. Found an agent. Sold House #2. Bought House #3. Found a lawyering job I liked (this took a long time). Still working on becoming a better writer, better dad, better husband, better cook.

And so on.

Look, I sincerely hope that Barack Obama hangs on for a second term. I’m no fan of Mitt Romney, and I am astonished that he’s made up all this ground in three weeks after floundering for SIX YEARS as a candidate. But whatever. If he wins, he wins. I hate that the right-wing extremists and wingnuts and birthers and racists and homophobes will feel validated if they boot Obama to the curb. That said, if Obama wins, we’ll still know they’re out there, and we’re still going to hear from them. And I truly hope that if Romney wins, we get the moderate version we saw at the first debate.

Yes, things will happen in this country. Some things will be good. Some things will suck. Decisions I vehemently disagree with will be made, and those decisions will hurt people. But I’m guessing not many people look back on their life and say, “things would’ve been so much better for me if Mr. X had been President.”

Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, “the arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Despite the wingnuts, we live in a better, more just society today than we ever have before, largely due to the work of many, many people who were never President and would never want to be President. The economy, well, it’s going to do what it’s going to do. It’s always been that way, and it will always be that way. A hundred Harvard-trained economists probably have a hundred different theories about how to grow the economy, and yet we go through recessions and booms, and no one can seem to agree on how either begin or end. You think Mitt Romney alone has the silver bullet? Or President Obama?

Perhaps I'm being naive. Perhaps I'm just steeling myself for President Obama snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

On the other hand, maybe I'm not being naive at all. I’ve got a life to live. I’ve got dreams to chase, kids to be stupid with, and a wife to make laugh. There are chicken wings to be eaten, trips to be taken, beers to be tasted, and music to be heard.

So come November 6, sure, let’s all vote. Have your voice heard. And then let’s get back to our lives. (And thankfully, I can stop looking at poll numbers).

Insanity, Interrupted

2012-09-07T17:00:00.000-04:00

I've decided to shut down my Insanity experience for now for a couple of reasons.

A few days ago, I started noticing an absence of oomph, for lack of a better term, in my legs, which get brutalized during the Insanity workouts.

I took one day off, then two, then three out of four. My legs still felt dead.

And the workouts only get harder and longer from here.

Quite frankly, I just don't have time for it right now. I've got too many other things going on to accommodate the workouts and the time and rest needed it takes to recover from each workout. Although the workouts are only 40 minutes are so, it takes easily that long before you feel like you can function again afterwards.

I suppose I feel leaner, although amazingly, the scale has not budged an ounce. I find this remarkable, given how intense the workouts are, given that up until my recent hiatus, I'd done heavy cardio and plyometric exercises virtually every day for the better part of a month. My shirt and shorts, even my shoes, were soaked with sweat at the end of each workout.

OK, I'm rambling.

Here's what you need to know about Insanity, if you were thinking about trying it. First, the Insanity materials include a bunch of disclaimers, including a warning to check with your physician before beginning the program.

You need to be in relatively good cardiovascular shape. This can't be the first thing you do after a long layoff from exercise. You won't make it through the workouts.

Upper body strength is nice, but it's the least important thing to bring to the table.

You need a lot of free time. A couple hours per day for workouts and recovery. You also will need to sleep at least eight hours a night. I'll say this -- I slept damn good in these last weeks. The problem is that it's rare that I get 8 hours of sleep. I usually get by with 6 or so. It's not enough for Insanity. Eventually, your body will start to quit on you.

With kids, the day job, the writing at night, and all the other stuff, I just can't devote the recovery time needed to make it through.

I'm going to switch back to another Beachbody program (the makers of Insanity) called 10-Minute Trainer. This set contains 5 different workouts, each 10 minutes in length, and you can do 1, 2, or 3 workouts per day, depending on your schedule. They're tough, but doable. Not nearly as crazy as Insanity.

I hate cutting this program short, but there are only so many hours in each day.

Death of a Manuscript

2012-09-01T12:40:00.003-04:00

Last fall, I came up with a really cool idea for a post-apocalyptic novel.

As I've mentioned before, I love that genre, and am fully aware that the market is pretty saturated with stories of zombies, plagues, vampires, Earth-bound asteroids, armies of Sta-Puft Marshmallow Men, and so on and so forth.

But THIS idea.

This was a twist on the genre I hadn't seen yet out there.

I talked to my agent, my first readers, and my wife about it. They all seemed excited by it. I worked on the outline, set out the major plot points. I did have a bit of a hard time deciding on what the main character's ultimate quest would be, but I didn't worry too much about it. The idea was so damn good, I figured it would work itself out (see where this is going?)

So I got to work on the manuscript in December. And wrote and wrote and wrote. By the end of April, I had myself a complete manuscript, nearly 100,000 words in length. I was pretty proud of myself.

I took a week or two off from it, did a couple pass-through reads to clean some things up and shipped it off to my readers.

While I waited for them to get back to me, something started to nag at me. Something felt wrong. The story didn't pop out at me. I compared it to The Jackpot, which had a very simple, very clearly-defined quest -- Samantha working to return a stolen lottery ticket back to its rightful owner while resisting the temptation to keep it for herself. It's the narrative thread. But what was this book about? Why did it feel so flat?

The first reader got back to me with his notes: He liked the premise a lot, but, uh, um, what's it ABOUT?

My second reader came back with his notes: "The writing is really good, but I'm having a hard time rooting for the main character." To me, this is very similar to my first reader's note. Guess what my agent said when she read it?

Crap.

I read through it again. They were right. One hundred percent right.

The book was sick. Very sick. I rushed it into surgery and began looking for where things went off the rails. Early, it turns out. Very early. And the infection spread rapidly throughout the rest of the manuscript. I made the fatal mistake of confusing a good idea with a story. I didn't know what the main character was pursuing, what his ultimate goal was, who he even was, and the novel is fatally flawed because of it. The main character does pursue something, but he was backed into it by circumstance, not because he was actively trying to solve a problem that affected him directly. That's not to say that there aren't novels that succeed in this paradigm -- it's just that mine doesn't, because this quest he's on isn't clearly defined. He doesn't even know what it is until the last 20 pages of the book.

CRAP.

As Gertrude Stein famously said: "There's no there there."

Fixing the book isn't going to be a simple matter of revising a few sections, adding some character depth or anything like that. It's going to require a complete re-write. I'll have to throw out some 300 pages.

So there it is. I forgot the key storytelling principles. What is the book about? What does the main character want? Why does he want it? And how will your main character's true nature drive his or her approach to pursuing the goal?

I think about my three favorite books, and how simple the stories are at their core. The Stand is about our heroes' quest to defeat Randall Flagg. Mystic River is about Sean Devine's quest to find Katie Marcus' killer. Lonesome Dove is about Woodrow and Gus leading the cattle drive north from Texas. In all of these books, it's character that drives how each of the quests is pursued.

So let my tale be a warning to you, fellow writers. Make sure you know these things before you start writing. Don't confuse a good idea with a good story. A good idea is merely a starting point. You have to hammer it down like a blacksmith forging a sword from steel.

If you don't, you could find yourself in the same pickle as me. And believe me, it ain't a fun place to be.

Insanity - Two Weeks In

2012-08-31T15:58:00.000-04:00

So I've hit the first milestone of Insanity, which is Fitness Test #2. As I mentioned in my last post, the Fitness Test is a series of seven exercises that you do over the course of 30 minutes, and recording the number of repetitions you can do for each exercise. We do this four times over the course of the 60-day program, so we can see our overall progress.

I've definitely made huge improvements in all the exercises. In virtually all of them, I was able to do 25-30 percent more repetitions.

Interestingly, I have not dropped any weight yet, but I do feel a lot leaner (and I think I look leaner when I look in the mirror.). I've stuck to the workout schedule pretty closely, so I guess it's the whole lean-muscle-weighs-more-than-cheese-fry-and-Oreos thing.. Or maybe I'm still taking in too many calories (although I think I've been pretty good about that).

It's still a tough program, and I will be glad not do it six times a week when it's over. However, until then, I will try to stick to the program as closely as possible.

For those curious, I think it's harder, overall, than P90X, although I think P90X does put more emphasis on upper body work. Also, Tony Horton is a better instructor than Shawn T (yes, he calls himself Shawn T, so I don't know what his last name is).

Insanity Workout

2012-08-19T22:24:00.000-04:00

So I've started the 60-day Insanity workout program. I'm 4 days in.

I did the P90X program two years ago (which really did wonders for me), and since then I'd focused on running 3 or 4 days a week. But running, as great as it is, doesn't do much for your upper body or the core. And I don't log enough miles to really do much but maintain my current level of fitness.

So, I'm taking this program on in the hopes it will get me back to the same level of fitness I had after finishing P90X. I'm confident that better all-around fitness will help me in all aspects of my life, from baby-daddyhood, to marriage, to work, and, of course, to writing.

It's a pretty grueling program, but I'm happy with it so far. I've done the fitness test (which you do 4 times during the 60 days so you can measure your progress), and three of the primary workouts. There's a lot of cardio and core in there, mixed in with a little upper-body work. I don't know much, but I know I'm dripping with sweat within 10 minutes of each workout. By the end of the workout, my legs are shaking with fatigue.

Ideally, I'll lose 10 pounds on this program, but I'd be happy with 7. I lost 18 on P90X, but I had a lot more to lose then. I've kept most of that weight off, but I have given back about two pounds.

Anyone else out there tried Insanity?

Interview with Author Leigh Moore (Miss Snark's First Victim Blog Tour)

2012-08-01T06:00:00.000-04:00

Welcome to what will hopefully be the first of the Annual Authoress' Success Story blog tours! Those of us who have owed our publishing successes, at least in part, to the Miss Snark's First Victim contests and blog have decided to come together and help cross promote each other's work. Every day in the first two weeks of August, a different author will be posting an interview of one of our fellow Success Stories, so make sure to tune in to everyone's blogs (there's a list below the questions).

And now, I've got the great pleasure of interviewing Leigh Moore.

Hi, David! Thanks for having me here, and thanks to Authoress for all she does for aspiring authors!

Tell us a little about how you got here.

I started writing as a kid, but I never seriously tried to write books until the fall of 2009. Before that I'd worked as a high school English teacher, as an editor in the public relations department at Louisiana State University (Geaux, Tigers!), as an editor for national associations, then when I had my two daughters, I started doing freelance news writing and editing.

In Fall 2009, for whatever reason, I started sneaking off night after night trying to write my first book. After a month of that, hubs accused me of having an online affair--LOL!--and I confessed. I'd fallen in love with a story.

Four completed manuscripts later, I entered the MSFV contest in April 2011 (for the second time). My entry ROUGE won, and from there, I was offered representation for that book by Kate McKean of Howard Morhaim Literary Agency. It's due out through Pocket Star in Nov/Dec 2012.

Who are your biggest literary influences, and what are a couple of your favorite reads?

I don't know about influences, but as a writer, I'm aiming to be something like Judy Blume meets Charles Dickens--totally commercial fiction, but with relatable characters dealing with common problems who find themselves in the middle of Dickensian-style adventures. That way I hope one of them, one day, might turn into a classic. (A girl can dream, right?)

Oh, I have so many favorite books, but two recent reads I absolutely loved were Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke & Bone and Franny Billingsley's Chime. Then last week I read Easy by indie author Tammara Webber, and I just swooned. I actually sent Tammara a fan email. She's great, btw.

You recently announced your three-book deal with Pocket Star (a Simon & Schuster imprint). Congratulations! I was really intrigued by the fact that your deal is, as you described, “first and foremost” for an e-book. Can you talk a little about how your deal came to be, and how it’s different from a print deal?

Thank you so much! I'm still getting used to saying out loud that I have a book deal. It was a pretty fast development, and the timeline is equally fast. Pocket Star is a new imprint that was launched in March 2012, and in April, Abby Ziddle, my editor, talked to my agent Kate about acquiring ROUGE for it. Then the three of us talked on the telephone about it, and it grew to a three-book deal.

This is my first book deal, so I can't really compare it to other deals, but Kate said it's pretty much identical to a traditional print deal in every way except format. It will be marketed the same as their print books, and PS reserves the option to bring it out in print if they decide to do that. But the primary format is electronic.

You also work as an freelance editor. What are some of the most common mistakes you come across as you review other people’s work?

Honestly, I don't see common mistakes--other than some grammar issues. It seems every writer's different. Some have trouble with pacing, some have primarily grammar/mechanics issues, and some just need a good eye for consistency from start to finish. I love my authors, though. All of them are such great storytellers, and I'm lucky to get to know them and help make their books as good as they can be.

In addition to writing and editing, you also have a family – how are you able to balance everything and maintain some shred of sanity?

Oh, man. I don't think I do this very well, but I try. The hardest part--especially in the thick of summer vacation--is stepping away from the computer, knowing that idea or that email will keep, making good notes, and counting on my brain (or muse) to hold on until school starts back up in a few weeks.

Thanks, Leigh!

Tomorrow's post is at Leigh's blog, where she'll be interviewing J. Anderson Coats. Make sure you swing by to check out their interview.

Visit the whole crew:

	Twitter	Posting Date
David Kazzie	@davidkazzie	1-Aug
Leigh Talbert Moore	@leightmoore	2-Aug
J.Anderson Coats	@jandersoncoats	3-Aug
J.M. Frey	@scifrey	4-Aug
Elissa Cruz	@elissacruz	5-Aug
Amanda Sun	@Amanda_Sun	6-Aug
Kristi Helvig	@KristiHelvig	7-Aug
Leah Petersen	@Leahpetersen	8-Aug
Monica Bustamante Wagner	@Monica_BW	9-Aug
Emily Kokie	@emkokie	10-Aug
Monica Goulet	@MonicaGoulet	11-Aug
Peter Salomon	@petersalomon	12-Aug
Sarah Brand	@sarahbbrand	13-Aug
Angela Ackerman	@angelaackerman & @writerthesaurus	14-Aug
Tara Dairman	@TaraDairman	15-Aug

Miss Snark's First Victim Blog Tour

2012-07-25T07:00:00.000-04:00

Hello, readers!

Guess what? We’re just about to begin what will hopefully be the first of the Annual Authoress’ Success Story blog tours!

Authoress Anonymous has built a strong and supportive community on her blog Miss Snark’s First Victim: a community of writers, critiques, hopefuls, agents, editors, and readers. There, writers can participate in contests designed to help them practice giving and receiving critiques, polish their hooks, spiffy up query letters, and gain exposure to literary agents… and, in the case of some writers, get offered representation or publishing deals!

Over twenty professional authors now owe some part of their successes to Authoress, the incredibly generous people who participate in her contests, and her blog. Those of us who have owed our publishing successes to MSFV have decided to come together to celebrate both MSFV, Authoress, and to help cross promote each other’s work.

Every day in the first two weeks of August, a different author will be posting an interview of one of our fellow Success Stories. There might even be some giveaways, so don’t miss a single blog post! Make sure to tune in to everyone’s blogs from August 1st to the 15th, and to follow the hash tag #MSFVSuccessStory this month for more details, tidbits, and info. See you there!

Name	Website	Twitter	Posting Date

David Kazzie	http://wahoocorner.blogspot.com/	@davidkazzie	1-Aug
Leigh Talbert Moore	leightmoore.com	@leightmoore	2-Aug
J.Anderson Coats	http://www.jandersoncoats.com	@jandersoncoats	3-Aug
J.M. Frey	www.jmfrey.net	@scifrey	4-Aug
Elissa Cruz	elissacruz.blogspot.com	@elissacruz	5-Aug
Amanda Sun	http://www.amandasunbooks.com/	@Amanda_Sun	6-Aug
Kristi Helvig	www.kristihelvig.blogspot.com	@KristiHelvig	7-Aug
Leah Petersen	http://www.leahpetersen.com	@Leahpetersen	8-Aug
Monica Bustamante Wagner	www.monibw.blogspot.com	@Monica_BW	9-Aug
Emily Kokie	www.emkokie.com	@emkokie	10-Aug
Monica Goulet	http://monicagoulet.blogspot.com/	@MonicaGoulet	11-Aug
PeterSalomon	www.peteradamsalomon.com	@petersalomon	12-Aug
Sarah Brand	http://www.sarahbrand.com/	@sarahbbrand	13-Aug
Angela Ackerman	http://thebookshelfmuse.blogspot.com/	@angelaackerman & @writerthesaurus		14-Aug
Tara Dairman	http://taradairman.com/	@TaraDairman	15-Aug

Happy Birthday to The Jackpot

2012-05-19T06:50:00.000-04:00

One year ago today, I clicked the "Save and Publish" button on Amazon and sent The Jackpot out into the world for the very first time. It was the scariest and most exciting moment of my writing career.

I'd say "of my life", but watching my kids surgically removed from the wife's abdomen sort of has a chokehold on "scariest and most exciting moment of my life."

Anyway, if you've followed this blog at all, you know that it's been a cray-cray ride for the book. I've been to the four points of the compass in the People's Republic of Amazon, from the ruined badlands of the Kindle rankings, down in the 300,000s, all the way to the champagne wishes and caviar dreams of Amazon's Top 100.

It's been a hell of a ride. We've settled back down now in a nice neighborhood, selling a few books a day, which is a monster difference from the horror show of January 24 (the day before I went free through KDP Select for the first time), when my sales for January totaled 9. NINE books.

Self-publishing continues to turn the industry upside down. One of my writing buddies, Hugh Howey, just scored a deal with Random House in the U.K. (and many other overseas markets) for his self-published phenomenon, Wool, a post-apocalyptic novel that is burning up the charts. He also sold movie rights to Ridley Scott and Twentieth Century Fox (yes, you read that correctly). And wisely, he continues to self-publish Wool here in the U.S. And he's not the only one.

I know that many writers have been approached by agents and publishers thanks to their self-publishing success. I feel that writers, especially genre writers, are going to have to prove themselves via self-publishing, before traditional publishers or agents will take a chance on them.

It's going to continue to be part of my career. I look forward to having multiple titles available for readers. If I had one regret, it's that I didn't have more books available for sale when The Jackpot took off. If a rising tide lifts all boats, I didn't have any other boats in the water, to my detriment.

So, happy birthday to Samantha and Julius and Carter and, of course, Charles Flagg.

I raise my glass to you.

Where Have You Been? Bathroom. For Six Weeks?*

2012-04-05T00:10:00.000-04:00

*A line from the very underrated comedy, Summer School, with Mark Harmon and Courtney Thorne-Smith. Well, it was funny when I saw it 25 years ago at the age of 13. So there!

Anyway, it occurred to me that I'd written two blog posts in the last two months. Weak.

But I have been hard at work on a new novel, which is where I've directed all my creative efforts. I'm about 80 percent done with the first draft, and I hope to type The End by the end of this month. This is the fastest I've ever written a manuscript -- I started writing the draft in mid-December. I drink a lot of Diet Coke.

I'm really excited about this book, and I hope to tell you all about it soon. But not now. I don't want to jinx it.

As Mr. Wolf (of Pulp Fiction fame) would say: "Stay out of trouble, you crazy kids."

How Amazon's KDP Select Saved My Book, Part II

2012-02-28T20:16:00.039-05:00

Click here for How Amazon's KDP Select Saved My Book, Part I

ORIGINAL POST (UPDATES FOLLOW)

Click to visit my Amazon page

Today, I send The Jackpot on its second free run on Amazon. As you'll remember, KDP Select participants get five free days to use during their 90-day commitment. I've got three left to use before I have to decide whether to re-enroll in Select or throw my book back out onto the other e-bookstores. I decided to blog about this second run as it happened, because people are super hungry for actual data, and I haven't seen one address a Free run in medias res, as my English teacher used to say.

I've decided to use at least one of those days on Wednesday, February 29. Depending on how Wednesday goes, I may extend it a day. The key to a really successful Free-to-Paid bounce appears to be hitting not just the Top 100 Free, but the Top 10 Free. Top 100 will give you a bounce, but it's a short one, and will get you maybe as high as 1,000 or 1,500. Nothing to sneeze at, of course, but if you want real sales in the thousands, you've got to hit that Top 10 Free List. I could be wrong, but I've been studying a lot of books in the last month and that seems to be the key.

PREP WORK

I actually did some this time. I submitted notice of the book's impending free status to seven different Kindle sites that cater to Kindle readers looking for low-cost or free books.

Pixel of Ink
E-Reader News Today
Bargain E-Bookhunter
Frugal E-Reader
Free E-Books Daily Blog
Indie Books List
All Things Kindle

I also hope to get picked up by Kindle Nation Daily's free book sweeper. I can't remember if I did last time. There are other sites that sweep the Internet daily for all manner of free deals, and hopefully, I can pop onto some of those as well.

I plan to notify a couple of book bloggers who gave The Jackpot good reviews. Obviously, whether they choose to share it with their readers is entirely in their discretion.

I also plan to Tweet the news on a semi-regular basis during the day. I'm hoping these tweets won't be viewed as annoying spam since the book is in fact, free. I could be wrong. Of course, whether my followers download the book or choose to re-tweet the news about the freebie is up to them. I won't ask. I've been asked directly to re-tweet something before, once, and I didn't like being asked.

THE MENTAL GAME

First time out, I had as much success as anyone could ever have dreamed of. I ended up with 25,000 downloads. I reached heights on the big-boy Amazon bestseller list that most traditionally published writers never do. For all I know, that might be the only time any book of mine ever makes it that high. Jesus, I hope not, but it's very possible.

But the stupid naive side of myself is all "puppies and sunshine!", and expects nothing but the best. Stupid naive self.

I am as anxious about this as I've been about anything in my writing career. When I went free the first time, I had no expectations because the book was dead. I would have been happy with any paid sales, let alone the thousands I ended up with.

LIVE BLOG

I plan to update this post during the day when I can. I'm one of these types that can spew a bunch of bloggy words when I'm nervous, and I think that helps settle me down. I'll try to share as much as I can. Feel free to duck in and out during the day and see how things are going.

Incidentally, my January 29 blog post about my KDP Select experience has become the biggest thing to ever come out of The Corner. To give you an idea how big -- prior to January 30, this blog had about 62,000 lifetime hits in 18 months. A respectable number, one I was proud of. On January 30 and January 31, this blog got 35,000 hits, thanks in very large part to a link from a site called Daring Fireball.

I will be as honest as I can. I may equal my first run's success. I probably will not. But I've got these free days to use, and they've proven to be a valuable weapon in my arsenal. I've gotten 25 new reviews, the vast majority of which are from people who loved the book, and who had never heard of the book before a month ago.

I've heard all the arguments about the danger of being so beholden to Amazon through this program. But you know what? No matter what happens, for the rest of my career, I can point to this book and say it was a success. And it was because of Amazon.

UPDATES

UPDATE #1 (about 7:00 a.m.) - The book has been free for a couple hours. About 100 downloads so far. No. 3,973 in the free Kindle Store. No. 6 in Legal Thrillers. Pretty pleased so far. A little behind the first promo's pace, but better than I'd expected.

UPDATE #2 (8:30 a.m.) - I just discovered that the book was picked up by a Facebook page called Kindle on the Cheap sometime in the last two hours. Downloads are steadily increasing. Waiting to see if I get picked up by the big sites, which I believe start posting mid-morning. I pass the time by looking at screenshots of when I hit the Paid Top 100 and then engage in self-loathing for doing so.

UPDATE #3 (10:00 a.m.) - The book was also picked up by the Kindle Author Facebook page. More than 200 downloads in the last hour. Also tweeted by several free e-book Twitter accounts. No. 2,582 overall, No. 7 Legal Thriller. Holding my breath for the biggies. I didn't make the first cut at E-Reader News Today, but they post multiple times during the day. *eyes scotch*.

UPDATE #4 (11:00 a.m.) - A mention by All Things Kindle. Downloads have stabilized at about 200 per hour. Missed the first cut on the biggie sites. Now resorting to cannibalism. Sorry. Interestingly, while my downloads are comparable to my first run at this point (before I hit Pixel of Ink a little before noon on 1/25), my rank is quite a bit worse. I'm still at No. 2,582, but I've jumped to No. 4 in Free Legal Thrillers.

UPDATE #5 (12:00 p.m.) - Hit Bargain e-BookHunter and the Indiebookslist.com. Also on the Kindle Nation Daily free book sweep. Downloads remain stable. Decided cannibalism was bad. I am up to No. 468 in the Free Store. I've hit every list I've wanted to except for the two big boys. Missed the second cut on Pixel of Ink.

UPDATE #6 (1:30 p.m.) - Caught some big game! Got a mention on E-Reader News Today! First book listed! Puppies and rainbows! Also mentioned near the top of The Frugal E-Reader! *Flailing my arms about like a Muppet!*

UPDATE #7 (2:45 p.m.) - Interesting discovery. E-Reader News Today put me and several other books today on their site a while ago, but I didn't see much download traffic until they posted it to their Facebook fan page. Since then, it's been a firehose of downloads. ENT is a free book MONSTER. For those curious, I submitted my book to them eight days ago.

UPDATE #8 (4:35 p.m.) - Looks like I made all the sites except for Pixel of Ink. My book is now No. 122 in the Free Store, and the No. 2 legal thriller. The combination of the various sites mentioning the book have really combined to push the book today. I'm going to need another push or two to get as high as I need to. Remains to be seen if it will happen. Cue sad, "future is cloudy" music from your favorite TLC reality show.

UPDATE #9 (8:25 p.m.) - No new site mentions this evening, although many people have been kind enough to Tweet and post the link on Facebook. After getting stuck in the 120s nearly all afternoon, the book finally bumped up to No. 73 overall. It's now the No. 1 Legal Thriller in the Free Store. It's been a tougher row to hoe this time around. I think that not getting the Pixel of Ink mention definitely made things a little harder. Now I will need to think about whether to add a second day.

UPDATE #10 (10:45 p.m. Wednesday) - The book has climbed to No. 37 overall in the Free store, and the downloads continue to be brisk. I am leaning heavily toward a second Free day. It's possible there's some more room to climb, especially if some of the books ahead of me switch back to Paid overnight. Plus, there aren't that many suspense/thrillers ahead of me. Could be a good chance to get back to the top 10. Last time out, I made it to No. 5 in the Free store, and I think that had a HUGE impact when I went back to Paid.

UPDATE #11 (7:00 a.m. Thursday) - Strategy time. I've extended the Free promo and am now using my fourth of five Free days. Here's the data. I'm No. 29 in the store. Eleven books ahead of me have switched back to Paid and presumably will be dropping off the Free Top 100 in the next hour or two. The big sites haven't posted yet, and it takes a few hours for those books to reap the benefit. I am HOPING that once those 11 no-longer-free books drop off, I will bounce up to the Top 20 where I can just ride the wave of having such great exposure. Stay tuned.

UPDATE #12 (11:20 a.m. Thursday) - Those 11 books ahead of me did drop off, and I've jumped to No. 18 overall. Ya-hoo! Most interesting discovery -- It seems to have taken fewer downloads to get inside the Top 20 than it did during my first free run in January. Not sure what that means (or if I'm even totally correct). You'd have thought the opposite would be true as more people enrolled their books in Select. Glad I stuck with another day. Already thinking about tomorrow, when I switch back to Paid status.

UPDATE #13 (5:30 p.m. Thursday) - Looks like I will peak at #18. Did not quite make my goal, but came damn close. Really happy with the results, but it kind of stings a little to get that close and come up just short. Ideally, I will hang in the 20s for the rest of the evening and then switch back to Paid overnight. I could cut it short and switch back to Paid almost immediately, but that makes me nervous. More sad TLC reality show music.

UPDATE #14 (10:41 p.m. Thursday) -- Big decision to make. The book has dropped quickly to #45. I'm at about 11,000 downloads overall. I do not want to come off the Free list outside the top 100. As I said in my January 29 post, I think a big factor in the bump was showing up in the Free bestseller list once the book was back in Paid. Do I cut the promo short now while I'm still in the top 50, but risk losing East Coast buyers who are going to bed and would miss the book being on the Free bestseller list? Or do I hang tight and hope I finish the run in the top 100? Gamesmanship.

UPDATE #15 (11:26 p.m.) - Still hanging at #45. 3.5 hours to go before I automatically switch back to Paid. I've got to think I've got enough juice to hang in the Top 100 Free until the switch and then have enough slack to stay in until I get cycled out onto the Paid side. You drop fast on the Free list once you're not Free anymore. Makes sense. One thing I need to remember. No matter what happens -- these two Free promos have pushed out 36,000 copies of the book. If even just 1 percent read it, that's a lot of new readers I didn't have before.

UPDATE #16 (1:35 a.m. Friday) -- Stayed up way too late wrestling with this. Dropped to #58 briefly, but then rebounded to #57. The book should come off Free status in about 90 minutes. Have decided to stick it out through the end of the promo. Will be curious to see how the day goes. Very unlikely I will repeat my experience from January 27, but some bounce would be nice to see.

UPDATE #18 (3:30 p.m. Saturday) -- After a slow start, sales got rolling again. The first thing I noted was that when I came off Free, I appeared back on the Paid bestseller list at around No. 15,000 overall, and the No. 77 Legal Thriller. So what I take this to mean is that Amazon simply views my two free days as two days that book is registering zero Paid sales, and adjusted my rank accordingly. Compare this to my previous free run -- my sales had been so bad, that when I came off the Free list early on January 27, I simply had no ranking in the Paid store.

So, since yesterday morning, my rank has climbed steadily (nothing like the rocket-ship rise from January 27, but still a very, very good result). The book is now ranked No. 941 overall and is the No. 10 Legal Thriller. I also am holding onto my No. 3 Top Rated status, which gives me "stickiness" on the Legal Thriller bestseller list -- they have a little sidebar on that page showing the 3 Top-Rated books, where my book has been on display for a good long while.

UPDATE #19 (4:00 p.m. Tuesday, March 7) - A good, solid result overall. I've sold more than 500 books since Friday (a far cry from my January explosion, but I'm still really pleased). The book climbed as high as No. 535 in the Kindle Store on Saturday evening. (Last update).

How Amazon's KDP Select Saved My Book

2012-01-29T12:24:00.017-05:00

Gather round, my fellow writers.

Click to visit my Amazon page

I have a tale to tell.

As I write this blog post on Sunday, January 29, 2012, The Jackpot is No. 68 on Amazon's Paid Bestseller list.

(UPDATE: The book ultimately reached No. 34 on the list on January 31, 2012, and remained in the Top 100 for a total of nine days. It hung in the Top 1,000 Paid for another week or so after that.)

(UPDATE #2: I ran a second free promo in late February 2012, and although it wasn't as successful as the first, I went back into the Top 1,000).

(UPDATE #3: I was included in Amazon's March 2012 Big Deal promotion, which due to prime placement for the book, got me back into the Top 200 for another 10 days or so. I also went back to No. 2 on the Legal Thriller bestseller list).

Here's a screen cap of the highest ranking for posterity.

CUE FLASHBACK SOUND FROM LOST

On the evening of January 24, my book was dead in the water. And I mean dead, like a mob witness who's been taken care of. After a promising start last summer, sales crashed, completely, totally and spectacularly, despite wonderful reviews (from people who didn't even know me!). From December 1 through January 24, I sold 21 copies on Amazon. One on BN.com. And that was it. Barely enough to fund a lunch date for me and my wife. The previous couple months hadn't been much better. To be honest, I was trying to forget the book even existed as I worked on my new manuscript, my internal doomsayer wondering how badly I'd effed my career with a self-publishing disaster.

Now, I'd first heard about Amazon's KDP Select Program during the holidays. Here was the deal: In exchange for providing Amazon a 90-day exclusive, authors get their book(s) listed with the Lending Library, which allows Prime members to borrow books electronically. Second, authors would be able to run free promos -- for each 90-day period I enroll in Select, I could make the book available for free for up to five days, divided however I liked.

At first, I wasn't sure what to think about it, especially given the exclusivity requirement. Part of me was aghast -- how dare they ask me to pull my book from the other retailers! And then something occurred to me. Between October 1 and December 31, I had sold a grand total of .... ONE book on all the non-Amazon platforms -- that one sale on Barnes & Noble.

Now I had heard anecdotal evidence that running a free promo later translated into real sales. There seemed to be no real explanation for this, other than the fact that a ton of free downloads gave a book good exposure on Amazon. So with nothing left to lose, I decided to give it a shot.

I pulled the book down from all the other e-retailers (Number of People Who've Since Asked Me Why My Book Isn't Available on the Other Retailers = 0), and in the wee hours of January 25, The Jackpot went free for a two-day run. At that moment, the book had logged nine sales in January. I woke up at 6 a.m. and was surprised to see that the book had already been downloaded nearly 100 times. I knew these were downloads and not sales, but still, it was exciting to see a number other than 1 or 2 under the monthly sales tab on my Amazon report.

The download rate increased steadily during the course of the morning, and by lunchtime, it was being downloaded more than 1,000 times per hour, occasionally pushing 2,000 per hour. And it was rapidly climbing the Free bestseller list. It got featured on a number of the big Kindle reader blogs that showcase free books each day (this was easily my luckiest break, especially since I didn't know that people often submit their books to these sites in advance of their scheduled free dates). By Wednesday night, the book had hit the top 10, with about 14,000 downloads. Thursday proved to be nearly as successful, with another 11,000 downloads, and the book spent much of the day ranked No. 5.

As the day wore on, I became increasingly anxious about switching back to Paid status. What would happen? What would 25,000 free downloads mean for real sales? I was nervous.

I woke up early again Friday the 27th and checked to see what was going on. The book was back in Paid status, and it had been borrowed through the Lending Library for the first time. I noted a few sales hit as I got ready for work. This was pretty awesome, as I hadn't been sure what to expect -- remember, I'd only had nine sales in January, and I was set to top that while eating breakfast. Now I had heard that the big sales bump for Free-to-Paid came about three days after it came off of Free status, but I didn't know how accurate that was. Regardless, I didn't want to get my hopes up on the first day.

Then sales started to pick up. It went from 225,000 to 38,000 to 10,000 on the bestseller list in short order. Then it hit 4,573 (the best ranking the book had ever had), and although sales continued to pick up, it only rose a few hundred spots in the afternoon. I pictured the book doing mighty battle with other books in the 1,000 to 5,000 range, and I wondered if this was the Wall. Was this the place where my book would have to make its stand?

And then it broke through. It hit No. 549 by late afternoon, and No. 151 by dinnertime. It settled at No. 76 by the end of the night, but the sales kept rolling in, even late on a Friday night. It's currently ranked No. 1 among all Kindle legal thrillers, No. 2 among ALL legal thrillers, and even No. 44 in Fiction and Literature, which I really like because it sounds very official.

MY THEORIES AS TO WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED

This is my guess as to how a book that couldn't muster a sale a day became an Amazon bestseller, virtually overnight.

Early Friday morning, the book continued to appear on the Free bestseller list, even though it switched back to Paid. There was a little bubble above the price marked "Why is This Not Free?", and if you scrolled over it, you got Amazon's explanation about it (although I can't quite remember what the explanation is) -- regardless, the now-$2.99 book was getting bestseller exposure even though it wasn't really a Paid bestseller. This only lasted for a couple of hours, but I think it helped get the ball rolling.

Also, I had so many free downloads, the book began to appear in other books' "Customer Also Bought" pages. Amazon doesn't seem to care if these books mix together on the Also-Bought lists, so many more people were seeing the book once it switched back to Paid status, even though all its prior traffic was due to free downloads.

Other factors that might have kept things snowballing: I write in a pretty popular genre (suspense/thrillers), and I've got a pretty cool cover.

It should be noted that several other books (from different genres) that made it to the top 10 Free List on the days I was there seem to have experienced similar success when switching to the Paid list. One book, Fresh Powder, has made it all the way to No. 26.

HERE'S THE BAD NEWS

Also worth a discussion -- what doesn't help or boost sales. I hate to say it, but I'm gonna. My blog, my Facebook fan page and Twitter feed didn't help push the book beyond the confines of my regular following.

I like blogging, so I never have done it simply as a sales tool. But any sales generated as a result of my blog posts have been minimal at best.

As for Twitter: I think I'm a decent enough Tweeter -- I interact with people, I retweet interesting content, and a good number of my own tweets get retweeted. I venture outside the insulated Twitter world of writers. I like the people I interact with on Twitter and on my Facebook fan page, and those are good ways to get my blog posts out or to tell one-liner Twitter jokes (to be honest, I think Twitter is really effective for sharpening writing skills). And I don't use Twitter as a place to shill my books (I've probably sent a dozen or so self-promo Tweets, most in the days after I initially published the book).

But it's probably been ineffective as a book marketing device. Now perhaps I don't have a big enough following for it to make a difference. I know one thing -- of the few hundred books I'd sold before all this happened, a good chunk were bought by my family and friends. I did very little self-promo, especially on Twitter, because I know how poorly other authors' self-promo tweets worked on me. And the tweets I did send? Probably didn't make a lick of difference. I hadn't run any advertisements, but I had purchased two (ironically, the first one doesn't even run until Feb. 27, and the second won't run until March 31).

The thing that bummed me out the most, though, was the complete disconnect between hits on my viral animated videos and book sales. The videos continue to draw about 1,000 hits per day -- amazing, right? But my research suggests that this translated into no more than a few dozen sales -- a couple hundred at the very most. Why? Who knows? Maybe there isn't much overlap between Kindle readers and folks looking for a quick chuckle watching a video. I had truly believed that these videos would serve as effective billboards for me, and that people would make that jump from my YouTube page to Amazon and buy my book. Yeah. They didn't. In fact, not only did they not buy the book, very few even made the jump to my Amazon page (maybe half a dozen a day) to look at the book.

Click to visit my Amazon page

So. I'm not sure what any of this means. I learned that the Internet is a very, very noisy place, and that just about everyone is selling something. I learned that people aren't sitting around thinking about your book as much as you think and hope they are. I learned that all this time we worry about social media is probably best spent worrying about something else -- like writing books.

Much like I will never quite understand why my So You Want to Go to Law School video went viral the way it did 16 months ago, I don't know exactly why my book finally took off the way it did. No idea how long ride this will last, but obviously, I am very thrilled and will enjoy it as long as I can.

So, if you've been thinking about trying KDP Select, I hope this gave you some additional insight into the program.

Good luck!

The Jackpot -- Currently Free on Kindle

2012-01-25T06:15:00.001-05:00

A quick post - My novel, The Jackpot, is currently FREE at Amazon.

Click here to go to my Amazon page.

This promotion will last until sometime Thursday, so make sure to scoot on over there to download the book for free before then.

Also, of course, please share this post.

Thanks!

Pink Power

2012-01-11T12:00:00.003-05:00

My daughter is loud. She loves to read and play outside and eat French fries and help me cook dinner. She adores her mommy and her big brother and her friends. She's as happy playing Power Rangers or light sabers as she is playing with her toy kitchen and bringing me pretend coffee or a warm slice of make-believe pie.

Oh, and she fucking LOVES pink. And she loves purple. And she loves her baby dolls and she loves princesses.

And she can KICK YOUR ASS.

So for all the anti-pink stormtroopers out there who have gotten it in their progressive little heads that doing and loving stereotypically girly things and being a smart and kind and all-around-awesome little girl are somehow mutually exclusive, here's fifty Internet bucks to go buy a clue. I didn't tell her to love pink dresses. I didn't reward her with cheese each time she picked up the pink crayon in her chubby little fingers or zap her with little electric shocks every time she plucked the blue one out of the box. It's who she is.

Every day, I see some new article or blog post from some pseudo-intellectual about how This Pink Thing or That Doll Thing is ruining girls and their self-image and teaching them that they are secondary life forms and putting them on an express train to Stripperville. The same people who cheer boys who love pink and purple to show how open-minded they are also robotically condemn parents who supply their girls with a pink doll, as though I've given my daughter a pixie stick of crystal meth. And I think about my brilliant, beautiful little girl, and it makes me angry.

Angry that somehow, people have yet again forgotten that it doesn't matter what any kid (boy OR girl) wears or what toys they play with or what color they love. All that matters is what my wife and I teach my daughter about life and working hard and believing in herself. Same goes for my son. I mean, it's not that hard, really. I'm not splitting the atom with this. She likes pink because SHE LIKES PINK.

If my son liked pink and playing dress-up, the "all that matters" thing would be exactly the same.

But it seems like we've become so obsessed with finding some quickie band-aid fix for the problems that kids face growing up that we've lost sight of the fact that there really isn't a set of grayscale, hemp-wrapped hoops that a little girl must jump through as a prerequisite to becoming an independent, strong and self-assured woman. Rest assured, you pop-psychology-reading, truffle-eating critics, I'll be teaching her the same things I teach my son, I'll be expecting the same things I expect from my son, and I'll be pushing her to follow her dreams the way I'll push my son -- who, by the way, is equally smart and kind and funny and would, if he could, round up every pink item in our house and shoot them all into outer space.

So please, the next time you see a little girl who looks like she's vomited pink and you wonder how will she ever make it in this world, remember -- that's probably my kid, and she'll probably be operating on your decrepit, judgmental ass in 25 years.

With a pink Disney princess scalpel.

10 Fake Things to Know About Twitter

2012-01-04T09:00:00.061-05:00

Over the past year or so, Twitter has become an invaluable tool for mocking the Kardashians and overthrowing brutal dictatorships while ushering in fledgling democracies (sometimes all in a single Tweet). But it's not necessarily the most intuitive platform to work with, and it's loaded with traps for the unwary (a delightful phrase that lawyers like to use about arcane rules of procedure).

Now, if you've learned all there is to know about @ replies and RT's and the like, then you're ready for Twitter 201, which will study the site's most archaic rituals and customs, the ones that you must know if you wish to succeed on Twitter. Because much to Facebook's disappointment, it looks like Twitter is here to stay.

Without further ado, here are the 10 things you need to know to succeed on Twitter.

1. You need to profess your love of thick-cut bacon or gourmet coffee early on, or you will be viewed with suspicion. Loving bacon-wrapped-bacon that you've deep-fried in coffee makes you seem more "human" and less "botty" *actual word I just made up* because everyone knows that bots can't eat bacon. Stupid bots! Just make sure -- and this is really important -- that it's an obscure bacon mined from the fat of an invisible talking pig or coffee picked from Martian beanfields. Otherwise, it's the Twitter equivalent of yet another Saturday night watching Mr. Belvedere reruns with Mom and Dad for you.

2. Ever wonder why bots and spammers are "cleverly" disguised as good-looking women? Because men are stupid. Yeah, guys, @SinKatie2533xzz really IS a 22-year-old Midwestern college girl interested in your Tweets about The Wire and pizza.

3. Follow indiscriminately, because despite the fact that you can't keep up with your parents, your older sister, and the three first cousins you actually like, you will be able to be good friends with 2,136 people who don't have time to read your Tweets either.

4. In your bio, it's very important to note one of the following: (1) you are a "Free Thinker" or a "Motivator," (2) you love puppy farts, or (3) you wish you lived inside the warm and cozy uterus of the sun. Also, announcing that you don't auto-follow will make your new followers think of Boggs from The Shawshank Redemption, when he says, "hard to get ... I like that..." after Andy ignores him in the shower.

5. Being extremely aggressive with your tweets shows how on top of things you are. It also helps to use multiple exclamation points* and ALL CAPS. It's like saying, "I got this Life thing DOWN!!!" *No more than three exclamation points. Four, and you just look fucking ridiculous.

6. When you get a new follower who has fewer followers than you, it's generally considered impolite to publicly tweet your disappointment in them. It's best to put on the Ellen Griswold face from Christmas Vacation when Cousin Eddie and his crew show up and she says, "We have plenty of room!"

7. Hashtags, Part I: It's a scientific fact that everything is funnier when preceded by the pound sign. #notjustforcustomerserviceanymore. See how I did that?

8. Hashtags, Part II: The number of hashtags you use is inversely proportional to your level of self-esteem, so be judicious with them lest you come across like the "chubby-15-year-old-boy-who-once-spent-three-hours dialing-the-first-six-digits-of-a-girl's-number" I once was. Un-hashtagged Tweets are sexy. It's the Internet equivalent of dropping your mike on the stage and walking away. THWOOMP! Retweet THAT, bitches!

9. Hey, Tough Guy With 8 Followers: Nothing says "sincere" like the auto-reply direct message to someone who just started following you.

10. Make sure to show your silly side by always using the phrase nom nom nom when discussing what you just ate, what you're currently eating, or what you are about to eat, because hundreds of people who wouldn't blink an eye if you were smooshed by a decrepit Russian satellite falling back to Earth are extremely interested in what you're shoveling into your piehole.

So there you go. You nail these ten things, and before you know it, you will have many followers who can't remember why they are following you in the first place!

Retweet THAT, bitches! (Please? Pretty please?)

Interview with Chuck Wendig, Texas Ranger

2011-12-20T06:00:00.003-05:00

Today, I'm very excited to welcome novelist Chuck Wendig to The Corner. I first stumbled across Chuck's blog, Terrible Minds, about a year ago, and I quickly discovered why it's frequently cited as one of the best sites for writers. Every week, he slings solid, get-your-hands-dirty writing advice, and if you're a writer, you need to make yourself familiar with his work, post haste. After you read this, of course.

His first novel, Double Dead, was published last month. It's a fantastic story about a vampire named Coburn who wakes up after a long coma only to discover that a zombie apocalypse has wiped out most of humanity -- and, as such, most of Coburn's food supply. It's funny, scary, and action-packed -- one of the best books I've read this year. There's a scene set inside a Wal-Mart that alone is worth the price of admission.

I am a loyal reader of his blog, and you should be too. But I wanted to know MORE, MORE about this very fine writer, and so I put my interview hat on. If you're at all familiar with Terrible Minds, you know Chuck is one prolific little writer, and I thank him for carving out some time for this interview. Below is the result of our exchange -- my questions are in bold. Enjoy.

1. I always enjoy reading about the different paths that writers have taken in their careers. Can you share your background? Is it true that you slew the mythical creature known as the Wendigo?

Chuck Wendig (CW) - I slew him, but then I became him, and then slew myself and became myself. I also ate a lot of funny mushrooms in the woods that looked like Timothy Leary’s face. Is that what you’re asking?

My real background is: I always wanted to become a writer, so I worked a lot of shit jobs until I figured out how writing could pay me. That’s the long story made short, but there it is.

2. What are some non-writing jobs you've held? What do you think you would do if you weren't a writer?

(CW) I’ve: shoveled horseshit, slung books, made lattes, shredded ground test documents so the EPA wouldn’t see, crashed a van, mingled with librarians, soullessly administrated “systems” for a fashion merchandising company, etc.

If I were not a writer, I’d probably be, I dunno. A grave-robber? A horse thief? A Clinique lady?

3. What do you think makes a person a writer? Have you ever given up writing for any stretch of time?

Being a writer is the sum of two things: a) writing and b) realizing that writing is not merely what you do but who you are.

I have not given up writing, not once since I was 18. I’ve thought about it. I think most writers think about it. And then I think most writers knock back another whisky to drown that rat.

4. How did you end up with your agent?

We were trapped in an elevator. I saved her from lions. The typical “writer-meets-agent” story.

Uhh, no, it’s quite a bit more mundane than that. I had a novel. I queried that novel. She liked the query. Ta-da!

5. What's a typical day like for you?

It’s all, you know, high-octane living-on-life’s-edge kicking ninjas and riding pterodactyls. Oh, and writing. Sometimes I write. On those rare writing days, I wake up very early (6AM) and start writing. And then something-something baby, something-something change-diapers. Something-something coffee-and-liquor.

6. Do you do much outlining in advance of starting a new novel, or do you just push the pedal down and go?

You don’t read terribleminds, do you?

Outlining: I am a reformed pantser. Or a pantser at heart and a plotter by necessity.

Every novel demands a different type of outline, but for me, every novel demands some kind of outline.

7. I'm fascinated by writers who can produce a lot of work in a short amount of time. I remember a few months ago, you Tweeted about a 9,000-word day. Talk a little about what that was like.

I tend to write 2,000-3,000 words per day. On those rare days I crest, say, 5k, I do so because the story has such momentum it cannot be contained. That often comes during the third act, if you will, when there’s just no turning back and the dominoes race to fall into one another.

8. Is there a particular area of writing you're focusing on these days, or do you split your time pretty equally between your various projects?

Fiction, mostly – novel-length. But I also do a lot of screenwriting work on the side, and have a couple scripts that should come to fruition in 2012.

9. I have a terrible habit of not shutting off my mind when I'm not at the keyboard. How do you turn things off when it's time to stop writing?

Quaaludes.

No, my brain shuts off all on its own. After a long day of writing and editing, my brain needs to cool-down, and so I let it. Plus: the baby is a mind vampire, in which he eats substantial portions of my brainpower. So that helps. Er, sorry—“helps.”

10. Who are some of the writers that have influenced you?

Robert McCammon, chief among them. Joe Lansdale. Christopher Moore. Bradley Denton. James Joyce.

11. I don't want to give too much away, but let's talk a little bit about Double Dead. What was the inspiration for the story?

Inspiration? You know, I can’t point to any single source of inspiration. Abaddon said, “Pitch to us,” and I kind of hovered over it for a while and somehow, I didn’t just get a zombie story, but rather, a vampire-in-zombieland story.

12. I think Coburn is one of the more unique characters I've seen in a while. In some parts, I felt bad for him. In others, I just wanted someone to run a wooden stake through his heart. How do you maintain that difficult balance of keeping him sympathetic but making sure the reader never forget what he is?

Real people are hard to make sympathetic because we gain few glimpses into their internal lives, and any glimpses we get are potentially manufactured.

But fiction allows us authentic – if, again, fictional – glimpses into a character’s internal life, and that’s where we find sympathy. Coburn was basically a case of taking a real person and forcing him to be monstrous by dint of his vampiric condition. The human is still in there, somewhere, and it was key to sort of highlight that humanity from time to time. Can’t know light without darkness, can’t know good without evil, can’t know cats without dogs or clowns without mimes. Or something like that.

13. Why do you think zombie stories have become so popular?

I have no good answer. All I know is, zombie stories are about us, not about the zombies. Zombies are an environmental hazard, dangerous the way a flood is dangerous, or a plague of rats or a disease outbreak. (The vampire is the opposite of this: meaningful individually, given strong characterization over the hollow shells that zombies become. That’s part of what to me makes DOUBLE DEAD interesting, but that’s neither here nor there.)

In a zombie story, the real problem is the people you’re with – you can tell a good zombie story because beyond all the gore and fear and the debate over slow-versus-fast, you find out that the real danger is in the other humans. Humans who will destroy you with their incompetence or their selfishness or their selflessness.

In this way, zombie stories are some of the most nihilistic and awful stories of them all. At least in terms of horror fiction.

14. Your publisher's website describes Double Dead as an Abaddon tie-in. What does that mean?

Abaddon has a series: TOMES OF THE DEAD.

This is their IP, their book line, in which they say, “Author, write a zombie novel, any zombie novel.” While Coburn and the world in which he inhabits are all my invention, it’s based in Abaddon’s sandbox.

Financially, this means it’s work-for-hire, not a novel given over to standard “royalty/advance.”

15. You recently became a father. Has baby-daddy-hood influenced your writing style or work habits at all?

Yesterday I went to the dinner table and found a dirty sock there. A baby’s sock, not like, some hobo’s sock or anything.

Just the same, that’s our life, now. Socks on the dinner table. Poop and crying and sleeplessness and confusion and smiles and spit up and gurgles and coos.

That’s our life and that’s my brain, too – all that stuff mixing around in my head. So, it’s definitely affected my habits. Style, maybe not, but habits, most definitely. I still crank out the words, but they’re snatched out of the air as if I’m chasing swiftly-escaping butterflies. Harder. Still necessary. But harder.

16. Other than your family, what would you say is your greatest personal accomplishment? What are you most proud of?

Getting BLACKBIRDS out there will be a truly great accomplishment and one I’ve been really yearning for. Otherwise, it’s all the milestones: meeting my wonderful wife, marrying her, buying a house, forming Voltron, conquering Spain, uploading my consciousness to the satellite I had built. You know, the standard stuff.

17. What's the story behind the name Terrible Minds?

I started terribleminds like, eeesh, ten years ago? Maybe 2000 or something. And initially I thought it might be a kind of community site for writers—on a BBS years before that I’d done a thing called WAR, Writers Against Reality—and so the terrible minds were the minds of the writers.

But then I thought, “Man, fuck those people. Writers are cuh-razy. It’ll be all for me! For me!” And then I dipped my hands in piles of gold and let the coins tumble between my fingers like shiny urine. And I laughed. Oh did I laugh.

Kind of a “HAW HAW HAW HAW.”

Or maybe a “MOO HOO HA HA HA HA.”

I don’t really remember.

18. Is there a particular genre you like to read? Do you read much nonfiction?

I used to read a lot of horror. Not so much anymore. I read more nonfiction than fiction, actually. I think this is true of a lot of fiction writers.

19. What's your take on online "networking," for lack of a better word? With life being what it is, I personally find it difficult to establish deep connections with more than a few people. You have a pretty large audience -- is it just the nature of the beast that in most cases, writers can have a hit-and-run sort of relationship with fans, other writers, other people in general online?

I love social media and networking. It can take up a lot of time so I mostly let it fall between moments – but just the same, it’s allowed me to meet some incredible people and foster genuine and unexpected friendships.

The key is to engage. Make sure it’s a wide open two-way street.

20. You seem quite happy with your publisher, Angry Robot. What is it about them that has clicked with you?

Angry Robot? Well, they wanted to publish my book, for starters. That’s always a strong way to get on my good side.

But they’re also very author-friendly.

21. What can we expect from you in 2012?

I’ll be doing a nudie calendar.

But you don’t want to hear about that.

I’ve got BLACKBIRDS in May and its sequel, MOCKINGBIRD in… September, I think. Then at some point a pulp novel for Evil Hat’s SPIRIT OF THE CENTURY RPG called DINOCALYPSE NOW.

Plus, scripts and blogs and some more Atlanta Burns and possibly another short story collection and, like I said: nudie calendar.

-----------------------------------

Chuck, thanks again for joining me.

And I think that's a very fine way to close down 2011. I'm slashing my way through the jungles of a new manuscript, and I plan to use the holidays to make some hay with it.

So as Hans Gruber says in Die Hard, "be of good cheer and call me when you hit the last lock."

See you in 2012, when we'll start our Mayan Apocalypse Countdown!

Top 10 Things That Happen to First-Generation Americans

2011-12-08T20:31:00.001-05:00

I was the first person in my family born in this country. My parents, and every other member of my family who preceded me, were born in Lebanon, which is a perfectly lovely place when it's not embroiled in civil war and shredding itself into hummus-flavored ribbons.

This makes me, like millions of others, perhaps some of you reading this blog, a first-generation American. And there are some things that go along with being the first. Some might call them sacred rituals. Others, rites of passage. So let's get right to them, shall we? All the information you see here has been derived from ~~years~~ several minutes of ~~extensive research~~ my mom making fun of me.

1. There's Been a Discussion About Medical School

For immigrant parents, there's something talismanic about a medical degree. In other countries, physicians are accorded the same level of respect that E! heaps upon the Kardashians. You know that means crazy respect. At least we can rest easy that the U.S. educational system will brutally weed out those (like me) who are too scientifically inept to diagnose a hangnail, much less practice medicine. The good news is that if you are not "scientifically inclined," you can do what I did -- go to law school and get a Juris Doctor degree! No one will know the difference. And if you practice insurance defense law, one day you'll second-guess the decisions of a doctor in open court!

2. There's Been An Ethnic Thing Happening in Your Lunchbox

At a time in your life when you want nothing more than to disappear into the herd, you will invariably open your lunchbox and discover a spinach-and-goat-cheese-and-seasoned-ground-beef pie. This may sound delicious to you trendy suburbanites and urban hipsters who like re-gentrifying old neighborhoods, but to a six-year-old, it's like being lathered in A-1 sauce and dropped into the tiger pit at the San Diego Zoo. You don't want to be the winning answer to the borderline-racist trivia game of "One of These Things is Not Like the Other."

3. There's a Problem with That Girl/Boyfriend Whose Ancestors Arrived on the Mayflower

YOUR BRAIN: I like making out with my new girlfriend. I can't believe she's attracted to me. This is awesome. Maybe I will see her naked.

YOUR PARENTS' BRAINS: Sdifhudfuasdfussdf!!!! He's going to marry her and run off and I'll never see my half-blood grandbabies and why did you bring me here to America!?!?!?!?!? Have they ever even TRIED tabouli?

Yes, your parents will initially hope that you marry one of your own kind. Eventually, they will realize that you're a gigantic bag of crazy and if you can find someone to love you just the way you are, then hell with it, they love all the colors in God's Crayola box of 64.

4. You May Have, But Just Once or Twice, Pretended to Remember the Names of Cousins You've Forgotten Even Existed

I've got 27 first cousins. We've got at least 50 children among us. But yes, I totally remember the one time that the five-year-old accidentally drank a shot of Ouzo! Actually, I do remember that. He's 28 now, so is it OK for me to say that was funny as shit?

But I confess, sometimes, I can't remember all their names, and there are many, I'm sad to say, that I've never met. And I'm sure many of them cannot remember me beyond "that one that lives in America. Their national soccer team stinks."

Oh, yeah, little cousin? Our soccer team may be average, but we've got Donald Trump. FACE!

5. In Space, No One Can Hear Your Parents' Heavily Accented Scream

You don't hear your parents' accents until you do. And then you REALLY hear it. That your parents' English is so precise and correct that it's the grammatical equivalent of a cruise missile is irrelevant; all you hear is "WE ARE DIFFERENT. COME TOILET PAPER OUR HOUSE. DON'T INVITE ME TO THE COOL PARTIES."

6. Really, Would It Kill You to Learn a Little ArabPortItalianese on a Sunday Morning?

Yes. It would. I don't care that knowing a second language will give me a leg up academically. What I do know is that this little lesson is cutting into my BUCK ROGERS and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA watchin' time, and it's 1983 and we still don't have a VCR. (I'm going to assume my readership is old enough to know what a VCR is). You weren't even letting me be the best dork I could be!

7. Shared Nationality Goes a Long Way To Covering Up the Fact That Guy is a Douchebag

At some point, you will realize that someone you've known since birth is a total jackass, quite possibly a thief. You will keep this largely to yourself while you hear your beloved relative talk about said jackass in this fashion: "It's not a LOAN. It's venture capital! We went to school together in the same village, so that means he's totally good!"

Ummm, no. If there's one thing that knows no race, ethnicity or creed, it's Douchebaggery.

8. There's a Huge Disconnect Between Your Parents' High School Memories and Yours

It's probably safe to say your parents didn't attend an all-night kegger at the home of a classmate, said party being sponsored by his attractive, newly divorced mother. This lack of perspective makes for a rough landing when you're 14 years old and discover that your classmates are plowing through illicitly obtained Coors Extra Gold on the weekends and smoking cigarettes.

I even remember where I was when I learned this. It was like discovering Santa didn't exist. You mean other teenagers don't sit at home on Saturday nights watching Mr. Belvedere with their parents? (Yes, this show ACTUALLY HAPPENED -- stick around for the bizarre Jif commercial at the end of the clip).

9. That Awkward Moment When You Realize These Grape Leaves are Fucking Delicious

At some point in your young adult life, you will attend a [Insert Your Country of Origin Here]-ese food festival, and you will spend sixty dollars on a meal that, when presented with it four thousand times as a child for free, you turned on it like a body rejecting a transplanted kidney.

And then you tell your parents that you make your own hummus now, but you go easy on the tahini because it makes it a little overly pasty, and their eyes light up like the Emperor's in Return of the Jedi when he says, "You, like your father, are now .... MINE."

10. At a Family Gathering, You Realize This is Pretty Close to the Opening Scene of The Godfather

A lot of kissing on the cheeks, judgmental whispers about THIS COUSIN or THAT AUNT, and a lot of delicious, delicious food that your Caucasian counterparts get from the gourmet market at 14 bucks a pound.

Just like a family gathering should be.

I Had No Idea It Would Be So Much. I Won't Pay It.

2011-12-06T22:27:00.002-05:00

*From Ghostbusters, the scene where the snooty hotel manager won't pay our boys the amount due for services rendered in capturing the slimy green ghost.

Anyway, just a quick alert to let you know that the I'm raising the price for The Jackpot to ~~$3.49~~ $2.99 (I panicked and brought it back down to $2.99. Sue me). It will go into effect whenever Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords process my request.

I've been thinking about doing this for a while. Not necessarily to make more money (although, duh, that would be nice), but to see if it has any impact on sales. Lately, I've been seeing more and more evidence that the 99-cent book's time in the sun has come and gone. No longer is it enough (or truly, even necessary) to sell a book dirt cheap. Not to say certain authors won't rocket up the bestseller list at that price. But maybe it's not the best way for a self-published author to get read.

Why? Who knows? Maybe there's a perceived lack of value at 99 cents. Maybe it's because the market is flooded, and the 99-cent price point looks like a desperate grab to push as many units out the door, and people who are looking for a good read and not a toothbrush are tired of being bombarded with LOW LOW PRICES. I don't know. The eBook landscape has changed a lot in the last year, even in the six months since I published The Jackpot.

But here's perhaps the most important reason.

I want people to READ the book. I've seen a lot of anecdotal evidence that while people might buy a 99-cent book, they won't necessarily read it. It will languish on their e-reader, literally the 99-cent weakling that gets sand kicked in its face by the big boys that the reader paid as much as $14.99 for.

And if someone buys The Jackpot, but doesn't read it, what good does that do me? That person won't get a chance to enjoy it (hopefully) or perhaps even review it. A book can't be shared by word-of-mouth if it's never read, right? I'd MUCH rather have one person buy it and read it than six who buy it and don't.

So, this is me, drawing my line in the pricing sand. It's time for my book to act a little bit like all the other books I've happily paid full price for. Time for it, in the words of Don Corleone, to "BE A MAN!"

Comments are welcome.

I Believe It's Jogging. Or Yogging. It Might Be a Soft J. (Part Two)

2011-11-16T00:07:00.000-05:00

For anyone keeping score out there, the half-marathon that I eagerly began training for three months ago came and went this past Saturday.

And I did it. I ran every step of those 13.1 miles.

I did a piss poor job of following the training program, but I did manage to squeeze in a couple longer training runs in the weeks leading up to the race. And I was incredibly lucky that the weather could not have been more perfect for a long run. Clear, no wind, temperature around 40 degrees. Truth be told, I came really, really close to just bagging the race altogether, given how far off track my training got. But I knew that if I didn't do it, it would just eat at me, the way this race has the past few years that I have not run it. I didn't even register until about 10 days before. I went out and did ten miles a week before the race, and that gave me the confidence to go 13.1.

I completed the race in 2 hours and 8 minutes, which was seven minutes faster than my target time. I'm very proud of this. That is, until I think about the fact that the winner of the full marathon ran twice that distance in roughly the same amount of time.

I finished in 3,243rd place (no, not out of 3,243 runners, you funny guy you).

What was really amazing is that the 3,242 runners that finished in front of me failed their post-race drug tests, and so I've been declared the champion.*

Pretty amazing, huh?

*This is total bullcrap. I failed my post-race drug test, too. The dude that finished right behind me won.**

**Also total bullcrap. I finished 3,243rd. I'm very proud of this. My son thinks I made it to the medal stand since I came home with a finisher's medal. That's good enough for me.

I might even do another one.

Yes, There Is Such Thing As Monsters.

2011-11-10T17:53:00.000-05:00

Note: I'm pretty angry about this post, so there is some profanity ahead.

There's a scene in the movie Aliens in which the little girl, Newt, asks Ripley why grown-ups tell kids that there's no such thing as monsters, the evidence on Planet LV-426 being to the contrary.

I found myself thinking about that scene this week because I've told my kids that there is no such thing as monsters.

Like you, I'm beyond horrified by the allegations of child sex abuse coming out of Penn State University this week. My feelings on this issue have crossed the borderlands into Repulsed to My Very Core with brief sorties into Our Species is Pure and Utter Horseshit.

My heart breaks for the victims, knowing that their lives are forever scarred, their souls poisoned by the horrific acts perpetrated upon them by this ~~total excuse of a human being~~ deviant fuckwad.

And it's yet another reminder that when we tell our children that there's no such thing as monsters, we are lying to them.

There are monsters out there.

These monsters don't have big fangs or giant, razor-like claws, or cloven hooves. They don't flap big black wings or live underground or have acid for blood.

They look like you and me.

They are smart and friendly and successful and they come cloaked in the false threads of good cheer and altruism.

They embed themselves into the lives of disadvantaged youth and get appointed to boards and commissions and they buy them football tickets and cotton candy and take them on camping trips.

They twist and manipulate the trust placed in them to their own horrific ends.

They keep doing it until they are caught. Because child predators never stop on their own.

I don't care what went wrong inside their brains, what made them snap.

Make no mistake. They are monsters.

Now, if you're a regular reader of the blog, you've probably gathered that I'm a worrier by nature.

A writer more eloquent than me once wrote that if you're a worrier, it's because you're genetically programmed to be a worrier. So you might as well not worry about it because there's nothing you can do about it. But because you're predisposed to worry, you will worry about it anyway. (I think it was Bill Bryson, but I'm not 100 percent sure about that).

And it's stuff like this that makes me worry. It's the price of admission to parenthood.

Actually, it's the price of admission to adulthood, because even if you don't have kids, we all bear the responsibility.

We must remain vigilant, almost suspicious, of any adult that enters a child's life. Because how many times have we heard this refrain? I never thought he was capable of something like this. We must have the "Bad Touch/Good Touch" discussion. We must remind children that this is never, ever their fault.

We must give a shit about what we see going on around us because to not means more victims, more suffering, more ruined lives. Because, as if the abuse wasn't bad enough, it appears a culture of human fuckery pervaded Penn State, a culture that allowed the abuse to continue for years.

So I apologize to my kids, your kids, all kids.

There are monsters out there.

I hate it.

Regrets. We've All Got'em.

2011-11-02T17:56:00.000-04:00

My agent and I were discussing books and reading and iambic poetry, and we got on the subject of reading-related regrets.

If you're so inclined to join in, hop over to my Facebook page and join the discussion in the comments. I've left mine, a regret that's weighed on me for years.

Reading is a big part of my life. That means that occasionally, something reading-related doesn't go my way. Whether it's a book I really wanted to like but didn't, or having a book's ending spoiled for me, there are ways it can backfire on you.

Or you can leave a comment here, too. But do check out the Facebook discussion if you have a moment.

Thanks