My Two Cents Worth (Before Inflation)

Why I’m Turning off My Permafree Series Starter

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 15:43:00 +0000

For several years, I used the novel in my Seamus McCree series as a permafree entry point for readers. The major problem for unknown authors (I’m James M. Jackson, not James Patterson) is discovery. Permafree’s siren song is that by making the first novel in a series free, you eliminate the monetary barrier that stops many readers from trying new authors. Give them a fine book (Ant Farm (Seamus McCree #1) has a 4.4 Amazon rating and 4.25 on Goodreads) and if they like it, they’ll purchase the next in the series.

Well, it ain’t working that way for me.

In 2025, I ran promotions that allowed me to give away about 3,000 copies of Ant Farm. The average cost was modest, less than fifteen cents a book. According to industry wisdom, that’s pretty good. It suggests my cover and blurb get downloads. During 2025, the average rating on Amazon and Goodreads both increased. Those who read it, like it (ignoring the occasional troll who leaves a 1-star rating—no review, just ’cause it makes them feel special to trash someone).

Of those who downloaded Ant Farm on Amazon, less than 1% then bought Bad Policy (Seamus McCree #2). But here’s what’s fascinating: for readers on other platforms (Apple, Nook, Kobo, etc.), 75% bought Bad Policy, and 80% continued to Cabin Fever (Seamus McCree #3).

My Hard Truth

I hoped Amazon readers would behave the way my other readers did. They didn’t. They aren’t joining my Readers Group newsletter. These particular Amazon readers happily let me subsidize their preference for free books. That required me to make a business decision.

Permafree costs money, and on Amazon it wasn’t producing readers who went on to buy or engage. What it was doing was attracting people who wanted free books—and nothing beyond that. That’s not a criticism of them. It’s a market signal to me. And once I accepted that signal, it made sense to stop feeding a system that trained readers to sample endlessly without committing.

My pivot

I returned Ant Farm’s price to $4.99 (the same price as all my other novels). Readers who sign up for my newsletter now get “Low Tide at Tybee (A Seamus McCree novella)” as my thank you. It introduces them to three of readers’ favorite characters: Seamus McCree, his darts-throwing mother, and his (now) six-year-old granddaughter, Megan. If they like it and want to read more, they can choose what they want to purchase next.

I created ebook bundles for books 1-3, books 4-6 + another novella, and books 7-8. Each bundle provides a substantial discount over the combined prices of the individual novels/novella. And I offer ebooks on my website, often at a discounted price so readers and I can both benefit without feeding Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

The revised approach gives readers options: Those who want a low-risk introduction can get a complete novella and check out the Readers Group. Readers who want value can get discounted bundles. People who want to support an author they enjoy can buy direct. Just clear choices, without pressure or hidden strings.

Will it Work?

Check back next year, and we’ll explore the results.

I’m curious: what makes you decide to buy a book from an unknown-to-you author? Is it price, recommendation, sample chapters, or something else?

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James M. Jackson writes justice-driven thrillers with brains and bite, including the Niki Undercover Thriller series and the Seamus McCree series. To learn more information about Jim and his books, check out his website, https://jamesmjackson.com. You can sign up for his newsletter (and get to read Low Tide at Tybee, a novella featuring Seamus, his darts-throwing mother, and six-year-old granddaughter, Megan).

This post originally appeared on the Writers Who Kill blog.

Jim Participates in the Abolition Walk

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 06:00:00 +0000

As with most people who have lived more than three-quarters of a century, I have a few pet peeves. I’m aggrieved that we don’t use math classes to teach kids the skills they need to avoid making terrible financial decisions as adults because they don’t know better. (If someone knows and wants to make the same bad decisions, I cringe, but it’s their choice.) Another thing that concerns me is our general woeful lack of knowledge about history, and willingness to believe politicians with historical “facts.”

For example, did you know that the maximum federal estate tax was 77% from 1941 through 1976? Yup, and most states had estate taxes as well. The top marginal federal income tax rate hit 94% in 1944-45! It stayed at 70% or above from 1936 through 1980. Keep that in mind when today's gazillionaires complain about today’s “ruinous” tax rates.

My son, daughter, one sister, and me being recognized at the
2025 Abolition Walk as descendants of James Caleb Jackson

Which leads me to another area where many are blowing smoke: slavery and the Civil War in the United States. The secession of the states that formed the Confederacy was driven by concerns by the wealthy slaveholders that the Republican Party, antislavery as they were, would strip them of their major asset: other humans that they owned. Oh sure, the southern states had other grievances, but their articles of secession mention only slavery.

And those living in the northern states often paint their history as righteously against slavery. They ignore that New England ships took part in the slave trade, and that until well into the 1850s anti-slavery movements were despised more than approved. Just as today when both sides of many issues cherry-pick Bible verses to “prove” their point, Americans were passionately doing the same with slavery. Which brings me to the Abolition Walk.

In 1835, 600 delegates met at a Presbyterian church in Utica, New York to organize the New York State Anti-Slavery Society. (The City of Utica revoked its previously issued permit to meet at the City Hall, and members of the church arranged the changed venue.) My great-great-great-grandfather James Caleb Jackson was a delegate. A large group of anti-abolitionist protesters, led by Congressman Samuel Beardsley, threatened violence, including burning down the building, unless the meeting dispersed. (They cited the slavery provisions in the Constitution for their justification, ignoring the assembly and free speech provisions in the same constitution.)

Gerrit Smith invited the delegates to reconvene the following day in Peterboro, NY (about thirty miles away). Some had carriages or horses. Jackson did not, having walked to Utica from his farm in Mexico, NY. He, and a William M. Clark of Syracuse, convinced an Erie Canal packet boat to load up with 104 men and take them to Canastota, the city closest to Peterboro. Then the two of them led the group on foot for the 9.1 miles from the canal to Peterboro. As they got close, Jackson went on ahead (i.e. walked faster up the hills—Peterboro is about 900’ higher than Canastota) to arrange breakfast for 100 at a tavern. Later that day, Jackson was one of the signers of the articles forming the NYS Anti-Slavery Society.

Peterboro is home to the National Abolition Hall ofFame and Museum. Some of those involved with the museum created an annual commemorative walk to remember these events. This being the 190th anniversary—and as a former actuary knowing the likelihood of my making it to celebrate the bicentennial of the event is not great—I convinced most of our small family to join me on the walk. There are only five living ancestors of James Caleb Jackson. Four of the five of us made it, and Jan came along with me, so we had five participating in this year’s walk.

The weather was cool and sunny, great for walking the 5.4 miles (up to Clocksville and back). Jackson’s name and picture are on the historical markers present in both Canastota and Clocksville that provide information about the walk. His memoir provides the only extant first-person account of the walk.

During the day, I talked with many of the participants, organizers of the event, caretakers of the Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, descendants of former slaves whose ancestors had taken the Underground Railroad to the area, and others, like us, keeping the memory alive, knowing there is still work to be done.

Someone asked me if I was proud to walk in the footsteps of my ancestor. My answer was no; I was humbled to walk in his steps. James Caleb Jackson was twenty-four years old. Some are born to lead.

History shows that serious issues affecting nations are significantly more complex than suggested by the black and white of social media and news headlines. Historical novels, and even contemporary thrillers like I write, can explore that complexity when they incorporate issues such as militias, illegal immigrants, big corporations, the environment, and different rules for the powerful and the powerless.

Writers, how do you handle those issues? Readers, what books have you read that did a good job addressing complex issues without turning preachy?

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This post originally appeared on Writers Who Kill on November 4, 2025

James M. Jackson writes justice-driven thrillers with brains and bite, including the Niki Undercover Thriller series and the Seamus McCree series. To learn more information about Jim and his books, check out his website, https://jamesmjackson.com. You can sign up for his newsletter (and get to read two free short stories, one featuring Niki and Seamus and the other taking place at Seamus’s camp in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula).

Amazon vs Google – AI audiobook narrators

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 12:41:00 +0000

By James M. Jackson

I released Niki Undercover, the first of a new series, using Amazon-only distribution even though my Seamus McCree series has wide distribution. I’d prefer to distribute wide, but to do that well, I would need to spend more time than I had available to market to all channels. Initially distributing only through Amazon allows me to focus my marketing time and, by committing for at least ninety days to stay solely within the Amazon distribution system by joining KDP Select, it compensates me for Kindle Unlimited readers who read the book as part of their subscription without additional cost.

None of my books sell well enough to justify my spending money to pay a human narrator to create audiobooks. Maybe that will be different for the Niki Undercover Thriller series. For now, my choice is to create an AI-narrated audiobook or none. In the past, I used GooglePlay to create audiobooks. KDP (Amazon’s publishing arm for self-publishing) recently expanded availability of its beta version of AI-narrated books. Niki Undercover met their requirements, so I gave it a go.

Having completed that project (the audiobook is available on Amazon), I want to share my thoughts on how Amazon’s AI product and Google’s compare.

Structure and Basic Philosophy

Both providers are in beta, meaning they can and will change their offerings. Google is available worldwide; Amazon only in select countries and for select books.

Both providers start with an eBook and automatically convert it into an audiobook.

Amazon wants the audiobook to comport exactly with the eBook to facilitate those who purchase both and want to switch from one format to another. It converts only the sections it considers the story (ignoring all the other parts of the provided eBook). It does not allow you to add, subtract, or modify text—doing so makes it difficult to sync the eBook and audiobook.

Google converts the entire eBook, including title page, copyright, author’s note, and other works. Google allows you to add or subtract material to create your audiobook as you choose. It also allows you to modify the words of the eBook if you think that improves the listening experience. For example, without using dialog tags, paragraphing alone may allow an eBook reader to know which character speaks each line. The audiobook loses those visual clues. Google allows you to add tags to make dialog attribution clear. Amazon does not allow any changes to the text.

The ability to modify the text gives Google a huge advantage, but one Amazon can only match if it gives up the notion of 100% syncing between the two versions of the book.

Voices

Amazon provides 80 narrator voices covering masculine and feminine traits, age groups 30-40 and 40-50, and American, British, Australian, and Southern U.S. accents.

Google has 50 narrator voices. For English, they have 13 American, 3 Australian, 4 British, and 5 Indian voices. The 25 foreign language voices cover Spanish (Spain and Mexico), French, German, Portuguese, and Hindi. They also provide masculine and feminine voices, but have three age ranges: 18-30, 31-45, 46-60.

Advantage to Amazon unless you don’t want English.

Changing Voices

Amazon allows you to select a different voice for each chapter. Google allows you to change the narrator for the entire chapter, a scene, a paragraph, or even an individual word.

Advantage Google.

Pronunciation

Say this in your head: After I read a piece of fiction, I will have read that piece of fiction. When you read that convoluted sentence, you pronounced the first read as “reed” and the second read as “red.” AI narrators are not that sophisticated . . . yet. And with place names, you never know what you might get. Both Amazon and Google have a mechanism to tell the AI narrator how to pronounce a word.

Amazon lets you choose a word and spell it differently in order to get the narrator to pronounce it correctly. So, if Amazon pronounced both reads as “reed,” I can change the second one by changing its pronounced spelling to “red.” That’s easy, but when I had an organization known by its initials AHI, its attempt was something like “ah-hee.” I’d pronounce each of the letters: A H I. When I tried that, it came out “ah-hi.” My final solution was “eh H eye.” I ran across a couple of words I could not figure out how to trick the narrator into pronouncing them correctly. For those, I got close enough and abandoned the fight.

Once you have corrected a pronunciation, it asks if you always want to use the new version. That’s great for people or place names, but not good for read vs. read.

This ability to change pronunciation solved another problem. I used military time in my chapter subheadings. It pronounced something like Day 6, 2130 EDT as Day six, two thousand, one hundred thirty Ee Dee Tee. I could change 2130 to “twenty-one thirty hours” and EDT to “Eastern Daylight Time.”

Google has a similar ability to change word pronunciation. Rather than using just letters, they introduce their own version of phonetic spelling. Usually, I could type in another word that incorporated the phonetic syllable I wanted to reproduce and splice something that worked. Then, in an improvement, Google added the ability to speak the word as you want it said. It usually reproduced my vocalizations correctly. Sometimes my accent and the AI narrator’s did NOT work, and I was left to figure out the phonetic equivalent or try enunciating more clearly.

Google allows you to apply the new pronunciation universally.

Advantage: Mixed. My impression was Amazon’s AI had fewer words I needed to fix. And Amazon’s English letters were easier to figure out than Google’s phonetic approach. That said, the overall advantage still goes to Google because it allows the voice-recording approach.

Pauses and Dramatic Interpretation

Both AI narrators attempt to interpret the text and read punctuation clues to add pauses. Periods work well, commas are a mixed bag, and question marks and exclamation points can lead to wonky and inconsistent inflections. You can’t fix those, but you can do something about pauses.

Amazon allows you to shorten or lengthen pauses by 25% or 50%. Google does not allow you to shorten pauses (I didn’t find any instances where I wanted to with Amazon). For additional pauses, it offers choices in tenths of seconds from .5 seconds to 2.0.

My sense was Amazon’s narrator interpreted text better than Google. However, I have not listened to Google’s narration in the last year, and it may have improved.

Advantage: Amazon—maybe.

Cover Art

Amazon takes your eBook cover and converts it to a rounded square cover for Audible, by placing the eBook cover in the square and filling in the sides with a contrasting color. No changes allowed. (See left for Niki Undercover example.) If you look for the audiobook through the standard Amazon store, you get the same cover as the eBook. Google asks you to upload a square cover, which you can design.

Advantage: Draw – Amazon makes it easy, Google gives choice.

Where else you can publish the audiobook

Google allows you to take the files they create and publish them anywhere.

Although I’ve read people saying you can publish the Amazon AI-narrated audiobook on places that distribute to libraries, I cannot find that in the Terms of Service. On a help topic it says, “Customers can find and listen to audiobooks with virtual voice wherever Audible audiobooks are available today. This includes the opportunity to reach millions of listeners on Amazon, Audible, Alexa, and through Amazon Music Unlimited.”

Advantage: Google

Pricing and Royalties

In typical Amazon fashion, they require you to price your AI-narrated audiobook between $3.99 and $14.99. They pay 40% royalties. Google allows you complete pricing freedom on GooglePlay, provided you do not offer it at a lower cost elsewhere. They pay 52% royalties.

Advantage: Google

Overall Assessment

Google provides significantly more flexibility than Amazon except for the number of available English-speaking voices. I would choose Google unless (as is my current situation) I wanted to stay within the Amazon environment.

I look forward to your questions and comments.

* * * * *

This blog originally posted on Writers Who Kill on October 7, 2025.

James M. Jackson writes justice-driven thrillers with brains and bite, including the Niki Undercover Thriller series and the Seamus McCree series. To learn more information about Jim and his books, check out his website, https://jamesmjackson.com. You can sign up for his newsletter (and get to read two free short stories, one featuring Niki and Seamus and the other taking place at Seamus’s camp in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula).

Improving by Leaps and Bounds

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 11:52:00 +0000

I recently had an operation to stabilize abdominal aortic and iliac artery aneurysms. Part of the solution to that problem resulted in blocking the artery that provides much of the blood flow to my right buttock and hip. Fortunately, blood also flows to these areas from other places. The result is activity that uses those muscles (like walking—don’t even think about running) leaves those muscles screaming for more oxygen. Pain is what we call that screaming for O2.

Over the years, many people have told me I was a pain in the butt. Turns out they were prescient.

While researching how to improve my situation, I realized there are many similarities between revascularization (the process of bringing new blood vessels to supply the oxygen-deprived muscles) and learning new skills.

The purported “10,000-hour rule” for mastering a skill suggests that to excel, we must spend 10,000 hours working on that skill. That makes for great headlines but is too simplistic to benefit us in practice. First, the 10,000 hours was an average. Some people became extraordinary with many fewer hours, and others took considerably longer.

Second, it obscures the factors that determine how and at what rate we improve. What you do matters as much or more than how long you do it. Consider practicing “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on the piano for 10,000 hours. Assuming you are still sane, that practice may make you a master of that piece, but it doesn’t make you a concert pianist.

For tasks that require pure muscle memory (shooting basketball free throws, carving perfect figures in Olympic skating competitions (in olden days), or keyboarding without looking), repeating the same task over and over again can develop it—provided we receive periodic feedback to spot problems with our form. We need to practice the correct move, not master a flawed technique.

The most efficient way to natural revascularization of my butt muscles is to exercise hard enough to be quite painful, but not so much that the muscles cramp. Then allow the muscles a brief rest and subject them to another period of stress. Repeat for at least 30 minutes, preferably more. After each session, allow the muscles to rest and recover. If there are no residual problems the next day, do it all again. If the exercise becomes “too easy” to elicit the pain response, increase the interval stressors.

While that process results in gradual progress, from time-to-time the training results make a significant improvement jump. In revascularization, the steady process is evidence of the muscles becoming more efficient at dealing with their decreased oxygen supplies. The leaps and bounds occur when new and improved artery systems deliver more blood to the muscles.

If my butt muscles were a city, the steady improvement would result from the civil engineers figuring out better traffic light timing, replacing some traffic lights with roundabouts, thereby allowing cars to more easily move from A to B. The leap occurs when a new interstate comes online, replacing clogged two-lane roads with four lanes and higher speed limits.

A similar process occurs while we master a complex skill, like writing novels. Continuing to write the same types of stories may incrementally improve our skills. To make significant leaps, however, we must purposefully stress ourselves with new challenges and give ourselves recuperation time to allow our bodies and brains to recover. Then one day, we realize we have grown to a new level of expertise.

Has that been your experience when learning new complex skills?

* * * * *

James M. Jackson authors the Niki Undercover Thriller and Seamus McCree series. Full of mystery and suspense, these thrillers explore financial crimes, family relationships, and what happens when they mix. To learn more information about Jim and his books, check out his website, https://jamesmjackson.com. You can sign up for his newsletter (and get to read a free Seamus McCree short story).

September 16 is the release date for Niki Undercover.

This blog originally appeared on the Writers Who Kill Blog on 9/2/2025.

President Trump’s Tariffs are now the Republican Congress’s Tariffs

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 14:03:00 +0000

That President Trump likes tariffs should come as no surprise. He implemented them during his first term and, during his candidacy for his current term, he promised to implement more. Two things have surprised most people: the size of his proposed tariffs and the policy flip-flops in implementing the tariffs.

When it comes to tariffs, I am neither a hawk nor a dove. They can be a legitimate component of any country’s trade and strategic policies. Because they increase the cost of goods imported into a country, the immediate effect is a direct tax on the company that imports the goods. In the short term, a company may swallow some of the tariff cost, but after time, they will increase prices to cover their added costs. Thus, consumers bear the final cost of tariffs, not corporations, and certainly not the countries where the goods first came from.

Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution says, “Congress shall have the Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, . . .but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States. The constitution clearly states that Congress has this power, not the Judicial or Executive branches of government. How, then, can President Trump (or any president) unilaterally make tariff decisions?

Congress delegated that power to the President under certain circumstances. One of those circumstances is a national emergency, as set forth in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA). A Democratic Congress passed the legislation, and Jimmy Carter signed it into law. Its intent was to clarify and restrict presidential power during times of national emergency.

President Trump, in his first term, used IEEPA eleven times to invoke national emergency declarations. In 2019, President Trump used for the first time a national emergency declaration to invoke tariffs. President Biden invoked IEEPA after Russia invaded Ukraine in order to impose sanctions on Russian individuals and entities. President Trump has again invoked IEEPA to justify tariffs on almost all imports.

I cannot imagine what a business that imports goods has been going through these last few weeks as President Trump announces tariffs, changes what goods they apply to, pauses them, brings them back on, develops an additional set of tariffs that seem almost random in their country specifics, lets those go into effect, and thirteen hours later pauses them for ninety days. No manager can make rational long-term decisions with so much chaos, and so they must make short-term decisions they hope will limit their financial exposure. We will never know how much damage President Trump’s feckless yo-yoing tariffs have already done to our economy. The net decline in stock values suggests it has been large.

Congress has a remedy available that can monitor and modify any president’s use of IEEPA to justify tariffs. They can change the law. They can restrict what this president and any future president can do when they claim a national emergency. Congress can require any tariff enacted under IEEPA becomes void if not approved by Congress within (say) sixty days. They can require that Congress must approve ahead of implementation any tariff enacted under IEEPA in order for it to go into effect.

One such approach is the bipartisan “Trade Review Act of 2025” introduced in both the House and Senate. It does not go as far as I would like in limiting presidential power, but it does require Congressional approval of unilateral tariffs (or increases) proposed by the executive branch. The president must notify Congress within 48 hours of any proposed tariffs or increases, explain why they are necessary, and assess the tariff’s impact on consumers and businesses. Congress has sixty days to approve the tariff or it must end. Congress can also vote to end the tariff early.

This proposed law is a reasonable first step in clawing back power from the presidency that was intended to belong to Congress. While it made sense to give presidents flexibility to respond to genuine emergencies, the executive branch has abused emergency declarations to unilaterally impose actions without Congressional approval.

Over the last month, we have seen the chaos and costs of allowing national-emergency declarations to justify the whims of one person. What President Trump is doing now will only be expanded upon by future presidents, regardless of party. The time to stop these practices is now.

President Trump will surely veto the bill, which means it will require a two-thirds vote from each house of Congress to override the veto. Democrats and a few Republicans cannot do this on their own. It requires the Republican leadership to push the bill through.

And because this bipartisan bill is now offered, and Republican leadership combined with Democrats can put a stop to the madness, Republicans now own all of President Trump’s tariff decisions. Because they can curtail President Trump's tariff powers, a decision to not rein him in is a tacit approval of his tariffs. We need to remind every representative and senator, Republican and Democrat, that not making a change means approving of the current situation.

April Fools’ Day

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 12:53:00 +0000

Early morning March 31, 2025, I crawled into bed at home after a forty-eight-hour return trip from Leh, India, which is in the Indian Himalayan mountains region of Ladakh and ten and a half hours ahead of my home’s Central Daylight Time Zone (CDT). My flights were from Leh to Delhi to Dubai to Chicago to Madison. I caught some sleep on the Delhi to Dubai four-hour flight. I grabbed a few hours more on the fifteen-hour Dubai to Chicago leg, and that’s where I set my clock and tried to convince my body everything was now happening in CDT.

The Chicago to Madison flight was delayed an hour and a half because the crew was arriving on a plane from Raleigh-Durham, and that flight was diverted south to avoid massive thunderstorms curving from Michigan down to below St. Louis. I fought to stay awake on that flight so when I got home, I could sleep instead of being invigorated by a “nap.”

That worked. After I emptied my suitcase and took a shower, my Oura watch says I was asleep one minute after I climbed into bed. I arose at 8:00 am to keep adjusting to the CDT and after breakfast looked at my to-do list, which I had not done while on vacation.

That’s when I discovered that my first Tuesday of the month blog for Writers Who Kill was due to go live at midnight the next day, and I hadn’t paid attention to that and written this blog before I left for India. Normally, I would write about my trip and illustrate it with several of my photos—but I purposefully did not take a computer with me so I would be mindful of the special place I was visiting and not spend lots of time going through my thousands of images to find the best ones.

What to write then? Well, it is April Fools’ Day, so I thought I would share an April Fools’ joke created by George Plimpton, a wonderful sports writer who is best known for his realistic accounts of competing against professional athletes of various sports.

For the April 1, 1985 edition of Sports Illustrated, he wrote a story “The Curious Case of Sidd Finch.”[i] Sidd was a reclusive 28-year-old Harvard dropout, trained by Buddhist monks. He was fluent in Sanskrit, played the French horn, and impressively could hurl a baseball at 168 miles per hour. (To understand how ludicrous this is, Aroldis Chapman threw the fastest recorded pitch on September 24, 2010, a blazing 105.8 mph.)

Back to the story, in which Plimpton reported the Mets had given Sidd a secret tryout. The Mets went along with the prank and allowed players and coaches to be photographed with a middle school art teacher who posed as Sidd.

The subhead of the piece should have given the joke away with its absurdity and initial letters spelling out April Fools’ Day (He’s a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd’s deciding about yoga.)

How could anyone fall for that? Well, the article purportedly led other teams to contact the Mets to learn more about this mysterious new phenom.

What’s your favorite April Fools’ Joke?

[i] Sidd Finch: A pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. - Sports Illustrated https://www.si.com/mlb/2014/10/15/curious-case-sidd-finch

This post originally appeared on the Writers Who Kill Blog (4/1/25)

James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree series. Full of mystery and suspense, these thrillers explore financial crimes, family relationships, and what happens when they mix. To learn more information about Jim and his books, check out his website, https://jamesmjackson.com. You can sign up for his newsletter (and get to read a free Seamus McCree short story).

Advice to Democrats on Trump’s March 4 speech to Congress

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 23:01:00 +0000

Be the adults in the room. To do that, I suggest following four simple suggestions:

1. Be present and attentive. You don’t like it, but under our cherished system of government, Trump is the elected president. You would have appeared for Harris; show up for Trump. You would have been attentive to Harris; be respectful of the Office of the President, even if you despise its current occupant. When Trump is introduced to the joint gathering of Congress, stand, showing your respect for the Office and its traditions.

2. When Trump says something you disagree with, meet it with stony silence. Clasp your hands together on your lap and leave them there unless a situation covered by suggestion 3 occurs. Keep your focus on Trump. Don’t roll your eyes at your friends. Feel free to look daggers at Trump, but keep your mouth shut and quiet. Showing no more response than this will drive Trump bonkers. He feeds on negative reactions to his statements and stunts—do not fall for it. Let him fail or succeed entirely on his own words, not your reaction to it.

3. Should Trump happen (and yes, I know this is unlikely) to say anything you agree with, show your agreement by clapping, just as you would have for Harris. If you really agree, stand up and cheer. Despite everything news and social media feed us, there are many things Republicans, Democrats, and Independents agree on. It is not impossible that Trump will mention at least one of these. Should that occur, respond positively to show you can recognize common ground and will work across the aisle to solve issues.

4. You showed unity in voting against the recent House Budget Resolution. Allow whomever the party designates as its spokesperson to respond for the entire party. Refer all requests for comments, interviews, etc. to that person’s response. There will be plenty of time for each of you to let your individual responses be known, but for this news cycle, let the contrast be between whatever Trump says in his speech and the single response.

Thank you for your attention.

The House Budget Resolution won’t solve the debt problem

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 16:13:00 +0000

When the House Republicans passed their 2025 Budget Resolution[i], only one Republican voted against it, Thomas Massie (R-KY). His post on X stated: The GOP budget extends the 5 yr. tax holiday we’ve been enjoying, but because it doesn’t cut spending much, it increases the deficit by over $300 billion/yr. compared to letting tax cuts expire. Over 10 years, this budget will add $20 trillion to US debt.[ii]

I might choose to argue whether the cuts in spending are “much” or not, but the House Budget Resolution, if implemented, will indeed add an estimated $20 trillion to the US debt. The policy statement included with the budget resolution includes as its first and third findings:

(1) The United States faces a significant debt crisis, with the national debt currently exceeding $36 trillion, or 123% of GDP (Ed. note: Gross Domestic Product, the total market value of all goods and services produced during the year)

(3) This debt poses a significant risk to the country’s long-term fiscal sustainability, with implications for future generations.

I agree that we are in a crisis of our own making and using the ratio of national debt to GDP is a fair approach of viewing the situation. Not solving this issue will have not only severe consequences for future generations, but it will have severe consequences for current generations, as well.

And yet, the budget resolution increases the accumulated debt to $56 trillion by 2034. That is an increase of over 50% in ten years’ time, about 4.4% compounded each year.

During the 21^st century, GDP grew faster than 4.4% in only one year[iii]. In 2021, it grew 5.8%; however, that followed the 2.21% decline in 2020. Combined, those two years averaged just 1.7% (compounded) growth.

To assume we will magically find our way (while decreasing immigration) to increase our GDP by more than a compounded 4.4% a year is unrealistic.

Therefore, Republicans identified the number one concern that debt was 123% of GDP, and after ten years, their proposed budgets will leave us with debt significantly greater than 123% of GDP.

How much greater? That depends on how fast GDP actually grows. The average compound growth rate for the 21^st century has been slightly under 2.5%. If we assume that continues, in ten years, the ratio of debt to GDP climbs to 187%. If GDP increased at 3% per year, the ratio is “only” 142%.

With this expected explosion of increased debt, the budget resolution proposed to increase the statutory debt limit by only $4 trillion, covering only two of the ten years. While I think having a debt limit is counterproductive at best and insane at worst, if Republicans want to propose budgets that will increase US debt by $20 trillion, then they should be transparent and raise the debt limit to cover it.

In a future post, I’ll provide my thoughts on how the budget resolution allocates cuts and where it provides for increased spending.

[i] House Budget Resolution 2025 https://docs.house.gov/meetings/BU/BU00/20250213/117894/BILLS-119NAih.pdf

[ii] Massie X post https://www.newsweek.com/republican-breaks-gop-budget-plan-vote-2036282

[iii] US Annual GDP Growth https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-growth-rate

When (2 + 2) is less than 4

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 15:52:00 +0000

I am starting the writing year facing two tasks I thoroughly enjoy and two I absolutely despise.

What I am looking forward to

I have been working on and off (actually, more off than on) creating a new series featuring Ashley Pendergast Prescott, who is initially an FBI undercover agent. My plan is to develop a three-book series (and if those do well, then more). In researching this blog, I was shocked to discover I had begun writing the first book, currently titled Niki Undercover, in early 2019. Just before Christmas this year, Jan finished her read through of that WIP, found a few typos and misplaced commas and pronounced it the best novel I have yet written.

My next task is to listen to Niki Undercover one last time because when I listen, I always catch a problem or two that my eyes and Jan’s never found. It’s a fun task. I get to lie on the couch and listen to an AI voice tell me a story and giggle at its mispronunciations. Plus, when I am done, I can call the story complete. Well, almost—see below for the tasks I am not looking forward to.

I wrote the first draft of the second book in the Niki Undercover series (tentatively titled Niki Unleashed) in the spring of 2021 and completed the second draft in January 2022. Jan read it then, made some suggestions. The manuscript sat just shy of three years before I picked it up this past December and gave it a read through. It needs work, but between Jan’s comments and my recent notes, I am cranked to write the third draft—my second enjoyable task. Yes, it will be a formidable task, ripping away the parts that don’t work and creating a tighter, edgier plot. But I know what I want that story to do, and that is exciting.

What I am not looking forward to

After Jan’s read through of Niki Undercover, she said, “You really should try to get an agent for this. It’s the best thing I’ve read recently.” I tend to think whatever book I just finished is my best (even though during its creation, I was sure it sucked, and I should abandon it). Jan has never made a statement like that about anything I’ve written.

I had planned to self-publish the new series. I figured I would wait until later this year when I had the second novel in decent shape and a draft of the third novel complete. That way, I could start pre-orders for the second book at the same time I published the first.

And then Jan damned me with that great praise. As a result, the first dismal task I need to complete is to craft a synopsis for Niki Undercover. Even though I have created synopses that won publishing contracts, I claim zero expertise and one-hundred-percent dread. I’ll get it done; I know I will. But until I do, it’s like rolling Sisyphus’ rock up the hill while the Sword of Damocles dangles by that single thread over my head.

And then, when I get that sucker done as well as I can, I must accomplish my second dread-laden task: researching literary agents to find ones who might be interested in my novels. Sending out the actual emails (or filling in online forms) is drudgery, but I have no fear of rejection. If they all say no, I am back to my original plan of self-publishing. If one signs me on, I know I have another round or two of revisions ahead of me.

To keep sane, each day I will work on both enjoyable and apprehensible tasks. I’ll start with the stuff I abhor and then reward myself with work I want to do.

I hear there is an open betting line in Vegas about whether I can pull this off. What odds do you give me?

* * * *

This post was first published on Writers Who Kill on 1/7/25.

The Joy of Coming Home

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Thu, 09 May 2024 10:04:00 +0000

Because of the unusual winter weather this year (warmer temperatures and hardly any snow), I migrated north from Madison, Wisconsin to my home in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula a couple of weeks earlier than normal. It could have been a month earlier, except I had doctors’ appointments I dared not cancel. I usually leave several days ahead of Jan to allow me to get everything set up and address any problems that arise in opening up the house.

The first sense of “home” appears around Crivitz, Wisconsin, where the topography grows hillier and the vegetation more boreal. Outside Florence, Wisconsin, I pass a telephone pole with a huge nest atop that often houses osprey or bald eagles. No heads in the nest, but in the next field are two mature bald eagles feeding on the ground. I smile.

I make a couple of stops in Crystal Falls, Michigan: at the library to check out new books, and the Ben Franklin to replenish their supply of my books (and this year provide them their first copies of Hijacked Legacy). It’s great to catch up, but I keep the chit-chat short because I want to have as much daylight as possible to open up the house. My stops in Amasa are also quick, to pick up mail and hug the postmistress and at Tall Pines to replenish their inventory of my books and buy this year’s ORV stickers for my ATVs.

Then, a mile after Amasa, I’m off paved roads and onto gravel/dirt logging roads for another fourteen miles. Normally the first trip in is slow because the roads are wet, and the logging companies haven’t graded them since winter. This year, the first seven miles are already graded, making for a quicker trip. I note where logging has occurred since I left in November, scatter flocks of robins, and brake for a spruce grouse hen that stands unmoving in the middle of the road. Spruce grouse are fairly rare birds, and it’s a good sign that they apparently didn’t suffer from the lack of snow (where they bury themselves to sleep in relative warmth).

Beaver Creek overflowing the road as it normally is at Springtime.

When I reach Beaver Creek, I find another sign of how dry the woods are. Often water runs over the road here; now it’s bone dry. When I clean the grate protecting the culvert, I find only two inches of mixed vegetation blocking the bottom of the grate with no evidence the water has been any higher. In the last mile and a half, another effect of the strange winter becomes apparent. The roads didn’t freeze solid for the winter, and the snow depth hardly reached a foot. That meant the roads are more rutted than usual. In years past, that would have bothered me. Now that I own a rock rake that can smooth out the ruts, the inconvenience is reduced to spending a few more hours in the Bobcat doing that work. No biggie.

Unlike last year when I came in shortly after a late spring snowstorm had dropped 18” of wet, heavy snow and toppled many trees that I had to cut out of the way before I could get to the driveway, this year the road is clear.

My first glimpse of the lake is through trees. Sunlight bounces off its surface and warms my heart. A half-mile later, I have a full view, but rather than checking for ducks or swans, as I often do, I’m navigating through the ruts. I pass one neighbor’s trailer, another’s cabin—knowing their wildlife camera will record my passing—and then I’m at the gate to my driveway that my son and I installed last fall. It’s still level. Major victory!

Gate as I left it in the fall and it looked the same when I returned.

As I unlock the gate, I pause to feel, more than hear, the drumming of a male ruffed grouse. They rotate their wings back and forth as frequently as five times a second to create the deep thumping sound that I hear resonating.

A tinge of concern enters my psyche as I pull to a stop in front of the house. Did everything make it through the winter okay? I push aside memories of years when snow damaged the solar panel connections or when I didn’t correctly drain the water out of the house. My first check is to learn if any trees fell on the house. All good, and the phoebes that nest each year accompanied my inspection, singing from nearby trees. Yeah!

I unload the truck—all looks fine indoors—and open the windows to warm the house. The first fire of the season will wait until I have electric and water. I reattach the battery bank to the power inverter (remembering to attach the positive cable before the negative to prevent welding myself to the battery bank) and the inverter kicks on. I flip the breakers to the solar panels—both sets of panels are creating power! Next, I click on the breaker to allow power to the generator shed and flip a light switch. Artificial light brightens the interior. I have similar success with power to the garage and house. A smile creeps onto my face, despite knowing I might be jinxing myself.

With power restored, I start the well pump and allow it to run for two hours to clear out sediment and debris that collected in the well over winter. While the water is clearing, I install the battery in the generator and open the valve to allow the propane to flow to the engine. Low battery warning. Dang. I attach a charger to the generator battery and while that does its work, I return to the house to get the gas flowing to the stove, dryer, and hot water heater. I use the burners on the stove to clear out the dead air—and they won’t light.

After verifying I opened the propane valve to the house, I try again. Crickets. The generator battery is by now strong enough to kick on the generator and that works, so there is propane in the tank (the dial said 40% full—but dials have lied before). Then it hits me: I have cut-offs inside the house that control the flow of propane to the appliances. I turn those on and poof, the stove lights. I laugh at my stupidity.

The next big test is opening the valves to let water back into the house. First, I check and double check that I closed all the open faucets, except for the ones in the upstairs bathroom that I keep open to clear the air in the lines and make sure the water pressure is good. I crack the valve just a little and listen as water gurgles through the system. What I don’t want to hear is dripping. So far, so good. I increase the water flow and hear it coming out the upstairs faucet. Then I open it up the entire way . . . and we’re good.

Before I busted the glass in the left door.

With electric and water, I figure I can manage anything that goes wrong. I get the woodstove going and start unpacking and storing everything in its place. An ATV starts right up after I reconnect its battery. (That’s not always the case when mice decide to overwinter in the ATV). I get the trailer out of the garage and park it in its spot. I’m just finishing storing my log-splitter where it belongs when a lake neighbor stops by, can of beer in hand. It’s five-ish: time for a break and to catch up on local gossip.

An hour and a half later, I boot him out, have dinner, and do some more unpacking. The low temps are supposed to be in the 40s, so I make my bed on the screened porch and fall asleep to the sounds of distant frogs and rain on the roof.

The next day, I fill my bird feeders. A female purple finch that burbles its thanks is the first bird to spot them. Later that morning, I discover one of the toilet tanks is leaking where the tank connects to the body. Fortunately, another lake neighbor (they call their place “Dream Ridge”) has a spare gasket, and we make that repair. Then while stocking the woodstove, I am not sufficiently careful putting in a piece of wood and break a pane of front-door glass. I install a screen that treats the woodstove more like a fireplace and wait for the stove to cool down. We had saved an old glass pane from a repair several years ago, so I soon have the stove back in working order.

The day ends with the Dream Ridge neighbors, enjoying wine time, pizza, and checking pictures from a few of the trail cameras to see what was going on while I was gone. The picture below is my favorite so far.

Moose cow and calf in snow

And that, my friends, gives you a peek at my joy in coming home. What is bringing joy into your world?

*** This blog originally appeared on the Writers Who Kill blog 5/7/2024

Using AI to Help Create a Book Cover

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Sat, 06 Apr 2024 11:31:00 +0000

My journey of using personal photographs in my book covers started with a traditionally published book, Cabin Fever. The publisher’s cover artist used a stock photo of a cabin that was much too ornate for Seamus McCree’s guest cabin and worse, since the story takes place in the dead of winter in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, he included snow . . .on deciduous trees that still had all their leaves. The coup de grâce was strings of lights hanging from the cabin (which has no electricity), you know, the ones that are supposed to make you think of icicles. After a good laugh, I sent him a picture of the actual cabin I had used as a model—which he incorporated into the final cover.

Once I became an Indie Publisher, I decided I would continue to use my photos in the cover creations. Empty Promises was my first try. In the story, Seamus’s granddog finds bones in a derelict cabin. I chose to depict that cabin on the cover. The actual cabin I photographed was in too good shape, so I Photoshopped the image to distress the cabin, sloping the roof and shifting the extension to look as though it were about to fall down. I added a couple of holes in the roof for good measure.

Next came my first novella, “Low Tide at Tybee.” I chose a picture of the Tybee Island beach populated by sanderlings, energetic small sandpipers described in the story.

The action in False Bottom returned to Boston, Seamus’s hometown and included references to cemeteries and a Celtic Cross. I incorporated a picture I had taken at the Gettysburg Battlefield of the monument commemorating New York’s “Irish Brigade.” The actual statue has a life-sized Irish Wolfhound lying on its base that I had to carefully remove. I merged fog from another photo to create the cover.

The novella “Furthermore” story follows immediately after False Bottom. It made sense to me to link the two covers. I used the same elements, but pushed the monument further to the back and more in the fog, which fits the story.

For both Granite Oath and the compendium Seamus McCree U.P. North, I picked photographs of Shank Lake, Michigan, where Seamus has his “camp.” Interesting fact on the Granite Oath cover: given Seamus’s camp faces west over Shank Lake, most people think the cover depicts a sunset; the actual picture was facing west, but of a sunrise reflected in the clouds and lake.

For the last several publications, I have enlisted the help of my Readers Group (newsletter subscribers) and Facebook followers to help select the cover. I present four or five alternative covers, give them a brief teaser about the story, and ask them to choose their favorite and tell me what they liked or didn’t like about each one. Hijacked Legacy takes place at Seamus’s camp in late fall. Light snow falls during a critical scene. Each of the five offered choices had strong proponents and equally strong detractors. All were terrific photos. The problem, I decided with them all, was they did not depict the suspense Hijacked Legacy incorporates.

I considered including the view of a sniper’s scope projected into each of the scenes. That didn’t work, and besides, we had used that visual for Cabin Fever. Instead, I began playing with incorporating a camouflaged individual with a rifle. I figured the next weekend my neighbors were up at camp, and I’d get one of them to pose in camo with a rifle in various locations: on the road and in the woods. Except they weren’t able to come north that weekend, and we were soon heading south,

I’d read about people using AI tools to create images and gave it a whirl. Using Google’s Bard (now Gemini) to create some alternatives, I tried describing the scene as well as I could: a camo-covered sniper with a rifle hiding behind a deciduous tree with its leaves off, and so on and so forth. Somehow, I never got Bard to understand the concept of “hiding behind a tree.” This is as close as I got:

Good enough to play with. First, I eliminated everything but the sniper and then merged him with my photo of the snowy woods. Should he face right or left? How much of him should I show? I came up with a few concepts, passed them by my Readers Group and learned that when they viewed a thumbnail, they knew something was there, just not what. I was also playing with fonts and colors given the neutral background and had mixed comments about those alternatives as well. Shucks.

So, I noodled, and noodled some more, and after many tries, I settled on the final version. In it, I leaned the sniper forward to make him clearer and display the barrel of the rifle. I modified the font and tucked the Legacy tight to the Hijacked, giving the visual impression that Hijacked (with its H and J) is grabbing the Legacy—visually, stealing it.

I hope readers find it intriguing enough to check out. The paperbacks are at the printer and pre-orders are available for both ebooks and paperbacks from my website at https://jamesmjackson.com/

* * * * *

This blog first appeared on the Writes Who Kill Blog 4/2/24.

Amazon is Bad for Authors’ Wealth

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 16:53:00 +0000

I have a love/hate relationship with Amazon. They sell more of my books than all other retailers combined. Through KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), they make it easy to upload and change files. And for that, they never charge a fee. That’s the love.

What they pay me, and their arbitrary rules and the hoops they employ, trigger a strong hate response.

Amazon Prime Pricing

What does Amazon Prime have to do with my writing business? It sets the stage for my argument about pricing. Amazon introduced Prime in February 2005 at $79 for the year. Adjust that price with inflation[i], that would now be about $126. The actual cost is $139. For that 10% real-dollar increase, Amazon added Prime Video (initially without ads, but now I have to pay more to avoid them). Their initial guaranteed delivery of Prime-eligible merchandise is a thing of the past. Although shipping remains free, if the delivery date slips—well that’s life. To summarize: for the 10% increase I now have ad-supported Amazon Video, and less attractive shipping. Let’s call that a fair deal and move on to things that are not fair.

Kindle Unlimited Pricing

Kindle Unlimited is the subscription service that allows members to read unlimited amounts of the content they make available. It began in 2014 at $9.99 a month. Inflation adjusted to the present, that’s equivalent to about $12.85. The price is now $11.99, so Amazon has taken an inflation-adjusted 7% hit.

How Amazon Pays Authors for books read in Kindle Unlimited

For authors’ books to be available to Kindle Unlimited readers, the book must be exclusive to Amazon under a ninety-day contract (called “Kindle Select”) with Amazon’s Kindle Direct Press (KDP). KDP pays authors based on the number of pages of their works KU members read each month. In July 2015 (the first date included in the data published by Written Word Media[ii]), the payment rate was $.005779 per page. KDP counts pages in a way that makes sense only to them. My ~90,000-word novels average 450-500 pages the way they count for KU payments. (The actual paperbacks have far fewer pages.) We’ll be generous and use 500 pages. That means if someone read my book cover to cover in July 2015, KDP would have paid me $2.89. Adjusting that with inflation to today, it becomes $3.72.

The reimbursement rate per page has steadily declined over the years. For December 2023, it sat at $.00437. That same book would now earn only $2.19. In real dollars, they are paying less than 60% of what they were nine years ago.

Amazon will point out that their total payments have increased considerably. Obviously from the math, pages read have increased even more. I assume the growth has been driven largely by the growth in KU membership rather than in the average number of books read per user. Amazon keeps those statistics to themselves, and they alone determine the payout rates. There are no independent auditors making sure things are fair.

They’ve taken a 7% hit; authors have taken a 40% hit. Explain to any author how that is fair.

The 35%/70% royalty payment rate disaster.

Let’s move to how KDP pays authors for eBooks they sell. In the middle of 2010, Amazon unilaterally decided to pay 70% royalties on ebooks, BUT ONLY those priced between $2.99 and $9.99 inclusive. The number of pages in the book doesn’t matter, only the list price. Whether the book has illustrations is irrelevant. I’ve blogged in the past why there is no economic justification for this prejudice against lower and higher priced books. But even if there were, nearly fourteen years have passed. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the range should now be $3.85 to $12.89, but the range has not changed.

Even worse, the range for the US and Canadian markets is the same $2.99 to $9.99. The problem is C$9.99 is worth only US$7.45. And it’s not like Amazon can’t create different ranges for different currencies. For books sold in the Australia Amazon market, the top of the range to receive 70% is AU$11.99 (which converts to US$7.89). Picky? Yes. Frustrating that they don’t even consistently apply their insane rules? You betcha.

How KDP handles free books

KDP won’t allow authors to list free books. (As a “perk” of joining Kindle Select, they allow you to list them for free for five days out of the 90-day commitment.) What Amazon will do is allow anyone (including the author) to report lower prices on other markets. They’ll confirm the price is lower and then match. This is a labor-intensive task.

I have listed for free the first book in my Seamus McCree series, Ant Farm, on Google, Kobo, etc. Every Wednesday I check to see if Amazon still lists Ant Farm for free on each of their country-specific stores. I’d guess four out of five weeks at least one market has stopped price matching and returned to posting the list price. I write KDP an email, give them the Google and Kobo links to the affected markets to demonstrate they are free elsewhere. They always revert the price to $0.00.

My suggestion for a better way

When I sell a book on Amazon, they reduce my 70% royalty by a small delivery charge. For my novels that runs $0.06 to $0.08. For my three-book boxed sets, it runs $0.13 or $0.14. Why don’t they allow authors to list their books for free and invoice them with the delivery charge? They can set up payment systems the same as they do when an author places ads in the Amazon marketplace. Amazon makes more money. It doesn’t have to expand staff to check competitor prices and manually adjust the sales price, and I don’t have to spend five minutes every Wednesday determining which books I have to rattle their cages about.

Alrighty, then. I feel better now that I have expressed my dissatisfaction. I’ll crawl back into my cave and prepare for the launch of my next book (Hijacked Legacy—Seamus McCree #8, releasing 4/22/24).

What do you think? Are my complaints legit or . . . well, you can complete that sentence in the comments.

* * * * *

[This blog was originally posted on Writers Who Kill 2/6/2024.]

[i] I used CPI-all urban consumers, but any index would work

[ii] https://www.writtenwordmedia.com/kdp-global-fund-payouts/

A New Approach to Goal Setting

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Sun, 07 Jan 2024 18:54:00 +0000

Over the years, I have tried many goal-setting processes. The traditional approach is to set your annual goals to start January 1. Instead of using January 1, I tried using my birthday as the start of a year’s goals. I even deliberately chose not to set annual goals. When I do set goals, I try to make them SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Rewarding, and Timely. See this blog for more details about SMART goals.[i]) From decades of experience, I have learned several important lessons about how I work with annual goals.

1. For me, setting goals works much better than not setting goals.

2. I have never managed to successfully complete all the annual goals I set (except when I didn’t set them).

3. Something always happens during the course of a 365-day year (or in this case, 366-day year) to cause my initial goals to no longer remain completely relevant.

Question: So, what is a poor boy to do?

Answer: Try something different.

This year, instead of setting annual goals, I will set quarterly goals. For my author business, I have four broad categories: Writing, Teaching, Sales and Marketing, and Business. Writing includes my creative process starting with creating the first draft and continuing through revisions and editing until the final version is complete. Teaching includes creating and delivering courses. Sales and Marketing encompasses everything relating to selling my creations. And Business includes the legal and financial aspects of my work.

For my personal side, I have two broad categories: Sharpening the saw and Miscellaneous. Sharpening the saw includes anything related to my physical or mental well-being. Miscellaneous covers anything else. For first quarter 2024, I have confined my sharpening-the-saw goals to three items: maintaining my weight at or under 162 pounds, reaching an exercise target related to running a half-marathon in May, and an education goal to become comfortable with dictation using Dragon.

What about my author goals, you ask?

The Business aspects are prosaic: send out required tax statements to others and complete my 2023 taxes, submit my nominations to various “best of” competitions.

Teaching goals also reflect known commitments. In the first quarter of 2024, I will teach one full course and begin teaching a second. I have two books I plan to reread this quarter to prepare for a third course that I teach late in 2024.

The Writing category has two major elements: complete all writing work necessary on Hijacked Legacy (Seamus McCree #8, which has a publication date of April 22, 2024), and revise a manuscript currently titled Niki Unleashed (Niki Undercover #2).

Marketing and Sales also includes two broad goals. The first relates to putting in place everything necessary for the April 22 launch of Hijacked Legacy. That includes creating blurbs, arranging guest blogs, a launch party, advanced reviews, and more. Soup to nuts, as my father was fond of saying. I have not completed work on the second goal. I know the first step, which is to create a marketing plan for the first quarter. That goal calls for me to complete that by January 15. Once complete, I’ll know what other goal(s) will make sense.

And there you have it. What approach are you taking for 2024 goals?

* * * * *

[This blog originally appeared on Writers Who Kill 1/2/2024]

[i] https://writerswhokill.blogspot.com/2017/01/making-your-goals-smart.html

What’s a Little Advice or a Quick Fix Worth?

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 11:24:00 +0000

Last week I typed THE END on the first draft of the next Seamus McCree novel. Given the naming convention for the series, this will be the “H” novel. I have a working title, but it’s so off-genre, I won’t share. My fans and I will find an excellent one, so I’m not worried. “THE END” is a fine excuse for a celebration, right? Sure, sort of.

On Saturday, I finished teaching my second month-long course this year. The first, which I have been teaching for years, focuses on “Revision and Self-Editing.” The second helps authors become “Indie Publishers” (or decide that’s not a good fit for them). It’s the first time I’ve taught that course, and I am anxiously awaiting feedback on what went well and what I can improve, and whether the organization will want me to teach the course again. (I have fingers and toes crossed.)

And completing that work is also a reason to celebrate. Sure, sort of.

Because what I realize and forget, realize and forget, realize and forget, is I like teaching more than writing. And I do enjoy writing. And finishing a first draft is worth celebrating. But, while I enjoy writing, I mostly love teaching people who want to learn. (Mostly, because even teaching has tear-out-your-hair moments. Every so often, I have a desire to kill a student or rip up a draft lesson that isn’t working.) Those frustrations are minor glitches compared to the pleasure I feel when a student gains some hard-won new knowledge. And the thrill of seeing their “ah-ha!” moments as a new frontier opens before them is nearly priceless.

While I am in a confessing mood, there’s another issue, a weakness, I should mention. Despite knowing I must do it to succeed, I do not enjoy marketing. Tooting my horn, or my book’s horn, is difficult for me—I can (and do) blame my parents for their injunctions against such self-serving behavior. My distaste for marketing is so profound, I can’t even get excited about the math behind figuring out which ads are most successful—and I enjoy playing with numbers as much as I do teaching.

That problem with marketing holds back both the success of my books and my opportunities to help students. Because I haven’t marketed my courses, I have exactly zero classes booked for the future.

So, to get that endorphin fix from helping people, I’m hanging out my shingle—similar, I think, to Peanuts’ Lucy with her “Psychiatric Help 5¢” and “The Doctor is In.” Fans of my "Revision and Self-Editing" course value my outside-the-box solutions to plot problems and my ability to spot alternatives that will strengthen a scene. My work on the "Indie Publisher" class gave me a new realization that I can often diagnose and fix Word document and eBook formatting issues that befuddle others.

What’s that worth? I don’t know, and so I shall try an experiment. I’ll invite authors to let me assist with their issue/problem/concern. For payment, I’ve created a link on my website where people can “Buy me a book.” (It’s run by the “Buy me a Coffee” folks.) Anyone who thinks I’ve helped them out can easily send me money in $5 increments. If something looks like it will take a ton of time, then we can negotiate an upfront price.

You heard it here first (well, technically second as it posted yesterday on the Writers Who Kill blog.) Details at https://jamesmjackson.com/j4a/j4a.html.

* * *

James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree series. Full of mystery and suspense, these thrillers explore financial crimes, family relationships, and what happens when they mix. You can sign up for his newsletter and find more information about Jim and his books at https://jamesmjackson.com.

Every Author Should Make This Resolution

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 13:09:00 +0000

One thing I know for sure is that today each of us is one day closer to taking our final breath than we were yesterday. When we take that final breath, we no longer can make life easier for our heirs.

As an author, you leave behind words. Thousands of words, maybe millions, collected in an assortment of books, stories, blogs, poems, articles, etc. Some you may have published. Others not. Yet copyright laws in most countries mean your words can still have value after you die.

If you’re thinking, oh criminy, my novel isn’t published, this doesn’t apply to me. Let me whisper John Kennedy Toole’s name in your ear. His mother found the manuscript Toole, which had desperately tried to get published, hidden in a drawer. She finally got Confederacy of Dunces published, and it won a Pulitzer. Unlikely? Sure, but hey, you never know.

These days a novel or memoir or non-fiction book is more likely to be on a computer hard drive than printed out sitting in a drawer. Would whoever takes care of your estate know where to find it?

Or if you are traditionally published, where are your contracts? Who gets continuing royalties? If you are self-published, where are your books published? Where are the most recent “final” manuscripts (which if you are like me, may not be the ones listed as “final” on your computer)?

Who is going to decide how (or if) to keep your author business going? Where are the passwords to your accounts?

I could go on, and for a class I’ll be teaching in March, I do go on. However, I’ve covered enough ground to give you the idea. Even if you have everything organized and know where it all is, good luck to the person who must find it and figure it out.

Which brings me back to the resolution all authors should make (and then follow). Create a detailed roadmap so the right people can easily find everything about your creative works they need.

Here’s my promise to my daughter (who will inherit my writing business, including copyrights): I will make it as easy for you as I can. I won’t try to accomplish this in one day or one week. But I will chip away at it day by day. And once I have it done, I’ll continue to maintain it.

That’s my resolution. How many of you authors are with me on this for 2023? (And if you’ve already done it, please crow about it in the comments.)

* * * * *

James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree series. Full of mystery and suspense, these thrillers explore financial crimes, family relationships, and what happens when they mix. You can sign up for his newsletter and find more information about Jim and his books at https://jamesmjackson.com.

Earworms

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Thu, 06 Oct 2022 05:00:00 +0000

As I write this, I am starting day five of a nearly month-long road trip. Starting from Madison, Wisconsin, we’ve traveled through Iowa (rolling hills until the Missouri River, after which it flattens out), Nebraska (through the sand hills and up onto the high plains), and into the middle of Wyoming with its vistas of mountains in the future. (You can follow the trip on Facebook, where I post pictures every fifty miles on the truck’s odometer. Here's a link to get to the album.)

On day one, we planned to stop in Dubuque, Iowa for lunch on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River. That didn’t happen. Fifty-eight miles into the trip at our first pit stop, I realized I had forgotten my key fob (Jan had hers, so the truck ran), which resided in my fanny pack. The same fanny pack that held my wallet and its assortment of credit cards, IDs, and proofs of insurance.

Not only did that extra 116 miles result in some interesting 50-mile pictures (picture 1 was 50 miles from Madison, picture 2 was only 16 miles away from Madison, and picture 3 just 34 miles), but it meant we were running a couple hours behind schedule after a leisurely mid-morning start. We lunched in the car and made no stops in Dubuque.

Which brings me to the earworm. One of my favorite pop groups in high school and college was The Association. A song contained on their 1969 album titled, The Association, is “Dubuque Blues.” [Here's a YouTube version from their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show]. Several days before the trip started, that song became an earworm for me. I’d find myself humming the tune or singing lines of the lyrics (those parts I remembered). After Jan told me to find another song, I began singing in my head.

I figured that once we had lunch in Dubuque, I’d kill the earworm because I had done Dubuque.

We’ll never know if that theory was correct since we didn’t picnic there. The earworm is still present four days later. I will now turn to active measures: whenever I catch myself channeling “Dubuque Blues,” I will drown it out by starting another song—preferably one that won’t turn into its own earworm.

How about you? Do you suffer from earworms? (Or should I say, do others suffer from your earworms?) How do you break that habit?

* * * * *

James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree series. Full of mystery and suspense, these thrillers explore financial crimes, family relationships, and what happens when they mix. You can sign up for his newsletter and find more information about Jim and his books at https://jamesmjackson.com.

This blog first appeared on the Writers Who Kill Blog.

Anchoring

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 10:40:00 +0000

We call ourselves homo sapiens, meaning the wise or clever human. If ever there were a mislabeled product, we homo sapiens are it. Our big brains are easy to fool. Optical illusions use foreground or background to convince us to see something that isn’t there. This webpage has many terrific examples of optical illusions that “bend” straight lines (image on the right), make two lines of equal length appear to be longer and shorter, make the same color appear different to us, and more.

These optical illusions rely on our preconceived notions of the world to trick us. Anchoring is a related phenomenon that warps our perception. While academics do not agree on the causes of anchoring, they agree on the result, which is that prior information skews our perception of new information.

For example, in store one, you find a piece of attractive clothing in your size on the “remainder” rack. Its price tag shows mark-downs in stages from $149 to the current price of $39. What a bargain, almost 75% off. It’s not that you need it, but there’s only one left . . .and you buy it.

In a parallel universe, you find a piece of attractive clothing in your size on the “new arrivals” rack priced at $39. The surrounding racks have similar clothing priced at $29, $25, and $19.95. It would look nice on you, but you walk away without a whiff of regret.

Same clothing, same price, different result because surrounding clues affected your perception of the item. The first store presented you with a super-attractive “bargain.” The second presented you with the most expensive item of its kind.

Marketers know how to trick your mind. Restaurants will include an entrée priced well above anything else on the menu making the other entrées appear “reasonable.” Here’s an interesting article on other tricks restaurants use.

We often use anchoring when we make estimates. Quick: in five seconds give me your best guess of what the product of (1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8) is. Tick Tock. Tick Tock. Your guess is _________? In an experiment, guesses averaged 512. The same experiment asked a different group the question with the numbers reversed (8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1). Those people’s guesses averaged 2,250, more than four times higher than the first group. The actual answer is 40,320, demonstrating we’re lousy at math, but also showing that by starting with small numbers, we guessed a smaller result when presented with larger numbers first.

We build our knowledge of the world bit by bit, comparing the most recent information to what we already “know.” The first article of clothing seemed such a good buy because we anchored around it sitting on a “remainder” rack with a high starting price. We have a false confidence in our “knowledge” and give it priority over new information, especially if that information contradicts what we “know.”

That is why first impressions are so important for people. They become our anchor. We evaluate future actions given the model of the person we have accepted. If the first time we see someone, they are helping a little old lady cross a busy intersection even though afterward they return across the street and head in a different direction, we think them a good person, going out of their way to help others. If the next time we see them, they are strong-arming a youngster into the back seat of a car, we sympathize because we’ve all had to deal with our kids when they had a hissy fit about doing what we wanted when we wanted.

But, if the first time we saw the same person, one police officer was handcuffing him while another comforted a crying youngster, we’d have a vastly different reaction when we saw the “bad” guy strong-arming the child into the back seat.

Readers, step close and let me tell you a secret: authors manipulate you the same way marketers do. Shocking, I know. We show a character performing a nice or heroic act early in the story to “make” you like the person, and that positive vibe carries through even if later they’re going to do some nasty things. This trope even has a name: “save the cat.”

We create red herrings or hide clues by giving you false anchors. In Granite Oath (Seamus McCree #7), releasing at the end of August, a trail camera photograph shows two male thieves, one tall and the other considerably shorter. I think of myself as tall (I’m a six-footer), and so I picture the tall guy is my height, maybe a few inches taller. The short guy must be around 5’4 – 5’6”. Turns out the tall guy is nearly seven feet, and the short guy is taller than me.

When an author pulls the wool over my eyes, I enjoy flipping pages back to discover how they tricked me. Anchoring is often involved.

I’d love to hear in the comments about your fictional reading or real-life anchoring stories.

* * * * *

James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree series. Full of mystery and suspense, these thrillers explore financial crimes, family relationships, and what happens when they mix. You can sign up for his newsletter and find more information about Jim and his books at https://jamesmjackson.com.

Waiting . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Mon, 09 May 2022 18:26:00 +0000

By James M. Jackson

Being an author means learning how to wait. Say what?

Between the inception of a story’s idea and its publication are multiple points when we authors must (or should) wait. Often the brilliant idea must wait until the author deals with higher priority work. Only when time permits can she begin the first draft of the story. That’s why when some well-meaning soul tells me they have “the perfect idea for a story,” I listen patiently and then suggest they write their own story.

After completing the story’s first draft, many authors put it aside to give its words time to settle. This self-imposed wait allows us to view our story from a fresher perspective, to more easily spot plot holes, characterization issues, understand where pacing must change. And so we wait.

Other waits are not on us. If we use an editor (or editors), we send them our manuscript and wait for their comments, suggestions, concerns, and maybe even a little praise. My seventh Seamus McCree novel, Granite Oath, entered that state a week ago. The editor and I have agreed to a schedule, so this wait will not be long. And yet the wait can feel interminable because so much future work depends on what she finds lacking in the present story.

One of the most frustrating waits happens when authors seek representation for their work. We craft a query letter, add requested extras that vary by agent (e.g. first ten pages, a synopsis, a marketing plan, comparable titles) and make our submission. In olden days, we submitted by mail and included a self-addressed stamped envelope for the agent’s response. Now, everything is electronic, which only means our wait no longer depends on mail delivery times.

I have a project seeking representation. One agent responded the same day (a rejection, but at least that allowed me to cross that person off my list and spur me to send out a query to another agent). Agents routinely claim to take eight or more weeks to respond. If they ask for a manuscript, the reading times can be even longer. And some agents believe their time is too valuable to waste sending rejections—if you don’t hear from them, they don’t want you.

So, I wait.

Another indeterminate wait occurs when the author or her agent submits to publishers. Other time-outs can occur while waiting for a cover artist, manuscript formatting or conversion to an ebook. In traditional publishing, the wait times expand to accommodate the publishing house’s calendar, which books publication dates a year or more after contract acceptance.

Authors who publish their own work can eliminate many of the delays by doing the work themselves. They can create their cover, format the book, and publish on their timetable. But that means, while they are performing tasks someone else could do, other projects have to wait.

Wait, I hear you say, isn’t that where this whole thing started?

Yep, glad you noticed, and while I am waiting for my editor and responses from agents, I’m working on the next two books. And I have other ideas still waiting . . .

This blog was originally published on the Writers Who Kill blog.

* * * * *

James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree series. Full of mystery and suspense, these thrillers explore financial crimes, family relationships, and what happens when they mix. You can sign up for his newsletter and find more information about Jim and his books at https://jamesmjackson.com.

Constructing a Subplot

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 12:29:00 +0000

Some people consider a subplot as simply a secondary story that parallels the main story. While that is true, a well-constructed subplot not only parallels the main plot, but it also supports and enhances it. At its best, the subplot forces twists and turns in the main plot that neither the characters nor the reader anticipates.

In some genres, the subplot concept is obvious. Labeling a novel a romantic suspense tells the reader the primary story will involve suspense and the subplot will be a romance. Easy peasy.

I write thrillers that explore financial crimes, abuse of power, family relationships, and what happens when they mix. For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in how people can (and do) take advantage of others in financial transactions. I want to understand how criminals put their thumbs on scales, water their product, illegally change odds in their favor. I’ll never run out of shady practices to explore.

Abuse of power takes many forms: economic, physical, psychological. Power between two people is rarely equal, and any inequality provides the opportunity for abuse. How those in power choose to use it, and how those exploited by the powerful respond, provide alternative story lines.

The term “family relationships” conjures both function and disfunction.

The novels’ main plots directly explore one or two of my three interests. I can choose the remaining area to drive my subplot. For example, in the seventh Seamus McCree novel, Granite Oath, the main plot follows events driven by Seamus’s promise to search for a child’s missing mother. The reader suspects some combination of abuse of power and financial crimes triggered the disappearance. Using family relationships to develop a subplot made sense.

One subplot in Granite Oath involves Seamus’s granddaughter, Megan, and the missing mother’s daughter, Valeria, training a family of bald eagles to “catch” fish. This little tale is an amusing interlude readers will enjoy. It’s cute, and it serves to break up the major action and release tension before adding more. Worthwhile results, but introducing the girls and their eagles provided me the opportunity to dig deeper.

I rewrote the novel to use the eagles (and/or the girls' interactions with them) in multiple ways to:

cause a key item of evidence to disappear (delaying the time until Seamus discovers it),
assist Seamus out of one bind and mire him in a second one,
provide an opportunity to describe the relationship of two settings,
physically remove a threat to Seamus,
create a larger obstacle for Seamus to overcome, provide the reader insight into several human relationships, and
act as a symbolic gift of thanks.

(I know the specifics are vague, but I do not want to include spoilers.)

With the rewrite, the “training the eagles” subplot integrates with the main story line, affecting it at least seven different ways. That’s exactly what I want my subplots to do.

Readers, what are your favorite subplots?

* * * * *

James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree series. Full of mystery and suspense, these thrillers explore financial crimes, abuse of power, family relationships, and what happens when they mix. You can sign up for his newsletter and find more information about Jim and his books at https://jamesmjackson.com.

* Originally posted on the Writers Who Kill Blog

Obstacles

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 17:18:00 +0000

In February, I taught a class for the Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime, Inc. to help students learn how to revise and self-edit their novels. In one lesson, I challenge the students to take a scene and brainstorm for five minutes on how to ramp up the stakes for the protagonist.

And then, I lived my homework assignment.

I own 80 acres on an inland lake in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. (Fact check: Seamus McCree, the protagonist of my series, claims he owns the same property. In fiction, he is correct; but if you check the register of deeds, it belongs to me. But I digress.)

My bucket list includes me producing maple sugar from the sugar maples on my property. I’ll spare you my enthusiastic and long-winded discussion of what that will entail and instead mention that ticking that off my bucket list meant I need to arrive at my camp many days before daytime temperatures rose above freezing. My home is 15 miles from where you can buy anything. Fourteen of those miles are logging roads. Because of where the timber companies were logging this winter, they were not plowing the last 2.5 miles of my journey.

I had arranged for someone who lives six miles away to keep those last 2.5 miles open, which he had done, until a week before I planned to arrive, his snowplow broke. (Increased obstacle #1) And then it snowed 10” (0bstacle #2). My neighbors who were coming up just for the weekend (because I had kept the road open, so why not?) contacted a business who agreed to plow the road—at a cost six times what I had been paying (obstacle #3). A shared expense. It only hurt a little.

My original plan was to arrive on February 24, but looking at the snow forecast, I decide to drive up instead on Saturday, the 20^th to arrive before the snow. Driving the last 2.5 miles, I note several places where the road is just wide enough to get my truck through.

I arrive at noon and snowshoe my driveway through thirty inches of snow, sprawling several times (a minor additional obstacle). My neighbor follows behind to help me reinstall my water softening system. We were halfway down the driveway when he spots my first problem: the platform we had installed on my garage roof to hold the Starlink dish, has toppled onto the roof. (Obstacle #4). I still have a week of teaching the revision and self-editing class. If the Internet is out, I’ll have to drive twenty-five miles to gain internet access to post and respond to class assignments.

My neighbor returns home to get a plastic snow shovel to clear the roof without damaging it so we can reinstall the platform. I plod to my generator shed to turn on power to the house and garage and discover my inverter has no power. (Obstacle #5) The generator kicks on, and I bypass the inverter to provide power directly to the house, which I need to run the well-pump.

But before I deal with the water supply, I need to light a fire in the wood stove. It is ten degrees outside and twenty degrees in the house. I place crumpled paper and kindling in the wood stove, click the fire starter—and nothing. Okay, we’d used that one last year. I had spares. I try the spares—same result. It is too cold for the fire starter to work. (Obstacle #6) I eventually find matches and light the paper. The thirty-five-foot stove pipe and cold temperatures require several efforts before the stove creates a draft, but finally, the wood stove is operational. Yay!

When my well pump hasn’t run for months, the water in the well can become sullied with iron-oxide particulates. I let the well pump run for an hour and by then, the water runs clear. I have a drain to the outside in the basement floor where I can dump the water. The well pump starts like a charm. Water fills the pressure tank. I open the spigot at the bottom of the tank so the water can run out through an attached hose to the drain.

Except, the drain is frozen. Water pools onto the basement floor. (Obstacle #7) I shut the spigot and wonder what else could go wrong.

Upstairs the answer is clear: the woodstove fire has gone out. I have been home for an hour, and other than starting the generator, have accomplished nothing.

I restart the wood stove fire, babysitting it until I am sure it takes. My neighbors return with a snowblower to cut a path down the driveway (they don’t want to wade through that snow) and set about restoring the internet platform to its correct position. My fears that when the platform tumbled it cut the cable turn out unfounded (best news so far).

We turn our collective heads to figuring out why the inverter isn’t functioning. I flip every switch I can think of off and on to reset something—anything. No success. No inverter. No solar power. No functioning batteries. I think to test the voltage of the batteries. My 48-volt system is measuring around 12-volts. My batteries are frozen. At least I have electric when the generator is on.

The neighbors decide to snow blow the driveway so I can bring my truck down rather than schlepp everything in by hand, and I return to the water situation. Although it would take less time to run a hose from the water tank outside, that requires me to crack a door to the ten-degree temps. Instead, I plan to run water into five-gallon buckets that I will throw outside until the well water runs clear. I take the bucket to the basement and discover most of the spilled water from my first attempt has frozen on the basement floor.

I skate to the pressure tank, turn on the water pump, open the spigot, and nothing happens. Not only is the water on the floor frozen, but frozen water also plugs the hose. I no longer have access to any water. (Obstacle #8)

No problem, I begin to melt snow on the wood stove. It’s not fast, but I can create a sufficient supply of fresh water and eventually enough for a flush toilet. And, because I don’t want the water that is freezing in the hose at the bottom of my water tank to break something else, I use a portable propane heater to (hopefully) warm up the fittings.

Day turns to night. I cook dinner, wash the dishes, read a little, and clamber into bed. The house has warmed up to 50—perfect sleeping temperatures, but every time I wake to use the bathroom, I add more wood to the stove.

Sunday arrives with bright sunshine. I sweep accumulated snow off my larger bank of solar panels, continue to run the generator to create a hothouse to warm my batteries, and melt copious amounts of snow. The basement makes it above freezing and the directed heat on the water tank thaws those fixtures. I start my project of getting clear water and can stop melting snow. I run ten gallons of water through my pitcher with a Brita filter to create drinking water. The house reaches sixty degrees by noon.

A local friend who is an electrician at the open pit iron ore mine stops by to look at the inverter. He flicks some switches and first the solar panel controller comes alive and then the inverter. All switches I had tried before, but we conclude that the power from the solar panels was enough to allow the controller to reboot. Progress, but the batteries are still very frozen.

That evening the snows begin, dropping 4” by morning. My Bobcat works like a charm plowing the 2.5 miles. I need four passes and spend time in a few areas getting the road wider where it is drifted in. I’m a happy camper. However, Jan, who has wisely stayed behind until I have camp opened, wants certain conveniences, like running and hot water. I don’t dare put water into the pipes until I know the basement will stay above freezing on a -16F night. Otherwise, I risk freezing the indoor plumbing.

I try using fans to push warmer air down the basement stairs. It works, the basement warms to 42. I turn off the fans, and the temperature drops. I turn them back on.

Monday night into Tuesday it snows another 7”. Wednesday morning, I fire up the Bobcat, pull it out of the garage and the rope attached to the garage door becomes entangled with the skid steer, pulling the door down. The Bobcat cracks into the partially closed door, pushing it off the track and wounding the bottom section. If I can’t get the Bobcat out of the garage, I will quickly become snowed in. (Obstacle #9)

I wrangle the garage door up enough to slip the Bobcat out and leave that issue for later. The skid steer plows, but because the snow walls are so close, it is hard work to get rid of the new snow. I make it out the 2.5 miles and notice a grader has gone up the next road. (Logging companies use graders to plow roads.) I wait and flag him down on his return. It’s a guy I don’t know, but he stops. (Out in the near wilderness, we always stop to make sure people are okay.) I ask how much it would cost for him to widen my 2.5 miles. I agree to his $300. (I’d spend at least that in diesel to widen it with the Bobcat.)

He does a fine job and now I don’t have to worry about the road closing in with a major snowfall. And I’m thrilled when I check and see the batteries have thawed enough that the inverter can control their charging. I remove the bypass, hold my breath, and am thrilled when the inverter turns on the generator and the batteries charge.

Things are looking up, big time.

When the grader pushes back big snowbanks, some snow will tumble back over the blade. I decide to be a nice guy and clean up the road now before my neighbors will be up tomorrow for “Girls’ Weekend.” At 2.25 miles from my house, I veer too far into a snowbank, bury the Bobcat, and because at that point the road slants, I cannot extract it. I will need to tow it out. (Obstacle #10)

I walk home, which I don’t mind, and after consulting with my neighbors, decide to leave the skid steer in place until they come up because it will be much easier to extract it from the snow with one person in a truck and another in the Bobcat.

Thursday arrives with more sun, charging batteries, neighbors arriving safely, and late that afternoon, we extract the Bobcat with my truck.

Friday the house has been warm enough for long enough that the basement is staying over 40F, and I risk turning on the water. It is always a worrisome time because if I didn’t successfully drain the house of water the previous fall, I learn I screwed up when I hear water flowing from the middle of a burst pipe. Everything works. I soon have hot water, too, and celebrate with a shower.

We had minor bobbles installing the water softener system (and need an O-ring to complete the task), but as of this writing, the systems all work. The house is a comfy 70F and Jan will arrive March 1.

Next time I teach, I think I’ll try something like writing dialogue without the use of “said.”

* * * * *

James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree series. Full of mystery and suspense, these thrillers explore financial crimes, family relationships, and what happens when they mix. You can sign up for his newsletter and find more information about Jim and his books at https://jamesmjackson.com.

* * * * *

This first appeared on the Writers Who Kill blog.

Why Amazon Must Change Its E-Book Royalties to Indie Authors

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 16:49:00 +0000

Indie authors have had a love/hate relationship with Amazon for years. Circa 2011–12, Amazon decided as a market strategy that e-books should cost between $2.99 and $9.99. This strategy is outdated and harmful to Indie authors.

Amazon formed their theory as part of their battle with the major publishers about Amazon’s right to discount e-books regardless of publishers’ list prices. At the time, Amazon was trying (and succeeding) to build market share and was willing to sell e-books at a loss. This blog focuses not on Amazon’s turf war with large publishers, but on how Amazon applied their vision of e-book pricing to the detriment of Indie authors.

I don’t know the exact date, but by 2012 Amazon set the royalty rate for Indie authors at 70%, but only if they priced their e-books in the golden window of $2.99 through $9.99. If an author priced an e-book outside of that preferred range, Amazon dropped the royalty rate in half to 35%. Amazon presented a rationale that went something like this: because there were no production costs, no storage costs, and virtually no return costs, e-books should cost consumers significantly less than print books.

If one only focuses on manufacturing expenses, Amazon’s analysis is correct: e-books cost less to produce per copy than paperback and hardcover books. However, authors sell more than a physical product; they sell hours of entertainment (or perhaps education for non-fiction works). Amazon ignored this inconvenient fact and relied on the cost of production analysis to set $9.99 as an appropriate top price. Perhaps not coincidentally, $9.99 is an attractive marketing price point. It ends in ninety-nine cents and the dollar amount is one digit, not two.

At the low end, they arbitrarily proclaimed that anything below $2.99 was discounting the value of an author’s work below what it was worth, or words that affect. Even if you bought their general philosophy, they left mammoth holes in their logic. For example, they made no differentiation between short stories that could run, say, 5000 words, and multiple-book boxed sets whose total word count could easily exceed 500,000 words.

The only way a short story author could earn seventy percent royalty on their work product was to either charge $2.99 (generally considered way too expensive for an electronic version of a short story) or combine multiple short stories into an anthology. A boxed set containing 500,000 words is the equivalent of five 100,000-word novels, each of which Amazon believes should not cost less than $2.99. Amazon should encourage a minimum price of at least $14.95, but if the Indie author charges that amount, Amazon subjects them to a 35% royalty rate

Amazon retains its right to discount an author’s e-book whenever they chose (and keep paying the normal royalty rate). But if the Indie author discounts their e-book below the $2.99 minimum, their royalty rate drops.

In 2014, Amazon created Kindle Unlimited (KU), a subscription service for readers. Indie authors who choose to list their e-book exclusively in KU have several perks that lessen the financial burden of pricing e-books priced outside of Amazon’s golden window. Two key features are (1) the ability for Indie authors to periodically run promotional sales and keep the 70% royalty rate, and (2) in KU, since it pays authors based on pages read not books read, boxed sets and short stories are on the same footing as regular novels.

Yeah, Jim, I hear you. But it’s been ten years since Amazon created the golden window of pricing, and seven years since they introduced Kindle Unlimited. This is all old news. What has changed?

Inflation.

In the decade since Amazon introduced its golden window of e-book pricing, prices as measured by CPI–U rose 23.543%. (The December 2011 CPI-U of 225.672 increased to 278.802 in December 2021.) Amazon’s golden window of e-book pricing rose exactly 0.000%.

Even if we assume that Amazon’s heavy handed royalty rules were appropriate at the beginning of 2012, they are outdated now. Amazon has not suffered by their lack of action, but Indie authors have. To reflect the overall level of inflation in the decade, the $9.99 maximum should now be $12.34. The inflation-adjusted equivalent of the $2.99 “minimum” is $3.69.

Keeping the $9.99 maximum becomes another method for Amazon to exploit its position as a dominant player in the U.S. e-book market to disadvantage Indie authors.

Since I think Amazon should pay 70% royalties on any e-book, I’m not advocating for them to increase the $2.99 minimum to $3.69. However, Amazon must increase the top end of its golden pricing range from $9.99. I suggest $12.99 as a minimum to accommodate expected inflation during 2022.

* * * * *

James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree series. Full of mystery and suspense, these thrillers explore financial crimes, family relationships, and what happens when they mix. You can sign up for his newsletter and find more information about Jim and his books at https://jamesmjackson.com.

This blog first appeared on the Writers Who Kill blog 2/1/22

Training my Dragon (Or how I learned to mumble less)

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Fri, 07 Jan 2022 06:00:00 +0000

In mid-December, I took the plunge and downloaded Nuance’s Dragon Individual Professional 15.0 model (here’s a link to the discounted deal I found on Amazon). If you haven’t heard of Dragon, it’s a sophisticated dictation program that uses artificial intelligence to learn users’ individual speech patterns and usages. At least, that’s the claim by both the company and its many proponents. As with most pieces of software, there is a learning period with lots of “ah-ha” moments.

(That last sentence forced me to learn something new. In that sentence, when I dictated the word “period,” it recorded it as “.”, which isn’t exactly ideal. I looked online for proposed solutions and decided that the British had this one covered. Instead of saying period when I wanted to signify a sentence end, I now say “full stop.” That works. Of course, now I must remember to say “full stop” at the end of each sentence. As I am editing this a few days later, I do remember 95% of the time.)

That situation above is an example of why it is necessary for me to train my Dragon. I just ~~wasted~~ invested twenty minutes coming up with a solution. An easier approach might have been simply to go back and edit the first “.” into the word “period.” But I’m still in the experimenting stage, and we’ll see if this fresh approach works for me. I can already see that at some point I may have to similarly deal with “,” “;” “:” and “?”. (I left the symbols, but you read them as words, right?)

Having dealt with that minor little aside, let’s cycle back to why I spent my money purchasing Dragon and then invested time training it to learn my quirks. I had become frustrated with my writing process. At times, I felt as though I were writing things twice: once inside my head; the second time, typing on my keyboard. I taught myself touch typing in the summer between eleventh and twelfth grade. I’m a decent typist, but not great. But when transcribing from brain to screen, I frequently leave out words or misspell them.

I thought the process of dictation might eliminate the double thinking issue. I speak and Dragon types. So far, that seems to be the case. I think it has to do with not having to use my fingers, although perhaps it is only the novelty of the situation. It could also be the placebo effect: I’m told Dragon will improve my writing, and it has—but because I am more focused, not because of the software.

I can talk faster than I can type, and I worried Dragon might not keep up. That has never been a problem. From the recoding words aspect, at worst, using Dragon is a draw, and most likely it is an improvement. Even if it were only a draw, I enjoy an enormous benefit from not using my hands and fingers repetitively. I do not suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome, as many of my author friends do, but I have felt twinges of pain from time to time after long sessions at the keyboard. And, despite my wish that it weren’t so, I’m more liable to break than I was a few years ago.

Dragon does not make typos. Dragon does, however, have difficulty with homonyms. Sometimes it figures out (or guesses—how would I know?) the correct word from context. Often, it comes up with the wrong spelling. Since I use the program only for first drafts, it’s not a huge problem. When I leave out words or create new ones with my typos, I am often left wondering what the heck I intended to say. So far with Dragon, I have always figured out the correct context with a misspelled homonym.

Unfortunately, Dragon does not always correctly interpret my speech. The artificial intelligence aspect of Dragon has a mechanism that allows you to correct transcription errors. Early on, there were a lot — no, a lot is insufficient — there were way too many errors. If I couldn’t get Dragon to interpret my speech with significantly better accuracy, our divorce was inevitable.

I learned to enunciate the endings of words more clearly to Dragon to better differentiate between “boo,” and “boot” and “boot” and “booted.” The AI aspect of Dragon began more accurately recognizing my speech patterns. And I learned to work with a few of its idiosyncrasies.

It has only been two weeks, but I consider Dragon to be a great success. Prior to using Dragon, a good day’s writing for me was 1,500 words. My average for days when I was engaged in writing my first draft was under a 1,000. My peak daily output was 2,390. With Dragon, I now average over 3,000 words a day. My highest output for a single day is now 5,135 words.

There are authors who would look at my best day and consider that a poor day for them. I’m not trying to compare myself to someone else, only to my former self. I estimate that before Dragon, I averaged 500 to 600 words an hour. With Dragon, even after including the time it takes for me to correct the dictation errors, I have roughly doubled that output.

I’ve learned a few tricks that make my life easier. For example, I don’t bother correcting homonyms unless they make it into the second draft. Dragon does fine with some personal and place names and not so well with others. In my current work in progress, I have a girl named Valeria. When I try to pronounce it correctly, Dragon types “Valerie a.” Now I just say Valerie. When I complete dictating a scene, I do a quick global search and replace.

My main character’s name is Seamus. Naturally, it wanted to spell the word “shamus,” Yiddish for detective. Although I use the Yiddish expression from time to time, it’s much more likely when I say the word Seamus, I mean my character. Dragon allows you the opportunity to add words to its dictionary and tell it how to pronounce them. That’s what I did with Seamus. So, my Dragon spells Seamus when it hears me pronounce the word (Shay-mus).

Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that Dragon uses a lot of computer resources. Sometimes it stresses those resources past the point where the computer can function correctly. When that happens, it has the nasty habit of closing without saving its work. After twice losing many hundreds of words, I now save my work every few paragraphs.

At this point in the first draft of this blog, I stopped and checked for Dragon mistakes. Of the 1,200 words I had written, I found nine errors (not counting the period issue that I subsequently addressed): three homonyms, two possessives without apostrophes, and four mumbles. That’s a success rate of 99.25%.

What have you done (or think you should do) differently to shake up your writing routine?

* * * * *

James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree series. Full of mystery and suspense, these thrillers explore financial crimes, family relationships, and what happens when they mix. You can sign up for his newsletter and find more information about Jim and his books at https://jamesmjackson.com.

[This post was first published on the Writers Who Kill blog 1/4/22.]

Moose Crossing

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Wed, 08 Sep 2021 15:02:00 +0000

“Everybody wants to see a moose—until they do and discover how big they are.” ~ Larry Roncaglione

I played hooky from writing for the last half of August because I’m doing active research. Here’s the story: On the 13^th, two friends and I bought 200 acres of mixed forest with a half-mile of river running through it. The property is located 2.5 miles north of my home in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The previous owners, two guys, used it for a hunting camp back in the day. One of them moved from the area, and they both now have families. The land has seen little use since they logged forty acres of quaking aspen in 2004. The logging roads are overgrown with 17-year-old tag alder, quaking aspen, tamarack, and black spruce, making it hard to explore.

There is no bridge across the river, but the purchase came with a beat-up canoe. About eighty acres lies on the other side of the river, which no one has logged in more than fifty years. When we explored the tract before purchasing it, we saw a lot of animal sign—especially moose—and found several places where the world’s largest ungulates cross the river. We named the property Moose Crossing to celebrate their passage.

My co-owners, who plan to get married next year, both work in Wisconsin and can only visit for weekends that they aren’t working. (One is a police officer in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and the other is a staff sergeant recruiter for the Wisconsin National Guard, so weekend work is common for them.) I’ve taken it upon myself to open the roads back up and add a few walking trails to access the more remote parts of the property where loggers haven’t left skidder trails. My plan is to surprise them with some visible progress before they return.

There is nothing magic about my process: I chainsaw down the larger growth, trying to cut the trunks as close to the ground as possible. By the time I run through a tank of gas, I’ve dulled the chain on the dirt and must install a freshly sharpened one. I trim the harvested aspen trees and set aside the poles for future use. To clear the tops, limbs, evergreens, and brush, I drag them off the road into the woods (making sure not to block any animal trails). With the larger diameter vegetation removed, I trim the smaller plants with a brush hog I pull behind my ATV. It’s hard work for an old man. And I love it.

While I’m working, I concentrate on the work—important because a slip of the chainsaw can spell disaster thirty miles from the nearest hospital with no one around to get me there. But when I take breaks and after I’ve finished work for the day, I relax. Any little breeze tickles the aspen leaves, sounding like a rain stick. I tick off the birds I hear: the drumming of a hairy woodpecker, the plaintive “Oh, Canada, Canada, Canada” of white-throated sparrows, the high-pitched tsee-tsee notes of golden-crowned kinglets, a distant pair of sandhill cranes’ rattling calls as they fly overhead, the explosion of a startled ruffed grouse, and the whirring wingbeats of woodcock.

Approaching the river, I hear bullfrogs croaking, the guttural growl of leopard frogs, and the rattle of dragonflies taking wing. I peer at a group of Joe Pye-Weed in full purple bloom entertaining at least four species of bees and wonder if I need another field guide. Standing quietly at the river’s edge I’ve observed a beaver swimming downstream, a fresh-cut tag alder branch in its mouth, and a duck paddling quietly around the bend leaving only a ripple in the water. Alder flycatchers call as they zip out from their perches to grab insects buzzing past. Most of the time, I don’t hear any other human activity, although if the wind is wrong, I can catch the distant thrum of logging machines working miles away.

I deploy two trail cameras to record critters that use the improved trails. So far that’s resulted in pictures of a wet black bear, a single coyote, a doe, a red fox, a cottontail rabbit, and the property’s namesakes: a bull moose sporting an impressive rack, and a cow moose with twins (a first for me). The wolf, whose tracks we’ve found, hasn’t yet triggered the cameras.

I return from each trip to Moose Crossing, tired, sweat-soaked, and charged with enthusiasm for living. If that isn’t grist for future writing, I don’t know what is. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

*****

James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree series. Full of mystery and suspense, these thrillers explore financial crimes, family relationships, and what happens when they mix. Furthermore, a novella is the most recent addition to the series. You can sign up for his newsletter and find more information about Jim and his books at https://jamesmjackson.com.

Girls’ Weekend (If you live through it, it just becomes fodder for stories.)

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 13:14:00 +0000

Many of you know my heart lies at my place in the wilds of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, regardless of where my body resides. It’s on an inland lake, fifteen miles of dirt and gravel roads from where you can buy anything, and the setting for two of my novels (Cabin Fever and Empty Promises). Unless the logging companies are working in the area, the only way in during the winter is snowmobile.

The 250-acre lake has only six resident structures plus another half-dozen properties with trailers or tent sites for occasional visits. Lucky for us, our nearest neighbors are wonderful folks. For several years, some of the family women (mother, daughter, daughter’s partner, and daughter-in-law, and four female dogs) have adopted the practice of a fall girls’ four-day vacation barring husbands, sons, brothers, nephews, etc. from camp (or for at least part of the weekend).

The women love to explore the woods and nearby lakes, taking long walks and ATV trips. Since I’ve been in the area longer, they have often invited me along as their “guide.” Now, you might think this breaks the spirit of girls’ weekend. But (if I do pat myself on the back), I do a pretty good job of being one of the girls. I may provide suggestions on where to go and what to see, but all decisions are theirs. They set the pace; on ATV rides, I take the last position allowing them to experience the unfamiliar territory at their tempo with the instruction that when they come to an intersection, they wait if they’re not sure which direction to take so I can point.

I’ve proven I’m comfortable working with women. I served as a board member for nearly a decade and president for two years of the (then 700+-person) Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime. And I’m a good listener, and do not fall into mansplaining when I’m with them. That’s easy since the four include a police officer, a full-time sergeant in the national guard, a healthcare worker, and the long-term manager of a business. I have never repeated any of their conversations to their family members.

A few weeks ago, the girls asked if I’d like to join them for their first go at a spring weekend. I was stoked to return north. We weren’t sure if we’d make the last two-and-a-half miles by snowmobile, by car, or on foot. Once they invited me, they figured they had better include the old man of the family (husband, father, father-in-law—depending on which woman we’re referring to). With everyone on board, we agreed the women would arrive on Thursday with minimal supplies since they might have to walk in. The guys would come up Friday morning towing either a snowmobile or ATV (depending on road conditions) and haul in the rest of the supplies.

The last weekend in March hit a sweet spot. Snow had melted sufficiently, but the roads were still mostly frozen and, with care and slow speeds, they drove both a Jeep and a car all the way to their camp. The tricky part was the last two-and-a-half miles where the center of the road was snow/ice packed solid by snowmobiles over the winter. They made it to camp before noon on Thursday, reported we should bring the ATV, and that because of the icy road center, we should only drive the F-150 to a landing a half mile before their camp.

We used my Outback and the Jeep to bring supplies from the F-150 to their camp. I parked at their place and humped my pack in the last 3/8ths of a mile to my house because that section of the road was a mixture of ice and bare areas that showed signs of frost heaves. With temperatures expected to rise above freezing, I was afraid I might get in fine, but not be able to get out. (Keep that thought in mind.)

At my place, I found the batteries fully charged from the solar panels, so I had electricity. I didn’t want to have to drain the entire house again when I left in two days, so I only brought water into the basement pressure tank where I attached a hose to draw buckets for drinking, dishwashing, and flushing toilets. The inside temperature was thirty-five. With cathedral ceilings, the woodstove would take hours to heat the house, but the girls were eager to continue their moose shed hunt from yesterday. Since I would need to babysit the fire until it was burning steadily, I left the house cold and off we went on our first exploration.

The morning jaunt included all ten of us (4 women, 2 men, 4 dogs). We were out for a couple of hours exploring our nearby woods, spotting lots of moose poop and browse[i], but no rubbings[ii] (where the bulls scrape their antlers against trees during the spring to eventually shed[iii] them and allow for new growth). That walk exhausted the dogs (part of the plan because they’d sleep while we went for our second, longer, exploration after lunch.)

The afternoon walk was just the girls and me. We walked miles through the woods and found areas with more moose scrapes than I’d previously seen in my lifetime. The bulls were beating the hell out of the hardwood saplings, but alas, we discovered no sheds.

I got back to my place about five-thirty and started my woodstove. By seven I had a good bed of coals and a packed stove that I knew would neither go out nor overheat, and I joined everyone for dinner and drinks around their campfire. That night I had the house temperature in the mid-fifties—perfect for sleeping—and with 28,556 steps for the day (mostly in snow), I slept well.

Saturday morning, I stocked the wood stove and brought the indoor temperature up to 68. That morning, the girls and I ATV’d to where we had turned around yesterday and explored several new areas (including one old skidder road[iv] I had not been on before!) Again, lots of moose sign but no antlers. In a wet area we came across a series of spots where the ice looked like topographical maps.

Saturday afternoon all six of us took the ATVs to property for sale that has a half-mile of river frontage. We had all walked the main road to the river but had never explored the rest of the land. Much of it is regrowth quaking aspen—a favorite of moose. We found fresh tracks suggesting we probably pushed a moose out ahead of us.

The girls located a perfect spot for a future cabin. When we returned to the ATVs, we discovered one of them had a flat tire. Our neighbors have a practice of writing each day’s activities in a camp diary, and each year they produce a limited-edition camp book of photographs recording the year’s activities. I said they needed to take a photo of the disabled ATV because it would surely become part of their story book if they bought the land. We left the wounded vehicle with the three youngest girls and returned with the other two ATVs to fetch a portable compressor. The tire just needed air, so everyone got back fine.

Temperatures had warmed from below freezing in the morning to the mid-forties in the afternoon, and the roads were getting sloppy in places. The weather forecast called for an overnight low of twenty-six with 1-2” of snow. We agreed we’d be better off waiting for roads to refreeze than risk tearing them up or slipping off the ice and sticking in mud.

After only 17,416 steps for the day, I again slept well, this time choosing to haul my sleeping bag onto the screened porch. (It’s my preferred sleeping spot unless temps fall below twenty.)

Before I went to bed, it started to snow and stick. I awoke to 3-4” of slippery white stuff.

We agreed to leave at noon and quickly learned we should have brought the cars out to the main road the night before. Within two hundred yards of their cabin, the front-wheel-drive car slid off the road. Four people pushing got the car back onto the icy middle, but going up the next rise, it slipped off again. This time we couldn’t push it out.

With most of our equipment sitting in the F-150 parked a half-mile away, we tried my small come-along[v], but the rope we had available was too stretchy to work. I pulled my Subaru Outback off the road and we positioned the Jeep with a front power winch to be next in line. The winch worked, and once the car was back onto the center, we backed it up enough so the Jeep could pass and take the lead. We then attached the car to the Jeep with a tow strap and had the Jeep pull the car the two miles to the main road.

The Jeep was steady; the car slipping and sliding all over the road. I followed next white-knuckling my way past places where my tires wanted to follow the car off the road. Once I passed the F-150, it followed in the clean-up position creeping along to keep the loaded trailer under control.

Halfway out, I slid off. I straightened my wheels and carefully reversed back onto the road. Whew.

A quarter mile further, I slid off again, this time four feet down a slope. I thought I could recover, but after reversing three feet, I was stuck. I texted the F-150. No response and after a few minutes still no truck. I hiked back a half mile and found them off the other side of the road.

With their stronger come-a-long and tow straps, they had pulled over a 4”-diameter pine tree and were now adding another tow strap to reach a large maple to use as an anchor point. With three of us working, we soon hauled the F-150 back onto the center. For a while we weren’t sure if the truck would pull the trailer out or the trailer would drag the truck back off, but the truck won. To extract my car, we attached the come-a-long and tow strap to my trailer hitch Easy Peasy.

We made it the rest of the way to the main road and caravanned without incident the remaining eleven miles to the paved road. A trip that normally takes thirty minutes, took two hours and forty-five minutes. I see an addendum coming to my neighbors’ weekend diary.

The moral of the story is to make sure you have the right tools AND people who know how to use them. Then it’s just an adventure and fodder for future stories.

I’m looking forward to the next girls’ weekend.

[i] Winter diet for moose (the Algonquin word for twig-eater) consists mainly of twigs from a wide variety of woody plants. They tend to grab a mouthful and move on – hence the term browsing. The chomped off ends of the branches are referred to as “browse sign” or “browse” for short.

[ii] Moose rub their antlers against small trees to mark territory, scrape off velvet, and work off their aggression during rut season (in the fall).

[iii] Each bull moose has two antlers, which they shed each spring. The fallen antler is referred to as a “shed.” Because they weigh so much, a moose with only one antler is lopsided and works hard to get rid of the second antler after dropping the first.

[iv] Temporary roads that loggers use to drag (or skid) trees out to a landing where they stack them for pickup are called skidder trails.

[v] A come-along is a hand-operated winch with a ratchet used to pull objects (or make them come along the path you want to drag them)

* * * * *

James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree series. Full of mystery and suspense, these thrillers explore financial crimes, family relationships, and what happens when they mix. Furthermore, a novella is the most recent addition to the series. You can sign up for his newsletter and find more information about Jim and his books at https://jamesmjackson.com.

This blog originally appeared on the Writers Who Kill blog 4/6/21

Life After a 95% Effective Vaccine

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Jackson) — Sat, 30 Jan 2021 15:43:00 +0000

Congratulations, you scored your double dose of the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines and you are ready to rock and roll, Baby.

Does it matter that the pandemic is still raging outside your door? For those of us old enough to remember Rowan & Martin’s “Laugh-In” the answer is clear: You bet your sweet bippy it matters.

Ninety-five percent is not 100%. You still have a 1/20 chance of getting the disease given a significant exposure to the virus. Your case may not be as virulent as without the vaccine, but the scientific jury is still out—especially regarding the long-term effects of the disease.

Here’s how to think of your risk. You decide to go to in-person church (or some other super-spreader event). Let’s say for discussion that before your vaccine you had a 50/50 chance of catching the disease. (Even in super-spreader events, not everyone was infected.) With the vaccine, your chances fall to 2.5% for that one event. Life’s for living, right? No more sheltering in place because that doesn’t sound too risky.

Although, on average, if forty of you made that same decision, one of you will come down with the disease.

But okay, you take that chance. Of course, if you are going to chance it once, you’ll chance it twice, three times, ’cause heck, the odds are 39-1 against anything bad happening.

Except that’s not the way probabilities work. To stay healthy, you must win against every encounter with the disease. Your chance of winning each one (based on the assumptions above) is 97.5%. To determine the chances of staying healthy after two events, you multiply the chance of staying healthy for each of those events. 97.5% x 97.5% = about 95%.

After 10 events, your chances of not catching the disease are down to 78%. They become less than 50% after 28 such events. If you are part of a couple who attend the events together, the chances of both of you staying healthy drop to below 50% after only 14 events.

To allow us to get back to normal, we must significantly decrease our chances of being exposed to the disease in gatherings. There are only two ways to do this: Increase effectiveness of the vaccine (nope – it doesn’t work that way) or decrease the chances of being exposed during an outing. That means continuing to make safe decisions until enough people are vaccinated (or have caught the disease and are no longer contagious) so the chances of being exposed in what had been a super-spreader event decline significantly.

The math is powerful. If we can drop the original assumption of 50% to 10%, our chances of staying healthy after 28 events increases from 49% to 87%. If we can reduce the chance of exposure to 5%, the 87% after 28 events increases to 93%. This is the power of herd immunity, but we are a long way from reaching those levels of protection.

Even if you don’t quite understand the math, believe its message: your vaccination improves your odds of staying COVID-19 free, but only if you don’t take unnecessary risks.

* * * * *

James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree series. Full of mystery and suspense, these thrillers explore financial crimes, family relationships, and what happens when they mix. Furthermore, a novella is the most recent addition to the series. You can sign up for his newsletter and find more information about Jim and his books at https://jamesmjackson.com.