Caveman TV

The katydids just started their song a minute ago. The crickets, perhaps 15–20 minutes before that.

Sometimes, you have to step away from the technology to reset the stories in your head. The caveman TV does that work just nicely. I always imagined sitting around the fire was the birthplace of human storytelling.

Now, I will let my mind drift as I'm serenaded by the evening chorus.

The only thing missing? A glass of Oban ready for sipping. It'll be a long while before I can afford a bottle.

S'mores, anyone?

The Third Front—Apple Enters the Fray

There is an all out war breaking out.

Some have called it a revolution. Others a civil war. One thing is absolutely certain, the fighting is escalating and spreading. Whatever you want to call it, Amazon and Hachette have been duking it out in a very public spat over the negotiation of ebook pricing. Of course, what the real battle is for is control over the ebook market.

However, in the midst of all the name calling, sucker punching, eye gouging, spleen bruising, liver ripping, hair pulling, ear biting, crotch kicking, and bitch slapping, something happened that seems to have passed the notice of everyone distracted by the Amazon-Hachette kerfuffle.

This event might even bring the overly-public slapfest between Amazon and Hachette to a screeching halt.

Reviewers Wanted!

Kobo Books is working on revamping their web site. As part of this work, they are bringing back the far-too-long-missing reader review system. Kobo is providing authors with a link so readers can post reviews of their books and preload the review system for when it is ready for launch.

So, I’m calling on everyone who has read and enjoyed my book to please post a review! (Link Button below.)

Kindle Unlimited: A Second Look

The problem with writing about a current event is that the information is always changing. It really is a moving target.

When I first heard the various reports on Kindle Unlimited, one particular data point really stuck in my craw—as well as that of many other independent writers. But after sitting and thinking on it for a while, I began to consider that I might be thinking about it the wrong way.

Yet Another Opinion on Kindle Unlimited…

Amazon just opened up their new reader subscription service, Kindle Unlimited.

Kindle Unlimited is essentially a subscription digital book service. A customer pays $10 per month and in exchange can download as many ebooks as they want to/can read.

Amazon created a library for Kindle Unlimited from the Kindle Select program. They say they have over 600,000 titles.

Most of those titles come from independent authors—writers such as myself who have chosen to self-publish rather than go through the traditional route of being published by a large company.

For The Reader:

For the avid reader, Kindle Unlimited is an awesome bargain! For just $10 per month, you can read all the ebooks you want.

Advances and Patronage

What is an advance?

An advance is an “advance payment of royalties.” Hence the name, advance.

To many people, the advance means the check the writer gets when a publisher accepts the author’s book for publication.

Unexpected Goal

In 2006, gas prices went over $3 a gallon for the first time in my local area.

I told myself that if gas ever went over $3 a gallon, I would buy a bike. Gas prices soared. I bought the bike.

A scooter actually. Not a motorcycle. A Honda PS250 “Big Ruckus”. I saw someone riding one up in Cambridge, MA, when I worked there across the street from MIT. It looks like someone cut an ATV in half; so ugly you couldn’t help but love it.

I figured that I would start small and work my way up as I got used to riding. I chose the 250cc engine because that was the smallest engine size legal to use on the highway and I wanted a bike that had no restrictions against its use.

I had always wanted to get a motorcycle. What I didn’t know was that inside me was a rider just waiting for the chance to hit the road.

Don't Quit Your Day Job

Right now, there is an awesome thread going on over at The Passive Voice that has really grabbed people’s attention. The thread, Indie Authors Quitting Their Day Jobs, makes for some interesting and in many ways, inspiring, reading. Why inspiring? Because many of the success stories listed there are spurring others to finally get off their butts and make an effort at making their dream a reality and seriously trying to write a book.

The Early Nerd Catches the Earworm…

Who Killed Cock Robin? – John Anster Fitzgerald, c. 1855–1860

I've somehow gotten a mashup of Huey Lewis and the News and an old nursery rhyme stuck in my head. Now I've got this echoing in the thought chamber:

"They say the heart of Cock Robin is still beatin'.
But from what I've seen, I don't believe 'em!"

I guess it was that or John Lithgow grilling the Gingerbread Man about the Muffin Man, who lived on Drury Lane.

Yeah, I'm such a nerd…

The Writing Process Blog Tour

The Writing Process Blog Tour is a series of linked blog posts by various authors about how their writing process works when creating a new story. Fellow author, Heidi Garrett, popped up with an invitation to other authors to join the tour and I gladly accepted.

The idea behind the tour is each author answers four questions (listed below) about their writing and then lists three authors to visit on the tour. Not all the writers on the tour link to three, but it makes an interesting thread to follow. It will give you an idea of how each writer works out their stories and produces them.

Now, I actually have two writers before me in the Blog Tour. There was a last minute scheduling snafu, so I switched slots so we could continue a proper flow.

The first writer before me on the tour is Cat Amesbury, writer of contemporary fantasy who just released her first book on April 6, 2014, The Guests of Honor: Tales of the Virtue Inn (Book One).

The second writer before me on the tour is Michael Patrick Hicks, another first time writer with his book, Convergence, published in February, 2014. Michael was also a nominee for Amazon’s Breakthrough Novelist Award. That should say something about his book.

The hardest thing for a new author is getting noticed by the readers. This is difficult for established authors, too! So I urge you to take a chance and read their books. You might like them. Ebooks cost less than a coffee at Starbucks, they are more entertaining and they last a lot longer. So buy their books, give them some stars in their reviews, and watch out for toasters with bad attitudes.