Lewis Perdue's Blog, page 12
November 10, 2012
Amazon Falling Into Legacy Publishing Mindset
I am caught in a frustrating war between Google and Amazon.
I’ve previously written about the indie author’s love/late relationship with Amazon (Amazon’s Indie Author Cracks Begin To Show, Grow) but have struggled over the past few months to make the relationship work.
But over those months, Amazon has steadily slipped into the same sort of pseudo-God-like behavior that afflicts legacy publishing: totalitarian, inflexible and completely biased in favor of teacher’s pets — those they have annointed for publicity and extra attention at the expense of everyone else.
That latter shows a quick slide into the same mistakes that has brought legacy publishing to the brink of extinction: The mindset that you publish everything, throw as much at the wall as you can to see what sticks, but then find some favorite sons and daughters to lavish affection on and let everybody else just suck on an egg.
That attitude also shows in the total inflexibility Amazon shows for those left to wander in the wilderness. In my last piece on Amazon, I wrote about the mixed blessing of the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select program. Books enrolled in that program can be offered for free (5 days only in a 3-month period) and are eligible for payment when ever a book is loaned by a Kindle owner to another Kindle owner.
To participate in KDP select, the book cannot be for sale anywhere else. That’s an easy task everywhere but for books on Google Play. Google makes it all but impossible to remove books from sale.
And if Amazon’s e-Nazi-Bot finds the book anywhere, it starts a series of emails and eventually gets the book removed from the Select program.
Now, if I were trying to game the system, violate Amazon’s rules, I’d continue have the book for sale at B&N, Apple’s iBookstore, Smashwords and other ebook sites.
I’ve never made a penny from Google Books while I have made modest amounts from Smashwords and the iBookstore. This means that pulling the books down there represent a gamble that Amazon revenues will more than make up for those losses.
For that reason, I’ve been willing to continue with that running gamble. Until now.
Borrows have dropped. e-Naz-Bot hassles have gone up and I have removed all of my books from the KDP Select program. All because Amazon kept hassling me over something I could not control.
Perhaps the market is changing now. Others in the ebook arena may be learning that they can fight back by providing competition to Amazon which seems to be slipping into the complacency that eventually afflicted the world of dead-tree publishing.
This week, I cashed a Smashwords check. That made me take another look at things.
I’ve just re-published everything, everywhere. So, we’ll see.
October 28, 2012
David Stone: Superb Writing in Thrillers
David Stone (http://www.davidstonebooks.com/) is, for my reading taste, one of the best writers on the planet in any genre.
His ability to use the best possible words to evoke a mood, describe a character or set a scene just resonates with me ... and makes me envious as hell.
Below are a few of my favorite examples, from The Skorpion Directive. I chose these because like the feel, the sensory connection of being able to experience what he's writing.
I find these excellent
examples of a writer being able to do the very hardest thing: recreating in the reader's head the same scene playing out in the author's.
"He had a big-bolt-action rifle slung over his shoulder and was dragging a very unhappy alligator, trussed up like a Christmas parcel and hissing like the air brakes on a Freightliner."
"A blood-warm, coal-black ocean, sounding like rolling thunder under the starless sky ...."
"... the cashmere dress clinging to her graceful curves like mist on the bend of a river."
TELL ME WHO YOU THINK IS THE BEST WRITER IN THRILLERS TODAY
Leave a reply below. Leave plot and pacing out of it and post a sentence of great writing where the words excel.
David Stone: Superb Writing in Thrillers
David Stone is, for my reading taste, one of the best writers on the planet in any genre.
His ability to use the best possible words to evoke a mood, describe a character or set a scene just resonates with me … and makes me envious as hell.
Below are a few of my favorite examples, from The Skorpion Directive. I chose these because like the feel, the sensory connection of being able to experience what he’s writing.
I find these excellent examples of a writer being able to do the very hardest thing: recreating in the reader’s head the same scene playing out in the author’s.
“He had a big-bolt-action rifle slung over his shoulder and was dragging a very unhappy alligator, trussed up like a Christmas parcel and hissing like the air brakes on a Freightliner.”
“A blood-warm, coal-black ocean, sounding like rolling thunder under the starless sky ….”
“… the cashmere dress clinging to her graceful curves like mist on the bend of a river.”
Leave a reply below. Tell me who you think is the best writer in thrillers today. Leave plot and pacing out of it and post a sentence of great writing where the words excel.
October 27, 2012
No Vaginas Allowed!
Christian publishers and book stores have a problem with vaginas.
Maybe the owners were all born by Caesarean section or there are a lot more messiahs running around than we ever imagined. We guys who have assisted with the birth of our children know it's a painful, messy (and awesome) process, which is why immaculate conceptions and virgin births seem to be the preferred dogma.
Anyway, evangelical author (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles... Held Evans faced this problem down and found herself banned by the Christian retail decency police.
And this, even after her publisher made her remove "kick ass" and other horrible expressions from her new book (http://www.amazon.com/Year-Biblical-W... A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband "Master"(Due out Oct 20).
The vagina issue could be the reason. Or maybe it's more because Evans has challenged fundamental Christianity's macho, male-dominated theology and the misogyny and violence against women that it has wrongly institutionalized. Taken to its 10th-century extremes, the attitudes of fundamentalist Christians today are uncomfortably close to today's Taliban.
Evans is hardly alone. Others find that (http://blog.christianitytoday.com/wom...) even crap can get them into trouble. And that's a load of ....
"[I]f Christian bookstores stuck to their own ridiculous standards, they wouldn’t be able carry the freaking Bible," (http://rachelheldevans.com/christian-...) says Evans in one of her always entertaining and thought-filled blog posts.
Careful there, author: "Freaking" just might be the f-bomb that gets you banned again!
LIVING THE LIFE
Evans got herself into trouble by living the life. According to her publisher, Evans:
"Intrigued by the traditionalist resurgence that led many of her friends to abandon their careers to assume traditional gender roles in the home, Evans decides to try it for herself, vowing to take all of the Bible’s instructions for women as literally as possible for a year.
"Pursuing a different virtue each month, Evans learns the hard way that her quest for biblical womanhood requires more than a “gentle and quiet spirit” (1 Peter 3:4). It means growing out her hair, making her own clothes, covering her head, obeying her husband, rising before dawn, abstaining from gossip, remaining silent in church, and even camping out in the front yard during her period.
"See what happens when a thoroughly modern woman starts referring to her husband as “master” and “praises him at the city gate” with a homemade sign. Learn the insights she receives from an ongoing correspondence with an Orthodox Jewish woman, and find out what she discovers from her exchanges with a polygamist wife. Join her as she wrestles with difficult passages of scripture that portray misogyny and violence against women."
WOMEN: BIBLICAL HOT BUTTONS
The battle Evans is fighting is an old one but still worth fighting.
It runs through every religion since the human concept of God evolved from female to male. There was a time when even talking about God's transgender evolution could get you killed.
But the transition happened and for some very interesting reasons as human society has changed over the past 50,000 years.
Back in 1999, I wrote one of my best thrillers ever based on what would happen if there were irrefutable proof of a second Messiah and it was a woman.
I caught a lot of flak for my heresies in (http://daughter-of-god.com/) Daughter of God (I was raised a Southern Presbyterian in Mississippi and my kids were enrolled in Catholic Schools here in California).
I didn't get banned because I had a mainstream publisher. (But it was good enough to get plagiarized by The Da Vinci Code.)
No Vaginas Allowed!
Author Rachel Held Evans from the cover of her book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood
Christian publishers and book stores have a problem with vaginas.
Maybe the owners were all born by Caesarean section or there are a lot more messiahs running around than we ever imagined. We guys who have assisted with the birth of our children know it’s a painful, messy (and awesome) process, which is why immaculate conceptions and virgin births seem to be the preferred dogma.
Anyway, evangelical author Rachel Held Evans faced this problem down and found herself banned by the Christian retail decency police.
And this, even after her publisher made her remove “kick ass” and other horrible expressions from her new book: A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband “Master” (Due out Oct 20).
The vagina issue could be the reason. Or maybe it’s more because Evans has challenged fundamental Christianity’s macho, male-dominated theology and the misogyny and violence against women that it has wrongly institutionalized. Taken to its 10th-century extremes, the attitudes of fundamentalist Christians today are uncomfortably close to today’s Taliban.
Evans is hardly alone. Others find that even crap can get them into trouble. And that’s a load of ….
“[I]f Christian bookstores stuck to their own ridiculous standards, they wouldn’t be able carry the freaking Bible,” says Evans in one of her always entertaining and thought-filled blog posts.
Careful there, author: “Freaking” just might be the f-bomb that gets you banned again!
LIVING THE LIFE
Evans got herself into trouble by living the life. According to her publisher, Evans:
“Intrigued by the traditionalist resurgence that led many of her friends to abandon their careers to assume traditional gender roles in the home, Evans decides to try it for herself, vowing to take all of the Bible’s instructions for women as literally as possible for a year.
“Pursuing a different virtue each month, Evans learns the hard way that her quest for biblical womanhood requires more than a “gentle and quiet spirit” (1 Peter 3:4). It means growing out her hair, making her own clothes, covering her head, obeying her husband, rising before dawn, abstaining from gossip, remaining silent in church, and even camping out in the front yard during her period.
“See what happens when a thoroughly modern woman starts referring to her husband as “master” and “praises him at the city gate” with a homemade sign. Learn the insights she receives from an ongoing correspondence with an Orthodox Jewish woman, and find out what she discovers from her exchanges with a polygamist wife. Join her as she wrestles with difficult passages of scripture that portray misogyny and violence against women.”
WOMEN: BIBLICAL HOT BUTTONS
The battle Evans is fighting is an old one but still worth fighting.
It runs through every religion since the human concept of God evolved from female to male. There was a time when even talking about God’s transgender evolution could get you killed.
But the transition happened and for some very interesting reasons as human society has changed over the past 50,000 years.
Back in 1999, I wrote one of my best thrillers ever based on what would happen if there were irrefutable proof of a second Messiah and it was a woman.
I caught a lot of flak for my heresies in Daughter of God (I was raised a Southern Presbyterian in Mississippi and my kids were enrolled in Catholic Schools here in California).
I didn’t get banned because I had a mainstream publisher. (But it was good enough to get plagiarized by The Da Vinci Code.)
October 25, 2012
Vonnegut For President
Vonnegut for President!
Platform: Cat’s Cradle.
Slogan (from Chapter 4): “All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.”
Clearly a man of his word! He has my vote!
October 14, 2012
Take THAT! Paul Ryan
And the meme goes on!
Take THAT! Paul Ryan.
Actual weight 45 pounds (four 10-lb plates plus bar. Since I don’t have those cool House of Reps gym barbells, I must assemble my own from what’s around my garage gym.
And … I’m just funnin’ here. This is not an endorsement or a put-down. I’m a registered Democrat who has worked for a GOP Congressman (now a U.S. Senator), a Democrat Governor, run Congressional campaigns for liberal and minority Republicans (back when they used to exist), votes independent and thinks both parties as they currently exist are ideologically obsolete.
But I just thought the Ryan curl was too much fun to pass up. Have a fun, good-spirited chuckle, y’all.
Oh, and that’s a Perfect Killer hat I’m wearing backwards. Wonder if Rep. Ryan has one of those?
Yeah, that’s a bath towel behind me and sunlight from tee window washing out the photo details.
Ku Klux Klan Taliban & The Evil of Muslim Silence
In my last two books I spent a lot of time wrestling with the issue of God, faith and why good people do bad things — or allow evil to continue.
Why did good Germans tolerate Nazi atrocities? Why did good Southern white people tolerate the Ku Klux Klan and institutionalized racism, lynchings and other brutalities?
The How And What of Evil Are Easy. The Why Is Hard.
My thriller characters are up to their eyeballs in action, adventure, and suspense but they are not killing robots: they wrestle with the morality of their actions and with the evil they have been sent to eliminate.
The nature of evil — the how and the what – make for the thriller part.
The “why?” leaves both author and reader with worthy questions that remain to be considered long after the last page has been read.
Which is why my thoughts have been so occupied with global Islam — 1.6 billion people — and the passive indifference that most of them exhibit when to comes to human rights, including their relationship with people of other faiths.
Ku Klux Klan Taliban
I think of Protestant ministers in Mississippi who preached segregation, white superiority and the racial inferiority of those who were not Caucasian. Or Protestant. The old saying was that KKK stood for “Katholics, Kikes and Koons.” That’s ugly.
Just as ugly are the Muslim madrassas – fanatical religious schools that preach observance of violence, oppression and intolerance.
Moral decay and evil find fertile ground in the theology of hatred and intolerance because those who preach it tell their followers that God says it’s ok.
And in the little light I have managed to shed on my own struggle with evil, I find that fanatical Islamists — and those who passively allowed them to thrive — look identical to Nazis, KKKlanners and those who supported or tolerated them.
And in that light, the Taliban (along with Salafists, Wahabis and others) are simply Islamic copies of the Ku Klux Klan or Nazi brown shirts.
Like the Klan and Nazis, the Taliban wage holy war on women, girls, anybody that look different, think differently or believe differently. And like Nazis and the Old South, they wage a savage, unlimited and ultimately evil war to defend their “way of life” against infidels and inferior life forms.
The Moral Vacuum In Global Islam
Today’s radical Islamist preachers of hate can turn out their brown shirt thugs on a global basis to protest a third-rate video or a Florida nut case who burns a Quran.
Those rioters in the streets are the moral equivalent of a KKK lynch mob who used to turn up in the Old South to lay hands on the victim — to torture, burn, maim and mutilate black men before they were finally hung and killed. It’s a crude, subhuman orgy of evil that lives large in Islamist lynch mobs.
The Benghazi attackers harkened back to one of the most bestial race-killings in Mississippi that happened in the Delta town of Belzoni. There, the mob went after the home and family of a local civil rights activist. Riddled their home with gunfire. Then set the house on fire and shot and killed those trying to escape the flames.
And sadly today’s silent, passive Muslims — like good people in the Old South or Nazi Germany – allow evil because they do nothing.
They remain globally silent and ignore the truly Islamic call to be merciful and charitable, when a 14-year-old Pakistani girl is shot in the head for wanting an education.
They turn a blind, passive eye when child brides are bought and sold into sexual slavery.
They look away when Islamist KKK lynch mobs burn and loot businesses and homes of Christians, Jews and other faiths. These are just Islamist equivalents of Kristallnacht — good ways to tighten your grip on power and to loot some real estate in the process.
Muslims who tolerate these things while silently disapproving them are still guilty because they allow evil to thrive in their midst. As we saw in Benghazi in the aftermath of the consulate attack, the evil cannot exist if good people rise up.
But other than Benghazi, we don’t read about protests against fanatical Islamist evils. Those who “tsk-tsk” and go about their business are as evil as the perpetrators. They are conspirators in murder, rape, theft and violence.
Yes, rising up and speaking out are dangerous and require courage. But where is the dignity of remaining silent? And how faithful can that be to a God one professes to believe is merciful and charitable?
Read More, Think More – For Free
If you want to think deeper about these things, read Perfect Killer and/or Die By Wire. I promise you a good, fast, exciting thriller. But when the characters (and you) are ready to take a deep breath, you’ll find some things to think deeply about.
NOTE: Perfect Killer and/or Die By Wire will be free From Monday, October 15 from midnight 12:00 a.m. to 11:59 p.m.
Perfect Killer is a partly autobiographical thriller set substantially in my birthplace — the Mississippi Delta — infamous for the Emmitt Till lynching and a Jim Crow-enforced slavery on the cotton plantations that were part of my family history.
Die By Wire’s sub-theme focuses on the practice of child brides — rape and pedophilia of girls as young as 9 or 10 — and defended by hardline, fundamentalists like the Taliban and their cultural allies as a Quranic right.
October 2, 2012
Giant Legacy Publishers Screw Libraries: Only Amazon Can Stop Them
Big publishers are screwing public libraries, but here’s an idea how Amazon could put a stop to them — and help readers, authors and itself at the same time.
PROBLEM #1: Some big publishers — Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Penguin — refuse to sell any ebooks to libraries.
The excerpt below, from an open letter by American Library Association President Maureen Sullivan, summarizes the issue:
“It’s a rare thing in a free market when a customer is refused the ability to buy a company’s product and is told its money is “no good here.” Surprisingly, after centuries of enthusiastically supporting publishers’ products, libraries find themselves in just that position with purchasing ebooks from three of the largest publishers in the world. Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Penguin have been denying access to their ebooks for our nation’s 112,000 libraries and roughly 169 million public library users.”
This article from Media Bistro: ALA President Challenges ‘Discriminatory’ eBook Policies has her entire open letter.
Read it. Get pissed.
PROBLEM #2: Some big publishers — Random House, Hachette — have doubled or tripled the price of an ebook to libraries.
In March of this year Random House increased the library wholesale prices of the ebooks by 300 percent! Then in September this year, Hachette jacked up ebook prices for libraries by 220%!
Their conduct is the literary equivalent of old-time segregationists standing in the schoolhouse door. In this case, it is the poor of all colors who suffer the most. And the lack of books further serves to block the efforts of people to educate themselves.
As ALA’s Sullivan writes:
“Librarians have a particular concern for vulnerable populations that may not have any other access to books and electronic content, including individuals and families who are homebound or low-income. To deny these library users access to ebooks that are available to others – and which libraries are eager to purchase on their behalf – is discriminatory.”
SOLUTION #1: Amazon Kindle Book Loans
Amazon allows Kindle book customers to loan any of the books they own to another user. Amazon should make the widest possible inventory of Kindle books available to libraries at the lowest possible price. If a library is designated as a Kindle customer, then the library can loan the ebook just like any other Kindle ebook owner.
SOLUTION #2: Amazon Indie Authors
Undoubtedly, some of the mega-giant legacy publishers might refuse to sell to Amazon if it created a library loan/sale system. Of course that’s like slashing their own throats. But, legacy publishing has already been engaged in a long-term suicide pact, so that could happen here as well.
In that case, the huge number of Indie ebooks made available through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing arm could all be made available through agreements and incentives with the Indie author/publishers.
I would personally donate 112,000 single copies of all my ebooks — one for every U.S. library.
Partly because I think it’s right.
And partly because I believe it is in my long-term interest.
First of all, it costs nothing to donate those books — most of which were originally published in dead-tree versions by legacy publishers.
I see those free books as promotion. My experience with libraries is that they rarely buy only one copy of a popular book. So, I’d price further sales of my books to libraries at half or maybe one-fourth of regular retail.
I like my chances with libraries. My books have been very popular there. This piece explains that for just one country: Bless The Dutch Libraries!
SOLUTION #3: Amazon Kindle Select
In addition, Amazon has a “Select” program that pays authors for books that are borrowed for free by its Prime customers. Even though the borrowing is free, I’ve made up to $2.72 per book loan.
There is a catch, of course. In order to be eligible for payments for book loans, the book must be exclusive to Amazon. I wrote about that here: The Amazon Conundrum.
A “Library Select” program would need to be different. Based on what other authors want and what Amazon things would be appropriate, the library select version of an ebook could come with a link that would allow a library borrower to buy the book, perhaps at the library rate or something similar.
PROBLEMS = Missed Opportunity. SOLUTIONS = Long-Term Growth
Of course, many library patrons are not poor. A lot of them will read books and want their own copies.
And those who are currently economically challenged will not be forever.
Both those categories are the fans and customers of today and the future. The big legacy publishers do not see the opportunity and cannot see libraries and their patrons as a path to long-term growth.
Will Amazon?
Giant Legacy Publishers Screw Libraries: Here’s How Amazon Can Stop Them
Big publishers are screwing public libraries, but here’s an idea how Amazon could put a stop to them — and help readers, authors and itself at the same time.
PROBLEM #1: Some big publishers — Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Penguin — refuse to sell any ebooks to libraries.
The excerpt below, from an open letter by American Library Association President Maureen Sullivan, summarizes the issue:
“It’s a rare thing in a free market when a customer is refused the ability to buy a company’s product and is told its money is “no good here.” Surprisingly, after centuries of enthusiastically supporting publishers’ products, libraries find themselves in just that position with purchasing ebooks from three of the largest publishers in the world. Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Penguin have been denying access to their ebooks for our nation’s 112,000 libraries and roughly 169 million public library users.”
This article from Media Bistro: ALA President Challenges ‘Discriminatory’ eBook Policies has her entire open letter.
Read it. Get pissed.
PROBLEM #2: Some big publishers — Random House, Hachette — have doubled or tripled the price of an ebook to libraries.
In March of this year Random House increased the library wholesale prices of the ebooks by 300 percent! Then in September this year, Hachette jacked up ebook prices for libraries by 220%!
Their conduct is the literary equivalent of old-time segregationists standing in the schoolhouse door. In this case, it is the poor of all colors who suffer the most. And the lack of books further serves to block the efforts of people to educate themselves.
As ALA’s Sullivan writes:
“Librarians have a particular concern for vulnerable populations that may not have any other access to books and electronic content, including individuals and families who are homebound or low-income. To deny these library users access to ebooks that are available to others – and which libraries are eager to purchase on their behalf – is discriminatory.”
SOLUTION #1: Amazon Kindle Book Loans
Amazon allows Kindle book customers to loan any of the books they own to another user. Amazon should make the widest possible inventory of Kindle books available to libraries at the lowest possible price. If a library is designated as a Kindle customer, then the library can loan the ebook just like any other Kindle ebook owner.
SOLUTION #2: Amazon Indie Authors
Undoubtedly, some of the mega-giant legacy publishers might refuse to sell to Amazon if it created a library loan/sale system. Of course that’s like slashing their own throats. But, legacy publishing has already been engaged in a long-term suicide pact, so that could happen here as well.
In that case, the huge number of Indie ebooks made available through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing arm could all be made available through agreements and incentives with the Indie author/publishers.
I would personally donate 112,000 single copies of all my ebooks — one for every U.S. library.
Partly because I think it’s right.
And partly because I believe it is in my long-term interest.
First of all, it costs nothing to donate those books — most of which were originally published in dead-tree versions by legacy publishers.
I see those free books as promotion. My experience with libraries is that they rarely buy only one copy of a popular book. So, I’d price further sales of my books to libraries at half or maybe one-fourth of regular retail.
I like my chances with libraries. My books have been very popular there. This piece explains that for just one country: Bless The Dutch Libraries!
SOLUTION #3: Amazon Kindle Select
In addition, Amazon has a “Select” program that pays authors for books that are borrowed for free by its Prime customers. Even though the borrowing is free, I’ve made up to $2.72 per book loan.
There is a catch, of course. In order to be eligible for payments for book loans, the book must be exclusive to Amazon. I wrote about that here: The Amazon Conundrum.
A “Library Select” program would need to be different. Based on what other authors want and what Amazon things would be appropriate, the library select version of an ebook could come with a link that would allow a library borrower to buy the book, perhaps at the library rate or something similar.
PROBLEMS = Missed Opportunity. SOLUTIONS = Long-Term Growth
Of course, many library patrons are not poor. A lot of them will read books and want their own copies.
And those who are currently economically challenged will not be forever.
Both those categories are the fans and customers of today and the future. The big legacy publishers do not see the opportunity and cannot see libraries and their patrons as a path to long-term growth.
Will Amazon?
