Bob Mayer's Blog, page 9

Survival 1: Why Do You Need A Preparation and Survival Guide?

Because we know we need to do something, but we’re not sure what, and there’s just so much other stuff to do in day-to-day living we never get around to that something that could save our lives and the lives of the people we love.

80% of Americans live in a county that has been hit by a weather related disaster since 2007

60% of people have not practiced or prepared for what to do in an emergency

55% of people think they can rely on the “authorities” to rescue them

53% of people do not have a three day supply of water

52% of families do not have an emergency rally point (ERP)

48% of people have no emergency supplies

44% of people have no first aid kit

42% of people do not know the phone numbers of immediate family members

In the Green Berets, the most important thing that made us elite was our planning. We not only thoroughly planned our missions, we also prepared for all the possible things we could imagine going wrong.

You prepare for 3 reasons:

To avoid the emergency.

To have a plan, equipment, training etc. in place in case the emergency strikes.

To give peace of mind in day-to-day living so you don’t constantly have to worry about potential emergencies because you are prepared for them. This allows you to experience a higher quality of life.

Procrastination comes from the Latin: pro= forward; crastinus=belonging to tomorrow. Which is a bit redundant, but you get the point. When we procrastinate we stay in a constant state of worry, knowing there’s something that needs to be done, but hasn’t been. By ticking off these tasks, your peace of mind will expand.

This is excerpted from: The Green Beret Preparation and Survival Guide

Rocky Start, first in a new series, Publishes Today!

We’ve likened Rocky Start to the movie Red set in a small town in the Smoky Mountains. It’s the first of what will be three books in the series. Very Nice Funerals will be out later this year. Then The Honey Pot Plot.

For my thriller readers, this book will interest you as there is much more action in it, much like Agnes and the Hitman or Shane and the Hitwoman.

Speaking of which, as part of the promotion, Shane and the Hitwoman is only .99.

Biggest Sale Ever. Lavender’s Blue on sale for 1st Time

In honor of Independence Day, I am running my largest sale ever.

First, Lavender’s Blue, besides being in Amazon Prime for free, and in Kindle Unlimited, is just .99, the first ever price discount on the first book in the Liz Danger series.

Then there are the first two books in the Green Beret series free.

Of course, Independence Day, is free.  And The Green Beret Guide to Great Disasters which dissects 21 famous disasters and shows how they occurred and how one can prevent similar disasters in the future.

And there are more.

Don’t forget, Rocky Start, the first book in our new collaborative series comes out on 21 July.



Civil War: Surprisingly, A Very Good Movie, If Depressing

I probably shouldn’t say surprisingly given the director. Its directed and written by Alex Garland who did Annihilation and 28 Days Later. But I saw ads for it and some trailers and thought it was some shoot ‘em up exploitation of current political trends. It is not.

It is the story of a journalist, played by Kirsten Dunst who is traveling from New York City to Washington DC during a Civil War between the Western States and the United States.  She has three accompanying her, including a naïve young woman who also wants to be a war photographer.

Some might feel frustrated that there isn’t more light shed on the backstory of the Civil War, but that’s actually a strength of the movie. The focus is on the characters and what they encounter, both good and bad, leaning toward the latter. Some also mock that California and Texas would somehow be on the same side, but the reality is, those in Washington govern at the desire of the people. We tend to forget that.

The key to the movie is the various scenarios that play out. From Americans in a refugee camp getting along, to a peaceful town that’s sitting the war out, to the more gruesome scenes of the worst of us.

Dunst’s husband, Jesse Plemons, who was a last-minute casting replacement, steals the movie in his one scene. He plays someone who is willing to kill at the wrong word. Standing next to a mass grave that he just had bodies dumped into he asks the key question: “What kind of American?”

There are many in the country who have fantasies about how a Civil War might play out but those in the military who have deployed to places where they have actually happened can tell you first-hand it is horrible. Many may not believe it, but there are those in your neighborhood who would gladly be Plemons character and put a bullet in the back of your head if the shackles of law and order are released.

We live in dangerous times and this movie is a very well done warning.

Code Over Country: The Tragedy And Corruption of Seal Team Six. A Review

It is indeed a tragedy. Mandatory reading for anyone wanting to understand Special Operations Forces.

I knew some of the stories in here and also interacted with Richard Marcinko a few times over the years. The author, Matthew Cole, does a great job of drilling down on the history of the SEALs and how they’ve gone off the rails, focusing on SEAL Team 6, from its founding by Marcinko through the present day.

This book is not a hit job on the SEALs or even Team Six. Even some of the worst offenders are brave individuals who put their lives on the line for the mission. And, ultimately, the fault lies with all of us for allowing two things: an illegal war in Iraq and a never-ending war in Afghanistan that had no goal in mind. You simply cannot constantly rotate warriors multiple times into fruitless campaigns with no strategic goal and expect things not to unravel.

Some of the things are forgivable but some are not. Lying about missions and what happened costs people their lives. Random killings of civilians destroy any credibility our forces have and forces the populace to fight back, exactly as we would. Besides being war crimes. In fact, many actions by ST6 resulted in the opposite result of what was desired.

The most depressing thing? The highest-ranking admirals who are SEALs seem tainted by their actions over the years. As if the officer corps rewards this behavior.

The second most depressing thing? How Hollywood and publishing have rewarded many of the worst offenders and portrayed lies as bravery. Two of the most egregious offenders are Lone Survivor and American Sniper. I remember reading Lone Survivor and being stunned at the lack of planning. I also didn’t buy the story of the ‘lone survivor’. It didn’t ring true.

If you want to dive even deeper into some of these stories, it gets worse. A former SEAL, Eric Deming, has several interviews where he gives insider account that are jarringly at odds with the public perception. His story about Task Force Bruiser rings true and shows how rogue actions by out-of-control special operators can result in tragedies.

Ultimately, the fault lies at the highest levels. The very concept of war has changed. We went into Afghanistan with no clear strategic goal. If you have no strategic goal, smaller units have to invent tactical ones. And it always seems to go back to “body count”. That didn’t work in Vietnam and it didn’t work in the GWOT. In fact, we might argue it is counter-productive. It seems as if we never project onto others what our own reactions would be to our tactics.

Our military needs a severe shakeup in tactics, strategies and ethics, but I doubt that is going to happen. The Pentagon acts like we’ve actually won wars, when we haven’t in a long time.

13 More Titles Now In Kindle Unlimited.

I recently put more titles into Kindle Unlimited across an array of genres.

The Jefferson Allegiance was a national #2 bestseller when it came out. It’s the first book of the two book Presidential series that mixes history with a modern thriller. The second book is The Kennedy Endeavor.

The five books of the Shadow Warrior series are also in KU now. They are all individual reads so you can check them out in any order. From a military coup in The Line to facing nuclear Armageddon in the Omega Missile. As with many of my books they are thrillers steeped in history. There is also The Omega Sanction, The Gate and Section Eight.

Psychic Warrior and its sequel, Psychic Warrior: Project Aura have been optioned for potential development as a streaming series given the advances in CGI since the story is about using AI Avatars and being able to project them into real world. The core of it is based on a real program we did in Special Forces called Trojan Warrior.

Burners and Prime are based on one of my favorite ideas: how do you live when you know exactly when you will die? They are post-apocalyptic thrillers.

Then two standalone books: The Rock and I, Judas: The Fifth Gospel.

In essence, for those of you who enjoy Kindle Unlimited, a lot of new reading to enjoy.

PS: The Liz Danger series is also in Kindle Unlimited now.

Nothing but good times ahead, especially with Rocky Start coming out next month.

Bob

For The First Time: Agnes and the Hitman and 2 more titles available on UK and AU Amazon

And in Kindle Unlimited.

We’re slow, but we get there eventually. We finally realized in our original contracts for our first three collaborations, Agnes and the Hitman, Don’t Look Down and Wild Ride, that we owned the rights in several territories, most importantly the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

How readers have survived all these years without those books all these years is beyond comprehension. But we’ve finally gotten the books formatted and the first one is out today, Agnes and the Hitman, which was named one of the top 100 books of the decade. Not this decade. Or the last decade. The one before that. Yeah, we’re a little slow, but we’re still kicking.

We’re also very happy with the cover we had done for it. The other books will be coming out: Don’t Look Down in two weeks and Wild Ride, two weeks after that.

On top of that, the first book in our new series, Rocky Start, will be out on 21 June. And we’re putting the final touches on Very Nice Funerals. Which will be followed by Honey Pot Plot.

And, if you don’t know, our Liz Danger series is now in Kindle Unlimited.

Nothing but good times ahead.

Bob

PS: Happy Birthday fellow alumni Ulysses S. Grant. I wrote a series with him in it and the first book is always free, Duty.

Random Brain Cells Firing on “No one buys books anymore”

This is the title of an article making the rounds in the writing world based on Elle Griffin taking a dive into the results of a book about the testimony of industry insiders on the Random House-Simon Schuster merger. It’s an article well worth reading and well written.

I’m seeing a lot of chatter about it, much of it negative about publishing. Also, a bit of despair from a number of writers.

So the few brain cells I have left started nudging each other and here are a few random takes from my 34 years of making a living as a novelist. I am traditionally published, indie published, hybrid and also published by an Amazon imprint, which means I’ve seen the gamut. I’ve hit bestseller lists in multiple genres and also received quite a few “no thanks” on the option for my next book which in publishing means I’ve been fired a number of times as an author. Which, in the long run, turned out to be quite lucrative.

Nothing new. Really. I’ve heard the same stuff forever. A handful of big names make most of the money. I remember early in my career an author taking Stephen King’s last advance and dividing it into how many other authors it could sustain and it missed the point entirely. King does support many other authors. He makes the money that allows his publishing house to take chances on new authors.There is no magic formula. Yes, they are throwing tens of thousands of books against the wall, hoping a couple stick. It’s the entertainment business. That’s an oxymoron. Entertainment is emotion. Business is logical (supposedly). No one really knows what makes something go viral.Traditional publishing is not filled with fools who don’t know what they’re doing and the system needs to be revamped. I’ve worked with mostly brilliant people who love books in the trad world. They are running it the best way possible given the previous point. Having run my own small indie imprint for several years, I’m amazed they make any money at all. They all work very, very hard. That said, they are getting squeezed tighter. Mostly for time. It takes much, much longer now for agents and editors to look at material. I’ve always described publishing as slow and technophobic. They are even slower now. While the world is moving faster.How many books sell how many copies, yada, yada isn’t really as telling as you think it is. Copies isn’t money. Money is money. There’s a good and bad side to this. The good side? There are always subrights. Foreign rights. Audio rights. Every author needs multiple income streams. The bad side? Many struggling authors drool over a $100,000 advance. But here’s the reality of that: take 15% off the top for the agent. Take off taxes. Divide by how long it takes you to write the book. Add in the uncertainty of whether you will get another contract.As far as technophobic, trad publishing was slow to take up eBooks. In fact, they viewed eBooks as a threat. I rode the golden wave of the indie movement and that was sweet. When indie authors owned kindle and Bookbub ran one of my ads every month.I submit that what isn’t being talked about is how a very important revenue stream for trad publishers is now eBooks. How the worm turns. Especially given the high prices on something that has minimal overhead. Over $10 for an eBook? Really?Which leads me to the great secret: the #100 bestseller in Romance in Kindle right now is #169 overall on Amazon Kindle. And over 90 of those romance titles are indie. Priced at $5.99 and below, usually below $4.99. And, in Kindle Unlimited (KU), the Netflix of publishing which trad publishers fear.Which leads me to the big lie: eBooks sales are going down. I’ve heard that for the past ten years. If it were true, there would be no eBooks left. The only entity that knows the true number of eBook sales is Amazon and they aren’t telling. No one is counting my indie sales. And all those other millions and millions of pages read in KU. I submit eBook sales are always going up. KU pages read constantly expanding shows that.The problem for trad publishers, and somewhat for indies, is we get paid a LOT less for KU than a book sale. A $4.99, 100,000 word/400 pages novel gets around $3.49 per sale for the author. If the entire book is read in KU, it pays the author  $1.66. Less than half. However, at least for romance, the voracious readers and movement up the bestseller list due to volume more than makes up for it. When Jennifer Crusie and I went into KU recently with our Liz Danger series, our sales increased 20 times.Notice I said above that not getting my option renewed on contracts turned out to be lucrative? Because I got the rights back and republished a number of my titles as indie. My Area 51 series sold over a million copies at Random House, but through persistence (read, being obnoxious) I managed to snag the rights back. That original series, supplemented with new titles, now generates nice monthly income. The lesson: nothing is all good or all bad in publishing. A rejection is an opportunity to do it differently.

My recommendations?

Read the stats, shrug, then do your own thing. We’re all unique as authors. What works for one author isn’t going to work for you. You are not a statistic.Content is king. There is way too much emphasis on marketing rather than content among authors. Sometimes gimmicks work, but they’re not sustainable. What is sustainable is good content over time.Have multiple sources of income. If you are a midlist trad author you have to be working on getting some indie titles out there and becoming hybrid. Indie titles generate income forever. Trad titles, as the article notes, rarely earn out their advance. Once you cash that last advance check, that’s it.A number of military schools I went to, such as West Point or Special Forces Qualification, would start with an instructor telling us “look to the left, look to the right, one of you won’t be here in X number of weeks”. And my thought was always, well tough look to those guys. It never occurred to me that would be me. You need, as Terry Gilliam, says, “mule-like stupidity” to succeed in the arts world. A belief in yourself that defies reality.

Shelter from the Storm Publishes Today

Shelter from the Storm, the 6th book in the Green Beret series (Will Kane) is out today.

Set in late 1978, Will Kane becomes embroiled with terrorist who have kidnapped his ex-wife in a remote town in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. Die Hard with snow. And at the end, he is back in New York City as we ring in 1979 and more adventures in the Big Apple for the new year.

In celebration, New York City Little Black Book is free today through the 28th. Atlantis, the first book in the series which Terry Brooks calls “Spellbinding” is also free.

Coming in June is Rocky Start, the first book in a new series with my collaborator, Jennifer Crusie. These are action romances that focus on community. We pitch this new series as the movie RED in a small town in the Smoky Mountains. A peaceful community of retired, very dangerous former operatives and a stranger comes to town. Nothing but good times ahead.

I hope everyone is welcoming Spring. I certainly am. I’ve made several more videos on various survival topics including one on a blood trauma kit, because I’m such a cheery fellow. There is also one on Special Forces Survival Hacks. They are on my Youtube channel.

Nothing but good times ahead!

Bob

Movie Review: Will. There Isn’t Always A Happily Ever After

We love heroes. We love bravery. Reality? Not so much.

Will is a movie set in Antwerp in 1942. It’s in Flemish, so subtitles are a must, although for a brief while I watched in the dubbed English and will say it’s the best dubbing job I’ve seen (I usually hate it and prefer the original language with subtitles). Wil is the protagonist, a young man starting his first day as a police officer in the city.

There is a slight problem and that is that the city is occupied by the Germans who actually rule.

The story starts fast, with the young rookies getting a briefing by their watch commander who makes them sing a childhood song that essentially says “Watch, but do nothing.”

It’s good advice because right away Will and his partner Matteo got corralled by a lone German to shake down some Jews and eventually take the couple and their young daughter in. On the way, bad things happen and things spiral out of control for the rest of the movie.

Stark choices are faced: loyalty or saving yourself and your family? In most fiction, the hero rises to the occasion and manages to save themselves and others.

Reality? You have to watch the movie. There are indeed moments of bravery. Of decency.

I’m torn about recommending this movie. I think it should be watched as our country spirals into hatred and bigotry and violence. Many people are being tested as to their values and frankly, most are failing. They are afraid of the mob. I’ve noted that when I even mention facts that some don’t believe in, I am viciously attacked, cursed at and called names. There is no reasoning. It is angry and hatred. I hope it doesn’t explode, but as we saw on 6 January several years ago, it can. Because there are those who profit from it and there are evil people in the world.

Why not watch it? It will trouble you. But I think that’s what some good stories do. They trouble you and make you think.