Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 164
August 26, 2014
Mad dogs and Englishmen…
I’m not reminiscing about Joe Cocker and his hard rock music. If you remember those times, you know that music was several dBs above the pain threshold. So is this post because I’m referring to ISIS and their spokesman who beheaded the American reporter. (Always a spokesman and never spokeswoman—women are just property in the radical Muslim world, especially for members of ISIS, who simply see them as breeders that give birth and suckle little terrorists who grow up to join the cause.) They’r...
August 22, 2014
Review of Deborah Riley-Magnus’ Finding Author Success…
(Deborah-Riley Magnus, Finding Author Success, Path Maker Books, Second Edition, 2013, B00CHW2GLA)
For the newbie author, this ebook will be a helpful compendium of what can be done before, during, and after their book is launched—possibly necessary conditions for writing success (there are no sufficient ones—know the difference). Either because they’re dated or time- or dollar-intensive, some suggestions are more practical than others, but there’s a lot of sage advice here. Indie authors and...
August 21, 2014
For the love of the game…
A few recent court decisions and the alleged cheating case in Notre Dame’s football program (a dearth of details at the time of this writing) point out the following sports conundrum: how do we reconcile the love of the game with the big money involved in collegiate and pro sports? In some cases, “for the love of the game” has been replaced with “for the love of the hometown fans,” as in the case of LeBron James, but it’s clear that he went to Miami to make money and win some championships, w...
August 20, 2014
Who would you cast to play Castilblanco?
[Note from Steve: be sure you see the offer at the end of this post!]
My character, NYPD Homicide Detective Rolando Castilblanco, is a complex guy. His partner, Dao-Ming Chen, is the yin to his yang (or, vice versa—I never can keep them straight). His wife, Pam Stuart, is a crime reporter for a local TV station. He’s hooked on ethnic foods and strong coffee but uses Tums to counter his acid reflux (so you can’t answer Telly Savalas to the question in the title, because Kojak was addicted to lo...
August 19, 2014
Perception v. reality…
My knee-jerk reaction was that a young cop, perhaps scared out of his mind, shot an unarmed teen with hands held high in Ferguson, MI. There’s a cell phone video, folks, of those moments and an autopsy showing six bullets struck the teen. That’s the perception. What’s the reality? It’s hard to tell. There’s a dearth of communication here. We have the shooting, which I perceive to be unjustified. We have the events leading up to the shooting. Maybe a swaggering pair of teens walking down the m...
August 14, 2014
All the news that’s fit to print?
As a progressive, I’m reluctant to attack that so-called bastion of liberal Northeast thought, but the NY Times is starting to piss me off. So, launch the torpedoes! Every newspaper in the world has an editorial slant that permeates their news reporting, especially ones in totalitarian states or theocracies where the press is part of the government. Even not printing certain news items is an editorial slant, so the NY Times, in violation of its famous motto, is doubly culpable. It biases the...
August 13, 2014
Movie reviews #5
Lucy. A far-out concept featured in a disjoint and confusing plot, but a kick-ass Johansson make this sci-fi thriller entertaining to watch. The only character who’s really developed is Morgan Freeman’s, though. He has an unfair advantage, of course—he develops any character he’s portraying by his mere presence on the screen. Gotta love the guy. Sci-fi addicts will want to see this one. Others with broader tastes might want to wait for Interstellar. Or, just read a good sci-fi trilogy (like m...
August 12, 2014
America’s pathetic foreign policy…
Last Thursday, I saw a series of photos from Daily Kos; one stood out for me. Ronald Reagan was sitting down with some scruffy, bearded dudes who looked like Taliban, and he was equating them to our Founding Fathers. Although it wasn’t his intention, I’m sure, there’s some truth there—our Founding Fathers were terrorists as far as the Brits were concerned. Think about it: sniping at the British soldiers from behind trees, running to the next bend in the road, and sniping again—all designed to...
August 8, 2014
Author v. author (a Friday special edition)…
The Amazon v. Hachette dispute has now turned author v. author. I’m talking about trad-pubbed authors v. indie authors, of course. Apparently Preston (of Preston and Child—their book Relic is on “Steve’s Bookshelf,” an honor few have, albeit it’s probably only an honor in my eyes) has formed a protest group of Hachette-related trad-pubbed authors dedicated to attacking Amazon. Of course, this really is an attack on indie authors.
I saw it coming. In this cutthroat publishing environment, I kne...
News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #69…
Item: Some stats from the “Author Earnings Report.” I’m quoting these secondhand from Poynter’s Newsletter because they’re interesting. The AER considers 7000 top selling digital titles (pseudonym for ebook, methinks) on Amazon’s bestseller lists. As of 8/5/2014, the infamous Big Five captures only 16% of the ebook market while indie authors capture 31%–I guess the remaining 53% goes to small imprints not owned by the Big Five conglomerates. Moreover, indie authors take home 40% of the Kindle...
