Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 209
November 3, 2011
Cottage industries' new home: the internet…
Indie authors know all about the internet as a home for cottage industries. Even if you use Amazon or Barnes & Noble or some other online retailer as a distributor, an indie author still has to publish, market, and sell his or her books. The author's writing or content is the industrial product and the reader is the customer who buys that product.
Services for authors and readers are a natural for internet cottage industries. Google "ebook formatting" and see how many different services...
November 1, 2011
Review of Alex Carrick's Three Scoop Is a Blast…
Here's my Amazon review of this book: I liked it. You will too. Buy it. (Sent via Twitter?) Now, for a review with some meat on the bones—not fat. I've never met Alex. Those who know me and my Bookpleasures reviews know I won't avoid negative criticism. While this is not a Bookpleasures review, I apply the same standards (even more so, since I'm the editor here). Bottom line: Alex compares favorably with Charles Ives. Consequently, this review is either negative or positive...
October 28, 2011
News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #5…
#29: I was very pleased to see The Secret Lab appearing on Holly Hook's bargain eBooks list (my book is #354). For avid readers, this is a wonderful list of inexpensive but worthwhile eBooks—ideal for giving e-stocking stuffers to your favorite person(s) for the holidays, for example. For writers, if your eBook is priced low enough, Holly's list is a good place to list it—it will help you build your platform. The URL is: http://bargainebooks.blogspot.com.
Holly provides a link to each...
October 27, 2011
What will become of Iraq?
Indeed, what will become of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan? The problem with nation building is that it makes two assumptions: (1) That the representative governments found in Western democracies offer useful models for governing human beings; and (2) people coming out from under the yoke of a strongman dictatorship will want to adopt some form of government based on one of these models. I contend that these two assumptions are wrong.
First, the Western democratic models work b...
October 25, 2011
If corporations were persons…
There is an insidious move afoot in the U.S. in particular and around the world in general. The rich elites are assuming the role of Dr. Frankenstein by creating a new monster, the corporation as a person. One big step, of course, took place when the conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Citizens United, enfranchising the monster by allowing him to contribute to political campaigns. Mitt Romney, the new-age waffler and Renaissance man ("Renaissance" here is a pejorative since...
October 21, 2011
News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #4…
#21: There was an interesting frontpage article in Monday's N.Y. Times about Amazon going into the legacy publishing business. Well, not really. What I gleaned from the article is that Amazon has a secret board of editors who cherry pick from all the self-published books, both trade paperbacks and eBooks, and offer some contracts. The conditions of the contracts are also secret. No agents are involved, but authors can get advances. The slushpile here is all self-published material...
October 20, 2011
Where's the Tea Party?
In the unrest rolling around the world that has more or less adopted the slogan "We're the 99%!" it is both amusing and troubling that the Tea Partiers are absent. It's also understandable. The Tea Party and its sympathizers are supported by people like the Koch brothers. These people are part of the 1%. They want nothing to do with that 99% yet they have managed to capitalize on many frustrated and emotional people, pointing them like a sharp dagger at the jugglers of good and...
October 18, 2011
Criminal Americans…
The ACLU and others have cried foul about the Pentagon's use of UAVs to strike at Americans who have joined the ranks of al Qaeda and their sympathizers. There is a lot of emotion on each side of this issue. At the risk at becoming the target of verbal potshots from both sides, I will dare to add my dollar and some change to this issue.
I understand where the ACLU and others are coming from. This country was founded on the principles of law and order, that every citizen is due a fair...
October 14, 2011
News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #3…
#15: Joe Konrath has spoken about the gate-keeping mentality of agents. It's obvious, of course, why they don't like eBook self-publishing. Joining the ranks still propagating the myth of legacy publishers (this myth states that an author needs an agent, editor, publisher, and publicist, although the agent only gets you out of the slushpile and to the publisher, and the publisher rarely helps you with marketing, while all four reduce your royalties to nothing), the author will find many...
October 13, 2011
The Godfather's Pizza Man…
Did you watch the Republican debate? Will Herman Cain be the last GOP candidate standing? Ron Paul? Rick Perry? Mitt Romney? Michele Bachman? They rise and fall, they make gaffes, they take verbal jabs at each other, and they all claim to be the savior of the United States and the chosen one to put down the antichrist Obama. If this isn't fun, what is? Slap-stick comedy at its best, I'd say!
Although I will dedicate most of this post to the Pizza Man, let me summarize the present...
