Jason Z. Christie's Blog, page 40

The lunules of her fingertipsHold the secrets of the mo...

The lunules of her fingertips

Hold the secrets of the moon

Of callipygian stature

A sculpture of a princess

In evening light

I pay a visit

Alone

To her garden shrine

In Memory of Earl Dickey

His name is Earl
And if he gets in a fight with a bear
Help the bear
A bear of a man himself
He embodied the best bear properties
Viciously protective of his cubs
But always with a warm lap to cuddle in
Oh how he danced
All around the country store
With his favorite daughter
On his arm

The Coming eBook Apocalypse

Ah the forest! I can't see the trees!



While everyone is Sally hemming and Stephen hawing over the ebook market this year and the myriad problems and questions that accompany it, I think a few of us need to look ahead a few years. There are bigger problems on the horizon, folks.



You are looking at a big, ugly copyright fight. And lots of smaller ones, as well.



The reason? Oh, little things like cover art, attributions, fair use. Stuff like that. Lawyer bidness.



Personally, I use "found" images for my covers. That's a bit of a no-no, in the long run. I figure if someone calls me on something (I have no real idea where these pictures came from), I will have achieved enough success to cut them a check to silence them, or hire someone to do new covers. Surely I'm not the only person guilty of this.



I also use some Sugarcubes and Eagles lyrics in my novels. Not enough to get sued over, I think, but it's still possible. I don't exactly list that on my title page as I probably should, but I don't have explicit permission, so why draw attention to that fact? Why blog about it, for that matter?



I also use words from "Still Life With Woodpecker" by Tom Robbins in one of them. They're not even in the original sequence, so I think I'm safe, there. But still, there's no formal attribution. I'm sure he's cool with that, but his publishers might not be.



All it takes is one takedown notice, I'm sure, and Amazon will drop a book in a heartbeat. Wait for it, this will start to happen in the next year. Hopefully it won't happen to me or you.



My point is, we're all mostly flying under the radar, for now. But forewarned is forearmed. The situation will change, and we might see them going after authors like they went after people who shared music, on a smaller scale, as the ebook market changes and revenue streams begin to dry up, for some.



Or am I being too pessimistic? Guilty conscience? ; )

An Hilarious Grocer's Apostrophe

I usually don't grammar nazi much. I do try and get my books exactly right, even though I do a lot of the editing after I publish. Meh, it's a brave new world.



But I'm seeing too many misuses of the word "an". "An Historical Romance", I just read on an author site.



Writers, you should know better. The general rule, if you need a rule, is that "an" should be used when the H is silent. "An honest opinion". If the H is pronounced, you generally want to use "a" instead of "an".



This is compounded by the fact that some people use it in jest, or because it sounds more pretentious. Stop it. I'm guilty of the same sort of thing, at times. Passive voice just sounds so much more pretentious. I'm in a support group for that.



The apostrophe is important enough that Frank Zappa named an album after it. I'd like to see it taken away from non-writers. That poor piece of punctuation gets misused so often, it's sad. Normal people seem to think if the word ends in S, it gets an apostrophe before it. And this is an almost reflexive aspect of writing. I had to remove one from 'gets' only moments ago.


Now, I read "On Writing", and I'm pretty sure Steve King says to use apostrophe-S if someone's name ends in S. I didn't like the way it looked, but I tried it. Sometimes it's okay, with certain names. Then I read "Insomnia" again and looked for it. He doesn't use it, either...



Doh!

Interview Round-Up

I have had the pleasure of doing several interviews in the past few weeks, and I thought it would be a good idea to list them all here. You know, for my legions of adoring fans?



Ok, just the one. But really, when you have a fan as sweet as the one I have, one is enough.



Smart Weiter's Blog:

http://smartweiters2.blogspot.com/2012/01/episode-7-putting-smart-in-smartyeah.html?showComment=1326499723296#c8014108889500941850




Wendy Siefken:

http://siefkenpublications.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/our-interview-with-jason-z-christie/



Aine P. Massie:

http://apmassie.com/author-interview-jason-z-christie/

http://apmassie.com/review-pageburner/



MusikDiv India:

http://musikdiv.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/interview-with-jason-z-christie/



Gwen Perkins:

http://gwenperkins.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/author-interview-with-jason-christie/



I wanted to say thanks to all the great interviewers, many of which are authors as well, and have taken time out of their schedules to help promote my books.

To Write A Poem

To write a poem

Of such magnitude and importance

As to endear me to you

Forever

Is a life's endeavor

Even when I realize

That's what we have already

To you, there's no bad poem

That can be writ by my hand

Delivered to your heart

To me, no poem I could write

Is worthy of your attention



In truth, we meet

Somewhere in the middle

You, me, and these words

I give you a kiss on the cheek

Scuff my shoes on the floor

And ask how you're doing

Before getting back to what I do best

Missing you full time

It's Not a Bubble and It Won't Burst

Yeah, okay, so there's kind of a bubble. The 1849 feel the ebook market has taken on isn't necessarily a bad thing, but naturally there are big changes ahead.



There are two or three major issues at play, here. The first is that the low barrier to entry has flooded the ebook market with substandard books.



The second is the free book market, which is already a serious force to be reckoned with.



The third issue is probably the notion of an upcoming 'bubble' event.



In the long run, these details will only enhance the careers of quality writers. It will take more work at marketing to stand out from the oceans of dreck out there, but good writing will take over at that point.



As writers, we're going to have to accept that there are distinct classes of ebook readers. Some download free ebooks exclusively. Some buy everything they read. Some people exist between these two extremes. The important thing is to recognize the difference, and incorporate both into your marketing strategy.



Don't put too much energy pitching to people who aren't going to buy it anyway, but throw them a bone. A free book or two can go a long way by word of mouth. A good author can actually, by nature of their personality, convince someone to lay down cash when they could get the same text for free elsewhere. Be that author.



Site like Goodreads and Shelfari will be the filter that the ebook industry needs to separate the good, bad, and the ugly. Crowd-sourced reviews will make or break some ebooks in the upcoming years. Again, stay on the side of good writing.



I posit that there will be no bubble, as not too many people are really making a killing at self-publishing at the moment, anyway. Give it a few years to grow into a monster, then, bubble, sure.



But what we'll see first is more of a sifting and culling process. And presumably a slow down in the flood of new titles hitting the shelves. Who has time to read all this stuff?

The Young Adult Market - Bugger Off

Naturally, it didn't take me long to figure it all out. To place my cold finger on the very pulse of what's wrong with the book market out there. Let's share, shall we?



First of all, there is the fact that it's a book market in the first place, and not a story market. In the 3D world of print, it's name authors, slick covers, and trends. The content is somewhat immaterial. Now, I'm guessing, here. Reaching. But I daresay the bulk of those mass market hard and softcover copies of "Twilight" and the Harry Potter series were sold at Wal-Mart.



The Young Adult market. What that means is a sort of captive audience, provided you stay within certain guidelines. So this new category of literature is misnamed from the start. Why someone stuck the word "adult" in there, I couldn't tell you.



Ok, so it's not for young adults. Is it written by young adults, then?



Nope. Invariably, it's all written by a forty-eight year old divorced woman with children. Possibly the same woman.



So we have non-young adults dictating to young adults, who aren't in fact adults, what their tastes are. Well, so what, you say, their peers aren't really a generation of writers. Someone has to write for the children (and call it Young Adult fiction).



It's not bad in the least, on the outside. Young Adult imagines a Lewis Carol era where you began to read books around the same time that you got a learner's permit to drive a carriage.



Here's where it affects the writer. There is a growing rift between the YA market and contemporary fiction. You will increasingly find that some sites will not review anything that doesn't meet the standards of YA fiction. They can't risk offending their primary market, the non-adult young adults. More to the point, the parents of the hypothetical book reader in question.



"So?" you ask.



I'm just sayin' it's on, that's all. That hefty chunk of the print world can be achieved if you can write a truly compelling story and narrow your aims to meet the demands of the distributors. But if you want to turn the ebook market into an Oprah at the check-out line impulse purchase for children, stick to the print world.



The ebook scene is kind of nice in that the enthusiasts got here before the mass market did, which is why we have great sites such as Goodreads. But there is a battle brewing, to be sure. So it's worth keeping an eye on, and determining on which side your own writing leans.



My advice? Branch out, and release titles for both markets. Pure business cunning, sure, but it's also a good exercise for an author. Gonzo writer? Try and write a PG novel. YA author? Let's see you write like a big girl, now.



 Besides, YA or not, we can all agree the real enemy is bad writing and editing. And that is something you definitely can't find at Wal-Mart.

Wind through the Keyhole

Heartbreaker

Like Jimmy Page never dreamed

Exactly what

Stephen King tried to warn me about

But foolish Roland

I continue my quest

For the princess

Locked away in her own

Dark tower

The Cruel Winds of Destiny Can Blow Me

I can't sleep
Thinking of you
And how the fates do meddle

I saw the Black Knight

Tonight

He's a mailbox