Zoe E. Whitten's Blog, page 86

Peter the Wolf on Kindle

Yep, I now have Peter the Wolf on the Kindle store along with the files on Smashwords and the print edition on Lulu. Smashwords has blown the file distribution to other vendors again, so I have no clue when the book will be on Sony or Apple.

Still likely to be a few weeks before there's any reviews, and I admit, I'm really nervous about this one bombing with reviewers. But the book is on the main markets, so we'll see what happens…

The jig is up…

So, Peter the Wolf has been live on Smashwords for roughly a week or so, but I'm letting the secret out because someone already bought a copy today. I've uploaded the file with Amazon's KDP app, and the ebook should be live there tomorrow.

It's also live on Lulu, in case you wanted to get a print copy. Not sure how long it will take for the print edition to show up on Amazon, but it should be soon-ish.

Two tragedies…

You already know by now that this week has brought two terror attacks to Norway, resulting in the death of 92-96 people, many of them children. You may also know that Amy Winehouse is dead at 27. Some of you have decided that if people express mourning or concern for the one person dying, they are automatically incapable of appreciating the tragedy in Oslo. And so, in your infinite wisdom, some of you are belittling Amy's death and anyone expressing emotions about her.

But look, I can feel bad about Amy's death and still be concerned for the people of Norway affected by this tragedy. I feel bad about Amy because she was only 27 years old. She's almost a decade younger than me, but she had great talent and great potential. And now she's gone. It doesn't matter how she died. She died young, and that's always a tragedy. Period. If you feel the need to belittle this death because it isn't as important, you aren't empathizing with the people of Norway better. You're comparing tragedies and deciding that one is more worthy of global attention.

Over on Twitter, I saw over and over, "Hey, let's not forget about Oslo. Amy was just a pop singer who overdosed." Nice. No autopsy yet, but the court of public opinion is already in place to judge another celebrity for the same habits you folks keep. But let's set that aside. The real problem here is, you Twits were all worried that Oslo not being a trending topic would somehow lessen the tragedy's importance, like people tweeting about Amy's death were stealing thunder from Norway. But both events are tragic, and you can feel bad for more than one thing.

All life is important. When you die, you wouldn't want people telling your family "Hey, there was a fire on the other side of the planet, and you need to focus your grief on more important people." But you have no problems doing it to downplay the death of a celebrity because "they aren't that important." That's a lack of empathy, and it's really not helping anyone. In fact, it's hurting people who felt something genuine for Amy by telling them, "Your pain isn't real enough." It's douchebag behavior, and it shouldn't happen to anyone, vapid celebrity or not.

If you want to help Oslo, donate to a local charity taking funds for them, or get online and find an Oslo charity to donate to directly. Keeping Oslo on the trending topics is a useless sentiment. It does not send funds to help fix the damage, nor provide comfort to the families of the victims. Oslo being in the TT only soothes your vanities. It shows you "care," even though you haven't done anything except express concern. It's yet more slacktivism in the place of real activism, which is all social networks can seem to squeeze out of the online masses. "We won't send money to Oslo, but we'll like your Facebook page and keep you in the trending topics for a full week. That's almost as good as cash."

Except it isn't. Your concern is worthless to the victims' families, and putting down the death of a single person over the deaths of these people helps no one. It's just a mean-spirited attempt to shame anyone who expressed concern or sadness at Amy's passing. And you people attempting this shaming, I hope the shame comes right back to you. Because you didn't do anything to help Oslo with this shame campaign. You just belittled the death of one woman, and the emotional reaction of everyone across the planet who chose to send online sentiments to Amy and her family. In short, you're being just as tacky as Fred Phelps booing at a soldier's funeral.

Even if you lack empathy, other people can feel bad about more than one thing at a time. On any given day, I read a dozen stories that break my heart. War, tortured animals, raped women, abused children, missing relatives, natural disasters, famines; the social streams bring me a daily ration of disasters, and I can feel bad about all of them.

BUT, my feeling bad isn't fixing shit. Your belittling and attempts to direct where people should feel bad won't accomplish shit either. So if you really want to help Oslo, zip lip and open wallet. And for the love of God, leave Amy Winehouse and her friends and family alone.

An interview and book giveaway

It completely slipped my mind that I had an interview about Peter the Wolf go up on Werewolves.com. Along with my interview, the site is also hosting a giveaway for one copy of Peter the Wolf (Book 1). The drawing will end July 30, giving you a chance to win a free copy right after release day. Sounds good? Then go check out the interview. Please.

Expanded poll: long megatomes, or short novellas?

Okay, I'm coming to y'all with a different kind of post. I'm sharing a little bit of my writing process, a little of my thoughts about writing a series, and then a little speculation on what I'd like to accomplish with my future writing goals. (Not to be confused with future sales goals. That's totally different.)

So, you probably don't know it, but I'm winding down production on "season one" of the Mystical World Wars series. It's taken me four years to get this far, but in that time, I've covered the introductions of the halflings, the vampires, the werekin, the daemons, the wyrm, and the wraiths. I've also done some cameos with the elves and other fantasy races. On Earth, I've shown how vampires aren't the only blood drinking race, and I've explained the state of the three dimensions before the war on the Earth plane exploded into a free-for-all. Granted, some of what I've written, you haven't seen yet. But I'm wrapping up productions on those stories and will have them out soon.

During season one, I've worked on novels for the most part, gathering large groups of characters into books of 80K-100K words in length. But when I worked with the side characters in spinoff stories, I often wrote much shorter lengths. The spinoffs were more about one character and their view of the world, while the novels have a more broad scope covering the perspectives of many characters. (Which is why Blood Relations turned into a novel, because instead of just being about Vicky or Amber, it turned into an introduction for the whole vampire coven.)

For larger events, these crossover novels are unavoidable, and in season one, I believe there are more novels than novellas and short stories. I'm not so sure I want season two to follow the same ratio. For one thing, lots of groups in season two will be splitting up for chaotic reasons, and if I have to write a big novel, I'm going to lose track of someone for sure. As it was, in season one, I almost lost Joel's sister Leslie, and probably would have if I hadn't reread Shattered Prophesies for another typo hunt. I also almost lost track of Tamika, Schaefer's daughter. (also from Shattered Prophesies) I'd totally forgot that she'd run off with Elizabeth Collins and Chris Strauss. So when I started writing a book about Chris, I suddenly went, wait….someone is missing. And sure enough, I'd left Tamika behind. Oy.

A lot of season two will be taking place in Lissand, (but not all of it) and will follow several groups of magi as they seek training from the elves in magic. The elites will end up being abandoned by the halflings and the magi, so their story is how a well-trained military unit deals with being dropped in an alternate dimension with extremely limited resources, no allies, and no way back home. (Don't feel too bad for them. These were the bad guys of season one. Oh, and I've been reading officers' training manuals to try and build my authenticity. Don't know if that's going to pan out to anything realistic or not, but woohoo, real research, bitches.) But since that story follows a whole platoon of characters, obviously a novella won't work for them. In fact, I might have to do a trilogy for them. (I'm joking! For the love of God, don't quote me on that.)

But a lot of other stories in Lissand could be shorter novellas. This way, I get in, tell a story, and get out to make ready for another character and another story. I don't have to sort out how this character's life works as a subplot for a larger book, or try to keep track of a hundred different loose ends. Or, I do have to keep track of them for later books, but I don't have to work them all into a unified narrative.

There would still be some crossover novels, but this would be for larger events where multiple characters from the novellas gathered for one mega event. I could hint at their side stories instead of trying to tell them in the book, and if someone asks, "But where is this side story?" I can direct them to a novella instead of yet another huge megatome. In theory, I think this could make the series less intimidating for new readers. This same theory works the other way, in that if a reader sees some huge past even hinted at in a novella and wonders what it's all about, I can point them to one of the novels for an answer.

Either way, I would still need to develop a way to help new readers understand that they don't have to read the whole series, or even all the episodes for their favorite races. Sure, there's stuff they may feel left out of for not reading more, but that's true of any series where you jump in at random points. It's true of comics, TV shows, and serialized novels. You miss out on something by not reading everything, but you can get some entertainment out of just reading one story, even if it's out of order. That's what I'm aiming for, the idea that a reader could pick up any book from season two without reading anything from season one and still enjoy their time in my fantasy world. But perhaps the only way I could explain this properly is with some kind of intro for every book where I repeat the same things. Past readers would know to skip over the intros, but new readers would get some warning in advance: "this is a big series, but don't worry, you don't have to read all of it, just this one book."

Or…bleh, I don't like how that sounds. But I need something with a similar sentiment that helps ease some of that reader intimidation factor.

Moving on, Hubby and a few other beta readers have said that while they love the megatome books, too much happens in them, and there's so many characters all over the place that some folks just become faces in a crowd. It isn't that I'm not telling their stories. But with so much other stuff going on, their side story loses importance in the reader's mind, and so it's forgotten to make room for the plot points the reader feels are most important. In hubby's case, he's sometimes complained, "I wished you hadn't forgotten about ___." Then I would tell him I didn't and point out the scenes he'd forgotten. They were there, but with all the other stuff happening, it slipped his mind.

Some of that confusion in season one was unavoidable because the scopes of the stories were really large scale. I couldn't find a simpler way to tell those stories. But, going into season two, I think I can convince the muse to focus stories more around individual characters. There's likely to be a LOT of novellas covering all sorts of characters from around the MWW world. There's going to be a new set of "bad guys" from Exodus, human hunters funded by the Southern Baptists who are killing vampires, witches, and shapeshifters indiscriminately. There's going to be a new wyrm coming to Earth, a female wyrm who makes Dimitri look like a nice guy. And somewhere around the middle of season two, a black dragon will be moving to Earth with some newly undead friends and an army of animated corpses at his disposal. THEN the daemons decide to stage the full invasion from Heil.

And all of these stories have the potential to be good. But what I'm thinking is, I should do more of the stories as novellas, so those plots retain their importance instead of getting lost in the shuffle of larger books. This also allows me to devote more time to what would otherwise be bit characters.

What happened with Amber and Vicky, and then with Jenny/Marcus, can also happen with other bit characters like Brian and Pauline Collins, Lucas the vampire and the Colby triplets, Sonja and William Lebowitz, Jasmine/Chris Hooker, and Prom Orvest Dimitri. Yes, even Dimitri will get a chance to tell his story in season two. That's kinda my point with the MWW series, that no person is really a bit character. They're just not seen as relevant for some stories and become bit characters in the process of spinning that one yarn.

For Redemption Lost, Amber and Vicky are bit characters, and so is Gavin Lebowitz. In fact, reading the first book of the Campaign trilogy, you'd never know this scrawny, screechy-voiced FBI desk-jockey would one day become a hunky werebear and daemon fighter. The same is true of Amber and Vicky. Looking at their roles in Redemption Lost, you'd never guess that Amber would become a blood drinker voluntarily, or that Vicky would end up being seduced by a cop even though she's supposed to be running from the law and hiding out. You don't know these things because in that one book, Gavin, Vicky, and Amber are all bit characters, and it isn't within the scope of the book to explain everything about them.

I hope this all makes sense, because I want to turn this topic over to readers to get your take. Would you prefer having more books with shorter stories that stay focused on one character's POV? Or would you prefer less books, with all of the "lesser" perspectives being melded in as minor subplots? Which do you consider more enjoyable to read?

TV review: Teen Wolf

Last night I watched episode 8 of Teen Wolf, and I now feel ready to deliver my objective critique of the season so far. To sum up my whole experience in a word, I would use SQUEEEEEEEEE!

Ahem. Vampire fans get a new show to love every other season, and currently many are enjoying True Blood. (For reasons that escape me.) Zombie fans have something to be joyful with the Walking Dead series too, but it's been a long, long time since the last attempt at a werewolf TV series. So when I heard a new show was coming out with a reboot of the Teen Wolf movie, I was interested right away. Then one of my friends complained that Scott wouldn't be born with his curse, he would be bitten by another wolf. For my friend, not having the werewolf family angle in the story was the deal-killing reason for them not to watch. But for me, it added another layer of intrigue.

I was a fan of the original Teen Wolf movie, and of the cartoon series. I also watched An American Werewolf in London when I was 9, and I may be one of the few people I know who loved An American Werewolf in Paris. I've seen every Howling movie at least twice, even the shitty ones, and in an amazinging co-inky-dink, I just happen to be releasing a book about a teen wolf athlete too.

In fact, I want to make some comparisons from Teen Wolf to Peter the Wolf. I don't normally do this for reviews, but there are so many similarities that I'm grateful to have seen the show long after I completed the first three books. This show would have influenced my writing a LOT. It's really that good.

But okay, Scott plays lacrosse, and Peter takes up gymnastics. They're both athletes. They both come from broken homes, though Scott's got the better parents overall. Scott's rival at school is Jackson. Peter's rival at school is Jake. Scott's romantic interest is Allison, and Peter's is Alice. Both Allison and Alice are gymnasts, though Allison is older than Scott, while Alice is younger than Peter.

The "ditzy cheerleader" of Teen Wolf, Lydia, is faking being dumb, and she's really a science wiz. Just like Peter's foster sister Judy, who is a cheerleader hiding her science lab in her older brother's room. Jake and Jackson both come across as dumb jocks, but soon reveal that there's a lot more depth and darkness to their inner nature than first meets the eye. And both Scott and Peter struggle with retaining their humanity as the animal inside them fights to take over.

I could go on with thematic comparisons, even scenes that feel very similar. But the point is, this almost feels like a show that I would write. The characters aren't divided into camps of good versus evil, and no one is a truly good person. But no one is really evil, not even the alpha wolf attacking the town. What has been seen in the first 8 episodes hints that something about this alpha is all wrong, and that some vendetta is driving it to keep hunting and killing. But is the alpha seeking revenge against the wolf hunters, or the town itself for some unknown crime? No one seems to know, and EVERYONE is acting suspicious. Like the joke in Scream went, everybody's a suspect.

The show has lots of mystery and intrigue, and each of the characters is developing their own story lines. The original Teen Wolf movie is all about Scott and his wolf celebrity status. But this is a show about a town with a wolf problem, and Scott's story is only one facet of a much larger mystery.

And, it's fucking awesome. I love the dialogue. I love the humor that comes at just the right moment to lighten the tension. There is really nothing I don't love about the show. Even the character I want to hate, I also acknowledge how the writing has cleverly turned me against that person.

A few people are comparing this series to Twilight and yeah, I can see how some of those comparisons fit. But I would really compare Teen Wolf more with Angel and Buffy for the similar way in which the shows blended monsters and humor. You know how it was when a scene was just getting too intense, and then someone would quip a line and back down the tension a few notches. Teen Wolf works in that same way, and when I say it works, I mean it works well.

I haven't been a fan of any TV shows in a long, long time. In fact, it's almost impossible to get me to watch more than 2 or 3 episodes of any series, and I usually wander out of the room in the middle of the episodes I watch. I think most TV writers are lazy and spend way too much time casting black and white values and creating overly simplistic solutions for complex problems. But…BUT, for once, I feel like the writing team here really gets it.

The "good guy" wolf hunters aren't so good. No, they aren't evil, but they aren't saints. Derek is a wolf, but he isn't a killer. There's some valid reasons behind his righteous fury, if one has the patience to wait for the revelation moment. Scott is a cute kid, but he's struggling with the killer inside him and the tension is starting to crack his momma's boy lifestyle. Jackson looks like a bastard, but just wait until you find out why he's so obsessed with being number one, and then tell me the writers don't generate some sympathy for him even if he's still being a bastard. The same goes for Lydia, the so-called "ditz" cheerleader. In the same episode that the writers reveal why Jackson is the way he is, they also show Lydia's parents having a "moment". And that moment so clearly explains why Lydia has disguised herself as an idiot that I can forgive the fact that she's still being a bit of a shallow bitch. I know now that she only looks shallow on a surface glance.

I really could gush for a few hours about how good this show is, and I'm pleased to know I'm not alone in thinking it's good. Usually when I like something this much, it's cancelled in the middle of the first season, and all the actors are taken to a shed and killed in Saw auditions. But behold, this time, I seem to be backing the right wolf, because MTV has already given the green light for season two.

I hope that the writers will answer the questions posed in season one soon, and then open a new story arc for season two instead of trying to drag out the suspense with red herrings and "clever" twists. (The writers totally killed Heroes early in season one for me by being so "clever".) But that's a future concern, and right now, I'm hooked in for the full ride to the end of the season. And when MTV drops a season box set, I'm gonna grab that sucker on release day. Yes, it's really that good, in my opinion.

I give Teen Wolf 5 stars and 1 full moon, and I'll recommend it to anyone who wants a supernatural TV fix with lots of humor, action, and tension.

I R Professional

So, today, I'd like to talk about professional standards. Yes, really. And stop snickering. You see, while I'm just a lowly amateur alternative indie writer, I'd like to point out a few things about my work ethic. If you go to my little archive calendar, you might notice how there are very few gaps in my posts. Where you find those bigger gaps, I'm either on vacations and away from the Internet, or I'm in a mood swing or depressive phase and have withdrawn to avoid causing offense. At all other times, I write consistently. I do my "job," even now that it's just back to being a hobby.

I put out work consistently too, and usually with just a few mistakes. So few that no one mentions them in reviews. I know the mistakes are still there, but I've finally whacked enough out that people tend not to mention the survivors. Yet, when I run across them again, (I reread books to keep my facts straight for the sequels) those little bastards are going down. I'll never have a 100% error free book, but no publisher has ever scored that feat. But I get close enough to the professional standard that people don't pick on the mistakes. They're able to focus more on the story itself, and if they do have complaints, it's for non-mechanical stuff like, "Too much introspection," (fair cop) or, "perhaps a bit too preachy," (ditto, and I swore to God I wasn't gonna be a preachy writer, but sometimes, yes, I am. y_- )

I take bad reviews well, even posting them for other people to look at. I don't dwell on them, or stalk the reviewer. Later on, I may offer the same reviewer another story, but they get the same polite query as everyone else. I don't stalk reviewers who accepted a book and then didn't read it. I'd like to. Really. But I don't because it isn't professional to stalk. Not even a little bit.

I don't accuse my distributors of stealing sales. I'm really not sure I understand why so many writers attribute poor sales with someone ripping them off. People, you've seen me react to poor sales with depressions and mood swings, but I never wondered if Smashwords was hiding sales from me. They send me an email right after I get a sale. I have a positive balance with them. And truthfully, I trust the Smashwords accounting department because they extended me a loan for ISBN numbers, and they didn't even charge interest though I was in the red for many, many months. So no, I don't think Mark Coker is ripping me off for some of my sales. I sometimes think he should do a better job of running his site, but that is a whole other ball of wax.

This is what I see as professional behavior for a writer. Not whether I can smile and be polite 24/7. I'm not always on the clock, and I'm not always in the best of moods when I sit down to write these blog posts. But I always do what I have to, try to make a point, and then wander out to let y'all talk amongst yourselves. It's true that a whole lot more people talk when I start waving middle fingers like I'm trying to be the queer version of Slim Shady, but I don't make angry posts to generate controversy. I write angry posts because that day, quelle shock, I'm angry.

Today, I'm actually okay…well, I need to pee, actually, so I should try and get to that point I was talking about earlier.

Writers, it's fine if you want to talk about what is and isn't professional behavior for other writers, but if you spend more time making opinions than you do books, you're a blogger, not an author. And there's nothing wrong with bloggers. Some of my best friends are…ooh, wait. My point is, you're not acting like a professional by talking about professional behavior. You're just telling other people how you think they should act. Mind your own business, write your books, and shut the fuck up about what other writers be doin'.

Readers, don't apply what is professional in your job to what is professional for a writer at any status level. I don't have to be nice for anyone's benefit if I don't want to. That's not in my job description. All I have to do to be doing my job is keep the words flowing. And unlike a lot of wannabes who talk big shit, I'm still delivering the goods, book after book, after book.

And yeah, it's true that I probably make my job a bit harder by being so bluntly honest. But I promised people I'd only lie in my fiction, and sometimes, the truth is not going to sit well with people. Because sometimes I'm revealing an ugly truth about myself, and people react badly. Or other times, I point out an ugly side to other people, and they react defensively. But me doing this is not unprofessional behavior. I'm still writing as I offer you my opinions, and so I am still doing my job. Maybe you don't like how I'm doing it and you decide to change the channel. That's your prerogative, and you are entitled to that choice.

But it still doesn't mean I'm not being a professional.

With hat in hand…

Today, I'd like to remind you of some titles I've recently released and would like to bring to your attention if you haven't seen them already. First, I want to remind you that there is a Smashwords Summer sale going on, making my new sci-fi release, The Life and Death of a Sex Doll, 25% less on Smashwords when you use coupon code SSW25 at checkout. But if you prefer the Kindle store, Belfire Press also has copies there. There is also a limited print edition, and there are plenty of copies still left.

If sci-fi isn't your thing, I could offer you a YA fantasy adventure, Sandy Morrison and the Pack of Pussies. The start of a new series following a war between witches and werecats, Sandy's story is a fast-paced blend of humor, drama, danger, and just a little bit of romance to keep things interesting. It is currently available at Smashwords and my Lulu storefront, but I've hired an artist to produce a cover for it and will make a larger release for the title this fall. So eventually, if you wait long enough, this will be on the Kindle store too. (And, waiting is okay, really.)

And if YA isn't your thing, might I suggest my Zombie Era books? Zombie Punter was praised after its release in 2009, and the sequel, Confessions of a Zombie Lover, prompted one reviewer to comment on Twitter: "The only other writer besides Whitten creating zombies this original is Brian Keene." High praise, and one of many good reviews for the second book.

If none of these options interest you, please consider looking through my back catalog, either on Smashwords or Lulu. I have 26 publications on Smashwords, and 15 on Lulu, so I may have something that works for you if you like fantasy, dark fantasy, dark comedy, sci-fi, or horror. And if I don't have anything you like now, please check back later. I'll have some new stuff out soon, and something may catch your eye. You never know, right?

Shifting gears only slightly, no, I will not be putting my back catalog all on Amazon. I've put a lot of thought into this, and I want to push a few of my newer titles and see if I can build an audience for those books instead of trying to get people into the main storefronts. When new visitors go to the main store, they don't see that I'm writing in five different genres with multiple series. They see a big pile of books and ask "Which one is first?!"

It's too intimidating, so I want to just offer a few main books and then leave the back catalog in the smaller shops for people who've finished their first samples and are ready for something else from me. Sure, they'll have to check me out in another store, but if they liked the first books, maybe they'll consider my writing worth the effort of setting up a Smashwords account.

Which is why, as a I said a few posts back, my focus for at least the next six months is on androids and werewolves. Gotta start people somewhere, so it might as well start here.

Social networking sucks…time

So, today? Not a good day. The weather is cold enough to require me putting on jeans, a sweatshirt, and socks. My legs are useless and I'm needing a cane to get around the house. The pain in my legs is making me irritable, so I'm having to work hard to avoid snapping at people. And I'm groggy even hours after being awake, which only adds to my irritation.

Probably not my best time to blog. Still I wanted to talk about both Neil Gaiman and Warren Ellis leaving Google+ QUICKLY because they couldn't sort out real friends or contacts from the flood of people they didn't know. And the friend finder on Google+ is also useless.

These are paid writers looking at the social software setup and they're saying the exact same thing I've been saying: "This isn't going to work for our needs." And it doesn't. It's not a flaw now that all the riffraff has been let in, because Google+ already has these flaws right at the very beginning.

I said this before but I want to point it out again. I don't want to use social software to talk to complete strangers about my love of a TV show. I don't care if strangers want my opinion on which is a superior band, Interpol or MGMT, and most of the status updates I put out, I do so because someone has told me, "You need to share your hobbies. Nobody will care about you or your stories if they can't identify with you."

Well, I've been at this social sharing thing for almost two years now. I've got a whole lot of followers, but you know what I don't have to match those numbers? A whole lot of sales.

You know the rules of social sharing? I mean the rules about how you share other stuff besides your product, or that you have to engage other people about topics that interest them, or that you need to share other peoples' links and causes to show that you're a good member of the community.

All this will do is bring more people trying to sell you their stuff. No, trust me, I've been following the rules right from the start. I'm still happily RTing WebLit folks even though I left the WebLit community. Not because I want them to RT my books, but because it's the "damn decent" thing to do. But, that extra karma does not translate into sales from the other followers, or even into extra traffic to my blog. There's some people who only read me through Twitter. And while that is kinda cool, it still doesn't address my core problem with the service or its browser based cousins, which is to say, it does not find me new readers for my stories.

I can't really see that there's much point to any social network when most of the people I know use it to bitch and complain about other people. On any given day, the mood on my streams may become so hostile and nasty that I have to shut off the browser and Tweetdeck. And mostly, people complain about normal behavior and act like it's some terrible thing. Yeah, I get rough days too. I'm having a bad day now, but you can't find anything in my complaints about my neighbors on my social sites. I do what I do and let them worry about their own lives. But a lot of you people prefer to whine in a passive aggressive way, so your sociopathic friends online can like your whiny ass comments. Which validates your anti-social whining, and makes you think "Hey, I'm not so bad."

It's all gladhanding. More to the point, it's useless reinforcement of negative habits and it doesn't accomplish much beside giving people a place to vent. But, considering how often vents go public and result in public humiliation, job loss, family in-fighting and/or attempted murder, I don't think this method of using the social sites is a good idea. It isn't, but it is in fact the most popular use for the site: collective whining.

And, although some of you may think I'm being petty and greedy for saying this, I would much rather use the social sites to bypass all the self-published wannabes and just look for readers. Because the wannabes all talk about supporting each other, but they all mean the same thing: "Buy my book. I won't buy yours, but thank you for supporting me, sucker."

Which is why I have never done the rah-rah indie bullshit. I support indie art, yes. That's my personal choice, and I choose who I support with finicky discretion. But I don't expect reciprocation from the artists I support. It's nice if I can get another writer to read my stuff, sure. But I hate "You buy my book and I'll buy yours" arrangements. How about "I'll buy your book if it interests me, and you do the same" instead? (And that doesn't even work for bands or artists working with graphic media.) And instead of making this proposal, I'd much rather find readers who might want my stuff. And for those people, sure, I'll be happy to talk about Teen Wolf, indie music and vampires. I'll share their stuff and lend support to their causes, absolutely. But I'm more likely to want to help because these people are buying my books. I've already go my incentive for wanting them to stick around, yanno? And that's called customer service, something I can totally give to people paying my royalty checks. (Well, technically, I get direct deposits, but you get the idea.)

But there really isn't a way to just find readers on any social network. I can't go on Facebook and run a search string like: Reader +likes fantasy, dark fantasy, zombies. (That won't work on Google or Twitter either.) I should be able to, in theory, because the system is tracking people who like reading, dark fantasy, and zombies. But the search system won't let me search for people in that specific way that I need as a writer. Instead, it will only let me look for other writers who I know by name, or for other people I used to know and want to look up.

Don't get me wrong about social networks. I like hanging out on them when the mood of the stream isn't running more on piss and vinegar than milk and honey, but I've never not had the feeling that I'm wasting my time on any network. Yes, even my beloved Twitter. But at least there, I admit I'm using it to waste time. So in that regard, yes, it serves its purpose.

But it's no bustling market of readers. I have 900 followers, and only a tiny handful of readers. I have an even smaller number of superfans, and even those folks can miss my promotions under the flood of other people they follow. This is not a great business tool. Its not a great marketing tool. It's a time suck that lets me procrastinate when I'm not in the mood to do real work. So I go chat online and pretend that counts as work.

Social networks are great for goofing off. But they don't improve productivity, connectivity, or generate mega sales.

Final thought. Over on Facebook, lots of people like Amnesty International. Liking it is easy. However, very few people actually donate to the cause, and breaking down the ratio of actual donations to likes, it turns out that for Amnesty International, they make about 9 cents per like. And that's a good cause that more people should support financially, but don't. If a good cause like Amnesty International cannot earn money from their social presence, what good can I hope to accomplish with my projects? I can collect only a fraction of the follows and likes that those guys have, and only a fraction of my audience will buy anything from me. So aside from wasting time, social networks are as worthless as an extra pair of breasts on Jabba the Hut.

Sanday ramble…

Today there was a weather shift back to chilly weather, and it's made my body swell up so fast, I broke a seam on the button fly of my jeans. My belly looks like a tight ball, but my legs and butt are relatively the same size. So, no, not a good day for me. I'll be a bit rambly, and if you want to wander off, I totally understand.

This week, I've been looking for book reviewers for two books. One book is self-published, and one is published with a small press. The self-pub is dark fantasy, and the small press is sci-fi. So, I was assuming from past reviewer searches that finding reviewers for Peter the Wolf would be way harder than finding reviewers for The Life and Death of a Sex Doll. But it turns out, a lot of sci-fi reviewers won't take small press books in addition to no self-pubbed works. There's a lot more dark fantasy reviewers who are willing to take indie works, and while I've got 14 acceptances out of 25 queries for one book, the other book only has 1 acceptance out of 5 queries.

The acceptance ratio for Peter the Wolf is exceptionally high for me, and even based on the query stats I've seen other writers quote on their blogs. Most of the time, I send out about 25 queries and I get back 2-3 responses. This is roughly a 65% acceptance rate, so the blurb does seem to sell the story well. I think if I could get the blurb in front of more peeps, I can catch some curious strays. I don't know how many reviewers I'll need to contact, but over the next six months, I'd like to aim for a final result of 20 reviews (good or bad) and at least 4-6 interviews.

This does not mean I'm abandoning The Life and Death of a Sex Doll. But I don't think I can count on promotions from reviews or interviews for it. I have print copies being shipped to me for giveaways, but I can't set up the drawings until the books arrive and I'm sure they're in good condition. I've already had to cancel one contest because Amazon sent me badly warped print copies of The Less of Two Evils. So I want to make sure the copies are prettiful before I announce the drawings. There will be three contests, and each one will be simple, with no reviews or signing up with a list to enter. On the blog contest, you would have to comment to enter, but the same is true of the Facebook contest. If neither of those options appeal to you, there's still the Goodreads contest.

I'm also doing these manual pages as teasers about the world of the Sensu-Dolls, but for them to work, I need to get more traffic here to look at these posts on the blog. The highest traffic is still going to NR9, as I would expect, but the promos for Peter are starting to pick up more traffic as I push the title. Somehow I need to start building up the search results for Kelly and Ashley's books too.

So, what I'm needing most now to help promote The Life and Death of a Sex Doll is some new sci-fi communities or groups where people are open to indie SF. It might be nice if said groups were attached to a community I'm already a part of, but if I have to sign up for a new service, okay, I can do that too.

But I don't want to try hawking my wares if the sentiment of the group is generally opposed to small press works. I don't want to debate to try and change minds first. If someone decides they're anti-indie for whatever reason, I prefer to leave them be and try to find someone else who might take a chance on my work.

Anywho, if you know of a sci-fi community that's open to indie works, or if you know or are a sci-fi reviewer willing to look at a small press title, please send a comment or an email. If you want an ebook to review, I can give you copies in epub, mobi, pdf, lrf, and rtf formats. If you need print, I'll need to refer you to my publisher to see if any review copies are left.

Y'all are starting to raise my hopes a little bit with both books. I don't have access to the Amazon numbers on The Life and Death of a Sex Doll, but with print and Smashwords sales, my first month sales are at 13. That's over 10 sales in the first month, which as you may or may not recall, was a problem for a lot of my books in 2010 and 2011. This is only the first month of release, and perhaps if I can find a few receptive communities and run some contest ads outside my own social circles, I'll give my publisher 100 sales in the first six months of the project.

Reviewer acceptances on Peter the Wolf are giving me a lot of hope that this might be a big release if I can just keep up a regular stream of impressions. This plan is looking more doable all the time because I've got a few potential interviews lined up along with the reviews. Not all of these will pan out, but I'm going to keep looking for new review places for the next six months. This is my new flagship fantasy title, and aside from my Belfire Press book, I'm going to set aside all my other titles to make this my highest priority.

This doesn't change my plans for making one new release per month, but it does mean that the books I release wouldn't be getting promotion time. For this reason, I'm going to be launching many of my "iffy" titles, the ones that I don't really think have a chance with anyone besides a niche market. Since Changeling did so poorly, I won't make much fanfare when releasing A Bard's Tale. I think the same is true of Revival of the Magi, Wereporno, Mmmm…Crunchy! and Books of Daniel.

With NINJAWORLD, I'm sure it will appeal to bizarro fans, but bizarro is by nature a small market. So I'm not expecting it to go far even if I promoted it heavily after its release in August. It will most likely end up one of my other low sales back-catalog titles either way, so I'd rather focus my energy in projects that I think come closer to the needs of mainstream audiences. (Still nowhere near the main stream, or even near a moderately-sized tributary, but I'm closer with these two books than I am with a lot of my other stories.)

So, for now the plan is, I'm pitching you my nerdy android kid and my quirky werewolf gymnast/cheerleader. And at night before bed, perhaps I'll start adding to my prayers, "God, please let one of my books sell a bunch of copies." It's not the right sentiment for a prayer, but I'm getting desperate, and the last three contracts with daemons, the demons were like, "Hey, I'm not a miracle worker, you know. I got limits."

So…please, don't tell me that even my God can't help me now.