U.L. Harper's Blog, page 5

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter? Why?

This will be a quick post. I’m reading Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I actually went into this with high hopes of having some pulp fun but in reading it, it’s just not that good. Realistically it’s boring in a lot of places, mainly because of a lot of telling and not showing. I mean a lot of telling and not showing, and I’m one who thinks a certain amount of telling is perfectly fine.
I don’t think Abraham Lincoln’s voice fits. And to tell you honestly, four chapters in and I don’t see much of a story. Right now it’s just Abe Lincoln deciding to kill vampires and he found a tutor…and it’s just not interesting. Even the historical accounts are dry. Let me rephrase that. The historical accounts are badly added and stop the story.
I’ll go far enough and say that this is one of the problems with publishing today. How does this garbage get across? Abe Lincoln’s diary narrative breaks up the story narrative so much that I get the impression that nobody knew if this was going to be first person or not. Very annoying and choppy, especially in moment when they say the same thing. So you have a first person narrative saying it one way and another narrative giving an overview or simply saying in different words.
Truthfully, for the narrative to work it needs to be deeper. For what I wrote and for unmentioned reasons I’m dropping this book.
My question to you all is this. Should I keep going? Or am I right to drop it? Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.Join the conversation http://ulharper.com/blog/book-reviews... or here http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?i...

In Blackness Promo

Here’s the deal. I have a new book out and I want you guys to read it. So this is what I'm going to do: give away the electronic version over at Smashwords.com. That means it's free for a limited time. If you want to support this novel then by all means purchase it for $2.99 or post a review on Amazon.com or here at Goodreads.com or Smashwords.com or somewhere. If you have already read it then by all means post or tweet about it and qualify for a gift card that I mention in a paragraph or so.

Enter the coupon number NN25V over at Smashwords.com for In Blackness and the title is yours.

To further this promotion I'll give away one $20 visa gift card to three people most dedicated to message about it on their facebook or by tweeting it. Remember to use the hash tag #InBlackness. It makes it so I can find the tweets easier. If you want me to notice your facebook then you can go ahead and friend me. If you want to take it that far.

The promotion is running from now until July 10th at midnight. Gift card winners will be announced Monday July 11th.

Thanks guys!
In Blackness

In Blackness Promo Contest

Here’s the deal, guys. I need your help getting my book “out there”. But I don’t want to just ask you for help, so I’m going to attempt to pay you for it. You might even get a book out of it. So that’s what this contest is about, giving away books and money. It sounds crazy but it seems like the best route.
That’s right. If you haven’t heard, this post is about the upcoming contest that’s really not that much of a contest. It’s really me taking names and mailing stuff to people. Here is how you win and the guidelines.

This is all you have to do:

1.I’m not going to make you sign up for my blog but it would help if you left a comment in this post saying "U.L. I'm in" announcing that you’re participating. That way it’ll be that much easier to find the participants.

2.If you’re on twitter, you’re going to come up with the most creative tweet that announces my new Novel In Blackness being available. You’ll know it’s clever because someone will retweet it. If no one retweets I still know creativity when I see it. I’ll acknowledge it by retweeting it.

3.Same thing for facebook or whatever else. On facebook you’re looking to create a long comment strand.

4.Points are accumulated for each tweet you give and two points for retweets that aren’t from me. On facebook you receive a point for every comment.

5.If someone comments in on this blog post and mentions you it's worth three points.

Example of tweet: Nobody can see U.L. Harper, at least not his new book. Man, it’s…#In Blackness, a novel.

*on twitter make sure to use the hashtags. It will really help me keep track and you’ll be able to see the competition (assuming somebody wants to win up to $50).
This is what you can win:

•First place is a $50 visa gift card, the paper book In Blackness mailed to your home (assuming you have a home), a coupon for a free ebook version of my short story book Guidelines for Rejects at Smashwords.com, and a coupon for a free ebook version of The Flesh Statue at Smashwords.com as well.

•Second place is a $30 visa gift card, the paper book In Blackness mailed to your home, a coupon for a free ebook version of my short story book Guidelines for Rejects at Smashwords.com, and a coupon for a free ebook version of The Flesh Statue at Smashwords.com as well.

•Third place is a $20 visa gift card, the paper book In Blackness mailed to your home, a coupon for a free ebook version of my short story book Guidelines for Rejects at Smashwords.com, and a coupon for a free ebook version of The Flesh Statue at Smashwords.com as well.

•Fourth place is the paper book In Blackness mailed to your home, a coupon for a free ebook version of my short story book Guidelines for Rejects at Smashwords.com, and a coupon for a free ebook version of The Flesh Statue at Smashwords.com as well.

•There will be three runner ups who will receive coupons for a free ebook version of my short story book Guidelines for Rejects at Smashwords.com, and a coupon for a free ebook version of The Flesh Statue at Smashwords.com
The contest is running from now until July 1st at midnight. Winners will be announced Saturday July 2nd.

But by all means stop by smashword.com, amazon.com (Kindle) and pick it up if you so feel the need. It's $2.99 in those places, with the physical book on the way.


Thanks guys!

So You Think You're Done With Your Novel

This is what happened to me the last few weeks. My book. Once you come close to finishing your novel, you just zero in on the prize and go forward. In your head you're about to make history or better yet change the world through your fiction, so you have to get done as soon as possible. At least that’s what you think. Keep in mind this wasn't the first, second or third draft. Man, I was making life changing decisions here. This meant I couldn't blog or do any interviews or reviews. Of course, since I'm back, it must mean the obvious. That's right. I'm done. In Blackness is complete and now I can—that's right—blog about it.
Let me just recap the experience I just had. Most of you will find it no surprise, but it’s always worth venting about. So I got my third draft done and then said to myself, okay, time for another reader and let me hire a proofreader. The beta reader got done and had marked up the entire manuscript and gave me handwritten notes about main issues per chapter, not for every chapter but most of them. There were two other pages of notes of other stuff. And then the proofreader sent me back comments in suggested track changes. My pages bled red and blue.
People, it took me months to make it to the end. In the last few weeks I finally made it through, just so I could start another draft, just so I could read the whole thing again, and then all over again. I thought it wouldn’t stop, like I was obsessive compulsive or something. It would be four in the a.m. and I’d be scrolling, thinking to myself, Well is the alien skin like leather or actually leather and is there a difference? I’d be outside in my driveway thinking, If I were an alien would I rip their heads off or cut their heads off? I stayed up all night pondering, restructure vs simple deletion, build a character vs eliminate that same one. I thought to myself, do I go to work today or zone out in front of this neon screen on my path to self-worth. I was functioning on two or three hours of sleep, Tyler Durden like, simply staying in the groove, not able to be budged. I took brakes to watch movies, urinate, attend my writer’s group, hydrate and send emails about writing, urinating, my writer’s group and watching movies.
But guess what.
In between all the drafts, I beta read for someone and started writing another novel. This one about some guy who realizes he has super powers. Remember that show The Greatest American hero? It’s kind of like that but the protagonist is about fifty years old. Yeah, he joins the community college basketball team. I’m reading three books right now. Don’t know how to not be reading. I feel…literary.
This is what I learned about writing, this time. Sometimes I think your next piece of work is a reaction to editing your last piece of work. For instance, my previous novel, The Flesh Statue, was long for me. Over 100,000 words. The time it took to edit was immense. This last one is a crisp 74,000 words plus. Do you know how many less transitions there were, how many less character’s there were to deal with? And I mean characters on the page, not a personality developed for the sake of storytelling.
I learned that after a while, writing isn’t just thinking. It’s a physical thing. I had to buy a new chair because mine was not doing the job anymore. My ass would lose a battle with that thing nightly. My monitor is a 32 inches. As I type this I’m at 120 percent on the screen. I can see the page from across the room, because staring at the screen starts to bug the hell out of me. I can’t afford to squint.
I learned that formatting is really part of editing. Don’t try to tell me different. Try to electronically distribute your book. After we talk epub vs .mobi vs blah blah ahhh then we can have that conversation. I dare someone to tell me they format their paper book the same way they format their ebook. I friggin dare you. Oh my god, I dare you.
Now I need to advertise.
But that’s a whole other entry totally. See you in a week. I might have something for you.

U.L. Harper is the author of In Blackness, The Flesh Statue and Guidelines for Rejects.
Guidelines for Rejects

Electronic Book Superiority

I’m going to keep this short but sweet. I’m always hearing these arguments for and against electronic books. To tell you the truth, for me, the argument is over. Electronic books are superior and I’ll tell you why.
1.) Their prices can be manipulated to be lower because there is simply less overhead.
2.) The story is the same in an electronic book as it is for any print book of the same title. Let’s just be honest with that one. It’s the same book but cheaper, in many cases.
3.) A lot of the time they’re easier to carry or store. For those of you who like your book shelves, the books on your shelves are still harder to store then an entire electronic book library, regardless of how colorful the books on the shelves are.
4.) The fact that no more than five years ago most people would tell me that they didn’t read fiction and that now it seems as if a broader number of people are reading fiction, not just Harry Potter or the Twilight Series either. I think it’s because of electronic books, wholly.
5.) I can buy a book from my kitchen. It’s like magic, how the content will just appear in my hand and I can start reading immediately. I can be a hermit and enjoy life at the same time now.
6.) I know I said it seems like more people are reading, but it also seems like more people are writing. Sure, what a lot of people write is pure dung but they are sitting down for hours at a time and writing and trying to get through to me, which I think is cool as hell. By the way, you people who think they are simply saturating the market are silly. 95 percent of the books on the market most people have never even heard about. It’s not like people are deciding between 300,000 books to read and that the one book the author is trying to sell has to stick out. In other words, for the most part, the crème will rise to the top. Or conversely, the shit that smells the best and looks the best will be the last discarded. Of course, I made up that 95 percent statistic, but at the same time, I don’t know, it seems about right.
7.) I would bring up how electronic books are at least a little better for the environment but we’re all doomed anyway.
8.) I’m going to put in several for this one. The pages don’t get ruined. If you’re electronic reader gets wet, just download the book again. Done and done. If you lose your electronic book, get another one and your entire library is saved. Nowadays you can even get ebooks from the library. I still love browsing book stores, perusing the books there and then purchasing them electronically. I really hope book stores stay open for this purpose.
9.) And finally my last reason. Ready for this? Electronic books are way more natural than print books. Yep, you heard it here first. Electronic books are far more natural. I’m going to explain this one because one of the five people reading this are thinking, damn, there’s nothing natural about an electronic book. Let me explain. There aren’t too many authors with manuscripts that they would consider ready that is not completed on a word processor, which is strictly electronic by the way. Nowadays (meaning at least the later 20th and 21st centuries), a proof is electronic. Moving a book to ink is a huge unnecessary step, absolutely unnatural. It takes machines and extra employees to work the machines, maintenance of said machines. If we could find a better way to produce a book, we would, and we did. After all these print books are made, there is a cost to ship them to stores. If we could get rid of this cost we would, and we did. I read an article a while back that suggested that the book industry could produce its own 350 million dollar bail out if it would just find a way to stop returning books to the printer. Well, it did, thank you very much. So what I mean by natural is that electronic books are more efficient, easier to sustain. In the natural world of survival of the fittest, the electronic book model seems like the fittest.
10.) And I’m just going to add this last one to make it a solid ten reasons why electronic is better. Something like half of my five readers is going to hate me for this. For all of you who like the smell and touch of a “real” book, this is what you need to do—simply go down to your local library and just kind of touch the books. Feel them up, if you will. Open them and then smell away. I was thinking about making a fragrance that people would appreciate. I’ll call it “The Novel Scent”. It’ll smell like the pages of a book. Surely, I’ll go bankrupt.

U.L. Harper is the author of The Flesh Statue and the short story book Guidelines for Rejects. The new novel In Blackness is coming soon.

The Flesh StatueGuidelines for Rejects

Review: Lisa Leibow's Double Out and Back

We talk about books being a way to take us somewhere else, to enable us to be somewhere where we could never be. What people usually fail to mention is how books let us think in ways we usually wouldn't think. With that being said I'm a man who has never thought about giving birth and has no intention of giving birth--not just because that at the moment it's mostly impossible, and not just because if I were pregnant my friends would seriously make fun of me, but because I simply couldn't handle all the aspects of it. Solidifying my thoughts on this was my read of Double Out And Back by Lisa Leibow.


This story focuses on Amelia, Summer and Chandy--three women brought together because of one thing: infertility.

Amelia suffers from chronic bad luck with men. At one point she found the perfect wrong man. Perfect because he was attractive and they got along for a duration of time as platonic friends and, well, they were single. He was the wrong guy because he was gay. It took her a few decades to figure it out but there it was--her last chance was, low and behold, pretty darned fond of the same sex. And to make matters worse he found someone to be with, which was something she couldn't do with any reasonable amount of hope and/or luck. Though she still wanted a kid…badly.

Keep that snapshot of Amelia with you as we move on to her niece, Summer.

Summer has bigger problems. Her body is being difficult so she needs to get serious help in getting pregnant by her husband. The question is if that's the real problem or not. It seems the actual problem is that Summer wants to move up in the chain of command at work. See, if she acts quickly her chances greatly increase to have a child; however, she thinks she can become a partner at the firm and if that can happen then she wants to time her pregnancy so that her life is a little more convenient. To add to it she's pretty sure that her firm is too old fashioned to let her be pregnant with a child and be a partner at the same time. This makes her hesitant to get it done, so to speak. All the while I'm thinking this: What's convenient about having a child? Girl you're crazier than wearing a purple dress on your wedding day. Start your family.

What ties these two characters together is Chandy--the doctor that performs the procedures that can change these women's lives forever. Chandy specializes in infertility and has many answers. She has answers to questions that I didn't even know existed. Or questions that I didn't care existed would probably be more accurate.

In Double Out And Back there isn't some twist at the end when the author reveals that he/she has fooled you and the story isn't really about what you thought it was about. There aren't any huge holy cow ideas floating around as themes. There are no super heroes (and even if there were, do you really want to see Wonder Woman pregnant? Think about it). This book simply relies on solid writing. Period. Because of the spot-on characterizations of Amelia, Summer and Chandy I could connect with this story. No matter the subject matter I can always connect with people. So let's briefly talk about the development of the subject matter.

The author clearly knew the subject or researched it well. In the story there are chat rooms that discuss the subject matter in nicely portrayed everyday conversation. I never felt lost in what to me was quite a lot of new information, and you know what, I think I learned something. So there. How all the information came in a timely fashion and through families and over time was a nice touch. All of the information given was meant to be learned through growth of people as a whole, not only growth of intellect. I hope that makes sense.

Now let me make something clear. This is a page turner but not in the traditional sense. It's not that the book reads fast, it's that you read it fast. It has moments when it's more exciting than others, for sure, like when that guy gets murdered, or, of course, the more, let's say, sensual scenes if you know what I mean. Though for the most part this is a novel that you lean back on your couch, turn on some slow jazz (Miles Davis) and just watch these lives read by. Nobody is in a hurry here. Take your time. Let it come to you. Marinate in it. Someone might think of this as slow, but it's not. By the time you leave the story you know the situations and main characters so well that a week later you want to call up the main characters and see how they're doing, which I did. Just kidding.

This isn't to say everything was perfect. There were times when I would have loved to chime in and speak for Summer's husband. I would have been using curse words while telling her that we have to get crazy with it, now woman, now! Look at that fertility clock! it's ticking! But that might just be me. I don't know. There are other times when I wanted to stop Summer from pining over her lame boss. Yes, I gave it away. There is a lame boss in the story. I'm horrible. Spoiler alert!

It's an ebook and by the way it's the first ebook I've ever read. Picked it up on the kindle for under $6. A great reading experience if you haven't tried it.

I highly suggest this book. I suggested it to my girlfriend and I'm going to suggest it to you readers. I'm also going to suggest it to the other crowd of readers who have already decided it's not for them. Because remember, reading is about not just going to different places, but thinking differently, being inside the mind of someone you might never meet. Enjoy.

This posting was previously posted over at Nicole Trists great blog site Books, Books, Everywhere.



U.L. Harper is the author of The Flesh Statue and the short story book Guidelines for Rejects. The new novel In Blackness is coming soon.

You can follow my blog http://ulharper.com/blog/category/boo...U.L. HarperGuidelines for RejectsThe Flesh Statue

An "Odd" Review

I stopped over by goodreads.com to see what my reviews said of a couple of books, just to try and prepare for all of my review posts coming up. I was particularly harsh on Dean Koontz’ Odd Thomas. I was going to edit my review because I found it too harsh. Here is what I had written:

"Dean Koontz sucks. I really want to not hate one of his books. Everyone I pick up is horrible and Odd Thomas is no different. Maybe I'll try again after I read some fiction that's actually interesting and maybe even well written. I'm being lenient when I say this is total trash. It's crap. Nuff said."

Okay, so I realize that this is awfully harsh a critique with very little details. So let me be more specific with my judgment on Odd Thomas.

Odd Thomas follows a young man named Odd. Odd has the ability to see the dead and it just happens that one of the dead is Elvis Presley. Ha ha. The story takes place in the normal town of wherever (I can’t remember at this point and I’m not going to justify this book by actually going back and looking). There are these things that huddle together that nobody can see but Odd, and they seem to follow one particular individual. So, in a way, it’s Odd to the rescue, mostly investigating that one particular individual. Keep in mind Odd is a fry cook with ties to the police due to his special ability.

Here’s what I can’t stand about Dean Koontz. In this novel and in several others, he seems to be writing the story as he goes along. It’s like reading someone’s winded outline. To help himself get through this he cracks bad joke after bad joke. I don’t just mean badly timed...

To read the rest of this article go ahead and stop by my blog at http://ulharper.com/blog/book-reviews... and I won't stop you from clicking on my books there or signing up for my blog. Just sayin.

What Inspires You?

It’s two o’clock in the morning and then it lifts me to my feet. What is it, you ask? Inspiration. I start pacing around my glass coffee table with a glass of red wine. My god, why had I not thought of it before? I look up at my ceiling because this idea must have fell from up above somehow and right into my head. See, I suddenly knew how to tell the story I’ve been working on for so long. For years I’ve been thinking of how this story would work out. I didn’t want to press anything. I wanted to let it come to me. But why did it suddenly come to me? How could I make this inspiration happen all the time?

See, I had this comic book character that I decided would make a pretty good protagonist of a novel. But I had no story for—wait for it—Anything-Man. Special powers: I can’t release that top secret information.

Still, how did the inspiration come to me?

I retraced my steps.

I read part of a good book that day and watched a good movie and watched part of that Michael Jackson movie. Not Moon Walker. One hour later—inspired. I decided that spending the entire day with great art just helped trigger something. Imagine how much a bad movie or bad book or bad music sets you back creatively, even if you like it. Could it be that if it doesn’t inspire you that it’s bad for you? Sure, it depends on the person, but…

To finish reading the article stop by my blog http://ulharper.com/blog/blogger-inte... and don't forget to click on my book covers. Very important.

Writing Challenge

This is how I set up my first blog challenge that has prizes attached.

Below is a fictional moment in the life of Joe, the average author who is redrafting his latest novel. Yes, the average Joe. Perhaps you have writing moments like this. Maybe a I do. But I don't but maybe I do but really I don't. I'm going to ask you to help out this character for prizes so read on.

The Beginning

The alarm rings at 7 a.m. Joe lays there waiting for something but he doesn’t know what so he rolls out of bed. His ankles are stiff with a slight pain in both of them. His back is twisted from life weighing on it for the past forty plus years. His mouth tastes like iron, maybe a rusty pipe. The sun is already showing through the curtains but he’s not concerned with this.

The wood of the hallway floor is cold but when he gets to his office, the carpet is soft and warm to his bare feet. He sits in front of the computer screen, moves the mouse around to make the screen wake up. His novel is static on the monitor, waiting and incomplete. At the moment it’s lacking everything human.

His mouth tastes so bad he needs to spit.

He’s looked at this chapter so much and has never been able to get it right. It’s more of riddle than a chapter. It’s more of a word search than prose. He’s been replacing words and phrases, making things proper and smooth. Adding emotion, sounds, and visuals to this piece is the issue at hand, and really, where should he start? Joe is not an emotional guy, but he knows he has to put feelings in his novel to make it meaningful, if not saleable.

1.) He had written: The dog wept when he kicked it. He had never seen a dog weep. Then again he had never seen his dad weep either. Could it have been that his dad was reincarnated as his dog that just shit on his rug? So he kicked the mutt again.

Yep, he’d have to take another stab at it. What had his neighbor said about kicking his dog again? Jake would call him later. For now he’d make up the details. Jake needed specifics. People had to really feel this dog being kicked. If someone read this, they needed to feel like they were being kicked.

So he rewrote it…again. The black cocker spaniel wept when he kicked it. He kicked it hard enough to kill it but still it lived. He had never seen a dog weep. Then again he had never seen his dad weep. Could it have been that his drunk and bald dad was reincarnated as his dog that just shit this wet dung on his living room floor? He kicked the mutt again, this time, just in case. “Screw you, dad,” he said to the dog. “Screw you.”


No, that was all wrong. Nothing went right with that paragraph. What was he really trying to say? What was really going on? What’s the blocker here?

Then it came to him. Just to see what it would be like, he’d take the dog out of the scene and replace it with a dad character. Not his dad but to make it real maybe he could borrow some emotions he had pent up. It just so happened that his dad was a drunk and was bald and had plenty of characteristics of the dog, so…

He wrote: His dad was so sick he shit on himself in the middle of the floor. Jake could smell the feces, as if it were on Jake’s upper lip. All that his dad did nowadays was siphon money from the pockets of those who loved him, who chose to take care of him in his old age. Some people might not call sixty years of age old at all. But this man complained of pain in his back every day. His ankles hurt every morning and into the afternoon. And his memory was gone. None of these characteristics made Jake resent his dad any less. Nothing could stop the powerful impulse to kick this old man, hard. In fact, he kicked him so hard that he heard air expel through his dad’s nose, as if a tire with a hole in it coughed. His father coughed and began to cry. Jake had never seen his dad cry, just like he had never seen any animal weep.

“Stop,” Dad whispered.

“Say it louder. I can’t hear you.”

“Stop!”

“Stop? I’m just getting started.”

Joe thought it was a nice touch to use his own attributes to make the Dad character a little more real. But he couldn’t imagine actually doing this to his dad…but the paragraph seemed vaguely successful. Because of this he’d have to start the novel from scratch. He found his outline and trashed it. Now not knowing where to start, he called his dad. It was time for some research on his childhood, and on his past.

The End

How often does someone fictionalize the writing process in a 1,000 word blog post?

So here goes my first challenge. I want you guys to submit a paragraph based on the original paragraph that Joe wrote. It’s the paragraph with the #1 by it. Try not to make it too long. Just submit it to the comment section of this blog. To comment you need to register. Don’t worry. I don’t mind if you register. I’ll post up the winning paragraph, offer the winner a guest post/essay on this blog page and finally send them a Dean Koontz novel. Yep all that. The paragraphs that didn’t win will all be in the comments for this post. And remember the last date for entries is April 29th, 2011.

Have fun. Hope to hear from you all soon. As a matter of fact, tell all your friends. It’ll be more fun that way.

Here is a link to my blog http://ulharper.com/blog/category/blo...

U.L. Harper is the author of The Flesh Statue and the newly released short story book Guidelines for Rejects and the soon to be released In Blackness http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_...

U.L.'s Five Way to Not be Read

For those of you who have a book out on the market that you don’t want the general public to read, there are ways of accomplishing this futile goal. Let me take this idea a bit further. If for some reason you want to develop an advertising campaign but don’t want to be read, there is a way to do this. The answers will be in this blog post. For all of you who have worked for years to make your story just right, I’m going to give you five of the best ways to make your book unreadable to most people, basically damning you to the flames of the unread.

One thing to remember is that no matter how much people don’t want to read your book, you have to stay confident during the entire trying-to-be-read process or you’ve failed at your manuscript, failed yourself and everyone who believes in you, including your children, your husband or wife, and the characters whispering to you, desperately asking you to do the right thing.

Now let’s get started.

5) Not Enough Dumbing Down to the General Public. As mean or rude as this might seem, it’s not. Generally speaking, if it’s too philosophical or socially aware, it’s what people call preachy or deep or cerebral. On any level, these words generally mean most readers will have to think to ingest it. The problem is this: the general public doesn’t want to think or ingest. It’s simply too hard; not accessible enough. People, this is the age of the Twilight Saga. I have no qualms with Twilight, really, but it makes for a great example. Keep it simple. Lay out the obvious for everyone and then collect your check. By the way, this is not a knock on Stephanie Meyer, just an obvious observation.

4) Too Much Style. This one is highly debatable. If perhaps you become popular or viral as they call it nowadays, then maybe you can use a lot of style. Until then there are problems. Most people don’t want to try and figure out your style as a writer. They just want the story. Your skill in turning a phrase in your own specific way is pretty far down on the “important” meter. They simply compare you to someone else, claim you have to hone it to be more like them and then move on. They’ll even say things like “too many words” or “sentences are too short”. Let me put it another way. The general public doesn’t want to be surprised. Say things how they want to hear it. It’s only when you don’t want to be read when style points count.

3) It Doesn’t Fit Any Genre Easy Enough. So the cover drew you in. You pick it up and look at the back of the book, you know, to see what it’s about. You find out that it’s a science fiction/western based in an alternate universe. In that alternate universe it’s 2011. At the core it’s a romance. Friggin no thank you, unless it’s a comedy. Man, it’s got to be a western or science fiction or a character piece. Either or. Just be straight forward. I know there is someone out there saying, no way, man, I love Vonnegut. Nobody could figure out his genre for years and years. Well, that’s one, not a generality. There is a way to do it though, kind of. All you need to do is water down the niche elements and make it just, seriously, a romance.

At the risk of coming off condescending I’m moving on to another reason people won’t read your book.

2) Having Characters People Don’t Relate To. This is synonymous with Characters People Don’t Like. See, this is where it gets personal. I don’t need to like a character, because I don’t like most people anyway. I need an interesting character I can travel with throughout the story. We’re not going to define interesting in this post, but the point is I’m slowly discovering that most people don’t actually need an interesting character. They merely need interesting things to happen to a one dimensional character. Most people. You have to understand, we’re not talking about finding an agent or being published; we’re talking about being read, which in this day and age might be more important. If you’re character doesn’t believe in what the reader generally believes—forget it. Don’t believe me. I dare you.

And now for the number one reason why people won’t read your book.

1) You’re Not Popular Enough. I know there is someone who won’t believe this but fine, to each their own, as someone keeps telling me. Now let me just explain this real quick, just to put a damper on everybody’s hopes. There aren’t too many popular authors out there. There are substantially more hopeful authors. Let me put it a different way. Most authors consider a success as merely being published. They don’t consider that many authors will only sell a few hundred copies every few months. When you calculate a writer’s wage against the time put into actually writing the book, and then formulate it into an hourly wage, well, with that, most writers work for basically slave wages. I don’t know what movie I heard it in but an example of the amazing author wages went into a conversation. Part of the conversation went something like this:

“What do you do for work?”

“I’m a writer. “

“So…what do you do for money?”

Even if you don’t mind the wage, then you have to realize you’re still not going to get read, at least not until they’ve heard of you. I’ll use myself as an example. If you told 10,000 people that the most amazing super-duper great novel by U.L. Harper is out and that you’ve read it and that actually it’s beyond super-duper; it’s actually one of the best books you’ve read, then I might get 10,000 people to know my book is out. But they still want to touch it and ask questions about it and then look through it and then think about it. They might get to it one day if they meet me. Now do the same pitch for, I don’t know, Stephen King. I’m just saying it’s easier to sell if people know who you are. Now let’s say you’re not even trying to sell the book. You can have your book on a shelf at someone’s house and they still won’t read it before (plug in any popular author here), even if your book was given to them for free. Actually, there’s a better chance they’ll read it if they did pay.

I’m not saying don’t try. I’m trying too. I’m not saying it’s hopeless, because I have hope. I’m saying you have to be creative to get your name out there and be consistent and you can never sit back and wait.

Go ahead and comment. Maybe I missed one or two. Or maybe I have it completely wrong. Somehow, I don’t think so.



U.L. Harper is the author of The Flesh Statue, the forth coming short story book Guidelines for Rejects and the soon to be released In Blackness