Craig Davis's Blog, page 5
March 2, 2011
New Media and New Marketing X
My animated video excerpt has broken through the 200-view level on YouTube. It's been up for almost six months, so that's not exactly viral. It's been seen in Slovakia and Vietnam, among other random world sites. I don't know how people can find it in those places, but so few see it in the English-speaking world. I did find a link to it at World News, a web page with an unique approach.
So the big news is the podcast version is now officially available and searchable at the iTunes store. The problem is, I don't know how to steer people toward it there, either. Am I whining now? What do you mean 'now'? Yeah, I'm whining, and I will until I figure this out.
Don't forget the giveaway!
So the big news is the podcast version is now officially available and searchable at the iTunes store. The problem is, I don't know how to steer people toward it there, either. Am I whining now? What do you mean 'now'? Yeah, I'm whining, and I will until I figure this out.
Don't forget the giveaway!
March 1, 2011
Book Giveaway!
Beware the ides of March! That is the day three lucky blog readers will get their own paperback copy of "The Job: Based on a True Story (I Mean, This is Bound to have Happened Somewhere)". The catch is, the winners won't be random -- they'll be the three entrants who live furthest away from me. (United States and Canada residents only).
So, will the furthest away be in Alaska? Or will it be just down the street? You just can't tell! So don't hesitate -- email me your full name and address, and on March 15 first thing in the morning Central Standard Time, I'll announce winners. Et tu, Brute! It could be your lucky day!
So, will the furthest away be in Alaska? Or will it be just down the street? You just can't tell! So don't hesitate -- email me your full name and address, and on March 15 first thing in the morning Central Standard Time, I'll announce winners. Et tu, Brute! It could be your lucky day!
February 28, 2011
New Media and New Marketing IX
I mentioned the KindleBoards here last week, but here's more detail about them. They seem like a great resource for people looking for independent authors for their Kindle, but it is a real mess there. I've been promoting "The Job" there for several months. But if you're looking for a particular kind of book, it's like being lost in a tangle of roots underwater.
I've tried to help myself (and others) in this regard by starting a couple of discussion threads, Writing for the Spirit and Kindle-ing the Flames of Wit. Their themes are, hopefully obviously, spiritual writing (avoiding the red flag word "Christian") and humor writing. My hope is that visitors who like these genres will find the threads and see books there that interest them. The advantage to authors of threads like these is collusion -- get all the authors in a genre to work together posting regularly, and the thread will stay near the top of the list where visitors to KindleBoards can easily see them. Every author who posts there gets exposure for his or her book without flat-out promotion. That hasn't been the case the "The Job"'s thread, because nobody posts there but me, and I can do that only once a week.
So this is another angle on Internet marketing. If you are interested in either genre, I invite you to visit the threads and participate in the conversation.
I've tried to help myself (and others) in this regard by starting a couple of discussion threads, Writing for the Spirit and Kindle-ing the Flames of Wit. Their themes are, hopefully obviously, spiritual writing (avoiding the red flag word "Christian") and humor writing. My hope is that visitors who like these genres will find the threads and see books there that interest them. The advantage to authors of threads like these is collusion -- get all the authors in a genre to work together posting regularly, and the thread will stay near the top of the list where visitors to KindleBoards can easily see them. Every author who posts there gets exposure for his or her book without flat-out promotion. That hasn't been the case the "The Job"'s thread, because nobody posts there but me, and I can do that only once a week.
So this is another angle on Internet marketing. If you are interested in either genre, I invite you to visit the threads and participate in the conversation.
February 24, 2011
Comics are Serious Business
All through my childhood and well into my adult years, my dream job was to draw a newspaper comic strip. "Mac Quack: Corporate Duck" was my last attempt at this, and like all others, was universally hated by syndicates. But, like everything else, the electronic media has made newspaper comics an anachronism, and anyone can reach the world with their comics electronically now, if the world can find it. Also, if you are willing to take up the daily grind for no reward whatsoever.
So who cares? Nobody. I only bring it up because I recently bought another original of "Pogo" by Walt Kelly. The remarkable thing about this particular strip is the larger character inside the bag is Simple J. Malarkey, Kelly's caricature of Sen. Joe McCarthy during the height of McCarthyism. Kelly stood among only a handful in the media to publicly challenge McCarthy's innuendo and bullying. Communism was a real threat hanging over the country domestically and internationally during the '50s, but McCarthy's tactics were self-serving, unconstitutional and in the end served only to de-legitimize more measured efforts to protect the nation.
So this drawing is a part of certainly the most significant sequence Kelly did in more than 20 years of drawing the celebrated strip. I can't be sure, but it seems like this character appeared in only about 30 strips. Of course, here you can't see the character per se, but there's even a funny story behind that. There was another character, a chicken, who already had been established as a Rhode Island Red from Providence. When the caricature of McCarthy reappeared in mid-1954 (he had first appeared in 1953), the newspaper in Providence had declared that if his face showed up again they would drop "Pogo." So Kelly, who must have been working on a very short deadline, had Malarkey say "No one from Providence can see me" as the chicken approached, and put a bag over his head. The newspaper got the joke, but indeed Malarkey's face never appeared again.
This strip was relatively cheap, particularly for an example from the '50s. I think maybe the seller didn't know what she had. This feels like a piece of history to me.
So who cares? Nobody. I only bring it up because I recently bought another original of "Pogo" by Walt Kelly. The remarkable thing about this particular strip is the larger character inside the bag is Simple J. Malarkey, Kelly's caricature of Sen. Joe McCarthy during the height of McCarthyism. Kelly stood among only a handful in the media to publicly challenge McCarthy's innuendo and bullying. Communism was a real threat hanging over the country domestically and internationally during the '50s, but McCarthy's tactics were self-serving, unconstitutional and in the end served only to de-legitimize more measured efforts to protect the nation.
So this drawing is a part of certainly the most significant sequence Kelly did in more than 20 years of drawing the celebrated strip. I can't be sure, but it seems like this character appeared in only about 30 strips. Of course, here you can't see the character per se, but there's even a funny story behind that. There was another character, a chicken, who already had been established as a Rhode Island Red from Providence. When the caricature of McCarthy reappeared in mid-1954 (he had first appeared in 1953), the newspaper in Providence had declared that if his face showed up again they would drop "Pogo." So Kelly, who must have been working on a very short deadline, had Malarkey say "No one from Providence can see me" as the chicken approached, and put a bag over his head. The newspaper got the joke, but indeed Malarkey's face never appeared again.
This strip was relatively cheap, particularly for an example from the '50s. I think maybe the seller didn't know what she had. This feels like a piece of history to me.
February 21, 2011
New Media and New Marketing VIII
I'm all about marketing strategy right now, hence the existence of this blog, but so far I can't see how anybody breaks through to the public consciousness. One of the strategies that a number of "experts" suggest is getting on bulletin boards. So I joined the Christian boards that I could find, and I wanna tell you, they are dead as a doornail. Many won't allow links to be posted, many won't allow promotion of any kind. The ones that do, I have found, get no traffic anyway. Many seem to exist to minister to lonely or troubled people somewhere out there in the cyber world, as if that were really possible on the Internet.
One board I've found that does seem to have some muscle is KindleBoards, which I believe is Amazon-sponsored and seeks to serve Kindle users overall. This bulletin board gets a lot of traffic, and gives writers and readers with similar tastes an opportunity to interact.
Unfortunately, Christian writing is trod underfoot there. There are only about eight authors listed under the "religious" genre, out of who knows how many untold thousands of authors with e-books at the Kindle Store. The link for "The Job" has received a grand total of one comment in its four-month existence. Since the author of a thread can post and therefore bump the thread only once a week, this means that "The Job" thread spends most of its time buried in the listings where nobody can find it.
So I've conspired with some of the other writers of spiritual works there to maintain the thread Writing for the Spirit, dedicated to discussing Christian writing. As long as a few of us post once a day or so, the thread should stay near the top of the list and be seen by visitors to the bulletin board. We may even have an intelligent conversation. I started it up this weekend, and so far it's been pretty busy, but we'll see how dedicated the writers are there to keep in vital.
BTW, somebody bought "Wars of the Aoten" off of Smashwords. Though this blog is dedicated to "The Job," obviously, I do have two other books for sale. Here are links to Smashwords, if you're interested. They're also available on Amazon and B&N, but my royalties are higher from Smashwords, and they have all the different e-book formats.
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/26915
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/31861
One board I've found that does seem to have some muscle is KindleBoards, which I believe is Amazon-sponsored and seeks to serve Kindle users overall. This bulletin board gets a lot of traffic, and gives writers and readers with similar tastes an opportunity to interact.
Unfortunately, Christian writing is trod underfoot there. There are only about eight authors listed under the "religious" genre, out of who knows how many untold thousands of authors with e-books at the Kindle Store. The link for "The Job" has received a grand total of one comment in its four-month existence. Since the author of a thread can post and therefore bump the thread only once a week, this means that "The Job" thread spends most of its time buried in the listings where nobody can find it.
So I've conspired with some of the other writers of spiritual works there to maintain the thread Writing for the Spirit, dedicated to discussing Christian writing. As long as a few of us post once a day or so, the thread should stay near the top of the list and be seen by visitors to the bulletin board. We may even have an intelligent conversation. I started it up this weekend, and so far it's been pretty busy, but we'll see how dedicated the writers are there to keep in vital.
BTW, somebody bought "Wars of the Aoten" off of Smashwords. Though this blog is dedicated to "The Job," obviously, I do have two other books for sale. Here are links to Smashwords, if you're interested. They're also available on Amazon and B&N, but my royalties are higher from Smashwords, and they have all the different e-book formats.
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/26915
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/31861
February 17, 2011
Flim-Flannery
I'm re-reading some of the works of the great Southern Gothic author Flannery O'Connor. This will be only the second time I've gone through most of them, but still I'm finding the Christian themes easier to pick up. I've tried to track down some literary criticism of her works, and I've found that people basically obsess with "A Good Man is Hard to Find." More on that later.
First, I personally find fiction with Christian themes much more thought-provoking and meaningful than simple apologetics. This is why I love O'Connor and Dostoevsky so much. In fact, my favorite C.S. Lewis work is "Screwtape Letters," which is undeniably apologetics but brilliantly written in the voice of a fictional character. Perhaps straight apologetic writing just seems too much like a lecture to me, while fiction allows the reader to bring his own levels of understanding into the writer's thoughts. This is what I try to do.
Although my stories to date have been more straight-forward Christian in nature than O'Connor's, I still give that freedom of interpretation, particularly in "The Job." For instance, you can tell in Grace Krispy's review that she nearly gets it, but Mary Ann Langan's "review" reveals she doesn't get it at all. As I turn more toward Southern Gothic in my writing, I'll try to keep this connection to Christianity without letting it become a sledge hammer.
So, anyway "A Good Man is Hard to Find" apparently is accepted as O'Connor's seminal story in the eyes of most, although I'm not so sure ("Revelation" and "The Displaced Person" deserve some consideration). It certainly is the most direct story in putting forward O'Connor's idea that violence is "the extreme situation that best reveals what we are essentially." It's shock value is probably why the secular world has latched onto it. But O'Connor's overall Christian outlook within her work -- that of portraying "the action of grace in territory held largely by the devil" -- is a little harder to find, the grace part anyway. The grandmother tries to talk the Misfit into being a good man, even in a way comparing his blood to Jesus', but he makes her a good woman by sticking a gun in her face.
That's the extent of my literary criticism. You're free to write your own without my interference. I highly recommend O'Connor's work. I will add this last thing -- the Misfit's complaint that "I wasn't there so I can't say (Jesus) didn't (raise the dead). I wisht I had of been there. It ain't right I wasn't there because if I had of been there I would of known," is very close to Ivan Karamazov's complaint in "The Grand Inquisitor" -- if only Jesus would prove Himself to me, then I could believe.
First, I personally find fiction with Christian themes much more thought-provoking and meaningful than simple apologetics. This is why I love O'Connor and Dostoevsky so much. In fact, my favorite C.S. Lewis work is "Screwtape Letters," which is undeniably apologetics but brilliantly written in the voice of a fictional character. Perhaps straight apologetic writing just seems too much like a lecture to me, while fiction allows the reader to bring his own levels of understanding into the writer's thoughts. This is what I try to do.
Although my stories to date have been more straight-forward Christian in nature than O'Connor's, I still give that freedom of interpretation, particularly in "The Job." For instance, you can tell in Grace Krispy's review that she nearly gets it, but Mary Ann Langan's "review" reveals she doesn't get it at all. As I turn more toward Southern Gothic in my writing, I'll try to keep this connection to Christianity without letting it become a sledge hammer.
So, anyway "A Good Man is Hard to Find" apparently is accepted as O'Connor's seminal story in the eyes of most, although I'm not so sure ("Revelation" and "The Displaced Person" deserve some consideration). It certainly is the most direct story in putting forward O'Connor's idea that violence is "the extreme situation that best reveals what we are essentially." It's shock value is probably why the secular world has latched onto it. But O'Connor's overall Christian outlook within her work -- that of portraying "the action of grace in territory held largely by the devil" -- is a little harder to find, the grace part anyway. The grandmother tries to talk the Misfit into being a good man, even in a way comparing his blood to Jesus', but he makes her a good woman by sticking a gun in her face.
That's the extent of my literary criticism. You're free to write your own without my interference. I highly recommend O'Connor's work. I will add this last thing -- the Misfit's complaint that "I wasn't there so I can't say (Jesus) didn't (raise the dead). I wisht I had of been there. It ain't right I wasn't there because if I had of been there I would of known," is very close to Ivan Karamazov's complaint in "The Grand Inquisitor" -- if only Jesus would prove Himself to me, then I could believe.
