Adam Oster's Blog, page 48

Fat Mogul vs. Fan Fiction

from ladygeekgirl.wordpress.com

Today’s post is going to get a little ranty (which my wife should approve of…seeing as she claims the not-so-ranty posts of late are much too boring).  But it’s Tuesday…and that’s the day I’ve allowed myself for ranting.

And I have some good ranting to go around.

And one item I’ve been wanting to rant about for forever is fan fiction.

It’s nothing new.  Fan fiction has been huge for forever.  In fact, I once read that one of the best ways to get a job writing for television is to write a fan fiction episode and submit it for consideration (no clue if that’s true…just something I read some random place once).  I’m pretty sure most of the books in the Star Wars Expanded Universe (you know, the universe that Disney said no longer applies) started out as fan-fiction, and 50 Shades of Gray…well…that also began its life as Twilight fan-fic.

But you can look even further back and see how fan fiction has been around for forever.  Most fantasy novels are really nothing more than Tolkien fan-fic, although not generally including the characters and places from those novels.

But it seems that in recent years, a certain acceptance of fan-fiction has come about.  Heck, even Amazon has a deal in place with many properties in which authors can write fan fiction and legally make money off it (with, I’m assuming, a kickback going to the intellectual property owners).  There’s a whole host of fan-fiction being sold right now on the Harry Potter universe (one series that keeps showing up in my recommended reading advertisements being on the adventures of Harry’s son James).

And…well…don’t get me started on 50 Shades.

As you can probably guess, I’ve got quite a bit of a distaste for fan fiction.  Yes, I’ve read a couple Star Wars Expanded Universe novels and actually enjoyed them, and I did read Eoin Colfer’s addition to the Hitchhiker’s Guide series, but I don’t really consider either of those true fan-fiction…although I’ll admit feeling a little dirty with both.

But what I do have issue with right now is the current overwhelming acceptance of it.  In fact, one could make an argument stating that it would be easier today to find success as an author by creating stories within a popular world than to create your own.

Perhaps that’s where my issue lies.

I mean, here I sit, crafting extreme backgrounds on new worlds while developing an interesting storyline within them, where other authors are really just rehashing old ideas and including themselves in romantic entanglements with favorite characters…and actually making money off the deal.

No…here’s the issue.  I’ve decided and you can’t convince me otherwise :-).  I think fan fiction and it’s currently growing acceptance, is killing literature.  Sure, you could probably write a Hemingway-esque piece within the Harry Potter universe, but why would you?  People are becoming so completely myopic in their interests in everything, books, television, movies and other, that before long, we’ll find that there will people who will choose to read nothing except Harry Potter fan-fiction.  Then that will become a genre, wedged between the Hunger Games and Twilight fan-fiction sections, until we have no concept of anything except for books based on other books.

People are becoming so disinterested in things that they haven’t already experienced…and it frightens me.  For example (and this one is a poor one, I realize, but I’m using it anyways)…on my recent vacation which included a niece and nephew of mine, the nephew had no interest in doing anything except for the one thing he knew about going in, that he could ride a ride based on Star Wars.  You asked him if he wanted to check out the Tea Cups, he said no.  Once he got to do the Star Wars thing, it was almost impossible to convince him of doing anything outside of playing with his new Legos inside the hotel room.  (Note: he did try new things, and absolutely loved the Tea Cups).

I fear this could be a growing trend…a fear of the unknown.  We see it everywhere, politics, religion, even just in traveling altogether, people seem to be completely disinterested (if not completely afraid) of trying new things.  This isn’t just the old adage about kids and new food items, this is full-grown adults shutting themselves off from new experiences.

Books have always been a great opportunity to travel to new places, to experience new things, all from the safety of your own home.  When we start to loose that freedom as well, that sense of adventure, then I fear the world’s growing agoraphobia, or even more terrible, neophobia, will become crippling.

We live in an awesome era of the world, where the distance between us and completely different cultures is almost non-existent.  But at the same time, that distance is growing for many because they’ve found that they don’t need to even try to comprehend anything outside of the things they already know about.  Try talking to someone with one of those Coexist bumper stickers on their car…you’ll often find that they are more likely to comment about how everyone needs to see things their way than they will want to understand the backgrounds that bring people to their different ideas.

So…you know…what I’m saying is that fan fiction and its rise to prominence just might possible mark the downfall of mankind.

Is that too hyperbolic?

Look, I get it…it’s just a little fun, a chance to explore new sections of a world that you enjoyed.  I’m merely stating that there are countless other worlds for you to explore that might even be in different genres than you typically expect (and I’m talking about actual genres, like Westerns, Romance, Sci-Fi, Fantasy and the like, not that Steampunk, Paranormal Romance crap).  In fact, you might find that genres are way less important than you think, once you start opening your mind to what all is out there…as long, of course, as you actually find a competent author.

Was that ranty enough?

Have fun out there!

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Marketing Monday: Building a Presence

from innov8tiv.com

Now, you don’t have to look far (do I start all of these posts with this sentence?) to see that everyone will tell you how much you need social media to get your books sold.

What they don’t tell you is what they actually mean by that, which is that you need to ‘build a presence’, or, more simply stated, you need to let people know you exist, put yourself out there, actually market yourself. In other words, when people say, use social media, it’s really the equivalent of, hey, you should market your book! Pretty vague and useless, right?

I mean, sure, they’ll give you all sorts of advice on how to use social media, they’ll point you to the tools which will tell you when to post things and what sorts of things to post and the appropriate ratios between retweets/shares of others items, completely new content, and direct promotions of your books.  In fact, they’ll give you so much advice on how to use social media that your head can quickly start swimming at the very idea of what to do with all this advice and still have time to write anything.

But they never really tell you why it’s so important to use social media, just how to use it for great success.

I think that why is a very important piece of information to understand, otherwise you’ll just start to look like every single other person on these sites trying to sell something and quickly get overlooked.  Of course, with some of these sites (I’m looking at you Facebook), even your rabid followers might not see what you post, unless you’re willing to pay for them to see it.

But the why…it’s important.  Because the reason you should use social media isn’t to sell books (although, you know, that’s also the reason why), but the reason you need social media is to build a presence, to let people know you exist, to make people not only care about your brand, but about you.

Social media has completely changed how marketing works.  It used to be that you could just come up with some sort of clever ad and your success would revolve around how people responded to that ad.  Now people want to know about you, want to know about the person who is creating the thing they’re selling.  You know why Apple is so successful?  It’s not about the products, although many will debate me for hours on end about how their products are the best ones out there…I’m not going to debate that right now.  You only need to look at the response to the death of Steve Jobs to see that it was about the people running the company more than anything else.

Sure, you can say that Steve Jobs was a visionary and all sorts of other glowing things about the man, but at his heart, his most basic level, he was a salesman.  A damned good one.  He knew how to make you care about what he was working on.  He did very little to create the ipod or the iphone, just saw the product, knew what it could mean, and sold the hell out of it.

Yet he was beloved.  The response to his death was as great (if not greater) than the deaths of great creatives like Walt Disney or Jim Henson, people who really were the creative forces behind their products (well…Walt, honestly, could be debated, seeing as Ub Iwerks actually designed Mickey, Walt just knew how to package him).  I’m going to simplify things here, and I promise I intend no insult to the legacy of the man who really can be seen as a central figure in the creation of the personal computer, but this is akin to mourning the man who sold you your favorite car.  Yes, this was a much more well-known man than Crazy Mike, and a man who really did want to make a difference, but he was a salesman.

You know why we cared so much when he died?  Because that man knew how to build a presence.  He wasn’t okay with just doing what everyone else was doing.  He wanted to improve, to make everyone absolutely need what he was involved in.  He might not have spent as much time actually delving into the innards of these things Apple created (you know, like the much less known Woz), but he was the face of this company that he had trained you to desire to be more like.

The iPhone was definitely a leap forward in how we communicate with each other today, but it’s no great movement ahead of many other phones on the market today.  Yet, if you state that to any of the faithful…well, let’s just say that they will completely ignore things like how iMaps (or whatever Apple calls it) just plain doesn’t work.

It’s a product, but people are completely dedicated to that product and will still sit in line for hours (if not days) to get the newest, slightly better version of that product only months after the previous one came out (which they did the same thing for).

Obviously Apple’s success has very little to do with social media (if at all, seeing as their success predates social media…and the internet…)  But the important thing here is humanizing yourself, making yourself become that person that your readers want to support and love and help move forward.  You know why Apple continues to be important to people today?  I can’t tell you the last time I’ve seen a commercial for the company (noting that I cut my cable connect years ago), but still they are the biggest name in personal electronics today.  Talk to an iPhone user (at least one of the dedicated) and you’ll see why.  Their users love them and will do whatever they can to convert everyone else.

You need that.

Yes, writing a good book is important.  Next important is to build a fanbase of people who love you and want to help you achieve your goals.  There are many methods in which to do this.  Social media just so happens to be one that gives you the opportunity to get in front of a large audience.

Also…I apologize to any of the Jobs-believers for any sense you might have gotten that I don’t believe he is the most important man to have lived in the modern age.  I get a little sad about how much the Woz gets forgotten…even if Wozniak does have a presence within Spaceship Earth nowadays.

Alright, I’m out.  Have fun out there!

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Flash Fiction Friday: Soap Needed

So…this isn’t as much flash fiction as it is something I thought about while in the shower not so long ago (and happened to be out of soap). Wrote it up back then, polished it just a little to post today).

 

Man gets in shower, notices he is out of soap.

“Computer.”

“Yes.”

“Please place order for immediate soap delivery.”

“Please designate form of payment.”

“Cash, duh.”

“Insufficient funds.”

“Insufficient funds.  For a bar of soap?  How much does that cost?”

“For immediate drone delivery, $20.00.  Current bank balance is 11.28”

“How much for normal delivery?”

“4.29, tax included.”

“How the hell does it cost more to have a damned drone come out than it does for a guy in a big old truck to drive all the way out here with gas and everything?”

“As you may be aware, when drone delivery first came into place, there was a determination to include a convenience fee to ensure that the millions of jobs in the delivery indus—“

“It was a damned rhetorical question.  Update your programming logic to include asking me if I want an explanation before explaining crap to me in the future.”

“Programming updated.”

“And get me some damned soap.”

“Traditional delivery, sir?”

“How bad do I smell?”

“Initiating odor density detection scan.  Results are that you currently are infested with a high density of unpleasant odor particles.”

“Fine, immediate delivery, please.”

“Shall I contact the appropriate payday lenders to pay for this purchase.”

“Yeah, how long till the soap gets here.”

“Ten minutes.  Shall I assume you will forego current water use restrictions and continue your shower until the product arrives?”

“Yeah.  And make sure the drone comes to the bathroom window.  Don’t want to have to get out just because the damned robot wants to drop things off at the front door.”

“As you wish.”

 

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Book Review: You Used to Hurry Home by Angelika Rust

Click to go to amazon and have all your buying needs fulfilled (at least in the case of getting this book)

Before you read any further, before you even begin to think about deciding whether or not you want to read this book, I want to tell you something.  I went into reading this one completely blind.  It was sent to me to read before release and, having adored Ms. Rust’s previous work, I leapt at the opportunity.

I mention this only because not having any idea of what I was getting into might have been somewhere around half of my absolute enjoyment of it.

That being said, even the blurb and anything I say here can’t do anything toward giving you any real idea of what you’re in for, should you choose to feast your eyes on the joy Rust has just created.

You Used to Hurry Home starts out simply enough.  You’ve got a guy.  Then, a little bit later, you’ve got a girl.  That’s about as far as it gets before things get completely out of control…and I don’t think I can say anything more without feeling as though I’m completely spoiling the experience.

Regardless of synopsis or spoiling or anything else, this book is absolutely ridiculous, but ridiculous in the absolute best manner possible.  And done so in a way where you don’t even realize it’s ridiculous until its far too late.

Rust takes a situation that should be completely oddball stupidity and uses the most serious tone possible to take it on, and it’s this absolutely dry approach to the subject matter that really makes the whole thing work.

Simply put, there are very few books I review that I believe you absolutely need to read.  This is one of them.

I don’t think I can say anything more that would do this book any further justice.

Oh wait, I can.  It’s only 99 cents!

Buy this book right now before you even have a chance to check your balance.

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Fat Mogul vs. Coping with Post-Vacation Depression

from buzzfeed, click to see it there.

So, at the time this thing gets published, I’ll have already been back home from a little vacation time with the family for almost a week already.  At the time that I’m writing this…I’m a mere three days away from escaping to the warm and magical.

But even though I’m eagerly awaiting my departure from the land of cheese, I’m already well aware of what awaits me upon my return…the dreaded Post-Vacation Depression.

It’s not like this is all that odd of a thing to expect.  Vacations are often quite the necessary escape from the daily routine.  After months and months (or years and years…) of doing the same things in and out, constantly trying to work toward the end of actually achieving all your goals…or whatever other vague statement of just saying that life is hard you want to use, you need a break.  And that break can be awesome.  I mean, vacation, when done appropriately, is that time when you release yourself from all of your standard responsibilities.  Sure, I may still have to feed, clothe, and entertain my kids (as well as a whole host of other fatherly-type duties), but my other responsibilities, like working 8 hours a day, cleaning, cooking, fixing, as well as grocery shopping, errand-running and all the things that really typically make up the average American’s daily days…those are gone.  Instead, it’s just time to spend specifically with those I love most.

And that’s awesome.  Sure, it can sometimes take a day or two to adjust to the lack of the standard routine…and suddenly having no reprieve from your family can sometimes cause a little bit of tension…but in the end, you’re getting back down to the roots of what a family really is…a group of people working together toward a common goal…the goal, in this case, riding Space Mountain as many times as possible in the course of a week.

But when you get back, you find that all those things you left are still there…and are actually quite a bit worse than when you left them.  Despite your best efforts to get everything out of the house that could cause a stink while you’re away, you enter the house to find the most atrocious stench, get back to work to find hundreds and hundreds of e-mails you need to clear out while also getting caught up on your normal duties, your luggage sits by the door for at least a week, waiting for you to do laundry and unpack at the same time, but you still haven’t even found a moment to sit because you’re just too damned busy trying to catch up.

In other words, it’s often times possible to return from vacation feeling even worse than when you first left.

People often use the phrase, “I need a vacation to recuperate from my vacation”, but I think the reality is more that we are quickly exhausted in paying back for the time we’ve taken off, as our real lives have the nasty habit of not stopping merely because we left town for a few days.

This is very important to realize, which is why I’m highlighting it on my Tidbit Thursday post.  You see, vacations serve very little use if you come back to your real life feeling worse off than when you left.  Which is why you must prepare.  And no, I don’t mean prepare by going absolutely crazy and killing yourself to be as far ahead of everything as possible before you leave.  Sure, that might serve some use, but you’re still going to be behind.  WHat I mean is to prepare for the fact that you’ll be behind when you get back.  Maybe you’ll want to give yourself a couple extra days to recover at home, get some of the cleaning and whatnot taken care of before you return to your standard life.

My suggestion, just recognize that you’re going to be behind for a while, and use every opportunity you can to take that feeling of being behind as a reminder of why you’re behind.  Your business partners might not appreciate you falling behind on any deadlines…and I don’t have any cure for that…but I can state, quite simply, that if you use every reminder that you’re behind as a reminder for why you’re behind, you have a better chance of actually coping with the feelings of depression that can come upon you after leaving your happy place…whereever that may be.

Also, there’s one more thing I can suggest, which may help out, if ever-so-slightly.  Make sure to go on vacation mentally as well as physically.  If you spend your time away thinking about all the things you’re going to have to do when you get back…you’re never going to actually even enjoy your time away.  And that’s a real tragedy.

So, as I prepare for getting out of town (mostly by trying to do things like get ahead on blog posts, and cleaning the house, and whatever the heck else I’m supposed to do today), I’m happy to tell you that I will be depressed when I come back from vacation.  But it won’t be because of all the work I’ll have to do…it’ll be because I’ll miss being able to just get out and have fun with my family all day every day.

And also…because I still won’t have ridden Space Mountain enough times yet…

Have fun out there!

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Fat Mogul vs. Goodreads

I’ll admit, I’ve been feeling a little blocked about what to talk about with my Wednesday posts.  However, one of the greatest tools out there for an author today is the internet…so, how best to help you along on your journey than to highlight some of the tools on the utility belt super-highway….or something like that.

Anyways, terrible opening segue aside, you’ve, no doubt, heard about Goodreads.  As an author, you’ve probably also actually gone out there and taken a look at the site.  And you probably immediately jumped ship (at least the first time), because the site is pretty ugly and not exactly easy to use.

Okay, maybe that’s not everyone’s experience with the site, but it was definitely mine.

At first glance, the site is incredibly poorly put together.  Actually, at the third, fourth, fifth and even sixth glances, it’s just not great.  Things are not placed in places that seem to make sense, finding groups with similar tastes isn’t always the easiest, at least not without ending up in some ginormous (do people still use that word ironically anymore?) group where your involvement will easily be overlooked.

Interacting with your friends on the site isn’t all that immediately simple either, and outside of recommending books to each other and keeping track of what your friends think of the books they’re reading, the social aspect of the site is rather lacking…once again, at the surface, I mean.

Once you dig in, the site’s actually got a whole lot going for it.  First of all, it’s pretty much the only popular location on the entirety of the internet where you can actually find people who are actually reading books.  This means that you can go on there, as an author, and talk about your books, and actually have people be interested, as opposed to every other location on the internet where folks are immediately turned off by such discussion.

It’s also a fantastic place to market yourself. Simply put one of your books up for a giveaway and you’ll find that the numbers of people who put your book on their shelf to read will easily got up by a couple hundred (at least in my own personal experience as well as the experience of a few other author friends).  You might not make a ton of sales (immediately anyways) from doing so, but the awareness of your books will grow…even if the people who are now aware immediately forget about it (that’s your fault though, isn’t it?)

The ability to interact with an audience is also quite spectacular on there.  I have a goodreads group in which I use to sometimes put updates about my new books, but mostly to act as a soapbox to talk about whatever I might be reading at the moment.  From time to time, my readers will actually stop by and chat, which is loads of fun, especially since these readers seem to be the ones who don’t leave reviews.  I like any opportunity to talk to my readers and know that they exist, so having this alternative avenue is quite amazing.

There’s also the chance to have your book featured in a book club.  There are so many groups on goodreads for so many very specific genres that you should quite easily (after the immediate growing pains of getting to know the site) find a group that would love to read your book.  Many of these groups like to feature indie authors and often look for suggestions on books to read.  This is one of those rare occasions where shameless self-promotion is not only allowed, but expected.

One caveat to these book clubs is that they are often times not incredibly well followed, meaning that even if you manage to have your book featured, you might find that not too many people actually end up reading it.

In short, if you’re an author and you’re not on Goodreads, you should get on it now.  If you’re already on Goodreads and not spending at least a couple minutes on there daily, you need to make some changes.  It’s a site which has a sole purpose of connecting authors and readers (well…and to connect readers with other readers, I suppose)…I don’t think I need to do too much yelling to show you how important of a place this is for you to be.

And look me up, I’d be more than willing to give you something of a tour…not that I’m, by any means, a site expert.

See ya on Goodreads!  Have fun out there!

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Fat Mogul vs. Middle Management

From nummynims.wordpress.com Click to find it!

To preface this…I generally sit down and come up with a week’s worth of topics at one time, meaning that I often struggle to find things that I actually think are worthwhile to talk about.  This one came about at a time in which I was feeling particularly unhappy about my job (about three weeks from the time you’ll read this, yesterday from the time I’m writing it).  I’m a lot more cool about what had inspired the idea for this post, but I’ve come to the realization that this isn’t an entirely superfluous idea for a message for the day…hence my keeping it…even if the title isn’t as appropriate as it initially was.

I’ve long struggled with what I want to do for my career.  For a number of years I thought about being a teacher (even studied to be one for nearly as long as you need to in order to actually be one).  Another few I considered the craft of acting, as I find myself feeling quite comfortable on stage (although my talent as such could be questionable).  Right now, of course, I’ve put considerable amounts of effort into my writing…effort that’s really quite difficult to walk away from at this point, even if I find myself considering that very idea on all too often of a basis.

But throughout all of these different career paths, I’ve always had to work a real job, you know, one that actually pays the bills.  Most of those jobs have been ones that I haven’t really enjoyed…in fact, found myself in many ways despising.

After recent events, I actually sat down to reflect on my reasons for disliking my jobs so much over the years.  Sure, there’s always the interpersonal issues, the boredom issues, and a whole host of self-respect issues that all come into play…but many of these feelings I’ve had toward my jobs as of late have been the same no matter the job, as varied as my many places of employment have been over the course of my lifetime.

In fact, there really are only a handful of places in which I didn’t spend at least a portion of my time being employed there just absolutely hating it….unfortunately, they were all minimum wage positions, and oddly enough, were the only jobs in which I actually had to work hard the entire time I was at the job.

It was under this understanding that I came to realize something very important about myself.  Something I’ve always known, but something I didn’t quite fully piece together into the puzzle.

I hate wasting time.

So many jobs I’ve had over the years required me to wait out the clock.  This is understandable in many retail settings, as someone just needs to man the store until it closes.  In other settings…I can’t help but think it’s the stupidest idea in the world.

I’m a pretty fast worker, mostly because I spend a lot of time, when doing repetitive tasks, asking myself how I might be able to go about doing them more efficiently.  As such, I generally complete a list of tasks a lot faster than the average worker.  This means that I often times spend a fair amount of time doing the equivalent of twiddling my thumbs to ensure that I get my 8 hours in on a given day.

I hate this.

I may have completed everything in front of me, but that doesn’t actually change my expectations on the job.  I’m still supposed to be there from 8-4, monday thru friday, regardless of what my actual workload is.  It would be different if there were additional workload available…at least, I believe it would be.  However, in many of these jobs, what I’ve found to be the answer to asking for more work is the same answer I got as a grade school student when I finished working on a specific in-class assignment first…Busy work.  Heck, I’d even take the old, “Put your head down on your desk” response over busy work.

The reason I’ve disliked so many of my jobs boils down to one simple thing: They can’t give me enough legitimate work to fill out the hours they expect me to stay at work.

Now, this isn’t me complaining about my workloads as much as it is me complaining about the current work environment in the world today.  At my current job I can always find new things to explore, which is one of the nice things about my position as a person who is supposed to seek out new efficiencies that can be created.  But, when the job is done…what’s the point in fulfilling the hours requirement?

Seriously…the concept of hourly employment is dumb, in the majority of situations.  Why reimburse people for their time?  That seems a waste.  You can pay people for their time all you want, that doesn’t mean they’re going to work.  Instead, it seems much more important to reimburse people for effort.  Sure, there may be a difficult issue in determining metrics for many different employees, at least when dealing with more corporate atmospheres, but many of those employees are salaried anyways.  Those folks are technically reimbursed for their effort, whereas the people who are more likely to just sit around and twiddle their thumbs instead of actually put in any extra effort when having free time on the job are paid just to be present.

That’s absolutely ridiculous.  It’s not only a waste of time, it’s a waste of money.  Why pay people to be present (you know, unless you just need someone to work a counter for so many hours a day)?  I realize there are certain federal and state regulations that come into play here…but I also realize that we’re dealing with some very antiquated notions.  In fact, I have a feeling that if you did any form of looking into the history of our current ideas behind wages, you’d find that it has a lot more to do with limiting the amount of hours a person is required to work during a day than it is for reimbursing them to be present.

You ever wonder why so many employees out there are so damned lazy?  It’s because that’s what you’re paying them to be.  People aren’t paid to get the job done, they’re paid to be there.  Just think of how fast things would get done if you simply said, “I’ll pay you $50 to complete X task” as opposed to “I’ll pay you $3.00/hr if you will complete X task”.  The second option definitely gives good reason to move more slowly.

The reason I’ve been drawn to things like teaching and the arts is simple.  Reimbursement there has nothing to do with fulfilling a time commitment, it has to do with completed a job.

Now…if I could only find someone who would hire me on as a consultant….

Almost complete with the time quota for today…

Have fun out there!

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Marketing Monday: Writing a Good Book

found on a site that doesn’t look like they create their own image content…please let me know if you know the source of this image so I can give them credit

If you’ve spent any time at all reading up on what it takes to sell a book, you’ve no doubt come across one specific piece of advice countless times…”Write a good book!”

I’ve seen it everywhere.  Agents, publishers, other authors…everyone seems obsessed with the idea that the first step toward becoming a successful author is to write this mythical good book.

I have so many thoughts about this that I can hardly even start this post without breaking down into a babbling mess of crazed confusion.

First…I think we all know that there are plenty of books which have been published and achieved at least a modicum of what is traditionally believed to be success while being, what we consider, to be anything but a ‘good book’ (*ahem* Twilight and Fifty Shades)

To be completely above board about this, I actually stopped reading books for a great portion of my high school and older years simply because I had read too many terrible books that had somehow risen to the top of the pile of books I was told I should read.  I’d be willing to hazard a guess that if you were to show any given reader a list of traditionally published successful books of today, they would probably outright consider at least 50% of them to be utter crap.

That’s because writing is an artform, and like any piece of art, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Now, there are a few things that are definitely important when developing a book which will make it a better book, such as editing…but that’s not really what people mean when they use the very vague phrase “good book”.

Truth be told, all you need for any art to be successful is for it to connect with people.  When I look at a piece of painted art, or listen to a CD, my feelings about it can be rather immediate.  A second viewing or listening could completely change my feelings about that piece of art.  But my feelings could be (and often are) quite a bit different from the person sitting next to me.  I often like to talk movies with my brother-in-law.  We have completely different tastes and very rarely agree on movies that we absolutely loved.  I may hate a movie that he thinks is the best movie of the decade.

So, when people tell you to write a good book, what they really should be saying is to write the best book you can…realize that what you’re doing when you’re writing is expressing yourself through the artistry of words.

The problem here is…writing a ‘good’ book (by any definition you want to use) does not actually ensure success.  I was actually in a competition not too long ago where my soon-to-be-released book The Long Chron (release date impending, I promise!) was up for a publishing contract with Amazon.  One of the books it lost out to was written, first words written until the point it was entered into the competition, in 9 days.  Now, I’ll be honest, I haven’t read this other book about pugs and aliens…it’s quite probable that it’s the picasso of fiction…but the likelihood is pretty damned minimal.

No, what’s important for a successful books are a whole host of other factors you can’t really control.  Things like current reader trends, how people respond to your book’s blurb, covers, and the list could, quite seriously, go on and on.

So, the next question to have here really is quite simple.  Why even take the time to write a good book?  I’ve read countless success stories from authors who have gone the way of the write for quantity not quality process who have found themselves capable of quitting their day jobs and have legions of fans behind them.  The dinosaur porn that hit the news sites a few years back supposedly helped the authors through college even!

Here are Adam’s Simple Reasons for Writing a Good Book:

1. Have some damned self-respect!  Seriously…if you’re putting your artwork out there for all to see, don’t you want it to be the best you can make?  I can scribble some turds on a piece of paper, but it isn’t what I want to be known for.

2. Brand creation.  In connection to the previous, if you write a good book, people have a better chance of coming back for more, as opposed to just coming back because they already read one of your steaming turds.

3.  Why not?  Even if you write terrible books, you’re still going to have to go about the work of marketing them.  Dinosaur porn didn’t just magically become the bestsellers…it happened because of a whole host of things (most notably being that they were the only books filling an unexpected market need).  But even more than that, they still had to make people aware of what they had.  They luckily had something really worth talking about.  Perhaps what is worth talking about your book is that it’s actually fun to read.

 

I’m not going to promise you riches for writing the best book you can…I certainly haven’t found them yet.  But I will promise you that you’ll feel a whole lot better about yourself in the event that you do ever find success.

Have fun out there!

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Flash Fiction Friday: Simple Simon

Something I aimlessly wrote a while back, thought I might as well put it to some use here, as silly as it may be:

Once upon a time there was a simple man, who lived in a simple house within a simple town with his simple wife and his simple kids.  The simple man noticed other men lived in houses that were not so simple and found himself daydreaming.

The simple man, named Simple Simon, learned one simple thing.  These other men in other houses had one thing in common.  They had jobs, unlike his job, that paid a lot more money.  Upon review, he found they drew their wealth from one employer.  The place in question was none other than The Stupid Store.

So Simple Simon donned a tie and khaki pants and left his simple job.  He walked straight to The Stupid Store and was hired to work that day.  He went in back with other folks who had come in that day.  These other folks, like Simple Simon, had come to work, not play.

They all were sat inside the darkest place the building held.  Then someone entered, simply dressed, and got the group excited.  She said she was the one who would direct them on their jobs.  She handed out a paper map and sent the group away.  They needed nothing but that sheet to get through their new work day.

Simple Simon took the sheet and hustled toward his cube.  Four walls around him and a desk was all he found once there.  These walls were drab, but he soon saw that he could decorate.  In fact, the cube his neighbor had was filled with tons of toys.  This place, he thought, could be a place that he could quite enjoy.

And so he sat, behind his desk, imagining the future.  Until another new employ happened upon his desk.  He turned and smiled as she said hi, and showed her eager ‘tude.  She had chosen to go around and seek out all she knew.  It was exciting, so she said, and then begged him to join her.

Simon stood and followed her upon her simple task.  They soon were joined by other folks in bouts of great excitement.

But then a dark and scary man appeared from ‘round the corner.  He told the group they should sit down as this was a place of business.  There was a need for stupid stuff, the store was running out.

The man walked off.  The group was silent.  Then they dissipated.  And Simple Simon went to his desk and then he simply waited.

 

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Fat Mogul vs. The Green Bay Packers

I’m going to go right out and admit something that no Wisconsinite should ever admit, unless they’re willing to incite a riot…I’m not really a Packer Backer…well…that’s not entirely true anymore…let me back up a bit.

You see, I’m not originally from Wisconsin.  When I moved here nearly 20 years ago, I wasn’t really aware of what the Packer phenomenon was really all about.  I mean, sure, I have some crazed Packer fans for family, but they never really let their freak flag fly in my presence before…at least, not from what I had remembered.  I might have been too focused in playing with my cousins than noticing their cheesehead fever.

So, when I moved up here and suddenly realized how crazy people would get about the Packers, how a green jersey could be considered appropriate church attire if it just so happened to be game day (or work attire or….yeah, they love their jerseys up here), well, that was just one of many things that caused me to wonder what the heck was going on.

You don’t have to do much hunting to see that Packer fans are the wildest football fans out there.  Spectators at Lambeau are willing to sit through the coldest days of the year, with their shirts off, painted green and yellow, and be damned excited throughout the entire game (unless the Pack plays horribly, of course).  Speaking of bad games…Packer fans after a loss…sheesh.  It gets dangerous around here.

But after a big win, car horns are honking, fireworks are set off…it’s a regular party.

Wisconsin lives and breaths around Packer games.  In fact, although I was already working on this post, my wife just stopped in to tell me that her running group rescheduled their run this weekend because the game might still be on at that point.

As you can see, this culture of devotion to the team based in Titletown USA is extreme…and one that can be quite overwhelming to step into unawares.  And my initial reaction, those almost 20 years back?

I hated the Packers.

The fans were so outrageous, obnoxious, and devoted that I just couldn’t accept that they were anything except out of their minds.

In fact, it wasn’t until a couple years ago when I finally started realizing exactly why Packer fans are so devoted to their team (outside of the fact that they have an incredible habit of being amazingly good).

SImply put, The Green Bay Packers are the only non-profit, community-owned, major league professional sports team in the United States.  That’s right…they are not only a talented team, but they are really a team that is for the people and by the people.  Sure, the shares they sell to the community are really nothing more than collector’s items (meaning that they offer no voting rights), but that doesn’t matter to the community.  When Wisconsin claims The Green Bay Packers as OUR TEAM, that’s because it is literally theirs.  They own it.

And it’s a non-profit!  That means that this franchise doesn’t need to be as devoted to raking in the cash (not that they have any trouble), because they aren’t trying to pay off stockholders or corporate owners.  They’re just paying the bills.

This is all coming from a group that’s based in a town that’s slightly bigger than my own.  Green Bay ain’t no Dallas.  It’s got a population of a mere 10,000 people.  That’s nothing.  Almost every other major league sports team out there is based in some town where the population exceeds the million mark.  Green Bay barely breaks 5 digits.

This really helps keep the home town idea alive as well.  Just drive into Green Bay and you feel like you’re driving into most other cities in Wisconsin.  It’s nothing flashy.  I mean, there’s an enormous/gorgeous stadium right in the center…but that’s about it.

The reason the Packers are so beloved by Wisconsinites is simple.  The Packers are defined by Wisconsin.  It’s not just the cheeseheads that show their Wisconsinality, it’s everything about them.  They’re simple, they’re no nonsense, and they’re all about the game.

And they’re pretty good too…I mean, they do live in Titletown…and you can’t go through a single Super-Bowl without talking about Vince Lombardi at least 20 times.

I have to admit…once I started looking into the team more, and how they work with the community as a partner, I realized that there was a lot more to this team that fanatical fans.

And I might have become something akin to a Packer Backer….not that I own any jerseys or cheeseheads or anything.

But maybe someday…

Alright, I’m out.  Have fun out there!

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