David Mark Brown's Blog, page 8

99 Authors, 99 Books, 99 Cents

Posted in Uncategorized

[image error]This promotional contains some really great books by both well known authors and some lessor so (like me). For anyone looking to add a few more worthy titles to their holiday reading, or anyone looking for some ebook gift ideas for other readers they know, have a look around: http://buymereadme.com/ (feel free to spread the word!)

The sale is for December 21st only!!!

The promotional is also giving away nearly a $1000 worth of prizes, so that’s not such a bad thing either. (Note: this is a Kindle store promotion.)

Some of the titles I recommend:

 

 

De Novo Syndrome… Unleashed!

Posted in DMB Files

Jim Buckner’s (aka me) first book has arrived, and here is what people are saying about it.

“The rabid, frothy pacing gripped me like the iron jaws of a junkyard dog and left me crying out for a literary tetanus shot! More please.”

“I only smoke after sex and reading a really good book. This novel had me lighting up before I could set it down.”

“My first thought: Good Lord, not another first person POV series. My last thought: Thank you, may I have another?”

Who exactly are these people? Well… I don’t know. But whoever they are, they’re certainly real. As real as Jim Buckner himself. (Why would you even ask?)

[image error]The mysterious universe alluded to by the Lost DMB Files comes into sharper focus with the DMB Files as Professor Buckner discovers how deep the rabbit hole goes. The year is 2025, and the nation of Texicas is over 100 years old. Those behind its founding preserve a secret 1000 years older. The truth is waiting.

Buy at Amazon

If you have read this classic in the making already, please post a review! For the rest of you, get to reading! (and recommending to others. Unlike me, I know the rest of you have friends.)

De Novo Syndrome: He’ll do anything to get her back, including evolve.

When Jim Buckner’s daughter is kidnapped, his obsession shifts from discovering the lost genetic sequence for awakening human immortality to discovering who took her and how to get her back.

The journey reveals a hibernating side-effect of his research, telekinesis. At the heart of a secret war raging for over a century, Buckner discovers how far he’ll go to get his daughter back–as far as it takes.

A father-daughter story written as paranoid thriller, De Novo Syndrome centers on a father learning to dedicate his heart, rather than his work, to his daughter. The fact his life’s work has been to save his daughter’s life, complicates the matter.

Coming soon: Desert Gods, the second novel of the DMB Files

Why the World Didn’t End Yesterday

Posted in Uncategorized

A bit premature, I know. But hey, I’m with NASA on this one.

Duck Dynasty: Rednecks Done Right

Posted in Redneck Sustainability

[image error]For the last several months my mother has been trying to get me to check out the A&E series Duck Dynasty (now in its second season). Unlike most rednecks, I don’t have cable, dish and Direct TV spliced from a neighbor and/or duct taped to the roof of my trailer.

Last winter I did a Google search for it and barely found any results. I couldn’t find it on Hulu or Amazon or any other such service, and Google seemed to think I had lost my search mojo. So I let it go until I spotted it on Hulu the other day in a banner ad (oh how the redneck has risen).

Having only viewed the two free episodes provided via Hulu, I’m certainly no Dynasty guru. Those two episodes did convert me to a fan. While Good Morning West Monroe didn’t seem to pop or drip with redneck witticisms quite as much as Spring Pong Cleaning, I enjoyed both episodes. (My favorite moment in Pong Cleaning went something like, “Everyone loves violence. So we wondered, how can we make ping pong more violent. Pink-belly rules.”)

More importantly than my enjoyment, the redneck has found its best television representation since the Dukes of Hazzard. Of course reality TV is still a trailer park one tornado away from total loss in my book. But Duck Dynasty involves just the right amount of polish and tweaking to maintain a certain variety show feel that removes the sordid stench of voyeurism that is all too common in some cable, reality shows. The world needs a Big Brother, Redneck Version like it needs a see-through johnny can. (Although a Redneck Survivor might work okay.)

And unlike some other shows I’ve caught wind of lately, (History Channel, I’m looking at you) Duck Dynasty isn’t laughing at rednecks in the slightest. The Robertson family comes across as clever, witty and crass. Nobody’s fool, these simple yet wise country folk ain’t the Beverly Hillbillies. Their uncomplicated clarity of mind sees through the ridiculousness of things such as Home Owners Associations and laser eye surgery. As Uncle Si puts it, if a pair of glasses are good enough to help him tell the difference between a Muscadine berry and a coon dropping, then he’ll take it. If only we all were so practical.

Holiday Car Gifting Guide 2012

Posted in Sustainable Innovation

[image error]It’s that time of the year again, when loving spouses buy their significant other the humble-surprise-gift of an automobile and wrap it with a redonkulously large red bow (that required some Asian kid to use his head to hold the ribbon in place for the knot).

But how does one go about selecting which extravagantly lavish auto to gift? Should you stick with American made? A sporty coup? Military surplus? Of all the terrible decisions one faces during the holidays…

And for once, television isn’t helping. I’ve avidly been studying the dearth of inadequate commercials thus far this fall in order to make an educated decision. I’ve been appalled. What has happened to the audacious auto industry that brought us tail fins, seat warmers and the straight-eight engine?

You know what passes for innovation these days? A hatchback that opens when you wave your foot in front of it. Of all the freakin mind-blowing…

Okay, maybe that’s only one example. Let’s keep channel surfing. Next we have an assortment of driver-assisting cameras. What the hell happened to learning to parallel park during drivers’ ed? Now I have to have a camera on every corner of my car to avoid sharing my fire engine red paint job with the neighbors? If that isn’t good enough for you, some autos boast parking for you. Just flick on the auto pilot and shut down the brain.

Or you can buy your spouse a car with a built in tablet computer. Now that sounds nice, doesn’t it? Who would want both an iPad and a car when you can have both in one? Because everyone knows the best place to use an iPad is while driving, right? Forget tinkering with those annoying knobs for turning on the heat. Now you can simply hit the home button, scroll down, hit the comfort control app, scroll sideways, select heat, select front, scroll to the appropriate speed for the blower, scroll up for the temperature and double tap. Couldn’t be simpler. And by the time you complete the procedure you’ll be in the ditch. No worries. Just access your On Star application.

What the hell? I should be piloting a flying car by now. It’s 20-freakin-12 people. For how much longer can I be expected to buy presents for family members that boast a “state of the art plug-in jack” for a smart phone? At the very least I should be able to buy an auto with a tablet computer display built into the windshield. Then I could retinal click directives for the artificial intelligence unit without having to look away from the Cowboys game or the road.

And how much longer do we have to wait for an auto the recycles bodily waste as fuel? And when is McDonalds going to partner with GM in order to provide an order link built into the dash? It’s cold in Idaho. I’m tired of having to roll down the window, speak into a crappy speaker, roll up the window, roll forward, etc. I should be able to order from the interstate, scan my credit card, and drive by an automated bank-style-pneumatic chute to receive my tube of burgers.

Dear auto industry, until you start adding some real features, please cease the annoying commercials asking me to shoulder massive amounts of impulsive debt in order to buy love.

How To Escape Your Mother-in-Law

Posted in book rave

http://www.amazon.com/How-Escape-Your-Mother-In-Law-ebook/dp/B0096IF2RI

Get it free for today only!

Writing’s Equivalent to Television

Posted in Sustainable Storytelling

[image error]Film is to novel what television is to…?

Okay, sorry for the bad SAT’s flashback. Your chances of getting into Harvard were ruined a long time ago (blame television or your parents, not me.) But seriously, I’ve been thinking a lot about this question.

The golden age of film has long been dead. Television has taken over as the true innovator of the visual story. We could all name our favorite examples of television shows over the last twenty years that have evolved the way we communicate, think and tell story. I won’t even start trying to make a list.

It has also been well established that film/movies often rely on novels as the basis of their story arcs. It is true that technically novels are difficult to crunch down into a few hours worth of movie, but feature films and novels both commonly endeavor to use the same sort of classic story arc–telling an entire story with a beginning, middle and end.

Sure, a television show must also have a sort of mini-arc with it’s own beginning, middle and end. These are often quite formulaic (CSI, Law and Order, X-Files, etc.) But television also has the larger seasonal and series arcs to play around with. Characters have several hours worth of opportunity to develop, change, grow, die and be born. Plots and subplots can appear, dive beneath the surface and reappear episodes later. Often times a television show can focus on a larger universe than a feature film.

Within the written word, what format of story-telling best matches the television format? And with the decline of film and rise of television will the novel step aside as well?

It’s possible that the rash of book series we have seen over the last decade has already answered this question. The series (of novels) is certainly more episodic than a stand alone novel. Thirty years ago, a series would have most likely been a trilogy, or basically a really long story built into three parts. Then something like the Star Wars universe would give rise to a whole slew of books within the broader universe written by lots of different authors.

But our modern novel series are still feature length stories written as sequels. Writing Rocky I, II, II and IV doesn’t seem like an answer to television, but to the sequel-ization of film.

Will the return of the written serial be today’s counterpart for television? Will eBooks be the final piece of the puzzle by removing all arbitrary significance given to book length? Will Amazon’s new serial store give an effective method of delivering the serial, thus propelling its rise to popularity (again)?

Both electronic reading and the post modern attention span seem well adapted for serial story-telling. But will our television-addled minds be open to reading at all? Or will story simply continue to shift away from written format all together?

I don’t think I have much as far as answers to these questions, but I’ve been attempting to find them by adapting my personal brand of story-telling. I have and will be attempting to fuse influences such as Lost, X-Files, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Smallville, Quantum Leap, Person of Interest, Castle and other television shows into my writing (content, format and technique). Hopefully, through asking these questions and experimentation, I’ll come up with some answers eventually.

Platform Building, I Bid Thee Farewell

Posted in Sustainable Storytelling

[image error]If writing fiction is like playing the lottery, then as far as I can tell there are three ways to increase your chances of a payoff.

Sleep with the lottery commisioner
Mooch winnings from previous winners
Or buy more tickets

Nowhere in this equation is there room for what so many writerly pontiffs have called platform building. What? Am I supposed to continue to believe that adding facebook friends and fans will somehow improve the odds one of my tickets will transform magically into a winner? I’m sorry, I just can’t do it anymore.

Recently I’ve landed on the truth. You know what platform building really is?A whole lot of #2 (referring to the list above rather than the bowel movement). I’m supposed to network my flabby, white cheeks off until somewhere along the line my bum bumps into a winner (or about-to-be winner) who’s willing to share the wealth.

I know, I know. I can hear the legions of marketing-savvy digital warriors correcting my flawed interpretation even as I type. Build genuine relationships. Care for people. Develop social capital the good ole fashioned way–one retweet at a time.

I’m done. I could waste a thousand more hours over the next year across a half-dozen social media platforms, and for what? a few hundred sales? The whole song and dance is death to me.

Instead I’m taking those thousand hours and using them to write a couple thousand pages worth of brilliant fiction.

I’m too moral and too ugly to make #1 work for me. And #2 has gotten too ugly for me to stomach. For the next 12 months I’m simply going to write. Sure, playing the lottery is still playing the lottery. Nothing guarantees writing 5 novels this next year will get me any further than writing one.

But at least when it’s all said and done, I will have written five magnificent novels. I’ll start work next fall at Home Depot knowing I spent my time creating something concrete and beneficial, rather than a platform to nowhere.

Kobo Books: App and Readers

Posted in eBook revolution

[image error]I’ve tracked www.Kobobooks.com for several weeks now, keeping my eye on the following things:

rankings
recommended reading lists
search and sort capabilities
customer service
the writing life platform
the app, the eReader, etc.

My intent has been to deduce whether Kobo seems to understand what it will take to become a serious player in the eBook retail universe currently dominated almost exclusively by Amazon and their Kindle store. My perspective is unabashedly that of an indie author. Today’s post will discuss the Kobo app the eReaders and other random junk. (Follow the linked bullet points for the other posts.)

The Results: Application and Readers

For my final post on my Kobo Books experiment there is a handful of random stuff worth commenting on. First, the application. I read digital content on my iPad, so I am able to use every application in a fairly neutral setting. Sure, iBooks is native to my device and I end up using it more than I would normally due to that fact. iBooks has a great aesthetic and feel to it, but the limitations of the iBooks store keeps me from using it more. Mostly I use it for opening certain .pdf files.

I like the Kobo application the best of all the ones I use on my iPad (and iPhone). It is visually appealing, flexible and easy to navigate. I like the option to see what my other friends using Kobo are reading, and I like the tie-in between Goodreads and Facebook. (If I used a Kindle this option would also be built in, but since I use an iPad, the Kindle app doesn’t facilitate this.)

I love the fact I can easily move books from my desktop to my Kobo library, and that I can keep all sorts of different file formats there as well. I end up using my Kindle app a fair share of the time simply because I have to download stuff from the Kindle store and the Kindle app is the only easy place to access those titles. But if given the choice I would open those titles in a better application (like Kobo).

The main thing that honks me off with my Kobo application is the fact it remains glitchy. About once every few times I open it to read, it will shut off and force me to reopen it. If it was much more frequent I would abandon the application for a less attractive one. This has been happening over the span of several updates, and I’m not sure Kobo will ever address it.

The second short coming of Kobo’s application is it’s inability to access the Kobo store. I know there has to be a story behind this, but I have not studied the matter. Whatever has happened to bring this failing about, it has to be fixed. It’s totally ridiculous in our tech-savvy age to be forced to leave an app and use a separate browser in order to buy/download a book. I’ve never had trouble with my library updating after a download, but not being able to do this from the app is amazingly troublesome.

Kobo eReader Devices

I have never owned a Kobo eReading device, but after the new product releases I’m tempted to buy the Kobo Mini. For its price and size it could be a good compliment to my iPad tablet. Although I might end up getting a larger screen smart phone instead and going that route. I am fairly convinced that the Kindle devices are still some of the best, but I simply don’t like their format/content restrictions. It sucks to be so handcuffed to the Kindle store, so if Kobo can produce a comparable product I would certainly go with them instead. I would love to hear from anyone that has already gotten one of these new Kobo readers.

Other Kobo News

Kobo has been making a handful of bold moves lately, that unfortunately are getting over-shadowed by Amazon. I’ll give the big A credit for not sitting back and resting. They are keeping the pressure on in a big way. But that said, I think Kobo is putting up a good fight. I won’t go into the details, but here are some links to some of the most worthy stories to keep abreast with:

Kobo and Indie Bookshops

 Kobo’s new product line

 More on the CEO of Japanese Company that owns Kobo

Kobo ups their royalties to 80% through November 2012

Lion or Kitten: Young Lion

Kobo certainly isn’t king of the pride currently. But I think they have promise to claim the strong niche of the eReader and eReading platform for book lovers. This has been their stated goal.  They are a young lion on the prowl, just looking for weakness in the Kindle King. They will never oust Amazon, but they just might win over 5 to 10% of the most important and prolific readers. To do this Kobo will need to:

continue to improve their reading devices and applications (the future of how people will digest digital content is uncertain to say the least, but with both devices and applications they could cover all bases).
continue to win over more publishers (both traditional and indie)
seal up the position of goto platform for indie bookstores

If Kobo does these three things readers will follow. If Kobo can be seen as the company that understands bibliophiles and bookstores, they will guarantee a large and important costumer base.

Santitas Lady, I Love You

Posted in The Green Porch

[image error]It’s time for another bare all exposé from the desk of the Redneck Granola. For many years now I have maintained a fantasy relationship with the Santitas Chip Lady. In Biblical times a tan may have been considered a sign of low status, reflecting hours of menial labor beneath the scorching hot rays of the sun.

But in my world, a beautiful tan reflects hours of menial labor beneath the scorching hot rays of the sun. And I find that scorching hot. Don’t tell me Miss Santitas got her tan from hours of reading People Magazine in a tanning bed. I don’t wish to sully my fantasy with such disgusting ruminations.

Besides, I know better. Maria Santita (as I like to call her) knows more about harvesting corn than today’s agricultural supercomputers. From the smell of a corn field or the brush of a gentle harvest breeze against her ocher skin she can tell when it’s time to harvest. She sings a siren song beckoning earworms to a death more desirous than most noble men’s lives.

She didn’t just show up for a logo shoot, don a peasant blouse from the prop room and phone in her ever-so-accessible smile. No. She picked the corn in her basket, fresh with the morning dew from a field so lush and tall it tickles God’s toes at the throne of heaven. She can work the entire day through without pitting-out her divinely white blouse, and still have enough magic left to grind the corn with a wink of her eye and bake fresh tortillas in the warmth of her bosom.

Have I been improper? Uncouth? If so, I apologize. But the simple truth remains. Maria, your chips are my command.

I know I’m not the only one who has harbored a logo crush. You can click here to contribute to a poll on the most beautiful person in food. The leader so far? The Morton Salt Girl. That slicker’s a little north of the knee don’t you think? Oh to be from a simpler era. Comment and let the Green Porch know about your logo crushes. We’re all friends here.