Marjorie F. Baldwin's Blog, page 5

Amazon KDP has NOT paid royalties for 2Q12 so should I keep giving them books? @markcoker have u heard about this?

I released Conditioned Response on April 20th. It was a tumultuous release and didn't really start gaining traction until May, but I sold copies in both the Amazon Kindle Store and the Smashwords direct sales method in April.

And in May (LOTS! Thank you, everyone who bought a copy).

And in June (a few but I didn't really promote since I was focused on real life).

And I've already sold several in July though I'm giving the book away free now so I don't count "free giveaway" as "sales" even though they do impact my sales rank.

So I had figured back in April that I would see money from Amazon on or about July 1st (for the April, May and June sales) because that's what happened in the past over on my real name KDP Author Account. I have the same banking information correctly entered on both accounts so it shouldn't be a problem. But it is.

Amazon has not paid me, not one cent. It's been 2 weeks (just about, as today's the 13th) and there are threads on the KDP Community forums like "post here if you got paid in June" with a lot of people claiming to have received their royalty payments already--dating back to around June 20 something, in fact.

It's not millions or hundreds of thousands or even one thousand but it's more than $10. Interestingly enough, I got the $12.88 I was owed over on my real name Author account. So you would think if they could pay a double-digit royalty, they could pay a triple-digit royalty, right? Wrong.

Pursuing Amazon for my money (they are basically stealing my books if they're not paying me royalties on them) is a separate issue I'll have to contend with but I'm now wondering, should I really be considering giving them more books to steal? I mean if they cannot or will not pay Marjorie F. Baldwin the hundreds of dollars she is owed, but can pay me under my real name the ten bucks I earned "by accident" (I didn't promote the book, it sold itself) then why am I really considering giving them EXLUSIVE RIGHTS to the forthcoming short story When Minds Collide (WMC)?

I've been so keen on entering WMC into the KDP Select Program so as to try out its free giveaway process for "loss leading" sales of for-pay novels (to see if giving away WMC would sell Conditioned Response ) but given I have not yet been paid for Conditioned Response for the last 3 months, I'm having serious doubts about this.

I'd really like to hear what some of you think. I suspect I'll get more replies on Facebook and Twitter than here on the blog but please let me know your reaction to this non-payment by Amazon for 3 months of royalties. Several hundreds of dollars may not seem like much to quibble over, but it's a whole month's worth of life to me!

-Friday
@phoenicianbooks

Want a FREE #eBook to beat the summer heat? #CondResp is #1 Hottest #SciFi on #Goodreads + #2 Best Beach Read for 2012

If you haven't gotten your copy of Conditioned Response yet, get it now, while it's hot--and FREE! I just reactivated the code to enter the book into the Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale, a site-wide blowout with tens of thousands of free and discounted eBooks. Just click here to go to the book's page on Smashwords, then click to "Buy" the book but at checkout, enter the code SSWIN into the coupon box and click "Update" to change the price from $7.99 to $0.00 (free!)

Of course, if you want to pay full price, I can definitely use the money (LOL) but I don't mind making this a gift. Think of it as an early "Christmas in July" present from me to you. If you'd like to say thank you (it's only polite), please consider leaving me a review on the Smashwords book page (since you'll have, technically, bought the book, you're able to leave a review) and/or on the Goodreads book page here.

Thanks for having a look. The first 30% of the book is free to download as a "Sample" even if the coupon code expires before you get to use it. I'll be DEactivating the code prior to the end of the promo event. Sorry, but you need to get this baby while it's hot!

-Friday

When Minds Collide excerpt, full story coming soon! #WMC #CondResp #indie #scifi #thriller

Just finished editing the following excerpt from When Minds Collide . I love this imagery.

#

He tried to open his mouth but it felt sealed shut, like his eyes. Something brushed over his lips and he felt a tugging on his chin, as though cloth were catching on his beard.  Wait, he had a beard? No, he didn’t. Part of him remembered having a beard but another part of him, that secondary part of him with the strange thoughts, that part of him was sure he did not wear a beard. He could clearly remember shaving on a regular basis—even, being shaved by someone else on a regular basis.

An image of a sunlit room flashed into his mind. It was a loft and full of light and open spaces. It was arranged like a bathroom and he was in a bathtub full of warm, soapy water. The sun was gleaming into the room through a high, intricately designed stained-glass window. The colored light was warming the top of his head—and he wasn’t alone. William was there, facing him, holding his chin between thumb and forefinger to tilt his face. William was shaving him and they were laughing. The forefront of his mind shuddered away from the thought while that secondary part of him warmed to it—and delighted in his own disgust. His heart raced in terror. These thoughts were not his own.

#

Almost done with writing this story--or rather, drafting and readying it for First Readers. Should be able to release it by this time next weekend. woo-hoo!

When Minds Collide

Edited on July 30 to add:
The book is being released (official date is Aug 1) and both the opening paragraphs and the blurbage have changed since the below was posted.

Get When Minds Collide free exclusively at Smashwords until Aug 1, then it'll start shipping to eTailers everywhere (note to Kindle owners: because Amazon prohibits Indie Authors from pricing books as "free" unless we agree to grant exclusive rights to Amazon, I'll have to charge 99c at the Kindle Store but you can get a Kindle format file FREE at Smashwords and use SendToKindle to get it onto your device)

###

Here are the opening paragraph or three for the short story that will precede Conditioned Response by about 400 years. This short will be released in July, 2012. I'll be giving it away for free to introduce people to the series. The blurbage (still being tweaked so feel free to wordsmith blurbage too if you like) is as follows:

When two brilliant scientists die together in a careless traffic accident, the Community, a fledgling human colony on an alien world, suffers a devastating blow. Joshua Scherrer and Andrew Caine might have loathed each other personally, but their collective knowledge was vital to humanity’s survival on this Phoenician world. Without them and their contributions, Administrator Stafar Baghendi fears for the very survival of humanity’s last stand.

In a desperate attempt to salvage both men, Stafar Baghendi uses an untried, theoretical gene therapy process, infusing the genetically-encoded memory of Andrew Caine into the DNA of Joshua Scherrer. The two men awaken to find themselves living together inside one mind, but their clashing personalities might prove a more fatal collision than the one that killed them the first time.

What none of the humans realize is that here on the Phoenician home world, nothing happens that isn’t in the Plan of the Seven Chiefs. There’s always a Plan—and this time, the Plan will change the course of human history forever.


Please tell me what you think of either the blurbage or the story or both. Remember, the following is an excerpt from an early draft so some of the content here may have changed by the time the story is published. In fact, I can tell you now, the content has changed but you'll get a sense for my style and voice from reading this. If you like the following, please download the eBook when it's published--then buy Conditioned Response! :)

#

William Harrington froze, his hand just short of opening the door to the lab. He hesitated because he knew there’d be a fight once he went through that door. He stopped and procrastinated another minute in the hallway. Despite being Director of Security for the Community, a surly bunch of independent thinkers, William Harrington did not enjoy arguments. He enjoyed peace and quiet. He definitely didn’t want to argue with his husband, Andrew Caine, today but it was almost inevitably going to be the case. Drew had a long-practiced tendency to argue with people who told him he couldn’t have what he wanted. Drew would succumb eventually, he always did. William had won many an argument over the years by just weathering the storm with the silent treatment, but today there would be an unpleasant interchange to get there, one Will wasn’t sure he wanted to endure—not that he had a choice. The entire Membership of the Community had gathered and unanimously voted. William was officially tasked to shut down Drew’s research lab. The cowards.

William thought closing the lab was a bit harsh. They could have let Drew pursue some other line of research but William had completely agreed on the need for limits, even for the great Andrew Caine, Father of all Artificial Lifeforms. Especially for Drew. He’d bestowed that illustrious-sounding title onto himself and if he was allowed to move forward with the Artificial Lifeforms, or ALs, that he was designing right now, it wouldn’t turn out well. It was bad enough Drew thought of himself as God, creating a new life form; but these things Drew was making, the Ronningers, weren’t life. They were death, personified. Literally.

William had to concede the artistry of the Ronningers but artistic though they might be, they were also completely unethical. That’s why Alfred Ronninger, himself, had abandoned the proposal before constructing a functional model. And that’s why they hadn’t Ronningers to manage the ship for the long journey from Earth, instead opting to manage the sustainment of over a dozen humans. The most-obvious problem with Ronningers was, you couldn’t simply turn them on and off. You couldn’t even retrain them as you would a real person. You had to actually open up their skull and literally replace the hardware to stop them from performing their designated tasking. A Ronninger’s Inorganic “brain” would literally work its Organic body to death. A recursive loop would be better in William’s opinion. He didn’t see the sense in hard-wiring a person with an AI for a brain—not just to force it into a dedicated tasking.

At the very least, these things should have been re-programmable. Like his Proctors. They were people, sort of, and they could be retrained. Future generations of Proctors would be programmable—or that was what he’d proposed when he’d pitched the Proctor Program to the Community Membership. Ronningers, however, had no humanity left in them. Ronningers didn’t think, didn’t feel, didn’t have a conscience. At least William’s Proctors, even if they ended up so brainwashed they lost all perspective, would be people not machines.
That was what bothered William the most: how Ronningers were made. They started with a normal human design but then, the human had to die for the Ronninger “brain” to be installed. After all, you had to scrape out the human skull to make room for the hardware. It was untenable, from cradle to grave—literally, for the human. He simply couldn’t believe Drew, his Drew, had bought into this plan.

Drew was trying to make a Ronninger that could be reprogrammed in vivo, one that could learn. To Drew, it was more of an AI question than an AL design flaw, so he’d tried to enlist the help of their resident AI expert, Joshua Scherrer. Of course, Russian Orthodox Fundamentalist Scherrer would have nothing to do with the Ronninger project. He might share a building with Andrew but he didn’t want to share his work ethics. William didn’t blame him. William didn’t want to share Andrew’s ethics at the moment either.

Without Scherrer’s assistance, Drew had forged ahead alone. He’d already failed through two versions this month. For those, he’d used the shells of people who’d been dead before the crèche could be opened to attempt resuscitation, but this last one hadn’t been dead yet. Drew had actually terminated the man—still inside the crèche! That was murder, plain and simple. It was hard for William to believe that Drew had actually crossed that line. The man he’d fallen in love with all those years ago could never kill someone in cold blood that way.

A gathering of the entire Original Membership had called William in and confronted him, as though he’d know what Drew was doing in his lab--no, as though he were responsible for what Drew was doing in his lab. William had insisted there had to be a mistake so they’d sent him here to find out. If he opened that door and found a dead Proctor lying on the table, there’d be no denying it, no turning back. William would have to kick Andrew out of his own lab and lock it down. Worse, William would have to accept that the man he’d once loved had turned into a murderer and end their marriage. William wasn’t sure which would be harder.

William had caught the cowardice bug and called to ask Drew to lunch, just to spend a little quality time together. That way, he didn’t have to interrupt Drew unexpectedly. Drew got irritable when he was interrupted without warning, and William wanted to at least try to talk before the shouting began. Drew probably thought William wanted a little nookie time, a romantic mid-day rendezvous. While he had to admit that’d be nice, really nice, William wasn’t at all interested if there was a dead man on Drew’s table.

The Membership had sent William here as the harbinger of doom because they knew William could quell any temper tantrum Drew might throw. Not to mention handling anything else the large and passionate Scotsman might throw. There’d probably be a few objects sent across the room, maybe a punch at something—or someone—definitely some fair number of swear words would be used before Drew calmed down again. No, Drew would definitely not be in a nookie kind of mood once William walked through the door. William was afraid what he’d find would kill his own nookie kind of mood as well. Permanently.

William procrastinated another minute by straightening his perfectly straight, knee-length, royal blue tunic. Then he adjusted the collar, which was buttoned up so tightly around his neck it was hard to adjust. He moved it back into perfect alignment and checked the toes of his spit-and-polish boots, hoping to find a mark he might have to clean off—anything he could use as a means of delaying the inevitable. Over a century of military-regimented habitual behavior had left him with a level of personal care and attention beyond reproach. Always. His long, dark hair loose down his back past his waist. He’d gathered it into a bunch at the back of his neck with a silver and gold filigreed clasp Andrew had given him as an engagement gift. He checked the clasp, touching it as though it would put him back in touch with the man who had given it to him all those years ago, then he opened the door against hope.
#

Andrew Caine looked up when the door opened and saw William hovering in the doorway, holding the door open staring with intent at Drew’s lab table. As always, Drew’s heart skipped a beat and he felt his face breaking into a smile, almost of its own volition. He always smiled at the sight of William Harrington. He couldn’t help it. The man was such a beautiful sight, like a sunrise or a rainbow. Well, a rainbow back on Earth. No rainbows here on the godforsaken Phoenician world. With less than six inches of rainfall a year, there wasn’t enough moisture in the air to make a rainbow. William was better than a rainbow.

Today, Andrew’s smile wasn’t just at the pretty little man standing in the doorway. Drew was actually happy his husband had come for a visit. They’d barely had two minutes together in over a week, mostly due to this project of Drew’s finally coming together and Drew had missed Will’s company. He’d been afraid William was going to give him the silent treatment again when he finally got home. He couldn’t bear that right now. He was so excited to tell someone about the results of this last test run. This new Ronninger design was going to work. It’d be the first of its kind, a brand new life form—and he’d created it! It would be theirs, together, their child. After all, William had helped by way of all his support this past year. This achievement would make up for everything Drew had put him through.

When William remained in the doorway, silent and unmoving, Andrew asked, “Are you early or am I running late again? I just had to finish this last recording, Will, you won’t believe what I’ve got here!”

“I need you to stop,” William said quietly. He sounded a little odd today. He was probably angry about Drew’s noticeable absence back at the house this past week. Once Will saw the results of last night’s tests, he’d understand. Will always understood the importance of Andrew’s work. Drew was making history, after all.

When Drew opened his mouth to explain, William repeated, “Right now, Drew, please.”

That’s when Drew saw the seriousness of William’s expression. Will’s mixed ethnicity and Asian heritage in particular made his face look so peaceful half the time, Drew never even noticed when he was “getting the look” as Will put it. He was definitely “getting the look” right now so he set the stasis field over the open skull area of the body on the MedTable before him.

“What’s wrong, Will? What happened? Is someone dead?”

“That man on the table in front of you appears to be dead, yes.”

“He’s not a man, Will.”

“He was--before you killed him and gutted out his skull.”

[to be continued]

There's WAY more of this ... Coming Soon!

#ThrillerThursday Beta Readers needed 4 #SciFi Short Story #WMC See blog 4 deets

So I'm posting this on the actual blog (I know! Shocker!) which will feed through to the Facebook Page and the twitterstream and the Goodreads blog and hopefully that'll reach everyone. Whew.

I'm nearly done with When Minds Collide , which I plan to release VERY soon and I'm soliciting "First Readers" to help me fine-tune the plotting, pacing and general readability of the story, as well  as the "Reader Experience" at The End. If you're interested in such a role, click through the jump break.
Read more »

#SampleSunday When Minds Collide a #SciFi short story sample at #Goodreads http://bit.ly/WMC-snippet

When Minds Collide is a short story in The Phoenician Series set about 400 years prior to when Conditioned Response takes place. It lets you get to know William Harrington more intimately ^)^ and you find out all the details of how Joshua Scherrer and Andrew Caine were crammed inside one skull to become the man later known as Joshua Andrew Caine.

Aptly named after the famous movie about a cultural clash of "worlds," When Minds Collide is essentially a character study of four men: Joshua, Andrew, William and Stafar Baghendi, who is a major character in the later books of the series.

When Minds Collide is not yet completed, but should be soon and it will be released first under the Amazon Kindle "KDP Select" program (exclusively to Amazon customers for 3 months) then after the requisite 90-day restriction is lifted, I'll distribute the book FREE to all the usual eTailers (iTunes, Kobo, Nook, etc.) via Smashwords.

Sample the story on Goodreads now. When it's done that blog post will click directly through to where you can download the completed eBook onto your Kindle.

Don't forget to
Thanks for stopping by!

-Friday

#SampleSunday Get #ConditionedResponse FREE at #Smashwords w/coupon SSWIN http://bit.ly/SW-CondResp #SciFi #eBook

Today begins the annual, month-long, site-wide blowout sale at Smashwords. If you've never heard of this before, let me tell you, it's HUGE!

All across Smashwords, books are being entered in a site-wide promotion called the Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale. Entering books gives us Authors and Publishers four (4) options for discount rates: 25%, 50%, 75% or FREE (100%). The "coupon code" to use at checkout is on every book page that is entered in the promotion so you don't have to remember them but SSWIN is the code to remember--that's the 100% off or FREE code ^_^

Conditioned Response is free for today, July 1, 2012, and then I'll remove it from the promotion for a bit, re-entering in a few days at the 50% off the regular $7.99 cover price (so $4 with the coupon code).

As always, when you buy a book at Smashwords--even using a coupon code to get it for free ($0.00)--you are entitled to unlimited downloads, all available formats, to any/all of your devices, without DRM of any kind, forever and ever. Get a copy of Conditioned Response now and then check out the other great books in the site-wide blowout sale at Smashwords here.

#SciFiSaturday #FREE giveaway Conditioned Response by @phoenicianbooks at http://bit.ly/SW-CondResp

Oops it's #SciFiSaturday Get ur FREE Classic #SciFi Conditioned Response by @phoenicianbooks w/coupon PU47X on Jun 30 then w/SSWIN on Jul 1

— Tweeted by @phoenicianbooks June 30, 2012 at 2012-06-30T13:14:18+00:00

 Somehow I feel like I'm in an endless loop of promoting the promo (LOL)

#amediting B4 I finish #writing #WMC! Also inside: Exclusive Discount for #Smashwords Readers

I re-read the draft of When Minds Collide (#WMC) before bedtime last night and I liked it better down at 800 words, it read more quickly and smoothly after my tweaks yesteday. But I still added another 200 words back in - just in case *haha* At about 1000 words to open the short story, this is still better than the 2000 I had and I think the rest will flow more quickly now.

The 3 major characters (William Harrington, Andrew Caine and Joshua Scherrer) are all introduced in the first 1000 words, each with a satisfying bit of "history" and solid-enough characterization that I think they are well-enough defined.

I like William a lot. I liked him in Conditioned Response , but I like going "back in time" by 400 years and seeing who he was before Drew had his "accident," before William became his "stoic martyr" self. As always, I have mixed feelings about Andrew (always have, always will) but I can't wait to merge and temper the ridiculously annoying Joshua Scherrer with Andrew Caine. When Minds Collide is the story of these two men becoming Joshua Andrew Caine.

There's just one thing I have not done so I'll need to edit the opener again . Caine and Scherrer are supposed to be "mortal enemies" and while I've established that they don't like each other, I wouldn't go so far as to call them "mortal enemies" just yet. I know how to edit now. I have the technology. I can repair them -- I mean break them *muaha*

I hate writing openers. I never write openers first. I always start at THE END and then skip around--or at least, work BACK towards the opener. I write the opener LAST. This chronological order business is just so wrong! I'm still hoping to wrap up the entire story in 5000 words...or 7500 at most! More snippeting at Goodreads soon!

Oh and in case you didn't notice this on Facebook or Twitter, for a limited time, get 25% off the cover price of  Conditioned Response . It's a Smashwords-Exclusive offer I'm running to support the SciFi and Heroic Fantasy Group Read at Goodreads (click here to join the discussion).


It's still the #1 Best Seller on Smashwords in the Science Fiction Dystopias category - but apparently, only if you're logged in. How strange that Smashwords gives different list results if you're not logged in! Welcome to Smashwords, huh?

-Friday
@phoenicianbooks

When Minds Collide (cover art, proposed)

So I've got two THREE versions but I posted the first to my Blogger which RSS feeds through here and I don't see it yet...and am here to post the second. Hmm. I'll post imgs in thumbnail size. You can click the image to see it larger.

The first version (with the eye smaller) will appear in another post whenever Goodreads decides to pull my RSS but I can link here to the original Blogger post:

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Then the second one, which I think I like better is here:





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Do you like the smaller eye or the larger eye? Please let me know @phoenicianbooks or in the comments on this blog.

The larger one kind of looks more "fake" to me. I like the zoomed in effect better though...if only I had a better eye (haha pun intended) I could have made the eye image I pasted into the cover "fade" better. I'm just an amateur cover designer - I had a professional do the first one, now you see why! :)

Then I "discovered" another photo of a closeup eye and pasted my explosion into it and voila, I have a third (and fourth) version...

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I think I actually like this better even though it's all blocky in the layout...or maybe because it's all blocked and aligned nice and straight? ETA: a "trimmed" version... I still like the blocky. Hmm...which do you prefer?

-Friday
@phoenicianbooks