Francis Berger's Blog, page 189

Erotica No More; It's Official.

The good people at Amazon sent me an email yesterday which confirmed their decision to have The City of Earthly Desire pulled from the erotica category on their site. 

It was not an easy dialogue, but Amazon staff were very open and fair during our debate over the content of the novel.  Unfortunately, the erotica category still appears on the site when you search for the Kindle version of the novel.  I hope it goes away very soon.

To find out what all the fuss was about, download a copy of the novel if you haven't already done so.  There's a free e-book download on all Amazon sites until July 15th. 

http://www.amazon.com/The-City-Earthly-Desire-ebook/dp/B009GB6DUK/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1373628792&sr=8-1

Free Kindle version of my novel now available at Amazon!

I humbly invite you to download an electronic version of my novel The City of Earthly Desire from Amazon . . . for free!  For the next five days - July 11 to 15 - the Kindle version of the book will be available on Amazon at no cost. 

You can still download and read the book even if you don't have a Kindle by downloading a free Kindle app.  

Please share the link below with anyone and everyone who might be interested.

Thanks for your support  . . . 

http://www.amazon.com/The-City-Earthly-Desire-ebook/dp/B009GB6DUK/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1373536575&sr=8-1

No Boob = No Mature Content. Or, How I Saved My Novel From The Erotica Category.

Before I describe the compromises I had to make to get The City Of Earthly Desire removed from the erotica classification and the restricted search Amazon had imposed upon it, let me just take a moment to state, plainly and clearly, that real mastectomies and the conditions that cause them are no laughing matter.  The mastectomy I will describe is of a different nature entirely. 

In a prior blog post, I outlined how my novel had been placed into restricted search and the erotica category because of mature subject matter on its cover.  For more background on the boob controversy, you can read this post:

http://francisberger.weebly.com/4/post/2013/07/uh-oh-boobies-time-for-a-mastectomy-or-how-i-became-a-literary-censorship-surgeon.html

Well, the mastectomy I performed on the cover of my novel worked.  Here's the proof:

Hello,

We’ve reviewed your response concerning the following book(s):

The City of Earthly Desire (ASIN: B009GB6DUK)

After further review, we have decided to remove the search restrictions so your book(s) will now be found in our general product search results.

We appreciate your feedback and apologize for any inconvenience caused by this temporary restriction.

Best Regards,

Ariel B.
Amazon.com

Funny how an artistic representation of a female breast is all it takes to land one in the realm of Fifty Shades of Gray and lesser known titles like Kidnapped the Wrong Sister and Sherriff's Gay Revenge. 

All kidding aside, a big thanks to Amazon for getting The City Of Earthly Desire off the erotica list and back in fiction.  It would have been a sad irony to see a novel that is essentially anti-pornography get stuck in the pornography section for eternity.

Categorize this one under lesson learned!

Uh-oh! Boobies! Time For A Mastectomy! Or, How I Became a Literary Censorship Surgeon.

A couple of days ago I went on Amazon.com and noticed The City of Earthly Desire had been removed from the historical fiction and literary categories I had assigned to it and had been placed into the erotica category.  I could not help but smile because I sort of saw it coming.  It's a strange book, mine.  A novel that deals with pornography without being explicitly pornographic.  I knew someone would eventually get confused over at Amazon. Regardless, suffice it to say I am not at all pleased with the novel being tossed into the erotica genre, especially without knowing about it, and I am in the midst of trying to extract the book from that risque genre and place it back in the fiction and literature section where it truly belongs.  

I asked Amazon what had prompted the re-categorization of the novel from literature to erotica.  Their response?  The book contains mature content and adult situations.  I argued that many novels that contain mature content and adult situations exist on Amazon without being classified as erotica.  My main point regarding my novel was this - as a genre, erotica has one goal and one goal only: to ignite sexual arousal and titillation in the reader.  Anyone who has read The City of Earthly Desire knows that the novel's focus is not to ignite sexual arousal.  On the contrary, the novel is deeply critical of lust and the forces that arouse the sexual passions.  Is there mature content?  Are there adult situations?  Of course.  How can there not be?  After all, the second half of the novel deals with strip clubs and the production of pornography; however, despite the risque subject matter, the novel itself is not pornographic in nature. 

My other concern about the novel's erotica classification was more business-minded.  Readers searching for erotica might stumble across The City of Earthly Desire and purchase it thinking they were going to get a steamy little tale of sweaty bodies and leather-domination;  they would be sadly disappointed to discover the novel did not contain all the explicit sex they craved.  On the flip side, potential readers interested in reading plain-old fiction might bypass the novel simply because they would think it was another panty-moistening epic penned by some sexually frustrated hack who lives in a dingy one-bedroom apartment above an adult novelty shop. 

Amazon acknowledged my concerns and admitted that their chief objection has less to do the text and had everything to do with the mature content on the book's cover.  What's the mature content?  Well, have a look at Egon Schiele's Mutter and Kind which graces the cover of my novel:
Do you see that nipple peaking out from the woman's left side?  That, my friends, is what I assume to be the mature content Amazon is so concerned about.  (Okay, the suggestive title doesn't help, but they didn't say anything about that!) 

So, what's a writer to do?  The answer is simple.  Become a surgeon and perform a mastectomy.  Eradicate the offensive mammary gland and maybe the mature content will go away.  Well, here is the post-surgery result: 
This is the image I hope will grace the cover of the novel and appear in thumbnails online from now on.  Did you spot the difference?  I hope Amazon does.  And I hope it's also enough to get The City of Earthly Desire off the erotica shelf and back in fiction where it belongs.  I'll post an update when I know the outcome. 

Until then, I have to admit I've been thinking about creating another cover for the book or, ideally, having someone else create a more professional cover for me.  I like Egon's image and I think it captures the essence of the book overall, but I have never been entirely satisfied with the cover I created.  That, however, is a tale for another day.   

Free Kindle Download - July 11 -15.

A free Kindle e-book version of the novel will be available for download through Amazon.com from July 11 to 15.  So if you haven't had the chance to pick up the book yet . . . well, here it is.   

More details and links will come shortly. 

Marketing An Indie Book? Be Prepared For Plenty Of Sausage Fests!

The online Urban Dictionary defines the slang term "sausage fest" in the following manner: 

"When the number of males in an environment/party/social gathering overwhelmingly exceeds the amount of females present." 

Now this might be a desirable environment for gay men, but most straight men prefer environments/parties/social gatherings where the male-female ratio is at least fifty-fifty and would vastly prefer the number of females to exceed the number of males present.  I don't think I have to go into the obvious reasons why . . .

So . . . what do sausage fests and many book marketing strategies - blog tours, Goodreads, Twitter, guest posts, Library Thing, etc. -  have in common?  Well, take the analogy of the sausage fest and rework the definition in the following way: 

Indie Book Marking - "When the number of independent authors trying to market their books overwhelmingly exceeds the amount of readers present."

Over 10,000 independent books are tossed onto the market every day.  That's over 365,000 books in any given year.  There are literally hundreds of thousands of independent writers out there all simultaneously vying to get their work recognized by the reading public.  Most of these authors, yours truly among them, are following the same advice concerning viable marketing strategies for self-published books:  we start blogs, open Twitter accounts, create Facebook pages, go on blog tours, etc., in the hope that we will build a "social media platform" which will garner a "following" and build "critical mass" which will in turn . . . aw, whatever.   

More often than not, the only people you will encounter while you are trying to promote your work -  on blog tours, websites, book sites, Twitter and all the rest it - are other independent authors who are also desperately trying to promote their work through the same means and venues.  Like a classic sausage fest, the literary/book marketing sausage fest becomes a sad spectacle of a bunch of unknown authors crowded into some small, insignificant space all distractedly awaiting the arrival of a few treasured readers who, for reasons best left alone, never manage to make it to the party.

In other words it becomes a giant game of:

Author 1: "Hey! Are you a reader? Wanna buy my book?"
Author 2: "Uh . . . no.  I'm an author.  Wanna read my book?"

Thankfully, I have enough of a sense of humor and enough pessimism to survive even the most lopsided sausage fests.  But it does make one
wonder . . . how do you get the word out to readers? 

Time will tell.  Until then, I take mine with mustard.

One more time just for kicks.

I've been having quite a bit of fun with these Goodreads giveaways so I thought I'd do one more.  This one only lasts a week - enter quickly.  .goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; background: white; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget img { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0 !important; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget a { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0; color: #660; text-decoration: none; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:visted { color: #660; text-decoration: none; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:hover { color: #660; text-decoration: underline !important; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget p { margin: 0 0 .5em !important; padding: 0; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink { display: block; width: 150px; margin: 10px auto 0 !important; padding: 0px 5px !important; text-align: center; line-height: 1.8em; color: #222; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; border: 1px solid #6A6454; border-radius: 5px; font-family:arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif; background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layo... background-repeat: repeat-x; background-color:#BBB596; outline: 0; white-space: nowrap; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink:hover { background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layo... color: black; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; } Goodreads Book Giveaway The City of Earthly Desire by Francis Berger

Giveaway ends July 10, 2013.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Great Giveaway Results

The giveaway on Goodreads was a real success. 

Congratulations to C.L. from Windsor, Ontario for winning a free copy of the novel. 

Thank you to the 1,112 readers who took the time to enter the giveaway. 

The Ashes of Publication

When people find out I like to write and that I have a book out on the market, one of the first questions they usually ask is - "How's the book doing?  Is it selling?"  I usually respond to this question by stating that the book is doing well, but it is not selling all that much.  This usually leads to a discussion about the publishing industry, marketing, success-stories, etc.  In the end, I usually state that I would be happy if the book became a "success" one day, but in my mind the book is already successful.  When all is said and done, the notion of "success" in publishing is not and has never been my primary motivation for writing. 

Now that's a pretty bold statement - but it is only bold if it is authentic.  Unfortunately, stating that one writes simply for the love of writing has also become a terrifyingly trite and contagious cliche.  I can't begin to tell you how many times I've seen writers express the same sentiment in their author blogs, blog tours, author interviews, etc.  It's a noble sentiment isn't it?  It's also a good lifeboat to cling to if your writing never goes anywhere in the world. 

Now, I personally know a few writers who are being honest when they claim they write simply for the passion of writing.  Like me, they haven't reached any notable level of name recognition or financial gain; nevertheless, they plug away at their stuff all the same happy to have the chance to produce work and get out there.  And I'll give the benefit of doubt to a few more writers I don't know who surely do it "for the love it" - writers who write stories about people and places that will never capture the attention of the masses spring to mind. 

But I find it impossible to believe that success and fame in publishing are not the primary motivations behind most writing being produced today.  This especially holds true for all the mimickers and gimmickers that chase the latest fads and trends hoping their version of the latest sado-masochistic, love-sick zombie-vampire saga will be the next Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey.  When those guys tell me they do it for the love of writing, I can't help but snicker just a little.  But hey, who am I to judge? 

Regardless, I believe there are writers, honest writers who do write because they are driven to write.  Though I am certain most would welcome a little extra cash and some of the other perks that come with "success", I have a feeling most will continue to write even if they never attain those things. The question is - why?  Why would a person write if they didn't harbor dreams of hitting it big? 

The answer to that is both simple and profound.  Writers who write for the love of writing experience an entirely different realm of existence when they sit down to put their thoughts to paper.  To writers of that caliber, the act of creation is a far more important matter than the dissemination and eventual success or failure of their creation.  They write primarily for themselves, these writers.  For them, writing is more than mere careerism and the acquisition of a few petty laurels.  For them, writing is survival - the essence of life itself.

Charles Bukowski is a good example of a writer of this kind.  My favorite Bukowski poems are the ones that deal with his creative process - the sitting down at the desk late at night, the turning on of the classical music on the radio, the opening of a bottle of wine, the lighting of a cigarette, the kissing of the typewriter, and finally, the act of creation itself.  The sheer joy, the absolute ecstasy Bukowski expresses when he describes how he crafted his poems is almost religious in nature. 

Of course, Bukowski eventually went on to attain a high level of "success" in his lifetime and his poems are still in print all over the world.  Oddly enough, his descriptions of his success in publishing never rival his descriptions of the act of writing itself.  In fact, he has an almost dismissive view of his published work.  It is of secondary importance to him, as displayed in the quote below:

'But, bottom line, when I write, it's for me. (He draws a deep drag off his cigarette.) It's like this. The "drag" is for me, the ash is for the tray... that's publication.'

I wonder how many writers who claim to write for the love of writing truly feel the same way?

Review of Autumn Falls by Bradford C. Philen

Now more than ever fiction has become little more than a form escape - one need only glance at the bestseller lists or current offerings on any book website to see that the only reason the majority of the reading public reads at all is to be entertained.  

This in itself is not a bad thing, but a closer inspection of bestseller lists and book sites will tell you that the reading public's general taste in fiction rarely rises above the teenage/young-adult/romance/horror/fantasy/erotica genres.  Once again, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does pose a problem for readers whose taste in literature rises above the superabundant fluff that populates bestseller lists.  

Where does one find good, serious fiction that entertains, but also explores and examines the human condition while simultaneously crafting the written word in a way that is both clear and aesthetically pleasing?

Bradford Philen's Autumn Falls is a good place to start.  

Through his protagonist Keith Baker, Philen invites the reader to ponder many intriguing themes:  the choices one makes in life, the lingering influence of the past, the mystery and banality of love, and the power of endurance in a world that often offers little more than suffering and indifference in return.  

Though it is set in the southern United States, the story transcends its setting and taps into a level of emotional universality that makes it accessible to all.  In many ways, the book fulfills Aristotle's theory of art serving as a mirror through which we are able to recognize our own characters and natures.  As I read the story, I stopped on several occasions and thought, "Ah, this is what it means to be human.  These are the obstacles we all must face in some form or other."

Written in a clear, crisp style, the narrative flows effortlessly from scene to scene and part to part.  Philen has a gift for dialogue; the conversations between characters are both memorable and authentic.  

In a world drowning in comic book prose, Autumn Falls exists as one of those increasingly rare kinds of novels - a novel about real people and real problems. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a story that allows them to touch the earth.  

Link to the novel:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159715072X/ref=cm_cr_mts_prod_img