Curtis Edmonds's Blog, page 21

A Matter of Policy

I am a horrible person. Let’s get that out of the way first. I am lazy, self-indulgent and vain. I have a foul temper and am capable of horrid acts of a passive-aggressive nature. I am irritable and can be irritating. As more than one person who has crossed my path can attest, I have a deep and thorough contempt for humanity.

I say all that to say this: you book bloggers out there need to shape up.

I have been looking at a lot of book blogs in my spare time lately. This is not because I have an overwhelming passion for book blogs. This ties in with “being a horrible person,” noted earlier. It is for selfish and avaricious reasons. I am trying to promote my book, and one good way to do that is to–again, for selfish reasons, and because I am a horrible person–to give free copies of the e-book to book bloggers. The idea is that the book blogger will read the book, and write (it goes without saying) a fair and unbiased review, and post it on their blog and maybe on Amazon or Goodreads, and this will help me sell more books, which will earn me more money, which I can spend on (given the amount of money I actually make) peanut M&Ms or other similar debaucheries.

Here’s the thing. There are a lot of these book blogs out there. There are a ton. And people start them and stop them all the time. There’s no one good list of them–there can’t be, obviously. And each of them is run by some person somewhere, and people are famous for all being different in lots of unique ways.

When I visit your book blog, I am looking for three basic pieces of information right up front. Two of them are usually fairly obvious; it’s the third one that can be tricky. The first two are:

* What kind of books does this person like? (This should be readily apparent, or it’s not a book blog, not really.)

* When was the last book review posted? If the date on the last book review was in the last week or two, that’s good news. If it was March 2011, then I can close the tab and go to the next one without a problem.

The third one is:

* What is the review policy?

In a well-designed book blog, there should be a link to the review policy right in the header. Sometimes you’ll find a “contact” page and that has a review policy there, and that’s OK. I can live with that. But a lot of them don’t have a policy, or don’t post it.

I am writing this to tell you this one thing, please, for the love of God, if you run a book blog, please put a link to your review policy where I can find it without having to guess.

I say “please” because this is a free country. You absolutely do not have to do one thing ever to make my life easier. You don’t have to have a policy or link it or whatever. You are free to write your review policy in your own urine and hide it under Johnny Carson’s back porch. But if, you know, you want free books, it might be a good idea to let me know how to send you a free book somewhere on your site, and it wouldn’t hurt to make that link obvious. Okay? With me so far? Good.

Here’s the next part. If you are not accepting new books for review, say so at the very top of your review policy. I understand. I do. I write book reviews too. I have a to-be-read shelf that won’t take another title. If you’re not taking books for review, I fully support your decision. Just tell me that, so I can move on to the next person. There is very little in this world more annoying than reading someone’s sixteen-paragraph review policy and then finding out that they’re not taking new books. Tell me up front, please.

Further, if you do not accept self-published books, let me know that, too. I understand that, too. I write for an outlet that doesn’t accept them, either. (Hell, they didn’t accept my book, and I’ve written for them for free for ten years.) Just say that, and I’ll go my sweaty way.

It also helps if you tell me what kind of books you like, but I can usually tell that from your blog. (It also helps if you say, hey, I don’t like Southern Gothic novels about dead tennis players, but that’s kind of being personal when you think about it.)

I love book bloggers. You are all wonderful people, and I (as I have explained) am a horrible wretch. It would be wonderful if I had all the time in the world to read book blogs, and it would be wonderful if book bloggers had all the time in the world to read every book they wanted to. But we live in an imperfect world, and I don’t want to waste your time any more than you want to waste my time. If you tell me what your policy is in a way that I can find it and follow it, that’ll help us both.

Sales Figures – Updated

I had a very lively KDP Select free offering last month for my debut novel, RAIN ON YOUR WEDDING DAY, giving away just over 18,000 books worldwide. And that’s translated into fairly nice sales so far. (These are just the American numbers; the foreign numbers are really peanuts in comparison.)

Month
Total Sales and Borrows
Total Royalties


February 2013
9 sales, one borrow
$20.58


March 2013
18 sales, one borrow
$38.43


April 2013
101 sales, 41 borrows
$306.46


May 2013
34 sales, 25 borrows
$124.75 (estimate)

Total (to date)
162 sales, 68 borrows
$490.22 (estimate)

I am not sure why I am posting this. It’s not bragging. I am still deep in the hole on this project, and I am more liable to dig myself deeper in the hole than not. It just makes me feel better to see the numbers in print somewhere.

Star Wars: The Phantom Sequel Menace

by Curtis Edmonds and Ryan Garcia

2015

Star Wars Part Seven: Rise of the Lens Flares – J.J. Abrams directs the first new installment of the series, where new Sith Lord Darth FreshPrince (Will Smith) and his padawan, Darth Junior (Jaden Smith) lead a daring raid on the Antares Retirement Home, where Han Solo (Harrison Ford) leads the aged Rebel forces to convince invading stormtroopers to get off the lawn and to stop playing that John Williams music so damn loud.

2017

Star Wars Part Eight: Sith Lords in Black – After the critical failure of Part Seven, Disney brings on Barry Sonnenfeld to direct a humorous take on the franchise, bringing back Will and Jaden Smith in a comical adventure where the Sith and the Rebel Alliance join forces to take down an attack led by Megan Fox from Planet Bridezilla. Many critics consider Woody Allen’s co-starring role as the voice of a Gungan diplomat to be a low point in franchise history.

2019

Star Wars Part Nine: Blood of the Jedi – After Disney announces that Steven Spielberg will direct the new version, mobs congregate at Disney production offices and at the new “Welcome To Dagobah” park in Central Florida. The protests turn bloody and violent over rumors that Shia LaBeouf will play Han Solo’s son in the new movie. At the last moment, Spielberg appeases the mob and steps down. Faced with a tight production schedule and sensitive to ongoing fanboy criticism, Disney brings in splatter director Eli Roth to helm the first R-rated episode (after four edits to come down from NC-17). The entire cast, with the exception of Megan Fox, is killed in the final scene. Fans rejoice.

2021

Star Wars Part Ten: The Lake on Naboo – Stung by criticism of the prior movie for its violent cruelty and blood-soaked misogyny, Disney makes its first attempt to bring the female moviegoing audience into the franchise and taps Nick Cassavetes to direct a Stephenie Meyer script about the love affair between Anakin and Padme. The movie culminates in a forty-five minute cuddling session between the two leads. The studio is pleased by the critical reception, the lower production costs, and sales of the “Romantic Encounter Anakin” action figure. Fanboy anger is mollified when Disney executives threaten, “If you don’t go see the next one, we’re bringing back Lucas.”

2023

Star Wars Part Eleven: The Oil Bath - Continuing the exploration of pivotal Star Wars relationships in this fourth trilogy, Part Eleven features Ang Lee’s take on R2D2’s complicated relationship with C-3PO. From their initial, naked encounters to the time spent alone in the desert to the years of silent, longing whistles into space, Lee’s focus comes at the same time society is coming to grips with the potential for human-artificial intelligence love. It becomes the first movie in history to be protested by both the religious right and GLBT groups alike.

2025

Star Wars Part Twelve: A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villany – The first Star Wars musical is brought to life by the genius of director Baz Lurhman, with original music and choreography by Lady Gaga. The classic slave-girl meets bounty-hunter story, set in the Mos Eisley Cantina, wins three Best Song nominations, including “I Shot First,” “Those Aren’t The Droids You’re Looking For,” and the Academy Award-winning showstopper “May The Force Be With You.”

2027

Star Wars Part Thirteen: Clear Eyestalks, Full Heartscreens, Can’t Lose the Force – After the last disastrous trilogy, director Peter Berg takes Star Wars into a smaller era. The Force has disappeared, leaving the New Jedi Order alone in small outposts to eke out a living. Their weekly pastime, Friday night lightsaber battles, forms the basis for small town life for the Jedi and their family. Kyle Chandler wins the first acting award in a Star Wars movie with his portrayal of Coach Lethro Pritchett.

2029

Star Wars Part Fourteen: A Great Disturbance in the Force – A new Empire, more powerful than the old, arises from the ashes with an even larger space station, known as the Doomsday Star, capable of destroying every planet in its path. A race of super-intelligent robots from a distant corner of the galaxy arrive to take it on, and need the help of a young boy and a thinly-clad supermodel to explode the Doomsday Star before it causes any more explosions than it already has. Michael Bay directs.

2031

Star Wars Part Fifteen: The Unmoveable Object – Director Christopher Nolan is coaxed out of his self-imposed retirement following the disastrous Justice League II: The Wrath of Captain Carrot to helm the triumphant return of the Force featuring three generation of Smith actors (the return of Will and Jaden along with Jaden’s son, Twitter.com Smith). The plot is a twisted combination of backstory and random flash-forwards, but Nolan kills an Ewok in every scene so fans embrace the film as canon.

2033

Star Wars Part Sixteen: Anakin’s Quest – Disney taps Nicholas Bird, son of legendary Pixar director Brad Bird, to direct the first fully-immersive movie in the franchise’s history. Bird, the first director to grow up watching the initial trilogy, drafted a screenplay set in the competitive world of the podracer circuit. Although test audiences left the theater queasy and disoriented after being subjected to high-G stress, the movie opened to huge box office after the special effects were tweaked to reduce nausea.

2035

Star Wars Part Seventeen: The Wampa Cave – Wu Yi Fang, son of John Woo, continues in the footsteps of Bird by exploring the time lost in Luke Skywalker’s mind when he was captured by the Wampa on Hoth. The two hour cave shoot-out, filmed in one continuous take, resulted in the death of thirteen stuntmen and was initially cancelled by the studio until leaked footage became the first video to cross the one quadrillion views threshold on FaceTube.

2037

Star Wars Part Eighteen: Leave The Blaster, Take The Cannoli – The remnants of the aging sector of the Star Wars fanbase are outraged when Disney taps Sofia Coppola to direct the next movie in the franchise, but her handling of Tatooine mob justice, culminating in the rise of Jabba the Hutt and his takeover of the Mos Eisley casinos, wins the first Best Picture Academy Award in Star Wars history.

2039

Star Wars Part Nineteen: The Backwater Worlds – Former Disney star Miley Cyrus agrees to star in exchange for her daughter, Oxycont Styles, be given the director’s chair. The resulting movie is the first in franchise history to sell more tickets outside city centers than inside, with the exception of selling every ticket nationwide on April 20.

2041

Star Wars Part One: The Way It Should Have Been In The First Place: Bowing to fanboy demands, Kevin Smith directs the reboot of the storied franchise from an original script by Patton Oswalt featuring an Infinity Gauntlet-driven crossover of all major Disney owned intellectual property including Marvel, Star Wars, Disney, DC, The Muppets, Tintin, Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Titanic, and the newly re-booted Police Academy films. Both director and screenwriter die shortly after the premiere of the sixteen-hour epic, with Smith saying that “Now I can die in peace,” and Oswalt saying “I am just so glad they let me put Spider-Man in this movie, I can’t even tell you.” A new generation of Star Wars fanatics is born.

Thor Slaymaster’s Exit Strategy

“This was supposed to be a very short budget meeting,” Alvy said.

Thor Slaymaster didn’t say anything. He was trying to figure out the readings on the controls of the spacecraft. The changing green figures on the center display looked to be a proximity range of some sort. Whether the figures represented the proximity to the Alphabet ship or to the firm, flat, unyielding, deadly surface of the Earth was a matter of some current concern for Thor Slaymaster.

“You’d canceled it three times,” Alvy said. “Killbot invasion last Monday, helicopter malfunction last Thursday, and I don’t remember your last excuse.”

“Hangover,” Thor Slaymaster said.

“That’s not what you told me.”

“At the moment,” Thor Slaymaster said, “it is not that important.”

Thor Slaymaster was uncomfortable in spacecraft, the way he was uncomfortable in formal wear or chairs with armrests. Thor Slaymaster’s skillset did not encompass orbital dynamics or ballistic navigation or any of the approximately seventeen other specific knowledge bases that one would need to guide a damaged, pilotless spacecraft to either a convenient local space station or the surface of the large, blue planet below. Since neither the spaceship or the inconveniently deceased pilot was of human origin, this made Thor Slaymaster’s task of keeping himself alive unreasonably difficult.

“What you told me was that you were taking a quick trip up to the Alphabet ship to see Charlie, and that I could ride along, and we could go over the budget figures on the way up. That doesn’t seem to be working out so far.”

Thor Slaymaster briefly considered whether a controlled experiment involving throwing Alvy out the nearest airlock to reduce the ship’s drag coefficient would be beneficial. He concluded that it might be, but that other matters took precedence and that good combat accountants did not grow on trees.

“Do you know what is wrong with the pilot?” Alvy asked. “If we could wake him up, maybe he could tell us what to do.”

“Unlikely,” Thor Slaymaster said. While Thor Slaymaster had substantial experience with the anatomy of the aliens commonly known as “Alphabets,” his knowledge was mostly confined to the female of the species. However, he had every reason to think that the crack in the rear skull carapace that the pilot had experienced was as fatal as injuries get.

“Maybe I could do CPR,” Alvy said.

“They don’t have hearts,” Thor Slaymaster explained. “You’re an accountant. Do you know what the numbers there mean?”

“I think that one that looks like a saxophone might be a twelve.”

Thor Slaymaster considered the situation. He and Alvy were trapped on a small, not to say claustrophobic, spacecraft with a damaged communication system and a dead pilot, which, depending on just how you looked at the controls, was either hurtling out of control towards the oblivion of the asteroid belt or headed straight on a collision course with what looked to be Madagascar.

Thor Slaymaster knew his limitations. No man alive could do more damage to an oncoming zombie horde. But here, in deep space, most of what he knew was working against him. He needed help, but the only member of Team Slaymaster around for several hundred cubic miles of deep vacuum was not being very helpful right at the moment.

“Alvy,” Thor Slaymaster asked, “what exactly is it that you specialize in?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Slaymaster?”

“Well, I mean, we have you on Team Slaymaster for a reason. What are you good at? It can’t be just accounting. For both of our sakes.”

“You mean like Excel? Data mining?”

“You misunderstand. I mean like, skills that can help us get out of this spacecraft and somewhere safer.”

“You mean like an exit strategy?”

“Precisely,” Thor Slaymaster said.

“Okay,” Alvy said. “Exit strategy. What most people do is assess where they are and how they get out of it. Unfortunately, that’s counterproductive, because it focuses all your attention on where you are. What you want to do is figure out where you want to go, and work backwards from there to get to where you are.”

Thor looked out the pilot’s window at the blue mass of Earth. “How about there?”

“You’re not getting it,” Alvy said. “Your exit strategy has to be fixed on a specific goal. The Earth, for example, is a good place to go, but it is also a very big place. It’s mostly ocean, and if you land in the ocean there needs to be a ship around that can pick you up. I also think the prospect of landing a spacecraft in the uncharted ocean would frighten me just a little bit.”

“Slaymaster HQ, then.”

“Better. Now you just have to figure out how to find it after you decelerate from orbit. You know how to decelerate from orbit, right?”

“It is not my strong suit,” Thor Slaymaster said.

“If landing on Earth is not realistic, then what else do you have?”

Thor Slaymaster considered his options. “Shapeshifter mothership is a no-go. The moon is two days away, and I didn’t bring any snacks. I don’t want to go to the International Space Station if I can avoid it.”

“Why not?” Alvy asked.

“Their coffee is lousy. The Alphabet ship is probably our best option. They can probably get us back home faster than anywhere else.”

“Do you know the name of the ship, by any chance?”

“I think it’s called the EXPHARLABLIGZWOOZLEBLORGLE.” Every word in the native language of the Alphabet aliens had at least twenty-six letters.

“Because there’s a button on the left there that says that, and under that there’s another button that says WOOLERBLINGLEQUABBLEBLONGER, which I think means something like ‘autopilot’.”

Thor Slaymaster pushed the WOOLERBLINGLEQUABBLEBLONGER button, and the ship automatically fired its retro-rockets and slowed to a more survivable speed. He pushed the button for the Alphabet ship, and the spacecraft made a gentle turn until it was within the range of the ship’s tractor beams.

“Well done, Alvy,” Thor Slaymaster said.

“Thank you, Mr. Slaymaster. Now, if you could just take a quick look at the third quarter ammunition spending. What we’re seeing here is a trend…”

Goodreads Giveaway

.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(http://www.goodreads.com/images/layou... background-repeat: repeat-x; background-color:#BBB596;
outline: 0; white-space: nowrap;
}
.goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink:hover { background-image:url(http://www.goodreads.com/images/layou...
color: black; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;
}


Goodreads Book Giveaway







Rain on Your Wedding Day



by Curtis Edmonds

Giveaway ends May 25, 2013.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Final Report on Kindle Direct Publishing Free Promotion

Well, it’s been five eventful days. Here are the final numbers:

Country
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Total


United States
7723
3995
1784
2069
2162
17733


United Kingdom
41
48
37
51
49
226


Germany
5
4
0
1
0
10


France, Spain, Italy
1
1
2
2
0
6


Canada
9
7
2
6
3
27


Japan
0
1
0
0
0
1

The grand total is 18,003 free books given away around the world. Add to that five new reviews on Amazon, one new review on Goodreads and a bunch of people adding the book to their shelves on Goodreads, and I think I’ve done a lot to raise awareness about the book.

What I’m told is that it takes a few days for the free-book giveaway to turn into real sales. We’ll see how that goes.

Report on Fourth Day of Kindle Direct Publishing Free Promotion

These are the Sunday numbers. I spent all day either taking a nap or going to a baseball game, and almost no time doing any promotional stuff except for nearly getting my company Kindle account busted for spamming early in the morning. Still gave away a bunch of books. Still in top 100 on the free Kindle list, but it fell down to #2 in literary fiction last I checked.

Country
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday


United States
7723
3995
1784
2069


United Kingdom
41
48
37
51


Germany
5
4
0
1


France, Spain, Italy
1
1
2
2


Canada
9
7
2
6


Japan
0
1
0
0

I have a ton of tweets scheduled for tomorrow (more to shore up the UK numbers than anything) and that’s all the promotional stuff I am going to do for now. I am watching Duck Dynasty instead.

Report on Third Day of Kindle Direct Publishing Free Promotion

I am going to commit a little bit of heresy here, but I want to give you the numbers first, in case you’re curious. The Saturday numbers are actually over a little shorter period of time – 11:30 last night to 9:45 tonight.

Country
Number of Giveaways – Thursday
Number of Giveaways – Friday
Number of Giveaways – Saturday


United States
7723
3995
1784


United Kingdom
41
48
37


Germany
5
4
0


France, Spain, Italy
1
1
2


Canada
9
7
2


Japan
0
1
0

So the numbers are down a little. No big deal. Nothing to worry about.

Here’s the heretical part. I am thinking maybe this is a good thing. Maybe giving away too many books, at least this early, is a bad thing. This is what I’m thinking:

1. The promotional stuff that I have been doing so far has been, as far as I can tell, mostly ineffective. I put in for free slots on a bunch of the promotional websites, and the majority of the sites didn’t so much as list the book. I have been hitting Twitter hard and heavy (slacked off a little on Saturday, which shows in the data), but that hasn’t generated that many hits on my tracking system. (Unfortunately, you can’t use the Amazon affiliate program to track free sales because it doesn’t record free sales.)

2. Having said that – yeah, something is working. But what? Why? I don’t have the first clue what I did right (other than, you know, write a good book and get a good cover). And I don’t know what I don’t know, and I don’t know how to figure out how to learn it.

3. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. I am not really trying to just give away a lot of books here. I am not really trying to get more reviews (only gotten one additional review so far, although it was very nice.) I am not really trying to get a lot of Goodreads additions (although I have). I am trying to have this book do well enough to get me excited about writing the next one, and finding a traditional publisher for the current one or the next one, however that works out. The free numbers are a mean to an end, not an end in and of themselves, and maximizing those numbers may not do quite as much for me as you’d think.

Report on Second Day of Kindle Direct Publishing Free Promotion

I am sitting on my couch watching Duck Dynasty reruns, so I’m just going to post the numbers:

Country
Number of Giveaways – Thursday
Number of Giveaways – Friday


United States
7723
3995


United Kingdom
41
48


Germany
5
4


France
1
1


Canada
9
7


Japan
0
1

It looks like there’s been a dropoff, but the Thursday numbers go from 4AM Thursday to 7AM Friday, and the Friday numbers go from 7AM Friday to 11:30 PM Friday, so you’re losing a few hours, but I hope to God I get to sleep late tomorrow.

Report on First Day of Kindle Direct Publishing Free Promotion

I put my book, RAIN ON YOUR WEDDING DAY, a Southern Gothic novel about a father recovering from the death of his daughter, out on free promotion starting yesterday, April 18, 2013.

I got up yesterday morning and found that there were 29 giveaways. By the time I got to work, there were a couple hundred. By the time I ate lunch, there were about a thousand. By the time I got home, there were about 2500.

It’s been a little over 27 hours since the novel first went for free online. As of right this minute, this is the total number of giveaways is so far:

Country
Number of Giveaways


United States
7723


United Kingdom
41


Germany
5


France
1


Canada
9

I am a little biased, but I think that’s impressive. How does that translate to the Amazon bestseller list?

#17 overall.

#1 on literary fiction.

#2 on women’s fiction.

It’s been a very gratifying day so far.