Cyber Monday Ebook Sales!

Black Monday may be gone, but Cyber Monday is just around the corner! Check out some great ebook deals – for less than the price of a sandwich you can feed your imagination!

http://www.amazon.com/lm/R17NP7HPI2V7ZB/
Be sure to check out the link, lots of great books to read!

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Hey, Lets Get Us Some New Gatekeepers…

St. Louis GateKeepers (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am going to refrain from linking to it, or naming it, as I am pretty sure, it’s a bad idea.

I just ran across a link to a website on Facebook, in my newsfeed, which claims to ‘endorse, and vet Indie books’. Look I know on paper, that might seem like a very good idea, but it’s not – for all sorts of reasons. To begin with, a monster like that, is sure to become entrenched within the independent book community, even come to demand of itself to be seen as the beginning and end of what is considered ‘the standard’ for what should be allowed to be published. Secondly, I think the presumption does a disservice to would be writers, or up and coming authors, end up boxing them out, just in the same manner Big Six NY publishers have done.

Its easy enough to see such a group begin to demand that sites like Smashwords, Lulu… or Amazon insist that their published works begin to carry their vetting sites mark of approval. Actually, I don’t think Mark Coker at Smashwords would ever allow such a thing to take place, Amazon however – they already have lots of power, and seem to sway toward being control freaks.

Trust me, if these  ’standards’ existed before, there never would be any rising indie authors. Most, if not all would fall short and be discouraged. The beauty, the power of indie authorship, is in its Wild West nature.

No one vets, or seems to seek to vet, indie music, movies, or painters – those artists are allowed to put forward their work with no (or very little) feeling of guilt for doing so, sometimes even praise for daring to do it provides their work more value. But a book! how dare a writer dare to walk about beyond the gatekeepers. Even among our own, we keep pushing the impulse to regulate, as if a bad book someway kills us all. Trust me, it won’t. There’s no reason the same sort of openness among graphic artists, and indie bands should not me allowed to go forward among indie authors. Well, unless we foolishly begin to regulate ourselves – as if what we turn out has an impact on the health and safety of our fellow human beings. Bad writing, or novels won’t scar anyone, sometimes even ‘classics’ emerge from out of total cheese.

I just see the seed being planted, to replace the old system, with exactly what the new one came along to rip down. And it makes no sense to me whatsoever.

Author MetaCultures?

The Werewolf of Fever Swamp (TV special) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Right, OK. My writing journey began in the public sense on Myspace. This was the time before ebooks began their ascent and Lulu.com was where aspiring, Indie Authors went to get their stuff out there. It still is, but I think it has become secondary to both CreateSpace, and ebooks in general.

Now I would blog on Myspace, share my writing, and thoughts on almost any subject which attracted a good amount of attention, met some cool people, and had my share of internet heartache.

Now putting “author” or “writer” along with Lulu.com on my Myspace profile attracted all sorts of people. For both  good and ill. Among them I came across a certain notorious… horror author/publisher, who  I’m pretty sure many of us have encountered at one point or another. My only reason for even bringing him up is as a lead in to an observation I have made regarding online writing, and author metacultures.

Via my encounter with the notorious horror writer I observed what I guess I’ll term the Chicago horror-Gothic authors. This metaculure seems to be made largely of authors who publish through small publishers dedicated to horror and Gothic genres.  They also seem, how shall I put it? Well, they hold themselves in rather high regard…

Anyhow, I made the observation there seem to be at least two (and there may be others) parallel author cultures going, on, setting aside those who are part of the NY Publishing Establishment. You seem to have this small time press culture which as far as I can tell is mainly focused on horror and Gothic genres. Much of it seems to have an epicenter in Illinois.

And then there are those of us who mainly e-publish via Amazon Kindle and Smashwords.

Am I crazy? Is this just a figment of my own mind and there really is no demarcation going on?

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I Went To Read A Paperback And…

A stack of generic mass-market paperback books. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I went to read a paperback last night and after reading ebooks lately it felt really awkward and clumsy.  Has anyone else had that experience? The whole feel of it just was off, and not enjoyable. I’d guess this is the exact inverse of what those addicted to paper books assume will be their experience reading on an ereader.

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Smashwords, Read An Ebook Week!

All my books are listed as “Free” for Smashword’s read an ebook week. Just use the coupon code at each ebook link when you checkout to get your free ebook. Have fun, and good reading!

Support Indie Authorship! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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