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On short stories and the @WSJ idiocy

Posted on June 6, 2011
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So. Last, first. If you didn’t already see what’s going on with #YASaves on either Facebook or Twitter, the Wall Street Journal recently published an opinion piece masquerading as an editorial from Meghan Cox Gurdon. She basically said that all YA is full of doom and gloom and has an agenda of EVIL (you should read that in a dark, scary voice) and basically advocates censorship. I’m not going to link to the article because you can find it if you want to and it is so chock full of idiocy and inaccuracies that…well, I don’t want to give it any more time in the light than it has already had.

At first I was going to devote a whole blog post to it, like a bazillion other authors have already done. But then Barry Lyga (Fanboy and Goth Girl) really kind of said it all (for me).

I don’t have anything to add to that. There will always be people who have blinders on and nothing I say will change their minds. But happily, I know that a lot of teens out there know the truth and are w-a-y more intelligent than some adults give them credit for. And besides, anyone that speaks in generalities like “ALL YA is EVIL” is just an idiot and right up there with the people who say “All teens are stupid punks.”

So that’s all I’m going to say about that.

In other news, you might note that I’ve put up a page on my website with links to all of my short stories over on Smashwords. As of today, there are four available for you to read. I’m planning on adding more over time. I’d love to know what you think — Do you like them? hate them? love them? couldn’t care less? Does Smashwords work okay? What formats do you prefer? Really, anything.

And, of course, I’d like to remind you that YOU could be the main attraction in one of my short stories. Please do enter and help me celebrate the paperback release of Still Sucks to Be Me!

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So, how can you HELP your favorite author?

Posted on January 12, 2011
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There’s been a lot of talk lately on the general suckiness that is book piracy and the dark cloud traditional publishing is under. BUT ANYWAY…how about something more positive? You want to know how YOU can help your favorite author?

You do?

Glorious!

Here’s the most obvious one: buy their books. If you can afford to, buy them in hardback form, but really any sale will help (it’s not so much the extra money from the hardcover that helps more, though I won’t deny it, it’s the fact that often hardcovers come first and a book won’t necessarily make it to paperback if there aren’t enough hardcover sales, among other related tidbits like that).

As a follow up to that, don’t steal books. Every book you steal HURTS your fav author and this post is about how to HELP them. Because you want more books, don’t you? I know I do. I love books. I write ‘em, but I also read them. And buy them. A lot of people say they only download illegal copies of books to check them out, similar to how they might browse in a bookstore. Well, okay, fine then. IF you download a book illegally, do your perusal and if you like it enough to read it, then go buy it. That’s fair, isn’t it?  Anywho, onward…

Wait, you say. I can’t afford to buy a book! I can’t even afford a stick of gum! That’s okay. Hey, I’ve been there. Here’s where I’d insert a joke about just how poor I was growing up, but it would honestly just depress me AND you, so I’m going to skip it. But it’s true. Anyway, it doesn’t matter if you can’t buy the book. There are still TONS of other things you can do to support your favorite author:

  • Get the book from your local library. If the library doesn’t have your fav author’s book(s), ASK for them. Librarians are delightful people and they LOVE this kind of thing. They WANT to know what their patrons want. And book sales to libraries HELP authors. Not to mention, if the library buys the book, you’re helping more people discover that author. And if the copy wears out or the demand is high, the library will buy multiple copies. You can also donate copies of books to your library (hey, they are having budget crunches too).
  • Tell your friends. Seriously. Word of mouth is HUGE. I trust the opinions of my friends and tweeps more than I trust some stuffy reviewer in Kirkus (sorry, Kirkus). If you tell just one friend and they buy the book and tell a friend…you get the idea.
  • If you have a blog, review the book (heh. particularly if you happen to like it).
  • Review the book on book sites, like Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Waterstones and W.H. Smith and …you get the idea. Not to mention Library Thing and Goodreads and Shelfari and…ahem. Like I said, you get the idea. Reviews really do make a difference. Not only are people seeing your opinion and learning more about the book or author, some stores see the number of reviews as a reflection on the popularity of a book. So, they see a book with a lot of reviews and think, hey, perhaps we ought to order more of those…
  • Oh, and if you’re a book blogger / book reviewer, please do read this post from Waxman Literary on ARCs. Good stuff. So true.
  • If you’re in a bookstore and you don’t see your fav authors book(s) on the shelf, ask that they be carried. Or at least mention it to staff. This works in shops both large and small. They may or may not carry it just because you asked (if you’re not making an actual order), but it at least gets the author’s name / book title some notice. In my personal experience, I’ve seen a store that didn’t have my second book, but they had my first one. When I asked, they said they wouldn’t carry the second one until two people had asked for it by name. Me asking, of course, made no difference. ;P
  • Say you’re in that bookstore again. This next suggestion will probably get me the ire of some booksellers, but how about facing out the book(s) of your favorite author? Face front books are more likely to get noticed than spine out books. Hoo! Guerrilla marketing! If you really want to be radical, I suppose you could move them to an end cap (that’s the shelves at the end of aisles). Or, for something less to be frowned on by the booksellers, why not enthuse about your fav author / books to the sales people? You never know — hearing from you how awesome a book or author is may make them want to read the book or promote it themselves to bookstore patrons.

Anyway, that’s some thoughts for now. Anyone else have any ideas? I’d love to hear them. Questions too — I’ll take them.

And me? I think I’m off tomorrow to go buy some books from some of my favorite authors…because I want a world in which books keep coming and coming.

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So, what do I think about book piracy, anyway?

Posted on January 12, 2011
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Hiya. Nice to meetcha. Sorry you’re not going to find what you were looking for (if you were looking for anything in particular).

The post that lived here has actually been removed because:

  1. It was old and contained information that no longer applies to me or to the general book piracy discussion at large. I had added addendums to it but so much of it was old info that it seemed silly to keep it, and, perhaps most importantly…
  2. Pro-piracy (and anti-piracy, for that matter) pundits kept pulling out single sentence quotes from it to try and prove their respective points, disregarding all the other things I had written. I was tired of being mis-represented. I can’t delete all their links, but I can at least prevent new ones. Lastly…
  3. I really don’t know what I think about book piracy. It’s a many faceted beast and there are no easy answers no matter what proponents of either side of the debate say.

Anyway, now that you’re here, feel free to stick around and learn about me and my books or short stories. Or not, as the mood strikes you. Either way, have a good day and keep reading.

[ 34 Replies ]

Letters & Packages to "Any Solider"

Posted on November 7, 2007
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I got a forwarded email today from my MIL about sending out Christmas Cards to “Any Wounded Solider” at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and thought it sounded like a great idea. But being the suspicous Internet user that I am, I looked it up and I found out that such packages can no longer be delivered and, apparently, have been tossed out since 2001 (!!). There’s a press release about it at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center site. I’m going to reproduce part of it here in the hopes that this will do something to combat the hundreds of wrong messages out there (when I put my search in google, a ton of hits came up; all of them saying what a good idea it was to do this…which it obviously isn’t, not anymore). So feel free to pass this on (which is something I would normally not ever ask someone to do).

Walter Reed Army Medical Center officials want to remind those individuals who want to show their appreciation through mail to include packages, letters, and holiday cards addressed to ‘Any Wounded Soldier’ or ‘A Recovering American Soldier’ that Walter Reed cannot accept these packages in support of the decision by then Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Transportation Policy in 2001. This decision was made to ensure the safety and well being of patients and staff at medical centers throughout the Department of Defense.

In addition, the U.S. Postal Service is no longer accepting “Any Service Member” or “A Recovering American Soldier” letters or packages. Mail to “Any Service Member” that is deposited into a collection box will not be delivered.

Instead of sending an “Any Wounded Soldier” letter or package to Walter Reed, please consider making a donation to one of the more than 300 nonprofit organizations dedicated to helping our troops and their families listed on the “America Supports You” website, http://www.americasupportsyou.mil/

Other organizations that offer means of showing your support for our troops or assist wounded servicemembers and their families include:
http://www.usocares.org/
http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/tooursoldiers/
http://www.redcross.org/

As an add on to this, I just found this site: AnySolider.com which allows you to send a package intended for “Any Solider” but to a specific contact, so that the package will be distributed.

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Of scrotums & librarians

Posted on February 21, 2007
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I am so glad to be moving out of Kentucky. I know that stupid, small-minded people are everywhere, but Kentucky seems to have quite their share. One of which is a local Louisville librarian named Wendy Stolls who is one of the librarians who has chosen not to stock a Newberry Award winning book called The Higher Power of Lucky because it includes the word scrotum (but not even a person’s scrotum…it is a dog that gets bit by a snake).

The discussion has been going on about this in the local MidSouth SCBWI list, but also on blogs all over (like Neil Gaiman’s).

I am just disgusted. It’s bad enough that books are challenged for stupid reasons (I mean, come on — just using the word scrotum??) but for librarians to be censoring books because they are too scared to actually teach children is just…AGH. The most common reasoning from those who aren’t stocking it? Something along the lines of “Geez, I don’t want to be the one to explain what that is to a kid!”

Excuse me, but isn’t teaching children part of your job if you are a teacher or librarian? Isn’t that exactly the thing you are supposed to be doing?? There’s nothing dirty about body parts. But there is something wrong with librarians who don’t want to teach kids and who effectively censor books.

Just another thing that makes me glad to be moving out of the state.

[ 2 Replies ]

What was I talking about again?

Posted on November 15, 2006
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I had a few things on my mind that I was going to blog about and now I can’t remember what they were. I’m just really tired today. But, Tony is coming home early today (about 6ish) (Yay!) because it is his birthday (34) and because I’d told him he HAD to be home for his birthday. At least he’ll be here tonight, so that’s something.

I’m taking him out to Proof on Main for dinner. He likes the place, it’s artsy, and I happen to have a gift certificate because Stan & Mary (e.g. The Third Street Association) recently gave me one for all the help on the art show. That was nice and unexpected. And worked out perfectly since we need to conserve some cash right now because of some unexpected new expenses and trying to make sure the house is all spiffy so we can sell it. That mostly just means keeping it clean and straightened up. The flyers have been steadily disappearing from the info tube, but no calls yet. We’ll see. I think once we get people in to see it, it will hopefully go fairly fast. After all, I’ve been in other houses around here and I know that ours is in much better condition than probably 80% of the neighborhood. It’s beautiful inside and out and not many of the houses in Old Louisville can say that. Many have really been trashed inside.

I watched A Lot Like Love (Ashton Kutcher, Amanda Peet, 2005) the other night. Thought it was pretty good. Not as good as, say, When Harry Met Sally (the best romantic comedy of all time), but not bad. I even sat through the Director’s Commentary, which they’d recorded before the movie was released. They mentioned how they hoped the movie would do well, but you never know, etc. etc. So that made me curious. So I looked up the box office take on it and some reviews afterwards. It looks like it pretty much bombed. Didn’t do that well at all. The reviews I saw trashed it, though each one trashed it in a different way (no chemistry, good chemistry, took too long, etc., etc.). I guess I wouldn’t make a good movie reviewer. I’m pretty kind to movies. Heck, I’m pretty kind to books. If I really, really hate it, I just don’t review it. I don’t see the point. It’s not going to help the author or the publisher and there might be someone out there that does like it that my review would discourage from reading it. Doesn’t seem worth publishing a really bad review. But maybe that’s just me. Some people just like to vent their anger at other artists.

Not that there haven’t been some self-pubbed stuff that’s come across my desk that I wouldn’t mind taking a stab at it. Some of it is so truly, truly awful you wonder what people were thinking. But, it’s kind of like calling someone’s baby ugly. It doesn’t do any good and just hurts someone’s feelings for no good reason.

The self publishing companies have made it entirely too easy for someone to put out a book. That’s the only bad thing. Some of the really, really horrible stuff out there….all it really does is make it harder for good (or even just decent) writers. It makes it harder to find those diamonds in the rough.

And most of the better self-pubbed stuff could have been published with either some revision or some perseverance. Coming back again to how the self publishing companies make it too easy for someone. Writing & getting something published is work. It isn’t easy. It’s hard. It can take years and years and years.

But that’s not really what I was talking about. Actually, I guess I wasn’t really talking about anything. Same as always.

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