Another Fabulous Freebie

I cannot say enough good things about Smashwords.  My book, THE MAZE,  is already in the Premium catalog.  The cover wouldn't take and I didn't like it anyway, so I did one in Powerpoint in about ten minutes and, though it is not my favorite, it is in keeping with several of the book's themes and doesn't look bad.  I wanted that little red head on there from the get go, but couldn't get her to fit.  She is a joyous me, someone I don't see too often.

A person was sorry they couldn't download cuz they had a Nook.  Anymore was in Select and will be for a few more weeks, so that is Amazon exclusive, a mixed bag, but  it will go on Smashwords too pretty soon.

Smashwords puts you in the Apple, Nook, Kobo, and all other devices format so you can even download to some off brand e reader you bought on vacation in Thailand.  I have always had my best sales from Barnes and Noble, so I hope this works out.  Hundreds have already been downloaded for free, and this book, which I love so much, I am doing the sequel, is in the cellar at Amazon.  So I hope y'all enjoy it.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/158247

Seriously

I keep saying Barnes and Noble bring me the most sales, but I promise not to let it go to my head.

Inexplicable.

Philippa Gregory says she has to fall in love with her characters. The book about Margaret Beaufort was not easy to read. She pissed you off most of the time. But she willed stuff to happen and at, what I consider, great personal sacrifice. "What I did for love" etc. She could love and did love but had this other agenda. Couldn't do it. I'd carry the growler to the bar to get a refill for grampa. So she admitted she found it hard to love her and you knew it when you read the book THE RED QUEEN. It was one of her least enjoyable works.

So this last book I wrote, I couldn't fall in love. There really was not a character for that. But now I am finished and I am in love with them and don't want to put it up, want to keep living their lives for them, controlling the weather and what color to paint the porch.

Amazon goofed up the listing and the royalties and Smashwords has yet to cough up a cent. And the promoting is so whorish. Either you like it or you don't but why the fuck don't they even want to look? I spend hours every day just reading blurbs cuz I am so afraid I am going to miss something. And my Kindle has at least twenty books I am dying to get to. So I sit and play Spider Solitaire on the iPhone. I am so sick of it. I don't think I am going to do it anymore. I just read this John Steinbeck quote where he says you have to not stop and think and plan otherwise you lose your association with the words that are making these people live and that is in direct opposition to all this MFA stuff and outlining and little index cards with plot points. And how I write. Just sit down and wish the fucking crippled fingers would not keep hitting the wrong keys I want to go so fast.

And I am half in tears over it. Like they said my baby was funny looking and kind of dumb, and that is when I get these ridiculous blog spikes and I do not even know where they came from. Some one read a post from about six years ago. It tells you that, so I looked at it and I was talking to Louie about it being when Lisa had that little house and Billy lived with her and it was like a lull in our lives. So strange. Why did someone go and read that out of a clear blue sky? And what could it mean to them? What do anyone else's words mean to someone else? I don't know, but sometimes I am crying over it and laughing and hoping for a certain thing to happen to imaginary people. Cuz I couldn't make it happen for my real people. I guess.

Tomorrow: back to the big white Welbies, for sure.

Today's CTA: Do you put stuff in your fiction that you really wish did happen to you? Or do you want it nothing like your real life?


Image Attribution:  thecollaboratory.wikidot.com

RETURN to UPSY DOWNY LAND

Bad start to the day with emotional interchange about visiting my grandson. He's here and all is fine.   Then:

Four star review from Barnes and Noble:   "Crazy good read".

 Bipolar overload

Jenny is one bipolar crazy woman. She climbs into her best friend Barney's window as a young teen and begs for him to teach her about sex but it leads to a connection that neither of them can ever let go of even through marriages and children. While Jenny will always love Barney, she loves her actor husband Daniel too and they all have to learn to live with her actions and her condition. Crazy good read but after 600+ pages, the ending seemed kind of abrupt.

That's 600 Nook pages, guys, so don't worry. Sort of a series  And everything works out for all my guys so better keep reading!!.  I couldn't be happier with this person's choice of words.

Indie Publishing--an Analogy

(Loudly blowing horn. . .)

I'm an "Indie Publisher".  That covers a lot of ground:  self-published, Kindle, Smashwords, Indie Press and others.  It was a combination of impatience and snobbery that led me down that path.  I don't even fit the amorphous indie model.  I write street language, infidelity, God dropping in for an occasional remark or two.  But it's good.  It's light, fast, fun, irreverent, sexy and not dirty.  I don't think a good BJ scene has to be dirty, with a lot of slobbering,  romantic over-the-top description of the penis,  submissive behavior, and a bossy guy to be realistic or good or sexy.  I'm probably one of  a very few that can write a sexy BJ scene that is nice.  Lora Leigh's are f-ing scary.  Rate 'em.

And then when the rejection letters came filled with poor grammar, misspellings, missing words, (fill in the blank in their form letters where they could not bother to fill in the blank) and obvious signs that they never looked at the work, well, I love you, Betsy, but fuck 'em.

So a new track ball on the desktop pc, a new laptop, and an illness have kept me away from my creative endeavors and I have been watching movies. Last night I fell asleep watching Teeth which was about vagina dentata and sucked, which I realize is an oxymoron. But, when I woke, I was wide awake and it was quite late so I surfed Starz On Demand, and started to watch The Cleaner. Did you ever hear of it? I haven't.  Samuel L. Jackson, who has been in some turkeys, but was doing an excellent job of being Samuel L. Jackson, always his best role.  That beautifully aging fox, Ed Harris.  Complex plot. Little straggling octopus threads grabbing you right off.  Good subplot with Jackson's daughter, not thrown in, important, interesting. You know how in Transporter Jason Statham goes up to the wrought iron gate of the manse and it's what's her name --Amber Valletta?-- and it rates him a huge cardboard statue in the theater lobby?  Well, Jackson goes up to the wrought iron gate and it is Eva Mendez doing her usual wooden Barbie thing, but being very beautiful and just interesting to watch, but no cardboard statue for Jackson.  Alicia Silverstone as Jackson's office manager looking better than she ever did, (needed a little more of her acerbic commentary here).

So here's my point.  They have algorithms.  And Alvin and the Chipmunks gets the play, the licensing, the press. Pirates of the Caribbean--you see how much those fucking Legos cost.  Cleaner gets shit.  Probably went straight to Video.

I write The Cleaner of love stories.  Lora Leigh writes the Alvin and the Chipmunks or The Transporter of love stories. Harlequin Press has its algorithms, probably constructed by the same programmer that said Alvin and the Chipmunks would make millions.  I walked the walk.  Alvin didn't. We can't fit any agent's algorithm.  Too bad for them.  A couple of four star reviews by strangers that indicate they actually got what I was writing tell me I did good.  Maybe not for the fans of The Tortured Love of the Troubled Duke or Alvin, but good enough to appeal to the same people that surf for a good movie to watch--and occasionally find one. Maybe not great, but good.  And enjoyable.  I got more than 900 downloads from Barnes and Noble for my Lawman freebie and 21 of those people bothered to rate it so far, and some were four stars. I can still walk the walk. Pay attention to my name.

I am feeling waaay better, and I told you you were gonna get it.