Read Something New Today!

My earliest recollection of reading on my own, aside from primers, which I really can’t remember reading, are novels written by Alistair MacLean, a Scottish writer. I can’t tell you how I started reading his novels, but I believe I read them all. You might recognize some of his better-known novels: The Guns of Navarone, Ice Station Zebra and Where Eagles Dare. They’ve been made into motion pictures.

Now, flash forward to college. My wife and I had a (planned) child half-way through professional school. I took a quarter off and got a job as a security guard in Santa Clara, California, on the graveyard shift. Every hour or so I had a route I had to walk to check various points of entry into the two-story building I guarded. I carried a key with me because each station had a box I’d have to put the key in to make an imprint on a roll of paper inside the box. A supervisor would stop by randomly, open one or two of the boxes and check the paper to make sure I was making my rounds.

Bored out of my mind, I pulled open a desk drawer at the security station and found the Stephen King novel, THE STAND and began reading. If you’ve read that novel you know there is a creepy scene where several characters have to walk through a tunnel full of dead people, and typical Stephen King scary sounds and paranoid thoughts. I scared myself to death while reading that scene as I had to walk through a mostly-dark building while making my rounds.

But I was hooked. I read every King book I could get my hands on. Later, after college (no time for leisure reading in post-graduate school), I began reading authors like John Grisham, Dean Koontz, and John Sandford. I no longer read Grisham or Koontz but I still read Sandford. And Jonathan Kellerman, and some James Patterson, but not so much Patterson anymore because he seems to write at a fourth grade level now.

After becoming a self-published author I realized I had let my fiction reading become stuck in a rut; I was reading just a few authors and little or nothing in between.

So, last year I decided to force myself to branch out and read different types of works. Here are some books I’ve read and reviewed, in no particular order:

OBLIGATION by Donald Stilwell. (Stilwell lives here in Modesto.) A thriller, but a thriller with heart.

BURDEN KANSAS and BLOOD TELLS TRUE by Alan Ryker. These are vampire books, but not like any you've ever read. I also read his book PSYCHOMANCER but haven't reviewed it. Shame on me.

IN SEARCH OF A SOUL by Dannie C Hill. This was my first departure from thrillers in a long time and I admit it was hard to get into at first. Much of it takes place on a sailboat and I know nothing about sailing. In the end it was quite rewarding.

STORM RISING by Kenneth Hoss. This is a police procedure book, which I've read plenty of, but with a female protagonist, which I'm not too fond of.

SEVEN YEARS OUT OF MY MIND by Libbey Donegan. Wow. This was WAY out of my comfort zone.

THE NINTH DISTRICT by Douglas Dorow. A thriller.

JERUSALEM IMPERILLED by Harry Freedman. (I know, the second "l" in imperilled through me off, too. Those Brits are always throwing in an unnecessary letter, aren't they?) A historical novel I really enjoyed because it was so well written.

There are others I recall as I write this post and hopefully I'm not offending anyone by not mentioning their book. My purpose was to prove that I've been reading different kinds of books than I've read in the past.

My challenge to you is to do the same. Pick up a book you wouldn't have tried a year or two ago and give it a read.

Authors: Is eBookr.com Illegally Profiting From Your Hard Work?

At my office, my hopefully soon-to-be former day job, we switched credit card processors. Two representatives from the bank stopped by today to program our machine, the guy doing the actual work and the president of the local branch where we opened our account. What should have taken five minutes took an hour because of our super-secure internet connection.

While we were waiting, my wife and I chatted with the bank president. They were talking about iPads and the Nook when the bank president remarked that she'd found a service called "eBookr" on the internet that offers a Netflix-like experience for ebooks: download all the ebooks you like for a flat fee of $9.99 a month.

I thought, Hmm... Sounds fishy to me.

Upon further investigation, I think it's not only fishy, it stinks of fish gone bad. And you know how stinky bad fish is.

Plainly put, I think eBookr is ripping publishers and authors off.

This is how they're doing it:

Users of the site upload ebook files to the eBookr site (eBookr laughingly calls these "Contributions"--see below). eBookr charges their members a monthly fee to download the ebooks. No money makes it back to the publishers, including, obviously, self-published authors.

Check out their ridiculous disclaimer on their Terms of Service page: (I've set the important parts in boldface and make my comments in parentheses.)

7. Contributions to eBookr or the Service.

eBookr does not host any content on the service, other than user-provided commentary, “Contributions”, and related indexing information.

eBookr has the right to remove any Contribution that violates this TOS or any other written policy or terms of use published by eBookr from time to time, or is otherwise objectionable, as determined solely by eBookr. By submitting Contributions for inclusion on the Service, you represent and warrant that you have all necessary permissions to grant the following license to eBookr. You further acknowledge and agree that you are solely responsible for anything you post or otherwise make available on or through the Service, including, without limitation, the accuracy, reliability, nature, rights clearance, compliance with law and legal restrictions associated with any Contribution.

(This is how they attempt to pass the buck to the "user" who made the "Contribution".)

You hereby grant eBookr and its successors a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable and transferable license to use, copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, prepare derivative works of, communicate to the public, publicly display, and publicly perform such Contribution on, through or in connection with the Service in any media formats and through any media channels, including without limitation, for promoting and redistributing all or in part of the Service (and its derivative works). This license terminates once you or eBookr removes your Contribution from the Service. You understand that your Contribution may be transmitted over various networks and changed to conform and adapt to technical requirements.

(Of course, "users" don't own the rights to the books they're illegally uploading, so they can't assign them to eBookr.)

Now, some may make the argument that the users bought the ebook and so should be able to share it with others, like they could a physical book. If I buy a paperback, I can give or lend it to anyone, right?

Right.

But you can't distribute or lend my ebooks to anyone you please because I own the copyright and I've forbidden you to do that.

If you buy one of my ebooks from Amazon, you can lend it to someone else through Amazon because I said you could. THAT works like a real book: you can only lend it to one person at a time AND, to my knowledge, Amazon doesn't make anything off the transaction.

eBookr is making ebooks available to potentially millions of people, is profiting off the transactions, and nothing is being sent to the publishers.

I checked to see if they were profiting off my two novels, and they weren't. I'm not all that popular. Yet. Doesn't matter though, I think what they're doing is criminal and they need to be stopped.

Here's what I think needs to be done:

1. If you are self-published, check to see if they have any of your books. If they do, go to their DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) page here to learn how to get them to remove your works.

2. Even if they haven't stolen any of your books, pass the word to other self-published authors either directly or by forwarding the link to this post. Everyone needs to know.

3. I'm not an attorney, but hopefully someone who reads this post is and will know how to get these scammers off the internet.

Brazilian Wax, Feral Balloons, and Gasbags

My wife and I both subscribe to Groupon, which means we get an email every day that tells us the deal of the day. We've probably bought ten Groupons. Maybe more. They're not a great deal for the businesses I hear, but they are for us consumers. I figure, hey, if you don't like the deal, as a business, don't sign up with Groupon. Simple enough.

But I digress.

Today's Groupon was for a Brazilian Wax. I found out what a "Brazilian" was several years ago when my wife was a regular at a salon here in town. She had her eyebrows done, and certain other areas were, shall we say, kept up. My wife says the salon lady tried to talk her into getting a Brazilian, but when it was explained, my wife turned her down. It sounded a lot like torture.

Here is the text of today's Groupon (please pay attention; there'll be questions later):

Along with damaging one’s self-image, rogue hair can cause discomfort and serve as a static-filled attraction for feral balloons. Banish marauding gasbags with today’s Groupon to Patty at Mia Bella Salon and Spa. Choose between the following options:

For $29, you get a Brazilian wax treatment (a $60 value).

For $49, you get two Brazilian wax treatments (a $120 value).

With more than 12 years of experience in her fingers, trained aesthetician Patty at Mia Bella Salon and Spa doffs fur coverings from bikini zones using top-quality waxes in a calming, discreet environment. During the Brazilian waxing service, Patty warms and applies a specialty hard wax designed to minimize discomfort by cocooning individual shafts while refusing to stick to skin. Patty paves the entire front and posterior into a smooth superhighway during each 20- to 30-minute treatment, granting skin with supreme silkiness while eliminating the need to shave for up to four weeks.

If I'm reading this correctly, if a lady doesn't get a Brazilian, her static-filled rogue hair will attract feral balloons. Somehow I doubt the truthfulness of this assertion. While my wife has never had a Brazilian, I've yet to see balloons randomly fly to her groin.

And, please, can someone explain how a woman not having to shave her lady parts for up to four weeks can banish marauding gasbags? I'd like to know because I hate gasbags, and their cousins the blowhards; Modesto is awash with them.

If I allow Patty to doff my fur coverings with top-quality waxes, will I, too, be gasbag-free? If so, I might consider having the procedure done. Especially if I can get two for $49. I'll be gasbag-free for up to eight weeks.

Certainly it couldn't be painful. How could something that cocoons individual shafts hurt?

Upon further consideration, perhaps the wife and I can get the $49 deal and go and see Patty together. I'm dying to see how it feels to have a paved smooth superhighway, front and back.

Thank you Groupon for today's entertainment.

Cross-Promotion On Twitter

I use Twitter to connect with other writers, to promote my work, and occasionally to chat and have fun with friends. I don't care to take the time to explain Twitter in detail because I think most of my blog readers are already using it.

What I would like to do is suggest that if you use Twitter, try and use it to promote others' work as well as your own. Few things on Twitter are as obnoxious as seeing a constant stream of self-promotion. Personally, I feel promotional Tweets are more credible when they're done by someone other than the author. This is why testimonials work so well in marketing.

So, when someone mentions me in a tweet, I try and do a quick promo tweet for them in lieu of simply saying thanks. I'm not saying I don't appreciate when someone says thanks, I do, but I'd rather have someone run a quick promo for one of my books or my blog than say thank you. It only takes a few seconds.

Without waxing philosophical, I believe when you do things for others, others will do things for you. Call it Karma, call it casting your bread upon the water, call it the law of attraction... Whatever. Be nice to others and others will using be nice to you. Be a good friend, or a good follower.

Here are some ways you can easily do this:

1. Retweeting. This is the easiest way to support another writer, or anyone else. When you see a Tweet that promotes another's work, simply hit the retweet button. Everyone who follows you will see the tweet and will hopefully click on the link or follow that person, or both.

2. Promote someone's blog post. Most writers have a blog they use to promote themselves and their work. There should be a Twitter button somewhere on the page. Now, before you simply hit that button and move on...

Cross-promotion doesn't work if the person you're promoting doesn't know you're promoting them. After hitting the Twitter button, a new browser window will pop up with the software's proposed tweet. Edit the proposed tweet if necessary, then copy it, go back to Twitter and hit mention, hit the Home key to move ahead of that person's Twitter name, then paste the tweet into the box. This way the person will see that you've promoted them. Whether they reciprocate or not is up to them.

Confusing? Read through the last paragraph a few times and you'll get it. It takes me less than 20 seconds to do this.

3. Promote a writer's book from Amazon and other sellers. This is easy to do if you install a link shortener on your browser. I currently use FireFox and prefer the bitly link shortener. Simply select a few words somewhere on their Amazon book page, perhaps from a review or the book description, then click on the link shortener and a new browser window will open. I usually edit the proposed tweet a little, then copy and paste it into a tweet in Twitter, with the person's Twitter name so they'll know I ran the promo for them.


I had written a longer post with detailed instructions on how to do all this, but opted for this short and sweet version when I realized most people wouldn't read it all. I can do a promo for someone else in 30 seconds or less. You can too with a little practice.

I enjoy doing promo Tweets for others, whether or not they return the favor. Maybe it's the Boy Scout in me...