Thursday, March 8, 2012

It's been a while

Sorry 'bout that, especially if you actually looked for new content.

Politics:
Been watching the R primary season. It's interesting, in a train wreck kind of way. I am in the demographic that's supposed to love, cherish, and honor Republican values: over 60, white, male. I find that the values I love, cherish and honor: women's rights (as well as, not instead of, men's), freedom of choice unfettered by governmental influence (mostly - I agree with not calling "Fire! in a crowded theater) and religious influence, and courtesy in public debate, are apparently not much valued in the Republican mindset.
As holder of three graduate degrees, I firmly believe that education past grade school is critical to our country and indeed our world, and deserves support.
I think rape is the forced imposition of one's will on another, and of course, abortion opponents are all over that one, aren't they?
So, I'm seeing no one in the R camp that I could even not vote against. Or as Bob Cesca says: "Keep going, Repubs, you're doing great!"

Mercenaries:
I decided to publish the whole story, instead of keeping it two books. I may take some of the deleted scenes (so to speak) and offer a collection of short stories later on. I'm planning an availability later this month.
Anticipating that, I sent Mercenaries: A Love Story (which is the whole thing, 157K words) to my beta readers, and did that cause some #amediting! I'm waiting on the last batch of edits, and will then publish. I'm thinking of KDP Select, so if anyone has experience, good or bad, or can point to a useful source of information, that would be appreciated.

Paypal:
I depublished Book One on Smashwords in anticipation of KDP Select, but the recent brouhaha over censorship raised my eyebrows. I'm fairly certain that the root cause was pointed out by a commenter at Joe Konrath's blog (note: I linked to the 'offensive' blog post, not the overall blog):
Ummm, why's everyone coming down on PayPal because of this? Last I checked, they're catching heat from the credit card companies, and PayPal stands to lose far more by losing the credit card companies than Smashwords does by losing PayPal.
And another one said:
PayPal's reason for exercising its right in such a forcible manner certainly stems from its own agreement with the Credit card companies and banks who have their own masters pulling the strings. I think, if you follow the money long enough, you will find a wrinkly old man with lots of money, who is in love with his dog, but feels guilty about it, and now wants to force his moral dilemma on everyone else.
I think these people have put their finger on the root cause. After all, the process, for CC companies anyway, began ten or so years ago, when no one complained that, under pressure from government, they refused to accept payments from those "lolita" web sites, or so I've heard. The current position seems a natural progression from that one, and it's likely to continue. It's a function of where the most money can be earned at the lowest cost (read: risk).

I think that's enough for today. I'll try to not make you wait so long next time.
Comments welcome.

2 comments:

  1. Good luck with "Mercenaries" and editing! I've been working a lot as well, but mostly shorts.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, JE. I keep watching your blog, too. Keep hitting the marks!

    ReplyDelete