Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Update to Yesterday's Post

Both Mercenaries: A Love Story and Book One are available in the Amazon store. Click on the respective cover image to see the respective page.

Your comments are welcome.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Met This Milestone!

Or is that millstone?

Uploaded Mercenaries: A Love Story to Amazon tonight, for inclusion in the Select program.

I'll update this with a link when it's actually published.

Also published the revision of Mercenaries: A Love Story Book One. It's to go in the Select program as well, to meet the requirements. For anyone who has a copy, I believe you can download the revision at no charge. I'll include that link when available as well.

Next up: either Freedom No Matter, the sequel to Mercenaries, or the first volume of the Game of Life series.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

News - Mark Your Calendars

I wanted to say something about the Clown Car primary struggles going on, but thinking about it makes my head hurt and my heart bleed, so I'll just ask: "Where are the women? I know they're smarter than this..." And Senator Scott Brown (R:MA) responded to my complaint about his support of the Blount amendment with a repeat of his position, which truly must be based on a different Blount amendment than I read. He ended by saying it was defeated, as if that makes it all better.

I removed the censorship flag over the blog title - I know, you never noticed - but only commented the code out so when SOPA and PIPA return, I can respond again.

Almost finished with Mercenaries: A Love Story. I'm doing a final read on my Kindle to make sure it's formatted ok and all the nasty editing marks are gone. I think it'll be up Monday or Tuesday. Mark your calendars!

I've mentioned Becka Sutton's web serial Dragon Wars before. She's moving to publish the first story arc in ebook and paper, and I offered to assist with the e-book formatting, so if you don't like it, you know where to address your complaints. She's got an Indiegogo crowd fundraiser in process for this month, so stop by and see if you could be minded to help. Even if you can't, read the web serial.

Last Friday, Joe Konrath linked to Catherine Ryan Hyde's post: Friday Author: Barry Eisler. Since I doubt that Joe needs any additional traffic, I've linked to Ms Hyde's post directly. Everyone should read it, especially the comments half-way through on offense, and the human reaction. Mr. Eisler's words certainly seem to apply to others of us than just authors. For example:
Okay, let’s clarify that principle, and consider it.  The principle is, “If someone finds something offensive, you shouldn’t do it.”
But this doesn’t make any sense as an organizing principle if for no other reason than that it’s impossible to implement.  Because what if I find your reluctance to cause offense offensive?  What do you do then?
And also:
Comedians should push people’s buttons.  They should reveal uncomfortable truths about uncomfortable subjects.
Nota bene: Rush Limbaugh is neither a comedian nor an entertainer.

As always, comments welcome below.

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.