Joe Konrath, whom I've dubbed "the Pied Piper of Self-Publishing," has just posted a valuable, wonderfully written blog on how indie authors can successfully promote and market their work.
His principles can be transferred to many, many other kinds of promotion, salesmanship, and marketing. And his advice will surprise many.
But if they think about it for a while, maybe it won't.
Saturday, May 07, 2011
Friday, May 06, 2011
Bin Laden's death enrages the West's Fifth Column
I've long thought that Osama bin Laden's success as a terrorist has been fueled by raging anti-Americanism -- not by any particular sympathy for his virulent Islamism. It's the same hatred that, for decades, has elevated a range of anti-American leftists internationally into folk heroes. Think Castro. Che. Allende. Chavez. And so many more.
Spit at the U.S., and you are beloved -- especially among an influential Fifth Column in the West. That's what the current controversy about "how" we killed bin Laden is really all about.
Take Michael Moore (please!). Here's a fat, rich Hollywood leftist creep who sings the praises of Canadian socialized medicine, and of Castro's Gulag socialized "medicine," solely to denounce our own. He makes the typical Hollywood pilgrimages to pay homage to anti-U.S. despot Hugo Chavez; he denounces our efforts to rid Afghanistan of terrorists; and now that we kill the world's most prominent terrorist, bin Laden, he denounces us for that, too.
Same with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who said that shooting mass murderer bin Laden lacked "justice," because he was -- at that moment -- possibly "unarmed." So, what would he prefer? That a SEAL challenge Osama to a duel, at twenty paces?
And then one Bob Ellis, a contemptible Aussie writer, who uses the death of bin Laden as an excuse to pour venom, not on the terrorist, but on America. "How shabby the Americans are," he declares. "How secretive and stupid. . . . What, we may ask, is [Barack Obama] now to say of a murder committed by uninvited American troops on foreign soil, illegally?"
These three creatures -- an alleged "American," a Brit, and an Aussie -- are representative of the large and loud Fifth Column operating in the West. All of them are members of the pampered Western cultural elite, gorged on the riches of capitalism; all of them hate the very system of liberty and free markets that brought them the good life and indulges their treason.
If you wonder at the spread of terrorism against the West, especially against America, then consider the fact that such traitors manufacture and validate all the excuses used by terrorists for their attacks against innocents. The bin Ladens of the world don't need to hire speechwriters when they get their best lines from the cultural leaders in our midst.
UPDATE -- I've just read a brilliant, principled response to the "chattering classes" and their hostility toward the U.S. takedown of bin Laden by Brendan O'Neill, editor of spiked. Many times the term "must reading" is applied to this article or that; but O'Neill's piece truly is "must reading," in its entirety. (If you are familiar with Angelo M. Codevilla's seminal essay, "The Ruling Class" -- another "must read" -- you'll see how O'Neill's article dovetails with it.) Some nuggets:
My only point of departure with O'Neill is that he emphasizes simple cowardice -- the fear of provoking Muslim reprisals -- as the Ruling Class's primary motive in condemning the U.S. military action. In part, yes; but this doesn't ring entirely true to me as all, or even the dominant portion, of their motivation. I think he underestimates the stand-alone motivational power of what he described in the preceding excerpts: the Ruling Class's obsession to see itself as -- well -- the Ruling Class.
These are creatures desperate to envision themselves as a class superior in morality, sophistication, intellect, education, and taste to the lower-class rubes -- such as those who were celebrating Osama's demise in the streets. You get the same sort of response from this crowd whenever the name "Sarah Palin" is mentioned. I don't think they fear Palin so much as they celebrate a sense of self-congratulatory superiority whenever they can condescend to her. ("Oh, she said 'Gee whiz!' again, Jennifer. Can one even imagine such a hick in the White House? Hee, hee, hee. . .")
Of course, the passion to inflate their own self-images does mesh conveniently with the cowardice that O'Neill emphasizes. And we certainly do see plenty of cowardice on the part of the Ruling Class. But I think they are two separate motives, mutually reinforcing.
Spit at the U.S., and you are beloved -- especially among an influential Fifth Column in the West. That's what the current controversy about "how" we killed bin Laden is really all about.
Take Michael Moore (please!). Here's a fat, rich Hollywood leftist creep who sings the praises of Canadian socialized medicine, and of Castro's Gulag socialized "medicine," solely to denounce our own. He makes the typical Hollywood pilgrimages to pay homage to anti-U.S. despot Hugo Chavez; he denounces our efforts to rid Afghanistan of terrorists; and now that we kill the world's most prominent terrorist, bin Laden, he denounces us for that, too.
Same with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who said that shooting mass murderer bin Laden lacked "justice," because he was -- at that moment -- possibly "unarmed." So, what would he prefer? That a SEAL challenge Osama to a duel, at twenty paces?
And then one Bob Ellis, a contemptible Aussie writer, who uses the death of bin Laden as an excuse to pour venom, not on the terrorist, but on America. "How shabby the Americans are," he declares. "How secretive and stupid. . . . What, we may ask, is [Barack Obama] now to say of a murder committed by uninvited American troops on foreign soil, illegally?"
These three creatures -- an alleged "American," a Brit, and an Aussie -- are representative of the large and loud Fifth Column operating in the West. All of them are members of the pampered Western cultural elite, gorged on the riches of capitalism; all of them hate the very system of liberty and free markets that brought them the good life and indulges their treason.
If you wonder at the spread of terrorism against the West, especially against America, then consider the fact that such traitors manufacture and validate all the excuses used by terrorists for their attacks against innocents. The bin Ladens of the world don't need to hire speechwriters when they get their best lines from the cultural leaders in our midst.
UPDATE -- I've just read a brilliant, principled response to the "chattering classes" and their hostility toward the U.S. takedown of bin Laden by Brendan O'Neill, editor of spiked. Many times the term "must reading" is applied to this article or that; but O'Neill's piece truly is "must reading," in its entirety. (If you are familiar with Angelo M. Codevilla's seminal essay, "The Ruling Class" -- another "must read" -- you'll see how O'Neill's article dovetails with it.) Some nuggets:
How did ‘I hate bin Laden and I’m glad he’s dead’ become the most shocking thing one can say in polite society?. . . .That's just a teaser. There's more, and it's terrific. Read it all.
Those who dare to celebrate his death – mainly young American jocks – have been denounced as ‘abhorrent’ and ‘sickening’, and now the main way you advertise your decency, your membership of the civilised, upstanding, oh-so-unAmerican classes, is by wondering out loud if poor old OBL shouldn’t have been arrested and put on trial rather than having a bullet planted in his head.
This pity-for-Osama lobby, this bishop-led congregation of ‘uncomfortable’ moral handwringers, might pose as radical, denouncing America’s military action in bin Laden’s compound as ‘Wild West-style vengeance’. Yet in truth it is fuelled by self-loathing more than justice-loving. These critics are not opposed to Western intervention in principle – indeed, most of them have demanded ‘humanitarian’, political or legalistic intervention in other states’ affairs at one point or another. No, it is a discomfort with decisive action, a fear of what such action might lead to in the future, and a belief that people in the West should douse their emotional zeal and learn to be more meek. . . .
Behind the high-falutin’ expressions of passion for justice over shoot-to-kill, much of the pity-for-Osama lobby is really concerned with expressing its moral superiority over apparently vengeful Americans. Where ‘them’ Yanks still have an attachment to nationalism and war, ‘we’ Europeans are post-nationalist, cosmopolitan, empathetic rather than vengeful, and are far more comfortable with having a man in a wig rather than a man with a gun sort out our moral and political problems. . . . Of course, such anti-Americanism is not confined to Europe. As we have seen in the 10 years since 9/11 it is rife within America itself, where the better-educated classes have long had an ‘uncomfortable feeling’ in relation to the antics and emotions of the American masses. . . .
It is extraordinary, and revealing, how quickly the expression of concern about the use of American force in Pakistan became an expression of values superiority over the American people. The modern chattering classes are so utterly removed from the mass of the population, so profoundly disconnected from ‘ordinary people’ and their ‘ordinary thoughts’, that they effectively see happy Americans as a more alien and unusual thing than Osama bin Laden. Where OBL wins their empathy, American jocks receive only their bile.
My only point of departure with O'Neill is that he emphasizes simple cowardice -- the fear of provoking Muslim reprisals -- as the Ruling Class's primary motive in condemning the U.S. military action. In part, yes; but this doesn't ring entirely true to me as all, or even the dominant portion, of their motivation. I think he underestimates the stand-alone motivational power of what he described in the preceding excerpts: the Ruling Class's obsession to see itself as -- well -- the Ruling Class.
These are creatures desperate to envision themselves as a class superior in morality, sophistication, intellect, education, and taste to the lower-class rubes -- such as those who were celebrating Osama's demise in the streets. You get the same sort of response from this crowd whenever the name "Sarah Palin" is mentioned. I don't think they fear Palin so much as they celebrate a sense of self-congratulatory superiority whenever they can condescend to her. ("Oh, she said 'Gee whiz!' again, Jennifer. Can one even imagine such a hick in the White House? Hee, hee, hee. . .")
Of course, the passion to inflate their own self-images does mesh conveniently with the cowardice that O'Neill emphasizes. And we certainly do see plenty of cowardice on the part of the Ruling Class. But I think they are two separate motives, mutually reinforcing.
Thursday, May 05, 2011
Indie publishing news: ebook mobile apps; why authors do not need agents
I've been following what has been called "the self-publishing revolution" for months, as my own first novel, HUNTER: A Thriller, nears publication. As many of you know, I am convinced for many reasons that self-publishing—especially via ebooks—is the best deal for most authors and also the wave of the future.
The latest exciting news on this front is that Smashwords, a major ebook distribution platform, has partnered with a company called ScrollMotion to develop individual mobile applications for Smashwords' Premium Catalog of over 34,000 original ebooks. ScrollMotion will create apps for these books for Apple iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, and WebOS, among others.
This will allow the many thousands of "indie" authors now doing distribution through Smashwords (and I'll be one) to significantly expand the availability of their ebooks to a vast new range of mobile devices. Ebooks now will be readily accessible beyond the usual ereader devices (Kindle, Nook, iPad, Sony Reader, Kobo, etc.); and that will mean many more future sales for authors, and many more new customers for ebooks.
In other words, I couldn't be publishing HUNTER and future ebooks at a more exciting time.
The second bit of news in the rapidly changing publishing industry concerns the role of book agents. After 25 years of disgust at what is going on in publishing, outspoken indie author Kristine Kathryn Rusch has just published a brutal blog about the the industry -- and about book agents. "I hadn’t realized until a few months ago that the adversarial relationship that sometimes existed between writer and publisher had moved into the agent/author relationship."
This long blog is an eye-opening look behind the closed doors of the Legacy Publishing Industry, by an experienced pro who has studied some 10,000 book contracts and worked at every level in the business. If you are an author, or even a wannabe author, and if you are considering the traditional approach of hiring an agent to negotiate with a publisher, you must read what Ms. Rusch has to say.
Put it this way: These days, neither the publisher nor the so-called "author's agent" is really representing the best interests of the author. More and more, their contract terms are taking writers to the cleaners, in ways that eager, naive authors can't begin to fathom, until it's too late.
Why has this been happening? "The business is changing as we have discussed in these posts for some time now," Rusch explains. "And as the business changes, publishers and agents are running scared. They’re not sure where they will fit in. So they’re trying to reserve as big a piece of the content pie as they possibly can for themselves—at the expense of the content creators. The writers."
Read the entire blog. If you've got an ounce of common sense, you'll want to run like hell from any traditional big-name publisher and any book agent.
But what, then, is your alternative to getting into print? Consider joining the Self-Publishing Revolution, where thousands of writers are beginning to take full control of their own work—and reap the full rewards, too, without any useless or double-crossing intermediaries bleeding them dry. If you need information about this brave new world, start by checking out the blogs by Rusch, her prolific writing partner Dean Wesley Smith, wildly successful self-pub author Joe Konrath, and indie-publishing guru Robin Sullivan.
The latest exciting news on this front is that Smashwords, a major ebook distribution platform, has partnered with a company called ScrollMotion to develop individual mobile applications for Smashwords' Premium Catalog of over 34,000 original ebooks. ScrollMotion will create apps for these books for Apple iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, and WebOS, among others.
This will allow the many thousands of "indie" authors now doing distribution through Smashwords (and I'll be one) to significantly expand the availability of their ebooks to a vast new range of mobile devices. Ebooks now will be readily accessible beyond the usual ereader devices (Kindle, Nook, iPad, Sony Reader, Kobo, etc.); and that will mean many more future sales for authors, and many more new customers for ebooks.
In other words, I couldn't be publishing HUNTER and future ebooks at a more exciting time.
The second bit of news in the rapidly changing publishing industry concerns the role of book agents. After 25 years of disgust at what is going on in publishing, outspoken indie author Kristine Kathryn Rusch has just published a brutal blog about the the industry -- and about book agents. "I hadn’t realized until a few months ago that the adversarial relationship that sometimes existed between writer and publisher had moved into the agent/author relationship."
This long blog is an eye-opening look behind the closed doors of the Legacy Publishing Industry, by an experienced pro who has studied some 10,000 book contracts and worked at every level in the business. If you are an author, or even a wannabe author, and if you are considering the traditional approach of hiring an agent to negotiate with a publisher, you must read what Ms. Rusch has to say.
Put it this way: These days, neither the publisher nor the so-called "author's agent" is really representing the best interests of the author. More and more, their contract terms are taking writers to the cleaners, in ways that eager, naive authors can't begin to fathom, until it's too late.
Why has this been happening? "The business is changing as we have discussed in these posts for some time now," Rusch explains. "And as the business changes, publishers and agents are running scared. They’re not sure where they will fit in. So they’re trying to reserve as big a piece of the content pie as they possibly can for themselves—at the expense of the content creators. The writers."
Read the entire blog. If you've got an ounce of common sense, you'll want to run like hell from any traditional big-name publisher and any book agent.
But what, then, is your alternative to getting into print? Consider joining the Self-Publishing Revolution, where thousands of writers are beginning to take full control of their own work—and reap the full rewards, too, without any useless or double-crossing intermediaries bleeding them dry. If you need information about this brave new world, start by checking out the blogs by Rusch, her prolific writing partner Dean Wesley Smith, wildly successful self-pub author Joe Konrath, and indie-publishing guru Robin Sullivan.
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