Hello, everyone — this is the third installment of my whirlwind weekend report.  Here and here is where you can catch up.  Onward!

I am going to skip over the drudgery that is work because frankly, nothing really noteworthy happens there.

Saturday, however, is  a whirlwind of papers and soft drinks.  Keep in mind that I normally don’t get up before 11:00 AM (I work late nights).  In order to get to the first writer’s group that meets on the third Saturday of every month, I have to get up at 7:00…after going to bed at the earliest of 2:00 AM.  So, there is one Saturday of the month where I am a little sleep deprived.  With this new group, they get together at the civilized time of 10:00, which means I can get an additional hour of half of sleep.  Yes, I am still going to be a little addled, but not that bad if I get to bed at 2:00 AM, wake up at 8:00 to get out the door at 9:00.  A couple of cups of coffee From Dunkin Donuts and I can relax a little in my car.  This group is meeting at a library and is made up of some members from an older group that I still go to on the third Saturday of every month.  It’s 9:45 after I finish my breakfast of coffee and egg…like material with cheesy substance and ham…I hope.  Still a few minutes left after the meal and thanks to the coffee I don’t feel sleepy.

I amble my way up to the library a few minutes before 10:00 and I am met by one of the members who invited me to join the group.  You can infer that I am not really a social person by the title of the post.  Thankfully, this is a group of people I know, so I knew I could relax a little.  The group is nice and they were pleased to hear my latest work (still unfinished! But closer to getting finished than any others I have).  I am definitely going to stick around with this group.  It’s hard for me to break ice with people (or is it break bread?)…which will become apparent in a few minutes.

I head out to the grocery store because I can’t just show up to a party with nothing (even if they say they’re fine with it).  The grocery store I like to frequent had a spirits section separate from the rest of the grocery store.  I found a nice peanut butter pie and paid for it, then jaunting three doors down to see what wine goes well with peanut butter pie.

To answer your question: yes.  A chocolate wine goes well with peanut butter pie if there is no chocolate drizzle. Otherwise, a dark red would work (apparently, the people in the spirit shop know their goods.  Also, did you know that they make pink lemonade vodka?  Do svidaniya, soberity!).  I purchase everything, rather inexpensive as far as wine, vodka and pie goes.  I come back home, putting everything away in the refrigerator and change back into my inside summer clothes: t-shirt and shorts.  The party isn’t until later (I’ve got several hours), so I set aside some clothes for the party.  Nothing bad, really — what I usually wear for work…nice short sleeved polo shirt and the best pair of jeans I own.

Still have several hours.  Time for Borderlands 2!  Saturday is my big gaming day (Monday through Friday are gaming days as well, but not the biggest) and I plunge into it…for a few minutes before the coffee gets metabolized and I almost fall out of my chair.  OK — maybe not fall out, but I got real tired real fast.  So, I crawl to bed and take a small nap.  Coffee doesn’t last long in me.  

The nap is over as I wake up enough time to get a shower (Welcome to Kentucky!) and double check my directions. Dressed and squeaky clean, I get the pie and the wine for the party and make sure everything is clean and fresh.  Getting into my car I turn the engine over and drive off, being guided by my Android phone which thinks that not only am I fifteen feet from my real position, but I am driving on the left hand side of the road sidesaddle.

Go, Android.

Traveling to my host’s place, I realize that I am not only moving laterally towards the east, but upwards in the socio-economic scale.  Seriously.  I’m also driving through the country.  I can tell because I see goats, cows and better cars than what I am driving now.  Way better.  

My Android is as stunned as I am about the new surroundings, since it forgets a couple of turns.  I manage to get back on track and still not lose any time.  It tells me that I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes, even when I have to remind it that it is navigating for me and that I only turn when it tells me to turn.  As I travel on, the houses grow farther and farther apart, but still look better than where I am staying now.  I’m not jealous (maybe a little) as I roll through the countryside.  While I take in the sighs, I keep expecting to Take another turn and find myself staring down a checkpoint designed to keep the hoi polloi out from wrecking the property values with their early model cars, their numous kids and basic cable packages (“On this chart, point out the salad fork.  No, you swine — that’s a fish fork!  Seize him!“).

I manage to get to the right place and boy…do I not fit in.  Each of these houses is at least twice the side (vertically) as my house and the smallest one here is about the size of my current one-floored house.  The one the host lives in a a little larger than my house in at least three dimensions.  As I cruise around the block to make sure that I am in the right location, I see some people staring at me.  No doubt they were memorizing the license plate, make and model of the car in the event there was a rash of burglaries later on in the week.

Still two minutes early to the party (“early is on time, on time is late and late is unforgivable” as the nuns at school told me…who apparently were never invited to a party.“) and I was trying to figure out if the thin sheer of sweat I was developing was from the humidity or from the panic I was trying to fight now in the pit of my stomach.  I am not really one for new things that disrupt my routine.  Yes, I am a crotchety elder.  I like my beets and strained peas, thank you for getting off my lawn.  I at least wait for a couple of minutes reminding myself that this is also a great way to network and maybe find other people with inroads into publishing.  After all, the hostess is also a reporter for the local newspaper.

I get out of the car, making sure that I have everything and reminding myself that running screaming aback to the car and speeding away is not going to help me either short term with the gawkers running my plates against a database of people known to lurk here or in the long term when I might need my hostesses’ help in something writer related.  I walk up the the front door and knock.

Hopefully tomorrow will be the conclusion of this unpresidented glimpse into my private life, so I can get back to talking about writing.  Thank you for reading (if you’re still here), and feel free to take a look at the offerings that my friends and I have for you.

I hope y’all have a good day.
Sincerely,

Seething Apathy.

Hello, all — I’m just gong to pick up from where I left off with me getting everything out of the Z: drive (still can’t find the pictures or the Art Bell Files on the Y: drive, but that’s not important) and getting out to the local copier place to get everything printed, stapled and shiny for Saturday.  At that point, I was trying to consider my options as far as traffic.

Where I live is not really all that convenient for travel.  I am smack dab in the middle of two Interstate Highways.  At the copiers, I was just two blocks away from I-65.  Getting on it would be a straight shot (somewhat) down to work, but that particular highway was alway congested like you wouldn’t believe.  The route I take to work normally is a little twisty and roundabout, but the streets are relatively open for me (with the exception the on again / off again merger of I-64 and I-65. When it gets choked up…make no plans).  The downside for Friday as I’m getting everything printed and stapled is that I’m quite a distance away from the usual route to work.  Also keep in mind that I still haven’t had anything for lunch, so my judgement is a little wobbly.

I figure that I can go on ahead and take my normal route to work, since I pass by a couple of gas stations, it’ll be no problem to get something quick to eat.  I pay for the papers and head out to the car.  I’ve got everything I need for work (cell phone, iPad and dinner).  Paying for everything, I head out the door.  Since I thought I was going to have more time in the afternoon than I would in the morning, I’ve already showered and shaved (I usually  wait until an hour before I need to leave).  I hop in the car and drive for the Interstate.  Over the radio, I hear that there is a very bad tie-up on I-65 on one of the bridges.  I’m heading in a different direction, and I am doing so as quickly as I can.

I get through the shopping area and zip by the gas stations.  It doesn’t hit me that I need to get something to eat until I make the turn onto the Interstate.  Now it’s too late to turn around, so I’ll just have to get to work as quick as I can and get something there.

Let me quickly explain how the typical driver in Kentucky drives:

• It’s not a speed limit, but a speed guideline.
• Right-of-way is determined by the mass of the vehicle you drive, or how willing you are to risk life and limb to make that merge.
• Looking before crossing lanes is considered unsporting.

I can get an idea as to whether or not I’m going to be badly late by what I’m driving by before 5:30 pm.  If I pass the train tracks by the finger nail polish plant (they don’t make finger nail polish, but that’s what the place smells like) around 5:30, then I’m going to be there on time.  If I’m passing the airport, then I’m going to cut it close.  It’s 5:35 and I am now just crossing the bridge.  Yeah.  I’m gonna be late.

The best thing I can do right now is goose my engine to move up to eighty miles an hour and stay in the right lane.  However, in a moment inspired by low blood sugar, desperation and not paying attention, I found myself drifting towards the middle of the road.  Missing an exit would put me even later.  I had to cross two lanes of traffic very soon.  The only thing that’s keeping me from making the crossover is a slow truck dragging a mowing tractor.  I can’t speed up to go around him, because every time I try to move forward to get around the car on my right, he slows down.  So, I do what I have to do.

I slow down, peer over my shoulder quickly, goose the engine and cross the two lanes of traffic going eighty-five in a fifty-five…ish sort of zone.  To my amazement, when I go over the painted off section and cut in front of a car with only a half-car length to spart — I don’t kill everyone involved.  I press down on the gas some more to give the guy behind me some more room.  As I creep into the low nineties, I see the “check engine” light come on.  Not a little ‘dude, you might want to get me checked’.  It was the ‘Scotty screaming at me that she cannae take the strain, Captain as my hair’s on fire’ red light.  I keep looking from the light, to the speedometer which I am trying to ease back down to sub-light to the traffic ahead.  By some miracle, the engine stays in the car and the usual choke point here is flowing free.  Slowing down, I creep into the exit lane.  Thanks to my daring heroics, I think I’m going to be merely two minutes late.

Wow — it’s beginning to look like that the telling of the weekend is going to be longer than the weekend itself.  I will continue on with tomorrow.  I’m also going to talk about my upcoming sci-fi project which I am calling “The Mind of Man”.  I’m just going to try to hash out somethings online here.  Hopefully it won’t be too burdensome.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to see y’all tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Hello, everyone — sorry for the late entry, but I have had an action packed, frustrated weekend.  I learned quite a bit over the past three days.

On Friday, I had a minor panic that reminded me that I need to backup all my important files (writing, music, cat pictures).  I have a wireless drive that I put all my stuff on because I had problems with previous hard drives.  I thought I was being clever in storing it offline.  Yeah — fast forward a couple of years and I discover Spotify, so I think that I’ll just post all my music files (all 113 Gb) up there.  So I go to my Z: drive which houses all my music and writing and start loading the files.  No problem.  As I look through the loaded files, I see some things that aren’t really for public consumption.  So I discontinue the upload, going about my merry way.  Speed forward past a few days and I want to get into the Z: Drive so I can print something for my writer’s group.  I double click on the ‘computer’…

No Z: drive.  No Y: Drive (has my photography files and Art Bell .mp3s).  No X: Drive (some .gif files and my computer files backup).  Nothing.  I don’t panic because I’ve had this happen before.  I lean over my desk and power cycle the drive — turn it off and turn it back on thirty seconds later.  85% of the time, this solves it.

God rolls an 87 on the percentile dice.

I still don’t panic.  I turn off and turn on the router.  Nothing.  I restart the PC.  More Nothing.  I unplug the computer and plug it back in going through a hard reboot.  I have a plate of nothing, with a side of nothing and a tall, cool glass of dammit, nothing.  OK, I start to panic a little.  I’m not concerned (greatly) about the music.  I still have all my CDs, so I can just re-rip stuff, re-download from places where I purchased them.  I am way more concerned about the file labeled ‘Writing’.  Everything — rough drafts, final copies, notes, playlists — was in that file.  I have very limited sorts of back-ups for that.  Notes on several blank books, what I can remember, but other than that — if I can’t get to the Z: drive and that writer’s files…I’m done.  The only things that I can call back are the finished and formatted versions of my books because I stored them online.

Monday through Thursday, this wouldn’t have been a big problem.  I would have just gone on with the rest of my day and tried to fix it at night.  However, it was Friday — I needed to still print copies of my first novel selection and get gas for the car and possibly get some lunch.  My computer had a different agenda for me.  It was mostly cursing, begging — the whole five stages of death done in about 3 hours.  I kept clicking on the disk manager, the file manager and every other manager I could get feverish access to by mouse.  I am panicking right now just because I’m going to be late for work if I don’t leave right now.

Miracle of miracles, I clicked on the right thing and got a prompt for my hard drive on the wireless network.  Huzzah!  I can get to it through that!

Or I could if I remembered the name and password I gave that it.  I think I just let it have the default password which I don’t remember.  Before all of this (and I think Spotify has something to do with this, it was working fine before I uploaded the files) I never needed to log in, it showed up in my computer as the labeled drives.  Password?  I have no idea.  I uninstall and reinstall the drivers for the dashboard.  Still asking for a password.  Did I use the default password?  I don’t know.  I click on the dashboard — maybe there is something that I can do.

Create New User?  I click on that little tucked away button on the dash board.  What’s the worst that can happen now?

User Name?  I type in my first name (which I never use).

User Password?  I type in my usual password.

Grant new user admin rights (view and change files)?  Hell, yes!

I go back to the main dashboard and login under my new name.  I don’t see the X:, Y: or Z: drive, but I do see the folders marked “Writing”, “Music” and “Daughter of the Mountain” (The sequel to this book).  I just had installed a new hard drive that I was going to use as more storage.  A bunch of clicks later, I was moving files from the recently liberated Z: drive to the J: drive.  I open up my writing program and try to get to the project.  The relief that I felt was almost tear-inducing.  I copy and paste the first 2,000 words to a word document file for printing.  I can breathe again.  I can get the file printed and copies.

I can also be ten minutes late to work from all this.  That’s OK — I’m good for now.

That was the beginning of the weekend for me.  Next time — I become social!  Drinks!  Dinner!  Panic Attacks!

Tune in!

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

I remember when I was younger (much younger) I could go for a couple of days without sleeping and still have energy for rehearsals, studying, reading, writing and all that.  Now?  I have one night of insomnia and the rest of my week is shot.  My practical advice for writers?  Do not grow old.  It sucks.

I did manage to write a little bit today (yesterday was spent reading “Dexter Is Dead”) and with only a minor disruption to my schedule.  I have finished the first chapter and I am going to do a little revision to smooth out some rough parts because I know if I don’t do it now, I am going to forget about it.  This is to bring it up to date with the rest of the fantasy world that it’s taking place in.  Yeah, it sounds weird, but it will make sense later on.

I’m still haven’t figured out what’s going to happen past Ehren meeting his cousin, which is for me unusual because by the time I get to the keyboard, I have everything figured out and ready to go.  I’m trying a different approach to hopefully keep me going in this piece.  I get a little…wanderlustful when I write.  If you could peek inside my head, you’d see a literal graveyard of stories I’ve started and abandoned.  Heck, if you read this blog, you’ll see where I have started stories and hung them up for something else (usually another bright and shiny idea, but more often than not it was something external *cough* *cough* Borderlands *cough* *cough*) to do.  If I can get through the next chapter and past the cousin, I might start the reveal of the Big Bad.  I kinda like the Big Bad in this one: it’s a hive mind that calls back a couple of smaller villains from an earlier book.  My biggest fear is being sucked into a hive mind.  It’s a breakdown of those most indefatigable defenses in my own mind.  Losing my sense of independence and joining some mob — that’s what keeps me up at nights…other than heartburn and that damned mosquito.  Seriously, what is up with the kamikaze mosquito?  It dashes at my face shortly before disappearing and more than likely looking for a tasty spot to tuck in.

Ask me why I love winter.

Well, the day is sinking into my bones, so I am going to head off to bed.  I hope you all have a good day.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Hello, all — I didn’t do any writing today because I got THIS!  The final book in the Dexter series!  if you have not read this series, you are missing out on the best reading series out there…and I am somewhat hard to please.  Don’t let the negative comments about how the TV series ended keep you from enjoying this.  Yes — Season One and Book One were very similar, but they diverge for Book Two and Season Two (if you’re a fan of the series, I’d stop after the season with Colin Hanks).  I think the books are better because we really get inside Dexter’s head and how he sees the world and himself. Not to take away from Michael C. Hall’s performance, but just because of the strictures of the medium, we only get but so much.

I pre-ordered the book through Amazon, so it showed up in my Kindle the next morning.  I didn’t even bother to pack my iPad for writing at work because I knew I would be wolfing this down.  Seriously — I’m about halfway through it and it weighs in at 306 pages.  Reading this should be mandatory for anyone looking for a good example of First Person Narrative. For me, I got to indulge in just reading for fun.  Too often I find myself reading and making little mental notes about turn of phrase, or how a plot develops.  Interesting story — one time my Mom punished me by taking away TV for a month.  Ha — joke’s on her, I read the whole time and loved it.  I don’t even remember what the punishment was for.

Anyhow, enough about the book.  Nothing else got done today for obvious reasons, so I’ll just have to work harder tomorrow and get Ehren, OIsin and Vimala out of the wainwright’s and back on the open road.  I am going to stick to my goal of getting this book out the door by year’s end.  Hopefully, I can finish the text by September and spend the rest of the time editing and not take Nanowrimo this year seriously (not dropping out completely, but if I don’t finish then it’s not the end of the world for me).  I just need to buckle down again and get back into the swing of things.  After I finish this chapter and try to kill this mosquito.

Well, the day is beginning to weigh down on me, so I am going to try to bring this blog to a speed close.  Tomorrow, I’ll throw down my 1,700 words and maybe reward myself with another chapter.    Actually, another thing I need to do is to try to find a Bitcoin shopping card and try to sell some side stories from friends on this site.  Certainly can’t hurt, given that Bitcoin is jumping up to $270.00 today from $220.00 four months ago.

Have a good day, everyone.  I’ll be curled up on the couch reading about Dashing and Enduranced Dexter.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Hello, all!  Now that the vacation period is over (I know this because today was light even for a Monday, so I am not looking forward to later on today…), and I am back to work officially as both writer and Dreaded Day Jobber, I would like to say that if you have any questions for me (limited to writing, as I like to keep my private life off the computers — what’s put up on the Internet stays on the Internet, right Beyonce?) feel free to ask them.

As far as the novel goes, I am getting the pair out of the house and off to the cousin’s tonight.  I’ve been wanting to write this scene because I am trying to work on how my characters sound when they talk to each other.  Sometimes, I get the feeling that there is little difference in how one character sounds compared to another.  For all the time I spend talking to people on the phones, I should have dialogue down pat.  For me, I am trying to not have to fall into the trap of writin’ foh-net-cally but give a hint of some sort of accent or manner of speaking through vocabulary.  Of course, I still need to get an idea of what the cousin is like.  He’s a moonshiner (where it’s not considered illegal, merely troublesome) and he is the one who Ehren buys his moonshine from in order to charge it with a little bit of the healing power — technically, it’s Vimala’s power, but we know what’s what around here — and his cousin charges him a slightly higher (“We’re cousins on your momma’s side, but that ain’t really family.”).  In my mind, I’m casting this guy just because he perfectly embodies the slimy part of the business — any business, really.  Yes, Ehren is a bit of a shyster and a lazy gadabout, but he’s at least trying to keep a small sense of respectability about him.  I see his cousin calling him out on it every now and then because he knows he can really tweak him with the reminder that there’s very little difference between the two of them.  Just that one of them accepts what fate has handed him and is making good money out of it and the other wants to put on airs of ‘benevolent capitalism’ to make himself feel good about himself.  Whether this improves or not, I am not sure — it’s still early in the draft for me to see what’s happening in between now and the end of the book (how much should he have left when it’s all said and done?  Really depends on my mood — could be the clothes on his back, could be nothing.  We’ll just have to see.).

Well, it’s getting near the time I should get some sleep.  If you’re interested in what I’m listening to when I write this, I’ve put my Spotify list out here and here.  I take no responsibility for your disappointment or enthusiasm.

Have a good day everyone,

Seething Apathy

Hello, everyone!  I hope everyone had a good three day weekend.  I didn’t do much in terms of writing over the course of the weekend, but I did get to go see Terminator: Genesys.  

Wow — if you’re a fan of the franchise (like me) this film has everything.  It continues the story quite well and there are some genuinely funny moments in the film (still can’t get that smile right…).  There are some great callbacks to both films and while yes there is a big reveal that’s killed by the trailers (seriously, guys? A running time of 126 minutes and you pick those?), there is still enough surprises in the movie.  Oh, stick around after the credits for an additional scene that is going to lead into the next movie.  It’s in the top five movies of the summer for me, knocking Avengers: Age of Ultron from a very close second to an even closer third.  Mad Max: Fury Road remains on the top for me.  There are still a bunch of movies I want to see like Spy and Inside Out.  Those might be coming up for me in a couple of weeks.

Like I said earlier, there was no writing on the weekend for the holiday.  I am kinda chomping at the bit to get something started again, which is why this blog entry is a little late.  We’re still at the wainwright’s, but the axle is getting fitte in the wagon, so our main character will be off to see his cousin and get more swill to charge up and sell to others.  As any good writer (and me) will say that a scene needs to advance the plot, show us something about the character or their environment.  This scene is going to show that poor Ehren is estranged from both family and polite society.  With the scene with the wainwright, we see that Ehren is not a complete jerk.  He does grab some food to help with the scurvy and rickets ridden boy (Vimala wants him to do more…might rhyme with schmidschmapping), and gives up some of his food for him (if I’m lucky, I can write that scene today).  This little rule is useful to bring in when you start editing.  Of course, this rule must be used ruthlessly, and I try to use it early so I can kill my darling scene before they’re committed to paper.  Like ripping off a band-aid rather than easing it off, it better that way.

I apologize for this entry being late.  I was working on the aforementioned novel before I realized I didn’t have anything ready, so this will be a little short.  I will have more to say tomorrow.

Until then…

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

No post today.  Relax and have fun.  I certainly will.

Hello — now that I’m done spilling my guts out about next year’s project, I am going to bring up something that has started quite a kerfluffle on Facebook and on the Internet: Amazon’s new borrowing system.

Previously, Amazon did this: you borrowed a book from their service and in doing so, you read it and borrowed another.  To you, it was free…and it is as far as you paid nothing.  However, if you read 10% of it, it was counted as a “sale” and the author got a little something from it (I’ve been seeing $1.30, but I think it might have depended on the price of the book if bought).  This doesn’t seem bad really, if someone reads a book, but doesn’t like it, they return it by borrowing something else.  This is an excellent way to try new authors and even support them (Disclosure: I’ve had one of my books borrowed be people and got paid a very little bit).  I’m sure you can see where things could become gameable.

Example: you grab a fantasy novel, which could come in at 100,000 words easily.  If each page is on average 250 words, you’d have to read 10,000 words or 40 pages for the author to get paid for the borrow.  Most erotica comes in at around 5,000 to 8,000 words which comes out to 2 to 3.2 pages for the author to get paid (and less on average, something that small doesn’t usually get the 70% royalties that other things do).  Which do you think is going to happen?

Now, I have a friend who writes erotica and romance (Her books are to the left, feel free to buy one or two — she quite good) and she’s not happy about what’s going on.  What is going on is that Amazon is switching to a different pay scheme for borrowing books.  You are now going to get paid per page read.  Yep.  If someone borrows a book (and even at Kindle’s prices for books, how is someone going to turn down free?  Don’t think it’s possible?  The Quietest Heart had nothing May 31st — no sales, no borrows, nothing.  When I put it up for free the next day, 53 units given away and it went up and down for a while until the promotion ended in June 7th.  Doesn’t do a whole lot for my ego to be honest.), the writer is only going to get paid for what he reads.  If you’re a good writer, then you’ll get a good rate.  If you’re a middlin’ writer, then well you might enough so that you can take your family out to the upscale Outback restaurant right across the street from the mall.

Amazon has been clever enough to not release the formula that they’re going to use to determine who gets what.  I’m hoping that it’s going to be the royalty divided by the number of pages read…which could come out to something along the lines of 2 to 3 cents a page.  This is going to do a lot of harm to the self-publishing community.  Beyond a lot of people losing revenue (ever read a cookbook from cover to cover?), this puts a lot of advantage in Amazon’s court.  Books that don’t perform well hardly get paid (which makes a wonderful opportunity for Amazon to come in with their ad campaign for self-publishers — for mere $100, they can put your book in ads that most people are going to ignore) and books that get read cover to cover might not get the same royalty rate as if someone bought it.  If it is not royalty divided by page count, then what is it?  What is this going to do to the market in general?  If you only get a couple of bucks for a full read (consider that the average book is going to be $2.99 at a 70% royalty [not adding in the reseller 4 to 6 percent] is 2.09 minus Amazon’s “transfer fee” (yep, get you coming and going) and the average length of a novel is 60,000 words.  60,000 words translates into 240 pages which means each page is going to be worth… .008 cents.  Read 10% of that book and the author makes .048 cents.  Amazon’s Kindle Lending Program and Kindle Unlimited are how Amazon is going to stay solvent.  That money that’s not being used it going to go into the war chest, which they need to invest and grow.  Why?  Read this article (Amazon is #2 on the list) and the change in attitude will become clearer.

There is actually an upside to this beyond that company staying afloat to sell us Kindles.  Writers are now going to have to get better.  They write a kick ass 10% and a crappy 90% now.  I doubt that this is Amazon’s initial idea, but it’s going to be an unexpected benefit.  However, while I hope that it will make self-publishing a little more of a good idea rather than a ‘bless your heart’ notion, I am not in favor of something that is going to hurt the honest people out there (like my friends to the right).

What’s a writer to do?  People out there are going to go from making about $3,000 a month to maybe 10% of that on a good month.  The answer is three-fold:

1) Don’t use their system.  Amazon is not the only game in town when it comes to self-publishing.  They may be the best know, but there is Kobo, Barnes and Noble and iBook.  Draft2Digital is a good service to use.  Smashwords is another.  They may not have the heft or reach of Amazon, but they’re there.

2) Use Amazon’s referral service as well if you’re a writer.  See my links to the right of the page?  I get an additional 4 percent when you click on them and buy the book.  That helps a lot.  It doesn’t take a lot and it helps.

3) Be prolific as a (censored) rabbit.  This is the best way to game the system.  The more books you have being borrowed, the more money you’re going to get.  That’s the best way for a lot of erotic writers to work, since they’re used to churning out a lot of work in a short amount of time.

4) Sell it yourself.  This does hand in hand with number one.  You have to have a website nowadays (even for a modest blog like mine)  You’ve got a captive audience reading your works online — set up a small shopping cart and sell your stuff for the right price directly to the consumer.  There are free programs out there to format your book and places to store it online.

Amazon is not the great giant it thinks it is.  We are the underdogs and we are all still too pretty to die.