Big Ed's Place

Is it May already? Where the heck did April go? Perhaps the only thing scarier is how I know May will zip by just as quickly. It always does–May and December are the two most stressful months of the year for me, due to the added events of the Calendar. December’s obvious. May has Mother’s Day, a bunch of birthdays, and the need to get out and do yard work now that the snow has stopped (I live in CO–it’s not necessarily done snowing by May, but is often enough to plant). This year it has other stresses related to my day job and our upcoming baby.

But April wasn’t a complete blur. I remember writing in there somewhere.

So what was the result? Where’s the queue these days?

Waiting to hear from Publishers:
Deep Dish
Science Fiction Story
Take it to the Bank
Unbelievable (finished in April, 3315 words, 867 new words in April)

About to be released on Smashwords and Amazon:
A Smile on my Face (and three other stories)

Waiting to hear from editors:
Broken (3973 words, 1709 new words in April)
Science Fiction story (871 words, new in April)

In work:
Unmasked (7216 words, 1685 new in April)
Sights on the Night Shift (979 words, new in April)

For the last week, I added 731 words on Unmasked and 209 words to Sights on the Night Shift, which last week had no title. Not a bad week.

Waiting in the wings:
The Coulter News Network (Summer Camp Story)
Giving Thanks (9th Holiday Series Story)
Devil in the Details (Devil sequel)
Boys of Summer (3rd Compassionate Courtesan novel)
Historical Novel (under different nom de plume)
Holiday in St. Martin (Holiday Series bonus story)
Christening (Summer Camp Story)

There are some other potential queue jumpers, but they’ve slid to the back burner for now. My front plate is pretty full.

In particular, sharp-eyed readers may have noticed that four stories are about to hit the ebook stores. I’ll do updates to this site and announcements when that happens, but it’s part of why I’ve been “in the books” this month. Despite 3 of them being done by Direidi Publishing, it’s been a fair amount of work to get them up. This is no fault of Direidi’s–we’ve had trouble with the illustrations being deemed acceptable on Smashwords. Needless to say, there’s no longer any nudity in those illustrations. Amazon doesn’t care, though, so the full illustrations can be found there. As much as Amazon’s annoyed me for how they treated me when I was an affiliate, their ruthless greed is certainly good for not censoring my work.

So I guess I have been busy (6113 words for the month), which is why the time has flown.

So The Ugly One is now released at a handful of ebook retailers, Amazon among them. I’ve of course popped over as a ‘customer’ to see how it looks and have been fine tuning some of the information. Unfortunately, it’s clear that there are two things missing: “customers who purchased this also purchased” and reviews.

Reviews are a funny thing, when you’re on the ‘reviewed’ end. A good one sets the heart aflutter and soaring. A bad one can similarly trigger black moods and second guessing. It’s hard to not take it personally.

At least, in my experience, at first. After enough similar reviews, it stops being relevant. The review becomes as much of a reflection on the reviewer as the reviewed.

For example, I had my annual performance review this past week. It was, for lack of a better word, fluff. I knew pretty much what my reviewer was going to say, even though I’d sent him different names as coworker references than I’d sent last year or the year before. I know what my employer thinks I should do better. I know what my employer thinks I do great. It’s been the same for the past 17 years, even though I’ve been with multiple employers during that time.

That said, when I first started my professional career 17 years ago, those reviews mattered to me. I wanted to understand what they thought of me and I was scared it wasn’t going to be good. So I’d prep for the reviews and do my best to put a good foot forward in the weeks leading up to the review.

So… now I’m looking at Amazon and going, “I need reviews in order to help sell this book.” The hidden question lurking beneath that is, how honest a review do I want?

Because let’s face it, positive glowing reviews help sales. That’s why there are ‘shills’ in the universe, who put up favorable reviews in exchange for something (this happens from time to time in the online reviews of escorts and other sex workers). But at the same time, reviews can often be arbitrary for no particularly good reason. It’s one of the reasons I stopped looking at my scores on Storiesonline. They didn’t tell me anything and when I realized that some people were giving me low scores simply to keep me out of the top 20, I stopped paying attention entirely (and if you haven’t read my satire on scoring on storiesonline, 9.7, go do so now).

But what if I get a quality review and it’s not positive?

Because in writing professionally, I’m really closer to that first or second year kid I was 15-17 years ago than who I am in my daytime job today. I know how good I am by amateur standards (storiesonline, etc.) But pro? I don’t have enough of a track record to be able to do a reasonable self-evaluation.

At the same time, The Ugly One is both my baby and an earlier work with some flaws. I’m a better writer now than when I first wrote it. It’s also more personal than many of my later works. Does the heart balance out the technical flaws? Are those flaws even noticeable?

The fear flows.

Now I know what I will do, of course. On Amazon, I’ll just wait and see what happens. Maybe I’ll get some reviews, maybe not. At the same time, I’ll actively submit my story to professional reviewers. Maybe they’re read it, maybe not. Maybe they’ll like it, maybe not. Maybe I’ll get some good feedback and maybe it’ll turn out that they just hate my style.

But by doing so, the fear won’t win. Which will make it easier for the next book and the next book and the book after that.

This past week, Slate published an article titled Kindlerotica expressing surprise that Amazon was selling “pornographic” ebooks and even giving them away for free. I waded into the comments, along with several other erotica authors and readers, and the author (James Ledbetter) did his best to rebut some of the attacks on his article.

The article takes the standard salacious but conservative spin on sex that we see so often in the press. “We’re shocked at this! (but let us promote our article with sexy pictures of mostly naked women).” The trope here is old and tired–use the titillation of the sexual content to draw an audience and then condemn it as bad. It’s Jerry Springer lite. It’s Hooters claiming it’s a wholesome family restaurant. And now it’s Slate.

Getting past the promo banners, the article really lacks a lot of meat. It can be summarized as:
1. There’s porn available for Kindle at Amazon.
2. Some of that porn is given away for free.
3. Free porn is very very popular.
4. There’s a side trip talking about how it’s “men’s erotic fiction” indicating that that’s somehow bad and that women are unlikely to be reading it.
5. Amazon could draw flack for selling this material, especially since they are listed as the publisher for many of these books.

So, what’s missing?
A. No comments from Amazon. Apparently Ledbetter didn’t bother to contact them to get their side of the story.
B. No meaningful research into what other ebook retailers sell. In a reply to me in the comments, Ledbetter said the bn.com and borders.com don’t sell comparable work, but it took me all of the 30 seconds to find them. So he didn’t actually do the research.
C. An effort to research the actual audience for the books. The side trip drew most of the ire in the comments in large part because Ledbetter was asserting without a shred of backup evidence.
D. Any analysis of how free porn is different from free books of other genres.
E. Any serious examination of what it means for Amazon to be the publisher vs. just a retailer for other publishers, notably erotic small presses like Samhain (which he cites in the article).
F. Any evidence beyond speculation that Amazon could have trouble for selling this.

So–is this journalism, or a puff piece no better than a tossed-off blog post? Given the lack of factual backing or serious research, I think that answer is obvious.

What this piece does reveal is that Ledbetter was surprised to discover free eporn on Amazon. In fact, that’s about all it reveals.

Well, I can get into the same spirit. I’ll zip over to Amazon… checking their ebooks… oh my! There’s eporn on Amazon! I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked! Particularly because none of it is mine (yet)!

Now doesn’t that deserve the same serious consideration?