In Defense of “Free”

Last week I came across an interesting post by social media maven Kristen Lamb about the dangers of authors making ebooks available for free. You should read the full post for yourself, but the general theme of the post was that because the ebook market is flooded with free stuff and most of it is worth less than a barrel of turds (because, hey, at least turds make good fertilizer) so making your book available for free could do more harm than good merely through the power of negative association.

As some of you may know, I’ve had some experience with the free side of the ebook market in the past, both as a seller and a buyer. And while I’ll concede that there are dangers in offering your ebook for free, in my experience there are also some advantages.

Last year Amazon made my ebook Derelict available for free without my prior knowledge or consent. It hit me as a shock, but it was perfectly within Amazon’s rights to make the change, and rather than gripe and moan about what was happening to my book, I decided to take a positive outlook on the situation. After all, it wasn’t like I was burning up the internet with that story before it was offered for free, and at least now people were READING it. And more than just reading it, some people responded with generally positive reviews.

Fast forward to a couple of months ago when Amazon took the book back to its original price. Of course it didn’t move in the same numbers as it did when it was free, but it still outsold the rest of my fiction by a factor of a thousand percent (that’s a multiple of ten for those of you who ain’t so swuft with the math stuff.) Today it continues to sell just as well.

Which is why, when I recently released another short story, The Fisherman’s Nightmare, I chose to make it available for free on Smashwords. Of course the free book selection on Smashwords is even worse than what it is on Amazon, and the traffic there isn’t nearly as heavy which means I didn’t have terribly high hopes for the story, but not only did it move at a reasonable rate, it also drove a few sales for my other paid books as well.

Now this is only anecdotal evidence, and I’m not trying to say that everything Kristen said in her post was wrong, but I do feel like there’s a little more to the story.

We all want to get people talking about our writing, and as an unknown author it can be easy to feel overwhelmed, lost in a sea of other authors of varying ability, all them trying to break through to become the next Amanda Hocking. There are lots of ways to get the message about your books out to the world, but the core of the equation remains: are they any good?

And whether you choose to spread the word via social media, or making your books free, or hiring out a plane to do skywriting, people aren’t going to respond if they don’t like your work.

Remember, there is plenty of bad self published fiction out there, and at whatever price it makes the rest of us look bad.

Do your part. Don’t make it worse.

Announcing: a new short story; the mistreatment of children; and Flash Fiction February

Greetings dear readers,

It has come to my attention that there might theoretically be some of you out there wondering, “What might be the goings on in the life of small-time self published author and applied retro-phrenologist extraordinaire, Albert Berg?” And because I do not wish you to lose any more sleep puzzling this matter over I have taken it upon myself to inform you dear readers, that these be the goings on:

1. I have published a new(ish) short story.

Some of you may remember that I wrote “The Fisherman’s Nightmare” a while back as a response to one of Chuck Wendig’s weekly challenges. It was one of the few times he posted a challenge without a wordcount limit, and the story that grew in my mind took the better part of a week to write. By the time it was finished I was close to the deadline so I posted it pretty much as a rough draft, and promptly forgot about it.

But a few weeks ago I was mucking through my files and happened to take another look at “The Fisherman’s Nightmare”. To my utter shock and surprised, it actually wasn’t half bad. So I polished it up, read it aloud to myself (writers, for serious, do this when you edit) polished some more, tweaked the ending and voila!

Voila: like a voilin but smaller

Its available from Amazon for money, or you can get it from Smashwords for free.

2. I am inflicting cruel and unusual punishment on my foster kids.

Okay, folks, don’t report me to Child Protective Services, but well there’s no easy way to say this: I’m turning off the televisions in our house for a month.

I know, right? A whole entire month! What kind of sick person could be so cruel to himself and others. Clearly there is something wrong with me.

But the thing is, and I don’t know, maybe this is just me, but I can’t help thinking that maybe there are other things we could all be doing with our time than soaking up TV. I’m not necessarily against television, but I know I managed to go for more than ten years of my childhood without it, and I’m thinking maybe we’ll be able to manage it for a single month.

Maybe we’ll listen to some old-time radio shows or play some games or, I dunno, talk to each other? Is that thing people still do? I guess we’ll find out in a week.

In the mean time I’m going on a Doctor Who watching binge to tide me over through the dark days ahead.

3. I am founding Flash Fiction February

What is Flash Fiction February? Well, think of it like National Novel Writing Month, only instead of writing an entire novel in a month you write a new flash fiction story every day.

Really this is a challenge I’m making for myself, but I’d love to have some of you join me. I think coming up with a new and different story every day for twenty-nine straight days would be a great way to exercise our mental storytelling muscles.

You don’t have to do anything with the stories you write. They don’t even have to be good stories. Like NaNoWriMo the concept here is to get those fingers typing and build up consistency as a writer.

If you’re interested in joining me in writing a flash fiction story for every day next month, drop a line in the comments. Also if this is an idea that interests you, I’d love some help spreading the word. Tweet, blog, send smoke signals, whatever.

And as always, happy writing!

“The Mulch Pile” is FREE for All Hallows Read

I just wanted to drop a quick line here that I’m temporarily making The Mulch Pile available for FREE on Smashwords in honor of Neil Gaiman’s All Hallow’s Read celebration.

If you’ve been on the fence about this thing, then now is your chance you download it risk free. All I ask is that you spread the word if you like it. Write a review, tweet the link, tell a friend.

And, if you can, do help me spread the word about this giveaway too. I’d like to see as many people as possible get their hands on The Mulch Pile in the next three days, and you can help make that happen.

Happy Halloween. And happy reading.

The Mulch Pile

You’re not going to believe this story. Maybe that’s for the best. To tell you the truth, I don’t know if I really believe it myself anymore. Maybe it’s just a story I tell myself so that I won’t have to remember the Truth. But Terrence is dead; that much you can believe.

He should have been the one to write this, Terence I mean. He was always real good with this kind of thing. But now he’s gone, and it’s just me left to tell the tale. You probably won’t believe it, but for my sake, for Terrence’s sake, remember.

The Mulch Pile lives! If you’ve been following this blog for very long, you know that this is a project I’ve been working on for a while.

You could say it has its roots all the way back in my childhood when my dad dug into our garden mulch pile and told me to put my hand inside.  I lowered my palm into that cavity and felt waves of heat coming off the rotting vegetables and grass clippings inside. It totally creeped me out.

Years later, in 2009 to be exact, while I was casting about for a concept for my National Novel Writing Month novel, the idea of a monster mulch pile sprang into my head, and I knew that was the story I was going to write.

I had to write it. Because no one else was going to.

But along the way it became so much more. I’m not much a fan of pantsing these days, but in the November of 2009 sitting in Walmart’s parking lot with my laptop, pounding away on this story when I should have been eating lunch, pantsing took me to a place I never dreamed of finding.

And instead of writing a simple story about a monster mulch pile, I uncovered layers of meaning about brotherhood, identity, and the dark side of love.

Consequently, this story is really two stories. One is the story you will read. The other is the story between the lines.

Confused? Think of it like this painting:

On the one hand you can see a normal bowl of vegetables. But hidden within those vegetables is a pattern of something far stranger.

Similarly The Mulch Pile has two sides. One side is about a monster mulch pile. The other side…well let’s not spoil that shall we?

The Mulch Pile is available for all your favourite electronic reading devices. Kindle, Nook, whatever. I’ve got you covered.

The going rate from all those websites is $2.99.  But if you’ve got an ereader that can process .epub files, then I’ve got an extra special offer. The ebook is available directly from me for $1.99. Just click   and save!

I’m really excited about this story, guys. It’s been a long time in the birthing, but I’m thrilled to be finally releasing it into the wild.

And, as always, if you enjoy reading it half as much as I enjoyed writing it, my work will have been worth it all.

π out of e Doctors Agree

If you’ve been trolling for writing advice for any length of time, you’ve no doubt heard of the butt-in-chair approach to writing productivity. If you haven’t heard basically the advice runs thusly:

First you need a butt. Any size will do. Many human bodies come preequipped with butts for this very purpose. Consult your owners manual to determine if you are one of them. If you do not possess a butt, then strap a pillow to the back of your legs. That will work almost as well.

Second. Sit your but down in a chair. Any chair will do, but perhaps your butt has a special chair that it likes to sit in. This is fine provided the relationship does not go too far. My butt has become particularly friendly with a big red recliner that used to belong to my father.

Third. You write. I’m not sure what you write on since neither of the previous two steps said anything about getting any writing materials. Maybe you’re supposed to scratch the words into your skin with your fingernails. Personally I use a computer type device designed to sit on top of my lap. If you do not have a lap you may have to sit at a table or something.

So that’s the process. Basically it’s saying forget about inspiration and dive into your work. Those words ain’t gonna write themselves. I mean they might but that last time that happened…well I think it’s best not to talk about that.

COMPLETELY RANDOM PICTURE!!!

But you know what? Sometimes I kinda hate this process. I’m not talking about the persevering even though you don’t feel like writing part. I’m talking about the sitting down part.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can only take so many sedentary hours before I start to come down with the dreaded disease I like to call the Sittin’ Around Blues. The Sittin’ Around Blues start in your lower back and move up your spine toward your head. Once they reach the head you’ll start to feel morose and lackadaisical. And if you let them go on for long enough, depression sets in.

So what do you do?

Well when I start to feel the Sittin’ Around Blues creep up on me I get up and take a health dose of Doing Something Else for a Change. Doing Something Else for a Change comes in a variety of handy shapes and sizes. There’s the Get Up and Clean the House for an Hour pill, and the Take the Dog for a Walk lozenge, as well as the Go Outside and Pull Some Weeds in the Garden suppository.

“But Albert,” you say, “what if Doing Something Else for a Change causes my ideas to evaporate into the aether?”

Never fret dear reader, for the side effects for Doing Something Else for a Change, include increased creativity, greater energy and enhanced inspiration, so that when you come back to your story it will seem new and interesting again.

But don’t take my work for it. If the Butt in Chair method is giving you the Sittin’ Around Blues, then try Doing Something Else for a Change and see if it doesn’t work for you.

[This blog post sponsored by Action Corp. the makers of Do Something Else for a Change as well as many other fine products. Do Something Else for a Change is sold in fine stores everywhere. Also crappy stores in some places. They’re really not that selective about who sells it.]

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A Prairie Home Apocalypse or What the Dog saw is still on sale for Kindle and is available for other devices from Smashwords (I suppose I should specify that it is available for other ereader devices. It is not yet available for your vaccuum. We’re still working on the formatting there.) And for those of you Nook people out there who have been hounding me about this, I swear its coming soon. Also the book has gotten some lovely reviews over at Amazon, and I want to thank those of you who took the time out of your day to say nice things about the book. You all mean the world to me.

A Prairie Home Apocalypse or: What the Dog Saw

So apparently…good things come to those who wait. And wait.

And.

Wait.

Good things also come to those who hit the refresh button over and over and freak out until they make themselves sick. I’ll let you guess which one I am.

Yes, that’s right A Prairie Home Apocalypse or: What the Dog Saw just went live on Amazon.

It’s possible that you may be wondering: “Is this book really for me?” If you are I have compiled a helpful reference for your edification. The following is a list of the types of people who may find my book interesting.

1. People who like dogs

Come on folks, give it up for man’s best friend. Not only are they kind and loyal, but they don’t look down on you like those uppity cat things.

Seriously. How can you say no to that?

2. People who like zombies

You know the ones. The walking dead, those lovable reanimated rotting corpses that just want to have a little nibble of your brains. They waltzed their way into the popular imagination with George A. Romero’s classic Dawn of the Dead, and we haven’t looked back since (except of course to make sure none of them were following us home).

3. People who don’t like dogs

Because um…maybe things might not go very well for our lovable fury protagonist?

4. People who like me

Maybe you can’t stand zombies. Maybe just thinking about dogs makes you itch. Maybe you don’t want to read a groundbreaking work of literary fiction that reimagines the zombie horror genre in a different light. Maybe you just want to an awesome dude how much you like him. Or you can just show me, and I’ll make sure some sufficiently awesome dude hears about it later.

If you fall into any of these categories then I’d suggest that you check out my book. At this very moment it is available for Kindle only, but I’m working diligently to get it up on Smashwords for those of you who happen to have something other than a Kindle (I’m one of these people so I feel your pain).

Also, if you happen to like the book, please help me spread the word. Tell a friend, tweet about it, “Like” it on Facebook. If you do the blog thing, then I’d love to do an interview. Community is the only advertising strategy I can afford. But I’m betting it’s the best there is.

And again, to all of you who have already been so supportive of me and my project…thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Bizzaro Book Review: Persistent Illusions by Joseph Devon

I remember when I was a kid, I would go to the library and max out their borrowing limit. I would come home with a big bundle of books and read and read and read. Back then books sucked me in and didn’t let me go. Books like Aliens Ate My Homework, the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Frank Baum’s Oz books, I devoured them all in big starving gulps, rushing from one page to the next.

I haven’t been there with a book in a while. But Joseph Devon’s book Persistent Illusions took me right back to that to that place where the story took over my mind and wouldn’t let go.

I should start by telling you that Persistent Illusions is a sequel to another book called Probability Angels that I reviewed several months back. Probability Angels and Persistent Illusions take place in the world of the Testers, a group of human souls who have been chosen to stay on the earth and “push” living humans to live beyond their potential.

That’s the setup in the nutshell. But truly there’s more…so much more. The world of the testers is utterly fascinating to me. It is a place where mathematical equations can be conceptualized into objects like cameras and cell phones, a world where top of Mount Everest is covered with the sleeping souls of Testers, and oh yeah…I almost forgot, there’s zombies too. Sort of.

Beyond the magic of the world itself, Persistent Illusions shines out as a sequel. Many series of books I’ve read adhere to the mantra that “status quo is god” meaning that characters are largely the same from one book to another aside from a few superficial changes. Not so with Persistent Illusions.

The near-godlike Epp from the first book has been reduced to a brooding waste of a man, obsessed with what he once was and can no longer be. Conversely Kyo, the totally awesome Japanese Samurai deals with similar changes in a much more positive way. In a smaller sense, Matthew, Mary, and even the villain Hector have all obviously been moved and changed to some degree by the events of the first book. This kind of change in character give the book a striking feeling of authenticity. In the face of adversity the perfect is revealed to be imperfect, and the imperfect is strengthened, just as it is in real life.

I couldn’t write an honest review if I didn’t tell you that this is not a perfect book. I had a few issues with the opening section where the author used a kind of sliding perspective to introduce the major characters all at once without breaking scene, a sort of literary equivalent to opening a movie with a long steadycam shot. Theoretically I quite like the idea, but in practice I found it to be somewhat confusing each time the focus shifted to another character without warning. There are also a number of places where I felt that fairly clear dialogue was overexplained.

But it’s worth noting that these hiccups didn’t slow me down at all. Somewhere in the back of my mind Ethelberth the inner editor was whining, but I was too busy enjoying myself to notice much.

Bottom line? You need to buy this book. First, because it’s awesome and fun, and it sucked me in like no other book has in a while. But second, and possibly more importantly to my mind, you should buy this book because it stands for everything I love about indie publishing. It’s a fantastic story that doesn’t fit into any of the tiny little holes the publishing industry has created and called “genres”. To me, Joseph Devon is the apotheosis of the indepented author, a man with nothing more than his wits and a website, trying to prove that there is nothing more important to a book’s success than a great story.

I hope that you’ll join me in helping to prove him right.

Persistent Illusions is available for Kindle and as a physical book from Amazon.com. Other formats can be purchased from Smashwords. And if you truly can’t afford to buy it from those places (believe me I’ve been there) both Probability Angels and Persistent Illusions are available for free download from Joseph Devon’s website at josephdevon.com.

Seriously people, you’ve got no excuse not to check this out.

Bizzaro Book Review: The Devil in Chains by Adam Christopher

Today’s book review comes with something of a caveat. I started doing this weekly feature in order to showcase unusual types of stories, as well as quality self published works. However when I read The Devil in Chains by Adam Christopher I was faced with something of a dilemma.

The problem is this. I do not love this book. That’s not a snide way of saying that I hate it. It’s just a simple statement of fact. The problem is I’m a little squeamish about being critical of self published works. After all, these authors don’t have the luxury of a fat paycheck to cushion the blow of criticism. I’ve felt the sting of criticism myself and I know how badly it stings.

I could take the “If you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all,” way out, but that feels somehow disingenuous to me. The thing is, there were some things I did quite like about this book, and I want to be able to tell both the good and bad, and let you decide for yourselves. So here goes.

Starting with the bad.

If I had to sum up my main problem with this book in one word it would be this: flat.

The main character for instance seems to be something of a puppet, a mannequin being moved through the various plot points on a track the author had set up for him. He is given a history within the story, but only as an explanation for his knowledge of the dark arts. There is one moment when the protagonist experiences a flashback to a darker time of war and death, but it is a tiny island of color in a still gray sea.

The book is narrated in a very Victorian style of prose which is beautifully executed. However the detached style serves to distance the reader from the plot. For instance when the protagonist is fighting his way through the dark cave to face the eponymous devil in chains he is set upon by a great swarm of insects. While the idea of such an attack is terrifying enough, the calm manner in which it is related feels completely at odds with the true terror of the situation. When reading this passage I found myself wanting to hear the air thrumming with the wings of the cicadas. I wanted to feel a thousand insectile feet crawling across my skin. But instead I was left with a bare description of the facts.

The book is set in a fairly standard steampunk universe which is rendered well enough, but in by end I was asking myself, “Why?” The setting did not appear to be truly central to the plot in any way. In a way it detracted from the terror one might feel if such a story were told in a more familiar and believable setting.

It also had me scratching my head a bit. The story is set in an alternate universe in the year 2001. However every aspect of the culture is a carbon copy of the Victorian era. This left me asking myself, “How is it that the culture could have stagnated for two hundred years while so many technological advances were being made?” I contend that it would have been far more fascinating to see classic steampunk technology set in a world with a society similar to our own.

Now, for the good.

This is not a bad book. I am sure that statement may sound dubious after reading the previous paragraphs, but it is completely true. The author’s command of his prose is both masterful and polished. Despite my problems with the detached feel of the Victorian style prose, the fact that the author was able to slip into that mode so completely is a testament to his skill.

Likewise, the story was enjoyable on the whole. In spite of my earlier complaints about flat characterization, I found the actual events of the story to be completely engrossing. In particular I found the supernatural antagonist’s ability to create an army of facsimiles from the bodies of the newly dead villagers to be terrifying on a very primal level. One of these facsimiles, the Lambert-thing, may be one of the most unsettling villains I have yet encountered in literature.

In summary, in spite of its failings, The Devil in Chains is a truly unique variation on classic horror themes and it deserves to be recognized as such. At only 25,000 words it is a fast and engaging read. And since it is available for free download from the folks over at Smashwords, the price in unbeatable.

I give it ^ of ! stars. Go and check it out and decide its merits for yourself.