Do you realize how good we have it?

[EzzyB]

I have been branching out, or trying too. In any event I'm still
playing around with the self-pub/e-pub thing. One thing that came to
mind was why not give a book away to gain some recognition in the
hopes of selling others?

More on that probably in a few weeks (I have one big gun yet to fire
in that department). Here are some truths that I've found:

You can't give it away. Seriously, you can't. Perhaps I've just gone
to the wrong places, but it's hard to do. Everywhere I've tried I've
run into one of two problems.

1. More writers than readers. This is especially true on Wattpad and
Figment. Make no mistake these are not story sites for readers,
they're social media sites for writers. People literally beg others
to read anything they write. You think it's bad when your SOL story
disappears from the new story list in just a couple of days? Post
something on Wattpad. If you're VERY quick you can hit the 'what's
new' link immediately after posting and find what you posted 30
seconds ago at the bottom of page one. In five minutes its on page 10
and gone forever, lost in endless reams of bad teenage poetry and
werewolf stories.

Figment seems to have even less redeeming qualities. If you are
really patient with Wattpad you can at least find your own content.
Figment doesn't seem to cater to readers at all, but exists solely
to:

2. advertise (by way of "recommendations" and "staff picks") existing
published works. Nothing on their front page shows author contributed
works. Most of it is young adult oriented (and like Wattpad most of
the writers are in their teens). Now this is not new, check out the
front page of Lulu.com. There is NO WAY a book of musical scores for
Irish drumming remained a "staff pick" for 45 days. Someone paid for
that privilege. You'll also notice their "newly published" books
rotate through the front page, the same 8 or 10 titles for a LONG time
(the same 45 days or so). Someone is paying them to do it.

Posting anything serious without joining the whole social network
scene on either site is futile. It's like a microcosm of self
publishing where it's nearly impossible for your story to even get
noticed, even a free one.

I had more luck with ScribD, but that's not saying anything. In a
little more than a month 'Rebecca Danced' was downloaded only 100
times. 0 feedback, nada, nothing. Only a page that says 100
downloads. Then again ScribD is supported by it's own online store
with mostly dead tree published novels in overpriced digital editions.

Today I was perusing the forums at http://absolutewrite.com I ended
up in a forum that was littered with people begging to have someone,
anyone, read their manuscripts and drafts for just the slightest hint
of some feedback.

It's a weird world out there. In our safe little SOL corner people
seemingly can't wait until I write another story so they can consume
months worth of work in just a few hours, burp twice, and ask for
more. Outside, people seem to beg for the slightest hint of someone
reading their work.

I went to SOL and found people who volunteered their time, sight
unseen, to read and help edit my stories. Outside of SOL I see a lot
of desperate writers (OK 90% of them seem to be writing YA paranormal
crap) who can't seem to get anyone to pay attention at all. I
sometimes help new authors out, but the minute you say vampire or
werewolf I'm running, screaming into the night.

To sum it up, no matter what you think of my work or that of the other
author's here, at least it's getting read and at least we are getting
SOME feedback and our writing is better for it. Even this forum is
valuable once you separate the wheat from the chaff. I think the main
reason that so much crap is out there in the self-pub/e-pub world may
have a lot to do with the fact that it seems there are so few methods
out there to garner feedback.

I don't think we authors, as a group, really understand how good we
have it.

Ezzy

[Bingain]

Yeah, everyone is writing, most dream about being published. Some are
awesome; some are so so; some are horrible. Lately I've been doing
about 1-2 summary crits a day. There are some I dare not crit, for
fear of causing suicide.

Basically, baring lucky shots (and if I had that luck I'd rather buy
lottery tickets than selling books), you need top quality works and
intense marketing efforts to succeed.

AW is good, it even has e-pub and erotica sections you can discuss
with pubbed or wannabe pals. But AW is all about writers,
professionals. Everyone there is either pubbed authors or wannabes.
It's not SOL or literotica or a library. Readers don’t go there.

I clicked on Wattpad and checked out the 2nd top romance that has 285k
hits. It's pretty good, no significant flaws on the first few pages
I've scanned. Obviously it has to be very good to stay on front page.
The author isn't making money, apparently. He/she is garnering
recognition. It's like what you've been doing on SOL. You have fans.
You launch a book on Amazon. There is a good chance some of your fans
will support you.

Yes, it's very competitive out there, and I think most SOL authors
actually know that. But I think we've been giving Lazeez too little
credit. Let's give him an e-toast.

> Today I was perusing the forums athttp://absolutewrite.com I ended

[Crumbly Writer]

Lazeez definitely hit on something very positive that no one else seems to have duplicated. I'm not sure how much benefit it does him (i.e. how much he manages to get from it himself), though.

I think most of us appreciate the site. A lot of the recent complaint about the site was due to the New Rules being a bit ambiguous, and we authors being unsure what might or might not be acceptible at some point in the future, but that's a separate issue. The site is still excellent, even if some of your work can't be posted here anymore. Besides, there is more and more (NoSex) or (Little Sex) stories being posted here now.

[EzzyB]

Well don't jump too fast. I'll say this, I have no idea how many paid
premium subscribers he has, but the lowest price is $69 a year, so if
he has several thousand or even as many or more than ten thousand he's
not hurting. I've always thought this was a business for him not just
a hobby (though in the early days it probably was).

I think he should, to a certain point, be very responsive to us as
authors. We provide the content that he sells for free. It doesn't
and shouldn't provide us with Carte Blanche, but we are entitled to a
dialog at the very least.

On the other hand he has to balance what we want against what the
readers want. The customer is always right. Twice in the last year
or so he's pushed to cut back and/or eliminate pedo stories (the first
was the ability to simply screen them out globally.) This tells me
that's what his readers want and because they are either paying
customers or potential paying customers that's what they get.

So what we have now, for a while at least is a 'tame' adult site. The
problems with both Figment and Wattpad aren't that they didn't have
good ideas, they've just been overrun by adolescents. Hey, for the
site owners they don't care. A few million hits a day are a few
million hits, roll with it. They have no motivation to change
things. Indeed if there are that many young people interested in
writing they SHOULD have a nice, fairly safe place, to go and share
their writing. I'm all for it, but it's not a place for serious
writers for the most part.

What we get by virtue of writing for an 'adult site' that is slowly,
but surely moving to the mainstream is a much higher signal to noise
ratio than other sites. We have an adult audience that is proving to
be savvy beyond just reading porn and erotica. Indeed some if not
most of the better stories being posted on SOL now have no or very
little sex content.

Bingain I said on another post that I'm not so sure that it's not time
to give up on traditional publishing anyway. Signing away your rights
to a book to a publisher that's determine to make money in the rapidly
shrinking dead-tree market while trying to hold digital at bay with
ridiculous prices for digital editions is a bad bet. They're going to
lose, and when they do the author's they have signed are going to lose
right along with them. Signed authors are already bemoaning the lost
revenue from their out of print titles that their publisher insists on
selling for $15 on Amazon and paying them only 16% royalties on that.
If they still owned the copyright they could be selling a thousand a
week at $2.99 @ 70%.

This post should open your eyes. He's one of those authors that
wishes he had some of his old titles back. Still, he's made $100,000
already this month, on books that he formerly pitched to his dead tree
publisher and they REJECTED. So much for the gatekeeper theory. He
also has the conversation on his site with the guy the turned down a
$500,000 advance on two books to self publish them, it's a good read
(look for the link to 'Be the Monkey').

Ezzy

On Jan 11, 4:59 pm, Crumbly Writer <crumblywri...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Lazeez definitely hit on something very positive that no one else seems to
> have duplicated. I'm not sure how much benefit it does him (i.e. how much
> he manages to get from it himself), though.
>

> I think *most* of us appreciate the site. A lot of the recent complaint

> about the site was due to the New Rules being a bit ambiguous, and we
> authors being unsure what might or might not be acceptible at some point in
> the future, but that's a separate issue. The site is still excellent, even

> if *some* of your work can't be posted here anymore. Besides, there is more

[EzzyB]

Couple of quick corrections. The $100,000 was three weeks not so far
this month (he had a screen shot up showing sales just for this month,
but the text clearly says the last three weeks).

The transcript of his conversation with Barry Eisler (the guy who
turned down the $500,000 advance) is actually a zip file containing
a .pdf, epub, and mobi file, it's here:

http://www.barryeisler.com/media/BeTheMonkey.zip

Ezzy

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 1/11/12 2:49 PM, EzzyB wrote:

What we get by virtue of writing for an 'adult site' that is slowly,
but surely moving to the mainstream is a much higher signal to noise
ratio than other sites.  We have an adult audience that is proving to
be savvy beyond just reading porn and erotica.  Indeed some if not
most of the better stories being posted on SOL now have no or very
little sex content.

Can you give us a few examples of those "better stories being posted on SOL now that have no or very little sex content"?

bb

--

My stories are available in PDF format at Lulu.com and Amazon.com. Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net.

 

2010 National Novel Writing Month winner (along with 37,000 others!)

2011 National Novel Writing Month---not so much

 

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/joebondibeach

[Veronica Dire]

On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 7:26 PM, Joe "Bondi" Beach <joe.bon...@gmail.com> wrote:

Can you give us a few examples of those "better stories being posted on SOL now that have no or very little sex content"?

Dude! Think about what you're asking. Do you really want to give every ninny on this forum a chance to post links to his own stories?

I mean -- seriously!

Speaking of which, does girl-girl stuff count as "sex content"?

*wink*
 

--
Stories:  http://www.asstr.org/~Veronica_Dire/
Blog: http://veronicadire.blogspot.com/

[EzzyB]

Of the top twenty rated stories in the last year six are characterized
as 'No Sex' or 'Minimal Sex'. Only three are 'Much Sex'. If there is
a way to search the top downloaded stories that way regardless of
score I don't know how. I could write the query though.

Ezzy

On Jan 11, 7:26 pm, "Joe \"Bondi\" Beach" <joe.bondi.be...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 1/11/12 2:49 PM, EzzyB wrote:
>
> > What we get by virtue of writing for an 'adult site' that is slowly,
> > but surely moving to the mainstream is a much higher signal to noise
> > ratio than other sites.  We have an adult audience that is proving to
> > be savvy beyond just reading porn and erotica.  Indeed some if not
> > most of the better stories being posted on SOL now have no or very
> > little sex content.
>
> Can you give us a few examples of those "better stories being posted on
> SOL now that have no or very little sex content"?
>
> bb
>
> --
>
> My stories are available in PDF format at Lulu.com

> <http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/joebondibeach> and Amazon.com
> <http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&...>.

> Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net

> <http://storiesonline.net/auth/Bondi_Beach>.

[Bingain]

Ezzy, you don't have to do any traditional publishing crap. You are
already an Amazon author. You can sell your e-books, manage your
facebook page, market/publicize your commercial activities. Do what
fits you. I don't think you can get great business advices here. Not
many pals on this board are selling 100,000 books a month, I suppose.

The King Authro story that I talked about yesterday and was stolen is
rated 9.x. It's worth stealing. I don't have anything that good. I'm
still honing my skill. I hope one day I will be good enough. If and
when that day comes, I will try traditional route first because I'm
lazy as hell and I dislike dealing with marketing & publicity. I don't
even have a facebook page. I don't even want to get involved with
cover design. I'm fine with other people taking a big chunk, if I ever
make it that far. But I recognize not everyone is as lazy as I am.


PS: How come I click on the book image on your facebook page and I am
not directed to Amazon? Can't even check the price of your book.

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 1/11/12 5:09 PM, EzzyB wrote:

Of the top twenty rated stories in the last year six are characterized
as 'No Sex' or 'Minimal Sex'.  Only three are 'Much Sex'.  If there is
a way to search the top downloaded stories that way regardless of
score I don't know how.  I could write the query though.

OK, I'll look at that. I wasn't thinking of scores; I was thinking of "good." Not to open the scoring discussion again, please, but we all know that SOL scores and quality do not necessarily correlate. I was hoping for a recommendation that at least a few of us (beyond myself, that is) would recognize as "good."

bb

--

My stories are available in PDF format at Lulu.com and Amazon.com. Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net.

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 1/11/12 4:33 PM, Veronica Dire wrote:

On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 7:26 PM, Joe "Bondi" Beach <joe.bon...@gmail.com> wrote:

Can you give us a few examples of those "better stories being posted on SOL now that have no or very little sex content"?

Dude! Think about what you're asking. Do you really want to give every ninny on this forum a chance to post links to his own stories?

No. (See my response to Ezzy.)

I mean -- seriously!

Speaking of which, does girl-girl stuff count as "sex content"?

*wink*

Yes. It helps if they swing both ways, of course, that's obvious, but in any form is fine.

[Sterling]

> On the other hand he has to balance what we want against what the
> readers want.  The customer is always right.  Twice in the last year
> or so he's pushed to cut back and/or eliminate pedo stories (the first
> was the ability to simply screen them out globally.)

Laz told me that he put the filter in place in order to meet reader
requests, and the restriction on new stories to move towards complying
with the Canadian legal requirement. Each step was sensibly tailored
to its goal.

Accepting your conclusion, it's interesting to speculate on f why we
have it so good. I read about a cruise ship experiment of deliberately
making ships that were not handicapped accessible and even required a
certain amount of spryness to get around. The idea was that many
younger folks are turned off from cruises because they expect to see
lots of older, infirm people, and they might take to this idea. It's
not that people inherently liked lots of stairways.

So I wonder if the fact that people here are willing to read and write
erotic sex means we have a different attitude even when we're not
dealing with sex stories.

Sterling

[Switch Blayde]

> If there is a way to search the top downloaded stories that way regardless of score I don't know how.
 

On the Category Search you can check the "minimal sex" and "no sex" boxes to limit the search to those. You can search by date or score. Why would you even want to search by number of downloads? It's a meaningless number. Just think how many more downloads a 100 chapter serial story gets than a great one chapter story.

Switch
[stories at http://storiesonline.net/auth/Switch_Blayde ]
[discussion group/blog at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/switch_blayde_group/ ]

 


 

> Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:09:45 -0800
> Subject: Re: Do you realize how good we have it?
> From: ez...@storiesonline.org
> To: storie...@googlegroups.com

[EzzyB]

Well, like I said (and I may be mixing threads here) the current
bellweather for buyers on Amazon seems to be the sales numbers, not so
much the review scores. A book is more likely to sell based on it's
position in the Amazon sales rankings, that's all the author's talk
about, getting into the top 10,000 then 6,000 then 2,000. The only
thing we really have to liken that to on SOL is download counts. The
way they describe it the higher up the chart the more sales that take
you higher in the chart etc.

The truth is we already had someone wear out the SOL search engine
proving a direct relationship to story size and story score. Given
that a longer story will have more chapters most often released over
time that would inflate the download counts as well so it's probably a
moot point.

Ezzy

On Jan 11, 8:53 pm, Switch Blayde <switch_bla...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > If there is a way to search the top downloaded stories that way regardless of score I don't know how.
>
> On the Category Search you can check the "minimal sex" and "no sex" boxes to limit the search to those. You can search by date or score. Why would you even want to search by number of downloads? It's a meaningless number. Just think how many more downloads a 100 chapter serial story gets than a great one chapter story.
>
> Switch
> [stories athttp://storiesonline.net/auth/Switch_Blayde]

> [discussion group/blog athttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/switch_blayde_group/]

[Tim Merrigan]

On 2012-01-11 16:33, Veronica Dire wrote:

Speaking of which, does girl-girl stuff count as "sex content"?

Yes, and so does fellatio, despite what Mr. Clinton said.

-- 

I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America,
and to the republic which it established, one nation, from many peoples,
promising liberty and justice for all.
      Feel free to use the above variant pledge in your own postings.

Tim Merrigan 

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 1/11/12 6:16 PM, Tim Merrigan wrote:

On 2012-01-11 16:33, Veronica Dire wrote:

Speaking of which, does girl-girl stuff count as "sex content"?

Yes, and so does fellatio, despite what Mr. Clinton said.

Not exactly. What he---or his lawyers---said was that it was only "sex" when the participating part(ies) derived pleasure from the act. Bill's claim was that he was giving her pleasure but he wasn't receiving any. Hence, for him, it wasn't "sex."

(Sound of retching.)

[EzzyB]

Stirling I think it's like I said. The other sites that I found were
all commercially driven. Ad revenue is king and they aren't above
selling their recommendations to the highest bidder. The one with the
most traffic, Wattpad, along with Figment are really, really juvenile
driven. I honestly had no idea young people were so much into writing
(though I should be, my youngest daughter started writing stories when
she was 11). Finding a honest to goodness person to talk to on either
site that's not in their teens is a daunting proposition and all of
them think they're authors when they put down 1000 words and post it.

Even ScribD is so commercially focused they really don't care about
user contributed content. Yes it's there and you can post, but what
they really want to do is advertise and sell works already published.
There are no real avenues for feedback or discussion, no incentives to
post, just a black hole to put stuff in and a download count.

So the big thing I think is a mature audience. Yes all you really
have to do is say your eighteen and you're in to SOL, but you
certainly can't act your age if you are underage in this community.
We wouldn't put up with it. Another thing is that this is the ONLY
public SOL discussion area. Story comments are private, there are no
real avenues for trolls or acting up like on Literotica. If you want
to be an ass the best you can do is anonymously try to vote down a
story or leave a comment that you don't even know was read.

Lastly Lazeez isn't selling content, he's selling your library and the
ability to easily search content he doesn't really own. He doesn't
take advertising for already published works to make ends meat
therefore he pretty much has to make a friendly environment for us
poor unpublished authors, he needs us.

Those things don't exist anywhere else right now I don't think. Even
trying the same thing on a family oriented site didn't work, the
monthly top 20 list doesn't exist anymore on Finestories, there
weren't 20 stories posted to rate the last time I looked (admittedly a
couple of months ago). But here no one minds if your story has no or
limited sex even though it's technically an adult site, they just
don't read them, but you don't get scored less or berated because of
it.

Gina's site isn't bad either, but it's a much smaller community. I
suppose there must be some smaller sites similar to hers around that I
haven't heard of.

Ezzy

[Crumbly Writer]

Ezzy, I know it's asking for a lot, but since you're researching this, could you give us a list of the different story sites, listing their benefits and their limitations. I suspect there are many of us that would like to play around with other sites. So far I've published on SOL and ASSTR, but I haven't tried self publishing, mostly because I don't think the story I'm currently writing would make sense without the context of the SOL/ASSTR environment. But I figure when I do my next Big writing effort, I'll try to aim it at a wider audience, so self-publishing would make more sense.

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 1/11/12 5:22 PM, Joe "Bondi" Beach wrote:

On 1/11/12 5:09 PM, EzzyB wrote:

Of the top twenty rated stories in the last year six are characterized
as 'No Sex' or 'Minimal Sex'.  Only three are 'Much Sex'.  If there is
a way to search the top downloaded stories that way regardless of
score I don't know how.  I could write the query though.

OK, I'll look at that. I wasn't thinking of scores; I was thinking of "good." Not to open the scoring discussion again, please, but we all know that SOL scores and quality do not necessarily correlate. I was hoping for a recommendation that at least a few of us (beyond myself, that is) would recognize as "good."

bb

So, the first story I picked was Chapter Seven of "The Death Watch," from "The Crusader---Detective Rollie Chambers" serial or universe from the Top Twenty Stories by Score list. It's at No. 14 with a score of 7.82. It's coded "No Sex."

Not too bad, I thought to myself, at least intriguing enough to read for a while. Then I came to this paragraph:

"The figure that appeared in the doorway was a poster boy for a former Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant. He was only 6' 3, but his barrel chest and erect posture made him look taller. His hair was salt and pepper and cut so short his scalp showed through. He walked with a very slight limp, due to having a prosthetic right leg from the knee down. Tully had lost the leg during a tour of duty with the National Guard in Afghanistan."

What's the problem here? Simple: there is no such thing as a "former Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant" who had a tour in Afghanistan (or anywhere else, for that matter) with the National Guard [sic]. Purists, and Marines, would tell you there's no such thing as a "former Marine," either. The Marine Corps is a Federal force, unlike the Army and Air Force National Guard units. There's no such thing as a Marine National Guard unit.

Why does this matter? Because the author is telling us the salient characteristic of the character's background---senior enlisted Marine---and getting it wrong. It's no different from the prolonged discussions this group has undertaken on getting weapons and gear right, if they are an important part of the story.

Am I being fussy? Yeah. So what? Only this: I asked for an example of a good story, independent of scoring, since we know that scoring on SOL is quirky, to put it politely.

Not looking good on the "no sex but very good" idea so far.

[EzzyB]

You are looking at the top 20 this month, not this year.

On Jan 12, 12:27 am, "Joe \"Bondi\" Beach" <joe.bondi.be...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> <http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/joebondibeach> and Amazon.com
> <http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&...>.

> Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net

> <http://storiesonline.net/auth/Bondi_Beach>.

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 1/11/12 9:54 PM, EzzyB wrote:

You are looking at the top 20 this month, not this year.

I'll take another look. There's always hope, of course.

bb

--

My stories are available in PDF format at Lulu.com and Amazon.com. Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net.

[EzzyB]

I'll try Crumbly.

First of all you guys would know more about ASSTR than I would. I've
always stayed away because I find the search engine clunky and wading
through the muck for something to read is hard. No consistent coding,
no ratings, nothing to really recommend one story from the other
thousands there. When I find myself on ASSTR it's usually from a link
I've followed knowing exactly where to go. From an author's
perspective I have no experience. The community devolved long ago
with the demise the the newsgroups, you guys would know better than
me.

Wattpad

Advantages: Huge, huge number of daily hits. I'd guess in the
millions daily. Some stories, though counted like SOL (each chapter
is a 'read'), have 10 million or more reads, but not many.

I haven't tried it, but I'm told they have excellent mobile
integration, so reading on your phone should be easy.

They do try to promote user submitted content, but get overwhelmed by
the sheer numbers.

Integrated into most social networking sites (Tumblr, Twitter,
Facebook, Google + etc.)

If you like to mentor, and I do, then oh hell this is the place. You
will get overwhelmed with requests. Being me, I picked a story to
read about a girl in a wheelchair (go figure). It turns out it is
written by a 13 year old who goes by the nym Mrs. Shannon Padfoot.
Now STOP, all comments are public and we don't know each others e-mail
addresses so, no, get your minds out of the gutter. I asked if she'd
like some help and she jumped (OK Mrs. Padfoot you are either telling
a story that happened or is happening, you can't have both.) She
never mixed tense again, not once. Mom as a name is capitalized, but
not as a normal noun. She latched right on to that and never made the
same mistake again. It's very satisfying. Once a week like clockwork
she posts another chapter and I go have a look, vote for each chapter
and offer encouragement and some small advice on mistakes that all new
writers make. Girl soaks it up like a sponge and it's good to see.
Are her stories good? For her age? Absolutely. For her age. Anyway
that's the only reason I didn't close out my Wattpad account
entirely. I go back once a week to mentor a young writer. I highly
recommend it.

Disadvantages: The community is mostly very young. No one claims to
be under 13, but then again kids know you have to claim 13 to get an
account (it's the law in the US). There are a LOT of writers claiming
to be 13. There are some serious writers there, well all think they
are serious, but most are in it because:

It's not a story site. It's a social networking site based on
writing. Everyone is a writer, very few come to read. People
actively attempt to trade votes, comments, and reads on the forums.
"I'll vote for you if you vote for me." It's technically against the
TOS, but rarely, if ever, enforced. You never know if the story you
are going to read is because it's good or that person is a better
networker.

Be careful who you fan or what you put in your library. Becoming a
fan of a writer entitles them to send out mass e-mails. Yes, I think
I mentioned these are mostly adolescents right? So yeah, don't become
a fan of someone unless you REALLY want the equivalent of a Twitter
feed from them in your mailbox. Putting something in your library
gets you an E-mail each time that story changes which is not so bad.

Posting is futile unless you want to play the networking game. New
posts disappear off the first page in one minute and will be on page
ten of the new post section in five. There is no hope of getting new
readers this way. There is also no way to differentiate between new
stories and updated stories, all show up as new stories even if they
are just a new chapter of an existing story. Its eerie, you can post
a new story and where even the worst muck on SOL will get several
hundred downloads, you can easily get 0 and no one will ever know you
were there.

Tag based search engine. Nothing wrong with tags in theory. Why all
the most popularly searched tags are displayed right on the search
page. Do you see this train wreck coming? Clever kids, EVERY story
is tagged with the most popular search tags straight from the search
page whether they apply or not. Doesn't do wonders for the search
engine.

It's just a zoo, but some of the kids are OK.

Figment:

Advantages:

Badges! Woohoo! Really you get badges for posting, posting often,
posting novels, etc, etc. Like those video game achievement things
(dragonslayer! killed all the dragons in the game!)

Interesting feature that may or may not be useful, but interesting.
When you look at a story it will give you an estimated time it will
take you to read it based on it's size, 5 hours and 40 minutes for
Rebecca Danced for the brief time it was there, well it's still there,
kinda because:

Disadvantages:

As of about three weeks ago the delete function didn't work. You
can't remove a story. I had to go in chapter by chapter, change the
titles and delete the text in put in garbage to delete the story.
Well the garbage is still there.

Figment makes little to no effort to promote user contributed
content. Any link provided by the site has a 9 in 10 chance if
redirecting you to an Amazon product page. Nothing at all seems to go
to their own content. Those pages invariably take you to a young
adult story, with vampires, and werewolfs, and wizards and like me you
will run, screaming, into the night.

Figment sends you a weekly newsletter. Every link there takes you to,
yes, vampires for sale.

Figment seems a placed conjured by writers of YA fiction for the
express purpose of selling YA fiction.

Stories are still scored by comments, reads and votes (in Figments
case, cute pink hearts). You don't vote, you heart the story,
assuming you aren't on Amazon, looking at vampires. Because that's
where the link you thought was taking you to a popular story sent
you. Apparently you can heart stories that aren't on the site at all.

Big contest include writing reviews! Of stories, for sale, about
vampires, on Amazon. Really they had a contest going on when I was
looking there to review six books that you had to buy to review. What
a deal!

Not even remotely recommended.

ScribD

Advantages:

Online store allows you to sell your content, not just post it for
free.

Nice sleek interface that has matured over the years. Upload in any
format or multiple formats (HTML, .doc, ePub etc.) The downloader
does have to be able to read those formats however.

After the last two the utter lack of adolescents is a breath of fresh
air.

The content that you do find is of fairly high quality (just stay away
from the many who use ScribD for political agendas)

Disadvantages:

Once sophisticated and snazzy it has succumbed to commercial demons.
I remember visiting the site years ago and wishing I had something
clever to post like those writer guys.

Online store allows anyone to sell content. Top sellers get promoted
so the store is a bestseller list. Nothing to really differentiate it
from any other online bookstore.

Because the the commercial bent, very little effort is put into
promoting user content. Well if there was any, I didn't see it. You
may get some downloads on free content here, I did, not a lot, but
some, certainly more than the other two sites. People do come here to
read, not just to write or network.

No real feedback at all. You get a download count, but that's it. I
went 0/100 downloads without a peep from the readers.

That's about it, I think most are familiar with Beyond the Far
Horizon. Just get along with Gina and let her post your story on her
schedule and its a good group of people (with a lot of bleed over with
SOL and ASSTR as well as non-erotic types.) Gina doesn't really limit
content to anything but her judgement and she's pretty liberal (not
sure I'd try to slip a pure pedo story by her though).

If you have specific questions I'll try to answer them.

Ezzy

[Deadly Ernest]

Yeah, all my no sex stories!!

How about The Millionaire Next Door!

Whenever I check all the top 20 lists, the no sex and minimal sex
stories are doing better than the sex stories.

BTW, Laz has always advertised SOL as having sexually explicit
material on it, but I've never seen any promotional material saying it
was a sex story site as its main purpose. He's always allwoed no sex
stories.

On Jan 12, 11:26 am, "Joe \"Bondi\" Beach" <joe.bondi.be...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 1/11/12 2:49 PM, EzzyB wrote:
>
> > What we get by virtue of writing for an 'adult site' that is slowly,
> > but surely moving to the mainstream is a much higher signal to noise
> > ratio than other sites.  We have an adult audience that is proving to
> > be savvy beyond just reading porn and erotica.  Indeed some if not
> > most of the better stories being posted on SOL now have no or very
> > little sex content.
>
> Can you give us a few examples of those "better stories being posted on
> SOL now that have no or very little sex content"?
>
> bb
>
> --
>
> My stories are available in PDF format at Lulu.com

> <http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/joebondibeach> and Amazon.com
> <http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&...>.

> Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net

> <http://storiesonline.net/auth/Bondi_Beach>.

[Deadly Ernest]

BB, what you're raising there is the difference between good
background research and bad background research - not quality of story
or writing.

But, even I know a member of the USMC NEVER retires, even when he/she
gets burried.

On Jan 12, 4:27 pm, "Joe \"Bondi\" Beach" <joe.bondi.be...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> <http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/joebondibeach> and Amazon.com
> <http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&...>.

> Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net

> <http://storiesonline.net/auth/Bondi_Beach>.

[massivereader]

Ezzy,

I think the youth-oriented sites don't work well for your stories
because of the main issue I have with what I've read of your
writing: all the characters talk like they are their grandparents.

Kids have an intimate grasp of current vernacular and culture and are
very accurate at discerning verisimilitude.

You're deluding yourself if you think kids the age of your characters
are ever going to read your stuff. Your market is more likely senior
citizens looking to relive their own youths, daydream and reminisce;
not even people in their twenties or thirties who either have kids of
their own or have a clue about current youth culture and language use.

You should take a hard look at the sucessful YA novels if that's
really your intended market. They are either fantasy, dystopian sci-
fi, or thinly disguised
romances with plots centered around the universal insecurities of
youth. Those settings tend to disguise the topicallity and language
use issues.

They are definitely not about near-perfect, self-confident Mary Sue or
Gary Stu characters; in fact their very imperfections (social
awkwardness,
isolation, not popular, funny looking, etc) and how the characters
learn to overcome them are usually the main source of appeal to that
market.

----------------

If you're trying to sucessfully market your books on Amazon (as they
are) there are two major avenues you are overlooking: "listmania" and
reader
forums. Admittedly they both involve a significant amount of time and
work.

Pick a list of your very favorite books, or works that you consider to
be the rough equals of yours, or in a comparable genre, of favorite
autors of yours,
or all of the above, or any other reason that strikes your fancy and
establish a list using an approriate pseudonym (not your authorial
name) for each list.

Add your book in the middle or towards the end. Voracious readers of
tastes similar to yours looking for something new to read will go
along the list, saying: "Liked this", "Loved this", "Hmm, just Ok",
"Good One", "nope", "Should get around to this one" and then hopefully
"Never heard of this, maybe I should try it?"

It's about the cheapest way and most effective way to get your name
out there.

The other way is more time intesive. That is to get regular mentions
in a popular forum for your chosen genre, whether that reader forum is
on Amazon or some other appropriate message board. That takes time and
some skill, as anyone seeming to be self promoting on those kind of
boards is usually ignored.

Lastly, when you get positive email responces (from buyers) about your
works you should ask (besides the usual thanking, asking what they
liked most, etc) where they heard about your book so you develop a
guide as to where to effectively spend your efforts. It's all about
proper product placement. If you plant a seed in fertile soil, it's
much more likely to grow.

These things are basically what PR and advertising firms do during
successful "word of mouth" campaigns, albeit on a much more massive
scale than any one person can likely manage.

John

> > sense.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Deadly Ernest]

MR,

Ezzy's Chaos series is set thirty years ago, and the character talk as
I remember teens talking thirty years ago. I don't know if his target
audience is modern teens or older people, bit it would be plain stupid
to have people in a story set during the 1980s talking in the
vernacular of a modern teen.

Ernest

> ...
>
> read more »

[massivereader]

DE,

Having been in my twenties at that time, with five younger sisters
ranging through the age group of his stories, I'd say his characters
all talk like they are standing in front of their minister, teacher,
or their grandparents, or the way those parties might wish they had
talked (in a perfect world).

Anyway, I doubt it has much appeal to the teens and tweens of today.
For people in their sixties and seventies the appeal is much more
likely; especially staid, proper, college educated and/or religiously
oriented people.

Still (whatever you think of Ezzy's writings) I think the point about
the effectiveness of using lists should be strongly considered. I've
found a number of pretty decent authors that way, and I'm sure a lot
of other people have as well, or Amazon wouldn't have kept the list
making function around so long.

The name of the game is exposure; being that there are so many
millions of alternatives out there. Getting your name out there to
those in the market for similar books, or genre books, or books that
influenced your writing, or reflect your personal tastes, only makes
sense.

Using the Amazon list function (pretty quick) and reader forums (more
time intensive) seems a pretty cheap and simple solution to that
requirement.

John

> > read more »- Hide quoted text -

[Deadly Ernest]

G'day John,

I agree about the lists, but the issue is getting onto the lists in
the first place. Over the last few years, between Lulu and Dpdotcom,
I've sold about 1,000 books of various titles, I've got a close to a
million downloads, both author names, on SOL, FS, and ASSTR, even have
some people waiting at Lulu yo buy new books as they go up. But I'm
still a loooong way from getting on any of the Amazon lists or making
those many thousands of copies sales that some speak of.

Part of the issue is the costs and related problems with getting onto
the Amazon lists to begin with.

A key part of any story telling, and story writing, is to develop the
story to suit the intended demographic. Now I've got a couple of
coming of age stories out there, but they are NOT aimed at the modern
teen, although many do read them. The language used is vernacular, but
it's not modern teen vernacular and slang, no Leetspew and the like,
so it's intended for the slightly older audience, and they seem to
like the stories. I don't know what demographic Ezzy is aiming at, but
if he wrote in the modern teen vernacular, I'm sure few at SOL would
read them, and fewer would like them.

I suspect he sees the age group of YA fiction as either being a bit
older than modern teen, or as referring to the character ages - not
sure. But, I'm used to young adult meaning the 20 to 25 age group not
the 15 to 19 age group which some people seems to think it is. Either
way, that's his concern, not mine.

Ernest

> ...
>
> read more »

[Crumbly Writer]

> I suspect he sees the age group of YA fiction as either being a bit
> older than modern teen, or as referring to the character ages - not
> sure. But, I'm used to young adult meaning the 20 to 25 age group not
> the 15 to 19 age group which some people seems to think it is. Either
> way, that's his concern, not mine.

I may be dating myself, but when I was reading YA fiction (WAY before the current warewolve and vampire crazes), I was PRE-teen. When I was a teen I was reading MAJOR fiction. The few kids I know, at least the voracious readers, all tend to read ahead of their age groups, because those are the better stories.

I suspect the YA crowd he's seeing aren't the heavy readers, but the 'let's all get together and obsess about the same thing' crowds. Thus their all involved in the same stories, and ONLY those types of stories. Thus I doubt they read very widely. So yeah, anything that doesn't fit into their world view won't get read. They may read a fair amount, but they aren't really reading much.

Then again, I did the same when I was that age. I remember reading every Sci-Fi story I could find (back when Sci-Fi was still the "in thing"). But again, I kept looking for something more. I was interested in Sci-Fi because it focused on issues that no one else was discussing.

But then, I doubt my stories would EVER be widely popular. I write using big words and use complex characters/situations that reflect on my experiences/other stories. Thus I doubt I'll ever get published anywhere else besides SOL.

[massivereader]

DE,

First: Not -those- lists. It's not a list of the book pages most
frequently accessed, or those books with the highest sales numbers

What I'm talking about is available for anyone with an Amazon user
account who chooses to create their _own_ list.

You simply list reading recomendations on any theme linked to the page
for those books and it will automatically show up on the page for all
the books you are recommending, albeit the lists that get accessed
more regularly work their way to the top position in the listmania
box, but even when they are not accessed a lot they are still there.
So it's definitely in your interest to make a good list: like one in
your particular genre composed of really well written books that
aren't necessarily hugely popular with the general population (eg,
it's probably pretty useless to list harry potter books).

Not a lot of people take the time to do it, and for the resourceful
writer it's totally free advertising.

Listmania is buried down towards the bottom of the page (assuming the
book in question is on a list) before the reviews, and is an often
overlooked feature. But it's not one overlooked by the very market you
writers should be looking for: the high volume reader always on the
lookout for new books.

How sucessful your list is, and how many buyers it eventually brings
you, is primarily a function of your taste in books. Heh.

As to Ezzy's writing, we'll have to agree to disagree. His work is
well thought of by many, many readers. I just find the dialog
intolerably formal for the setting, and the purported age of the
characters. If they were there and then, but ten or twenty years older
it would likely be okay, but it just doesn't ring true for me. It
sounds to much like Ivy League Prep School speak, ala Bill Buckley.
Also, the Mary Sue / Gary Stu character thing does nothing for me.

John

[Deadly Ernest]

G'day John,

Thanks for the info on the Amazon Lists, I don't have an Amazon
account and know nothing about these lists and listmania, I just
thought you were referring to the lists of recommended books Amazon
puts on the side of the page.

My father was a local delivery truck driver, a blue collar worker. We,
like the majority of our generation, were taught to be respectful.
Those from a bit higher up the social scale were taught to be more
respectful than we were. I find that the language used by Ezzy for his
teens from the 1980s is how we, and those around me, spoke at that
time. Which is why I find the dialogue and behaviour so understandable
and acceptable. The place and era is NOT a New York slum or an LA
ghetto, but a a more sedate area. If he'd set them in the Bronx in the
980s, I would have expected them to be a lot rougher, based on how I
saw the Bronx being portrayed at that time.. So, I guess, we will have
to agree to disagree on this one, as we have different experiences
from that time.

Regards,

Ernest

> ...
>
> read more »

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 1/12/12 2:32 AM, Deadly Ernest wrote:

Yeah, all my no sex stories!!

How about The Millionaire Next Door!

Whenever I check all the top 20 lists, the no sex and minimal sex
stories are doing better than the sex stories.

BTW, Laz has always advertised SOL as having sexually explicit
material on it, but I've never seen any promotional material saying it
was a sex story site as its main purpose. He's always allwoed no sex
stories.

This excerpt from the index page kind of sounds like "main purpose" to me:

"Tens of thousands of free sex stories in every category possible.
Great search engine and an easy to use and navigate interface.

"Sex stories are our focus."

(I have nothing against a story without sex per se, but I'm still not convinced there are very many such animals worth the read. That's why I asked the question and am diligently reading. Well, sort-of diligently, anyway.)

bb

--

My stories are available in PDF format at Lulu.com and Amazon.com. Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net.

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 1/12/12 2:37 AM, Deadly Ernest wrote:

BB, what you're raising there is the difference between good
background research and bad background research - not quality of story
or writing.

Sorry, I think that's a distinction without a difference.

But, even I know a member of the USMC NEVER retires, even when he/she
gets burried.

Well, he may be a retired Marine, but he's never a former Marine.

bb

--

My stories are available in PDF format at Lulu.com and Amazon.com. Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net.

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 1/12/12 4:37 AM, Deadly Ernest wrote:

G'day John,

I agree about the lists, but the issue is getting onto the lists in
the first place. Over the last few years, between Lulu and Dpdotcom,
I've sold about 1,000 books of various titles, I've got a close to a
million downloads, both author names, on SOL, FS, and ASSTR, even have
some people waiting at Lulu yo buy new books as they go up. But I'm
still a loooong way from getting on any of the Amazon lists or making
those many thousands of copies sales that some speak of.

Part of the issue is the costs and related problems with getting onto
the Amazon lists to begin with.

A key part of any story telling, and story writing, is to develop the
story to suit the intended demographic. Now I've got a couple of
coming of age stories out there, but they are NOT aimed at the modern
teen, although many do read them. The language used is vernacular, but
it's not modern teen vernacular and slang, no Leetspew and the like,
so it's intended for the slightly older audience, and they seem to
like the stories. I don't know what demographic Ezzy is aiming at, but
if he wrote in the modern teen vernacular, I'm sure few at SOL would
read them, and fewer would like them.

I suspect he sees the age group of YA fiction as either being a bit
older than modern teen, or as referring to the character ages - not
sure. But, I'm used to young adult meaning the 20 to 25 age group not
the 15 to 19 age group which some people seems to think it is.

In this case, the "some people" who matter are publishers who market YA fiction. In the U.S. market, that's (roughly) 14--21, according to Wikipedia. And there are plenty of preteens and very young teens who read "ahead," so to speak. I did. Many others do. So, that's the age range.

How to capture the way such critters speak? The mall on a weekend afternoon, especially in the food court or in front of the theatre, is a good place. For present-day teens, of course. Story set in an earlier time? Research, I guess. Story set in the future? Whatever you like.

If you have some excuse to visit a middle school (leave the trench coat at home, please), that's another possibility.

[Bingain]

On Jan 12, 3:06 pm, "Joe \"Bondi\" Beach" <joe.bondi.be...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 1/12/12 2:37 AM, Deadly Ernest wrote:
> > But, even I know a member of the USMC NEVER retires, even when he/she
> > gets burried.
>
> Well, he may be a retired Marine, but he's never a former Marine.

I beg to differ.

Retired Marine, to me, means a career Marine, who has retired on
pension. He/she is a retired person, ie, supposedly taken cared of,
don't have to work anymore.

A former Marine is a discharged military personnel, honorably or
dishonorably (but I think dishonorably discharged ones will be
specifically mentioned as such), and is working another career/job to
feed his/her spouse/kids.

I understand the saying "Once a Marine, always a Marine." It's like a
brotherhood thing. You're always a part of them, psychologically,
mentally, with blood, with breaths. If you were a Marine once, you may
want to consider yourself a Marine for life, not necessary the rest of
the world.

Even the NYT uses this term. From New York Times (http://
www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/world/middleeast/iran-imposes-death-sentence-on-us-man-accused-of-spying.html?_r=1)
...Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, the former Marine from Flint, Mich., now on
death row in an Iranian prison, convicted of spying for the C.I.A.
----

There's also a saying: "Once a whore, always a whore."
How about a former prostitute who has finally got off from her former
life and has earned an MD and works as a physician. Is she a whore or
a "former whore?" I guess it's up to her, not the rest of us.

[Tim Merrigan]

On 2012-01-12 12:06, Joe "Bondi" Beach wrote:

On 1/12/12 2:37 AM, Deadly Ernest wrote:

BB, what you're raising there is the difference between good
background research and bad background research - not quality of story
or writing.

Sorry, I think that's a distinction without a difference.

But, even I know a member of the USMC NEVER retires, even when he/she
gets burried.

Well, he may be a retired Marine, but he's never a former Marine.

bb

What I've heard, sometimes from former Marines, is retired, yes, former, yes, ex, no (unless dishonored somehow).  There are retired Marines (generally identified as "(rank), (name), USMC, retired"), and there are former Marines, but the only ex Marines are ones who have been disgraced in their service.

--

My stories are available in PDF format at Lulu.com and Amazon.com. Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net.

 

2010 National Novel Writing Month winner (along with 37,000 others!)

2011 National Novel Writing Month---not so much

 

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/joebondibeach

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 1/12/12 12:27 PM, Bingain wrote:

On Jan 12, 3:06 pm, "Joe \"Bondi\" Beach" <joe.bondi.be...@gmail.com>
wrote:

On 1/12/12 2:37 AM, Deadly Ernest wrote:

But, even I know a member of the USMC NEVER retires, even when he/she
gets burried.

Well, he may be a retired Marine, but he's never a former Marine.

I beg to differ.

I agree with everything you say below. I skipped that one big exception to "former" Marine, which you mention.

Retired Marine, to me, means a career Marine, who has retired on
pension. He/she is a retired person, ie, supposedly taken cared of,
don't have to work anymore.

A former Marine is a discharged military personnel, honorably or
dishonorably (but I think dishonorably discharged ones will be
specifically mentioned as such), and is working another career/job to
feed his/her spouse/kids.

I understand the saying "Once a Marine, always a Marine." It's like a
brotherhood thing. You're always a part of them, psychologically,
mentally, with blood, with breaths. If you were a Marine once, you may
want to consider yourself a Marine for life, not necessary the rest of
the world.

Even the NYT uses this term. From New York Times (http://
www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/world/middleeast/iran-imposes-death-sentence-on-us-man-accused-of-spying.html?_r=1)
...Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, the former Marine from Flint, Mich., now on
death row in an Iranian prison, convicted of spying for the C.I.A.
----

Sloppy, but understandable. Also journalism, not fiction. If you're going to describe a character defined almost entirely by his status as a [probably retired] Marine, it strikes me you'd better manage to do it the way the Marine himself would do it.

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 1/12/12 12:27 PM, Bingain wrote:

On Jan 12, 3:06 pm, "Joe \"Bondi\" Beach" <joe.bondi.be...@gmail.com>
wrote:

On 1/12/12 2:37 AM, Deadly Ernest wrote:

But, even I know a member of the USMC NEVER retires, even when he/she
gets burried.

Well, he may be a retired Marine, but he's never a former Marine.

I beg to differ.

Retired Marine, to me, means a career Marine, who has retired on
pension. He/she is a retired person, ie, supposedly taken cared of,
don't have to work anymore.

A former Marine is a discharged military personnel, honorably or
dishonorably (but I think dishonorably discharged ones will be
specifically mentioned as such), and is working another career/job to
feed his/her spouse/kids.

Sorry, meant to add that a "former" Marine is only one dishonorably discharged. By definition he's been kicked out of the club and thus is no longer entitled to call himself a Marine.

[Tim Merrigan]

On 2012-01-12 12:34, Joe "Bondi" Beach wrote:

On 1/12/12 12:27 PM, Bingain wrote:

On Jan 12, 3:06 pm, "Joe \"Bondi\" Beach" <joe.bondi.be...@gmail.com>
wrote:

On 1/12/12 2:37 AM, Deadly Ernest wrote:

But, even I know a member of the USMC NEVER retires, even when he/she
gets burried.

Well, he may be a retired Marine, but he's never a former Marine.

I beg to differ.

Retired Marine, to me, means a career Marine, who has retired on
pension. He/she is a retired person, ie, supposedly taken cared of,
don't have to work anymore.

A former Marine is a discharged military personnel, honorably or
dishonorably (but I think dishonorably discharged ones will be
specifically mentioned as such), and is working another career/job to
feed his/her spouse/kids.

Sorry, meant to add that a "former" Marine is only one dishonorably discharged. By definition he's been kicked out of the club and thus is no longer entitled to call himself a Marine.

bb

That's an ex Marine, a former Marine has been honorably discharged.

--

My stories are available in PDF format at Lulu.com and Amazon.com. Earlier versions of them will always be available on Storiesonline.net.

 

2010 National Novel Writing Month winner (along with 37,000 others!)

2011 National Novel Writing Month---not so much

 

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/joebondibeach

[Bingain]

On Jan 12, 3:27 pm, Bingain <bing...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I beg to differ.

I think I should follow it up myself.

We are talking novels, not really politics. In this case, I think it
depends on the POV.

If the MC/POV char is a "former" Marine, or a military personnel, or a
family member, or maybe a close friend, the narrative should be that
he's a "Marine."

If the telling is from another non-military char, then likely
"former."

[EzzyB]

Massivereader,

I think you may have missed what I was doing. I didn't go to those
sites expecting to find young readers, I went to those sites and
that's what I found (not having any idea beforehand). So it wasn't an
attempt to find a target audience.

On Jan 12, 5:48 am, massivereader <JohnPa...@msn.com> wrote:
> Ezzy,
>
> I think the youth-oriented sites don't work well for your stories
> because of the main issue I have with what I've read of your
> writing: all the characters talk like they are their grandparents.
>
> Kids have an intimate grasp of current vernacular and culture and are
> very accurate at discerning verisimilitude.
>
> You're deluding yourself if you think kids the age of your characters
> are ever going to read your stuff. Your market is more likely senior
> citizens looking to relive their own youths, daydream and reminisce;
> not even people in their twenties or thirties who either have kids of
> their own or have a clue about current youth culture and language use.

My novels to date are historical in nature. I certainly hesitate to
label them as historical fiction as it wouldn't fit a readers mindset
of just what that is. They are set nearly 30 years ago. It wouldn't
be correct for the characters to use current vernacular. And you are
correct in that if I tried I would most likely fail miserably at it.

Thanks, some good suggestions here. Do you have a link for linkmania?

> ...
>
> read more »

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

Exactly.

[EzzyB]

I'm listening John. It's definitely something that's always been on
the radar. The authenticity of dialog is something that I've always
been concerned about. If you think it still bears looking into then I
think it does.

Like I've said, we even coined a phrase for it in the editing
process. We call it 'dirtying up' the dialog. Meaning, like you
said, if it sounds too good, it probably is. There are some
situations when it's intended to actually sound like a character
trying to act older than he/she is.

For instance the character of Tony has distinct speech modes depending
on his social group at the time (he even comments about it at one
point in the last story). One for an adult setting, (formal, polite)
one for a mixed company setting (informal, polite), and one for just
he and his male friends (informal and jargon laced). The language
devolves as you go down that scale. So his word usage and speech
patterns should change according to the setting.

Ezzy

> ...
>
> read more »

[Gary Layng]

On 12/01/12 03:27 PM, Bingain wrote:
> There's also a saying: "Once a whore, always a whore." How about a
> former prostitute who has finally got off from her former life and has
> earned an MD and works as a physician. Is she a whore or a "former
> whore?" I guess it's up to her, not the rest of us.

It depends on whether she's still running for political office or not...

--
There are 10 kinds of people: those who understand binary, and those who don't

[massivereader]

Ezzy,

The link for linkmania is on the page of just about every popular
fiction book that Amazon carries. I do not feel comfortable sending
you a specific link because the pages I see can see for Amazon
automatically show my account.

Here's what you do. Logon to you own Amazon account. You can do this
with just about any book on Amazon, but let's use "Kushiel's Dart" by
Jacqueline Carey for an example. Search for "Kushiel's Dart" in books.
Click on the first link in the search returns, for the Mass market
Paperback edition of that book. Go to the very bottom of the page
entry by using Ctrl+End (if you are on a Windows machine). It's a very
popular book, there are about 24 screens you will need to page past
before you get to the very bottom of the entry without using a
keyboard shortcut. Page up about three or four screens (depending on
your display resolution) and you should see listmania. The option to
create your own list is right there, as well as a handfull of lists.

You can also create a reading guide in the very next section.
Typically these functions are used by fans to create lists of a
particular authors works in order, or to recommend worthwhile but more
obsure books to readers interested in particular genre. There is no
reason you cannot also use the lists to promote your own work, as the
links you create to the books you like or want to recommend append
your list to the entries of those particular books.

Judicious selection to create a worthwhile and valuable list is all
that is necessary to guide likeminded readers to your very own work,
all you have to do is slip your book in there somewhere without being
so overt about it that it seems insulting to the potential reader.
What I'm saying is: make a real effort to compile a useful list. Make
it as long as you like, every book recommendation entry appends your
list to the recommended books page.

Be smart. Be humble. Put your book somewhere other than the first
handful of entries. The middle of the pack seems about right to me.

That way you're performing an actual admirable and worthwhile service
and not (just) shilling your own work.

If you're not making a real effort, most avid genre readers will pick
up on it. They won't think much of your taste in books and they won't
follow your recommendations, which kind of defeats the whole purpose
of the exercize - since they won't sample or possibly buy your book.

I'm really kind of surprised most people don't know about this
already.

John

> ...
>
> read more »- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

[Deadly Ernest]

G'day BB,


On Jan 13, 7:27 am, "Joe \"Bondi\" Beach" <joe.bondi.be...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 1/12/12 4:37 AM, Deadly Ernest wrote:

>

snipped

>
> > I suspect he sees the age group of YA fiction as either being a bit
> > older than modern teen, or as referring to the character ages - not
> > sure. But, I'm used to young adult meaning the 20 to 25 age group not
> > the 15 to 19 age group which some people seems to think it is.
>
> In this case, the "some people" who matter are publishers who market YA
> fiction. In the U.S. market, that's (roughly) 14--21, according to
> Wikipedia. And there are plenty of preteens and very young teens who
> read "ahead," so to speak. I did. Many others do. So, that's the age range.
>
> How to capture the way such critters speak? The mall on a weekend
> afternoon, especially in the food court or in front of the theatre, is a
> good place. For present-day teens, of course. Story set in an earlier
> time? Research, I guess. Story set in the future? Whatever you like.
>
> If you have some excuse to visit a middle school (leave the trench coat
> at home, please), that's another possibility.
>
> bb
>

This is one case where wiki may be saying what they think is
happening, and may be happening, but what's coming out means nothing
really intelligent. There is NOTHING adult like about a teen and the
13 to17 group is NOT young ADULT. The bleeding librarians and that may
say that, but it's a total misuse. The wiki article says:

quote

Young-adult fiction or young adult literature (often abbreviated as
YA),[1][2] also juvenile fiction, is fiction written for, published
for, or marketed to adolescents and young adults, roughly ages 14 to
21.[3] The Young Adult Library Services (YALSA) of the American
Library Association (ALA) defines a young adult as "someone between
the ages of twelve and eighteen". Young adult novels have also been
defined as texts written for the ages of twelve and up. Authors and
readers of young adult (YA) novels often define the genre as
"literature written for ages ranging from ten years up to the age of
twenty" (Cole). Another suggestion for the definition is that Young
Adult Literature is any text being read by adolescents, though this
definition is still somewhat controversial.

Accordingly, the terms young-adult novel, juvenile novel, young-adult
book, etc. refer to the works in the YA category.

Although YA literature shares the fundamental elements of character,
plot, setting, theme, and style common to other genres of fiction,
theme and style are often subordinated to the more tangible basic
narrative elements such as plot, setting, and character, which appeal
more readily to younger readers. The vast majority of YA stories
portray an adolescent as the protagonist, rather than an adult or a
child

It is generally agreed that Young Adult Literature is literature
written for adolescent readers, and in some cases published by
adolescent writers. The subject matter and story lines are typically
consistent with the age and experience of the main character, but
beyond that YA stories span the entire spectrum of fiction genres.
Themes in YA stories often focus on the challenges of youth, so much
so that the entire age category is sometimes referred to as problem
novels or coming of age novels.[4] Writing styles of YA stories range
widely, from the richness of literary style to the clarity and speed
of the unobtrusive and even free verse.

end quote

What makes this worse, is that a 12 to 16 year old thinks acts and
talks very differently to a 17-20 year group and the 21 to 25 year
group is different again. You won't find 20 year olds that think act
and talk like fourteen year olds, nor the reverse. Thus a book aimed
at early to mid teens is NOT like one aimed at late teens. So which
group should one emulate to write a YA story as per the above? As a
genre, it's a total stuff up when compared to other genre's.

terms like adolescent, youth, and adult are terms of human development
and relate to age / maturity levels. It would seem that the
librarians are intent on misusing them to categorise books so they
don't have to call them childrens' books or young readers' books any
more.

Regards,

Ernest

[Bingain]

On Jan 12, 7:58 pm, Deadly Ernest <ernest.bywa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> What makes this worse, is that a 12 to 16 year old thinks acts and
> talks very differently to a 17-20 year group and the 21 to 25 year
> group is different again. You won't find 20 year olds that think act
> and talk like fourteen year olds, nor the reverse. Thus a book aimed
> at early to mid teens is NOT like one aimed at late teens. So which
> group should one emulate to write a YA story as per the above? As a
> genre, it's a total stuff up when compared to other genre's.

DE

I'm planning a story with a 18yo girl MC and I'm not sure what genre
it's in, so I've been lurking YA writers corners. It seems the current
YA market aims at <=18yo MC & thus audience. It specifically excludes
college students as MCs and college stories. So basically YA markets
covers adolescent minors. This is probably why the major genres are
fantasy/UF/ScFi/dystopian where young kids can rule the world.

Note that age of MC is not the sole deciding factor of what category
the book stands. It's more about the voice. Whether the narrative is
done in a kiddy voice or otherwise, like a recitation by the MC
decades later as in "To Kill a Mockingbird." The former will be YA
and the later will be regular (adult) novel.

I've also heard that some publishers are experimenting a new category
called NEW ADULT which is what I would (originally) categorize as
young adult. They are college kids and up.

[Deadly Ernest]

G'day Bing,

Yeah, the college age group is what the human developmentalists call a
'young adult' now days. But, it seems, not what the librarians and
publishers mean by that phrase.

Ernest

[Zine]

Ezzy,


This is right off page one: "He looked into the back seat and *his
brain screamed cute!"*

Cute in bold, btw. I hope all the not-hard-wired males out there will
forgive me when I say, yeah, right.

And weren't you bragging about that one good review where s/he called
your story cute? Think Reader's Digest and go read it again. That
wasn't a good review, it was a diplomatic review; s/he slammed you to
the mat and then walked away laughing, leaving you all googly-eyed and
grinning like a fool. So much for linguistics, eh?

Zine

> ...
>
> read more »

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 1/12/12 8:46 AM, massivereader wrote:

DE,


You simply list reading recomendations on any theme linked to the page
for those books and it will automatically show up on the page for all
the books you are recommending, albeit the lists that get accessed
more regularly work their way to the top position in the listmania
box, but even when they are not accessed a lot they are still there.
So it's definitely in your interest to make a good list: like one in
your particular genre composed of really well written books that
aren't necessarily hugely popular with the general population (eg,
it's probably pretty useless to list harry potter books).

Amazon gives you a head start, too, by showing you what viewers of your book's page also looked at. Gives you an idea of what likely readers are looking for (or at least, at).

[Invid Fan]

On Jan 12, 7:58 pm, Deadly Ernest <ernest.bywa...@gmail.com> wrote:

> This is one case where wiki may be saying what they think is
> happening, and may be happening, but what's coming out means nothing
> really intelligent. There is NOTHING adult like about a teen and the
> 13 to17 group is NOT young ADULT. The bleeding librarians and that may
> say that, but it's a total misuse.

It's how the term has been used for, oh, sixty years. Robert Heinlein
books like "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", were marketed as Young Adult
SF. Now, it may very well be that it was used before "teen" was an
actual marketing term, or even to make the books appeal more to kids
("I'm now reading ADULT books!"), but that's the definition. Using the
phrase differently all you want, but understand you'll attract the
wrong crowd of readers.

[EzzyB]

Feel better Zine?

Let me get this straight. You are lecturing me on linguistics while
interpreting a review that you've never read? It's amazing to me that
your linguistic powers don't only allow you to read between the lines,
but between lines you've never read!

Let's think about this.

Oh, yep, you didn't even quote me correctly. The word was charming,
not cute. You've also taken it out of context but by the rules of
internet message boards I think you are allowed to do that if you've
had a bad day.

You are dead on about that first scene. I mentioned that I wrote a
pitch yesterday and rewrote the first hundred words on the fly on a
lark. That first hundred words is that little bit moved up to be the
first words of the story and completely redone. It should be up
tomorrow sometime. I don't like that part much either. It should
have been part of the last rewrite. I was already redoing it but I
liked that stuff I did for the pitch (in all of ten minutes) so I'm
incorporating that tonight.

The quickie pitch I wrote is here:

http://jamigold.com/2012/01/its-time-to-pitch-your-shorts/comment-page-1/#comment-11574

Ezzy

[Deadly Ernest]

The term young adult has been used by in discussions about human
development for hundreds of years. To say that 12 year olds and up are
young adults is saying that all the laws declaring them t not be
adults at all are wrong - thus the drinking age, the legal consent age
etc should be dropped to 12 years of age as this phrase declares them
as adults, and an adult is one who is grown up:
from the Collins dictionary page, and echoed in several others.
quote
ADULT
adjective

having reached maturity; fully developed
of or intended for mature people => "adult education "
regarded as suitable only for adults, because of being
pornographic => "adult films and magazines "

noun

a person who has attained maturity; a grownup
a mature fully grown animal or plant
law a person who has attained the age of legal majority (18 years
for most purposes) Compare infant

end quote

A young adult would be one that has just reached adulthood.

In today's world in the USA, the laws see that as being 21 - mind you,
back in the middle ages 12 to 14 was adulthood, check on such things
as a bar mitzvah etc. But that's not how the laws are today, and not
how the development scientists and doctors have seen it for a few
centuries.

So, please, which is using the word 'adult' wrong, and which should we
regard as a major misuse, the Young Adult fiction group, or the
legislators saying all these people in the Young Adult definition are
still children and not deserving of the term adult in any form or the
freedoms of adult in any form? They can't both be right.

Genre is supposed to be about a style of story, again from Collins:
quote
Genre
noun

kind, category, or sort, es.p of literary or artistic work
((as modifier) => "genre fiction "
a category of painting in which domestic scenes or incidents from
everyday life are depicted
end quote
not an age category grouping. But, hey, it's just another word or
phrase that isn't used how it's supposed to be.

Regards,

Ernest

[Crumbly Writer]

I think the one thing to remember about writing YA stories ("try visiting a local mall and sitting in the food court") is that any story which tries to capture the latest teen venacular sounds like sh*t after a couple of years. It's painful to go back and read many YA stories. The ones that work better are the 'fictional/future' ones, like "Clockwork Orange", where they invent their own vernacular. Just picture the literary version of seeing yourself with long blow dried hair from the 70s!

[Sam]

DE, Young Adult is a specific term.  It is not equivalent to young adult,

any more than the new York library is equivalent to the New York Library.

[Deadly Ernest]

Sam,

that's correct, and the way that term is used by the human
developmentalist it's totally different to the way it's being applied
by the librarians, despite it being derived from two other terms.
Which is what my point is; it's not being applied in any way
consistent with it's other usages or it's roots. Thus, it's very
misleading when used like this.

the wikitionary says:
quote
Noun
young adult (plural young adults)

A person who has achieved sexual maturity but whose character and
personality are still developing as they gain experience
end quote

While wikipedia has a definition of 'young-adult fiction' that was
quoted in an earlier post setting the age as 14 to 21 or 12 to 21,
depending upon the source. Mind you, wikipedia quotes the originating
source as being a Sarah Trimmer in 1802, a time when 12 year olds
worked at the same jobs as their fathers and got the same pay. A time
when 12 to 14 year olds set up house by themselves and many started
families, with or without getting married first. Today, the laws and
general society see them as children until 18 or 21, while human
developmentalists see humans as children until about eleven or so,
then they're adolescents, and young adults at 18 to 21.

I think it would be fairer to say 'young adult' is one term and 'young
adult fiction' is a totally different term that bears absolutely no
resemblance to the first term.

Regards,

Ernest

[Joe "Bondi" Beach]

On 1/12/12 9:02 PM, Crumbly Writer wrote:

I think the one thing to remember about writing YA stories ("try visiting a local mall and sitting in the food court") is that any story which tries to capture the latest teen venacular sounds like sh*t after a couple of years. It's painful to go back and read many YA stories. The ones that work better are the 'fictional/future' ones, like "Clockwork Orange", where they invent their own vernacular. Just picture the literary version of seeing yourself with long blow dried hair from the 70s!

Agreed, but the idea is to capture the general rhythms and patterns, rather than a particular word or phrase. Of course, I guess you can put in "like," as many times as you want.

[massivereader]

Hey DE,

It's been used that way by librarians for quite a while and for a
pretty good reason. It's part of a shift in language away from words
with unfortunate connotations. There used to be three sections to most
public libraries in the US: the Children's section, the Juvenile
section and the Adult section.

Books in the Juvenile section (like the fabled Heinlein Juveniles)
eventually became known as Young Adult in American libraries around
the seventies and eighties because of strongly negative associations
connected to the word juvenile that were very much in vogue during the
fifties and sixties and became permanently entrenched usages by those
later decades; phrases like "Juvenile Deliquent" and "Juvenile
Behavior" immediately spring to mind.

So calling the next more advanced reading section "Juvenile" really
didn't do much to make it something increasingly savy youngsters
aspired to.

My guess is "Young Adult" was just deemed to carry a more salubrious
caché.

John

> > any more than the new York library is equivalent to the New York Library.- Hide quoted text -

[Deadly Ernest]

I see that, John, and it just goes to prove what I said before, the
term 'Young Adult Fiction' is totally at odds with, and has nothing to
do with the root words or the term 'Young Adult.'

[Zine]

DE,

And then there's the New Adult movement to cover college graduates on
up to 26 or 28. Twenty-somethings or the upwardly mobile you might
say.

Zine

[Zine]

Ezzy,

Touchy, touchy!

Umm... I'm pretty sure I read them back when you posted them on
here? And then you went into a semi-tirade about the "bad" one,
pretty much lumping him or her in with your favorite damper etymology
expert? And of course you were all puffed up about the other one I
referred to? I remember thinking about how different people on here
in toto had given you all the same advice, but of course free advice
is worthless until you get reamed by a nano. I only missed a few
months, Ezzy, not a few years.

I remember concluding at the time that both reviewers were exactly
right in their own way. There are, after all, over a dozen different
schools of thought on literary theory. You should just count your
lucky stars one of the feminist types didn't get the draw! Exploiting
women, showing them as disadvantaged, non-actualized, disabled, male-
dependent, oppressed, marginalized, blah, blah, blah, all the button-
words. At least your reviews had meat on the bones (as in boner,
stiffy, woody, jilly button).

Taken it out of context, how? Cute, charming; close enough. It's
been about a year, I think I deserve a fudge factor especially since
you said, I think, that they're nowhere on the internet any longer?

I read it; it's better, even humorous. Keep up the good work.:) And I
look forward to see how your expansion efforts pan out.

Zine

On Jan 12, 10:56 pm, EzzyB <ez...@storiesonline.org> wrote:
> Feel better Zine?
>
> Let me get this straight.  You are lecturing me on linguistics while
> interpreting a review that you've never read?  It's amazing to me that
> your linguistic powers don't only allow you to read between the lines,
> but between lines you've never read!
>
> Let's think about this.
>
> Oh, yep, you didn't even quote me correctly.  The word was charming,
> not cute.  You've also taken it out of context but by the rules of
> internet message boards I think you are allowed to do that if you've
> had a bad day.
>
> You are dead on about that first scene.  I mentioned that I wrote a
> pitch yesterday and rewrote the first hundred words on the fly on a
> lark.  That first hundred words is that little bit moved up to be the
> first words of the story and completely redone.  It should be up
> tomorrow sometime.  I don't like that part much either.  It should
> have been part of the last rewrite.  I was already redoing it but I
> liked that stuff I did for the pitch (in all of ten minutes) so I'm
> incorporating that tonight.
>
> The quickie pitch I wrote is here:
>

> http://jamigold.com/2012/01/its-time-to-pitch-your-shorts/comment-pag...

[massivereader]

Ah yes, I quite fondly remember the local librian giving me early
entrance to the "Adult" section of the library, after I had read ever
single Sci-Fi book in the Juvenile section numerous time (and made a
pest of myself demanding "more!"). I think I was about thirteen at the
time. Somewhere in the early sixties, to be sure. That was the summer
I first read most of the ERB, Asimov and Heinlein canons. Murray
Leinster and Lester DelRay too. Good times!

But they were known as the "Heinlein Juveniles" according to the
several RAH biolgraphies and autobiograpies I've read. I'm pretty sure
they were all issued by Simon & Schuster. He had serialized the first
one in "Boys Life", the magazine of the Boy Scouts of America, and it
had proved to be very, very popular. The editors at S&S thought a
series of juveniles would sell well to libraries and would be an
ongoing cash cow, which they proved to be. Heinlein wrote one a year
for publication just before Christmas, for about a decade; until he
became extremely dissatisfied with changes required by the juvenile
book department editors, who seemingly lived in fear of offending
small town librarians. If I remember correctly, forcing him to change
the ending for "Podkayne of Mars" so that the titular character
survived a nuclear explosion (!!) was the straw that broke the camels
back. They decided the original ending (you should definitely take the
time to search out and read that ending if you have only read the
originally published bastardized one required by the editors, it's a
rache level heartbreaker. -- I think both endings are in the most
recent revised edition) was way too dark for a "juvenille".

So the very next thing he submitted to them was the story that
eventually became "Stranger in a Strange Land". Heh.

Obviously that wasn't going to fly very well with a bunch of grey
haired biddies. Religious Heresy! Nudity! Fornication! Group sex!
Canabalism!!!

Hmm... maybe rache is actually Robert Heinlein's secret love child?

John

[Sagacious]

Lucky you MR. I was introduced to Scifi and RAH just before I enlisted, and Starship Troopers got me through basic training. A later girlfriend introduced me to Andre Norton and from there I kept on going. Before all that it was Kenneth Roberts, Mickey Spillane, and Ian Fleming. Books like that from aspiring writers would have a home at FS.

--
Sometimes I just...What was the question again?
http://www.youtube.com/siberia calling

[Deadly Ernest]

I started on sci-fi with my father's tattered original paperback copy
of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress while in primary school, what you USA
people call grade school. That got me asking Mum about sci-fi and we
got in some Asimov to listen to on her talking books, with some more
Heinlein, and some Niven. Then I got to borrowing them from the local
library. When the librarian chucked a fit about a kid my age taking
them out, Mum took them out on her card. Everyone knew she was blind
and I read her books to her, so I had to be reading this 'material far
tool advanced for the boy' but NO one at the library was prepared to
argue with her a second time; they took too long regrowing the skin
after she flayed them the first time. When I started working and had
money to spend, I started buying my own copies, still got Dad's old
copy of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

> calling<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGgDgztkeUY&feature=related>

[massivereader]

heh. My first Scifi book was "Runaway Robot" by Lester Del Ray. It's
considered one of his lesser efforts, and was actually ghost written
by someone else entirely, but was based on a story outline by Del Ray.
(BTW "Police Your Planet" by Del Ray is still one of my all-time
favorites.)

My older brother has just moved up from the Childrens to the Juvenile
Section and brought it home along with books in a couple of other
genres. I almost always swiped the books he brought home from the
library. Since I read about five times as fast as he did, I would be
done with them before he noticed.

After reading that book I pretty much marched up to the librarian and
demanded my own access to the Juveniles. I think I was eight or nine
at the time and looked a couple of years younger than that, judging by
old photos. I was always the smallest and shortest kid in my class. I
remember not being able see the top of the circulation desk. I had to
stand on tiptoes and lift stacks of borrowed books over my head to
return them. The librarian (it was alway a lady) grabbed a book at
random and asked me to read it to her, and I guess I did well enough
to convince her I was ready for that level of reading.

After that I was a goner.

John

> > calling<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGgDgztkeUY&feature=related>- Hide quoted text -

[Bingain]

On Jan 12, 10:56 pm, EzzyB <ez...@storiesonline.org> wrote:

EZZY,

The Guardian has an interview with Amanda Hocking (http://
www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/12/amanda-hocking-self-publishing)
and I think you really should read. She can be a better model for you.
When Konrath went into e-pubbie, he was already a published author
with several titles out and had a fan base. Hocking was a failure (in
terms of publishing) when she aimed to make a few hundred bucks on
Amazon. Furthermore, feats like "signed books in 612 bookstores across
28 states" in less than a year is quite a mission. I mean, that's more
than a bookstore a day. Can you handle that?

But the truth is Hocking didn't win a lottery, as in had that raw
luck. Yes, she rode the momentum of the young generation's desire for
blood and vampire that was brought about by the Twilight franchise,
without which she probably couldn't go to the Muppet show, never mind
a $2.1m contract. But it's been a long road. She had been writing
forever. And like Konrath, she probably has been spending 30 hours a
day marketing her books and herself as an author.

You ever thought about using KDP free offering to hopefully boost
downloads of "Rebecca" thus lead to hopefully some reviews on it and
the other two? It seems it's a really hard sell for titles without
reviews and selling at $4.99 and the author name (& pic) isn't Megan
Fox.

[EzzyB]

Your sunny disposition has that affect on me.

Really though, don't you think those same feminist literary reviewers
would have the same opinions on just about anything on the romance
shelf?

Ezzy

[EzzyB]

Yeah, it's well known that Hocking spent endless hours marketing. She
is also quite prolific. On her blog post about that big contract her
response was "why shouldn't I try it, it's only four books, I have
nineteen more to self-publish." (paraphrased)

I do make fun of the genre, but through last year's ABNA contest I
spent some time on the message boards there and since then I've become
more aware of such things. Easily seven out of ten people with a
story seem to have some kind of paranormal aspect to them be it
vampires, witches, werewolves or what not.

Indeed I said that the first cut of 80% of the entrants was based on a
sales pitch with not one word of the actual story being read. I
specifically wrote a pitch that my story was different because it
DIDN'T contain those things because I figured they'd be about sick of
them after they'd seen a few thousand. Nothing to do with the story,
just salesmanship and it was a bit of a risk (because it could be
construed as negative). As soon as they read 5000 words of my story
they kicked me to the curb with the rest. Maybe I should be writing
ad copy instead. :p

Ezzy

[Zine]

Ezzy,

Ha! A loaded question if there ever was one.

Zine