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Sexually Active Senior Living

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Who knew that retirement homes were a great place to pick up chicks? My Mom reveals the sordid truth in this short excerpt from her sequel-in-progress to  Active Senior Living, her fictionalized memoir:

I was sitting in the lobby lounge with my buddy Larry, just passing the time of day before we went in to dinner when Dale came over and sat down on my other side and began talking to me.

"Do you like movies?" he asked.

" Yes, " I said.

Dale was all smiles. " You know, they show a movie here every night upstairs in the media room. I could come to your apartment and get you and we could go together. How about if we do that tonight?"

" No thank you," I said.

" It's an hour before dinner. Let's go to the park. I still drive and my car is out in front. Come on," he said , reaching for my arm.

I pulled my arm away and said, " No, thank you, I don't want to go to the park."

Dale leaned in closer, as if he had a secret to tell me.  " Do you have a DVD player?"

" Yes, why?"

" I have a lot of movies. I could bring one to your apartment tonight. It's more fun if you watch a DVD with someone else. What time should I come over?"

" I'm not interested in watching a DVD with you," I said, leaning away from him.

" Well, then," he said, all smiles again, " Let's just go to the park together. They have benches and we could sit together and just enjoy the sunshine."

" My answer is still no," I said , hoping my tone showed that I had enough of his asking me to do something with him.

"What's your apartment number?" he asked. " I'll just come over tonight and we can visit or watch t.v. together."

"I'm not giving you my apartment number," I said , " I don't want you to come over so get that idea out of your head."

Larry who had been sitting quietly and listening to all this began to laugh. Dale looked at him, as if noticing him for the first time.

" And who are you?" Dale asked.

" I'm Larry and I don't want to watch a DVD with you, or go to a movie, or sit together to watch t.v. and don't ask me to go to the park, either."

Well, I burst out laughing at Larry's response to Dale.  Dale, on the other hand, didn't find it funny and stood up, putting his hand on my shoulder. " If you change your mind and you want to get together after dinner just give me a call. I'm in apartment 104."

And with that parting request he left the lounge area.

" I think you made a conquest, " Larry said.

We were still laughing as we headed in to dinner.

You Can Become a Kindle Millionaire, Part 13

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Kiindle 2-28

My Kindle sales for February we up a tick from last month. THE WALK sold 573 copies in 28 days vs 536 in  31 days in January. MY GUN HAS BULLETS sold 167 copies and THREE WAYS TO DIE sold 136. Last month, BEYOND THE BEYOND, priced at $1.99, sold 71 copies so I lowered the price to 99 cents for February to see if I could jack up sales a bit…and sold 85 copies. I went from selling about 2 copies a day of BEYOND to 3, hardly worth the price cut,  so I'm going to raise the price back to $1.99. I debating whether to raise the price of THE WALK to $2.99 to take advantage of the new Kindle royalty formula…but I am afraid what I will lose in sales volume will not make up for the increase in my royalty per book. (Click on the image for a larger view of my full royalty statement) 

My overall royalties were $777 vs. $775 for January. If my sales continue at this pace, I could earn close to $10,000 this year from the Kindle. But thats nothing compared to how my friend Joe Konrath is doing. As of February 24, he'd earned $2750 last month in Kindle royalties on nine titles…if he keeps that up, he's going to earn $33,000 this year from Amazon on his out-of-print and previously unpublished manuscripts alone. Click on the image below to see his royalty statement in detail: 

Konrath

Do Fish Have Loins?

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My Mom writes on her Active Senior Living blog about a marketing event at the senior living facility where she set her book:

It's so damn dumb. It's a senior prom and there are women downstairs dressed like they are preparing to walk down the aisle as the grandmother of the bride. Lots of pastel shaded lace suits and dresses. I almost got the giggles looking at them. All the furniture is out of the lobby and replaced with cocktail tables and it is decorated like New Year's Eve.. a five piece " orchestra" will play for dancing. The dance started at 5:30 an goes until 8 so we were all told we had to eat dinner at 4:00 and by 3:30 the dining room was full of people, me included. I wasn't even hungry which was good cus dinner was loin of cod. Do fish have loins? I ordered sausage and eggs, ate that and got the hell out before the public began arriving to wine and dine and dance with free champagne and bite size goodies like meat balls, which Jay said were probably better than our dinner. Ah ,the joys of this lifestyle! Guess I can always write about that for the sequel to Active Senior Living.

UPDATE: My Mom blogged about the post-cod loins menu and I laughed so hard that I hard to share it with you:

After baked loin of cod as our menu choice last night … and who ever knew cod had loins, I expected tonight's choice to be roasted leg of Rainbow Trout. Our chef is very creative and not always in a good way. His seasoning of choice is always jalapeno and gravy is on everything. Same gravy, no matter was the entree is. I've gotten used to eating cold mashed potatoes, over cooked beef and chicken that is less than tender but the good news is I haven't lost any weight. Maybe that is because I do the feeding tube for breakfast and most days for lunch , too, and that gives me some good calories.
When we are served a meal that is less than desirable I am reminded of what my friend Ed told me ( and I put in the book Active Senior Living) and that was that he figured the food budget per resident was about $7 a day. " it's like Boy Scout camp," he had said, " only here we have indoor plumbing."
I've talked to residents at other active senior complexes and it is the same story everywhere.. not just here and not just in California. The food tends to be the least most attractive thing about the place. But , as my friend Betsy says, " we didn't have to go get the groceries, cook the meal, clear the table or do the dishes. They can cook it any way they want and it's fine with me!"

Changing the Act

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My friend author Gar Anthony Haywood has taken a long hiatus from attending conferences. But he's coming back for Left Coast Crime next month. But he's not going to be the same guy he was in the past.

I’ve revamped the act I used to do in public settings such as this and will be testing out the new and improved one at LCC. Gar Anthony Haywood, the conference panelist who never met a punch line he didn’t like, is no more.

It won’t be an easy transition for me. Going for the laugh has always been my M.O. when faced with panel audiences. One, because humor comes more naturally to me than eloquence and, two, because I used to regard writers who can’t bring themselves to crack a smile when answering a moderator’s question as stuffed shirts with an overinflated sense of their own importance. I thought it was better to be remembered as a joker than quickly forgotten as a smart and articulate egomaniac.

Now, I’m not so sure. At least, if being the most memorably hilarious writer at a conference has any long-term benefits, I would seem to have failed to reap them.

It isn’t just humor’s questionable value as a marketing strategy that’s driving my P.R. metamorphosis, however. I’m also looking to more accurately represent the literary heft I’d like to think my more recent writing carries.

I'm not sure he's right. I've seen way too many writers who think because they write dark, brooding, moody stuff that they have to be dark, brooding and moody themselves. I am a firm believer in just being yourself, and if you happen to be funny, that's fine. Nobody likes schtick, though, whether you are telling jokes or being the darkest guy in the room. My brother Tod writes dark stuff, and he's always funny on panels, and that didn't stop him from getting nominated for the LA Times Book Prize. Craig Johnson's stuff is procedural cop stuff that borders on the literary…and he's always hilarious on panels. Hasn't stopped Craig from being taken seriously, or for his books to win widespread acclaim. I guess what I'm saying Gar, if you're reading this, is just be Gar and stop over-thinking it.

Mirror Mirror

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I hate it when authors use reflecti0ns as a way to describe how their characters look. It always feels lazy and flat. But, for some reason, the horror cliche of having an image suddenly appear in a mirror never seems to lose its shock value. Just take a look at this:

Thanks to Alex Epstein for the link.

Collaboration

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My buddy Max Allan Collins talks on his blog today about his collaborations with Mickey Spillane. Here's an excerpt: 

The truth is, these are genuine collaborations, all of them. I would put them at 50%/50%. I usually take Mickey’s work, expand upon it, and extend it so that it takes up at least half of the finished product. Probably about 60% of the wordsmithing in these novels is mine. But the plot idea, and various notes, and sometimes rough drafts of endings, plus the other 40% of the writing, are all Mickey’s. That’s how it’s done. I don’t believe anything like it has ever occurred in mystery fiction, a writer of Mickey’s magnitude leaving half a dozen substantial manuscripts behind, having designated a trusted collaborator (me) to complete them.

He also talks about his collaborations with his long-time researcher Matthew Clemens, who is uncredited on the covers of Max's C.S.I. tie-ins. Max is very candid about why his name is so much bigger than Clemens' on the cover of their new "standalone" thriller, even though they equally divided the work:N335740  

A good collaboration is synergistic – two plus two equals fourteen. While there are plenty of Matt’s sentences in YOU CAN’T STOP ME, it is about as fifty/fifty a project as you can imagine…and neither of us could have done it alone.

[Bill Crider's]comment that my bigger byline on THE BIG BANG may indicate a bigger contribution by me is at odds with the truth of publishing. Often times, the bigger name of a dual byline did the least amount of work. YOU CAN’T STOP ME is very much a fifty-fifty novel by Matt and me, but my name is much larger, because I am the bigger name (at the moment). But usually with such a situation, you could safely guess that the smaller name did most or even more of the writing.

The blog post is worth reading… it's a very interesting look into the work habits of a professional writer and, to some degree, the business of writing. 

Nabisco Has a Monopoly On Oreos

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Amazon recently stopped selling titles from Macmillan and its subsidiaries because the publisher refuses to abide by a $9.99 cap on prices for ebooks. Today, Amazon grand poobah Jeff Bezos released a statement  on the matter saying that he'd eventually have to capitulate because:

"…Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books."

Say What!?

That's like chastizing Ford for having a "monopoly" on Mustangs, or Nabisco for having a "monopoly" on Oreos, or Amazon for having a "monopoly" on the Kindle. It's a bizarre and idiotic attempt to make Macmillan into a villain for charging what they want to for their product…the same way that Amazon charges what they want to for their Kindle.  

If Bezos truly feels Macmillan is wrong, and it's a matter of principle that's important to him, than he can sell Macmillan books for whatever he wants and take a loss…or stop selling any Macmillan books that he thinks are over-priced. But stop trying to cast Macmillan as the bad guy here. They aren't.

Author Solutions is No Solution

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Author-solutions  Kevin Weiss, the CEO of the vanity press Author Solutions, posted a video on YouTube asking the Mystery Writers of America, Science Fiction Writers of America, and the Romance Writers of America to meet with him to discuss all the ways he's "helping writers."  This from a man who charges writers thousands of dollars to print their book…and then, in the unlikely event they ever sell copies, takes a huge chunk of their royalties, too. Yeah, Kev, that's a big help. Thanks so much.

Author Solutions, incidentally, is the company that Harlequin partnered with to create their own vanity press operation, initially called "Harlequin Horizons" and quickly redubbed DellArte after the announcement created an uproar. The partnership, and Harlequin's practice of referring rejected authors to DellArte (among other things), led to Harlequin being delisted as an Approved Publisher by just about every major professional writers organization out there. Naturally, this disturbs Kev, who is hoping to peddle similar partnerships to other publishers.

Author Shiloh Walker posted a lengthy, and very detailed, critique of his message on her blog. Here's an excerpt:

You talk about open discourse, and honesty and offering choices, yet do you
openly make aware to your `customers' that while they may spend thousands, you
were quoted as saying in the New York Times that the average number of titles
sold through one of your brands was 150? […] The writer shouldn't pay thousands to 'self-publish' and then have to share the profits.

[…] The organizations you're calling out to `discuss' things are the advocates for
writers. Period. A writer that goes in with you is likely to spend thousands
sell…how many books? Unless you can guarantee me four, five figures, (1000
books, 10,000) there's nothing about your company that has me interested in
telling either of my writer organizations, "Hey, maybe these people can offer
choices to those who are seriously pursuing a writing career."

There's no reason for any professional writers organization to meet with Weiss. Their beef is with Harlequin, a real publisher, not with his vanity press. Such a meeting would only give him, by association, the credibility he so desperately seeks. And let's face it, Authors Solutions is not a publisher, it's an outrageously over-priced printer. Nor is it a maverick offering a genuine alternative for authors. In fact, Author Solutions is no solution at all. Banner_Logo  

What he fails to mention in his videos (for good reason) is that an author can print their book in trade paperback or hardcover FOR FREE through companies like Lulu and Blurb (the companies take their share when a book is bought by a reader, but the author sets the purchase price)…or get their books on Amazon, at no charge with no middleman at all, using the Kindle platform. Writers can get everything Author Solutions offers elsewhere with no out-of-pocket expense. (In fact, my Mom just did it with her memoir Active Senior Living. She's made hundreds of dollars in just a few weeks…and isn't out a dime).

Those free alternatives have made companies like Author Solutions totally irrelevant, which is why he is so desperate to create partnerships with major publishers in the hopes of taking advantage of their slush pile. 

However, if the writers organizations succeed in convincing publishers that it's wrong to try to monetize the slush pile and to take advantage of the desperation and gullibility of aspiring authors, then Author Solutions is screwed. That's why Kev is so worried about the Harlequin situation. He already lost big time when Harlequin took their name off their new vanity press venture. He was counting on trading on the Harlequin name, hoping that naive writers would assume that they were being published by the "real" Harlequin. That was certainly the whole point of the venture. But  DellArte carries no such cache…in fact, without Harlequin steering the writers it rejects to the vanity press, it has no reason to exist, nothing to set it apart from all the other over-priced "self-publishing" companies out there.

So is it any wonder Kev is making YouTube appeals? 

UPDATE: Victoria Strauss at the Writer Beware Blog also offers an excellent critique of Weiss' video. She writes, in part:

Will a sit-down, if it happens, be productive? Good question. Part of the objection to the AS/Harlequin/Nelson "partnerships" was the misleading way in which they were presented–seriously overstating the benefits of self-publishing for many if not most authors, using the carrot of possible transition to commercial publishing as a hook to draw in customers–as well as, in Nelson's case, a promise of referral fees for agents who steered authors its way, plus a truly exorbitant cost. Given that high costs and less-than-transparent presentation are at the core of AS's services, I don't think that's likely to change. Also, can there ever be a meeting of the minds between professional commercial writers' groups and a company that wants to present fee-based publishing as an "indie revolution?" Part of the problem, I think, is that Weiss is speaking a different language.