Technophiles, Luddites and the Art of Shaving

I've always been nostalgic for the "old ways" of doing things. I still remember going to a grey-haired country barber out in the sticks of North Carolina and remaining frozen in his chair as he took a straight razor to my ten year old head with the precision of an Edward Scissorhands that had yet to be invented. "The old way," he'd called it, dismissing his younger protege toiling away with scissors in the seat beside us with a smirk.

I suppose that's why I still enjoy going to the farmer's market once a week, even when the grocery store is five miles closer and open 24/7. It's why I still prefer grilling over a campfire or a charcoal grill, even though my gas grill works just fine. It's why the bulk of my kitchen is trimmed out in cast iron and stoneware, vice teflon coated hardware.

And, unfortunately, it's why I thought teaching myself to shave with a straight razor might be fun. My brother, a premier barber back in North Carolina, got a kick out of it when I broke the news to him. "You did what?" he blasted over the phone. Even he would never attempt such a feat on himself, he told me, and he uses straight razors on his customers everyday. (You can see the result of my first straight razor shave in the photo below. I will say that it was an extremely close shave.)*

I didn't shave for a week after this debacle.

Believe it or not, I still use this on an occasional basis, though it's no longer the staple of my shaving routine that I once was considering it to be.

Just as I've had my fascination with the past, I've also always had a fascination with technology. The only difference, though, is that I've often hesitated about adopting new forms of it. When I was younger, much of that hesitation came from simply not being able to afford it. As I got older, it became more of a conscious decision to avoid certain forms of it either for privacy reasons or security concerns. I dodged cell phones for as long as I could until one was forced on me by the Navy when I went into the anti-terrorism and force protection field and they made it a requirement. Even then, it was just a flip phone. No Blackberry for me, thank you very much (does anybody still use those?). Before that, the 'worst' I had it was getting leashed to a pager when on SAR duty in the Pacific. I was grateful when I left the AT/FP world, because it meant I could give up what I'd come to consider an electronic leash. But upon my reentry into the States, my newly acquired wife assigned me a cell phone, despite my protestations. (I later learned this to be a preemptive form of domestication.)

It was just a standard flip phone, a Nokia if remember it right. My wife's phone by comparison, a Palm Pre, might have been a piece of technology shot back through time via a worm hole from the Star Trek tri-coder days of the 23rd century so far as I was concerned. She urged me to go that route too. "The wave of the future," she told me. "Look, I can get on the internet!" But, no, I resisted, and so I held on to my little flip phone right up through writing my first real attempt at a novel. By real, I mean one that I not only started, but finished.**

And here we come yet again to my reference to this completed novel that, had you read some previous entry to my blog you would realize, has mysteriously remained hidden from the public's view. Why? I certainly think it's well written for a first novel. I think it's a good story even, though as soon as the international political scene changes in Asia it may become less relevant. What keeps me from publishing the damn thing, then?

My spies use things like palm tablets in a world that has evolved to smart phones and i-YouNameIts. In short, to today's readers the people in my book would look completely inept by their choices in technology. The worst spies in the world. I've contemplated just tossing it (not literally), and chalking it up as a great learning experience. To sit down and write a full 100,000+ word novel to completion? Freaking amazing! I've thought about just publishing it here, in chunks as I go back an edit it, just for fun's sake. Just to say it's out there.

And then there's the other option. I could actually publish it. What I'd need though is a good editor who can pare it all down for me, removing all the self-indulgent writing -- a trap we authors often fall into -- and shore up the stuff worthy of the reading public's attention removing all the bad grammar and typos I inevitably missed. Someone who could make it a tighter story. Sure, I could do it. But it'd be like killing my first born, if I'd had one. Or, more realistically, like chopping a couple body parts off my newborn. "Hey there, cutie. Oh, you're so cute, aren't you?"

Then, WHAM! Screams. Tears. Howls of anguish, as my newborn loses an arm, then a leg to the ax of my inner editor. No, I don't think I'm heartless enough. Not for my first. The rest, yes. I can and have done this. But not her. She's precious.

I don't know. What do you think?


(Sorry for all the FOOTNOTES):
[*FYI, I've since downgraded from using a straight razor to using an old school safety razor. It still keeps me away from the new styled razors with their moisturizing strips and plastic. It also gives me a very close shave, and in the long-term costs less to use and is better for the environment. I'd highly recommend them, and leave straight razors for those flatter portions of your face and for days when you have a solid 30 minutes to knock out a shave.]

[**This is a tale as old as the first novel ever written, I am sure. Every author I've talked to or read interviews of has at one time or another talked about their multiple great starts to novels that quickly turned into extended short stories with no endings. I'll add my tale to this legacy in another blog post later.]

Hugh Howey...My New Favorite (Author) Hero

Why? you ask.

Because the man's got his shit together.

Perusing the internet as I'm prone to do at times, I came across a piece he'd written in response to something author Sue Grafton said of the self-publishing movement afoot today.  I'd go into the details of it, but it's better you read it yourself.  He's got a knack for articulating the argument against Ms. Grafton's take on the matter in a manner that I would not detract from here.

Suffice to say, Ms. Grafton's views are of the old guard, those who would choose to remain above the masses as their betters and not do business in a manner they consider beneath them.

Take a look at Mr. Howey's post.  It's called "My Four Favorite Sue Grafton Novels."

Why I hate pee-pee

Maybe it's a story all authors are familiar with at some point in their careers. I don't know. I just didn't think it would be this early in mine. I guess for lack of a better phrase, I'll just call it the "Lost Edit." Sounds kind of ominous, doesn't it? Well, here's the story.

As some of you may know, I published The Missionary Position in late June to Amazon's Kindle, and then on Smashwords for multiple eBook platforms. It was a fine and decent 'product,' but I recognized it could use some improvements when I had the time to make them. But time was a mysterious anomaly at that point in my life. I understood it existed, but only in the abstract and then only for those souls fortunate enough not to be bogged down in the same quagmire of study as myself. That's how my first foray into publishing TMP went.

Funny how it's not until you're in the homestretch of a project that the glaring mistakes you were completely oblivious to before suddenly become glaringly obvious.  Prior to hitting the publish button for eBook platforms, all seemed fine. Then I pressed the button and BAM! It hit me like a ton of bricks. I had a tense issue - a past tense/future tense conflict. Maybe not a big deal to some, but it bothered the hell out of me and I knew I'd have to fix it before the print edition came out.

Fast forward to August. I should have been studying for my Comprehensive Exams in anticipation of finishing my Master's degree. But I really wanted to get the print edition of TMP published sooner rather than later, so I poured myself into it at the risk of floundering on my Exams. Distracted as I edited? Probably, yes. Did I do as good a job as I would have done if I'd waited until after exams and didn't feel the pressure of other responsibilities tugging at my coattails? Probably not.

And so came the pee-pee. I shake my head as I think about it even now. Poor old Monk. Why did I ever make him say it? It was fine in the initial draft and publication. Yes, the language was coarser (he said "dick" instead of "pee-pee", if you're wondering because you read an earlier draft), but in a moment of doubt over who knows what, I changed the wording in an edit with the mindset that I'd let it sit and then come back and read it over again later (before publication) to see if it resonated okay.

Well, exam time came and I got rushed. By this time I'd completely forgotten about the pee-pee change, and the next time I read over the passage was when the book was published in paperback form...

...and, no, "pee-pee" didn't resonate.

Shit. That was my initial thought. Four letters that pretty much summed up how I felt about pee-pee. I guess it's quaint since both belong in the toilet. There it was, set in print forever. Now I've got a three-year-old's version of what he calls his junk in my book. Worse, I did a blind edit where I took the print edits and put them into the eBooks for updates. Now EVERYONE's got pee-pee in their books.

You're welcome, readers. You're welcome.

Innuendo and a teaser

Something I never considered when choosing a name for this book was that I'd be listed among sex instruction manuals and religious manifestos. My only thought back then was that a little innuendo might make for a nice catchy title, a bit of titular wording to attract people's attention.  But when the book was first listed on Amazon and I gave people the title to look it up, they had to scroll through several pages of sex instruction manuals, S & M books, or texts on Mother Theresa before they got to The Missionary Position.

I'm happy to report as of today, however, that when I typed in "The Missionary Position" in Amazon's search box, my book came up number SIX! Mother Theresa is still on top (as she probably should be), but I've knocked the sex books down the list. I'm feeling pretty good about that. Sex is a hard genre to compete against when mine is admittedly a very small niche market of pulp-styled historical adventure fiction.

Now for a little teaser...I've got a number of sequels and prequels lined up for The Missionary Position. A couple have basic outlines already done, and I've got a number of ideas for the rest. One in fact is about a third written. What's my point in telling you this? All have the same innuendo style of titling as TMP. Should I veer away from this? I don't know. From a marketing standpoint I like innuendo, but it comes with a twist. By default of how I title my books I'll continue to get listed with books outside my genre if someone just types in their names. But I think it works. We'll see.

This is my first foray into indie publishing, and I've got a long way to go before I understand the pros and cons of it all. And truth be told, this genre represents only one of a couple others I'd like to publish in. Genres where innuendo titles won't necessarily come into play. For instance, I've had a novel written in the suspense-thriller genre for a couple years now, but I need to find some reliable editors and beta readers to take a look at it before I'll be comfortable putting it out into the world. The book sort of fell off my radar as I've worked these past couple years on finishing my Masters. I think it's a good read, but the longer I wait to get it ready for publication the more work it'll require to go back and update it.

Why? Well, I began writing it in 2007, and finished the first draft sometime in 2008. Think about the technology changes that have occurred since then. Some of my characters were using PDAs.

PDAs! Remember those?

Exactly.

No futz'in around

I think I should first apologize for the long delay between blogs, but times they are a'tough.  Well, not really, but they're at least pretty damned busy.  I'm nearing completion of my Master's and everything is converging in the form of papers, tests and the ominous Comps in August.  No excuse, I know.

Anyway, a little update on book distribution...

According to Smashwords, The Missionary Position (TMP) should be getting distributed to B&N, Apple, and other premium outlets either today or tomorrow.  To be honest, I'm a bit frustrated with the process, and concerned about the quality of the product they will put out.  Formatting for distribution through Smashwords did not allow me the same kind of product I achieved through Amazon's Kindle.

Granted, I didn't have a great first outing with the Kindle platform either when I looked at my "proofs," but at least with Kindle's interface I was able to make quick changes and see them implemented quite fast.  With Smashwords, I saw my initial proofs, didn't like'em, changed them, and then had to wait for daaaayys.  And then a few more weeks before it finally reached the point (today or tomorrow) that it will get to the Premium distribution channels.  I'm afraid if I go in an putz around with it again, it'll reset the whole thing and I'll have to wait an equally long time for the changes to go through and get to market again.

Don't know.  Maybe it doesn't work that way, but I unfortunately don't have the time now to futz around with it.  In a week I'll have a break and look into it, but to be honest the first priority then (book-wise) will be getting the paperback versions available.

Point is, I want to put out a quality product that represents the best possible reading and viewing experience I can provide my readers, however few of them there may be.  That means there cannot be excessive amounts of "white space" between pages, no convergent paragraphs and all that mess.  Just good story that's easy to navigate through.

Covers are tough

I’m an indie author, which to the uninitiated basically means I have much fewer resources at my fingertips than legacy house authors do to put a book together. For an author, the process is relatively straightforward. First, write a good story. Second, kill your babies (edit). Third, send it off to your betas (test readers) for feedback. Fourth, take the inputs that work and redo it. There’s more to it, but you get the gist.

Here’s the deal, though. As an indie author, I’m also an indie publisher. So after I take off my author’s hat, I have to put on my marketer’s hat, my graphic designer’s hat, my formatter’s hat (to make the book work on various e-reader platforms and for print), and so on, and so on. Much of the formatting stuff really isn’t that difficult, but when it comes to the blurb on the back of a book that sells it to the reader and the actual cover of the book, things get tough…and quick.

Collectively, the blurb and cover are your two most important tools to attracting readers. These are the first two things a reader will see when perusing the shelves of a bookstore, or, as is the case with me, the book pages of Amazon, B & N, or Smashwords. [NOTE: I’ll be posting The Missionary Position to the latter two in the next week or so…after I finish a test and paper for grad school.] As such, it is important to get these just right. Fail to do a good job and you risk missing readers who might actually love the story within the book, but for whatever reason were turned off of giving it a chance because there was nothing in the blurb or cover that appealed to them.

Legacy publishing houses have *teams* of folks whose fulltime jobs it is to put blurbs and cover designs together for their authors. These guys are professionals, trained in graphic arts, marketing and advertising. They’ve read studies of what gets reading consumers’ attention, and bend to make the books their selling appeal to their target demographic.

The indie author has none of this. At best, we can only guess at what a potential reader would like. For me, I wrote a blurb and produced a cover that would appeal to me if I were the one searching for a good fun read. I think the target audience for TMP is probably someone who shares a similar inclination towards historical pulp-styled adventure fiction as I do. In that vein, I felt my cover had to reflect some of the old-school cover art from similar texts sold 'back in the day'.

That said, the cover was still only designed by THIS guy (two awkward thumbs pointing in my direction), a NON-graphic artist who grew up in the days when Atari was the standard bearer for graphics. That probably makes me a bit clumsy with what I can produce for covers, but all in all I think it came out okay. After all, at the end of the day my goal is really just to create a world for my readers that is not their own where they can sit back and temporarily shut down the worry centers in their brains; a place they can disappear into, even if only for a couple hours at a time.

I would like to have readers’ opinions, however, on the cover work as this might affect future iterations of the book and others down the line. Thanks.