New blog launching ... new cover art inspiring me!

Two items I *must* blog about today -- though I know I haven't blogged in a loooong time; too busy, folks; only so many hours in a day!

But -- two things to blog about today!

GLBT Bookshelf has just launched its fiction wing ... free gay fiction, online, glbt romance in any of its thousands of permutations: ALL GAY ROMANCE is launching at this time. There's quite a nice range of fiction online even now, and it's very early days as yet. A good time is being had by all, and we hope readers will soon find the site, bookmark is, and return often.

The other piece of news is personal: I just received the cover proof for my next-up novel, and to say that I'm thrilled to bits is a terrible understatement:







Will you take a look at that! It's by Jade ... who else?! ... and it was done in the new 3D art prog to which I intriduced the artist back in August. I'm still trying to figure out my specular from my ambient --! Jade, meanwhile, is doing stuff like this:





Is that amazing, or what? One of the best things about this is that Jade actually tells you how to do this stuff ... not in any great detail, of course, because these are not tutorials. But enough to point me in the right direction, and give me have a clue about where the tools are!

And I guess, now that the cover art for MINDSPACE is done and waiting for me, I better get on and finish the story! It's about 75% done, I just need to find the time to hammer out the rest of it and then send it over to DreamCraft for the edit and proof phase ... and somewhere along the line, maybe I'll find the time to blog again!

Cheers,
Mel

GLBT Bookshelf launches publicly ...!

Hi guys ... you must be wondering if this blog has been abandoned -- and after it suffered the Great Google Krunch (had its page rankings zeroed out for no reason whatsoever), it probably wouldn't have surprised you if it was abandoned, right?!

However, it's not. It's just neglected, the reason being that my other project, GLBT Bookshelf, is such a time-gobbler, there's not a minute left after I get done there, to do anything here.

Today, for example, all I have time for is this personal note, and a swift paste-in of the press release which is going out even as I type! We registered a domain for the Bookshelf, and the first advertising campaign has begun. All very exciting, and -- here's the official press release!

Cheers,
Mel


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sara Lansing, Press Secretary
GLBT Bookshelf
Email: saralansing762@gmail.com



GLBT Writers and Readers
Launch Revolutionary Online Community
Gay Indie Literature Industry Unites

Adelaide, South Australia – June 25, 2009 Bestselling gay author Mel Keegan has masterminded a web-based cohesive organization combining the skills of writers, publishers, editors, agents, reviewers and artists in the GLBT community to provide an unprecedented public access portal to independent- and small-publisher titles. GLBT Bookshelf is an online resource designed to counter the perceived discriminatory practices of major players in the book retail scene.

Frustrated by the infamous “AmazonFail” fiasco of early 2009, in which the online retail giant was suspected of attempting to deny GLBT literature the benefits of its promotional systems, Keegan conceived of an online community in which all such systems were circumvented -- replaced by “community promotion” with direct links to authors’ and publishers’ pages.

Keegan is highly motivated toward the success of this venture. “Nothing convinces you to act like being forced to the margins of an already marginalized community. In a way the AmazonFail business was a desperately-needed kick in the pants. Now we have a public contact venue and direct sales channel which is not dependant on the big boys, their promotional tools, their advertising -- not even their search engines.”

In creating GLBT Bookshelf, Keegan set out to answer the needs of most GLBT writers and artists: Create a place for their works to be cataloged, described and sampled, linked to their publishers and independent sales pages -- and promoted by joint funding amounting to peppercorn contributions from community members. In this way, all writers benefit from wide media exposure while no individual foots the advertising bill.

The site takes the form of a “wiki,” where users sign up (free) and a pilot page is created for them. They then use editing tools to flesh out their pages with text, graphics and video. They develop their own virtual website within the wiki, which is built on the EditMe engine, operated by EditMe.com.

Visitors find authors, titles and publishers via multiple, categorized contents lists, as well as the fully-featured Search function. The site features user forums, book reviews, author pages, and directories for publishers and cover artists. A free PDF user’s manual is available, and the public launch is underway.

After just one month GLBT Bookshelf boasts around 200 “authors and others” online. Writers are booking low-cost advertising in high-traffic page locations, months ahead. More than 1000 user-pages have been created, and 500+ books are currently cataloged. Projected growth rates suggest this is the tip of the iceberg.

Find GLBT Bookshelf at www.glbtbookshelf.com, and watch for developments in the months ahead. While it remains early days, Mel Keegan is highly optimistic. “We could be seeing a quiet revolution in GLBT book marketing, in which the community takes its fortunes into its own hands. Technology has freed us from the restrictive practices of the traditional industry -- the Bookshelf is the joint venture of a lifetime. We must evolve new ways of thinking to take full advantage of our opportunities.”

Mel Keegan lives with an eccentric family in South Australia and is the author of more than 25 books. “The Deceivers” won the Stonewall Fact and Fable Award in 2003, while “Death’s Head” was nominated for the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1992. GLBT Bookshelf is the culmination of Keegan’s creative vision.

###

From the depths of the Easter long weekend

'Tis a season of chocolate rabbits and eggs you could never make an omelet with; days prompting that old classic joke about "Save me a hot cross bun, I'll be back on Monday." A four-day weekend where the country is closed, Thursday to Tuesday, and if you happen to have forgotten to get a printer cartridge or a spindle of DVD blanks, tough luck.

It's Easter. That time of picnic horse races and the aroma of Aztec mild hallucinogens wafting out of the malls, and blazing-eyed zealots actually, physically, in reality, having themselves nailed (with real nails and real hammers) to big wooden crosses on the beach in major cities, while the crowd looks on in aghast awe, wondering at their sanity, and perhaps asking themselves the inevitable question. Think about it. Or, don't. It's a subject that'll cost you sleep.

Anyway --

Keegan is still alive, still working! Just not blogging here as much as I used to -- Google having buried me in the page rankings! In fact --

I've been blogging elsewhere in the last week:

I've been contributing to this blog, which lives over at http://write-edit-publish.blogspot.com/ ... and it's a lot of fun, actually. It's interesting to quantify the subjects of writing, editing, publishing. It's also a great blog, and growing like a mushroom. From here on, when readers ask questions about the trade of the writer, editor, publisher, this is where I'll be answering them -- I'll just post briefly here and give the link.

And I've been on Digital Kosmos too:

The dome of the sky

Focus and contrast: red hot pokers imitate art

Cafe culture goes way upmarket

In the time warp ... Adelaide, of course!

Fossils, front and center!

Reflections teasing eyes and brain

...and in the background I'm working on the ebook/paperback version of the first of the LEGENDS novels; and if I can ever get a spare afternoon or two, I'll be rereading the Hellgate novels, ready to start writing. I hope to get a start in May. If I get get a start then, and nothing too bad happens, I can be done by Christmas -- both books. Personally, I can't wait to have them finished. This project has been "on" for about 20 years, at least for me. I wrote the first version of The Rabelais Alliance in 1989, about the same time as Ice, Wind and Fire came out with GMP. Naturally, I had high hopes of being able to sell a gay SF series to them ... and/but the rest is history. Rabelais has a longer pedigree than the British Royal Family, and having the whole story told will be a dream come true.

Little else is happening in the Mel-o-Sphere. Life is mostly about work, right now. Family is okay, if you stretch a point. Some are limping around waiting to heal, some are being deployed in the military, some are waiting for eye surgery! Me? Oh, surviving. Wishing I could crack some code and crank up sales, so I could tell the day job to go buzz off (and that's a euphemism).

Look for updates, tweaks, additions and rebuilds in the main website in the next few weeks, too. The work has been mapped and planned, just has to be done. I think LEGENDS goes to press first, and then the website gets its work next. April or May.

In short, life is a yawn, so --

Ciao for now,
MK

Here ends the first book of the Fall of the Atlantean Empire

Good news from the Mel-o-Sphere: LEGENDS is complete, up to the "End of Book One" marker, which is where I'm going onto hiatus with it, in order to turn my attention to Hellgate.

Rather than string it out into next week, I put the last half dozen posts up at the same time:
65. The Winds of Chance (part one)
66. The Winds of Chance (part two)
67. The Winds of Chance (part three)
68. The Winds of Chance (part four)
69. The Winds of Chance (part five)
70. The Oracle Dreams
71. Afterword
72. The art gallery

Please do note the art gallery on the tag-end of that list! A couple of new pieces have been done recently, and one of them blows me away. Click on this piece to see it at full size -- the shrunk-to-fit version pasted in by Blogger doesn't do it justice ... this piece has the quality of classical art, and I'm still in the "wow" stage:

The feedback on the format in which this novel was published as been varied indeed:

• 25% of people were blissfully happy to swing by every day or few days, and get a free hit.


• 25% of readers said, "I can't read this in bits -- tell me when it's finished, I'll download it all together."


• 10% of readers said, "I can't read this much on screen. Tell me when a paperback comes out, I'd be happy to buy it."


• 10% said, "I don't have the time to deal with little bits of reading. I want a properly formatted ebook, even if you charge for it."


• 15% of readers said, "I like the concept of a free serial novel, but I don't care for fantasy. Tell me when you bring out an SF or thriller novel."


• 10% of readers said, "I like ebooks, but I can't stand serials (I hate cliffhangers). Tell me when the whole thing's finished.


• 5% of readers said, "I like fantasy, and serials are okay. but I like my gay fantasy red-hot sexy. Can I get an uncut version of Legends? Would be happy to pay for an ebook.

This seems to cover everything, and leaves everyone happy.

It's great to have some firm data. So we're doing a newsletter this afternoon, informing people that (drum roll)... the first book of the trilogy is finished (download it all of a piece, if this is what you needed); and a properly structured ebook is being prepared; there can also be a Legends Uncut version, for those who wanted this; and a stunning cover is being put around this novel; it'll be available as a paperback in a few weeks.

I might vanish for a couple of days now ... I have the priceless opportunity to take a couple off, and I think I'm going to grab the opportunity. Might pack the HELLGATE books, start reading them while I kick back and unwind.

Reading the whole thing properly is the first thing I must do ... these characters have to "talk" to me in their own unique voices. Mick Vidal doesn't sound like Harry Shapiro, who doesn't sound like Neil Travers, who doesn't sound like Barb Jazinsky. And so on. These characters are never far from "in my head," but I need to really, seriously get back into their world. Then, two BIG books by Christmas, and the series is finished. Woah.

Hence -- a couple of days off while I have the chance!

Ciao for now,
MK

Updates from the Mel-o-Sphere

Not much doing in the Mel-o-sphere lately, but other blogs have been updated, and rather than repeat the whole lot here, let me give you the links:

This will bring you up to date with LEGENDS:
54. Zeheft is Burning (part one)
55. Zeheft is Burning (part two)
56. Zeheft is Burning (part three)
57. The Tomb of Knowledge (part one)
58. The Tomb of Knowledge (part two)
59. The Tomb of Knowledge (part three)
60. Red Sails (part one)
61. Red Sails (part two)
62. Red Sails (part three)
63. Red Sails (part four)
64. Red Sails (part five)

I finally found a spare few minutes to post to DIGITAL KOSMOS:
Reflections teasing eyes and brain
(Will be posting more very soon; work is about to hit a lull ... if it didn't, I'd be out there looking for a high building with some inviting-looking concrete at the bottom.)

And I've been over Live Journal...
Cool way to spend a morning
Good gods, they want HOW MUCH to ship it???
Google Book Search is OFF, thank gods
King Kong 5, Keegan 0

I also stumbled into something fairly interesting -- or at least potentially interesting for folks who're promoting their self-administered backlists, or who are with publishers who expect you to go out and promote your own books. Visit this: http://www.freepublicitygroup.com/ ... and/but be prepared to do a lot of reading. It's all free, meaning there's an epic to read in the form of PDFs.

My kingdom for a netbook or something similar. I long for the old days when you kicked back on the couch with a cup of tea and a cat and a book.

Lastly, many thanks to AG for running a news item on one of her blogs:
Blind and gay ... looking for a good read? At last, a Large Print Edition of Mel Keegan!
...thanks, kiddo. It all helps!

Ciao for now,
MK

Mel Keegan March 2009 Newsletter

The newsletter, as dispatched from DreamCraft this morning...


Mel Keegan March 2009 Newsletter
All five NARC books are now available at Amazon!!

Before I tell you all about this wonderous event let me remind you how easy it is to subscribe or unsubscribe to this newsletter.

Just go to Mel's blog
http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/
or any of the pages at the Mel Keegan Online site
http://www.dream-craft.com/melkeegan/home.htm
and check out the sidebars until you see big, friendly newsletter banners with sub and unsub links, no worries. With no further ado... Here's all the goodies in this newsletter:


*****************************************
NARC! Jarrat and Stone! At Amazon!
*****************************************
At last! It's the event many people -- MK included -- had begun to think would never arrive.
We've finally got all of Mel Keegan's NARC books available at Amazon. Death's Head, Equinox, Scorpio, Stopover, and Aphelion. Don't worry as this is NOT the end of Jarrat and Stone though. Mel has several more NARC stories mapped out.

We've been able to do this because CreateSpace is partnered with Amazon, so that every book that goes through them also goes through Amazon. Very Cool. We're thrilled to have finally come to this day.

Not only does each NARC book have its own page at CreateSpace with a push button shopping cart...

Death's Headhttps://www.createspace.com/3366014
Equinoxhttps://www.createspace.com/3366557
Scorpiohttps://www.createspace.com/3367130
Stopoverhttps://www.createspace.com/3367219
Aphelionhttps://www.createspace.com/3368313

But we've also put all the Amazon shopping cart buttons onthe main NARC page:
http://www.dream-craft.com/melkeegan/narc_order.htm

You'll notice the LuLu shopping cart buttons are still there and still active, no worries.
And of course you can just go to Amazon.com and search onyour favorite author ... Mel Keegan.


*****************************************
Mel Keegan: LEGENDS
*****************************************
Mel's foray into the world of online serial gay fiction is moving along at a brisk pace. Every day there's a new post up at the Legends blog and Book One is close to completion. (Yep, it's a trilogy, with each book ending in a solid punctuation point, so you really do reach a point where you can say, "The End" ... for now.)

Are you interested in a grand Atlantean Saga? Pop on over to:
http://mel-keegan-legends.blogspot.com/
to find out what you've been missing.

You will probably want to start at the beginning though:
http://mel-keegan-legends.blogspot.com/2009/01/1.html

Be ready to download a lot! There's currently 53 episodes online, and they're good, bite-sized chunks of reading each.


*****************************************
Have you checked out DIGITAL KOSMOS lately --?*****************************************
You might remember that MK began to contribute to a new photoblog a few months ago. (Mel has been aprofessional photographer for more years than you might care to remember...) The blog is Digital Kosmos, and it took us all by surprise.

There are currently more than 160 images online -- at one pic per post. How's that for a blog that went online only eight weeks ago?! The images are all astonishing, and many of the most amazing are MK's work.

Here's the url for Mel's photoblog:
http://photographyfan.blogspot.com/

Now, it's very true that MK has been working too hard to contribute much to DK lately, but the blog itself is very beautiful, and Mel will be back with rafts of images in the next couple of weeks. So ... enjoy!

You can also "follow" the photo blog and be updated when brilliant new images go online ... which is every day.

A massive thanks to Doctor Mike for keeping DK up and running while things in Keegan Country went berserk. As they calm back down to normality, we'll see more entries from MK and our cover artist, Jade.

*****************************************
KINDLE!
*****************************************
Do you like your Kindle? We now have four Mel Keegan novels available for your Amazon Kindle, with more to come soon!

The Lords of Harbendanehttp://www.amazon.com/The-Lords-of-Harbendane/dp/B001UV4FH2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1237857891&sr=1-1

Dangerous Moonlighthttp://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Moonlight/dp/B001V7PR9A/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1237857891&sr=1-2

Fortunes of Warhttp://www.amazon.com/Fortunes-of-War/dp/B001V5KEHC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1237857891&sr=1-3

Nocturnehttp://www.amazon.com/New-Title-1-Nocturne/dp/B001VH7P90/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1237857891&sr=1-4

And for users of the popular Mobipocket format, you'll be pleased to know that the Keegans are starting to appear there too. The first title online at Mobi is The Lords of Harbendane ... the other25 MK titles will be going up as 2009 progresses -- they'll also be appearing at Amazon, and later, at Smashwords. (We seem to have upload "issues" with Smashwords, probably due to being outside the US. These issues will be answered, and you'll find us at Smashwords before long.)

*****************************************
Aricia Gavrial at large:
Launching a new Gay Book Shoppe
*****************************************
It's amazing what our resident proofie, AG, is doing -- when't the last time you looked at her two blogs?!

In total, AG has now reviewed (or touched down on)more than 50 books, and there are SIX MK reviews, and THE INTERVIEW.

What's this you say ... an interview with Mel? You bet.This rare item is informative and fun, and you can find it right here:

http://ariciasgaybookblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/author-interview-talking-with-mel.html

Here's the book blog itself:
http://ariciasgaybookblog.blogspot.com/

and here is AG's Lords of Harbendane review:
http://ariciasgaybookblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/epic-gay-fantasy-lords-of-harbendane.html

The latest reviews added are for The Lords of Harbendane,The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks, China Mountain Zhang,The Jade Owl ... and lots more.

One of the most impressive developments is Aricia's Gay Book Shoppe, which is an Amazon Store filled with *only* hand-picked titles. Every single book and video on these pages has been added byAG. You'll find Mel Keegan, Josh Lanyon, Alex Beecroft, and more than 150 books and videos -- all gay titles, and all recommended.

Here is it:
Aricia's Gay Book Shoppe,http://astore.amazon.com/arsgabo-20

There's more (there's always more, right?) ...

Way back on January 22, AG's other blog launched. Remember the spiel? "Welcome to Aricia's album of delicious decadence, hot goss and hotter bods, gay goodies, celebs being silly, sweet treats and candy for your senses!"

Have you looked at this blog lately? There are about100 posts online now ... Brad, Orlando, Hugh, Elijah, Viggo, Capn' Jack (both of them!), Philip Morris, Mr. Gyllenhaal, Mr. McGregor, and an amazing collecton of goodies.

In fact, this blog is starting to gallop. It was recently featured on Huffington, and you don't do that without having something great to offer.

Here are some recent posts:

Elijah Wood ... as Iggy Pop?!
Johnny Depp: vampires rock!
To Liam Neeson and family: our deepest sympathies
Twits, nuisances, lawbreakers: where does Twitter draw the line?
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie: Brangelina to the rescue
David Tennant: what's next?Jack Harkness: immortalized in comics!
Rutger Hauer ... ice up a cold one. Wow!
The Ultimate Movie, starring Depp, Jolie, Smith and Knightly
The boy from Barcelona is back!
Viggo, Orlando -- and that other cute dude from TROY
Star Trek was never like this; or was it? Come to think of it...

No, they're not links. Go over there and browse:
Aricia's Album: http://ariciasalbum.blogspot.com/


*****************************************
What's next in 2009 for Mel Keegan?
*****************************************
In a word: HELLGATE. Two books (big ones) to go, and both finished by Christmas. That's the plan. The books are quite huge, so you can expect the work to devour the rest of the year. As 2009 progresses,you'll also see the Keegan titles appearing en masse at Kindle, Mobi, eXcessica, and other places, too. "Social networking" is where we're going right now --

In fact, MK now has a Live Journal page:
http://mkeegan.livejournal.com/

From that page, you can keep updated with events in the Mel-o-Sphere. Or even add MK to your 'friends' list. Cool stuff, this Live Journal.

******************************************
Remember, to keep up with everything Keegan, just check out
www.melkeegan.com
and
http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/

Save the Internet ... somebody!

----- Original Message -----
From: 'GetUp'
Sent: Fri Mar 20 12:22
Subject: Your ideas could save the net

Dear Mel,

Yesterday Senator Conroy confirmed1 that websites on the Government's closely guarded 'blacklist' of censored sites had been leaked. News outlets are reporting that if the Government's censorship plan went ahead, a dentist and a tour operator are just two of the many legitimate Australian businesses whose websites would be blocked.

We've reached hundreds of thousands of Australians through our petition and online advertising campaign. Now we're after your creative ideas so that together we reach millions.We're producing a TV ad to turn up the heat, and we want your ideas. Script ideas, images, music, video content or just a good pun - your brainwave could end up on national TV! We'll turn the best ideas into a TV advertising campaign ready to hit the airwaves in April.

Click here to find out more:www.getup.org.au/campaign/CensorThis

The internet isn't about control, censorship and government interference. It's about collaboration. Working together we can create and broadcast a message the whole nation will see. This is our opportunity to drive a nail into the coffin of internet censorship. Send in your ideas for a hard-hitting TV ad, and we'll use the best ones to create a unique TV ad:

www.getup.org.au/campaign/CensorThis

Our online ads, running all over the internet since December, have been seen over 3.5 million times. Internet users are firing up the bloggersphere against the proposed censorship. Now it's time to take our message to TV screens around the nation.

A hard-hitting TV ad delivered now can protect that most important of freedoms - the freedom of the community to stand up and defend rights we perceive to be under threat. Let's harness the power of the internet to create the best ad to defend our rights.

Thanks for being a part of the solution,The GetUp teamPS - If you're in Canberra, come join the 'March in March' against the internet filter: 1pm tomorrow, Saturday March 21, Federation Mall outside Parliament House. Organised by the Digital Liberty Coalition and supported by GetUp!

1'There are some common URLs to those on the ACMA blacklist' stated Senator Conroy, Minister for Communications: http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/website-blacklist-leaked-on-internet-20090319-931c.html

Death by Google

Well, I said I'd be back -- and I'm only a day late. Only. The wifi connection was "up," but there was no opportunity to blog ... as well as nothing significant to blog about. You certainly don't need to know about w.o.r.k, and how it totally screws up your life!

However, I'm back in a lull where I can transform myself from drone-for-hire to optimistic-and-opportunistic-writer. [short pause while Keegan puts on Writer's Hat]

You can probably tell from the relative brevity and occasional invisibility of recent posts, that life ain't what it used to be! The global economic downslide has hit everyone, everywhere -- physical bookstores are closing, publishers ain't publishing too much anymore, and writers are writing less and reading the employment ads more. And Keegan is no different. Middle of '08, we were screaming along and I was hoping to "give up the day job" by about May or June of '09. Not going to happen this year, guys --

In fact, in the immediate future, I'm going to have a good deal less time than usual to spend blogging and chatting: I have to get my priorities hammered out. I need time to write, and to do promotional activities, and blogging, alas, is going to be shuffled waaaaay down the list.

Add to this the fact that Google never did respond to my request to get my page rankings restored for this blog (they zeroed me out five months ago now, and apparently refuse to talk about it), and you have a blog with 350+ posts up, which is struggling to get 10 visitors per day ... which sadly (in fact, it's tragic) means that the time I invest in this blog is a dead loss, speaking in purely "business" terms.

Why did Big G zero out my page rankings? I'm clueless. I've read their rules. I've abided by all of them. I have been critical of their policies regarding Adsense on gay-friendly pages (where publishers are paid out in fractions of a penny per click on ads for which the advertiser paid to Google dollars, plural, for said click). I've begun to suspect there is a human monitor who reviews criticisms of The Goog, and when they recognize criticism, you get ... terminated. I can think of nothing else to account for what's going on.

So --

Time to shuffle my priorities. I need more time to write and do promotional work; I have less "spare" time to simply chat. I can certainly continue to post to this blog about book launches and special deals, and reviews, and webpage rebuilds. Hey, that's "promotion." But -- and I really am sad to be saying this -- I won't be able to write about every subject under the sun, as I have done for nine months!

Eventually, I'll be recutting this blog into two or three new blogs -- but again, this is a very time-consuming project. Put it this way: if we want Legends finished, and Hellgate finished, the time has to come from somewhere!

This is a very sad occasion for me: I've enjoyed blogging, and if there were any way to keep on doing it ... I would.

Blame the global recession if you like. Or blame Google (which is probably far closer to the mark!) for being a righteous, "true faith" prima dona who disapproves of gay-friendly sites and punishes criticism harshly.

To those readers (you know who you are!) who have been following this blog for months now: thank you! It's been a tremendous learning experience for me. Tune in occasionally, because when I get Hellgate finished (Christmas '09??) I'll have the time to cut The World According to Mel into Keegan's World, plus at least one other blog besides. And since those blogs won't have been "Googled to Death," theoretically I should be able to chat again. When you're chatting for a wide daily readership, you can rationalize the time invested as (!) promotional activities.

What's next, for me? Heavy-duty marketing. All titles available at Kindle, Mobi and Smashwords. All titles available as hardcovers. Press releases and review copies going in every direction; and ... so on.

Summer is winding down into fall ... the rain won't be far away now. Cool weather is good for getting some work done, and I do feel inspiration starting to bite. So --

Ciao for a while: I will be back, but not daily!
Thanks for reading, I appreciate it...
MK

Blogger at dawn

Keegan here ... signing in and letting the world know I'm still alive -- and this is THE chance I'm going to get for a post today. I'll be lucky to get within reach of a keyboard or internet connection before midnight. Working...

Hence, I have no idea what's going on in the world, or how I'm going at Amazon, etcerea and so forth, so --

This is Keegan's Message to Creaton for today: I'm alive. I didn't get hit by a truck. And like someone said in some movie, "I'll be back."

Bear with me...

Cheers,
MK

Feeling your mortality ... just a little

If I want to blog at all today, this is my window of opportunity do to it -- and (thank whatever guardian angel looks after these things) the Internet connection is behaving itself.

So, naturally, there's nothing remotely interesting to blog about --

Except this:

"...over the past 50 years more than 75,000 chemicals have been introduced into the environment with -- yes count them -- 300 synthetic chemicals now found in the bodies of almost every American man, woman, child and even newborn.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-dejong/the-dirty-word-in-clean_b_171464.html

That little gem is from a story, "The Dirty Word in Clean," which is running on Huffington ... and I challenge you to read the whole thing. Your blood will run cold.

Do you ever get days when you feel barely human? When you're sure you're turning green and moldy, and maybe growing a second head or a third leg? There you go. Now you know why.

I've been something of a "fresh air fascist" since I watched my father die of lung cancer. It's the kind of experience that turns your life around. At one time, I had my father, a grandmother and two aunts dying of cancer, all at the same time; then my cousin (only three months older than me -- and this was 10 or 12 years ago, so said cousin was still only about 40) had a series of strokes resulting in paralysis and wheelchair dependency. I guess I became super-sensitive to the crap we live among, what we put into our bodies by just breathing ...

In your 20s and 30s, you know for a fact, you're indestructible. I certainly was. I lost my immortality at about the age of 43 or 44. I don't know quite how it happened, but one day I woke up and realized, hey, time is catching me up. I might not be immortal after all. To misquote the commercial, "well, shoot, what a feeling."

Today, as I run off in the direction of work, I leave you with this parting shot from that feature on Huffington: "The Soap and Detergent Association is a one-hundred plus member trade association representing the $30 billion U.S. cleaning products market and -- oops -- it seems that they kinda' forgot to inform their brand loyal customers that their products might be killing them." Go read the whole story. I dare you.

Cheers,
MK

A little social networking on Sunday

This will be a little brief: Real Life has stuck its nose in, with domestic problems which need o be sorted, asap. In other words, chatting time on this Sunday downunder is out of stock, and though it's on back-order, it'll be a couple of days before we can expect delivery!

So I'll confine myself to the news, such as it is:

Due to the aforementioned Real Life Intervention, we haven't been able to get to either Mobipocket or Smashwords to see if we can get uploads to go through and books to publish in the various engines: try again tomorrow.

However, Support at Smashwords is looking at the word-count problem, and as soon as this is fixed, I can just call up my dashboard there, and hit "republish." Dangerous Moonlight will reappear, and the Keegan fix will be available for you iPhone readers...

Through a tip (thanks, Erastes!) I found an excellent place (a newsletter) to get Legends listed. I've not only made contact, I actually set up a LiveJournal account. I tried everything I could think of to get the name of "Mel Keegan" into a form LJ would accept it, but there's another Mel Keegan who has well and truly beaten me to it there, so it's "mkeegan," and like it.

So the LiveJournal page is http://mkeegan.livejournal.com/, and currently it looks like this:

This is the first experience I've had of LJ, and it seems to be a blog engine, not unlike Blogger. I certainly won't be able to post there with great frequency, but I can put things up, like pasting them into a scrapbook. The object seems to be that people will find you there when they didn't find you here! Let's see how it works -- my mind is open, and I'm genuinely curious.

Also, LJ has certainly made the process easy -- perhaps even easier than Blogger, and much easier than Word Press. I had a brief flirtation with WP, and found too many problems with it. (I also notice that Jade & Co. have let go the Exploring South Australia blog, which was at WP -- and I understand it's for similar reasons. Too many problems in the interface.)

Thanks to Erastes for this networking: left to Google, I'd never have found the newsletter.

Domestic strife and all, I did manage to get Chapter Fourteen up to Legends...

And, work-wise, that'll probably be about it for the day! Well ... it's Sunday, after all, so maybe I need to take one off anyway.

Right now, I have to put on my red cape and go get things fixed. Something along the lines of changing the Earth's rotation to turn back time, putting a mountain back on its foundations, parting the Red Sea. Just trivial things like that. So --

Ciao for now,
MK

Mobipocket adventures ... and a Very Good Mystery

In answer to the four people who got in touch, asking why the heck they can't find Dangerous Moonlight at Smashwords today ... bear with me, guys: we're not out of the woods.

To begin with, Smashwords is having server issues which is slowing everything down -- and no one is immune, in this area. There were problems at Amazon last week, and CreateSpace is prone to difficulties. Be a little bit patient here, and thou shalt be rewarded...

Dangerous Moonlight was uploaded, and IS at Smashwords even as we speak, but you won't be finding it until a tiny bit of fine-tuning is done in the book's "order me" page. The system (which Smashwords calls the Meatgrinder, with excellent reason!) performs the word count on auto ... problem is, right now it's only firing on four out of five cylinders.

For the iPhone (Stanza) edition of Dangerous, it gives a word count of just under 20,000 words (which is 10% shorter than Callisto Switch), and for the Kindle (Mobi) edition it gives a count of about 40,000 -- 10% shorter than Windrage ... so you know something is way off the beam, because Dangerous Moonlight is 208,000, according to every word processor and DTP program I have! We "unpublished" the book, making it disappear temporarily, because to the casual browser who doesn't know it, an $11 pricetag on 20,000 words looks outrageous -- not the first impression we want to make. Then the server started to jack around, and it'll be tomorrow, earliest, before we can get back in and make adjustments.

Patience, guys: I'm in touch with Support at Smashwords, and they are both knowledgeable and helpful. It's just a minor hiccup that will be straightened out before you know it.

Rest assured, I'll update you on the blog here when we're up and running. In fact, if you want to be in on the launch, just make sure you're on the mailing list, and watch your mailbox!

Next piece of good news: the proof for STOPOVER was delivered and looks fantastic. CreateSpace has done another great job. We're now just waiting on the proof for APHELION, and the NARC books will be launching at Amazon ... next week, I hope.

The Mobipocket experience has also begun, behind the scenes. In fact, DreamCraft has gone in and set up the account as the publisher.

The way it works is this: I'm the writer, DreamCraft is the publisher, Mobi is the distributor, and virtually thousands of affiliate sites all over the web correspond to the bookstores. I'm almost a passenger on this one, just sitting back and watching. The way the financial aspect works out is interesting. Mobi pays 35% of the gross, meaning, $3.50 from a $10.00 book will come back here, to be divvied up between writer and publisher. There is also another 10% fee up for grabs -- the affiliate fee, in the event that someone passing through my websites and blogs buys a Keegan for his or her Kindle or smartphone as they jet through. Say it's a sale from the bookstore on my website -- that's another dollar that lands in the account here, helping to cover the expenses of running this show ... and bolstering Keegan's daydreams of quitting the day job to write full time!

So that's how the Mobipocket thing works. My understanding at this time is that they have affiliate members left and right, all over the globe, who will be on the lookout for books to sell off their sites. Each sale, no matter how or where it's generated, brings 35% back to base. And you know what my backlist looks like right now:

(The Hellgate series will be done by Christmas, adding two; unless there's a miracle, the LEGENDS project will be curtailing online at Book One, leaving the whole project to be released in various formats ... and so on. And yes, the haunted house book and Dead of Winter are still on my list of to-do jobs.)

Tomorrow, with the Mobipocket account set up and operational, and the conversion software downloaded, we'll see about running Fortunes of War, Dangerous Moonlight and The Lords of Harbendane through their publishing process ... and I'll let you know how it goes. The sheer size and complexity of Mobipocket is a little intimidating, but it seems simple -- they just have the loose ends tied off, legally, in French braids and sheepshanks, half-hitches and granny knots. The legal-beagle jargon is dense, but the interface is simple.

We downloaded the Mobipocket Reader, and I like the interface a lot: dead easy, and it works offline. If/when I get myself a screenreader (and right now I'm examining netbooks), I would be able to download direct to the gadget.

The other place where the Mobipocket publishing process is very different is in the file conversion system. Basically, with Amazon, Smashwords, CreateSpace, Lulu, whatnot, you upload your files to them and the conversion happens at their end. This is neat and tidy -- so long as you're inside the US. If you're not, you time out a lot, and when a file isn't quite right and has to be uploaded again, you can have hours to sweat through, to get a usable version.

Now, Mobipocket does it ... backwards. You download the free conversion software, do the work at your end, get it perfect and (hopefully) upload the little bugger ONCE. It's simple by comparison, because Mobipocket offers ONE file format, whereas Smashwords offers a whole range. With Mobi, you just make sure you download and install the correct reader for your device -- PC, Mac, desktop, netbook, screenreader, phone, whatever.

It's ... ludicrously complicated. Reminds you of the days of VHS and Beta. Of PC and Mac, before the advent of the PDF. Of SD and XD. (One longs to say, of Ford and Holden...)

Today, I leave you with a mystery. As you know if you're a regular reader here, I submitted the LEGENDS blog/site/novel to a directory called BlogCatalog and got it chucked back, rejected. Now, Aricia, being Aricia, was both incensed about that and curious as to the process. So she submitted her celebrity gossip blog, Aricia's Album, to the same venue. And something unspeakably weird went on.

Get this ... and explain it, if you can. We're still trying. After the submission, AG turns off the computer and leaves it for maybe 14 hours. Next day, checks her Gmail, and the are (count them) THREE messages from BlogCatalog.

1) Your blog is unacceptable. Here are the problems ... fix them, resubmit, and we'll reconsider your application.
2) Changes approved!
3) Welcome to BlogCatalog.

Hunh?! She did NOTHING, the computer was turned off. Also, the original message outlining whatever the problems were had vanished from the dashboard when the situation was rectified, so AG never will know what the perceived problems were. And then it was "welcome to BlogCatalog," without a line of text being changed, a picture deleted, or an ad moved.

Does this make any sense to anyone?

No, me neither. So --

Chapter Thirteen concluded at Legends today...

Ciao for now!
MK

Gay books gone gaga at Google

Is it just me, or does Google seem to be "all over the shop" lately?

I'm still thinking along similar lines to my post yesterday, which was about getting seen, recognized, and plucked out of the ocean by the Searchbot. It used to be about keywords and relevance. Now? I have no idea.

Looking for blog venues where one could reasonably expect "free online gay fiction" to be listed, I search on (wait for it -- this is going to astonish you) "free online gay fiction."

Woah. Have you picked yourself up off the floor, where you collapsed in shock? Then, let us continue:

Now, you couldn't be much more pellucid in your keywords. And the results? Curious, to say the least.

My own post from yesterday was top of the list, but only because I'm searching from an address NOT inside the US. Remember, Google has my page rankings zeroed out, so anyone searching from an US address won't be seing me in any search results.

Next: a rather nice personal book blog with a handful of posts looking at gay novels, none of them free or online.

Next: an article repository, where features are FREE, and stored ONLINED, and *one* of them talks about a GAY individual who was busted for perving on minors.

Next: a personal blog with a post asking, "Why did President Lincoln FREE the slaves," and considering ONLINE resources. The words "gay" and "fiction" do not appear anywhere.

Next: at last, a real one. "Finding Free Ebooks" at blogger -- where (shockingly) free ebooks are listed. Good range of titles -- bit difficult to navigate the blog due to the slightly odd template design, but there's some gay ebooks there, and they're free. (Won't do me any good to pursue a listing there, because "serial" fiction is not listed.)

Next: personal book blog featuring ... books. Handful of gay topics, none free or online.

Next: political blog with a post having a (justified) rant about anti-gay sentiment, featuring the terms "free advice" and "online newsletters." The term "fiction" was never mentioned.

Next: personal blog with a post talking about an SF party to be held at an address on Gay Street -- inquiries online.

Next: Canadian radio station talks about pulp fiction, one character in which is "nerdy and gay."

Next: personal blog with a post giving the blogger's top ten recommendations for published gay fiction. Not online, not free.

Then you get onto page two, and it really goes haywire, getting worse and worse with each horrific shot in the dark. At the top of the page Google proudly announces, "Results 1 - 10 of about 80,664 for free online gay fiction," and "Sorted by relevance."

Out of the first page, the Bot was right in 2 instances: me (yesterday's post -- I was absolutely, bloody determined to get through to the Bot what I was talking about, if you recall!) and the Finding Free Ebooks blog which would be difficult to miss because it's CALLED "Finding Free Ebooks." Missing that one would be a lot like missing "Aricia's Gay Book Blog."

(If you Google the term "gay book", so long as you're OUTSIDE America, you should find yours truly at #5 with http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2009/02/gay-book-making-news-for-all-wrong.html, and Aricia at #8 with http://ariciasgaybookblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/gay-mystery-and-ancient-chinese-magic.html. If you Google "gay book" from INSIDE America, you won't find me at all -- Google killed my page rankings, if you recall, so it doesn't matter what I write about, what keywords I use, or what I entitle the post!)

So here's the question: WTF is going on with Google? They're just so wrong, they're hardly useful anymore! Thoughts, anyone??

In other news --

Chapter Twelve concluded at Legends today,
and
AG has uploaded the interview we did a few days ago, to her book blog...

Otherwise, the Mel-o-Sphere is a vacuum. Which is kind of restful, in a way.

Ciao for now,
MK

To Keegan's amazement --

I'm impressed, and that's no exaggeration. In fact, the word is gobsmacked. I had an email, inviting me to follow a link and check something out: Aricia's Gay Book Shoppe.

Are you ready for this? Apparently it took about an hour to put this together, with about 130 hand-picked books, from mine to Josh Lanyon, Ann Rice, Storm, Constantine, Gordon Merrick and what I'd call a fairly an enormous range:



There's about fifteen pages like the above, complete with shopping cart, wish list, reviews, the works ... an hour's work? Like I said, I'm impressed. The only thing I'd want the store to do, that it doesn't do (yet?) is search. I think it's supposed to, but right now it doesn't, you have to page through it. (Gee, the hardship of having to click that Next >> button...)

Anyway -- there you have it. AG's very own bookstore, slapped together in sixty minutes.

Gobsmacked.

My own labors today have been less satisfying. I wasted a good hour, probably closer to two, trying to get Blogger to do what it's supposed to do. You know those posts that are collapsed, with 90% of the content "hidden" and a "read more..." button which expands the post out? It's supposed to be as easy as 1-2-3 at Blogger, but after a loooong time spent trying to get it to work I quit and spent the next few hours trying to catch up with myself.

That function just will -- not -- work, with is a major inconvenience. I'd been intended to hide the more sensual posts at Legends behind a caveat and a "read more" button, but someone smarter than me (or more code savvy) will have to figure this one out.

In the short term, I used the old, old old solution. Right before the steamy stuff got going, I put up this:

[Note: this chapter is about to fog up your reading glasses.
The following text involves sensuality of the male persuasion.
If you will be offended, simply refrain from scrolling down
past the illustration, and exit this page!]

...which is the caveat, plus one of the pieces of digital art which Jade produced a few weeks ago for the project. Good enough.

Incidentally, Chapter Nine is in full swing: I do believe this is the bit you've been waiting for! It'll run over the space of a few days ... and is worth waiting for.

The good news is that Legends is flying along now. I'm seeing traffic on the site that's surprising me, even though I'd had high hopes. If people will just get the message about supporting the project via the advertising, we're in business, big time.

Ciao for now,

MK

On this particular Sunday

I'm not actually counting, you understand -- Blogger does that for me. This (drum roll, clash of cymbals) is Post Three Hundred. Really! Three hundred posts ... I've been online since June 20 last year, and this blog has become a serious work -- it really does grieve me to break it up into a couple or several projects, but what has to be, has to be.

Design work is underway in the background right now, and I've made the tough decision to float a blog specifically devoted to writing and publishing. All the old posts on the topic will be appearing there, as they're deleted out of the Google index (to prevent duplicate content penalties). And then the basic background babble of the Mel-o-sphere will be posted to a much more personal blog.

Right now, though, I'm thinking I'll leave the old blog online, with links pointing out to the new pages ... just in case Google ever takes the time and trouble to reconsider the "Kill Keegan" decision which was made four months ago in more rarefied atmosphere than is breathed by the likes of you and me!

Y'know, I would love to know what I did to make them zero me out. I'd almost pay money to know ... almost. Not quite. But you take my meaning.

Work goes on apace. The first titles will be appearing at Amazon Kindle in the coming week, and by the end of the week I hope to have the first titles at Smashwords, too. However --

We just saw the weather forecast, and we'll be back "in the forties" in a few days. Meaning, temperatures up to 110 degrees F will be fairly commonplace. Thank gods we have an a/c unit in the office now! It should make all the difference. There's about five weeks to go, in which the temperature can be utterly disgusting.

Legends has had loads of fresh visitors from http://webfictionguide.com/ ... and again, it's thanks to Aricia. I just don't have the time to do this work -- promotional activities. Wish I did. So, thanks AG: that was inspiration indeed. Incidentally, that's a hell of a good guide, highly recommended if you're looking for free online fiction in many genres.

Speaking of Legends, Chapter Nine's second segment is online:
http://mel-keegan-legends.blogspot.com/2009/02/chapter-nine-continued.html

...and we've added a column to the blog's sidebar. For the sake of interest, Let me paste it over right here:

Enjoy the novel ... download it, save it to whatever device you like to read on -- but don't send the files to your friends. Send them this url: http://mel-keegan-legends.blogspot.com/2009/01/1.html.

Remember, the only income MK earns from this novel is generated via the advertising on the site, so it doesn't work if you just email the files. Thanks for your help here. Tell your friends, because the more people are on this page (and reading this bit), the better chance Legends has to reimburse the author ... which will keep more coming along -- massive SF novels like Crystal Genesis and fantasies like Blood and Fire.

There's several ways you can support this project. Obviously, you can donate $1 with a click on the PayPal button below. You can also notice the Google ads, in the event that you're looking for something and Ma Goog can actually help -- it's far from impossible for The Goog to render assistance, and the author isn't left out of the commercial loop! Then, at the foot of this page you'll find some very good offers and deals on goods and services which we've test-driven thoroughly: no junk here; you might just find something you've been needing. Scroll down for a look.

Lastly, consider the Amazon connection. You might not realize this, but if you're shopping for anything -- music CDs, jumpdrive, camera, anything! -- if you enter Amazon from this page and strike out from there on your own, a small percentage of the shopping you were already intending to do comes to MK as a "referrer's fee." Next time you're shopping Amazon for anything, simply start from any button on this page, and you're automatically supporting this project! Easy.

I have a strong feeling that the Amazon connection could easily be the best way to get Legends (or for that matter, any digital novel) to be lucrative enough to be indispensable. Everyone shops Amazon sooner or later. DVDs, music, books, MP3 downloads, loads of stuff. Do you know, you can get your groceries on Amazon these days! Is that weird, or what? And you see how it works: start shopping on Legends, depart from the button you originally clicked, go get whatever you were wanting, but the referral fee goes to the originating click. Brilliant.

(The only thing I don't like about Amazon is the fact the cookie they set is only a 24 hour cookie. Meaning, if the customer doesn't close the deal inside that time -- the cookie expires and Amazon don't have to pay nobody nothing for the referral fee. Maybe they'll be changing this in future???)

So ends Sunday in Keegan Country ... and Post Three Hundred!

Cheers,
MK

Blogger on the run

At last -- a few minutes to sit down and blog a little! It may be Saturday, but it's been busy in this neck of the woods. Work-wise, at least. I'd love to tell you I won the State lotto and have spent the day planning a trip to Europe, but there wouldn't be a word of truth in it.

Thanks to Aricia Gavriel for submitting Legends to one of the major online fiction directories. That was a great idea, and most kind, AG. I appreciate it. So let me give you a plug here: there have been some great posts on both of Aricia's blogs in the last week or two, including one that has me fascinated: The Thunder God commeth ... in 2011!

I had heard a rumor about a year ago that Marvel Comics was looking at (finally!) doing a movie version of The Mighty Thor, and it seems it's on -- they're casting it right now. I used to get this comic way back in the 1960s, when it was the princely sum of sixpence ... it stretched my infant imagination and no doubt helped to form it (warp it?) into the adult imagination which is behind NARC, Hellgate and so forth. So if you don't like Hellgate -- blame Stan Lee, who is at least part-way responsible!

I was also fascinated by John Barrowman and -- who? So that's Matt Smith! I confess, I never heard of Matt Smith before he was cast as the 11th Doctor. I'm trying not to say, "Goog golly, he looks awfully young to be the Doctor." I'm also trying not to say, "Good golly, Jack will eat this one alive. And come back for seconds." Anyway -- shoot over to Aricia's Album and check him out. There's another post in there, http://ariciasalbum.blogspot.com/2009/02/captain-jack-and-11-john-barrowman.html ... fascinating reading.

Little other than work is happening in my own life, and I won't drivel on here about that. I'll leave you with a couple of links, and a plea:

Come on, guys! Legends is FREE, for cripesakes. Tell your friends, get them onboard ... and for those of you who are visiting, and are wondering when the hell Soran and Faunos are going to get together, much less let it on (!) ... you need to be there now.

I did two posts to Legends today:
http://mel-keegan-legends.blogspot.com/2009/02/iridan-speaks.html
and
The Hand of Fate (part one)

...and the bit you've been waiting for is on.

I've also managed to get some fresh posts up to Digital Kosmos:
Strange life forms
Surf's up!
Days of steam remembered

...sorry to all concerned that I've been "down" for a few days with this project. WORK. However, I have great optimism that publishing in some form is actually beginning to bloom, and with luck I'll have more time to spend on projects in the near future.

On that note I'll leave you for now. I can't honestly say that anything is happening in the Mel-o-Sphere. The lull is actually nice; it just doesn't make for spectacular blogging.

Cheers,
MK

POD Publishing: the next generation

Just a quickie second post today. I'd like to pass along the url of a news story that's running right now on the Falls Church News Press:

Anything But Straight: The Future of Gay News

There's a few paragraphs in this story that I could have written myself! Some material pertains specifically to folks like myself, who're blogging in the interests of paying the bills one way or another -- and also, selling books. Do read the whole feature -- it's a quick read, and most interesting!

As a hook, let me give you this, and then exhort you read the rest:
...the continued improvement of E-book technology may save the GLBT publishing industry. On March 29, the legendary Oscar Wilde bookstore will close in Greenwich Village, citing economic trouble. This follows the demise of the famed bookstore Crossroads Market in Dallas.

With few venues to sell books and fewer publishers, it is a tough time for gay authors. While the major retailers have GLBT sections, rarely do these books receive prime shelf space. E-books may be a way to cut out the middleman, save on printing costs and let gay authors sell directly to the reading public.
http://www.fcnp.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4141:anything-but-straight-the-future-of-gay-news&catid=17:national-commentary&Itemid=79

It's interesting reading. Just yesterday I was talking about the impending ebook technology, and oddly enough, this afternoon I'll be working on documents intended for Kindle and Smashwords. The world seems to be shrinking!

See also:
http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2009/02/literary-history-repeats-itself-for-2.html
and
http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2009/02/my-kingdom-for-ebook-gizmo_20.html

Cheers,
MK

Blogger tantrums again

Blogger tantrums, indeed ... not Keegan having a tantrum, but the Blogger engine itself, in concert with none other than the star performer, Internet Explorer itself, which can be a real, genuine diva when she wants to be. Blogger and IE have just sung an aria that should win prizes.

Users who surf with Internet Explorer must have thought The World According to Mel had gone down yesterday. Opera, Firefox and Chrome displayed it perfectly, but there was something about one picture (a brochure shot of the iRex iLiad ebook reader) that must have been corrupt...

Did it crash the post and leave the blog behind, online and functional in IE?

Noooooo. It crashed the whole blog. If you tried to load The World According to Mel in IE, you got a strange little message, "Operation Aborted," and then the killer screen, "Windows cannot display the webpage."

O...kay. First thing I did was try the blog in the three other browsers I have, and whaddaya know? It worked. So it was just something about Internet Explorer jacking around when trying to handshake with Blogger. And so began a wonderful, 90-minute odyssey into the enthralling world of code.

I hate code. I seriously hate code. I tried everything you can imagine, and a lot you can't, and finally rebuilt he post paragraph by paragraph. It was fine (you guessed) until I got to the picture. Then, when the picture was pasted back in --

"Operation Aborted."

Which narrowed the whole thing down to one image. After that it was a simple chore to replace the picture, republish, and than go and sit in a corner gibbering for a few minutes. We call it recovery time.

Those who smoke probably chainsmoke; those who inhale coffee by the mugful are probably vibrating with a caffeine high. Since I neither smoke nor drink coffee (can't -- I get a reaction to it) I just recite a mantra of sorts...

There was a young William called Gates --
"Bill" to his billionaire mates --
The PC's inventor;
And THIS bold dissenter
Wonders how he'd like to swallow the bloody thing sideways for breakfast.
(And I know it doesn't rhyme; and the last line keeps changing. Anatomically.)

Well ... not really ... but I know you know what I mean.

Anyway: the blog is functional again, and/but keep this in mind:

If you're a blogger and your blog suddenly disables itself with Internet Explorer putting up a weird little message, "Operation Aborted," I'll give you 500:1 odds, you'll trace the problem to a corrupt image. Ditch it, import a fresh out, and ...

Your oars will be back in the water like magic.

Last note: Chapter Eight has concluded at Legends...

Now I'm going to go and have a nice cup of tea and drool in private for a while.

TTFN,
MK

Less advertising is a Very Good Thing

Just a "service message" here: regular readers will notice that the Infolinks advertising has been disabled ... it hasn't malfunctioned, it's been deleted! Anyone who is exploring the possibilities of earning a buck or two from their blogging will have been looking at systems like Infolinks, and I should say a few words about them right here before just turning them off!

Infolinks is extremely simple to set up, and you do indeed get clicks that earn a couple of pennies each. However, some readers find the ads intrusive (I do, myself). Even that wouldn't be so bad -- you could live with it -- if all clicks generated were earners. They're not. In the month of February (I just peeked at the stats) 80% of all clicks on these intrusive little ads earned zero, and that's untenable.

It's just ridiculous to have annoying little ads shoving themselves into readers' faces, and then returning zero when they're actually clicked (which ain't often enough to be significant, either). Nobody ever mentioned a word about zero-return ads: if they had, you guys wouldn't have had to look at them for the last couple of months. Put it another way: all this is doing is diminishing the "experience" of this blog while raking in money for Infolinks ... there's no trickle down.

And you don't have to look at them anymore: gone. Deleted. Out of there. Do I recommend Infolinks to folks who're looking to "monetize" their pages? No. Google Adsense is a very tough system to make work (put it like this: too few people click too few of the ads too little of the time to make it really worth the bother of having the damned ads there), but it's a lot less intrusive than the "in-text" advertising. So --

Gone. Back to the drawing board!

More later -- end of service message...

Ciao for now,
MK

Literary history repeats itself ... for $2

We were looking at website stats and so forth this morning, and saw something wonderful. The Lords of Harbendane had popped up to an Amazon ranking of about 46,000, which is nothing short of amazing. Many thanks to everyone who's ordered this book -- and also to everyone who's over on Legends. I'm actually enjoying the digital fantasy novel immensely --

Speaking of which, Chapter Seven concluded today ... and of course, I'm way ahead of you guys in the text, so I'm into the steamy stuff -- which you'll be getting into in about three days. It's also hugely gratifying that emails have been bouncing all over the world ... readers are landing on Legends from Istanbul, Baghdad (!), eastern Europe, China, Russia, many parts of Aus, NZ, the UK and US. Which is exactly what I'd hoped for.

Also, early comments on the book are very good. I'm hearing words like "lush, exotic, compelling, fascinating." Always nice to see such adjectives. It's also very nice indeed to be shipping copies, either physical or electronic. As a writer, to me it's all about earning the money to pay expenses so that I can write again next week!

And I know, as I say that, the market is tougher than its ever been, and a lot of writers are taking a kicking, which is more than likely undeserved. I've fielded numerous questions on this blog, but one which has been popping up at least once a week since Christmas is, "How do I sell copies on Amazon?"

That's one hell of a tough question. I could write ten thousand words and not answer it fully. The answer-in-a-thimble is courage, ingenuity and energy ... and I know that's not what folks wanted to hear. Writers who are struggling to get sales moving need, desperately, to hear that there's a "magic bullet," a kind of cookbook recipe. Do A, B and C, and you'll get sales.

I wish it were true, but it isn't. A while ago I read a post on a blog called Publishing Basics. Let me share a little of it with you, and give you the link to go over there and read the rest:

More people today than ever before are becoming authors. Unfortunately, most of them fail in their quest for success. According to a Jenkins Group survey, seventy percent of books published in this country do not make a profit. The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) backs this up. Their statistics show that in 2004, over seventy-six percent of all titles sold fewer than 100 copies. Why are so many authors failing?

• Uninformed authors approach the publishing process all wrong.
• Even excellent, worthy books go unnoticed when the author isn’t industry-savvy.
• Inexperienced authors quit promoting their books when the going gets tough.

It used to be that authors wrote books and publishers produced, promoted and distributed them. After participating in a few book signings, the author was free to go back to his home office and write his next bestseller. In order to be a successful author today, however, you must have a significant understanding of the publishing industry and be willing to establish a sense of intimacy with your book. It’s imperative that you become involved in the promotion of your book and, in some cases, the production process.

Technology has fueled dramatic changes in the publishing industry—and the news isn’t all bad. Hopeful authors are faced with greater challenges today, it’s true; but there are also more options and opportunities.

According to self-publishing guru, Dan Poynter, in 1970, there were only about 3,000 publishing companies. Today, there are somewhere around 85,000—many of them small/independent publishers who have established companies through which to produce their own books. There are still a significant number of new traditional royalty publishers emerging, as well. So why is it so difficult to land a publishing contract? In a word, competition.

Some years ago, I heard it said that over eighty percent of the public believe they have a book in them. With expanded publishing options, more and more of these people are actually writing their books. And millions of them are currently seeking publishers. Is there room in this industry for all hopeful authors? Probably not. But, according to R. R. Bowker, a whopping 291, 920 new books were published in 2006. And it’s pretty easy to predict which of these books will succeed and which of them won’t.
http://www.publishingbasics.com/2007/08/22/publishing%e2%80%94the-raw-truth/

That was published back in August of 2007 ... long before the Bing Crunch of last October and November. Patricia Fry, who wrote the post, is a writing and publishing specialist, not a stock market guru. She couldn't have foreseen what was going to happen more than a year after her post ... but let's put it this way: things have not gotten any easier.

The line between the writer, editor, publisher and entrepreneur is blurry even now, and has been getting blurrier in the last six months. The next couple of years will change so many things. There is also a kind of wildcard factor to think about, which I'm sure publishers have missed.

It's on the news frequently: people are increasingly illiterate. Even those who can read and write well enough to chat on Facebook and what have you, are not exactly what would have been deemed literate way back when. The fact is, a really badly written book is only obviously a stinker when it's read by someone who is literate. When it's read by someone who's skating around the fringes of sheer illiteracy -- or by someone who's reading English as a second or third language -- the shortcomings of the work are utterly transparent. All that comes through is the story (which is either interesting or boring) and the characters (who are either endearing or annoying), and the conclusion ... which either delivered the goods or left the reader saying, "Well, poop. After 350pp, I wanted something better, or different, than this load of twaddle.")

Now, I'm not using this as an excuse for the number of really horrible books that are published, POD, via Lulu and CreateSpace and so forth, every hour of every day.

What I'm saying is this: publishers -- whether New York or DIY -- shoot for the mass market. The big-time publishers have their market pegged: extremely literate people who demand high standards in their reading. But the mass of the public is increasingly illiterate; the readers who demand high standards, and have $40 to spend on a hardcover, are an ever-shrinking group, while the millions of readers who wouldn't know good grammar if it jumped up and bit them ... well, these people have pockets full of smartphones. And a lot of smartphones take SD cards. You can read stories on smartphones, kill time on the bus, train, plane, whatever.

Here's the bottom line: For every highly literate lady or gent with a credit card, standing in line for the hardcover of the New York Times bestseller, there could be a thousand, or ten thousand, semi-literate readers with smartphones, willing to pay $2, or $1, for an entertaining little read to pass the time on the commute.

Short version: there is an incredible fortune out there, reapable in the next few years ... and I have the sneakiest feeling that the writer's literary merit will be just about the last quality looked for by the mass of "common" readers who are, by the millions, daily, paying tiny fees for quick, cute reads.

Adult literacy is an increasingly lost cause, at the same time as the technology is racing to put video phones on our wrists, video wallpaper in our living rooms, and the electronic equivalent of the old "penny dreadful" in our laps, to while away that train ride, after we've all put the car up on blocks in a concerted effort to save the planet from our carbon emissions.

I have a feeling the age of the penny dreadful is returning. Rapidly. But they'll more than likely cost you $2.

Cheers,
MK