Monthly Archives: March 2012

Mainstream Smut & the Future of Cooperation Between Legacy Publishers and E-Books

Bizarre, Book Reviews, Books, Business, News, Writing, , , , , , , , , , , ,

There’s a book story that’s been making the rounds lately. It’s a book called Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James (a pseudonym). It started out as an ebook and then went through a huge bidding war before it was bought by a major publishing house. It’s been compared to the Harry Potter series and the Hunger Games series, which is why the big bidding war took place. But the history of this book is a little, well, um, interesting.

You see, the book isn’t a young adult book. It’s an adult book. A very adult book. It’s basically a book about bondage and discipline, where a young woman gets drawn into a world where some dominant guy becomes her master. Most of the time, a book like this ends up being marginalized and sold as ebook smut. Such a book is very, very difficult to sell mainstream.

Yet, it happened. It became that “book” that adults bought (most often the demographic of housewives, which is another story itself) but didn’t really reveal they were reading. Now, the big publishing companies AND movie companies, see this as the next big thing and are looking to market it because of its success as an ebook.

Well, that’s going to be interesting, to say the least. You see, the book did really well because it was an ebook. Think about that for a second. When you buy an ebook, you can read it in public, and almost no one has a clue what you’re reading. But bring a book onto the train (an actual book) and everyone knows what you’re reading. That’s going to make it really difficult to get people to want to read this book in public. That’s going to kill a lot of chances of selling it to the mainstream public because it’s going to be the equivalent of reading erotica in public. Good luck on that one.

Yet, the publishing industry it’s got the next Twilight on its hands.

What this is actually showing me is that the Legacy Publishers (the ones who still print books and then ebooks as an afterthought) are starting to realize that ebooks are a viable market that might slowly overcome the old style market. Yet, I don’t think they understand the nuances involved in ebooks versus mainstream books.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: I also have an adult book out there somewhere being sold as an ebook. It’s written under a completely different name, mainly because I chose a long time ago to distance my writing name from that other stuff. It’s not that I’m not proud of the other novel, or even ashamed of it. I just realized that for simple, rational (and sometimes irrational) reasons, people are often more comfortable separating the two names for the types of books that are published under those names. Throughout history, mainstream writers have done this as a precaution to keep the two camps of readers apart.

An example: Some years back, there was a series of books written by John Norman (the pseudonym of John Frederick Lange, Jr.) about a mythical land called Gor. It was one of those series that had a huge following, basically taking a complete life of its own. The premise of it centered around a civilization of highly structured slavery. This series has spawned into a lifestyle culture of people who partake in the culture of living a Gorean lifestyle, which generally revolves around a strong master/slave society. Sometimes the genders are mixed (as in sometimes its female controlled, but most often it tends to gravitate towards a male dominant household). Anyway, because the ideas of his novels were so against the mainstream thought, Norman remained the header on all of these stories and Lange made every effort to keep his secret identity. During the 1970s, as the series was at its zenith, a woman I knew named Laura figured out who the author was, including where he was teaching and confronted him directly about it. For years, he protested his involvement but then eventually he gave in, realizing that secret was quickly catching up with him. Today, pretty much everyone who has ever read these books knows exactly who was the author. Fortunately for him, he was already so famous as a writer that it didn’t actually affect his teaching career.

The same kind of thing happened when vampire-story writer Anne Rice was revealed to be writing under a number of names that published books on male and female lifestyle slavery. Because she was already so famous as a novelist, these revelations didn’t hurt her career, and then soon after her identity was discovered, she started writing religious fiction, and her career has really never returned to the power career it once was.

What is interesting to note about all of these cases is that the stories themselves never really became mainstream. Even Rice’s book, Exit to Eden, which became a major motion picture some years ago starring Dan Ackroyd and Rosie Odonnell, never really became the hot seller as a mainstream novel. And the reason is simple: It was perceived by mainstream America as smut. Which is sad because it’s a brilliantly written novel (and a horrible movie adaptation that has absolutely nothing to do with the plot of the book).

So, as this “new” series moves into mainstream writing, I’m wondering how it is going to do in that realm. All attempts to bring S&M into mainstream have never succeeded. Madonna tried to do it for years, and every time she did, she continued to remain famous, but those attempts (including a picture book, several songs and videos and even a major motion picture) continue to remain obscure in her collection of mainstream releases. Recently, even Rihanna tried to present such material to a mass audience, and she was criticized for responding badly to her scandal of how she had been beaten by her boyfriend (which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, as her adventures in that realm only served to be used as continued criticism…making some kind of weird connection to PTSD from being beaten by Chris Brown as her motivation behind why she’d do a move into S&M music video…yeah, the argument didn’t make a lot of sense to me either at the time).

The upshot of the whole thing is that no matter how hard people try, fringe sexual activity is rarely ever going to be seen as acceptable by sex-obsessed Americans who pretend to be shocked when they secretly covet all sorts of different sexual material. It’s like a politician who screams “sinner” at random strangers while having an affair with another woman to hide his predilection for having sex with children. America has never really made a lot of sense.

But expect to see a lot of shocked faces when people start to realize what they actually bought into now that everyone has jumped on the popularity of a bdsm book that publishers are convinced is ready for the mass public. I think they’re ready, but I’m pretty sure I’m wrong.

Struggling to Find a Purpose

Memoirs, Writing, , , , , , , ,

Well, after the whole losing a crown on my tooth thing and the identity theft incident, I’m now back at work and moving forward into another day. It sucks that there are thieves out there who will steal you blind (just because they can), and it sucks that random health concerns can really mess with your day. But really, what can you do about it other than just get through it and move onto another day?

Which brings me to another day. And realizing that, I’m back to the same quandary in that I really don’t know what to do with my “other” day now that I’m there. My life still sucks. And I really don’t have anything to look forward to, other than more days of dealing with the fact that there are more sucky days after this one.

My life isn’t bad. Or horrible. I mean, I don’t live in an environment where evil, brutal masters are flogging me on a daily basis while I work in the salt mines. My biggest dilemma on a daily basis is deciding between paper and plastic, and I’ve sort of solved that by buying reusable Meiers bags that I bring to the supermarket with me. Basically, my day consists of figuring out whether a colon, a semi-colon or a gerund phrase are used correctly. And even then, who really cares?

The real dilemma is that I don’t have a purpose. Nothing I do really matters. No one cares. Oh sure, someone might throw a fit if a memo doesn’t go to the correct audience, or another person might somehow come unglued if the wrong font was used to explain an osteometric procedure. But in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter. No lives will be saved, made better or worse, or otherwise seriously inconvenienced.

And personally, besides not having a purpose, I don’t have really anything going on in my life. And I’m not under-exaggerating here. There’s NOTHING going on. My writing career is not a career. It’s not even a glorified hobby these days. I have no girlfriend, mistress, or flirting affair with the girl down the hall who thinks I’m somewhat okay but would rather date anyone but me. I don’t even have that. I don’t party. I don’t even have a drug problem, which ironically might be something to bide the time as people who do drugs at least have something to occupy their time.

I sometimes think I grew up during the wrong period in US history. The amount of technology we have today has made interaction with other people almost inconsistent or nonexistent. Sometimes, I think it would be really fascinating to just up and walk off, wandering the lands as a Kwei Chang Caine or Jack Kerouac, starting over at practically every “Welcome to….” city sign. It’s like there’s a whole world out there to experience, and I’m sitting at home playing Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Years back, I kept thinking I was going to be changing the world. Then I learned that’s not likely to happen. The world doesn’t want to change. And you know, I’m sort of fine with that. However, perhaps it’s time to change me, and being what I am really kind of sucks.

Whatever I’m doing right now certainly isn’t working.

Why Don’t Banks Seem to Care When Their Customers Are Fraudulently Targeted?

Business, Economics, , , , , , , ,

I was a victim of a theft last night. I’d say it’s identity theft but this was more of an outside company that made an illegal charge on my checking account online in some mysterious way that I have yet to be able to figure out how it happened. This happened on a Friday night, so that meant that getting any customer service was extremely limited, and my bank put me through an endless process of “press 1 for happy thoughts” crap before I finally, after three runs around their system that got me to a person who then transferred me back to the beginning of the “press 1” tree crap again. After some time, and some very frustrating and infuriating moments, I finally got to a person whose only course of plan was to freeze my account and wish me good luck. The charge was “processing” which meant they couldn’t do anything about it until it’s charged.

Honestly, what kind of stupidity is that? Is it not possible to catch a bank robber until after he spends the money, even if you catch him in the bank and have surrounded him with cops?

The next day, I had to get a brand new check card, and no one can tell me why it happened, or even more important: How do I stop it from happening again? The guy on the phone last night was a dickwad who seemed to think it must have been me with my liberal spending ways on the Internet. This is coming from a bank company that advertises its desire to have me using its services online because their the ones who do it best. Anyway, the next day, I’m still out that money that was stolen from my checking account because the processing isn’t done, and ONLY AFTER IT’S DONE can I put in a claim to get my money back. So, I’ve lost access to a LOT of my own money because some unauthorized charge happened from France (or Russia for all I know), and the bank really doesn’t give a fuck.

I’m really lost here because I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know where this came from, what caused it, or even how to prevent it from ever happening again. I don’t use my credit card on risky sites or anything like that. I don’t do online gambling or any crap like that. I use it for normal things, which somehow appears to be more and more susceptible to fraud these days. Is my only recourse to close my banking accounts forever and start hiding money in my mattress again? I know it sounds like that’s some kind of reactive joke, but seriously, what are you supposed to do when you’re basically screwed no matter what you do? I really needed that money on Monday morning for a dental procedure I’m about to have to undergo (my crown fell out of my mouth a few days ago). Now, I’m totally screwed. I can’t even contact the bank until after Monday because the charge doesn’t get processed until Monday, which means I’m going to be in surgery, knowing that I have pretty much no way to pay for it because some criminals thought it would be really cool to fuck over a complete stranger.

And, as stated, nobody fucking cares.

The Process of Writing That First Novel

Writing, , , , ,

Often, my many adoring fans have asked me what gave me the inspiration to write my first novel. Well, actually, I should probably mention that when I say “many adoring fans” I’m referring to my stuffed bean bag frog named Elmer who really doesn’t care why I started writing, but I figured that starting with that wouldn’t cause you to be all that interested in what I had to say later (note to editor who doesn’t exist: remove this last aside before allowing this blog to go to print). Anyway, years ago, when I was a very young adult, I decided that I was going to sit down and write my first novel. It wasn’t “officially” my “first” novel as I had written probably five before it, but it was the first serious novel that wasn’t designed to go right into a drawer to remain until the end of time.

The novel was Innocent Until Proven Guilty, which you may remember as the novel that fought in there up to the last round for the Pulitzer Prize, right before losing out to some novel about some guy who realized something at the end of the book that somehow seemed really significant. Okay, the Pulitzer people weren’t considering my novel for the prize, but they could have been. If they’d ever heard of it. Which they probably never have. But I’m digressing again, and I fear my medication may be wearing off soon.

So, as I was saying, early in my adulthood, right about the same time I was in the Army in Germany, I decided to write my first novel about corporate intrigue and murder, or it might have been about corporate murder and intrigue; I kind of forget. But anyway, it involved a corporation, a murder and intrigue. And not necessarily in that order. But considering that I had never worked for a corporation, had never murdered anyone (not that anyone can prove…although you cops sure tried but boy did I get over on that one…oh sorry, the meds again), and really didn’t know much about intrigue other than have an overly active imagination, I figured it would have been a pretty easy novel to write. And it was.

But one of the things they tell you when you first start writing is that you should write what you know. Well, we kind of went over that. Three strikes there, but I’m okay with that. They also say that a writer’s first novel is almost always about the killing of his or her parents (kind of a growing up kind of novel). But my parents died long before I started writing that novel, so that didn’t seem all that necessary. So this was basically a raw attempt to just show that I had an idea of what I was doing.

One of the interesting struggles of writing a first novel is to actually get through the process of finishing that first novel, which while it sounds kind of obvious, is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. When I started writing it, I had a general idea of where it was going, but I’ll let you in on a little secret: There was a second shooter on the grassy knoll. No, wrong secret. I mean, I had no idea where I was going the entire time I wrote the novel and I sort of let the story tell itself. And it did. Wonderfully. Even after I finished it, I kept thinking that somehow I cheated because the damn thing practically wrote itself. The characters came to life and did their own thing, the plot developed all on its own, and everything sort of fell into place. For the longest time, I was convinced that I had written what is often referred to as “that one novel he had in him”, convinced I’d never be able to do it again.

There are a few authors out there who I often think of as an author who had one novel in him or her. Alice Sebold is an example. She wrote a brilliant novel (that was turned into an semi-okay movie) called The Lovely Bones. Since then, she’s written generic stuff that hasn’t resonated anywhere near as well as that one novel. And there’s a reason for it. The Lovely Bones was one of those novels that needed to be told. She just happened to be the one to tell it. But even as I read it, I kept thinking, wow, this is a great book, but I’m not sure I’d really want to read anything else she has to write, thinking this was definitely a one-hit wonder. And it was. Now I could be wrong and next year she may come out with the next War and Peace, but I don’t think that’s going to happen any sooner than James Frey is ever going to become best buddies with Oprah Winfrey again.

Anyway, so what I discovered was that after the book was finished, I was ready to start tackling my second novel, and I did. But as I wrote the second one, it took a lot longer, and I realized then why Innocent went so easily. I had already written the novel in my head before I sat down to write it. When I finally did write it down, it was like I had been one of those wandering minstrels telling the story of the Iliad before someone figured out how to invent actual writing. Then it was jus a matter of doing it.

Sometimes that happens. Most often it doesn’t. Most often, I’m plotting out the whole thing chapter by chapter, constantly struggling with where the book needs to go next. Other times, I sit down and a novel comes out. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever truly figured out the science behind it. But I do know that I love to sit down and write novels.

Right now, I’m working on a rewrite of a novel I wrote years ago (the third one) that takes place in 1991. Strangely enough, the first edition was written in the 1980s. It took the future happening before the novel actually found its time and place.

Writing is strange and can be that way. It’s why I love to write. It was either this or be a male prostitute because those were the only two skills I was good at: Writing and charging people money. What? Were you thinking of something else?

The Energy to Post New Blog Content Just Isn’t There

Education, Memoirs, Relationships, Writing, ,

I haven’t posted anything in awhile, mainly because I rarely get any actual responses on my blog itself. A couple of my feeds move onto places like Open Salon and other such places, and they get a few responses there, but overall, my own web site sometimes feels like a graveyard.

Not really a lot going on these days. I’ve been voraciously trying to find a decent teaching job, but I’ve completely failed at almost every attempt. If lucky, I get a form letter rejection thanking me for applying. Otherwise, I get nothing. Not a damn thing. It’s not like I’m not qualified. It’s not like I’m not a damn good teacher either. I just get no response whatsoever. Or I’ll get a nibble, and then that nibble will run away, convinced that there is probably tastier bait out there somewhere else.

Lately, I’ve been working on a writing project with a former friend/romantic interest/really hard to define but always a positive attribution regardless. Our project is something that’s definitely up our alley, but our schedules don’t really seem to be all that copacetic, which means that I’m suspecting that as good of an idea as it is, it’s probably going to end up not working out in the long run. And that’s too bad. I’m slowly putting work back into energy towards one of my previous novels, mainly because I don’t feel right unless I’m working on something that’s moving forward. And I’ve been meaning to rewrite one of my old novels for many years now, especially now that I have the proper time and place for it.

I recently read Stephen King’s book on the JFK assassination, and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at how well he carried that book through its entire process. He sometimes has a habit of becoming too wordy and sometimes “too Stephen King”, but this was one of his rare wonders. I can say that I’m very happy I read it. I immediately recommended it to Rick, and he read it too, thinking pretty much the same thing I did. I haven’t read too many great novels recently, and I was glad this one came along.

Which got me thinking about my own writing again, because it’s always a continuous work in progress that never seems to go anywhere. Unlike other writers who want to be writers but never write, I’m one of those who wrote a lot but never got anything for doing it. And I still continue to write. My writing has probably evolved to a point where I’m pretty much at the top of my game right now, and it’s almost completely useless. It’s like pissing in a fan, for lack of a better (or graphic) metaphor.

Relationships are still a dead zone for me these days. I live in Grand Rapids, which seems to be the furthest place of finding anything I’m seeking. I’d move anywhere else, but I’m like some unemployable crazy guy that will never get another job no matter how hard he tries. So I’m kind of stuck here. And stuck is probably a very apt description.

Not much else going on. Another semester is almost over here at GRCC, and my students probably couldn’t care one way or another if I was teaching them. It’s not like they’re bad students; they’re fine. It’s just that I don’t seem to be making much of an impact or a difference these days. That’s generally the story of adjuncts everywhere.

Well, have to head to class for the night. What fun.