Friday, December 12, 2014

Excerpt: The Conqueror, "Cave of Sighs."

La Chanteuse de Serpentes, Paul-Elie Ranson. Photo by Louis.







Louis Shalako


Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from a work in progress and everying in it is subject to change and revision.


The Cave of Sighs.




The air was heavy with incense, swirling up from thin, resinous sticks of burning gum, stinging the nostrils when a random current of air brought it to them.

The rites of purification were extensive. There was long preparation in the privacy of her bathing chamber, attended only by the purest of her maidens. The most profound of the rituals took place in the Cave of Sighs. 

It was said that the cave was never silent, and yet they were over a hundred yards from the entrance. If a person sat there very quietly, they could hear the sighs, which had never been accounted for in purely naturalistic and scientific terms. There was too much noise around them at present. Their journey must take them deeper. Her heart fluttered as she contemplated the possibilities. Perhaps it was the heaving tides inside of some sea-cave, miles away, some kind of underground volcano…or maybe it really was the breath of Gaia, the Mother of the World.

She blew air out through loose lips, nodding slightly as she did so, intent on the words she had carefully memorized.

They stood on a clean rug of deep, red-dyed wool. Around that, white rose petals had been strewn everywhere, petering out into the darkness, away from the torches. They stood in the middle of five torches, planted in the soft and vile stuff that had fallen to the bottom over countless eons. There were two dozen girls in the chorus, all as nude and pale and white as she would be, long dark hair framing their faces and hanging down, offering some modesty in spite of all being revealed.

Under the rug was sand, dirt, dung, decayed cobwebs, dead animals, and above all else, dead bats and the droppings of tens of thousands of their living brethren. The bats, hanging in their clumps and rows above and all around, were the least of her problems. Broad daylight outside as it was, the bats weren’t going anywhere for a while, although their noise was fairly irritating. Blinded by the torches, they were hanging on for dear life. For that Eleanora was grateful.

While any thinking person knew what an echo was and how it was propagated, this place had always been thought to be sacred. It was all she could do, to tell herself that it was all nonsense and that there was nothing to be feared. Proper forms would be observed, and if the gods were not appeased then hopefully public opinion would. Simply put, she was Queen and the moral responsibility lay with no other.

Theodelinda took her cloak and Eleanora slipped out of her thin white cotton shift, letting it fall to the ground. 

Her body had been shaved, from head to toe. Her skin burned with the cleanliness of it, shining red in the glare of the flames when she looked down at herself, suddenly self-conscious. All she wore were her sandals and a garland of daisies around her head, her long, fine red hair intertwined and holding it in place. Her toes were a reminder that she was as human as anyone in the final analysis. No one was more fallible than the Queen, for all things rode on her shoulders.

When I fall, everything falls.

The perfumes she wore clogged the nose, they were so strong, and yet it gave a life to the place, dead and dark and full of dimly-perceived creeping things that squeaked and rustled and moved about in the detritus of the cave floor. Even as she looked dubiously at her sandaled feet, a large beetle, with sparkling green shimmers on his back, ducked under a dead leaf which quivered and crackled with barely perceptible sound. 

Her entire body had been oiled from head to foot and most of her hair was tied in a rope that fell straight down her back. She was white, white from chalk and gypsum powder. She was chill, and yet thankful that as yet no sweat had run down and spoiled her perfection.

There was the High Priestess, eyes as black as coals, looking solemn as she poured out a cup of blood and wine. She set that aside on a small, one-legged stick-in table. Taking a vial slung on a string around her neck, she opened it and took a pinch of fine, charcoal-grey powder and put it into the chalice. She then sprinkled the same incense into each flaming sconce. She took one smaller torch, sticking in the ground at her feet, and lit it from a wall torch. She brought the cup to Theodelinda, similarly prepared all in white body chalk, and the obvious choice to accompany her Queen.

“Are you pure of heart?” Those dark eyes studied first Theodelinda, and then Eleanora. “Speak now.”

The woman stepped back, for it was out of her hands now.

“Yes, Priestess.”

Those eyes took in Theo.

“Yes, Mother. Our hearts are pure.”

“Very well. Listen closely, for the voices say many things, and not all of them are meant for you.”

She eyed Theo strangely for a moment.

Eleanora nodded. Theo nodded. All she had to do was hold the torch, and presumably, listen to the echoes, which were thought to be dead people speaking from the other side of the wall of death. Why they would ever want to come here, to such a dismal place was a good question, but of course it was supposedly the door to the underworld. It was a bad idea to laugh hysterically, thought Theo, but what if I can’t help it? She couldn’t help but note the thin edge of fear tickling the insides of her belly. Ellie looked a million times worse, like a rabbit confronted by the coyote.

Eleanora was as ready as she was ever going to get.

She’d been through this once before, as a little girl when all females of noble birth were initiated.

There were other initiates as well, but their path was longer and based solely on merit. The woman before her now was just such a one, purely a commoner and yet with the most comprehensive mind—and few had ever doubted or questioned her right to a position that most did not envy and few had ever aspired to. Eleanora certainly hadn’t.

“Drink, my child.”

Eleanora took the cup from her cousin.

Eleanora lifted the stained wooden chalice, the smell stinging her nose like pure vinegar. The stuff wasn’t quite as bad as might have been expected, although there was quite a kick to it. There was even a vaguely dry, burgundy grape taste somewhere in there. She handed it off to Theo, not even looking at her. She was looking forward, into the red and black tunnel before her, ridges of seamed and eroded rock looking putrid and organic in the flickering and guttering torches.

No, this dark underworld of secrets and incantations was quite outside of her interest. Let them have it, she thought, as the woman nodded in approval, taking the cup and looking at Eleanora in assessment.

This was in stark contrast to other kings and queens, who were seemingly intent on engrossing every kind of power. For Eleanora to conduct the chorus in song, make the sacrifice or lead the people in prayer was almost unthinkable. At least in her own mind. Hades, it was almost laughable. And yet she had told Lowren that she needed to do this—and for some reason it was more than just a delaying tactic.

Maybe there was something to be learned here after all. At one time, when she was a child, all of this had meant something to her. It still meant something to a lot of people. Had it really been so long then?

The Priestess took a massive breath, threw her head back, and bellowed out into the darkness.

“So long as your intentions are good, your spirit is pure, as long as your thoughts are clean and your motives are inspired by love, then you may enter. Beware, all of those who are unworthy.”

The effect was astonishing, as a thousand voices, in different tones and even languages it seemed, repeated back and forth and all around and swam all the wrong way inside of her head. The babble of voices and people and animal sounds and waves crashing and thunder and lightning and trees splitting asunder swelled, fell away, and swelled again, becoming more and more incoherent with each crest.

The echoes in the Cave of Sighs fell to a dull roar, and Eleanora found the courage to speak.

“Thank you, Mother.”

The Priestess’ eyes were black pools in the torchlight as she opened the wicker basket and pulled out the first of their special breed of snakes, all-white and with darting red tongues and black eyes.

While everyone assured her they were completely harmless, there was that sickening lurch in the guts, and it wasn’t just the snake—it was the sudden realization that you were completely naked.

There was something primeval and atavistic in that fear. It was the fear of violation.

Eleanora took one, holding it up and away from her, trying not to squeeze it to death with her tight grip around the neck. It wasn’t the snake’s fault she was afraid of it. It was her own. A helper gave her the other one as the Priestess and her acolytes nodded in approval. They went silent and then began a dull, throbbing chant that belied its coming forth from the throats of women. Their helper quickly rejoined on the end of the line, picking up on the beat and now apparently ignoring the royal ladies if that were possible.

The echoes swelled and strengthened, becoming a roar again.

It was like drums beating in her head, and her body tingled all over as a sudden wave of fear swept over her.

She took a deep breath, as there was no backing out now. She was just being silly. It was just a dirty old cave full of bat droppings and in a half-hour or so they would be able to come out. With a little luck, they would never have to do it again.

The Priestess raised her hands and the chorus fell silent.

“Begin.”

Eleanora began speaking the ancient words in the ancient tongue, as it was used all those eons ago, and with Theodelinda and her torch throwing her crazy black shadows every which way, she slowly led off with measured steps, following the rose petals into the darkest recesses of the unknown.

Habito inter sidera adipem populus tenues et inambulabo.

Primus Iovis Lao et Michael, quem regni regis Caeleste, obsecro, et tu, Gabriel. Olympo, Abraxan laeta aderit, e tu qui considerent occasum ab ortu benignus venire.

Singillatim descendamus hirundo, hirundo descendere, sunt.

“Sicut divisiones aquarum ita Lex enim vitae. Nomina deorum tremunt cum liceat loqui, quia fortia et ignoscere.”

“Abundantiam et reliquias, et biberet, et mitteret rum guttam.

Fluvium, qui mutuum amphora plena aqua hospes ad me.

Sicut unguentum in vaporem vertit, adeo ut in dies vinum expirare.

This part was different, for as little children, the Priestess and a party of initiates had held their hands and been with them in the forbidding darkness. She couldn’t quite locate the place where they had actually stopped, although the memory seemed quite firm and detailed.

This time, they were entirely on their own, and perhaps that was fitting enough considering their rank and position.

If you couldn’t get through a silly little ceremony like this, then you were obviously not very suited to the work.

At least that’s what Eleanora told herself as the chant started anew, and the ceiling lowered, the sides narrowed, and then they were at the first corner.

With a quick pause for breath, she kept speaking. To the eyes of those watching from behind, they quickly went out of sight.

***

They were following a single passage, thankfully one with no openings to left or right. The way was marked by more white rose petals underfoot and Theo thought she could even catch the odd whiff of them.

In front, Eleanora had to contend with her own shadow throwing everything into the harshest possible relief and the evil sublimity of the two wriggling serpents, outlined and highlighted by the dancing glare of the torch.

Her breathing was labored and she was fighting to control it. Her nipples were fully erect and hard as a rock. 

Her skin tingled. The temperature had dropped as quickly as her fears had mounted. Cold grit from underfoot had gotten between her toes and she was all too aware of her nakedness.

“Oh, my.”

The walls opened out and the top of the passage lifted and then the light was swallowed up by blackness.

The rose petals ended abruptly. Their instructions were clear. There appeared to be steam hanging in the air about them.

Theodelinda looked to her left. There was a rock, rising up from a bed of gravel and stones, oddly clean for something this deep in bat heaven. As per instruction, she mounted the rock and held the torch aloft.

Eleanora took one last look and nodded firmly. She had a sneaking suspicion, going by sound and some odd reflections, that there was water up ahead, or maybe just some kind of shiny bits in the local stone, for surely there must be walls out there somewhere. Her heart pounded in her chest, making itself known in an urgent manner.

She had to slide a foot forward, and then the other. The eyes took a while to adjust to the dimness.

Something glittered, and as she advanced, the guttering flame of the torch, and Theo’s loud breathing fell away. Her hands were sweaty where the snakes hung, still wriggling enthusiastically if inneffectually.

There were sparkles in the cave walls, quartz or something and yet there was an odd rise and fall ahead of her.

The shock of water on her toes stopped her dead in her tracks.

She was afraid to call out for the noise it would make.

She stood there for a moment, staring downwards into water that was probably crystal clear and yet invisible in the darkness.

Her shadow fell in front of her, elongated and distorted, rising and falling with the level as the cave breathed all around her.

Her mouth opened and she bit back a scream.

She slid one foot forwards. Then the other. She went in ankle deep. The water was warm, and that could mean only one thing: the sea.

“…huh……huh. Ah…………….ahhhhhhh. Siss. (boom) huh.”

The cave was talking to her.

“…ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

She was knee deep. She leaned forwards, not wanting to lose her balance, and released the snakes. She had a quick glimpse of the one on the left darting off in a series of S-shaped wriggles, but where the other one got off to she had no idea. They were headed away from her and that was all that she cared. She heaved a quick breath of relief.

“Ye, Gods. I thank you for that.” It was a whisper, albeit a sincere one…

She walked forwards a little more boldly, now that she knew what it was. There was sand crunching beneath her rapidly loosening, soaking wet leather sandals. She went waist deep, into the surprisingly warm water, feeling it wash off the tacky white goop covering her body and leaving her whole, complete, and very clear on what she was doing.

“…sigh…ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

No wonder people were spooked the first time they came in here, she thought.

She turned, neck deep, enjoying the sting of hot water and suddenly realizing what the place actually looked like from the other side, properly lit and with the flat plane of the water rising and falling in front of you, reflecting the blood-red torch and Theo, all white and nude, almost posed there up on her rock. Shrouds of mist hung and swirled back into position after Eleanora’s passage.

“Theo!”

The figure of her cousin, thirty yards away, flinched at the sudden shock of noise in this most intimate of places.

“Oh, my, gods, Eleanora. You scared the shit out of me!”

“Theo.” She spoke more carefully now. “Stand up straight. And do you hear it?”

Theo lifted the torch, suddenly becoming a vision of something very goddess-like, nodding fiercely. Eleanora wished she could see her cousin’s face a little more clearly.

She would remember this for a long time.

There were voices muttering in the background. They never seemed to let up in this chamber, and from the sounds of little waves hitting flat stone walls, and some very black shadows, Eleanora concluded that there was more than one passage leading off somewhere behind her.

“Yes—yes, I hear it.”

Eleanora stood there in the water for a good long while, thinking and seeing and listening to the cave breathe all around them as the water rose and fell about every half minute, going up and down her neck like the stroking hands of a lover.

Words came to her unbidden, perhaps the first real inspiration she’d had in this affair, and so she spoke them aloud.

“Oh, Gaia, Mother of all of the world, guide me in my thoughts, and in my heart, and in my actions. Guide my words and deeds just as surely as you guide the arrow of Lowren, when it flies from the bow and strikes down the common foe.”

“Who wrote that?” Theodelinida wracked her brains, but the quote was an unfamiliar one.

“I did.” Eleanora waded firmly up out the water and took the torch from Theo’s unresisting hand as the echoes slowly subsided and the pair turned to go.


End of Excerpt. 


Here are a few books and stories from Louis Shalako and Chapters/Indigo.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Bug Control

JJHarrison (Wiki.)







Louis Shalako




Immigration and Customs Tribune Mark Bexel stared into those compound eyes.

“You have been convicted of illegal entry. In the absence of a plea of appeal, sentence will be carried out.”

The bugs were sophisticated enough to disguise themselves in human form. It was fairly convincing close up. 

They had the ability to morph into other shapes, but the human form was the proper mass. In their chameleon-like manner, they might have been better off to model themselves as deer. It was thought that on their home world they were of bilateral symmetry, using bipedal locomotion. They might be completely unaware of their danger. It was a theory. The clothing was what a homeless person would wear. They had some level of comprehension of the human world around them. They were dumb enough to keep trying international airports. With a hodge-podge of ID, stolen or picked out of dumpsters, speaking not a word of anything, they blundered into a terminal wearing two odd shoes. The bugs got picked off as soon as they came within thirty metres of a dog or electronic sniffer pickup.

They were notoriously silent.

Not one bug had ever uttered a single word about their plight or their purpose.

This one looked a lot like his cousin Colin, until the facial tissues were removed. It had long, wavy red hair and that fair complexion. For want of a better term, those in the know, necessarily a very small group, had taken to calling them bugs. While the authorities were not entirely without sympathy, they had public safety to consider.

The pheromones gave them away every time. Their odd behaviour would have gotten them picked up sooner or later. They were sometimes caught in other places, in other ways, but security was very tight in the terminal. Speculation was that airports held some fascination for the bugs. The bugs were almost certainly of extraterrestrial origin. It was thought they were trying to get home, attracted by the thundering silver birds climbing out, landing and circling, above every major city.

Two beefy uniformed officers stood beside the bug, strapped into an examination seat. It was much like a dentist’s chair. The scraps of its human mask, bloody and torn, lay on the plasticized metal tabletop at Mark’s side. They must feel pain, thought Bexel. They must. But they never seemed to take any notice of it.

Bexel nodded. The cop on the right opened the ampoule and stepped in close. The bug made no motion, no real response.

They had never attempted to communicate with anyone. They were always loners. No one knew how or why they were on Earth.

The legislation was secret. Justice was swift and final.

Three years previously, Bexel got the first memo on the Bugs. He’d thought it a hoax, an elaborate joke. Just some badly-conceived training exercise. What was truly tragic was that no one had a clue what they wanted. 

And yet by all reports, the bugs were completely harmless.

If people found out, social upheaval would ensue. They were all agreed on that.

Bexel read the next part.

“You have the right to speak before execution. You have the right to ask for a friend or relation to be with you at this time, including counsel for defense or appeal.”

He cleared his throat, feeling dismal. His guts churned.

“You have the right to spiritual counsel…” It went on, every word of it false and affected. “You have the right to petition. What say you?”

The thing said nothing. They never did.

They’d caught half a dozen at LaGuardia over the years. It was always the same. Mark didn’t know what to think. He wouldn’t sleep tonight. He couldn’t bring himself to hate them. His fears were nameless, but then so were everyone else’s. The fear of them was real enough.

He was curious about them. The first reports dated from six years ago.

The body moved. The head made small movements on the neck. On first arrest, the creature had looked around in some curiosity, even after the restraints were put on. They never put up much of a struggle. That didn’t make things any easier for authorities.

If only they would say something. The officer undid the cuff and rolled up the sleeve, rolling it tightly and shoving it up as high as it would go.

The cop looked up after prepping the left bicep with alcohol and a cotton swab. He uncapped the blue plastic ampoule.

“Sir?”

“You may proceed.”

The thing stared right through Mark Bexel as the cop jabbed the five-pronged needle into the bug’s arm. He held on firmly with his left hand. Not looking at anything in particular, exhaling deeply, the cop squeezed the plunger.

Constable Sean Murphy sighed again.

The bug twitched and its head jerked around to look at the thing in its arm. Its pugnacious jaw opened and lifted.  Its eyes goggled at Officer Murphy. Murphy stepped back.

The head turned to stare into Mark’s eyes.

Mark always said a silent prayer at this point.

Jesus Christ, so help me God…if only.

He couldn’t say it, but the thought was clear.

Yes, we are killing you.

The real fits and seizures began, but it was mercifully short. There was always that smell, although they said it wasn’t shit. The pheromones changed when they died—like a wasp. A signal to flee. The creature’s head fell forward and its body went limp.

Some of the tension left Mark Bexel, although he still hated himself. That never changed either.

The other cop, Steinberg, picked up the right wrist, examining it for pulse.

“It’s okay.” Steinberg nodded. “He’s gone.”

Bexel stood.

“Thank you, gentlemen.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was the worst duty any of them had ever had.

He left the room as they prepared to bag up their bug, put him on a gurney and wheel him off to dissection.

Shit.

If only we knew something about them.

END



Thank you for reading.



Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Fine-Tuning Our Virtual Publishing Machine.







Louis Shalako





Editor’s Note: the following may be heretical. The odds of Louis recanting would appear to be rather slim.



It was in April of last year when Shalako Publishing and Long Cool One Books underwent a massive system overhaul and quality control audit.

During that revamp, we found missing titles on a few platforms, and a badly formatted story or two. During the course of that month (as well as since then) we have upgraded many of our marketing images. We rewrote a few blurbs and checked all meta-data, some of which turned out to be not particularly well done.

Here is a link to the post on that Publishing Machine Overhaul.

One of our goals here is to build a powerful, personal publishing system that’s effective, easy to use and as profitable as we can make it.

We call it our virtual publishing machine. The only moving parts are the keyboard and the mouse on this desk...and, one must assume, the writer.

This machine takes no account whatsoever of anything that has ever gone before. It totally gnores traditional assumptions.

About last April, we noted that OmniLit has an iTunes distribution channel. Various writers on the industry have recommended being on every platform. Smashwords also has a distribution channel to iTunes. That’s the one we were using, basically because SW was here first and we started off with SW and Amazon four or five years ago.

When I looked into publishing directly through Apple’s iTunes, the first thing I noted was that they wanted me to download the app, which didn’t fit my needs. The PC I was using at the time was choked with stuff. 

There wasn’t enough space on the hard drive. The second thing I noticed was that they wanted a credit card number. That was enough to stop me at the time. However, now I have a new computer and presumably downloading the app won’t be a problem. My credit card is maxed so I’m not too worried about being robbed.

We’ll worry about publishing directly to iTunes later.

However, on Smashwords’ distribution channel manager, we un-clicked a few titles, and removed them from iTunes distribution.* We made ourselves some 1400 x 2100 marketing images and used OmniLit to distribute to iTunes. It takes some time, as Apple has an internal review, and OmniLit’s uploading process is more labourious. But those books made it into the Apple store just as well as through Smashwords. Those books will pop out into the new books stream for the second time. We can even un-click them from OmniLit and pop them out through Smashwords again.** Basically, we have built a new wrinkle into our machine, our system, or whatever you want to call it. It’s a little bit like price-pulsing, only we’re using the product itself.

You have to understand the market: it is a great, gaping maw, it’s hungry and it wants to be fed.

It likes nice, shiny, new little tidbits to gnaw on.

Around the same time we opened an author account on Kobo through Kobo Writing Life.

Using one pen-name, we uploaded three or four titles. Without any real promo effort, he had sold about three books over the course of a year, which was more than he had sold using the Smashwords to Kobo distribution channel (and no promo there either.)

It was only recently that we read the post on price pulsing. Honestly, I hate to brag, but I learned that one from WalMart. Their mushrooms were $1.27 one week so I went back the next week. The price was $1.49, or the same as anywhere else. The next week they were $1.86 and that’s when I started doing some thinking...

I also bought the mushrooms at $1.86—I didn’t feel like driving across town, only to find that the other store might have them on for $1.99. That was my great revelation in marketing. You have to drop that price and then raise it in a way that seems completely arbitrary. This is especially easy with ebooks because no one seems to know what the price should be anyway.

(What does the average consumer know about mushrooms except what they paid for them last time...?)

Writers are like mushrooms, aren’t we?

Keep us in the dark and feed us nothing but shit, right, ladies and gentlemen?

We will see about that, ladies and gentlemen.

Like any other tool in the inventory, no single thing is responsible for selling a book. It’s a whole combination of factors, but pulsing does seem to work to a certain extent. To change the price puts it into another category, where presumably a different class of shopper may see it. Quite frankly, I was shocked to stick a new cover on a $0.99 book, jack the price to $7.99 and sell one copy in fairly short order. I only wish it had sold two copies! But who knows what will happen if I dropped the price to $0.99 again.

The basic theory behind price-pulsing is that you try to move as many units as you possibly can at a lower price. The stated theory is that the algorithms don’t care about price, only ranking. Those algorithms create the ranking based on total sales. Once you have a higher ranking, jack the price, sell a few units, and then lower it again.

Giving away free books carries less weight algorithmically per unit, and getting Amazon to price-match a free book on another platform is always uncertain. They reserve discretion to set pricing policy and as it’s their store we can only push so hard.

So what we are doing now is to unclick titles from the Kobo distribution channel on Smashwords. We’re uploading directly to Kobo now, and if we make a sale, then we simply get paid by Kobo as opposed to Smashwords.

When we uploaded our first few titles to Kobo a year or so ago, the lowest price that you could set for a book was $1.99.

Now you can set it anywhere from free, $0.99, and up. This makes the platform much more amenable to the hot-shoe driving of it.

You can set books for free, and watch them go out the door. Publishing from Smashwords, either Kobo didn’t report free books ‘sold’ or maybe we simply didn’t get any. But we uploaded old titles to Kobo and saw at least one sale almost immediately. That was in the Philippines, another first for us. We’re giving away free books in a number of countries and that’s a first for the Kobo site as far as we can determine.

There is more to what we are doing here than just price-pulsing. We are adding in dashboards and control points, and diversifying our revenue streams.

When you publish a book, it pops out on a website’s front page shortly thereafter. If it does not sell at least one copy, it may never have a ranking.

One wonders how passive discoverability would ever have a chance to work in such a case.

Those books were already on iTunes and Kobo. They just weren’t doing anything, and in fact this is a good reason to go back and sign up for publishing directly through iTunes, and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Press if they ever make provision for Canadian authors and ITINs and no 30 % tax withholding.

This is why it’s important to sell a book—it improves the odds of selling another one greatly. We have titles on Amazon for example, that have never sold a single copy. Those books have no ranking at all.

Giving away free books means that the customer has indicated a preference, and they will likely be presented with more of your titles, especially if you keep writing them and the customer is not so displeased that they give the book a bad review.

We’re not doing any practical harm to Smashwords when we do this, because those titles weren’t selling through the channel anyway. Now they stand a much better chance, and it’s because we can fine-tune the machine. We can price-pulse (or toggle back and forth from zero to $0.99) using an individual platform, essentially giving us more control, and a greater likelihood of selling a book on any given day. We’re going to learn Kobo’s strengths and weaknesses in a way that was just not possible by going through Smashwords.

With something like a hundred titles and a few other products, including PODs, you can only spend so much time on it. I can’t toggle a hundred prices a day on eight or nine different platforms, it simply isn’t possible. In that sense it is still limited by the number of hours in the day and the need to write new material. If I could get a bunch of trained monkeys or build a bot to do just that, I would switch prices every day. Every damned day, because that’s what WalMart does, ladies and gentlemen.

I just don’t have the time.

We all have to eat, to sleep, perchance to dream.

***

The other day I read a blog post where the author felt it was ‘dishonest’ to use giveaways to achieve a high ranking and then claim a bestseller.

I do not claim to be a bestselling author. There is nothing like that in any of my blogs, it does not say that on the cover of any of my books, or anywhere at all.

Number eight or twenty-seven on a free list is just that: number eight or twenty-seven on the free list.

But what really struck me is that I was being judged by someone else’s standards, and obviously we will always fail such tests, because they are based on a set of someone else’s assumptions. And having failed their test, they now have the right to condemn us as ‘dishonest.’

Obviously the person sincerely believes that traditional publishing is the only real way to go.

This is certainly true in their case. I cannot recommend anything else for them—this advice is offered without prejudice and without further comment.

As for me, I am building a machine that simply ignores traditional publishing in this one particular author’s life.

I never have to submit a book or story again if I don’t want to.

You are comparing apples in a basket to a man in boots and coveralls who just picked out a fine parcel of land and he’s sticking apple seeds in the ground. You have a basket of nice shiny apples and he’s building something that will be totally awesome at some point in the future.

It’s a difference not so much of opinion—we both consider each other’s opinion irrelevant, but in our basic set of assumptions.

And the whole world is built on assumptions, isn’t it?


END

*Smashwords tells you not to un-publish your books. If you do, you will lose any ranking those books have on any given platform, for example iTunes or Kobo. If you’re not selling any books on those platforms, you have no ranking to lose. You can still keep the rankings in the SW store and in any other platform where you have sold books.


**iTunes’ internal review and time-lags at the aggregator end sort of stymies this to a certain extent. This actually helps to make the case for publishing directly via iTunes—once the titles are up, you should be able to price-toggle, (or instantaneously change covers with some confidence that changes will actually go through), to your little heart’s content.

I can’t really state that with any certainty, as I haven’t actually done it yet.