Publishers Anonymous: my name is John.

Louis Shalako

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

My name is John, and I have a problem.

I am a binge publisher.

It began innocently enough.

I was a social publisher at first. That’s how it starts. At parties, maybe once or twice a year, with a few friends.

It’s insidious. It’s seductive. You get sucked in over time.

You, know, where we’d sit around in our friend’s basement apartment, with their parents thumping around up above, and experimenting with words, and poems, and writing stuff, and ultimately, yes: publishing.

Even now, I don’t consider myself a publishaholic. There may be some level of denial there, but the truth is that I have a problem and that’s why I’m here tonight.

Every so often, it’s like I just can’t stand it any more. It’s like I’ve been on the wagon long enough and it’s time to dive overboard and wallow in it.

My habit.

The monkey on this old back, ladies and gentlemen.

And I’m tired, and I want to go home.

As if you could ever really go back there again, eh?

Oh, yeah, eh. This time I’ve got a whole shit-load of stuff. The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue was published exclusively on Kindle Select Program. After ninety days, I get her back. Then she must be published on Smashwords, OmniLit, Google Books and Google Play, and then it will go into all of those distribution channels. That one is already published in 4 x 7” and 5 x 8” in Createspace and Lulu paperbacks, which doesn’t conflict with the terms of Kindle Select.

My new mystery novel, The Architect of His Own Destruction, will be done in the next few days. I’m not going with Kindle Select on that one. I want the book in all stores, using all distribution platforms, by Christmas. There is some time lag when using Smashwords, and it takes time to filter through. They don’t have real time automatic shipping and distribution as there is an internal human review process. Simply put, they ship on Thursdays, and you need to have it in and vetted on time. The stores at the other end have their own internal time lags.

It's my bag, ladies and gentlemen. It's what I do.

Between the five pen-names I have, there are six more books published either exclusively on Kindle (without actually being enrolled in Select) or coming out of Select in the next two or three months. What that means is that I get to publish six books over all of those other stores/platforms. The most time-consuming is OmniLit, where they don’t have a grinder-process, and you have to upload multiple file formats…sorry, I forgot myself for a moment there.

It was getting so bad, I had to make a list. Seriously.

I just published a couple of horror short stories, and knowing me, it’s like I’m fricking rummaging around in drawers and closets, trying to see if I got something worth selling. I’m wracking my brains trying to remember somebody, anybody that might owe me money. Where can I borrow seven or eight bucks for a marketing image? Who can I talk into giving me a lift to take them beer empties back? Do I have few rolls of nickels or even pennies in the back of a drawer?

Never know, might as well have a look.

'Cause I know damn well there's more stuff I could publish.

There has to be. It didn't all just dry up and blow away now, did it?

Right?

That’s just how it is, sometimes, ladies and gentlemen. You’re desperate, and you’ll do almost anything short of looking for work in order to get a fix…you know what I’m talking about.

You been there too.

Right?

So that’s why I came out this evening.

Maybe some kind of twelve-step program can help me. I mean, seriously, when I first started out, a couple of books, a story or two a year were enough to keep me going. But it’s getting bad lately, it really is. There’s never enough to satisfy me any more, and it’s like a real bad craving.

It’s all you think about from the time you wake up in the morning to the time you go to bed. You see it in your dreams…and you drool just a little bit.

I don’t know, ladies and gentlemen. I might have waited too long and left it too late.

The odds are that I am incorrigible, and that no matter how hard I try, I can never be saved.

Which is kind of sad, when you think about it.

END

Donut Vs. Doughnut.

Today, I jumped in the car and went up the road. I found myself turning into the local drive-through doughnut* shop. That’s fine as far as it goes, but I was actually going to the grocery store.

My dad just gave up his driver’s license. Normally he would have gone to the grocery store.

Was I driving on ‘automatic?’

Was it ‘muscle memory,’ so beloved of fable and song?

Was my mind ‘elsewhere?’

What happened…was I even conscious? Was I ‘sleep-driving?'

***

Norbert Wiener (1894-1964) was an American mathematician and the founder of cybernetics.

During WW II, Wiener attempted to produce a mathematical and electronic system for communicating vital information in such areas as radar and anti-aircraft gun control.

He became interested in automatic computing and feedback theory.

Wiener founded the study of cybernetics. Cybernetics deals with the automatic control of machinery by computers, ‘robotics,’ but also the study of the human brain and nervous system.

The two systems are analogous in the interrelationship of communication and control systems. The difference is organic. It is a matter of degree and complexity of design and function.

He wrote ‘Cybernetics,’ (1948,) and ‘The Human Use of Human Beings,’ (1950.)

In philosophy and psychology, ‘will’ is considered to be a capacity to choose among alternative courses of action.

This is held to be true particularly when the action is directed toward a specific goal or is governed by definite ideals and principles of conduct. This is in contrast to behaviour which stems from instinct, impulse, reflex or habit, none of which involves a conscious decision-making process.

What is artificial ‘intelligence?’ Is it the ability to choose between two or more courses of action, none of which lead directly to clearly defined or decisive outcomes?

For the sake of modernity, let us accept John Dewey’s notion that will is not a faculty of the mind that we are born with; neither is it acquired through heredity.

He saw it as a product of experience, evolving gradually in the mind and personality of the individual. Otherwise we are stuck with ancient philosophers, or metaphysics, neither of which are very satisfactory in the age we live in.

Let them quest for God or the soul, the meaning of life if they will. We will attempt to find ‘artificial intelligence.’

If you blog on Google, or post on Facebook for a while, you will note that the ads that magically appear actually appear pretty relevant after a time. This is not a machine ‘learning’ in the classic sense. What happens is that little ‘crawler bots’ run up and down every line of text and note key words. Those words are collated in terms of subject, frequency, and association with other words. Then, if you are blogging about child care, diaper and fomula ads appear on your blog, even if you have never actually used the word ‘diaper,’ or ‘formula.’

It would seem that our machine can compare imputs, and choose between a number of courses of action, and it requires no real ‘will’ of its own. And if a machine did something unexpected, we would merely consider it a glitch or malfunction. We would inquire no further—the machine is merely broken.

Or is it? Is it really broken? Maybe it was just trying to tell us something.

But ‘will’ is a human attribute.

My will directed me to the grocery store…habit took me to the doughnut shop.

Somehow my brain, being elsewhere, still managed to drive the car safely, (or maybe even a little too fast,) and it eventually took over and got me to the destination.

‘No harm done,’ and it made me think, which is not always a good thing, but I like it.

Maybe I am being held in thrall by Tim Horton’s. Everyone says they put something in that coffee to make you go back.

Public opinion has a certain wisdom of its own, and the stuff in there is caffeine.

Nicotine is the most powerfully addictive drug I have ever had, and without coffee and smokes, I would be miserable.

In that sense the 'stick and carrot' are involved in behavioural training...right?

*Editor’s Note: For our U.S. readers, that’s ‘donut.’