Tag Archives: books

Vellas, I Knew You Well

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Sad news. Amazon just informed me that their experimental Kindle Vellas are being discontinued. Seems no one is buying them.

For those who don’t know, Amazon realized people love to read things on their phones, like Facebook, Quora, blogs, etc. So they came up with Vellas. Short, serialized stories that are easily digested on your phone. Rather than straight purchases, you buy credits and after the first few installments of a series, you use these credits to buy the next episode.

I suspect that it was the credits that were the issue, not the stories themselves. Some writers have tens of thousands of readers. I have 4.

Alas, no more.

The new year will be Vella-less. Stories will persists in presence for a while and then will be shut down.

That’s a shame, really. I used Vellas as a novel farm, developing the A plot for some future novel where I would add B and C plots, flesh out a few things… but, while I enjoy those stories, I’m not sure I will develop them as novels. Maybe. Eventually.

Story time: My writer’s group used to host Writer’s Cramp, where once a quarter, we’d come together in a beautiful house (thanks, Debi!), enjoy dinner, and then write from 6 to midnight. OK, some of us were getting older, so we didn’t make it to midnight most Cramps. I developed a story that I only wrote at Cramps. It was about 30% done when the Cramps stopped. So, now I have a novel that I do really like, but haven’t written anything more on. Mostly because the crime that motivated everyone’s actions hasn’t coalesced in my head yet. I’ve got four novels on the schedule going forward, and I should probably add that as a fifth. But something else always crops up first.

Our writers group, formerly the Writer’s Block (because most of us lived on the same block), is now the Writer’s Arc (because we’re national now, meeting on Zoom). I can’t help but think Vellas would have been great fodder for the Cramps. Ah, well.

If you’re interested in joining Writer’s Arc (most of us, if not all, are Christians, so beware), let me know.

Authors Beware!

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Goodreads has had a data breach. You may be getting flooded with emails offering reviews. Do NOT reply to them.

Goodreads has not confirmed this yet, but I have two emails associated with them and gotten duplicate emails to both addresses. At this point, more than a hundred and counting.

You may also get disturbing emails threatening your children unless you get off of Goodreads and social media. I don’t understand these, since they aren’t asking for money.

Best way to identify scam emails is by their email addresses. If it’s a series of numbers/letters with a gmail.com appendix, it’s a scam. If it has undisclosed recipients in the To: line, it’s a scam. If it sounds too good to be real, it’s a scam.

Most ask if you would like a ton of reviews. The followup is, “send me an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) for my 10,000 followers to read.”

Needless to say, your book would be pirated.

Some will charge you for this. Paying for reviews is unethical, even if it was a legitimate email, but this scam adds insult to injury; you’d be paying to have your book pirated.

There are proper places for ARC reviews, just not through gmails.

Why these losers try to steal your money or make you afraid, I have no idea. Twisted people.

There is no reason to delete your Goodreads account. The breach has been completed and you don’t have any dangerous info other than email on their site. You may want to change your password.

Be safe out there. To be a writer is to be a target for diseased people.

Publish Outside The Box!

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When Amazon democratized publishing, they did a lot more than just turning publishing on its ear, they threw out the box for anyone ready to put some thought into it.

The traditional publishing world created a box around books. They had to be this size, this number of pages, all text, and even limited formatting to ensure offset printing efficiency.

Today, your job is to figure out how your passion can be published.

I’m blessed to have many friends who are wizards with pens, brushes, and styluses. Others with cameras. Funny thing about fine artists, they all have some IP floating around in them. IP, for the uninitiated, is Intellectual Property. Ideas that are all their own. Maybe they are ideal for movies, cartoons, merchandising, radio shows, and other media channels, and I agree.

They are also grist for books.

Wait, wait, when you hear the word “books” are you thinking 200 pages of text? Maybe you’re thinking of traditional picture books.

The truth is, the medium is ripe for reinvention. I’ll be the first to admit that Amazon doesn’t enable 3D popups, but art and words have been going together in some form or another forever. Memes are a new form of words and graphics. Who says comic books have to be 6 – 9 panels per page? Who says they have to only use word balloons?

I’m not a graphic artist, I’m not the one to define what those new designs should be, but I’d ask my artistic friends not to limit themselves.

Amazing Art wallpaper | 1680x1050 | #15211
If they can create a lion with lasers, you can create something equally amazing!

I know a young woman who doodles the most amazing art while she listens to a sermon. The art is drawn from the sermon, which is drawn from the Bible. I’d love to see her share those doodles (you and I would call them high art) with a paragraph or two about what they mean. It isn’t narrative, it might be a wonderful twist on a devotional, or maybe an amazing snapshot of a young artist’s mind.

Do you love to cook? What’s your twist on a cookbook? Going on a trip? What’s your take on a craft book for the kids?

A last thought for my friends sitting on strong IP; there’s nothing new under the sun (hard to believe after I’m preaching on the new, but even that’s based on what’s come before, just without the same limits). It just takes one published media piece to cement your copyright on the IP. You need to do it before someone else is too close to your idea.

Prevail Press is your gateway to publishing!

Why Do We Read?

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This blog is all about writing, but it’s natural to therefore look at reading.

I love it. If you read this blog, you love it. But why should we do it?

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This kid has a bright future!

  1. It’s a great way to learn! I’m known as a keeper of arcane trivia, and not so arcane. I only showed up for tests in my college Astronomy 101 class. Everything I needed to know about astronomy I learned in comic books. Non-fiction is all about learning. Beware, though; be discerning; you can learn right and you can be seduced by the dark side.
  2. It sharpens critical thinking. Or it can. Most stories flow logically and offer a logical twist or two. Keeping track of a story sharpens your thinking. Sorting through red herrings and real clues makes you discriminate.
  3.  It widens your world. Trapped in a small suburb, I traveled to the stars, the past, far flung places without ever leaving my couch.
  4. You can try on different occupations. You find out what it is to be a lawyer, a crook, a conman, a detective, a superhero, and a thousand other occupations. Me, I found writing, but I was intrigued by lawyers (talked out of it by my Uncle Lawyer, darn it).
  5. It increases your imagination. This is the elephant in the room, not because it’s hiding but because it’s big! Life is made interesting with an imagination and like anything, it takes exercise to strengthen. Bench press a book! Workout your dreams!

You’ll benefit by reading, a realm of pure imagination. You make the sets, you envision the characters, you direct the action!

I recommend reading widely. By the time I was 14 I’d read thousands of books from dozens of genres. Thousands of comic books, hundreds of non-fiction books, thousands of magazines. I’d read the Bible, the Koran, the Upanishads, Sun Tzu, even the Peal of Wisdom. I was, unfortunately, stuck reading English, yet loved the plays of the Greeks and even the French. German plays were weird, even in the translations. I can’t help but know things.

I don’t read quite as much as I used to. Barely 24 – 30 novels a year, just a smattering of non-fiction. I admit I love comics, but no way I’ll spend that kind of money of them (thank goodness for libraries). My Kindle has hundreds of books I have yet to read.

And I still live a full life.

Read. It’s good for you. And for authors.

Give the Gift of Adventure!

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There were two times a year that I looked forward to as a kid when it came to reading. The beginning of the school year when we got the Scholastic order form was the first. My parents were the most generous people on the planet because I’d come home with almost every book checked. They always got them for me. They’d come in a tall stack (20 to 30 books), and for the next couple weeks I was consumed. Books are always an adventure (mine can’t help but reflect that).

The second was Christmas. When my parents realized that I was ready for adult-level books by sixth-grade, they began to give me their favorite books, some from the 40’s, some contemporary, many before I’d read them :).

They also joined book clubs left and right (so did I back when money was available). Today, my sisters have boxes of books they ship from house to house (the worst thing about living 3000 miles away).

Here we are a Christmas and I’d be remiss not to remind you of the amazing possibilities that Prevail Press offers.

Books that are a True Gift!

Got kids?  For the grade schoolers, may I suggest Always Look for the Magic by Bonnie Manning Anderson, and Do Angels Still Fall? by Robert Alexander Swanson (me; and parents, read with your kids!).

Teenagers? How about Me and the Maniac in Outer Space also by me.

Married, young or… not so young? To encourage romance, Cherishing Us! by Tom and Debi Walter, and to encourage longevity, 7 Essentials to Grow Your Marriage by Steve and Cindy Wright.

Ladies who love historical fiction? We have Through the Eyes of Grace by Debi Walter.

Artists? Creativity Wears Boots by me again. Or Faces and Fantasy, a coloring book by Dawn Davidson.

Christians wanting to grow? Against the Current – Biblical Worldview, a Guide to Culture Change our newest book by Bill Hufford, and So Many Mountains, Which Ones to Climb? What Really Matters in Church Life by Aron Osborne.

Get the whole stack! They look great on a book shelf (you should see mine!)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Decade!