Great idea or bubble soon to burst?

We only hear about the success stories, and with making money so hard for most books from publishers, it has to be even harder if not impossible with self-published books.

Amanda Hocking did it -- though the Guardian thinks hers is just the kind of story that fuels the bubble and creates more suckers. They say the bubble bursting is the inevitable economic end of self-published e-books. This author (you will have to scroll down, he reviews other people's books on his blog, too) made it work -- after 13 years of rejections from publishers!

Most fiction by unknowns probably has little chance, but what about a lively (in writing and design) story about someone interesting to kids, told in an unusual way? What are the chances of that showing up in searches and getting read? Or a true disaster story or true anything people might search for, if the book were well-written, well-illustrated and well-designed -- not as a plain book, but as a truly interactive e-book that was more like a game in places than a typical book? I'd be willing to risk it for two of my mss. ("it" being the time and energy to find an illustrator and a designer, and the money to pay them).

I'm not sure I'd be so willing to deal with the stigma attached to self-publishing, though. Lots of readers share it. And would self-publishing non-fiction now make it harder to place fiction mss. with publishers later?

Of course, if the books sold millions of copies, there wouldn't be any stigma-- but I don't think I'm being unduly modest when I say that's not going to happen in my case. Children's biographies just don't sell in huge numbers (maybe that's why they're hard to place?). Thousands of copies year after year -- relatively small but steady sales to some people who really love the books -- are my goals. Novels are much more unpredictable -- in both directions, and those I wouldn't ever self-publish. Novels (at least, in many, though not all, genres) are popular with publishers and mine might just as well take its chances there.

On writing

Last week I was listening to NPR on the way to the grocery store and they were talking about the subject of writing. There were two quotes that have stuck with me all week.

“I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.” - James Michener

and

"Becoming a writer is not a 'career decision' like becoming a doctor or a policeman. You don't choose it so much as get chosen, and once you accept the fact that you're not fit for anything else, you have to be prepared to walk a long, hard road for the rest of your days." - Paul Auster

They both seemed quite true and particularly relevant as I chug slowly uphill, knee deep in revisions...

Naked at the Golf Course - A Naughty Fad Hits the Fairways

Remember planking?

About a year ago it was quite the fad.  For several months you couldn't go anywhere on the internet without running into the image of someone's rigid body, face down arms with arms their sides, in an incongruous location.  The craze was completely global, and for a while people were planking everywhere, from the Pyramids of Egypt to the floor of the NY public library. The more dexterous among them could be found perilously positioned in overhead luggage bins, on top of towering billboards and high in the branches of trees.  Golf courses presented creative plankers with numerous options, as well. 

However like most internet memes, planking's popularity was short lived, and after spawning some interesting off-shoots, ( teapotting - owling - Tebowing) it's settled into internet oblivion where it will languish while other fads step up to enjoy their fifteen minutes. So along comes... Dogging.

In fact, dogging's been around for quite a while, but it now seems poised to reach planking-like levels of popularity.  With dogging, the supposedly staid and solicitous Brits have taken things to a naughty new level, and they've got one golf course doing some emergency reputation management.

Dogging... in a nutshell... is a variation on planking that incorporates sex, nudity and some very social networking.  Also included are elements of swinging and voyeurism... all in the great outdoors.  As with planking, the object is to produce a photograph... or video... that will ultimately be posted to the internet.  But an effective "dogging post" must illustrate a sexual situation, either with nudity or with something a bit more graphic blatantly pornographic. Unlike planking no particular body position is required, though, not surprisingly, some degree of rigidity is often featured in dogging posts.

Once practiced almost exclusively in cars at rural parks, or on isolated lover's lanes, dogging has transcended those cloistered confines and is now taking place in public parks, suburban parking lots, on village lanes... and on golf courses.  Till now, most of the "golf dogging" was done on anonymous fairways or in ubiquitous pot bunkers, but last week Lincoln Golf Center in Thorpe-on-the-Hill, found itself in a rather embrassing position when a curvaceous female dogger boldly flaunted her assets in front of their facility's sign... and then posted photographic proof on her "dogging profile page".  Not to be outdone, several of her fellow doggers made a beeline for the golf center and posted similar shots. Now the family-friendly course is scrambling to "clean things up".  Hopefully legitimate patrons will understand the situation and continue to patronize the center.  Meanwhile, with evidence that dogging is finding its way to the US,  course owners here may want to stay alert to avoid their own dodgy dogging dilemmas.

By the way, in case you're wondering how this fad came to be known as dogging (I certainly was), it seems "walking the dog" was often used with unsuspecting spouses as pretext for clandestine encounters that resulted in cyber-exhibitionism.  As the practice became more popular it came to be known as dogging... and the rest, as they say, is history.