Navajo Mesa

Navajo Mesa is the community where I'm moving. It's rural. At the sign for Navajo Mesa the paved road becomes dirt, washboard dirt road. Those will be fun on the old suspension. I'm not too worried. I managed 2 years above Tabernash and there were more dirt roads and they were worse than the ones in Florissant. I know they periodically add dirt and grade them, so not a big problem, and certainly nothing to keep me from moving up there.

That is the side between the 2 decks and the doors that go down under the house into the crawl space, except you don't need to crawl. It's built like a bomb shelter and enough head room to stand up. No, that is not a real deer. It is plastic. Someone has a sense of humor. That is the place where I'll plant my herb garden though. It will be easy to get to and will look nice laid out there in a circular pattern.

One of the pluses of living up there is seclusion. Then there is peace and quiet and a small community of people my age, which means I will have to mingle from time to time. Another small price to pay. Neighbors can be helpful and even nice as long as they don't consider my doors (and there are 4) always open to them. I'll be the exotic for a while, but not too long a while.

I have plans, like planters full of growing food on the decks until I get the greenhouse built, up, and running. I did notice that one of the outbuildings is a lot larger than I thought. That has possibilities too. David suggested a chicken coop, but I don't plan on raising chickens. I'll figure out something.

There are the 2 outbuildings, and the one on the left is the larger of the two. It's a nice size for an office or gaol for miscreants or maybe a place to hide from irritating neighbors. It used to be the pump house. Or maybe that is the other shed on the right. I'll check it out again when I go up there.

That's a nicer close-up, but you can't see the picnic table on the other side. More pictures will be required. 


Right now, it's all organizing and planning and forcing myself to pack, knowing I will eventually have to unpack. I hate both jobs, but I will do them and I will get them done before the movers descend on the 3rd.

The hardest problem I've run into is setting up a change of address with the post office. Not only do they mess up my mail, but they charge for changing my address on line -- twice -- and claim that I'm doing it wrong and my debit card doesn't work, in spite of charging me twice for the service. Not only do the snails get stuck in their slime trails, but they evidently look upon me as one of the millions of people willing to give up their money to fund their business, which has been failing for years. After the experience of dealing with the mail carrier at this address for more than 5 years, I understand why.

No matter what happens here, the bills keep coming and I still have to pay for them. Luckily, I planned that into my budget and I should be all right. Better than all right since the mover will charge me less than I expected and I'm keeping my money unspent. I'll save a lot over the next 12 months while building my nonexistent crediting rating into an actual credit rating. No more living off the grid if I expect to buy this house.

And so it goes.

On my down from the house on Saturday last, I took a few pictures.  These pictures are of the cabin and outbuilding that are going back to the earth. They look much older than what has popped up over recent years and may even date back to the 19th century. I'll have to do some research and find out.

The outbuilding but not a great view. I'll have to get out of the car next time.

The cabin. I'm torn between wanting to salvage the wood and rebuilding it. Since I don't own the land, that isn't possible. I'll check into it. It's far enough away from my house to be a great guest house and could be a great vacation property if it can be restored.

Don't forget to click on the photos to see them better. 

That is all. Disperse.

The Good Men

Three weeks ago when I was told by the bank that I would have to leave my home of 6 years, I was thrown back into a place where I did not want and had not expected to be - back to apartment hunting. I found a place I liked and contacted the owner who was enthusiastic (at first) to rent her house to me. Three bedrooms and 2 baths and a kitchen to die for. I wanted the house the moment I saw the photos. That was not to be. After that initial burst of communications and promises, and asking her to send the application, I heard nothing more.

Did I offend her? Did I not praise the place too much? Did I not move quickly enough? What had I done wrong? These are all default positions for me.

I found her Yahoo! email and forwarded my messages to her there and waited, but did not sit idle. I kept looking and found a 1-bedroom house 2 blocks away. It was spacious and had a bay window with a tiled window seat. I had visions of sitting in the window seat reading or just watching the seasons change and people go by. Against my better judgment, I paid the $30 fee and put in my application. I also had to forward copies of 3 pay stubs and provide a phone number for the previous landlord, the one who lost $2 million in properties, my house and the one next door included, to foreclosure. That was Tuesday. That day everything changed.

I called about another apartment in Divide, Colorado west of Colorado Springs and up Hwy 24. As I spoke with the landlord I found he and I had similar feelings about application fees. His father owned a property in Florissant he was getting ready to sell. Would I like to speak with his father about buying the house and 3 acres? Of course, especially since his father owned the house free and clear and would be willing to hold the mortgage note and take my payments directly. Then everything hit the fast track.

The next day after running the numbers and my meager resources, I decided I had to tell David I couldn't afford to accept his offer. It was outside my budget.  He said, "We'll make it work. I want you to have the house. Whatever it takes we will do. I don't need the money; I have more than I can spend now."

We agreed on a monthly rate I could afford and then I called the realtor about the house 2 blocks away. I listened as she told me they had not received a call back from my previous landlord. No surprise there. I explained she probably wouldn't any time soon. Then she told me my employer had not called back so they couldn't verify my income.

Uh, excuse me, but they had 3 pay stubs and my 2013 tax return and a bank statement proving my deposits. The pay stubs had the name of the company on them and waiting for a call from my employer was no longer necessary, but I didn't tell her that. Instead, I told her to cancel my application. I was buying a house in Florissant. She sounded a bit deflated, but I felt powerful and good. I was no longer at her mercy, or the mercy of any realtor any more. I was buying my own home.

Things have progressed since last week and I have been up to the house. I hate the pattern on the commercial carpets, but they are durable and thick and I know how to use area and throw rugs to best effect. Not a problem. A few minor things still need to be done, e.g.; rods for the closets, shower rods for the 2 bathrooms, phone jacks throughout the house, and a few other little details, like tightening up the hand rails all the stairs and both decks. David agreed to all of it quickly, and he agreed to remove the trash from the build before I move in next month.

But there must be a fly in this ointment. A sick feeling came over me that somehow, some way I was about to be screwed. Talking to David again last night and this morning have removed that doubt. His son Mike, the man I originally called about the apartment in Divide, will move all my things from this poky little cottage to the most beautiful home I have ever lived in -- and the first I've ever owned. He will also hook up my washer and dryer and help set up everything. This is real. I am moving. But there is more.

I found out through the realtor that David had been held in a concentration camp, specifically Auschwitz. He was taken there with his family in 1940 when he was 13 years old and was liberated by the Americans under General Patton in 1945 when he was 18 years old. That is one hell of an 18th birthday present. David was liberated without his family, all of whom died in Auschwitz. I knew he had come from Poland to the United States, but I did not know he had been imprisoned for 5 years.

Susan, the realtor, suggested I offer to write David's memoirs. I am a writer after all. I spoke with David and he agreed, so what was initially a casual acquaintance willing to sell me his house and hold the mortgage for me has become much more. He put me in touch with Susan, the realtor, to handle the paperwork, and Susan put me in touch with Ingrid who is a mortgage broker and will help me establish credit.

This man who knows nothing about me other than that I was looking for a house, has become a part of my life, and not just because of the house but because of his generosity and his indomitable spirit.

David and my father were both born in 1927. Their lives were so very different. Dad began his military career in about 1949 and David began his life as a free man, a citizen of the United States in 1949. The link they share is me. My father was a good man and that is the highest compliment any man can get. David is also a good man, not just because of what he has done for me, but because he is a good man. I have been privileged to know them both.

Just when I thought I had no options, I found options and the realization of a long held dream to own a cabin in the mountains here in Colorado. I don't have to wait 2 or 3 years; it is happening now and I am grateful.

If you like to read a little more about David, follow the link. The only thing that surprises me is that his own daughter, a newspaper reporter, never wrote about her father. Then again, maybe not so surprising, I never wrote about my father either, at least not in a memoir. Maybe now that will change as well. Two such good men should be celebrated and cherished.

The Return of the Prodigal Son?

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's release this week has posed more questions than answers, answers that will have to wait until Bergdahl speaks up about the 5 years he spent in Afghanistan as a prisoner. The debate over Bergdahl's actions and President Obama releasing 5 top Taliban captains, 3 in Intelligence and 2 high ranking military officers, have become tangled as anything where Obama is involved gets tangled, polarizing the nation and clouding Bergdahl's return to the United States.

Though the two incidents are connected, keeping the issues separate is important.  No sense tarring Bergdahl and Obama with the same brush.

Bergdahl walked off his post 5 years ago and was reportedly asking questions of people in the nearby town how to find the Taliban. He found them, but he may not have found what he went looking for. His sympathy for the people and his feelings about US military forces being in Afghanistan seem to be tangled together. What he felt when he walked off his post, what he was trying to do, and what he actually found are serious questions at the heart of the matter.

People all over the country have mixed feelings about Bergdahl returning home and he has been characterized as a traitor to his country. Traitors seldom get welcome home parades and people lining up to shaek their hands and pat them on the back. How could they when Bergdahl's actions have put him under a very dark and dangerous cloud? I sympathize, but at some point people need to be willing to sit back and wait for answers, listen to Bergdahl's story, and reserve judgment until he has faced a military tribunal.

I welcome Bergdahl home and I hope his health improves. He may not have found the welcome he expected when he walked off his post. He made a mistake.

There is also the possibility that Bergdahl has gone over to the other side and is now working for the Taliban as a sort of Manchurian Candidate. It is a possibility that cannot be excluded.

Trust is a hard thing, especially when someone tramples your trust under foot, as it seems Bergdahl did when he walked off his post to find the Taliban. Used to a different diet, he may simply have lost weight because food is scarcer or was less palatable to Bergdahl. The reports that show him cradling one of his arms could be a fake or it could be evidence of an injury. How many times have people allowed themselves to be injured or hurt or even shot and stabbed in order to give credence to the story that they were tortured or harmed? Maybe Bergdahl did try to escape because he became disillusioned by what he found when he encountered the Taliban or maybe that is another fake piece of the story so Bergdahl can come back to the United States and feed information back to his Afghan friends. All of this must also be considered.

Knowing all that, how can people not be reserved with Bergdahl? How can they trust him when he betrayed their trust -- or at least seemed to have betrayed the trust of his comrades in arms, his country, and his government? The Taliban is not beyond using such methods to gain the advantage. The Taliban created the fiction that an Afghan who was helping the US military in brokering a peace with the Taliban was actually a spy and had him arrested by the CIA. No Afghan peacemaker, no peace, and the CIA did all the dirty work. Is Bergdahl just another pawn in the Taliban's game? How will we know?

I read an article this morning that did its best to emotionally manipulate people by calling shame on Americans for not welcoming back Bergdahl with open arms and sweet forgiveness and blamed people for their cold reception of Bergdahl because of their hatred for Obama. That's going a bit far with the tar brush and feathers. Nothing like emotional manipulation to get your point across.

Obama's actions, though connected to Bergdahl, have nothing to do with Bergdahl and everything to do with releasing 5 Taliban captains to Qatar where Noorullah Noori has already said he will return to Afghanistan to continue fighting U.S. soldiers to force them out of his country. That was not a surprise and Obama, yesterday in Poland, already said he figured the released GITMO detainees would not stay in Qatar. Obama knew he was returning dangerous men back to the Taliban in Afghanistan by so doing. That constitutes actions that may finally end with Obama in prison for 10 years to life, as Judge Napolitano believes.

Obama ignored the law when he failed to notify Congress that he was spending U.S. tax dollars to send the 5 Taliban terrorists to Qatar and let them know he was trading the Taliban captains for Bergdahl. Once again, the focus is on Obama's actions and not Bergdahl. Obama ordered the release of the 5 Taliban terrorists and paid their way to Qatar with U.S. tax dollars without informing Congress of his plans. Using Taliban threats to kill Bergdahl if news was leaked is another red herring, especially since this deal has been in the works since December 2013. Good thing Obama didn't release the 15 Taliban prisoners at GITMO instead of just 5 or the American people would have stormed the White House and lynched Obama at Hell's Corner in front of the White House. 

No, we don't leave Americans behind on the battlefield, but that is not the point here with Bergdahl. He chose to leave his post to find the Taliban; he wasn't captured at his post. He did not fall in battle nor did he die attempting to save one of his comrades on the field of battle and ended as a hostage. He CHOSE to leave his post. He CHOSE to join the Taliban. He CHOSE to turn his back on his friends, his family, and his country. Bergdahl's father knew of his son's beliefs and feelings and told him to go with his heart. Bergdahl's heart was obviously not with the country that people would have us all believe he is returning to with relief and joy. That is part of the problem and why people are backing away from the Bergdahls, and not just because Bowe's father called down an Islamic blessing when addressing the country from the White House standing next to Obama. A person's religious beliefs are his own even when they make people wonder whose side the Bergdahls are on. Mr. Bergdahl certainly did not do Bowe any favors there and may be a good part of the reason why people are angry and turning their backs on the Bergdahls and on Bowe, the suspiciousness of Sgt. Bergdahl's actions aside.

No, people's anger at Obama and Bergdahl stem from separate actions. Do not mistake that. Forget all the emotional manipulation and look at the situations dispassionately, examine the facts. Most people were angry at Obama long before he traded 5 Taliban captains for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Those people, and the growing number of people who bought the whole hope and change mantra, have been angry for a while and every one of Obama's actions serve to deepen the anger and the rage that Congress has not impeached him or put him on trial for treason and malfeasance in office.

Bergdahl's actions as they come to light create a different kind of anger in people who believe in this country and loathe deserters. Bergdahl has not been committed of desertion, but if he is, it is a good thing war was never declared in Afghanistan or he would be put to death, cutting short the celebration of the returning prodigal son, and that may be what Bergdahl is, the proverbial prodigal son. Or he may be a traitor and an agent for the Taliban. The facts are not all in.

Until they are, welcome home, prodigal son, but be ready to answer for YOUR actions as Obama will have to answer for HIS actions. Though you and Obama are connected by circumstance, the future awaits the truth -- and the verdict. Trust must be earned, Sgt. Bergdahl.

As for Obama, he never had my trust and earning the trust of the people who have been lied to, cheated, and disillusioned may never return.

Moving House

My Uncle Bob suggested I get a 20-gauge shotgun since I nixed his first two suggestions: a dog and a man. It isn't that I don't like dogs or men, but that I'd rather not take on the responsibility for either.

They need so much time and attention and I"d rather spend my attention elsewhere. Besides, they have to be fed, watered, and walked on occasion and I'd rather not be held to that kind of schedule. They get so cranky and fractious when they don't get their twice daily walks. They are such creatures of habit and prefer to stick to a schedule.

The only schedule I will deal with is the schedule I have to follow when working for my employer, and, if things go well, I won't have to do that much longer. Once I get my cottage (or cabin) industry up and running, I will quit and work only for myself.

I'll need a rifle for hunting and I called Beanie to have her ask her husband, Dan, what he things would be a good all around hunting gun. I think I can safely rule out an elephant gun since there are no elephants at the altitude.

Yes, I have hunted, but not in many years (dare I say, decades?), but I remember how. I might even take up bow hunting or just archery for the exercise and to hone my abilities. You never know when I might need to fend off an attack of zombies, which reminds me I need to find a way to keep the deck clear of zombie incursions.

I'll have to hire someone to rig some kind of barrier on the stairs leading up to the deck. If they can't get through, they can't get to me and I can sit on the deck and pick them off at will. These things must be figured into future plans.

Now there is when a generator would come in very handy, especially if I put it in the crawl space where it's surrounding by cement walls. Maybe a ladder or stairs down into the crawl space. It's unusual in that you can actually stand up down there and would provide protection and a great panic room. Supplies could be stored down there.

So much to do, so many plans yet to be made, and a wide open future filled with possibilities. Yes, Jeff, I am still giddy.

The Wind From One Door Closing...

Since the negotiations between Amazon and Hachette have made the news with authors chiming in on both sides, the old Chinese curse has become a reality. We do indeed live in interesting times.

We also live in times that are lagging far behind the 21st century and the technological age. The Big-5 publishers, Hachette, included are working with the old publishing model, even though these media conglomerates have gobbled up every major publisher, and have become mega-corporations with tens of billions of dollars in business and profit every year. Though they claim to be preserving the future of publishing so there will always be books, it's rather like a member of the 1% claiming to understand what it is like for the middle and lower classes of people getting by from paycheck to paycheck and wanting enough disposable income to buy the books they want. In short, that dog won't hunt.

In easier to understand words, the 1% does not have a clue.

Make no mistake, Hachette and the other members of the Big-5 belong to the 1%, as Barry Eisler writes in The Guardian. As Eisler states, "[The Big-5] have done all they can to try to keep the prices of books artificially high, which hurts consumers and costs authors money. They have a record of zero innovation. And they've run the industry for decades in a way that has benefited the few while stifling new opportunities for the many."

James Patterson, multi-million dollar author and employer of a cadre of writers to help churn out 13 books a year, has bought some pretty expensive ads to brand Amazon the bad guy. Did I mention Patterson is a Hachette author? No smoking gun there.

Patterson decries the loss of Mom and Pop bookstores when he should, as Eisler put it, "...reconsider their anti-Amazon ideology, which at root is an attempt to stop the evolution of publishing itself. Because indie authors are the mom-and-pop shops of publishing. And the 1 percent's war on Amazon risks turning us into collateral damage."

Despite this war on Amazon and Hachette claiming to the victim of Amazon's bullying (at least as seen by author, John Greene ), a great opportunity is being lost. This is the 21st century and we live in an age of technological marvels with the life span of a mayfly. In order to compete and stay in business, bookstores need to move with the times, do what Amazon has done, and remodel their businesses. It's time to stop relying on returning thousands of books for full refunds, as they have since the Great Depression when publishers needed to keep bookstores open to sell books, and find a new path through the wilderness. One thing bookstores can be certain of is that books are not going away any time soon.

Amazon puts the customer first and that is what has taken Jeff Bezos's business from his parents' garage into a billion dollars international business. Bezos saw the future and he used technology to create a new business model, one that Hachette and the rest of the Big-5 want to dismantle.

Small bookstores should ask what customers need and want and make that happen. One bookstore turned an old mansion into a haven for customers with niches and nooks and comfortable spots to kick back, relax, and read. They made their store a comfortable place to enjoy a book for an hour or three. It's a step in the right direction, but doesn't go far enough.

How about charging stations for cell phones, tablets, eReaders, and laptops? Charge a small fee for the convenience.

Download stations for eBooks would be a good idea. No charge, just a secure line to do business from whatever store the customer chooses. The customer will repay the owners by spending more time in the store and end up buying books. Owners could also get a license to offer eBooks on every platform available for reading eBooks and offer accessories, skins, and trade-ins (or trade-ups) for all devices. Give customers a sample of whatever book they're considering or bundle print and eBook at a good price. The technology is available, so why not move with the times?

There are machines that print books in minutes, so why not buy a few and offer to print a customer's book in the store? The Espresso Book Machine would be perfect for that, and there are machines from other companies so you can shop price and availability.

Why not have a repair shop for laptops, tablets, and eReaders? Carry the parts and make repairs while the customers waits -- and reads. Another option would be to offer a loaner while their machine is being repaired. Think outside the box.

Host author evenings and round tables. Be THE place to go to discuss books and genres with published authors, beginning with local authors. Be a favored spot on a book tour. Offer classes in writing and editing for hopefuls and provide a comfortable setting for meetings. Start a book club or host other book clubs at the store. The possibilities are endless.

Instead of hanging signs predicting the Death of Books or the End of Books, strike out into the future with a new plan and forge a future in the ever changing print and digital world. The end is not near unless you have no vision and want to, like Hachette, blame Amazon for all your troubles. Closing one door doesn't mean being stuck in limbo or dying a slow and painful death. Another door will open, but one has to have the vision and guts to make a new door.

Let the world choose sides while Hachette and the rest of the Big-5 pretend to be victims of Amazon's innovation and forward thinking, but make a future that is all yours. It sounds like such a great idea, I may find some like-minded people and buy a bookstore going out of business to start my own. The future is here now. Be a part of it, change with the times, but don't complain if you get run over standing goggle-eyed while the train hits you. You've no one to blame but yourself.

Defining Bully

As negotiations between Hachette and Amazon heat up, writers have taken up the gauntlet on both sides and battle it out on in cyberspace and in print. Notable Hatchette authors (James Patterson, Scott Turow, and Nina Laden. Many Hachette authors and other interested parties from the Big-5 have labeled Amazon a bully. For writers and people with a good command of the English language, it seems they don't understand the definition of bully.

Merriam Webster defines a bully as a blustering browbeating person; especially :  one habitually cruel to others who are weaker; a hired ruffian.

Amazon does not fit the definition. Hachette is one fact of a 200-year-old mega-corporation. That would be the stronger of the two parties. One could say that Amazon has clout when it comes to book distribution, but there are other distributors, like Barnes & Noble.

Independent bookstores are also suitable venues for books, especially of the ink and paper type, and Hachette could continue doing business with those smaller distributors as they have since the Great Depression with the same contract that allows bookstores to return books months, even years after they were shipped. Doing business in the same old manner (fixing prices, 90% returns, and draconian contracts with authors) is what Hachette is doing its best to protect as it take the vanguard in the war between the Big-5 and Amazon.

Amazon does have clout, but Jeff Bezos continues to do business the way successful retailers always do business - by putting the customer first. Some books have been showing up at Amazon stores that formerly had their pre-order buttons removed, but that move was store policy when delivery of an item cannot be guaranteed. Once again, Hachette comes out the bully in that scenario since delaying shipments to force Amazon to knuckle under isn't working quite as well as they had hoped.

The Department of Justice has ordered Amazon and Hachette not to discuss negotiations until an accord has been reached. Amazon has kept mum and, on the surface, so has Hachette, except that no one muzzled the PR department at Hachette which is busily demonizing Amazon in the press and in letters to their authors to force Amazon to heel. Once again, Hachette looks the bully. Remember the definition: blustering, browbeating, habitually cruel to others who are weaker, hired ruffian. There is no doubt the employees in the PR department at Hachette and the Big-5 are earning their salaries with glee and laughing all the way to the bank. Demonizing the opponent is always such fun.

I tell people that when a discussion or debate descends to the point where one of the participants criticizes the opponents, slings mud, and begins calling names, that person is on the ropes and losing. Since I have yet to see anything from Amazon or Jeff Bezos while Hachette supporters and the PR department churns out claims of Amazon bullying the Big-5, I'd say that once again Hachette is doing the bullying.

What people seem to forget (one of the many instances) is that the money to fight and demonize Amazon comes from people buying books written by authors under contract to the Big-5. Authors get a very small piece of the pie unless they are proven international best sellers who have also sold movie rights and whose books are shipped in the millions for readers to buy and download, it would seem far smarter for Hachette and the other members of the Big-5 to pay more money to authors and less to PR departments engaged in mud-slinging. But what do I know? I haven't had a Big-5 publisher pick up any of my novels.

Instead of spouting the party line, it might be in authors' best interests to consider self-publishing or negotiating better contracts with the Big-5 or simply signing up with Amazon to get 70% of the publishing pie and monthly royalty payments where they can track their actual sales instead of being paid twice a year and getting publishing statistics that have been adulterated. After all, isn't 70% of the pie better than 25% for digital and 15% to 20% for print and being paid every month instead of twice a year?

Well, publishers take on more of the risk and can print more books? Publishers have editors and cover artists and all kinds of services that the average author doesn't want to have to deal with? You know what? Those services can be hired out for less than the Hachette and the other Big-5 charge for just being themselves.

PR departments do more than sling mud at Amazon. They also handle marketing and advertising. The funny thing is that the mid-list authors, the publishers' bread and butter writers, get very little of those services. Well, you might say, they don't sell as many books. That's true, but think how many more books those same midlist authors would sell if they got the kind of service that the big names get? And how little a slice of the royalty pie they would continue to get. Marketing and advertising can also be hired out - for less than Hachette and the Big-5 charge as the cost of doing business. Looks like the bully here is pretty obvious. The bully isn't taking lunch money, just the lion's share of the pie and leaving the crumbs to the authors without whom publishers would cease to exist.

Writers have been looking at this publishing thing from the wrong perspective and perspective is everything. It's the difference between seeing your spouse go down on someone else or just picking up the pieces of a broken glass.

All of the services that Hachette or the rest of the Big-5 can be bought for far less than what those same publishers charge and the author retains all the rights. Hachette and the Big-5 have convinced the world (that old PR department working over time again) that they are necessary because they have all the cards, rather like a card sharp stacking the deck when playing a bunch of rubes and marks, and just as lucrative -- for the publishers.

The world is changing, but entrenched publishers aren't changing with it. They spread the word that the end of the book is here and the sky is falling because they're not pulling all the strings while they downsize and use MBAs as editors and continue to suck the marrow out of publishing. What difference does it make if a book sold is digital or print? Digital takes up less space and requires one file sold repeatedly while print books are buried in landfills because bookstores haven't sold them and send them back for a full refund. Where is their ecological conscience? Where is their loving care of the environment as they chop down forests to make books that fall apart in 5 years or less on the shelves or end up in a landfill in New Jersey?

Publishers care about their bottom line, the same bottom line that gives them all the power and the rights while they pay slave wages to authors, negotiating the best deal for themselves and not for the writer. Publishers have no interest in being fair, but they will bully the rest of the world into believing they are the victims here.

They are not victims.

Publishers are parasites that have gotten sleek and fat off the hard work and dreams of others while skimming more of the cream off the top.

Authors need to start caring about the future, not only the future of their bottom line, but the future of books and the world in general. They could revolutionize the business by taking the strings into their own hands and doing business for themselves. Hire out the cover art, editing, marketing, PR and still keep more of the royalties than you're getting with Hachette and the rest of the Big-5 mega-corporation publishers. Sell your books in digital formats and use Print-on-Demand for hard cover and paperback books. Fewer books will be published at the outset, but you won't be stuck with bookstores sending books back for a full refund to be pulped and put into landfills. You can hire a manager or a boutique agency to do the heavy lifting while you write and still get more of the royalties than you are getting now.

Books won't die unless we kill them. Unless we, the writers, stop writing them. Unless we allow Hachette and the rest of the Big-5 bully us into giving up and giving in. The bully wearing the $5000 Italian suit and $6500 Italian shoes with the custom made silk shirts and designer ties and accessories is not on your side while he shares his 3-martini lunches with his confederates. The bully is never on your side.

Can you see who the real bully is now? Bully for you.

Bully when used as an adjective means excellent.

Home at Last

The proverb goes, The wind from a door closing opens another door.

If I ever doubt those words all I need do is remember what happened this week.

I called about an apartment in Divide, CO. While speaking with the landlord, Mike, we discussed application fees (a way to make money on properties without ever having to rent it out) and my plans 2-3 years down the line, which was to save enough money to buy my own home where I can paint walls or change the carpet or do whatever needs done without having to get permission or be constrained by a lease. I can't burn down the house, but then I never intended to. I need a place to live.

Mike said I should talk to his father, David, who had a property in Florissant he wanted to sell. David would carry the mortgage and I could rent to own. Could he give his dad my information and have him call me? Yes, yes, he could -- and he did.

David wanted to know if I minded being out away from town. Did I mind being secluded?. Could I handle living all alone? Would I be happy in a situation like that?

It was quickly clear this was what I wanted. As soon as I got off the phone, I searched and found the property and lots of pictures, one of which is above. The house has 3 bedrooms, 2-1/2 bathrooms, a barn turned into a garage that could withstand a nuclear attack, and a shed and it all sits on 3 acres of land. Wooded high desert land. Land with trees and space and it is heaven.

As I checked out costs and amenities (restaurant, bank, grocery store, etc.), I figured out I couldn't afford to pay the monthly amount he suggested and I would have to tell him no when he called the next morning, which I did. That's when he told me he would put the rate at a price I could afford. "I have enough money; I don't need to sell this to make money. I will work with you to make sure you can afford it."

I was flabbergasted. He would work with me . . . and he did, first by hooking me up with his realtor, who lives in the area, so I could get a better grasp of the costs of living up there. The costs are half what I'm paying here in Colorado Springs. I could go to town every 1-2 weeks and do all my running and chores at that time, just like when I lived up at the cabin in Tabernash. I can live with that. The realtor hooked me up with a mortgage broker who would help me establish credit and get the best deal for buying the house. There is no rush since David will let me pay him until that happens. Susan Vineyard, the realtor, will also help me get a USDA government loan to buy the house. Since the barn is now a garage, that will happen now.

Out of a call for an apartment I now will own a house, my own cabin in the mountains, which readers of this blog know has been my dream for many years, a dream that is now a reality.

I have plans for the property, like building a guest house that can be rented out to vacationers and where friends and family can come and stay when they visit. Yes, I have 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, but there are some people I can only take in small doses. A guest house is ideal. I want to install solar power and connect to the grid so I can sell my power back to the electric company and make a little money and help cut my own electric costs. I might even eventually install electric heating, which would be feasible with solar power. There's a lot of sun available in the mountains all year round at about 10,000 feet where I'll be living.

The first purchase on my list is a generator. I'll have to save for that, but I will have it before the end of the year. The deck furniture for the wrap-around deck can wait, and so can furniture for the other 2 bedrooms, living room, and dining room. Those can wait.

There are grants to check out. Hoity-toity told me about a government grant to grow trees on the land. I have plenty of land and trees already grow there, so that is an option. There are a whole lot of options for me now that I didn't have 2 weeks ago, or even 6 months ago, when this house went into foreclosure. I still have to move, but not to an apartment or some house that isn't even remotely close to what I need or want. I'm moving up into the mountains to my own cabin and eventually I'll be able to fill all of those cabinets in the kitchen. So much more is possible now than was possible 2 weeks ago or even 6 months ago. Of course I will have to deal with fixing the roof or buying a new furnace or hot water heater, but not for a long time since this house was built 6 months ago. I think, considering the garage will withstand a nuclear attack, that this house and its appliances and roof will last at least another 10 or 20 years. This house has a crawl space under the house you can stand up in. Yes, I am certain this house will last and I will be a homeowner with a mortgage and a credit rating at last -- still living on a budget. I might even be able to get back to writing and publishing more books.

Anything is possible because I will be home at last.

That is all. Disperse.

The Kris Kringle Formula

One of my favorite holiday movies is Miracle on 34th Street and one of my favorite scenes is where Kris Kringle in his lovely Santa Claus suit tells a mother that she can buy what her son wants to find under the tree Christmas morning by going to another store. The mother, played by Thelma Ritter (one of my favorite character actresses), is dumbfounded and says that from now on Macy's will get her business though she has avoided them in the past. Kris's actions are in the true spirit of Christmas and if Macy's will send people to other stores, like Gimbels, then Macy's just won a new customer.

That is a long way of getting into the point of this post, which is about Amazon. Amazon has built their business on giving customers what they want, even when it means offering third party sellers and telling them to go to Barnes & Noble or wherever customers can find what they want and need. The Big-5 publishers don't have the smarts of the Macy's owner who adopts Kris's policy and puts out a big book to show where products Macy's doesn't carry can be found elsewhere. The Big-5 publishers want to keep the lock on sales and distribution and pricing and keep authors from breaking out and going it on their own.

With the rise of boutique and small publishers, the Big-5 publishers began to lose their grip, but when Amazon came out with the Kindle and sales of eBooks went through the roof, the Big-5 claimed that would be the end of paper book sales in hardback and paperback. Except none of that happened. Yes, sales are down from previous years when all the books available were in paper form, but books are still getting out and books are still being read. Business has never been better for small publishers and readers alike. What's not to like about people buying and reading more books even if it is in digital form?

What's not to like is that paper and ink and paperback books with about a 5-year shelf life is not to like when Big-5 publishers have had the monopoly for so many decades -- and centuries. Authors going independent is nothing new nor are vanity publishers, but the likelihood of such authors getting any real fame and fortune out of the process, outside of Mark Twain or Jane Austen and the like, is like playing Roulette. The house always wins, and the Big-5 in their various earlier guises as smaller publishers before being gobbled up by conglomerates and media factories, held house odds. They were the House.

David Gaughran of Let's Get Visible had a lot to say about the Big-5 publishers' PR machine and what isn't being told by the media (owned by Big-5 publishing media services) about Amazon. Hatchette certainly is not going to pat Amazon on the back, offer a cigar to Jeff Bezos, and sign the current contract on the table. That would be their death knell. People would be able to buy Hatchette's books from Amazon at discounts that would cut into unlimited expense accounts and 3-martini lunches. You would think that the point is to get people buying books and reading more, which is what is happening, and not about the profitability of a $10 billion media conglomerate like Hatchette sending out PR bulletins that demonize Amazon.

David Gaughran writes, "The funny thing is readers don’t seem to have any problem finding books they love. Any readers I talk to have a time problem – reading lists a mile long and never enough hours in the day to read all the great books they are discovering.

The real discoverability problem in publishing is that readers are discovering (and enjoying) books that don’t come from the large publishers. What these publishers have is a competition problem not a discoverability problem." (The bolding is mine.) 

More writers are making the leap into self-publishing, but not at the diamond-studded rates of vanity publishers. Like the song says, "Sisters [and writers] are doing it for themselves," and they are doing it in increasing numbers.

Yes, there are some bad independently published books, but there are also some real dogs put out by the Big-5 too. I thought Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror was just such a bomb -- and so did the critics in spite of a media blitz worthy of Stephen King or David Baldacci and a PR budget that beggars the imagination of even the most well-heeled independent author. The Big-5 can afford it; they've been living off the backs of their solid and hard-working midlist writers for decades and exploiting those same authors' back-list shamelessly while giving very little to the authors, pleading poverty and low numbers. Well, if the Big-5 would put as much effort in midlist writers with a wide fan base even on the lukewarm advertising and promotion offered, they would make even more money, but those CEOs and fat cat Big-5 publishers with their golden parachutes and 7-figure incomes with bottomless expense accounts don't have the sense of R. H. Macy faced with Kris Kringle's manner of doing business so that kids get what they want under the tree Christmas morning. Those CEOs and fat cats are all about the bottom line and the black ink on their side of the balance sheet and to hell with authors, without whom they would cease to exist.

The thing is that the big publishers have sold the idea that it is their know-how, lakes of ink, forests of pulp paper, distribution, and marketing know-how that sells books and authors would be lost without them -- except authors are proving they don't need the Big-5 to make it big in publishing. Not everyone makes the kinds of money that J. A. Konrath or Amanda Hocking have made, but the field is opening up more and more as Amazon helps 99-cent book authors to rise above the pack and make their books worth reading and buying. It's the same idea that has always been true, it is more profitable to sell your product to 1000 buyers at $1 a pop than to sell 1 product for $1000 a pop, especially in this economy as we stand on the brink of a worldwide economic reset where countries are going bankrupt.

There are still reporters like Jeremy Greenfield who buy into the demonization of Amazon and dire predictions for the future of books, but the truth will out. The proof, as my Gram used to say, is in the pudding. And I know she wasn't the first or the last to repeat that phrase. Jeff Bezos and Amazon continue to prove that if you give the customers what they want, they will buy, and they will come back to buy more. Amazon offers everything under the sun from their own warehouses and from third party sellers right on their website and they don't play favorites with marketing algorithms so that their products get a bigger share of the space, no matter what you've been told or what the PR machine of Hatchette and the other Big-5 publishers and their media conglomerate owners pays millions to say. Judge for yourself and buy where you will. Amazon isn't the only game in town, but at least they play fairly with their customers. They also do not hold authors hostage. Can you say that of Hatchette or the other members of the Big-5?

Maybe it's time to follow Kris Kringle's formula and make sure the customers (the readers)-- and the authors -- get a fair shake.

What is the BLM really doing?

In the furor and fight over Cliven Bundy's cattle and the pointless finger pointing at his obvious racist comments, once again the water has been muddied and the real issue obscured.

Yes, Bundy did evade taxes for is cattle grazing on public land, but no one points out, except one representative from Texas who called Obama on it. He pointed out that calling in the national guard and SWAT teams and using government force was against the law and against what the Constitution laid out for intervention in these issues. Obama was heavy handed, and so was Harry Reid, who has the most to gain from the BLM destroying Bundy's cattle, which was a punitive action. Why wasn't the IRS called in to round up the cattle and sell them off to pay for Bundy's back taxes? That would have been the proper legal action. And why is the BLM controlling so much land in the west and southwest? Why has the BLM exempted Harry Reid and his son, both of whom stand to gain from a very big deal with China for that same BLM land and the resources under the ground? Follow the money.

Once again Obama uses an Executive Order in a land grab to circumvent the U.S. Constitution, but I don't see a lot about that on the news. The news may be waking up to the excesses and misuses of power that Obama has demonstrated from the beginning in violation and dismissal of the U.S. Constitution and none of the news services, outside of Fox News, have ever reported on it in a fair and impartial way. Fox News may not be impartial, but they do keep their eyes on the ball and go where the news takes them, no matter how they have been maligned and turned into a joke. But isn't that the refuge of wrong-doer, to demonize the ones that see their perfidy and put the news out there for everyone to see? I know it's how every person I've ever gone up against operates.

The whole point is to keep people off balance by pointing out the targeted person's flaws, like racist comments or bigoted actions, none of which have anything to do with the issue at hand. In this case, it is Obama's actions and treasons against the people of America and the U.S. Constitution. Bill Clinton was impeached for less and he only lied about a sexual relationship with one of his employees. The many instances of sexual harassment before, during, and after his presidency other issues for another post, and at least Clinton didn't commit treason as Obama has done. Yes, another topic for another post.

Everything that Obama has done in the Cliven Bundy issue and with illegal immigration works to destabilize this country. I saw a whole lot of men in tactical gear with guns pointed at Cliven Bundy and the people who arrived to stand by him. I saw American soldiers ready to fire on American citizens, but I have not seen that kind of might and fire power manning the border between the United States and Mexico when Obama was running Fast & Furious or when hordes of illegal immigrants were running across the border. Where is the BLM when those immigrants are damaging the land they are supposed to protect? They were probably out killing Bundy's cattle and gearing up for a fire fight against natural born American citizens instead of policing the border.

I might be more sympathetic if Obama was using all the might to protect the borders he has left wide open and keeping lands protected by the Bureau of Land Management from being trashed by drug lords, gun runners, and illegal immigrants rushing to get a piece of the Welfare pie. This is not over, but it should have never been an issue.

Isn't it about time more people like those who stood by Cliven Bundy come to the rescue of the beleaguered United States of America? Whatever the BLM is doing, it is not doing its job.

Review: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

While planning to go to New Orleans from Ft. Lauderdale, I was told two things: Do not eat the Lucky Dogs and read A Confederacy of Dunces so I would know why. John Kennedy Toole's novel was supposed to tell me everything I needed to know about New Orleans. I love books, especially new books I haven't read, so I picked up the book and read it. That was 1984.

Writing about the French Quarter and New Orleans again in my followup novel to Among Women, I decided to pick up A Confederacy of Dunces (for my Kindle) and read it again. It was like reading the book for the first time: a little baffling, but addictive, much like Lucky Dogs, which I used to sell in the French Quarter. Ignatius J. Reilly, the central character and troublemaker in the novel, works for Lucky Dogs under the name of Paradise Foods, Inc. Toole changed the name of the company, but not the name of the owner, and Clyde was still sending out vendors when I walked through their door in 1984, but that's another story for another time.

Ignatius Jacque Reilly is a behemoth of a man-child with a mammoth vocabulary and a fixation on ancient literature. He has a Masters Degree in literature but has never worked a day in his life. While waiting for his mother outside D. H. Holmes on Canal Street, he is accosted by Officer Mancuso, a New Orleans police officer, starting a near riot from which Mrs. Reilly extracts Ignatius and flees down the street to her car in the rain, backing into a house that will cost her more than $1000 and force her hermit son into the work force. It is Ignatius's trials and tribulations -- and chaos -- in the work force that is the central focus of A Confederacy of Dunces around which the other characters revolve. Ignatius is the black hole which devours everything -- or at least attempts to devour -- all in his path.

With his green hunting cap (ear flaps usually dangling) on his head and his voluminous parka and dangling scarf that looks more like a blanket, Ignatius trolls the waters of commerce wreaking havoc and sowing the seeds of chaos wherever he goes spouting his Medieval views on the world spouting Boethius and chastity. The one fixed point in Ignatius's life is the Minx, Myrna Minkoff, with whom he trades wit and social monkey wrenches in order to create a more perfect world in their disparate views and completely antithetical to each other. Myrna is free with her female charms and Ignatius keeps a death grip on his virginity, both struggling to bend the other to their view of the world.

John Kennedy Toole's vision of the world of New Orleans as seen through Ignatius J. Reilly's eyes and pyloric valve dysfunctions, was published in 1980, 11 years after his suicide. Toole's mother stormed the bastions at Tulane University to make her son's dreams of publication real, earning Toole a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981. Toole took his title from one of Johnathan Swift's essays: "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." Dunces abound in Toole's 1960s New Orleanian world from 30-year-old Ignatius right down the line through his alcohol baking and imbibing mother and her friends, among which Officer Mancuso numbers, right on to the denizens of the Night of Joy where Burma Jones, a colored porter working for slave wages to avoid a vagrancy charge, the owner, wife, and employees of Levy Pants, and right on to the Sergeant at the precinct who is determined to make Mancuso's life as miserable as possible. Peppered by letters and telegrams between Myrna Minkoff and Ignatius, A Confederacy of Dunces is a bloody train wreck that readers can't avoid watching until the last moment. 

Toole's vision of New Orleans was not too far from what I found in 1984, although with fewer dunces and and dark humor. Reading the novel again was as fresh as reading it for the first time and I was unable to put the book down until I had read the last word. Ignatius is equal parts humorous and shocking and the machinations of Santa Battaglia, Irene Reilly's bowling partner, matchmaker, and stirrer of pots, a sad and infuriating meddler. The exchanges between Gus Levy and his bored wife as she badgers Gus and begins yet another  new projects while going up and down on her exercise board ("Leave the board out of this.") provide more train wrecks to goggle at.

In short, join Ignatius on his downward spiral from his hermit's existence in his mother's home into the working world of New Orleans as his pyloric valve determines his actions while he reforms the world in his own image. A Confederacy of Dunces is 5/5 in my estimation.

Pompeii

Such an enigmatic city Pompeii seemed when I first read about it as a child. I was enthralled by the bodies encased in ash: a young slave girl protecting a baby, husband and wife holding hands, families sealed in their centuries' old tombs imprisoned in the ash that had turned to concrete, and wall painting as fresh as the day they were painted 2000 years ago.

I have since learned a great deal more about what really happened in Pompeii and how so many people died as their city was covered in volcanic ash and sealed with fireballs spewed from Mt. Vesuvius. Hidden history is revealed as we become more advanced and can understand what we are seeing.

And then there is Robert Harris's novel, The Last Days of Pompeii, and the movie made from his book, a movie that highlighted early Christian beliefs. I read the book after I'd seen the movie and was taken back to ancient Pompeii to walk its streets and mingle with the crowds at the coliseum where the gladiators fought and died. I thought I'd have a similar experience when I watched the new movie, Pompeii, last night with Kit Harington playing Milo, the gladiator who loved Cassia, a wealthy young woman far above his station as a slave.

One thing I didn't see in this remake was the Christian element so central to The Last Days of Pompeii. There was no sign of a Christian or lions, just anger, hatred, revenge, and moments of love.

There were echoes of Gladiator in the movie as Milo, known as the Celt, the last of his tribe, fought in the arena and faced down a Roman senator Corvus and his general, Proculus. Corvus  was intent on having Cassia as his wife, his cowed and obedient wife. Corvus had to deal with the slave gladiator and Cassia who had fled Rome to return to Pompeii because she loathed Corvus.

The movie is lavish with special effects as Mt. Vesuvius seethes and rains down fire and mud and ash on teeming Pompeii, a spectacular end as fireballs and ash rained in a day made night by the massive column of ash forked with lightning from the heat and static electricity and lovely in a deadly way. There are gladiatorial battles and poignant moments where Cassia and Milo bond over horses, one injured and the other terrified as it goes mad with the impending doom. The supporting cast is just as good and Harington is somber and dour and has abs chiseled from marble, all the more to enjoy.

I see elements of Russell Crowe in Gladiator throughout Pompeii as Milo bonds with a giant of a gladiator in Atticus, played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as he waits for the last bout in the arena that will make him a free man. The relationship between Atticus and Milo is similar to the friendship between Maximus and Juba, played by Djimon Hounsou. When Maximus is set against Joaquin Phoenix's Commodus and Milo against Corvus. Commodus sends Maximus and the gladiators to their death in a spectacle where history says they will die and Maximus rallies the gladiators to beat their opponents.

In the same manner, Milo and Atticus stand against the Romans re-enacting Corvus's destruction of Milo's Celtic horse lord tribe and kill their opponents.  Corvus sends his troops to kill Milo and Atticus just as Vulcan in the guise of Mt. Vesuvius extends a fiery godly hand and tears the ground from beneath their feet, razing buildings and toppling the citizens into the abyss that opens beneath their feet.

Pompeii is long on special effects, but the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius 2000 years ago was a spectacular display and deserves the effects. The story is simple and sad and there are beautiful moments immortalized in falling ash and lit by volcanic fires. Kit Harington is suitably buff and beautiful and the villains cowardly and evil. There are no gray shadings in this epic movie.

The movie deserves 5/5 stars for its special effects and 3/5 stars for the story line and acting, so I'll rate it 4/5. Not a bad outing for Kit Harington after his brilliant turn as Jon Snow in Game of Thrones on HBO and well within his skills as an actor, but I would like to see Harington try something a little more complex that gives him less time to brood and glower.

The Two Mildreds

Seeing the ads for the mini-series of Mildred Pierce gave me pause. I considered watching it, but decided not to at first. I saw Joan Crawford in her Oscar winning performance of the devoted mother who used her only talents to become wealthy and didn't want to see hash made out of a good performance.

I am the curious sort, not just in the usual eccentric way (I am a writer after all), but in the cat got killed because of curiosity way. I decided to spend part of my weekend (the usual 2-day kind since I work for hospitals that never close) and devoted 5 hours to watching Kate Winslet as Mildred Pierce.

Kate Winslet is one of my favorite actors because she is outspoken and irreverent and says exactly what she means. She was a revelation. Where Joan Crawford was vulnerable and sometimes brittle, Winslet was nuanced and sometimes ferocious. Both loved Veda, but the quality of love was very different even if the results were not.

Veda was a cunning and evil child even when she was a child, which was probably until she could focus her eyes and crawl, none of which was on the screen. Veda in the movie and mini-series was 11 years old to begin and at least 20 by the end. The actresses portraying Veda, Ann Blyth in the 1945 version and Morgan Turner as the child and Evan Rachel Wood as the luminous and beautiful older Veda in the 2011 mini-series. All three portrayed the cunning, venom-soaked fangs that PR writers termed spoiled in ad copy. I see Veda not as spoiled, because Mildred lavished just as much love and attention and material things on Kay/Moire (Ray) and spoiled her, but Kay/Moire was never as cunning or manipulative or downright evil as Veda.

The lines were often the same in both views of Mildred, but Winslet's Mildred had a lot more time (5 hours) to work in subtle details and nuance where Crawford only had 111 minutes. Big difference. The ending was also a big difference in the series and not what I expected, even though Veda's exit was the same in tone in both: calm, cool, collected, and still smiling while venom dripped from her bloody fangs.

Briefly, Mildred Pierce is about a woman from humble beginnings who marries an upper middle class man on the way up who loses his shirt. Mildred, determined to give her girls what she never had, works in a diner and eventually uses that experience and her own skills at cooking and baking to open her own restaurant, which soon turns into a chain of restaurants. She marries Monty Beragon, a wealthy, down on his luck ne'er do well without a cent, to give Veda what she has always wanted - social position. Veda just cannot countenance Mildred's rise in finances because Mildred made the money in a kitchen and smell of grease.

In comparing and contrasting the performances, Winslet does a wonderful job of portraying Mildred. Winslet has far more to work with in 5 hours than did Crawford in her 111 minutes, but I would give 5 stars to both performances and encourage you to watch both. I certainly do not regret the 5 hours I spent with Winslet's Mildred and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Crawford's Mildred again last night.

What really comes through is the affection and love between Mildred and her first husband, Bert Pierce, a fondness that provides a strong thread that runs through movie and mini-series and shows a softer side of Mildred throughout while glamorous Monte Beragon shows Mildred's awakening passion and fleeting infatuation. Wally as portrayed by Jack Carson is crude and his charm sharp-edged while James Le Gros's Wally is a bit more lovable and just as underhanded and double-dealing with a paunch.

Zachary Scott as the 1945 Monte Beragon is slick as a moray eel and twice as deadly in a smoothly oiled manner. Guy Pearce's Monte is a smooth and calculating sensualist who shows glimmers of real affection for Winslet's Mildred, but in the end is just as tousled and betrays as easily as Scott's Monte, although Pearce's Monte is less tailored and a bit boyish in a tousled way.

Mare Winningham's Ida is down to earth and no-nonsense and Eve Arden's Ida is cut from the same cloth as all of Arden's sharp-tongued and intelligent supporting characters portrayed with self-deprecating humor. In the 2011 version of Mildred Pierce Melissa Leo as Lucy Gessler guides and supports Mildred as she moves into grass widowhood and on into business. I would be willing to bet the 1945 version combined Lucy and Ida to create Eve Arden's character of Ida to keep the cast smaller. There are elements of the 2011 Lucy and Ida in Arden's performance, although they lost Lucy's booze running husband, a character mentioned but never seen in the 2011 version.

Now all I have to do is get James Cain's book, Mildred Pierce, and see what he intended when he wrote the story. That should be interesting as Cain also wrote The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity as well as several other murder/mystery/thrillers.

A Lot of Amazon-Hatchette News, A Little Crow

More news comes out about the Amazon-Hatchette title bout and this time Amazon breaks with tradition by speaking out. Amazon has made an offer to Hatchette, but also says that they are not hopeful about Hatchette accepting. The negotiations have been going on since November, so I am not surprised Amazon has that take on things. They would know since they are facing Hatchette across the bargaining table.

Joe Konrath has it all on his blog -- along with a helping of crow.

Take the time to actually click on the links and read other viewpoints. I did and I found them very interesting and enlightening, especially when it came to reading the graph on churn among the Big 5.

Author Earnings had this to say about the drop in sales:

"Our focus on Amazon Kindle sales prevents us from seeing any possible corresponding increase of Hachette sales at other digital retailers to offset these declines, but we can say that the increase in the average price of Hachette’s e-books is having an effect on sales. It could also be that various Amazon algorithms and recommendation tweaks are contributing to the decreased sales. The big lesson is this: Across the Big-5 publishers, lowering average e-book prices correlated with higher per-title revenue. Increasing e-book prices correlated with lower per-title revenue.

This bears repeating, and it’s a lesson publishers could take from self-published authors: Lower prices means earning more money. We understand that this is counter-intuitive, but our data bears this out. And it’s a truth that many authors have seen for themselves as they experiment with prices. Which raises the question of whether or not publishers would even benefit from control over e-book prices. It could be that the worst thing for Hachette’s bottom line would be to get what they’re asking for in these negotiations."

I found Martin Shepard, co-owner of the Permanent Press, a small literary publisher based in Sag Harbor, NY, to offer an enlightened view about who the New York Times interviewed for their article on May 24. It shines a bright light on what went into the NYT's research.

"Who are the other publishers that are crying out? Hachette, the fourth largest of the five conglomerate publishers (who together , through all their more than a hundred imprints sell  85% percent of the books sold to the general public in America). Eddy and Streitfeld then makes passing reference to a third publisher, Bonnier, based in Germany, known primarily for publishing magazines throughout the Western world and far fewer books. As for the outpouring of social media they cite two of Hachette’s best-selling writers:  James Patterson, a writing factory, who, in 2013, “wrote” 13 Alex Cross thrillers alone, using numerous co-writers, which is why one out of five hardcover books sold bears his name. Though he reportedly earned $80 million dollars last year, he described the confrontation between Amazon and Hachette as “a war.“ The other social media complaint about Amazon came from Nina Laden, who writes and illustrates children’s books."

I knew that James Patterson, a Hatchette author, worked much like James Michener did with his massive tomes, but seeing it verified makes me feel so mcuh better than I did about how many books and stories I write every year. Then again, I do have a full time job -- 2 full times jobs if you count reviewing books -- and cannot write as much as I would like since I'm busy making the money to pay for a roof over my head and food to fuel my continued existence.

Hybrid author, Michael J. Sullivan, throws his 2 cents into the mix and comes up with some good advice for publishers.

"Of course many people wisely point out that Amazon may apply similar pressure to self-published titles, and I have no illusions about the long term prospect of a 70% royalty. But even if Amazon cuts the self-publishing royalty rate in half, they would still be paying twice as much as I get under the current Hachette contract where ebook royalties are split 30% to Amazon, 52.5% to the publisher, and 17.5% to the author.

What do I think should happen? Well first off, publishers have to realize that getting $3 for every $1 that an author makes on ebooks just isn’t fair. Ironically, they are feeling the same pressure from Amazon that they apply to authors—requesting a higher share because they hold a strategic advantage. I’m sure both Amazon and authors look at the publisher’s 52.5% and can’t help but think more should come their way, but unlike Amazon authors are powerless. The big-five publishers are remarkably uniform in paying 25% of net on ebooks, so the author has to either accept that rate or go the route of self-publishing. If I could set the terms, I would suggest 30% to Amazon, 35% to the publishers, and 35% to the author.

What can authors do in such an environment? I suggest we each develop a direct sales channel with our readers. In my Hachette contract, I was able to negotiate the ability to sell signed copies of my print books from my website. Since I buy the books from my publisher at a discount similar to what they receive from bookstores, they get their share. I would love to sell my Hachette ebooks as well, and I would willingly pay my publisher their cut from any money I brought in. I’ve not been successful getting this provision from Hachette, but for my latest novel, Hollow World, I retained the ebook rights, so for that title I sell both ebook and print versions. The problem is readers don’t know I sell directly, but if this became more common, it would solve any disruptions when the publisher and retailer are battling."

A hybrid author keeps some of his rights, like digital publishing, while selling some rights to publishers. Digital Book World offers a good explanation.  Amanda Hocking is also a hybrid author. When it comes down to it, I think more authors will go hybrid in the future - or at least they should since they retain more control over pricing and and discounts.

Whatever happens between Amazon and Hatchette in their contract negotiations, please keep in mind that Amazon is not the only game in town. It's the fastest and easiest game, but even Amazon suggests buying from third party sellers and going to other bookstores for your favorite author fix. If price is a concern, learn patience and explore other books that are available. It's one way to expand your horizons and find new authors to love and read.

And don't forget to catch Joe's meal of crow. He eats it with consummate grace and humor. 

"If you missed me saying it earlier, I was wrong. I'd still like to get more data confirming that, but if Amazon and Macmillan did compensate authors, I leaped to a lazy conclusion in my haste to chastise a publisher, and I apologize for that and am grateful someone corrected me. Good going, Macmillan, for taking care of your authors.

And to my many detractors, crow sort of tastes like chicken. Humble chicken. I don't have a problem admitting when I'm wrong."

Hatchette v. Amazon: The Writing is on the Wall

I learned the meaning a new word this morning - fisking. A point-by-point criticism of someone else's blog post. That is what Joe Konrath does with Hatchette author, Charles Stross.

I fail to see why exactly Hatchette authors are so busy supporting a multinational mega-corporation that has only its best interests at heart. I know. Stockholm Syndrome. It's the same reason Patty Hearst was seen on camera in a bank supporting the very people who kidnapped, tortured, and turned her to the Dark Side. She identified with her captors because she saw the cessation of torture as benevolence on the part of her captors. She became a Manchurian candidate, brain washed to believe that black is white and day is night. Understandable that the mind would protect itself by creating and believing in a fantasy world that has nothing in common with reality, at least not the reality that most people live with.

I do see Hatchette's point. If they get Amazon to agree to their terms in negotiation, the consumer will be back with the old agency model fixing prices so the consumer will have no choice but to buy fewer books because they have to pay more for them. Isn't that what the Department of Justice declared was illegal back when Apple and the Big 5 (one of which was Hatchette) colluded to fix prices and keep them unusually high? It wasn't authors who won on that deal because they still saw less money than they should have since they were the motive force behind publishing and the reason for publishing's existence.

It seems that modern authors are less willing to go the route of Jane Austen, Anaïs Nin, Henry Miller, and thousands of others before and after them. Mark Twain went so far as to open his own publishing house to keep more of his earnings. It could be said that Mark Twain did that so he could spend more, and there is some truth to that, but ultimately it was because he wanted to write books on his own terms, terms he wasn't being offered by publishers. Publishers refused Henry Miller a change to get his words out because they felt his work was pornographic. Having read all of Miller's books, I'd have to say that the sex in the books, although somewhat distasteful, was germane to the story he told, which was essentially a memoir. Miller wrote what he knew.

Jane Austen self-published because there were few publishers willing to print books by women, hence one of the reasons why so many women published under male names: Georges Sand, the Bronte sisters, and Andre Norton (Alice Mary Norton), among others.  C. J. Cherryh made up her name for the same reason and the Bronte sisters "...chose the neutral pen-names of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, not wishing to expose themselves to the prejudice or the condescension then often displayed by critics towards women writers, but scrupling to take names positively masculine." Thus they cloaked their identities. None of that would have been necessary had publishing been more catholic in their acquisition of writers of both genders. 

The point is that publishers have a vested interest in keeping writers thinking like hostages and Amazon has changed that. Even in the 21st century, women are considered second class citizens despite their best selling status. Even Oprah chooses more male writers for her book club. But that is a topic for another time.

The point is that Hatchette wants to control the price to keep their bank accounts hefty and flourishing while forcing their biggest distributor, Amazon, to knuckle under and not discount prices. Hatchette hasn't thought very hard on this subject or they would see that if Amazon follows the policy of high eBook prices then their customers will go elsewhere for books, like remainder bins and secondhand bookstores and third party sellers since they won't be able to afford to buy the books at Hatchette's inflated prices. Now that is what I call bottom line thinking, which is all about greed and not about doing what's best for authors. Hatchette authors would see that if they would just take off the blinkers and be willing to go independent or force publishers to give them better terms. Joe Konrath said it best when he said that Hatchette, and the other members of the Big 5 Publishers, own their asses.

Signing a publishing contract means you will likely be relegated to the mid-list, which also happens to be the engine that keeps the Big 5 running, while they cater to and give the Cadillac treatment to a small cadre of authors, like Scott Turow, James Patterson (who is basically a cottage industry churning out books by the dozens), and others.

A few years ago a budding writer acquaintance submitted a proposal to a literary agent. She was intent on getting a specific agent to represent her work and sent her proposal and a letter to said agent who turned her down without a second thought. We put our heads together and reworked the proposal for the nonfiction book and submitted it to a small publishing house. She got the contract, which she then took and immediately went back to the agent who had turned her down and asked for another chance. She got her chance and the agent signed her -- for the same book she had proposed earlier and been refused. What did the agent have to lose?

Nothing.

The agent didn't have to pitch the book to anyone. She didn't have to work with the writer because the publisher's editor would do that. The agent didn't even have to break a sweat to sign on the dotted line to represent the author and take 15% of the profits for the life of the book because the author did all the work for her.

Hatchette is using the same tactic. They hold authors in bondage to onerous contracts that give them the rights to publish the authors' works and do what they will with them. Unless they are Turow or Patterson, the authors won't have control of cover art or marketing or anything but writing. Some authors find that an equable deal, but it's really not. They just sold their soul to the devil for 7-1/2 pieces of silver. Even Judas got the full 30 pieces first, but then he bargained for himself and didn't have a publisher taking 75% of his money for doing very little.

How many authors get the kind of media blitz that Patterson or Turow get? Especially in the midlist ranks? Andre Norton told me that her publishers never gave her more than a $35K advance because that is how many books usually sold. Of course, they didn't take into account that they were holding Norton's back list hostage and not reprinting the books and that Norton fans scoured secondhand bookstore shelves to own one of her books. Norton lived a good life, but she was by no means as wealthy as Turow or Patterson even though some of her books were optioned for movies. She just did not have the power and the publisher refused to let any of the power they did have slip through their fingers.

Publishing is slavery of a kind and Hatchette wants to keep its slaves ignorant of the facts and under the Hatchette thumb. Publishers tout their editing, marketing, cover art, and connections as the reason to stay with them since all of that would fall on poor authors' shoulders and take away from their time to write. Authors don't want to become publishers, they just want to write books. I guess authors haven't figured out they can hire someone to do the same thing publishers do for a small fee, or even a small percentage, and keep 85% to 90% of their profits. That is news that Hatchette and the other members of the Big 5 don't want authors to know.

The point is that Hatchette is just the first of the Big 5 to run this gauntlet with Amazon, not because Amazon is so powerful and putting the squeeze on Hatchette, but because Amazon keeps Hatchette in business by selling more books than any other outlet -- because Amazon keeps the prices low with deep discounts, discounts that Hatchette wants to control. And we are back to the same argument that the DOJ already ruled on 2 years ago. Hatchette still wants to fix prices and Amazon says NO.

If Hatchette wins against Amazon, book prices will go up and stay up and who really wants to pay $20 for an eBook when they can get 2 or even 6 books for the same price and buy Hatchette's authors' books secondhand or from remainder outlets? Even the math challenged can figure out that 2 and 6 are more than 1.

Hatchette is leading the charge for the rest of the Big 5. What happens to them will pave the way for the other publishers who want to keep fixing prices and keep them high. I don't think Amazon will lose this negotiation because Hatchette needs Amazon more than Amazon needs Hatchette and the rest of the Big 5. As that fact sinks into Hatchette's legal minds, they will be forced to negotiate and thus the rest of the Big 5 will fall into line. Ultimately, Amazon does not have to carry Hatchette authors, but Hatchette needs Amazon's consumers, and it has nothing to do with protecting their authors. They are protecting the usurious profits made on the backs of their authors.

The writing is on the wall.

It's Business

I have decided to speak out. No, it's not that strange, except that I haven't commented on the negotiations between Bi publisher, Hatchette Group, and Amazon. I have avoided eye contact just like when I live in a motel and refused to look into any transient patron's eyes lest they consider that a prelude to sex. It saved me many times and it's a real good policy in such situations. It's easier to avoid eye contact than to have to grab, twist, and pull when a casual glance ends up in a disagreement about sex with a man who refuses to take a polite no for an answer.

Amazon and Hatchette are in contract negotiations and heating up. Hatchette wants higher prices in eBooks and Amazon wants to maintain the right to lower prices below $10. This should not come as a surprise to Hatchette, who lost in a similar situation 2 years ago when they and 5 other Big Publishers decided to align with Apple to keep eBook prices high. Amazon won and now the contracts are being renegotiated, except Hatchette wants to keep those prices high and Amazon wants to keep them low.

Hatchette delays shipment of books to Amazon by 2-4 weeks and Amazon responds by removing the preorder button. Like I said, heating up. Hatchette then complains to its authors (getting 25% on eBook sales) and authors like Lilith Saintcrow complains to readers on her blog. (Side note: Lilith, it is fewer books not less books. You had problems with that when I edited your books years ago.) Joe Konrath responds by taking Lilith on point by point. Joe makes a good case and I'd have to agree with the Stockholm Syndrome here -- and with every Hatchette author who feels that Hatchette is being strong-armed by Amazon.

Here's the way retail works. I open a gas station and decide to cut my profit margin temporarily by offering lower prices than all the gas stations around me. More people fill up their vehicles at my gas station, thus saving them money and earning me more money by selling more gas (and sundries while they're waiting to fill up their Hummers, Mercedes, Volvos, Coopers, and Achievas). The other gas stations don't like losing revenue to me so they respond by lowering their prices below mine. I lower mine even further and they lower theirs and -- GAS WAR! Gas wars were big when I first learned to drive. The same goes for bookstores and any retail venue.

Lower prices are used to great effect in a movie, Bare Essence, where Tiger Hayes built a company with the philosophy that it is better to sell a good quality fragrance at a lower price, One bottle at $1000 an ounce is less effective than selling 1000 bottles at $1 an ounce.

On the face of it that seems counter productive to earnings, but it isn't, especially when you consider that 1000 people will tell their friends who will tell their friends and a multimillion dollar empire is built. That is how Jeff Bezos of Amazon took his company from his parents' garage to become the biggest retailer and publisher in the world.  Good business.

Amazon built their company on the promise that they would offer the lowest prices. An eBook that sells for nearly the cost of a hard cover book means only the die hard readers with money to burn will buy -- or will spend their entire budget on an author they love and hope they can find other books at secondhand stores and the library. Amazon continues to want the same thing -- eBooks selling for $9.99 or less. Hatchette wants to keep the prices high. Isn't that how they got in trouble with the Department of Justice (DOJ) in the first place when they banded together with their Big Publisher friends and Apple before and had to settle because they were in the wrong? Methinks Hatchette has learned nothing.

Hatchette has instead gone to their authors, authors like Lilith Saintcrow and James Patterson and Scott Turow (letters on Konrath's blog) to complain and those authors complained (whined) to the public. That is the beauty -- and the curse -- of social media on the World Wide Web.

The whine goes something like this: Amazon won't agree to Hatchette's terms and meany Amazon took off the preorder buttons so Hatchette won't be able to sell as many of my/our books and I lose money and can't feed my kids or pay my mortgage. Boo hoo. Hatchette needs those preorder buttons on Amazon to figure out how many books to print, even though eBooks aren't printed and you're not supposed to notice that.

Guess what, kiddies? Amazon could drop every single Hatchette author from their website and not sell any of their books except through third party buyers and where would that leave you? Amazon is not obligated to sell your books. How does that strike you?

The World Wide Web also keeps these blog posts and inanities forever. Keep that in mind.

Authors seem to forget that the old agency model where bookstores ordered books and didn't pay for them, sending them back to be buried in landfills has been the norm since Big Publishing helped book stores stay afloat during the Great Depression. Millions of books are trashed every year when bookstores send unsold books back to publishers. How much money did the authors make on those books?

Amazon is doing business and Hatchette is protecting its bottom line, the same bottom line that guarantees fancy lunches and travel on expense accounts out of the 75% royalties Big Publishers keep out of eBook sales while the authors are paying their mortgages and feeding their children on the measly 25% they get. Minus expenses, of course.

Amazon sells a lot of books and losing Amazon sales will hurt Big Publishing and eventually authors because authors don't have the guts to ask for higher royalties or take their back list and manuscripts into the indie market and sell their own eBooks for 70% of the profit. Something tells me the Stockholm Syndrome helps to block out those facts. (Remember Patty Hearst?) Or maybe the authors were so busy juggling finances and writing their next books to think that far ahead.

It is busines. It is not personal.  At least not to Amazon which is more than willing to sell Hatchette's books at a lower price. Gram always said some pie is better than no pie.

Hatchette will have to suck it up and sell more books to Barnes & Noble (those that remain) and independent bookstores and print books for libraries at a reduced cost more in line with smaller budgets libraries are working with these days. Good thing it doesn't take much effort to stock eBooks and transmit those to libraries and bookstores. Readers will just have to get used to paying high prices or going to the library more often.

No, Amazon is not the bad guy here. The bad guy is the same bad guy who lost that DOJ case 2 years ago and had to pay off. That would be Hatchette.

Say what you will -- and I am sure you will -- about Amazon's practices, but business is still business. Hatchette needs Amazon more than Amazon needs Hatchette and that is what sticks in Hatchette's craw.

Joe Konrath offers up Scott Turow and James Patterson's comments on this issue and lays them to rest. You wouldn't see any of this if you had to rely on newspapers, TV, and radio for your news. All of this would happen behind closed doors until it was signed, sealed, and delivered. The Internet makes playing tricks and dirty pool so much easier, but it also makes everything so much harder when there are people on the other side offering up common sense and facts instead of emotional appeals.

Lilith Saintcrow said it is up to the reader, and in a limited way that is true. If one of Hatchette's authors' books are not available on Amazon, I can find a bookstore that does carry it somewhere else in a matter of moments. The Internet takes the work and fuss out of checking out dozens of bookstores. And that is the point. Amazon is not the only game in town, but they are the quickest and fastest way to get the books I want, but not at hard cover prices. I will wait until the price drops below $10, even for authors I love and books I've anticipated. I'm 59 and have learned patience. If those other bookstores won't sell me an eBook from a Hatchette writer at a reasonable price, I'll buy a hard cover book from a third party seller or get it at a secondhand or remainder bookstore and the author will get nothing from me. Like I said, it's business.