By
Scott D. Parker
I’ve been planning out the new 2018 changes for my writing business and a question came to mind: when it comes to our online presence, are readers more likely to remember an author’s name or an author’s publishing house?
I think the answer is self-explanatory but let me tell you why I’m asking.
Currently, I maintain three websites: a blogspot one (my first and the one I’ve turned into my western pen name site); my mystery one (scottdennisparker.com), and one for my publishing company (quadrantfictionstudmio.com). It doesn’t take a whole lot of time to maintain, but I’m considering streamlining everything down to one, perhaps two sites. Ditto for my mailing lists (I have two). Longterm strategy is to convert at least one of my sites into an online store.
The majority of authors have websites keyed to their names: James Patterson, J. F. Penn, Dean Wesley Smith, Russell Blake, Mark Dawson, etc. A few, however, use a publishing house to serve at the main online presence. Kevin J. Anderson comes to mind (wordfire.com), the fellas at Sterling and Stone, and a few more. If you google “Kevin J. Anderson,” the first link is wordfire, complete with a tagline indicating it’s the office home of Anderson. When you consider ebook links are all hidden anyway, the actual URL doesn’t matter. Plus, readers are, by and large, computer savvy, so they’d be able to find a website.
But it’s our job as author to make it easier.
So, what do y’all do? Have a URL with your name or promote your publishing company? Or both?
Saturday, March 17, 2018
Friday, March 16, 2018
Good Girls
When I saw the previews for the new show Good Girls, I thought “Great, a TV series that should have been a movie.” How could anyone get a full season of television out of “hapless criminals rob a grocery store under a protection racket?” For whatever reason, I gave the first episode a shot, and before I knew it, I’d finished all three of the episodes that have aired. In spite of myself, I’m invested - and impressed.
Breaking Bad worked as well as it did because it started with a man who seemed relatable, in a situation so many Americans face. I’d also say it worked well because it was a drama. Good Girls takes a risk with similar subject matter in a comedic setting. What I love about the show is where it differs from Breaking Bad, through.
The show, true to its title, focuses on the issues that a group of three friends are struggling with. A mother living in poverty eleven years after becoming a teen mom, and trying to fight for custody of the gender non-confirming daughter her ex can’t seem to understand, a working class couple with a child suffering from a disease that can only be treated by a medication insurance won’t cover, and the suburban mom who thinks life is great until she discovers that not only is her husband cheating, but he’s blown all their money while she’s played the happy housewife.
All three need money fast. Their kids, their lives, everything is at stake. These are all incredibly American problems and, moreso, women’s problems. The show knows, without hitting the viewer over the head, that women are more likely to face poverty after divorce. The show knows that teen moms struggle long term in ways their male counterparts don’t. The show knows - and shows in heart breaking detail, how overburdened our healthcare system is, and how being black and poor means your doctor might not even bother to hear you when you speak.
The women in Good Girls don’t go traipsing into a life of crime because they’re bored housewives and need a thrill, they are desperate. In the second episode we see how insecure men confuse sex with power - through the eyes of the cheating husband facing the loss of his family, and through the eyes of one of the girls, who’s boss decides to use the knowledge of her crime to blackmail her into sex.
Even though the show is a comedy, the two scenes where he attempts to coerce sex from his employee are gut churning. The three friends continue to stand together and go deeper because the things on the line are unfathomable. Who could watch their child waste away waiting for an organ transplant? Who could let their friend be raped? Who could allow a dangerous criminal to show up at their friend’s home and interact with their children?
Some of my favorite crime stories feature hapless criminals, but the women in Good Girls aren’t hapless so much as inexperienced. Rather than counting on their lack of criminal experience for laughs, it pushes the characters further into trouble, backs them into a corner, and then delights in showing us how strong, fierce, and innovative they are.
It’s only three episodes in, and anything could happen, but I’m hopeful. The cast is great, the writing feels honest, and it’s a great crime story unfolding. I like seeing a woman led story dealing with real issues that can sill focus on being entertaining and funny while we contemplate what we would do if the American Dream fell in on is the way it has done to so many of our neighbors.
Breaking Bad worked as well as it did because it started with a man who seemed relatable, in a situation so many Americans face. I’d also say it worked well because it was a drama. Good Girls takes a risk with similar subject matter in a comedic setting. What I love about the show is where it differs from Breaking Bad, through.
The show, true to its title, focuses on the issues that a group of three friends are struggling with. A mother living in poverty eleven years after becoming a teen mom, and trying to fight for custody of the gender non-confirming daughter her ex can’t seem to understand, a working class couple with a child suffering from a disease that can only be treated by a medication insurance won’t cover, and the suburban mom who thinks life is great until she discovers that not only is her husband cheating, but he’s blown all their money while she’s played the happy housewife.
All three need money fast. Their kids, their lives, everything is at stake. These are all incredibly American problems and, moreso, women’s problems. The show knows, without hitting the viewer over the head, that women are more likely to face poverty after divorce. The show knows that teen moms struggle long term in ways their male counterparts don’t. The show knows - and shows in heart breaking detail, how overburdened our healthcare system is, and how being black and poor means your doctor might not even bother to hear you when you speak.
The women in Good Girls don’t go traipsing into a life of crime because they’re bored housewives and need a thrill, they are desperate. In the second episode we see how insecure men confuse sex with power - through the eyes of the cheating husband facing the loss of his family, and through the eyes of one of the girls, who’s boss decides to use the knowledge of her crime to blackmail her into sex.
Even though the show is a comedy, the two scenes where he attempts to coerce sex from his employee are gut churning. The three friends continue to stand together and go deeper because the things on the line are unfathomable. Who could watch their child waste away waiting for an organ transplant? Who could let their friend be raped? Who could allow a dangerous criminal to show up at their friend’s home and interact with their children?
Some of my favorite crime stories feature hapless criminals, but the women in Good Girls aren’t hapless so much as inexperienced. Rather than counting on their lack of criminal experience for laughs, it pushes the characters further into trouble, backs them into a corner, and then delights in showing us how strong, fierce, and innovative they are.
It’s only three episodes in, and anything could happen, but I’m hopeful. The cast is great, the writing feels honest, and it’s a great crime story unfolding. I like seeing a woman led story dealing with real issues that can sill focus on being entertaining and funny while we contemplate what we would do if the American Dream fell in on is the way it has done to so many of our neighbors.
Thursday, March 15, 2018
Audio Best Seller Lists
By Sam Belacqua
I've never been a fan of Best Seller lists. I read a John Grisham book once and enjoyed it.
I started some Dan Brown, but couldn't stand the way he doesn't get sentences. So I switched to audiobooks and enjoyed that. His stories are better if you don't look at them.
I listen to books, though not as much as I listen to podcasts. Still, though. Books. On audio.
So usually I look at Audible when they tell me I have a credit to see what I want to get. The picks selected Just For me are always shit, because I've made some bad choices in my life. Honestly, you use an Audible credit on one goddamn Joe Abercrombie book and it's nothing but blades and breasts as far as the ear can hear. (The Abercrombie was fine, btw.)
Well, now, ON THURSDAY MORNINGS WHICH IS RIGHT NOW (unless it's not), the NYTimes is publishing its audio best sellers list.
The New York Times to Launch Monthly Audiobook Best-Seller Lists
03/05/2018NEW YORK, March 5, 2018 – The New York Times announced today that it will publish monthly Audiobook Best-Seller Lists for the first time, featuring the top 15 fiction and top 15 nonfiction audiobook lists, based on sales from the previous month.
The lists, which combine digital and physical audio sales, will debut online on Thursday, March 8, and in print in the Sunday Book Review on March 18.
Moving forward, the Best-Seller Lists, which previously published online on Fridays, will now publish on Thursday mornings.
“The vibrant growth of audiobooks in the industry has created a need for an impartial, reliable source for tracking and reporting the top-selling audiobooks across the country,” said Pamela Paul, editor of The New York Times Book Review. “The Times recognizes the increased reader and listener interest in audiobooks, as well as in the Book Review's increasing depth of coverage of audiobooks, and we’re thrilled we’ll be able to provide them independent data they can rely on.”
The Book Review will continue to publish in print the Combined Lists and Hardcover Lists each week. The third page will highlight other Best-Seller Lists on a weekly rotating basis, including the following categories: Paperback (Trade Fiction and Paperback Nonfiction), the four Children’s Books lists, and Audiobooks.
The Children’s Books Lists and Paperback Lists will continue to be updated and posted weekly online, and in response to reader interest, the Paperback Lists will now expand from 10 books to 15.
The Times’s Best-Seller Lists are based on a detailed analysis of book sales from a wide range of retailers who provide The Times with specific and confidential context of their sales each week. These standards are applied consistently, across the board in order to provide Times readers our best assessment of which books are the most broadly popular at that time.
The Times’s Best-Seller Lists are the gold standard because of their painstaking and careful methods of tracking sales. The Best-Seller Lists, while independent from our core news report, embody the same ethical standards and values as The Times newsroom.
All Best-Seller lists are available at www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/.
Have we had a Death of Ebooks story this week? Are audiobooks the Netflix of IPAs now? I can't keep up.
Anyway, I'm still mainly a podcasts in the ears guy. Vox's podcast WEEDS is my current listen. FiveThirtyEight does good stuff, too. You can Google them if you want. You have the same internet I do, lazybones.
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