Status Update>Status Symbol

Very hot here today. I’m tired of feeling like I’m inside a heater when I drive on days like this. Please buy my ebooks, paperbooks, screenplays, writing, films, and other things I that sell, so that I will be able to buy the hybrid Volvo (not yet released – with an AC motor on each wheel, the plans call for!), great engineering and handling, safety, style, stereo, and air-conditioning system!

In other news, it’s 7/11/11…7-11? Hmmm

Selling ebooks in AUD, Goodreads.com

One of my ebooks (Cyber) sold on the Australian iTunes/iBooks store. That’s a first for me, pretty cool, I think! The currency conversion rate from AUD to CAD is about even, maybe a little more in my favour, so that’s nice, too 😉

I started an author page on Goodreads.com – it’s a great place to go if you love reading and books: http://www.goodreads.com/davidsloma

Here is a post I made in a forum on Goodreads: “I agree that good editing (and proofing) is crucial for all authors, and especially so for those of us going indie. I find typos and mistakes in books, magazines, and newspapers all the time! So, there is no shortage of work for good editors/proof readers!

Unfortunately, the budget is not always there for a new author to hire pros to do this. So, I ask as many writer/reader friends as I can to help me proof my work. It’s been pretty successful so far. Often my beta readers will catch things I’ve missed.

But, sometimes mistakes still slip through. It bothers me when I find a typo in an ebook I’ve already launched! Of course, I correct it and upload a new version ASAP, but I can’t take back the disappointment from my paying readers who find a mistake.

One idea I’ve implemented is to ask my readers to let me know about any typos they find in my ebooks, and then I’ll make the corrections and send them an updated version. My goal is to send out as few revised copies as possible!”

Time to feed the social media June 21, 2011

Happy Summer! It’s Summer Solstice today, the longest day of the year!

Are you in the northern hemisphere? How the longest day of the year going for you, today? How’s Fall down under? It’ll be your Winter Solstice. What an amazing planet called Earth we live on! Summer in one part, winter in another!

<Insert witty author remarks here about: their first novel in publication, starting to sell, etc., etc., ad-nasuem, then a soft-pitch to buy his works. Repeat. Are you having a good day?>

A game. Can you name this quote? “Sometimes my arms bend back…” I wish I could find the exact clip, but here’s one that’s good, too! (for those who can’t see this – for some reason the links are not showing up on Goodreads – it’s a link to a scene from Twin Peaks, where Agent Cooper is in the Black Lodge with the small man who talks backwards, and Laura Palmer.)

Dang, these social media sure are eating a lot these days! How am I going to feed them all?

First sale of Brainjob today!

The first sale has been made! Thank you to the first reader to buy the ebook of my first novel Brainjob today! This is very exciting for me, and gratifying. Too bad Father’s Day was yesterday, because I’m really feeling like a proud papa right now! You can read a sample of it here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/62568

If you find any typos, let me know and I’ll send you a corrected ebook copy. Also, if you tell me how you found my work, I’ll send you an exclusive short ebook as a token of my appreciation. Please respond to the email address in the front of the ebook.

Short Stories Volume 1

My first short story collection is now available! It contains 7 short pieces in one reasonably priced edition.

The stories range from horror, to science fiction, to fantasy, and to the absurd.

Some of these stories have been published on their own, some have never been published before.

David Sloma – Short Stories Volume 1 includes:

-Cyber (A man and a woman find love inside a computer, but who is real? Previously published in Alien Skin Magazine.)
-Turkey Day Revenge (What would happen if turkeys were able to fight back?)
-Ugly Night (A dead body found on a weird dating adventure.)
-Simon and the Memes (High strangeness in the mind. Previously unpublished.)
-Halloween Sam The Candle Man (Is he a candle, or a man? Previously unpublished short screenplay.)
-Night Writer (Sex, booze, drugs, and a raccoon that writes and talks. Previously unpublished.)
-The Nine O’ Clock Cannon (An old woman’s memories and a big explosion every night. Previously unpublished.)

You can get it at:

Gumroad: I like to sell my work from there, as I get better royalty rates than other distributors and more control over how I distribute my work. They are available in the formats: EPUB, MOBI, PDF and there is a Send to Kindle function. Gumroad is Paypal enabled! Thank you for supporting an independent writer! https://gum.co/Cfed

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00546CJV8
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00546CJV8
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B00546CJV8
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/63991

Also, get it on Apple, Barnes and Noble’s Nook eReader, Kobo, and Scrollmotion.

Complete stores list: https://davidsloma.com/book-stores/

The weight and burden of things left undone

Things eat away at us. Most of us, those with a conscience, anyway. Things we have started and not finished.

I know this is true of me. If I start a project, it could be a book, a film – anything, I usually have it nagging at me until it’s finished. This is good for self-motivation, but sometimes it gets to be a real burden with projects that take years to finish.

I heard a theory a while back, and I don’t recall from who, that having unfinished projects takes up psychic space and thoughts in your brain. It’s always there, prodding you to get back to it, keeping you thinking of ways to complete it, or to avoid it. This causes a subtle level of stress that adds to your total stress load. I think this theory has merit and I’ve experienced it for myself. When the project is finished, the theory states, then that previously reserved mind-space is then liberated, stress is relieved and some euphoria is experienced.

This happened to me recently. I finished my first novel, Brainjob, something I’ve been writing on and off for several years. It just never got finished to where I was happy with it and could put it out into the world. Part of the problem was that I had trouble finding a publisher, and part of the problem was that I just got occupied with writing other things, with making films and videos, and other things in my life. Some of those other projects I started in the interim were long-term projects too, so the cycle continued.

So, the novel was taking up a part of my mind-space for years. I would think about it, turning over story possibilities, what I should cut out of it, or edit. Questions of self-epublishing arose and I looked into that. It took a lot of time, much more time than I thought it would. But, when it was finally finished to the point where I felt it was “done” and ready to share, I felt a weight lift off of me!

It was as if all of those thought cycles that had been trapped in the loop of getting the novel for done for the last few years were suddenly freed! I felt a wave of elation, and I couldn’t quite actually believe it for a while that I had finished the book. I kept telling myself it was done, and it felt very good to realized that fact. I could now call myself a novelist, if I liked! It was getting fun to be a writer again!

Then, the facts began to spoil my party that I was not done with the book yet. There was much work to do and it was likely not to end for some time to come, if ever, as I would be dealing with the book in some form for the rest of my life. I had gone through this post-creation let down before with short film and video projects, but my novel Brainjob was my most challenging and longest-running project to date. Still, the book had to be proofed, formatted, a cover made, an audio book to record, marketing and promotion to be done. It’s a great time to be writer, this is true, but it’s also a time when a writer must do a lot more than just write. Often, a writer spends more time on other tasks related to writing than actually writing. I’m hoping this will change for me as I become more familiar, and faster, with the process of publishing and I think it will. I’ve already gotten the hang of epublishing quite well and am now helping other writers to do it.

It took a change of perspective to change the negative feelings of not ever being free from a project, to ones of joyful creation, being thankful to be able to work on my dreams. There is that saying that “if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life” and I do think it’s true. When you follow your passions in life, your bliss as Joseph Campbell said, you become a surfer on the waves of life, riding the ups and downs towards your goals. I think it’s a much better way to be.

I came across a video today by Stephanie Shanti where she talked about a lot of the feelings I’ve been experiencing, after she finished her course of going to school for many years. It got me thinking and inspired this blog post: http://onesproutatatime.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/finally-a-new-video/

More ebooks are now sold on Amazon

In July 2010, Amazon said that their sales of ebooks for their Kindle reader was higher than hardcover paper books sales. Just recently, in May 2011, Amazon has put out a press release that states ebook sales have now overtaken even paperback book sales, and are their best seller: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?ID=1565581&c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle

Is this the end of paper books? No, I don’t think so. When radio came in, books didn’t go away. When TV came in, books didn’t disappear, neither did radio. Some shifted their attention to the new media, but books never went away.

This new ebook publishing revolution is a very exciting time to be an author! Now, for the first time, the playing field of publishing is really leveling and most anyone can get their books to their audience.

I think of how radio and TV have changed and know there will be parallels with books. There are now DVD boxed sets of TV shows, TIVO, pay per view, and subscription channels in the TV realm. Radio has specialty networks like SIRUS, Internet radio stations are numerous (a lot of them are really great), and most on-air radio stations stream online.

So where is the book heading? It’s already there is a large way with ebooks, but more enhancements could come, like multimedia content in ebooks and social networks built into ebooks.

Paper books will never disappear, and overall, I believe they are still currently the top-selling format in the world. But, it looks like that balance is quickly shifting. I’ll be putting out paper editions of my books as well, as I love the paper format. From an author’s point of view though, publishing ebooks are my top priority and it’s a much more direct route to my audience that way. I think the audience appreciates the plusses of ebooks like lower cost, no storage space issues on full book cases, and instant delivery.

There are times when a visit to a bookstore is a lovely experience and one that I, and many others still enjoy, and will enjoy in the future. Ebooks are another option, not a replacement for paper books, or bookstores, even when ebooks do become the most popular format in a few years time. I encourage you to support the authors and bookstores you appreciate so that you can ensure they will thrive in the years to come, as the publishing industry goes through its growing pains.

Brainjob now an ebook

After several years in the making, I’ve just published my first novel as an ebook! It’s called Brainjob. Feels so good to get this out into the world! I don’t think I quite believe it yet, give me a little time!

It’s quite a long novel, about 125,000 words, so it’s a good ebook value.

In the works for Brainjob is a paper book edition to come from Amazon, and also I’m going to make an audio book of the novel. It’ll be me rereading the whole thing! I’m looking forward to it, as it will give me a real feel for the flow of the language over the course of the book when I read it all aloud.

Synopsis

It’s 2051 and humans live in space, while a nuclear war looms in Braku province, the last great free state on Earth. Cloning is commonplace as a means of life extension, by a method called a “Brainjob” - when you get old, move your brain into a new, brainless cloned body. It’s almost a way to live forever for those with the means, but not true eternal life.

Zach Hemmings, a poor working man, is injured in an industrial accident. His body is destroyed, but his brain is still viable. Due to his lack of funds, he never had himself cloned, and has to accept the clone his medical insurance will pay for. He gets a clone of another race (his original body was white, the cloned body is black), which causes him massive identity issues, and lack of acceptance with many in his family. Zach becomes the subject of medical experiments by Unito Bio (they own his cloned body due to an underhanded copyright law) to produce an eternal-youth nanobot serum. The serum trials are successful for the first time, and only occur in Zach’s unique bloodstream. He starts to get younger.

But Zach, tired of being a guinea pig, and disgusted at being owned, goes on the run. Unito has deep pockets, and they will stop at nothing to get back their property that has just become the most valuable thing in the world. Zach just wants to get himself back.

You can read a free excerpt and buy the ebook in multiple formats here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/62568

On the Kindle from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0053004IA

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0053004IA

https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0053004IA

Turkey Day REVENGE – now on Kindle

My short story Turkey Day REVENGE – now available as a Kindle Edition! You can read a free sample:
USA store: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0051PEQ4A
UK store: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0051PEQ4A
EU store: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0051PEQ4A

Other ebook formats at: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/57989 or on Apple’s iBooks, Barnes and Noble’s Nook eReader, Sony, Kobo, Diesel, Scrollmotion and many more!