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A couple of weeks ago I deactivated my Facebook account. ÌýThis was in response to the whole "unethical disregard for human subject protocols" thing they did. Ìý(OK Cupid recently revealed that they did the same thing, including telling people they matched up with people they were actually not compatible with. I'm not in the market for an online dating service, but I'd be mighty pissed if I were.)

So Ìýwhat's my life been like without it? Ìý(Facebook, I mean. My life has always been without OK Cupid.)

Pretty much the same. ÌýExcept I have one less place to get into pointless arguments, and I haven't seen very many pictures of my former students' children.

I always enjoyed the ability to maintain casual connections with people far away, and that was, for me, the biggest pro of Facebook. ÌýBut it's outweighed by the negatives. I won't list them here--Google "why I should quit Facebook" if you're curious.)

But what about my writing career? ÌýDon't I need Facebook to build my platform and leverage my brand and stuff?

Nope. ÌýAs I and many others have discussed in the past, the Facebook fan page mechanic is totally broken. ÌýMost of the people who liked my page weren't seeing anything I posted there, and I don't have the budget to pay Facebook to promote my posts. Ìý(Just Ìýso we're clear, they're within their rights to do this, but it just makes their product way less attractive to a lot of low-budget creative types.)Ìý

Facebook worked very well for Ìýme when I was running the Kickstarter campaign for Enter the Bluebird. Ìý

But the reason I think it worked so well is that it mobilized my friends and family, so I got a lot of support from people who, for reasons unclear to me, like me. ÌýWhich I really appreciate and which I want to honor by not hitting them up too often. ÌýIf I ever do another crowdfunding campaign, I'm going to have to try other Ìýmeans. ÌýI'm okay with this--again, the pros of having this option available to me via Facebook are outweighed by the negatives.

Something I have noticed--I wasn't spending tons of time on Facebook by any means, but quitting it does seem to have freed up some time for me. Mostly because I now have one less time-wasting option, so I have to get off the couch and do something. Ìý

Something else I've noticed, that I find a bit disturbing on a larger scale. ÌýA lot of people seem kind of resigned to taking Facebook's abuse.

I still think it's important to vote, but, more and more as we become a plutocracy, the greatest power we have as individuals is choosing where we spend our money. Or, in this case, choosing who we give our data to. ÌýIf a company is doing something you don't like, take your money and your data and go elsewhere.

I just want to make it clear that I am against the murder of children. Ìý

This is why I can't cheerlead any military action and why I find the fetishization of the United States military, or any military, to be deeply problematic.

Let's be clear: Ìýmilitary action always involves the murder of children. ÌýAlways. Here's an article from Military Times . ÌýHere's an article about . This is the fruit of about 30 seconds of research on my part. Ìý

I hate the way we talk about military action: in the US, it's usually talked about in terms of schoolyard fights: we have to "show our strength" and and those who oppose the use of military force are derided as "weak."Ìý

I'd like instead for us to talk about how many children we are willing to murder in order to achieve whatever goal we're trying to achieve. ÌýI have no idea if this would actually lead to less killing, but at least there'd be some moral clarity about what's involved. ÌýAt least people would feel shame at cheering for military action knowing that what they are cheering for is not some sporting event, but a horror that necessarily involves the murder of children.

Military action should always be a last resort, and should be viewed as tragic whenever Ìýit happens, no matter who is doing it and no matter what the outcome. Because it is tragic. ÌýChildren will be murdered.Ìý

You know what's deeply screwed up? I'm having second thoughts about posting this because I'm afraid it might be too controversial Ìýto assert that the murder of a child is always a bad thing.Ìý

I, like many, was saddened to hear of the death of Tommy Ramone last week. Ìý

The Ramones meant and mean more to me than any other band, and the fact that all the original members are dead does feel bad.

But I can't subscribe to the current internet thinking that The Ramones are dead. Ìý

Because Marky, Richie and CJ are still alive. ÌýTo say that The Ramones are dead is to dismiss everything after Rocket to Russia. Ìý

Which is folly. Ìý

If you've got any kind of streaming service, I encourage you to listen to the following songs:

I Wanna Be Sedated

Bad Brain

Rock n' Roll High School

Danny Says

The KKK Took My Baby Away

It's Not My Place (In The 9 to 5 World)

Psycho Therapy

Time Has Come Today

Danger Zone

Chasing the Night

Howling at the Moon

Daytime Dilemma

No Go

Bonzo Goes to Bitburg

Crummy Stuff

Go Lil' Camaro Go

Pet Sematary

Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)

Spider Man

Substitute

My Back Pages

I Don't Want to Grow Up

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You could go deeper, especially into Road to Ruin and Too Tough to Die, but there's a good place to start, but my point is that people who played on all those songs are still alive. Ìý

Many thanks to Marky, Richie, and CJ for your parts in bringing us this great music.

Ramones Forever.

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I'm a happily-married 45-year-old man, and I've recently been rejected by a LOT of young women.

The young women in question are book bloggers, who have rejected my requests to review . Or, rather, who have, for the most part, not even acknowledged my requests to review . ÌýAs is their right--they don't owe me anything. ÌýBut I do think my experience has some bearing on the whole "traditional publishing vs. self publishing" thing that has flared up again in the wake of the Amazon-Hachette dispute.Ìý

The Hugh Howeys of the world have risen up to defend Amazon, pointing a populist finger at "one-percenter" Hachette authors who are standing against that big ol' friendly bear Amazon, who holds self publishers in its cuddly embrace.Ìý

about how Amazon enjoys special status as a for-profit company that is not expected to turn a profit, and how that cuddly embrace may turn a bit more prickly whenever Amazon's shareholders decide that the future is now and they need to make money. Ìý

But what bugs the crap out of me about this is the big names in self-publishing acting like James Patterson is lucky and they're not. Ìý

Everyone who succeeds is, to some degree, lucky. ÌýAnd the self-published authors are right that most people are incredibly unlikely to ever make any money in traditional publishing. Ìý

Of course, the same is true of self publishing.

Now, it's quite true that you can now get over the hurdle of actually getting published very easily. But you're still going to Ìýhave the problem of getting anyone to read your book.Ìý

Here's where the above story of my rejection by young women comes in. ÌýI am an established young adult author with several traditionally-published YA novels, and I approached only Ìýbloggers who had already positively reviewed one of my novels. ÌýAnd the overwhelming majority of them ignored me.

I have to imagine that someone who is self-publishing their first novel will not have any easier time of it. Ìý

I ran a Kickstarter campaign for , and I've used my blog, Twitter and (late, probably not lamented) Facebook page to try to drum up interest in it. Ìý

And I have sold 111 copies. ÌýOr 186 if Ìýyou count the Kickstarter backers. (Thank you! ÌýYou are awesome!)

Most of these were sold when the book was on sale for Ìý99 cents or $1.45. ÌýIf I hadn't crowdfunded Ìýthe editing and cover design for , I'd be several hundred dollars in the hole for this project.

Now I suppose one of these people who believe that everything is a meritocracy might say that if I only just worked harder on publicity, I could attract some more attention to my book. ÌýI should have leveraged my platform! Or platformed by brand! Or branded my leverage! Or something!

The bottom line is that anybody who sells a lot of books is lucky and nobody knows how the hell they did it. ÌýIf they did, everybody would do it. ÌýThis seems ridiculously obvious, and yet the big names in self-publishing are especially annoying because they continue to post this, "if you were only as smart and hardworking as me, you'd be a bestselling author too!"

This is self-serving horseshit. Ìý

And the faux-populist attacks on the "one percenter" authors further obscure this inconvenient fact: you really need to have money to be a successful self-publisher.

Here's what I mean: you can self-edit, but you're not going to be as good at it as a professional. I don't care who you are; someone else will see the flaws in your work better than you will. ÌýSo you need to shell out for your editing.Ìý

And then you need to shell out for your cover design, unless you also happen to be a graphic designer.Ìý

And, if you actually want to sell your book, you should probably pay somebody to do publicity. ÌýCool!

Or maybe you don't have the money for all those things, but you've got the time and energy to learn to do it all yourself and then do it all yourself. Which means you have money, and you more than likely don't have kids.

This is how self publishing limits our perspectives every bit as much as traditional publishing. ÌýIn traditional publishing it's the tastes of agents and editors; in self publishing it's the ability to gamble what is, for most people, a significant amount of money on a project that more than likely will not pay you back.Ìý

I know this was a very different time, but Stephen King, built a career based on Carrie.ÌýWould he, living in a trailer at the time, Ìýhave been able to invest a lot of money up front on that project, not knowing if he'd ever see a dime from it?Ìý

Maybe he would have released a shoddy, self-edited, self-designed edition that wouldn't have sold. ÌýOr maybe he would have scraped together a bunch of money to pay professionals and it still wouldn't have sold. ÌýBecause that happens to most books. Or maybe he would have sold four million copies anyway.

I'm not saying that self publishing is bad or wrong or inferior. ÌýI'm saying that Hugh Howey and David Gaughan and their ilk need to get off their high horses about how democratic and wonderful self publishing is because it actually favors people with money more than traditional publishing does.

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It has recently come to my attention that at least one major publisher is paying third-party services to post ebooks of their backlist. Ìý

Traditional publishers do a lot of things right, but this is seriously an incredibly stupid thing for them to do. Ìý

Posting an ebook for sale on Amazon, Nook, Kobo, or anywhere else is ridonkulously easy. ÌýLike so easy that anybody--even that summer intern from Sarah Lawrence who's never had a job and has no idea what working is but who is the managing editor's niece-- can do it. Ìý

I know that there are services that charge self-published authors for this service, and I figured these were just swindlers taking advantage of the naivete of people new to the digital publishing arena.Ìý

But apparently major corporations are paying for this service as well.

Nobody should pay for this service. ÌýBut if you are determined to pay money for this service, you should pay me. Ìý

If you send me a .mobi Ìý.epub versions of your book, I will post them to Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Google Books, and iBooks for only 100 dollars. Ìý(please note: you'll need an ISBN for iBooks, and I don't supply those.) ÌýThis will work out to a rate of about 300 bucks an hour for me, which would be awesome and which I could really use and which still makes me cheaper than a lawyer.

You really shouldn't pay me to do this. ÌýIt takes literally 5 minutes per site. ÌýBut if you really feel that you must pay someone for this, at least make it someone who is telling you that this is a stupid service you shouldn't pay for: Ìýme! Ìý

Just started reading The Three by Sarah Lotz. ÌýWho is South African. (It matters--keep reading)

And almost stopped. Ìý

And this is where I need your input. ÌýSo the first section of the book is in limited third-person narration about an American character. ÌýAnd there were some things that immediately showed me that this was an American character in a book rather than an actual American and thereby pulled me right out of the story.

"She hoped there wouldn't be a queue for the bathroom."

"The time the stabiliser on the washing machine broke."

"She didn't want to die amongst strangers."

"She saw the rust on the other car's bonnet."

Trivial things, really, but they pulled me out of the book and almost made me give it up. ÌýAm I overreacting here? ÌýI mean, I suppose the Commonwealth English spelling of stabilizer I could overlook, but no American would think these other things, which, though they are in third person, are clearly supposed to be Pam's thoughts. Ìý

It would have been just as distracting to me if she'd had a British character and the sentence said something like, "She laced up her sneakers, pulled on a sweater, and got in the elevator."Ìý

So: does the author or editor have a professional responsibility to ensure that characters who speak different versions of English actually use those terms in the book? ÌýDoes the failure to do so indicate a lack of professionalism? ÌýAm I too nitpicky? Why does this bug me so much? Ìý

Any and all answers would be appreciated.

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Okay. I have finally seen the light. ÌýMostly it's the Amazon-Hachette thing, though really I should have seen it from the similar Amazon-Macmillan thing of a few years ago. Ìý I'm not going to boycott Amazon, but I am going to scale back my involvement with them.

Here's why: Amazon is a long con. ÌýThey have yet to turn any serious profits. ( that goes into this in some detail, if you're interested.) They seem to be focusing on crushing the competition. ÌýWhich, as the article states, they are able to do because they don't care about making money.

Amazon has become a near-monopoly, particularly in the ebook field. ÌýAnd we can't wait for our government to break it. ÌýBecause all those sweet deals that Amazon is offering writers and readers now are going to evaporate as soon as investors decide they want this business to make money.

Amazon currently offers 70% ebook royalties to publishers. ÌýThey have almost no competition. ÌýB & N and Apple sell about a quarter of what Amazon sells. ÌýKobo and others lag far behind. (At least here. I understand Kobo is big in Canada.). Once Amazon is literally the only game in town, or pretty much whenever they decide they need to start making money, they will be able to drive those royalties as low as they want. Which means, for readers, that ebook prices will rise just so writers can get paid.Ìý

Here's what I'm doing. Ìý

As a writer: I had two books on KDP select deals, meaning that I got certain benefits from having them only available on Amazon. I've terminated that--The Mall of Cthuhlu will be available on Nook and Kobo within a couple of weeks, and Enter the Bluebird will be available on Nook and Kobo in August. Ìý

As a reader: I love the ease of purchasing and reading ebooks. My Kindle has fortuitously decreed this as the best time to die. ÌýI'm going to be buying a (cheap!) tablet that will allow me to buy ebooks from a number of retailers, so I won't be locked in to Amazon. Ìý(Also, the sideloading of ebooks I get elsewhere onto the Kindle is a pain in the ass, so I won't miss that.) ÌýI will be making efforts to support DIY authors on Kobo and B&N so that more of them can make money in these places and will therefore place more books there.

I can't stress this enough: eventually Amazon is going to want to make money. Start putting your eggs in different baskets while those baskets still exist. ÌýIf they're willing to screw a giant corporation, what chance do you have?Ìý

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It's a beautiful day in the Hub O'the Universe, so I took the long way in to work today and biked down Memorial Drive. ÌýWhich brought me near to the Carter's Ink building on First Street in Cambridge, where I worked 23 years ago. Ìý(Good ÌýGod, I'm old!)

I worked at a company called Thinking Machines Corporation, and they were a supercomputer manufacturer. ÌýFounded by some MIT graduates, including famed , Thinking Machines made massively parallel supercomputers. ÌýAt the time, they acted (at least to me) like they were the first ones to do this, but shows that's not true, and that Thinking Machines doesn't even rate a mention in the history of parallel processing.

I worked with what amounted to an of computer people doing stuff I didn't understand. ÌýAnd a bunch of young, bitter recent college grads doing secretarial or (in my case) mail-sorting jobs that neither used our skills nor paid enough for us to meet our student loan obligations comfortably. ÌýThanks, Bush The Elder recession!

Still, I was happy to work there--I was lucky to have a job, and there were a lot of great benefits. ÌýSuch as delicious Ìýgourmet lunches cooked by the executive chef and available for 3 bucks, which was ridiculously cheap even in 1991.Ìý

Also, it was a beautiful environment--the place took beauty very seriously, and when it expanded to the building behind the Carter's Ink building, the space was remodeled to make it a really lovely environment, with great views of Boston and the Charles River.Ìý

I also got Ìýintroduced to the nascent internet, spending hours reading usenet posts (I told you I was old) when I didn't have enough work to do.

Which got to be more and more often as the months went on there. ÌýMore on that later.

I learned a great deal in my time at Thinking Machines Corporation.

One was to always be nice to the lowest-level people in the company. Because I was one, and I still remember who treated me like a human being (most people) and who didn't. Also, all of us on the bottom rungs of the latter in this organization talked to each other. And we all knew all the secrets. Like who was on that secret email list where people made fun of those of us not on the list, or the fact that the vice president got picked up from his home in a far western suburb every morning and driven in to work by the company van driver.

Another was that it's pretty easy for Ìýan organization to get lost by believing its own hype. ÌýWhen I worked there, it was the most innovative, awesome company on the planet, building a machine that would be proud of us. ÌýScience superstar Richard Feynman wore a Thinking Machines t-shirt on the cover of one of his books! ÌýThinking Machines spent extravagantly on the aforementioned remodel (there was the legend of the $1200 door), on flowers ($1k per month, according to gossip), and on hiring Vietnam Memorial designer Maya Lin to design the new model of the computer (in a real demonstration of her versatility, she came up with a computer design that resembled a black granite wall). (And yes, she was one of Ìýthe people who didn't treat me like a human being.)Ìý

And it was all fine because (again, according to internal legend), DARPA money had placed Thinking Machines computers in a bunch of universities and national labs. ÌýAnd the good times would roll forever.

I spent part of my day working in customer support and learned this interesting fact about Thinking Machines supercomputers: they broke down all the freaking time. ÌýThe Vietnam Wall-with red LEDs that was the CM-5 was rolled out before the CM-2 machines already deployed were working reliably. Ìý(I think this is correct--if you worked there and Ìýknow this to be wrong, let me know and I will correct this.) Ìý

The CM-5 was featured in Jurassic Park, and for some reason the company deployed two engineers to the set to assemble an empty cabinet that looked like a supercomputer. Ìý

Unfortunately, most of the people in the audience for that summer blockbuster weren't in the market for a ten million dollar supercomputer. ÌýAnd most of the people involved in purchasing a ten million dollar supercomputer are not that impressed with its proximity to Jeff Goldblum. Ìý

And also, unfortunately, according to legend, once the DARPA money wasn't subsidizing the purchase of Thinking Machines supercomputers, people had very little interest in purchasing expensive machines that broke down all the time. Ìý

The writing was on the wall when I left to go to graduate school in 1992. Thinking Machines went bankrupt in 1994. My friend who worked in HR said, "I was the last person I laid off." ÌýShe did not mention whether she turned out the lights when she left.

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A little while ago the internet went nuts on some Princeton student who wrote some dumb thing about how he's not privileged, or he is privileged but doesn't care, or something. Ìý(What he should have said is that everybody at Princeton is privileged, but some are more privileged than others.)

And the internet freaked out about how BookCon is not diverse enough.

And the internet freaks out on a daily basis about something. ÌýYou don't have to look very far to find people yelling at each other about "social justice" issues, like what's on James Franco's bookshelf, whether it was okay for Patton Oswalt to pretend to make a joke, or whether Jennifer Weiner is getting enough book reviews.

But you know what people don't get into an uproar about on the internet? Poor people getting screwed.

Here's a thing that happened yesterday that occasioned, Ìýas near as I can find, no internet outrage, even locally. ÌýThe MBTA, Boston's public transit authority, proposed an average 5% fare hike that was approved. Ìý

But they were tricky about that 5% average. ÌýIf you live in Needham, a wealthy suburb of Boston, your Zone 2 monthly commuter rail pass is only going up from $189 to $198, forÌýa 4.8% increase, whereas if you take buses and trains within the city of Boston, your monthly pass is going up from 70 to 75 dollars a month, Ìýor a 7.1% increase.Ìý

The MBTA promises that with the extra money, they're going to improve the commuter rail, which serves the suburbs, and the Green Line, which serves primarily the comparitively wealthy residents of Brookline and Newton and the privileged students at private colleges who live in Allston and Brighton.

ÌýMeanwhile, the Red and Orange Lines, which carry most of Boston's working poor, offer service that grows less reliable by the day (with a tight budget, the MBTA has clearly been skimping on maintenance).Ìý

So the people who can least afford to pay for the increase, the people who get hit with massive delays at least once a week, (and the people more likely to be paid on an hourly basis who therefore lose money when the trains are delayed) Ìýare actually paying a higher percentage increase than anybody else. Ìý

This, people, is what you call a social justice issue. ÌýWhere are the social justice warriors?

Maybe they think it's not a big deal because it's only 5 bucks a month. Or maybe they think it's not a big deal because it's happening to other people. Or maybe they're inured to the many small and large ways that people with no money get hosed in this country.

Or, most likely, they're not thinking about it at all.

I think of privilege as not having to worry about stuff that other people have to worry about. ÌýIf you've got time and interest to spare yelling at someone on the internet because they don't agree with you in the exact right way, or because you're deeply offended by something Ìýsome idiot said, and it never even occurs to you to spend any of Ìýyour ample supply of outrage on how the working poor are getting to their jobs, well, that my friend, is what privilege is.

Old friend Seamus Cooper reached out--literally. I was walking through the park with my dog when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I yelped with surprise, the dog barked,and there was Seamus, emerging from his woodland home.

After I recovered my composure, we spent some time catching up, and Seamus revealed that he has a new project to share with the world. ÌýI graciously agreed to interview him about it for the blog.

BH: Seamus! ÌýGood to see you again! ÌýTell us about your new project.

SC: It's called Blomi: A Sorcerer's Tale. It's a novel of sword, sorcery, and silliness, featuring poop jokes.

BH: Sounds right up my alley! Where can I get said novel?

SC: I am serializing it on the web for free. ÌýYou can check it out at Ìý.

BH: Why are you doing it this way? Is it because print is dead?

SC: Nah. I wrote it for fun, and so I figured I'd release it in a way that's fun. ÌýTo me.Ìý

BH: What can you tell us about the book, other than what you've already said?

SC: It's the story of Brian, a smart-mouthed 14-year-old who is obsessed with sword and sorcery tales featuring Wurg, a barbarian with lots of thews and sinews. ÌýHe gets sucked into the world of the stories and finds it's not all he thought it would be.

BH: Who do you think this book is for?

SC: It's for anybody who enjoys fantasy and has a sense of humor about it. It's for anybody who sees the title and thinks "Hey, that might be for me" as opposed to "Jesus, a grown man made that joke?"

BH: What's your endgame here? ÌýWhat happens when you've released the whole thing?

SC: I guess I'll try to scrape some money together to get a sweet Frazetta-parody cover and then release it as an ebook.

BH: Where you gonna get the money?

SC: I don't know. Kickstarter? ÌýGrateful readers who want to kick in for a cover? Charity of friends?

BH: Don't look at me. That's a blood from a stone situation.

SC: Understood. ÌýWell, back to the park with me.

BH: You live in the park? Ìý

SC: I got a tent in the woods. Ìý

BH: Sounds horrifying. Ìý

SC: It is.

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And with that, he loped off into the woods. I enjoy the adventure and sophomoric humor of Blomi: ÌýA Sorcerer's Tale. ÌýMaybe you will too! ÌýIt's free!

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