Please excuse the lateness and the lightness of this post. My birthday was this past weekend, and because of that, as well as other personal issues, we plum forgot to write a blog post for today.
So for today, all I have is this wonderfully flapping Old Glory taken on one of the last vacations that I took in the decade of '00 thru '10, which featured a stop at the US Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
'Tis a day of remembrance of those who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect those who would rather say unkind things about their station in life than to actually do anything about it.
Have a good holiday celebration today, keep chill and never let them see you sweat.
We're on a road to somewhere to the great beyond, or in this case, towards a residential school for those with childlike innocence, a bridge over the mountain and a hike up a 11% grade driveway to a massive water tank.
Before we get hip wader deep into the runniest of today's post, I want to give a bikini thong brief of a writing update. I'm now back in the process of writing book #3 of my trilogy, and up until now, I've realized just how difficult it can be to properly tie up all the proper plot points, of which there are at least 5, so that your series comes to a satisfactory conclusion. Anywho, got two more chapters transcribed and have two more waiting to be transcribed. Current word count sits at 59 words short of 220k.
And now for something completely different. Last week I got a request from a company I do business with asking me to review the 24 pack of bottled water I had purchased a few weeks ago (it's heading into Summer and the house now goes heavy on consuming bottled water). Like, how can you really review bottled water? Well, I'm glad to say that my jaded imagination decided to ask me that very question because it gives me a chance to bring out Bob and Ted. Ya'll remember Bob and Ted from back when I reviewed a shelving unit about a month ago. So, here's the Dullness Duos take on bottled water.
"Hey Bob, I sure am thirsty. Got anything to drink?"
"Just this bottled water that I picked up wholesale, Ted."
"Wholesale? Ewwww, like totally not consuming that stuff."
"Why not? Look, it's good stuff, you don't even have to chew it so much any more." Bob takes a bottle from the pack, shakes it good a couple of times, waits for the naughty bits to settle, then pops it open and takes a swallow.
Ted blanches at Bob chewing his water and says, "Water isn't supposed to be chewable you know. You're supposed to drink it smoothly like a shot of whiskey."
"Buuurp!" says Bob just before wiping the sediment from his lips. "Nonsense, this water is completely fine and it quenches my thirst."
Ted looks quizzically at Bob and asks, "Oh yeah? Where's it bottled?"
Bob reads the side of the bottle and says, "Industrial Waste Site, North America."
Ted immediately turns green and runs to the bathroom. With the sounds of someone violently retching ringing in his ears, Bob shrugs and says, "Ted! It's really good stuff! You can ignore the side effects! I certainly do! I mean, I'm only glowing in the dark now! And my insides are now blueish-green instead of navy blue!"
Wholesale water bottled in a very not nice place. Try it today, it's good eats. Or, give it to someone you don't like very much. Either way, it does a body good.
Note: This is satire/humor. No real people were actually harmed, and I certainly do not recommend anyone drinking bad bottled water. Of any kind. From anywhere.
Remember kids, a creative person is only as good as their imagination.
On a road to somewhere. Humane Society, or towards the plateau? Only my swiss cheese memory really knows.
In my post from a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I subscribed to over 50 podcasts, all of which I listen to on a one-to-two-week schedule. Today's post will cover the amount of YouTube channels that I subscribe to, which currently hovers at 55 active channels.
Now I would like to note that all of them post on a consistent schedule ranging from one to five times per day up to once per month, and every other schedule you can think of in between.
And because I'm such a nerdy stats guy, I decided to break down the types of channel content I subscribe to.
Short fiction, Reddit, general knowledge, true crime, motor vehicle (dash cam auto, go-pro motorcycle), personal v-logs, humor, music and food.
Now with the first two, the comment section can often be just as, if not more than, enlightening than the videos. With the former, it's really interesting reading someone's eloquent missive about why doing something is impossible to do in the real world, only to read a response reiterating that the story is a work of formulaic, albeit very interesting, fiction, and everyone knows that what happens in the story doesn't happen that way in the real world.
I don't comment much on the channels beyond the first two, the nine music channels and maybe the legal one. The rest of the channels that I follow, I rarely comment on, simply because they're quite popular (my definition of popular is 1 million or more subscribers) and on the popular channels you really can't get into any kind of discussion on the topics being presented and more often than note, your comment is lost in the vast sea of comments (some of the popular channels rage from 2k to 5k comments). So I just simply enjoy the content.
I have curated my channel list over the past few years, usually due to changing tastes, but sometimes the format that the content creator originally had got changed to something that suits them better, but the change is something I don't agree with. And yes, I follow the adage of nobody is forcing me to watch it, so you can change the channel, so I do. The change that I'm none too thrilled about, but understand it's a way for the content creator to make money, is livestreams. I'm not a fan of watching someone perform/play something live on YT for one to three hours, but I do understand the need. You want to make money from your content, and livestreaming is one of four ways to do it (the other three are click/views, a merchandise store, and sponsorships)
While I do have eclectic tastes in what I like to watch on YT, I do have problems with the insidious censorship that YT does, mostly over language/images. This is a major pet peeve of mine that deserves its own post, but in short, if you're using certain words that are deemed no longer acceptable by the mainstream media or tech companies (Google, YT, Insta, FB, etc) or even countries, you can get a strike or demonetization to your video. Only exceptions are the regular national corporations that have products that we use.
But, be that as it may, I really do enjoy all the channels that I subscribe to. You can find a channel for just any topic/subject/issue that you like on YouTube. Some of the oddest channels I've come across, and actually watched, featured topics/people like Audie Murphy, cattle hoof trimming, podiatry, audiology, rug cleaning, landscaping, make-up and even writing.
I would like to recommend one channel though, if you like very clean humor: Steven He. He's an absolute legend as a comedic actor and the only person that I can think of that turned one of his video shorts into a major meme called "Emotional Damage".
I am one of those rare anomalies in the writing world, in which I am the publishing trifecta, for lack of a better term. I have been traditionally published (pic with link), self published reputably (bottom pic of the same book with a different title and cover) and self published disreputably (no pic).
Today's post is about how to prevent yourself from publishing your book disreputably, and the fun and games you can have if you come across vanity publishers, usually on Facebook.
My T.L.;D.R. version is basically this. An author that I had met at as a vendor at my job (pre-pandemic we would have vendors to hawk their goods), had published a number of books through ASI (aka Author's House) and had recommended them to me if I wanted to get my (very badly at the time) novel published. Eagerly I said 'yes' and off I went.
Little did I know that after paying roughly $1,100 to have two badly written books published I would eventually come to realize that pay-to-publish was not a thing, but paying people to create certain products for me was (graphic design, editing and formatting) was very much a thing.
Also, I belatedly learned that all publishers are not the same, and that using Google back in the late 00's would have been a good thing for me to do. Would have saved myself a ton of money, ridicule and scorn (did I mention that I got nailed by a scummy literary agency too and their editing services).
Anywho, we fast forward to now. Now, is having four books self published with a reputable company (Amazon/KDP), which involved using a reputable graphic designer, a reputable formatter (should you not want to do it on your own, and two reputable editors (of which this one is still in business). And having a bit fun by asking the pointed questions of vanity publishers that no one wants to ask.
So a few salient points that other people have mentioned that I would like to emphasize as well.
1} No reputable agent or publisher will contact you about your book, either published or unpublished. Nada. Zip. Zilcho. I emphasize both because if you've self-published through a reputable company, and only put in minimal effort in marketing/advertising, you will get contacted about it (experience speaking here. here's to me getting off my ass and doing something about it in 2023). Your book has a rating in the five to six digit range, you will be contacted.
2} Oh and, they can contact you because if you're even remotely involved in some kind of socialized media and you have your contact info listed, then presto! They'll reach out and touch you. I've also been touched by the phone since ASI had that as a contact info for me from when I was a "client". Fortunately, it was a work number, and since I'm retired, so.....yeah.
3} Whatever you do, be extremely careful on what kind of contact info you give to those people. Give them an addy you don't look at too often, if you have to give one. ASI sold my info to others, so for years I would get calls/e-mails from those people asking to take me on as a "client"
4} Turning the tables. If you're a newbie writer of some repute and roam the world of Facebook, then it's almost a certainty that sponsored ads/suggested pages will pop up in your feed. Get hardcore nasty with them. Chances are those pages have comments on them from writers similar to you who are trying to be published, so it's best to ask a lot of pointed questions of that publisher. Also....
5} If they have a link to a website, check out the link and research for a bit. A vanity company will have a tab called "services", which will give you menu of all kinds of services you that you can pay inflated prices of (I saw one that had "consulting" packages starting at $5,000). Dig a little deeper. Maybe the website hasn't been updated for a few years. The profiles are of people no one has ever heard of on social media. Even the company isn't on social media. But to reiterate....
6} Go after them hardcore. Ask pointed questions in the comments about their services. Offer up cheaper alternatives in the comments. Let your friends know about what you're doing and have them join you in the fun (I have friends in my writing group who have joined in from time to time for a double barrel attack). The main point is that you keep hammering them until they cry uncle. If you can get them to cry uncle, you've succeeded in, hopefully, saving at least one person from being ripped off.
7} Last point, "crying uncle". Usually this end result is the easiest to see, in that if any of their pages come up as "suggested", you'll be blocked from commenting. I've been blocked by a half dozen FB pages due to aggressive questioning, and I'm sure there's at least one page that has blocked me because the person decided to pick a fight with me in the comment page of a vanity publisher. Yes, a vanity publisher tried to school me on another vanity publisher's page. I've also had one follow me to my personal page to continue the argument. In short, she was, at face value, offering a menu of editorial services, which is fine. But she also had a side hustle of running a small imprint as well, and it seemed like the only people who were being published on the imprint were those who had their books edited through her, so I called her out on being a variation of a "vanity hybrid" publisher.
Overall, forearmed is forewarned. Always remember that in the real world, you are the one that has to send out queries if you wanted to be represented by an agent, or if you want to be published by a respected press, no matter what the size (small to medium and Big 5). Most importantly, Google is your friend when it comes to researching publishers and agents. Blogs like one Anne R. Allen's or Writer's Beware can help you with parsing who is good and who isn't on your literary journey as well.
Good luck, and take it from a person who has been there and done that, don't make the same mistakes that I did early on. Spend your money wisely on things that really matter (editing and graphic design, and formatting if you so desire) for your book and career. Remember, playing the long game when it comes to writing is the best outcome you can have.
I actually spotted this near entrance #3 to Cedar Mountain on my walk in the mountain yesterday. People have way too much free time on their hands. This was about a hundred feet or so from another sign that said, ironically enough, Shoulder Closed {at a bend in the path}.
My audio listening is often cyclical these days. For example, the last time that I had actually listened to an audio-book, was back in the early 90's, when books-on-tapes were a major thing and CD's were but a dream on the library horizon. To be frank, I only got into that particular audio-book format was one, they were great to listen to on my days off from working the overnight, and two, my attention span wasn't as short then as it is now.
Eventually we moved out of that audio format and moved into the listening of the different music formats that I've lived through: radio, vinyl, cassettes, c.d.'s, music apps, sports apps and finally, podcasts. Today, after roughly 5 years of living with a smartie phone, my top three preferred formats are: podcasts, c.d.'s, and sports app. Radio, music apps and vinyl (once I have my record player functioning again), are now dragging up the rear. Sports app is a seasonal thing, since the only one I own is MLB, and that's to listen to the local broadcasts of my particular team (if you like baseball, MLB app is the way to go. Prices start at only $2.99 + tax per month).
Music streaming has (I use Tune-In) dropped so far off my radar that I actually had to log back in after they did a bunch of app upgrades. I have about 15 channels for my listening pleasure, the bulk being specific genre based (e.g., rock, soft rock, bluegrass) and the other being good public/college radio stations (three local collages and two community based in Wyoming and Idaho). So now, the only time that I listen to music is either when I'm doing transcription on the computer or I need a small change of pace on my twice daily walks
Podcasts are now my audio of choice when I do my twice daily walks (unless there's an early afternoon ball game to listen to, and even when I go on long drives to run errands or visit family. If you think about it, we are kind of revisiting the audio-book genre, as I managed to expand. through hard work and determination, my wicked short attention span to something that is respectable (to me, respectable is being able to tolerate episodic podcasts to a maximum of 75 minutes).
My tastes in podcasts, just like in books, is quite the eclectic mix. Without doing a deep title dive of the 35+ podcasts I listen to on a weekly-to-semi-weekly basis, here are the genres that I listen to.
General knowledge: 29%; History: 50%; Nature: 7%; True Crime: 14%.
Now this will fluctuate from time to time, whenever I find other interesting multi-season series to listen to or when I find interesting limited run podcasts that have piqued my curiosity (e.g. Dolly Parton, Fred Rogers, the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 and currently John Quincy Adams) over the past five years. But basically it has stayed at 35+ level since 2019.
I really enjoy listening to podcasts these days, mostly on my twice a day walks and long drives, as they're the closest thing to the actual audio-book format that I can tolerate. But, I haven't completely abandoned music though. I have a list of roughly 35 titles split between three artists that I'm slowly acquiring from Amazon. Two of them will be expensive to buy, since one is from Japan (fantastic rock music from that country in all genres) and one is a punk rock band from the states fronted by an actress who was on the show "Gossip Girl" and the Jim Carey version of "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" as Cindy Lou Who. The other is a country artist whose back catalog, starting in 1991, can be had very cheaply on Amazon.
Plus, while I find listening to podcasts while transcribing is a serious distraction, listening to music or baseball is not, so that will always be my saving grace. Cyclical can be fun sometimes, but it can also be a major pain in the butt, since sometimes the various stops can last a lot longer than normal, and before you know it, half a decade has gone by and you're asking yourself, "Well, how did I get here?"
I got to here by exploring You Tube. Enjoy this song by the punk rock band The Pretty Reckless.
