DEATH by FACEBOOK.
Enjoy!
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
DEATH by FACEBOOK
DEATH by FACEBOOK.
Enjoy!
Saturday, August 27, 2011
My ship has come in...
... I only have to swim out to it.
Success/Paradise/Happiness takes at least enough effort to indicate you really desire it. Make yourself available for good things to happen.
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Thursday, August 18, 2011
President Obama's Retirement
Anytime any of us works long hard
hours, gets flak from our competitors on a daily (or hourly) basis it
can conjure up thoughts of retirement. When a vacation plan gets you
grief from those saying there is too much left undone at the end of
the day ( i.e. hoping you'll keel over dead from exhaustion) you
might let the thought of retirement linger a little longer.
Some personalities thrive on the
pressure though, enjoy the challenge and find reward in the small
victories. Air traffic controllers must take some pride I imagine in
getting every plane on the ground safely, every
Police/Fire/Rescue/Military employee relishes the lives they do
manage to save and I am going out on a limb here but I suspect the
President of the United States of America has his own personal
rewards.
I give all of these people total
respect and admiration for even attempting these jobs. Agree or
disagree with their processes but you must admit the workloads are
incredible. Most of us could never, would never given the chance,
want any of these jobs. Too stressful, too much sadness, too many
people hating every breath you take. How do these personalities do it?
I am here to tell you - every one of
them frequents Tiwaka's Tiki Bar & Grill. Granted most of them
do it unconsciously and for the most part wouldn't know the place if
they stumbled up to the thatched roof koa-wood bar with a talking
parrot guarding the liquor bottles. Yet, they do so in a virtual way, as a matter of
survival. In a world fraught with stress they know how to go to
“their happy place.” They may call it the local bar, or
listening to a favorite song, or hanging with family, but it's all
the same place. A brief moment in time when they are in control of
their own happiness. It's a temporary reprieve from the chaos of the world called paradise.
I write books that take my readers to
just such internal paradises, places where their own mind can sooth
the edges from a crazy world. I love the quote, from a song
somewhere, “We all have wings, but most of us don't know why”.
Tiwaka the Parrot can show them why.
I hope that President Obama, originally
from Hawaii, finds the magic of Tiwaka's Tiki Bar & Grill when he
is freed from the clamour and divisiveness of Washington D.C., be it
2013 or 2017.
Monday's occur all week?
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Book 1 Review (The Life and Times of a Hawaiian Tiki Bar)
Light and entertaining, August 14, 2011
This review is from: The Parrot Talks in Chocolate (The Life and Times of a Hawaiian Tiki Bar #1) (Kindle Edition)
I was enchanted with the Tiki bar and all the patrons, human and animal. We meet Tiwaka, the parrot that answers your questions when he eats his chocolate and who wouldn't love Ococ, the "backward dog. As far as the human patrons we met a official Tiki bar inspector, a elderly man who may or may not be a ghost and of course the story teller who runs the Tiki bar. The bar specially is a Coco Loco Moco in which the ingredients are added according to the answers given to questions during the preparation in order to personalize the drink.This story was a perfect "take me away" from life, a place were I would love to live and experience the beautiful imaginary that was created by the author. A quick short book but long enough to keep you interested and wanting more.
If you crave a reader's paradise for the mind this book is the one for you to read.
Thank you Mr. Peacock, for the complimentary copy and a great story.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Happiness take effort
— Everett Peacock (The Parrot Talks in Chocolate: The Life and Times of a Hawaiian TIKI Bar)
Monday, August 8, 2011
Quick Question
 |
| what are you doing right now that is keeping you from enjoying Maui? Seriously, what? |
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Short: My Life as a Fraction
“My Life as a Fraction”
Fraction: “I tell you, it’s hard being 9/2 (that’s 9 over 2) because
everyone is always trying to convert you. I mean, I don’t want to
be a Mixed Number, I want be myself. Some people even go so far as to call me 4 and one half!!! Can you imagine that? Once, when I was traveling in a foreign country some people pointed and told
their children, "there goes a 4 point 5".
Interviewer: “But, don’t you feel so, well, I don’t know. I’m looking for the word, let me see, oh yes - complex?”
Fraction: “Hey, my parts may always be equal to the whole, but I always feel like I can be whatever I want.”
Interviewer: “What? How could you be something other than an unsimplified complex
fraction?”
Fraction: “Dude, DUDE, don’t you see the cosmic beauty in it all? I can be 2 ¼ plus 2 ¼. Can you imagine that? I can be two equal parts!”
Interviewer: “Wow! That is quite amazing. It’s like you’re twins or something.”
Fraction: “Oh yeah, baby! I can even be Triplets. That’s right: 1 ½, plus 1 ½, plus
another 1 ½. “
Interviewer: “I don’t know how you do that! It’s like you’re smaller but there are more of you?”
Fraction: “Indeed! I can be many things. In fact, there is probably an INFINITE amount
of combinations that I can take. I’m like a ShapeShifter.”
Interviewer: “I get it now. You could even be 1 plus 2 plus 1 plus ½. Or, 3 plus 1 plus ¼
plus ¼. You sure are flexible!”
Fraction: “It’s all about equality dude! You just need to put that equals sign, =, in between all my variations.”
Interviewer: “So, that sounds pretty cool. You can be whatever you want, as long as it is
equivalent?”
Fraction: “You got it! Anyone can be whatever they want, but they are always themself.”
(written for a math class and copyright in 2009 by Everett Peacock)
Monday, August 1, 2011
Classify Your Book In a Sub-Genre
I always wondered HOW would I get my titles featured there? Featured...being on such a list would no doubt encourage sales and so my desire, and confusion, persisted. I was, and still do, monitor my Amazon Bestsellers Rank daily, generally watching my Kindle Store rank bounce around all over the place. Honestly, my sales on my best title are generally less than 10 per day. What to do? When your title is moving slowly how do you kickstart it?
As any Indie Writer will confess, marketing and exposure for a title that has garnered good reviews already is of utmost importance. Most products would beg for an advertising budget, but as an Indie, where your profit per sale is relatively low, paying 75cents a click on Google makes little sense, especially when only 2% of those clicks might convert to a sale. Making an Amazon Top 100 List though....that would be great! And FREE.
So, I started checking out the subcategories under Kindle eBooks > Fiction. There are dozens and I found that some titles in some genres were selling LESS than my title yet they made a Top 100 List. Naturally, my title might not fit into their genre, but there had to be one where it would. Something like Fiction >Literature >Genre Fiction >Amazing. Why wasn't my book showing up in any of those?
It was because I had inadvertently classified my own book as General Fiction in the KDP dashboard . That may be a good place for it, but it will never make one of Amazon's Top 100 lists.
For instance, this morning the title "The Parrot Talks in Chocolate" is a not too impressive #16,874 in the Kindle Store (a listing all books get) but is a more impressive #23 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Metaphysical. I also listed it in a category I liked, called "Visionary Fiction" where my title would fit around #6 if it gets into that list.
Of course, you must be honest about classifying your book. Don't put it in Romance > Dark Times > PreColumbian (which doesn't exist by the way) just to make it #1 if it is a story about Female Swim Coaches.
Enjoy! Marketing is more fun than you might think!
The Parrot Talks in Chocolate at 8 A.M. Hawaiian Standard Time August 1, 2011
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #16,874 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #23 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Metaphysical
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Forget Writing For Contests, Publishers or School
Back in the day....writers, or those that wanted to call themselves that, had to constantly prove themselves to legions of what I call "middleware" readers before they could enter the Marketplace.
Middleware are the writing classes in school, the multitude of contests, even the large publishing houses (complete with Genre Gurus and Editors). If one could muster the energy, downsizing of your dream and time to complete that competition THEN, with some luck, they might be allowed into the Holy Grail of Writing: the Marketplace. The Marketplace being bookstores, libraries and eventually into the hands of your real target - readers. Far too many obstacles between you and the reader, don't you think?
I just read a great blog post by the one single successful writer I follow, J.A. Konrath. His genre is one I will never read or write for, but he sells books, ebooks specifically and quite a few of them. So his take on the "marketplace" is one I respect. His post today was something like "why are you reading my post when you should be writing?" A good point, of course.
It prompted me to think further....why would we, as writers, spend too much time trying to get our words into the hands of those that judge them worthy of a business deal that will make the judges money? Why not go straight to the Marketplace, straight to the readers?
eBook publishing, via Amazon and other venues is allowing the creativity out in force. Get yourself busy, get yourself a trusted friend who can speak better English than you to proofread and PUBLISH direct to the Marketplace.
Excuses to tell your story are numerous, especially in the beginning. Sidestep the pitfalls and get your words into the hands of readers. Whose opinion is the most valuable eventually anyhow?
Let the marketplace be your Contest. Let the comments section be your Editor. Someone think you cut the story short, or did not develop a character well? Fine, rewrite it and republish...it takes about 48 hours for your changes to get back out there. Study the top sellers on Kindle, download the free samples, see what is catching people's attention. See what genres are moving best. Create your own genre! But, study the marketplace, write for your readers and for God's sake ENTER THE MARKETPLACE! Now.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Signed eBooks now available
It's not perfect, but it is good, as this allows personalization that has not existed up until now.
All of my titles are available via this service now at Kindlegraph.com
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Lendle my Kindle
Initially, I was a bit put off. Here was some clearinghouse taking advantage of the "Allow lending of this book" feature in the Kindle self publishing dashboard. Lendle is a clever way for people to list what Kindle books they own, put them up for "Loan" and in return might find a book available they would like to read from some other member.
It's like a big fat library.
Does that hurt sales? At first I thought it might and wanted to get out of the lending program. After all, when my books are priced at 99c, 1.99 and 2.99 AND Amazon already hands out a free 10% sample why would anyone short of a cheapskate need to wait in line to borrow a book IF and WHEN it becomes available?
Well, that was my first thought. After a deep breath, maybe two or three of them, I had another thought.
I would JOIN Lendle and OFFER ONLY my OWN books for loan there. I often give away copies to promote my brand, so how could this be any different?
In fact, Authors should all join Lendle and offer up their own books. Another great venue to get the word(s) out.
Of course, beyond my own books, I am not loaning any others.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Morning Breakfast Spot...
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Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Plumerias Awaiting the Morning Sun
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Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Great Interview in the Honolulu Sunday Paper
In the mind of the self-published
Two isle writers are finding greater satisfaction in their work by direct-marketing their books
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jun 19, 2011
Don't close the page on books just yet. In a world in which the downstream current rages against bookstores, works printed on paper, novels and novelists, the act of reading and the concept of literacy in general, there are still a few brave salmon thrashing their way upstream. Every writer since the invention of papyrus has secretly believed they could do a better job than their publisher, and nowadays many are being put to the test.
With the development of e-books and print-on-demand publishing, it has become easier than ever to self-publish — and harder than ever to get books into readers' hands. We asked a couple of self-publishers here in the islands about the state of their business. Both have books we found highly readable and well produced, with a thoroughly professional approach to presentation and, frankly, better edited than many mainstream books. In short, works that should have been making a profit for a book publisher. But in even shorter terms, don't quit your day job.
John G. Rees, whose Black Water Books is Big Island-based, is writing a series of scary sci-fi novels that recently won an international horror-writing award from independent publishers. Everett Peacock, whose home is above the cloud line on Haleakala, writes amusing stories about life in the islands that bring to mind James Thurber nursing a mai tai in a tiki bar.
Since they're writers, we'll let them speak for themselves.
Why did you go the self-publish route? Did you try pitching it to the majors? "Pitching to the majors is like beating your head against a wall," said Rees. "Unless you're connected, all you will wind up with for your efforts is pain and misery — we couldn't even get an agent to show interest!
"Self-publishing is new school. Being published by one of the major publishers, that is old school. Things are changing. Unsolicited submissions are no longer accepted, and I could be long gone before either of my manuscripts ever got to a desk and more likely a round file. Publishing the books ourselves was our way to start."
"There were several reasons I embraced the self-published route," said Peacock. "First, it had evolved from the ‘vanity press' model. Specifically it got two very important new ‘genes': It became quite a bit less expensive to publish your own book and it could immediately get onto Amazon.com for distribution.
"Secondly, it was far more immediate. A book can now be online and available to buy in about 24 hours. The time line became more aligned with my personal desire to get my stories out into the wild almost as soon as I was done writing them.
"I did pitch my first book as I was writing it. I used a submission service that sucked up my dollars and spat back rejection notices. I dabbled a little with agents but found they were highly specialized as well: youth fiction, vampire only, self-help, women writers, etc. "Being a child of the ‘70s, I had no desire to fit my stories into whatever box someone else might want. I justified my lack of success with publishers and agents this way and found, quite by accident, that I could market things myself."
ONLINE» www.blackwaterbooks.com» www.theparrottalksinchocolate.com » everett.peacock.com |
Did you guys do it yourself or seek professional help? What have you learned?
"It would be nice to say we did it all ourselves," said Rees, "but it's nicer still to thank the handful of people who made the production turn out as well as it did. We luckily got a couple of names from a self-help book guy, David Avrin. The good people at Self-Publishing.com started us out; we went through them for printing. Mohammad Sadath for the cover art and Danil Mullagaliev for the interior formatting; we worked with these people online. My wife, Mara, and Teddi Stransky for the grammar stuff. We also had several readers.
"One thing stands out. You cannot edit yourself. I think that is where a good book goes bad. Just because you can make all those colorful lines go away in your word-editing program doesn't mean you've edited a book. It's just the beginning and it gets a lot harder. You will rewrite it two to three times, if you're lucky, and read it over more times than you can imagine. And there will still be errors.
"I think it's part of what makes a first edition special, before another editor with bigger teeth chomps it to pieces."
"Book buying is still initially a visual experience, especially for unknown authors," said Peacock. "The cover is the last chance you have to make that proverbial first impression. I had the good fortune of living next door to a talented graphic artist, John Giordani, who took my first two tiki-themed books and captured the pitch with some fabulous artwork. Beyond the cover it was up to me. Storytelling is a visual experience in that the writer is painting inside the reader's imagination with a palette of words. "Typography has come a long way since I was the Radford High School newspaper editor. Spelling is facilitated by both spell-checkers and what I learned in my English classes. I give Radford credit for most of my grammar, as well as having read a lot.
"These choices boiled down to costs. I had to pay for a professional cover, no matter what. I am not a graphic artist. However, I did have basic editing skills to get the book up and going."
Are your books print-on-demand, or did you go the low-run route?
"We became our own publishing company here in Hawaii," said Rees. "We have the books available at our own website and also at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, JustBookz and many other online sites, in e-book form and print-on-demand. So we did both."
"Print on demand," said Peacock. "Amazon.com has a company called Createspace.com. Unless you're going to sell several thousand books right away, it's another example of cost-effective book publishing. You can literally get your book online for sale at Amazon.com for zero dollars, if you do the cover and editing yourself."
Are you making any money at this, breaking even, losing-your-shirt-but-still-have-your-dignity? "We'll have to go with the losing your shirt, but that's not to say we're naked!" said Rees. "It's definitely a tough market to break into, but we're still trying. Sales are steadily slow in all formats, but they are happening.
"The future looks good, and the third book is being edited to be released in the fall. We have had some fabulous reviews and feel it is a matter of time and patience. With two more books in the pipeline, we're running full steam ahead."
"I read about two important data points regarding book sales," said Peacock. "The so-called best-seller probably moves around 20,000 copies. The typical self-published author moves about 200 copies. I'm in between and doing better than I expected. I'm not losing money, but I feel the books could do better.
"Bookstores — physical bookstores — are part of the distribution challenge we have. It's funny: Barnes & Noble and a few independents will sell all their copies but not reorder as I would expect. Their overhead is so great they really need to focus on the hot topics."
What about e-books?
"Both ‘Anoxic Zone' and ‘Halocline' are e-pubs available through the sources mentioned above. Too soon to tell, but it seems to be the wave of the future," said Rees. "E-books surprised me, especially when I began selling more e-books than paper late last year," said Peacock. "Then Amazon.com announced they are selling more e-books than paperbacks, which already outsells hardcovers. That prompted me to release my third book (‘Death by Facebook') directly to the Kindle first and the paperback later.
"My sales were awesome in March, slow in April and then rocketing in May. In fact, I doubled the price on my best-selling title, ‘The Parrot Talks in Chocolate,' and sales continue at 90 percent of the previous rate. Adjusting my pricing is another advantage of a self-published author; I can do it in minutes. My e-book sales are still 6-to-1 against print."
Every real author knows that writing the book is only half the battle. Is your wife/partner sharing this production with you?
"Without Mara none of it would have happened!" said Rees. "A few hundred pages of juicy horror on a word program isn't anything until she sinks her teeth into it. She is the hacker in the family. Every author needs one. I'm just lucky!"
"My dear wife, Della, earned the dedication in my first book," said Peacock. "Her artwork, as a wedding designer at Dellables, is more financially successful than mine. I write when I'm not helping her, delivering flowers and such. Will work for food, that's my motto!"
How are you actually making a living these days?
"I'm not, really," said Rees. "When not writing, I do high-end residential painting. In this economy, however … I have a lot of time to write."
"If I was single, living in a communal treehouse on the North Shore of Oahu,subsistingon fish and rice, then I could say yes," said Peacock. "But I'm not. I help my wife with her business."
If a major publisher came knocking, what would be your response?
"I'm an equal-opportunity capitalist. I'd open that door right up," said Rees.
"I actually make more profit as a self-publisher, per book, than I would with any major publisher," said Peacock. "However, they have the volume angle that would make such a partnership most welcome.
"Amazon.com has now entered the publishing business as a full player, competing directly against the likes of Random House and others. This is huge since it gives little guys like me advantages I did not have a few months ago. They want to promote from within, looking for books with great reviews but, for some reason, relatively low sales. They approach those authors and offer to sign them to a promotional and marketing deal on their dime."
Is control important? "At this point the self-publishing journey is teaching us so much it might be hard to think of doing otherwise," said Rees. "You get used to making your own decisions. Do you make all the right ones? Of course not, but they are yours."
"Self-publishing is empowering, to be sure," said Peacock. "However, I am just an old surfer living on the side of a remote mountainous island. My marketing influence is obviously restricted. There are talented promoters, scriptwriters, filmmakers and actors that could take any of my stories to places quite beyond what I could."
Are you fixed for Christmas presents for some time to come?
"Without a doubt!" said Rees.
"I am. I keep several dozen print copies of each of my books in a closet to give out as gifts," said Peacock. "They are inexpensive for me to purchase, and since I created them they have that homemade feel that makes presents special."
Any hard-learned advice for other self-publishing wannabes?
"Keep writing. If it's good you'll know it," said Rees. "Have a reader or two who will give it to you straight. Don't give up or let criticism make you cave; use it. Sending your manuscript to an editor is one of the scariest experiences I've ever had. It's like standing naked for inspection. Hang tough. No one wants you to fail."
"Remember that your success is really measured in the fact that you get your story done," said Peacock. "Complete your project. Don't let fear hold you back. You can always read it when you're an old geezer sitting on the beach. Your kids and grandkids can read it decades from now and get a kick out of it. And when you publish it — on a blog, on a Kindle or on a stone tablet — you have contributed to human culture. And for that the universe will thank you."
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Review of "The Parrot Talks in Chocolate"
| Amazon.com $1.99 Kindle, $7.99 Paperback This book left me craving a Hawaiian vacation., By Cookie in Arizona (Tucson, AZ United States) - See all my reviews Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)  This review is from: The Parrot Talks in Chocolate (The Life and Times of a Hawaiian Tiki Bar) (Kindle Edition) I downloaded The Parrot Talks in Chocolate (The Life and Times of a Hawaiian Tiki Bar) to my Kindle when it was offered for $0.99, after reading rave reviews on the May 2011 Informal Poll.I'm so glad that I was referred to this book. It is uplifting and inspiring--with vivid descriptions of life, adventure, and romance on the beautiful island of Maui. The book is a fast read. I finished it in 3 days, mostly a chapter or two a night before going to sleep. After putting the book down each night, I would start visualizing moving from my Arizona home to live on one of the Hawaiian islands. I may just do that sometime. Hawaii is one of my all time favorite places. |
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Review of "Death by Facebook"
This book ($4.99 for Kindle) is impossible to classify. Yes, a bit of facebook (and correct even!) A bit of murder (one of the main characters is dead by the second page & still narrates). More than a bit of new ageism. A bit of love and a bit of hate. A lot of Hawaii. Very very different... and if you hang in there during this unusual book until about 2/3 of the way through you are treated with an exciting, tense extremely well written part of folks dealing with a natural disaster.
Very different, but I'm glad I read it.
Sorry I'm so general, but i hate spoilers :)
Very different, but I'm glad I read it.
Sorry I'm so general, but i hate spoilers :)
(Goodreads.com)
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Writers Conference
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Thursday, May 5, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Yes, Your Kindle Works Here...
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