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Unlock with PatreonWe went to Alaska
Technically we’re still there. I’m writing this from a hotel room (With actual balconies that you could jump off of if you wanted) in Anchorage before he head into Denali National Park.
We did a cruise. I like cruises, mostly. I know what you’re thinking, ”June 2022, a cruise ship? Gross, COVID City!”
You’d be wrong.
Let’s get the safety stuff out of the way.
You had to get a PCR or Antigen test done, 2 days before your departure day. You had to have proof of vaccination (at least 2 doses), and for kids too young to vaccinate, they had to be tested on board at the halfway point. Since we never got any notices from the boat after that point about infection, I assume the kids were fine, which as a sample, likely means most of us are. So yeah. They took this shit seriously.
Once on the boat, the moment you stood up from a chair or table, a crew member would swoop in with disinfectant and wipe everything down. You couldn’t use the same cup or plate twice. Once it was at your table, that was it, get a new one.
They had a strict no licking policy… Just kidding, making sure you’re still here.
Ok, so the fun parts.
We sailed out of Vancouver (oh yeah, currently at least, Canada also still requires masks on flights, and random pull aside COVID tests on arrival). We sailed through up to Alaska stopping first at Ketchikan.
We did the Misty Fjord excursion, which was fun. It was made more fun/worth the price, when we saw orcas, which we were told was pretty rare that far into the fjords.
So that was kinda cool. I learned that photographing whales is hard as shit when the water is murky (Maybe all the time). You have no idea where they’ll surface next other than roughly (Hopefully) in a straight line from where they were last.
That said. It was fun. We got back to the ship thrilled to have seen the whales and the rest of the fjords. The weather was perfect (for pics).
Then we went into Juneau, which despite being the state capitol was a tiny sleepy little town. Well, a tiny sleepy little town that entertained several cruise ships a day. We got our first view of a glacier (The Mendenhall), and wow are they noisy. Like semi-constant thunder. It was weird to think that somewhere behind the face we could see, tons and tons of ice was gnashing its way forward.
After that we had a whale watching tour. It was fun enough, didn’t see much that we hadn’t seen. Hard to imagine becoming jaded so quickly about freaking humpback whales. It was a great time.
From there it was on to Skagway. We didn’t book any excursions. Well, we did. I did. Mom and I were gonna do a train ride. Except Dad’s COVID test came back positive, and the NCL policy is that the entire party are canceled, so mom and dad weren’t able to join us.
It was fun, we just walked around, enjoyed some beer and fish and chips. Skagway is one of those places that lives on tourism (and probably fishing, but mostly tourism). COVID really did a number on the town. 2 in 4 storefronts was shuttered. Artists that sold in the various shops were forced to do other things and didn’t (as yet) come back to art. It was honestly sad. It really showed how poorly our country handled everything about the pandemic as it relates to businesses, especially the small ones.
And then we saw more glaciers. We had two days at sea, hitting first Glacier Bay National Park, then Hubbard Glacier. We got to see one of the Glacier Bay glaciers calve three times, which was awesome. Much like whale photography, you literally have no idea where a calving will take place, and then it’s half over.
Then it was onward to Seward, where we disembarked. After that an uneventful 2.5 hour bus ride from Seward to Anchorage. Tomorrow (at the time of this writing) we board a bus for 6 hours into Denali. I’m making sure my airpods are charged and my Kobo is ready, LOL.
Part 1 Final Thoughts
I’ll post about Denali seperately but will end with, cruises are great if you’re the type of person that likes to mix your vacation days with ”go go go, do the things” and ”Chill out and relax”. The at sea days are enforced relaxation. No leaving the boat, not awesome internet (but better than it used to be to be sure. More on that next time too). It’s a time to read, for me to write, to just generally not be going. I love that.
Thinking About Indie Bookstores
I was talking to a friend about Indie Bookstores and realized I have complicated feelings about them.
On the one hand
I fully support fighting Amazon at every possible turn. They’re bad for everyone, especially book stores. Please, if you haven’t read ‘How To Resist Amazon and Why,’ it’s worth your time. It’ll help you understand just how bad Amazon is.
We get books for my niece and nephew from our local bookstore all the time. We can walk to it, the owner is awesome and supports the community in myriad ways.
Indie bookstores are awesome. Ours is also a bar, and I’ve written parts of many of my books at the bar, sipping BookBar Red. But I don’t buy books there, because I read ebooks, which is a weird issue.
Indie bookstores inform the literary conversation, and no two are the same.
On the other hand…
Indie bookstores are really not that big a friend to indie authors. This is, of course, a generalization. Some are exceedingly supportive of indie authors, and many fall somewhere between awesome and horrible.
Sure they can order your book from Ingram Spark if a customer asks, most will, but some won’t even do that. Many, including mine, don’t offer it by default. I was standing at the info desk, picking up a pre-order we placed for Nicole. A kid came up and asked for something. “Nope, we don’t have that in stock.” Zero effort to offer to order it. From their website, you absolutely can place and order and they’ll do it, but in-person, nope.
Consignment isn’t support.
The store near me, and most, I’m guessing, offer consignment. You bring in the copies, and they’ll carry them for X months, take a cut of what they sell, give you back what they don’t, plus a check.
That certainly doesn’t suck (the getting a check part). Your book is shelved like any other book. Which is, you know, ok, but why not have an indie author shelf? Or a table with rotating indies? Or a local authors section that is always stocked? Why not give these indie authored books on consignment a little nudge? The store still gets money afterall.
It’s cool to be in a store, but I want to send people to find my work on display, not sticking spine out like the hundreds of other books that sit on the shelves until they’re sent back.
Traditional Publishing Trappings.
Indie bookstores are still glued to the traditional publishing world. My local one makes a big deal every Tuesday about what’s been released by the big publishing houses. Social media posts full of the week’s releases. Every. Single. Week. Most of those books won’t sell much, will eventually get sent back. Not once I have I seen them hype an indie author’s work.
They make a big deal about whatever every other bookseller is making a big deal about. If Oprah is talking about it, or a President is mad about it, they’ll have dedicated tables and shelves for it. I’ve yet to see them tout an indie author release. Sometimes they’ll mention (after the fact) an author holding an event for their book.
Communication and Reach.
Indie bookstores, get emails and details from publishers, probably all the time. They get press stuff, author tours, etc., from in-house promoters and promoters that work for agents, etc. All of which are the trappings of traditional publishing.
None of which most indie authors participate in or have access to. I mean, I’ve released 15 books and only once had them on the shelves at BookBar and never at Tattered Cover. I also don’t have a publicist, and while it was likely visible to both stores via Ingram Spark (not sure if they update or anything. They sell ads in a magazine which, just light the money on fire).
I’d bet that any given week, the books that were in their new release insta post two or three months ago, are being boxed to return. Those books all get space with little to no effort from the author. They all got some love online from the bookstore.
I’m not saying they need to track down indie authors, not at all. I mean, shit, there are thousands of us. I’m sure there are a hundred in my part of town.
I do think they need to be WAY more welcoming and make it clear that they want to support indies. My local one has a single “Print this consignment form” link. There’s a wall of “Indie authors,” but no idea how that’s curated.
I get the struggle. Shelf space is limited, do you give it to an indie? Or to someone rep’ed by the big 4 publishers? Except that so many books from the big 4 are debut authors with no more, or often less, pull than your average indie that hustles their ass off.
Sure, a lot of customers come in looking for the latest John Grisham, Oprah bookclub book, etc. But just as many would likely browse a shelf of local or indie authors to see what’s out there that they can only discover at this store.
It’s Complicated
It really is, and I get that. Do I spend time and energy that could be writing, chasing down book stores? They’re busy, but so am I. Should they be figuring out where indie authors are and reaching out? That’d be awesome but isn’t realistic. As I said, they’re busy. I don’t know the solution, but know that right now, there’s not much incentive to support an indie bookstore, as an indie author.
¯\_(?)_/¯
Using Notion for Lots of Things
I’m a note taker. To a fault. I need to remember something, I open a notes app. The problem is, I have many. Right now, it’s SimpleNote, Apple Notes, Good Notes and for writing, Scrivener or Dabble projects for ‘bibles’.
They’re all fine, but mostly inflexible. Enter Notion.
It’s not new, at all. It’s new to me.
I started with migrating my story bibles over from scrivener projects. This was mostly because Scrivener for iPadOS is trash. Navigating between projects is a nightmare and a half and since they don’t seem to be interested in making the app more mobile-friendly, I’m moving away from it.
My story bibles are … extensive, so it’s a work in progress. This post is about…
Version tracking
I don’t write code anymore, but I’ll always be a coder at heart I think. I version track things. Always have. For books, that was a note in simplenote; one per series. It wasn’t the worst setup but wasn’t as useful as I wanted and was an app I didn’t always have open.
So I moved my version tracking to a Notion Project. I found the basic “Reading List” DB and modified it.
I created an entry for each book. Added a series table so I could sort by series number and such.
I track a few details along with versions. ISBN numbers, copyright file numbers, and release date. I might add more now that I have a more robust and searchable setup.
So far I’m loving the flexibility of Notion. Having an iPad app I can toggle to when writing vs. backing out of the writing project to open the bible, etc. is awesome!
I keep finding myself looking at other existing templates to add to Notion. I can see this becoming my go-to app for storing thoughts.
My First and Last Starfest Denver
Last weekend was my first and last Starfest Denver. It was my first because I didn’t learn about it until 2019, but I missed the window to sign up and signed up for 2020 (sad trombone). It was my last because after 45 years, the family that runs it is retiring from cons.
It ran from Friday afternoon through Sunday evening.
I went in with a few goals.
Primarily I wanted to practice my hand-selling. That went well, I handed people books when they stopped by. I still need to dial in my pitch but got better at it. My friend Todd a few booths away has his sales approach down pat, it was impressive to watch. I learned though, that his approach isn’t mine. He was able to hold people at his booth for upwards of 10 minutes, excitedly explaining his series, the characters, etc.
My secondary goal was to eliminate stock. Between Stocking up for events that didn’t happen or I had to miss, my shelf of books in the garage was overflowing. I wanted to clear those shelves of old covers, old back matter, etc.
To accomplish that, I set some really aggressive discounts. If people bought 10+ books, they got them for $5 ea. which was in a few cases at a loss for me, and in most cases a tiny profit. Very much a loss leader approach.
It worked. I moved 6 or so 10+ orders. Folks literally just said, “I’ll take one of everything.” I came home with very few copies of anything and completely sold out of Space Rogues 1.
Book People
I was really impressed by the Starfest crowd. Despite my pricing experiment, I outsold every in-person event I’ve been to previously, by orders of magnitude. Even if they didn’t buy a paperback, they took cards and bookmarks to get ebooks.
It’s truly bittersweet how much I enjoyed Starfest since this was it. There were/are rumors the organizers might sell, but who knows if that’ll happen or if it’ll still be the same event.
I’m really glad I went, and wish the organizers, fans, and creators all the best in the future. I’m sure many of us will cross paths elsewhere.
Our Love Hate Relationship with Creators
This post was started in 2018 and has been brewing ever since.
I saw this in a Facebook group I’m a part of. It’s a group of “Power Users”. I see posts like this in this group, and just about every writers/readers group daily if not more frequently.
I highly doubt the person who posted this would be happy to be paid for their labor every 6 years. I know I wouldn’t.
According to the post, this person is willing to pay one whole measly dollar a month. So $12 for software. This post is about 1Password, which I love and happily pay for and encourage everyone to use and pay for. So $12 for software that keeps your passwords, credit card numbers, and anything else you put into it, safe. Safe and synced across your laptop, iPad, and iPhone. Safe in an encrypted volume, the company takes seriously and makes clear they have no access to. Twelve bucks?
Let’s say Mr. One dollar a month grudgingly pays and uses 1Password for ten more years. Does he think $120 is enough? Could he live on what he makes in a month for ten years? I couldn’t.
Consumers are so disconnected from what they consume now. We happily, joyfully pay for a new iPhone every year, but an app better be free or maybe $1, total, lest we complain. Much of this is laid at the feet of Apple, Amazon, Wal-Mart, etc. Companies with platforms, that push the creators to the bottom to grow their platforms. They’ve trained consumers to not think twice about a new Mac, or latest Pixel phone, or a $400 kindle. But do nothing to educate consumers that the app they love was made by someone that plans to pay their mortgage, and it is worth more than a dollar. Or when a book that takes months to write, hundreds if not a thousand dollars to produce, is more than $2. “I won’t pay more than $2 to read a book on my two hundred dollar Kindle.”
And it’s everywhere. People bitch at me that a conference that’s 2 days, 2 tracks, with international speakers, lunch included, is $399. “That’s like twice what I’m willing to pay.” Yet these people make software and expect a high hourly rate or high annual salary.
The other day there was a post on the Denver Post’s Facebook page. One person commented that they’d apparently used up their free viewings online, so couldn’t read the article. Most of the comments were either “Here’s how I don’t pay the post for their work” or defending the idea of not paying by pointing out how ‘easy’ it is to not pay them. It was disheartening. These folks want the news, but not to support those that create it.
The common comparison is a cup of coffee, which is fine, it’s a legitimate comparison. For me though, it’s “How do you expect your fellow human to survive? Would you rather have nothing than pay for things? Would you prefer something free where you’re the customer and your data is in the hands of a Venture Capitalist?”
We want an amazing and bug-free app, a great well-edited book with a professional cover, a game that’s on par with the AAA studios, but you don’t want to spend more than one or two bucks for it? As someone who created things; conferences, and now books, it’s frustrating. I sympathize with my friends who make apps and games, or write or make clothes, or anything.
If this still isn’t resonating with you, look at it this way,
You go to work every day but surely would stop if your boss said, “We’ll pay you this week, but you’ll be expected to work the next six for free. Maybe on the seventh week, we’ll pay you again, but only if you show that you’ve spent that time doing twice your normal work.”
This is basically what we’re telling every single person who’s trying to make a living making things. We value their efforts so little we don’t want to pay for them, and if we do, we want to then own their creative efforts indefinitely. But hey it’s new iPhone time, gotta stay up late to place my order…
I’d love to see us move to a place where we’re happy to buy something knowing that we’re helping someone make a living. If you can’t afford it, that’s fine, save up, or don’t get it, etc. But don’t tell someone their creative efforts aren’t worth anything.
