Lubrican: Blog

In my previous blog entry I said I wasn't going to post any new stories soon. Then Andy sent me back the story he'd been working on.

That story, called The Summer of '42 "begins" in December, or at least the diary that plays a central role in the story begins in December, so it just seemed like this was an apropos time to post it. I admit I'm rushing it, a little, so it may not be as polished as I like things to be.

But I've never been patient, once something is "finished" and ready to be posted.

It's ten chapters, so a one week posting schedule is in order. For those who are impatient, like me, I'll publish the whole thing at Bookapy.

That may take another day or so.

Happy Holidays to all, and thanks for reading.
Bob

Alas, the present is not a new story, though I have one with Michelle for proofreading, and another one with Andy for editing. So those will get posted after the new year.

No, the present is a 25% reduction in the price of all my books at Smashwords.com between 18 Dec 20 and New Year's day. Anything you put in your cart between those dates will automatically be discounted 25%.

I want to thank everybody for their support, and for supporting Lazeez so you can read my material here at SOL.

And, of course, thanks for reading.
Bob

A number of people have written about the "new chapter" posted to Any Soldier. It is not a new chapter, however.

Here's what happened.

A reader wrote to me and asked where the epilogue to Any Soldier went. I looked at the SOL copy and the epilogue wasn't there. Chapter Fifteen was the last chapter listed. So I reloaded the epilogue and sent it in, explaining to the moderator that it wasn't really new, just replacing a missing file. I have no idea why it went missing.

This triggered a "new chapter" notification for some reason. I guess that was the moderator's call. So then I got mail with a variety of subjects. Some thanked me for a new chapter, but moaned that they didn't have a premium membership, so could not read this new chapter. Some said it was nice to finally read the end of the story. Others asked why I broke the epilogue out of chapter fifteen, and were there any substantive changes to the story.

Working off of my memory and logic (neither of which is a great idea, in my case) I think this is what happened.

I think the original posting had the epilogue embedded in chapter fifteen. If you downloaded the book when it was first published, then that's probably what you have.

At some later date, I decided the epilogue deserved to be its own chapter, so I broke it out and made it so there was the prologue, fifteen chapters, and the epilogue.

So if you downloaded the book after it had a separate epilogue, then that's what you have.

To my knowledge, there were no changes to the story (other than the inevitable small tweaks I do any time I send in a file)when I broke the epilogue out of chapter fifteen and posted it, or when I re-posted the mysteriously missing epilogue recently.

In any case, if you read the story and there was a wedding in it, you read the whole story. If there was no wedding, then you got caught in that Twilight Zone where there was no epilogue for whatever reason it disappeared.

Clear as mud?

Sorry for the kerfuffle.
Bob

Okay, I have explained this before, but some people don't read blogs, so I'll try again and just hope that they read it this time.

I write because I enjoy it. One side effect is that some people think I write well enough that they're willing to buy my books. That is a direct result of the education I got from SOL readers since 2005, as they coached me on how to be a better author.

For that reason, it is my policy to let all of my SOL family read everything I write for free. The caveat is, you have to download it as I post it, and save it on your computer. That is because, in some cases, the story will go behind the SOL pay wall.

Why?

Because I have learned the hard way that, that when I publish a book at Amazon or Smashwords.com, people (who are not members of the SOL family) Google the title and try to find it free somewhere. SOL is high up on the search algorithm, and if the story is posted for free at SOL, then people read it there, instead of buying it.

A lot of people think that all e-books should be free, just as they feel all music should be free.

Imagine you own a small business. Let's say you sell hot dogs. How would you respond if everybody approached you and said, "Give me a free hot dog." Would you be able to stay in business? Of course not.

I give free hotdogs to my SOL family, but not to the whole world. The only catch is, you need to grab that hotdog as soon as it comes off the grill.

I'm writing this because I've gotten numerous complaints that people were halfway through The Seventh Sense and then it went behind the pay wall. They were upset about this. They said it wasn't fair.

I started posting the story on the 13th of April and finished posting the story on the 25th of April. I left it in front of the pay wall until the 2nd of May. So, for roughly three weeks (during which the whole country was chafing under stay-at-home orders, with 'nothing to do' all that time) the story was sitting there, free to download.

Yes, you had to come back day after day, but I had to write it and post it every day, so we both had choices to make. If you had better things to do than download the story, then that's fine. You know what's important to you and what isn't. But if you just decided to wait and read it after if was completely posted, and then didn't download it for a week, I don't feel sorry for you. Especially since I posted blog entries about the length of the book and the posting schedule.

I offer it for free to a select group of people. I don't know of a lot of other authors who publish for sale who do that. I put blog entries out there giving you the information you need to know when to grab that hot dog off the grill.

So when you say I'm not fair for putting something behind the pay wall, it ticks me off, and I just don't feel like a horrible person.

I hope you and yours are safe from Covid 19

Thanks for reading.

Bob

First, I want to thank everyone for the very positive comments I received on this book. I wish I had more ideas like this one.

I got lots of suggestions about changing things. That's not unusual. Every reader has a unique imagination. In some cases people thought I should change details of the story because they "weren't possible". I get that, too, but this is science fiction, where "anything" is possible.

There was one change, however, that had to be made, because it went too far from reality. That was in the last part of the book, where I had babies being born without some genes. Even in science fiction, that stretches things.

There was a way to fix this, but it would have involved a lot of technical jargon and ethical issues I just didn't want to get into ... for now.

So, if you re-read this book some day, don't be surprised if you see something very different in the last part than you read before.

I just didn't want people writing to ask me if they'd gone crazy. A whole bunch of you lovely readers are old coots, like me, and our memories are a little tired, sometimes.

Thanks for a great time. I really appreciate you all.

Bob