End of the World Art

Hongkiat has put together a great collection, including a photo manipulation by Chris Law (above).
Check them out.

THIS IS AWESOME: La Jettée, the inspiration for Twelve Monkeys

If you like time travel, and you like the post-apocalyptic fiction, you owe it to yourself to watch the source material Monkeys is based on:

For my money, La Jettée's mournful, artsy post-apocalylpse is better and more evocative than the Terry Gilliam version.

And I love the Terry Gilliam version.

Yet this black and white slide show set to music and narration stills makes me feel more. And it's in French, too, with subtitles.

Perhaps the very limitations it labors under gives it a sense of verisimilitude that make it seem more real and immediate than Bruce Willis in a puffy, goofy looking transparent suit.

Weird.

Visit the Post-Apocalypse – Today!

Can't wait for the post-apocalypse? You don't have to!

Here are the top three places you can visit it right now:

1) Chernobyl (Pripyat)

Abandoned after the Chernobyl nuclear plant meltdown 1986, nature has been slowly reclaiming the city of Pripyat. The trees don't seem to mind, but it won't be fit for human habitation again for centuries due to high radiation levels.

And yet, Chernobyl has become a hip tourist spot.

Take a (safe) trip via drone through the ruins:

Stunning and haunting. It really doesn't take long for nature to reclaim a city. Great spot to shoot a zombie apocalypse movie set during the Soviet era.

You can even sit in the rusting bumper cars in the amusement park. Fun, wow!

2) Hashima, Battleship Island, Japan

Once a coal mining facility, it was abandoned in the 1970's and left to rot. It looks it.

It's been open for tourists since 2009, although many of the buildings are too unsafe to enter. Some have collapsed entirely. They shot some of the movie Skyfall here.

Oddly enough, the post-apocalypse island is under the administration of the city of Nagasaki, one of the two cities bombed with nuclear weapons during the Second World War.

You can take a VR tour thanks to Google.

3) Beichuan, China

Destroyed in a 2008 earthquake which killed some 50,000 people, it hasn't been rebuilt. Some of the buildings have been shored up with supports, but otherwise it's been left as it was the day after the earthquake.

It's now a memorial.

Classic Apocalypse: Top six reasons for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire

It seems a fitting topic of discussion for a blog about the Post-Apocalypse, although this is a particularly old one. 

But why did it happen?

You don't need to read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to find out; this blog post reduces it to six easily digestible points. How's that for brevity?

Of course, anyone and everyone interested in history eventually stumbles across this question, and the answers are just as numerous.

Every ideological agenda has an explanation to fit, ranging from Marxist to Libertarian. Some say it never happened at all, that the empire just morphed into a different form.

Theories wax and wane. Historians, believe it or not, follow trends.

Here's what Matthew White has to say about it:

"…There is also a tendency to downplay the violence associated with barbarian invasions—as well as frowning on calling them barbarians. In fact, some scholars argue that the whole fall of the Western Roman Empire is overrated as a milestone, and that the changes sweeping Europe were mostly the peaceful immigration of wandering tribes, who imposed a new ruling class but were culturally assimilated in a couple of generations.

This view is especially popular among the English, Americans, and Germans since they are the descendants of the aforementioned barbarians, who would now seem less barbaric… Every now and then scholars grow bored with overrated golden ages, and they gain a renewed interest in former dark ages. It is never permanent, and we shouldn't take it too seriously."

One paradigm or narrative will hold sway for awhile until someone comes along who wants to prove their intellectual bonafides by upsetting the applecart and overturning the accepted narrative.

The pendulum swings one way, then the other, hopefully going to less of an extreme each time, until a better, more accurate picture of the past emerges.

Or at least the most egregious errors and ideological agendas are purged.

I was going to go with a list, starting with peripheral causes and then zeroing in on the biggie, but the biggie is so big it cascades over into all the others, so it makes sense to start with the main cause and expand outward from that.

The Roman Leviathan, which dominated the Mediterranean for centuries, essentially fell because it was subjected to more stress than the system could absorb. The empire was an organization, a kind of information system. If you disrupt a system enough, introduce enough chaos, it will eventually reach a tipping point and dissolve.

So what were the primary sources of stress?

Here's my Quick Start Guide to the Fall of the Roman Empire.

1) Barbarian invasions

This is a controversial thing to say these days, as the current trends is to absolve the negative impact of barbarian attack ('migration'). Damage inflicted by barbarians is downgraded or simply ignored by the hip historians, leaving it to the fuddy duddy's to hold barbarian feet to the fire.

Hipster historians are willing to write off the 40 million people killed, for example, during the campaigns of Genghis Khan as insignificant. Because trade routes and culture exchange! They're trying to offset the previous focus on Mongol city razing and balance the account, but they're swinging the pendulum too far in his case.

Of course, Genghis arrives on the scene long after Rome succumbed, but he's nevertheless part of the same phenomenon: the collision of vast, wealthy, and well-established agrarian states and mobile, poor, yet militarily superior steppe peoples.

Barbarians were always at the borders of Rome. That's very true. But the pressure they exerted increased greatly over time, and escalated from footmen to mounted archers. Areas that had been quiet, such as North Africa, also became more active threats over time.

During the Classical period, the legions of Rome dominated the region with their professionalism and highly flexible formations. Armed with a  short sword (gladius) and throwing spear (plum), they were better organized and frequently better led than those of their opponents around the Mediterranean basin.

And they were almost all foot soldiers.

Fortunately, their opponent's armies were composed, primarily, of footmen as well. Cavalry were expensive to field. When the proportion of cavalry eventually increased, they frequently weren't Romans at all, but hired barbarian mercenaries.

Nomadic peoples of the steppes began to impact the borders of the Roman during the third century AD, which was a calamitous period for Rome thanks to a mixture of invasions, revolts, plagues, civil war, economic depression, currency debasement, and secession. Rome went through 20 emperors in 50 years. It brought the Mediterranean Leviathan to the brink of collapse.

The arrival of the Goths complicated things further, and it would get worse when the Vandals and Huns showed up.

Why? Agrarian based states at this time were unable to effectively counter the masses of horse archers that nomads deployed. This was true for all the states bordering upon the steppes: China, Persia, India, and Rome all experienced devastation at the hands of mounted invaders.

Settled civilizations had to adapt to an enemy that could literally ride circles around them. That or perish.

Both China and Rome, the two most easily accessible from the steppes, tried bribery. China was expert at playing on nomad people off against another, and did so with aplomb for centuries. Rome hired barbarians to provide cavalry forces for their armies, until, eventually, the barbarians essentially became the Roman army. But they were never accepted as Romans. Just foxes guarding the hen house.

Rome's riches were extremely tempting to poor steppe peoples who didn't have the food surpluses necessary to support as much specialized labour.

Given how easily settled states could be crushed militarily, it made sense for the nomads to prey upon them and extort vast tributes.


2) Military inferiority

The legions built an empire for Rome, and for hundreds of years, nothing could stand against them. But by the third century, things had changed. The legions found themselves outclassed by new, mounted opponents.

In addition, the population of Germany had increased, and with it pressure against the borders of the empire, so there would have been some increase in military spending to meet the rising tide regardless of whether or not the steppe peoples arrived.

But horse archers were much more dangerous than the axe wielding barbarians Romans were used to: the hordes were the equivalent of Classical Era Panzer Divisions, practicing early Blitzkrieg.

Foot soldiers simply couldn't keep up, nor could they force a faster moving enemy to battle. Mounted troops would ride up, fire an arrow from their powerful composite bow, and retreat out of range before defenders could respond.

It is not known if the Huns brought stirrups to Europe. It's within the realm of possibility, but just their mobility and composite bow was enough to give them a decisive edge. In fact, the horse archer dominated the world militarily until rifles were developed. Only then could foot soldiers cut down mounted troops before they had a chance to loose their arrows.

Obviously the first two points (barbarian invasion and military inferiority) are intertwined. The fact that China and Rome could not beat the nomads mano a mano meant they had to co-opt, bribe, or hire nomads to fight for them. China, which had a much larger population and was, relatively speaking, more culturally powerful and homogenous than Rome, was better able to absorb invaders than its polyglot Roman counterpart, and did so repeatedly. Barbarians would conquer China only to become Chinese.


3) Increasing internal oppression and erosion of rights and security
In order to deal with the inability of Roman forces to hold the enemy at the border, whole regions were abandoned by civilians, who understandably did not want to be casually raped and pillaged by raiders.

The change was noticed: Emperor Diocletian saw that the empire was caving under barbarian pressure and implemented sweeping military and civil reforms.

First he divided the military into two branches: a limited, fortified, stationary border guard to sound the alarm and hold back small incursions, and elite mobile legions held in the rear to deal with major invasions. These would ride out to meet enemies who penetrated deep into Roman territory. It was now defense in depth, the same defensive tactic adapted to thwart Blitzkrieg during the Second World War.

The idea of holding barbarians right at the border was a thing of the past. Front lines were too brittle.

Yet Rome was already spending half its budget on the military (the United States spends roughly 20%). This not only increased, but in order to secure a stable supply system for the military, Diocletian forced people to remain in place, forbidding them from moving, as well as forcing male children to take up the vocation of their father.

People were robbed of choice.

Anyone unfortunate enough to live in a border territory was now stuck there.

Yet this way Diocletian could guarantee that the supply system for the army wouldn't erode or collapse as people decided to move or switch professions.

It unquestionably made the Roman Empire a worse place to live. Only a very small, rich minority would have been unaffected.

The reason for these changes? Pressure from barbarians. Without that pressure, there would be no reason for such drastic changes to the circumstances under which the civilian population lived.

Diocletian also brought in a system of guilds, to which workers were compelled to belong.

The predation by barbarians changed everything and resulted in the militarization of an entire society.

Rome was now a military with a state, rather than a state fielding a military. This kept the empire humming along for another century or two. From Diocletian's harsh reforms to the final collapse of the (Western) Roman Empire, we are looking at an interstitial period, Late Antiquity, that bridges the gap between the Classical Era and Medieval Feudalism (and The Dark Ages, if you believe they happened at all). The knights of the feudal era, and the peasants who supported them, are a response to the threat of mounted troops.

One thing you will find over and over again throughout history: trade increases wealth, so savvy leaders protect merchants and trade routes, because they generate wealth, and wealth can be taxed.

As the Roman state could no longer guarantee the security of merchants, long distance trade declined. Drastically. The payoff was no longer justified given the increased risks involved.

And so the state and everyone in it became poorer.

It had already been through a major depression during the Crisis of the Third Century, and Roman currency had been badly debased. Diocletian tried to rectify this with strict price controls and draconian punishments, but they didn't work and didn't last.


4) Lack of a peaceful means of succession and state fragmentation

Democracy allows for the peaceful transition of power, and it's one tool the Romans didn't have.

When an emperor died, every ambitious noble and power hungry general scrambled for the diadem.

This handy chart from Randal S. Olson's site shows length of reign and means of death for emperors between 27 BC and 395 AD:

Emperors were often assassinated by their successor. Sometimes this impacted just the emperor and his immediate family (all would be hunted down and murdered), other times it devolved into civil wars that would convulse the state and disrupt trade for a year or two. Armies would be stripped away from the frontier to fight for the Imperial Purple, allowing barbarians to flood into Roman territory unhindered.

Over time, any highly coveted position will see the investment contenders make to seize it increase, until, eventually, the investment made far outweighs the actual benefit of the position itself.

This is very much the case with the Imperial Throne. After moving Heaven and earth to gain the it, many emperors perished within a year or two, murdered by the next in line. It was like a revolving door.

The actual benefit of the position declined precipitously. Power began to be wielded more by people behind the scenes, as sitting on the throne was simply too dangerous. The last emperors were little more than puppets of barbarian power brokers holding the position of the Magister Militum, head of the (now not so) Roman Army. Eventually the barbarian generals decided to do away with the figurehead emperor entirely.

Many governors, if they couldn't take the throne, seceded from the Empire and established their own, separate domain where they could be numero uno. Britain, for example, was a separate domain for years, first as part of the Gallic Empire (259-274 AD) and then as the Britannic Empire (286-296 AD) until finally being brought to heel.

This sort of secession was so common that Diocletian separated military and civil powers to prevent any one man from holding too much power. Diocletian even divided rule of the empire between four Tetrarchs.

Then he retired to raise cabbages.

It wasn't enough.

Despite all of Diocletian's efforts, the Romans preferred fighting amongst themselves when they should have been dealing with invaders. Internal competition led to alliances with external enemies that further damaged the state.

5) Cultural fragmentation and bigotry
Over time, the invaders of China became Chinese. This didn't happen with Rome, which was incapable of assimilating the barbarians. Indeed, the Romans resisted making Germans, in particular, into Roman citizens, to their own detriment. Emperor Honorius indulged his prejudice against them and had the families of the Goths, some 30,000 women and children, who were under Roman protection at the time, murdered.

Not a good way to co-opt people.


6) Slavery and wealth polarization
The rich got richer and the common free man got poorer as the empire aged, and it wasn't good to begin with.

Slavery only benefits a small minority at the top of the totem pole. Vast slave estates made it impossible for free men to compete as farmers, and eventually the free men were driven into debt or fled to Rome to live on the dole. Others took shelter under rich lords, accepting their protection from debt collectors in exchange for labour.

It was the beginning of serfdom.

It had become much harder for the little people to make a living. Whatever middle class had existed was being squeezed out of existence as the rich pressed their advantage and impoverished everyone else.

Enormously wealthy senators didn't pay taxes and were exempt from military service, into which ordinary people could find themselves unceremoniously dragooned.

There was no Solon to strike a balance between the interests of the rich and the poor. The system had degenerated too far and become too corrupt. What few protections there were for the average citizen had been eroded away, and they had less and less reason to be loyal to the state that oppressed them in the name of protecting them.

From the point of view of the elite, there was little reason for technological innovation, as slaves (human beings) are incredibly sophisticated machines, capable of a wide range of functions. Disposable people made automation irrelevant and held back the development of practical, labour saving devices.

The ancients knew of all sorts of things, of course, including steam power. They just didn't see any economic reason to harness such marvels, except as toys or for spectacle. It was far cheaper to use people.

When the Roman state collapsed, the barbarians kept some elements of the bureaucracy functioning. The rich certainly faired better than the poor, and the senate continued to meet. Some of them cooperated with their new, barbarian overlords while others fled to Constantinople.

But eventually all of the state systems that Rome had built withered away. The remarkable Roman roads became overgrown. Long distance trade dried up. Aqueducts, stadiums, and magnificent baths slowly collapsed and no one knew how to rebuild them.

The forum, centre of life in Rome, became a cow pasture.


That's my top six. Other possible factors:

7) Plague

The Roman Empire was hit repeatedly by massive plagues, and some of the worst occurred during its later years, such as the Plague of Justinian. That one, of course, was too late to account for Rome's collapse, just as the Antonine Plague was too early.

No doubt there were others, and they may have impacted the ability of the empire to defend itself.

As was seen in the collapse of the Incan and Aztec Empires, disease can devastate not only the military forces of a state (indeed, large concentration soldiers were breeding grounds for disease, including The Spanish Flu), but the bureaucracy and supply systems behind it, making the government incapable of defending the state and its people effectively.

But I'm really speculating with this one. The barbarians would have been affected by plague as well. When Pope Leo I turned back Attila from the gates of Rome, some say it was less because of God and gold and more because plague had broken out in the Hun camps.

8) Climate change

Areas in North Africa were already abandoned and left fallow before barbarians overran them, suggesting that they were already no longer economically viable. Food production declined. There is evidence that life in general had become more difficult.

A change in climate, possibly a mini-ice age, might explain this.


Rise and Fall
The animation below shows the expansion and contraction of the empire from the time of the republic:

Lead poisoning may have reduced the effectiveness of the ruling elite and driven some of them mad, but I'm not sure how major a factor that really was. Christianity was militarized by Constantine, so its earlier pacifist, slave ideology origins were successfully co-opted by the state and seem an unlikely cause of its collapse. It did cause instability for a time as various factions competed for dominance.

Rome hit a high with Marcus Aurelius and the golden age of the second century, got slammed in the third, was saved by Diocletian's reforms, which helped it trudge through the fourth, but then got finally overwhelmed in the fifth.

Acting together the top six points created a perfect storm.

The Eastern Roman Empire, however, would continue to exist until Constantinople fell in 1453.

Looks like the Robopocalypse is still a ways off.

Quest for an Audience: What marketing works for an ebook, and what doesn't?

I've found these methods are commonly pushed online:

1) WRITE ANOTHER BOOK. This advice is typically delivered in 36 pt font and in all caps.
2) Promote on social media such as Facebook and Twitter.
3) Create a blog.
4) Participate in online forums for the genre you're writing in, engage with the writer community, and help others when and where you can.
5) Write and submit short stories.
6) Run ads.
7) Run promotions with services such as Bookbub, FreeBooksy, etc.

I tried several. Grab yourself a cup of really hot tea, settle in, and let's take a look at my results, shall we?

1) WRITE ANOTHER BOOK

Jury still out, but I suspect this is extremely helpful.

My first book was 100,000 words, and my second is likely to be roughly the same, so it's taking time to complete. Too much time, I know. I ran into a number of issues that derailed me for awhile as well, so things are proceeding more slowly than I might have hoped.

I am considering writing shorter 'novelettes' in future, or doing something serialized so I have a regularly updated presence. Otherwise, readers apparently forget you. Out of sight, out of mind seems to be very true in the fast paced world of online indie publishing, although results may vary depending on the genre you are writing in:

"Those who want to do best at self-publishing, they found, would be well advised to focus on romantic fiction. Romance authors earned 170% more than their peers, while authors in other genres fared much worse: science-fiction writers earned 38% of the $10,000 average, fantasy writers 32%, and literary fiction authors just 20% of the $10,000 average."

Many authors on the Kboards are switching from long winded tomes to short, breezy novelettes. Dean Wesley Smith has written about how the traditional publishing market pushed writers to aim for a certain length, and began to frown upon shorter books. Many classics, however, are actually quite short. They'd qualify now as novelettes. And some authors went in to completed manuscripts to pad them out to 100,000 words, which seems a waste of time and talent.

Smith is a proponent of letting a story find its own length, and I agree with him. From a financial point of view, shorter works can be put out more frequently and thus keep up a constant stream of income. Writing massive epics means longer between cheques. Not only that, if the epic flops, you've invested, and essentially wasted, a lot of time on it without reward.

So it makes sense to write shorter pieces and publish more frequently.

Practice makes perfect, as they say.

If you go by Kboards, you'll find those who are pursuing it as a career do so with almost demonic determination, pumping out full novels every three months, or even faster, which doesn't seem possible if I look at my own writing speed. Some of them seem to be doing quite well at it, too, income wise. Which just allows them to write more.

Making a living from writing seems real pie in the sky type stuff to me. The average, 'real' writer makes only $10,000 per year, which is under the poverty line.

Those claiming higher incomes, then, are the exceptions, not the rule.

And as expected, sales by people with multiple titles are often higher than those with just one book. Helps build an audience.

2) Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc)

I started up a Facebook account solely to promote my first book. I haven't dived into Twitter. One social media account at a time. I haven't put much effort into it. It takes a lot of time and energy to build a social media presence, you need to post frequently. It also helps to be connected to a large social network of people who are similarly engaged in these communities. If you aren't, it doesn't do much good.

3) Create a Blog

The blog (Welcome!) hasn't helped build an audience but I've had fun with it. Of course, they say blogging is dead.

You need to be focused, have a unique angle, and offer readers value. If I had really valuable advice on writing, for example, or incredible recipes, or helpful tips for car maintenance, or real estate buying and get rich quick schemes, or marketing secrets that work, well, the blog would have more readers.

But I have no secrets.

Not interesting ones, anyway.

I post stuff vaguely related to the post-apocalypse, articles on writing in general, my own adventures, plus reviews. Which millions of other people post. I suspect a thorough, in depth focus on something specific, say a run down of every post-apocalypse novel ever written, or every issue of Kamandi, episode of Thundarr, or analysis of the all the Fallout games would yield better results, but do not feel I am prepared to write such a research blog.

Maybe you can.

4) Online Forums and Communities

I've participated in a number of forums, mostly for writers, but there are others who have far greater levels of knowledge and expertise than mine already contributing.

So mostly I just listen.

On the Kboards, several successful writers now post under pseudonyms for various reasons.

They may be a two-edged sword, even for experts.

5) Short Stories, Anthologies, Competitions

I've written a number of short stories and submitted to various magazines and competitions. Some are still under consideration, but so far no dice. Not surprising, given the number of writers out there, my own novice status, and how competitive it is. It'd be like winning the lottery to get into a short story collection or a sci-fi magazine.

This is an area where persistence is a real virtue. It also has the side benefit of improving your writing.

The more you write, the better you get.

One can invest a lifetime into writing and achieve creative satisfaction and personal development but nothing else, neither audience or income, or you could write one story that goes viral and is a huge success. Of course, that risks being a flash-in-the-pan, as a lucky first break may bring success you aren't ready for.

Many authors who seem like instant successes spent years toiling away in obscurity before that one story hit an audience nerve and catapults them to success. Hugh Howey, for example. He's a great example of someone who worked hard not for the sake of success, but for the love of writing. And it all worked out. He's a cool guy too.

At the same time, full time writers have to be business people as well.

Writing is a craft and an investment. Some say it is easy (Iain McCaig) and others say it is extraordinarily complex (John Truby). But unlike studying medicine, or law, there's no guarantee of anything at the end of the learning curve other than self-fulfillment.

6) Online advertising

I've run a couple ad campaigns now using Google Ad Words (both text and image) and Amazon's own advertising system. They're kind of fun and exciting to do. But results wise? Crickets.

They are, in my opinion, entirely ineffective.

This may be due to the subpar quality of my ads, or perhaps ineffective targeting. I am writing for a niche audience.

Finally, many of my ads are probably hidden by ad blockers.

But what are the numbers, you ask? People love hard numbers. I get that. I also understand that people are often reluctant, for various reasons, to give them out.

In the altruistic spirit of this post, here they are: I have spent $500 on online advertising. Sounds like a lot, right?

For the results I got, it most certainly is.

First, I did a low burn text ad campaign I put $100 of funds into. $1 per day spending limit with bids set at 10 cents max. Some cost as little as a couple cents. On top of that I added two 'blitz' campaigns I ran only when the book was free. The idea was to maximize exposure and downloads and in so doing, gain reviews that are so essential to being regarded 'seriously' (as much as a flawed system can bestow legitimacy) and getting accepted by the book promotion services.

This is where you need to have more than one book. The first acts as a loss leader and gains interest. You only start charging with the second. But I have only one book so there's a conundrum. I figured I'd give away a short story or two but Amazon has cracked down on anything 'permafree', made it more difficult to make books/short stories permafree (it's a convoluted system where you have to list the story on another service, one that allows free listings, and then report it to Amazon, only it can't be you that reports it, or some such nonsense, what a headache, never mind) and as a result I abandoned the whole pain-in-the-butt idea.

I spent $400 on the two blitzes, split the budget between text and image ads. The text ads got higher click through rates, but the image ads got much higher views.

Neither translated into sales.

You can see the image ads here. Yes, this post is just chock filled with self-references.

Some of the ads have a a decent amount of text, but then, I am selling a book. I thought they were cheeky.

Well cheeky doesn't work, bucko.

On top of all of that, I gambled $100 on Amazon ads. In fact, I had to spend $100. You can only create an Amazon campaign if you invest the hundred buck minimum. It's that or no go. As I'd not tried them, I figured it'd be worth the attempt. Try, evaluate, refine, repeat.

I saw no movement with these ads either, so I won't be doing Amazon ads again.

It's all a little embarrassing. I feel like I just showed the world my underwear.

Perhaps better ads, or better targeting would yield better results. I don't know. But if you're going to run ads, make sure you've got good ones and that you use effective, targeted keywords.

On the plus side, it was fun. Kinda like gambling your savings away in Vegas surrounded by show girls and drinking scotch is fun. Which, come to think of it, might be a down side if you get addicted to that sort of thing.

7) Promotion Services (BookBub, FreeBooksy)

Several people online have said one should never use these services, ever, that they're just a waste of money and you'd be better to invest time in Twitter and social media instead.

I found the exact opposite.

I had a promotion with FreeBooksy (it isn't free for authors, it just lists free books) and a couple others, and had tremendous success, at least relative to all my other promotion methods. I'm writing in a very niche area, and every day there are over a thousand free books available for download. Several thousand I believe.

Competition to get in the promotional newsletter to their subscribers can be intense with the most recognized ones, such as BookBub.

Obviously the service picks books according to what they feel their audience is going to enjoy reading. That means books in popular genres are more likely to be listed, as are those that have overwhelming positive feedback (reviews, ratings). The promotion service's own success depends upon their subscribers having a positive reaction to the material they promote, and every bad book that gets in damages their brand. So they are understandably picky and will veer towards mainstream sensibilities, as that will elicit the strongest and broadest positive reaction. Niche material, or anything controversial, will be riskier to promote as it has the potential to harm the service.

Smaller services are more likely to take risks in their recommendations.

There's some negativity directed at popular writers from the literary crowd. At a writer event I went to (incognito), for example, they divided books into two groups: literary and 'crap that sells'.

My book would be classified as 'crap that doesn't sell' which is the worst of both worlds.

Oops.

Personally, I enjoy reading in both areas, and I'm not about to begrudge someone for trying to make a living in a difficult market, whether it be by grants, fanfic, romance or whatever. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

I spent $70 on FreeBooksy (and, I think, a couple others) and got 1,500 downloads from their promotion. For a free book, mind you. And in such a crowded market, I consider that, from what else I've experienced in my self-publishing journey, very good. And from that set of free books, I got several reviews. Authors on the Kboards say you get about 1 review per 1000 copies downloaded. So I did fairly well with 4 reviews.

Reviews are necessary if you want to apply for many of these promotion services. Some require a minimum of 6 reviews and a 4 star average. A few bad reviews and you're out of consideration.

This means that there are strong incentives for people to try and game the system by having people they know give them five star reviews. And of course it is also easy to sabotage a book.

All my reviews are from strangers as almost all of the people I know don't read novels, and those who do aren't sci-fi buffs. It's ironic: they say no one reads anymore, yet there are more writers than ever.

We're just reading short articles and Twitter posts instead of novels.

Will there be a Best Twitter Post award eventually? Will the Great Tweeters rise up to take their place beside literary luminaries such as Victor Hugo, Hemingway and Poe? In a hundred years, will english classes be studying the greatest tweets alongside Shakespeare? Will anyone then have the attention span necessary to read Shakespeare, or will his plays have been translated down into 140 characters by then?

Yet, in all seriousness, Amazon sells over five billion worth of books every year. So somebody is still reading.

I got a couple more reviews by soliciting on a Google review community. So you can try that.

The majority of ebooks I've gotten out there have been given away for free, so I'm not making any money at this. My primary goal is to find readers. It will be a long term investment if it's anything.

Many authors give away their first book, just to gain traction in a crowded market. But it leads immediately to the first point, if you want it to work: WRITE ANOTHER BOOK.

There you have it.

Hope this was helpful, at least a little, and I wish you all the success with your (e)book(s)!

For some excellent advice on marketing, check out what Michael J. Sullivan and Chris Fox have to say. These are two smart cookies with lots of valuable advice.

Sullivan, for example, has this juicy morsel:

Before doing any serious marketing you need to get your Amazon reviews in the double digits. At least 10 but probably more like 12 - 15. Until you do that you, don't do any marketing of your book because people will land on your Amazon page then walk away as they don't want to take the risk if they see no or only a few ratings. See my posts above on getting reviews for tips. But bottom line: don't buy reviews, or trade reviews with other authors, get them by offering free review copies only.

Makes sense.

The Google Intelligence Agency is listening. Literally.

I certainly hope this is not for real:

"Google has been stealth downloading audio listeners onto every computer that runs Chrome, and transmits audio data back to Google. Effectively, this means that Google had taken itself the right to listen to every conversation in every room that runs Chrome somewhere, without any kind of consent from the people eavesdropped on. In official statements, Google shrugged off the practice with what amounts to “we can do that”."

I feel pressure, knowing someone could be listening. Am I going to have to make my private conversations more entertaining?

I use Google products. This blog is on Google's Blogger. It's great and it's free. Same goes for gmail.

Le sigh.

What was their motto again?