Author: photog

More Marketing Stuff

photog Book Reviews, Current Events, Life in Dunwich, Literature, My Fiction, OCF, photog's Corner, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews , ,

So, I spent some time yesterday and today sending a few complimentary copies of the book to reviewers and adjusting the Amazon Ads to concentrate on the “targets” that have produced sales.  So far it looks like the ads that work best are where Amazon selects viewers that have done a search for another product that is either “similar” to my book or “complementary” to it and place my ad somewhere on that search result page.  How Amazon gauges similarity and complementarity is of course the black box.

These targets that they decide on work better than matching my book to searches that contain keywords that my book has been matched with like “techno-thriller” or “vigilante justice” or “suspense thriller.”  These also work but at a lower rate.  So, what seems to be the case is that Amazon seems to know what they’re doing better than anybody else.  And I guess that makes sense.  The algorithm is the wizard behind the curtain but apparently, he’s not some medicine show tramp whose balloon was blown off course.  He’s the real deal.

So now that I’m running the marketing show I’m excited again and waiting for that magic moment when the algorithm decides that I’m ready for prime time and blankets the Amazon universe with free advertisements for my magnum opus.  And every time you open up an email from Amazon, my book will stare back at you in all its black and white splendor.  And once the ten millionth copy is sold, President Trump will invite me to the Oval Office and present me with the Trump/Kennedy Center Medal for the Most Beautiful Literature.  And I’ll autograph a copy of the book for him.  It’ll read, “To DJT, from one native New Yorker, to another.  You, kooky nut, you.  Don’t ever change.  Jake Barter”

But I digress (or hallucinate).  Of late I’ve read just how much AI novel writing has become sort of a catastrophe.  Apparently, there is a sizable segment of the book reading audience that is perfectly satisfied with AI slop.  And I don’t think this is shocking.  Think of what now passes for entertainment on broadcast television.  It’s already down to the level of mindless machine output.  I guess the question will be whether there will be a reaction to this, with a flight to quality occurring.  Even leaving my own personal writing out of this, I’d hate to think that literature will completely disappear from the face of the Earth in favor of subhuman cargo-cult knock-offs.

Well, I guess there can be all kinds of entertainment products out there.  After all, a big part of marketing is identifying a niche that isn’t being serviced optimally.  But it does make me wonder what that niche is for me.  Disgruntled right-wing old guys?  Well, why not.  Talk about a despised minority.  We’re positively reviled by everyone out there.  But I am hoping for a larger audience.  I have a small test audience of women who won the Goodreads giveaway.  I’m hoping for some feedback from them pretty soon.  I’ll compare them to the few women that have already read the book in my circle of friends.  It might be interesting

Must Be Global Warming Again

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, photog's Corner ,

I was looking at the Accu-weather forecast for Dunwich.  There was a special miasmal ectoplasm alert on for the area (as usual).  But the temperature forecast was eye-catching:

Tonight: Clear and bitterly cold.  Lo: 4°F

Tomorrow: Mostly sunny and cold; the coldest day until next winter.

That was an interesting statement.  Now don’t get me wrong.  Hearing that it would get down to 4°F was in no way cheery.  Single digits and below is a special part of the “charm” of New England.  Camera Girl and I prepare for this by stacking two hundred pounds of blankets on top of ourselves in bed and use snorkels to get air.  So, no, I’m not looking forward to tonight.  But to hear that from now on until next year it will not be getting horribly cold again is like being someone trapped in a flooded building where the water line is only inches from the ceiling and you’ve been dog paddling for dear life and breathing the last few inches of air for hours praying you wouldn’t drown and finally the tide begins to recede.  You experience a sense of relief and victory over a horrible enemy.

It snowed today but I waited until about 2pm and the sun came out and melted the dusting on the driveway.  I went around trimming back the ten foot piles of snow along the edge of the driveway just to show them who’s boss and how limited their remaining time would be.  I think as I struck with my shovel I taunted the snow in a somewhat insane manner.  It’s been a long winter.  The other day I was able to get the snowblower working.  I poured warm water down the chute and like magic it was completely functional.  So, all of the horror from last week was unnecessary.  But uncertainty ruled and I didn’t want to use up any time fiddling with the machine when I knew I barely had enough daylight to shovel myself out from a foot of snow.

But all of that is behind me.  From now on melting snow will be the reality and preparations will begin for spring.  Already we are preparing for the next milestone.  St. Patrick’s Day is coming up and Camera Girl will prepare her version of corned beef and cabbage.  Lately she hasn’t been boiling it.  The cabbage is sauteed and the beef is pan fried but it still connects us with the patron saint of the city of our birth (before Mamdani installed the minarets on St Patrick’s Cathedral).  After that Easter is right around the corner and dare I hope some lamb could be on the menu?  Camera Girl despises lamb.  She prefers ham or pork for Easter but every once in a while, she’ll provide a lamb alternative for lepers such as myself who enjoy a little flavor at Easter.

But all of this is premature.  Tonight, I’ll add another hundred pounds of blankets to the pile and we’ll hunker down to 4°F one last time.  And who knows, in a few weeks I might even start saying, “Boy I hope it cools a little, I’m stifling.  Must be global warming.”

Trump and Iran

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So, I feel like I’ve been down this road before.  I remember when George W Bush said we had to go into Iraq.  And I was gung-ho.  We’d blitz Saddam and drag him off and then give Iran the same treatment and the world would be peaceful and quiet from then on.  And we’d do it by remote control like some big old video game where everyone comes home in one piece and that would be the end of that.

Well, that’s twenty plus years ago and we’re all a lot older and wiser now, I thought.  So, what the hell does Donald Trump think he’s going to do with this Iran thing?  Iran is bigger and uglier than Iraq was.  Sure, half of its people hate their own government and are celebrating the bombing of the Republican Guards and the death of Ali Khamenei.  All of that sounds great but when the missile launchers and the other long-distance weapons have been neutralized but the bad guys are still the ones with all the machine guns killing civilians what happens then?  Are we going to send in the Marines?  And what happens when the body bags start coming home?  That would be the end of the Republicans for another decade.

What occurred to me was that maybe the CIA and Mossad can funnel guns to the people who want to get rid of the Islamic State.  If they have enough actual men who are willing to go head-to-head against the Republican Guards then a small team of trainers from these intelligence agencies could stand up a credible force within Iran to overwhelm the Islamic State with the help of targeted aerial attacks from the Israelis and Americans.  But is that really going to happen?  I’ve read that Mossad is already on the ground in Iran and has been for years.  That explains how they’ve been able to sabotage things like the Iranian nuclear program and Hezbollah’s cell phones.  Maybe they really will be able to topple this regime in the next few weeks.  It’s definitely possible and Israel has an existential reason for wanting the Iranian regime to disappear.  If the Islamic State were toppled tomorrow, Hezbollah and Hamas lose their paymaster and greatest ally.  Most of the violence in the Middle East loses its sponsor.  Without the mullahs it’s even possible that Lebanon could become a normal country again.  And a peaceful and prosperous Iran would change the whole balance of power in the Middle East and might even stabilize the whole region.  Think of the amount of misery that would disappear from that tortured region.

Well, those are all the good words I can think of for a situation that is fraught with peril.  I just hope Trump knows exactly what he is doing and what to do in every one of a thousand scenarios that could happen in that insane corner of the world.  When I think of all the possible ways things can head south very fast and very badly It makes my head ache.  Okay, Khamenei is dead.  Good.  Now what?