Category: My Fiction

Here are my own stories. Science fiction and fantasy mostly but other things may be added too.

I Am Oz, the Great and Powerful!  Who Are You!

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Tomorrow, I have an appointment to talk with a marketing expert.  Someone who gets paid to say how to market a book so that people will find it and want to buy it.  What are my expectations?  Surprisingly, I’m not expecting miracles.  What I’m hoping to do is learn what the limits and parameters are for this kind of service.

For instance, what is the reach of this business?  What is the specificity?  I’ve been led to believe by everything I’ve read that Amazon and Google can target ads to someone based on what they want to buy right now.  Well, okay so how much does it cost to target only those people?

Another thing I’m interested in is pricing.  Obviously the lower the price of something the more people will be willing to buy it.  So, there is probably an optimum price for maximizing profit.  But what if you want to maximize the number of people who read your book?  Is zero and option?  And is some minimum price just as good?

And I want to know if these experts are well-acquainted with right wing readers (my target audience).  After all, I’m not selling to the people who read “A Handmaid’s Tale” or “Woman on the Edge of Time.”  Those people would be rooting for my villains.  So, I want to know how specific they can get with the audience that they are reaching as potential readers.

Also, I want to know if they can tap into expert critical opinion to tell me ahead of time whether my story even has potential to interest a large audience or not.  They might be able to convince me that I’m attempting the impossible.  That piece of information alone would be extremely valuable to me.  I mean, sure, I’m just like every author.  I love my creation and think it worthy of an audience.  But maybe I’m very wrong.  Knowing that ahead of time could save me a lot of money and pain.

So, I’ll spend tomorrow collecting my thoughts and writing down questions to ask the “Wizard.”  One thing I’m interested in is how important a cover is.  Sure, a glossy cover with a sniper on a building above an Antifa riot would really hammer home the story better than just a text but what is the actual difference in sales?  Could I compensate by dropping the price to $0.99 for a few days or weeks to get word of mouth?  After all aren’t most books now e-books?  Do people need a cover when they’ll be reading the “book” on a Kindle?

And finally, I’m intrigued by the idea of running a Kickstarter to try and drum up funds and give the project visibility before the book is even up for sale.  I recently watched Larry Correia run a Kickstarter and he’s gotten $250,000 in advance sales.   Now I’m not kidding myself.  He’s got an enormous fan base already so there’s no comparison but still, the “GoFundMe” site has high visibility for whomever uses it.  So, I’ll ask about that too (even though I think I know what the answer will be).

So that’s what my Thursday looks like.  Maybe after tomorrow I’ll have a new perspective on selling my book.  Or maybe I’ll be even more confused than ever.

Another Psycho-Killer, Another Book Lesson

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Another day, another psycho leftist shooter.  As I said the other day, be prepared for an almost endless sequence of these suicidal people.  Their lives are a misery to them so they want the rest of us to suffer too.  Only in addition to everything else that was wrong with this guy he even failed to accomplish what he set out to do.  He wanted to kill ICE agents and instead he killed and wounded illegal alien detainees that were in an ICE van.  Now that level of incompetence and stupidity really does deserve the Darwin Award.  And right there with the shooter’s idiocy, the Left is trying, once again, and to no effect, to question whether the shooter was a Leftist.  Well, give it a day or two and they’ll settle for, “He wasn’t a card-carrying member of a terrorist left-wing organization, which is another way of saying these organizations don’t have cards.  Their badges are the crazed looks on their faces and the social media memes and buzzwords of the left.

Well, enough of that.

Some of the results from the beta-readers of my novel are coming in and the consensus is that this guy photog must be out of his mind if he thinks anyone is gonna read his awful book.  As reader after reader disparaged its characters, plots and even adverbs I was like a cornered wild animal looking for some way to escape the tsunami of negative results.  I yelled, “Nooooooooooo!!!!!!!!”  Well, maybe there weren’t that many exclamation points in real life.  But I was pretty busted up.  So, I took a bottle of Tylenol and washed it down with a gallon of grape Hawaiian Punch and pretty soon I was really sick.  But that took my mind off my book problems while I headed to urgent care.  Now that I’ve mostly recovered, I’m happily in denial and working on an alternate reality where I’ve sold more books than James Patterson and am twice as handsome as Brad Pitt but somehow it turned out backwards.  I’m unfortunately, twice as handsome as James Patterson and have sold more books than Brad Pitt.  You know it really is important to work these things out ahead of time.

I have an appointment to talk with a marketer who specializes in self-published books and I’m trying to put together a list of questions to ask.  At the moment all that comes to mind is, “How can I become fabulously wealthy from my book without putting in any effort at all?”  And I think I’ve nailed it.  That is exactly what I want an answer to.  But I have this nagging suspicion that there may be more to it than that.  I seem to be confusing marketer with the genie from Aladdin.  Well, you can hardly blame me.  Both of them are in my mind, mythical creatures with supernatural powers.  But seriously, this whole book thing has been an interesting experience.  I’ve learned that writing is a craft that requires lots of work and especially in the planning stages.  Writing a story by the seat of your pants seems more intuitive and natural to me but I now understand that building the story ahead of time saves time at the end when re-writing is extremely painful and maybe impractical.  Well, the journey continues.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

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Update:

To verify my ownership of “The Sniper” for the Royal Road folks, I am adding this note to show I also control Orion’s Cold Fire.

 

We interrupt the daily progression of actual civil war to bring you a message about a fictional civil war story.  I’ve finished the manuscript for my book, “The Sniper.”  Now I’m looking for beta readers.  I’m looking for folks to read the book and give me their honest feedback.  Also I’d like to disseminate the book to friends and family who you judge would be a good fit for the book based on your estimation and if they agree to read it I’d like to get their opinions too.

I’m looking to get this book out to the largest group of people possible to see whether it is something that people will want to read.  So after reading it if you think it’s appropriate for people you know let me hear that too.  And remember, I’m not a fragile author.  If you think it sucks, say so, but also tell me why you think it.

If you’re interested leave a comment to that effect and I’ll e-mail you a copy of the story.  Now this is just a pdf.  No nice cover, no actual paper.  Just electrons.  But I will guarantee that this sniper is nothing like the actual sniper we’ve had to hear about for the last week.

And just to remind you here’s the beginning of the book.

 

Chapter 1 – An Object Lesson

Joseph Boghadair was set up at a loophole in a small prefabricated metal building at the top of the mountain that contained the Icarus Mine.  His .50 caliber sniper rifle was trained on the narrow road that led up to the mine.  He could see a line of black SUVs about a mile and a half down the road and he was getting ready to start firing on the convoy.  His first shots took out the engine of the lead vehicle thereby halting the convoy.  His second volley took out the engine of the last car in line thus trapping the rest of the vehicles between.  Then at a more leisurely pace he took care of the other eight vehicles.  By this point the passengers were crouching behind their disabled cars and randomly firing handguns and automatic weapons in Joseph’s general direction with almost no discernible results.

After about half an hour a few of the men in black body armor attempted to reach a stand of trees about 300 yards away to their left.  Joseph put a few well aimed rounds in front of their path and they quickly retreated back to the supposed safety of their not-so-mobile-autos.  Joseph snorted wryly at their shyness.

An hour after that a helicopter approached the mountain from the opposite direction to Joseph’s loophole.  Walking over to a window on the other wall he could see a distant Blackhawk approaching at relatively high altitude.  Joseph then began his preparations for their reception.

Between crew and troops, the Blackhawk had a dozen men on board.  And more importantly it had a couple of Hellfire missiles.  From a very safe distance away it targeted Joseph’s position and fired.  The missile struck precisely on target and obliterated the steel structure almost completely.  All that remained was the foundation of the structure around the mine shaft, now clogged with debris.

The Blackhawk landed about three quarters of a mile from the mine entrance.  At this point the agents, hunkered down behind their vehicles, began to stream toward the helicopter.  By the time they reached the aircraft the troops had exited and were waiting for their rescued brethren to arrive.

FBI Special Agent in Charge, George Chastain assembled both teams and briefed them on the updated mission plan.  “We will proceed to the mine head and look for any human remains.  We will collect whatever we can retrieve for lab analysis and attempt to seal the mine head until qualified personnel can be assembled for recovery operations.  It is presumed that the target, Joseph Boghadair was killed by the missile strike but we will take no chances.  He was an extremely dangerous individual and should not be approached by anyone without backup and prior approval from leadership.  In addition to his war record it is believed that Boghadair is responsible for the shooting deaths of forty-six people in the last six months with thirteen of those people being FBI personnel.  No one enters the mine until remote sensing equipment is brought in.  Alright, proceed.”

The agents formed two groups.  Apparently, SUV agents and helicopter agents must not bond very well.  But before they were more than a hundred feet from the helicopter the ground began to quake so powerfully beneath them that they were irresistibly knocked off their feet.  And while they were clawing at the ground for dear life, they could see that the high ground where the mine head was located had collapsed into the earth.  The roar of that collapse was more frightening than the initial earthquake and some of the agents hid their heads under their arms in abject terror.  When the mountain stopped shaking the men started to collect themselves and stand up.  When they looked around them, they were astonished.  A circular pit had opened up centered on the mine head.  It was a thousand yards in diameter and so deep that only blackness could be seen at its center.  Several cracks had formed outside the circular pit.  One of these had nearly swallowed the Blackhawk.  It was on its side and half buried in the crevice.  Its rotors were fractured and it wouldn’t be flying away from this landing.

Chastain went over to the edge of the crater and just stared down into the blackness below.  Then he went back to his team and started giving orders to begin a retreat from the stricken mountain.  He was trying to think of what he was going to tell his boss.  Nothing reasonable came to mind.

Grammata-Euphoria

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All this Charlie Kirk media madness and the manhunt have depressed the hell out of me.  We live in a madhouse surrounded by awful, depraved people.  So I needed a break.  So I’m writing about something lighthearted instead.  My apologies.  I’m sure on Friday more horrible things will occur to drag me back into the madhouse.

Publishing a book.

Step two complete!  I sent off my manuscript to the one traditional publisher that I’m confident isn’t ideologically opposed to the political position of my protagonist.  Now I’ve got to write a “query letter” and send it out to a bunch of agents to see if any want to represent me.  And I have to make a list of publishers that will take submissions without agents.  Once I’ve done all that, if no one bites then I have to self-publish it and then I have to market it (advertise, announce it on social media, run a Kickstarter, hire a skywriter to put my message over Manhattan, and get a Superbowl commercial).

Well anyway, that will keep me busy for a while.  Based on all the advice for new writers that I’ve read, I intend to disseminate my story for free to all of my friends and try to get as much good word of mouth and favorable reviews as I can when it’s ready to launch.  After all, I don’t want hundreds or thousand of readers and dollars.  I need millions and billions!  Like the holy texts, my book should be in every home in the first and second world.  And dammit why not the third world too?  Surely, I can squeeze the little bit of hard currency that they would normally buy food with and divert it into my coffers.  Yes, yes.  That sounds right.

Well anyway Larry Correia started a monthlong Kickstarter for his new book on Ark Press and within about 24 hours he had $150,000 collected.  And what has he got that I haven’t got (beside thousands of devoted fans)?  Unfortunately, that is exactly what he has that I don’t.  Ah, the trials and tribulations of the unknown author.  There should be a “Tomb of the Unknown Author.”  It could be right past the colonnade of heroic sculptures of Homer, Moses and whoever wrote George Burns’ jokes.  It should have an eternal flame that’s a large hibachi using charcoal brickettes as fuel.  Some residue and aroma from a nice porterhouse steak would be fine and possibly a meat thermometer somewhere nearby.

You know I did learn that writing a story really is just for yourself.  I found parts of the work where I said, “Now that’s exactly how it should be.  Dammit, the writer nailed this perfectly.”  And of course, I know I’m talking to myself but it’s immensely satisfying when the words evoke exactly the emotion you’re reaching for.

Of course, the tricky part is knowing (or hoping) that the scene will elicit that same response from someone or better still, many someone-s who will let the world know just what a genius the author is.  I guess the definition of a great writer is when the whole world (mostly) is moved by what you write in the way you wanted them to feel.

Alright, that’s enough grammata-euphoria.  I’ll only report back when something interesting (publication or a book deal) is imminent.  Until then we can concentrate on the latest hideous atrocities on the streets of our cities and Trump’s latest poke in the eye to the Left and its minions.

We Have to Change with Them

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I watched a YouTube video that described how a book that was struggling to sell a few hundred copies suddenly caught fire and ended up selling 1.5 million copies.  Well, the secret was that they gave away 150,000 copies of the book for free.  And then enough of those readers loved it that they got their friends excited enough to buy it.

Now I’ll have to say, on the face of it, this sounds insane.  I’m not even sure how you would go about giving away 150,000 copies of a book.  I guess you’d set the price to zero on Amazon and then e-mail 150,000 people to let them know they can have the book free that week or something.  But where do you even get an e-mail list with 150,000 science fiction fans?  But then again, I have read a lot in the last few weeks about how even traditionally published books mostly only sell a few hundred copies altogether.  That can’t be considered success, can it?

This has really got me thinking about how limited my little world of friends and family is in the larger scheme of things.  Even on the web I only communicate with a few hundred or maybe a few thousand people at most.  I guess these proverbial “influencers” may have a reach that extends into the hundreds of thousands and possibly a few million people but I’m not sure how much this translates into marketability.  Of course, I don’t discount the youth market and how suggestible teenagers are.  But that’s not a market that I’m currently interested in.

But it was fun thinking about my book reaching millions of people.  Hordes of adoring fans lining up on the highways leading to Dunwich all with the single fixed idea of having me sign their personal copy of “The Sniper” so that it would become an heirloom that they could pass down to their children and their children’s children unto the eighth generation.

It kinda gets you, … right there.

Well, anyway, I definitely have a lot to think about in anticipation of actually publishing this magnum opus.  I still think I’ll look at traditional publishing first because that is the traditional thing.  And I am a traditional guy.  But it’s tempting to think of trying to break out into the big bold beautiful world out there and get as much feedback from the readers out there as I possibly can.  After all P.T. Barnum was successful because he knew how to catch the public’s attention.  Possibly a lurid cover that has little to do with the plot of the book may be part of how you attract the great unwashed.  Then again, covers cost money and maybe I’m better off spending that on a huge e-mail list of science fiction fans.

So, as you can tell I’m staring out into the abyss and finding it abysmal.  When I was a young fan of science fiction, I assumed that finding readers was not a problem.  I thought getting published was the trick.  Times change, priorities shift and we have to change with them.

Complicated and Annoying

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So, the great retreat has begun.  On Friday the pool guys showed up and closed it down for the season.  Of course there was some drama.  I had asked the guy in charge to tell his crew to patch three liner holes that had developed above the water line.  He warned me that one of them boded ill and meant I might soon need to install a new liner at a cost of gazillions of dollars.  I told him okay, but have them patch the holes anyway.  So of course, he didn’t tell them and so they had to go back to get more glue or something.

And Camera Girl’s house plants needed to come back inside soon.  So, I moved them into one of the decks in advance of dragging them up to the top floor.  This may sound trivial but some of these things are taller than me, awkwardly shaped for the stairs, covered with huge needle-sharp spines and incredibly heavy.  So, it’s always a ticklish chore.  One day I assume it will be the cause of my death.  What I should do is set up a temporary pulley system on the top balcony and let mechanical advantage do the heavy lifting.  But I’m too lazy to design it.  Maybe next year.

I also have a bunch of plants that I need to transplant outside.  Then it will be time to stow away all of the outdoor furniture and begin the winter-proofing of the exposed wood.  To be honest, I’ve never done a decent job of this but I’ve sworn a horrible oath to do it this year.  And then I have to winterize the lawn mowers.

And finally, the biggest chore I have to shore up about eighteen posts on the pool fence.  I’ve got a few kits and I’ll buy the rest but it will be a load off my mind to have that damn thing completely reinforced.  There are also two gates that need some work but those can wait.  A gate’s not much use if the fence around it is on the ground.

So, there’s plenty to do and things will be getting busy at work soon, so I’ll be stressed and agitated while I try to publish and market my brand-new book.  But that’s what life is all about; conflicting priorities and humans choosing priorities.  It’s what separates us from the Neanderthals and Denisovans.  We choose wisely.

I have a feeling I’ll be self-publishing the book.  I watched a video where the guy said that most trad-published books get an advance of only about $5,000 – $10,000 and since the publisher doesn’t market your book for you most of the work (other than putting a cover on it) still has to be done by the author.  Well, if I’ve got to drum up the buyers myself, I might as well keep 70% of the profits instead of 10%.  And that way I have the discretion to use deceptive sales tactics like increasing and decreasing the sale price whenever it suits my devious and even diabolical plans.

Well, I need to start making a Gantt Chart of this publishing and marketing process.  It sounds complicated and annoying.  So right up my alley.  I wonder if Donald Trump has any time available in his schedule to market my book.  After all, I’ve been of invaluable help to him in his campaigns.  But how quickly people forget.

Writing’s Easy.  Selling is Hard.

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As I mentioned a day or two ago, I’ve finally finished my story about the sniper.  Of course, it still needs a spell check and another read through for errors and any “infelicities” of style that I may find.  But for the most part I’ve brought it to a close.

But now comes the really hard part.  Self-publishing versus traditional publishing.  And for me it’s especially difficult because the story is unacceptably “right wing” from the point of view of anyone in the traditional publishing industry except for one or two houses like Baen Books who cater to stories from our side of the great political divide.

I have just begun doing my research on some kind of order of operations to maximize my chances to publish the book so that the largest number of people will hear about it.  And my level of knowledge of the whole publishing process is pretty darn close to absolute zero.  I’ve only reached out to one guy I know of who writes in the same general universe with me but I think I’ll have to feel my way around by reading and watching content that is meant to educate the public about trad publishing vs. self-publishing and then get a better handle on what writers on the right generally do.

So far all I’ve read makes the whole process seem incredibly slow and painful and chock full of interactions with gatekeepers and unsympathetic literary agents who will never return any of my correspondence but will dismiss me as a talentless hack.

But maybe I’m completely mistaken and instead I’ll be embraced by the publishing world as the next Cormac McCarthy and be showered with accolades and surrounded by business agents fighting one another to get me to sign book and movie deals.  Within months I’ll be quoted by millions of readers who will flood my website with messages of delight about my brilliant writing and demands that I “take their crowdfunding money” for my next writing effort.  The millions of dollars will pile up in Camera Girl’s sewing closet (she likes cash) and I will become a recluse and start wearing outlandish clothes to reflect my new status as a global phenomenon.  I can hear it now.  The crowds chanting at DragonCon, “photog, photog, photog!”

Okay good.  Now I’ve got that out of my system.  I’ll go back to finding out whether the “hybrid” publishers I’ve read about that cater to right and libertarian authors are legit or really the infamous “vanity press” scam artists that take all your money and ship a few boxes of print-on-demand paperbacks and tell you to, “Go market the damn things yourself!”

Well, I wanted to try writing a book.  Now I’ve done it and I better find out how to get other people to know it exists without spending a million dollars doing it.  And that’s another thing.  Now that AI can draw covers maybe I can save some money by using it.  Of course, I understand that I’ll anger all of the artistic community that does book covers for a living.  Hmmm.  Maybe I should find out what it costs.  There are already so many people mad at me in the world, adding to that number sounds like a bad idea.  Well, we’ll see.

Does Fiction Publishing Still Exist?

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Selling intellectual property has changed radically in the last thirty years.  We used to buy books at a book store.  We bought music at a record shop.  And we rented or bought movies at a video store.  And then we bought all these at a Walmart or an electronics store (well, maybe not the books).

Now we stream movies and pay by the minute or the month and listen to music more or less for free and books are just this thing that exists on Amazon as a free service or a minor expense.  And the marketing and advertising of these works is some inexplicable algorithm that somehow links up people to the things that would appeal to them.

Now, the only way a musician can make any money is by live concerts that people pay to attend.  But no one would pay to attend a reading of a chapter of a book.  So maybe very soon books will cease to exist as a commodity.

And I guess that’s just the way it will be.  Now I’ve been trying to finish up a novel (and fixing the last ten percent of the book has been much harder than writing the first ninety percent).  And when I attempt to market it, I’ll try it on some traditional publishers and if that doesn’t work, I’ll probably self-publish it on Amazon.  I have noticed that lately some authors try to start a “go fund me” campaign to drum up the support for the book before it’s released.  But I’m not sure how that would work for a new author.

I guess pretty soon I’ll know as much about it as anyone else.  But isn’t it interesting that now that technology allows for avoiding all the obstacles that the “gatekeepers” of traditional publishing provided, that the real problem would be the “needle in a haystack” reality of many millions of self-published books thrown together in an endless slush pile with no way to stand out to a jaded reading public.

Well, they say that Americans have always made the best salesmen.  It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that self-promotion is the real talent behind entertainment.  Hollywood was successful because they could get millions of eyes on their product.  I’m sure the same applies to selling books, movies and music.  It’s just that it’s a field I never got involved in.  Engineering is product that has to be sold but I was always just the product.  I was never one of the sellers except when I would be sent out with the marketing team to convince the buyers that we knew what we were doing and could provide them with the services and hardware that they wanted.  Books on the other hand need fancy covers with somewhat-undressed women and weapons of war and starships to attract the buyer’s attention and get him to plunk down his electronic money.

I’ve seen some marketing going on by some of the people I follow on X and YouTube and it all feels very tiring but maybe that’s because at heart I’m a very lazy guy and hawking product is hard work (at least for me).

And maybe this is all a transitory situation and eventually some more efficient way to link readers with new books that match their tastes will appear among the AI gods.

Well, just some musings.

Maybe He Wasn’t Ready for His Own Show

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So, the First Selectman heard about Stephan Colbert losing his gig with the Late Show and somehow got the idea that maybe he could end up as a replacement on CBS.  He called me into his cave and said, “Listen Appetizer, I want you to get on the blower with Bill Paley and tell him I have a great idea for a late-night comedy show.  I’ll call it “Late Night Selections.”

I said, “Sir I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but William Paley died in 1990 at age 89.  And currently the parent company of CBS; Paramount Studios, is being acquired by another entertainment company Skydance Media and they have decided that the old-style late-night show is outdated and unprofitable.  They have not only not renewed Stephen Colbert’s contract; they have ended the whole Late Night production company.  They’ve effectively fired two hundred people in order to save $100 million.”

This outraged the First Selectman, “Who ever heard of anyone dying at 89.  Why I’m in excess of a trillion years old and I’ve never felt better in my life.  Sure, I eat healthy and stay away from fatty food like Mexicans and Italians but last time I saw Bill in 1948 he was the picture of health.  He was smoking a cigar, drinking a martini and pinching his secretary.  You don’t get much livelier than that!”

I interjected that notwithstanding his fond memories of Mr. Paley it was unfortunately true that new management was in place at the Tifanny Network and perhaps this was not the time for a new late-night show.  This got me nowhere and so yesterday I was assigned the task of putting together a stage for this dynamic new production.  As luck would have it, I read an ad for Colbert’s extra furniture going up for sale and picked it up for a song.  I think it was being sold hot by the disgruntled stage crew.

Well with a little alteration to allow the five hundred foot tall First Selectman to interact with human sized guests on the stage we had it up and running this morning in time to go through some try-outs.  As luck would have it Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren were all hoping to get some extra face time during Trump’s problems over the Epstein case so the First Selectman was able to book all three of them for his trial run.

Well, there were problems.  During the first segment Schiff began banging the drum about Donald Trump being a fascist.  Now the first Selectman used to be a close personal friend of Mussolini so he innocently said, “What’s wrong with being a fascist.”  Well, Schiff went ballistic and started going through his talking points about Trump assaulting women and being a felon and starting an insurrection and before you know it, he was calling the First Selectman a reactionary.  Well, this didn’t sit well with the First Selectman so he ate Schiff.  And when Pelosi and Warren saw this from the wings, they came running out screeching at a very high pitch.  As it happens the First Selectman is very sensitive to the particular frequency so in self-defense, he quieted them by eating them.

Well, the booking agency was very upset and said they couldn’t provide any more guests, except maybe AOC and Mamdani because nobody likes them anyway but the First Selectman said Puerto Rican and Middle Eastern food gave him the runs.  So, he’s given up on the whole show idea.  It’s all very sad.

When I Was Your Age Television Was Called Books

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When I was a kid, I was a science fiction fanatic.  I went to the local branch of the Brooklyn Public Library and pored over the shelves.  I read everything they had and then I went to the next closest library and found what they had that was different.  And so on and so forth.  Until I reached the main branch; “Grand Army Plaza.”  And then there was no more.  So, all that was left until a new book made its way to the shelves was the monthly edition of Analog; the science fiction magazine where new stuff was to be found.  Sometimes there was a novel serialization by some well-known author like Heinlein or Frederik Pohl or Joe Haldeman or Gordon Dickson.  But more often there were short stories by anyone and everyone.  Not all of them were great or even good but they were still fun to read.  I had my own subscription for a number of years.  Then I found Camera Girl and I had too much to do with work and school to read anything but textbooks.  But I still saw the Analog covers at the local magazine rack down by the local El stop of the NYC subway.

But once I left New York, I confess I completely lost track of Analog.  I guess I just assumed that it (and its competitors; Asimov’s and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) were still out there chugging along even without me.

Turns out I was wrong.  Apparently, they’re all dead or dying.  The market for short science fiction has completely dried up.  Even the anthologies that used to collect these stories and sell them as books have stopped making money.

I guess none of this is surprising to folks who understand how the mass marketing of entertainment has changed.  I guess it only makes sense that the same generations that refuse to buy music and refuse to buy movies would also refuse to buy books and magazines.

Apparently, what they will buy are video games.  Now that reminds me of an old joke from an old movie.  There’s a scene at the beginning of the movie “The Princess Bride” where the grandfather played by Peter Falk is trying to read a story to his grandson who is playing a video game and objecting that instead of a book he wants to watch television so Falk says, “When I was your age television was called books!”

So, I’m at least two generations too late to imagine Americans reading short stories.  Now isn’t that amazing.  Or is it just paying for books that’s obsolete?  I think it must be the latter.  I understand there are free websites where authors provide their stories to consumers and they support these writers somewhat indirectly through Patreon or other means.  I guess this could be the new economy.  It seems as improbable as the world of the “Matrix” where human beings acting as bio-batteries power the cyber world they dream through.

Maybe I’d better find one of these sites and see if I can get these penniless zoomers to read my stuff.  I think I might see if I can play this three-penny opera thing that’s growing up in this brave new world.