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  • #16
    Re: Shameless marketing

    Has anyone ever felt slight twinges of something like guilt and so asked 'permission' of the characters in a story? Ever gone to say to someone that you've written a story about them or something that happened in their lives?

    Don't do it. It doesn't work. In fact, it not only freaks them out but it pisses them off, too...even if they can't read the story because they don't speak the language.

    Although the Fishmonger DID offer sex on the kitchen tabletop.


    (I declined)
    http://thissmallfrenchtown.blogspot.com/
    http://thefrenchneighbor.blogspot.com/

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    • #17
      Re: Shameless marketing

      I am now an internationally known author....I sold TWO in Britain!
      http://thissmallfrenchtown.blogspot.com/
      http://thefrenchneighbor.blogspot.com/

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      • #18
        Re: Shameless marketing

        I have to say I've been following this thread with great interest, and I've resisted contributing because to do so would betray a certain snobbishness I'm not eager to confess.

        The feeling among serious writers (and I'm not accusing anyone here of not being a serious writer) has almost always been that we are only legitimately published if we are published by an established publishing house, one which pays the writer for the material (often with an advance) after selecting it from thousands of submissions. It's a well-chronicled process that the best writers have suffered through, and those of us who've modeled ourselves after them or read their musings on the process have envisioned this for ourselves too.

        Chapbooks and other self-published (sometimes called Vanity Press) options are not held in very high esteem, 'though many established writers choose to publish chapbooks after they've already made their names as published writers.

        It's a weird inequity, one which I don't profess to understand but which I do somehow subscribe to: release a film by yourself and it's Indie. Release a novel by yourself and it's Vanity.

        Amazon's Kindle and its related marketplace is changing that. Now self-published writers have a storefront, no longer having to hawk their product from the trunks of their cars, and they set the price of their own work. Writers are getting RICH selling electronic-only copies of their work; they've developed fan-bases, and the medium's speed means that readers can get a writer's next installment just about as quickly as a writer can crank out new material. At a price-tag as low as $.99 per work, readers are willing to take chances, and because many of the writers are writing serials, all it takes is to hook a reader once and you've probably ensured future sales.

        Many of my own best friends, some of them fairly literate, have admitted that they haven't bought a physical book in years, and haven't set foot in either a library or a bricks-and-morter bookstore in the same amount of time. This dismays me to no end; I don't begrudge anyone the electronic readers or their related ebooks. However, I don't want to see either of these institutions go the way of the corner video store. However yet again, to lock myself into one way of thinking about books, writing, and publishing seems foolish and harmful only to me, the aspiring writer. There are writers making a TON of money selling ebooks, and more importantly: these writers are finding their audiences and their audiences are finding them.

        Susie, please do keep us updated on your progress, especially as it relates to sales or feedback from readers. Watching this all unfold is fascinating.
        But I'm disturbed! I'm depressed! I'm inadequate! I GOT IT ALL! (George Costanza)
        GrouchyTeacher.com

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        • #19
          Re: Shameless marketing

          Originally posted by scrivener View Post

          Many of my own best friends, some of them fairly literate, have admitted that they haven't bought a physical book in years, and haven't set foot in either a library or a bricks-and-morter bookstore in the same amount of time.
          Really? Morter? I expect better, if not perfection, from a self-described scrivener.

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          • #20
            Re: Shameless marketing

            Originally posted by lurkah View Post
            Really? Morter? I expect better, if not perfection, from a self-described scrivener.
            oooh. got me. darn it!
            But I'm disturbed! I'm depressed! I'm inadequate! I GOT IT ALL! (George Costanza)
            GrouchyTeacher.com

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            • #21
              Re: Shameless marketing

              "Busted like Benjamin Bunny," says Alton (Good Eats) Brown.

              Hey, Scrivener - I liked your indie film/vanity book point; the recording industry's changing dynamic applies as well. Artists releasing their own material in the past were described as doing "vanity projects," implying that they couldn't get a record label to bite. But now, to do so is to "circumvent the label dinosaurs." Book publishing is now seeing a similar evolution in it's business model and relationship with customers.
              Last edited by Leo Lakio; May 8, 2011, 07:13 AM.

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              • #22
                Re: Shameless marketing

                Originally posted by Leo Lakio View Post

                "Busted like Benjamin Bunny," says Alton (Good Eats) Brown.

                Book publishing is now seeing a similar evolution in it's business model and relationship with customers.
                I might as well bust you too while I'm at it. That apostrophe does not belong. Happy Muddah's Day.

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                • #23
                  Re: Shameless marketing

                  Originally posted by lurkah View Post
                  I might as well bust you too while I'm at it. That apostrophe does not belong. Happy Muddah's Day.
                  Yeah, that's long been one of my trip-ups; posessive "it" = NO apostrophe, contraction of "it is" = apostrophe.

                  Another one that sometimes still gets me is "fewer" vs. "less." Also, I used to screw up "infer" and "imply," for some odd reason. And the AFK regularly catches me misusing "me" and "I" verbally - almost always in conjunction with another person: "My mother called Lurkah and me to complain about the noise."

                  But to give some credit, Scrivener is the primary reason I now know about putting punctuation outside a parenthetical statement (generally).

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                  • #24
                    Re: Shameless marketing

                    Originally posted by Leo Lakio View Post
                    Yeah, that's long been one of my trip-ups; posessive "it" = NO apostrophe, contraction of "it is" = apostrophe.[...]
                    It's a trip up for me, too, because of this:
                    "To form the possessive case of a singular noun, add an apostrophe and an s.
                    Examples: Bob's car; One's home."


                    Scriv, does it not apply to "it" because "it" is a pronoun?

                    And, this, from my computer's dictionary:
                    its |its|
                    possessive adjective
                    belonging to or associated with a thing previously mentioned or easily identified : turn the camera on its side | he chose the area for its atmosphere.
                    • belonging to or associated with a child or animal of unspecified sex : a baby in its mother's womb.
                    USAGE Its is the possessive form of : it ( : the dog licked its paw), while it’s is the contraction of : it is ( : look, it’s a dog licking its paw) or : it has ( : It’s been too long). The apostrophe in it’s never denotes a possessive. The confusion is at least partly understandable since other possessive forms (singular nouns) do take an apostrophe + s, as in : the girl's bike or : the president's smile.

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                    • #25
                      Re: Shameless marketing

                      Originally posted by tutusue View Post
                      Scriv, does it not apply to "it" because "it" is a pronoun?
                      If that helps you remember it, then yes.

                      But if you want to get technical, here's really why:

                      The apostrophe isn't a punctuation mark that represents possession. It actually marks the removal of letters from a word, the way an ellipsis (...) marks the removal of words or sentences from a passage.

                      If you've ever read a hymnal (or Shakespeare), you'll see unusually punctuated words like prov'd, sav'd, and pow'r. This shortening can be for a bunch of reasons, but for a song it's usually to maintain rhythm (so you don't sing "prove-ed" or "pow-er") or in a poem to keep poetic structure (remember, Shakespeare usually wrote in iambic pentameter, which means ten syllables per line!).

                      For contractions, the line is easily drawn from this idea to our current usage. Have not becomes haven't by making it one word and losing the O. You are becomes you're by making it one word and dropping the a.

                      The concept doesn't connect quite as easily to possession, because the language has changed, so we don't recognize that letters have been dropped. But if you read older literature, you might see possession written like this:

                      Adam his rib.
                      Mel his diner.

                      Nowadays, we say Adam's rib and Mel's diner, and we can see why there's an apostrophe there: the letters H and I have been removed to contract those phrases.

                      It is becoming it's uses an apostrophe for this reason. That's pretty easy to see, and you seldom see people leave the apostrophe out when one is needed as in this case.

                      I'm unclear about where its comes from, but it apparently doesn't represent a contraction of words or the removal of letters.

                      Or maybe it IS because of the pronoun.
                      Last edited by scrivener; May 8, 2011, 12:00 PM.
                      But I'm disturbed! I'm depressed! I'm inadequate! I GOT IT ALL! (George Costanza)
                      GrouchyTeacher.com

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                      • #26
                        Re: Shameless marketing

                        Originally posted by tutusue View Post
                        Scriv, does it not apply to "it" because "it" is a pronoun?
                        That might be a way to remember the convention, since other possessive pronouns in -s also lack apostrophe: his, theirs, yours, ours. But I don't think it's actually sensible -- it's just its own tradition.

                        Here's one that I find harder: when do you use "s'" (s + apostrophe) at the end of a word, as opposed to "s's" (s + apostrophe + s)? And how does that correspond to the pronunciation?
                        Greg

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                        • #27
                          Re: Shameless marketing

                          Originally posted by scrivener View Post
                          Adam his rib.
                          Mel his diner.

                          Nowadays, we say Adam's rib and Mel's diner, and we can see why there's an apostrophe there: the letters H and I have been removed to contract those phrases.
                          That's an interesting theory. I thought "-'s" possessives came from an earlier genitive ending "-es" by loss of the vowel.

                          Edit: I see that Wikipedia gives some rather unenthusiastic recognition to your theory, however: The 18th century explanation that the apostrophe might replace a genitive pronoun, as in "the king’s horse" being a shortened form of "the king, his horse", is doubtful. This his genitive appears in English only for a relatively brief time, and was never the most common form.
                          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genitive_case
                          Last edited by GregLee; May 8, 2011, 12:30 PM.
                          Greg

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                          • #28
                            Re: Shameless marketing

                            By the way, has anyone besides me bought Susie's story and/or put a review of it on Amazon?
                            Greg

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                            • #29
                              Re: Shameless marketing
                              And now you guys are all busted for hijacking this thread.

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                              • #30
                                Re: Shameless marketing

                                Originally posted by lurkah View Post
                                And now you guys are all busted for hijacking this thread.
                                Pfft - you started it (and we were all happy to follow...)!

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