An AI wrote this (and here’s why you have nothing to fear)

…we now have an AI supported service to check your Amazon book page, provided without charge, at…

 
A company contacted me about their new AI check of an Amazon book page.

Okay, like everyone else, I’ve been deluged with AI this and that for the past few months.

And before I go further, let me offer that I created a technology which people kept referring to as AI and I kept explaining wasn’t artificial so much as it was altricial intelligence because it learned by observation (and I received a some patents on it).

Meaning, I have a background in these concepts and ideas and…well…frankly…bullshit.

Anyway, I was curious (I’m not anymore. At least I won’t be for a while).

My urban science fantasy Empty Sky was repubbed a few weeks back so I offered it to this company’s AI system.

Here’s what my publishing company’s editor, copy/continuity editor, and I came up as Empty Sky‘s description:
Continue reading “An AI wrote this (and here’s why you have nothing to fear)”

Gender Specific Marketing Discoveries

Long ago and far away I presented my company’s research at conferences far and wide.

One such presentation (from 2007, so dated, I’m sure) dealt with marketing to men and women, and specifically the differences necessary to get the attention of one, the other, and both.

Here’s a podcast of that presentation, ressurected because it’s mentioned in “Sex on the Beach” chapter of That Think You do.
Enjoy!

 

First Rejections

I received a rejection on Meteor Man last week. The editor wrote

I can appreciate the attention to detail in your world, but without knowing about the world or characters or what’s going on, the terminology bogs me down a bit too much.

The comment intrigued me because no first reader commented anything similar. Even first first readers – those unfamiliar with my work – didn’t make similar comments. I often gets comments about my world-building but they tend to be more like “Amazing!”, “Rich!”, “Vividly detailed!”, and “Immersive!” (one of my personal favorites).

When I do live readings of works-in-progress, I sometimes get a comment along the lines of “You do more world-building in ten pages than most authors do in the first hundred” and I should spread things out.

I ask in return, “Would you continue reading? Do you want to find out more?”

Unanimous yeses often accompanied by listeners leaning forward in their seats and sometimes by outstretched hands seeking a copy.

All of which tells me I did an excellent job world-building. If people were overwhelmed to the point of being numb, they’d back away rather than continue forward.

Two Recent Classes…
I’ve long suspected that storycrafting and storytelling aren’t the paramount reasons work is accepted or rejected.

Sadly, this was confirmed by two different classes I took over the past few weeks. The classes were from different sources and a little over a week apart. One class had an agent and a publisher, the other had two magazine editors.

I take such classes because I want to understand what got Story A accepted and Story B rejected. A con panel with editors explaining what stood out pro and con in stories from their slushpiles would be gold to me. I’d pay serious dollars to attend such a panel session.

Me, I look for common threads in everything from character to theme, action to plot, … Sometimes the common thread is obvious, other times…?

And always it comes down to “How come this and not that? Give me a list of what works and what doesn’t so I’ll have a better idea how to perfect my own work for publication.” (by the way, two books that do a great job of this are Barry Longyear’s “Science Fiction Writer’s Workshop – I: An Introduction to Fiction Mechanics” and On Writing Science Fiction: The Editors Strike Back).

Want to know what I found out?


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Linda Seger’s “Making a Good Script Great”

Linda Seger’s Making a Good Script Great is one of two books I recently picked up on scriptwriting/screenwriting because…well, basically because I like to learn, and learn I did. There are more pages dogeared, highlighted, and marked up than there are pages untouched.

 
Begin with the concept that storytelling is storytelling is storytelling and it doesn’t matter the medium because regardless of medium you want a strong, visceral reaction from your audience/reader.

Now recognize that any medium will touch on all aspects of getting that strong, visceral reaction to some degree; a character is a character is a character, a scene is a scene is a scene, dialogue is dialogue is dialogue.

Go one more to specific mediums emphasize specific aspects more than others due to that medium’s limitations. Literature can handle 1st Person POV handily, script/screenwriting not so much.

Recognize that and the next item is to learn ways to fake 1st Person POV in a medium designed for 3rd Person Limited/Omniscient POV.

And if you stop there and say to yourself, “But I don’t have to do that when I write a book” you’re missing out on an incredible learning opportunity. Sure, you may never have to do that in a book but learning how to do it and – more importantly – how to work with such a constraint gives you the flexibility to use that technique, parts of that techniques, concepts from that technique, modify it, et cetera, to make your own non-script/screenwriting work sing.


Greetings! I’m your friendly, neighborhood Threshold Guardian. This is a protected post. Protected posts in the My Work, Marketing, and StoryCrafting categories require a subscription (starting at 1$US/month) to access. Protected posts outside those categories require a General (free) membership.
Members and Subscribers can LogIn. Non members can join. Non-protected posts (there are several) are available to everyone.
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Book Reviews, Goodreads, and Amazon

A while back I discussed the value of book reviews with some author friends. One-self pubbed author offered some (to me) amazing information and I share it here with the big caveat (from the source) “Please take nothing here as gospel.”

First, everything offered is based on research and articles read over several years, and a lot of informed guesswork.

This stuff is a rabbit hole and I find my time is better spent reading books and writing novels than trying to see the wood for the trees with this stuff.

 

 
The above is an old graphic, the thresholds have changed and it over simplifies. It’s from an article way back, one of several that all agreed in principle on how it worked, but varied hugely on numbers, the list offered below is also an oversimplification and about the average threshold numbers from memory.

There are a shit ton of articles out there, but a fair few of them are screwed by people trying to sell services, ‘we can help you beat amazons algorithm, just send us money’, etc. As such I am always a little dubious of their ‘facts’ though the concessions of those facts adds up to what is described.

The best of these is KDP rocket, and it’s a one off fee with a whole lot of support, but it is also a rabbit hole.

If your goal is improving book sales through reviews… Continue reading “Book Reviews, Goodreads, and Amazon”