Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Another five star review...yawn!


Five star reviews. Yep, I got some.  Seems like everyone has five stars. The more the merrier. 
Got me thinking that if all are five stars then is that the new average? I remember in school that grades came on curve. A few got A’s, some B’s, most C’s and, yes, there were the D’s and F’s. Now if all got A’s what value is the grade system?

How about those 50 five star reviews that all sound the same?  Use to be a name for that. It’s called stacking the deck, voter fraud and, hey, no one is fooled.  Personally I look for the four stars and three stars. Toss in a two star from time to time.  Then I have an idea of who the audience is.

Abe Lincoln had it right about fooling all the people all the time.  

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Where will it end?


More and more people are jumping on the self-publishing bandwagon and flooding the market with ebooks. Smashwords boasts 2,864,711,958 words published as of the writing of this blog.  Hundreds of ebooks are out there on how to write and publish an ebook! John Locke, Amanda Hocking and JA Konrath have become the industry icons that say I did and so can you.

But not all will survive. To promote an ebook takes a remarkable amount of marketing skill and savvy. And yes marketing companies are out there to help you and take your money with promises of success beyond your wildest dreams. But at some point the great reality will settle in that not everyone will or can succeed.

Years ago I visited the Salvador Dali Museum and was in awe of his talent. Outside the museum, local artists hocked their own paintings that had been done his style. I came to a conclusion. When someone looks at a Dali painting and says “I can paint stuff like that,” I realize they can’t.

Will we one day come to a realization that the same is true for many self-published writers?

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Vampires, Spaghetti and Clint Eastwood

I watched “Let the Right One In,” a Swedish version of the movie “Let Me In”.  I mentioned the American cut of this movie in previous blog. Basically it’s a coming of age story where 12 year old boy meets neighbor girl who’s more or less 12 and a vampire.  I preferred the American version.  First special effects in American movie were much better.  The Swedish version did not convince me that this petite pre-teen could take down a grown man, while the American version left no doubt! The other reason was trying to keep up with subtitles means not paying attention to the scene and focusing on the other cinema elements. (I give American version 4 stars and Swedish version 3 stars)
Also caught this weekend the movie “Priest” and was not sure what to make of it.  The movie is in a futuristic world of humans vs. vampires where the priests are trained to combat the vampires. Heavy handed use of Catholicism made this rather weird, like rosary weapons, going to confession and a board of Monsignors who resemble something out of the Inquisition. The movie rapidly becomes a Western where the town looks and the people act like something out of Tombstone. The good guy and the bad buy both talk like Clint Eastwood, and the bad guy actually looks like Eastwood from one of the spaghetti Westerns. Something tells me the book was much better. (This one gets 2 stars.)

There’s my nickels worth for today.

Ron D. Voigts is the author of PENELOPE AND THE BIRTHDAY CURSE, available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

The Ghost's Treasure is Coming!

I was totally blow away with the book cover for ereader version of the next in the Penelope Mystery Series. A big thanks to the talented Joleene Naylor.

Cover credits: cover images courtesy of Roman Ivaschenko, Alina Solovyova-Vincent & istock
cover by Joleene Naylor.

Book Description: Penelope Armour isn't happy when her globe-trotting parents send her off to an exclusive private school. It's a made-over hotel, with lots of history and secrets. Because she is a bit peculiar, the denizens of the school aren't so happy with her, either. Penelope's not in class ten minutes when her teacher drops dead in front of her. There are plenty of suspects, a friendly ghost, and a second murder. There starts a story of intrigue, betrayal and lots of humor. Penelope, with the help of an equally quirky chemistry teacher, and her other misfit classmates, solves a mystery

Ron D. Voigts is the author of PENELOPE AND THE BIRTHDAY CURSE, available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Writers Wanted -- Apply Below

I am soon to release my second novel PENELOPE AND THE GHOST'S TREASURE, a tween mystery. Here is brief summary.

Penelope Amour isn't happy when her globe-trotting parents send her off to an exclusive private school. It's a made-over hotel, with lots of history and secrets. Because she is a bit offbeat, the denizens of the school aren't so happy with her, either. Penelope's not in class ten minutes when her teacher drops dead in front of her. There are plenty of suspects, a friendly ghost, and a second murder. There starts a story of intrigue, betrayal and lots of humor. Penelope, with the help of an equally quirky chemistry teacher, and her other misfit classmates, solves a mystery.

I am looking for authors who would peruse, read or skim the book and write a brief blurb suitable for a back cover or inside the ebook.  Why do this? Beside being a good person, this is an excellent way to get some free advertising, since I will include your name and a book title. In the ebook I can hyperlink your wesite back to your name .  Plus down the road you too may need someone to give you a review.

If interested contact me:  ron (at) penelopemystery (dot) com.  I will send you a pdf file of the ebook. I do have a deadline and will be releasing the ebook around Sept 10 and followed closely by the paperback version.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Is?

Bill Clinton made famous the line when responding to the grand jury on the Monica Lewinski affair: "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is.” Such a simple little verb with such far reaching aspects.  It’s a verb and an auxiliary verb.  It can be used to form the progressive tense, indicate future action and the all too famous passive voice. Still on its own it remains powerful as equating things, indicating position, identifying a class, to name a few uses.

For entertainment sake, enter it into Google and get a whole host of questions to stir the mind, and make you wonder what the world is really thinking. 

is kevjumba a heterosexual bear wrestler
is selena gomez pregnant
is daniel tosh gay
is it down
is lady gaga a man

Ron D. Voigts is the author of PENELOPE AND THE BIRTHDAY CURSE, available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Shrine of the Honeydew Melon

I had lunch at a great little Asian restaurant, the kind you see in strip malls that can easily be passed by, and was surprised at the quality of food and the ambiance. Little tables with table clothes and flowers in vases. On a back counter, a bamboo plant with woven shoots  and figurine of a round faced Asian man whose head never stopped bobbing. (Batteries?) Near the front, almost out of sight, was a small red building with half burnt incense sticks in front and a honeydew melon inside. My suspicion is this is a Buddhist thing, but not really sure.

This led to a lunch time topic of Feng Shui. Most common thing I've seen is something with water near the front of an Asian restaurant to bring good luck.  Fountains. Fish ponds. Fish tanks. My lunch companion told of one such place she had visited where near the front entrance was a fish tank with smelly murky water and unhappy looking fish. A member of her lunch party that day ordered fish, took one bite and spit it out.  He came to the conclusion that today's entree was yesterday's unhappy swimmer.

Another Feng Shui thing is to place a mirror opposite an entrance to reflect bad spirits back out.  One worker at my last place of employment did this.  When asked if it really worked, he'd point out that no one of upper management had ever set foot in his office.

What's been your experience when eating out at Asian restaurants or with Feng Shui? Or do you have a honeydew melon story to tell?

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Too Many Alligators

I thought writing a book was hard until I started promoting it. Reminds me of the old adage when you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember the original intention was to drain the swamp. Until a few weeks ago I had stopped writing to work on promoting my book. Then I realized the original intention was to write.  Now, I’m back at what I love to do.  I’m not fast, but 500 words a night gets me there.  As for promotion, I plan to stay at that too. Just going to prioritize.