Patriot Review

I got a great review from New York Times Bestselling author Lewis Perdue.

******Investigative historic thriller, March 4, 2012
By Lewis Perdue (Sonoma, CA United States) – See all my reviews
This review is from: Patriot on the Kennebec: Major Reuben Colburn, Benedict Arnold and the March to Quebec, 1775 (Paperback)

This is one helluva book. It’s a non-fiction, thoroughly researched, investigative look at the history of an oft-reviled Revolutionary War patriot, Major Reuben Colburn. Because it’s written by a descendent of Colburn’s, one might expect a panegyric. Far from it. York has produced a solid piece of enterprise reporting with facts to back up the assertions. Superbly written with an entertaining style that keeps on pulling the reader along like a thriller.

Patriot Up

Patriot is live on Amazon.

Colburn Project Accepted

After more than ten years of trying, Patriot on the Kennebec: Major Reuben Colburn, Benedict Arnold and the March to Quebec 1775 will be published in spring 2012 by The History Press. It will part of their War and Military Series.

Online Celebrity

"On the Internet, however, it’s not one single subjectivity but a popular hive-mind that decides. The “big break” arrives when, with lightning speed and often to one’s own surprise, the inscrutable pack decides to start forwarding one’s content around."

I particularly like the "hive-mind" tag. In a role I played on the NBC show, Dark Skies I led Jerri Lee Ryan and Eric Close back to the hive; an alien pod. That's what so-called online success is based on: getting groups of friends to declare you the winner of whatever the online contest is. Real success though is even more scarce here than the traditional merit-based route, be it publishing fiction, talking about it, or journalism. On the contrary, it almost never happens at all, save in the minds of the entrants. Shoot for the real thing. It's still real after all these years.

LA Times Festival of Books

Another excellent time today at four fiction panels.The first described here. Dark humor abounded with novelist and screenwriter Jerry Stahl playing everyone and everything as his straight man on two panels. Good stuff.

The Ole Vanity/POD Shuffle

There's a statistical claim going around the net about the dismal performance, 70 percent, of new novels published every year by so-called traditional publishers not selling more than 500 copies. It's blatantly false.

First, there aren't 195,000 novels published every year as the statement claims.

According to Bowker.com for 2007, There were 50,071 new fiction titles introduced in the U.S. last year, up 17% from 2006, and the number of new titles in the category in 2007 was almost twice what it was as recently as 2002.

What is alarming is this: "While traditional book publishing was basically flat last year, there was a staggering rise in the reported number of “On Demand” and short-run books to 134,773, pushing the grand total for projected 2007 U.S. book output to 411,422 books. To maintain the continuity of statistics, Bowker is excluding this output from its traditional reporting and has begun tracking the On Demand industry segment separately."

Yeah Boy, Howdy. The claim made on these Web sites is bogus and seems to originate from a post by an author, sans source at this New Zealand Web siteHow many books do first-time authors sell? Over 195,000 new novels are published by traditional publishers in the U.S. every year. Of those, 70% sell fewer than 500 copies. Yikes..

Yikes indeed. Only 84 titles from iUniverse, now a part of Authorhouse sell 500 copies. This is a marriage of that pitiful and predictable fact and total books sold in 2005. Lies. Damned lies. And statistics.

Here We Go Again

The latest vanity press mega transition is making the news like some sort of new archeological discovery, since that's how rare these anomalies are.

By 2008 people were reading Still Alice. Not a lot of people, but a few, and those few were liking it. Genova wound up getting an agent after all--and an offer from Simon & Schuster of just over half a million dollars. Borders and Target chose it for their book clubs. Barnes & Noble made it a Discover pick. On Jan. 25, Still Alice will make its debut on the New York Times best-seller list at No. 5.

Yeah well, the real story is missing from this piece and lies between those few liking it...and wound up getting an agent and the half mil. I mean, really.

The best thing about about TIME is their archive is open and online. Come fish with Papa.

S&S Gather Winners

My favorite The Way Life Should Be, a Maine crime novel has won the Gather.com First Chapters contest and a publishing contract with Simon & Schuster. Fire Bell in the Night, a historical thriller I'm told, set in the antebellum slavery era South, came in second. Both were awarded contracts, which to my knowledge wasn't in the fine print. Well done. I have personal details I'm putting in the vault along with miss snark's indentity.

LAT Festival of the Book

Another good time save for a horribly slow crawl over the infamous 405 to UCLA due to an accident; always a possibility here. I saw Jim Taranto, of the OpinionJournal.com who I disagree with on virtually everything, and who failed graduate from my alma mater CSUN, on a panel about the future of news. I didn't see Marc Cooper. That said, the questioner from the audience, a fiesty limelight hog, or "focus sucker" as an old aquaintance from the movie business would say, claiming "the six floors of the WTC couldn't have fallen at that high rate of speed" was hilarious.

"Did they answer the quesion? She asked the audience after giving up on the panel, pleading for supportive affirmation that George Bush ordered the explosives installed, I guess? Jeez.

There were jeers, and calls for her to shut up. I thought it was answered. She's a nut and evidence some of the far left will believe anything in the same way the far right won't believe the easy stuff like science done by the best in the world. Every political persuasion has their pet conspiracies. They have one thing in common: they're both crazy.

The panel which included Mark Halperin of ABC and Jim O'Shea the newly installed editor of the LAT was flabbergasted and let he go on way to long, but it turns out that was the highlight of the day, other than seeing some first time novelists and one old timer: William Kittredge getting the lifetime achievement award. He and his wife, Annick Smith produced A River Runs Through It, one of my favorite films. The Amy Goodman, Greg Palast panel on the state of America today was fun, but they didn't allow enough questions. Palast is an entertainer. He's right, but a bit hyperblized for a mainstream audience, and relies heavily on a keen perception of the obvious to make his points. His main one is Bush et al are for OIL. KPO-phasers on full stun Captain!

Jared Diamond and his sister Susan were interesting, talking about their childhood in Boston. He looks like an Amish elder, but boy, what an intellect. Her too.

Of course all of the crime novelists were around: Connelly; Crais; Cannell and so on. It's so LA.

Tomorrow it's sci-fi with John Scalzi whose blog I've commented on, and the Bill McKibben panel on the state of the natural world.

Kurt Vonnegut RIP

One of my favorites growing up. He is the Twain of our day.