Disabled and Stranded

Reblogged from E.:

Stop scrolling. Don’t just like this post and roll on by. I need your attention, please. This is not a promotional message about one of books, and this isn’t a review of any kind. Someone needs your help. His name is Steven Beltzer, his son Nick is disabled. The family car, the only vehicle they have, was recently totaled in a hit and run accident. There’s more info on the Facebook page I’m going to link you to. I would like to ask all of you that follow me to share this post. Even if you cannot donate to the fund, share this post. Someone is bound to have some money to share or a vehicle to donate or something, anything, to help these folks out. Steven’s good people. He’s only ever been friendly to me.

 

Let’s make a difference.

 

Like and share the Facebook Page by clicking HERE

 

Donate by clicking HERE

 

The Multiple-Choice Book Review

KJ Charles

Amazon.com have added a system of drop-down menus for reviewers to use. This will be very handy for all those people who have read a book and gone to Amazon with the express intention of leaving a review, only to find themselves unable to think of any words.

There’s a summary here along with a useful graphic of the various menus:

I’m pretty sure it could use a few more options. (You know, like how there may be other metrics to judge plot than ‘surprise!’, and how we distinguish that simple topic ‘writing’ in a slightly more nuanced way than okay vs good.) So, all-round helpful person that I am, I’ve come up with a few other drop-down menus Amazon could add, in order to bring us all to a real, close, yet fully multiple-choice understanding of every book ever written. I think this should cover it nicely.

What…

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Dead Roses: Five Dark Tales of Twisted Love is Available Now!

Reblogged from Gregor Xane:

I’m happy to announce that Dead Roses: Five Dark Tales of Twisted Love is now available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions. And, as a thank you to our loyal readers, the Kindle edition’s digital list price has been reduced from $4.99 to $2.99 for the first week.

This is a horror anthology of all new tales from the same people who brought you last year’s Bad Apples: Five Slices of Halloween Horror. My contribution to this one is a novella(!) entitled Loving the Goat.

 

 

Well, here’s a little more about all the stories in the book:

ELEANOR, by Jason Parent

When Father Stuart McKenzie finds a disfigured girl abandoned on the steps of his church, he decides the child is a blessing from God and raises her as his own. But the special needs of Eleanor demand more from Stuart than a father can give.

 

LOVE LIES IN EYES, by Evans Light

Nathan falls for a beautiful girl from across a crowded room, but she disappears before he can muster his courage. Obsessed with getting a second chance, he’s about to learn that true love isn’t only hard to find…it can be hard to lose.PANACEA, by Adam Light

Decades of marriage haven’t tarnished Rob’s affection towards his dear wife Molly one bit, and he’s not about to let cancer snatch her away, no matter the cost. But every medication has its side effects, some more than others.

CINDER BLOCK, by Edward Lorn

Toby’s dad may have hit the road long ago, but his mother still loves him – along with every other man in town, that is. But after the beautiful Lauren shines a light into his dreary world, he realizes just how crazy love can get.

LOVING THE GOAT, by Gregor Xane

Embattled comic book artist and notorious animal lover Bill Capra is willing to do anything (literally) to get his dirty paws on the fabled object of his desire, even if it means his own destruction.

(This book contains adult content and is suitable for mature readers only.)

Order a copy of Dead Roses now!

Paperback

 

Signed Limited Edition 

Hardcovers & Paperbacks 

 

Kindle Edition 

(40% off for release week!)

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon Canada | Amazon Australia

Horror novella ebook paperback kindle matchbook Edward Lorn Evans Light Jason Parent Release day Gregor Xane Adam Light kindle unlimited There will be goats dead roses march 16 – 2015

Bad Boy Good Man on sale now

Jenny Trout/Abigail Barnette’s Bad Boy Good Man is on sale on Amazon. No one should have to suffer the loss of income because Anne Rice doesn’t like them.

Maggie Spence, Libertyville, Illinois Author

Hello, devoted readers, all nine of you, I feel positively inspired this evening. Lately I’ve been accused of “bullying” authors. Can you imagine? So I thought that I present to you one special author in her own words. Dear readers, may I present Maggie Spence, author of a not very good book.

This is a very bad idea. She begins to gleefully collect a few new authors who don’t know any better.

All of those authors Spence scooped into her scheme listened to the advice being given to them to stop and they withdrew from Spence’s plan. But let’s continue.

Looks like our little Maggie might be onto something- or not.

Other authors give her good advice.

For two whole hours Maggie decides that it is cheating and she won’t do that and then she reconsiders. I guess she believes that success can be achieved and achieved quickly through cheating.

Have you read her book? Success for it can only be achieved through cheating.

Don gives Maggie some sage advice but Maggie isn’t listening.

Remember Don’s advice to Maggie? Yeah. Well, now Maggie is “morally comfortable” going forward with her scheme even though experienced, published authors are telling her it is cheating and a big mistake.

Sally is correct, it has backfired but today Maggie is still insisting she did nothing wrong.

 

Jamal should have saved his breath, whatever advice he gave her, I imagine he pointed out she could expect to get a few 1 star ratings and/or reviews because who is going to recommend someone who is cheating, now Maggie is choosing very deliberately to interpret this as Jamal will give her a negative review. By the by, Maggie doesn’t hate to beat a dead horse as you will see as this series of posts will show.

So Maggie continues to choose to interpret good advice as threats to trash her book. These people have the patience of saints.

More good advice but all Maggie can see is “the face of crazy”, she was warned about cheating, wasn’t she? MR Brazear seems to be losing her patience a trifle, I can’t imagine why, this has only been going on for seven days.

Soon she will be known as “Trainwreck”.

Only bad writing gives indie authors a bad name? She should know; I repeat, have you read her book? And still she believes that her fellow the authors on KDP are slavering to watch her “fall into the flames of their literary justice”.

It escapes her that these authors are afraid of what the Maggie’s of the world have done and are doing to the reputation of indie authors. I could hope they know that we know the difference but the problem is not every ethically challenged author makes their special brand of insanity known before their book is reviewed.

It is pointed out that, yes, she has indeed violated GR’s TOS but Maggie doesn’t get it.

Trainwreck, you could have written the next War and Peace, which you didn’t so those “bad” reviews you earned, but readers hesitate to recommend someone they know has cheated and is actively acting like a spoiled brat and insulting both authors and readers.

 

We all know Maggie just kept chuggin’ down the tracks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the next few days I will be showing Maggie posting about her first review from a stranger, the phone call she made to me, her various threads on the KDP where she keeps belittling, insulting, complaining, and then claiming she is being civil, Maggie on the Amazon for a belittling, insulting, complaining, and then claiming she’s being civil; Maggie joining forces with an internet parasite and belittling, insulting, complaining, and then claiming she’s being civil, Maggie on GR before she was banned, Maggie on GR before she was banned a second time, and miscellaneous Maggie posts where she is belittling, insulting, complaining, and then claiming she was civil.

Won’t this be FUN?

Terry Pratchett and common humanity

KJ Charles

Terry Pratchett, dead at 66, was a humanist, in the best and widest sense. It is impossible to read him without getting a sense of his huge compassion, a deep understanding and acceptance of people in all their flaws, petty and huge. I think it may be this that made his passing a source of active grief to so many. People wept. I wept. I sat on the bed with Reaper Man, and read the scene where Death begs a little more time for Miss Flitwick, and cried big, snotty, ugly tears, because I didn’t want him to be gone. (Or, more specifically, because I wanted him not to have had Alzheimer’s, not to have had his mind taken from him so cruelly early, to be alive and well.)

‘Compassion’ is one of those words. Terry Pratchett was not a twinkly jolly kindly uncle, nor was he a…

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International Women’s Day, it’s not about you, Laurell K Hamilton

I’m still working on my companion piece to Homework but I have this belated International Women’s Day post for you.

On Sunday author Laurell K Hamilton blogged about IWD, Hamilton, or Lala as some of us call her) is not known for being deep or sympathic. No, I’m not linking to her POS blog, you want to read it you can find it on your own.

It’s all about how we shouldn’t need a day to remind us that women are important. And then it goes downhill into how equal her house is. Before we go on I would like to say that if we didn’t have an IWD on November 19 Lala would be wailing about the inequality because that is International Men’s Day. And World Toilet Day. Really.

Lala waxes on  (and on) about her household and how they “celebrate” equality every day and I guess we should all just be ever so grateful for her showing us how wonderful life could be.  But that isn’t what IWD is about, it’s about things Lala seems happy to ignore, things that aren’t pretty or easily solved within a paragraph in a blog. I wonder if she knows who Brianna Wu, Caroline CriadoPerez or Malala are.

Well, she certainly inspired an online poster so I’m going to post her reply here because this is what IWD is about.

 

“”There are women athletes, police officers, soldiers, politicians, weight lifters, firefighters, every job that men can do we do, except sperm donor, and there the men have us, but then we are the only egg donors. It takes both of us to make a new life, a new human being, of either sex.”

Notice that she tries to prove women’s worth by insisting that they can do traditionally male jobs. News flash LaLa, women aren’t equal only when they can do traditionally manly things, they’re also worthy when they’re mothers, nurses, teachers, makeup artists, clothing designers, and a millions other “feminine” jobs. They’re worthy and equal to men just by existing.LaLa, this is the angry feminist me talking right now, because I know you’ve probably got some one creeping on this message board if you’re not doing it yourself.
The reason why we need International Women’s Day:1) because globally 1 out of 3 girls in developing countries will be married before they are 18
2) because millions of girls are forced to drop out of school every year because they’re so poor that they can’t afford basic feminine hygiene products once they start their period so they can continue with their education causing them to miss up to a week of school every month, making them fall behind and eventually having them give up on their education totally,
3) because still even in this country for every dollar a white man makes a white woman makes $.75, a black woman makes around $.60 and Hispanic/Latino women make about $.50
4) because globally women make up the vast majority of people living in extreme poverty of less than $1 per day and many times far less than that.
5) because statistically when women speaking makes up 30% of a conversation when asked afterwards men and women both say that women dominated the conversation.
6) because 1 in 6 women in this country will experience rape or sexual assault and they still get asked questions like what they were wearing or if they’d been drinking as if that is a reason to rape them, and the rates are even higher globally.
7) because racist white people ask the same question ever year as to why February is still Black History Month(notice it’s the shortest month of the year)
8) because you write one of the worst examples of a self hating female gender character I’ve ever read as if anything that makes someone female or is seen as feminine is inherently bad and all of the qualities that are seen as masculine are good and superior, and by the way, you don’t write strong male or female characters.
9) because female politicians like Hilary Clinton are asked how they’re going to juggle being a mother/grandmother if they’re going to run for office again and men are literally never asked that.
10) because in Iowa where I live a women is beaten by a partner or spouse every 9 seconds and of all the women killed in Iowa every year 75% of them are killed by an intimate partner and they’re 70x more likely to be killed within 2 weeks of leaving their partner.
11) because I could go on for 20 pages worth of reasons why doing something as little as having a single day to bring attention to all of the amazing accomplishments that women throughout history have done and all of the many things that women still suffer but continue to fight on in spite of.Because you, even as a women don’t recognize the privilege you have in terms of your race, your economic status, the fact that you were born in a country where your life isn’t threatened by war, poverty or sickness and think that because your life is relatively easy that everyone else must have the same privilege. I thought I’d read the most asinine thing LaLa had ever wrote but this one makes me want to spit nails it’s so full of carp.

*passes out and falls off soapbox*” – M. Winnike

” As women, we need to stand up and say no to this defeatism. To this status quo that views us and our needs as expendable, the first thing to go when we need to save money. We need to start getting together, determining what the parts of our society are that foster a climate where women are seen, but not heard, abused, but not given redress, and fighting back. The internet is without doubt an enabler of misogyny – but it’s also an enabler of other voices. Women’s voices. Women are using the internet in ways that give them a platform like nothing has before. We start and we win more campaigns than men do. We support other people’s campaigns more than men do (these are actual stats, not my feminist propaganda). We need to start understanding how formidable we can be, when we stand up together, start fighting back, start making demands of our politicians, and not backing down.”- Caroline CriadoPerez

Maybe next year Hamilton could focus on the world beyond her doorstep, just a thought.

Rachel Ann Nunes Needs Our Help- March Reminder

Once a month I‘m going to post this because this author needs our help. If we can raise $40,000+ for jane Litte we should surely be able to raise $25,000 for Rachel Nunes.

Rachel Ann Nunes has a new attorney and is proceeding with her case against plagiarist, Tiffanie Rushton.  Trials are expensive so here is the link to her GoFundMe. Help send a message that the book community will not stand for neither the plagiarism nor the attacks Rushton directed towards Nunes after she was found out. Read the timeline here.

Homework

Good morning faithful readers, all 7 of you, I have a little project I’m working on. Here is your homework. Read all the links below and then do a little independent research. Research is good for you, at least that’s what I tell myself when I have to do it.

Bullying.org is against them: http://cuddlebuggery.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Bullying.orgtweet.png

Foz Meadows is unimpressed: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/foz-meadows/stop-the-gr-bullies-a-response_b_1690469.html

https://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/bullying-goodreads/

Ray Garton is unimpressed, as well: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ray-garton/stop-the-gr-bullies-_b_1696640.html

Successful sci-fi author John Scalzi sees them for what they are: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/07/17/bad-reviews-i-can-handle-them-and-so-should-you/

Author Jenny Trout has also been harrassed by STGRB. But Anne Rice doesn’t like her (because she tried to politely let Anne know that STGRB were not good people) so it’s OK that they did that. Don’t take my word for it. Look at the screen shot of what happened when she tried to tell Ms. Rice about them: http://jennytrout.com/?p=7532. Here are her thoughts on the site: http://jennytrout.com/?tag=stgrb

How about Jim Hines? http://www.jimchines.com/2014/10/victim-or-perpetrator/

Or Allison Dickson: http://www.allisonmdickson.com/2012/07/there-are-no-gr-bullies-only-whiny.html

http://www.jessicascott.net/blog/2012/07/thoughts-on-stop-the-gr-bullies/

http://www.lindseyrothculli.com/2012/07/hey-goodreads-ant-bully-bullies-be.html

https://behindstgrb.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/stgrb-captures-romancelandia-citizens-incites-a-new-mccarthyism-era/

https://rosepetals1984.wordpress.com/2012/07/14/soapbox-saturday-3-critique-social-media-interaction-and-bullying-a-reflection/

http://www.bookshelfery.com/imo-bully-me-and-ill-bully-you-because-that-makes-it-right-logic-i-has-it/

http://lmpruitt.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/reporting-thursday-stop-gr-bullies.html

http://sugarandsnark.co.za/?p=4485

http://www.fangsforthefantasy.com/2012/07/stop-gr-bullies-stalking-tantrums-and.html

http://bookish.livejournal.com/3248363.html

http://dearauthor.com/features/letters-of-opinion/something-is-very-wrong-with-us-and-its-not-bad-reviews/

https://behindstgrb.wordpress.com/

http://www.stgrb.com

http://stopthegrbullies.net/so-called-victims-of-bullying/

http://stopthegrbullies.net/criticism-is-not-bullying/

https://nevillfeast.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/what-does-it-take-to-be-called-an-amazon-fora-troll/

http://the-digital-reader.com/2013/04/29/how-not-to-respond-to-bad-reviews-the-anne-rice-edition/

https://www.goodreads.com/user_status/show/60276438?page=1 (almost forgot this one!)

Happy reading.

My Book is My Baby! (Now pass me the wet wipes.)

KJ Charles takes on the “the book is my baby justification” and feeds it to a large predator.

KJ Charles

We’ve all come across this metaphor. It’s a cry of ownership, a plea for kindness, a go-to excuse for displays of hurt feelings and bad behaviour at negative reviews. “My book is my baby! I love it! What you say about my book hurts me!”

This metaphor is of course very easy to mock. Thus: I don’t put my baby up for sale on Amazon; I don’t think a poorly baby can be made better by cutting 20% of its length; it is not good practice to put a misbehaving baby in a drawer and forget about it for six months. Et cetera. You can entertain yourself with this on Twitter for hours. But there is a serious reason why this is a bad metaphor, which is worth looking at in depth.

Consider what the ‘book as baby’ metaphor conveys: you create a thing, you love it, and you feel…

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