New Hashtag Idea to Promote your Books

Consumers buy based on familiarity. That's why one of Amazon's most popular features is the function where they show "people who bought this also bought that". There ought to be a solution that we can use in the real (non-Amazon) world for our books. Below, I offer a possible simple solution using the social media hashtag system.

At one time or another, most of us readers seek out "books like" ... name your author or title ... in a book store or on-line, or just in conversation.

I've come up with a new hashtag system that I hope (if it is legal ... I don't know) may help all of us undiscovered writers use that as leverage in social media like Twitter, Facebook and Google+ to get our books noticed alongside more well known titles.

I checked and it seems the hashtag #bookslike is not being used. Just imagine, you could search on #bookslike Tom Sawyer or #bookslike Forrest Gump or #bookslike Pride and Prejudice .

The bottom line is, we could all benefit from knowing what book or author your book is like. Let me know if you like this new hashtag idea.

Finally, I'm not an attorney so I don't know the legalities of comparing one's product to another product when you don't own the rights to the latter. Before you go ahead and use the hashtag, I suggest we wait and hear what others - more informed sources - think about this approach. Any attorneys or publishing gurus wish to weigh in on this?

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Related: #ebookslike #novelslike #readslike

Read "The Ghosts of Belmont" Short Story

My short story, The Ghosts of Belmont, is out, just in time for Halloween.

My short story, The Ghosts of Belmont, is out, just in time for Halloween. If you think it's in the horror genre, you guessed correctly.

Here's the premise: What can happen when a highly anticipated celebratory biography you've just published is entirely wrong? A Civil War historian excited about his just published book is haunted when he discovers new information.                 

Download it for FREE to your browser or reading device. It's only about five pages so you could even print it out to put on your refrigerator! (just kidding - but you really could print it out) For the next few days it is available only at Smashwords. It should be available in most other major ebook stores before long.  Reviews are very much appreciated.

Finally, if you like the short story, please consider trying some sample chapters (for FREE of course) from my novel, Sleeping in Snow with Bears - The Making of a Legend. This latter link is to SW, but you can find the book in digital or paperback at most major ebook stores.

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UPDATE: The Ghosts of Belmont is now available at Amazon.com (still free at Smashwords).

About that New Print Version

Sleeping in Snow with Bears is now available in print trade paperback!

Sleeping in Snow with Bears is now available in print trade paperback!  Yes, I recognize that this is not much of an achievement and that I probably look to some of you like Steve Martin in his movie, The Jerk, when he saw his name in the new phonebook and began jumping around and yelling ... "I am somebody now ... Things are going to start happening to me now!".  The truth is, that a lot of people I've told about the book, and expressed interest are not yet e-readers. This version is for them (for now, the price is still a lot lower if you purchase digitally - see side bar for e-stores).

Here's the link to the dedicated page for the title in the CreateSpace eStore.

If you visit, you may note that I've changed the cover. I wanted to emphasize the snow. Using white background and white paper, I've tried to create that effect. The bear claws with scar tissue work well on white. Also, if you read the book you may note that the top of the bear paw has a double meaning of fairly deep significance.

Oh, and finally, there is a surprise on the spine and the back but I'll save that for my buyers (if that isn't enough of an incentive to buy the print version, I don't know what is! ;)

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

We've all been given a reason to live. Striving to find the reason why, before we die, is the big question we each face.  Are you up to the challenge?

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"Should I Stay or Should I Go?"  That's the title of a hit song from the '80's British punk-rock band, The Clash. The song, found on their album, Combat Rock, goes, "Should I stay or should I go now? If I go there will be trouble. If I stay it will be double. So come on and let me know. Should I stay or should I go?"

I have no idea if the song is a decision about suicide, a relationship, or just getting out of town. Whatever it is, it is a question we all have asked ourselves at one time or another, be it in school, work, at a party, or whatever - and it can be even deeper than that.

In the opening chapter of my novel, "Sleeping in Snow with Bears", Mindy, the weaker and more sensitive of two female protagonists, is facing her own death (from ovarian cancer) and has decided to end it all by suicide in a very lovely, gentle way. Only things don't go as she planned. The story then goes back in time and examines Mindy's life from the beginning, what her journey has been all about, the friends she has made and the decisions which have impacted the world around her – think George in "It's a Wonderful Life". But unlike George, even before her terminal diagnosis, life has kind of sucked for Mindy, and one might even wonder why she didn't kill herself earlier. It's good she didn't though. That's what the story is really all about ... why she had a reason to live up to now.

Well that's fine for fiction, but why are you here? In this world, I mean. You don't have to be suicidal to ask yourself this question. It's a pretty logical question to ask. When you think about it, the likelihood of being you; much less being conscious of that fact, the chance of you being you are near infinitesimally small.

I haven't made my point yet on the odds of you being here? Imagine what are your chances of hitting the lottery. Now consider the size and vastness of the entire universe and all. By just being here, now, you've beaten the odds by bazillions of times greater than the longest lottery odds ever (yes, I said 'bazillion' and I said 'ever').

So is there a reason you exist? Is there a chance you may find out why you exist? What your purpose is, I mean. Does each of us have a purpose? Is our purpose unique, or are we joined to others on a mission together? Will we ever know? Personally speaking, I contend there has to be a reason and we each have a role.

As people age, they tend to become more spiritual. Some go to church more and seek solace in the teachings of those who came before us and studied the matter in depth. Others study themselves more. They all ask themselves who am I, what have I done? And perhaps they ask themselves this ultimate, some might say unanswerable, question. Why am I here?

Have you asked yourself these questions yet? I'm guessing, if you live long enough, and are introspective enough, you have or someday you will. And I'd take those odds, any time, against you being here – being you - in the first place.

These are not pointless questions. For many people who find out, or at least decide what their purpose is, they may find it drives them forward. For those of us who don't find out, and many of us may never, it gives us reason to keep living ... to keep seeking.

Remember, the odds that you are here and that you know it are so small, so unlikely, it's hard to reason that it is pure chance. For that reason alone we must keep seeking. After all, we've all been given the gift of life and seeking is one of those benefits.

Let me know the answer when you find it. I'll be seeking too - so it shouldn't take so long.

What is Love?

Call me stupid, but if simple visual/touch stimuli that an attractive womanly chest paired with a firm masculine jaw line, each respectively triggering the release of brain chemicals in the other and all designed in the name of reproduction, qualifies as a foundation of love, I'm just not getting it.

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What is love? No I'm not rickrolling you - that's another song (this is a serious question, but if you don't know what "rickrolling" is, you've been hiding under a rock, so go ahead and google it. I can wait).

What is love? OK, now you're probably laughing or really pissed. Really, though, "What is love?" It's a serious question. I explore love in my writing because I think it deserves more than it gets in all the steamy novels, movies and other media that explore the erotic periphery. Are those portrayals real love? My short answer is, "no." Not at least by my definition. I'll explain.

Love is a lot of things, and it certainly can be expressed in the steamy near-porn like verbal melange that passes these days as new-age fiction, but writers of that sort of prose usually don't get the readers much past the arousal stage.

This begs the question, why are shallow portrayals of love so prevalent if there is so little substance? I can think of two reasons. One, it's easy to write; primarily because the imagination is all too ready to go there. My keyboard looks pretty boring, so why not write some literary-disguised porn today? Readers are no less guilty. Most of of us can relate to the naughty scenes in some way or other (be it via fantasy or real life) and it's fun to see what's possible (and sometimes forbidden), but I posit love is a deeper than that (pardon the pun).

Of course, fictional portrayals of love aren't limited to sex. In classic British fiction, if the couple somehow comes into money through heredity, an anonymous gift, or some otherwise honorable means, then their bond qualifies as love or at least most likely means some character or other thinks it does. The stories tell us that love like that means forever – but let's think about that for a moment. It really is all dependent upon the financial figures, isn't it? I'm not an accountant, but I don't think that's what love is either.

We're told that many people have fallen in love "at first sight." Perhaps you have. I'm not saying you didn't. But is fast acting passion real love? Is being fascinated with a new partner, love? Sure it's lovemaking, but is it love?

Scientists (an ugly word in this conversation) say passion is the result of mutually shared Oxycontin-like releases of endorphins. So that's love? Or rather, its effect on the brain? Some have said it is. It sure can feel like great, like we're told love is supposed to "feel" like. And it's certainly real enough to have successfully populated the planet, but where is the foundation of it beyond basic chemistry? Call me stupid, but if simple visual/touch stimuli that an attractive womanly chest paired with a firm masculine jaw line, each respectively triggering the release of brain chemicals in the other and all designed in the name of reproduction, qualifies as a foundation of love, I'm just not getting it.

True foundations of love need more than every-day ready-to-rock sensory induced chemically catalyzing hormones that are all too ready to match any couple more permanently given proximity.

So by now, you've probably figured me out. My definition of love is different from all of this. It is one that isn't born, triggered or dropped in one's lap - love, rather, develops. It has a firm basis that is built over time with lots of different parts. Sure it can have all of the above, but it has more of the metaphysical, too. It has trust, devotion and energy. It has patience and understanding. It has shared experience – good and bad – and it has time. And that's not all. There's even more. The unquantifiable, untouchable, mysterious, and spiritual are good places to look. It might not have all of these, all of the time, but with the strength of each comes something deeper ... true love.

Near the beginning of this post I mention that I write about love. My novel, "Sleeping in Snow with Bears," has two love stories. They share the common features we've all come to expect in contemporary novels (You forgot already? Read the first part of this post again), but they also have more. The two love stories in Bears are different from each other but they are similar in one big way - neither is easy and they both take time. And in the end, they are real.

OK, if my definition of love doesn't satisfy you, here's another (and it's not a rickroll, I promise!).