No thanks to FTC issues

Can you spot the potential FTC problem here?

 One of the things that you have to learn as a book reviewer is what the Federal Trade Commission wants you to disclose. The FTC rules governing bloggers is simple: One, you must disclose any money, discounts, or free products and services that you recieve from the author and their representatives; two, you must give an honest review. That is it--it is that plain and simple.

Unless someone decides that they want to see you burnt at the stake. Then, the rules can become a living nightmare. Ok, maybe the person I am about to talk about doesn't want to see me burnt at the stake; but they still want to see my authority as a book reviewer and Golden Dawn expert burnt to the ground--which feels the same to a book reviewer and writer.

At the root of the problem is the fact that a certain GD writer a few years ago started to brag that their masterpiece was selling on eBay for a thousand dollars apiece. Now, the book had officially been out of print for several years. But I figured considering that he was claiming that it was selling for such a high price that it would be worthwhile to do a review of it. After all, I had a copy of the book that I brought when it first came out.

Besides when the book first came out, the author got a wheel barrow full of bad reviews--as in a dozen one star reviews. The positive reviews that he got were all five star reviews. Yes, one is correct to suspect that maybe everyone reviewing the book was biased. I figured that the book needed a review from someone that was neutral--as in someone that had no stake in the Golden Dawn trademark lawsuit.

So I gave the book an honest review. I found that I did not believe the author's claims that such a book was needed; it is designed for a magician to use without a lick of training; that cost the book one star. And I found the book to have enough mistakes in the rituals that it could not be used for the purpose of allowing completely untrained magicians to use it out of the box; every ritual needed to be doublechecked; therefore I took another star from my final assessment. Bottom line, I did not think that the book belonged on every magician's shelf, and that there were too many mistakes to trust the book without having enough training where the book would no longer be needed in the first place.

For those keeping score at home, this means that I gave the book a three (out of five) stars review. As I said before, he recieved a dozen one star reviews. But out of all his reviewers, he has spent the most time trying to overturn my review. In fact, I have never seen anyone spend this much time and energy trying to prove that a review was part of a conspiracy against them--ever!

Now, part of it may simply be the fact that it was one of the articles that I used when testing the waters of the pageview markets. I used the same dozen articles on several sites to gauge how good (as in "what will I earn here") various pageview sites were. But I suspect that a large part of it is simply the fact that as a neutral, without any connection to anyone in the court case, my review was actually the most damning of the reviews.

Since I have done the review, periodically I get told that I am a member of conspiracy hell-bent on destorying his Order. Now, for many years, I tried to play nice...clear up to last year when one of his Order members told me that it was ok for them to destory my reputation because I did not belong to his Order. Because of being told that, I have gotten involved in a couple of projects that support the legal defense fund that the other party in the case has set up (to recover the costs from the first case, and help defray the costs of any further case...a case that the author in question seems determined to cause).

And this brings us to the events of the last couple of months.

A couple of months ago, the author in question decided to reissue the book in question. And he openly asked for people to point out mistakes in the book. I volunteered a mistake that I found in a recent research project, but I did not provide him with a full list. After all, he wasn't paying me to be his fact-checker. I do not do free editing.

When he hears this (see the jpeg above), he "hires" me without me submitting a bid for the job. He claims that I am obligated to prove that his book is flawed. He also makes it a condition that I attend his convention in a month and a half--where the person who told me that it was ok for them to destory my reputation will be (I had already stated that even if I did not have bill collectors calling me that I probably would not want to attend).

I tell him to talk to his lawyer because there is a legal reason I can't do the job. (Go ahead and look at how he "hired" me.) His response is to tell me that his lawyer saw no legal problem, and that it must be because I signed a contract to help destory his Order.

I suspect that his lawyer did not see how he "hired" me, or that it is a legal trap to try to sue me.

Because there is no way that I can actually fulfill his conditions. One, I do have bill collectors calling me over a student loan default. Two, I am self-employed--I have better things to do with the money I collect from jobs than attend his convention (even if a certain person would not be attending). Three, he is trying to get me in trouble with the FTC.

Now, this is a man who, when the FTC came out with their rules governing bloggers and online book reviewers, claimed that he knew the FTC rules better than I did. Therefore, he should be able to see the FTC nightmare contained in his job request. Basically, he wants me to revise my assessment of his book...or at least, provide him with proof that will allow him to claim that I was dishonest in my review.

Now, legally I do not have to prove my assessment of his book to him. If the FTC wants my proof that his book is flawed, they can ask for it. And it would be illegal for me to change my mind, and my review of his first edition--a fact that I think that he knows. But he does not care about FTC rules when they are in his way, only when he can use them against someone else.

It is just too bad for him that the FTC often decides not to go after the individual reviewers, but rather after the employer (aka the person paying for the job). In his world, my refusal to do the job proves that I am involved in a conspiracy. It will never occur to him that I did him a favor by refusing to do the job. If he presses me too hard, and I do the job and then revise my review, I am positive that someone in the GD community will report him to the FTC. In fact, I am not sure that he is completely on safe legal ground even at this moment--between this and last year's events (he encouraged people to give another author's entire product line one star reviews), I think it is only a matter of time before the FTC has a good look at him.

And for the record, even if he does fix all the mistakes in the second edition, he still hasn't convinced me that the book is actually needed. After all, if magic was that easy--as in you could learn it from a book that reads like a car manual--then we would not need esoteric Orders in the first place...which would make his Order completely useless. Therefore, the best he can hope for is a four star review...and we all know that anything less than a five star review proclaiming him the greatest thing since white bread will just be a sign that there is a conspiracy determined to destory him--as if the man's actions and behavior are not enough alone to cause people to loathe his guts.

Lessons from Ultimate Blog Challenge (Round One)

In January, I made a weak attempt to do the Ultimate Blog Challenge (31 blog posts in 31 days) on my esoteric blog, Gleamings from the Golden Dawn (at first) and on this blog (after seeing the initial results on GFGD). There were reasons why the attempt failed...including the fact that I was working on a major project that needed to be partially finished by February 1st. But it was mainly what I learned about my personal results that made the attempt weak.

One of the benefits that is claimed for the Ultimate Blog Challenge is that it helps build up your traffic. I saw absolutely no evidence of this--but then again, it was a weak attempt. Of course, it could also be the simple fact that neither this blog or GFGD is really set up for selling people stuff, saving their souls, or simply posting for the simple sake of posting.

In other words, the benefits that other bloggers report for the Ultimate Blog Challenge may not even be possible for me. After all, the type of audience that I am writing for is very limited. Plus my readership on GFGD is interested in a very specific type of post (they merely tolerate my cat fetish), just like the readers of this blog are interested in a very particular type of post.

And there was also the simple fact that I did not feel like just writing junk posts just to hit the goal of 31 posts.

So what did I learn from the first attempt at doing the Ultimate Blog Challenge?

One, it is not going to boost my number of readers or pageviews. (I have yet to see any scheme that actually works for any of my blogs.)

Two, I am not going to get any more comments than normal (even the daily comment thread on the Facebook support group would only net me one comment, and not the two that it was supposed to).

Three, I have a really hard time commenting on other people's blogs when they are just trying to sell a service (or product), or are trying to get people to embrace Jesus.

Fourth and most important, if it is really going to benefit me, I need a posting plan--an ongoing planned series of posts that naturally fits into the existing audience of whatever blog that I decide to use. Fortunately, I have a couple of ideas that would result in a series of posts--ideas that I have not followed up on simply because they require a certain level of commitment.

And doing the Ultimate Blog Challenge would help me get the series done--it is a daily checklist type of task if you are working on a long series.

Therefore, I am going to do the March 2013 round of the Ultimate Blog Challenge on GFGD, but I am going to be aiming to accomplish a long series of interelated posts, and completely ignore the claims of improvement that other people make--the type of gains that I will collect are going to be different. After all, I am not really trying to sell people salvation. No, I am merely trying to inflict the possible first draft of an ebook on an unsuspecting audience.

How I ended up doing artwork

Hot dogs and alien women--it is going to be one of those weird stories, isn't it?

Besides being a writer, and a photographer of pottery, lately I have also been doing some artwork for a pagan/Wiccan friendly children book series. Now, I will admit that it mystifies me how that happened.

For one thing, I do not have any formal art teaching--or at least, no education beyond an art class that I failed in high school (me and the teacher did not get along very well). Oh, I did take three continuing education classes at the Colorado Institute of Art, but I do not think that they actually count.

In other words, any skill as an artist that I might have was self-taught and developed.

For me, art has always been a hobby. Something to do on a job when I was busy twiddling my fingers. Yes, I know the restaurant rule "If you have time to lean, you have time to clean." No one actually does that unless there is an inspection coming up within the next couple of days.

The only art that I have done "professionally" before the current project is that I have done some of my ebook covers. Why? Because I started writing ebooks while in university (where I did not take a single art class)--even a twenty dollar photo was beyond the limits of my starting budget.

And that is what landed me the gig of doing children book art--my own cover art for erotica short stories. Scary, isn't it?

Even scarier (at least to me) is the fact that I am only about a week away from the first ebook of the series (Turtle Monkey) being uploaded to Smashwords. We are about to see if customers accept me as a children book artist.

I will admit that if the ebooks sell well, I will be even more mystified. After all, it is not like I am a real artist with actual training. No, all I have is the heart of a child and a big box of colored pencils.

How ebooks could slump during Xmas

The other day, I talked about the fact that my ebook sales slumped on Barnes and Noble during the Christmas shopping season and have yet to recover. Now, this sounds odd when you look at the news that ereader sales were still strong with some outlets reporting record sales of ereaders sold (whether dedicated ereaders or other devices with ebook reading capabilities). So how could a writer's royalties slump during the Xmas shopping season?

Two things to keep in mind about my royalties for fourth quarter 2012. One, despite the slump at B&N, fourth quarter was still my best quarter ever as a writer (thanks to Apple). Two, I was not surprised by the drop in my ebook sales.

My ebook sales were normal until Thanksgiving. And Apple's expansion played a big part in fourth quarter being the best for me so far. Likewise, I did have some new erotica available under one of my other pen-names.

It is after Thanksgiving, and up to January tenth (and maybe beyond...I am waiting for the latest sales update), that my Barnes and Noble's sales slump.

There are at least three possible reasons for this slump. Two reasons tie into the fact that most of my royalties come from a single item (yes, one item is accounting for about 80% of my current income). One, I did not put out anything new for awhile under the pen-name that is credited for that item (different pen-names for different fetishes). Two, I might have hit the saturation point for that item. But I would expect to see a gradual decline in sales, not a sudden drop like my figures show.

The third possible reason, the one that I believe is the real cause, is also the reason that I was not surprised by this slump. In fact, I was expecting a slump in my royalties.

Now, bear in mind that I spent twenty years in the restaurant business (ten as a manager), plus my father owned a produce business (he started out in deliveries, and moved into sales). Restaurants, unless they are located close to shopping centers, tend to have decreased sales during the Christmas season. Why? Because people are spending money on other things, mainly Xmas shopping.

And that is the golden reason that a writer's ebook sales could slump during the Christmas shopping season, and into the post-Xmas season--people are spending money on other items.

In this case, ereaders and other associated devices.

Ebooks are not physical items. You cannot wrap an ebook. And do you really want to buy a friend or family member an erotic novel or short story?! Probably not. (Remember that most of my income comes from erotica of a particularly dubious sub-genre.)

On the other hand, ereaders and other ebook reading devices are physical items. Therefore, you can put them under the Xmas tree.

And I believe that is the real reason that my sales slumped during the Xmas shopping season. This slump is probably a pattern that I need to get used to, and budget around.

If I am right, about February, as people's wallets start to recover from Xmas shopping, I should start seeing my royalties return to normal.

(And why no corresponding drop in Apple sales? Well, it was the first quarter for many people to buy ebooks in Apple's expanding global market...this might not be the normal buying pattern for those customers.)

And it is Apple for a surprise win

Looking over my year-end figures, it is Apple that ended up selling the most copies for me this past year (2012). This surprised me. During the first three quarters of the year, Barnes and Noble was the outlet that I was selling the most copies though.

Then during the fourth quarter, Apple pulled ahead of Barnes and Noble. And this is despite the fact that several of my ebooks do not get past the manual review for acceptable content...and I am too lazy to write cleaner, sweeter, vanilla versions for Apple (just like I am too lazy to write versions that Amazon would approve of).

[For those of you who are confused by this, and think that I should be writing watered-down versions to get past the censors, just remember that I have learned the hard way that it is best to crank out new material and save the "Oh dear, I am offending people" rewrite for those time periods that I am horribly blocked. My best return for time and energy spent is to write new material--after all, it is not like I am writing the Great American Novel.]

I am guessing that the sudden increase in my Apple sales is due to the expansion of the iBookstore to fifty countries. I understand why Mark Coker of Smashwords believes that Apple is a quiet giant--my last quarter sales really surprised me.

Then again, it might not be the expansion. My Barnes and Noble sales slumped during the final quarter; and based on the first ten days of this year, have still not recovered. No surprise that an erotica writer would discover that Xmas shopping season is his slowest season--or at least, I am not too surprised by it.

So I am going to be watching to see if Apple remains the best outlet for me this coming year, or if Barnes and Noble retakes the lead.

Fourteen percent off jewelry and pottery (Celtic Soul)

(And I just realized that there is a cat in this video--Studio Kitty strikes again.)

My wife is having a Valentine's Day Sale over on her Etsy shop, Celtic Soul Jewelry and Pottery. You can get fourteen percent off your purchase (including already discounted items) by entering VALENTINE14 at the check out. This discount code is good until February 28th.

For those who are curious, she currently has three different mortar and pestles available, three different dog bowls, as well as her jewelry.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/celticsouljwlry

Writing lessons from the American Idol auditions

Last night, I was watching the auditions for season twelve of American Idol...because I could.

Now, personally I am too old to be on American Idol, despite the fact that I have a singing voice that makes angels cry (my god-daughter informs me that they are crying for different reason than the one that I am thinking of). But I still learn lessons about being famous and doing something creative while watching the show.

The five lessons that I saw last night:

Number 1: Dont expect others to determine the way that you develop.

There was one young lady who did not know what genre of music she wanted to specialize in. She told the judges that she expected to be guided into whatever her future focus was going to be. Needless to say, the judges were not impressed by that answer.

And the scary part is that I have heard "writers" say this type of nonsense. "I really want to be a writer." What do you write? "I haven't decided yet. I figure that a publisher would be best at helping me determine what I should write."

That statement is just one step removed from "I will focus on whatever is currently hot in the marketplace."

Unfortunately, if you embrace such nonsense, you will never actually develop enourgh skill to get an publisher interested in your work. It is not in publishers' best interests to risk attention on people who have not been interested enough in writing to pick a speciality.

Number 2: Singing on the subway is not a fall from grace.

There was one young man who has been picking up extra money by singing on the New York City subways. Good for him, I say. But his friends consider this to be an indication of him falling and failing. It is not. Thinking that one can only perform their craft in ideal conditions ensures that one will never find those ideal conditions.

At least, the singer is practicing his craft.

I have also encountered people who think that a talented writer should not write erotica, science fiction, and fantasy. College writing programs tend to enforce this idea; in college, the only proper type of writing is the type of work that one finds in literary magazines--you know the type of stuff that no commerical magazine will pay you for.

Sure, writing stuff that sells is less noble than writing the Great American Novel...but it might prevent you from having to flip burgers for a living; plus, you actually get to practice your art without having to make it worthy of Shakespeare.

And by the way, Shakespeare was a hack--he wrote plays for money.

Number 3: Get input from outside your inner circle.

There was one young lady last night who had never sang in front of anyone other than her parents. And yes, her mother thought that she was a great singer...she was not.

This is something that I have seen every season of American Idol: singers who have only gotten feedback from friends and family. Of course, your inner circle is going to tell you that you are the next American Idol. They love you, and may have to live with you.

Real feedback comes from outside your own personal fan club. And it is better to get it early before you make a damn fool of yourself.

And we all know the person who is a "great writer" according to their mother.

Number 4: Know that you will have more chances to succeed.

One of the things that the judges last night talked about is the fact that so many people think that they only have one chance to be successful. All the judges noted that they had numerous doors slammmed in their faces, and that one continues to get new chances as long as one continues to try.

I sometimes run into writers who seem to believe that they will only get one chance at fame. If they do not get the right publishing contract, or the right agent, or what-not, they feel that they will never succeed.

I have spent over twenty years getting to where I am as a writer. I could wallpaper a room with rejection slips. If I gave up when I recieved my first rejection, I would not be writing today.

Number 5: Personality matters.

In writing, we refer to this as "voice."

Last night, the judges let though one young man, who had a voice that was not as good as other singers, because he actually had a personality. When you start looking at stars, more often than not, they have personalities.

And there is always someone more talented than you are.

Perfect paragraphs and sentences help sell your writing; but without the voice, you might have well be writing technical manuals for a living. And one would be surprised at the number of less than perfect drafts that writers hack out during the course of their careers--it is why we employ editors.