2016 was a busy year for blogging. Amazon accepted Bridge Daughter for their Kindle Scout program, which entailed a month-long nomination process before they agreed to publish it. It was the start of a fairly intense roller coaster ride, most of which I captured in blog posts along the way.
Amazon’s imprimatur on the novel opened many doors. With a single email sent on a single day of the week to a mere sliver of their customer base, Amazon could generate hundreds of book sales, as though rubbing a lamp to summon a djinn. Amazon’s backing also led to a movie production company inquiring about film rights. They read the book and they asked questions, but ultimately they passed.
(Amazon dismantled the Kindle Scout program in 2018, which I still consider a tragedy.)
Of the long-form blog entries in 2016, I produced three that I remain proud of. I’m torn which to feature here. My account of Don Herron’s Fritz Leiber tour still evokes nostalgia. Don Herron is the creator of the classic Dashiell Hammett tour in San Francisco. Getting a chance to meet Herron and take his lesser-known Fritz Leiber tour was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as he no longer leads it save for special occasions.
Another piece I’m proud of is my review/analysis of the Generation X cult classic Slacker, one of my favorite films. This entry has an untold side story: A few months after posting it, an online film aficionado site on Medium asked if I was interested in adapting the review. Unfortunately, what the editor wanted me to write about wasn’t what I found interesting about Slacker, and the opportunity fizzled out.
The third is a blog post I keep returning to as a kind of manifesto: “Fiction as a controlled experiment,” a write-up of my thoughts on the book On Literature by J. Hillis Miller.
Miller was a scholar at Yale and U.C. Irvine, and known for promoting deconstruction as a means of literary criticism. I discovered On Literature on a shelf of used books in a Tokyo bookstore, and assumed it would be thick with postmodern terminology and abstruse theories. Instead, On Literature is personal and ruminative. Parts of it read like a confessional. Miller admits to a lifelong love of reading, and writes in glowing terms on several children’s books he marveled over in his youth.
What caught my attention the most, however, is when he confesses to viewing a work of fiction as a “pocket or portable dreamweaver.” He describes books as devices that transport the reader to a new “hyper-world” for them to experience. The way he describes it reminds me of the linking books in the classic video game Myst.
This quaint vision of narrative is unfashionable in the world of literary criticism. Miller’s vision is also, in my view, charitable to lay readers, who are less interested in high theory and more interested in enjoying books, and curious why some books are more enjoyable than others.
But I do think this vision—”a pocket or portable dreamweaver”—is also a useful guide for an author developing a story or a novel. Miller insists a work of fiction is not “an imitation in words of some pre-existing reality but, on the contrary, it is the creation or discovery of a new, supplementary world, a metaworld.” That is what the creation of story is—not merely revealing or reporting an already existing world, but creating a new one in the author’s mind, and, in turn, recreating it in each reader’s mind. These multiple worlds are similar but never exactly the same.
Miller died in 2021 due to COVID-related issues, one month after the death of his wife of over seventy years. Reading On Literature makes me wish I could have enrolled in one of his courses. Whereas so many of the European deconstructionists seemed intent on subverting the power of literature, Miller was plainly in awe of the written word, and strove to promote it. We need more readers like him.
In November, Amazon opened a beta program for Kindle Direct Publishing authors called Virtual Voice. It may be the biggest upheaval to independent publishing since Amazon launched KDP over a decade ago.
Virtual Voice uses synthetic (i.e., computer) voice technology to produce audiobooks. On first blush, that sounds like a pretty crappy experience—who wants to listen to a robot narrate a book? Know that automated voice technology has advanced tremendously in recent years, to the point that people have trouble distinguishing between it and a human voice.
It’s tempting to go into my thought process over the pros and cons of synthetic voice audiobooks. At this moment, I’ll just say I find the possibility alluring.
I’ve done audio in the past. I recorded Everywhere Man at Fantasy Studios, a dreamy, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that was quite expensive and exhausting. A few years ago, I made a concerted effort to hire a voice actor to record Bridge Daughter. I was put off by the terms dictated by every actor who responded to my call for bids. Both experiences impressed on me the risks of producing my own audiobooks, risks of both cost and rights.
Synthetic voice audiobooks eliminate a lot of the question marks. If I’m reading the Amazon announcement correctly, a KDP author chooses a voice from a catalog of voices, previews a sample, and names a sale price. My guess is, the final audiobook will be ready in a few hours. Audiobooks created with synthetic voices are labeled as such on the Amazon market and may be previewed, so the buyer knows what they’re getting.
It sounds like a no-cost, risk-free offer for independent authors. I’m more than curious. Unless Amazon botches the roll-out—a possibility, they’ve botched things before—I predict we’re going to see a Cambrian explosion of audiobooks on the Amazon market soon enough.
Over at my Substack newsletter, I’ve posted a broad summary of what we know about Amazon’s newest publishing platform, Kindle Vella. A quick summary:
Kindle Vella is a new pay-as-you-go platform for serialized fiction. …
Vella is structured for publishing stories one “episode” at a time. Amazon doesn’t use the word “chapter”—I’ll discuss this below—but, for now, that’s a handy way to think of Vella’s episodes.
Each episode is 600 to 5,000 words. (Amazon’s numbers are so specific, I assume this range is enforced by their software.) Readers can read the first three episodes of a story for free.
If they want to continue reading, readers purchase Vella tokens to unlock additional episodes.
Will I be writing for Kindle Vella? I’m not certain yet. Serialized fiction is more than releasing a new chapter every week. Writers like Dickens and Armistead Maupin succeeded with serializations because they understood how to feed readers details a drop or two at a time, and keep them wanting for more. It’s an art that seemed lost until recently, when episodic fiction began to make a comeback online.
A quick note to announce that my latest novel, Man in the Middle, is now available!
This novel of suspense follows a security guard who, during the first week of the pandemic lock-down, begins to see things he suspect he’s not meant to see: Men working underground on Internet data lines in the dead of night. Neighborhood patrols enforcing the shelter-in-place order. And a conspiracy to steal millions of dollars in BitCoin.
Meanwhile, he is left to wonder if he’s contracted COVID-19, and whether he will have to submit himself to hospital quarantine.
Man in the Middle is now available in Kindle and paperback editions. Kindle Unlimited subscribers can read it free. The Kindle edition is still on sale for 99¢, but not for long, so get it now.
I’m pleased to announce the upcoming release of my next novel, Man in the Middle.
The story takes place during the first week of the pandemic lockdown. Suffering from insomnia, a furloughed security guard starts seeing things he’s not supposed to see.
Men working underground on Internet data lines in the dead of night—neighborhood patrols enforcing the shelter-in-place order—the upcoming Presidential election looking bought and paid for—and a conspiracy to steal millions of dollars in BitCoin.
All the while, he shows worrying symptoms he’s infected with COVID-19. It’s only a matter of days—even hours—before he’s taken into emergency care and quarantined in an isolation unit.
All signs point to something amiss in his affluent suburban town, and the further he digs into it, the more he discovers nothing is as it seems.
Man in the Middle will be released November 16, 2020 on Amazon. You can pre-order a Kindle edition today for only 99¢. A paperback edition will be available on or shortly after the release date.
Bridge Daughter will be on sale for 99¢ October 7th.
In My Memory Locked is my latest novel, a cyber-noir mystery thriller set in near-future San Francisco. Early reviews call it “first rate cyberpunk” with an “ingenious plot.”
This page-turner will be on sale for 99¢ October 11th.
And remember—Kindle Unlimited subscribers are free to read these books (and the rest of the Bridge Daughter Cycle) any time.