Now that I'm retired, my recent experience with my part-time job has reminded me why I hated punching the clock so very, very, very much. I did it for decades, and now I don't have to do that shit anymore. I've cranked the part-time job back to one to two days per week. Seriously. Really. And I have many weeks planned in 2020 when I won't be in town and will not work at all. So, I'm reminded of one of my first experiments in self-publishing. My short story attached to my WORKING CLASS HERO novel, "Turn of Events", which is all about punching the clock. Go to Amazon and buy a copy. Less than a buck. You'll dig it, especially if you're a superhero fan.
"Turn of Events" a Working Class Hero story of Billy B; Charlotte, North Carolina's resident badass superhero.
Some years back I wrote a zombie trilogy called THE COALITION. They were three (of course) books covering the adventures of loner/libertarian/survivalist/badass Ron Cutter as he made his world through the apocalyptic monstrosity of a shattered downtown Charlotte, NC. When I got the rights returned for most of my back-list of novels a few months ago I figured it was time to compile all three books into a package and release them under a single cover. So, here they are. Currently I have the package priced at the low price of only $2.99. Grab the collection now! Lots of zombie fiction for less than a buck! You can't beat that with a bludgeon!
THE COALITION Zombie Trilogy! All under one cover for the first time!
I figured I'd show this photo. Occasionally you luck out with timing when photographing wildlife. Mostly you miss the shot. But every now and again---like maybe once in 10,000---the critters will step up the the plate and give you a hit. Sometimes a home run. In this case I was photographing a doe and her fawn in Stone Mountain State Park. They were lying down enjoying the sun before it set and they would have to deal with the cold winter night. They were both a bit alarmed at my sudden appearance and the doe was walking back and forth stamping her hoof on the ground to tell me that she was not pleased. And as I took this shot, she moved between me and the fawn and I happened to snap the photo at what is--organically speaking--exactly the right moment. Yes, I admit that the photo was a tad out of focus due to the doe moving about, but it's still an excellent capture. After this I turned my back on them and exited their presence so that they could go back to enjoying the fading sunlight.
When I was taking the following photos I didn't actually realize that I was witnessing a predator catching and killing a tiny prey animal. Once I downloaded the photos and took a close look at the action, I realized that I had recorded a very young fish being captured and eaten by a Great egret. When I looked at the photos close-up, I felt sorry for the little fish. He was doing his best to keep from being eaten, but failed. Still...it's a part of the cycle of life that Mother Nature has dictated. The following sad drama took place on the south beach of Fort DeSoto Park in Pinellas County, Florida, on the Gulf Coast.
I had been photographing the egret. It was at this point where I realized he'd brought something out of the water that he had captured in his beak.
It was only when I got a chance to sit in the shade and expand the image on the camera screen that I saw the bird had nabbed a little baby puffer fish. A puffer fish defends itself by ingesting air and puffing up like a balloon in an attempt to make a predator let go of it, thinking the fish would be too big to swallow.
The poor little puffer fish was puffed up as big as he could make himself. He was trying like heck to make the giant bird think he was too big to eat.
But he was just too tiny for the ploy to work. The egret swallowed him right down. "Gung!"
And then after eating that tiny, itsy-bitsy morsel, the egret turned and continued on his way, searching for more fish to catch and eat. Poor little puffer fish!
Well, I've spent the better part of the last few weeks putting several projects into print. One of the first things I've wanted to do was get my back-list into the light of day again. These are the novels that were once under the roof of different publishers and which rights have now reverted to me. So for the next few weeks I'll be concentrating on that project, maybe dropping another new title into the mix along with my latest, THE EMISSARY. In this modern situation of book publishing, promotions has pretty much been on the shoulders of the author. Even with a major traditional publisher the home office expects the author to spend a hefty portion of their advance on advertising and promotions for the book they just sold. Fuck that. I would often arrange book signings on my own, but I'd be damned if I was going to spend my advance on expensive advertising (beyond sending out some review copies). At any rate, in getting my older books back onto the market under the Last Hemlock Press imprint, I have to do my own advertising. So I went to a number of my writer/publisher friends to ask them how to go about it and what were the best venues for doing it. There was some interesting stuff to discover, but most of it seemed on the level and logical. However, in doing my own investigations into the nature of this business of acting as the creator, the publisher, and the advertiser I quickly found out that a vast industry of ripoff artists has emerged and developed like a skein of pond scum. For instance: Every book needs a cover. And you need a good cover. Fortunately, the big thing currently is that the most popular covers are created via photo manipulation which only requires some talent with a photoshop-type computer program, and access to various photographic images that can be purchased inexpensively for manipulation and alteration into a work of art that can become a book cover. It's a fairly cheap process that can be accomplished in quick order. Except that there are uncounted numbers of outfits charging crazy prices to create covers. In casting about for decent artists to create my covers I talked with folk charging anywhere from $300 to $700 just to make a photo-manipulated cover. Keeping in mind that most books never earn out to the tune of a thousand bucks, paying that kind of cash for a cover is unreasonable. Fortunately, I found talented Photoshop artists willing to create covers for me for a fraction of what I was being quoted by the more vile of the lot.
My advice (which has worked well for me, so far) is to look for photo-manipulation artists who create good work for a tiny portion of what the more well-known are creating. They're just mucking about with arranging images. It ain't rocket science. With advertising and reviews I would bump into requirements from both advertisers and reviewers who refused to look at the manuscripts unless I could prove that they had been professionally edited by one firm or another, needing to produce documentation that this had been done. Since I still had my files from when each of my books had been published previously (with my own revisions, additions, and corrections) this was something that had already been accomplished. But I'm not willing to jump through that kind of hoop, so I pretty much avoided any reviewer or advertiser who made such a stipulation. They remind me of those Komodo dragons who bite prey animals, knowing that most of those creatures will get away, but which will sicken and die from the lizard's toxic bite and provide meals for the greater Komodo dragon community. I chose to just avoid these drooling creeps. After weeks at this new game I have educated myself and found some things that work, and some things that do not. I quickly found out that I should avoid the promotions opportunities that are very, very inexpensive. They might seem like a good deal, but they're really just a mild little scam that some guys have concocted to grab a few bucks from the millions of self-publishers trying to find fame and fortune. Oh, well. This is a long learning process and I'm basically still a freshman in this. So I'll cast about as logically as I can until I either find a bit of success, or come to the conclusion that there are just far too many people doing this and that it's almost impossible to fight through the crowds. People keep telling me that about 6,000 self-published books appear every few days. I'm not sure if that's true, but for some reason it sounds right and is about as sobering and depressing a number and situation as I have ever encountered. Keep on keepin' on, as my dad used to say.
DEADLOCKED, available in both ebook and paperback.
THE EMISSARY, ebook, paperback, and audio coming soon.
THE COALITION Zombie Trilogy collected under one cover. Now out in ebook and paperback.
Coming soon will be the reintroduction of WORKING CLASS HERO. It's still available in audio. But the ebook/paperback versions will be out soon, along with the sequel that I want to see in print. With a third book waiting in the wings.
Carole and I used to drive up to the mountains every year to buy a Christmas tree at a choose and cut tree farm. But we fell out of the tradition a few years ago and don't go every year anymore. We decided to make it two in a row and drove into the high country yesterday to hit some tree farms and find the perfect tree. Alas, all but one of the farms were closed. So we went to that one and discovered to our horror that a five-foot tree would run $60. That's insane and we drove away with no tree. Instead we hit a couple of thrift stores on the way out of the mountains and stopped at a state park to do a little hiking. The first thrift store we stopped at was a good thing, because I scored a copy of the old poetry magazine The Outsider. Specifically, the double issue limited edition hardback version of 4 & 5, featuring a tribute to Patchen, and work by Bukowski, Rexroth, Ginsberg, and too many others to list. After I've read it I'll likely sell it. It's missing the paper wrapper that originally came with it, plus the pressed flower that was inserted. But other than that it's a decent copy. Not sure how many remain of the original 500 copies, and I sit here and wonder how the hell a copy ended up in a tiny thrift store high in the mountains of North Carolina in a place no one ever heard of. You take what you can get in life.
The Outsider 4-5. With work by my favorite, Charles Bukowski. Score!
A doe and fawn see us and try to figure out if they should run away.
Yes, run! Wait...no. Yes. No. Maybe...
Little Glade Pond all frozen and frosty on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
A sliding rock cascade on a creek in Stone Mountain State Park.
I've always had a strong work ethic. I'm not sure exactly why. It could have been that my parents instilled it in me, or maybe I picked it up along the way toward adulthood from various sources, or perhaps it's just something some people hold dear no matter what they saw or learned in youth. The fact is that I work hard and always have, unless I was being abused by a manager or employer, at which point I would tend to become unruly or outright violent (which is something I never learned, but which is from my intellectual makeup). At any rate, I took a part-time job not long after I retired. The purpose of the job was to save enough money so that when Carole and I travel we will have enough cash to travel in style, instead of just going where we want without any gilding of the lilly. For example, when we go to Italy I want us to be able to see and do things we wouldn't have the means to do if not for the extra money I save by working part-time. Yeah, we can still go to Europe without the job, but we'll have to be budget-conscious most of the time if not for the padding in the bank account the job affords. However, I am beginning to think the job was a mistake. And for this reason: Because I have a strong work ethic, I tend to labor more intensely than most workers. And, as a letter carrier I once knew would say: "Managers will ride the good horse." And so it is. When I hired on, it was with the clear understanding from my employer (a large corporation) that I am indeed retired and that this job is only part-time. We settled on three-day workweeks and generally seven hours per day. However, because they soon realized that I am beyond competent, they began to abuse the situation. Sometimes they would ask if I could work more hours, but sometimes they would just schedule me more than three days without checking with me. Four days, they would say, because of a tough labor situation. And then it was five-day workweeks because they'd unexpectedly lost some employees. And I complained, but still showed up for work on time and put in the hours. Yeah, I fucked up. I should have refused the extra days and I should have been more forceful in my attitudes toward the unwanted work. Finally, I got it across to management that I wasn't going to work the load they were piling on my 62-year-old shoulders. They finally agreed to stop it, but not before scheduling me to work a five-day week, followed by a four-day week. As I look at the future schedule for the rest of the month I am back to either two or three-day workweeks. That's better...but I'm starting to think I made a mistake in even working part-time, at all. Maybe it's time to find another way to earn some extra traveling cash besides punching a clock two or three days a week. Or just say "fuck it" and live with my regular pensions and savings which are sufficient for living and traveling. I mean...why'd I retire anyway if I'm just going to be in another abusive labor-management situation?
I delayed the release of THE EMISSARY for pre-orders. Today, the book went live in ebook format and is now available for immediate purchase. Perhaps the best novel I've written to date, it was certainly the most difficult to write.
My zombie apocalypse novel DEADLOCKED is now out. This is the rewritten and heavily revised version of my novel previously released as THE LIVING END. I was never happy with the cover of that book and had left out a few things in the orginal version that I always wanted to change. And so, now that almost all of my previously published book rights have reverted to me, I have it out in my preferred text and with a much more effective cover and title. I have several choices facing me on which of my older books to release. I'm leaning toward getting WORKING CLASS HERO up next, especially since it was always intended to be a continuing series of episodic fiction, reflecting the Silver Age comics of my youth. And since I have BILLY B VERSUS THE TROUBLE BOYS almost ready for publication, I think it's the obvious choice of getting my next book back into print.
But right now DEADLOCKED is available in both ebook and paperback
formats! So grab your zombie apocalypse adventure! Cheap at only $2.99
for ebook, or $10.99 as a paperback! YOW!
THE EMISSARY sales will begin on Saturday, November 30th. Also going up at around the same time will be my novel of the zombie apocalypse, DEADLOCKED. DEADLOCKED is the rewritten, re-edited, expanded version of my novel THE LIVING END that I wrote for another publisher some time back. I've rewritten and added sections to the book and cleaned up the manuscript somewhat. Also with a new, much more effective cover that better represents the book. Coming in the next few weeks several more of my older books will come back into print under the Last Hemlock Press. All of these will be rewritten and re-edited to one extent or another. Some of them will have major revisions, while others will be only moderately changed. Also coming out will be my sequels to WORKING CLASS HERO, the series that was stopped in its tracks by my previous publisher. Expect BILLY B VERSUS THE TROUBLE BOYS in the next few weeks. In addition to getting my back-list books back to the light of print, I'll also get my original projects scheduled as time allows. At any rate, come what may, I'm stuck to this path for the time being.
The cover for my preferred author's state of DEADLOCKED, A Novel of the Zombie Apocalypse. Starring Roland Thompson and a large cast of supporting characters.
And, of course, THE EMISSARY is available for purchase on Saturday, November 30, 2019.
In my history as a professional writer the toughest thing for me has been to get written reviews posted on Amazon and other online booksellers. These are important for the sales of a novel. Some of my past books did okay and I didn't have to push too much to get reviews. But lately it has been exceptionally difficult finding people who have the time and inclination to create reviews for my work. Thus, I am offering a free autographed paperback copy of my new novel THE EMISSARY to ten people who would like the book and would agree to post a review at Amazon if you enjoy the book. (If you don't enjoy the book, don't wreck my carrer and just keep the copy or sell it---Heck, I don't care!) At any rate, review copies will be in hand here at the Smith House tomorrow and I can send them out as requests come in. Just email me at jamesrobertsmith at yahoo.com with your mailing address and I'll send you a copy (with autograph). Please be sure to put REVIEW COPY in the subject heading of the email so I'll know it's not spam.
Thanks!
THE EMISSARY, from James Robert Smith, author of THE FLOCK.
The Kindle version of the new book is up and available for pre-order. The paperback should pop up in a day, maybe two. It's good to see a new book come to print, since it has been a couple of years since my last novel.
From the author of THE FLOCK comes THE EMISSARY, a novel of modern fantasy and horror.
In
the North Carolina mountains the town of Jasperton has lost a fading
enchantment that has protected it for almost one hundred years from an ancient
curse. Martin and Amy Braun, separated, and their marriage almost at an end
over the death of their young son, suddenly find themselves reunited to care
for a lost child who bears a striking resemblance to their deceased boy. As the
town begins to fall victim to the rising influence of an aged evil, they must
decide if the child is an emissary for salvation, or for the malignant forces
gathering within the town.
THE EMISSARY by James Robert Smith. I was very, very happy with the cover art!
In the past there has likely not been a bigger opponent to self-publishing than I have been. It wasn't merely the act of self-publishing that got on my last nerve, but the absence of quality in the material that is constantly being self-published. In those early days I would read book after book that was self-published, and never once did I read anything that rose above the level of the worst of a massive slush pile on a suffering editor's desk. Thus, I hated the concept of self-publishing and not only wanted nothing to do with it, I wanted it to go away. In the end the concept seems to have weakened an already emaciated traditional publishing marketplace. The number of publishers willing and able to dig through submissions has dwindled to the point that it's sad to watch because what one is seeing is the death of a very old industry. And so, as I hinted some time back in an earlier blog post, it is time for me to eat crow (as they say) and do what I had not wished to do. And that is to join the ranks of the self-published. Since those early days I have managed to find well-written novels whose authors have gone what is called the "indie" route. All right, then, I'll have to go down that road also. Over the past year I've tried a few short story efforts almost as advertising promotions. Currently I need to get my older novels back into print. I recently got the rights back to all of my traditionally published novels with the exception of THE FLOCK from Tor-Forge Books. The rest are mine again and so I'll tackle publishing and promoting them on my own. We'll see how it goes. At this point in my writing career, I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Worst case, I'm at the same point I'm at right now. And so it goes. First up will be THE EMISSARY. It's a novel I had sold a couple of years ago, but the small press publisher who accepted it has apparently folded. THE EMISSARY is an important book to me. The ideas and themes for it occurred to me many years back and I kept struggling with the concepts for a very long time before I put it all together in a story that made me happy. I think I put more sweat and toil and thought into this novel than anything I have ever written.
In
the North Carolina mountains the town of Jasperton has lost a fading
enchantment that has protected it for almost one hundred years from an ancient
curse. Martin and Amy Braun, separated, and their marriage almost at an end
over the death of their young son, suddenly find themselves reunited to care
for a lost child who bears a striking resemblance to their deceased boy. As the
town begins to fall victim to the rising influence of an aged evil, they must
decide if the child is an emissary for salvation, or for the malignant forces
gathering within the town.
Appearing very soon in both ebook and print formats.
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park was not the first National Park I ever visited, but it has been the National Park that has had the biggest influence on me. I've visited it more often than any of our nation's Parks, and I have journeyed more deeply into it than any other of them. Over the years I have been able to travel more widely across the USA and visit many of our big Parks; but the Smokies remains the one with which I am most intimate. I've hiked hundreds of miles of its back-country trails, and I have camped deep in the wilderness areas within it. I have also driven most of its (too many) roads and shared views with obnoxious crowds of idiot tourists who rarely fail to annoy me in their numbers and vile attitudes. But, I keep going back. My wife and son get a kick out of the Park for reasons different from my own. While I dig plunging as deep into the almost supernaturally diverse forests and climbing the lung-bursting slopes, they like the gentler aspects of the Smokies and the easy access of tourist traps we call Gatlinburg and Pigeon's Forge. Generally, while I'm hiking they will take the 75-cent tram from the campground into Gatlinburg to nosh on comfort food and search for tchotchke. I'll be there for just shy of a week. Heading out very soon. I'm still considering my options for hiking. It has been a very long time since I've seen the views from Charlie's Bunion, so I may do that hike. I just don't know. Or maybe I'll pick out some trails I've never experienced and see what they have to offer. I'll let you know.
A field in Cataloochee Valley where we likely won't go this trip.
Years ago when I was running around trying to see all of the hemlock groves before they died. I saw most of the old ones, and now they're all dead.
A 2005 view of the massive wall of LeConte before this plot of land was covered in hotels and shops.
Bull elk and cow (also in Cataloochee) in October 2018.
I use YouTube as a tool and a pastime. A few years ago I began to create videos to promote my novels. Later, I decided to play around with making travelogs of my many hiking, backpacking, kayaking, and camping trips. This eventually expanded to the point where I branched out and started to make some money selling (and leasing) photos of the great outdoors. And this, of course, got me into browsing through the many thousands of YouTube channels. So many channels. I wonder how many there are, but have never been curious enough to research it. Over the past few years I often stumble upon little independently produced channels that I find interesting or charming or informative and subscribe to them. A few of the channels I subscribed to early on I continue to follow. But not many of them. One thing that I find happens with a lot of these little shows is that they eventually become bogged down with soap opera style drama centering on the creators' lives. And, frankly, I don't need that freaking drama. I'm not interested in it. It's not the personal details of their lives that got me following them in the first place, beyond their desire to show how they create things or explore the great world. As soon as they start to whine about their health or their dead dog or how they are being stalked by mean people I lose interest and cancel my subscription. And other things can happen. One channel I used to view was created by a married 30-something couple who had once been physically active but who had become lazy and complacent and really, really fat. To help themselves get rid of the vast accumulations of lard on their asses they began to hike. You could tell that at some point the husband had been fit, and that sometime in the last few years the wife had been quite the looker (she still had a pretty face trying to peek out from behind a sheath of pink-skinned blubber). And over the course of their videos they did, indeed, lose the lard. It at first came off slowly, and then more rapidly fell from both. Over the course of a couple of years or so the husband became the muscular athlete he'd once been, and his wife transformed back into what I can only describe as "a ten". She was hot. But then, the videos slowly became less and less about the adventures of the interesting and beautiful places they discovered where they challenged their rediscovered athletic abilities, and more about posing and preening in front of the camera wearing tank tops and yoga pants. I got sick of it and erased them from my subscription list and haven't been back to look at what they've been creating in about three years. Maybe they stopped with the channel, or came down with terminal cancer and died, or were hit by a Mack truck, perhaps eaten by a pack of rabid raccoons. I wouldn't know. Because of this tendency to fade into personal subjectivity I end up getting rid of about three-fourths of the channels I follow. They become tedious and maudlin. I suppose it works for them, though, because by the time I end up ignoring these productions I generally find that they have accumulated tens of thousands of subscribers and have become semi-famous and are actually making money from their little videos. Just without me in their audience.
Well, I bagged Sitting Bear Mountain in Linville Gorge. It was the only major peak in the Gorge that I had not hiked. I think it's also the highest summit in the wilderness. I timed the hike well, being first at the trailhead and managed to have the footpath completely to myself for several hours. I did encounter a hiker and his dog near the summit cliffs--nice guy. Then, later, on the way down, I bumped into a tight-lipped shitheel who wouldn't even return a polite "hello". I'm all for solitude and such, but there's a point where misanthropy reaches the level of pathology. At any rate, it was a good hike. The trail is very, very steep as you approach the summit. It hits the mountain head-on with no switchbacks. It's roughly as steep as the Woody Ridge Trail in the Black Mountains, but doesn't hold that steepness for as long as the Woody Ridge path manages. Still, I had to very carefully pick my way down as I headed back. A fall there would be dangerous. Oddly, the rims of the Gorge held onto huge cloud formations with some tenacity, making for difficulty in grabbing good photos. I did manage a few decent shots, but it wasn't easy. After the hike I went over to the Linville Falls picnic area on the Parkway and had lunch. Then I drove over to Beacon Rock and took a few shots there, but again Grandfather Mountain (aka Tanawha) was socked in by clouds lingering over the summits. After that I headed home. It was a good day.
I tried an experiment with time lapse photography with the GoPro camera. I'd played around with it before, but while I was walking or kayaking to show sped up motion progress. In this one I kept the camera static and let the landscape do the moving. I want to do more of these.
I was the only one at the trailhead. Parking is at a premium at this trailhead. Maybe four spots.
View from the first set of cliffs.
From closer to the Sitting Bear summit looking back on the spot where I took the time lapse video.
Now and again the clouds would break. Right after this it got really dark and misty and made photography difficult.
The Linville Falls Picnic Area is amazing. Right by the Linville River.
Then I drove over to Beacon Rock below Grandfather Mountain. Most people don't know there's a GrandMOTHER Mountain. This is it, as seen from the exposed surface of Beacon Rock. It has a horrible radio tower, which is hear mainly hidden by clouds.
Tanawha was a tease. She played with the clouds and refused to reveal all of her beauty. At 5,964 feet she is technically the highest summit in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Less than 40 feet shy of 6,000 feet.
