U-Verse is popular

Holy Crap. Not having internet at home sucks. You may have noted my extended absence for going on 2 weeks. Well, I was moving and waited way too long to order my new internet service. For cable, after I call to sign up it only takes about a day or two to have the technician to come up and hook me up. With AT&T U-verse it actually takes more than 2 weeks. So after moving I ended up without internet longer than expected. Combine that with all the hassle of packing and moving I either haven't had time or haven't had the ability to read and post.

Anyhoo, I am back with a warning to readers. If you're getting U-verse for your internet connection, leave a lot of time between sign up and when you cancel your old service.

How to Save Your Spot When Reading Online Fiction

I've mentioned before the problem with using bookmarks when reading blog fiction. The term "bookmark" is the terminology we use to refer to the concept of "saving" a webpage for later. I believe the Netscape coined the term for their original web browser - and it is something I may never forgive them for doing.

Even though we use the same word to describe saving our spots in books and on the internet, we use those "bookmarks" very differently. When I use a bookmark in the physical world, I am saving my place only until I get back. When I return to the book, I remove my bookmark, read and continue reading from where I was. The old "bookmarked" spot no longer exists. In cyberspace when we "bookmark" something we are usually saving it either permanently or at least "until further notice". We use our bookmark to jump back to a spot, but we do not remove the bookmark.

So why is this a problem? It's a problem because now I don't have the vocabulary to describe a "real" cyber bookmark. That is, a temporary bookmark that is erased when I open it. Well, for now I'm just going to refer to it as "temporary bookmarks". Now that my mini rant is done I come to the point of my article. I have found 2 bookmarking services that work like temporary bookmarks instead of permanent bookmarks.

The first service is a firefox add-on called "taboo". The idea behind "taboo" is that not only does it bookmark a page, but it saves any text you've entered into the page as well as how far down the screen your scrollbar is. It also takes a visual snapshot so that when you look at all of your "taboos" you see a nice preview of the page you saved. The service add 2 buttons to your browser. One is a button that will bookmark or "taboo" your spot. If you click it on a webpage that already has a saved taboo a little box pops up that allows to either change the name or description of the taboo and to move the taboo to the current spot on the webpage or you can just remove it. This makes removing a taboo very simple. Load a page, click taboo, click "remove". All of this without using any menu options.

The second button, as you may have guessed shows you all of your "taboos". If you click the button it will open up a firefox tab that shows all the thumbnails of the taboos you've saved. It lists them in the order that they were saved so you can see your latest bookmark -err... taboo- of each website you've visited if you have more than one taboo. Another quicker option is a little arrow next to the "show taboo" button will show a little popup of your latest taboos so you can quickly go back to a page you were reading.

Another bookmarking option I found was called dogear. This service is a little harder to describe. It places less emphasis on the time you saved a page than taboo does. However, the service works with all web browsers because all the information is saved on their webserver.

Here's how it works, when you want to start using it, you click a bookmark called "dogearit". What that does is create a frame at the top of your browser and the rest of the webpage in a frame below it. Then, when you want to "dog-ear" a page, you highlight the text you want to come back to and then left click it. That create's your dog ear. If you highlight other text on the page and then left-click it, it will move the dogear to that text.

To retrieve your dogears you have another bookmark. That takes you to a webpage(assuming you're logged in) that lists all of your "dog-eared" web pages. Then you can click them like any other hyperlink and you'll goto that webpage, scroll to where you left it, and the dogear frame will be at the top of the page.

So, which of these services works best? Hands down "taboo" is a lot better. I use it to read the archives of blog fiction and it works out great. The dogearit service is too slow. When the frame is on the page, it seems to almost quintuple my page load times. Unlike taboo, it is not as easy to remove a dogear you no longer want. Plus it seems I'm always getting logged out of the service so I waste time trying to log back in.

There are a couple things that dogear does better than taboo. First of all, any browser can use it. So if you use Internet Explorer, Safari, or Chrome dogear is pretty much your only option. The second thing is how the services handles saving your spot in a page. Taboo only remembers how far down the page you scrolled. That means if the page changes by adding content to the top, your scrollbar will not be in the same place. Dogear remembers by keeping track of the text you highlighted. Dogear will take you to that portion of the page regardless of where it is. So, if dogear ever solves the speed issue, it might become as good, if not better, than the taboo firefox add-on. Until the speed issue is resolved, however, I would recommend using firefox and taboo if you're looking to use temporary in-page bookmarks.

While taboo and dogearit solves a couple of the problems with reading online fiction it does not resolve them all. For instance, if you're not reading in a chronological order (which is definately a possiblity with blog or any online fiction) you can't keep track of what you have and haven't read. It does however, solve 2 big problems. It allows you to do an in-page save - this is especially helpful if you're reading multiple blog posts on a single archive page(i.e. all August posts). Also you can remove a temporary bookmark easily so you don't have 3 dozen bookmarks on the same webpage.

Please Don't Fall for This Racket

Hat tip to Eli James for finding this first.

Apparently, Writer's Digest has an annual "Self-published Competition". The first prize is pretty amazing.

ONE GRAND PRIZE WINNER will be awarded $3,000 cash and promotion in Writer's Digest and Publishers Weekly. The editors of Writer'sDigest will endorse and submit 10 copies of theGrand Prize-Winning book to major review housessuch as The New York Times and The Washington Post. In addition, Book Marketing Works, LLC will provide a one-year membership in Publishers Marketing Association, guarenteed acceptance in a special-sales catalog providing national representation through 1800 salespeople selling to non-bookstore markets, guaranteed acceptance by Atlas Books (a top distributor to wholeslaers, chains, independents and online retailers), six hours of book shepherding from Poynter Book Shepherd Ellen Reid and guaranteed review in Midwest Book Review.

Even if you don't win the grand prize, there are 10 first place prizes.

10 FIRST-PLACE WINNERS will receive $1000 cash and promotion in Writer'sDigest. In addition, Book Marketing Works, LLC will provide a guaranteed review in Midwest Book Review, a one-year membership to Book Central Station, the eBook Beyong the Bookstore, a Publishers Weekly book by Brian Jud and a copy of Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers by Shel Horowitz.

Wow! 13,000 dollars in cash prizes and the chance to get your book distributed by a real publishing company. Reader'sWriter's digest is such a supporter of struggling authors... That is, they're supportive of struggling authors who have a 100$ dollars or more to give to them.

Check, money order or credit card payment for the required judging fee of $100 for the first entry, $75 for each additional entry must accompany submissions.

Doing the math in my head, they only need 130 people to enter this competition to cover the cash prizes, and only 170(they claim $17,000 in prizes) to cover the cost of all the prizes. That is quite the business model. It makes me think that their goal isn't to make money by finding and promoting a great book, but rather to prey on desperate authors. There is another publishing business that makes money from desperate authors and not on book sales:

Vanity presses earn their money, not from sales of books to readers as other publishers do, but from sales of books to the books' authors. The author receives the shipment of his or her books and may attempt to resell them through whatever channels are available.

I really do believe that a competition like this is just a well disguised vanity publisher scheme. Please don't fall for this racket. If you truly believe that your book is good enough to win this competition -which will likely have thousands upon thousands of entrants- then your book should also believe that your book is good enough to be picked up by a real publishing house that won't charge you anything up front.

One more thing. If you think that a 100$ entrance fee is reasonable considering that they have to pay someone to read all those books. Think about this. Reader'sWriter's digest is a huge magazine publisher. What do you think are the chances that the majority of the entries will be read by a full time staff instead of an unpaid intern that decides whether or not to pass the book onto the "real" (paid) judges who will likely only read a small subset of entries?

Authors Wanted

Editor's note. This is a guest post by James C. Harwood. His projects with shared universes intrigued me and I offered my blog to help him recruit interested authors for them.

Authors Wanted. Email James C. Harwood hereafter1956@yahoo.com if interested in the following.

First, it is important to learn about and understand what shared universe concepts are. See Wiki at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_universe for "shared universe" defined and explained. A good example is Star Trek, which became a shared universe concept series when different authors wrote Star Trek stories for books, television and movies, after Gene Roddenberry created the series.

The HEREafter Project: The "HEREafter, Book One: A Mild Case of Death" science fiction novel by James C. Harwood was first published as a paperback in May 2003. Then as an ebook in May 2004. Now it is a free blog novel at the http://hereafterbookone.blogspot.com website. Please read the Book Series Introduction on the main page at the blog novel website to find out what it is about. HEREafter was created to be a shared universe concept series. James C. Harwood wrote Book One to be the example to follow. He created the http://hereafterglossarium.blogspt.com "HEREafter Glossarium" at the website as an aid to readers and future HEREafter writers. A reader can click on hyperlinked words in the text of the blog novel to then be taken to the same words in the Glossarium, to then get more information about those characters, or locations, or events, or other subjects. Writers interested in becoming HEREafter authors should read all of Book One and the contents of the Glossarium in order to become familiar with all of the material of the HEREafter universe. Further, Book One is currently being continued as "HEREafter Tractus" at http://hereaftertractus.blogspot.com in the form of a journal series, which eventually will become Book Two for the part of the series being written by James C. Harwood. New HEREafter authors will each create their own blogs for HEREafter blog fiction. James C. Harwood owns HEREafter, Copyright, All Rights, but is sharing the HEREafter material free of charge with any interested writers. Likewise, readers may freely share the material with other readers. It is acceptable for authors to place a PayPal link at their blog websites to ask for donations, and each author may keep 100% of money received from donations—no shares to James C. Harwood for blog fiction.

The Kaleidoscope Project: Visit the http://kaleidoscopehotelbarandcoffeeshop.blogspot.com/ Kaleidoscope Hotel, Bar, and Coffee Shop blog website. [For convenience you may refer to it as the K-blog.] Blogger.com allows up to 100 authors on each blog. Please read the Instructions listed on the left side of the main page. All participating Kaleidoscope Project authors will participate at that same blog website, unlike the HEREafter Project authors who will create their own separate blog websites. This is intended to be a fun shared universe concept series. Those writers who as readers are familiar with the "Callahan's" series of Spider Robinson novels will instantly understand how part of this works. The characters cross paths as patrons at "Callahan's Crosstime Saloon" where they have a drink, interact with each other, and swap stories. Likewise, the Kaleidoscope characters will cross paths at the hotel, which includes a bar and a coffee shop. The hotel is unique. Like the "arch" of the "holodeck" in Star Trek The Next Generation, any hotel exit may be given voice commands by any guest to take that guest to any physical location and any point in time where human life can exist, and be programmed to be recalled if it is a location where the hotel does not otherwise exist. An example could be a character who enters the hotel in Dallas in 2009, checks in, gets a room, and then exits the hotel to walk out into London of 1888 to have a chat with Jack the Ripper. The space and time travel aspects make it science fiction, but otherwise any genre is acceptable—adventure, comedy, drama, fantasy, horror, mystery, romance, suspense, etc. Through the common ground of the hotel, characters of different authors can crossover into each other's realms. Further, readers may become characters and participate by communicating with characters by using Comments of blog postings. There will be no PayPal donations at the K-blog, in order to keep it completely free and simple—no need to deal with the problem of distributing shares of donations to different authors. This is just for fun reading and writing.

Blog Fiction Gives Instant Literary Reaction to History

When I'm not parading around the internet as an amateur literary critic, I am parading around the internet as an amateur student of history. I love history. That shouldn't really be too much of a surprise for you. If you're a student of literature it's hard not to also be a student of history.

To truly appreciate classic novels, once must first appreciate the time period it was written and\or takes place in. After all, how can you appreciate Mark Twain's classic, The adventures of Huckleberry Finn, without understanding the history of slavery? How can one understand the underlying themes of "The Stranger" without knowing at least a little bit about existentialism and the effect WWII had on french existentialism. The same goes for other story telling mediums. How can one appreciate the conflict of "Fiddler on the Roof" without knowing about the ugly history of antisemitism throughout Europe? You have to know history to fully understand a story's underlying themes.

Here's another way literature and history combine. If you want to understand a culture at a particular point in time, one only has to look at the art that culture created in that time period. The same goes for literature. If you look at the popular literature you will also gain insight into a culture. For instance, Charles Dicken's novels give a lot of insight on England during the Industrial Revolution. Jane Austin's novel, Pride and Prejudice give us insight into England's Georgian Era.

While literature gives us insight into a culture's consciousness and thinking, it does not give instant reaction. Looking again at Pride and Prejudice is a perfect example of this. The original novel was written in 1796 in the middle of the Georgian Era. However it wasn't published until 1813 - the tale end of the Georgian Era and when the effects of the Industrial Revolution were just being felt. Therefore, despite being popular, it didn't fully reflect what England was going through in 1813. It gives no clue to people's responses to things like Napolionic Wars or the French Revolution because they hadn't happened, or were still unfolding at the time it was written.

This lag between history and literature exists still today. Unless you're an already an accomplished and famous writer(i.e. Stephen King or Tom Clancy) it can take years just to get a publisher to agree to publish your book. Even after agreeing to publish it, it will still be months to get all the editing, illustrating, and marketing in place before the book is ready to ship to book stores. Therefore, let's say a major event happens in the world such as a war, famine, or political scandal. It will be at least a year or more before any literature could possibly be published that references that event and by then, the attitudes of people toward that event may have changed.

This is where Blog Fiction comes in. If something major happens in the morning. I can have my fictional character react to it by late afternoon. It is an instant reaction that no other fiction medium can replicate. Not books, not plays, not tv shows(well... maybe South Park), and certainly not movies.

You might ask "why does it matter if the reaction is one day, one month, or even 1 year from the time of an event?" The reason it matters is that people's reactions can change over time. Here's a simple example. Let's say you're writing a novel. To help reveal something about your character you say that his hero is some political figure that is currently very well liked. Now let's say it's 6 months later and your book is going through the editing process. Suddenly that politician is embroiled in serious corruption scandal. You might make a last minute change to say that your character worships a different political figure. What is lost is the fact that, at one point, a political figure was famous and very well liked. From the point of literature that, that fact is now lost.

That doesn't happen with Blog Fiction. The time of writing and publishing tends to be so close in blog fiction that it will be too late for the author to change the name. Instead, the author would have to acknowledge that the character's hero has fallen from grace. In fact, it might dominate the story for sometime. Now, with the blog fiction, not only is the fact that a political figure was once well liked preserved, there is an instant reaction to his fall from grace. Despite being fiction, the blog fiction now becomes a source of history.

I think this idea of "instant literary reaction" fascinating. It is something that I will write more about in the near future.