I Want to be a Job Creator

The economy remains in the doldrums. Most can agree the problem is high unemployment. The differences are over how best to address it. I am somewhat to the left of center politically, so my first inclination is to think the government should do something to put people to work: infrastructure repairs and other public works projects come to mind.

It also occurs to me that Democrats are not always right. (Certainly not the crew we have in there now.) With that in mind, I am inexorably drawn, like a starving wolf to a lame bison, toward the idea of helping the job creators create more jobs. I don’t want to pay lip service to the idea. I want to do it.

I want to be a job creator.

I want to unleash the entrepreneurial whirlwind inside me and no longer be just a wage slave; I want to enslave others with wages I would pay. (Or at least help others to pay.) Here’s how you can help:

Buy a copy of Wild Bill, either for Amazon’s Kindle, or Barnes and Noble’s Nook. It’s only $2.99 at either outlet. Where else can you personally stimulate the American economy for such a paltry sum? Think of the good I can do with sufficient sales:

Amazon and B&N will have to hire additional staff to push electrical pulses through the Internet to keep up with the volume of orders.

Email providers such as Google and Yahoo! will have to hire more people to take the orders from those who want to advertise on the emails sent as gift notifications.

Those may be too abstract and dependent on the marketplace for you. I understand. To address that, I pledge to personally place someone on retainer to mop out my basement after its next periodic flood once sales hit a specific sales figure I have in mind but am not currently at liberty to disclose.

A lot of authors want you to buy their books. They say it’s so they can connect with their readers, that they feel a bond growing with every sale, like some woman with a babushka on her head and a wart on her chin can tell them every time someone reads a word they’ve written. Bull crap. They have payments to make on their villa in the south of France and the Maybach needs a new transmission.

I’m not like that. I don’t want you to consider the fact that I might make a couple of bucks if you buy the book.If you’re thinking of buying the book for me, don’t.

Do it for your country.

The Return of Blatant Self-Promotion

Things were so scrambled here last weekend I had to cancel my long-anticipated trip to Bouchercon, so missing my weekly self-aggrandizement should come as no surprise.

As anyone who has ever dealt with a publisher’s marketing department realizes, looking at sales figures relative to promotional efforts is always a good news/bad news scenario. The good news is that Wild Bill has reached the coveted 20 sales threshold. That may not seem like much to Lee Child or Robert Crais, but it does represent a 17% increase in sales in a mere ten days! In your face, Jack Reacher.

The bad news is that it is impossible to tell if this sales pushpin (it’s too small to be a sales spike) was because of the most recent promotional efforts, or due to my skipping a week. Since I’m an American, I’ll do what we always do when information is not definite enough: the same as before, but more of it.

So, to borrow a page from the old National Lampoon, buy this book or these messages will continue.

Please don’t make me do something I don’t want to do. Think of it like one of those challenge grants on NPR. If sales are 25 or more, no promotional post will be made. If sales are less than 25 by then…

It will be on your head. My conscience is clear.

Wild Bill is available both for the Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s Nook for $2.99.

Wild Bill Sales Growing

With sales well into double digits, Wild Bill has established its niche in the publishing firmament. (Not unlike a spider in a web way off in a corner of the basement, behind the paint supplies and other stuff you need only once every two or six years.)

Remember how people felt who had a chance to buy into Microsoft or McDonalds on the ground floor? Chagrined and disappointed, that’s how they felt. Not because they lost a singular opportunity for wealth and a life of leisure. They felt that way because their joyless lives of unending drudgery reminded them every day of how they lacked the foresight and daring to move before the rest of the crowd had figured it out.

This is your chance not to make the same mistake. Wild Bill is available for Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook for a measly $2.99. Try buying anything from Microsoft for $2.99. Even McDonald’s, for that matter. (Prices may vary by location. Does not include selections from Dollar Menu.)

This isn’t about me. I only bring it up so you don’t join those who missed the Microsoft and McDonald’s trains and are left standing in the rain at three in the morning at a station in the bad part of town hoping something else good comes along while you’re still young enough to enjoy it.

Interview at Temporary Knucksline

Charlie Stella once again steps up as Wild Bill’s padrone, with a lengthy interview with your humble author at his blog, Temporary Knucksline. Charlie asks the good questions, and I give the best answers I can. Stop by and check it out, and peruse the rest of the site while you’re there.

Many thanks to Charlie for taking the time to interview me, and for his continuing support.

Wild Bill Spans the Globe

Barely a week after its release, Wild Bill is an international sensation, with satisfied readers from such disparate locations as Los Angeles, California and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, with others strewn about the intervening 10,062 miles. (Note: The use of the word “sensation” does not imply an ego run amuck. Sensations are not universally good, as anyone who has recently has an “itching, burning, sensation” can attest. Just saying, is all.) The current sales rank is 106,488 in Amazon, which might not sound like much until you stop to think UNESCO estimates 288,355 books are published annually in the United States alone, which puts Wild Bill well into the top half without resorting to the treachery of an expensive, or even well-conceived, marketing campaign.

The arrival of Labor Day is the traditional time to say, “I want to relax over a three-day weekend with a piece of inexpensive crime fiction that’s worth every penny. “ What better way to say it than with a copy of Wild Bill, available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble for only $2.99? Spend the money you would have spent on sun screen on something intended to keep you shielded from the sun’s rays under an umbrella in the company of Wild Bill Hickox, Vinnie Dominos Agrigento, and Junior Bevilacqua.