It’s 2012. It’s been 2012 for the past two weeks now and it’s been nearly four years since I started this blog. Originally, I started this blog for two reasons. The first was that I wanted a venue for me to talk about the books I read. I read a lot of books so, in my mind, it wouldn’t be too hard to simply write a few words about each book I read and post it on here. I, of course, was wrong. Do you know how hard it is to post about everybody you read immediately after you read it? Damn near impossible for a procrastinator like myself. As much as I hate to admit it, there is sometimes the period of a month in between me finishing a book and me posting the review. I’m a terrible book reviewer. I’m working on accepting that about myself.

The second reason I started this blog was because I am an aspiring writer. Granted, I haven’t been published and my novel is in a perpetual state of “work in progress”, but someday I hope to get it to a point where I am comfortable with other people reading what I’ve wrote. That “someday” will be in 2012, or else. “Or else” what I do not know. This blog directly relates to aspiring writing career. I know times are changing and self-publishing your own e-book is becoming more and more common for authors. Just ask author Jonathan Selwood (I greatly enjoyed his first novel,The Pinball Theory of Apocalypse) who self-e-published his second novel, Die Like a Girl
. I’ve been brought up on the belief that being a successful author means landing a book deal with a major publisher. Yet over these past four years as I’ve watched the book industry evolve, I have been forces to accept the fact that I may never see any of my books in print, only in digital formats. I’m fine with this. I believe you can be a successful self-e-published author.

I got a Kindle Fire for christmas. It seemed like the time to jump on the e-reader bandwagon and the Fire appealed to me. I’ll properly review the Fire later on (you know, in about a month), but after playing around with it, I’ve become more OK with books moving to digital. I don’t believe print is going anywhere anytime soon. There will still be books and authors that I must have a hard copy of. But there are also books that I am fine only having a digital copy of.

Getting back to the second reason, this blog is marketing tool for my brand. I am my own brand: Colin Matthew, the book pirate. Aside from here I also have my twitter (@thebookpirate) and that’s it. I don’t particularly enjoy trying to market myself, but it’s become a necessity for all authors with the exception of Stephen King or John Grisham.

Now long ago I was contact by a representative from ooshirts.com pitching the idea of expanding my brand to include t-shirt. While I have nothing I personally wanted to put on a shirt, it is something I could see other authors doing to strengthen their brand. Artists in particular could benefit from featuring their art on shirts and selling them. With writers it’s harder since we focus on words, but we’re nothing if not creative and it would be possible to make some cool book-related shirts. In fact, in my closet I have a bunch of t-shirts that could be described as “literary” and I frequently get compliments on them when I wear them to Powells. I took ooshirts.com up on their offer to give them a try and had them print up a t-shirt featuring the artwork of Terry Blas (with his permission of course). The final result can be seen below. Overall, I like the quality of the shirt and the way it turned out.

The only other thing I can think of that I might make as a self-marketing tool is bookmarks. Everybody needs bookmarks! Well, unless you’re reading on a Kindle Fire.

Anyway, to sum up, 2012 will be interesting.

Yes, I’ve fallen behind of posting reviews of books. It happens to every book blogger out there and I am no different. I think one of the problems is that there are no books really captivating my attention right now. When that happens I stick to reading some pulp fiction from Hard Case Crime. Right now I’m reading Killing Castro by Lawrence Block. It’s actually quite fascinating considering that this book was written so long ago. I know it’s fiction, but i’m on the edge of my seat wondering if the group of assassins will succeed in their plan to assassinate the dictator.

I’ve also been listening to the Discworld audiobooks while on my monthly roadtrip. I’ve listened to his latest, Snuff, and Making Money. Both turned out rather good, but more on that later I guess.

Next year there are a couple of books I am looking forward to. Amazon is currently listing The Wind Through The Keyhole, Stephen King’s latest book in the Dark Tower series, with a April 24th release date. There might be a new Pirates! book from Gideon Defoe. Amazon currently lists it as being intended for ages 7 and Up, so I’m not getting my hopes of that it’s a full-fledged sequel in the book series.  As i’ve mentioned before, his books are the source material for the upcoming Pirates! movie. Speaking of pirate movies based on books, I just finished watching Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides which, according to the credits, was “suggested by” the book from Tim Powers. How a book “suggests” a movie is beyond me but does give me hope of someday cashing royalty checks for something my novel suggests. Also coming next year is the graphic novel adaptation of The Girl Who Owned a City by T.O. Nelson and illustrated by Joelle Jones. I guess that’s coming out sometime in April. It’s not currently listen on Amazon.

By now you’ve probably seen this goodbye letter from some random Borders. Part of this is funny; the other part angry. They’re basically flipping off all the customers who ever shopped at Borders. As a former Borders employee I don’t feel this note is justified. Yes, from an employee perspective, customers are annoying. But it’s like that at every retail job from Borders to IKEA to the Apple store. There are a lot of fantastic people out there who know what they are doing when it comes to shopping, but at the same time there are a lot of clueless people who make going to work an unpleasant experience. There is truth in the note. I couldn’t count the number of times people asked me to help them find a book when all they knew was the color of the cover. And yeah, how did Oprah become an expert on books? She picked Million Little Pieces and even as a work of fiction that book is a piece of crap.

However, what this letter neglects is all the awesome people I would run in to while working at Borders. I got excited when somebody asked me to recommend a book to them. Do you know what it’s like to be able to explain one of your favorite books to a total strange then have them purchase it just because they saw how excited you were about it? That was me! Watching customers walk away with the book I told them about was the best part of my job. Then there was the people I worked with. Sure, there were some jerks and a general manager who mysterious disappeared. But for the most part they were awesome, well read people. There was one lady who had seriously read a majority of the romance section. We worked there because we had a passion for books. We loved customers who shared our passion. This letter? It’s not addressed to those who love books. It feels like it was written by employees who are angry that they job that surrounded them with things they love, books, is going away and never coming back. Years from now, when I tell my kids that I worked at a bookstore, will they even know what I’m talking about? Bookstores are slowly coming to an end (sorry) and these employees needed to vent. They needed someone to blame.

So don’t get angry at them for getting angry at their customers. They’re the ones who are losing their jobs that surrounded them with books for eight hours a day.

I’m glad I got to see Laurie Notaro at Powells this evening. This is the fourth time she has come to Portland since I moved up here in 2004. This time around she was promoting her latest non-fiction book It Looked Different on the Model: Epic Tales of Impending Shame and Infamy. As always, I was still one of the few guys in attendance. At this point I’m use to that. She delighted everybody there by reading a few new stories from the book (She’s a Pill and You Must Be My Lucky Star). I remember last time I saw her, when she was promoting Spooky Little Girl, she gave a preview of a story she was working on for this book (that story would become Butcha Are, Blanche! Ch’are in That Chair!). I laughed so hard I had trouble breathing. I laughed so hard I cried. Me. Crying. Not a pretty picture. I also decided that I should never take my mother to a Laurie Notaro book reading. The phrase “died laughing” gets thrown around a lot these days, but I worry it might be possible. Anyways, tonight Laurie was fantastic. It turns out this book tour is self-funded so there are fewer stops this time around. Laurie still brought everybody Twizzlers (Cherry and Stawberry flavored) and spent time talked to everybody who wanted a signed book.

I’m a little sad that she had to pay for the book tour herself. This is her ninth book, and she is hilarious. I love recommending her to my friends and family. She’s one of those authors who you lend a copy of her book to a friend who then goes out to buy one of her older books. Or your friend will simply keep the book leaving you to buy another copy for yourself.

I face the task of moving for the second time this year. After the last time I realized that perhaps I am something of a book hoarder, and not in the good way. Last time I counted I had over 300 books and only 50% of them I have read. I’ve resolved that I must clear out some of the books that I have either read and have no intention of reading again or ones that I know I will never get around to reading. The problem I face now is what do I do with them?

The obvious answer is to sell them to Powells, Portland’s big’ol used book store. But I can’t help but think that’s wrong. Mayhaps I should donate them to the library or some other organization that likes having books donated to them. The option would earn me some Paragon points while selling them and pocketing the cash would earn me Renegade points. Maybe I should play less Mass Effect. It’s starting to influence the way I think.

Anyway, my question to you, how do you get rid of books?

I find that I am currently being drawn to books with short chapters. Books like Tales from the City or Jennifer Government where each chapter is no more than three pages long. It’s easier to pick up and put down the book. While I was reading Catching Fire I would naturally want to finish a chapter before I put the book down for a break. If I had something pressing to attend to, I wouldn’t consider reading any of it because I knew I wouldn’t be able to commit to an entire chapter.

In my personal writing I also write in short chapters with each chapter ranging from 800-1,500 words depending on what’s happening. In my mind I think this is where a lot of books will be headed due to the ADD nature of society where sitting down for an hour to do nothing but read is hard to do. We all get distracted by the Facebooks and Twitters. My phone is always within reach and while reading I admit that I will check it from time to time. Call me a product of the social media, but I think most people are the same way, constantly checking to see if somebody wrote on their wall.

Anyway, anybody have any thoughts on short chapters versus long chapters? I’d be curious to hear them.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game is based off of the popular Scott Pilgrim graphic novels (see previous post #1 and #2 if you don’t know what I am talking about). The story is your typical boy meets girl, boy lesbians girl, boy must defeat girl’s seven evil exes. In the book it is up to Scott to defeat the exes since he is the one dating Ramona. However, in the game you can play as Scott, Ramona, Kim, and Stephen. It’s possible to play the single player game as a character other than Scott but doing so completely destroys the story. Why would Stephen, the lead singer in Scott’s band, go and single handedly defeat Ramona’s exes. There’s nothing in it for him, nothing for him to gain. Same thing with Kim, drummer and Scott’s ex.

In order to make the game playable I made up stories that take the place of “defeat Ramona’s exes” in case I find myself playing as someone other than Scott. Let’s face it, without a story holding the game together it’s impossible to keep interested in this beat’em up game.

Ramona Flowers vs. the World: The Game
One would think that after an appropriate amount of time Ramona’s exes would have gotten over her. Instead they constantly send her friend requests on Facebook, are sending her Tweets, and have from time-to-time shown up at her work. She’s fed up with it. It’s time for Ramona to teach her exes what the meaning of “we’re through” is even if she has to beat it in to them. After beating all seven of the exes, Ramona enjoys to solitude. It might be a little lonely, not being the center of attention, so maybe she’ll get a cat. And one cat turns in to three or four and before you know, Ramona because that “cat lady” who lives above your apartment. Ramona will wonder why she can’t get another boyfriend, but you’ll know why. It’s the all of her cats and the smell that comes with them.

Kim Pine vs. the World: The Game
Kim comes from a broken home. He father left before her first birthday, and her mother refuses to talk about it. Her mom has dated other men, searching for a replacement father figure. But every time she got comfortable with them they left. After Kim’s mother passed away in a car crash one snowy night after being dumped again, Kim was forced to live on the streets and support herself. She learned to fight to protect herself from the scary hobos of Montreal. Life turned around and eventually was taken in to foster care (or the canadian equivalent) and started life over again. At last she had a family, but her anger towards men remained. Her violent outburst can not be contained and all of her friends are worried about her rage issues but are too afraid to say anything. Only after Kim’s seventh violent outbreak do her friends sit her down and tell her how worried they all are about her. There are tears and a lot of hugs. Too ashamed to face her friends after that, Kim retreats to the Chic-Choc Mountains where she manages the local tavern and is able to beat up the occasional drunk without anybody noticing.

Stephen Stills vs. the World: The Game
In what may be the least expected plot twist (and the least cared about) in the Scott Pilgrim books was that Stephen Stills is gay. He finally came out to Scott 10 pages before the end of Volume 5. Nobody saw that coming. The reason for that was because it took 5 volumes for Stephen to accept who he is. At first he was like “Oh dude no, I can’t be gay. I’ll date a girl or something to prove.” But that, naturally, doesn’t work out. His confusion turns to self-hatred and he becomes incredibly homophobic. To prove his manliness, he sets out to beat up the seven toughest people around, who just happen to be Ramona’s exes. As he defeats each ex, he learns a little about himself. Upon defeating Ramona’s final ex, he earns the power of acceptance and is finally able to admit to himself and his friends that he likes dudes. Stephen and his boyfriend go on to open a bed and breakfast in Saint-Georges.

Next time, I’ll explore the story’s of the two hidden characters in the game.

I had set a goal for myself to reach the 20,000 word mark on this thing I am tentatively calling “my first novel”. I know, every English major has a “first novel” their working on, so why should I be any different? I came up 5,000ish words short and reached 15,635. I good deal of those words, however, is the word “that” which seems to be one of my favorite words to use. I have a problem. I admit it.

My goal for September is to hit the 35,000 mark before October. Possible? Sure, if I can type 1,000 words a day.