Category Archives: Blatherings

You’ve Gotta Meet this Guy!

Posted on June 28, 2011 | 2 comments

So you want to get to know Dennis Collins and his books. Wow! It must be your lucky day. I just happen to have a little interview here with Dennis, and a snippet about his most recent book. And no need to thank me for this, it is my absolute pleasure. Enjoy!

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K.S. Both of your first two novels The Unreal McCoy, and Turn Left at September were published in traditional print form and later released as e-books but your latest book The First Domino has made its debut as an e-book. Why is that?

D.C. That wasn’t my original plan. I was going to begin with a regular publisher and eventually move on to an electronic format but I wasn’t able to find a suitable publisher.

K.S. Do you have representation?

D.C. No and that’s probably my biggest problem. I had a very high profile publicist read my manuscript and she absolutely raved about it, even recommended it to a good size publisher but they still rejected it.

K.S. Did they give you a reason for not pursuing it?

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D.C. No they didn’t. Agents and editors are always telling authors to “think outside the box” but it seems like the people who control the industry think very much “inside the box.” They won’t listen to you unless you break the rules but then they reject you because you broke the rules. It’s like the business is being guided by destructive paradigms.

K.S. So you decided to take matters into your own hands.

D.C. I guess you could say that.

K.S. Are you sure that’s the right way to go?

D.C. I’ve been writing book reviews for more than five years and read about fifty books annually so I see a lot of different styles and a lot of different levels of writing talent. I feel pretty confident about my work; I think it matches up pretty well with what’s out there. It may not fit what a particular publisher is looking for at the moment but I believe that my stuff is better than many of the books that I read.

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K.S. And your latest book is…

D.C. It’s titled The First Domino, and it’s the story of a young man whose father had been a powerful lawyer who worked for the Detroit Mafia. When the old man dies, his son hopes to be welcomed into the mob but they only offer him a menial job and he feels shunned. He tries to show his value by murdering three Detroit cops. The mob isn’t happy and they order a hit on the young man. He flees the country with Lieutenant Otis Springfield, homicide detective hot on his trail and the mob is not far behind.

The book has a little of everything in it. I even get very deep into the heads of two killers. There’s action, romance, personal tragedy, discovery, revenge, redemption, and terror. It’s more of a story about the cop than the murderer.

K.S. And it’s only available as an e-book?

D.C. Currently, yes. I’m hoping that some publisher might be interested enough to pick up the print rights but if that doesn’t happen; I’ll probably self-publish the print version as well.

The First Domino

Joe Pellerito thought he could murder his way into the mob. The son of a high powered Mafia lawyer and negotiator, he assumed that he’d be welcomed into the Family. When Joe’s father died of cancer he waited anxiously for the invitation to join the ranks. But the call never came. Feeling shunned, Joe devised a plan to show his dedication and fearlessness. From a list of Detroit cops who have been problems for the syndicate Joe chose three candidates and pulled off a string of three brutal murders in less than two hours on a bright spring morning.

The philosophy of the mob has moved into the new millennium and has all but abandoned confrontations with law enforcement. Joe’s actions threaten to undo the progress that took two decades to build. The problem of Joe Pellerito must be addressed.

With a price on his head, Joe is forced to flee and tries to hide in Italy where he attempts to gain a whole new identity.

The diligence of Detroit Police detectives Otis Springfield and Albert McCoy helps them sniff out Joe’s trail but the mob has its resources as well and soon the race is on to see who can get their hands on Joe first.

Meet Dennis:

My professional life was spent in automotive engineering where I enjoyed a rewarding forty year career. I’ve always had a taste for adventure and risk taking spending my idle hours flying airplanes, skydiving, scuba diving, motorcycle racing, and over thirty years of professional automotive powered hydroplane racing.

My first publishing credit came as a complete surprise when an article that I wrote for a powerboat racing club newsletter found its way onto the desk of the president of The American Power Boat Association and he submitted it to Propeller Magazine. My first novel The Unreal McCoy was self published and surprisingly successful. I was able to follow up with Turn Left at September published by Behler Publications, a small mainstream publisher in California. Both titles have been converted to electronic format and are now available through Amazon’s Kindle. The next book The First Domino is now also available on Kindle as well as Nook. My Short story, Calvin was a finalist in a contest sponsored by Futures Magazine. I am a co-founder of the Huron Area Writer’s Group in Huron County Michigan and I write a bi-monthly column and review mysteries for www.myshelf.com

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Posted in Blatherings, Guest Bloggers, Interviews

To eBook or Not to eBook

Posted on June 14, 2011 | 10 comments

Had some questions come in after yesterdays Blog post and thought I would cough up my personal response.

Do you read eBooks and on what?

Of course I read eBooks. I have been reading eBooks for a little over 10 years now. Echelon was one of the early companies that sold our books as eBooks. Back then we did email transfers and CD-roms in DVD cases. It was expensive and time-consuming because we did them ourselves. Oy! We’ve come a long way since then. While some of our authors choose to put their eBooks on disc for the convenience of their readers, we no longer do it as a company.

However, with the progress in the industry, it is easier than ever for readers to enjoy the pleasures of reading an eBook. As to what I read on, I do most of my book reading on my beloved Kindle. Back in the day, I bought a Nook so I could check the quality of our eBooks before they went up for sale on BN.com and various other sites. I soon discovered that I wasn’t as comfortable reading on the Nook as I thought I would be. So I got myself a Kindle. Just to check it out, you see. It was love at first read.

Why I love my Kindle:

Lightweight. My kindle weighs a little over 8 ounces and is quite thin. In my opinion, this makes it easier to hold.

Keyboard. I don’t use it often, but I do like that my Kindle has an actual keyboard for typing in my notes and such. The separate and raised button allow for much better accuracy.

Page turners. On either side of my Kindle are actual buttons that you push to turn the pages. One for forward and one for backward.

Storage space. My Kindle has 4 gb of space. They say this is 3500 books. I have not been able to test this, but I sure am trying hard.

Battery. This baby can hold a charge. I have had it for months and have only charged it 4 or 5 times. I use it quite frequently and to be honest, I am surprised I have not had to charge it more often.

File accessibility. This is a big one for me. My Kindle not only reads the designated file type (which is Mobi), but also pdf, html, txt, it allows several different graphic formats like jpg, bmp, and png. But the thing I love most about my Kindle is that is plays mp3 files and I can download my Audible.com books onto it to listen. I can tell you that right now, aside from actual books to read, I have about 50 unabridged audiobooks and the Pimsluer Course to learn to speak Urdu. Whhhoooo baby! There are several other formats it recognizes, but I got tired of listing them.

Why the Nook is just okay:

My Nook weighs in a little under 12 ounces. That’s a good size steak, people. And the newer models are even heavier. This makes it awkward for people with hand issues like arthritis, or whatever.

My Nook has a touch screen and quite honestly, I find them difficult to use. The very small screen on the bottom makes it annoyingly difficult to type, especially if you have healthy fingers. Getting the damn touch screen to come up is a whole nother issue.

My Nook has two arrows painted on either side of the device that indicate you should push there to turn the page. Again, no actual button and if you don’t hit it right on, you have to try again, and sometimes again.

My Nook has 2 gb of space, which is supposed to be 1500 books. Haven’t hot that either. Newer models have more space.

My Nook will actually hold a charge for about 8 days before I have to hook the baby up. It is even less if I actually use it.

My Nook, being an older models recognizes ePub, pdb, pdf, jpg, gif, bmp, and mp3 files, but I honestly have never been able to figure out how to get one of the damn mp3 files to play on it. Could be user error, but that says something about the device, too. At least in my opinion.

Now, neither of my devices are backlit, and this is okay for me. I’m not allowed to read in the dark anyways. I do have a Kandle, a light for my Kindle. I tried to find a book light for the Nook, but the thickness made it hard and the one I got would not stay clipped on securely.

Neither of my devices have AT&T access. They are straight wi-fi, and this has worked fine for me. I do most of my eBook buying from home anyways.

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Keep in mind that these are just my opinions on the two devices and there are several other eBook readers out there that you may like better. For those of you who don’t want to buy an eReader, but find yourself wanting to read a book that only comes in eBook, then you have a couple of options. I am not familiar with all of them, but I know that Kindle has a desktop application that syncs up with the device and your Kindle account. So you can read that book on your computer. And while a lot of people say, “I don’t want to read on my computer.” You read on your computer all the time, otherwise you wouldn’t be on it as much as you are. You are reading on your computer right now, so find another excuse for not giving eBooks a try. You choose when and how long you read, so it’s not really that big of an inconvenience. Right?

I hope this has helped some of you who have been waffling about buying an eReader. And FYI, Wal-Mart has the older model wi-fi only for under $120.00. I believe the least expensive Nook is around $140.00.

I would love to know what the rest of you are reading on or why you simply won’t give eBooks a chance. And there is no right or wrong answer, I am just curious. And before you go defending print books and how wonderful they smell. Yeah yeah yeah. I love print books, too. Still publish them, and still read them. The smell? Not as much of a hook for me with my allergies. But I get it.

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Posted in Blatherings

Borders: You Break My Heart (Publisher Rant)

Posted on June 13, 2011 | 27 comments

By now the entire world knows of the struggles and woes of Borders Corp. The bankruptcy, the closed stores, the dishonor. Yes, there is a crapload of dishonor.

Let’s talk about the bankruptcy first. The result of the latter mentioned issues have put the superstore company in grave danger of total destruction. Please keep in mind that this is only my take on the situation, but observations I have been establishing for many years. Borders claims to have run out of money, unable to pay their rent, or their vendors. They continue to order books from authors and publishers when they have no money to pay for them. Of course it has been my experience that they stopped paying their bills long before the bankruptcy. There have been plenty of complaints and actions against them for just this. This lack of money has fueled the fire under their big skillet.

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Quite some time ago, readers were fortunate to have the option of going to Waldenbooks within their local malls to browse and buy books. Then everything at Borders changed and they began to kill off the Waldenbooks, first slowly, then whoosh, they were gone. These little gems of comfort and the only good service you could get from a Borders corp store were eliminated. Employees who had been in these stores for years and built relationships were uprooted and given the heave-ho. Readers lost their havens and publishers and authors lost many valuable places to actually sell books. These Waldenbooks either disappeared or were replaced by the little fart stores called Borders Express. We all know Borders stores as big superstores with lots of employees who have no idea what they sell or where to find most of it. Borders followed their misguided instincts and filled many of these locations with employees who neither understood or cared about the book business. How sad. Now, they have closed hundreds of their express and superstores.

Finally, there is the dishonor. Having built a reputation for bad customer service in their stores, they have gone on to excel at even worse service and tactics on their website, including Kobo. With the rise of eBook sales, it is only natural that Kobo use this venue to help finance its floundering company. Everyone knows that the distributor/reseller makes the bulk of the money with regard to eBook sales. Yet, Kobo has felt it necessary to stick a red-hot poker into the eye of the very people who feed its coffers. The publishers and authors. Many other online sellers of eBooks have very strict rules about competitive pricing. If you price an item with them it cannot be priced any lower elsewhere. If it is, they will reduce their price to meet the competitor. Not that big of a deal, unless said discount affects the income potential from the other venues. Say you have a base retail price you must pay: $2.99 to receive a 70% royalty (this is part of a pricing agreement with the vendor that is not Kobo), which a publisher then shares with the author in the form of royalties. Kobo comes along (knowing full well what will happen when they price the $2.99 book at $2.69) and discounts the book, hoping to gain the support of the reader by charging less. What they have actually done, is they have forced the other venue to discount the retail price to meet the lower and knocked the item down from a 70% royalty to a 35% royalty for the publisher. It is not easy to split 35% of $2.69 with an author and keep them happy.

What Kobo doesn’t understand that when they back a publisher into a corner like this is that they force certain actions. One thing that could happen is that a publisher could remove ALL of its titles from the Kobo venue, thereby giving Kobo and Borders what they deserve: ZERO!

Another thing that could happen is that a publisher could write a scathing Blog post asking readers and eBook buyers NOT to make purchases from Kobo because it would kinda make them an accessory to premeditated robbery. That publisher could also ask readers to tell their reader friends who may not read said Blog about the unethical tactics of Kobo.

One would have to ask though, why Borders execs are not smart enough to know that if they want to save their sinking company they should be making friends and not bending publishers, authors, and readers over the proverbial cash counter without giving them flowers first.