Bringing
Up Mike
by
Mark Duncan
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
What
happens when Joe, a teen prodigy makes drastic changes to his life
and attends high school incognito with Mike, an artificial
intelligence? His plans take an unexpected turn when he buys a
neglected former racehorse.
Bringing
Up Mike is a tapestry of intertwined stories over the course of a
school year: A teen genius who has grown up too fast, a neglected
former racehorse, a bereaved couple morning the death of their son, a
girl struggling to attend college, and a former mobster determined to
be top dog.
Bringing
Up Mike is about people given a second chance at happiness and
success and how they become better people and mature.
Excerpt;
Martha
walked to the barn, the shotgun stock tucked firmly against her side,
then stopped fifteen feet from the back of the horse trailer.
“Any
reason why I shouldn’t shoot you trespassers?”
Three
men who were struggling to get the stallion into the trailer froze.
The fourth, a big burly man, stood in front of Martha, the horse
directly behind him.
“This
isn’t what you think. We’re retrieving our lost stallion,” said
Sly.
“At
dawn? Without asking permission?”
“It
didn’t seem polite to wake you up so early.”
“Seems
to me you sold him for four thousand dollars.”
“It
was a joke to teach the kid a lesson. That horse is worth twenty
thousand, I knew the contract wasn’t valid, because he’s a
minor.”
“There’s
no way I’d let that stallion go back to someone who starved him.”
“He
had plenty of pasture! Once he learned not to bite the hand that fed
him, he’d get his grain.”
As they
talked, Sly edged closer to Martha, then tried to grab her shotgun.
Martha pivoted, pointed the gun at the wheel on the horse trailer,
and shot.
There
was a CRACK-BANG as a burst of birdshot exploded the tire. Startled
and frightened, Comanche reared up and dragged Reuben and Sam, who
had wrapped lead ropes around their hands. Martha threw herself flat
on the ground, followed by the crack of a bullet that stopped Sly in
mid-step.
Three
Partners in Shopping
Thank you so much to author Mark Duncan for sharing this wonderful post with us today, 3 Partners in Shopping
Guest
blog by Mark Duncan, author of Bringing
Up Mike
What
do you think of e-books? Do they help or hurt an author?
The
short answer is that ebooks have allowed significant numbers of new
authors to publish their books and more authors to make a living from
writing. In February 2014, Hugh Howey states
http://authorearnings.com/report/the-report/
that the units sales of independent authors now exceed that of the
Big Five publishers.
The
long answer is that there is a long tradition of authors attempting
to find ways to bypass publishers and reach their readers directly.
Ben Franklin owned his own printing press and Mark Twain started his
own publishing company to print and distribute his work.
But
the high cost of book publishing via letterpress, and later offset
presses caused the publishing industry to be concentrated in New
York, Philadelphia, and Boston. By 1840, 92% of all books in the
United States were printed in these cities. Small in number and often
of questionable quality, small presses and self-published books got
minimal respect and support from the publishing industry. The rare
success, like the Dr. Ken Taylor’s
Living Bible in the 1960s was a newsworthy event.
Since
1970, tremendous consolidation in the publishing industry has
resulted in five big publishers, all headquartered in New York. These
publishers only consider authors who submit their work through agents
making it challenging for a first-time author to be published by
them. (While there are 300 to 400 medium-sized publishers and 86,000
small publishers, the Big Five sell two books for each book sold by
all other publishers.)
Print-on-demand
printing has been particularly valuable for independent authors and
small publishing companies. Selling their books online on Amazon and
Barnes & Noble, they bypass the preference independent bookstores
and bookstore chains give Big Five publishers.
While
electronic books have been available for many years, it was the
release by Amazon of its Kindle ebook reader in 2007 that caused
ebooks to become an important way to sell books. But was the release
of the Apple iPad in 2010 with the iBook store that forced Amazon to
respond with a 70% royalty that made selling ebooks a compelling
economic proposition for independent authors.
What
are the advantages for an independent author to sell electronic books
directly? They are:
- Books can stay in print forever, they don’t go out of print. An author’s backlist is always available and can yield income for years
- Royalties of 65% to 70% for books priced less than $10 mean that it is easier for mid-tier authors to make a living from writing.
- Releasing new books stimulates backlist sales
- No penalty for writing the longer books that readers prefer
- No returns from bookstores
- No distributor or warehousing fees, aside from the 30% charged by Amazon and Apple.
- Available to a worldwide audience at any time—readers don’t have to wait for books to be shipped
- Books can be updated with corrections and updates
- No waiting for offset print runs and better cash flow
The
disadvantages of ebooks to an independent author:
- Harder to discover ebooks at online sites provided by Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble. Whereas, in bookstores you can browse through books and decide to buy one.
- Many self-published electronic books do not have the editorial- and copy-editing provided by traditional publishers. Obtaining credible reviews requires substantial fees to services such as Kirkus Reviews, Clarion, Foreword and Blue Ink.
- The absolute number of books in print is rising dramatically providing more competition
- Authors must spend more time and money promoting and marketing their books. They also must pay for editing of their manuscripts.
Like
the impact of television on the movie industry, ebooks will not
eliminate paper books. But for the fiction categories of science
fiction/fantasy, murder/thriller and romance, ebooks already account
for the majority of unit sales.
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AUTHOR
Bio and Links:
Mark
Duncan grew up in Pasadena, not far from Caltech. In high school he
spent Friday and Saturday nights at the Stanford Artificial
Intelligence Lab (SAIL) and subsequently was a member of the Homebrew
Computer Club. He received his BSEE from UC Berkeley. He has worked
or consulted for numerous startups in Silicon Valley. He lives in
Menlo Park, near Stanford and has written extensively on emerging
technology topics. He enjoys photography, movies, theater, fine
dining and has visited all 50 states and much of Europe. He is the
author of Bringing Up Mike, www.askmarpublishing.com,
mark@askmarpublishing.com
Book and
Author Links
Book
Website: http://www.askmarpublishing.com/books/bringing up mike.html
Publisher
Website: http://www.askmarpublishing.com
Author
Website: http://www.askmaroublishing.com/authors/mark duncan.html
Author
Twitter: https://twitter.com/askmarpub
Author
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/askmar
Buy
Links
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeletethank you for the excerpt, :)
ReplyDeleteThe promo authors have to do looks so daunting!
ReplyDeleteTrix, vitajex(at)Aol(Dot)com
I really liked the guest post - lots of great info!
ReplyDeleteI liked the exceprt the best this time, thanks for the great excerpt.
ReplyDelete