Daily Archives: March 17, 2018

Non-Fiction/Documentary, Politics/Current Events, Reviews

What’s Happening at Amazon?

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PJ Media reports on a purge of reviews that seems to be calculated to hurt the livelihood of non-leftist authors.

“I asked several independent authors about the review losses when it occurred,” Del Arroz told PJM. “My left-wing author contacts said they didn’t lose any reviews, but the right-wing authors who are members of a group called the Conservative Libertarian Fiction Alliance all lost an incredible amount of reviews,” continued Del Arroz. “One author said he lost seventy-seven on his books, which is devastating. I believe the CLFA was targeted by an extreme alt-left troll mob running an email harassment campaign to Amazon who were enabled by a rogue Amazon employee.”

It’s nearly impossible to sell books these days without customer reviews. It’s a symbol of “social proof.”

Too herd-mentality, personally, but it’s a concern for me as an author because it has a striking effect on a book’s discoverability…whether I like it or not.

This could be a sign that Amazon is following Goolag, FascistBorg, et al, by getting into the Thought Police gig. Some speculate that it’s just a rogue SJW employee selectively enforcing rules.

Action, Adventure, Military

Tipping at Windmills and Men’s Adventure

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As a young paratrooper back in the day, there were many times when I wanted to escape from everything that reminded me of my job. But there were other times when I couldn’t get enough.

A limited sample from my personal library. Some of these are in bad shape from being stuffed in a rucksack or buttpack during Happy Camping excursions.

Literarily (is that a word?) speaking, I was probably spoiled. All around Fort Bragg, it was easy to find stuff to read that appealed–namely: anything that offered more excitement than what I was getting out of real life. During my escapist periods, I gravitated toward sci-fi, sword & sorcery, and pulpy adventures (I was a big Indiana Jones fan, to give you an idea). When I was gung-ho, I read Vietnam novels, WW2 novels, military sci-fi, and tons of paramilitary fiction. The 100-mile radius around Bragg probably has the worst male-to-female ratio in the world, so options were limited for off-time–especially when on DRF-1 (a ready-stand-by status for the Rapid Deployment Force; when troopers were on a short leash and had to be close and sober awaiting deployment).

Here’s the new E-Book cover.

Anyhoo, as a civilian later on, I noticed my reading options dwindling quickly. The New York Publishing Cartel just wasn’t producing anything I enjoyed reading anymore. I’ve blogged about this before, so to make a long story short: when I first discovered the opportunities presented by publish-on-demand (POD) and e-publishing, I assigned myself the quixotic task of reviving the “men’s fiction” I had once so enjoyed.

Surprisingly, I ran into other fledgling authors with similar goals.

The revival did happen–albeit on a small scale (because men have by-and-large given up on reading). Some of us carved out a niche for ourselves. My most focused effort to date is Tier Zero.

Here’s the original, pulpy retro-paramilitary adventure cover (which I still like best).

Fellow author, blogger, and men’s adventure fan Jack Badelaire over at Post-Modern Pulps has a nice post about his connection to the revival, combined with a review of my testosterone-fueled shoot-em-up.

The e-book is currently on sale for 99 cents at the online stores. But for those of you who don’t have time to sit down and actually read, there’s an audio version you can listen to while driving or performing mundane tasks, narrated by Johnnie C. Hayes.