To plug, or not to plug...that is the question...

Well, you have to respect a good marketing concept. Many years ago, large corporations (and sophisticated small shops) learned that if they sent the major news networks well produced "news" segments a large percentage of news outlets (both print and video) would run the "story" as if it was their own. The "best" of the video ones would include "blank" interview spots where the locally/nationally recognized talking head could ask the carefully worded question (these can usually be identified by the fact that the asker and the askee are never in frame together. This has become something of an epidemic (see, e.g. the Center for Media and Democracy's recent piece on this). Of course, the the White House has embraced this reality distortion program as well.

There has been some whining that the blogosphere has suffered from this form of product/issue placement as well, which brings us to the present. I think I am amused...or at perhaps bemused...I'm not certain. I received the following from ABE earlier today:

Dear Ian

Just come across your blog via a link from the Fine Books Blog. If you are looking for any blog fodder, there are a few features on AbeBooks that may interest you.

10 most expensive Stephen King books ever sold through AbeBooks
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/docs/Community/Featured/10-stephen-king.shtml

A haunted bookstore with a ghost called Claire
http://www.abebooks.com/docs/Bookstores/BooksellerProfiles/profile-haunted.shtml

A bookseller called Larry Coven, who specializes in horror
http://www.abebooks.com/docs/Bookstores/BooksellerProfiles/larry-coven.shtml

Regards
Richard

I chose not to post any of them...mostly because I have been so busy over the past few weeks that I have not had time to post about events and topics that *I* thought are/were interesting...let alone feed the ABE PR machine. I post now because I was genuinely surprised by the number of other book blogs that *did* post about one or more of the "suggested topics." This is not, of course, on par with the "here is a complete post, all you have to do is throw it up" that has become much of mainstream "news", but I wonder how long it will be. As bad as I am about carving time out to post, I promise, gentle reader, that I will not post another's PR sound bite and pretend it is my own...but I'll post the umbrella message every time *laughing*.

Interesting article on *whisper* ((ebay)) selling...

I do not sell books on ebay and only rarely buy on ebay. I must admit, however, that I do, on rare occasions, find very interesting things there (this is especially true for the seriously "off the beaten path" material of which I am particularly fond...). While I tend to think that one must look with a VERY careful eye at anything listed online, there are some good sellers and there can be good material.

Hugh Hollowell runs Hugh's Blog and has just posted an exceptionally good entry on how to list and sell good material on ebay. It was a great read and, if I ever travel this route, I will put his advice to good use. I wish all sellers on ebay had even close to this level of professionalism...it would make it a much better marketplace.

Very short stories...

The most recent Wired magazine has an amazing bit titled "Very Short Stories: 33 writers, 5 designers. 6-word science fiction." It is worth buying the rag for it (and the aethiest article is a plus, too). I offer my favorites as a taste:

Vacuum collision. Orbits diverge. Farewell, Love. -- D. Brin
machine. Unexpectedly, I'd invented a time -- Alan Moore
Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so. -- Joss Whedon
"Cellar?" "Gate to, uh... hell, actually." --Ronald D. Moore
Longed for him. Got him. Shit. -- Margaret Atwood
From torched skyscrapers, men grew wings. -- Gregory Maguire
Internet "wakes up?" Ridicu- No Carrier. -- Charles Stross
The baby's blood type? Human, mostly. -- Orson Scott Card
Lie detector eyeglasses perfected. Civilization collapses. -- R. Powers
Husband, transgenic mistress; wife: "You cow!" -- Paul Di Filippo

Arguably the best is, of course, by Vernor Vinge:

Epitaph: Foolish humans, never escaped Earth.

My second favorite is less a "story" than a powerful quotation, "It cost too much staying human." (Bruce Sterling)

yet another apology....

You may have noticed a lack of recent posts...urgh. I have a long list of "posts-to-be", snippits of info and sites of interest that I keep in a StickyBrain file. They should appear shortly. On the upside, I have been insanely busy of late, with the usual cataloguing and appraisal work combined with a handful of shows and a relatively major writing project (more on this to follow). As I have said before, I am planning to try to carve 15 minutes or so a day to get some of my growing content list actually up *wry smile*.