Jake Bible Fiction

  • Friday Night Drabble Party!

    Hey, there! You came back! I knew you wanted to Party with some free Drabble fiction!

    Normally I’m pimping a book or two before I let loose the drabbley goodness. But not tonight!

    Nope, tonight I’m pimping an AUDIOBOOK!

    There’s a difference. Shut up.

    I give you the MEGA audiobook!

    Mega_audiobook

    Mega: A Deep Sea Thriller!

    There is something in the deep. Something large. Something hungry. Something prehistoric.

    And Team Grendel must find it, fight it, and kill it.

    Kinsey Thorne, the first female US Navy SEAL candidate has hit rock bottom. Having washed out of the Navy, she turned to every drink and drug she could get her hands on. Until her father and cousins, all ex-Navy SEALS themselves, offer her a way back into the life: as part of a private, elite combat Team being put together to find and hunt down an impossible monster in the Indian Ocean. Kinsey has a second chance, but can she live through it?

    And there you have it! Can ya dig it? I knew that ya could. Click that cover!

    On with the drabble!

    Enjoy!

    ***

    Me And Boxes

    By

    Jake Bible

    “What’s in the box?”

    “Don’t start, Willie.”

    “Just want to know what’s in the box, Al. That’s all. Not tryin’ to take it from ya or nuthin’.”

    “I know that, Willie. But I’d rather not tell you what’s in the box. It’s none of your concern. Step away and we’ll be good.”

    “Cain’t do that, Al. You got a box and I want to know what’s in it. You know me and boxes.”

    Before Al can respond, Willie slams his fist in the man’s face and takes the box. He opens it and instantly begins to cry.

    “Warned you, Willie.”

    ***

    Cheers!

    Disclaimer: You never know, do you?

  • Views From The Captain’s Chair! Episode Eighteen: The Cult Of Argument


    Captains ChairBlog    Ahoy, Mateys!

    This is going to be a short post because I just got back from a trip with the Family and I’m pretty much brain dead. But there is something I want to talk about. And hopefully you will get where I’m coming from.

    The Cult of Argument.

    This is what the Internet (or The Mean, as I call it) has turned into. Everyone feels like they have the right and the DUTY to argue every fucking point anyone even comes close to making. It’s a freaking cult, man. A freaking cult.

    Of course, I want to specifically talk about how writers fit into this cult. So I’ll break it down into the two sub-cults that continually go after each other: The Self-Published and the Traditionally Published.

    Oh, what’s that? You have a problem with those labels? Well, would you like to argue about it?

    See what I did there? I actually have no desire to talk about these camps. I just wanted to raise the ire of some folks to prove a point.

    There are at least a dozen writers reading this all up in arms that I used the term “Self-Published”. There are another dozen up in arms because I said “Traditionally Published”. If you are in either of these dozens then take a breath and keep reading. This post is for you.

    Labels mean nothing. So don’t argue over them.

    Genres mean nothing. So don’t argue over them.

    Word counts mean nothing. So don’t argue over them.

    Writing style means nothing. So don’t argue over it.

    Story structure means nothing. So don’t argue over it.

    Length of time it takes to write a novel means nothing. So don’t argue over it.

    Who publishes you means nothing. So don’t argue over it.

    How many reviews you’ve gotten means nothing. So don’t argue over it.

    What your contract says means nothing. So don’t argue over it.

    Your Amazon Author Rating means nothing. So don’t argue over it.

    You mean nothing. So don’t argue that you do!

    Why do none of these subjects, topics, hot buttons, mean a damn thing? Because all that matters is whether the reader likes what you do.

    That’s it.

    Writers need to stop acting like they know what the fuck they are talking about. They don’t. No more than anyone else. And guess what? No one knows what the fuck they are talking about! Not me, not you, not anyone!

    Blogs are opinions, mine included. Every single article, editorial, column, whatever on Publisher’s Weekly, Huffington Post, io9, Tor.com, wherever, mean absolutely jack diddle. They are just words written by people. And people are seriously flawed.

    Stop using what you’ve read to argue with others that have different opinions, experiences, ideas, tastes, shoe sizes. Just stop.

    So you read something in HuffPo Books? Good for you! That means you are literate. It doesn’t mean you now have fuel for an argument.

    Your RSS catcher sends you every single word particle JA Konrath shoots into the aether? Excellent! Now you know how one single writer thinks and feels about his career.

    What’s that? You read that the novel is dead? Okay. Should we send flowers?

    If anyone knew what makes a writer more successful than another, or what makes one book more popular than that book over there, then publishers would hit home runs every single time. They don’t. Despite centuries at this game, publishers still have no idea what works. Neither do writers.

    So stop arguing that they do; that you do; that anyone does.

    Just have a nice discussion. Quit the hyperbole, stop the rhetoric. [Side note: I’m so making a t-shirt out of that.]

    Don’t ever say you have the answers and don’t ever say that someone else’s answer is wrong. Disagree, sure, if you must, but be nice.

    And don’t you fucking dare do that passive aggressive, reverse bully thing. You know what I’m talking about. You know who you are. I have a list of three writers I will not shake hands with if I see them in public because of that tactic. They spout BS in post after post, people disagree respectfully, then they act like they’ve been attacked and their words were twisted around. Completely ignoring the actual physical record of them sounding like douchebags only one scroll up.

    Blech.

    I digress.

    Which is my point. Things go from thoughts to emotions, from ideas to arguments in a split second. Then everyone forgets the idea and focuses on the argument. Don’t do that anymore, please.

    The next time you want to argue your point, take a step back and ask yourself, “What do I get out of this?” If your answer is, “I will bring about world peace”, or even possibly, “It keeps kittens from being mauled by space monkeys” then post away!

    But, if wanting to argue a point only gives you some smug self-satisfaction, or is only designed to hurt someone else, then please don’t do it. You may have an opinion, but who cares? Everyone has an opinion. Yours is nothing special.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for discourse. Just not argument. Leave that for the lawyers. Be a writer and contribute to the betterment of society. Be there for the reader. That’s your job.

    Okay, phew, I’m done. Post turned out longer than I thought it would. Let the inevitable arguments begin on why.

    Cheers!

     

    Disclaimer: Views From The Captain’s Chair are just that: views. These are not laws. These are not set in stone. I could be totally wrong. I could be off my rocker (shut up). I could be full of S-H-I-T. I could change my mind next week. All of that is possible. Who knows? But if even just a little of this helps you then I’m happy with that. If it just makes you stop and think then I’ve done my job. Which I really need to get back to. Blogging don’t pay for the bourbon! Oh, and the whole Captain’s Chair thing? Yeah, I write in a captain’s chair. It’s true, Mateys! Got a question? Need some one on one? Shoot me an email, a DM, a PM (no BMs) or comment below.

    Jake Bible lives in Asheville, NC with his wife and two kids.

    Novelist, short story writer, independent screenwriter, podcaster, and inventor of the Drabble Novel, Jake is able to switch between or mash-up genres with ease to create new and exciting storyscapes that have captivated and built an audience of thousands.

    He is the author of the bestselling Z-Burbia series for Severed Press as well as the Apex Trilogy (DEAD MECH, The Americans, Metal and Ash), Bethany and the Zombie Jesus, Stark- An Illustrated Novella, and the forthcoming YA zombie novel Little Dead Man, and Teen horror novel Intentional Haunting (both by Permuted Press).

     

  • Views From The Captain’s Chair! Episode Seventeen: The Cheap Lie

     

    Captains ChairBlogAhoy, Mateys!

    So, a Facebook friend of mine, who is a game designer, posted about how he wondered if game developers wished they hadn’t created the $.99 app monster years ago. He talked about how someone puts in hours and hours of hard work, but can’t get into the market unless they sell their work/art on the cheap.

    I quickly commented it was the same for novels too.

    Someone else quickly commented on how the $.99 model works because of volume.

    It’s time to destroy the “volume” myth and all the other stupid selling myths and shoot those pieces of crap arguments out into space.

    Discounting is a marketing tool, not a business model.

    Say that with me, “Discounting is a marketing tool, not a business model.”

    I want that to run through your head every time you think you have an argument against what I’m about to write, okay? Okay.

    Oh, and I have another saying, “Live by the discount, die by the discount.”

    Before I became a writer I was in sales and marketing. I spent nearly a decade dealing with margins and markups, discount percentages and BOGOs, promotions and tricks of the trade. I learned a lot about commerce in that time.

    What I also learned is that if your business model is based on slim margin pricing and discount wars with your competition then eventually you will lose and go out of business. I watched store after store after store in the Southeast, especially South Florida, decide to play the discount war game. None of those stores exist anymore.

    Who does exist? The large retailers. The ones with deep pockets that could wait out the discount wars and keep prices where they wanted. They survived.

    It’s the same with pricing novels. The $.99 business model for self-published novels is killing the business for everyone. Knock it off. Just stop doing it.

    Why? Because if everyone is pricing their novels at $.99 then the consumer no longer sees $.99 as something special. No one is gaining volume sales from that price point because the market itself is glutted with a volume of cheap novels.

    One of my publishers, Severed Press, only uses the $.99 price as a promotional tool and only for a couple of days each quarter. My novels are regularly priced at $2.99 for the first in a series and $4.99 for the rest. I am consistently on bestseller lists.

    And the only time one of my novels was offered for free was to launch the reboot of Dead Mech which had been in the market as a self-published title for a few years. It gained some new readers, but now stays at $2.99 with the sequels at $4.99.

    This works. And you know what? It’s the same business model that has been used for mass market paperbacks for decades.

    Oh, I can hear you sputtering objections left and right. Knock it off. When you offer your work for cheap then you cheapen your work. Why does my stuff sell at $2.99 and $4.99? Because it appears to be higher quality by being offered at a higher price. My work isn’t in the discount bin.

    “But volume! Volume! VOLUME!”. Shut the fuck up. Volume is a lie.

    When I was a sales manager, my boss had a saying, “Would you rather have slow dimes or fast nickels?” The entire industry loved that saying and bought into it.

    Yet, there was one major flaw. It only offered two choices. You could pick “slow dimes” or “fast nickels”.

    What about fast dimes? Or, better yet, fast dollars?

    In the post about apps being $.99, the commenter went on to say that you make up in volume what you lose in price. That’s crap. Why? Because that’s assuming the product sells at volume!

    Wal-Mart is the world’s largest retailer and sells more volume than any other entity on the planet. Do you think every single product that gets put on the shelf and discounted sells a ton of volume? No. Not even close. That’s why Wal-Mart is constantly shifting its inventory and clearing out the slow movers.

    Guess what? Your novel, despite being priced at $.99, could easily be a slow mover. And you will have lost money as you played the discount game.

    Still not convinced? Well, maybe the leader in ebooks will convince you. Amazon gives only 35% of royalties to authors if their books are priced below $2.99 or over $9.99. Priced at $2.99 to $9.99? 70% royalties. Amazon knows that selling books below $2.99 cheapens the product and they discourage it.

    But folks ignore the people that pretty much invented the ebook marketplace and still play the discount game.

    It makes no sense. None at all.

    Oh, I hear another argument coming. It’s the “But so many authors have had huge successes selling at $.99!”

    Not true.

    “But look at blah blah blah and blah blah!”

    Really? Count on your hands how many writers you know of that have made their fortunes selling novels for $.99. Come on, do it. Do it. Dooooooo iiiiiit. How many did you count? Three? Five? Ten? Out of how many total writers sell their books for $.99? Do the math, please, before you try to convince anyone, especially yourself, that the $.99 model works.

    The ones that have made it work? They are an exception to the rule. The majority of $.99 books do not sell. Just like the majority of books don’t sell. Please never use outliers as an argument for success. They are an ideal, not an example.

    The plain truth is no one in the publishing industry knows why one book sells and another doesn’t. So why limit your income chances by going cheap? It just doesn’t make sense.

    Now, do I expect this post to change anyone’s mind? Probably not. There is a cult of publishing out there that refuses to listen to reason or look at history. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.

    But, maybe, just maybe, we can get some authors that have some common sense to just stop the madness and price their novels in the non-cheap range. Low cost is good ($2.99-$4.99), but discounted at $.99 forever is not.

    One last thing, that “free” model? It’s a lie. You see a bump, gain maybe half a percent more readers, but in the end the majority of your “sales” are to people that troll the free lists and never buy a damn thing. Why would they? They can read free crap the rest of their lives.

    Please take a hard look at how and why you price your novels the way you do. This is a business and the entire health of a business is based on revenue. You want that health to start strong, not weak, right?

    I know I do.

     

    Cheers!

    Disclaimer: Views From The Captain’s Chair are just that: views. These are not laws. These are not set in stone. I could be totally wrong. I could be off my rocker (shut up). I could be full of S-H-I-T. I could change my mind next week. All of that is possible. Who knows? But if even just a little of this helps you then I’m happy with that. If it just makes you stop and think then I’ve done my job. Which I really need to get back to. Blogging don’t pay for the bourbon! Oh, and the whole Captain’s Chair thing? Yeah, I write in a captain’s chair. It’s true, Mateys! Got a question? Need some one on one? Shoot me an email, a DM, a PM (no BMs) or comment below.

    Jake Bible lives in Asheville, NC with his wife and two kids.

    Novelist, short story writer, independent screenwriter, podcaster, and inventor of the Drabble Novel, Jake is able to switch between or mash-up genres with ease to create new and exciting storyscapes that have captivated and built an audience of thousands.

    He is the author of the bestselling Z-Burbia series for Severed Press as well as the Apex Trilogy (DEAD MECH, The Americans, Metal and Ash), Bethany and the Zombie Jesus, Stark- An Illustrated Novella, and the forthcoming YA zombie novel Little Dead Man, and Teen horror novel Intentional Haunting (both by Permuted Press).

  • Friday Night Drabble Party!

    It’s a Friday! It’s a Night! It’s a DRABBLE PARTY!

    No shillin’ this week, it’s all drabble! Unless you want to get AntiBio, Dead Team Alpha, or any one of my awesomeness in novel form here!

    Now, on to some drabble!

    Enjoy!

    ***

    Don’t Look Back

    By

    Jake Bible

     

    He slides across the oil-slick parking lot, his feet exhibiting impaired minds of their own as they choose different directions at random times. Sweat pours off of him, the sun pounding his bare shoulders, building more blisters upon the ones that have already burst and scabbed.

    The sounds around him nearly drive him mad, but the will to survive keeps him from giving up.

    Even though it’s all fixed.

    The crowd cheers as something new is sent after him. He hears a roar and the scraping of large claws on the concrete.

    He doesn’t look back, just keeps sliding.

     

    ***

     

    Cheers!

    Disclaimer: Keep calm and <insert something blah blah>!

  • Views From The Captain’s Chair! Episode Sixteen: The New Review Zoo!

    Captains ChairBlog

     

    Ahoy, Mateys!

    Today, we’re going to talk about reviews. And the reviewers that leave them!

    Reviews used to be something that authors waited for with trepidation and anxiety. The New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Village Voice, etc. Getting a book review meant something. It was a badge of honor, or badge of shame. Once those reviews started coming out, whether good or bad, it meant you had made it as an author.

    Today? Not so much.

    Sure, reviews in major newspapers, periodicals, magazines, and prominent websites are great, but do they have the influence they once did? Not as much as Amazon reviews do. That 1 to 5 star review system that readers can leave on Amazon is really what can make or break a book these days.

    Right or wrong, that’s life, kid.

    There are other retailers I could talk about, but today I’m specifically going to focus on Amazon because it is the 500 pound metaphor in the room. Other retail websites have influence, but not nearly as much as Amazon.

    Here we go.

    First, let me say that  book reviews on Amazon are not actually book reviews in any sense of the word. They are customer satisfaction surveys. And there is a massive difference.

    What’s that difference?

    A book review is when an actual reviewer -someone that reviews books maybe not for a living, but as an intentional, thought out activity- reads a book, digests said book, then writes his/her opinion on what he/she just read.

    A customer satisfaction survey is when someone purchases something then decides they want to tell people if they liked it or not and maybe leave some reasons why.

    Splitting hairs? Hardly. One is active while the other is reactive. Book reviewers go into it with the active intention of reading a book in order to write a review about it. Whereas, customers leave their reviews as a reaction to what they just read. Two different intentions and models.

    Now, don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of actual reviews on Amazon. Lots of folks buy and read books for the sole purpose of leaving a review. I applaud them. It’s hard work reading a buttload of books and then dissecting and writing about them. I don’t want to do it. [Side note: I don’t review anything. Ever. Not my gig.]

    But, and let’s face it, the vast majority of reviews on Amazon are the equivalent of water cooler talk. Before everyone with an internet connection could spew their thoughts across the world, people used to just talk to each other. It went something like this:

    “Hey, Ralph, did you read the latest Snooty McPooterson novel? Great stuff!”

    “I can’t really stand Snooty McPooterson, George. I’m more a Letchy Von Dooemstein reader. That guy knows how to write about guns and dames!”

    “Right you are, Ralphy old pal! Hey, want another scotch?”

    “Is it ten yet?”

    “It is somewhere!”

    “Hahahahahahahahahaha… My wife is having an affair…”

    Okay, yes I just watched Mad Men last night. Shut up.

    So George talks about Snooty McPooterson to folks he knows, who then tell others, who tell others, and so on. People hear about a book and talk to others about it. That’s how word of mouth works and it has been the tried and true form of disseminating opinions for all of mankind’s history.

    The Amazon review system takes that way of human interaction and tosses it out the window.

    A reviewer leaves their opinion on Amazon and it sits there. No context. In my example above, Ralph’s wife is cheating on him! You think his mind was really on the substance of the last book he read? Probably not. And George would know that. He’d also know that Ralph likes to dress up in Shirley Temple outfits and talk to his Great Dane at length about Communist Russia ruining the potential of the American labor movement.

    In other words, George knows to take what Ralph says with a grain of salt.

    But in this day and age we are trained to believe what we see/read/hear on the internet as truth. That’s how we are wired. It’s the new “Well, I saw it on TV so it must be true!”. Yet it isn’t at all.

    I’m going to give you two examples from my books. The first is a review of Dead Team Alpha:

    “1.0 out of 5 stars

    Drivel, April 3, 2014
    By NEO (Arlington Heights, IL) – See all my reviews
    Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
    This review is from: Dead Team Alpha: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (Kindle Edition)
    What a vile, childish piece of crap. If this is what the zombie apocalypse looks like, I’ll just get it over with and join the undead.”

    Ouch, right? That thing sat there for a couple of weeks and pretty much stagnated sales. Did the review bug me? Not at all. I could give two shits about reviews of my books. Every one has an asshole and everyone’s asshole smells like opinion.

    What did bug me is the fact that the reviewer, when you look at his old reviewer profile, says of himself “I’m getting older by the minute and am labeled by many as a curmudgeon.” 

    Nice of him to be honest, but you see where the problem is? People in his life would know that about him and know to ignore the “get off my lawn!” attitude. But, unless you click on his profile and read his bio, you as a consumer wouldn’t know that at all and would put way too much stock into this guy’s opinion when normally you might not.

    Next review is one for my novel AntiBio:

    “5.0 out of 5 stars Would recommend this for people who are into zombies., April 21, 2014
    By Sylvia Pelayo – See all my reviews
    Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
    This review is from: AntiBio: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (Kindle Edition)
    If you’re in a zombie apocalypse read or post it’s very good read. Good story line and entertaining!! Very action-packed!!”

    You’d think I’d be stoked about a five star review, right? Except that AntiBio doesn’t have zombies in it and isn’t a zombie novel. So, uh….huh. What the hell do I do with this one? AntiBio is my return to straight up scifi. No zombies. I repeat, no zombies. Great rating, but did she actually read the novel? It is a Verified Purchase, so at least I know she bought it. Thank you, Sylvia! Yet, well…not a clue how to handle this.

    These are two examples of the insanity of reviews on Amazon. And why do they matter? Because people take exactly one second to make a snap judgment based on what they see on the internet. To many quick glancers, Dead Team Alpha is now “Drivel” because some curmudgeon wants it off his lawn. To others, AntiBio is another zombie novel by me, which it isn’t. Not at all.

    Yikes!

    There’s the cray cray of Amazon reviews in two examples. And, for the record, I’m glad anyone takes the time to review my novels. I’m very glad they have taken the time to purchase a novel and read it! But…

    What to do about it?

    The Internet has spoken and said that it is unethical and wrong for authors to ask for reviews of their novels. I call bullshit on that.

    I SAY AUTHORS SHOULD ASK FOR REVIEWS FROM EVERYONE THEY KNOW AND COMMUNICATE WITH!

    That sentence was in all caps because I was shouting from the rooftops.

    But, seriously, since it’s all bullshit anyway then why shouldn’t authors try to get as many reviews as possible from readers, fans, friends, and family? Load those stars onto that shit, yo!

    Some say it dilutes the truth of reviews. But I say there is no truth anyway! Let the wild rumpus begin!

    Authors, you need to ask everyone you know to leave a review. Your spouse, your children, your boss, your old babysitter, senile Aunt Matilda that shouts into her TV remote because she has thought it was the telephone since 1987.

    The whole system is borked to Hell as it is. Jump into that borking. Get as many reviews as you can from people you know and trust!

    Is it unethical to do that? Hells no! What would be unethical is to ask said friends, family, fans, readers, Aunt Matildas, to give only good reviews. Don’t sway their opinions. Just ask for them. Maybe Aunt Matilda really, really, really digs zombies and leaves a five star review while your mom leaves a one star review because she thinks the bad guy is based on her. And she doesn’t like your potty mouth.

    But as long as the review system is basically identical to how a customer rates the cheese sticks at TGIFriday’s, then I say all bets are off, folks! It’s the new game and if you are a writer then you are playing it already whether you want to or not. So get your head in the game, playa, and start playa-ing!

    Oh, and if you want to leave a review for any of my books, just click this link here! Please be honest, but don’t be afraid to get all cray cray. It’s how the system works, so why not, right?

    Cheers!

    Disclaimer: Views From The Captain’s Chair are just that: views. These are not laws. These are not set in stone. I could be totally wrong. I could be off my rocker (shut up). I could be full of S-H-I-T. I could change my mind next week. All of that is possible. Who knows? But if even just a little of this helps you then I’m happy with that. If it just makes you stop and think then I’ve done my job. Which I really need to get back to. Blogging don’t pay for the bourbon! Oh, and the whole Captain’s Chair thing? Yeah, I write in a captain’s chair. It’s true, Mateys! Got a question? Need some one on one? Shoot me an email, a DM, a PM (no BMs) or comment below.

    Jake Bible lives in Asheville, NC with his wife and two kids.

    Novelist, short story writer, independent screenwriter, podcaster, and inventor of the Drabble Novel, Jake is able to switch between or mash-up genres with ease to create new and exciting storyscapes that have captivated and built an audience of thousands.

    He is the author of the bestselling Z-Burbia series for Severed Press as well as the Apex Trilogy (DEAD MECH, The Americans, Metal and Ash), Bethany and the Zombie Jesus, Stark- An Illustrated Novella, and the forthcoming YA zombie novel Little Dead Man, and Teen horror novel Intentional Haunting (both by Permuted Press).