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My Name Is Robert, And I'm A Book Hoarder

First, thanks for everyone's support in regards to yesterday's post. If you haven't done so yet, read this. Second, In the Land of the Blind is now available for the Nook and is listed at Goodreads. All other formats can be found here.

Third, just like Mark Medley, I'm a book hoarder. I can't help myself. I just love books. I don't even have to want to read the book to own it. And it doesn't help that many years ago one of those remainder bookstores was going out of business and was liquidating their stock and had all hardcovers priced at two bucks a piece and paperbacks priced at a buck. Plus every year there's a huge library book sale that runs about the same kind of prices. So, as you can imagine, I have a lot of books. A lot of books. More books than I could possibly ever read. But even so, I find it very difficult to give them up because, you know, maybe one day I will get the chance to read one of those books and the book will be amazing, my favorite book ever. You just never know. Every once in awhile my wife talks me into donating a box of books to the library, and then I go through the tortuous rigmarole of selecting which books I want to give up (no lie: one time I actually looked up each Publishers Weekly review for a stack of books to decide which ones to keep and give away). Anyway, the reason I'm bringing this up is because it's that time of year again where I need to donate more books to the library, but I thought I would give some books away here, too. So if you'd like a book, tell me your preference of hardcover, trade paperback, or paperback and what genre and maybe some favorite authors in the comments section, and then e-mail me your address at robert (at) robertswartwood (dot) com. The catch is you won't know what book you'll get in the mail, only that it will be the kind of genre you like. This mini giveaway only goes until Sunday midnight EST.

Have I Mentioned Our New Friend?

Monday the wife and I brought home a new little furry creature. We left the store thinking it was a male -- at least that's what the prepubescent clerk with the braces and acne told us -- but when we got home we started to suspect it was a female. Yesterday I took him/her to the vet for a checkup (picture below) and even the vet isn't 100% certain at this point, as guinea pig genitalia, he claims, is too similar this early in the animal's life (only a few weeks old). Having stated that fact, he did relent that he was 99% certain it's female but won't know for certain for at least another month or so. Anyway, right now we haven't decided what to name her. My wife wants to call her Mohawk (Mo for short). I'm leaning towards the ever-ambiguous Charlie ... after the late great Charlie Sheen, of course.

Did you know guinea pigs eat their own poop? Neither did we until Monday night, when my wife was holding the guinea pig and it kept ducking down every half minute and started chewing something. Apparently this is called coprophagia, and it's a natural thing. Still, we need to teach her this isn't very ladylike. I mean, girls stop eating their poop come middle school, right? That's what I always learned.

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On a much more serious note, my thoughts and prayers are with the victims over in Japan. For those interested, here's the link to the Red Cross's donation page.

Regarding Rejection & Spam

I'm not normally one to blog about the rejection letters I receive, but I got one today that's just too good to pass up:

Dear Author,

We are sorry these poems did not work out for New Ohio Review, but please consider submitting other poems to our contest (deadline March 10) -- the entry fee includes a one-year subscription. See our guidelines at: http://www.ohio.edu/nor/submis.html

Best Wishes, The Editors

Sad, right? Thing is, I didn't send them any poems! What I sent was a short story. Or at least I thought I did. So to make sure I wasn't losing my mind, I went and logged into NOR's submission manager to make sure I hadn't, I don't know, submitted a short story under the poetry category. Nope. I'd submitted a short story under the fiction category, which was a big relief in knowing that I wasn't going crazy. Still, I had always thought these submission managers were automated, so that all an editor needed to do was click a magically button and an e-mail was sent with the author's name and story title and whatever else. But hey, at least I didn't spend $15 for that form rejection faux pas.

Speaking of form faux pas, over the weekend I received this e-mail with the subject line "We carry your work through Smashwords":

Robert,

I'm Scott Redford, owner of Diesel eBooks.  You have  a nice website and we hope you will use it to announce where your ebooks can be found. Please take a moment and paste the below "My latest Diesel eBook" link to your website.  Your readers will be grateful (so will we), for when "clicked", it will take you to your most recent book at our web store. Please see for yourself by clicking on the below link or pasting the URL in your browser:

http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/index.php?page=item&id=SW00000026239

Paste this code on your website to show the above link to your readers:

<a href="http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/index.php?page=item&id=SW00000026239" alt="Diesel eBook Store">My latest Diesel eBook</a>

You can also send your readers to a tailored listing of your eBooks at our store using the below code.

<a href="http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/author/Swartwood,%20Robert/results/10-Default/1.html" alt="Diesel eBook Store">See me at Diesel eBook Store</a>

Also, don't forget to click the "like" button underneath your cover on your diesel book page. Get your friends and fans to click as well. More clicks equals more exposure for you.  It takes just a second and this will automatically put your title on Facebook for everybody to see. Never know - you may go viral.

Our authors tell us that linking to their titles increases their sales so please take a few moments to past the code and start promoting.  If you need help  just let me know.

If you would like a small Diesel logo graphic for your link you can find one here: http://affiliates.diesel-ebooks.com/datafiles/uploaded/promo/1/still_image_small_1_Diesel-eBook-Logo-No-background_124.png

Give me a quick email back on your decision if you can... and keep up the good work.

Scott

Diesel eBook Store 1202 Peachtree Blvd Richmond VA 23226 804-201-4162

And so I thought to myself: Well this is certainly nice of him for sending an e-mail. But, wait a minute, I don't even have any e-books at his store. (Which is true; click that one link and you'll see it takes you nowhere.) So I sent back this reply:

Thanks for form e-mail, Scott. I appreciate it, especially since none of my e-books are available through your website.

Best,

Robert

To which he responded:

is that sarcasm, Robert?

To which I responded:

Yes, it is. I wouldn't mind Diesel carrying my e-books, but why send me an e-mail telling me you do when you don't?

That was two days ago and he hasn't responded since, and I doubt he will. You see, Diesel has some kind of partnership with Smashwords. If you go to Diesel's site and try to find out how to publish your work there, it will direct you to Smashwords. And so if you have a Smashwords account, your e-mail is free game for shenanigans like this. And believe me, I've checked -- it seems the word across the Internet is everyone and his brother was spammed from this guy. I guess he feels it necessary, though, as from what I have also heard is that nobody has sold any e-books through that website. I never even allowed Smashwords to distribute my e-books there (which was how I knew immediately that the guy was full of shit), but just tonight noticed that somehow my e-books had been opted in to be distributed through Diesel. Kind of shady, no? I opted out and left it at that. I don't really care much for Smashwords as it is (and giving out thousands and thousands of e-mail addresses doesn't make me feel any better about them), but it's the only way to get your books into the Kobo and Sony stores, at least for the time being.

Anyway, enough of that. Speaking of e-books, have you entered the Spooky Nook Giveaway Contest yet? If not, get crack-a-lackin.

Making Connections

Did you know Carol Edgarian, one of the co-founders of Narrative Magazine, has a new book coming out? Neither did I. The only reason it came to my attention is because I noticed some traffic coming from her official publisher page at Simon & Schuster. It includes her picture, her bio, info about her book, her tour info, and links "From the Blogs." One of those blogs is currently my own, the post I did back in December where I made fun of the fact that Narrative was begging for donations. How long before the publisher notices this mishap and promptly deletes that link? Who knows. But when it happens, I at least grabbed a screenshot to give me a good chuckle every now and again.

So is this the exciting announcement I mentioned in my last post? No; no, it is not. That's tomorrow. Y'all come back now, ya hear?