See You Next Year!

That's it for me for 2009, folks. I will be packing and cleaning and moving and unpacking and...until the new year, so no bloggedy-blog next week. Let's recap what's happened in 2009, shall we?

First, you can buy Ghost Notes, Songs from Memory or Stuck Outside of Phoenix at my website for only $5 between now and the end of the year.

Second, you can download Ghost Notes the unabridged audio book here.

Finally, you can buy both Ghost Notes and Stuck Outside of Phoenix for your Kindle device.

Next year, I plan to finish my next novel, Good Night to the Rock 'n' Roll Era, plus I have a few other things planned (ebook, anyone?)

Thanks for keeping up with me in 2009, and we'll see see you again in 2010!

Happy new year.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Buy Ghost Notes, the novel or brand new audio book.



Buy Songs from Memory, the album


Buy Stuck Outside of Phoenix, the novel

Homeowners at Last!

Until the end of the year, you can buy Ghost Notes, Songs from Memory or Stuck Outside of Phoenix at my website for only $5!

On Friday, Kel and I picked up the keys to our new home.

It's in Milwaukie, Oregon, just southeast of Portland, and it's the first home we've purchased since April 22, 1998, when we bought one in Phoenix, Arizona, back in the days I played in the Refreshments.

Actually, I played in the Refreshments for only a couple of more weeks after that date. On April 23rd, the band called a meeting where it was decided everyone would take three months off to think about what they wanted from their future in the Refreshments, or if they wanted a future in the Refreshments. We played one last gig at Hayden Square in Tempe, and a couple of weeks later I decided I'd had enough of life in the Refreshments.

So, there Kel and I were, with a new house in Phoenix and no idea how to pay for it.

After some soul-searching, we decided to move to San Francisco, where I would go to school and she would work in publishing. We'd rent out the Phoenix house, enlist a friend as a property manager, and hopefully wouldn't have trouble finding good tenants and keeping up with the mortgage.

In San Francisco, from 1999-2002, Kel and I worked and went to school at night. We had a couple of tenants at the house in Phoenix--one good, one not-so-good--and made it to 2003 without having to reach into our own pockets to pay the mortgage.

Renting that house worked out well enough us, but it caused a lot of anxiety. What if the tenants tore the place up, or didn't pay? Worse, what if it sat dormant for months at a time? There was a lot of shoulder shrugging and leaving things to fate.

In 2003, we moved from San Francisco to Ashland, Oregon, where I wrote and Kel worked to become the independent artist she is today. When our second tenant backed out of the Phoenix house, we decided it was time to sell, and we sold quickly for a modest profit.

We worked diligently for three years, and in late 2006, we decided we were ready to buy in Portland, where we'd always dreamed of living. We got a realtor, a list of properties, and headed to the city ready to make a deal.

We quickly found our expectations dashed when property was way too expensive for our budget, and no one wanted to haggle. We bid on one place, which was in a town we really didn't want to live in, over an hour from downtown Portland, and quickly realized our plan was going nowhere. Home prices were too high for us, and everyone was enjoying seeing their homes double in value. We were left out.

So we went back to Ashland, wondering what to do next. It took a year, but eventually we decided to move to Chicago.

Drastic? Probably. We had family close by in Illinois, much of Kel's work was in the central time zone, and, we figured, property had to be cheaper in the Midwest. We packed up a moving truck with all of our things and drove across the country in December, hoping to rent for a year and perhaps buy if all went well.

All didn't go well. The move didn't really help either of our careers, and in general property was no cheaper in Chicago than in Portland. I love Chicago, as anybody who's ever watched me watch a Cubs game knows, but it's an expensive town, and the winters aren't worth the expense for us. After a year, we packed up another moving truck and drove again across the frozen tundra to get back to Portland, the place our hearts had never left.

In Portland, we waited until May and started once again looking for a home to buy. The climate had changed dramatically with the Great Recession and the bursting of the real estate bubble, so we hoped some of that would work in our favor.

We looked at houses all summer and fall. We bid on nine total--short sales and foreclosures and all the rest--trying to stay within the budget we'd set for ourselves three years previously. We had every experience in the book, from getting outbid, to owners raising the asking price of the home after we bid, to banks raising the asking price of the home after we bid, to banks removing the home from the market in the middle of the bidding process. Very stressful. No fun. I almost had to write a letter.

Finally, we came to an agreement with the seller of a house in Milwaukie. We had a miniscule 12 days to close, but the hoops were jumped through without too much trouble, and we now have the keys in our hands.

The house is over 2,000 square feet, plenty big for both a home and home-studio, 20 minutes from downtown Portland, and we stayed within our budget to get it. We couldn't be happier with our decision.

For those of you who have been in the housing market for a long time, take heart. There were many times in the last few years when we doubted the system, and wondered if we would ever close a deal. Prices are still coming down, and could continue to do so. It worked out for us, and it can for you, too.

Now, we get to pack and move again. Hooray!

I mean, ugh.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Buy Ghost Notes, the novel or brand new audio book.



Buy Songs from Memory, the album


Buy Stuck Outside of Phoenix, the novel

Reading Good Night to the Rock 'n' Roll Era

Until the end of the year, you can buy Ghost Notes, Songs from Memory or Stuck Outside of Phoenix at my website for only $5!

A few of you have caught on that, because of the free shipping kicking in at $20, buying the three-pack and adding one more item gets that extra item for free. In other words, if you order a three-pack, choose one more item and give it away for Xmas!

So, I'm reading the manuscript of my novel-in-progress, which is called Good Night to the Rock 'n' Roll Era. At this stage, it's hard for me to see what's good about it--only what's missing--but after three years and maybe four drafts, I can safely say I'll have something that one day will trump Ghost Notes and Stuck Outside of Phoenix both.

It's the sequel to Ghost Notes, but it deviates greatly from my previous two books. There's really only one character who makes the jump from Ghost Notes to the new novel, Betty, and the new novel takes on a great deal of new terrain, from a band's inception to the making of a record to a country-spanning three-month tour.

One of the things I really want to do in the next revision is expand on some of the locales of the tour, making each city rich and authentic and itself. If you have a novel that takes place in a dozen or two...or three...cities, you'd better make sure each place is distinct. One little thing wrong in any one of them and don't worry, someone will let you know about it.

I also have a few interesting characters who in the current draft make just one appearance. Anytime a character has pull with an audience, as these characters do with my beta readers, it behooves me to include them as much as possible. Without it, the reader gets frustrated. Imagine The Big Lebowski with just one Jesus scene:



You'd want to strangle the Coen Brothers for not giving you more, wouldn't you?

I don't want to get strangled, so the bit players come back.

I promise to write more on this novel in the coming weeks and months.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Buy Ghost Notes, the novel or brand new audio book.



Buy Songs from Memory, the album


Buy Stuck Outside of Phoenix, the novel

First Commercial Publishing Company gets into the Self-Publishing Game

Until the end of the year, you can buy Ghost Notes, Songs from Memory or Stuck Outside of Phoenix at my website for only $5!

Recently, the publishing blogosphere has been up-in-arms about Harlequin's decision to offer self-publishing services to the authors of manuscripts they reject. This is considered a big deal because Harlequin is a commercial publishing company, and the consensus is that this decision opens the barn door for a lot more commercial companies to get into the self-publishing racket.

Think about it: You have a novel manuscript, and you submit it to, say, Random House. Random House gets back to you with a rejection letter saying "No, thanks. But for a fee we'll publish that novel for you at our sister self-publishing affiliate."

Why would many publishing professionals--agents, especially--be so against this practice? There are lots of reasons. One is that it blurs the broad, thick line between what is commercially published and what is self-published. It's a question of quality, they say, and many in the industry prefer a nice, clear delineation between the more "legit" publishing world and the rest.

Other industry folks have weighed in saying that self-publishing in general will ruin publishing by one day making it the terrain only for those who can afford to publish, as opposed to those whose work is good enough to publish.

What do you think?

You need only know that my novels are self-published to know generally where I stand on self-publishing. Left entirely to the hands of the commercial publishing industry, my work wouldn't be in print, so you can guess how I feel about it.

But more specifically, I'm for writers having success, whatever success means to them, i.e., getting their work into print, finding a readership, receiving accolades and good reviews, and if possible making their livings as writers. I support just about anything that makes that success more possible, and I'm against just about anything that makes that less possible.

The commercial publishing industry does a great job of vetting what might sell well enough to help keep a commercial publishing industry profitable, that is, books that might sell in the thousands of copies. Moreover, they don't do a great job of publishing works that might not sell thousands of units. Books for a very specific audience, one either already formed or yet to form, have a place in the market, and just because corporate publishing can't publish these works for a profit doesn't mean these works don't deserve to see the light of day.

So, that's one reason why self-publishing has a place in today's market.

But what about a commercial publishing company, like Harlequin, offering self-publishing services along with their traditional products?

Again, I'm for writers having success, however they define it for themselves. And the more successful the commercial publishing industry, the more successful its writers. If adding a self-publishing arm to its commercial publishing company helps a commercial company stay afloat, then I'm for it. If it means they can help more writers succeed in the future, I'm happy.

Having said that, if you're an author who wants to self-publish, please consider Lightning Source, which is a printing company, or one of the cheaper subsidy presses like lulu, before you fork over big bucks to Harlequin, or to some other subsidy press. You can self-publish for a lot less than they will charge you, and while it might be tempting to have "Harlequin" printed on the spine of your book, I doubt it will help much.

I mean, come on. How vain is that?

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Buy Ghost Notes, the novel or brand new audio book.



Buy Songs from Memory, the album


Buy Stuck Outside of Phoenix, the novel

Five Bucks Sale 2009!

Last year, just before I moved to Portland, I announced the Lighten my Load Sale. This sale allowed you to purchase Ghost Notes, or Songs from Memory, or Stuck Outside of Phoenix at my website for $10, and allowed you to buy all three in a bundle for $25 with free shipping.

This sale was popular, this sale was fun, this sale lightened my load.

I liked it so much I kept it going throughout the whole of 2009. Give me $10, and take your pick of anything, I said.

Well, this sale is no longer good enough. Amazon, Target, Walmart and Sears are in a huge book price war. If I want to stay relevant, I have to adapt, and quickly.

But where does one go after marking everything down to $10?

Why, $5, of course!

That's right. As of now, you can buy any of the products mentioned above at my website for $5!

You want a copy of Ghost Notes?

$5

You want a copy of Songs from Memory?

$5

You want a copy of Stuck Outside of Phoenix?

$50, err, $5!

If you're reading this, you've probably been paying attention to me for a while. Maybe you've bought a book or CD or two. Maybe you haven't. If you haven't, and are at all curious, now is the time to jump in.

$5

If you're reading this, you probably have people to buy Christmas presents for. Why not buy them Ghost, or Stuck, or Memory, or all three?

$5

If you're reading this, you can read. So why not read my novels?

$5

So, come to my website, find yourself a copy of something you're interested in, and get it now for the best deal you're going to find anywhere.

$5

While supplies last.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Buy Ghost Notes, the novel or brand new audio book.



Buy Songs from Memory, the album


Buy Stuck Outside of Phoenix, the novel

Ghost Notes Audio Now at iTunes/New Novel Draft Finished

You can now buy the digital download of Ghost Notes the Audio Book at iTunes! There doesn't seem to be a way to link to the iTunes page, so go to your iTunes browser and search "ghost notes art edwards," and it will pop up!

And please listen to "Incident," download it for free, and pass it on to friends and family.

Yesterday, I finished a draft of my current novel-in-progress, which is called Good Night to the Rock 'n' Roll Era. The ending of this draft is both a good thing and kind of a bummer thing.

It's a good thing because I've spent the better part of the last eleven months working hard to make this novel as good as it can be, harder than I've ever worked on any novel. The novel is longer than anything I've written--420 pages, 92, 000 words--and I stand by my earlier claim that it's leaps and bounds better than anything I've written.

The bummer part is that it's not done yet.

I'm not going to lie and tell you that I'm overjoyed about this. A few of you may remember me earlier in the year proclaiming that I would be done with it in 2009. Sometimes I think I say these things just to make sure they don't happen.

So, why is the draft done but the novel not? What happened between the beginning of the year and now to make me doubt its perfection?

Since June, I've been blessed/cursed with a handful of beta readers who are doing a wonderful job finding flaws in the novel. They've brought up so many questions about it that I can't justify letting it out the door without a serious rewrite, rounding out characters, correcting few things, clarifying some others, and generally making it stronger than it is at this point.

I've come to realize that this is part of my process. One draft I stretch and expand the novel, adding elements, which I'll call my put-'er-in-'er draft. Then in the next draft I hone the prose, take out unnecessary elements, make the language as clear and as vibrant as it can be. This is the take-'er-out-'er draft. The lines blur all the time between these two disciplines, but I always know which draft I'm on. Yesterday, I finished a take-'er-out-'er draft, which is also when I allow myself to think, "Is it done?" With what I've gathered from the people who have read it, the answer is definitely no.

So I can foresee two more drafts, one where I put things in and another where I take things out, before I can (God willing) call it complete.

So, when will it be complete?

I'll guess and say this time next year, Thanksgiving-ish 2010.

I know, I know. Take it for what it's worth.

Back to the ol' grindstone.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Buy Ghost Notes, the novel or brand new audio book.



Buy Songs from Memory, the album


Buy Stuck Outside of Phoenix, the novel

In Defense of "Literary"

You can now buy the digital download of Ghost Notes the Audio Book at CDBaby.

And please listen to "Incident," download it for free, and pass it on to friends and family.

I've been hearing a lot lately about the decline in readers of literary fiction. The new philosophy in publishing seems to be, if you're going to write a novel, you're better off writing in some genre (sci-fi, romance, young adult, paranormal, etc) other than literary, which was more useful back when there was more of a general readership. This general readership has largely disappeared in the last ten years, with readers finding plenty of material, in book form and online, catering to their specific tastes. Hence, the general interest reader became the specific interest reader. If you don't write within a reader's specific interest, you don't exist.

As a writer, this is not terrible news for me--I don't really care what I'm supposed to write; I'd rather sell car insurance than write what I'm supposed to write--but it is weird to think of literary fiction as a thing soon to be of the past.

The first real book I ever read was Huckleberry Finn, in high school. I also read A Tale of Two Cities around the same time, and I seem to recall The Red Bad of Courage being in there somewhere, too. While I didn't dislike any of these novels, neither did they make me a great lover of literature. I was sixteen and deep in the throes of rock 'n' roll.



It was a lot to compete with.

At the time, I preferred the rock bios I read on my own. I loved Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga, and 'Scuse me While I kiss the Sky, about, yep, Jimi Hendrix. I liked finding out minute details about my favorites bands, and feeling like I knew them better.

It wasn't until I was eighteen and I took a course called "Introduction to Mode" in junior college that I began to see literature as more than just another subject. I was blown away by tour de forces like 1984 and A Clockwork Orange. I loved the characters in Tess of the d'Urbervilles and One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. We read eight novels in that class, and I loved all eight. It's safe to say I've been reading some novel or other--and almost always a literary novel--ever since. That was 22 years ago.

You'll notice, as you look at my formative years, that I had absolutely no experience with anything that might be called genre work. I've never had an interest in sci-fi (I liked Star Wars as a kid, didn't love it) or horror (I saw Jaws when I was seven...let's just say that was all I needed to know about the horror genre). I did struggle through two Stephen King books in another junior college course, but they seemed derivative to me. I didn't understand why people wouldn't just watch the movie. Nope, genre and I never mixed.

So now that fiction has splintered away from "literary" altogether, where does that leave me? I suspect literary fiction isn't really going anywhere, and is really just in need of a writing titan or two to reignite interest. I love Jonathan Franzen and will buy his next work of fiction when it comes out. I'm not sure if he has the ability to lead a resurgence in all things literary, but he certainly has the ego for the job. Besides him, what other current writer could be the new Faulkner, or Updike, or Morrison? That is the kind of presence we need if literary fiction isn't to become the new poetry in influence and market share.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Buy Ghost Notes, the novel or brand new audio book.



Buy Songs from Memory, the album


Buy Stuck Outside of Phoenix, the novel

Juliet, Naked

You can now buy the digital download of Ghost Notes the Audio Book at CDBaby.

And please listen to "Incident," download it for free, and pass it on to friends and family.

Hey, there's a new rock novel by a major player just released!

It's called Juliet, Naked, and it's by Nick Hornby. This is the same Nick Hornby that brought us High Fidelity, the crown jewel of modern rock novels.

I always like it when someone tackles this "genre." If you ask me, it's a shame Rock Lit doesn't have its own shelf at your local bookstore. What could be more natural for those of us who loved rock music than to curl up with a well-written novel about rock musicians? Always seemed like a good fit to me. Oh well. If nobody else wants it, I'll take it.

Me and Nick Hornby, that is.

I haven't read Juliet, Naked yet, but I did read High Fidelity, and I thought it hit on something essential about my era (1983-1998) of rock music fan, in particular, our need to create a hierarchy of our favorite bands or songs.

This is something I did obsessively when I was a kid. I can still remember a few of my lists. Here's one from when I was fifteen:

1) Van Halen
2) Rush
3) Led Zeppelin

When I was seventeen, it mutated to:

1) Rush
2) Led Zeppelin
3) Triumph

(Gotta love Canadian rock.)



By the time I went to college, things had changed:

1) REM
2) Replacements
3) Husker Du

And when I moved to Tempe, Arizona, things really changed:

1) Dead Hot Workshop
2) Gin Blossoms
3) Beats the Hell out of Me

I have a theory why we're compelled to rank our favorite bands like this. I think it has something to do with the power the music has over us, and it's our way of giving that power shape and order. If we can rank our favorite bands correctly, we can control them in a way that's satisfying, understand them in a way that we hadn't before. It's part of our identity, what these bands are to us, what order we place them in. Kind of like the Holy Trinity, but with guitars.

I quit making lists like this some time ago, but I still keep my favorite bands in mind, and sometimes even broken into specific categories. For example:

My favorite band of all time:

Dead Hot Workshop

My Favorite band of the Aughts:

The Shins

My least favorite band of all time:

The Animals

My favorite metal band:

AC/DC

My favorite punk band:

Minor threat

My favorite English band:

The Smiths

My favorite band of the 90s:

Pavement

My favorite band of the 80s:

Camper Van Beethoven

My favorite solo singer:

Morrissey

My favorite band that I shouldn't like at all:

Journey

Actually, I just thought up a few of those on the spot, but it was fun.

What are your Top Three of All Time?

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Buy Ghost Notes, the novel or brand new audio book.



Buy Songs from Memory, the album


Buy Stuck Outside of Phoenix, the novel

Packrat McHoarderson

You can now buy the digital download of Ghost Notes the Audio Book at CDBaby.

And please listen to "Incident," download it for free, and pass it on to friends and family.

If you hadn't guessed, I'm a little prudish when it comes to letting my work out into the world.

For example, it took me a over a year from the time it was recorded to release "Incident".

For another example, right now I have the following projects in some mode of less-than-perfect sitting on my hard drive:

One 400-page novel, started in 2006 and revised like crazy since then.

Demos of ten finished new songs, all written since Songs From Memory.

15,000 words of a non-fiction book, started years ago.

Three short stories that either aren't ready, can't find homes, or both.

A funny list I will send to McSweeney's Internet Tendency as soon as it's done.

Scores of started projects that will never see the light of day.

I imagine most writer/musician/artist-types have similar backlogs. The work is just never quite perfect, and in a world where everyone is some kind of artist, your work kind of has to be perfect.

So, I'll sit on my pile a while longer, see what ages well and what starts smell, refine the good and throw out the rest.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Buy Ghost Notes, the novel or brand new audio book.



Buy Songs from Memory, the album


Buy Stuck Outside of Phoenix, the novel

Yeah, but What's the Song About?

You can now buy the digital download of Ghost Notes the Audio Book at CDBaby.

And please listen to "Incident," download it for free, and pass it on to friends and family.

I really don't care what most songs are "about."

I've always believed that pop songs are, first and foremost, about the feelings they evoke. When I hear one of my favorite songs, I get a weird chill, and something pleasurable happens in my head. Nothing said about the song should take away from that experience.

When songwriters talk about what their favorite songs mean, I'm usually disappointed. I respect artists like Dylan and Babb, who seem preternaturally opposed to revealing even a shred of what their songs are about, or what they might mean. It's probably better that way.

So I'm going to violate this rule with my new song, "Incident", which I just released for free at my ReverbNation page.

I violate it because it's a story I tell when I play the song live, and it seems to add to, rather than subtract from, the enjoyment of it.

The song is about a conversation I once had with my friend, we'll call him Bob.

At the time, Bob was two things that he really didn't believe went together.

He was 50, and he was single.

So, if it's the 21st century, and you're fifty and single, and you don't like it, what do you do?

Why, you go to match.com, of course.

So, Bob signed up with match.com. He had to select a "radius," or how far he was willing to travel to meet with that special someone. He chose 20 miles and got a list of 15-20 possible women within that radius.

He went through each of these women and, for one reason or another, none of them worked out. They were all too this or too that, and his communications with the few he contacted didn't go so well.

So, what do you do when you can't find a love connection within your radius?

Why, increase your radius, of course.

So, Bob increased his radius to 50 miles, and he got a new list.

But none of those ladies worked either.

So he started getting crazy with his radius. He went to 100 miles, then to 200, then to 500.

Pretty soon he was getting emails from women in Michigan, in New England, in Austria, in Southeast Asia.

So, "Incident" is about Bob's experience with match.com, and about increasing your radius.

Give it another listen and see if it makes more sense.

If you want it to make more sense.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Buy Ghost Notes, the novel or brand new audio book.



Buy Songs from Memory, the album


Buy Stuck Outside of Phoenix, the novel

Betty

You can now buy the digital download of Ghost Notes the Audio Book at CDBaby.

If you've read Ghost Notes, you know who Betty is.

What you may not know is, back in 2006 when I was submitting Ghost Notes to agents, one agent liked Betty so much she wanted me to rewrite the whole of Ghost Notes from Betty's point of view.

This was both flattering (hey, she likes one of my characters) and disconcerting (there's no way in hell I'm going to rewrite the novel from Betty's point of view).

It did, however, prompt me to include Betty in Ghost Notes' follow-up, which is called Good Night to the Rock 'n' roll Era, which I'm working on now. Betty is again a major player, but like Ghost Notes she's not the point of view from which the story is told.

I liked bringing Betty into the new novel. It felt good to know that I already had this vibrant character ready to come onstage and get people's--even agents'-- attention. It was nice to think that at least that much would work even before the novel was started.

But a funny thing is happening as I revise the new novel. Compared to the rest of the characters, Betty is somehow less than completely compelling and fully-realized. She's kind of snotty and boorish, and sometimes it's unclear what she really wants. My beta readers are backing this up. They like her the least of all the characters.

So, what happened to Betty between Ghost Notes and the new novel?

Well, not only is that the question, it's also the answer.

I think I assumed Betty's character would stay the same from one book to the next. Ghost Notes is set in 1995, when Betty is 16, and she's pretty impressive for a 16-year-old, very brash and sure of herself, someone who knows exactly what she wants and goes and gets it. We like that in any fictional character.

In the new novel, it's the year 2000, and Betty is 21, and I don't think I've done enough work imagining what life must've been like for her in those intervening years, and how she might've changed.

In other words, Betty's pretty impressive for a 16-year-old, but not so much for a 21-year-old.

So, I'm setting aside some time this fall to re-imagine Betty's later adolescent years. I will start writing what life might have been like for her at 17, 18, 19, etc., and try to be as specific as I can. Getting specific can be hard, as hard as novel writing, but none of this sketching will actually make it into the book. It's written solely to give me a feel for how Betty might act in the "present day" of my new novel.

It's sad I can't write her like she's 16 anymore, because I liked her as a 16-year-old.

Maybe I should've rewritten Ghost Notes from her point of view. Maybe I still will.

(No, I won't.)

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Buy Ghost Notes, the novel or brand new audio book.



Buy Songs from Memory, the album


Buy Stuck Outside of Phoenix, the novel

Not of the Soul but of the Glands

You can now buy the digital download of Ghost Notes the Audio Book at CDBaby.

First of all, no blog next week. I'm going to the coast and will only have sporadic Internet access. Check back here on Monday, October 5th.

We've got a self-publishing success story on our hands, folks! This guy did what many in the publishing industry thought unthinkable. He self-published his novel, and he reached the bestseller list of the San Francisco Chronicle! A task both amazing and long overdue, in my opinion. The publishing world is finally a-changing, at least in this one instance. Three cheers to Kemble Scott for blazing a trail some of the rest of us hope to follow someday.

Anyone hooked on their Kindle? I dropped the price of the Kindle versions of both Ghost Notes and Stuck Outside of Phoenix! Follow the links above to find out how low I can go.

To conclude this week, let's listen to Bill Faulkner lay down the law, shall we?



That's what I'm talking about, people.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Buy Ghost Notes, the novel or brand new audio book.



Buy Songs from Memory, the album


Buy Stuck Outside of Phoenix, the novel

Good Night to the Rock 'n' Roll Era

You can now buy the digital download of Ghost Notes the Audio Book at CDBaby.

Let's talk about my work-in-progress, shall we?

It's a bit of a taboo subject for me. Nothing makes writing less urgent than talking about the writing you're going to do. But what the heck.

The novel is called Good Night to the Rock 'n' Roll Era. That's a line from the Pavement song "Fillmore Jive," which is the last song on Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. (I hope they don't sue me for using it, or for talking about using it, which is all I've done so far, so don't lawyer up yet.)

I remember the first time I heard the song, in 1994, and the line, "Good Night to the Rock 'n' Roll Era." The sentiment blew me away.

I grew up immersed in rock music culture. Some of my earliest memories are of acting silly while listening to the radio. (Jim Croce, the Eagles and Steve Miller come to mind.)

Then, as an adolescent, rock 'n' roll completely consumed me. I bought albums, went to concerts, watched MTV. I often joke that the Record Industry of America had a giant picture of me in their meeting room. Every Monday they'd walk in, look up at it and say, "What're we going to sell Art this week?"

Then, in my 20s, I played in bands, made records, went on tour, sold some tequila.



The first time I heard "Fillmore Jive" was the first time it hit me that rock 'n' roll could go away, that it could go from being a major component of our culture to something on the fringe of it. In a word, rock 'n' roll could become non-essential.

What would that look like? (No Jonas Brothers jokes, please.)

My novel is set in 2000, what might be called the tail-end of the rock music culture I'd always known, and it deals with the intersection of two characters: Badge, a 38-year-old guitar player and reformed alcoholic; and Betty, a 21-year-old diva-in-training (Yes, Betty from Ghost Notes). These two characters, beyond their more obvious yearnings, come to represent two distinct eras of rock culture: pre- and post-9/11, file sharing and Internet eras. Lots of sparks fly on the cusp of the changing of the guard, and you can bet Badge doesn't go down without a fight.

That's all I'll say right now. This novel will be done next year, and then I have to shop it, so don't hold your breath.

But know it's coming.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Buy Ghost Notes, the novel or brand new audio book.



Buy Songs from Memory, the album


Buy Stuck Outside of Phoenix, the novel

How's that Audio Book?

You can now buy the digital download of Ghost Notes the Audio Book at CDBaby.

Sales of the audio book have been going well, but I've gotten very little feedback from you folks.

First of all, did the digital download work like you expected? Did you have any problems at all getting the tracks? I'm curious how fulfillment is going.

And of course please don't be afraid to tell me what you think of the book itself. Is it everything you expected? More? Less? If we didn't get it right this time, we want to get it right next time.

Will there be a next time?

Oh, sure.

When I first announced the audio book, a few of you expressed some confusion. "Why not start with Stuck Outside of Phoenix?" you asked. "It's the first of the series, and that way you can start at the beginning."

Good question. Ghost Notes, as my newest novel, seemed like the right one to bring to life first. I'd already put together some audio excerpts for Stuck, and I didn't feel the urge to go back to that novel just yet. You always like your newest work best. At least I do.

But that doesn't mean I won't do an audio book for Stuck at some point. Again, the beauty of self-publishing. If Stuck Outside of Phoenix had been traditionally published, no publishing house would waste time and money releasing an audio book for such a "small" novel.

But it's mine, which means I can revive or refine or re-work it or any of my books anytime I want, and in any form I want. We'll see what the future brings. Maybe 2010.

For now, I'd settle for some feedback on Ghost Notes the Audio Book.

Oh, and health care reform.



Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Buy Ghost Notes, the novel or brand new audio book.



Buy Songs from Memory, the album


Buy Stuck Outside of Phoenix, the novel

Fifteenth Mistake

You can now buy the digital download of Ghost Notes the Audio Book at CDBaby.

I'm not sure whether to call this a review yet or not, but either way I like it.

I love to write novels--we all know that. But I also love publishing my work myself. It's another layer of the process I get to be involved in. I like coming up with my own cover, formatting the inside of the book, testing my proofreading skills.

There's this commonly held belief that self-publishing one's work leads only to badly designed, poorly formatted, just plain lousy books. I take this as a great challenge; I try to make sure my books stack up well against anyone else's, even traditionally published ones, where people are paid the big bucks to make their company's books perfect.

For all of these reasons, this review--or upcoming review--is very validating. The reviewer, who goes by Jane Smith, reads and reviews any self-published novel sent to her. Great deal, right? Here's the catch. The moment she comes to the fifteenth mistake--typo, grammatical snafu, formatting weirdness--she stops reading. Her reviews are her impressions of the books to that point, and she indicates on what page she was forced to stop.

Her standards are so stringent she's only gotten all the way through two other books, and this after a full year's worth of reviews.

Here's the good news. She's currently on page 57 of Ghost Notes, and she's found only three mistakes! Here's hoping she makes it all the way through without hitting the magical fifteen, eh? I'll be sure to link to the final review here so everyone can see how it stacked up.

So, if you're thinking of self-publishing your book, and you're worried that your novel is doomed to look and read poorly for reasons relating to editing, formatting or proofreading, know that I once thought the same thing, and I managed to get it done well enough to impress this person.

And also know that you will work your ass off to make it so.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Buy Ghost Notes, the novel or brand new audio book.



Buy Songs from Memory, the album


Buy Stuck Outside of Phoenix, the novel

Ghost Notes Digital Download is Here!

Hallelujah!



After three emails and two hours spent on hold, you can now buy the digital download of Ghost Notes the Audio Book at CDBaby.



This is a big event here in the land where the law is laid down. In case you forgot, this digital download is the unabridged audio version of my second novel Ghost Notes, about five hours of fun, read wonderfully by James Lorenz, and with music mixed in when it's necessary to push to it to eleven.



At the CDBaby page, you'll notice you can sample every track of the download, all 82 of them. Do yourself a favor and click around a lot. You'll get a sense for how much range James Lorenz had to display to take on all 15 or so of the narrators of the novel. This was not an easy task. Thanks go out to him always and forever for doing such a great job.

The purchase price of the audio book is an astoundingly cheap $8.99! Find me another unabridged audio novel for cheaper. Come on, I dare you.

As for Ghost Notes, it just got a fab review!

And you can expect two other reviews coming soon here and here.

So throw Ghost Notes on your iPod, or computer, or burn yourself some disks, and on your next car ride, or plane ride, or jog, you'll have the goods to keep you satisfied. If you don't, you could wind up like Mick Jagger.



Or like that girl dancing at 0:23.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Buy Ghost Notes, the novel or brand new audio book.



Buy Songs from Memory, the album


Buy Stuck Outside of Phoenix, the novel