Sleep Well and Have a Better Tomorrow

What is great about a new year are the possibilities. Hope springs eternal.

So many sage quotes it is hard to coin a new one. I wanted to write a Christmas poem and all the starts I thought were taken. Rhymes so embedded in my thoughts it takes an effort I have not wanted to do to create a new one. Sort of like discovering an undiscovered ten digit prime number.

The Macon Telegraph had an article how Amazon had a new $9.99 a month service that would allow readers to read all they want from their collection. For 9.99, exactly how many books will that person read. I am a dedicated reader and I am lucky to finish four a month. My fits and starts at novels leave much to be desired.

My reading has been disrupted more by an ever changing Facebook feed with links I constantly click. Reading up on the upcoming divorce of two celebrities I've never heard of give me pause.

A friend of mine is excited, she can forgo the sorry freebie novels on Amazon and subscribe. The writers are not making as much money with the new service. One problem in the fictional world is that Amazon has about 3 million titles versus their start with 600,000. The world is glutted with stories. With a world population at 6 billion and growing, no wonder we got so many stories.

With one out of every five people in China and another one out of five in India, maybe writers need to think outside of the box. Perhaps have all stories translated into Chinese and published in China. English is the franca linguae in India. Just getting your work into the mass market in India may help. You just might have to adjust your characters norms to that of those in India.

I wonder if the Chinese will read almost anything. I mean you know the joke that they will eat almost anything. Our eating fried eggs is one of the grossest things to some foreign people. I have to warn you. Never read the ingredients of potted meat or hotdogs. It is not true that McDonald hamburgers contain ground eyeballs.

But back to the writers, were you going to make any money from this market? I know having a 99 cent eBook will draw readers to your more expensive books. One person I read is selling each chapter for 99 cents and each chapter is a short crime who done-it.

I have oodles of great books. Some I purchased at regular price but I browse the books of a thrift shop which has great titles. I skip the A-listers. Mid-list authors and classics are more varied and frankly more interesting. I don't know if it is my American yearning for the underdog. At the thrift store, many of the A-listers look as unread as so many others. I check out the dog-eared copies of any book. I think that is a good sign of quality.

I made my resolutions on an earlier post. I supposed if I thought hard, I could recollect them. But as my older brother says goodbye on the phone in the evening, "Sleep well and have a better tomorrow."

Have a good new year. I have heard it is full of promise and hope.

Later Gaters. I got some good video of redwing blackbirds wintering in a pecan grove. I will try to post it soon.