The CDC Releases A Practical Preparedness Guide

Conrad "Zombie Dude" Zobmouski sez, "Be Prepared, Man!"

Let it not be said that the CDC doesn’t have a sense of humor. (Sorry, double-negative. Let me try again.) The CDC definitely doesn’t lack a poor sense of non-humor. Check this out:

CDC has a fun new way of teaching about emergency preparedness. Our new graphic novel, “Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic” demonstrates the importance of being prepared in an entertaining way that people of all ages will enjoy. Readers follow Todd, Julie, and their dog Max as a strange new disease begins spreading, turning ordinary people into zombies. Stick around to the end for a surprising twist that will drive home the importance of being prepared for any emergency.

For those who’ve slogged through the Minneapolis Zombie Pub Crawl, you’d agree that the inevitable zombie apocalypse won’t be so bad. And anyone who lives in America might already think the Zombie Apocalypse has already occurred.

Whether you look forward to it or not, an Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse is, by definition, Inevitable. So you might wanna consider reading through the CDCs preparedness guide.

More Tools To Help You Make The Best Of The Upcoming Zombie Apocalypse

Another tool to get you in the spirit of the Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse is the board game Pandemic, in which four players work together to stop the spread of four deadly diseases before they take over the world. After you play (and lose) this game a few times, you’ll have a new appreciation for the people who work to stop the pandemic.

You’ll also want something to read while you’re hiding beneath the stairs. I recommend this lovely dark fiction compilation.  You’ll probably want the paperback version, or a lot of batteries for your e-book reader.

Two more musts are hand sanitizer and keyboard/mouse cleaner. Get in the habit of using them now. Even if the Inevitible Zombie Apocalypse is years away, your IT guy will thank you.

What is Small Business Saturday?

I was surprised to learn that the idea to support local, independently owned and operated businesses over the holiday season was created by one of the biggest, nameless, faceless businesses of all time.

In November 2010, American Express promoted Small Business Saturday – a companion to  Black Friday and Cyber Monday, in which people were encouraged to patronize local brick-and-mortar stores instead of the mega-franchises.

This is clearly a Sign of the Apocalypse. But I think it’s a great idea. (Small Business Saturday, not the Apocalypse. No, wait. On second thought, they’re both pretty good ideas.) Actually, the idea behind Small Business Saturday isn’t altruistic. Small businesses take credit cards too, and American Express gets their cut whether you buy from a megastore or from an author who uses paypal or square to take credit cards at book signings/readings.

The Smallest Business is One Person

I’d actually suggest taking this concept a tiny step further. If you’re choosing to indulge in the post-thanksgiving consumerist binge, consider supporting products and services directly from local providers. I mean buying art directly from the artist. Not from a business. Not even from a small local business, but from PEOPLE.

Buy directly from the people who actually make the product or perform the service. 

It isn’t hard to find artists and crafters who live and work in your city: musicians, authors, salons, woodworkers, etc. Although they may not have a storefront. You may have to catch them at public appearances, or possibly through their websites. Finding them can be more fun than scouring the soul-crushing Mall of America.

I think this kind of gift is more thoughtful and meaningful to not just the gifter and the giftee, but also to your local artists. And it beats the hell out of a gift card to the mega-store.

I’ll take this opportunity to point out some independent artists from the Minneapolis area who are worth raving about. Want to make your gift extra-extra-special for no extra charge? Ask the artist to sign a personalized “Merry Christmas to…” for the recipient.

Minneapolis Musicians

Track down these great bands at a local show and buy the CD direct from the musician or through their websites.

• All The Pretty Horses have a CD release party on 2 Dec, along with Hastings 3000
• Check out the Phantom Tails/Fort Wilson Riot split vinyl release party on 3 Dec, and get two band releases for the price of one!
• Mark Mallman always has something going on.
• Mayda, Dosh, STNNNG, Tapes-n-Tapes, POS, Gay Witch Abortion, No Bird Sing, Haley Bonar, Peter Wolf Crier, and about a billion more to choose from. If all else fails, download Jagged Spiral’s album Days From Evil for free, burn it to a CD and say you paid for it.
• City Pages has an entire directory of Minneapolis bands.
• Check out vita.mn for local shows.

Minneapolis Authors

These authors have the occasional local reading/appearance, or contact them through their websites:

• Michael Merriam – Speculative Fiction, Paranormal Romance
• Abra Staffin Wiebe – Speculative Fiction, Steampunk and Fantasy
• Dana Baird – Young Adult Fiction
• Terry Faust – Speculative Fiction and Sci-Fi
• Christopher Valen – Crime
• Conrad Zero – Dark Fiction. Duh.
• Check out Magers and Quinn, Once Upon A Crime, Dreamhaven Books, and Uncle Hugo’s for more local author events, readings and recommendations.
• City Pages lists reading events here.

Minneapolis Artists

Musicians and authors are the company I keep, so it’s harder for me to list other local artists by name. But finding them for yourself can be half the fun.

• Anna Lee has some great fashion designs.
• Julia Leigh gives fun dance lessons, which would make a unique gift!
• Again, local news sources and search engines are your friend

Happy Consumering!

One thing that Buy Nothing Day and Small Business Saturday have in common is taking your money back from the fat-cats. You should consider where your money goes all the time, not just for one weekend of the year. Where does your money go if you buy at Walmart? Who knows? But if you buy from a local human being, you know. And there’s the added incentive that you are helping to improve the art in your community by supporting local artists.

If you know of more local artists people can support directly, list them in the comments.

And remember: consumerism is not the spirit of the holiday, and neither is giving each other gift cards.

 Yours Darkly,

Buying Local isn’t just a way for hipsters to make themselves feel better about their consumeristic behavior patterns. There’s another major benefit of buying local that many people don’t realize.

An Author’s Incomes

As a member of the MNSpec Writer’s Group, I see many fellow authors struggling for months or even years with their stories,  laboring to make their novels the very best that they can. Despite what Na-no-wri-mo would have you believe, novels take a long time to write well. Musicians and Filmmakers would agree with Authors that good art takes a lot of time, resources, and a lot of physical, mental and emotional energy.

When you finally finish that sure-to-be-a-bestseller, when you finally see the hard copy on the bookstore shelf or view the listing online, there’s more than just money soon to be coming your way.  In fact, there are several different ‘incomes’ that you receive as an author.

There’s the satisfaction of a completed project. Fan mail. Reviews. Stalkers.

Death threats from political/religious factions will start up, but the death threats from your agent and publisher will stop, so that’s a wash.

But one of the incomes that will always bring you a warm fuzzy is the simple action of selling your book to someone.

Signing a book for someone, dedicating it to them specifically and handing it to them directly is a perk of being an author that few people will ever get to enjoy. This is an invisible currency, but every bit as valuable as cash.

I had the opportunity to experience this myself firsthand. Handing out copies of The Blackness Within (a compilation containing my first published short story, Big Game) to my friends and family was a thrill in itself, but there was more:

“Aren’t you going to sign it? You have to sign it!”

They didn’t just want my story. They wanted it signed by the author.

I’ve been on the Please-Sign-This-Book-For-Me side of the street many times before, so I know exactly how that feels. But the feeling that comes from autographing books for other people – part humility, part pride, part hack and part superstar – is a rare blend. Maybe famous authors get used to it, but for unfamous local authors like myself who are still amazed that they actually got their work published, much less that anyone would want to read it…

The sale is nice and all, but the bonus compensation of Gratitude and Praise are part of a writer’s income that makes me feel good about what I’ve done. That it was actually worth the countless late nights, lunches and weekends spent slaving over a hot keyboard when I could have been doing… well, pretty much anything else.

Supporting Your Local Arts and Artists

If you really love books, then check out local authors at readings and book signings.  Dreamhaven Books in Minneapolis has a continuing series of monthly readings by local Speculative Fiction authors, and you’ll see plenty of regulars from the MNSpec Writer’s Group in attendance.

Sure, you could jump online and buy the book right now. Or you could go to the used bookstore and get it dirt cheap. But think about it. The author gets nothing from your purchase of a second-hand book, and you’ve also denied them the satisfaction of interacting with the people who read their work. You’ve also denied yourself the experience of meeting the person who made the book possible. Learning what the author is like might make you more (or less) excited about buying their books.

When you buy directly from the author, you not only get the book you wanted, but you’re giving back a lot more than just a purchase. You are casting your vote for the kind of art you want to see in your area.

Best of all, you’ll be able to say that you helped out one of your own local authors, and that you actively support your local arts community.

The breaking of my Dark Fiction virginity - Dark Forces #1 - The Game by Les Logan

Early Books That Inspired My Path Into Dark Fiction

Someone recently asked me what books I read while growing up that influenced me to write the kind of stories I do. I was a fairly voracious reader in middle/high school, and fully capable of devouring one complete paperback book per day. (It was a long bus ride to school and back.) I was also lucky to have parents who valued reading, and although money was tight, books were considered a necessary expense, like food and clothing.

Much of my early reading was non-fiction, but filled with elements of horror: Bigfoot, The Bermuda Triangle, The Loch Ness Monsters, Witchcraft, Aliens and my favorite subject – Sharks. I decided after seeing the movie Jaws and reading the story, I decided I was going to become an oceanographer, although I didn’t even know what an oceanographer was. But I knew they got to hang out with sharks. Cool.

My taste in fiction took a while to gel. I enjoyed the Encyclopedia Brown series of mystery books, and I have fond memories of the Choose Your Own Adventure books. I remember reading a Hardy Boys adventure and thinking it was utterly lame. Ditto for Nancy Drew. Ugh.I don’t recall why I read the first 35 volumes of  the Trixie Belden series of mystery books, but I can safely say that Trixie Belden was my first fictional love.

I latched onto a mystery-adventure series called Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators, the first of which was The Secret of Terror Castle. A cool cover led me to read A Clockwork Orange at far too young an age to appreciate it. And I enjoyed The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings when the only people who read such things were the social outcasts who played Dungeons and Dragons.

Most of the fiction I read was dark, but it was all mystery or fantasy.  The very first book I can recall that I would classify as horror or dark fiction would be the first in the Dark Forces series of books, The Game by Les Logan. I hadn’t even finished the book and was looking forward to the next in the series. No doubt if I read any of the Dark Forces books today, I’d find them filled with enough cheese to keep a Taco Bell in business for a month.

I quickly graduated to modern horror classics by Stephen King and Clive Barker. Reading Alan Dean Foster’s Alien late at night in bed with a flashlight was a bad idea. Soon, I found myself branching into older horror classics by authors like Edgar Allen Poe and my all-time favorite horror author, H.P.Lovecraft. And it wouldn’t be until years later that I decided to write dark fiction myself (a blog post for another day) but these are the roots of my love affair with horror, paranormal and occult fiction.

How about you? Any early books, movies or inspirations that set you on the author’s path you find yourself on? Drop your experiences in the comments below.

Occult Thriller Season of the Witch a decent start to the 2011 movie season.

Does Nicolas Cage ever take a break?  I mean, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was only a couple months ago, and Drive Angry is only a couple months away, and this weekend Season of the Witch is released. Take a look at Nicolas Cage’s filmography on IMDB. Talk about busy.

And why do people rip on his acting? He doesn’t actually act, you know. He’s made a career of being himself on camera since I first remember seeing him in Raising Arizona, waaaay back in 1987.

Season of the Witch casts Cage as Behmen, a Knight of the Crusades who suddenly realizes that killing innocents in the name of God is not the path for him. Ron Perlman is Felson, his good friend and comrade-in-arms. Together, they desert the crusades and go off on their own, only to find a village with a witch problem.

The writing in Season of the Witch was good. A simple plot, but it keeps you guessing about who the bad person really is and what’s really going on. Reminded me of a Grimm’s Fairy Tale. Not as much sorcery and witchcraft as I would have expected, and the ending had a layer of cheese on it. Although the ending wasn’t a happy one, it also wasn’t disappointing. But the accents were. I don’t know how a New York cabbie got teleported back to Medieval England, but it did make sense that he was their guide.

The filming is gritty and dark, but not quite as dark as the Underworld series. (Could anything be darker than the Underworld series?) Score and soundtrack were good, and at the theater I saw it, the sound was damned loud. Guess I’d rather have the sound too loud than too quiet.

Overall, I rated Season of the Witch a 7 of 10 on IMDB.

Twenty-four years since Raising Arizona, and Nicolas Cage’s character in Season of the Witch isn’t so different from anything else he’s done. But I’m totally fine with that. Although in this film, I don’t recall him freaking out like this:

In a word, 2010 was stagnant. But it certainly wasn’t a bad year, and that in itself is an improvement over previous years.  Here’s some highlights of my 2010.

My First Published Short Story "Big Game" Appears in Apex Publications Compilation The Blackness Within

Conrad Zero = Published Author

2010 is the year I officially progressed from a writer to a published author. My story Big Game is now available through the Apex Publications compilation: The Blackness Within. Being picked for publication was an honor and a valuable experience. You can read more about my published authorness in this blog post.

My ratio of accepted submissions stands at 100%, so now I’m terrified to submit another story, because I might break my perfect record.

Read more about Big Game here.

Click here to purchase The Blackness Within.

MNSpec – The Minnesota Speculative Fiction Writers Group.

While I joined MNSpec back in 2009, it wasn’t until 2010 that I really started getting more involved with the writers group. Just a few months ago, I offered to record and edit the group’s monthly podcast and was accepted into the group’s inner circle.

And I thought they were kidding about the Secret Volcano Lair…

Netflix

With all the video rental chains dying off, I finally jumped on the Netflix train, and there’s no going back. The Netflix business model has changed the way I view video media. I pay a monthly fee and have access to hundreds of movies that can either be streamed immediately online or sent in the mail in a couple days. Because of this new system, I don’t feel a need to own anything but the very best movies.  I pay a subscription to access the Netflix movie library, and let them upkeep it for me.

I’m hoping other media businesses will consider this model. The publishing and recording industries for example. Rhapsody.com lets you access their vast music library for only $10 per month, but the website search/layout and the library just aren’t there yet.  The publishing industry… well, they just discovered this interweb fad and who knows? Someday they might even take it seriously.

The Roof Over My Head

A major event in 2010 was when State Farm Insurance refused to cover hailstorm damage to my roof, and falsely claimed that the damage was due to “defective shingles.” Seriously. They also notified me that they would drop my coverage if I didn’t replace the “defective shingles” at my own expense by 31 Oct 2010. Talk about adding (expensive) insult to injury. While all my neighbors had their roofs replaced by their insurance (none of them had State Farm btw…), I was blackmailed by State Farm to pay for my own replacement. The cheapest quote I could find was nearly eight thousand dollars. I couldn’t even switch insurance companies, because I had an open claim.

Thankfully, I have awesome friends and family who really came through for me when I needed them. With their help of time, effort, experience and tools, I was able to replace the roof myself for three thousand dollars.  Thank goodness for credit cards.

Of course the microsecond the roof was replaced I told State Farm to “suck it” and switched to Allstate Insurance. (Sorry Flo, I still love you, but Allstate’s cheaper!) My life’s goal now is to put State Farm out of business, and I hope all the lying, blackmailing adjusters at State Farm die in a house fire which State Farm refuses to cover because their homes are “defective.”

Music

Locally, City Pages finally figured out that Gay Witch Abortion deserved “Best Rock Band”.  Bella Koshka’s Island of Deception was a brilliant ‘Gypsy Noir’ followup to their 2008 debut, Slow Dancing on the Ocean Floor, but they disappeared right after their CD release party on May 7th. Poor Weather Club released the dark and brooding Escondido on the same day, and haven’t played out since last July. What gives? I’d complain that bands aren’t supporting their albums, but that would make me a hypocrite, since Jagged Spiral did the exact same thing.

On the national music front, what happened to the guitar heroes? When he’s not jamming with The Orb, David Gilmour is playing music soft enough to put Enya to sleep. I’m undecided on Neil Young’s Le Noise. I’m almost enjoying Shooter Jenning’s Black Ribbons album, which scares me. Mostly I’m listening to classic industrial alt-rock from NIN, Marilyn Manson, Nirvana, Alice In Chains, etc… Where’s the new alt-rock? When the hell is the new Tool album coming out?

Check out Spin’s picks for the 40 best albums of 2010. Rolling Stone gives their top 30 albums of 2010 here. And NPR gives their picks here. Seems everyone has decided that Kanye West is god.  Don’t know about that, but please, God Please, someone kill Kid Rock. Please? I’ll give you a dollar.

Video Games

It was a great year for video games. Bioware pretty much blew the doors off the video game industry in 2010. The 2009 release Dragon Age was amazing, and the expansions that continued into 2010 gave me plenty of reasons not to leave my dungeon. (Check out my review of Dragon Age here.) And the sci-fi games Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 surprised me with what might be the best Battlestar Galactica story never told.

I kicked around with The Orange Box, and Magic The Gathering. Blade Kitten took up a fair share of my time too.

I’m looking forward to a year of video game sequels in 2011: Fear 2, Dead Space 2, Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3.

Television

I don’t generally watch TV. Rave all you like about the latest fluff. If it’s any good, I’ll pick it up on Netflix. I Netflixed all episodes of The Mighty Boosh, and made it partway through the first season of Supernatural before I gave up.

And I have way too many interesting things to do to waste my time watching pointless drivel like Jersey Shore or Judge Judy. Ick.

Books

Non-fiction I read in 2010:

• The Art of War for Writers by James Scott Bell
• The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass
• Bullies, Bastards and Bitches by Jessica Page Morrell
• Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell
• Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint by Nancy Kress
• The Well-Fed Self-Publisher by Peter Bowerman
• The Self-Publishing Manual (and the accompanying Part 2) by Dan Poynter
• Publishing for Profit by Thomas Woll
• The Art and Craft of Storytelling by Nancy Lamb
• Revising Fiction by David Madden
• Adobe In Design CS2 classroom in a book – by the Adobe Creative Team
• The Great Reset by Richard Florida (read my review of The Great Reset here)

Fiction I read in 2010:

• Grimoire of the Necronomicon by Donald Tyson (At least you’d better hope this was fiction!)
• Cthulhu’s Reign by Darrell Schweitzer
• Draculas by Crouch, Kilborn, Strand and Wilson (read my review of Draculas here)
• The Mall of Cthulhu by Seamus Cooper (read my review of The Mall of Cthulhu here)
• Tales from the Tao by Solala Towler
• Greywalker by Kat Richardson

Movies

My two favorite films of  2010 were Inception and Black Swan.

TRON: Legacy, RED, The Book of Eli, Predators and Let Me In were great. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole was really good too, and the only film I saw in 3D last year. Disney kicked out a couple winners with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice as standard summer blockbusters.

Kick Ass, Iron Man 2, and Salt were marginal. Robin Hood, Faster, The Expendables and The A-Team were just what I expected – filler to kill time between good movies.  Harry Potter and the Fill-In-The-Blank was the same movie I’ve already seen six times. The Losers was awful, and Resident Evil: Afterlife was the biggest disappointment of the year.

I regret not seeing Machete or Despicable Me, but I refuse to watch The Social Network. Ever, ever, never. Not even for a triple-date with Milla Jovovich, Megan Fox and Flo the Progressive Insurance Girl.

New Year’s Resolution: 2011 The Year of Simplification

This year, I resolve to simplify my life. Increase efficiency. Reduce clutter. Mind you, this might mean physical clutter, or possibly emotional or spiritual clutter. Since all my New Year’s Resolutions are vague platitudes designed to be met whether I meet them or not (via a little philosophical wordplay), we’ll see which interpretation works best at the end of 2011.

I’ll probably reduce the amount of things I have stored in my house, especially media (DVDs, CDs, Books, Software, etc) Unless I’m sure I’m going to use them. Sometimes I wonder if I really am keeping things on a shelf because of their usefulness, or because of what they represent. Case in point: I have the entire CD collection of The Eagles on my shelf. Now I haven’t listened to The Eagles in years, probably not even ten years. Should I get rid of them? But I might listen to them someday! Agh! Time to simplify/effecientify/declutterify my life.

Did I Miss Anything?

The President blah blah blah… The Economy blah blah blah… If you want to read about all that crap, go someplace else. But if you have something culturific to add, drop it in the comments.

You Can’t.

Sorry. You probably came here looking for Tips and Tools. Instead, you found a disturbing Truth:

You can’t become a Great Author.

Before you get angry, you should know that the truth is worse than you think:

No one can become a Great Author.

Now you can get angry.

You’re probably saying that this is not true, and you can rattle off a dozen examples by the last name alone: King, Tolkien, Lovecraft, Gaiman, Rowling, Meyer… People who painted vivid pictures and epic sagas and amazing characters with only some words on a page.

I wanted to become a Great Author, and I read dozens of books that tell you how.  I read books that promise your manuscript can be the gold the interns lust after as they sludge through the slush pile into the thin morning hours.

But it’s all lies.

Avoid Passive Writing, one would say. Watch Your Point of View, says another. Make your protagonist human. Make your villains hateable. Write as much as you can. Write every day. Vary your sentence length. The secret is in the revision. Three-part story structure. Show , don’t tell. Be transparent. Work on your voice…

Lies. None of this will make you a Great Author.

I read the blogs of authors who actually made the book deal.  I read about when they write, and how they write, why they write, and what music they listen to while they write. I read about authors who don’t like their own stories, begrudging cranking out contractually-obligated manuscripts. I read about authors with a successful series of published books behind them and a multi-book contract ahead of them, they still need to hold down a second job, and thank goodness their spouse has a full-time job with medical insurance. They stuff their blogs with handy tips about how you can be a Great Author just like them.

Lies.

I read dark fiction / fantasy books like my own, trying to figure out what makes them good and what makes them suck. I dissected classics like a coroner stumbling through an alien autopsy while drunk and blindfolded, trying to tell one piece from another by touch, taste and smell. All I have left to show are a stack of books I really can’t read anymore.  Like my friend who let me look up her skirt on the school bus,  and now I’ll never see her in the same way again.

Lies.

I could walk over to the bargain bin at Half-Price Books and pick out at least one book neither of us have ever heard of, but it’s better than most of the current rack of Bestsellers at Borders.

Lies.

The Truth about Great Authors

Some of you already see through the veil of deception. It’s semantics. A word-game. The truth is that you can’t CHOOSE to become a Great Author, any more than you can choose to become a Lottery Winner.

This is summed up nicely in a simple illustration from The Art of War for Writers by David Scott Bell. At the bottom are those who dream and dabble. Naturally, the size of each section decreases as you go up the author’s career ladder. At the “top” are those who have several published works beneath their belts. But these authors aren’t necessarily “Great” and in fact, they might not even be “Good” but regardless they made it to the “top.” Their reward is not an Automatic Bestseller as you might think. Instead, they get a chance on the wheel.

Illustration of the author's career path from James Scott Bell's The Art of War For Writers

The Wheel Of Fortune

Great Authors are not picked off the street, they are picked off the top half of the pyramid in David Scott Bell’s illustration. Every single story you complete, every novel you publish, is an entry in the Author’s Wheel of Fortune. Every published work gets put Out There for the public to judge. Every one of them has the opportunity to become the next Bestseller.

But most of them are destined for the Bargain Bin. Thanks for playing, but we have some lovely parting gifts for you.

Why is this Good News for Writers?

You might think this is all very pessimistic. Intellectual Poison spread to dissuade others from even trying. Actually, I think it’s liberating. Sure, you don’t get to choose whether you win, but you can choose if you want to play.

Your novel has a shot at bestseller status just like James Rollins does. Think about that. Once you realize that you really only control your author career to a certain point, then you can focus on what matters -building a body of solid works. Consistent. Quality. A Platform. A Reputation.

Tipping the Scales

Yes, there are those who want to figure out how the wheel works. They spend endless time, money and effort trying to cheat the system, but here is all you really need to know:

1. Keep Publishing.
2. Get Better.

The more you play, the better your odds. The better your entries, the better your odds. These two tips combined have an exponential effect on your odds of becoming a Great Author. If you have lots of entries, each better than the last… do the math. That’s better odds than spending time and money on a viral video campaign for a crappy knockoff of Twilight that hasn’t been professionally edited.

In Summation:

I guess I lied. There is one way that you can become a Great Author:

Write.

Tips To Make Any Event More Professional

It’s awesome that there’s enough of a community to pull together themed fashion shows here in Minneapolis and St. Paul.  So far we have Music, Vampire, Zombie, and now Steampunk fashion shows. Most of them are very well done and professional. Some are not.

One show in particular left me disappointed. Truth is, I’d hesitate to call it even semi-professional. And that’s a shame, because with just a tiny bit of consideration and a few keystrokes, it could have been on a par with professional events like Voltage: Fashion Amplified.

I see authors who make the same mistakes and come across as unprofessional with their book readings, signings and other public events. This article suggests simple ways to make any event look and feel more professional. It doesn’t pertain to authors only; any event can be made more professional by implementing these suggestions.

Sharing

One way authors act unprofessional and amateurish is when they are overly-protective of their work.  I once met a guy who said he was writing a book, but wouldn’t tell me what it was about. A person in my writer’s group marked on the rough draft he submitted for an editing critique that it was copyrighted. Seriously.

Events can exhibit the same unprofessional behavior on a larger scale. The steampunk fashion show I attended announced that absolutely no one was to take pictures, and anyone so much as exposing a camera would be roughed up. Meanwhile, there were hordes of “approved” people (Read: friends) running videocameras and snapping pix throughout the show.

Contrast that behavior with Voltage Fashion Amplified, a music/fashion show run by local fashion maven, Anna Lee. Cameras are encouraged. Anna knows that even crappy pix from your cellphone are free publicity. Every single person who takes pix of that event, posts the pix online, and reviews the event on their blogs are contributing to the promotion of the event. Why would you limit free publicity?

I suspect that people who are overprotective of their work are simply afraid that someone else will do it better. If that is your fear, then you shouldn’t release your work to the public. Ever. In any shape or form. Just keep in in your closet until you die, then someone else can get rich off it. (Or more likely, throw it away.)

Give First, Sell Second.

• Having something on hand to sell is nice, but not necessary.
• Having something on hand to give away is necessary.

Most people get this backwards, and treat their event like a Pampered Chef party. “Come to my book reading so you can buy my book!” does not entice anyone but your mother to show up. Tell people what’s in it for them, not what’s in it for you.  Free is the keyword. If your event doesn’t cost anything, say so. Prizes and giveaways are a good incentive. You don’t have to give away gold bricks or vials of unicorn tears. Bookmarks, posters or a drawing for a free (signed) copy of your book will work and they don’t cost much.

If you’re charging admission, you better have something pretty stellar to show. People want a lot for their money.

Recently, Prince held a concert and a “free” copy of his latest CD was included in the ticket price. We know better. The price of admission was raised to offset the cost of the CD and his album sales skyrocketed. Someone put a stop to that behavior, and good thing, because it wasn’t fair to those who already owned the CD. But nothing says authors can’t do something similar, like having the book available right at the door and offer a discount if purchased at the same time as the event cover.

Get a Quality MC

The Master of Ceremonies is the personification of your event – arguably as important than the talent. A hack MC can make even a good event look like its run by hacks. There’s more to being a good MC than just being comfortable in front of an audience, and it’s more than just filling empty space with witty banter.

An example of a great event MC is local hero Bobby Marsden, who runs the Fearless Filmmakers events. Bobby knows how to keep things moving along. He can direct a group of people on stage as easily as he can direct the attention of the audience, all while maintaining a sense of humor. Bobby Marsden knows how to control the event. And when he doesn’t, he knows how to maintain appearance of control over the event.  Things go wrong. The next act isn’t ready. The projector is broken. The microphone is cutting out. I’ve seen Bobby deal with all this in style, and most of the time, the audience doesn’t even realize something is wrong.

If the MC doesn’t have control, the audience will try to ‘help.’ NOTHING makes your show look like it was put on by a bunch of fanboyz than a bunch of fanboyz who hijack the show from an inept MC.

Be careful when your MC is also appearing in the show as an act. You might argue that the Oscars, Saturday Night Live and the Teen Choice Awards have announcers and presenters whom also take part in the show. The difference is that they are famous.  If you can get Lady Gaga to MC your show, then by all means have her on as a musical guest too. Having your cousin Tim act as MC is fine, but when he shows up later as a musical guest, it looks cheap.

Don’t Hide Your Event

It should be obvious, but if you want people to find your event, posting fliers all over town is optional. Posting the event info online is not. And I don’t mean  just the Date, Time and Place. People need to know if there is a cover charge, how long will the event last, and if there are age limitations. Most importantly, if the content of your event isn’t obvious from the title then you need to give a description of the event, ideally one that entices people to go.

It’s not good enough to list the event info on your blog. No one reads your blog. I know, because no one reads mine either. You need to put the info where people will go looking for it.

• Start with the venue website.
• Local media – Here in Minneapolis, the must-haves are vita.mn and city pages.com, but don’t overlook the MN Daily website, the Rake, Metromix.com and others.
• Specialty websites for your type of event. For example Dark Twin Cities.com loves to list local events with some dark flair. Jambase and Eventful list music events.
• If you didn’t think of social media like facebook, myspace and twitter, et al. then you should have someone else promote your events for you.
• Fine, go ahead and put it on your blog too. It’ll make you feel better.

You’re probably laughing right now. “Zero, have you been smoking grickle-grass with the Lorax? Everybody knows you have to list your events online!”

Um, actually, they don’t. When searching online for the steampunk fashion show, all I could find was an abstract event name which had more to do with porn stars than steampunk fashion. I ended up getting a tiny bit of info from one of the fashion designers for the show, and I totally took a chance even going. Most people would have given up. Actually, most people would never have found out in the first place. Perhaps the people holding the event didn’t want others to attend? Was it pseudo-members-only? That’s the feeling I got, which brings me to my next point.

Don’t Exclude your Audience

Add up the above suggestions and you’ll arrive at a larger truth about events. Be inclusive. Not exclusive. Cliques are for kids. No one’s going to have good things to say about your event if they feel snubbed. In fact, they’ll probably write a blog post just like this one.

If you’re a first-time visitor to Goth Prom, Renn Fest, Voltage: Fashion Amplified, the Zombie Pub Crawl, and other artistic events in the Minneapolis area, you’ll be welcomed, hit on, and have fake blood puked on you like everyone else. That’s the kind of experience that makes you want to not only come back again next year, but invite more people.

Planning

I shouldn’t have to say this, but have a schedule. Stick to it as close as you can, but be prepared to be flexible when things go wrong.

Team Up

OK, maybe you aren’t a big deal. Maybe the only crowd you can draw is your mother, and that’s because you live with her and will be driving her to the event yourself. If so, you might consider adding to the talent pool. A little cross-promotion can go a long way. Get your author friends involved and make a bigger event out of it. Get local vendors involved. God forbid if you can make the event big enough you might get some sponsors interested.

Summary

Is there anything wrong with a writer booking a venue and ignoring these thoughtful tips? Of course not. As long as they’re happy with just their friends showing up. In which case, they’d be money ahead to hold the event in their parents garage, then they can have full control of the event and keep all the money for themselves instead of splitting it with the venue.

But if you want to run a pro event that will grow over time, you have to include your audience. Make sure they know how fun and value-added your event is. Have a schedule and make sure your MC can manage the crowd in case things go wrong. Make your event findable online. These things separate the pros from a bunch of kids screwing around.

Did I miss anything? Any other event-behaviors that irk you or make the event less-than-professional? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Don’t recall how I came across Richard Florida’s The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity, but it sounded like an interesting and timely read for someone curious about where things are heading here in Post-Crash America.

The last thing I was expecting was a book written by a geographer… sorry, I mean a self-proclaimed “leading urban expert.”  It’s too bad, because although there are a lot of insightful observations in The Great Reset, they’re buried in so much geographic factoids and musing that if you tore out all the pages filled with tripe about megacities, megaregions, corridors, belts and coasts, you’d have an amazing, thoughtful pamphlet easily one fifth the size of The Great Reset.

Where’s the Web?

One thing missing from The Great Reset is a fad called the Internet.  Mobile computing is also conspicuously absent. Richard Florida must not think these things have a bearing on the current situation or our “new ways of living” because they aren’t mentioned. This is probably because Mr. Florida is a self-proclaimed leading urban expert, and he’s more interested and versed in the physical world than the virtual one. Note that he’s not a suburban expert or a rural expert, so you can probably guess his suggestions for post-crash prosperity, but I’ll touch on some of his main points:

Houses Bad, Apartments Good

He calls suburban houses McMansions. There’s no doubt they played a major part in the housing bubble burst, and were a major contributor to the current recession, but it’s not the houses themselves that are bad. Not even the big ones. It’s people buying houses they couldn’t afford that caused problems. Even I know that, and I’m just a hack writer from Minneapolis. The Great Reset tears down the American Dream of owning a home, equating it to a nightmarish anchor that limits your flexibility, ties you down and sucks all your money away, giving nothing back. Not true of course, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

Mr. Florida believes you are better off living in more consolidated housing. He doesn’t do this himself, mind you. He lives in a house near Toronto, Canada. Most of his rationale about housing is the debt that comes with them, which ties into his next major point:

Owning Bad, Renting Good

Mr. Florida says that housing can no longer be considered an asset that increases in value over time. I don’t know who thought this, but I guess some people did. Anyway, he suggests renting becoming more prevalent as part of the new post-crash economy, which will allow people to be flexible in their employment and living options.

He mentions a housing concept that makes your rental living space more like a subscription that you can change on a moment’s notice. An interesting concept, but one that he doesn’t dwell on long enough to consider its effects. I would have liked to hear what he thought about how ‘subscription housing’ would effect human migration patterns or working conditions or influence job markets.  (Would people move to follow nice weather? Would states change their laws or taxes to attract residents? What if businesses were free to move about like people?) Exactly the kind of things I’d hoped to find in this book, sadly lacking.

The internet also makes a case against The Great Reset’s tend towards renting vs owning. What kind of flexibility do you need in housing when you can telecommute? Doesn’t it seem more likely that people will scatter away from high-density (Read: Expensive) areas to get larger property for less cost, and make up for the distance by utilizing high-speed communications technology to trade video/audio/ideas?

This all overlooks an important aspect of owning a home – after you pay off your mortgage, you DONT HAVE A HOUSE PAYMENT ANYMORE. What’s more, this conveniently happens at an important time of your life -  retirement, when your income also tends to decrease. And once your home is paid for, even if it’s only worth a fraction of what you bought it for, that equity is profit when you sell. Houses may decrease in value, but they won’t decrease to $0 in thirty years. If you rent, you’ll PAY FOREVER and OWN NOTHING, so keep that in mind, because the “leading urban expert” did not.

Suburbs Bad, Cities Good.

I’d hate to see Richard Florida’s dream world. It would probably look like Zion from the worst parts of the Matrix trilogy, stuffed with living cubicles that look like Bruce Willis’ apartment in The Fifth Element.

Then there’s  that pesky internet fad I keep talking about.  If a large portion of work, social interactions and entertainment move online, then it doesn’t really matter where you live. In that case, why not get more property for less money? Besides, if you put anyone like me into a hell like that, I’d kill everyone in a half-mile radius so I could have some personal space.

The MegaCity solution provided in The Great Reset doesn’t make sense to me.  I’m more inclined to believe cities will go the other way – breaking down into MicroCities; tiny sustainable communities similar to the villages of ye olde days, or the Happy Hippy Communes of the 70s. One person grows crops to feed the village, another raises cattle.  One works on computers, another works on the wind turbine and solar panels that power the village. They all pitch in and work together to keep their little community running.  Strangely, our Leading Urban Expert never even considers or mentions this possibility. Probably because if it came true, he’d be out of work, and have to retrain to be a Village Expert.

Cars Bad, Bullet Trains Good

Mr. Florida sees cars as an outdated mode of transportation. He advocates connecting large cities together with high speed transit, turning multiple MegaCities into MegaRegions.  He suggests that high-speed rail connecting lame-o cities like Minneapolis to important cities like Chicago would allow people to commute to where the jobs are.

But doesn’t this just bump the McMansion problem to a larger scale? Isn’t taking the bullet train from Minneapolis to Chicago every day just like driving your Humvee to work from your McMansion the suburbs? Not to Mr. Florida, who sees a half-hour car trip from the suburbs to the city as wasteful, stressful and pollutive, but a ninety minute bullet train ride between Pittsburg and DC is “reasonable”. Huh? And how this is different from Airplane travel (that we already have) isn’t clear.

I’m sorry, but public transportation does not solve all the problems.  If you agree that one of the key features of the “new normal” will be flexibility in jobs, housing and entertainment, public transportation fails, big time. Personal transportation wins. Once again, it isn’t the big cars that are the problem, big cars that people can’t afford are the problem. Easily solved by making smaller, more efficient transportation like smart cars, motorcycles and mopeds, which we already have.

Another possibility that Mr. Florida never considered is that people might start to collect multiple forms of transportation. They’ll walk/bike to work. They’ll take the bus or rail downtown on weekends. They might have a moped/scooter for traveling to friends who don’t live near a busline.  And they might still have the big Range Rover under a tarp, but it’s only for the occasional vacation or longer trip.

The Upshot

The overall impression I get from The Great Reset is that Americans should all move to New York and LA. This would not only be efficient and reduce our carbon footprint, but it would make us more connected, so we are better able to exchange and ideas and… well, stuff we share over the internet now.

There is a saying that when the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I’d say when you’re a “leading urban expert” everything looks like a problem that can be solved by packing into a Megacity where life is more ‘efficient’. Perhaps he would have a more balanced view if he specialized in geography instead of just urban areas.

Despite many fallacies, omissions, and fluffed up geography discussions that would bore a city planner, The Great Reset poses useful thoughts on consumerism, education,  political policies and trends regarding the current recession and comparisons to previous “Resets”. But you’ll have to read ten pages to get one page of useful info.

Which are more important to you, songs or stories? Which would you rather have, a world without books, or a world without music? A recent Wired article about the Google books legal fiasco made me realize that society has already answered this question.

In a previous blog post I compared the current complaints of the publishing industry to the music industry’s cries from ten years earlier. In a nutshell, the publishing industry is experiencing the pains of virtualizing their product and coming up with a business model that integrates with internet technology. Lawyers, lawsuits, pirates, copyright, DRM… it’s the exact same paradigm shift the music industry had to make ten years ago. But the publishing industry is determined to retrace the steps of the music industry instead of learning from their mistakes.

I guess Sting said it best, “History will teach us nothing.”

Text vs Tunes

Consider this – computers and the internet have excelled at working with text right out of the box for almost 50 years. The ASCII format for text storage and transmission was created in 1963. E-mails were being sent in the early 70′s.

But music had to twist itself in a knot to adapt to computers and the internet. It had to struggle with the insane conversion from an analog to a digital format. Then add in compression and compatibility issues. The MP3 Format was created in 1991, and didn’t really catch on until internet speeds rose in the late 90′s and early 00′s.

So don’t you think it’s odd that Music ran into the problems involved with product virtualization and online business models ten years ago, but the publishing industry is having these problems now? Why didn’t the publishing industry hit this crossroads first?

The publishing industry should have been dealing with piracy, copyright and DRM issues WAY before the music industry, but it took text thirty years to make the jump from the physical page to the virtual mainstream, yet music took only ten.

Looks like the choice was made. Music is a hotter commodity than books.

Sorry books, but music wins.

There’s several reasons why I think tunes trumped tales on the internet.

E-book readers – The I-pod evolved naturally from the portable cassette and CD players, and clearly the I-pod is an improvement in music portabilty. There’s no similar device to serve as a precedent for books, which are already portable and wireless.

You could argue that every computer with a display  is an “e-book reader.” But I can’t think of anyone who really wants to read Moby Dick on their computer monitor. Even the best e-book readers on the market today can’t hold a candle to a real book made of paper. So it’s no surprise that music made the digital jump before books.

Short No attention span – We can listen to music while doing other things, and more importantly, music can make those other things more pleasurable. Think of all the people who are driving, snowboarding, or even working while music is playing. Life is better with a soundtrack.

Meanwhile, books take more of our attention away from the world. We need to turn pages, and keep our eyes locked on the page. You can’t drive, snowboard or work while reading. (or shouldn’t, anyway.)

Gen X/Y vs the Baby Boomers – Lets not overlook the core group of people whose lives are caught in the ‘net. It probably goes without saying that Gen X’ers who latched onto the internet quickly and Gen Y’ers who probably can’t imagine the world without it, spend more time on the internet than their parents. It’s also not hard to believe that this large subsection of the population using the internet listens to music more often than they read.

This would be a case of the industry following the market (albeit kicking and screaming, but eventually following.)

Drag race on the Information SuperHighway

Does this mean that music is more important to us than books? Or that the publishing industry has more resistance to change than the music industry? Regardless, neither industry was in a hurry to embrace the new tech. On the internet superhighway if the music industry drives a 1986 Ford Fiesta, then the publishing industry must be walking. And I haven’t even touched on the software or video industries. I leave that to you as a homework exercise.

As both a writer and a musician, it pains me to even think about picking one over the other. But if I had to pick between .mp3 files and .docs I’d choose music. If nothing else, we could convert all the books in the world to audio format, but there really isn’t a way to translate music into text.

What do you think? Drop your thoughts/comments below.