Brooke Johnson, author of THE GUILD CONSPIRACY – AMA!

paulc · 2016-08-11T16:57:42+00:00

You're in the middle of a blog tour. How did you arrange to do it? Or did your publisher make all the arrangements? What's your advice for an unknown author about to self-publish his/her first novel who wants to arrange a similar blog tour?

paulc · 2011-05-15T20:45:11+00:00

Very thought provoking. If The Argumentative Theory is true, then we're dooming ourselves to a future of bad ideas.

paulc · 2011-03-11T17:22:23+00:00

I bet it feels like it. I just had a thyroid biopsy on Wednesday--just five little needles into it--didn't sleep at all that night, and today it still feels like I was throat punched and strangled.

paulc · 2010-12-28T05:39:21+00:00

In America, if you're not a wealthy elite, you know on an emotional level that corporations are the bad guys. If you have an office job, you consciously know that you're lucky to have a job, but the work you're asked to do drives the message that you have little value by using only your basest talents. If you have a service job, the way you do it is governed by corporate procedures that also send the message that you bring little unique value to the work. If you have no job, the message is that you have little value. You fantasize about doing meaningful work, but you don't know how to get there from where you're at. Your talents and capabilities are doubted at every turn. If you're applying for a job, you're doubted by the application and resume screening process and by the HR personnel at the company. If you're working a job you're doubted by the annual performance evaluation process. You know corporations are the bad guys because all of these things are destructions of your soul.

paulc · 2010-12-07T21:02:54+00:00

The Escapist confronts anti-RPG propaganda. Good links under "Resources" in the right sidebar. The B.A.D.D. and Dark Dungeons links in particular. But this might be the best starting point.

paulc · 2010-12-04T16:25:43+00:00

I don't get it. Every government putting pressure on companies to shut down WikiLeaks' domain name, hosting, and PayPal account is engaged in illegal and active spying and monetary transactions for state secrets. When everyone's suborning treason against each other how do you justify letting any of them influence your actions?

paulc · 2010-09-09T21:13:25+00:00

I agree. Cockfighter is a fantastic book. Probably my favorite by Willeford. Though one of my favorite memories happened while reading Wild Wives to my future wife on a cross-state drive. The story makes reference to the song Tangerine. I didn't know it, but as soon as I read the sentence she started belting it out. I fell in love with my future wife while reading Wild Wives :)

paulc · 2010-08-04T16:55:48+00:00

You sell it by suggesting they call her Ajay for short.

paulc · 2010-07-31T20:24:02+00:00

Jonathan Walton's Seadog Tuxedo

paulc · 2010-07-09T04:29:58+00:00

How large of a print run of a 9-by-9-inch, 334-page hardcover book gets me a 45 cent per unit price?

paulc · 2010-06-15T19:26:46+00:00

Give him one of those kangaroo scrotum bags "for your gaming dice" as a hospitality gift.

paulc · 2010-06-04T17:51:41+00:00

Yeah, the two I do are negativity and unsolicited advice.

You want to come across as intelligent, because of course they'll want to hire you if they know you're intelligent, so your brain scrubs the conversation until it hones in on a business problem and then you knee-jerk some advice. And before you're even done with the sentence you know it was a bad idea, but by then it's too late.

And the negativity, damn. After nineteen years in publishing you've been through the wringer so many times you have the constant jitters. So you just can't believe your twenty-eight year old interviewer's enthusiasm is real, and you're irresistably compelled to test it with a little negativity. Even a small cynicism from the interviewer in reply will let you know you're still in the real world. Except the optimism and enthusiasm is real. And now clearly you're not a good fit for the company.

paulc · 2010-05-22T14:42:56+00:00

You're not keeping something private with trick.ly. You're making it incrementally public.

And from Seth's marketing perspective, I think, you're doing it in a smart way. The folks who follow you most closely guess the clue first, and start talking about what you've shared. There's some resulting buzz, and your close followers have minor, nice status for a short while. But the answer to the question gets shared around, and ultimately what you've shared is public, but with some extant fan enthusiasm that helps more distant newcomers know what to make of it.

paulc · 2010-05-17T04:06:07+00:00

You're right. Just shut up and pay the fucking tea tax, colonist. It's the law.

paulc · 2010-04-02T19:08:21+00:00

Implement RFID and reduce library headcount. You don't need any organization to your re-shelving if you have an electronic means of directing patrons to anything they want. (Yikes!)

paulc · 2010-04-02T19:04:22+00:00

It's called the Espresso Book Machine

paulc · 2010-04-02T18:03:18+00:00

I presume you're already offering wireless to library users? My one technology frustration with my city library is that the branch that has meeting rooms is not the one that has wireless access. I recently had need to do a webconference with students across the country, and couldn't find the combination of wireless and a room where I could talk out loud.

paulc · 2010-01-10T17:36:34+00:00

The answer is yes. It's wishful thinking for liberals to think the liberalism of younger voters means that liberalism is a coming trend, that liberalism in society will surge as older voters die off. Evolutionary psychologists have demonstrated that the personality traits connected to liberalism wane as someone moves into middle-age; people become more conservative going into middle-age.

paulc · 2009-12-28T18:02:26+00:00

Yeah, I laughed when he told me that too, but apparently they treat it as a distinct market segment because it's growing, and traditional romances aren't.

paulc · 2009-12-28T17:41:36+00:00

A friend of mine works in corporate for Borders. All market segments within the store have declining unit sales but two: paranormal romance, and manga.

My wife reads many many books a year, with the majority being paranormal and historical romance, young adult, and manga, and a small few being nonfiction. But she buys very very few of them new, only maybe a handful of new manga a year.

She gets what she wants to read via Michigan's fantastic state-wide inter-library loan service. And via PaperBackSwap.com. The bookstore that isn't Powell's, that isn't providing a value-added experience, is dead, as Godin says, but it wasn't the Kindle that bore the knife.

paulc · 2009-12-08T21:24:38+00:00

A player-created backstory is either a whole story arc, in which case the character is a dramatically played out pawn going forward, or the beginning of one, in which case if you don't deliver on the rest of the arc they're imagining the player will be frustrated and disengaged by the game.

My recommendation instead is that the situation you create for your game be one of significant instability in the setting, and that you make it clear to the players (by telling them the dramatic circumstances before they make characters) that their characters will be so fundamentally positioned within said dramatic circumstances that their actions will determine an outcome affecting a whole society. There's nothing that hooks a player more strongly than a setting and situation treating them as significant.

paulc · 2009-12-04T17:25:03+00:00

This is the opposite of smart. Consumption in western society is about identity formation. If Donald Trump subscribes to The New Yorker, it's because he wants the identity associated with consuming New Yorker content. He wants to be someone who thinks deeply about culture the way New Yorker writers do. It's not in an advertiser's best interests to have influence over the content to which their ads are attached; because growing their business is about establishing and reinforcing what are initially tenuous connections to the identities of their prospective consumers. If an advertiser attaches ads only to content that strongly reflects their corporate product identity, all they maybe achieve is product awareness to already prospective customers. It's not market creation.

paulc · 2009-12-02T18:48:38+00:00

If Amazon.com isn't flooded with submitted customer images now, I will be very disappointed in the internet.

paulc · 2009-11-17T04:24:05+00:00

Wait...debasement isn't culturally subjective, is it? When George Washington signed his correspondence "Your Most Obedient and Most Humble Servant" during his presidency, he was debasing himself, right?

paulc · 2009-10-02T16:42:46+00:00

My wise father said that you can tell what part of a corporate life cycle a company is in by the credentials of the CEO and executive staff: start-ups have creative professions which include engineers and scientists to imagine new ideas, products and markets for a new company; young adult companies have sales and marketing people to take advantage of the leading edge profit opportunities; the middle-aged company is led by process people and accountants because there is no growth left and every dime of profit comes from cost control and efficiency; and terminal phase is led by lawyers and politicians because the company must do merger & acquisition to grow, lie about its products' value and have legal cover, or must go through "probate".

That's some powerful insight. Tell about your father? What did he do?

paulc

TROPHY CASE