'free zine offer' update, and another promotion idea

Turns out the Kindle Select service I mentioned in a previous post isn't really an opportunity to read "The ElectroLive Murders" for free. To get access to Kindle Select, you have to pay for Amazon Prime service--and that costs $79 a year. If you're already paying for Amazon Prime, and you want a free copy of Map of Fog 3, the offer I mentioned in that previous post is still available to you. But if you're not paying for Prime service, and you still want to get a copy of Map of Fog 3 for free, check this out:

Contact me at "mcmfs at yahoo dot com" and I'll email you a PDF of the novelette. Read the novelette, post a review on the Amazon page for "The ElectroLive Murders", and then send me an email with your address. I'll mail you a free copy of Map of Fog 3. I've still got 19 free copies left.

(I suppose that even if you went ahead and bought a copy of "The ElectroLive Murders", then reviewed it and contacted me for your free copy of Map of Fog 3, you'd still be getting a deal of sorts. I normally sell Map of Fog 3 for $3, and going the buy-ElectroLive-and-then-review-it route would only cost 99 cents.)

Also, following up on this post, I've put another 'out of the box' promotion into effect. Several printing companies offer free business cards, though you have to pay shipping and the company puts its own contact info on each card's back. So I ordered mock business cards for a character from "The ElectroLive Murders", with a description of the genre of the novelette and instructions on how to find it. You can see a picture of one of the cards at the top of this post.

Originally I figured I'd give the cards to people I saw reading from Kindles, but now I figure that people who are absorbed in a story probably don't want some weirdo breaking the spell in order to hand them a business card. So now I'm trying to think of other ways to distribute the cards, like slipping them into Sci-Fi books at the library, or something.

Of course, hardcore Kindle users probably aren't heavy library users, so that particular plan might not be too successful. Hopefully I'll think up something better, but in any case, it only cost me $5.35 to get 250 cards (the cards were free, but shipping was $5.35), which is just about the amount of money I've earned from ElectroLive sales so far, so technically this promotion idea hasn't cost me anything. Except, of course, for time (which I'm continually squandering anyway), and maybe a little more self respect (bah! who needs it?).

THE ILLUMINATIONS, by Arthur Rimbaud (translated by Donald Revell)

There are certain writers whose fame owes more to their myth than to their writing. I'd put Arthur Rimbaud in that group, though I know that doing so is inviting attacks (Rimbaud enjoys cult-hero status amongst those with bohemian inclinations). Perhaps the classic example of the enfant terrible, Rimbaud scandalized the Parisian literary scene with his decadence. As a teenager he embroiled himself in a homosexual affair with an older (and married) man, and indulged in raucous behavior and uninhibited drug use.

His body of work is relatively small, composed almost entirely during his teenage years (by 21 he'd given up on writing all together). Amongst his most lauded works is THE ILLUMINATIONS, which is also some of the last writing he produced (other than letters to acquaintances, which have also been collected and published). It reads more as a series of prose-sketches than a cohesive work. I wonder whether Rimbaud ever considered it a book, or whether its creation and publication resulted primarily from other people raiding his notebooks.

Despite the legions of admirers, THE ILLUMINATIONS did little to inspire me. Here and there a sentence stood out, but the only piece that interested/satisfied me through all of its sentences was "City", and my interest/satisfaction came more from amusement at Rimbaud's humorous scorn (he was talking about London) than from any deep-passions. Anyway, here it is (as translated by Donald Revell):

"City"

I am a temporary and not unhappy citizen of a metropolis generally deemed modern because, in all of its furnishings and facades, and even in its overall city-plan, good taste has been scrupulously avoided. Here you will not find the slightest trace of any monument to superstition. In brief, language and morality have been reduced to their minims! These millions of people, all strangers to one another, pursue their educations and occupations and decripitude so uniformly that their life spans seem many times shorter than those statistically ordained for ordinary Europeans. From my window, I can see new specters rolling through thick, everlasting fumes--our forest shade, our summer night!--my cottage is my homeland and my whole heart because it is just like all the others, and out front, a whole new breed of Furies is arising,--Death without tears (our priceless housemaid), hopeless Love and pretty Crime puling in the gutter.

Free Zine offer

I got a form email from Amazon saying that Kindle's starting a new service called Kindle Select, and that I had the option to make my novelette The ElectroLive Murders available through that service. Basically, what it means for Kindle users is that they can 'borrow' books on the Kindle--get access to the book for a limited time for free. So I signed The ElectroLive Murders up for that service, which means you can read it without having to pay.

And, as an added bonus, and as part of my renewed interest in trying to promote the book, I'm offering the readers of my blog (yes, all one dozen of you!) extra incentive: if you read The ElectroLive Murders, and put up a review for it on Amazon, I'll send you a free copy of the newest issue of my zine Map of Fog. Just email me (mcmfs at yahoo dot com) your mailing address once you've done it.

(I'm not sure if anyone reading this will feel motivated enough to actually read and post and then email me, but in the extremely unlikely case that I get a totally unexpected flood of emails, I'm limiting the free zines to 20 in number. I'll be sure to put up a post on this blog if I'm getting close to that cap.)

Map of Fog 3 in Maximum RocknRoll #343

The third issue of my zine Map of Fog was chosen as one of the top ten zines in this month's issue of Maximum RocknRoll. They give it a positive review, too, saying the zine reads like something Studs Terkel would have written.

sticker design #1

approaches to translation

Just finished reading William O'Daly's translation of Aún, by Pablo Neruda, and it left me thinking about the different ways people approach the process of translation. You can either stray toward translating the literal meaning of the words, or toward an artistic translation that aims to communicate your interpretation of the deeper meaning.

For example, a common spoken farewell in Spain is "Hasta luego." In English, you might translate that to "See you later", which is a common spoken farewell in the United States, and which means pretty much the same thing. Or you could translate it to "Until later", which is more literal, and still understandable, but which might strike some as awkward.

O'Daly seems to favor the latter approach, but sometimes he sways in the other direction. One example is his version of the poem's title: Still Another Day. A more literal translation of "aún" would be the adverb "still", as in "I'm still breathing" ("aún respiro"). If O'Daly wanted to make sure the reader didn't read that "still" as the adjective "still" (as in "motionless") he could have translated the title to "Even Still," or something like that, which is closer to the literal meaning of the word. But he went for, instead, Still Another Day, which draws from the meaning of the poem (which deals thematically with the passage of days) to add meaning that the original Spanish title doesn't have.

Why did he do this? My guess is that he'd explain it as an artistic decision. He might tell you "Still Another Day" sounds more elegant than "Even Still". He might argue that Neruda's Spanish version of the poem is elegant, and that the elegance itself is something that should be preserved, instead of sacrificed by a more literal--and probably more awkward--translation.

And he might be right.

But personally, I almost always favor the more literal approach, and part of the reason for my preference relates specifically to that greater awkwardness. I think there is value in being reminded, while reading, that what you are reading is a translation. Awkwardness can help with that reminding.

Why is it important to remember that you are reading a translation? Because there is more to language than just the meaning of the words. Language, and the differences between languages, reveal differences in the minds of people. And if we abandon the literal approach, and translate not just the words but the sense of 'elegance' we get from a piece, if we translate it so it sounds like an American wrote it, then we lose something essential to the piece itself--we lose what it reveals about the mind that produced it.

beating a dead horse

Earlier this year I threw my hat in the ereader self-publishing ring by putting a novelette up on Kindle. Not much happened as a result--about 15 downloads in the first three months (mostly from family and friends), and nothing for the next several months after. But the number of people who own Kindles continues to grow, and now that they've dropped the price to $79 (it sold for $399 when it first came out, four years ago), it's likely that those numbers will fatten heartily this Christmas season. Meanwhile, my little novelette continues to sit there, earning too little to pay.

Anyway, since the work of putting the book up for sale is already done, I've been thinking recently about trying to continue promoting it. My past promotion attempts consisted of trying to get it reviewed by bloggers--and in the end that turned out to be a lot of work for almost no results. This time I'm trying to think of more out-of-the-box methods of promotion, especially promotion that engages the curiosity of potential buyers. The story is a murder mystery, a genre favored by people who like to put clues together, and I figure those types of people might appreciate a more intriguing hook.

The first promotion attempt I've thought of is writing about the story on dollar bills. Here's what I've been thinking of writing: "Who killed Franklin Moore? Kindle Search: 'electrolive murders'."

I'm not sure if doing this is risky or not. I haven't heard of any laws that specifically prohibit writing on paper currency, but some people seem to think it's illegal. Also, I suppose it's possible someone will get a bill and think it relates to a real murder, and try to contact the police. I'm hoping that won't happen. It seems like it would take less effort to search for 'electrolive murders' than to contact the police, and hopefully anyone who bothers to search the term will realize from the results that the murder relates to a fictional story.

Oh well. For now I'm planning on moving ahead with the idea. We'll see if anything results from it.

listen to Leonard when you feel happy

Listen to Leonard Cohen when you feel happy. Don't listen to him when you feel sad. Don't listen to him when you're home alone on a Saturday night, four beers through a sixer, too drunk to go anywhere (and nowhere to go, anyway), but not drunk enough to have your own emotional misery blotted out by physical discomfort.

Maybe listen to Beyonce instead.

ESPAÑA EN EL CORAZÓN, by Pablo Neruda

One of the things I didn't mention in yesterday's post about the SPANISH CIVIL WAR entry in the Simple History Series is the effort Gerlach makes to maintain a perspective that doesn't favor either side. It's difficult to do that in any account of war, and probably especially difficult for this war in particular. While I certainly appreciate the objective viewpoint in most informative writing, for this particular topic there's a lot to be learned by going beyond the objective. And while that might not be appropriate in the scheme of Gerlach's Simple History Series, the interested reader has a wealth of subjective information to explore, assuming they want to transcend the very simple.

A good place to start, in my mind, is Pablo Neruda's poetry collection ESPAÑA EN EL CORAZÓN. Written and printed while the war was still going on, Neruda's work captures some of the passion felt by those defending the Spanish Republic, and some of the atrociousness of the actions committed by Franco's forces. To those who prefer their poetry jaded and blasé in tone, Neruda's collection might come across as excessive. He seemed to recognize that himself, and addresses it in the closing stanzas of his poem Explico Algunas Cosas (I Explain a Few Things):

Preguntaréis por qué su poesía
no nos habla del sueño, de las hojas,
de los grandes volcanes de su país natal?

Venid a ver la sangre por las calles,
venid a ver
la sangre por las calles,
venid a ver la sangre
por las calles!

(here's a translation:)

You all will ask why my poems
don't talk of sleep, of leaves,
of the large volcanoes of my native country.

Come and look at the blood in the streets,
come and look
at the blood in the streets,
come and look at the blood
in the streets!

Simple History Series: the Spanish Civil War

Microcosm has taken over the publishing of John Gerlach's Simple History Series, with the volume covering the Spanish Civil War being the second they've printed. I picked up a copy on Sunday, and read through it that afternoon.

One of the first questions that came to mind, while reading this zine, was: how simple is too simple? Gerlach has stripped the topic down to the point where it offers less information than you'd find in the Wikipedia article on the same subject (I'm obliged to mention here that I found Gerlach's work easier to read than the Wikipedia article, and simplification might be part of why). At what point do the benefits of simplification founder under the weight of its drawbacks?

Another question: can the potential benefit of covering this topic in Gerlach's series be quantified? I've got the feeling that a fair amount of the people who pick up this zine might have never read anything about the Spanish Civil War otherwise. Sure, the topic has a special place in the hearts of a lot of revolutionary-minded people because of the radical political forces involved (conservatives/fascists vs. communists/anarchists/progressives), but for all of those 'revolutionaries' who identify as intellectual and love diving into books and articles, you've got plenty more who wouldn't touch a thick tome with a ten-foot pole, but might actually read a zine (especially if that zine is promoted by Microcosm, which has a pretty large audience).

A third question, less about this title itself and more about the topic covered: what would it take for a similar war to take place here in the United States? The Spanish Civil War came about because of the failure of Spain's political system to satisfy the demands of a people that had been dramatically polarized into the haves and the have-nots (to boil things down to even simpler terms than those found in Gerlach's zine). With the outrageous disparity of wealth in this country (1, 2), and with the dissatisfaction felt by so many people here (as evidenced by the Occupy movement, amongst other things), today's USA has a lot in common with Spain in the 1930s. And yet, it's pretty hard for me to imagine our populace actually taking up arms.