Thursday, November 26, 2020
Thursday, October 29, 2020
COVER REVEAL FOR HARD TIMES
Hi folks,
Well, here it is--my cover for my new novel, HARD TIMES, coming out December 8 from Bronzeville Books. It's available for preorder now from Amazon.
Hard Times is the best country noir I’ve read in a long while. A knife-edged, cold-eyed story of love and hate at their most visceral, it’s worthy of a place of pride on the shelf next to William Gay and Daniel Woodrell.”—Scott Phillips, author of Ice Harvest and That Left Turn at Albuquerque
COVER BY
Reginald Pulliam
Sunday, July 26, 2020
Sunday, April 5, 2020
AMAZON IS SCREWING ME--YOU MAY BE NEXT.
Hi folks,
Many, if not most of the folks who visit
my blog are writers or avid readers. Therefore, I think you are the best
possible audience to let know what recently happened to me.
As you know, it takes a lot to create a
book. In my case, I average about a year for each book. Since writing is my
only job, that’s a year without pay. Then, once the book is done, I have to
find an agent, and/or find a publisher. Once a publisher is found, that’s not
the end of it. Now there are edits to perform. All of this takes time and work.
My next novel, for example, took a little over a year to write and I actually
sold it seven months ago. It’s scheduled to launch in November. A long time
from when I wrote the first words.
There are a lot of things arrayed
against the publishing of a book and a lot of time to wait on a paycheck if it
overcomes all the obstacles. Up until now, it’s just been part of the deal.
Nobody likes it, but we all accept it.
And now, one more obstacle has been
thrown into the mix. And this is a big one.
As you know, unless you’re a brand-name
author, any publicity you get for your work is hard won. Mostly, publicity for
your work consists of reviews for it. And, virtually the only place reviews can
be placed and seen is on Amazon. Authors have little to no control over the
reviews they get. Folks buy and read your book and then post their opinions of
it on Amazon. Hopefully, their reading experience was positive and so is the
review they write and post. Not always. And, we have no control over that.
Over many years, I’ve received many
reviews for the books I’ve written. Thankfully, the vast majority of them have
been positive. Very few negative ones. And, they’ve helped tremendously with
sales.
Imagine how I felt when about a week
ago, I decided to check the number of reviews I had for my books. I knew a
couple were getting close to those “magic” numbers that trigger Amazon’s
algorithms and once achieved, leads to them including your titles in various
promotions. I’m not sure what those numbers are, but someone told me that 50
reviews was one of them. A couple of my books were approaching this number.
One that had been close was my novel,
THE GENUINE, IMITATION, PLASTIC KIDNAPPING. I hadn’t checked in several weeks
but the last time I had it was at 48 or 49 or thereabouts. When I clicked on
the title, I received a severe shock. A bunch of reviews that had been on it
for months and sometimes years, had disappeared. They only showed 23 reviews!
After telling several writer friends and notifying the publisher, I was hugely
disappointed in their responses. A couple of friends said things like, “I’ve
heard of them doing that,” and offering their condolences, and the publisher
saying the same things, but no one offered to help me figure out what had happened
or what my recourse could be.
It took some digging and trying to
figure out Amazon’s maze to reach an actual person, but I finally did. I sent
an email and a couple of days later, received this:
|
|
|
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This time, I went through their maze of
responses and finally got a real person to talk to. Oh… also, by this time,
reviews for another book of mine, BOMB!, had vanished close to 40 reviews or
more and there were only 11 left! Here’s the exchange I had next.
Hi Les Edgerton, Ada here.
A
10:44 AM
Hi Ada,Reviews have disappeared from my books on sale
with Amazon. Last week, over 30 reviews disappeared from a novel and this week
about the same just disappeared from another novel. I responded to the first
instance and got an email saying that there were four reasons this happens, but
it didn't tell me which of the reasons applied to mine, nor was I given any
info on what I could do to remedy the situation. Now, it's happened again. I
don't have a clue why this is happening.
10:45 AM
Ada | Customer Service
Oh no!
Sorry to hear that.
Let me check it for you.
A
10:47 AM
Yep. I've been a loyal customer of Amazon's for many
years--have purchased many, many books myself as well as sold my own books.
This is disturbing as I've never had any problem in the least with y'all.
10:48 AM
Ada | Customer Service
i don't have a direct contact to the department that
handle this kind of issue at this moment,is it okay if I sent an email to
them?they'll just get back to you after 24hours.
A
10:52 AM
That would be great, Ada. I just don't understand
this at all. Now I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop... wondering which book
is next on someone's hit list. Reviews help drive my sales and are very
important to me. Thank you for any help you can give me--I appreciate it.
10:54 AM
Ada | Customer Service
i already send an email to them
they will just get back to you after 24 hours
A
10:56 AM
Bye and have a good day. I appreciate your
help.
Ada | Customer Service
Thank you for contacting Amazon.
Have a great day!
Take care and God bless.
A
10:57 AM
I got a reply from them and they didn’t
actually lie—I received it after 24 hours… to be accurate, after 72 hours, and
it was the same message they’d sent the first time, this time signed by a guy
named Justin H. Up to this point I had been polite and restrained, but this was
too much. Here’s what I sent Justin (or whatever his or her real name was):
Justin W
This is totally unacceptable.
This is out and out censorship. Someone is systematically removing dozens of
reviews from my books and I have no recourse to see who or why they were
removed? This flies in the face of everything that is American and is more akin
to something done in a repressive country like Russia, Cuba, North Korea or
China.
Of your four "reasons"
I cannot think of a single review I have ever received that would apply to any
of those criteria.
i have spent literally thousands
and thousands of dollars on Amazon books and other products. This is simply
venal and evil.
Les Edgerton
I don’t know what to do. I guess I’m
hoping that enough of you will forward this to friends and make it go viral and
maybe Mr. Bezos will see it and realize the kind of censorship his minions are
performing. Probably not. If you think this can’t happen to you, think again.
Someone in a cubicle or working from his mom’s basement seems to have control
over you and your livelihood.
Or maybe thousands of you will rise up
and flood Amazon with millions of reviews for my books. Yeah…
I’ve just never felt this helpless. I
depend on your wonderful reviews to help sell my books and to have some halfwit
just take them down for one of their “reasons” arbitrarily because his mommy
forgot to put the jelly on his PB&J sandwich or wash his tidy whities on
time just makes me want to meet this dude in a dark alley and “talk” to him. I
can face my accuser in a court of law, but I can’t face the unknown moron who
is messing with my livelihood on Amazon. It’s clear they have us writers by the
short hairs and care nothing about our rights. This is a cautionary tale—this
is what monopolies like they’ve become often do.
If anyone has any idea of any recourse I
might have, please let me know. I’m just sick. This is symptomatic of many
other things happening to our country and our rights.
Blue skies,
Les
Saturday, March 28, 2020
JIMMY WYNN, THE "TOY CANNON" HAS PASSED AWAY.
Hi folks,
A former casual acquaintance of mine, Jimmy Wynn, aka "The Toy Cannon" former player for the Houston Astros, has just died at 78. I met Mr. Wynn at a Super Bowl in Houston when the Minnesota Vikings lost me a few thousand dollars.. I honestly don't even remember who they played--Miami? Doesn't matter and I'm not looking it up. I imagine most people who went to a Super Bowl would remember who played but I'm 77 and don't care any more. Anyway, we had seats on the 50-yard line and Jimmy sat directly behind us. I spent the entire ballgame talking to him--he was far more interesting than the game. (Did I mention I lost several thousand dollars on it? That, I remember.) Anyway, he was fun to talk to and I remember him much more than the lousy game (on which I lost a lot of money...) The entire game cost me $100, believe it or not. I belonged to a group of gamblers--high-rollers--led by a guy named Stan Pitzak, who owned the Linebacker Inn, across from where I worked near Notre Dame,. and Stan had his own plane on which he flew a bunch of us down on. The game was supposed to be in the Super Dome, but they had flooding or something and it was moved to Rice Stadium,. Where I lost a few thousand dollars and met Jimmy Wynn. We ate afterwards at a seafood restaurant just across from the San Jacinto Monument and when I returned home and mentioned to my mother where we'd eaten she told us my great grandparents had founded the restaurant. I think this story is in my memoir, Adenaline Junkie, but not sure. After all, I'm 77. I do remember I lost several thousand dollars betting on that sorry QB Fran Tarkenton, who continued to throw passes to receivers covered by multiple defenders, ignoring wide-open receivers who were begging for the ball, but seemed to be in Mr. Tarkenton's blind spot. That was the main subject of our conversation--Mr. Tarkenton's bad eyesight, which was costing Jimmy some hard-earned greenbacks as well. Never seen a TV broadcast of that game so don't know if it was obvious on TV as well, but it sure was to our group of gamblers and Mr. Wynn, who I believe had excellent eyesight. RIP, Jimmy! You could sure rip the cover off a baseball.
Blue skies,
Les
Saturday, March 21, 2020
SIT IN ON A SERIOUS WRITING CLASS DURING THE SELF-QUARANTINE
Hi folks,
I’d like to throw out something for your
consideration. We’re in a national crisis as you know where an awful lot of us
are staying home to do our part in defeating the Coronavirus, To make our self-imposed
exile from each other even worse, our entertainment options have been severely
curtailed with the cancellation of most sporting events, concerts, plays and
many of the normal outlets we enjoy. As a writer, one positive thing is that
people are reading more and book sales are up.
There is one thing that is available to
those of you who are writers or have often wondered if they have the skills to
be a writer. As most of you know, I host an online novel-writing class. We’ve
had enormous success over the years with nearly three dozen people who’ve
attended our classes and/or been coached by me privately having succeeded in
publishing their novels over the years. I don’t know of any other class with
our kind of class record.
Class members of an early class, all of whom became published (with the exception of Joe who is the husband of Maegan Beaumont whom he's standing next to.)
We also have another service we offer.
For quality control, each class is restricted to ten people. That way I can
spend sufficient time with each classmate and they can spend time with each
other as well. So we can’t add new classmates. But we have another popular
feature. We often have class auditors. Those are folks who sit in on our class
and see everything we’re doing. The only difference is they can’t participate
actively. They’re observing just like auditors in any college course. It’s
extremely valuable to every level of writer—from the raw beginner to the
polished professional. We’ve even had agents audit from time to time. Agents
audit to scout potential talent and are the only people we don’t charge. They
provide a valuable service for our participants.
All writers make the same errors that
prevent them from getting published. Over and over, we see the same mistakes
repeated. That’s why auditing is so valuable. Writers often don’t see their own
flaws, but when they see the same things they do repeated in other writers and
see why it’s not a positive trait and why, it informs their own writing
tremendously. I had one auditor who held an MFA from a good university tell me
after auditing our class that he’d learned more in ten weeks than he had in the
entirety of his university experience. That’s probably because our only goal is
to see each of our classmates become published and published well.
Two of my books we use in class.
There’s another benefit to auditing.
Whenever we have an opening, we go first to our auditors and offer them the
opportunity. Also, many times a newer writer is unsure about their ability.
Sitting in class and watching everyone else’s work and approach is an
eye-opener. Very often, they see their own level of ability reflected in others
and it raises their confidence. By the same token, often auditors see that they
have holes in their writer education but see clearly how to fill those holes.
All in all, it’s a great experience for a writer of any level of experience
and/or ability. It’s simply demystified.
Okay. Sales pitch over. Just wanted to
let folks know of our existence and availability. We’re just beginning the
second week of this session and everything we’ve done to date is always on the
site to study. The cost for full membership in class is $400, but the fee for
auditing is only $50.
This is a great time to join us! Just
seeing what we do will give many a sound idea where they are as writers and for
advanced writers, you’ll see work that will inform your own work and take you
to another level. And, for not much money at all!
If interested or if you have additional
questions, please shoot me an email at butchedgerton@comcast.net.
Hope to see some of you looking over our
shoulders soon!
Blue skies,
Les
Just a couple of the novels written in class.
Monday, February 10, 2020
NEW CLASS TO BEGIN
Hi folks,
Well, we’re just finishing up our final weeks on the current session of my online novel-writing class, “Les Edgerton’s Bootcamp for Writers,” and find ourselves with a couple of openings. Our next session will begin on March 8 and consists of a ten-week session, with the probability of taking a week off sometime during the term to recharge batteries.
This is a call for new class members. Not sure how many openings we’ll have as we offer vacancies first to our auditors.
The basics are the course costs $400 and it’s limited to ten people. The $400 is nonrefundable, as if a person quits during the session it would be impossible to fill that vacancy. As this is my primary source of income, it would be detrimental for myself and my family.
We’ve had a remarkable history of success. Nearly three dozen writers over the past dozen years who has become a part of our class or whom I’ve coached privately has gone on to being legitimately published and/or secured a good literary agent. In fact, that is our only goal—to become legitimately published.
Two of our published novelists--Maegan Beaumont and Linda Thompson (the ugly guy in the middle is moi...
I try to warn people who are thinking of joining us, how tough the class is, but I know from past experience that even so forewarned, at least some are going to be in for a shock when they see that we really don’t hold hands, pat people on the back for minimum efforts, or overlook writing that doesn’t work. I’m not cruel (at least I don’t think so) nor are any of the oldtimers in class, but most new folks haven’t been exposed to a class like ours. The truth is, most writers who haven’t had a class like ours has been praised in other classes or most likely, has been in classes that use the “sandwich” method of teaching. You know—that deal where the teach applies a bit of praise, then a bit of criticism, and then a bit of praise. Well, that ain’t our shtick. Not even close. The comments we all provide on everyone’s work fit one definition only. They’re honest.
This isn’t to be mean or to act like we’re the only folks around who know what good writing is. Except… we do. I’m not aware of any other class out there with the kind of track record ours enjoys. Virtually every writer who stays the course with us ends up with a top agent and/or a book deal. That doesn’t happen in a single ten-week session. About the earliest anyone has earned an agent or book deal in our class has been about a year. And, that’s reasonable.
The thing is, our writers don’t expect things to be easy.
I figured I’d let some of the class members give you their take on our class. They don’t hold back and they all have tough skins. They will all tell you the same thing. It isn’t a class for sissies or for those who need their hands held or lots of pats on the back. Becoming published is hard, hard work and isn’t an undertaking for sissies. To get there, our students know they have to put on their Big Boy and Big Girl pants and expect to work harder than they ever have in their lives—and to never, ever “settle” their standards of excellence.
From a student several years ago:
Hi. Since Les opened the floor for comments from the "class veterans" I'm chipping in with my two cents. I have a file cabinet filled with stuff I sent Les and then needed asbestos gloves to take the paper off the printer. When I started this journey, I'd never taken an English class past high school. (I was pre-med in college) I figured I love to read, so how hard can it be? Okay, quit laughing at me. Clearly, when I wrote my first version of my first novel, I had no idea about story structure, POV, any of that. I figured I'm pretty articulate and therefore I can write.
Les quickly set me straight. All of this is to point out that we've all been on the receiving end of Les' brutal honesty. I will find some of the comments he made on my work and post them but phrases like "throwing up in my mouth now" and "bury this so deep in the yard no one ever finds it" are seared into my brain and I don't have to look to find those!!! The point is, I took other classes before I met Les and the teachers were kind and gentle and never told me I sucked. If it weren't for Les, I'd still be churning out awful drivel that makes people want to throw up instead of trying not to throw up while I wait to see if my agent is able to sell my book. I would never have gotten an agent without Les. So hang in there. Listen to everything he says and if it doesn't make sense, ask away.
From another student:
The novel that I am currently trying to sell has been a work in progress for several years. The first time Les saw it he sent it back and told me to re-write the WHOLE thing!!! My character was a wimp. She sat back and let things happen to her. I argued a little, rewrote a little and then moved on to another book. After a year, I went back and reread it and saw the truth. It was awful. So I took a deep breath and started over. Page one. First sentence. Re-wrote the entire thing. It took a full year and then I revised it again. It's definitely a process. But once you get the inciting incident and the outline steps down pat, it's a whole lot easier. Trust me!!! And you'll never graduate completely. A few months ago, Les and I went head-to-head on one single passage. I was trying to be lazy and take the easy way out. He called me on it and I resubmitted three or four weeks in a row, revisions on the same passage. I was sure my classmates were so sick of it they were going to stick needles in their eyes rather than read it again! But in the end, the passage rocked!! So hang in there!!!! It'll get better. (Note: This novel sold and the writer is currently working on her fifth novel.)
Class members come from all over the globe. We’ve had students from the UK, Ireland, Taiwan, Spain, all parts of the U.S., Canada, Australia, Luxembourg and many other places. We work with writers in virtually every genre on the bookshelves. We agree with Nabokov that there are only two genres--good writing and bad writing.
The way class works is that the class is divided into two equal groups. We used to have just one group, but it got to be too much for many students. In the past, everybody in the class was required to read everybody else’s work each week and provide in-depth comments on everyone’s work. That meant they had to read nine other class members’ work and deliver intelligent commentary on each one. We’ve since evolved to a more manageable number where now each class member reads and delivers comments on just four other classmates’ work. I provide comments on everybody’s work and that’s why the class is limited to only ten. With ten writers, I can give each person the quality of time and analysis each deserves.
Each week begins on Sunday evening, when people can begin submitting their weekly pages from Sunday until Thursday. If it’s a new writer to the class, they are allowed to submit their first five pages of their novel, plus an outline which consists of five statements and a total of 15-20 words. Oldtimers in class call this “inciting incident hell.” If the outline isn’t working and their beginning doesn’t represent the inciting incident as provided in their outline, they are required to keep submitting each week until it does. Our feeling is if they haven’t thought through their novels sufficiently and provided a publishable novel structure (evidenced by the outline), then they most likely don’t have a novel ready to be written and to simply plunge ahead will almost invariably lead to an unfinished novel. We don’t want that.
Inc inc hell...
Once they’ve been okayed for the beginning, from thereafter they can submit up to eight pages per week, along with the others in class.
...and go on to win the pennant!
Time zones don’t matter. Everybody’s work, including everyone’s comments and my own comments on each person’s work each week is posted on the class site and folks can go to it any time of the day or night. Class members can begin sending back their comments on each others’ in their group from Sunday through the following Sunday, when it begins again. Although, in practicality, most members send in their work each week on Wednesdays and Thursdays. It’s like being in an “on-ground” class in that everything said or done in class is seen by everybody.
We do have a chat function and people use it all the time, even though they’re in different time zones. One of the best things about this class is that we have lots of old-timers who know from their own experience what works in a novel and what doesn’t and more importantly… why it works or doesn’t work. It’s like having a group of seven or eight other professionals helping you with your own novel. Probably at any given time in class, there will be four or five who already have had a novel or several published as a result of being in class, so it’s a really rarefied group. And, if you think that you couldn’t operate in a situation like this because you’re a beginner, that simply isn’t the case here at all. Nearly every single person in each class began just the way you did, as a rank beginner. And, they remember and they have complete empathy for your situation, if you’re a beginning writer.
It’s not a situation of simply saying, “This doesn’t work.” Myself and others in class will surely say that, but we then let you know why it didn’t work and give you solid suggestions on how to make it work. We collectively have a nurturing nature and all of us want the newcomer to succeed just about as badly as that writer wants to.
If you are still interested but still feel intimidated, I think if you simply look at how the class works, you’ll quickly see how you’ll fit in comfortably. Since we’ve got two weeks left in class, for anyone who would like to see up close and personal how we work as a class, I’d be delighted to give you auditor status for our last week. Besides class members, we also have an auditor function which works the same as it does in a “regular” college class. You’re admitted to class and can view every single thing we’re doing and the entire class session is archived and easy to access. Normally, the cost of auditing the class is $50, but for our last week, for those interested in simply getting a look at how we work, just email me at butchedgerton@comcast.net and let me know and I’ll have our class administrator, Holly, get you on board asap.
I know there are no doubt a lot of questions you may have. Please feel free to contact me at any time and ask me anything you’d like.
From past experience, when we’ve had openings like this, they go quickly, so if you are interested, please get in touch, okay?
For those interested in such things, here are a few of my own qualifications to teach writing.
MFA in Writing from Vermont College
Taught writing for the UCLA Extension Program
Taught writing via Skype for the New York Writer’s Workshop
Writer-in-Residence for three years for the University of Toledo
Writer-in-Residence for one year for Trine University
Taught writing classes for St. Francis University
Taught writing classes for Phoenix College
Taught writing for Writer’s Digest Online Classes
Taught writing classes for Vermont College
Published 20 books, including craft books on writing, novels, sports books, YA novel, historical nonfiction book, humor nonfiction, black comedy novel, noir, thrillers, literary and existential fiction.
Dozens of short stories published in such publications as The South Carolina Review, High Plains Literary Review, Aethlon, Flatmancrooked, Murdaland, Best American Mystery Stories and many others.
A lot of living… much of it as an outlaw…
Blue skies,
Les
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