The AI bots offer to save me from obscurity

/ Scott Nagele / 2 Comments

I hope an AI program is saving somebody’s life in a hospital right now, because it’s not doing me any favors.

I’m at the age when you develop a natural suspicion of a new technology, but I’m still young enough to recognize when somebody is using it to try to make a quick buck off me.

I hoped I could live in blissful ignorance of AI until the day when Skynet sends Arnold Schwarzenegger back in time to wipe my puny human blot off the face of the Earth.

No such luck.

I’ve begun getting random emails, clearly AI-generated, from fake people extoling the countless virtues of the books I’ve written.

The emails contain more detail about the plots of the novels than a person could glean in a reasonable time from reviews and samples, but less and different details than a real person would mention after having read any of the books.

Also, the flattery is at a superhuman level.

The flattery is important because the purpose of each email is to convince me to pay the bank account behind the machine to help me find the audience my novels so richly deserve.

The “author” of the email claims to be the “curator” of a 2500 highly-motivated readers and reviewers. And how would you like for this “curator” to share your amazing novel with this hungry group?

I don’t normally respond to this type of thing, but one of them was particularly persistent. I let her know that she was free to share the book she loved so well with anyone she thought would be interested.

As you might expect, her reply included the price list for this group of book-lovers. Her voracious readers were on sale for $25 each. Yes, that means I pay people $25 to read my work.

I figure this must be the new math they got in schools now.

In my own way, I told her no thank you.

I can buy as many as I want for $25 each.

But she kept sending emails. I should mention that her emails contained a mildly sexy photo of a young woman in the signature. I think that was supposed to make me believe the picture was her, and perhaps I would be more willing to throw money at a mildly sexy young woman and her brothel of literary prostitutes.

I was not.

I did show the picture to my wife, who is mildly concerned that pictures of mildly sexy young women will induce a mildly dangerous heart attack within her mildly aging husband.

The sleuth I married initiated a web search of the alleged mildly sexy woman and came up with nothing. Apparently, the 2500 readers are all curated old school, because it’s not happening online. My wife also noticed that the name in the signature was spelled mildly differently from name in the email address.

I have not responded since. I’ve even stopped looking at the picture of the mildly sexy woman AI scraped off the web. That’s when you know you’ve lost me.

I have every reason to be satisfied with the transaction. At $25 per head, I’ve saved a lot of money on all the people who have never read my books. That’s a small fortune.

Plus, I feel better about our coming war with the machines knowing the cyborgs still haven’t mastered spell check.

All Fall Down – flash fiction

/ Scott Nagele / 2 Comments

Jack stuck his head through the doorway of his son’s bedroom. “Kyle, Mom says dinner’s ready in ten.”

Kyle lay on his bed, eyes glued to his phone. “Uh-huh.”

Jack stepped into the room. It might not be the best time to ask, but there seemed never to be good times to ask things anymore. “Did you go to all your classes today?”

Kyle’s eyes did not move. “Uh-huh.”

“That’s good.” Jack lingered, searching once again for common ground with which to break through the wall of ice.

His eyes found the shelf across from Kyle’s bed. On this shelf, in neat ranks, stood dozens of PEZ dispensers. Superheroes stood shoulder to shoulder with Star Wars characters. Villains surrounded Santa Claus. Ulysses S. Grant and Rutherford B. Hayes kept company with Mario and Luigi.

 Jack stepped nearer the shelf. “There’s a lot of memories on this shelf,” he said.

“Uh-huh.”

“There’s the Joker, on the end. I gave him to you when you scored your first touchdown. That was fourth grade, wasn’t it?”

“Probably.”

“You dropped him on the tile floor and broke off a piece of his base. We tried to glue it back, but we couldn’t get it to stay. You almost cried, but you didn’t. I started calling him Gimpy Joker and that made you laugh. Remember that?”

“Not really.”

“And there’s the stormtrooper I gave you when you got perfect attendance in sixth grade.” The words were out of his mouth before he realized that was probably not the best subject to mention these days.

He moved on quickly. “I don’t remember when you got them all, but I remember most of them. Those presidents are from the set you got when you made first chair in eighth grade band. I wish you would still play. You’re so talented.”

“You can have ‘em back, if you want.”

“Oh no! I’d never take them. There’s so many special moments here.”

“Dad, can you just leave me alone for a while?”

Jack took a breath and decided this was a moment to resist. “Kyle, you always want me to leave you alone. Sometimes I just want to spend a few minutes with you, talk to you like we used to. We used to have such great times together, and now you look at me like you hate me. Where did I go wrong?”

“I don’t know. Could you please just go away for minute.”

“I don’t want to go away. I want my son back.”

Kyle’s eyes moved from his phone. He rolled out of bed and shot up like a bolt. “If you won’t leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone with your toys!” He stormed out and slammed the door behind him.

The vibration in the walls caused the Gimpy Joker to wobble.

Jack leapt to catch him. It was too late.

The Joker toppled into the Halloween ghost beside him. The ghost hit the vampire and the witch. Each of them took out two or three others. They fell like dominoes until no Pez memory was left standing. Those at the edges spilled onto the floor.

At Jack’s feet lay the Gimpy Joker, with his green hair, ruby red mouth, and thin row of white teeth. He grinned up at Jack with his unchanging smile, as though it would always be yesterday.

Flowers – flash fiction

/ Scott Nagele / Leave a comment

The cemetery was within walking distance. In fact, it was in shuffling distance.

Arthur shuffled through the front entrance and made his way along a familiar route. He stopped at his usual place, before the stone that said Claire Adams. It would be nice if there were a bench nearby, but he’d grown used to talking to her standing up.

The stones on either side had flowers tenderly placed around them. Claire’s stone didn’t have flowers. Arthur never brought flowers. Weeks ago, those flowers around the other stones looked fresh and vibrant. Now they were brittle, dried out, and brown.

“Flowers die,” he muttered to himself.

He stared at Claire’s name on the stone. “Well, it’s prescription day,” he told her. “You know I always stop by on my way the to the pharmacy.”

“I miss you,” he said. “I even miss your scolding. You scolded me a lot towards the end. I wonder if you still loved me as much.” He shrugged. “Maybe you loved me more. To be honest, I have no idea. It was easier to feel certain about things when we were young.”

For a few minutes, he stood silent. He’d never loved the sound of his own voice. Silence made him think about the future, and he didn’t like that either.

“I’d better get going,” he said. “Got to get my scripts.”

He walked slowly these days, but he still had the stamina to make it to the pharmacy. He might have had his prescriptions delivered, but it was exercise, and he looked forward to seeing Sara.

Sara was the pharmacist who worked Tuesday mornings. She was warm and bright, and she was nice to him. A rare bouquet of kindness, she made the world smell sweet again.

Sara knew him. She knew all his prescriptions. He didn’t have to say a word to her about drugs. She gave him exactly what he needed. He never spoke to Sara about business. It was always a pleasant visit with a friend.

His pace quickened as he passed the sliding door.

The pharmacy counter was at the back of the store. Arthur’s lips turned up as he walked down the shampoo aisle. At the end of it, they fell into a frown.

Standing behind the counter, was a woman who was not Sara. She had a stern look. She did not smile like Sara.

“May I help you, sir?” she asked in a wholly businesslike fashion.

Arthur struggled to respond. At last, he found a couple of words. “Where’s Sara?”

The lady seemed puzzled. “Sara?”

“Sara,” he said.

 “Who’s Sara?” she asked, as if he were making things up.

“Sara,” he said. “The pharmacist.”

Recognition came at last. “Oh! You mean the girl who used to work mornings. She transferred to the store across town.”

Across town might as well be the far edge of the universe. Sara was gone. Forever. Replaced by this stranger who would talk about prescriptions.

“Do you need to pick up a prescription?” the fading pharmacist asked.

Arthur stared at the counter. “Flowers die,” he mumbled.

“Excuse me? Do you need something?”

It was too late to start over. Arthur looked up at her drying edges. It was too late.

“No. Nothing,” the old man said as he turned and slowly shuffled away.

Free isn’t worth what it used to be

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It’s been two months since I ran the free ebook promotion I detailed in my last post. To summarize, I gave away about 3,400 Kindle copies of my latest book, The Other Place.

I had hoped that 1% of the people who downloaded the free copy would leave a review on Amazon.

Did I get those 34 reviews?

No. Not yet anyway.

I’ve received one review since the giveaway.

I did get about 15 ratings, but those are less useful than text reviews.

So I’ve been thinking about my lack of reviews. Is 1% too high a target? There was a time, I think, when 1% was a reasonable expectation, but I now believe that time is gone.

I can download 6 free books a day, but I can’t read 6 books a day.

When I purchased the Freebooksy promotion, I joined the email list that goes out to subscribers. An email appeared in my inbox every day with an average of six free ebooks featured per email (and this is just from one organization).

Personally, I don’t like clutter, real or virtual, so I am not inspired to download a book I’m unlikely to read, even if it is free. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but I know there are lots of folks who will take free stuff on the chance it may someday be used.

I think it’s also human nature to be more careful to use something you paid for as opposed to something you grabbed on impulse because it was free.

In the days when free ebooks were less plentiful, a 1% review rate was probably reasonable. Now, free downloads come fast and furious, and it’s impossible for most readers to keep up with reading all, or perhaps even a fraction, of what they have collected for free.

Ratings make feedback quick and easy (and less meaningful)

Once upon a time, the only way for readers to submit feedback for books sold on Amazon was to leave a review. Now users can leave a star rating without a text review. This may lead to more ratings from readers who haven’t the time or disposition to write a review, but I think it also leads to fewer reviews now that one click is enough to register one’s opinion.

We must be mindful that Amazon reviews do not exist for authors. They are there as a guide to future customers. Authors are definitely more obsessed with them than customers are, but that doesn’t change their purpose.

Still, an author cannot help being disappointed at not having a more useful guide in place for potential customers. As a customer, I know that ratings are less meaningful information than reviews are.

Who is to blame?

Who is at fault for this disappointment? Not Freebooksy. They helped me give away as many copies as I could expect and more. Not the readers who downloaded the free copies. Those copies are theirs now and they are free to do, or not do, with them as they wish. They don’t owe me a review, a rating, or anything else.

I guess that leaves me. My expectations were not properly calibrated for the time and place in which I am doing business.

But now they are. You live and learn.