The blog of Luther M. Siler, teacher, author and local curmudgeon
I look forward to life without a nose. Also, if there’s anything in the universe that smells more like concentrated man than sandalwood shaving cream, I don’t think I want to know what it is. Because holy shit.
Also, this has no right to have been translated from German. This had to have been originally written in Japanese:
NOT ALL MEN! NOT ALL MEN! NOT ALL MEN!
(Never once has a woman yelled “fatass,” or anything else, at me in public. Not one single goddamn time in 37 years.)
This is, honest to god, an Indiana 7th grade math standard:
When my 7th graders walked into my classroom this morning, this is what greeted them on the whiteboard:
Amazingly, both of my 7th grade groups chose the “good behavior” option, meaning that the second period of my two-hour block right before a three-day weekend with two and a half weeks left in the school year was spent making shapes with Play-Doh, carefully chopping them to bits, and taking note of the shapes that were produced when you they were cut in various manners.
What? It’s in the standards, right there. They’re being tested on this.
For serious.
And then my eighth graders came in, and did a period of post-ECA algebra,(*) and then I pointed out to them that I was remiss in that I had not spent a single second of the school year thus far reviewing this critically important math standard for them, and that it was similarly essential that we spend a class period in review of 7th grade standards in case it was ever necessary that they pre-identify shapes in sliced 3-dimensional figures. Because that could totally happen to any of them at any time.
I’m preparing these kids for life.
Eleven days left. I can do this, dammit.
(*) My scores aren’t back, goddammit. Was supposed to take two business days. THIS IS DAY TWO. Day three will be Tuesday.
I think I prefer these to the winter shots.
I am too damn tired for you today.
Also I installed Tweetdeck.
God help me.
Troll evictions! Secret compartments! Dwarf pirates! Daring rescues! Angry gods! Unknown technology! Pissed-off ogres! The Benevolence Archives, Vol. 1 is currently– holy shit— #15 in its genre on Amazon, and #2952 among all free ebooks. Free, you say? Yes! Free today only, unless I decide to extend the sale an extra day, which… actually, I’m pretty sure I might do. You can take this as either good news for me in terms of exposure or bad news in terms of whether people are willing to pay me for my nonsense, but I’ve moved over twice as many free books today as I had books purchased during the entire time the book has been on Amazon.
And here’s the thing: this book was never gonna make me rich. That’s obvious, right? It wasn’t, and isn’t. I am pretty sure at this point (and I need to be, because I’m supposed to be starting in a few weeks) that this summer’s book is gonna be a full-blown BA novel. And I’m thinking once that’s down and available, Vol. 1 is going to become perma-free, as a way to give folks a quick and easy intro into the world I’m working in. I may even attach it to the end of the novel as backmatter; we’ll see. But I think the goal for this thing needs to be not making money, but getting eyeballs on my work and the name “Luther Siler” into the backs of people’s heads. And Skylights is gonna be up soon, at something more resembling a novel price; if people like BA and get it cheaply maybe they’ll be more likely to shell out the $5-7 I’m imagining pricing Skylights at once it’s available.
Then I can get rich, right? 🙂
One caveat, of course: I’ve gotten a half-decent number of people to download the thing today. It remains to be seen how many of them read it. Or, say, post reviews, or if they do post reviews, post reviews of the fine quality of the couple I’ve received and not, say, “HURR DURR I HATE SWEARS AND SCI FI IS DUM ONE STAR.” Because that’s what a lot of the gripes I’ve seen about the program have said– that the free days cause your book to get downloaded by a bunch of people who don’t read it, and then if they do they put up a low-quality bad review.
(Note: Not saying non-sci-fi people can’t or shouldn’t read or review my book. In fact, both of the reviews I’ve gotten are from non-sci-fi people, and I’m looking forward to the first read I get from an actual genre aficionado. I’m just repeating what I’ve heard from other writers here.)
Anyway. Yeah. This is fascinating. And, again, feel free to go forth and download. Tell your friends! (No. Really. Tell your friends.)
The best space gnome book you ever saw is FREE today and currently #30 in its genre on Amazon. I WANT TOP TEN. Have you checked it out yet? What’s stopping you?
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