Steve's Web Place

The Ick Factor

Let's get icky for a minute.

I've been reading a lot of mommy porn lately.

"Ewwwww," right? Not that there's anything wrong with mommy porn. But who wants to picture me reading it? I remember Gene Siskel telling Roger Ebert that he was "aroused" by a film they were discussing, and though Ebert managed not to blurt out "Gag me with a spoon!" (it was the '80s) he sure looked tempted. (I can't recall what the movie was. Probably 9 1/2 Weeks. Or maybe The Muppets Take Manhattan.) 

Anyway, I'm sorry if the juxtaposition of "Steve Hockensmith" and "porn" leaves you feeling a little throw-uppy. Do yourself a favor. As you read the rest of this blog post (assuming you haven't already fled to another website) just imagine it was written by Fabio or Pamela Anderson or the 21st century Fabio/Pamela Anderson equivalent (whoever that would be). You know -- someone who's supposed to lounge around all day reading erotica, because it's not like we can imagine them mowing the lawn or loading up on toilet paper at Costco.

So. Me and mommy porn. I've been familiarizing myself with the genre lately for a possible work project -- REALLY!!! -- and it's raised a few interesting questions for me. And I don't just mean "If you stick a [CENSORED] up someone's [REDACTED] does it really make them [SANITIZED FOR YOUR PROTECTION]?" The thing I'm wondering is "Could I ever write something like this?" And I suspect the answer is no. 

For one thing, I don't even know what happens when you stick a [CENSORED] up someone's [REDACTED], so a master of kink I am not. Of course, I could get around that easily enough. That's what Google's for, right? But it's not just knowledge I lack. It's the right attitude.

Here's the thing about mommy porn (or the mommy porn I've read, anyway): It's really just romance on steroids. Or maybe that should be romance on poppers. (Hey! I know something about kinky sex after all!) Yes, there are manacles and whips and assless leather chaps. But you know what else there is? Feelings. And misunderstandings. And monogamy. And talk talk talk about feelings and misunderstandings and monogamy.

I guess that's the difference between mommy porn and daddy porn. The characters end up doing more or less the same things, but in D.P. they just do it and in M.P. they talk about what it means beforehand. And afterwards. And sometimes even during (which isn't easy with a [CENSORED] up your [REDACTED]). 

But you know what? It's not all the talk that bothers me. It's that everyone takes what they're saying so very, very seriously. And no matter how multi-dimensional the characters are (and sometimes there's real depth there, in the right book), they're still idealized beyond anything I can relate to. They're Fabio on a book cover. They're Pamela Anderson on a poster. They're perfect. And that makes them unreal.

Which is a silly thing to object to in erotica, I know, I know, I know. Nobody says, "I'd enjoy this sex scene more if it were intensely awkward and all the body parts sagged." But here's where my bad attitude comes in: I do sort of think that. Because one of the impulses that drives me as a writer is the desire to shrink everything down to human size and find the humor in it. It's why I'd have a hard time writing a straight thriller. It's why I'd have a hard time writing a straight (i.e., lugubrious) "literary" novel. It's why I'd have a hard time writing straight erotica. For god's sake, I read mommy porn and think, "I'm not connecting with this. Everyone's so beautiful." There's something wrong with me! I'd rather watch Fabio and Pamela Anderson loading up their Costco cart with Nutella than gazing into each other's eyes on a wind-swept cliff. It's just the way I'm wired.

Maybe it's something you can get over, like a cold or (if you work in certain industries) a conscience. There are times I think I'd be more successful if I could just get with the program and stop being a smartass. I've had people tell me to try. And you know what? 

To me, that's icky.

They Called Me Mad at the Academy....

I've always loved the idea of science, but I've never been good at doing anything with it. The only science fair project I can recall putting together was a little dude made out of paperclips who was supposed to "dance" when you waved electrodes around his wee metal arms and legs. I tried to power it with a corroded old lantern battery I found in the garage, so the guy did a lot of dangling and not so much (O.K., no) dancing. (I didn't bother testing the battery before the science fair. What can I say? I was in sixth grade. And I was dumb.) Maybe science is too left brain for a dreamy right-brainer like myself. Or is logic a right brain thing? I can't remember.

SEE WHAT I MEAN!!! Albert Einstein I am not. (Though I am rocking some great bushy hair these days. There the similarities end.) 

Still, I've been conducting a lot of experiments over the last two years. But not the kind that require a lab coat and a secret facility full of rhesus monkeys. (I have a lab coat and a secret facility full of rhesus monkeys, of course, but those are just for fun.)

My question: Is it possible to sell enough self-published ebooks to avoid starvation?

My hypothesis: Yes.

My experiments: Naughty, Dear Mr. Holmes, My Dog Needs Surgery, Blarney and Cadaver in Chief.

My conclusion: Uhh, I dunno...but I think I just heard my stomach growl.

In other words, selling ebooks is a tough racket. Which is why I recently put a new twist on one of my experiments. I offered Cadaver in Chief free for three days. And it paid off handsomely...in data, if not dollars. I learned a lot. For instance:

People are wonderful, and I love you all! If a lot of folks hadn't been retweeting and sharing up a storm on Twitter and Facebook, the giveaway would have been a complete failure. Fortunately, dozens of friends helped spread the word, and the result was phenomenal. More than 1,800 people downloaded Cadaver in Chief the first day it was free! The book made it to #126 on the Amazon Free Books list! Unfortunately --

Momentum is a bitch. Fewer than 400 people downloaded the book the second day. The third day the tally was about the same. This was not what I expected. The higher the book went up the charts, I thought, the more it would be noticed. And the more it was noticed, the more it would be downloaded. But not so. My friends and I got the ball rolling the first day with a lot of shilling, but then we stopped...and the ball stopped, too. Because --

Shilling works. This is not a lesson I wanted to learn. I don't like tweeting and retweeting the same sales pitch all day. I don't like hitting people over the head with it on Facebook and in e-newsletters and on my blog. So I backed off. And, surprise surprise, I stopped getting the same results. It turns out there's a reason some writers make like Billy Mays 24/7, relentlessly hawking and hawking and hawking. Hawking and hawking and hawking pays.

Does that mean Ron Popeil and the ShamWow! guy are my new role models? No. I'm still me. Dreamy, unpractical, right brainy (or left brainy) me. I managed to reach almost 2,500 new readers through the Cadaver in Chief giveaway, and that wouldn't have happened without a lot of good will and good friends. So I'm not going to piss those blessings away with a never-ending self-promotion blitz. If that means I have to change my hypothesis above from "Yes" to "No"...well, so be it. I yam what I yam.

But hey -- the experiments aren't over yet. There's still the biggest lesson of all to mull over. The one I've been thinking about for a long, long time now. 

Give the people what they want. 

My New Book Is FREE!!!

You have to do strange things to sell ebooks. One of them, apparently, is give scads of the danged things away. It's counterintuitive, I know. Imagine someone going up to Henry Ford and saying, "It'll tell you how to sell bunches and bunches of Model Ts, Mr. F. Don't charge any money for 'em!" Ford would've had him hauled off and shot for being some kind of crazy pinko agitator. Then he would've had the guy shot again for calling him "Mr. F."

Me, I'm more open-minded. Plenty of people say giveaways can help you sell books, so I'll give it a try. Which is why Cadaver in Chief: A Special Report from the Dawn of the Zombie Apocalypse is free on Amazon for the next three days. Go here before Wednesday at midnight and you can download the ebook for 0 dollars and 00 cents!

And you know what else can sell books? Begging. So let my try that, too. Even if something called Cadaver in Chief doesn't sound like your cup of tea and the idea of a journalist investigating the President because he might be a zombie doesn't strike you as funny (you nut!), please think about getting the book. Every download will help it move higher up the Amazon charts. If that happens, more people will see it and download it, which will allow more people to see it and download it, which will allow more people to see it and download it, etc. etc. If the book climbs high enough, people will actually keep downloading it even when it's not free anymore. Or so the theory goes. And if enough people actually buy the book, then that means self-publishing is a viable option for me, and I won't have to keep wondering if I should write that new Holmes on the Range book or not (hint hint).

By the way, if you already bought Cadaver in Chief, you don't have to feel that the gravy train's passing you by. Shoot an e-mail to steve at stevehockensmith dot com, and I'll whip up some kind of e-thank you for you. Maybe it won't help me sell more books, but sometimes a freebie's just the right thing to do.... 

Oh, and if you're still on the fence -- REVIEWS!

"Cadaver in Chief allows for a welcome time-out from the mind-numbing relentlessness of serious political discourse by examining it with tongue planted firmly in undead cheek. Hockensmith's trademark wry humor is abundant, with both liberals and conservatives spending equal time at the end of his political skewer...Things get jumping right from the start, and a nice mix of humor, action, and a little bit of mystery keeps things rolling along at a great clip." --Book Reviews by Elizabeth A. White

"...a funny, thrilling, satirical, not-too-gross work of slightly-disturbed genius." --In Search of the Classic Mystery