Category: Burningbird

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

The Bay’s remarkably clear tonight. The lights on the other side sparkle like wadded up gum tinfoil on the ground.

I was thinking tonight that writers are either abysmally insecure or abominably arrogant —we don’t fall in-between. And I think the arrogant ones among us are nothing more than insecure writers that got so tired of being insecure that they got mad and then remained in that state.

Go to a bookstore and stand between any two bookshelves. If you close your ears and open your mind, you’ll be deafened by the sound of a thousand authors whispering their insecurities into the night. What will people say? Will they like it? Why did that critic hate it so much? Why did that jackass give me only one star at Amazon? What if no one reads it?

Chances are if you’re reading this, you’re a weblogger. If so, then you know what I’m saying. Close your eyes now, and in your mind you’ll hear a thousand webloggers whispering their insecurities into the threaded void of the Internet. Will they like it? Will I get any hits? Will I get flamed? What’s my Blogdex index? Why is no one linking to me?

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Well, now that I’ve had a chance to be a Melodrama Mama, more details.

I hadn’t received my royalty check this month from O’Reilly and contacted the accounting department to see what’s up. Well, what’s up is that not only am I not getting a royalty check, enough of the Developing ASP Components books (both first and second edition) were returned to the company that my royalty account is a couple thousand in the negative.

I knew that first edition books would be returned once second was out, but was surprised by the volume of returns on second edition. I chatted with one of my editors to find out this is happening across the industry. Companies such as Amazon are closing down warehousing and reducing inventory to reduce costs and because people just aren’t buying the books. Next quarter, which reflects the September 11th date, will be even worse.

Well, I had foolishly counted on that royalty, and now I’m at a very vulnerable spot in my finances. Very. I had counted on this and my other writing to help me through the technology down time here in San Fran and SiliValley.

And I can’t even grab anyone to go out for a rip roarin’ bender to commiserate — all my buddies are back east, up north, in the middle of the country – or are you, my dear, faithful, funny, and interesting weblog readers. Lucky yous.

Worse then the money is the fact that the book isn’t doing as well as I would like. Dammit this is a good book! What could I do if Microsoft decides to change their technology to .NET just as I finish writing a book about Windows 2000 and COM+? I won’t prostitute myself by mouthing wonderful things about MS and .NET just to sell the book. I’s got ideals, I has!

(No money, but ideals. That and 5.00 will buy you a cup a joe at Starbucks. I wonder — If AOL can sue Microsoft, maybe I can, too. Hmmm.)

Anyway, tears into a bubbleless, warm beer. I’m close to broke, my company is close to broke, and I’m not pretty enough to be a hooker and sell my body — and my reading public is giving me a resounding “We don’t want your book. Nyah. Nyah.”. And that Wrox drivel is now selling better than my quality tome. Really, is there no class in the world?

Now that I’ve had all that ABOMINABLE whining done with, it’s time for me to remember that others have it a lot worse than me, I’m lucky enough to have the opportunity to write for profit (sometimes at least), I have a new car I can live in if need be, O’Reilly’s very cool about giving me additional work to help out (and holding my negative balance on account) … and I have nice folks like you all to carry my sorry self and my maudlin story to.

Thanks for listening and for putting up with me being a Melodrama Mama.

BB – the other Meryl.

P.S. Why the hell aren’t all of you people who’ve read Chris Locke’s excellent Bombast Transcripts not putting in great reviews at Amazon and Barnes & Noble? Do you know how difficult it is for an author waiting for that first review? And how much it can influence book sales? Get your cute, sexy little hind ends (all my readers have cute, sexy hind ends – don’t argue) in gear, and post a review now! (Well, buy the book and read it first – Sharon has an affiliate store – buy the book through her.)