Vampires and Robots

July 4th marks the 2015th birthday of the great nation we call 'Murica. Every year, Baldy the Eagle flies from house to house, delivering beer and fireworks to all good little patriots. We will dress in our finest red white and blue discount t-shirts, sing patriotic songs about putting boots up one's posterior region, and burn the hell out the flesh of domestic livestock in the name of freedom. Local legend says that the first person to go to the ER with a burn or missing appendage will have good luck for the whole next year.  Now, dubious history aside, something equally as majestic is happening this July fourth. Several authors from the Support Indie Authors Goodreads group have banded together to offer up an American-sized XXL cornucopia of free books! This is a one day event spanning several genres and although we have chosen to share the day with the purple mountain's majesty and amber waves of grain, these books are available and will be free of charge worldwid...

As an indie author and an avid reader, I delight in the breaking down of rigid traditional genre barriers. But as an indie author and avid reader, it's tough to ignore the fact that breaking down these barriers makes it gosh darn difficult to search for interesting books. Which is why I am proposing a hashtag. That's right. A hashtag. Those things that make me squeamish. But this hashtag has a purpose. Introducing: #IndieMatch What is it? Well, pretty much what it says. What I will be doing, and what I am encouraging other readers to do, is tweeting this hashtag with up to three indie books that I've read that have a similar theme. Kind of like a 'if you liked {thing}, you'll love {other thing}' but in under 140 characters. By using the hashtag #IndieMatch and stating the unifying theme, others will be able to find these books and perhaps even add their own recommendations to the pot. Here's an example (with fake books because I don't want to look li...

The other day I was thinking about two things: 1. How I don't blog nearly enough. 2. I haven't been giving proper consideration to the real probability of a robot invasion in a while. So naturally, I felt the best course of action was to make a panic post about why we should all worry about Robo-geddon and why our expectations are all wrong. When you think about a robot invasion, I bet you envision fifty foot tall kill-bots indiscriminately stomping down buildings while frying us with laser firework eyes. They probably have arms and legs and all the other humanoid stuff we've been mislead by Michael Bay into believing robots from outer space have. I know. I too have been guilty of such robo-normative ideas. But what if we're wrong? What if it isn't the big baddies like Vlad (the guy in the header for this page)? What if we go in the opposite direction? Nanotechnology is only just jumping from exhibition to practical use. What if in the near future,...