Will You Help Me Help Her?

I have a request for you.

From time to time, I do charitable things to help others. Normally, I do things like that very quietly. I don’t want accolades or acknowledgements. I just want to help when I can.

This time, the help that I want to do is too large for me to do alone.

I need your help.

Here is the text from a GoFundMe Account that I’ve set up. Please consider donating – even a dollar helps:

“Hi. I'm T. M. Bilderback.

Many of you know me as the author and creator of the Justice Security series of novels and short stories. But, I also work in the real world at a community college.

Being at a community college gives me the opportunity of meeting many different students with many different special needs.

One of those students is 19-year-old Tristian Lyn Klein.

Tristian is a student at Nashville State Community College in Waverly, Tennessee. She has Type 2 Spinal Muscular Atrophy, or SMA. She wears leg braces that allow her to walk. She recently got new braces that allow for more knee movement - take a look:

However, Tristian's ankles don't have enough mobility to allow her to press down on the gas pedal of a car.

She looked into getting a conversion for her car that would allow her to drive completely with her hands, but the cost of the conversion, along with the cost of the lessons she would have to take to learn to drive with only her hands, are too expensive for her family.

To make this happen, I need YOU. I need your donations to reach our goal of $5,000 to convert a family automobile to hand-drive, and to pay for the lessons needed to learn this new way of driving.

Tristian needs her own transportation.

Please help. I don't usually ask for help like this publically - I prefer to do things like this quietly. But, our goal is to have this done by August, 2016, and I need your help to do it. I would be extremely thankful to you, and I know Tristian will be, too.

Thank you!

T. M. Bilderback”

The link to this GoFundMe is: https://www.gofundme.com/22j7tr6k

The money goes directly to Tristian. I have no withdrawal options.

Will you take a moment, and donate to this young woman?

Thank you, and…

Keep reading!

T. M. Bilderback (But you can call me Michael)

Visit my website: www.tmbilderback.com

Follow me on Twitter:  @mrtmbilderback

Check me out on Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/TMBilderback

Apple Redux

Did you know that detail can be used in both fiction and non-fiction writing?

I’m not talking about conversations, or plots, or outlines. I’m talking about good, basic, descriptive detail.

Suppose you’re writing a how-to book on, say, using an apple slicer on an apple. You might say the following:

“Take the apple slicer and center the core hole over the stem of the apple. Push the slicer down forcefully so that the slicer slices the apple into small crescents while the center circle cores the apple.”

Now, convert that how-to paragraph into fiction:

“Stella, lost in thought, took the apple slicer and centered the core hole over the stem of the apple. She pushed the slicer down forcefully so that the slicer sliced the apple into small crescents while the center circle cored the apple.”

That’s past tense. It can also be done in present tense:

“Stella is lost in thought as she takes the apple slicer and centers the core hole over the stem of the apple. She pushes the slicer down forcefully so that the slicer slices the apple into small crescents while the center circle cores the apple.”

Do you see the difference?

If you are describing how a character does something, and you want to use detail, it might help you to jot down a careful how-to before you begin writing. Afterward, you can use the same how-to to adapt to your character’s actions.

Of course, if you don’t want to go into detail, you can always “shorten” the action:

“Stella, lost in thought, cut the apple into slices.”

Bor-ing!

Now, sometimes, it’s useful to shorten the action. If someone is driving a car, for instance, you really don’t want to list each move your character makes – it could take up half of your manuscript describing each step in driving to the grocery store and back!

And sometimes, you want each step described for a reason. Suppose Stella is angry, and has many apples to slice and core. You might make note of that fact:

“Stella, lost in angry thought, took the apple slicer and centered the core hole over the stem of the apple. She pushed the slicer down forcefully so that the slicer sliced the apple into small crescents while the center circle cored the apple. She reached for another apple and repeated her motions, growing angrier as she worked her way through the apples, until each apple was no longer a neat pile of slices and cores, but a mixture of random apple pieces.”

It is implied that Stella has lost control of herself with her anger, and began chopping apples uncontrollably.

Using your knowledge of how things work, or how you perform various actions, you can write your fiction so that it conveys the idea that your characters are everyday people working their way through daily routines.

It gives your writing a bit of realism, and, hopefully, makes people want to…

Keep reading!

T. M. Bilderback (But you can call me Michael)

Visit my website: www.tmbilderback.com

Follow me on Twitter:  @mrtmbilderback

Check me out on Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/TMBilderback

Ready...Aim...FIRE!

I wonder sometimes if Amazon shot itself in the foot.

Back in January, I decided that Kindle Unlimited wasn’t for me, and I went into wide release with all of my stories – except the one that I wrote for J. A. Konrath’s Kindle World.

Now, for the casual reader, here’s an explanation as to how Amazon works for an author: if an author chooses to make stories exclusive to Amazon, those stories that are exclusive are boosted in visibility to you, the reader. They are given priority over stories that aren’t exclusive. Amazon rankings drop rapidly, both as an author and in the sales/category rank.

In other words, it isn’t just that Amazon rewards those that choose exclusivity…they also punish those that aren’t.

And, over the last three months, I’ve discovered that Amazon may have shot itself in the foot by punishing those authors that aren’t exclusive.

Since I’ve gone wide, my stories have bottomed on Amazon. That’s fine, of course, I expected that. But, sales of my stories on other sites have grown, and grown rapidly. These are sales that Amazon may or may not have had – I have no way of knowing. All I know is that my sales at Google Play have grown considerably. This month, it appears that my sales at Apple are taking off.

I’m very pleased with my sales at other sites. Of course, I have stories at Google, Apple, Barnes & Noble, DriveThruFiction, Inktera, Scribd, Tolino, Smashwords, and numerous other sites. The first title in the Justice Security series, Mama Told Me Not To Come, and the first title in the Tales Of Sardis County series, Don’t Come Around Here No More, are free everywhere, in the hope that you’ll like what you read and will want more. I urge you to take advantage of that.

I can’t help but wonder if my new sales at other ebook retailers are a result of the lack of visibility at Amazon, or if those readers wouldn’t buy from Amazon to begin with. I hope that isn’t the case, because those readers will miss out on the 8^th title in the Justice Security series, The Night Chicago Died – A Jack Daniels/Justice Security Novel.

If it’s a result of a lack of visibility at Amazon, then Amazon may have lost out on a cut of those sales due to an insistence on exclusivity to enhance visibility.

I don’t pretend to know Amazon’s long-term plans, but, to me, it seems to be a waste. If Kindle Unlimited did not demand exclusivity, I would happily make my work available there.

I don’t understand their thinking.

Of course, others have speculated that it’s part of Amazon’s plan to drive other retailers out of the ebook business.

I’m not seeing that. I’m seeing more sales for me at other retailers. And I couldn’t be more happy.

I love Amazon. I will always offer my work there. I even plan a follow up to the Kindle World story that I wrote.

But those Kindle World stories will always be the only Amazon exclusives.

I won’t apologize for it. I’m enjoying the sales and accolades from the other retailers right now.

But, to enjoy, I need you to…

Keep reading!

T. M. Bilderback (But you can call me Michael)

Visit my website: www.tmbilderback.com

Follow me on Twitter:  @mrtmbilderback

Check me out on Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/TMBilderback