AuthorJim Flynn is a humorist, writer and novelist. He is available for speaking engagements. To contact email: [email protected] Archives
February 2025
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If the dogs aren't eating the dog food3/30/2024  Short version of old joke:
The CEO of a dog food company, tired of his brand being the second most popular, spends a fortune developing a new healthy dog food formula, new cans, new advertising. After the product launch, the brand goes from second place to fourth place. Irate, the CEO calls a meeting of all top executives, and demands to know why the brand has slipped to fourth place. No one wants to answer. Finally one man works up the courage to tell the truth: “Sir, the dogs don’t like it.” There’s a lesson to be learned here, my friends. It doesn’t matter how much effort you put into something that is intended to be sold to the public. What matters is whether the public likes it. In the example of a book, it comes down to: do people want to buy, and read the book. I write two kinds of books. First: Shorter, funny books. I did this to entertain people, and my financial goal was to produce enough revenue to pay my modest annual golf expenses. I am pleased to say that this goal continues to be exceeded, the biggest contributor being Hit Your Second Shot First. Second: the JR Johnson Novels. For a self-published author, the Novel space is a very tough place to compete. Candidly, the monthly royalties I receive for the novels aren’t enough to keep a chihuahua in dog food. I spoke to a book marketing expert. He told me to give up on the novels and write the short books. "You're too old. Novels are too competitive and you need an agent." I could give up on the novels. I’m not gonna do that. I have a different strategy that I’ll talk more about next week.
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When it's Time to Rebuild3/21/2024  I finished the fourth JR Johnson book over a year ago.
It wasn’t good enough. So I started over. Since then the title has changed maybe five times. The tone of the book is very different. The point of view characters are different. Yesterday I wrote a new ending. Casual observers may not realize how competitive the publishing world has become. OVER 1,000 BOOKS A DAY ARE SELF-PUBLISHED ON AMAZON. Many of the books now are written by Artificial Intelligence, with little to no human intervention. The most competitive space is: Novels. That’s where JR Johnson lives. I’m looking for an agent for the new book and not self-publishing. I’ve gotten in the door of a couple agents, who read Better Than Even, but passed on it. Just getting in the door of a big-time agent is no small feat. One of the agents took the time to make some very helpful suggestions. If I go down the route of traditional publishing it will be a while before the fourth JR Johnson comes out. Maybe never. But it’s too much time and effort to write a novel and then throw it into the self-published mix with a thousand other new books the day it comes out. Let’s compare novels to other genres. One of my golf books: Hit Your Second Shot First is my best seller. It sells every day with no advertising or promotion costs. I had an offer from a publisher but rejected it because I do better self-publishing. Second in my sales rankings is Be Sincere Even When You Don’t Mean It, which has a bit of a cult following, and third is The 10 Greatest Golfers of All Time. Why does a little 16,000-word golf book outsell the 80,000-to-100,000-word novels? Because it’s in a niche, and people search on Amazon for golf books as gifts for a father, husband, or friend. I thought the paperback format would be 99% of sales, but a lot of people read it in eBook as well. Remember, I’m not competing only with human authors. AI is writing. But from what I’ve seen artificial intelligence isn’t very good at humor yet. Meanwhile does anybody know an agent? There’s a dance an author has to go through to get an agent to look at a manuscript, it’s as formal as a minuet, and it starts with something called a Query Letter. I’m starting to send out the Queries. If you’re looking for a gift for that hard to buy for golfer on your gift list, consider Hit Your Second Shot First. It was deliberately priced to be competitive with a Father’s Day Card, and it won’t get thrown out as soon as you have your back turned. I'm told the book is suitable for being re-gifted, or as an addition to the powder room bookshelf of a vacation home. Link: www.amazon.com/dp/B09CGMTCBQ
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This Man is Very Bad3/11/2024  If you want an interesting book, make the villain bad.
If you want a very interesting book, make the villain BADDER. The man above is Chan Pennington, the Chief of Staff to the President, and the villain of Useful Idiot. He's very bad, but sometimes displays dark humor. To tell you this does not give anything away, because in the first chapter JR Johnson has this to say: When I had returned from an improbable mission two men from the government, including Chan Pennington, debriefed and then threatened me. “You got the money you were promised. I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Pennington had said, ‘as long as you keep your mouth shut.” When he told me I’d be fine, it was not reassurance, it was part of his intimidation. He thought he was so slick, but I’d been around the block and realized that Pennington was a man always playing mind games, never to be taken at face value. They plain don't like each other, and Pennington has some very bad plans. Work continues. BTW, the picture above is AI generated text-to-image. It took me about 15 tries to get the Pennington I wanted. I look at his image when I'm writing dialogue with him.
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Toni Anne Quotes Shakespeare3/9/2024  In Useful Idiot, Toni Anne Laudano repeats a famous quote, and attributes it to Shakespeare.
"Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows." JR Johnson corrects her, tells her that some guy in the 1800s said that. He teases, saying, "Well, you got Final Jeopardy wrong." This irritates Toni Anne, who is used to being right all the time. You'll have to read the book to see her reply. After all, this is a PG Rated blog. Okay. Pop Quiz, Hotshot: Who said "Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows." Hint: Even when you eventually cheat and look it up online, different sources give different answers. BTW, I know some of the readers of this blog, and I know you will cheat immediately. Update: Steady progress is being made on fifth draft of Useful Idiot.
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Remember When Brains Cost 25 cents?3/1/2024  Was this the beginning of AI?
When you could buy brains for 25 cents, along with your donut and 7Up? I go on Facebook once in a while, and there's always some boomer, my age, lamenting that the world was better when there were only three tv channels and you had to get off the couch to switch on great shows like Bonanza. And they didn't have a snow day unless there was at least a foot on the ground, and they walked to school--AND LEARNED TO WRITE IN CURSIVE! Some of the boys even peed their names in cursive in the snow. When boys were boys, Dammit! (Note: I might have done that. Sometimes it helps to have a short name) And if we got rid of cellphones, folks would talk to each other again. I don't want to be mean, but I think some of these people bought the 25 cents brains, and haven't upgraded since. I have managed to resist poking the bear and replying on Facebook to these people. I want to say: If that's so great, put down your remote, get off your butt and walk over to the tv and change the channel. You can find Bonanza somewhere. And nobody's stopping you from tossing the cellphone. But then you couldn't post your photos on Facebook! Write notes to your friends in cursive. You can consider it a secret code, unbreakable by the new generation. The point: Technology is changing the world, and the AI wave is coming. This is a big deal. Change or watch Bonanza. It's up to you. |
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