BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

So… Have any of you read any of the Rowan Gant Investigations e-books? You know, the electronic versions of the book. In particular, I believe these e-books are in convenient PDF format.

If so, good on you! I hope you enjoyed them. Now, let’s settle up-

For each Rowan Gant e-book title you have read, you need to send $3.95 (the average price of an e-book) to my publisher, WillowTree Press. The address is as follows: WillowTree Press, PO Box 142414, St. Louis, MO 63114-0414. Make your check payable to WillowTree Press. Please include a note listing the titles for which you are paying.

Why?

Because, there are NO Rowan Gant e-books… Yes, there ARE some PDF files floating around out there. I just found out about it today. Apparently, they have been floating around for a while now. In fact, long enough that they have been downloaded thousands of times. Illegally.

Yeah. ILLEGALLY.

And guess what? My publisher hasn’t seen a dime. Know what that means? I haven’t either. Yeah… they didn’t get paid, so I didn’t get paid.

Now… If you are one of the e-book readers, the address is listed above. Send your money in so that my publisher can pay me. If your excuse for downloading them is that you wanted to sample my books before buying, well, that’s what libraries are for. If you don’t have a library card, well, you know, there’s also a chapter sampler on my website available for download. That would have given you a sample…

You’ll have to excuse me, but I’m pissed right now. People seem to think authors are flush with cash and that we don’t need the royalties. Well, here’s how it is… It’s our friggin’ paycheck, people. How would you like it if I stopped by your place of employment on Friday, picked up YOUR paycheck and put it in MY pocket even though you did the work?

Yeah, wouldn’t be so nice now would it?

For those of you who have NOT pirated my books, and actually purchase them legally, I’m terribly sorry you had to listen to this… Please know that I truly appreciate you.

But, for now, I’m one pissed off Murv…

I have to be honest. The picture you see at left has absolutely nothing to do with this blog entry… Well, kinda nothing.

You see, it wasn’t even included with the original posting of this particular entry. However, in the process of moving things from Myspace to the new home of Brainpan Leakage, I was also doing a bit of straightening up around the hard drive… Early spring cleaning, so to speak… Well, as luck would have it, I ran across this picture of EK and me from a costume party we held on our 8^th anniversary (remember, we got married on Halloween)…  8th anniversary…spiders…8 legs… yeah, we were all about themes back then… I’ll have to see about digging out some of our other costume party photos.  But, there I go digressing…

Anyway, so given the title of this blog entry, as well as the Addams family references, EK looking all dangerous & sexy in her “Black Widow” outfit, and me as her webbed over prey, just seemed to fit and I decided maybe I should post it here…

Even if it doesn’t exactly fit, well, it’s kind of a cute picture.

But, on with the original blog…

So I’m on a few of these other social networking sites. Yeah, I know, there are a ton of them out there, and I cannot possibly be on all of them or I would never get any writing done. But in the interest of “viral marketing” I do hang out on a couple of the others besides Myspace. Hey, it’s all about getting name recognition. People see me, see my name, then the next time they see it the little bulb lights up to trigger the “hey, I’ve heard of that guy before”… Then, maybe they eventually get around to buying a book or two. Then, I get to keep writing books. (Kind of a vicious circle, eh?)

Yeah, I know. Get to the point, Gomez…

Anyway, I’m sure you are wondering “why the Addams family lyrics for a title of this blog?” Well, I’ll tell you. On one of those other social networking sites, someone posted a comment to my page that went a little something like this:

“…You two must be a HOOT at Parent-Teacher’s day! LOL! (WHY did the image of Gomez and Morticia Addams meeting Mr. Rodgers just pop into my head? “its a lovely day in the embalming room, a lovely day in the freezer…oh, will you be my, won’t you be, my cadaver?” LOL!)…”

Obviously that isn’t the entire comment, but basically it came on the heels of some banter about Evil Kat, and the question that due to the genre of my writing whether or not she is afraid to go to sleep with me around. To that I simply replied that she is far more evil than I could possibly be.

At any rate, the Addams family reference as well as the P/T conference thing begged an answer (you know me, just can’t shut up for anything). So, I answered. My  reply seemed to tickle quite a few folks, so I thought maybe I’d repeat it here.

Yes… Parent – Teacher Conferences are VERY interesting… Primarily on the first orientation conference, after Wednesday (well, you started it with the Addams family stuff – besides, I don’t publish the munchkins name) tells everyone in her class that “Daddy writes books” …  So, the first conference goes something like the following (note: this is a fairly accurate recounting of almost every initial P/T conference we have attended)–

Teacher: Mister Sellars, nice to meet you. Wednesday just goes on and on about how you are an author.

Murv: Yeah, she gets a bit excited about things at times.

Teacher: So, what are your books about?

Murv: They’re paranormal suspense novels about a Witch who helps the Saint Louis Major Case Squad track down and apprehend serial killers.

Teacher: [horrified silence]

Murv: [Grin]

Teacher: So…ummm…uhhh…they aren’t children’s books then?

Murv: No. Not so much. I told Wednesday she’s not allowed to read them until she’s at least 35. Oh, and by the way, whenever I’m not out of town on tour I’m available to help out as a room parent for field trips and such. Just give me a call.

Teacher: [rushing to change the subject] Ummm, uhhh. okay…uhhh…So! Wendesday’s Mom! I understand YOU fix computers!

So, there you have it… That really and truly is pretty much how our initial meetings with the munchkin’s teachers go. Fortunately, after that things seem to settle down. Especially after I send postcards to the class when I am gallivanting around the country on tour. In fact, they even end up deciding I’m pretty okay.

Yeah, I’ve even been determined to be okay enough that I’ve actually done the room parent thing on field trips. (LOL)

More to come…

Murv