Stant Litore's New Website & Blog!

Dear friends & readers,

I have a domain name and a new site, and I am slowly transitioning to my new website at http://stantlitore.com, and the new website is beautiful!

I hope you'll come check it out; I am going to leave this older blog up, but my newest posts, updates and excerpts on upcoming novels, and all the rest will be appearing at the new site. Please bookmark it, and thanks for following my books!

Stant Litore

The Zombies: Not Dying Away Just Yet

Someone asked whether the "zombie fad" is dying away. Here are my thoughts on the topic.

I think the zombie craze is actually strengthening, based on:

• Sales of books like Apocalypse Z over the past few months -- the sales are sky-high. Apocalypse Z spent over 2 months, for instance, in the Top 100 e-book bestsellers. The top 10 ebook sellers in horror have been dominated by zombie fiction for months.
• The record-breaking # of people who did zombie walks in October 2012.
• The growing popularity of 'zombie tag' on college campuses.
• The Season 3 return of The Walking Dead & the film World War Z will boost public attention to zombies in 2013.

Whether the interest in zombies dies away in a year or dies away in 5 years will depend entirely on whether innovative writers and movie-makers come up with refreshing new takes that revitalize interest in the genre. Warm Bodies (the film) is an example of a fresh injection of interest. As long as the genre keeps doing something new and unexpected -- or keeps finding ways to up the ante -- it will stay fresh. As soon as it doesn't, interest in zombies will fade for a while. Publishers will try to predict the horizon for that fading, but predictions will be thrown out of whack as soon as another bestseller doing something new with zombies appears.

For right now, all indications are that 2013 is going to be a strong year for zombie fiction.

A Little Perspective: 748 AD

A little perspective.

In the year 748 AD, if you wanted to read a book, an honest-to-God book, with words in it and maybe a story ... you had to be one of the fifty literate people within 500 miles. Then you had to trade something or sell something to get the book (which probably took some illiterate monks up to 2 years to copy for you). A sizable tract of land might do, or a prized war-horse, or possibly your second daughter. Then you would have: a book. One book.

It is the year 2012 AD. You have Wikipedia. You have Google. You have streaming TV and movies with low-cost memberships. If you're into ebooks, you can buy a kindle for $79, spend an hour loading it up with 100 free classics of great literature, and you have your own library, a little larger than a wallet. If you're not into ebooks, you can probably get a good story to read for a few dollars at your local used bookstore. Or, for free, you can visit the public library and be surrounded by more books than the total number of people that your ancestors in 748 AD saw in their entire lives.

That ought to be awe-inspiring.

Really step back and consider that for a moment.

You can afford ... unlimited stories. Even if you're broke and can't afford FOOD, you can afford unlimited stories. You are the only generation in human history that can make such a boast.

Take a moment and think about just how incomparably wealthy and lucky and blessed that makes you.

Your ancestor of 748 AD might have been willing to sell one of his family into slavery in order to purchase the smallest literary crumb from your table.

You ought to be awed.

No matter what tragedies are besieging your life, whether financial, medical, or other ... this is something to be awed about. This is something worth sitting back for a moment and thinking, "Wow."

I am thankful to be alive and literate in such a time. We have a lot to deal with in this century, and it's damned scary. But this...our free or low-cost access to unlimited stories...this is our biggest Wow.

Stant Litore

Men, Boys, and Rape

This is my response to this tragic news story. Please take a moment.

Reportedly, the parking lot surveillance video shows a martial arts student being raped brutally by two team-mates and being dropped repeatedly to strike her head on the concrete. She is then left lying there with a head injury in the middle of the night.

The Washington Times gets the story and runs an article entitled "DC Woman's Memory of New Year's Sexual Assault Hazy."

Seriously, Washington Times? That's your headline?

Jezebel's story (link below) points out that the woman did everything that we teach and train women to do: don't walk home alone. Ask a friend for a ride. Make sure you have somewhere safe to stay. Train in martial arts so you can defend yourself.

Here's the thing. I'm as macho as the next guy, but it only takes 1% of your brain to figure out that if you force someone else to have sex with you, that's your responsibility, not theirs -- because you are responsible for your acts and your choices. However cute she was or however uncontrollable your urges might have felt, you made a decision and you took action and you'll take the consequences.

As long as we continue to hold the woman responsible for her rape, we won't have any fewer rapes. Because a woman can be a martial arts fighter who appoints a designated driver on New Year's Eve ... and still be raped and left with a head injury on cold concrete. Just like you can take every safety precaution you can think of and still be gunned down by a random shooter at a cinema.

The only way to have fewer rapes is to have fewer rapists.

That means empowering men to own their actions (good and evil) and empowering men (and women) to look at other human beings as persons rather than objects for their desires, fears, or ambitions.

And when the Washington Times runs a story highlighting the woman's "hazy memory" (because of that head injury caught on surveillance video, one supposes), that tells us that our culture isn't in the least interested in empowering men to take ownership and accountability for their actions.

On a very related note, is it any wonder that so many young men in US culture appear lost? Unsure how to relate to women? Unsure when they leave boyhood and enter manhood, without any definitive rite of passage? Unsure how to attain healthy power and keep it? Unsure how to set purpose in their lives and drive toward it?

Our culture is not interested in giving men purpose, empowerment, and accountability. Our culture doesn't train decision makers who then own their decisions. Our culture raises boys who never get to hear that they are men, and who, like boys, don't own their own actions and don't accept the consequences of those actions. And they rarely need to ... because we're always pointing the finger somewhere else. That rapist's victim wore a tight, sexy dress. That gunman was corrupted by violent video games, or heavy metal, or rap. Boys will be boys. (Notice how that phrase is actually emasculating ... precisely because it does rip responsibility and accountability out of our hands.)

I call bullshit.

We keep saying, "Boys will be boys." We just find new ways to say it. And that's destructive. Because most women don't want to date boys, most companies don't want boys leading them, and most people don't want their safety to be at the mercy of random, six-foot-tall boys. And most men don't want to be boys. Yet our culture insists on saying that's what they are. Men have to start saying, "No, we're men. We're going to act decisively and intentionally, whatever the situation, and we and we only are responsible for what we do."

Pardon my language, but let's drop the "boys will be boys, and her memory is hazy" crap and start inviting and encouraging men to be men, and holding them accountable (as a culture) for being men. And the Washington Times can go **** itself.

That's all I have to say.

My heart goes out to the jiu-jitsu student who suffered terribly this New Year's Eve.

Stant Litore

An Apocalypse for the Book Industry?

"In short, B&N’s scorched earth policy of the 1990s has ultimately left us with, well, scorched earth." - from "The Wrong Goodbye of Barnes & Noble"

Dennis Johnson's recent piece on the closure of many Barnes & Noble stores is an intriguing article, and I like that it addresses the history of the issue and the real reasons B&N is going under. But there are two points that I think the columnist completely missed:

1. We won't be buying fewer books. 
Yes, so many bookstores closing = bad. That said, have you noticed how few people actually are at these stores lately? Whether readers want ebooks or paper, over the past decade the trend overwhelmingly has been that more and more readers are shopping online.

The data that we keep seeing on showrooming (e.g., that 40% of bookstore-goers browse the physical store and then buy online later) is a little backward, because it doesn't account for those readers who never go in the bookstore at all -- it just looks at what percentage of bookstore customers later buy online after browsing in the physical store. The reality is that more and more bookworms have been doing more and more of their shopping -- and their showrooming -- online, rarely if ever visiting the bricks-and-mortar store at all. This parallels what happened in the music industry; music sales have moved almost entirely online, when ten years ago there were still stores where you went to listen to and buy CDs. But the demise of Sam Goody did not equal the demise of the music industry, and the demise of B&N will not equal the demise of the book industry, though it will cripple a number of large publishing conglomerates who have been slow to adapt to the changing market.

What do I think will happen? I think readers have been preparing for this moment, unknowingly, for years. So many people preview and buy their books over the Internet, whether they are looking for print or digital. And so many smaller publishers and new imprints have been thriving over the past few years, seizing the growth market represented by digital books. Over the next few years, Amazon will finish replacing B&N as the monolithic bookseller in the US, and the first serious competition to Amazon will appear as entrepreneurs who are willing to innovate in the market of digital books ... begin innovating. Boutique and indie bookstores will slowly come back -- it is going to be hard at first for them to get going and build business because B&N destroyed most of them twenty years ago (all but the big ones -- Powell's in Portland, OR; Tattered Cover in Denver, CO; etc.), but they will return to fill the vacuum B&N is going to leave behind. Print sales will decline in volume, and may plummet for the larger publishers -- but before long, print sales as a whole will probably steady out into a more gradual decline, steadied by the growth of online retailers selling print books.

Seriously -- people are not buying fewer books in the US. They are buying them from different retailers and in some cases different publishers than they used to, and in some cases they are buying them in different formats (audio, digital). But people are not buying or reading fewer books than they were ten years ago. For big New York publishing, B&N going under is a disaster. For readers, it's just change. It's not going to end bookselling in America; it's just going to change where and how people buy books. It's also worth noting that this isn't a blow to access to books. B&N (arguably) damaged access to books badly by driving the independent bookstores under in the 90s, but the growth of online retail dramatically improved it -- because you can now preview and buy a book anywhere in the country, have it shipped to your farmhouse or your basement apartment. If you like ebooks, you can buy a $79 e-reader and download 100 free classics overnight, and then buy (more affordably than print, in most cases) books that are delivered instantly -- just like iTunes. Access to books is in a better place than it has ever been in the history of literacy. I don't buy the doom and gloom. This is doom for some of the NY publishers; this isn't doom for readers -- it's just change.

2. You can blame your successful competitor, or you can look at your own practices. 
The other point I take issue with: did you notice that biased statement about the Dept of Justice "supporting Amazon in their effort to lower prices"? No. The Dept of Justice sued the Big Six publishers for artificially fixing ebook prices, for sabotaging the free market. If Amazon is selling at a lower price than you can, you need a new business model. You don't respond by screwing your customers. Note the irony, too. In the 90s, B&N destroyed independent bookselling in most parts of the US by underpricing boutique and ma and pa bookshops. Now Amazon is grabbing B&N's market share in part by underpricing B&N. Some might call this karma. I call it bad business practices. B&N, ultimately, isn't losing market share on price alone. They're losing it because they lack an organizational commitment to market research and customer service. Their major competitor, Amazon, founds their entire business on those two efforts. That's why Amazon knows what customers want before B&N does. That's why customers know they can return an item to Amazon no questions asked, or call a customer service hotline and have their issue addressed in 5 minutes or less. That's why customers shop at Amazon: not just price but convenience, great service, and a retailer who gives them recommendations that are often right on target, because they took the time to notice -- and ask -- what you like.

So, don't panic.
The point of all this is: don't let yourself get caught up in the panic of B&N and the New York publishers. There is going to be a lot of loss -- especially in print distribution. But I can tell you two groups of people who, ultimately, are not going to lose out. Readers aren't going to lose out. And writers aren't going to lose out. Who is going to lose? Big publishers and big bricks-and-mortar retailers.

But let me ask you this. Some of us are very passionate about music, just as we are about books. Are any of us in 2013 weeping tears over the disappearance of Sam Goody? Do any of us feel deprived of access to music, because there are few bona fide bricks-and-mortar stores specializing in selling recorded music?

I would like to suggest that book culture is in some ways more vibrant than it has ever been. Look at the sheer number of book blogs, book review sites, book clubs online and book clubs formed by employees at a company, by churches, by libraries. Borders crashed hard. And I miss them. I will miss B&N too. But I haven't suddenly stopped buying, reading, and talking about books. And I certainly haven't stopped selling books.

I'm totally open to disagreement, and I am not trying to say that the closure of so many bookstores isn't going to be painful. But it's not the apocalypse that the industry is telling you it is. That's my 2 cents, and remember that I'm one novelist, not a scholar of the industry ... so take what I say with a grain of salt, too. But watch.

Stant Litore

Merry Christmas Eve, and a Kindle Daily Deal

Dear readers,

Merry Christmas Eve and Happy Holidays! I am at home with my lovely wife, my toddler, and my one-year-old, who is mercifully doing very well this month. My toddler especially has caught the excitement of the holiday; little River has been wandering the house calling out: "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!" For her the holiday isn't shopping or pitched battles at the mall or insane traffic or even time off from work; it's just colored lights and ornaments, a little more time with her father than usual, new words to learn, and laughter. Being thirty years older than she, I might miss the 'holiday spirit' entirely if not for her unqualified joy. May she always remind me!

I'm writing because just in time for your virtual Christmas stockings, Amazon has selected my book Death Has Come Up into Our Windows (The Zombie Bible) for the December 24 Kindle Daily Deals:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=pe_170810_27312570_pe_button/?docId=1000677541

For today only, the novella that started The Zombie Bible is $0.99 (kindle edition). It is beautifully rated and reviewed and I know many of you have read it. I'd be delighted and grateful if you would share word of this Christmas Eve sale of the book, or gift copies to your friends. For a year the royalties from this novella have covered my daughter's rather extravagant medical expenses, and the letters, emails, and notes I've received from fans have warmed my heart during some very dark moments. Whatever sales Dec 24 brings for the book, I am immensely grateful to all of you.

I think if there is any good still thriving in the commercial mess we have made of this once beautiful holiday, that unquenchable good is the family we gather with and the stories we tell. These books are the best stories I have to tell.

At least so far. :)

Happy Holidays, thank you for sharing the series, and happy reading! Now to the egg nog.

Yours,
Stant Litore

THE STORY
God is weeping behind her veil in the Temple while the dead are eating her city alive, and her words are coming out through the mouth of her prophet Yirmiyahu. The king and the priesthood don’t like what he has to say, so they’ve thrown Yirmiyahu down a dry well, and once a day, his gaolers toss a zombie in after him. During the three days of this story, the prophet will have to fight to survive the hungry dead, dehydration, and some truly wrenching memories -- memories of atrocities witnessed, lives lost, and sacrifices that shatter the heart.

Editorial Reviews: 

"It's a wildly original tale: beautiful, terrifying, and deeply reverent. Racked by his divine calling, Litore's Jeremiah embodies the ambivalent prophet's existential anguish with memorable resonance. Highly recommended." - Jason Kirk 

"Litore took aim at telling this sub-genre in a way that no one was doing and he absolutely nailed it. I’m seriously blown away by everything Litore has done here, and you will be, too. Death Has Come Up Into Our Windows, my friends." - James Garcia

Death Has Come Up into Our Windows http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=pe_170810_27312570_pe_button/?docId=1000677541

Thank you! A great week for The Zombie Bible and my family

I just wanted to thank all of you who shared news of The Zombie Bible this week, or tweeted it, or gifted a copy to a friend. So many people spread the word, and What Our Eyes Have Witnessed broke the series previous' sales record this Wednesday, selling more copies as the Kindle Daily Deal than Death Has Come Up into Our Windows sold on Christmas Day 2011 (the previous record), reaching #3 on Amazon's horror bestseller list and #5 on the fantasy bestseller list. I am very thankful and delighted to see that so many new readers are encountering this dark and wonderful series for the first time.

It is wonderful news both because I believe passionately in these stories and because -- as many of you know -- for the time being, the royalties are covering my one-year-old daughter's ongoing medical expenses (for the story, read "How the Kindle and KDP Helped Save My Little Girl" - http://zombiebible.blogspot.com/2012/06/how-kindle-and-kdp-helped-save-my.html). The sales this week are a great Christmas gift to my family.

Those of you who are checking into the series for the first time, I hope you enjoy the read, and please let me know what you think -- the good, the bad, the ugly: I want to hear it all.  :)

I wish you all Happy Holidays,

Stant Litore

Death Has Come Up into Our Windows: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007FJHDBI
What Our Eyes Have Witnessed: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007EUOF6Y
Strangers in the Land: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007EUOP3W

http://www.facebook.com/zombiebible