Nick Wilczynski's picture
Nick Wilczynski from Greensboro, NC is reading A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin October 1, 2011 - 7:05pm

I've just published my first novel, and since we are still exploring the customs pertaining to whoring oneself out shamelessly on this forum I thought I might as well start a new thread just for it, in case people needed a place that was not the official whoring thread to criticize my sample chapter or acccuse me of overcharging for an ebook. It isn't that I don't think any of you have positive thoughts, but I am interested in all range of opinions and my feelings won't be hurt no matter what gets said. It's published on smashwords, which is at its heart a vanity publisher, so that in itself raises the point that for many people in the publishing and literary community Upright Citizens didn't do it. Personally, I love it. It has been heavily edited and polished, I stand behind it 100%,

Upright Citizens is set in 2009, a few years after Rob and his partners stumbled upon a wasted remain of what was once a traditional main street, every store foreclosed, junkies populating the alleys. They turned it around, bringing environmentally friendly energy, weekly soup kitchens, steady jobs for the homeless and poor, and a tradition of intellectual stimulation among their neighbors. Also, copious amounts of cannabis, which they grow now in these buildings and distribute to a two state radius in all directions.

The Upright Citizens aren't bad people, they are parents and teachers who just happen to have fashioned themselves a "biker gang" long ago and never got out of the habit as their lives went on. But they are threatened by the growth of "The Farm" as the police become more and more corrupt and the social fabric of their lives begins to unravel, and so they take matters into their own hands.

Upright Citizens is a book about "culture war" about the struggle to conceptualize our "enemies," and the divisive self righteous politics that are, well, being 24 I have to admit, the only sort of politics I've ever actually seen.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/88089

A. Mason Carpenter's picture
A. Mason Carpenter from USA is reading The Power of Myth, by Joseph Campbell October 1, 2011 - 7:20pm

If I ever get 2.99 out of selling my book, I will buy yours.  The changing legal and social view of marijuana in modern America is a fun subject to explore.  My novel touches on it, as well.  Wish I had started writing when I was 24, I was too busy, at that time, trying to change the legal and social view of marijuana in (then) modern America.  My method was to smoke a lot of it and hope for the best.  Now I am older and much too lazy to deal with lawlessness, stoner drama, or quasi-legal "prescription" setups.  I just drink homemade wine like a normal freak.

Congratulations on finishing and publishing.  I wish you nothing but success.

AMC

PS That was very graceful self promotion.

Nick Wilczynski's picture
Nick Wilczynski from Greensboro, NC is reading A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin October 2, 2011 - 2:41am

I started writing this book in 2007, so I didn't exactly start at 24, obviously the idea has gone through a lot of structural changes since I was 20 (there are maybe 5 scenes left in the entire book from the original incarnation) and endured countless hours of research and grammatical probing.

I don't know, I'm not one to try to talk about "Authorial Intent" especially with regards to my own work, but I didn't really write the book as an act of marijuana activism, not that it isn't there, its in the book, I won't deny it. But I think the motivation came more from the fact that I was writing about what I knew and when I was 19 the things I knew (or at least thought I knew) were limited to politics and the cannabis trade, so I wrote a book using the cannabis trade as a metaphor for national political caricatures. 

Thank you again.

Nick Wilczynski's picture
Nick Wilczynski from Greensboro, NC is reading A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin December 5, 2011 - 8:19pm

The old coupon code is expired and will no longer work.

Nick Wilczynski's picture
Nick Wilczynski from Greensboro, NC is reading A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin December 5, 2011 - 8:19pm

The new coupon code is HE45U, it is a 50% coupon that makes the book .99

Smashwords is still getting blackballed by Amazon, but it's available on B&N and Diesel for sure.

Yes, I saw other self promotion threads getting attention, I guess I'm not that original, but renewing the coupon code seems like a good excuse.