I get occasional visitors via Google-land, and it’s…interesting…to see exactly what search terms they’ve entered to get here (though Google now hides this information from me if the search is performed by a logged-in user, the spoilsports).
So I figured I’d share some of ’em with you.
But first! There’s a new way to get to the site! I read over at The Digital Reader about No Names, No Jackets and thought the idea was wonderful. Basically you pick a genre (or not) and get a random chapter of somebody’s book. (Well, here I go with the caveats: the chapter’s actually selected by the author, and I don’t know how good the random-number generator is either, but you probably gain nothing by reading this sentence, so stop.)
No book description, no title, no author name. Just a chapter, and if you like it there’s a link where you can get the rest of the info.
I don’t know how long this will remain true, but so far I haven’t found a bad chapter on the site. I’m tempted to be perverse and link directly to my own entry, but…well. What for? Go look. I promise nothing, but–you’re a reader, right? So. (And if you’re a writer too, the whole thing is essentially a lightly customized WordPress blog. Easy to use.)
Also I found out today that I’d inadvertently included two chapters in a single entry. Uh. Oops? So I may be struck with a bolt of lightning soon. Or maybe I’ll fix it. Or both.
Okay. Search terms follow:
“pagan sex”
This one’s awesome, of course. I fully realize my book title is horrible in every commercial sense. The people who click to read the description are almost certainly not the people who’d like the actual book. But…well, eventually I’ll have more books out, and people who want to read more of my stuff will find it. Then they can make the call. As for me? I do not ever want to be the guy who thought of that title, realized the book gave him a perfect excuse to use it, and then…didn’t. Readers can do what they want about it. There’s one other downside: if I ever do get around to writing a counter-cultural coital how-to, I’ll have to use a different title for it. Related searches: “sex with a caveat,” “sexatale,” “sexupdates,” “sex with amazons,” “sex stores new orleans,” “robbery sex free mobi sex.com.”
“pegan sex”
Okay, this could have gone in the list above. But hold on a minute: there’s potential here. If people are searching for a term and finding my site, it kinda makes sense to capitalize on that. Right? So…I could write a science fiction novel about a race of people called “Pegans” and totally clean up!
“profanity on amazon”
Um, okay. I kind of see how that happened.
“free ass node baby ass baby node”
Is this one actually my fault? Cool, I guess.
“fun times rv”
Yep, okay.
“contracts are evil”
Totally goes back to my first blog post when I was starting a software company in 2009. Nice that it still works sometimes.
“always barefoot”
If only. Also, sometimes “barefoot” and “bare foot.” Once: “trucker barefoot.”
“does smashwords distribute to google books”
Nope, they don’t. But I like ’em anyway. Related: “is smashwords really free,” “like smashwords,” “mark coker smashwords a fraud,” “sites like smashwords but better,” “smashwords assign isbn”
“scribendi sucks”
Okay, this one’s because I’m an ass. But I was provoked. I tried Scribendi’s editing services & got a total whack job–that can refer to either the editing or the editor there; it was nuts. Whatever the quality of the original chapter I sent (opinions will vary as they please), the “edits” were in every case either harmful or semi-neutral. And I think there was evil intent: trolling for easily intimidated writers with money, basically. So…anyway, read my post if you like. Related terms: “scribendi is a bad company,” “scribendi contract,” “scribendi editing test,” “scribendi rip off,” “scribendi and publishers,” “can i trust scribendi,” “novels edited by scribendi.” Amusingly, people working for Scribendi still search for the phrase “scribendi sucks” from time to time and click through to my site, thus helping me to preserve my ownership of the phrase. Hi, folks in Kitchener! Way to monitor your brand!
“extortion amazon”
Heh. Related, sorta: “john locke method ebooks scam”
“indiana inmate search”
Um. I guess there are things I haven’t told you guys? My story: it surprised me too.
“speculating ass”
Totally cool. And yes, that seems to fit.
“rock shop new orleans”
All right. Time to stop. A surprising number of searchers get here via stuff like that. All hail the great god Algorithm!
Hope that was fun for you. I’m going back to work now. Probably.
I thought No Names, No Jackets was a great site, too! And I’m sure the host has been bogged down with authors uploading chapters after Nate mentioned it. I uploaded chapters from three of my husband’s books, and have been browsing some of the other chapters there. I found it interesting that YA was included; teens are usually excluded from fun adult sites!
Hmm. I hadn’t thought about the YA angle. The site, being nearly out-of-the-box WordPress, wouldn’t have taken a lot to set up in a technical sense, so I doubt there’s been a lot of money spent so far. I hope there aren’t any legal issues–it’s such a great idea. But, y’know, amazon.com has it all too, and so do lots of other bookish zones. So I’m hopeful.