Category Archives: Author

July 28, 2012 · 10:14 pm

Today was the Day . . .


. . .  that this weblog hit 50,000 views.  My first blog entry dates back to January 3, 2011:  A New Career; A New Beginning

Readership began slowly, with dramatic spikes in 2011 during the months of April (my three-part exposé on why Southwest Airlines’ Boeing fall apart in flight) and then again in July (when WordPress placed my Carlsbad Caverns Photography blog on their Freshly Pressed list.  Around that time I was receiving about 1,500 views per month, but that April saw over 6,200 visits, and July drew an audience of nearly 5,200.

After that, things settled down and readership stagnated at around the 1,500 level until December of last year.  That month broke 2,000.  Four months later RDougWicker.com was above 3,000.  Just one month after that, in May of this year, readership blasted through the 4,000 mark and has remained above that level ever since.

To all my readers I would like to extend a very heartfelt “Thank You.”  You’re a great audience, and I hope you will allow me to continue to entertain, amuse, and inform.

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Filed under Author, Social Networking

July 11, 2012 · 5:38 am

How to Sell a Million eBooks on Amazon and Barnes & Noble . . .


. . . is something I ask myself daily.

Excuse me while I engage in a little self-deprecating humor today.  I’m just in one of those moods.  Besides, I’m good a self-deprecating humor because there’s so much about which I can self-deprecate.  Here goes:

What . . . you thought I had an answer to the question posed above?  Would I be here wasting my time doing this if I did?  Isn’t that kind of like buying a video on how to become wealthy in the comfort of your own home?  While only working at your computer two hours and forty-three minutes a day?  While cruising Facebook and Twittering?  As you play Minesweeper?  In between naps?  I mean, think about that for a moment—if somebody knew that secret, would they:

  • be telling you about it?
  • asking you to pay $29.95 for the secret?  They’re already (supposedly) rich, right?
  • selling you something that, if known by too many people, would dilute it’s overall value to them?
  • be wasting their time trying to sell you something to begin with?

HECK NO!  They’d be living it up instead.  They’d be on their ocean-plying, yacht-born computers.  Facebooking and Twittering the day away.  While playing Minesweeper.  In between naps.

Kind of reminds me of that inadvertently revealing sign posted on the door of the Psychics’ Convention—

Cancelled Due To Unforeseen Circumstances

As my literary agent would frequently lament, “Well, I liked it.”  That’s nice to hear.  Doesn’t help pay to put sand in the kitty litter box, but it’s nice to hear.

And then there are those well-intentioned few who try to comfort (Hint:  It doesn’t work; see below):

Friend 1:  “Do you know how many times Stephen King was rejected?”
Me:  “Apparently at least one less time than I’ve been.”

Friend 2:  “I can’t believe this thing isn’t published, especially considering all the crap out there that is.”
Me:  “Care to rephrase that?  You’re not helping.”

Friend 3:  “Have you thought about writing a vampire love story?”
Me:  “Now there’s an original idea that no one else is doing.”

Friend 4:  “Stephen King’s wife fished Carrie out of the trash, and it became a bestseller.”
Me:  “Great.  Do you think you can get Mrs. King over to my house to go through my trash?  Better yet, maybe I should hide a manuscript underneath my underwear pile.”

Friend 5:  “I have this great idea for a story, but I don’t know how to write it.”
Me:  “That makes two of us.”

Friend 6:  “This is as least as good as James Joyce’s Ulysses.”
Me:  “Ulysses is the greatest novel never read.”

Okay, I made that last one up.  I’ve never been compared to James Joyce.  Agatha Christie?  Yes (by Publishers Weekly).  Nelson DeMille?  Yes.  Carl Hiaasen?  Yes.

But James Joyce?  No (and I secretly hope that I never am).

Anyway, if you want to see what all the fuss isn’t about:

The Globe—murder most opulent

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Filed under Author, Books, eReaders, Humor, Writing

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June 22, 2012 · 7:19 pm

I’m SYNDICATED . . .


. . . sort of.  Well, not quite.  Not even almost.  It sounds good, though.

But . . . I was today featured on Karen Wojcik Berner’s weekly Flash Fiction Fridays feature.  Karen recently asked for material, and I sent to her a piece I’d run sometime in the past.  Yes, it’s that old classic tale of Paris in 1482, shortly after the unfortunate demise of Quasimodo.   Alas, I’m getting ahead of this pun-filled groaner . . . er, I mean a real fun-filled loaner . . . so I’ll just point you to the rest of this borrowed tale (which Karen categorized as, “A Real Humdinger:”

Bob the Bell Ringer

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Filed under Author, Humor, Writing

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