[start: pre-review rant]

If there was one group that I always detested while studying for my psychology degree, it was the behaviorists. The followers of BF Skinner are those who reduce every interaction to types of conditioning. I intensely disliked this mechanical view of humanity, almost as much as I disliked the empirically sloppy and out-and-out lunacy of Sigmund Freud.

Take the situation of a teenager self-harming. A behavorist would be thinking of either extinguishing that behaviour or channeling it into a more “acceptable” alternative. So, just to go to extremes, a behavorist would consider the issue of self-harm “solved” if the teenager in question, say, began making daisy chains instead of cutting his/her inner forearms with a Stanley knife (i.e. box-cutter I think Americans call them). Does that solve the underlying issue? Of course it doesn’t but as behaviorists are only concerned with surface actions and reactions, it isn’t a problem for them.

The dross that passes for the “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” series of books are another in this line of fatuous reasoning and if I can ever dig out my copy of that book (then again, I probably used it as toilet paper, thus granting it some degree of utility), I’ll do a review on that one too.

[end: pre-review rant]

Which is my extraordinarily long-winded introduction to “How to Speak Dog” by Dr. Stanley Coren. May I say what an utter UTTER delight it is to come across someone in psychology who actually seems to like and respect animals! I have always regarded our history (whether economic or social) to be incredibly speciesist and unbelievably arrogant about our place on the planet. We would like to be respected but don’t consider it necessary to respect those we inhabit this world with. What a “civilised” attitude to have!

And so, again, to this book. Dr. Coren is a skilful and entertaining writer who is able to explain canine behaviour in a straightforward manner that precludes a purely mechanistic view of animals. He is all for anthropomorphism of our mammal cousins, and I couldn’t be happier. After some interesting and informative anecdotes at the beginning, Coren launches into animal (including human, for we are animals too) evolution. He even makes the provocative and delightful supposition that human speech may owe its development to dogs!

He then goes into describing extraordinarily intelligent animals (with some explanations of how they achieved this…excellent observational skills, mostly) and how dog names affect their reception by strangers. The construction of clever experiments, in this case to test canine cognition and comprehension, always fascinates me and Coren’s examples of such scenarios and the conclusions that can be drawn from them are captivating.

Different chapters of the book cover Face Talk, Ear Talk, Eye Talk, Tail Talk, Body Talk, Sex Talk, Scent Talk and I was able to watch the interactions between our mini bull terriers and our cats with much greater interest (and amusement) after reading the chapter on “Dogs Talking to Cats”. There are even illustrations that show escalated levels of fear, dominance, submission, and so on.

I won’t say that I agree with everything Dr. Coren says. Bull terriers, for example, seem to have their own sub-set of behaviours that doesn’t always appear to correspond one-to-one with the “phrasebook” Coren provides (all the physical indicators, conveniently grouped together in the back). Sausage, for example, always accompanies my husband on his nightly lock-up of the house and approaches this duty with a confident trot and her tail bent sharply up (so sharply, in fact, that it looks broken). Coren says this is a dangerous behaviour: “It is a definite sign that immediate aggression is being contemplated by the dog” (p. 126), but we interpret it to mean a watchful alertness; i.e. “On Guard!”, especially when there is no immediate sign of danger in the vicinity. When her “duty” is done and she’s safely upstairs, Sausage relaxes that sharp bend and comes looking for cuddles, preferably in someone’s lap.

But, other than a couple of niggles along those lines, I have no truck with anything in the book and, in fact, have bought two other books by Dr. Coren on dogs and dog psychology. As with this one, I’m sure the next two books will also be keepers.

Summary: Highly recommended to any caring dog (with cat!) owner. I’ll be giving this 4 stars and copying the bulk of this review to Goodreads.

HOW TO SPEAK DOG: Available from The Book Depository for US$11.00 with free shipping worldwide

Back when I was a teenager, child of migrants, sitting at the dinner table in Australia, my parents used to express their opinions on the ways of the world. One of their favourite soapboxes was how depraved Westerners were.

“We never had homosexuals in Malaysia before the British came.” How they’d know that, both being born well after the Portuguese, then Dutch, then British invaded, is beyond me.

“Before Asia started reporting Western news, there was no such thing as child abuse.“The same lack of coherent reasoning also seems to be coming into play with NO accusations in Asia of child sex abuse by Catholic priests. Yeah, right!

“Now, everybody accepts swearing, nudity and crime. It’s God’s punishment against the Western world.” Which is ironic, because I’m sure the majority of white Australians thought that the Asian immigration trickle (of which we were a part) was God’s punishment against them. LOL

In addition to these pearls of wisdom was one bandied about at every Asian gathering you could think of. Asian associations, Asian business organisations, Asian social gatherings, it didn’t matter which. And the pearl of pearls was this: We Have Asian Values. No other culture or nation can storm our pure white shiny citadel because it is constructed from Asian Values and not those sloppy, undisciplined, depraved mores that pass for free thought in the (mostly Western) world. I’m sure that if you translate the speeches of the Chinese politburo, or read pronouncements from the Indian parliament on foreign affairs, you’ll come across a variation of this steaming pile of crap.

Which is why it delights me no end to present to you the Durex Sexual Well-being Global Survey 2011.

Oh Malaysia. Wonderful Malaysia. The country that states quite categorically that one of the pillars of its constitution is a belief in God. It doesn’t matter which god, as long as it’s someone, you know, deity-like. Needless to say, a non-belief in God is feckless, immoral and leads to the kind of depravity that used to be known in the world as Western democracy. (Missing it yet?) And it’s this pillar of nationhood that’s used to make your average citizen appear pious. So damn pious, in fact, that Malaysians (you know, those god-fearing folk) are ranked THIRD IN THE WORLD for infidelity.

Isn’t that a hoot? But that’s not the end for Asian Values because The. Most. Unfaithful. Nation. On. The. Planet. is…Thailand. Followed by South Korea. And Malaysian women are more unfaithful (39%) than Malaysian men (33%). Yes folks, those “Asian Values” appear to be at the global vanguard of sexual dishonesty. Give yourselves a pat on the back.

You can’t believe the absolute storm of laughter that echoed through our house when I read the article in an edition of Malaysia’s The Star newspaper. But Malaysians don’t disappoint, with claims that infidelity “is in the genes” (and thus does not interfere with one’s duty to God) and — my favourite — infidelity is due to “more opportunities [in modern society] for men and women to socialise”. That’s right. Just send women to the kitchen, make sure they never come out of the back of the house, and your infidelity problem is solved!

This brings up a very interesting Jordan-based Islamic organisation that has been banned in Malaysia but is around (and, purportedly, growing) in Singapore. I’m referring to OWC, or the Obedient Wives’ Club. (The reason it’s banned in Malaysia is not due to its gender-oriented teachings but to the fact that the founder of this branch of Islam — of which the OWC is a part — is considered a heretic.) To be completely dispassionate, these people are utter lunatics. What else can you say about a group that believes that a man can manifest in several geographic locations simultaneously in order to sexually satisfy multiple wives? Or that wives should serve their husbands “better than…first-class prostitute[s]” in order to stem male infidelity. No no, I can’t do justice to the words of OWC’s Vice-President Dr. Rohaya Mohamed, who said, in clarification of that comment, that

“I believe we have been misunderstood and misinterpreted. When we said that husbands should treat their wives like first-class prostitutes, we were not putting wives on the same level with prostitutes. We are talking about first-class elite types, not street hooker types. [Does that clarify things sufficiently for you? -Kaz. All bolded words are my emphasis] Our wives provide men with top-level service.“

Bwahahahahaha! There’s nothing I can say that can ridicule the organisation better than their own words. The OWC also blames wives for domestic violence (“When a husband comes home and receives good treatment from the wife, they become better and more loving husbands. Why would they treat their spouse badly if they are treated well?”), and wants everyone to know that: “The modern wife seems to forget that it is her responsibility to keep the husband satisfied.”

And if you’re thinking it can’t get any worse than holding (theoretical) sex lessons for OWC members (pictures, illustrations or even workshops on the topic are haram (forbidden)), may I add that they also believe:

If the reason [a woman got married in the first place] is love, then the woman is more likely to cheat on her husband. The first and foremost reason for getting married should be the fear of God.

Which reminds me of a joke. What comes between fear and sex? Funf! LOL

I read recently on Twitter (from a woman, of course) that it is bad form if someone who is a strong feminist criticises women with dissenting views. Well, I’m a strong feminist. And, believe me, if there is a group of dissenting women who deserve to be criticised more than the OWC, I’ve yet to hear of it. Their kind of simplistic reading of complex human relationships, proselytized by future victims of domestic abuse themselves, sets the whole area of gender relations back a few centuries rather than contributing anything of value, and I shall be criticising like hell whenever and wherever they, and their ilk, are mentioned in my presence.

ADDITIONAL: The OWC has published its own Sex Guide (unfortunately only available for sale to OWC members).

For an extra 50 points, its title is: “Islamic Sex, Fighting Against Jews To Return Islamic Sex To The World“(Seks Islam; Perangi Yahudi Untuk Kembalikan Seks Islam Kepada Dunia), with a 1000 point bonus for (a) allegedly not pointing out how “Islamic sex” is different from “Jewish sex” AND, (b) not outlining how “Islamic sex” shall be returned “to the world” when only OWC stalwarts are allowed to buy the tract in the first place. But no, by all means, let’s not criticise them.

Well, maybe one and a half.

Welcome, stalwart reader! I have news! My latest novel, QUINTEN’S STORY, about a bitter and maimed man and the crewmember he buys is now percolating through your favourite etailers. This means Amazon, XinXii, Smashwords and Omnilit/All Romance Ebooks. The price for his novel (approx. 70,000 words) is currently set at US$3.99, with it going up to US$4.99 at the end of the month. So, if you’re hankering for a copy, I’d get one now rather than later.

As is usual, you can read a bit of the background, and the entire first chapter, of the book at my website. If you’re after a summary page of where you can buy it, please click on this link to be taken to Sandal Press.

And that brings up the second piece of news. Sandal Press has also put together a sampler of all its 2011 releases, which includes the first two chapters of QUINTEN’S STORY. It is available from Sandal direct for the princely sum of…FREE!

That’s right, partials of all of Sandal’s 2011 releases plus a bit of our first 2012 release. All in all, that comes to 39,000 words. I’m hoping it will generate some interest, and drive paying customers to my door but, regardless, I think it a valuable annual exercise and have already started to construct the 2012 sampler to make my life easier this time next year.

Having been brought up in a repressive Roman Catholic environment, it’s difficult for me to really trumpet about my latest novel, but I know it’s required, so here are some summary points:

• It’s set in the Republic
• There is a love story at its heart but no romantic happy ending
• The novel gives greater insight into the Transitional (shapeshifter) species and how it fits into Republic space
• Yes, I will be releasing a sequel, hopefully at the end of this year or the beginning of 2013.

BLURB:

Quinten Tamlan was once the scourge of the Republic. Then he disappeared….

It’s been seven long years for Quinten Tamlan. Scarred and bitter, he has lost direction and the spark of idealism that once fired his resolve.

Until he decides to take on a new crewmember. Quinten believes he has his own problems. He believes he is alone and forgotten. He is wrong. Quite wrong.

Again, links to my website and Sandal Press for your convenience.

I am not resting on my laurels. I am still finishing up the first draft of Cara d’Bastian’s next book, THE RETURN OF THE HANTU. Once that is off my plate, I’ll be plotting out…the sequel to IN ENEMY HANDS, currently titled BALANCE OF TERROR. I know its basic structure but will need to sit down and see if Kad Minslok can’t throw a few spanners into the machinery of Srin and Moon’s pharmaceutical dependency problem.

And, lastly but not leastly, Katiebabs is holding a 2012 Lesbian Appreciation Event at her blog, Babbling About Books, and a few of us authors (Cathy Pegau, Jessica E Subject and myself) will be having posts up during this event. I believe mine will appear on Sunday. For some great books for you to add to your reading list, make sure you visit. You won’t be disappointed.

Yep, it’s the time of the year for the inevitable retrospective. In all honesty, that’s always been a bit difficult for me as, once I have a story published, I half-forget about it and move on. So if you ask me when a particular book was released, don’t be surprised if I don’t have a clue! BUT, I think I can tell you what happened this year. Roughly.

* I published a short SFR story set on Europa (one of Jupiter’s moons) called, appropriately enough, EUROPA EUROPA. This story was included in Total-E-Bound’s SEEING STARS anthology, as well as being released as a standalone short in digital and audio formats.

* I was chuffed enough about EUROPA EUROPA to write another short for Total-E-Bound, called TAINTED LOVE. My first evah vampire story, I now think I should have published it under the Cara d’Bastian pen-name, just to give a bit of additional focus to that new name. Ah well, what’s done is done. I thoroughly enjoyed writing TAINTED LOVE and might revisit Cleo and Bryce at some point.

* J and I started up Sandal Press and published an SF novel as our first self-published release. At 90,000 words, WAR GAMES was the book that several agents said they loved but couldn’t sell. I could either let it languish in a drawer, have it and my career hog-tied to an otherwise well-respected small press with the vilest contract terms imaginable, or publish it ourselves.

* A vacation to Poland provided the impetus for a small travelogue on the Silesian and Moravian regions of Poland and the Czech Republic, respectively. It was called IT’S 10AM, WHY AM I STILL SOBER? (Sandal Press) and is currently making the rounds of the family, so it’s just as well I kept my normal swearing to a minimum while writing it.

* The vacation itself and release of the travelogue pushed out the publication of THE CHECK YOUR LUCK AGENCY (Sandal), which still emerged in October (yay!), although Kobo only managed to get it listed in December and then without its cover. Sigh.

With those three releases, J and I met our initial milestone of three Sandal releases in 2011, even if they weren’t the three we had initially envisaged.

Have we made any money with Sandal? No. We’ve spent hundreds of dollars in editing, cover art and sundry business expenses without making a tenth of it back. BUT…I didn’t expect to. When I was first pitching the idea to J, I told them that self-publishing was a long-term proposition and that I wasn’t expecting to see any serious money come out of it for three years. Yep, we have a thirty-six month event horizon on Sandal Press. At the time of this writing, we’re barely five months in. Sure, I’m disappointed I’m not an overnight sensation , but we’ll just stick to the plan for now.

What does this mean for 2012?

We all have plans and I’m sure that whatever I put down now will change by the time the next release comes out, but 2012 looks like fast becoming The Year of the Sequel.

* I’m planning on releasing the next two or three books in d’Bastian’s Check Your Luck series (Book 2: RETURN OF THE HANTU, Book 3: WRATH OF THE HARIMAU).

* Okay, a space opera set in the Republic coming out in January (QUINTEN’S STORY) is not a sequel but bear with me.

* A few of you might be pleased to know I’m also contemplating the sequel to IN ENEMY HANDS.

I thought I’d still have time to write some stories for some other publishers but wonder if I’m being overly ambitious about that, so I think I’ll just stick to my Sandal plans for the time being.

What about you? Anything you’d like to share about what you did this year or what you’re planning for 2012? Is there any other Augustin title you’d like to read the sequel to?

There are not too many ethnic groups around the world who can point to one specific event in history and say, “There, that’s where my race was born.” Usually, your ethnicity is something you’re aware of but is fuzzy and recedes into history. Not so for the Portuguese Eurasians of Malaysia (later, Singapore).

This year is a Big Deal for us. It was in 1511 that Alfonso de Albuquerque invaded Melaka/Malacca and took the port by force. This was not the first time that the Portuguese tried to take Malacca, but they got thrown out in 1509 when the resident Sultan got wind of their plans. In 1511, a more prepared de Albuquerque and his armada returned to complete the conquest.

Up to the point of Portuguese conquest, Malacca was an important trading port already centuries old. Over one hundred languages were spoken there and goods from as far away as Arabia and China were bought, sold and bartered. The avaricious Portuguese, stumbling across this financial jewel, of course had to have it and, in the process, destroyed it through a time of constant war, atrocities and strife.

So the Portuguese were the first Western colonial power in the region. That lasted for less than 150 years until the Dutch invaded. Whatever else you say about the Portuguese, at least they believed in trying to assimilate with the native populations. (Hence, moi.) Not so the Dutch and, if you’re in any doubt about it, I suggest you talk to a knowledgeable Indonesian about their history under Dutch colonisation. (So much so that Indonesian patriots initially saw the Japanese invaders of WWII as liberators, until reality sadly showed them otherwise.)

Then, after the Dutch, came the British and they managed to screw things up royally, as any impartial political observer of a young Malaysia’s founding precepts will tell you, before retreating almost sixty years ago.

But the Portuguese Eurasians were there, through four colonial conquests (three Western and one Eastern), fleeing north, then south, as oncoming waves of invaders attempted to eradicate “half-breeds” from their patch of taken territory.

While not wanting to actually (yuk!) marry us, it was the British who gave the Eurasians a start on the ladder of middle-class prosperity. Our European blood made us more palatable choices for posts as administrators, lawyers and public servants, a positive discrimination policy that the other races (rightly) resented. By the end of the nineteenth century, we were still Catholic (the Portuguese influence), but now owned our own landed properties and could afford servants of our own.

So where are we now? From my estimates, the Portuguese Eurasian population numbers no more than twenty thousand throughout Malaysia and Singapore. Early this month, there was a giant parade and celebration in Malacca “celebrating” the 500th anniversary of the entry of de Albuquerque and his army of 1,200 men into the port. To my mind, that’s like the offspring of a rape celebrating the day her mother got violated.

But we do that, don’t we? If the natives of Burkina Faso (and I’m using an hypothetical example here) had invaded and committed atrocities on the population of San Francisco back in the 1800s, I doubt that sequence of events would be celebrated with bands and fireworks a few centuries on. All I can do is look on, completely bemused, as it appears that we are prepared to excuse massacre after massacre because a Westerner did it.

It goes further. Everybody tries to claim the “Eurasian” tag now. From the time when, as a teenager, I was described as a “slut” due to my race (all these half-breeds must fornicate at the drop of a hat, doncha know?), now it appears that every would-be model claims to be Eurasian and are lauded over in the press for their “Western features”, “blue eyes”, or whatever. All this, for a race that used to make other parents (Malay, Chinese, Indian) threaten to disown their children if even the whiff of a liaison with an Eurasian came up. Which is why, until very very recently, you get Eurasians only marrying Eurasians or Westerners. To be honest, nobody else wanted us.

So believe me when I say, as a Portuguese Eurasian, looking back on half a millennia of personal history, that I don’t think it’s such a bad thing if we get diluted, genration by generation, and completely die out. The Portuguese themselves have never cared to establish any strong links with their communities scattered around the globe and the only value we seem to have in Asia is our connexion to some Western superiority trope that the continent still hasn’t managed to overthrow.

In a so-called postcolonial world, we are still in thrall to Western fashion and while there are some Western concepts that should be taken up locally (fostering of innovation and creativity, participatory democracy, basic human rights, environmental awareness), that’s not what’s grabbing people by the long and straights. (Fyi, Asians don’t have short and curlies.) The people here seem to be more interested in the skin than the substance, the features rather than the ideas, Caucasianism rather than the categorical imperative.

I call it Caucasianism but there should be a better term for this, the Asian equivalent of Orientalism, where the shallow features of a prevailing culture are used to infer deep (and, therefore, false) truth about that particular culture. In Caucasianism, we somehow conflate such trivia as the lack of epicanthic folds, the unhealthy pale skin, the height, the blue eyes, with sophistication and greater intelligence. This is a colonialist mentality far more pernicious and insidious than any Asia has suffered and we seem to have taken on its mantle eagerly. Asia really needs to grow up.

* I’ll be out of action for the next two weeks. By the time I’m back, QUINTEN’S STORY should be out. Here’s hoping. Have a happy and safe holiday, if you are, and I’ll catch you mid-January.

Last year, as we were driving around the neighbourhood, we noticed a banner up at the side of the road advertising Christmas Dinner at a nearby restaurant. With nothing planned for Christmas Eve, we decided to go there. And we did. It was stupendous. There was roast turkey and lamb, smoked salmon and mackerel, pasta, vegetables (including my fav, Brussel Sprouts) and a full range of desserts. Wine was offered at a special two-bottles-for-the-price-of-one, the tables were decorated and the staff were courteous, smiling and helpful. The best thing was, it was a buffet. We didn’t so much waddle, as roll, out the door at night’s end.

I know this might be construed as racist but, just as the Chinese are generally seen as being industrious, Malays can throw extremely good parties. And even though all the staff were Malay (and thus Muslim), and there were unfortunately no pork products available (ham…sigh), the entire family was made to feel extremely welcome. There was even a Santa Claus (one of the staff) handing out little presents to all the kids who attended. I doubt anyone could have done it better.

As you can imagine, after that wonderful night, we were waiting with bated breath for this year, hoping that the neighbourhood restaurant would do the same thing. What we forgot was this.

Since last year, there has been a significant influx of expats into the area. British expats, mostly. And a group of them must have approached the management of the neighbourhood restaurant because, this year, we don’t have the dinner like we had last year. Oh no, this year, we have two parties. A kids’ party and, one and a half hours later, an adults’ party.

This seems to be a peculiarly British and Australian thing, this division of…well, everything at a social event. (The Americans, from the Californian parties we attended, seem generally, thankfully, free of this kind of WTFery.) If there are Australians at a barbie, they’ll automatically divide into the men’s group and the women’s group, with a no-go area in between. (And, if you’re male and more interested in women, and thus cross the invisible line to go talk to said women, you’ll be regarded as a “poofter”, which is incredibly ironic as “poofter” is a derogatory term for a gay. If you’re a woman and more interested in talking to the men, well of course you’re a “slut”.)

If you socialise with a bunch of Poms, they’ll inevitably throw an event where the kids have to disappear for hours on end while the adults have some fun. What’s interesting about this is that the Poms won’t organise an alternative to occupy the kids that aren’t supposed to be there, they’re just not supposed to be there, and it appears to be perfectly okay if their (and your) children are walking the streets or panhandling or something, as long as no carousing adult catches sight of one.

Why I’m particularly bemused this year is that, of all the holidays of all the seasons of all of the year, you’d really expect CHRISTMAS to be a family event, wouldn’t you? I can understand a no-children rule at, say, a Valentine’s Day dinner or New Year’s Eve bash (and we’ve not attended more than a decades’ worth of said parties due to our little petals) but CHRISTMAS???? Good freakin’ grief!

So there you go, another promising event shot to hell, and it’s all thanks to the British. Even when their colonising armies went home, their mentality obviously didn’t.

When I checked my email this morning, I noticed an interesting little note from KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) in my Inbox. It said:

We’re excited to introduce KDP Select…KDP Select gives you a new way to earn royalties, reach a broader audience, and use a new set of promotional tools.

Right up front, Amazon hits you with the money:

…KDP Select – a new option dedicated to KDP authors and publishers worldwide, featuring a fund of $500,000 in December 2011 and at least $6 million in total for 2012!

Wow, you say, where do I sign up? Here’s the potatoes, disguised as meat:

When you make any of your titles exclusive to the Kindle Store for at least 90 days, those with US rights will automatically be included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library and can earn a share of a monthly fund.  The monthly fund for December 2011 is $500,000 and will total at least $6 million in 2012.

And, just to give you an example:

For example, if total borrows of all participating KDP titles are 100,000 in December and your book was borrowed 1,500 times, you will earn $7,500 in additional royalties from KDP Select in December.

Is that the sound of dribble hitting your keyboard that I hear?

Okay, I’ll admit it. I thought about it. As Oscar Wilde said, “the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about”, and Sandal Press needs all the promotional help it can get. Speaking of promotion, did I mention that:

You’ll also now have access to a new set of promotional tools, starting with the option to promote your KDP Select-enrolled titles for FREE for up to 5 days every 90 days.

I (of course) have several problems with this model.

1) The Kindle Lending Library, for a start, is not like a real library. In a real library, the library purchases a copy of a book before making it available for lending. If ten district libraries buy your book, that’s ten little royalties accumulating in your account. Amazon does no such thing, not even bothering with a token payment while it introduces lending for all Prime members across the entire United States…that’s equivalent to how many libraries?

You may say that that’s what the lending library fund is for but I note one thing. You’re not told what the expected uptake of the library is and you can’t tell me that Amazon hasn’t already crunched those numbers. Amazon has crunched numbers up its wazoo and, further, is extremely secretive about much that surrounds its Kindle. They know, but they’re not telling. That may be good business for them — and it is — but lack of such knowledge on which to base decisions is not good business for the average self-publisher.

2) I went and read the actual terms and conditions and it’s not quite as KDP put it in their email. To reiterate, the KDP email says:

When you make any of your titles exclusive to the Kindle Store for at least 90 days, those with US rights will automatically be included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library and can earn a share of a monthly fund.

There are two implications to this statement:

(a) That you only need to make your title exclusive to Kindle for 90 days, after which it’s automatically included in KDP Select; and

(b) There is a way to be included in the Kindle library without signing up for KDP Select. Or, to put it another way, if you read an “automatically”, you’ll assume that there’s a “manual” option somewhere.

You would be wrong on both counts. Once you move to the small print under “KDP Select Terms and Conditions” (the actual meat), you’ll note that the answer to 2(a) is:

[Clause 3] Once you include a Digital Book in KDP Select, your Digital Book will be in KDP Select for a period of 90 days. Your Digital Book’s participation will automatically renew for additional 90-day periods, unless you opt out through the KDP website before renewal. [their emphasis]

and

[Clause 1] When you include a Digital Book in KDP Select, you give us the exclusive right to sell and distribute your Digital Book in digital format while your book is in KDP Select. During this period of exclusivity, you cannot sell or distribute, or give anyone else the right to sell or distribute, your Digital Book (or content that is reasonably likely to compete commercially with your Digital Book, diminish its value, or be confused with it), in digital format in any territory where you have rights. [my emphasis]

Get that? Even “in any territory where you have rights“! Wow!

So, from my reading, you are only eligible for the fund if you’re in KDP Select. And you are enrolled in KDP Select for 90-day periods. And, during those 90-day periods (auto-renewed for your convenience) you guarantee exclusivity of your title to the Kindle store. Opt out of KDP Select (i.e. sell your ebook outside of KDP) and you opt out of the fund.

What about 2(b)? Say you still are interested in being part of the library initiative. How do you manually add your title to the library? Well, here’s where it gets tricky, because, according to the initial Kindle Direct Publishing conditions:

5.2.2 Kindle Book Lending Program. The Kindle Book Lending program enables customers who purchase a Digital Book to lend it subject to limitations we establish from time to time. All Digital Books made available through the Program are automatically included in the Kindle Book Lending program. However, for Digital Books that are in the 35% Royalty Option (as described in the Pricing Page), you may choose to opt out of the Kindle Book Lending program. … Digital Books that are in the 70% Royalty Option (as described in the Pricing Page) cannot be opted out of the lending feature.

So, as all the Sandal books are in the 70% category, it looks like I have no choice. I’m part of the Lending Library. (I cannot check this because, of course, being in Malaysia, I can’t buy a Kindle ebook or even see Kindle ebooks that are for sale.) But it looks like I won’t get a cut of cash because I’m not giving Amazon exclusivity to my titles.

3) I don’t like this model because, being in Malaysia, I can’t buy a Kindle ebook or even see Kindle ebooks for sale. Yes, I know I said that before but it’s so important, I thought I’d repeat it.

What Amazon is doing with this model is making sure that if you don’t have an Amazon in your immediate geographic region, you don’t see ebooks. Any ebooks. Why? Because Amazon will/wants to have all the ebooks locked up in an exclusivity cage called Kindle. This is far worse than the current ridiculous situation of geographic territories in print publishing, with US and UK editions of the same book (and, btw, confirms why Amazon didn’t introduce the EPUB format for new Kindles, which is what most people were expecting…they want to keep the garden walled, folks. Maybe Bezos is channelling Jobs?). We can get around those limitations currently via such places as The Book Depository and, yes, Amazon.

But that’s the print side of the fence. On the digital side of the fence, Amazon/KDP is being nothing short of a ruthless, censoring bastard. It’s hobbling authors by making their books available through only one channel (Kindle) and it’s hobbling readers by making ebooks available through only one channel (Kindle).

I think one reason Amazon is introducing KDP Select is because of Kobo. Early last month, Kobo was bought by Japanese web retailer, Ratuken. One pithy quote is:

“We’ve got a shared vision,” said Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis on the same call, noting that this shared vision includes Rakuten’s current users, who he called “50 million potential Kobo customers around the world.” Source

Kobo releases books in EPUB, the format that Amazon recently snubbed with release of the Kindle Fire, and I’m sure Amazon is betting that Rakuten and its deep experience in e-commerce won’t matter a damn if every North American title is locked up by the Kindle, as KDP Select will do.

I can’t be a party to this. Amazon initially launched KDP using such buzzwords as “freedom” and “choice”. But, lest you forget, Amazon is a business and those words were only marketing-speak, as we are quite definitely finding out now.

I am NOT signing up for the KDP Select program. I will not be taking a cut of thirty silver coins of the Kindle Lending Library fund. This may mean other self-publishers get a bigger slice of that pie. So be it.

Also apologies, but I’m running on blog empty here. In my defence, I am heavily into editing. I’ve made the changes that DevEd came back with and am now going over QUINTEN’S STORY again, to make sure the changes aren’t messing around with anything else and that they, and the rest of the book, are as smooth as I can make it.

This is normally the time when I wonder why the damn hell I wrote the book in the first place, because all I can see are amateurish marks, turns of phrase that make me cringe, and other characteristics that make me think I’m looking at a page I wrote when I didn’t know how to (write, that is).

I’ll get over it around the three-quarter mark. I usually do. But, in the meantime, every sentence, every paragraph is a potential guillotine victim.

In this frame of mind, I’m sure you’ll understand if I stay mute for another week. Have a good one and hopefully I’ll have something more productive to say next Friday.

And so here we are. What began as a move of desperation now appears to me to be the only way to properly educate children. I understand that it’s not for everyone for a number of reasons.

1. It requires that there is only one, maybe one and a half, breadwinners in the family. With the current economic assault on everyone by The Rich, this is becoming more and more difficult to achieve. However, in areas where homeschooling is not such an oasis in the desert as it is here, there may be a way of cobbling together a co-op system with a group of parents with varying skills and experiences.
2. It requires a major throttling back of unrealistic expectations about what can be achieved in a given amount of time. (That, I believe, is where I went wrong with LD and I readily admit paying the price for my unreasonableness now.) Baby steps first….
3. It requires an immense sense of confidence, not only in yourself but in your children.
4. It requires constant adjustments and tweaking. No egos allowed here!

The fact that those reasons appear contradictory indicates the complexity of mindset and expectations required if you’re going to make homeschooling work.

Where does that leave the kids? One of the PUKS Masters disparagingly asked us what we were going to do with TW when we’d finished homeschooling him to Senior year/Form Six. “Tell him to go out and get a job, I suppose,” he said. It was only because, at that time, I was still holding hopes of having LD accepted there that I held the inevitable retort of calling him a pretentious, self-righteous, impolite wanker.

“No,” I replied instead. “During that time, I’ll be preparing him for pre-University exams. I believe those are independent of schools.”

I believe, if I have planned this right, that TW will be ready to take his pre-U exams when he’s 15. And, if so, it will mean that he would have spent no more than four and a half years in a formal school system.

As for LD…well, we’re waiting. There was something that sparked in TW and he blossomed. Could the same happen with her? I see flashes of it every now and then. TW is living proof of the plasticity of intelligence and we are hoping for something similar with our daughter. But, in case that doesn’t happen, we still have the flexible system that she’s currently schooling under and that we’re constantly adjusting. There’s no way a traditional school system can hope to match the nimbleness of our current framework and, at this stage, I’m not even willing to put her back there to try.

And so that’s the tale of the atheist homeschooler. I’ll keep you updated on the results.

We are now in the third quarter of 2011, by my retelling. Our overwhelming feeling is that our kids have been treated as nothing more than guinea pigs by people who had boasted to us about their years and experience in education. Years that we readily admitted we didn’t have. We fell for their spiel to “trust them”. And, by turns (with the one notable exception of Boon Lay), our children were ignored, assaulted, bullied, insulted and yelled out by people who were in positions of authority over them.

I don’t know if I can adequately explain the sense of burning rage I still feel as I type these words, and that anger has not diminished. But still, despite all that, we had hopes for Prestigious UK School (PUKS for short). We went along and had several meetings with them.

I pause now so I can give you some context. Our son? TW? The one who was “severely retarded”? He’s two years ahead of his age in English and at least one year ahead in Maths and Science. Putting him in a regular school, we thought, would actually stunt him at this stage. PUKS told us that school would begin at 8:30am and that kids would get home by 5:15pm. That was the equivalent of a full working day, plus homework on top of that. That would leave no time for TW to indulge in his other passions of movie-making, game design and learning graphics and computer animation (all of which he currently does outside homeschool hours).

LD was another issue. There’s an old adage that says you should treat your children equally. Bullshit. Children are individuals and that means tailoring your demands to their personalities. However I was teaching was working with TW but was causing major tissue avalanches with LD. After some enquiries, I discovered a tuition system that was Kumon-like and close by. Encouraging independent working, they would take LD through Maths and English twice a week. But was this enough? We enrolled LD for those twice-weekly classes while we considered PUKS.

Tbh, I considered PUKS the superior choice. I could work on TW at home and LD, a really sweet and caring kid, could do what was so important to her and develop relationships outside the family circle.

I so wanted PUKS to be the answer. And then they turned out to be like everyone else we’d encountered. We heard the same old statements we’d heard before. “We have values that all children must adhere to….” “Our years of experience in education….” “You understand that, during the Primary years, we won’t be concentrating on academic performance at all….” “We have an excellent Sports programme….”

There were two death knells. The first came when we couldn’t even get a provisional place for LD. Oh, they went on about what a wonderful child she is, based on a one-on-one interview they conducted with her, but they wouldn’t even give us a tentative answer as to whether she’d be accepted in PUKS. They would have to wait for a Psychologist’s Report and — and these are my words — how much work they would need to exert before they could give us their final decision. They had already told us that they were over-subscribed and so not every child would get in. And, once more, we felt we were being set up for a fall. (We’re still going through with the psychological assessment, but that will be for our own benefit.)

The second was when the Head told us quite baldly at the end of our last discussion that we couldn’t expect their system (even with a given that there going to be a Learning Support component added) to cater to LD.

And it was like a lightbulb exploding in my head. Hold on a sec, I thought. Right now, I do have a system that specifically caters to LD. To my surprise, she was really taking to the outside tuition classes and, in the alternate days when I was schooling her, I was seeing improvements in her attitude and the quality of her work. I was also working on other, multi-sensory methods to help her with Maths and, to a lesser extent because she doesn’t seem to need it so much, English. Add violin, Wushu, Dance, and UK-accredited Speech & Drama classes, and I was still spending less than RM6,000 a year and getting out of it (I thought) a pretty well-rounded child.

PUKS was telling me that they were unable to be all things to all children and expected us to shell out RM60,000 for that first year of schooling (almost twice the average annual wage). Plus uniforms plus food plus extra-curricular activities plus a four-figure non-refundable registration fee, and so on.

Why would I give up a totally personalised, completely customised, eminently flexible, lightweight system that was working, for one that was rigid, inflexible, ponderous, with no guarantees, at TEN TIMES THE PRICE???