The Gift Horse

In the two plus years it has been available, I have had quite a bit of feedback from The Gift Horse, far more than I’ve gotten from Trinity on Tylos, and much of it has been positive, but not all, of course. At the end of each calendar year, I think about canceling my contract with Booklocker. Oh, it isn’t really expensive to keep it up— less than the price of a meal at a good restaurant— but having my “self-published” title still in print sometimes makes me feel like a lesser author. While I believe that there are some really good self-published books out there, the stigma does exist.

However, the business person in me insists that as long as there are people interested in buying it, I should go on another year. A fellow writer suggested that I get the rights back to The Gift Horse and market it in tandem with another suspense story, a Work in Progress, but one fairly close to being finished, to an epublisher. Since it only sold two copies in eBook form (and one of those was to me) that would be a new audience, I suppose.

I’ve been fortunate, in that the owner of a gift shop here in town bought twenty five copies of The Gift Horse early this year, and Living Jackson Magazine chose to review it recently. For whatever reason, this somewhat outlandish but very suspenseful tale continues to be read, enjoyed, and occasionally spark controversy.

More than once, I’ve been asked what these books have in common, since they do reflect differing genres of literature. Both of these books have heroines who are willing to sacrifice something of themselves to be what someone else wants them to be. In our society, people profess to be liberated and self-motivated, but that is a fallacy. If you don’t believe me, go to any place where young people gather and watch them act like the folks they see portrayed in various media. Some will play sluts, some act and dress like rappers and pimps. Oh, the gods of our age come to us via small rectangular boxes— television, computer screens, and the like. But they are perhaps more demanding than those who dwelt on Mount Olympus in the days gone by, who only wanted an occasional sacrifice. Nowadays, bowing to the god of media is a 24/7 duty.