The Worcestershire Sauce Dilemma

Not to talk about food again, but I'm going to talk about food again. But not really. It's more about shopping; it just happens to have to do with shopping for food. That being the kind of shopping I do most often.

Worcestershire sauce is something I use frequently when cooking. Mostly, I use it on meat, but I use it in other things, too. For a long time, I've been buying Lea & Perrins', which is kind of the standard for Worcestershire sauce. They are the originators of it as a brand, a brand that's been around 180 years or so. It's good stuff, and they have a few different varieties, though I mostly just use the original.

Now, I don't know how it is everywhere else in the country, but food prices around here have been going up quite a lot lately. A gallon of milk has gone from being in the $3.00 - $3.50 range to the $5.00 - $6.00, and we drink a lot of milk. A pound of butter has done the same. And don't even get me started on the prices of pork and beef. That stuff has gone insane.

All of that to say that I am having to be a lot more aware of food prices, right now, than I was, say, six months ago.

So there I was in the condiment aisle looking at the Worcestershire sauce since I knew I was almost out. I was looking for the large bottle, but they were out. Which is when I saw that the small bottle is now the same price as the large bottle used to be. Since they were out of the large bottles, they hadn't put a new shelf tag up with the new price, so there they were right next to each, and the small bottle price was the same as the previous price of the large. I just stared at it.

But, as I was staring, I noticed the Safeway brand of Worcestershire sauce. Now, I've always known that the Safeway brand was sitting right there next to the other. I've had to push it out of the way before or picked up a bottle of it because it was in the wrong space or whatever. However, this time, I really looked at the Safeway brand. I glanced down at the price: It was half that of the Lea & Perrins'. For the first time, I wondered what could possibly be the significant difference between the two. And, so, for the first time, I bought the off brand.

Well, not the first time I've bought an off brand; I actually buy the Safeway brand on a lot of things, but it was the first time I bought the off brand on the Worcestershire sauce. (So far, I haven't noticed a difference, but it hasn't gotten the full range of testing, yet.)

Of course, I'm not here to sell you Worcestershire sauce. I don't care one way or the other what you put on your slabs of meat or if you put anything on it at all. It's just that the whole thing made me wonder, even while I was standing right there in the grocery store staring at the shelf and the prices, if this is the same process readers go through when deciding to buy a book that is not traditionally published. And I don't know if it is, but I suspect it might be.

Or something like it, anyway. Maybe not with actual physical books in a book store since a bookstore is pretty much guaranteed to only carry traditionally published books, but do people buying books for their e-readers ever look at the price of a traditionally published e-book and think, "I'm just not paying that much for an e-book." I know I do. Actually, when it comes to traditionally published books, I almost always buy the physical book, often because it's actually cheaper than the e-version (which is just wrong). And I'm buying fewer and fewer physical books. Basically, there are only a few authors left for whom I'm willing to spend that kind of money, which, I suppose is leading me to a place where what I will be buying is independently published material.

And I have to tell you, so far, I haven't noticed a difference. I mean, it's just hard to be worse than Snow Crash (traditionally published). And, in fact, my favorite book of 2012 was Demetri and the Banana Flavored Rocketship (independently published), so, looking at all of this from a value standpoint, I think we might be getting to a point where we get a lot more for our money from independently published (which includes self published) books, especially once you've figured out which authors you like. The only catch is that you have to be willing to try them to see if they're the kind of sauce you like. Just, you know, when you find one you like, make sure you leave a review and let other people know, too.
Just sayin'.

So here are some suggestions:
Pick up Shadow Spinner: Collection 1: Tiberius (Parts 1-5). Beside the piece of Shadow Spinner that you get, you'll also get "Like An Axe Through Bone" by Bryan Pedas, the author of the Demetri book that I just mentioned.
Or grab Shadow Spinner: Collection 2: The Man with No Eyes (Parts 6 - 12) which contains "Augurs of Distant Shadow," a great new take on vampires, by Briane Pagel.
And, if you like Augurs, you can follow it up with "The Magic Cookies," which contains another piece of his vampire lore.
And don't forget Shadow Spinner: Collection 3: The Garden (Parts 13-21) which contains "A Nightmare Named Ricky" by artist extraordinaire Rusty Webb.

Encouragement Does Not Equal Support (an IWSG post)

We have a very supportive household. Mostly, it's my wife's doing. She's the one that instituted it, at any rate, but I think it all came out of a discussion we had years ago about the lack of support I had when I was growing up and the abundance of support she had. So, back then, I couldn't really see the importance of support because I'd never had it.

We'll skip over the parts where I wasn't allowed to play sports or learn a musical instrument and go straight to high school. During my junior year, I talked a buddy into learning some Abbott and Costello skits with me for some thing or other we had to do at school. Initially, it was just "Who's on First?" but, we were so good, we got asked to perform at some function or other and did that, too. Which led to other performances and learning other skits (including my favorite, "Costello's Farm"). We had quite a number of performances during our junior and senior years. And my parents didn't come to a single one.

During college, I was in a drama group and we frequently performed in the area, and my parents never came to any of those performances, either. In fact, the only performances my parents ever came to were when the youth choir at my church sang at church because, well, they were already there and, actually, they often missed those, too.

So... We, my wife and I, made an actual decision, a conscious decision, to support our kids in their endeavors. Even when it's not easy. Even when giving them a little "Break a leg!"-do-a-great-job encouragement would be so much easier. So that means we go to things. We go to lots of things. We go to softball practices and softball games. We go to accordion lessons and accordion performances. We go to choir concerts. We go to plays and musicals. We go to improv shows. We spend money on tickets to a lot of these things. We make the effort to show our kids we're there for them, supporting them (and the organizations they're with), even when we'd rather say, "Okay, that's enough. We hope you do a great job tonight, but we're staying home." And trust me, when you have a week like this one where you're only home one night of the whole week because there are performances and games every other night, it can be tempting to skip the support and just go for the easy dose of encouragement.

And that's the thing: Encouragement is easy. It's the support that's hard to do.

Encouragement is nothing more than patting someone on the back and saying "good luck." It really doesn't take anything to do. There's no real effort involved. Now, don't get me wrong; encouragement can be nice: It feels good, but, really, it's completely insubstantial. It doesn't do anything real.

Support requires an effort. To put it in another context, support is more than just wishing fellow authors "best of luck" with their releases. Support is more than just cover reveals and blog hops. Support is more than just adding someone's book to your "to read" list on goodreads.

Actual support is buying the books of your author friends. And, sure, I get that not everyone can buy every book by every person just like we don't go to every performance of the same show (but we do go to at least one performance from each show); most of us just don't have the money for that. But I make an effort to pick up at least a "book" or two a month from someone I know (even if I know that I'm not going to have time to read it soon) and, really, with so many people using the $0.99 price point, it's hard to legitimately say you can't afford it (skip one Starbucks latte a month, and you can support three or four different authors!).

Actual support is reading the books that you've picked up from your friends. This is kind of a big one for me, right now, because I've been being tired for a while now of seeing on the blogs of indie authors the constant chatter about traditionally published books like Divergent and The Hunger Games. When you're an indie author but can only ever talk about traditionally published books -- and not just books but best sellers -- it really sends a wrong message. It's an unintentional message, but it's there all the same, and that message is "only traditionally published books are worth talking about." I make an effort to always have at least one indie book that I'm reading. [In fact, I just ordered a Kindle (my first portable device) to facilitate, specifically, reading indie books, because I haven't had time lately to do that while sitting at my computer.]

Actual support is, after having read someone's indie release, leaving a review. A real review. Not just a "yea! I loved this!" (which I've actually seen left when it's apparent the person didn't read the book at all (my favorite being "I went to high school with this guy and he wrote this book. It's good. You should read it."))
Just to say it, I review every book I read. I believe in supporting the authors.

This stuff has been bothering me for a while, the fact that there is kind of this constant talk about how "supportive" the blogging community is when what it actually is is encouraging. The blogging community is great at encouragement. There's no lack of "good luck!"s to be found. But actual support has proven to be few and far between. Since this is a "support" group, I thought I'd mention that encouragement does not equal support.

Unexpected Applause: Demetri and the Banana Flavored Rocketship

As I said in my last review, I haven't been having the greatest luck with books lately. Especially with traditionally published books. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that traditionally published books are bad; I'm also not trying to say they're good. I am saying that just because a book has been traditionally published doesn't make it good. Likewise, independently published books are not bad just because they couldn't figure out how to get published traditionally. Which does not make me trust them, in general, any farther than I can throw them. Which, in actuality, is not that far at all since most of them are digital only and can't be thrown.

All of that said, I have just, I mean just as in less than 15 minutes ago (as I write this) finished reading the best book I've read all year. Really. Possibly in the last two years. Heck, it may be the best book I've read since The Sparrow (and Children of God), and that was a while ago. What you should take away from this is that it was great. So let's get to it.

The book: Demetri and the Banana Flavored Rocketship
The author: Bryan Pedas

As always, let's start with the technicals. Which will be extremely short as this is the best edited independent book I've ever seen. Other than mine and maybe better than mine. The House on the Corner is a lot longer, though, and I'm not gonna take the time to run a percentage comparison. Let's just say that Demetri is close to flawless. I only remember one dropped word in the whole book, which is extremely impressive, and even the commas where pretty right on with no distracting mistakes. The editing gets a good solid A bordering an A+. Maybe an A+. Let's just say I was impressed.

The writing is incredible. The only drawback is that the premise of the story may be a barrier to some readers. It's like the movie Lars and the Real Girl, beautiful and completely under appreciated. I understand the under appreciation, because I can understand that people see what it's about and respond with "that's dumb" without ever giving it a chance, and Demetri is like that in some ways, but it's also a beautiful story, and people who dismiss it because of its premise will be missing out. And, no, I'm not going to tell you about the premise, you can clink the above link and go read it. You'll be one step closer to buying it that way, and you really should buy it.

Here's where I knew I had something beyond just the good on my hands:

Flip-flops echo on a darkly stained tile floor as the fluorescent lights give a sleepy-eyed flicker, bathing Demetri in stale light. The faucet water runs yellow--maybe it's being kissed by the light, maybe it's always been that color--and fills his hands on its way up to the sharp, patchy stubble beneath his cheeks and chin. A row of bathroom utensils lay along the counter like surgical tools in a low budget horror flick, and Demetri reaches past the toothbrush and the nail clippers to the disposable razor, which is anything but "disposed of" in its five years of dull, rusted life.

That's in the first chapter, at the 2% mark according to my Kindle app. The image is vibrant and paints an enticing image. It's one of those passages that I look at and just think "wow, that's excellent writing." I knew I was going to like the book at that point, and I wasn't wrong.

There are times it made me LOL. Literally, I mean. I tried not to, because Demetri is not for kids, and my kids were around, and they always want to know what I'm laughing at if I happen to be laughing, but there were several points in the book where I just could not hold it in. Like when Demetri receives the crate. So there are those  moments of humor that are hard not to respond to, but the book is also very touching, and you really want Demetri to pull things together.

What is most surprising, though, is the amount of tension I felt as I approached the end of the book. I really didn't know where Pedas was going with the story, and I kept envisioning all these horrible things that could happen, and that's a pretty impressive feat for a book that is, essentially, a dark comedy. And, no, I'm not going to tell you whether you will like the ending. Go read it! I mean it.

There's only one real drawback the book has: the title. But, here's the thing, I like the title. The title is appropriate. I just think that it puts a barrier between the work and a lot of readers, but it gives an impression of the book that it is, well, juvenile, and it's totally not. So, if you don't know what you're getting into, you might think you're getting something that you're not, and a lot of people that might like the book may skip right over it thinking it's something geared toward kids. I don't really have a better idea for the title; I just think that, knowing most readers, they will let it get in the way of reading the book.

Title aside, I give this book an A+. The main characters are real and fully realized as are many of the side characters. A few of the side characters are caricatures, but they are the caricatures that we know and have had to deal with in real life, so they never come across as stereotypical. This is a great book, and I hope it gets the attention it deserves.