So, let’s talk about Bodyswapping.

It’s a pretty common storyline in Sci-Fi. The basic premise is that a person’s conciousness can be transferred into another body. In “Dollhouse” people signed up to allow new psyche’s into their bodies. In “Gamer” people got paid to let someone else control their bodies. Heck, in Red Dwarf, one character loaned his body away so that another one could exercise it and get it fit. Lots of shows harp on this as a terrible thing, a loss of identity. But, all morality plays aside, let’s think about how we’re doing it right now.

I just discovered something cool about Amazon sales rank. We already know that your rank is based on current sales from that day, week, and month, but did you know that all books by an author have the same boost in rank?

Check this out: I have three books available on Kindle. My bestseller “Tumbler” was released a year ago and sells for $2.99. It hovers at around 50-75k in sales rank. My second book “The Hidden Institute” is very new (priced at $4.99) and has far less of a following. It generally hovers at around 75-100k. My third book, a short story collection called “The Danny”, costs only $0.99 but is the newest of them all, and has the lowest sales. It is in the 200k range.

They say that all sorts of men walk into a tavern, and I’m not going to argue it, but they do still fall into two groups. The first one is the social drinker. He’s there looking for friends and drinking with friends. You can spot them by the grin on their faces and the expectant way they look around a place as they enter.

The other sort is trying to drink alone. He wants to get away from something, wants to hide. He wants to drown out a woman, a mistake, a life badly lived. That sort will walk in without looking at anything, head to the far end of the bar, and wait to give their order.

It has been so long since the last episode, I wasn’t even sure I remembered how everything worked. But after the success of the Kickstarter fund, I was determined to make the best C4C episode I could, and the longest one to date.

Thanks to everyone who donated to bring the series back, and I hope you enjoy the fruits of this effort.

My real name is Brand.

When I was born, no one knew that. Even I was not aware. The words on the government paper read “Brandon” and that was enough for us all. The word identified me, but did not define me. That was enough, for a child.

However, as I outgrew my name, it began to show wear. It was a formal name, and I was not a formal person. I was rambuctious, garrulous, quick to action and willing to laugh at myself in the attempt to commune with friends. And so those friends gave me a new name, Brand.

I was supposed to write a blog post about writing for audio, but early in the post, I got distracted with another theme. I’d love to finish it, but I have to get back to the original topic. So, I thought I would share it with you, because while I can’t use it, it’s not exactly useless. And hey, there’s stuff here that people might like to argue with me.

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Pick a novel, open to a page, and before you start reading it, just look at it. Without knowing what book you chose, without knowing what page you flipped to, I would bet I can guess what you’re looking at.

On Monday, the tribe sat down around the fire to eat. As was normal in the silence of the meal, the chief called on one of his warriors, “Tell us what great things you did today!”

The warrior sat up straight, “I killed two boars. One of them we are eating now.”

The chief said, “That is good,” and they continued their meal in silence.

On Tuesday, the chief called upon another of his hunters, “What great things did you do today?”

“My chief, I saw a mighty ox, which I tracked all morning, but when I caught it at mid-day, it escaped.”

I don’t know how I missed this, but the good folks at the “Reading the Paranormal” blog had an excellent review of my first novel, “Tumbler“. Check it out.