A Fascinating Look at Amazon Sellers' Pricing Algorithms - No, I Mean It! This is Way Cool.

I've wondered about some Amazon private sellers, whose prices seem insane, and who increase or decrease their prices according to prices I set for some overstock I occasionally sell.

But how I love the story of how a book on Drosophila was priced nearly $2 million (and no seller noticed how absurd this was) and how the two seller's presumably automated pricing mechanisms squared off against each other. And I love the scientific brain of the biologist, Michael Eisen, who noted that one seller automatically set prices 1.2059 percent higher than the other, and hypothesized the reasons why.

Go read it - great stuff. (Not the fly book - although it may be great too - Eisen's hypothesis and deconstruction of this whole affair.)

Looking Forward to Some Rainy Days ...

It's sad when bookstores go out of business - but, alas, someone must buy up the books when they are at rock-bottom prices. Now to just find some time to read ...

Messages That Make It All Worthwhile

In my inbox this morning, from a friend's young teenage daughter (she's 14, I think, and in 9th grade):

Hey Sara, I just finished your book and I wanted to tell you that I loved it! I do not read. It is one of my least favorite things to do, but I read your book. It only took me three days to read it hahahaha It was by far the best book I have ever read. I'm definitely going to suggest it to some of my friends. I think that's it...

This means a lot to me - the book isn't aimed at teens but as I was writing it, I knew I wanted it to be a book that a parent could pass on to a teenager, as I devoured books of my dad's and mother's.

And on Amazon yesterday, not from anyone I know and on what would have been my dad's birthday:

4.0 out of 5 stars Teenager hates to read, but not this book!!!, April 20, 2011

By 

deborah moreno -

This review is from: Learning to Swim: A Novel (Hardcover)

I was looking for a book so that my teenager would read in her extra time. Well this book was the answer, she would talk about it like it was a soap opera, I was proud of myself to have found it and hopefully get my teen into reading.

Thanks to these teens for reading, and thanks for their mothers for buying books and passing them on to their kids. And thanks to my parents for having kept me well supplied with books.

PS I can heartily recommend my pal A.S. King's young adult books and Steph Bowe's Girl Saves Boy, and of course the Suzanne Collins Hunger Games trilogy. And a few more I'll add as I think of them.

Wherein Sara Appears on Television

I did some TV spots years ago, in a previous incarnation as a health writer and editor (Doctors Book of Home Remedies for Children, anyone?) but this is my debut in this decade, at Mountain Lake Journal Extra on PBS in Plattburgh, New York, talking about my novel Learning to Swim. I'm in the opener at about 0:20 and then again at 15:40 (you can toggle forward so you don't have to watch the whole thing).

And in other bookish news, one of the most astute reviews I've seen, from the Rutland Herald. (Notice I didn't say most complimentary - I think she pegged the book's strengths and weaknesses pretty well.) And a brief interview - and chance to win a free signed copy, ending today - over at Number One Novels.

Think I've Found an Answer to Heartbreak ...

... and this is her.

She lost her elderly owner in November, and has been staying at a nearby goat farm, along with a menagerie of rescued animals, Bolivian Kahlas and Xolos and Chinese Cresteds and Great Pyrenees, one of which didn't much care for her - plus a hairless cat, and a little pug dog found wandering down the road.

I lost my beloved cattle dog Bridget on March 11.

Maybe we're both just what the other one needs.

No, Gale and Christine, It's Not a Health Book!

Gale posted this on Facebook with the caption: Gale Maleskey and Christine Dreisbach Murray look for health tips in Learning to Swim. Love it! (It's a joke - we all worked together at Rodale Books, writing and editing health and fitness books.)

A Dominant Culture of Weird Hedonism ...

In a post today entitled "Let's discuss hook-up culture, alco-pops, and the super awkwardness that is teenage sexuality," teen Steph Bowe - a YA author - talks about kids and sex, and I learn what a Cruiser is (sort of, because "alcoholic lolly water" is still a mystery to me) and Steph coins a new phrase, pashing and dashing. An excerpt:

Now, the sexual expectations for kids (especially girls) of my generation (in a predominantly white, middle-class Australian outer-suburb), are that there's something wrong with you if you don't hook up. (Primarily when drunk, at parties and in parks and gardens. I don't go to these kind of parties, nor do I drink, or hang out in parks at night, so there go my hopes of being an normal teenager!) There's a certain expectation that no one's going to get married for another fifteen years, and everyone's going to uni purely for the uni partying experience rather than education, and I'm not suggesting everybody feels this way, but there's a dominant culture of weird hedonism that doesn't really please anybody. It's just doing things - whether that's drugs or sex or whatever - because this is what you're supposed to do at this point in your life. Who says?

I have pretty diverse friends. I'm friends with more individuals than groups of people, half of my friends are not my own age, and I don't really experience peer pressure that much at all. This makes it easier to be objective about situations, and be able to see when something is absolutely ridiculous. But for kids my age, whose school life is a big part of their world, who have one big group of friends of the same age, it's easy to get sucked up into the idea that you must conform. You must go to that party and get wasted and hook up with somebody. People think it's normal and okay. Relationships - especially those lasting more than about two months - are pretty uncommon among the teenagers I know. Hooking up is not. 

Here's the rest of the post, at Hey! Teenager of the Year.

I'm Trying to Be Sensible - But It's Very Hard

Logic would dictate that I wait a while before getting another dog - that I finish these revisions on Book 2, that I wait until I'm back in Vermont and get the new roof and perhaps the new culvert and perhaps a few other things done.

But, oh, I miss my cattle dog. Cattle dogs aren't just dogs - they are constant companions, guardians, watchers, who do everything whole-heartedly. They are smart and dedicated and resourceful and and hard-working and quirky - in short, perfect for me. And there are always cattle dogs in animal shelters, because smart, resourceful, hard-working, and sometimes quirky dogs aren't for everyone.

I've been to visit this guy, who's a sweetie, but he's bigger than I'd envisioned (clearly a mix), and was still reeling from boy-snipping surgery:

http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/19063591

This one my friend Teresa, a beagle aficionado, wants me to rush and adopt - I told her I would always be confused, seeing a beagle head and a cattle dog body:

http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/17236367

This guy is a beauty, but he is deaf and needs to be a one-dog family, and I have my big dog Monty, and the two elder ones during the summer:

http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/16962418

(All these dogs are listed on Petfinder, so if one of them is perfect for you, go for it - here's the links for dog 1, dog 2, dog 3.)

The Very First End-Cap Sighting

Riverside, California, Barnes & Noble - thank you, Teresa Rhyne

I'm on PBS-TV Today, and This Weekend

Have just been told I'm on PBS TV today and this weekend: Mountain Lake Journal Extra - on Friday, 12:30pm; Saturday, 7:30pm; Sunday 6am and 10:30am, EST. Talking about my book, of course, and a bit about the process of writing and publishing. I was exhausted at the time, and hope it came off passably. I just kept concentrating on trying to sit up straight. And not gesticulate wildly.