Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: My Projects


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The Content Guidelines

I’ve been asked to post the contents guidelines from Amazon so that you get an idea and maybe will be able to tell me what’s wrong in BUSCAFUSCO: Fun & Games.
This is indeed an interesting read, I guess, because after all it has to do with my writing life. 

The actual document is pretty large, but what’s pertinent is – I think – the following, that goes under the Offensive & Controversial category:

Violence, Intolerance, and Hate

  • Products that contain violent or offensive material that has no historical significance. Amazon reserves the right to make a determination on the historical value of the item.
  • Products that promote, incite, or glorify hate or violence towards any person or group. This includes products that contain violent or offensive material that has no historical significance. Amazon reserves the right to make a determination on the historical value of the item.
  • Products that promote or glorify suicide
  • Products related to terrorist organizations
  • Products that promote or glorify people that have been found guilty of violent or sexual crimes.

Intolerance

  • Products that promote intolerance based on race, religion, and sexual orientation.
  • Products that contain racially derogatory language

Human Tragedies and Disasters

  • Products related to human tragedies and natural disasters

Child Abuse and Exploitation

  • Products that depict child abuse/exploitation
  • Products intended for use by children that contains adult content, profanity and/or sexual references
  • Products depicting children or characters resembling children in a sexually suggestive manner
  • Products marketed to or targeted at kids or teenagers that are age-inappropriate

And really, I can’t say there’s anything like that in my Buscafusco stories. Granted, this new story marks the first appearance of the Chinese Triads, but there is no racist content I can think of. I purposefully avoided derogatory terms, despite the fact that one of the characters is the sort that would use them. Because only a fool chooses to risk and offend his readers on a matter of authenticity.

Anyway, we are still here waiting.
The plot thickens.


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Blocked!

Well, this is a first. BUSCAFUSCO: Fun & Games has been blocked by the KDP Guardians, for reasons undisclosed. I asked around, and apparently this is the standard: they block your book, and they do not tell you why. Hell, they don’t even send you a mail. You have to check the KDP dashboard (something that, admittedly, you do every two hours when your book is overdue), and find out the book’s been blocked.

So now I’ve sent a mail asking Amazon for explanations. Based on what I’ve been told by friends that have been there already, I’ll probably get an automated response along the lines “your content violated our guidelines”, with a copy of the guidelines. As a friend said…

“They basically tell you to ask yourself a question and give yourself an answer.”

Now here I am, waiting, but in the meanwhile: if you are one of the hardy souls that got my ebook through Gumroad, and if you have been through it already, would you please let me know if you found something that justifies the block?
Thank you.

Also, if you want to check out the Book Amazon Doesn’t Want You To Read, please go to this link. You’ll get a 1 Euro discount on the cover price.


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Learning more stuff

Here we go again: end of the year, new lists of MOOCs and online courses get published. So much to learn, so much knowledge availabe. And I realize that, as a product of the 1970s/1980s Italian school system, what I learned, deeply and inescapably, in school, is how to l earn. I like learning stuff.

And so I went through the list of December MOOCs you can find on the OpenCulture website, and after spending half an hour checking the links and weighing the offer, I enrolled in two new courses.

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The oompa loompas are on strike

The KDP version of the latest BUSCAFUSCO ebook is taking forever to filter through the Amazon validation system. Is something wrong?
Is the fact that in this adventure Buscafusco tackles the Chinese Triads and the Italian Copyright regulation authority part of the problem?
Is the reference to the dark web and gambling?
Are there nipples or other banned elements hidden somewhere in the book, of which I am unaware of?

The mystery remains. It’s good to see that after these many years, Amazon keeps screwing up my accurately plotted launches.
If you really need a fix of BUSCAFUSCO and you can’t wait for the oompa loompas to drag their backsides to work and do their job, you can of course go to Gumroad, following the links you find HERE.

Thank you for your patience.


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BUSCAFUSCO: Fun & Games

While the Amazon oompa loompas do their job, Fun & Games, the third novelette in the BUSCAFUSCO series is up on Gumroad, in pdf, epub and mobi format, DRM-free. heck it out.

Useless to say, my Patrons in the Five Bucks Brigade get it at a discounted price, and my upper tier patrons already got their free copies. 
Because it is good to be my Patrons.

ADDENDUM: both Women & Children and Ghosts & Shadows, the first two BUSCAFUSCO adventures, are now available through Gumroad as pdf, mobi and epub, DRM-free files.


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A good day for my stories

Yesterday was a good day for my stories, and for my writing in general, for a series of quite unusual reasons.

First I got an excellent review – really, really flattering – for my story The Smell of Empty Places, the cover story in the collection Dark Italy by Acheron Books.
This is particularly pleasant because, first, the praise comes from a well respected colleague, and it is always good to be praised by people in our own tribe; and second, the English version of the story is currently being considered for a reprint in a Canadian anthology – and receiving such a brilliant review makes me hope for the best. 

Next, I was mentioned in a list of Italian sword & sorcery authors, thanks to my Asteria Chronicles, and that led to a few sales for some pretty old titles. Let’s hope it fosters a return of interest in Asteria by the Italian readers, as two more stories are about to hit the Italian-language market. 
The fun bit is, the list originally did not include me (apparently I am not good enough), but it was reprinted by a blog, and the blogger decided to add my name and my work to the list (because apparently, I am good enough).
It was extremely kind on his part.
Incidentally, the fourth Asteria story went on the back-burner for a while, but I’ll make sure it gets published by Christmas, or by New Year’s Eve at the latest.

Then – and here things get pretty weird – someone sent a paperback copy of my collection of historical sketches, La Storia Fatta coi Cialtroni, to an unsuspecting recipient.
Yes, basically, this lady I do not know received a copy of a book of mine from an anonymous, and she posted about it on Facebook. The good news is, she is actually liking the book very much.
Now I can only hope the mysterious book-bomber keeps up the good work and keeps pushing my books on the unsuspecting public.
A little extreme, as a publicity stunt, but you’ll have to admit it’s pretty original. 

And finally, I got commissioned a few more articles by a high class magazine, and am now doing a bit of historical research. 

All in all, quite a good day.


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Spring & BUSCAFUSCO

I am currently about 5000 words into the new BUSCAFUSCO novella, called Fun & Games. The ideas for the new cases had been laying in the back of my mind for months, and I needed a vacation. I plan to have the story finished soon-ish, other engagements permitting.

Writing to calls from publishers is fun and it’s – hopefully – profitable, but sometimes the constraints are too tight. It’s good to open a file and just let the ideas and dialogues pour out, let well-established characters do their thing, take life and run away with the story. And BUSCAFUSCO’s is one of my favorite in this sense. There is a simple formula, there is a cast of characters I am familiar with and I like to write about, there is the Belbo Valley as a venue, an inexhaustible source of strange ideas and weird crimes.

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