My first visit to a casino as a published blackjack author

I played blackjack in a casino today–the first time since being published. As I approached the entrance to the facility (which shall remain nameless), I wondered if anything would be different. Maybe there would be a special greeter for me outside the door, “Good morning, Mr Wiggy, excellent book! We have a special table set aside for you in the PLUSH VELVET room. Do you want some champagne or a mango and passion fruit smoothie? What about a scone? Would you prefer that we wash and dry your feet like Jesus while you play? We introduced new chips today–they have your picture on one side. Plus, there are 47 of us casino employees waiting for you to explain every intricacy of the game, even though we’ve been working here day in and day out for centuries. Please dazzle use with your brilliance!”

Or, perhaps I would be treated oppositely upon arrival, “Freeze jerk! Get on the ground–NOW! What made you think you could ever come here again after writing a blackjack book? Who are you working with? How come you have a bottle of Carmex in your right, front pocket? Who is Talmadge? We’ve called the FBI, CNN, TMZ.com, and the United Nations. Your days of counting cards are over. Plus, there is an excellent chance that you will be executed in our back parking lot in 15 minutes. We have a guillotine!”

Something in between those two extremes actually occurred. Nothing. I went in the building, played DD for three hours while counting cards in a mostly vacant pit, made a small profit, cashed out a $20 coupon, received a comped breakfast burrito (bacon, egg, potato and cheese) and drove home listening to the new Mumford & Sons CD. Great music on an otherwise uneventful day.

Glen Wiggy
"1536 Free Waters and Other Blackjack Endeavors--Finding Profit and Humor in Card-Counting"

Quote: glenwiggy

Who is Talmadge?

I think I'm starting to get it.

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I'm a bit surprised they wouldn't flat-bet a published blackjack author... seems kind of common sense.

Oh, self-published. Yeah, they probably don't know who you are.

Quote: sodawater

I read a few pages of your book and I found them enjoyable. Nice job.

That said, and not to rain on your parade, but it is a pet-peeve of mine when people call themselves "published authors" when in reality their books were self-published, like yours. Anyone can self-publish anything. There's no editorial process. There are no people who have been rejected from self-publishing, unless their credit cards were declined -- or maybe not even then, with CreateSpace. So the quality of work or literary achievement implied when one says he is a published author is non-existant when the writer goes the route of self-publishing.

I could go to iUniverse and have this post published -- it doesn't mean I should call myself a "published author" because that would be dishonest.

That is a fair assessment, Sodawater. If you read some of my book, however, you should know that I was going for the funny. My post would not have been very funny if I titled it, "My first visit to a casino as a published author, but when I say 'published author' that doesn't necessarily mean that I was published by a big name company--it could've meant that I was self-published, and in this case, I was self-published, but self-published is a type of publishing just as well--it's not like trying to say that 'having sex' and 'having self-sex' are the same thing, but they do achieve the same result basically, so intuitively I could've entitled this post practically anything as long as I was trying to be funny." Okay?

One final bit of clarification: Confucius, Sun Tzu, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were all self-published...and so was the Unabomber. Imagine all those guys playing at the same blackjack table!

Glen Wiggy, SELF-PUBLISHED AUTHOR
"1536 Free Waters and Other Blackjack Endeavors--Finding Profit and Humor in Card-Counting

Every time I see that title "1536 Free Waters and other Blackjack Endeavors" I am Reminded of Don Imus's "1200 Hamburgers to Go" and "One Sacred Chicken to Go"... my man the I-man LOL.

I think I get the reference about the 1200 hamburgers to go.... some disk jockey called a fast food outlet and claimed to be from the National Guard or something.

I don't recall anything about someone ordering a live chicken that was to be sacrificed or something like that.

Now as to this Vanity Press stuff... its existed for a long time and its often valuable since publishers tend to concentrate solely on what they hope will be best sellers. Nowadays its easy to self publish and its not necessarily "vanity" driven anymore but simply that an author gets better royalties if he can eliminate the publisher. First time authors rarely get good contracts, can't even control the title of their book or cover art or anything. Better off to do an end run around a publisher sometimes.