A couple of months ago one of my Facebook friends who is a writer confessed she’d received only $10 in royalties from books sales in the last quarter. She wondered how she could increase her numbers. If I had an answer to that question, I’d share it. All I could do was offer to bu

Yesterday I gave advice about where a beginning author should spend money to promote his book. Today I’m going to do the opposite: make recommendations on where NOT to put your money and then make a few positive suggestions. Here’s the list of what not to do: 1. Book tours: unless

After 4 years of struggling as an author, I’m spending the next two days writing a short primer for beginning writers. Most of us who write won’t make money from our work, but there are plenty of “experts” who will attempt to make money from our aspirations. They’ll be happy

I went to the snooty secondhand bookstore today with four books to sell. The clerk took one of them and returned the rest. Still, I got $2.30 which brings the total on my credit to $18.00. I’m closer to affording Haruki Murakami’s latest book, 1Q84, which sells for $30. After the

While I love books, there is one type I loathe: instruction manuals, particularly those having to do with electronics or all things mechanical. I particularly loathe manuals with charts and diagrams. I tend to read a graph horizontally when I should be reading it vertically or vice ve

Question: If you were browsing through a bookstore and read the blurb below would you buy the book? The character-driven novel “XXX”* brings a distinct knowledge of literature and literary convention together with current knowledge on crime, punishment and “green” architecture

“Reason for Living: The good life without God” is a convoluted essay by Christopher R. Beha, editor for Harper’s, that reviews three books about morality without the existence of God. I touched upon this issue in my blog of June 12. In this recent piece, Beha reinforces the argu

I’ve expressed my view several times that each of us can change the world simply by making changes in ourselves. Personal responsibility is an important issue with me and while I understand the need to complain about the course of history which seems so much larger than ourselves, i

At lunch the other day a friend commented on a film she’d seen, The Invisible War. It had won an award at the Sun Dance Film Festival and the subject was rape in the military, largely offenses against women but a few cases of assaults on males were documented as well. While it’s c

Most research I’ve read says women are more verbal than men. Females babies are said to talk sooner than boys, for example, and the image of the nagging wife is almost universal. Women are noted for “girl talk,”“coffee klatches” and “hen parties,” while men presumably st