When I sat down to write a CIA post, I knew what I wanted to do. I had an outline for an article full of book marketing advice, specifically online advertising. Most of the research was done, I just needed to write a draft. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the types of book marketers […]
I admit that I’m not a good web designer. I was never trained in it, so I flail about and experiment and try not to crash the site. This leads to frustration that’s unfair to others, but amuses me later. I was trying out one of those sites that’ll host your blog. Never mind the […]
For a book in which everyone stays firmly on land and the only boat in sight is a skeletal wreck, the sea still plays a major role in “The Essex Serpent,” a historical novel by Sarah Perry that was a surprise best-seller in Britain last year. At the book’s center is the serpent, seen 300 […]
Part of the reason why I’m writing The Career Indie Author is to educate myself about the business. I’ve been writing and publishing – in books and newspapers and other publications – for a couple decades. I’ll be the first to admit that at times I’m not very good at it, whereas there are some […]
This past month, film critics and bloggers were treated to the first look at the Kenneth Branagh Murder on the Orient Express. Like the 1974 movie, it’s stylish, mostly faithful to the book and featuring an all-star cast including Johnny Depp, Daisy Ridley, Michelle Pfeiffer, Penélope Cruz, Josh Gad, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, and Derek […]
Never give up hope. The week before Art on Chocolate 2017 in downtown Hershey, we were looking at 100% chance of rain and unseasonably cool temperatures. Weather predictions in the midstate are notoriously unreliable, but day after day, as we pulled together the equipment and worked on the books, the numbers didn’t change. We braced […]
The Kenneth Branaugh Orient Express remake made Twitter recently, but in a way that had nothing to do with the movie. It seems that reporters these days are not trained to do any research before opening their mouths or sending a tweet. Back in my days at journalism school, we were taught the unofficial motto […]
This episode of the Career Indie Author is overdue. This week has been full of editing my wife’s first book, “Suburban Stockade.” It’s in the hands of CreateSpace, and if everything goes well, we’ll have copies available at the Downtown Hershey Association’s “Art on Chocolate” in Hershey on Saturday, May 13. Yay! Instead, I’ll put […]
Everyone has a limit. That’s the fun of watching intellectuals, writers, speakers, and thinkers who advocate extreme positions. You listen to them and you listen to them and you wonder just how far to their beliefs go? There’s H.L. Mencken, an advocate for free speech if ever there was one, objecting to the way Theodore […]
Author’s Note: I confess, this draft on your new book launch is a bit of a mess. As a longtime observer of the publishing scene, and a longtime website owner (since about 1997), it was easy to blast through writing most of the book. I have had a lot of experience in those areas. Now, […]