It’s been a long day. The canopy has been set up, the car’s packed with books, and Saturday we’ll be in downtown Hershey for the brand-new Hershey Artfest. This is the rebranded Art on Chocolate that we’ve been selling books at for several years. The two groups that ran that event have split and each […]
Teresa and I spent Saturday at the Hershey Library for its Local Authors Day. More than 30 authors came out to meet the true readers and talk about their books. There was a raffle to give away gift cards, and time set aside for the authors to talk about anything they wanted, whether it be […]
If I believed in the “xxx is my spirit animal” meme, I’d make mine Joy Deja King. She is an inspiration to self-published writers, embracing the virtues of hard work, high energy, creative decision-making, and savvy marketing. My wife and I encountered one of her books at the Dauphin County library’s local authors day I […]
The Dauphin County library system held its annual local authors day at the East Shore branch, so Teresa and I went out to see what was happening. First, we hung out with Samantha Prescott and Sherry Knowlton. We talked a lot about book covers and the process behind getting them designed. I was especially impressed […]
I am old enough to remember when sets of twin sheets automatically came with two pillowcases instead of just one. Sometimes, the larger sheet sets – double, queen, king, and California king – came with four pillowcases instead of two. And since every set of sheets was also sold as individuals, you could easily purchase […]
Writing, for most of us, is normally a solitary occupation. We retire into our garret – or basement office under the stairs – and block out the world to produce words and worlds. Writing involves many skills and talents: one of them that doesn’t usually show up in the mix is salesmanship. I won’t say […]
Why choose a pen name? The reasons are many for selecting a pen name: * Security: You need to hide is at the top of the list. If you needed to disappear because of a vengeful ex-spouse, a pen name is your friend. * Privacy: A pen name lets you write, earn money, and not […]
Hey Bill, what do you think of that new Agatha Christie biography reviewed in The Wall Street Journal? Without having read it, I can tell you that it’s a good family-authorized book with all the pluses and minuses that it implies. That’s because “Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life,” was published in 2006 as “Agatha Christie: […]
You should seriously consider whether or not you need a pseudonym. There are reasons for choosing one. First, how common is your name? If your name is “Mary Brown,” no search engine will ever find you until you have built a reputation. Type in “Michael Jackson” and an overwhelming majority of the results will be […]
Update: Last week, I talked about how I entered a contest in 2001 to write the conclusion to an unpublished Mark Twain novella “A Murder, A Mystery, and a Marriage.” The Buffalo public library, which ran the contest to bring publicity to the fact that it acquired the entirety of the manuscript to “Huckleberry Finn,” […]