At PlanetPeschel is my review of “Pride’s Children: Purgatory,” an unconventional romance novel by my fellow commenter at “The Passive Voice,” Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt. I had been promising to review it, and had a draft on my desk for several weeks, but now she’s dropped the price of the Kindle book to $2.99 for a […]
Authors and social media. You hear it all the time: You need a platform of fans to attract a book deal. You need fans following you on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and SnapChat. You need to be online every day, meeting the public and selling yourself and your books. We have been told that for years. […]
I taught myself how to sew grocery bags in quantity. I know there are plenty of things that I have missed or don’t understand. There isn’t much information out there about sewing the same thing over and over, especially for the home seamstress. Patterns assume you’ll only make one item and only one at a […]
If you want to give someone the heebie-jeebies, pull out a camera and ask if you can take their picture. If you want to see them collapse in a sweat, tell them this will go on the back of their book. In fact, there’s nothing that’ll force you out of your comfort zone more than […]
If you want to make faster grocery bags, you’ll have to understand that you don’t have to perform every task. There are many points in the production process where no sewing skills are needed. A reliable helper can step in at these points and save you valuable time and energy. Ironing the raw yardgoods. You […]
While you’re setting up your company, you should think about the need for an author pen name. A name conveys an image or meaning. It tells the reader something about you that may not be accurate: your nationality, gender, intellectual level, even suggest the type of books you write. Would you expect “Brad Thor” (his […]
(This post is a draft from the upcoming book “Sewing Cloth Grocery Bags.” A complete list of the posts can be found here.) Frankenstein bags are what I call the grocery bags I make from mismatched fabric. Because of the way I lay out panels and gussets, I often end up with a spare panel […]
August is coming up, and that means it’s time for the Murder as You Like It conference! It’s a great fun day to spend with mystery readers and authors. This will be my fourth year at the show, and I’ve always had a great time. There’s something about meeting people who like to read, who […]
Remember the Far Side “Cow Tools” cartoon? It showed a cow, standing up before her display table that showed a bunch of sticks and lumps. In his book, Gary Larson wrote that the panel caused a lot of confusion among his readers. They thought the tools had a purpose, and they couldn’t figure it out. […]
In my continuing attempts to streamline my sewing procedures for cloth grocery bags, I decided a long time ago to stop using the fashion fabric to make the straps. Fabric straps require careful cutting to keep them perfectly straight on grain. Because you have to double the fabric to get the right weight (and enclose […]