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As the week continues to break the World Crawling Record, we continue our lengthy discussion with one of our favorite people. For those just catching up — and, yes, we are implying that you missed yesterday’s brilliance — we are answering the question that nobody has bothered to ask us. Yet. Sad but true: we [...]

So it’s like the slowest week in the history of the world — and we can’t find a thing to inspire us. Thus, we turn, well, to us. Yeah, well, you try to find inspiration on a Tuesday morning in August. Not so easy, is it?
We’re heading up to Yosemite for the annual Yosemite Writer’s [...]

Recently, a friend asked, “How do I get friends on MySpace?” Now, while the snarky answer was, “You have to be a friend first”, it wasn’t entirely untrue. Social media sites are often part of an elaborate numbers game — the most popular user of MySpace has over a million friends. Let’s all be honest [...]

Here is what we worry about: name-dropping in novels is so prevalent that readers, those poor, innocent readers, might not be able to discern between legitimate product placement and legitimate characterization. That is unfair to marketers who might pay big bucks for a fleeting mention in a 100,000 word novel. We feel sorry for them, [...]

In a recent comment, author Mia Zachary asked, quite rightly, why some people think authors shouldn’t attend BookExpo America. After all, from her perspective, she made good contacts with booksellers, got some quality time with her editor, and the price was right. All excellent points. Any time you, the author, can get yourself in front [...]

We have a bit of snark to work out of our system this morning, and what better way than to get all cranky on a poor, innocent soul who quite possibly had nothing to do with titling her article “Novel Ways to Publicize Your Fiction Book”. Our issue, of course, is that these are not [...]

The husband has embraced audiobooks with an unexpected fervor — it turns out that T.C. Boyle short stories are just the right length for his cardio workout. Also just weird enough for his cardio workout, but that might be more than you need to know.
He’s also been quite enthusiastic about the notion of podcasting novels. [...]

It is probably safe to say that if you haven’t yet heard the word “podcast”, you are not paying attention. If you are not paying attention, do not worry. You’re missing out on lots of other things, too. If you are paying attention, you might be getting antsy, worrying as you did during the blog [...]

Bookseller Chick, who is somewhere on the West Coast, but probably not Pasadena as she never speaks of her home in terms that imply sheer perfection, answered reader questions this week. She deigned to address the issue of authors who turn their books cover out (or their friends who help do this), drive-by signings, and [...]

Okay, we were more than a little surprised to see that Phillip Jennings was prominently featured on our Amazon homepage. Also purses, iPod cases, and books (the books were at the bottom, which is rather sad, but maybe it’s one of those things that moves around whenever we reload). But let’s back up — we [...]