Published on April 10, 2013
Each morning, after I pour a cup of coffee, I check the headlines. One caught my eye this week. Remember the Olympic bomber? He went to court to try to get the royalties for a book he self-published. It’s his autobiography. In my opinion, 100% of that money should go to the victims’ families. This week, U.S. District Judge Lynwood Smith agreed, saying he forfeited that right in his plea deal. Which self-publishing firm stooped to publishing a book by this murderer? Keep reading to find out…
Published on April 10, 2013
Letters will return next week.
Published on April 10, 2013
Although I have obtained long-term and well-paying writing gigs through online ads, I’ve also read many ads that raised red flags. Here are a few signs you should not respond…
Published on April 10, 2013
I am thinking of publishing an eBook and P.O.D. anthology of my personal blog. I’ve been writing it for 10 years and it’s quite popular. However, for the past three years, some of those posts appeared first on another blog. They paid me for those.
Do you know who owns the copyright on the posts?
Published on April 3, 2013
We were pretty lucky last week when we found a brand new Slip ‘N Slide left by the Easter Bunny! Now that we live in the South, where it’s warm on Easter, and now that we have an actual front yard with plenty of grass, we could not WAIT to try it out. The boys hurried outside to set it up while the girls changed into their bathing suits. While they were hooking up the hose and getting it working, we were all stretching like Olympic hopefuls…
Published on April 3, 2013
Over the weekend, I purchased the ebook Women in the Middle Ages by historians Frances Gies and Joseph Gies for my Nook. I started reading the book and found two words stuck together…and then two more…and then two more. It was pretty distracting because each merged set of words made me pause in my reading. There were other errors, too, like inconsistent indents. I, of course, assumed the book was self-published because there were so many errors. I was wrong. It was published by HarperCollins, “HarperCollins E-books” to be exact…
Published on April 3, 2013
I know a young woman, daughter of a good friend, who entered a nursing school masters degree program many years ago. Evidently, as part of it, students must read a selection of writings by various academics (I think) who wrote significant articles, books, etc. on the history of nursing.
It was a big nuisance, copying from this and that library source. She instantly saw it as an idea for an anthology…
Published on April 3, 2013
Just two days before my event at the local library, the librarian called to touch base. “Now, you are the one who wanted to do a PowerPoint presentation, right?”
Huh? Clearly she had me confused with another presenter. I had no plans for a PowerPoint, but the second I opened my mouth, I heard myself saying, “Sure. I’d like to do that.”
For two days, I rushed to create a presentation in connection with my fifth novel’s release. Although I’d created a few PowerPoint presentations before for various teaching engagements, I’d never thought to do one for a novel…
Published on April 3, 2013
I am a new writer, just trying to find someone to publish me that will see the value in my writing and compensate me equally. Can you help?
Published on April 3, 2013
I hear writers making confessions like this all the time. “Ugh. I really should have a website.” Or they’ve established an online presence, but there’s this twist, “I haven’t updated my blog since 2004!”
The underlying reasons vary. I know hardworking writers who are mired in the trenches. But also, at the edge of the pool, you’ll find the technophobes, and social media snobs (yes, some people out there still think Facebook and Twitter are fads). And finally, lots of us writers fall into the awe-shucks humble category, protesting…
