en-US Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:03:33 -0800 60 144 41 http://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_logo_144.jpg /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/199919-rollo-will-do-you-for-free Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:03:33 -0800 /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/199919-rollo-will-do-you-for-free For a limited time, Rollo's first comic adventure, My Inflatable Friend, will be available as a free ebook download in EPUB, Sony Reader, and plain-text formats on SmashWords. List-price ebooks are still available for platforms Kindle, Ingram PDF (DRM), and Mobipocket.

If you then yearn to read the sequel, Rubber Babes, you'll have to shell out $1.99.

Like so many players in the 21st century publishing biz, I've been puzzling over what business models will emerge for ebooks. And while we're at ...

posted by Gerald Everett Jones on December, 13 ]]> /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/193792-west-hollywood-book-fair-photo Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:40:34 -0800 /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/193792-west-hollywood-book-fair-photo Last Sunday (October 4) in West Hollywood Park.

Here's some of the gang doing the meet-and-greet with aspiring and working writers at the IWOSC booth.

(L to R) Linda Lichtman, showrunner Lyn Corum, Sally Hawkridge, and The Boychik.


Photo by Joshua BarashGerald Everett Jones
La Puerta Productions
www.lapuerta.tv

posted by Gerald Everett Jones on November, 21 ]]> /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/189900-book-review-dark-mission Tue, 15 Dec 2009 04:48:57 -0800 /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/189900-book-review-dark-mission
For example--
If there is just one artifact on the Moon or on Mars, that's significant. The authors present evidence, although not totally convincing, that there are thousands of "anomalous" and "unnatural" features on both bodies.If NASA has deliberately...

posted by Gerald Everett Jones on December, 15 ]]> /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/187748-i-m-reading-bonfire-of-the-vanderbilts-at-weho-book-fair Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:28:43 -0800 /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/187748-i-m-reading-bonfire-of-the-vanderbilts-at-weho-book-fair This Sunday, Oct. 4, West Hollywood Book Fair, West Hollywood Park (just west of the Pacific Design Center), at 4 PM on the stage called The Lounge.

Bonfire of the Vanderbilts is a new novel about a Gilded Age art scandal and a murderous love affair, set in Paris and Newport in the early 1890s and in Brentwood in the present day.

I'll also be in the IWOSC booth 2 - 4PM.

Parking free, show free, air still free while it lasts!
(Bring a big straw hat, a bottle of water, an empty backpack, and some ...

posted by Gerald Everett Jones on December, 15 ]]> /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/185181-siegfried-the-archetypal-boychik Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:44:53 -0700 /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/185181-siegfried-the-archetypal-boychik I've previously defined boychik as a young man with more chutzpah than brains. Georja and I recently reviewed Wagner's opera Siegfried, the third episode in his marathon cycle The Ring. It's playing now at LA Opera.

In the myth, Siegfried represents the human race, which in the dawn of history is just coming into its own. In this installment of the story, Siegfried will slay the fearsome dragon who guards the ring--the symbol of ultimate power. Thus will begin the ascendancy of humans and the ...

posted by Gerald Everett Jones on October, 30 ]]> /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/182148-pre-christmas-e-reader-wars-heat-up Mon, 07 Dec 2009 03:31:23 -0800 /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/182148-pre-christmas-e-reader-wars-heat-up
Sony Reader is now (finally) running a consumer-oriented TV ad, and the NY Times reported yesterday on the iRex launch. You can bet Amazon will hype Kindle to the max in the coming weeks, along with its promotion of the Kindle 3 large format in the college textbook market.

Apple is conspicuously absent, although you can use apps like Stanza to read ebooks on your iPhone. But that's hardly a competitive strategy for Apple. I'm betting they come out with a docking screen for some or all of the i...

posted by Gerald Everett Jones on December, 07 ]]> /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/180672-masonic-joke-the-lost-symbol-is-at-target Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:39:02 -0800 /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/180672-masonic-joke-the-lost-symbol-is-at-target

The "lost symbol" in Dan Brown's big bestseller of the same name is a geometric shape called a circumpunct. Which turns out to be the logo of Target Stores. Creeeeeepy!

I bet Manny, Mo, and Jack are in on it, too!*

Many readers probably suspected that The Lost Symbol would be an exposé about the Masons in much the same way that The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons revealed occult lore embedded in the history of the Catholic church. But this latest book from the master of page-turners is neit...

posted by Gerald Everett Jones on December, 14 ]]> /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/177390-proof-mayans-knew-about-julius-caesar Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:32:40 -0800 /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/177390-proof-mayans-knew-about-julius-caesar The Twelve is a parable reminiscent of The Celestine Prophecy. Aside from my wondering how the Mayans managed to come up with an end-of-time date that turned out to be a nifty number in the Julian calendar, I enjoyed this. I'm not at all objective because Bill Gladstone has been a friend and colleague of mine for about 30 years. Here's affirming that the book will generate a lot of thoughtful buzz.
Gerald Everett Jones
La Puerta Productions
www.lapuerta.tv

posted by Gerald Everett Jones on November, 10 ]]> /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/170748-what-makes-a-story-a-movie Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:28:37 -0800 /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/170748-what-makes-a-story-a-movie
posted by Gerald Everett Jones on December, 07 ]]> /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/77122-book-review-cutting-for-stone Thu, 26 Nov 2009 03:18:33 -0800 /author/show/28851.Gerald_Everett_Jones/blog/77122-book-review-cutting-for-stone Abraham Verghese's title, Cutting for Stone. As the book mentions several times but never precisely explains, the reference is to the Hippocratic Oath, "I will not cut for stone." However I had to look it up in Wikipedia to find the meaning, which is probably apparent to medical professionals. It was a prohibition from operating on stones, or calcified deposits, in the kidney or bladder. The ancient Greeks apparently thought surgeons should

posted by Gerald Everett Jones on November, 26 ]]>