Mark Cameron's Blog, page 2

Reading it Forward

Sometimes I stare at my growing To-Be-Read stack and wonder how many books it would take to break a 3/4″ wooden shelf. I fear that I might wake up one night to the crashing sound of dust — that one speck that breaks the threshold of my shelf’s resistive strength and causes the entire mass of my TBR library to fold into itself, crushing my centuries-old collection of Robbie Burns poetry into a mound of ash.

Every so often, I try to mitigate this pending literary disaster by brushing off the du...

On Fact, Fiction and Vulnerability

[image error]This book wasn’t supposed to be scary.

When I set out to write 17 Weddings, I intended to put some space between myself and my writing. I was determined to avoid the depth of self-reflection that I’d experienced while writing my debut novel, Goodnight Sunshine.

I hadn’t intended my Goodnight Sunshine protagonist to be a reflection of me. I had given Oliver Bruce enough different traits to override the familiar settings I placed him in. I would focus on developing an intriguing plot and crafti...

Where’s My Undo Button?

[image error]What an education this self-publishing journey is. Sigh…

As I was about to post an exciting new review of 17 Weddings to my Facebook page, I saw a message from a friend saying that she’d already received a paperback copy of the book. Normally, I would be thrilled to hear that — except that it’s not supposed to be launched until November 26th!

Lo and behold … I quickly discovered that I made one wrong click when setting up distribution, which enabled a not-quite-final version of my book to be...

Milestones and Baby Steps

It’s been so long since my last post that I should probably call this a cobwebsite.

Okay, that was terrible. But seriously … for the past nine months, my blog has been an exercise in futility. A reflection of my fragmented existence. Too many projects and priorities chattering away in my mind, battling for precedence, with too little focused effort to corral them.

Occasionally, I log into my blog with the intention of posting. I usually ignore the backlog of WordPress update notifications tha...

Well, That was Lovely!

Well, that was lovely.

With those four simple words, John Mann summed up an incomparable evening and an amazing career.

On a damp Sunday night in November, in a Vancouver ballroom teeming with music and love, forty-five of Canada’s most talented musicians came together to pay homage to a falling comrade. When John Mann took the stage with Spirit of the West—despite the rapid advancement of Early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease—he danced with the gusto that fans had come to expect from one of our co...

My Own Blueprint for Success …

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I’ve always considered myself an entrepreneur. But lately I’ve been questioning what that means … and why it matters.

A quick Google search produces many similar-but-subtly-different definitions of the word “entrepreneur”, such as:

a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so. a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk. a person who at...

A Sense of Common Ground

[image error]I attended my 30-year high school memory test on Saturday. I wasn’t sure what drew me to it, but I’m sure glad I went.

I expected my first reunion to provide some foggy recollections of the large brick building I graduated from in 1987 — the school I drifted through like the wind for three years, hardly connecting with anything or anyone for long enough to make a lasting impression. I planned to arrive late, share a few stories with familiar faces, and leave before those with stronger ties cl...

The Reader is Always Right

I’m starting to hear back from my second round of “beta readers” for 17 Weddings — people who have volunteered to read an unedited manuscript and provide feedback about my story. I am infinitely appreciative of their time and effort — and their honesty.

While talking to another author recently, I said that “every reader is right” — words that stemmed from a quote I read at a library during my BC Book Tour last summer:

“No two persons ever read the same book.”  – Edmund Wilson

That quote had st...

What do you do for a living?

“What do you do for a living?”

It’s such a simple question. Why do I find it so hard to answer?

Ever since 2011, when I sold the software company I co-founded, I’ve been trying to redefine who I am and what I do for a living. At times, I’ve been both tempted and repulsed by the idea of returning to the tech sector — of building a new venture based on old skills. Both my temptation and repulsion are based on familiarity — on leveraging skills and experience honed over decades of work in the so...

Outwitted

I might have outwitted myself. My post entitled Vanna Depresses was a tongue-in-cheek look at the division between self-publishing and traditional publishing. Butif you’ve never heard of a “vanity press” or a “hybrid publisher,” then that post will probably seem a little obscure. So here’s a quick primer…

“Vanity press” is a term used within the publishing industry forcompanies thataccept money from authors to publish their work. The theoryis that if someone is willing to pay for publishing,...