Alexander M. Zoltai's Blog, page 131
February 7, 2015
Due to unexpected circumstances…
I’m on indefinite sabbatical from this blog………
Image courtesy of Gabriella Fabbri ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/duchesssa
February 6, 2015
Friday Poll ~ How Much Do Book Covers Matter?
As always, we’ll first look at the results of last week’s poll—What���s Your Author-Gender��Preference?��
Image Courtesy of Nicholas Sales ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/jamsession
1st Place was “It shouldn’t matter what the gender of the author is”
2nd Place was “I have no author-gender preference”
3rd Place — “I don’t pay much attention to the gender of the authors I read”
4th — “I’ve found no difference between male and female authors”
5th Place was a two-way tie:
“I tend to prefer female au...
February 5, 2015
Everyone Can Be {More} Creative . . .
We all have the “creativity-gene”.
Image Courtesy of Flavio Takemoto ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/flaivoloka
Or, if you prefer, we all have the Will to Create.
Even if you think you’re not creative at all, I bet, within the past few hours, you faced some decision and made your own creative choice about what to do—no matter how small you felt that choice was…
Writers, readers, publishers—folks who want to write, read, or publish—people who don’t want to do any of those things—everyone—the m...
February 4, 2015
Another Good Reason To Read The Classics
I’ve had��Cervantes’��Don Quixote on my To-Be-Read list for years…��
Image Courtesy of Jenny Sliwinski ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/jsliwinski
I’ll get to it, eventually; but, the reading I must do to help me write my next book comes first.
Are there classic books you’ve been meaning to read?
Well, I may be able to offer some help.
Oxford University Press announced their World���s Classics Reading Group.
From the announcement:
“The Oxford World���s Classics social media channels will provide...
February 3, 2015
Author Interview ~ Max E. Stone
It’s my great pleasure to welcome Mr. Stone back to the blog—his first interview here was great; so, let’s get this one going…��
~~~
Max, did you always know you wanted to be a writer?
All I knew was that I always liked to write. I started at nine and at that time it was just a hobby to me. I liked to create stories that, to say the least, scared the crap out of the adults in my life. It was a teacher of mine who told my parents that I could actually make a career out of it. My parents nurtured...
January 6, 2015
Writers In A Surveillance Society . . .
I wrote about an auction PEN American Center was having of hand-annotated books by famous authors but didn’t stress the reason…
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PEN, which is international, “…has two distinct yet complementary aims: to promote a literary culture and to protect freedom of expression.”
A recent article in The New York Times,Writers Say They Feel Censored by Surveillance, begins with:
“A survey of writers around the world by the PEN American Center has fo...
January 5, 2015
Are You Struggling with An “Author Platform”?
This young New Year probably has quite a few writers struggling to implement a resolution to build or improve their “discoverability”—having readers find them—providing ways to develop a relationship with an audience…
Jane Friedman
As I always do, I caution any writer to not take anyone else’s “formula” for this activity and rather take the time to develop their own way of becoming “Known”…
In the four years of this blog’s life, I’ve done 16 posts about Author Platform and 40 posts about Book Pr...
January 2, 2015
Friday Poll ~ Point of View ~ for Readers & Writers
First come the results of last week’s poll—Where Are You In Your Writer’s Journey?
Image Courtesy of Vangelis Thomaidis ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/forwardcom
Most-voted-for saw a four-way tie:
* Wondering If I Can Be A Writer;Still Thinking About What To Write; Doing Research; and,Writing A First Draft.
There was a three-way tie for the next-most-voted-for:
*Doing Revisions;Working On The Tasks of Self-Publishing; and,Promoting A Book.
Then came “Other”:
*“trying to write with an authentic...
January 1, 2015
Publishing Predictions for 2015
I have to give a lot of credit to anyone who makes serious predictions about publishing…
Image courtesy of Tracy Olson ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/designkryt
In today’s seriously frenzied book-world, predictions can be hazardous…
However, Mark Coker, CEO of Smashwords, has the experience and credentials to make credible predictions.
Smashwords is “the world’s largest distributor of indie ebooks.”
And, Mark has a recent article called,2015 Book Publishing Industry Predictions: Slow Growth P...
December 31, 2014
Recommended link: Can Positive Thinking Really Make Dreams Come True?
Here’s a bonus post for today—considering all the Resolutions folks might make :-)
Originally posted on Everybody Means Something:
In the light of my recent reservations about the power of positive thinking alone to achieve results, I was intrigued to find the following post in my inbox from the Greater Good website to which I subscribe. It pricks the simplistic balloon of supposing that just fantasising what you want is enough to bring it about. The post does flag up a cauti...
