Alexander M. Zoltai's Blog, page 140

Do Physical Libraries Still Matter?

Are libraries—the ones you have to leave home to visit—still important?

Image Courtesy of Holger Dieterich ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/holger

Can they survive in this digital age?

Will they become digital themselves?

Are physical books and their collections going away?

I have a few handfuls of posts I’ve done on libraries and I should share four of them:

So, What Are Libraries Good For, Now That So Many People Use the Internet?

The E-Book Wars & Your Public Library . . .

Publisher Helps Local...

Friday Poll ~ Where Do You Read?

As always, we’ll look at last week’s poll first.

Image Courtesy of Alice Konieczna ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/alko

The question was:What Are Your Special Writing Rituals?

Special Music came out on top with 23.53% of the vote.

Second place went to “Nothing Special” at 17.65%.

Third place was an 11.76% tie between Special Drink, Space, and Computer Program/App.

Then, with 5.88% each were: Special Food, Quietness, and “Burn aromatherapy oils like rosemary or lemon to aid concentration”.

Now, t...

All About Bookstores . . .

Since I write my blog to help folks explore Reading, Writing, and Publishing; and, since Amazon has been getting way too much press lately, I decided I should write about bookstores :-)

Image Courtesy of Brendan Gogarty ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/brendan76

I also wanted to use a Web app I’ve been exploring—Buzzsumo.

Here’s one user’s description of this app:

“Identify the links that are most shared on social networks, as well as influencers for specific topics. .. really easy to use.”

So,...

Is Voice Recognition Software As Good As They Say It is?

Voice recognition software’s been around for quite awhile now.

Image Courtesy of Julia Freeman-Woolpert ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/juliaf

I haven’t tried it yet (except to run a couple Google Searches) but an article on the ALLi blog—Writing: Voice Recognition Software – Is It the Author’s New Best Friend?—peaked my interest.

Even if you’re not a serious writer, give it a read…

I thought I’d do my normal reportorial routine and give you excerpts from my link-out but my Best Friend, Autho...

Finding The Best Writing Advice

Finding good writing advice can be an extremely frustrating process.

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You may be excited by the promise of articles and books on writing, only to become disheartened when you apply the advice and your writing doesn’t improve.

If I could offer only one piece of advice, it would be that you need to improve from the Inside Out…

When you’ve changed your Self and your inner motivation to write, your writing will improve.

You m...

Author Interview ~ Ali Noel Vyain – Part Two

Image courtesy of Ali Noel Vyain

This is my 1,000th post and I’m glad we can celebrate the accomplishment of writing over 350,000 words with a second interview with an author and publisher friend—someone I was always glad to have at events on Book Island in Second Life and have recently been hanging out with at the Cafe on Writers’ Island.

I interviewed her two years ago and I’m glad she’s agreed to another interview.

~~~~~~~~~

So good to have you back, Ali! Let’s start with what your current pla...

Friday Poll ~ What Are Your Writing Rituals?

First, the results of last week’s poll—Traditional vs? Self Publishing:

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I’ve only been Self-Published= 29.41%

I’ve only been Traditionally published= 5.88%

I’ve been both Traditionally & Self-Published= 11.76%

I’m thinking of being Self-Published= 11.76%

I’m thinking of being Traditionally Published= 5.88%

I’m thinking of being both Traditionally and Self-Published= 17.65%

I’ve never been published= 11.76%

There was one res...

Everyone, Right Now, Is Writing Their Own Life . . .

What does it mean to “Write Your Own Life”?

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Is it only some affluent person following the steps of a self-help book and dreaming about a more perfect affluence?

Could it also be a political prisonerwho uses their mind to stay above the oppression, claiming a true freedom?

What about someone in Iraq, smack in the middle of the ISIS atrocities………?

So, what do I really mean by “Writing Your Own Life”?

Are we always doing it?

Perhaps remembering the a...

Fiction Writers’ Alert ~ Your Words May Be Seen As A Threat . . .

The headlines themselves seem like fiction:

Image courtesy of Michal Zacharzewski ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/mzacha

In Maryland, a Soviet-Style Punishment for a Novelist

Eastern Shore teacher removed for troubling writing

District suspends ‘dangerous’ teacher for writing scifi novel about school shooting in 2902

This teacher’s novel, The Insurrectionist, was published in 2011…

Recently, he was suspended from work and made to undergo mental evaluation…

It’s not clear if he’s been arrested…

Th...

Digital Disruption In Publishing

While it’s true that Amazon has brought strong disruption into the publishing arena, one should never discount the smaller creatively-disrupting publishers…

Image Courtesy of Belovodchenko Anton ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/african_fi

So often, in so many aspects of life, the “Davids” have taken on and routed the “Goliaths”.

Back in April, the London Book Fair provided a stage for seven disrupting entrepreneurs—the short list of theBritish Council’s Young Creative Entrepreneur (YCE) progr...