Alexander M. Zoltai's Blog, page 141

Famous Writers and Their Cafes

Since it’s a holiday in the USA, I thought I’d share where some well-known authors hung out when they weren’t holed upin their dens laboring over a manuscript.

Statue of the Spanish writer, Don Gonzalo Torrente Ballester , created by sculptor Fernando Mayoral in 2000, and located in the literary café : Café Novelty —the oldest cafe of Salamanca ~ courtesy of http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Estatua_Gonzalo_Torrente_Ballester_Cafe_Novelty_Salamanca.jpg

Thanks to my Best Friend, plus Online...

Friday Poll ~ Traditional vs? Self-Publishing

Results form last week’s poll—What’s Your Favorite Social Network?

Image Courtesy of Craig Parylo ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/parylo00

Nearly 7% don’t use any social networks.

Almost 27% don’t have a favorite social network.

33.3% had Google Plus as their favorite.

Twitter pulled 13.3%.

Facebook and LinkedIn each had just under 7%.

And, “Other” was at 7% with Second Life as the social network.

~~~~~~~~~

Now, this week’s poll—Traditional vs? Self-Publishing:

Take Our Poll

Understanding Writing & Money

This is yet another of my posts about writing and money.

Image courtesy of Caltiva Creatividad ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/caltiva

And, even though there are writers who don’t care about the money, most of the Internet Hype these days seems to assume that there is no other reason to write but to make enough money to live on—and, far too much of the Hype is about making Tons of money…

I thought I’d share a few books recommended by Jane Friedman—from her article Writing & Money: A Brief Sy...

“What Can I Do With All These Books?!”

Too many books in your library?

Image courtesy of http://www.freeimages.com/profile/emzed

No real library—just books all over the place?

Not sure what to eliminate?

It can seem like books multiple on their own…

Places to keep them can seem hard to find…

How to organize them can seem impossible…

EnterAlison Hodgson—writer, reviewer, speaker, and humorist—and her article on houzz,‘Not My Precious Books!’ — Pain-Free Ways to Declutter Your Library.

Here are a few excerpts:

“Reading is my drug of choice,...

52 Book Review Sites

Do you like to read book reviews?

Image Courtesy of Mikhail Lavrenov ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/miklav

Do you think book reviews can determine what you choose to read?

Ever read a review of a book you’ve read that you totally disagree with?

Here are a few Book Review Quotes:

“In my reviews, I feel it’s good to make it clear that I’m not proposing objective truth, but subjective reactions; a review should reflect the immediate experience.”

Roger Ebert

“I’ve rarely gotten a good review in my...

100 Wild and Weird Novel Titles from the 1700s

Today’s post is courtesy of of the University of Victoria, British Colombia, Canada and The Toast website, with Lawrence’s article, 100 Actual Titles of Real Eighteenth-Century Novels.

Image Courtesy of The British Library ~ https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/page3/

I’l list my favorites here and let your interest take you through the link to see the others :-)

[ You'll have to Google them to, hopefully, know the author's names... ]

~~~

The Adventures Of A Pin, Supposed T...

Friday Poll ~ What’s Your Favorite Social Network?

Just before this week’s poll, here are the results from last week—where folks buy books:

Image Courtesy of B S K ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/spekulator

No one said they don’t buy books online.

25% buy books online.

12.5% said they buy books online and offline.

25% buy their books on Amazon.

12.5% buy books online from Book Depository.

12.5% buy books offline—places mentioned wereDymocks and Readings bookshops, both in Australia.

The other 12.5% was folks using the “Other” space to write thing...

Helping Others Receive The Gift of Reading . . .

Image from the Worldreader Site

Have you ever given a book away?

Has anyone who received a book from you been deeply grateful?

Has that person ever been someone who has no books of their own?

Have you ever wanted to help improve the literacy of others?

Consider these words from a past post:

“Many are the stories of people raised in poverty who somehow got their hands on certain books that changed their lives and helped them free themselves from social squalor.”

Consider these statistics:

1 in 5 peopl...

Freelance Lies . . .

Freelance writing can be very lucrative but demands hard work and intelligent risk-taking.

Image courtesy of Svilen Milev ~ http://efffective.com

Back in 2012 I wrote a post called Are Fiction Writers Capable ofFreelancing?

And, in 2013 I wrote one called Scratch, Scratch, Who’s Got TheMoney?

That last one had a link to a space that lists freelance writing gigs—Who Pays Writers?

Today I want to share some info from an article on Business2Community—7 Lies About Freelance Writers You Believe.

I’m onl...

Whose Words Are You Using?

I was checking out an article on Slate about the misuse of the thesaurus and found a link to a fascinating education site.

Image Courtesy of Raphael Pinto ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/knox_x

Well, actually a site that educators use—Turnitin—“…the global leader in evaluating and improving student learning.”

We all know that many students “borrow” words during their research and use them as their own.

And, I’m sure there are creative writers who do the same…

It’s called Plagiarism—its root me...