Alexander M. Zoltai's Blog, page 144
July 24, 2014
COMING SOON ~ The World’s Best Story!
NEWS ALERT: “Enter the first social contest to reward writers and readers in the search for the next blockbuster story.”
This is for Writers & Readers—with prizes for both.
My favorite publishing-aid company, Fastpencil, has teamed up with World’s Best Story to offer a stunning set of prizes! {check out the Full List below}
I’ll let Kevin Flight, their Account Manager, tell you what they’re up to:
“We’re coming down to the wire in the entry phase of the World’s Best Story contest that aims to fin...
July 23, 2014
A Reader’s Bridge To Their True Self . . .
Did you know the best-selling book genre is “Self-Help”?
Image Courtesy of http://www.freeimages.com/profile/jenngem
Do you know the roots of the genre?
Think it’s Psychology?
Eastern Mystics?
Philosophers?
The Prophets of Religion?
I’ll leave the True Beginning of Self-Help as an exploration for your inner self to appreciate…
What I give you today is the latest best-seller in the genre: Jessica Lamb-Shapiro’s Promise Land.
First a very curious bit of a review of the book:
“Jessica Lamb-Shapiro has an...
July 22, 2014
Ask This Author Some Questions . . .
Asking authors questions has never been so easy—assuming the author is open to the idea…
Image courtesy of Chris Baker ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/immrchris
I’m sure readers have questions for authors—about characters, why things happened the way they did, when the next book will be out…
And, authors often have questions for other authors—some exactly the same as other readers—some about specifically Writerly topics—how to, or why to, or when to, or other issues that impact a writer’s li...
July 21, 2014
The Corporations and The Writer ~ Who’s Winning?
My job, besides being the best writer I can possibly be, is to blog five days a week about Reading, Writing, and Publishing.
Image Courtesy of ilker ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/ilco
Much of the news these days in those three arenas revolves around the issue of who’s more important—the Reader, the Writer, or the Publisher—and, mostly due to Amazon, where the Distributor fits into the Importance Curve.
A recent article by an author, in Forbes business magazine, drew a sharp image of the re...
July 18, 2014
Friday Fantasy ~ Number Thirty-Three
The Holy Man and The Evil One
~ It seemed he had been with them forever.
Image Courtesy of Leroy Skalstad ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/leroys
The Holy Man was with the people of the forest but not of them.
He had arrived in the memory of the Elders but was much older.
He tended to their ills and, sometimes, gave wise advice; but, most imagined he had wider powers.
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The people of the forest had, many times, tried to elevate the Holy Man to the station of Ruler but he had consistently refuse...
July 16, 2014
Reading, Writing, Publishing ~ What Are You Interested In?
I’ve been blogging for 3½ years about Reading, Writing, and Publishing.
Image Courtesy of Craig Parylo ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/parylo00
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Because bloggers can’t always count on enough comments to make decisions about what their readers want, we often have polls and surveys—hoping to entice folks to provide feedback.
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And, because yesterday’s experimental post didn’t draw as many comments as I’d hoped, I’m including a very short and easy survey today.
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It’s only up for a week so j...
Traditional or Self-Publishing ~ How In The World To Decide??
Do you think readers care if a book is traditionally published, as long as they like it?
Image Courtesy of Michael Zimmermann ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/michi2004
Do you think authors who want to write for a living care about the “prestige” of landing a traditional deal?
Do you think writers are more important to our civilization than large corporate publishers?
It’s questions like these that cause otherwise mature adults to display some incredibly childish logic in the media…
Out of the...
July 15, 2014
Blogging Authors
Words are used in so many weird ways.
Image Courtesy of Mikhail Popov ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/hoboton
Like the title of my post today—Blogging Authors.
As if writing a blog and being an author are inherently two different things.
Sure, I understand that blogging and fiction writing are usually very different activities but an author who blogs is still a person who uses words to convey thoughts and feelings, right?
I write this blog, so I’m the author of this blog.
I also am an author of...
July 14, 2014
ALERT about Digital Book Day site . . .
If you’ve tried to get free e-books at the Digital Book Day site and got ”Error establishing a database connection “, just try again a bit later—the response is much greater than they expected…http://www.digitalbookday.com/
July 13, 2014
Today’s The Day ~ Free E-books from Bestselling Authors Around The World
Last Thursday I alerted you to the Extra-Special Event that’s happening right now, July 14th—Digital Book Day.
It’s the brainchild of bestselling authorCJ Lyons.
Here’s a link to all the authors giving away e-books.
And, last time I looked, they had over 400 free e-books!
And,here’s a most intriguing explanation about why she’s doing this:
“With all the chaos surrounding our industry, we thought it time to focus on the one person publishing can not survive without: The Reader.”
If you want more det...
