Alexander M. Zoltai's Blog, page 165

Do Daily Rituals Make You More Creative?

What do you do in the way of ritual to tone-up your creativity? Want to know what folks like Ernest Hemingway, Beethoven, Benjamin Franklin, Franz Kafka, Flaubert, W. H. Auden, Joyce Carol Oates, Anthony Trollope, Sylvia Plath, Friedrich Schiller, Marcel Proust, and many others, did? You could buy the book Daily Rituals: How Great Minds […]

Do Social Media Networks Have Different “Identities”?

At first, social media platforms can feel nearly identical, with only superficial differences. Many folks call Google Plus the new Facebook, and Twitter is considered by many just a short-form version of G+, while LinkedIn is the business version of any other social network… I’ve given my opinions on using social networks in 14 other […]

Can Corporations Actually Take Total Control of Our World?

This is the most important Behind The Scenes of Notes from An Alien post I’ve yet written… These continuing Friday posts are an extension of the short novel—revelations of how and why it was written—new scenes not in the published edition. There are “spoilers” in most of these posts but you can grab a free […]

What Guides The Author?

I’m hoping for many comments on this post… I’m hoping the writers who read this blog will tell us what guides them… I’m hoping the readers who read this blog will speculate on what guides the writers they read… I’m hoping the publishers who read this blog will think more about what guides the writers […]

Rare Book School

Whether you’re a Reader, Writer, or Publisher, today’s post may be just what you’ve been looking for… Yesterday I published the post, Sometimes Writers Have To Go Back To School . . . Today, I’ll introduce an extremely unique school… Would it be interesting to attend courses with “…academics, antiquarian booksellers, book collectors, bookbinders, conservators, […]

Sometimes Writers Have To Go Back To School . . .

I’ve published two posts in the past about how writers can get free higher education to aid them in their work. But I’m not talking about taking creative writing courses—more like having a character who’s a doctor and taking an anatomy course… Here are those two past posts: Research Resources for Writers More Help for […]

Readers Discovering Books ~ The “Best” Way?

I’ve approached Considerations of the Author Platform on this blog a number of times. The concept is still evolving—some say the platform is social networking, some shout about Marketing, some do it the old fashioned way… Far too many people are pushing Platform as a device to stand on and shout. What about standing up […]

The Needs of The Many ~~ The Treachery of The Few . . .

Here comes another in the Friday series of Behind The Scenes of Notes from An Alien. It does have a few “spoilers” so I urge you to grab a free copy of the short novel and read its 96 pages before you read the scene in this post—a scene not in the published edition… Remember, […]

Breaking The “Rules” of Book Promotion ~ 6 Different Views

I read an email this morning from an Author Hustler—made that term up—someone who sells advice about book promotion to authors… First, why buy advice if you can find it for free? Second, why take advice if most of the advice givers are borrowing from other advice givers and trying to dress the “advice” in […]

Can Learning To Read Save Lives?

I live in a country that boasts of its riches and freedom; yet, the United States of America really needs to clean up the corruption in its political process and could really use a rebirth in legal treatment of corporate ethics failures. It’s sad to think about the many well-off Americans who have e-readers, and […]