Alexander M. Zoltai's Blog, page 169

Why Do Some Readers Not Believe What An Author Tells Them?

Welcome back to the Friday series, Behind The Scenes of Notes from An Alien. I like to call my book a short novel and I like to give it away even though it’s for sale. My Co-Author, Sena Quaren, doesn’t mind giving the book away but has clearly denied it’s a novel. By the way, […]

A Writer’s Room of One’s Own

I’m sitting in what’s called a studio apartment in the USA—one room about 20X30 feet that serves as living-room and bedroom, a small kitchen/entryway behind me, and a very small bathroom. It suffices for my needs but, if my income were ever to rise, I can think of much more comfortable spaces in which to […]

Is Self-Publishing Really A Do It Yourself Proposition?

Are you a writer who’s rejected the idea of offering your work to a traditional publishing house? Do you believe you can do everything it takes to self-publish? Now, be honest with yourself—you can actually accomplish Everything it takes to publish and distribute a book? If your answer was yes, you can stop reading this […]

How “Should” Writers Find Readers

I’ve written 12 previous posts here that I tagged with “author platform”. It’s just a current buzz-phrase for how writers attract readers. Like most other things about writing and publishing these days, there are herds of “experts” sprouting up—more every day—shouting their “10 Most Important” or “20 Absolute Musts” or even 71 Ways to Promote […]

Is Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” An Extended Writing Prompt?

For that matter, is any music you happen to love a writing prompt? I heartily encourage my readers who are writers (and, those who are not yet writers) to listen to The Wall… Have a pen and paper or a simple computer note-taker handy… If you don’t get at least one dynamite writing idea, I’ll […]

Self-Publishing On A Poverty Budget

Welcome to the Friday post for the Behind The Scenes of Notes from An Alien series. This short novel is for sale in print and e-book editions but still also FREE :-) And, Any questions you may have about the book can be asked in the Comments of Any of these Friday posts. I do […]

Have You Ever Read A Book To A Dog?

Dogs love to be spoken to, right? Kids love dogs, right? Well, an organization called Therapy Dogs International has a program that brings kids and dogs together in schools and libraries. Here’s a quote from the organization’s web site: “Therapy Dogs International’s ‘Tail Waggin’ Tutors’ program encourages children to read by providing a non-judgmental listener […]

The Publishing (And Editorial) History of Some Extremely Famous Fiction

What “…was written in stages between 1937 and 1949, much of it during World War II…It [being] the second best-selling novel ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.”? And, to give a few folks a bit more time to think about that question, I’ll point out to the grammar-folk that I fully intended the […]

What Are Editors Good For?

I’ve written here before about editors… And, many writers have some interesting relationships with them. But, first, it’ll be good to decide what kind of editor we’re talking about. Here are a couple links that describe various types of editors: NetRead CareerBear GoodReads I gave you three because different people have different ideas about not […]

A Blogger’s Roll Call of Nations

Back in October of last year I published the post Global Blogging for Readers, Writers, andPublishers. It shows the Top Ten countries for visitors to this blog. I thought it was time to show all the countries… However, due to WordPress’ statistical widget limitations, the list that follows isn’t for the full time that this […]