Malcolm R. Campbell's Blog, page 250

Dear Kindle: When will your technology catch up with my novel?

Dear Kindle,

Someday, perhaps your glittering technology will be sophisticated enough to handle my novel Garden of Heaven. The fact that your screen cannot display the book probably isn't worrying you right now, but it should.

The reason is simple. Most published books are nonfiction and if you can't handle the columns of type in Garden of Heaven, you've pretty much missed the boat when it comes to nonfiction, especially textbooks where pages are more than text.

When books are made into feature ...

"Garden of Heaven" Released in Two Editions

My new novel "Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey" is now available in trade paperback on Amazon and as a PDF-format e-book on OmniLit.

My news release announcing the book starts out like this: In my second novel set in the high country of Glacier National Park, Montana, "Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey," I tell a multi-layered story about a man whose life is twisted by the Vietnam War, compromised by the denizens of a corrupt college, and destroyed by a lover out for revenge.

It's a news release I wond...

Books that sparkle fill me with energy

I've been updating websites and uploading new posts yesterday and today because the well-written young adult book I'm reading is filling me with writing power. It's Lynda Mangoro's "Awakening of the Dream Riders." Sometimes, when I swim in a sea of inspiring words from the book on the nightstand, I'm really energized by it.

In this debut novel, some everyday school kids discover they have a supernatural talent. Well, this grabs my attention immediately. I'll be writing a review of this book so...

Keep the dream alive, Abby

A friend of mine, with whom I'd sailed as a teenager, sailed across the Atlantic alone in a small boat in his early 20s. While I was a bit jealous of his experience, my eyes were at the time on the summits of Mt. Everest and K2. Unlike Abby Sunderlund (rescued from her damaged boat earlier today) and the thirteen-year-old Jordan Romero who reached the summit of Mt. Everest last month, I didn't want to be the youngest.

I simply wanted to climb the mountains. When I was Abby's age--even Jordan's...

James Patterson: His books are not guilty pleasures

How often do you hear somebody describing a light-weight, often sexy, book as a guilty pleasure?

People smile with a "heh heh" expression on their faces when they say it in the same way they do when mentioning a day at the beach or an evening in the tub with candles, candy and sex.

In the June issue of Baker & Taylor's book catalogue "Forecast," there's a brief interview with author James Patterson who says he works on about 25-30 manuscripts at a time. Patterson's latest is "Private," coming ...

Who will find our books?

This morning, I read Lee's post on Literary Magic "Self Publishing is About to Come of Age in the 'Cloud.'" The focus of the story is the pending announcement of Google Editions and how Google, Amazon and Apple are, some say, creating a new world order in publishing.

I also saw more posts about everything from POD to FastPencil as examples of technologies that will (depending on one's view) break the stranglehold of old media companies on what's being read or will allow more people to compete...

A Direct Mail Campaign Experiment

I wondered what would happen if I sent postcards featuring the cover of "The Sun Singer" to a modest group of bookstores around the country.

By modest, I mean about 225. My budget couldn't afford any more stamps.

On the address side, I included ordering information and a handwritten note. My hand feels like a deformed claw after all that writing. My hope is that bookstores will see the postcard and be intrigued about the novel. Some will note that they can save money by ordering directly from t...

Circe and I Go Way Back

I've had a love/hate relationship with my intuition for years. Yes, I want to know that which my logic will never tell me. But, I'm seldom able to walk the pathway of the greater mysteries without a net. As long as there's a net, the voice within remains silent.

Traditionally, men are solar creatures. Over time, they (we) have created a lopsided patriarchy that--in spite of our cleaned up language these days--still tends to see women as nuns, mothers or temptresses. In doing so, men--and women...

Asheville for recharging the batteries

My wife and I have been visiting Asheville, North Carolina for the past 20 years; when it came time to decide what we wanted to do for our anniversary this year, returning to Asheville's Biltmore Estate was an easy choice. We considered activities: everything from rafting to horseback writing to rail riding on off-the-road Segways.

We ended up taking it easy, though that alone tired us out enough to need a rest and recuperation period when we got back home. The farms, the gardens, the bass po...

The muse and I

The whole MUSE THING used to really bother me, and even now, I approach it carefully.

Since author Mark David Gerson talks a lot about muses, I finally said in a comment that I grew up hating the entire muse concept because it always involved frail personages who looked like they were dying of consumption floating around writers who looked fairly vacant and out of touch with the real world.

It was almost as though Mark David's point of view about this subject gave me "permission" to say, yes, ...