Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 89

How We Got the Deal Done

So Steve and I both recognize that Giora Romm’s Israeli bestseller, TULIP FOUR, is the perfect Black Irish Book. It epitomizes the WHY of our little operation. Anne Hartstein Pace did an amazing job with the Hebrew to English translation and, with some editorial work to make it more in keeping with the American
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Backstory Pt. 2

Continuing my safari among the creative young people of the millennial generation:
In today’s conversation with Jeff Simon, I ask Jeff what brought him from Chicago to L.A., how he got started in the movie business, what networking is like today among twentysomethings in Tinseltown, and what he learned working for eighteen months with Tom Cruise
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Why, #1

Why am I writing this blog? Why are you reading it? It’s not a bad idea to pause once in a while and ask questions like these.
The blog started about five years ago. It has evolved through a number of iterations. I’ve written in this space about what interests me, but I’ve also taken cues
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Backstory Pt. 1

I promised last Wednesday that we would be presenting several new video series on the blog. Here’s the first one, starting today. (There’s a transcript below the video, in case you’d rather read than watch.)
This series is me interviewing Jeff Simon, our blog’s 28-year-old tech guru, about the new web series he is developing called
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Horse Sense: “Lay a Little Heavy on the Business Side”

Would you have said no to Elvis Presley?
Imagine Elvis calling you back in the day.
He loves a song you’ve written, wants to record it—and even invites you down to the recording session.
You’re excited and start telling your friends the news—and then (and this is a big AND THEN), a few days before the session, Colonel
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Classing Up the Joint

A few changes coming to this blog in the next couple of months:
1. Jeff Simon, our version of Steve Jobs, has been reconfiguring the site to make it more video-friendly. We’ll have a new look soon (or as soon as Jeff can whip it together.) The plan is to do a lot more video posts
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Red Tile Roofs

I’m driving back from the Golan Heights with Eli. We’re on Route 6, the toll road south, passing an Arab town in Israel and I’m asking him if he believes there is any hope for peace.

“Yes, and I will tell you why,” he says. “Look over there at that town.”
Eli calls my attention to the
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The Why of Publishing

[This is a mini-series about why and how Steve and I came to publish Solitary by Giora Romm. Thank you to the First Look Access members who jumped on the offer Steve sent them two days ago. We've opened a limited-offer of $3.99 per book here to everyone, available until June 30th at 11:59pm PST. Click
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How Black Irish Acquired its First Book

Black Irish Books is the little publishing company that Shawn and I operate, alongside our various day jobs. When I say little, I mean little. So far we’ve only brought out stuff written by me. That started to change, though, about two and a half years ago.
If you’ve been reading the Monday and Friday posts
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How to Write a War Memoir (or any memoir)

I am dangling beneath my parachute. Gazing down from a height of 10,000 feet, knowing I am going to be killed in less than fifteen minutes, I feel great sorrow for myself. None of my fellow pilots who’ve parachuted into the Nile Delta has survived the encounter with the welcoming committee below, and I have
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