Publishing
5 Reasons You Need RABBLE!
NYT Book Reviews are irrelevant – You NEED Rabble instead. As I write this blog post, Amazon lists ninety-one thousand, seven hundred ninety-eight (91,798) books in the “new releases, last 30 days” section. The NYT has eleven reviews on their books webpage.* The LA Times doesn’t mind making you scroll through all twenty-one of theirs; [...]
How Adopting a 3-yr-old at 19 Formed the Basis for a Thriller: Making It Real
Main characters have to feel real or you, the reader, will abandon them. I write thrillers and I’m forever striving to write that perfect visceral character. Hemingway’s advice: “From all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new [...]
Hitting the Top 10 List
A Kindle Fire HD Giveaway for a Thank You! (This contest is over, the winner is: Eileen of Goodreads) Yes, I’m giving away one Kindle Fire HD (US, UK, Canada only), but first I must say thank you to the thousands of readers who snapped up a copy of The Geneva Decision last week. Your [...]
Who is Your Real World Heroine?
I need your help. I created a fictional heroine who is an amalgam of the many powerful women I’ve known in real life. Rather than go on about my mother, daughters, wife, sisters, ancestors, etc. I need to hear about your female role models. Who is your real world inspiration?* Once a month I will [...]
Co-Authors Suck
There was a time when I would read anything with James Patteron’s name on it. His Alex Cross books had a distinct feel to them and made sense*. While they were exceptionally light and extremely short, I liked them. So, I picked up a book by Patterson with Michael Ledwidge. It was a fair book. [...]
2012 Seeley James Awards
Suddenly, I had this crazy idea: everyone (including Lee Child) thinks my thriller reviews are fun so I should start giving out awards. And not just for the graft and bribes. You see, I like to think long-term: If I want to have a 20th Anniversary Awards Banquet in 2032, let’s say somewhere in the [...]
6 Things a Random Penguin Might Step In
A quick look at the business model can tell us the future of publishing as seen by the people who drive 25% of it today. Why are they doing this? The recent decision by Pearson (PSON.LN) and Bertelsmann to spin-off their traditional book publishing businesses, Penguin and Random House respectively, has less to do with [...]
Real Blame for Fake Reviews: Amazon, et al
Do companies who post reviews (Amazon, Goodreads, etc) have any responsibility to ensure the reviews they post are written by individuals who read the books reviewed? By now, everyone has read or heard about, the New York Times article citing a company who once offered ecstatic reviews for only $99. In that article, they revealed [...]
5 Ways My Heroine Will Kick Your Heroine’s
Am I the only one who’s tired of reading books about women who let rich guys beat the crap out of them, or lust after blood-sucking mythological creatures, or lead a revolution–reluctantly? Look at the 3 best-selling literary heroines of the last 5 years: Anastasia Steele, Bella Swan, and Katniss Everdeen. Where did they get [...]
Future Publishing: A Vision of 2022
To visualize the industry a decade from now, let’s first look at the biggest agent of change: the reader. For all the gadgets introduced into the world, all the innovation that will take place in the next decade, all the great marketing campaigns, nothing will stick unless it appeals to the reader. What do readers [...]
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