Tag: writing
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. [...]
Review: Wanted Man
Wanted Man – by Lee Child, $27.95 HC / $13.99 E Creative writing professors have been stuck on James Joyce for too long. I think a hundred years of exaltation is plenty for a dead guy. Professors who want to be relevant in the 21st Century should start teaching Lee Child. Where Joyce challenged the [...]
Review: Deadly Coast
Deadly Coast – by RE McDermott, $4.95 E There is no better nautical thriller in bookstores today than Deadly Coast. I’m not being cheeky about this being an ebook (I presume Mr. McDermott will offer a softcover in the near future). I mean this is the best nautical thriller author writing today. And this is [...]
Review: Murder Takes Time
Murder Takes Time – Giacomo Giammatteo, $17.99 Soft, $4.99 E This is the best book I’ve read this year. I’ve never read the Godfather. I’ve never been drawn to gangster novels. I’m not even big on gritty crime dramas. I couldn’t tell you why I bought this one. Maybe it was the feeling I got [...]
Review: Bloodline
Bloodline — Author James Rollins, $27.99 HC, $12.99 E When I buy James Rollins books, I usually do it when he visits our local bookstore, the Poisoned Pen. I buy 3-4 copies, get them signed and hand them out to friends. I think of these gifts as part of my evangelical mission on behalf of [...]
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 [...]
Is There Room for a New Thriller Heroine?
My recent poll proved Charlie Fox is a favorite thriller heroine ahead of Katniss Everdeen. Oddly, several well-known and long-standing female leads in thrillers fell below the entry “Still Looking”. Are some of the popular characters like Tempe Brennan, Stephanie Plum or Kay Scarpetta played out? Too much of the same thing? Charlie Fox evolved [...]
5 FREE Tips on Book Promotion
How many Tweets, Facebook Updates, Google+ entries, blog posts, spam emails have you gotten that say, “How to promote your ebook”? After 30 years in sales and marketing, and watching the independent publishing movement for two years, I can tell you that we’ve now come full circle. A year ago John Locke wrote “How I [...]
Review: Killer Instinct
Killer Instinct – Author Zöe Sharp – ~99,000 words, $14.95 PB / $3.49 E I accidentally followed some author I’d never heard of simply because her tweets tended toward humor. After reading a few of her clever observations, I picked up Killer Instinct, her first book. Wow. What a great book. And don’t I feel [...]
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