The would-be author asked me how to publish her book.  I should have replied, do you know your market?  Instead, I gave her the name of someone who might help. Why point to the pitfalls ahead?  The woman had completed a book. She deserved kudos instead of advice. I wasn’t the one

It’s uncivil of me, I suppose, to pick another quarrel with Amazon. After all, for the past week, the company has been running ads for my book, Heart Land, without a request or payment from me. In fact, that they’re running the ad in tandem The Ninth Hour is flattering.  Of cours

Who doesn’t like a good fairytale? Few. I suppose that’s why when Jeff Bezos sent me an email announcing my four novels could be translated into foreign languages for free, a smile crept across my face. Long years have taught me it’s best to keep my hands in my pocket whenev

With the Democrats in control of the U. S. House, President Donald Trump seems to be reviving his base with fiery rhetoric.  We all know who members of that base are — Woebegone innocents of earlier days, a time when, if corn prices flourished, so did the nation. As a kid, my f

“You made it so easy.”  The woman on the other end of the phone laughed.  She was referring to an email I’d sent to friends about Barnes And Noble’s holiday 20% discount  on my books. I sent the message more for vanity than for sales.   I was tickled to see my novel, Hear

Heart Land is a fictional memoir of a bright and reckless boy growing up in rural Ohio in 1939, at the close of the Depression and before America’s entrance into World War II.  Ockley Green is a sleepy farming community where a kid with an active imagination is as likely to trick h

The time has come to begin the third rewrite of my memoir. The manuscript has laid fallow for a month, so I will look at it with fresh eyes, correcting imperfections and doing my best to serve my readers. When it reaches print, it will be the best effort I can make at this stage of my

In the writers’ pecking order, the author with a publisher stands taller than the one who is self-published.  Having a publisher implies someone other than the writer believes in the work enough to commit hard cash to producing it. Nonetheless, after working with 4 publishers, I’

This is embarrassing.  I went to a book sale the other day and sold all my novels, including my personal copy of Gothic Spring.  I sold it  by mistake.  The book is valuable to me because  I use it when I do readings. The pages are  dog-eared and marked with comments I wish to m

I opened an email the other day from my publisher.  Their note said they’d submitted my novel, Heart Land, for some book award.  If they’d had asked me, I’d have told them not to bother.  I don’t have much faith in awards.  Wherever people gather, politics is likely to fol