Social Networking & My Books

I survived yesterday! So with 6.9 Billion people in the world and 2 billion people on-line in sort of a fashion, how do you reach these potential customers?  How do I get people to read my books? (answer at the end)I have said and will repeat myself.   What sells books is word of mouth!Whether it's a book review you read on a website, or a recommendation (i.e. Goodreads web site has a new book recommendation feature added to their site, which in my humble opinion is incredible!)Goodreads dot com is by far the best Book website I have ever found.  They have approximately 6 Million members which you can befriend, follow their reviews, see Author Web pages, click to become fans of authors, review books, write reviews of books, create your own virtual book shelves, trivia,...

Read more »

Posted in: Goodreads Facebook Myspace Google + Social Networking

1/8 Eddie Gaedel

James Thurber wrote a story in 1941 about a baseball team hiring a 2ft. 11in. player, figuring no one could throw a strike that low. In 1951, the colorful Bill Veeck, owner of the St. Louis Browns, sent the 3ft. 7 in. tall Eddie Gaedel, with the number 1/8 on his jersey in to bat and he was walked. Now did Bill Veeck ever read James Thurber's story or did they both just have the same id...

Read more »

Posted in: Eddie Gaedel Bill Veeck James Thurber

Correction again

Since the Year 2000 the Internet Usage is up!  Oh Man, ever just have one of those days when you shouldn't even touch a toaster!  I still have to drive to dinner and back!  I hope I make ...

Read more »

Correction On Market Potential

The Number of the world population in the opening statement should be Billions not Trillions. World Population est. 6.9 Billion with 2 Billion on the Internet! OOP...

Read more »

Market Potential

It is a vast and widely different world out there depending upon where you're standing on it.  The world's population is somewhere in the neighborhood of 6.9 Trillion people.How many of us on the planet read books?How many are plugged into the Internet?  Approximately 2 Trillion or 30.2 percent of the world is plugged into the Internet on a regular basis.  The Growth of Internet usage since the year 200 is up by 480.4%.Check the chart below as I found this very surprising!Region                            % Online                # of Users    ...

Read more »

Posted in: Market Madarin E-books Internet Percentage

Why I suck at English!

Please don't let this date me more than I already am, because the medium I about to reference belonged to my parents and Grandparents, I was just the lucky recipient of the experience.When I was a child growing up in the back woods of Idaho, I would listen to records of comedians.  First off, records are different sizes of vinyl disks with grooves in them and when you placed a needle into the grooves and rotated the disk the proper direction and speed you could hear a recorded message or music from these devices.  They had machines for this function called record players which would rotate these at the appropriate speed (78, 33, or 45) and amplify the sound into speakers for your listening pleasure.My first experience of Bill Cosby was listening to a record of pieces of his various...

Read more »

Posted in: English Strunk Berman Cosby Writing

Know Your Audience

I could say 'Know Your Market Demographic', or some other George Orwell word twists that sound better or is more politically correct as a statement.  Or I could say what I think.If you study writing somewhere along the way your will read the phrase "Write what you know."This means if you start making stuff up off the top of your head someone somewhere will call you on it.  I remember one piece that the ladies in book club read and one of the ladies pointed out that the two street names which I made up didn't intersect.  It is Fiction!  I screamed in my mind, it doesn't have to be accurate it is made up!  Fictional.  She promptly gave me a small lesson in the art and craft of editing.  It only takes a second to look up a map and pick an actual spot and use...

Read more »

Posted in: Market Audience Cats Science Fiction

Writing, Book Clubs, and Reading

When I am reading a book I didn't pick out I always start with a certain amount of trepidation.  I read it saying to myself, "Alright impress me!"Then the book will deliver or it won't.  It is the sheer volume of books that left me wanting that really inspired me to begin writing.  Where I envisioned a author going to a particular place but they never quite got there, or didn't go far enough in my opinion.  With writing books I can get a crazy and go as far as I want.  I have to remind myself constantly to "Jump into the shit."  Don't pussy foot around, or hedge around the bush, jump into the conflict, make it uncomfortable, make it emotional and personal as soon as I possibly can.  Otherwise I will be as lame as the books which made me want to write to begin...

Read more »

Posted in: Reading Book Clubs Writing

Holding on to Dreams

Soichiro Honda was a drifter and a dreamer.  He bounced from one mechanic’s job to another, and also worked as a babysitter, a race car driver and amateur distiller.  In 1946, he took over an old factory that lay mostly in ruins from wartime bombings, even though he didn’t know what he was going to do with it.  First he tried building what he called a ‘rotary weaving machine’, next he tried to mass produce frosted glass windows, then woven bamboo roof panels.  Finally, he came across a cache of surplus two-stroke motors, and he had an idea of making motorbikes.Honda adapted the motors to run on turpentine and affixed them to flimsy cycle frames built by workers at the Hamamatsu Factory.  His motor bikes sold great as people were desperate for ways to get around in...

Read more »

Posted in: Dreams Honda Motorcycles Writing

The Human Mind

I am continually astounded by the human mind!A friend at works daughter has intermittently been getting an irregular rash over parts of her body.  Everybody, doctors included, have been stumped at the cause.This friend had also related they had found a caterpillar and he had picked it up and put it in a tree, trying to help the caterpillar.While doing research for my next Alexander Hawk Novel, I came across something called urticating hairs.  They are found on some plants, some tarantula spiders, and some caterpillars.  Urticating hairs are generally hollow and connected to some sort of venom or acrid glands.  The effects of these range from mild irritation to dermatitis.  The most potent chemicals in any animals is produced by the South American silk moth, genus Lonomia. ...

Read more »

Posted in: Education Reform Autism Gay Rights

Run Or Die?

What if, in mankind's early history we didn't have to fight for our survival against animals and other tribes of our fellow humans?  If when we first encountered another group our first reaction was to find common ground, establish communication, and learn about each other.  Realizing the other tribe were fellow human beings, and then cooperating for joint survival of both tribes.  Each tribe would send some of their people to live with the other tribe to learn their ways and be the intermediaries to help bring the tribes closer together.  Cooperation was the mainstay instead of Competition.  This would eventually grow into a peaceful society.  There would never be any wars, no use to develop weapons and fortresses.  The more intelligent would prevail instead...

Read more »

Posted in: Run Die Fight Peace Ender Rules

Wiley E. Coyote Super Genius

On September 21, 1912, Chuck Jones was Born! During his life he created my favorite character EVER!  Wiley E. Coyote!!  The coyote who spent his life chasing the Road Runner, and buying all the stuff from ACME! I loved Wiley because he Never Gave Up!!  Always had a new idea, new angle, new plan.  I have spent years watching those cartoons and laughing my ass off.  I am sorry I know they were terribly violent, but they were extremely funny, with layers of humor to range from children, the village idiot to the highly educated, there was something there everybody could appreciate.  Today's cartoons are extremely lacking in my humble opinion. (By the way the main character of my first book is named 'Wiley'.  Now you know why!) Chuck Jones also came up with...

Read more »

Posted in: Wiley E. Coyote Chuck Jones Warner Bros.

First Female Supreme Court Justice

September 21, 1981, Sandra Day O'Connor was unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate as the first female Supreme Court Justice."…the important thing about my appointment is not that I will decide cases as a woman, but that I am a woman who will get to decide cases." – Sandra Day O'Connor.Go Gir...

Read more »

Posted in: Sandra Day O'Connor Supreme Court Justice

It's Not My Fault!

If one of my customers calls me because they just got delivered the wrong tires, the last thing in the world they give a shit about is "Whose fault it is!"The only thing they are interested in is, "What am I going to do to fix the situation!"Companies need to get out of this grade school childish mentality of it's not my fault, so and so didn't do what they were supposed to do, blah, blah, blah!!!!Nobody cares!If a mistake is made then FIX IT!  Period.  End of Story!After the fact, internally find out what the hell happened and put procedures in place to keep it from happening again.  It is not surprising that certain companies are so busy they can't keep up, and other companies are floundering and tripping themselves up.I was on hold with a trucking company the other day and...

Read more »

Posted in: Problem Fix It Customer Service

I wanted to change the sport

"Ever since that day when I was 11 years old, and I wasn't allowed in a photo because I wasn't wearing a tennis skirt, I knew that I wanted to change the sport." – Billie Jean KingSeptember 20, 1973, In a $100,000 dollar, winner take all tennis match Billie Jean King defeats Bobby Riggs.  It was a battle of the sexes, as Bobby Riggs had famously boasted that no woman could defeat a male because women were the weaker sex.I respect the fact that Billie Jean King decided to change the sport, instead of change sports!I have to confess at a very young age when I was more stupid than anything else.  That age when you're so stupid you have no concept of how stupid you really are!  I used to be a male chauvinist!  I wasn't raised that way, I was just stupid.  God Almighty...

Read more »

Posted in: Tennis Battle Sexes Billie Jean King

Women’s Liberty Bell

On September 18, 1915, a replica of the original Liberty Bell toured Pennsylvania with supporters of the women’s suffrage movement.  The bronze bell travels through all 67 counties on a specially-built truck.  The clapper of the bell was chained to the side and the bell stayed silent until September 25, 1920, when it was brought to Independence Hall in Philadelphia and rung in ceremonies celebrating the ratification of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote.On this date in history the first person to jump to their death from the Hollywood sign in California is Peg Entwistle, a despondent actress.  She jumps from the “H”.  The Hollywood sign was built in 1923 to advertise a nearby housing development.  It originally read “Hollywoodland”, the name of the ...

Read more »

Posted in: Hollywood Libety Bell Suffrage

Plane Crash

This mornings head lines include a WWII Airplane crashing into crowded bleachers at an airshow.  A few weeks ago there was a fatality at an airshow here in Kansas City. On this date in History, September 17, 1908, Lt. Thomas Selfridge of the U.S. Army, was killed becoming the first passenger to die in an airplane crash.  Orville Wright's aircraft propeller broke in mid-flight, causing the crash.  Wright was badly injured in the crash. I have an extreme love affair with airplanes, especially the old World War II models which were not only efficient killing machines but works of art, from how they were designed and painted.  I Love the airshows, without which we would never see these beautiful machines in their natural environment, Flying! My Heart and Prayers go out to...

Read more »

Posted in: Airshow Planes Crash Prayers

A Solution

As a manager, I realize that I have been pointing out flaws with Traditional Publishing since I have E-Published my first book in January 2011, and started my blog.As a manager of a corporation I don't mind hearing about problems, as a matter of fact, it is a big part of my job to identify and solve problems as they are identified!  So I especially love it when an employee or customer points out a problem but furthermore provides a possible solution to the problem.If I were a manager at a large Publishing House, seeing what I am seeing in the industry, I would propose this as a possible solution!What the publishers have to offer is Professional Editing, Professional Cover Art Production, and the advertising and marketing to get a book professionally launched.  The fact that the book...

Read more »

Posted in: Problems Publishing Solution Literary Agents

Carriages to Chevrolet

The Durant-Dort Carriage Company, based in Flint, Michigan, had by 1890 become a leading manufacturer of horse-drawn vehicles, which by 1900 they ultimately became number one in the world.  Founded in 1886 with $2,000 in start capital was built up to a 2 million dollar business with sales around the world.  William Crapo 'Billy' Durant was not a big fan of cars, thinking they were stinky, loud, and dangerous and wouldn't let his daughter ride in one.  Seeing the public outcry about how there needed to by government regulation of these gas powered horseless carriages, Durant looked for an opportunity to improve the safety of these new machines rather than relying on government intervention.  He purchased Buick, which had only built 37 cars to date, a local car company with...

Read more »

Posted in: General Motors Chevy Durant Publishing