Suspense Author Jeremy Bates - Blog

5 Fiction Books that Make You Want toTravel

2012-02-22T21:15:00.000-05:00

Fiction is supposed to whisk you away to some alternate reality. After all, the novelist’s primary concern is having you care for the characters he or she creates so you will relate with them, feel what they feel, experience what they experience. Coming right behind that–or some say before–is plot. You need a damn good story to get the reader involved and turning pages. What is sometimes overlooked, however, is setting. I’ve read so many stories set in New York City they all blur into one. (Actually, I shouldn’t talk, as the current novel I’m writing is set in the Big Apple X_X). Anyyay, point is, it’s sometimes nice to get away to a different, exotic location. Below are a few great books that do just that.
1) The Beach - Alex Garland

In a cheap hostel on Khao San Road in Bangkok, Richard, a young English traveler, meets a strange Scotsman going by the pseudonym of Daffy Duck who leaves him a hand-drawn map of a supposed hidden beach located in the Gulf of Thailand that is inaccessible to tourists. Together with a young and beautiful French couple, Étienne and Françoise, the trio sets out to find what they believe must be paradise on earth.
This really is the epitome of the beach book, no lame pun intended. What better story when you’re sunning yourself at some resort than to read about sun, sand, and some very very good suspense. The movie remake of this one wasn’t bad, but if you haven’t seen either, read the book first. Otherwise you’re going to have a stoned Leo DiCaprio in you’re head the entire time.

2) The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

A group of American and British expatriates travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights (which I’ve seen!). The setting reveals the seedy café life in Paris, and the excitement of the Pamplona festival, with a middle section devoted to descriptions of a fishing trip in the Pyrenees.

To talk about this one you have to talk about the man himself. Ernie had it all. A haunted past. Functional alcoholism. An adventurous spirtit. A way with women. And one hell of a beard. You’ll find all that packed into this novel (except maybe for the beard), which is what makes it such a jolly good ride, as they say.

Best way to read it? With a bottle of absinthe!

3) Into the Wild - John Krakauer

This one’s based on a true story, but since no one knows exactly what the protagonist, Chris McCandless, did, it sort of qualifies for fiction. The story: After graduating in 1990 with high grades from Emory University, McCandless ceased communicating with his family, gave away his college fund of $24,000 to Oxfam, and began traveling, later abandoning his car, ending up in Alaska with only ten pounds of rice, a .22 caliber rifle, several boxes of rifle rounds, a camera, and a small selection of reading material.

The book exposes the true power of nature by revealing what it would be like to be plucked from your comfortable modern-day life and dropped into one of the most inhospitalbe environments on earth.

Interesting note: This was published in 1996, the same year as The Beach.

4) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson

The full title–Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream. The story follows its protagonist, Raoul Duke, and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo, as they descend on Las Vegas to chase the American Dream through a drug-induced haze.
Las Vegas might not be as exotic as some of the other locations on this list, but it still remains one hell of a travel destintion. The book will take you on a bizarre, twisted journey and show you a side of Sin City best left read and not experienced.

5) Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)/Lord of the Flies (William Golding)

Heart of Darkenss centres on Charles Marlow, an Englishman who takes a foreign assignment from a Belgian trading company as a river-boat captain in Africa.

Lord of the Flies is about a group of British boys stuck on a deserted island who try to govern themselves, with disastrous results.

Both these are fantastic, quick reads, that take you to the Congo and a deserted island respectively. How much more exotic can you get than that?

Five Tips for Getting an Agent Interested in Your Self-Published Book

2012-02-16T06:17:00.000-05:00

One question I'm seeing on some forums and blogs I visit is the following: what are traditional publishers looking for when they decide whether to pick up a self published book? This would have been a silly question a few years ago, but with the indie publishing revolution, the world of authors, agents, and publishers has dramatically changed--and an agent shopping a self-pubbed book to a publisher has become a reality. Now, I'm not a publisher, but I've read a lot of opinions from different bloggers/commenters, and I decided to whittle the best advice I heard down to five points.

1) Good writing
I know--you're thinking, yeah, yeah, of course. But it had to be mentioned. Is the writing style original? Is it fresh? Fast-paced? Or is it too wordy, too heavy on exposition and fact-telling? In fiction, does it whisk the reader along so the reading becomes almost effortless? What's that blurb at on every James Patterson book: The pages turn themselves! (With a little help from his ghost writers X_X)

2) Intriguing topic
Every story has been told in one form or another: the revenge story, the love-triangle story, the time-travel story, you name it. What publishers want are new twists on old themes. And of course that all-important twenty-five-word-or-less pitch. I used to think that was unfair, trying to compress a four-hundred page book into a sentence or two. But then I realized when a customer goes to a bookstore, they read the blurb on the back cover and decide whether they want to buy it or not. All's fair in love and war and publishing.

3) A platform.
This, I believe, is extremely important. In this new world, the author and publisher are marketing partners, and I've even seen some e-publishers like Diversion Books, which is open to new authors and publishes the likes of Jason Pinter, ask for a complete marketing strategy during the query stage, including: your blog, unique monthly visits, number of Facebook friends, number of Twitter followers, number of newsletter subscribers, etc.
So if you don't have a blog, start one! It's your centerpiece of social media. It allows you to start a dialogue with your readers, or future readers. And it also serves as a hub for all your other social media ventures, such

as Twitter, Facebook and so forth.
One thing in particular to mention with your posts--and experienced blogger will know this--is the importance of tags. If you have a self-pubbed book, and you want to get the word out with your posts, don't tag the book's title, because chances are nobody's going to be searching Google for that. Instead, think how people search, use their words. For example, if you wrote a book called Doctor Death, adding "doctor" or "death" to the tags will have your book popping up in medical searches! It would be much more beneficial to use tags like "adult suspense" or "quick read" etc. This way, even if people aren't searching precisely for your book, you will be searching them.

5) Don't bother going to traditional publishers and just self publish!
I've seen a lot of bloggers raise this point and it's very valid. I recently read a JA Konrith post where I believe he said he was making more than three grand a day on his self-pubbed ebook sales. Now, that's a rare case, of course, but you never know.........

PS: And get your blog listed on as many search engines as possible. Speaking of which, I just entered mine in technorati, and part of their validation process requires me to paste the following code in the post, so ignore the password-looking thing below!
Technorati code: 2VABMG39PUDW

Origins Blogfest

2012-02-13T01:27:00.002-05:00

Hello to everyone stopping by for the Origins Blogfest hosted by DL Hammons at Cruising Altitude, along with co-sponsors Alex Cavanaugh , Katie Mills aka Creepy Query Girl and Matthew MacNish.

Magic Kingdom for Sale—Sold .... And it's about damn time!

2012-02-07T03:28:00.002-05:00

I know everyone tells you to write what you know and read what you write. I write suspense fiction, so that's what I like to read. But I've always had a soft spot for epic fantasy. If you enjoy fantasy, you've no doubt heard the name Terry Brooks. He was, in fact, the author that got me interested in writing. I was in grade eight. Up until this point I had been reading Hardy Boys and Choose Your Own Adventure kind of stuff.

Then a classmate gave me the Tommyknockers by Stephen King. It was the first Big Book I ever read. And I have to say I only got about halfway through the beast. But then a few months after that the same someone gave me Terry Brooks' The Elfstones of Shannara. I devoured it. Read the entire thing in like two weeks, which was an absolute milestone for me, at that age, when I'd been used to spending all my spare time at hockey practice or playing Sierra computer games (yes, it was early nineties!). I finished it on the very day I graduated, and I remember feeling doubly sad: sad I would not see many of my school friends again—and sad I would not see any of my fantasy friends either.

Then I discovered the Elfstones was part of a trilogy. I went to the used bookstore down the street and immediately picked up the first and third books: The Sword of Shannara and The Wishsong of Shannara. I read them both quickly. To my delight, there was a fourth book coming out; to my dismay, it wouldn’t be released for months.

In the meantime I tried to write the sequel myself...and I guess that's what got me into writing! I didn't write anything else for about ten years. Then, after I graduated university and the party died down, I started writing again. Roughly ten years after that I sold my first book.

Anyway, not to diverge, to fill the gap until the Scions of Shannara was released, I decided to try his Landover series. I wasn't sure I was going to like it. At that time I had become a big fan of the epic fantasy worlds of elves and dwarves and the like, and I didn't want modernity to intervene. (If you don’t know, the Landover series is about a New York City lawyer buying a magic kingdom.) Regardless, I gave it a shot—and I loved it.

Now, it appears it is coming to film. I know Terry Brooks has been working on getting any one of his films adapted for a while. For a bit it looked as though it would be a Shannara novel, but that was scraped. I guess it makes sense. To do a Shannara adaptation justice, it would have to be something on the scale of Lord of the Rings. A Landover film, on the other hand, would require a much smaller budget, and it would likely appeal a wider audience—especially with the alternate-world craze a la Harry Potter.

I’m excited about it, and I think any fantasy fan should be. If you haven’t read the novel, you can read the first 50 pages of Magic Kingdom for Sale: Sold! for free via Suvudu.

And who knows? If this is a massive success, maybe the studio will have the guts to take on the world of Shannara after all!

Here’s a blurb from Terry Brook’s website:

MAGIC KINGDOM FOR SALE – SOLD! To Warners and Weed Road

Warner Brothers has optioned Terry Brooks’ best-selling MAGIC KINGDOM OF LANDOVER series of books for Akiva Goldsman’s Weed Road Pictures and Andy Cohen’s Grade A Entertainment. Goldsman and Cohen will produce with Weed Road’s Kerry Foster and Alex Block overseeing for Weed Road. Warner Brothers’ Matt Cherniss brought the book series into the studio and will run point. Brooks was represented by Anne Sibbald of Janklow &Nesbit Associates.

The film will be based on the first book in the series, MAGIC KINGDOM FOR SALE – SOLD!, which was first published in 1986 by Del Rey Books, a division of Random House. The most recent book in the six book, ongoing series is A PRINCESS OF LANDOVER which came out in 2009. Other titles in the series are: THE BLACK UNICORN, WIZARD AT LARGE, THE TANGLE BOX, and WITCHES BREW.

Brooks is a prolific author best known for the LANDOVER series and the SHANNARA series of fantasy books, which began with THE SWORD OF SHANNARA. There are currently 19 books in the SHANNARA series with the next book due out later this year.

Weed Road is in preproduction on A WINTER’S TALE written and to be directed by Goldsman. Recent credits include PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 and FAIR GAME.

Cohen last produced UNTRACEABLE starring Diane Lane. He’s currently working on the stage show, HEATHERS – THE MUSICAL and the indie film, IN SIGHT.

Advance Reading Copy Arrived Today!

2012-02-07T03:14:00.000-05:00

Going to the door. Getting the mail. Finding a box of books you've been waiting for. Opening the box. Seeing for the first time the book printed and typeset and everything else. The book you've spent a year writing and longer--much longer--learning how to write.

Well, I can only imagine that scenario because the box went to my parents' place in Arizona and I'm stuck over in the Philippines. The Philippines, if you don't know, has perhaps the worst postal system in the world. So even if my parents' mailed a copy over, I probably wouldn't see it for some six months or so. Best to wait until I go home in May for the release!

Book Dreaming: Wings of the Wicked Blog Tour

2012-02-03T01:42:00.000-05:00

nice cover of your AngelFire..will grab a copy

thefeatherednest: Fallen Giants

2012-01-30T23:50:00.000-05:00

poor trees. but the pictures looks good on how it was taken.

thefeatherednest: Intervention Required

2012-01-30T23:16:00.000-05:00

http://jeremybatesbooks.com/

No Carbs..No Carbs..good bye Carbs!

The Perils of Plotting a Time Travel Novel

2012-01-27T23:04:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Tim C. Taylor for this great guest post! In anticipation for his book The Reality War Book1: The Slough of Despond coming out on February 9th, he's giving away 5 free e-books to the first 5 people who comment on the post. After you comment, just send me (Jeremy) an email, and we'll get the book off to you!

One of the great fantasies in fiction is to travel into the past to experience how it might have been like to live in historical worlds that we see only in history books, or to travel the other direction into the future. In most cases, authors and scriptwriters present these fantasies by simply setting the entire story in this other time: hence historical dramas and futuristic science fiction. But there’s another way to present this fantasy, and that is to have your characters travelinto the past or the future, usually starting their journey from a setting in today’s world.Welcome to the time travel novel!

I’ve just finished a time travel novel myself. It’s called The Reality War. In this post, I’ll share some of my experiences because plotting a time travel novel isn’t always as simple as it looks.

A brief history of time travel

Most commonly the writer sets up most or all of these time-traveling characters to come from the present day so that we, the reader, identify with them. As the characters marvel at the wonders these other times present, and struggle to prosper in worlds they don’t fully understand, we marvel and struggle with them. We’re right in there, exploring these times as if we too are time travelers.

Writers have used this approach to time travel for most of the past few centuries. TV shows such as Quantum Leap, books such as A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) by Mark Twain, and films such as Back to the Future largely fit this description, though some of these stories, such as Twain’s, are designed to satirize contemporary society, and by the time Quantum Leap and Back to the Future were shown, there’s an increasing interest in the mechanisms and the reasons for time travel, something that has often been to the fore with the longest-running time travel saga of them all: Doctor Who (first shown in 1963, the day after President Kennedy was shot).
More recently, while many time travel stories remain content to transport the characters to an adventure in another time, others are increasingly interested in the consequences of time travel, such as the beautifully circular nature of Schwarzenegger film The Terminator, and the complicated romance of The Time Traveler’s Wife (2003) by Audrey Niffenegger.
So when I started writing a time travel novel a few years ago, I first had to make some decisions about what kind of book I wanted to write.

Scientific Romance or technobabble?

First off, I read some novels featuring time travel. It’s quite a fun kind of research. Plenty of people would point to The Time Machine (1895) by HG Wells as the first modern time travel novel. Wells described his ‘scientific romances’ (as he called them) as changing just one thing about the modern world and seeing what would happen. In his case, that change is the time machine built by the Victorian gentleman inventor. The future worlds the inventor travels to extrapolate Wells’ thinking about the class divide in the wake of the industrial revolution (Wells has the workers and the wealthy evolve into separate species), and contemporary scientific thinking about the entropic universe (the Earth of the far future is dying). While Wells makes a lot of effort to invent credible futures, he makes no attempt to explain the physics of time travel or its possible consequences. We see shiny brass control panels and levers; that’s enough for Wells.

I also listened to an audio version of Kindred (1976) by Octavia Butler. Here the author takes a black woman living in 1976 California and transports her to a life of slavery in Maryland of the early 1800s. Rather than present a straight historical novel, Butler uses time travel as a literary device to transport a modern woman into the past in order to make the realities of slavery more immediate to the modern reader; we’re also transported with the main character, and we also find the transition shocking.

But in Kindred, there is no attempt to cast a veil of explanation over the way in which the character time travels. There’s no moment of Star Trek technobabble, where (at its worst) it suddenly occurs to the chief engineer that if we reverse the phase of the forward shield modulators, we conveniently have the capability to time travel. Butler’s time travel is a literary contrivance in order to set up an otherwise impossible scenario that she wants to write a story about. We know its contrived. Butler knows that we know it’s contrived, but none of that matters. She makes such a brief reference to the traveling that we quickly accept the story conceit, and get on with enjoying what Butler wants to show us.

Then there were other books I read that I’m too embarrassed to mention here. Ones that start with the worst technobabble from Star Trek, add some half-remembered terms from school such as hypotenuse and coefficient, and present that as impressive science. No, I wasn’t going to take that approach with my novel.
I thought Kindred’s if-I-mention-it-quickly-no-one-will-notice approach to time travel worked for that book, but was too vague for the science fiction I like to read. So to start with, HG Wells was my pilot through time, and that’s not a bad thing.

How to make your reader’s brain melt

Time travel can get really complicated.

I’m not talking about the mechanics of how it’s done, I’m talking about the storytelling. In most novels, each scene takes place a little further along in time than the previous one. If there’s a big gap, the author will probably start a new part and add something like ‘Ten Years Later...’ so you know there’s a big jump in time. The reader is so familiar with this sequencing of scenes that he or she won’t even stop to notice what the author’s doing.

But with time travel, what is the correct sequence of scenes? Well, of course, there isn’t one. When the characters can move backward and forward in time, it’s up to the author to chose whatever sequence best fits the story they want to tell.
Sometimes the author wants to write about the dislocating effect of time travel. Well, that’s easy enough: just jumble your scenes into a random order; that should do the trick. Problem is, most readers will give up if you do that; I know I would.

The Time Traveler’s Wife pushes this about as far as I think you could go. The sequence of scenes is difficult to follow, but that’s okay because that book’s more about the psychology of troubled relationships, with the time traveling more of a metaphor for how people in relationships often don’t seem quite in phase with each other. I wanted my book to be essentially action-adventure (though a thematic connection with The Pilgrim’s Progress soon became very important — but that’s another post). So I knew I had to make my plot easier to follow than The Time Traveler’s Wife.

That’s much easier said than done. I kept a book of scrawled notes and diagrams about how my fictional world(s) worked. I needed to be clear how everything fitted together because that way I could concentrate on the parts of the story that mattered most and were most exciting. Sounds strange, perhaps, but I find the deeper my understanding of the background to a story, the more confident I am at knowing what to focus on, and what I can safely leave out.

Even so, there were two redrafts where I looked at my notes, and then scratched thick red lines through sections of the plot that were overcomplicating the story and so had to go.
But I wanted a story where time travel wasn’t only an excuse to have an adventure; it was at the heart of event, it caused them.

So I couldn’t ignore perhaps the most powerful — and dangerous — idea in plotting time travel novels: CAUSALITY.

Causality causes confusion

At the kind of simplified level that you and I might understand, causality is actually a pretty obvious concept.
It’s a fancy way of saying that cause leads to effect.

Take this example: you hold a glass vase of flowers out of the fifth-floor window. You let go... what happens?
Well, it’s not a trick question. You let go — nothing resists gravity accelerating the vase toward the ground — vase hits ground — vase shatters. It’s so obvious it seems a pointless waste of time describing the sequence of cause leads to effect. Cause happens first (drop the vase) followed by the effect (vase breaks).

Not so with time travel.

Take the first Terminator film: John Connor leads the human resistance in the future — so a cyborg assassin goes back in time to kill John’s mother, Sarah Connor — so John sends his friend, Kyle, back in time to protect his mother — which leads to Kyle getting Sarah pregnant with John — so Sarah goes into hiding and prepares to train up John to be an effective leader and fighter — which brings us back to John Connor leads the human resistance in the future — a cyborg assassin goes back in time... and so on.

In this example, causality breaks down. In other words, it is no longer true that effect always happens after cause. Humanity needs John Connor to lead the resistance (cause) which leads to Sarah preparing him for that role (effect). But the rise of the machines hasn’t happened yet. The effect is occurring before the cause.
If that feels complicated, it’s because it is complicated. In the world we live in, cause always appears to lead to effect; time only flows in one direction and our brains can’t really cope with anything else. In The Terminator, the script cleverly implies a closed loop. If you follow events in the right sequence, as I listed them above, then it appears that effect follows cause and everything appears simpler than it really is. And yet the sequence is impossible; it’s a paradox, but maybe it’s just what the universe has decided to settle with. It might be impossible, but it’s the most stable version of history.

That’s a neat trick, so I make use of closed loops and the idea of reality settling into the most stable and least confusing version of history.

But I needed something to shatter all this neatness, to be the spanner in the works that kicks off the Reality War I write about. And for that I need a little more from PARADOX.

Professor Paradox is/ was/ will be my grandfather

Let’s go back to The Terminator. If Schwarzenegger’s cyborg assassin succeeded in killing John Connor’s mother in the past, then John would never be born — which would mean the cyborg would not be sent back in time — which means...

This is sometimes called the Grandfather Paradox. If you go back in time and kill your grandfather, then you would never have been born... in which case you couldn’t have killed your grandfather... in which case you can travel back in time and kill him...

Argghhh!

Plotting with time paradoxes is like cooking with the hottest chili peppers: a supremely memorable ingredient, but use sparingly or you’ll blow your readers’ heads off.

But if we can time travel...

One more time travel plotting idea to consider... If time travel is possible, what’s so special about the times when your story is set? Take the Victorian gentleman inventor of HG Wells. If he invented time travel in the 1890s, why don’t other people invent time travel in his future? And what about the people in their future? What is so special about the 1890s that this is the only point that time travel is invented? To his credit, Wells raises this point in his novel. I think he’s right to do so.

Keep watching the shadows in my novel because in The Reality War there are other people hiding there.

Conclusion: The Reality War

And so you had — until a few weeks ago — my time travel series, entitled My Future in the Past. It has a history of simplifying and simplifying again, a big shift from events toward the effect of events on the characters. The last change of all was to the title. I tested out My Future in the Past. People thought it sounded like time-travel, but it also sounded complicated. So I simplified that too and a came up with the name The Reality War, which was more popular (especially with men, for some reason).

In conclusion, plotting a full-on time travel is not for the fainthearted There are many pitfalls and a lot of work. And when you sit back and release your novel into the world, I have no doubt that some readers will vigorously attack it because they will be convinced that’s not how time travel really works.
No worries. I look forward to such discussions, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned about writing time travel, it’s that it is addictive.

About Tim C. Taylor

Tim C. Taylor is a writer and publisher of science fiction. The Reality War Book1: The Slough of Despond is his debut novel and will be published on his birthday, February 9^th 2012, initially as an eBook. The second and concluding book will be published in the spring.

For more information on The Reality War see http://greyhartpress.com/our-science-fiction-stories/the-reality-war-2-novel-series/
For more about Tim, follow his blog at www.timctaylor.com

Netgalley - Request Digital Titles Before They Are Published!

2012-01-24T03:25:00.000-05:00

My novel White Lies is being released in May of this year, and my publisher recently introduced me to something called Netgalley.com.

A blurb from their homepage: "NetGalley delivers secure, digital galleys to professional readers. If you are a reviewer, blogger, journalist, librarian, bookseller, educator, or in the media, you can use NetGalley for FREE to read and request titles before they are published."

If you're a publisher, this is a fantastic way to deliver Advance Review Copies of your titles to serious reviewers.

If you're a reviewer, this is where you should go to peruse. If you see a title that interests you, simply request it from the publisher and you can download it and read it with Adobe Digital Reader or Kindle.

Note: These titles are Advance Review Copies, which means they still have some spelling/grammar mistakes, and they often won't have cover art--which helps against copyright infringement.

Below is their FAQ page. I strong suggest you check it out! Enjoy.

What is NetGalley, and how does it work?
NetGalley is a service for people who read and recommend books. Publishers upload their galleys, plus any marketing and promotional information; then invite contacts to view their title on NetGalley. Readers can also find new titles through NetGalley's Public Catalog, and request to review those titles from the publisher.

Who can use NetGalley?
Any professional reader: book reviewers, journalists, librarians, professors, booksellers, bloggers, etc. Anyone who reads and recommend books can use NetGalley for free. You can register here.

How can I register on NetGalley?
If you are a professional reader, you can sign up today by completing the registration form. If you are a publisher, email us at info@netgalley.com to learn how to get started.

Is NetGalley easy to learn and use?
We designed NetGalley so that it would require little or no training to use. The user interface is intuitive, clean, and easy to understand. Our goal is to make your job easier and less complicated. When you login, click the Need Help? link to access the Quick Start Guide and Support FAQs. Plus, you can email us at support@netgalley.com anytime.

What titles are available on NetGalley?
To see what titles are available via NetGalley, browse our Public Catalog. You can request titles from publishers from the Public Catalog, if you are a registered user. Publishers can then approve or decline your request to view the title. Please note: NetGalley does not currently allow publishers to request titles from other publishers.

What do I do when I’m done reading a galley in NetGalley?
NetGalley members (readers) are under no obligation to finish reading a title or write a review. If you do choose to write a review, you can use NetGalley to send the review to the publisher. Your review is shared with the publisher as a courtesy — but the content and publishing rights for that review belong solely to you. NetGalley does not post or publish your review — instead, we are providing an “electronic tear-sheet.” Most publishers will appreciate if you also include a link or other information with the review that says where the review will be published. You can also use NetGalley to let the publisher know that you are declining to review.

What reading devices does NetGalley support?
Click here for instructions for setting up your device with NetGalley.
When you click on a title, you are seeing the reading options the publisher has enabled for this title. Many publishers choose not to offer print galleys through NetGalley. Here are the current reading options publishers can enable:

Download Galley. Read a Protected (DRM) galley on your computer, Sony Reader, B&N's Nook, Kobo Reader, or other device. You’ll need Adobe Digital Editions (free software). Here’s where to get it: http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/. Here’s what other devices are supported: http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/devices/ You can also read on your iPad or iPhone via the Bluefire Reader app. See full instructions here.

Note: If the publisher has chosen to enable an Open (DRM-free) file, then the galley can be read via Adobe Digital Editions, Acrobat Reader, Sony Reader, B&N's Nook, and other devices that read PDFs, as well as the iPad, iPhone, iTouch, Blackberry and other smart phones. Once you press Download Galley, you will be informed if the file is Protected or Open.

Kindle. Send a NetGalley file to your Kindle device, using your @Kindle.com or @free.Kindle.com email address. Make sure to follow the instructions here.
Email Publisher. This button will allow you to email the publisher directly to request a reading option not currently enabled.

I don’t like digital galleys. What else can I do with NetGalley?
If you prefer to read print galleys, you can use NetGalley as a supplement to your printed galleys and as a tool for managing your review process:

Preview and assess the galleys digitally — to decide whether or not you'd like to read the entire book as a printed galley
Search within the text quickly and easily
Access digital press kit materials, artwork, or other multimedia files the publisher has uploaded for the title
Notify publishers of your review (or you can tell them you've declined to review)
Keep a running list of what titles you are working on

What other materials can readers access via NetGalley?
Publishers can include a wide range of multimedia files with their galley, such as book trailers, illustrations, audio files, videos, simple Word docs or PDFs. Find all this fun stuff in the Digital Press Kit section of the Title Details page.

Are titles available on NetGalley secure?
Publishers can enable Protected (DRM) files or Open (DRM-free) files. Publishers control the permissions options, which for Protected files include print settings, expiration dates, and content copying. For Open files, the galley will not have an expiration date and can be copied to any device or emailed to anyone. However, we do alert readers that they are receiving an unprotected file and are responsible for observing the copyright.

Blogging 101: 5 Tips to Get Blog Readers

2012-01-23T03:39:00.000-05:00

Everyone wants to get more people reading their blog. Problem is, it isn't as easy as it might seem. You set up a new flashy blog, you make your first post, and you get zero traffic. I think it happens to everyone. You have to start somewhere, right? So how do you start building your readership? One post at a time. That's the most honest answer, but it's also pretty obvious. So what else can you do? Well, there's a ton of stuff out there telling you exactly what to do, so I'm going to tell you what NOT to do. Let's do it:

#1: GET RID OF CAPTCHA!
What is this strange word you speak of, sir? Well, it's sort of like an STD: it's going to scare off a lot of potential suitors--and in the case of blogging, commenters. Specifically, it's that jumbled mess of letters you have to squint at and retype, like you're a monkey in a lab experiment. I LOVE a blog when I go to post and I don't have to screw around with that, especially if I'm in a blogging mood and commenting on a lot of blogs. Seriously, unless you're getting 10,000 hits a post, and are a prime target for spammers, don't flatter yourself and fuhgettaboutit. Blogger's default has it set to "on." So do everyone a favor and turn that puppy off!

#2: MAKE IT EASY TO FOLLOW YOU
This seems like a no-brainer. But I've seen a lot of blogs where I'm jumping around trying to find Google Friend Connect or the RSS feed. If I don't see it right away, I now assume there isn't one, and I don't follow. Simple as that. One less subscriber. Ideal spot for the RSS icon is at the top of the page near the header or top of the sidebar. Since you can't put GFC in the header, stick her at the top of the sidebar as well. Oh--and if you know a tiny bit about coding, edit your singlepost.php file so an RSS thinger shows up at the bottom of each post with something like what I have below: "Like the article? Subscribe to my feed!" Catch em when they're hungry, my grandpa used to say. Actually, he didn't. But it has a ring.

#3: DON'T BE A STRANGER
So somebody comes by your blog, reads a post, and likes it enough to leave a comment. Brilliant. But you're too busy to comment on that comment. Understandable. They come back, read another post, comment again. You're still busy. Hmmm...this is getting a little insulting. So said commenter comes back and gives it a third try. Still no reply, which now is like giving the finger to your reader. Again, if you're getting 200 comments on every post, then no worries. Just like if you have two million followers on Twitter, you can't be expected to reply to everyone. But do you have 200 comments per post??? If no, it's probably a good idea to be a bit more hospitable.

#4: TURN OFF THE DAMN MUSIC
If I get to a blog or website and there's music playing, I'm gone faster than a pizza in Jack Nicholson's refrigerator. Music is way too subjective to push it one someone. And who's to say I'm not nodding to my own tunes as I peruse the web. Definite failure.

#5: PICTURES, PICTURES, AND MORE PICTURES
Blogs are all about content. But if you want to reel people in, you need the visuals. An analogy: imagine listening to The Godfather via a podcast or something. It's hardly the same as watching it on a big screen. That's a far out example, of course, but we live in a visual age, and pictures are, well, visual. As Ben Still was fond of saying in Starsky & Hutch: Do it!

Blogging 101: 5 Tips to Get Blog Readers

2012-01-23T03:13:00.000-05:00

Blog has moved!

2012-01-13T04:12:00.000-05:00

This blog has moved!

Please visit: http://www.jeremybatesbooks.com

Or click on the website icon to the right.

Thanks and sorry for the inconvenience!!

Jeremy Bates

World's Best Bookstores! - Part 1

2012-01-05T01:40:00.001-05:00

Everybody who reads probably remembers the main bookstore they went to as a kid. Mine was some secondhand shop. It was run some a very nice old woman who had a cat or two hanging about the shelves. I must have been six or seven when I started going. All the kid's books were down in the basement, many in moldy boxes. It was awesome! I think that's where I read my first Choose Your Own Adventure. I've been to some pretty spiffy bookstores since those days, but nothing compares to those on this list. Check em out, and let me know if you have any that should make next week's list!

#1: Selexyz Bookstore in Maastricht, Holland

So what do you do with an empty Dominican church—one that dates back to 1294? The Dutch tried it out as a warehouse, an archive, and most recently, a bicycle storage. Perhaps realizing these weren't the brightest of ideas, they hired famous architects Merkx + Girod to transform it into a heavenly bookstore. Of note, it was named the best bookstore in the world by the Guardian in 2008.Wonder if they stock The Da Vinci Code?

#2: Livraria Lello in Porto, Portugal

This one is not nearly as old—built in 1891—as Selexyz, but it's just as stunning. Some of the details include intricate wood panels and columns, stained glass, and of course the curving red staircase in the middle. What was the name of that famous Led Zepplin song? Robert Plant could have been crooning about this place.

#3: El Ateneo in Buenos Aires, Argentina

There’s a converted church on this list, why not a converted theater? This bookstore was once one named The Grand Splendid (seems a bit redundant to me), and it was the first location in the world to show movies with sound. It still retains its splendor with high painted ceilings, original balconies, and ornate carvings. Comfortable chairs are scattered throughout, the stage is a café, and the theater boxes are reading rooms.

#4: Cafebreria El Péndulo in Mexico City, Mexico

This is the most organic bookstore on the list. But to be honest it's apparently just as famous for being a cafe as it is for being a bookstore. If you’re going to visit, it would help if you know some Spanish, as the English section is limited.

#5) Some place in India

You can go check this one out, but you might not come back alive. And you have to crawl when you're inside. Seriously.

Top 10 Disturbing Books (Halloween Special!) - Part 2

2011-11-21T21:43:00.004-05:00

Okay... been a little longer than a week, but back with the top five scary books! (I know, there are a ton that should be on this list, but there were a ton out there and only ten spots!) Anyway, here they are.

#1: The Exorcist – William Peter Blatty

One of the bestselling books of all time? Check. An iconic cult classic? Check. The inspiration for one of the scariest movies ever filmed? Check. Oh—and the fact the story is partly based on the true story of a child's demonic possession in 1949 makes it that much creepier. Chances are you’ve see the aforesaid movie. If you haven’t read the book that started it all, you’re missing out. And if you do, it would be worth checking out the new, updated edition, which features new and revised material: According to the author: “The 40th Anniversary Edition of The Exorcist will have a touch of new material in it as part of an all-around polish of the dialogue and prose. First time around I never had the time (meaning the funds) to do a second draft, and this, finally, is it. With forty years to think about it, a few little changes were inevitable—plus one new character in a totally new very spooky scene. This is the version I would like to be remembered for."

#2: House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski

Okay, this is one messed up book. Messed up and trippy and extremely difficult to summarize, so I’ll let the guy at Amazon Review do it for me: “Had The Blair Witch Project been a book instead of a film, and had it been written by, say, Nabokov at his most playful, revised by Stephen King at his most cerebral, and typeset by the futurist editors of Blast at their most avant-garde, the result might have been something like House of Leaves.”

The first thing you’ll notice when you open it up is the crazy page layout. There are tons of footnotes, some of which contain their own footnotes, and some of which reference books that don’t exist. Certain pages contain only a few words or lines of text. This usually occurs during a fast-paced scene, making you flip through the pages, well, faster. Other pages contain boxes of text here and there, mirroring, say, a confusing or labyrinthine scene. All in all it’s pretty weird, but it’s that weirdness that gets under your skin and stays with you for some time afterward.

#3: The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson

Any top ten list of anything scary has to have a haunted house in it. Because if you’re not safe in your own house, where else is there to go? Stephen King, in his book Danse Macabre, a non-fiction review of the horror genre, lists The Haunting of Hill House as one of the finest horror novels of the late 20th century. Of its opening lines, he says: “I think there are few if any descriptive passages in the English language that are any finer than this.” Now that’s coming from the bestselling horror author of all time. Still, here are the lines so you can judge for yourself: “No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood for eighty years and might stand for eighty more.”

#4: Pet Cemetery – Stephen King

Speaking of Scary Steve, you also can’t have a scary book list without something of his on it. And, yeah, I know everyone has a favorite Stephen King book—he’s written over fifty worldwide bestsellers—so really any could have made this list. I chose Pet Cemetery because of the Faustian question: what would you do to bring back your child? This is a ridiculously spooky question, because most people would do anything—even bury their daughter or son in a pet cemetery that had magical powers.

#5: Dracula – Bram Stoker/Frankenstein – Mary Shelly

What can I say about these two? They’ve both had a major influence across literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories and films. Their origins can be traced to the famous literary gathering on the shores of Lake Geneva. The story is well known, but here it is again: In the summer of 1816, Lord Byron and his doctor, John Polidori, were residing at the Villa Diodati where they were visited by Percy Shelley, Mary Godwin (who would later become Mary Shelley) and Claire Claremont. One evening, after a collective reading of ghost stories, Byron suggested that each member of the party write a story of their own. Two tales that changed the face of Gothic fiction were inspired by this challenge. Mary Shelley began Frankenstein, while Byron wrote a fragment about a nobleman named Augustus Darvell who contrives to return from the dead. Later that year, Byron’s doctor, Polidori, used Byron’s unfinished work as the basis of a novella that became the prototype for most subsequent vampire tales, including the most famous of all: Dracula.

Top 10 Disturbing Books (Halloween Special!) - Part 1

2011-11-02T00:07:00.007-04:00

The original title to this post was "Top 10 Scary Books." But I've never been one to be scared by a book. Unlike movies, nothing jumps out at you, so there's no startle factor. There's no creepy music, which I think is essential if you truly want to be scared. Imagine, for instance, going through a haunted house with Elton John's Circle of Life meandering through the speakers. Not even Simba jumping out at you with Micky's bloody head in his jaws would frighten you. Now imagine that same haunted house with no music at all. A little more frightening, but not nearly as much as if you were feeling your way around dark corners to a cacophony of creaking hinges, blood curdling screams, and doom-filled organ pieces.

I've read reviewers say things like "I had to keep on the lights" and "I was afraid to turn the page." Unless you read your books with the score to Halloween, Psycho, or The Exorcist playing in the background, this sounds like a lot of bull**** to me. But I do think books can disturb the reader. Get in your head, get you thinking about them, and, well, play with your mind. So, on that note, here are the top ten disturbing books of the last hundred or so years (credit to HuffPost Books).

#6: Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin

Very scary book. Even more scary if you're pregnant, or thinking about it anytime soon! Gothic, dark, and, yes, disturbing. Imagine something growing inside you that wasn't human. Imagine when it came out it had horns and hooves. And if you're religious, and you've just spawned the son of Satan, I don't think you're getting into Heaven any time soon.

#7: The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson

Can the Brits spin a horror tale? Yup. James Herbeert and Clive Barker are a couple modern-day examples. If you haven't heard of The House on the Borderland--it was published in 1909--here's a teaser: In 1877, two gentlemen, Messrs Tonnison and Berreggnog, head into Ireland to spend a week fishing in the village of Kraighten. While there, they discover in the ruins of a very curious house a diary of the man who had once owned it. Its torn pages seem to hint at an evil beyond anything that existed on this side of the curtains of impossibility. The first half of the novel is a freaky siege tale of a man defending his home from waves of malevolent pig-people. The second half reads like a prose translation of every Pink Floyd album playing simultaneously and backwards. This was one of H.P. Lovecraft's favorite works. What more can be said?

#8: Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews

Innocent blond kids locked in their grandparents' attic. That's bad. The fact they're starved, abused, and betrayed by their mother is even worse. When they are finally driven insane, that's just--you guessed it--disturbing! Even without the weird sexual scenes, V.C. spins one haunting tale.

#9: The Nightwalker by Thomas Tessier

This ain't just another werewolf story. And it's much, much better than the fare being pumped out now by Stephanie Meyer and the like. Again, if you're not familiar with the story: A young American Vietnam vet adrift in London seems possessed by an uncontrollable urge to inflict mutilation and death and may, in fact, be a werewolf. No hirsute Michael J. Fox playing basketball, and only clocks in at about one hundred pages, but definitely worth a read.

#10: The Shining by Stephen King

Dads shouldn't hit their kids. Then again, hotels shouldn't drive their guests insane. Jack Nicholson did a great job of losing it in Kubrick's film adaptation, but if you haven't read the book, you should. Animal hedges that come to life, haunted rooms, and conversations with the ghost of a waiter? Good stuff. Even better, the sequel is coming out soon!

Next five on the list will be posted later this week!

Halloween Hop!

2011-10-10T23:09:00.006-04:00

The instructions are simple:

1) Add your blog to the list below.

2) Over the Halloween weekend (October 28-31) visit as many of the other blogs listed below as you wish.

3) Be sure to mention your favorite monster movie or book and your Halloween costume this year.

4) If you like the blog, follow it!

5) Grab the badge here and stick it on your blog for a few weeks to spread the word! (If you scratch it, it smells like pumpkin).

PS: If you want to adjust the size, just replace the values in "width" and "height."

Grab this button:

Historian Nicholas Rogers, exploring the origins of Halloween, notes that while "some folklorists have detected its origins in the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead called Parentalia, it is more typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain, whose original spelling was Samuin (pronounced sow-an or sow-in)". The name of the festival historically kept by the Gaels and celts in the British Isles which is derived from Old Irish and means roughly "summer's end".

Rejected Bestsellers!

2011-10-10T02:05:00.006-04:00

Everybody kicks themselves for doing stupid things, but imagine being the agent or editor who rejected these massive bestsellers! (Credit to Flavorwire.com for the topic).

#1: Harry Potter

Dirt poor mom writing in coffee shop morphs into Queen of England. In fact, I think J.K is even wealthier than the royal family. Not surprising when you realize she could buy the Queen Elizabeth (the ocean liner, not the person in the funny hats). Pretty great success story. Sales of 400 million books. Billions from the film franchise. Still, she was rejected eight times. Interesting side note: the daughter of the chairman of Bloomsbury read the first chapter and told her father to buy it. Concerning the picture below, I want to know what he's fending off with that chopstick. A piece of sushi?

#2: Lolita

This one, by Vladimir Nabokov, is one of the best-selling novels of all time, with over 50 million copies sold since it was published in 1955.

Here's a rejection letter to the author: "It is overwhelmingly nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian. To the public, it will be revolting. It will not sell, and will do immeasurable harm to a growing reputation... I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years."

The guy who sent this letter is probably dead now, so if you're shopping a ms. around, you don't have to worry about getting a letter from the Simon Cowell of the literary world. What a prick.

#3: Valley of the Dolls

Jacqueline Susann had this manuscript rejected over ten times because of the taboo themes of sex, drugs, and rock n roll.

Another a**hole editor's "professional" opinion: "[You are] a painfully dull, inept, clumsy, undisciplined, rambling and thoroughly amateurish writer whose every sentence, paragraph and scene cries for the hand of a pro."

#4: Chicken Soup for the Soul

The best-selling non-fiction series of all time had to make this list. The count? Over 150 million sold. That's about half as many books as Stephen King as sold, the world's best-selling fiction writer (if any one knows any rejections Mr. King got, please let me know!).

The writers of the series weren't rejected ten times like others on this list, nor fifty, but over one hundred! Good on them for their perseverance. Words from the author: "The first time we went to New York, we visited with about a dozen publishers in a two day period with our agent, and nobody wanted it. They all said it was a stupid title, that nobody bought collections of short stories, that there was no edge -- no sex, no violence. Why would anyone read it?"

#5: Twilight

Love it or hate it, it's been a huge hit. Over one hundred million copies sold in five years. She was turned down by fourteen agents before it was picked up--and then eight publishers bid on it.

If you haven't heard/seen it yet, check out the video below in which Stephen King compares his body of work to hers. He demolishes her.

Insecure Writer's Support Group

2011-10-05T22:37:00.001-04:00

First, welcome to anybody part of the IWSG coming over from Alex J. Cavanaugh's great blog. So...what part of writing am I insecure about? Every single word!

Seriously.

But I think every author is. No one writes a perfect manuscript off the top of their head without some rewriting (unless you're Bobby Anderson from the Tommyknockers). The fact I go over and reread every word, change a bunch, reread, change a bunch more, reread, change, reread, change, reread, change is a textbook case of being insecure.

Of course the trick is to know when to stop. I heard a bit of dialogue in a movie that went something like this:

"Great painting! Is it finished?"
"A painting is never finished. You just have to know when to stop."

The same goes for writing. You can edit and rewrite ad infinitum. You can do it for ten years. You'll never get it perfect. Usually a writer will be forced to stop by necessity when his publisher starts asking for the manuscript. If you don't have a publisher yet, then make your own deadline and stick to it. Move on to the next book, and don't look back.

So...insecure about word choice, syntax, etc? Definitely. It's a part of writing. How to get over it? Stop when it's time to stop and move on.

Also, here's some great advice by the late Steve Jobs that I think every writer--insecure or not--should take to heart:

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do," he told the Stanford grads in 2005.

Conspiracy Theory! Must read!

2011-10-03T20:54:00.002-04:00

This is nuts:

The Illuminati (plural of Latin illuminatus, "enlightened") is a name given to several groups, both real (historical) and fictitious. Historically the name refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1, 1776.

Since the publication of Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's postmodern science fiction work The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975-7) the name has been used to refer to a purported conspiratorial organization that masterminds events and controls world affairs through governments and corporations to establish a New World Order. In this context the Illuminati are usually represented as a modern version or continuation of the Bavarian Illuminati.

NOW.................take the word "illuminati" and spell it backwards. You'll have "itanimulli." Plug "itanimulli" into google and I think you'll be very, very surprised to see what the first search result is!!!

Stephen King on "The Shining" Sequel!

2011-09-27T19:19:00.003-04:00

Top 5 Self-Published Fiction Entrepreneurs!

2011-09-26T02:05:00.003-04:00

Everything's different now. At least, that's what everyone keeps saying when speaking about the publishing industry. Yes, folks, the self-publishing craze has officially taken off...and hasn't looked back. There seems to be three groups of players in this new world. Those who are having problems making sales. Those who are doing all right but looking for more sales. And those who have done extraordinary. This post is going to look at the top five guys and girls who have done very, very well--and how they did it. (Credit to an article by Huff Post Books done back in June).

#1: John Locke

Everyone knows this guy (no, not the British philosopher), so I'm not going to say much. What's relevant is that he was the first self-published author admitted into the Kindle Hall of Fame--aka, The One Million Kindle Sales Club. How'd he do it? Read his book: How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months! Below are pictures of the aforementioned philosopher and the ebook-writer incarnation. Take away the hair (or add some) and I think we have a match!

#2: Amanda Hocking

No, not Amanda Knox! She started self-publishing romance novels in spring, 2010, and a year later she had sold more than a million copies of her books. So what do you do when you become a household name so quickly? Sign a contract with a traditional publishing house! That's what she did, anyway: St. Martin's Press, four book deal. Below is a picture of the lady herself. She still looks a little starstruck over her rise to fame!

#3: J.A. Konrith

Over a twelve-year period, he says he picked up a hefty 500 rejection letters for nine books. To somebody outside the industry, you may be thinking WTF?? But to a writer: yeah, sounds about right. Eventually he signed with Hyperion, but he's also done very well on the self-publishing side of things. On a side note, he also has one of the best blogs around for info on writing etc. Here's a pic of J.A. below, back when he was sporting the I-wrestle-grizzly-bears-for-a-living look.

#4: Barry Eisler

This guy's an aspiring writer's folk hero. Already a best selling traditionally published author, he walked away from a cool half-mil paycheck from St. Martin's to self-publish. If you want to hear his take on it, check out his conversation with J.A. Konrith here. If you can't read his shirt, it says, "I just made $500,001 dollars from my ebook sales!"

#5: Stephen King

Why's he on this list? some of you may ask. Because he's been on every top five/ten/one hundred writing list that has ever been composed--and he just deserves it? Sure, why not. But also because he was the first major author to try his hand at self-publishing with The Plant way back in the stone age of digital publishing, Year 2000. Not only that, he was pretty marketing savvy for the time as well: he allowed the first two chapters to be downloaded for free, but after that, you had to cough up a buck a chapter. Long live the King!

Wait! Will the real Stephen King please stand up (apparently he needed some help after one of his 1980 all night booze/coke/joint lollapaloozas!)

#6: You!

Lol. You never know...................................

Karen G.'s 2nd Annual Blogosphere BBQ Party!

2011-09-02T22:58:00.001-04:00

If you're thinking the title of this post makes no sense whatsoever, then head over to Karen G's great blog Coming Down the Mountain and learn all about it! I've already met a couple great people and have just started doing the rounds.

If anyone popping by decides to follow or like this blog, I'll make sure to get over to yours to do the same before the weekend's over!

Gotta head over to a friend's stag BBQ now (bringing the same stuff I brought to Karen's: steak and whiskey!), but will be back to the bbq tomorrow morning. Looking forward to meeting some more bloggers...........

Cheers!

Where Do Famous Writers Go When They Die?

2011-09-01T23:51:00.006-04:00

"The communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living" - Epitaph on the memorial to T.S.Eliot.

Everyone knows that Jim Morrison is buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, but that's because he was a rock star. What about writers? Where do famous writers go when they die? For all the morbid people who'd like to read Huckleberry Finn while sitting atop Mark Twain's corpse, here you go! Top five cemeteries that house the remains of writers. (Credit to a similar article over at Publishers Weekly).

#1: Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey

One of the best known parts of Westminster Abbey, Poets' Corner, can be found in the South Transept. The first poet to be buried here was Geoffrey Chaucer.

Notable burials: Robert Browning, Thomas Campbell, Geoffrey Chaucer, Abraham Cowley, Charles Dickens, John Dryden, William Gifford, Thomas Hardy, Samuel Johnson, Rudyard Kipling, Edmund Spenser, Alfred Tennyson.

Notable memorials (they are buried elsewhere): John Milton, William Wordsworth, Thomas Gray, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Burns, William Blake, T.S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Samuel Butler, Jane Austen, Oliver Goldsmith, Sir Walter Scott, John Ruskin, Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte, Henry James and Sir John Betjeman.

#2: Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

This one is located on Bedford Street near the center of Concord, Massachusetts. The cemetery is the burial site of a number of famous Concordians, including some of the United States' greatest authors and thinkers, especially on a hill known as "Author's Ridge." Ralph Waldo Emerson gave a dedication speech and would be buried there decades later. The photo below is of Ralph's final resting spot.

Notable burials: Louisa May Alcott, William Ellery Channing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Richard Marius, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, Henry David Thoreau.

#3: Père Lachaise Cemetery

Okay, so I already mentioned this as the place where Jim Morrison is buried, but it's got more than rock stars. Père Lachaise is in the 20^th arrondissement and is reputed to be the most-visited cemetery in the world, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to the graves of those who have enhanced French life over the past 200 years. It is also the site of three World War I memorials. The reason it made this list? You can find Oscar Wilde there, along with lipstick marks on his tombstone. It's also rumored that some people do more than kiss his grave--ugh.

Notable burials: Miguel Ángel Asturias, Honoré de Balzac, Jean de Brunhoff, Colette, Nancy Cunard, Molière, Marcel Proust, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Tolkas, Oscar Wilde, Richard Wright.

#4 Novodevichy Cemetery

Russians are known for many things, which include hockey, getting to space, ballet, distilling vodka, wearing ridiculous hats, playing bad guys in movies...and writing. Novodevichy Cemetery is the most famous cemetery in Moscow, Russia, situated next to the World Heritage Site, the 16th-century Novodevichy Convent, which is the city's third most popular tourist site. The photo below is a picture of the convent.

Notable burials: Mikhail Bulgakov, Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Gogol, Vladimir Mayakovsky.

#5: The Panthéon

The Panthéon is located in the Latin Quarter in Paris. It was originally built as a church dedicated to St. Genevieve and to house the reliquary châsse containing her relics but, after many changes, now functions as a secular mausoleum containing the remains of distinguished French citizens. The inscription above the entrance reads AUX GRANDS HOMMES LA PATRIE RECONNAISSANTE ("To the great men, the grateful homeland"). Below is a photo of the crypt.

Notable writer burials: Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Rousseau, Voltaire, Émile Zola.

Jimmy Fallon's Books You Shouldn't Read!

2011-09-01T22:16:00.000-04:00

All right all you bookworms, Jimmy's got some more books from his Do Not Read List including The Duck Shack Agreement and a book about, well, erections. You should watch this. You should not read these books.

Do Indie Authors Really Need Editors??

2011-09-01T20:18:00.010-04:00

Guest blogger: Sarah Billington!

I love my job. Being an editor (particularly when editing fiction) is the best job ever for a book lover. I get to read awesome books and give my opinions on them and I get paid for it.

But it’s also a tough job. Because first drafts are generally…well…not so awesome. There will be inconsistencies. Characters that are supposed to be likable--for instance, the love interest--might come off either as too sappy and smitten or, on the other end of the spectrum, a douche. The reader is told what happened after the fact when it would have been much better to read that scene as it happened. And sometimes there’s too little scene setting so that the characters are like talking heads floating in space, or there’s too much description that is weighing down the book and it just needs to keep moving already.

But that’s perfect! It’s completely a-okay, and you wanna know why? Because that’s what a first draft is supposed to look like. My job is to push you to make your work better, to point out all the good stuff, the stuff that made me laugh, swoon, cry or throw up (if that’s what you’re going for). I also focus on areas that could be made deeper by considering other aspects of that scene or that topic--how to make that scene, that story arc, that whole novel deeper, stronger, richer and more emotive.

Writers can’t see this stuff in their own work. I know I sure can’t. They’re stuck in their head, in the way their character thinks. They need fresh eyes with new perspectives to make them see a different side of the book, to see a new direction they never would have considered taking which would make the book explode with brilliance. Without an editor you don’t get that opportunity.

Traditionally published authors are lucky because they get that fresh set of eyes--several of them--for free (well, if you don’t count the percentage of their royalties being spent on publishing employee wages).

I cater mostly to indie authors, and since I’m one myself, I feel a kinship with other indies. I try to help a brother out and keep my rates low (as low as I can) because as “artistes,” hell, most of us aren’t made of money, am I right?

If you have a reader of funny middle grade books in your household, you might like to direct them to my debut eBook* Life Was Cool Until You Got Popular which can be found at Amazon and Smashwords.

Connect with Sarah Billington online:

www.SarahBillington.weebly.com
www.BillingtonMedia.com
www.facebook.com/SarahBillington
www.twitter.com/SarahBillington
www.SarahBillington.blogspot.com
Sarah Billington’s Amazon Author Page

Sarah Billington’sSmashwords Author Page
Edwina Ray’s Amazon Author Page
Edwina Ray’s Smashwords Author Page

*You can also find humorous short stories by Sarah Billington available as eBooks, and darker, edgier short story eBooks under her pseudonym Edwina Ray at all leading eBook retailers.

Thanks to Sarah for the great post! Find her on the above links!

White Lies Trailer! Check It Out

2011-09-01T19:34:00.002-04:00

Best Celebrity Home Libraries....Part 2!

2011-08-30T02:36:00.003-04:00

It's tough to compete with some of the previous home libraries a la Michael Jackson and Randolph Hearst, but these next five are still impressive!

#6: Diane Keaton

This is from Keaton's Beverly Hills Spanish Colonial-style mansion. I don't know what's written along the top shelf, but the vaulted ceiling, earthy tones, and tiled floor add a certian charm. I half expect a dusty Indiana Jones to come strolling through the door in search of a crystal skull or whatever he's looking for these days.

#7: Oprah

Okay, this one isn't so special, but I added it because...well, it's Oprah's! You think someone who could sell a million books simply by reading the title on her show would have a much grander library, but to be fair, this is probably only one of a dozen she has tucked away in her many different homes. Is that a picture of her and David Letterman on the side table? Nah.

#8: Jane Fonda

Jackson Pollack on the walls and a twenty-foot ladder to reach the top of the bookcase. Awesome. She's come a long way from the Barbarella days!

#9: Aaron Spelling

If you own a $150-million home, chances are you're going to have a pretty impressive library, and Spelling doesn't dissapoint. Massive windows, leather-bound books, a marble fireplace, and a built-in bar. Get a microwave and a TV, and I'd never leave the room! On a side note, with all these books at her disposal growing up, wonder why Tori turned out to be so vacant...

#10: Sting

Detailed paneling, Greek busts, and an ornate ceiling--exactly the feel a library should have. And to top it off, this is the only library on the list that spans two floors!

Finally, had to add the worst celebrity home library. And the razzie goes to.....Kelsey Grammer! Seriously, the guy was making a million an episode and this is the best he can do? I had more books in my university bedroom! Even more, wasn't Frasier supposed to have been the biggest bibliophile of all time? (I bet Norm and Cliff could top this!) Kelsey--you're a sham!

Best Celebrity Home Libraries! Part 1

2011-08-24T22:47:00.004-04:00

When you think of celebrities, some of the first images that likely pop into your head are villas in remote corners of Europe, garages filled with luxury cars, and closets filled with expensive clothes. But what about libraries? Shelves filled with very ordinary books? Well, yeah, celebrities read too (I assume—and I’m not talking about Kim K or Paris H here or anyone else with an IQ on par with a piece of driftwood!). So if everything else in a celebrity’s life is plated with gold, how about their libraries?

Check out the top ten celebrity libraries below! (Credit to Judy Berman at Flavorwire for the photos).

#1: William Randolph Hearst

Who better to have a sprawling library than a newspaper magnate and leading newspaper publisher of a chain that numbered nearly thirty papers in major American cities? Concerning his library, the picture says it all. It looks like something out of Harry Potter. This was taken in his castle—and if it wasn’t enough, he has a second, private library to boot! (One wasn't enough, Randy? Really? Prick.)

#2: Karl Lagerfeld

This guy puts so much effort into making himself stylish, it’s not a surprise that he would put similar effort into his house—including his library. The photo was taken in his Paris apartment. The collection comprises over 60,000 volumes, making it one of the largest private libraries in the world. (Also a prick--not because of the size of his library, but because he wears sunglasses at night and says it would be tough to raise ugly children!)

#3: Michael Jackson

MJ! Why not? Again, no surprise. What didn’t this guy do in excess? A self-described bibliophile, he collected over 10,000 books during his lifetime, many of which were on display in his Neverland Ranch estate (I bet he had a few copies of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan lying around!). Wonder what his music den looked like??

#4: Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, wrote what is often called the "Great American Novel," so, yeah, sorta makes sense that he had a pretty nice library (besides, what else did you do back in the late 19th century besides read?) The library was designed by Tiffany (his white suits weren’t!), and includes hand-stenciled paneling, imported fireplaces, and carved wood decoration. I’m "fixing" to visit!

#5: Keith Richards

Okay, so you might not think a guy who snorts his father’s ashes and falls out of a palm tree while trying to snag some coconuts would have a grand, posh libray like the others on this list—and he doesn’t. His is just downright cool. He confessed in his recent autobiography that he’s always wanted to be a librarian (seriously!). Trade in the guitar for a pair of horn-rimmed glasses? Go for it, Keith!

Part 2 is coming tomorrow, so check back!

How A Virtual Assistant Can Help An Indie Author

2011-08-20T08:51:00.006-04:00

Thanks to guest blogger Jean Marie Bauhaus for sharing this post!

A lot of work goes into being a self-published author. And I do mean a lot of work, and I′m not even talking about the part where you, y′know, write the book. Getting a book written is just the beginning.

If you′re going to self-publish, you still have to make sure that your manuscript gets edited—not just proofread for mistakes, but edited for content and story, to make sure everything hangs together and tells your story in the best possible way.

Once it′s edited, it has to be formatted correctly and converted into all of the various e-book file formats. If you′re using a print-on-demand publisher, it also needs to be formatted properly for life as a paperback book. You also need an eye-catching and professional-looking book cover. Once all of that′s done, it′s ready to submit to all of the various online booksellers.

But wait, you′re not done yet! You still have to publicize the book so that people will actually buy and read it. This means social networking, blogging (on your own blog and writing guest posts for other people′s), submitting your book for reviews, and doing everything you can to get the word out and build sales, a process that can take months.

So when, exactly, are you supposed to write your next book?

Many authors hire out a lot of the tasks listed above to various professionals so that they can focus on what they do best: writing. But hiring different people to edit your story, proofread and copy edit, design your book cover, etc. can get incredibly expensive.

Thankfully, there′s another way: hire a virtual assistant.

A good VA is usually a Jack or Jill of all trades who knows the ins and outs of his or her niche well enough to get the entire job done. In the book publishing niche, a VA sometimes goes by other names, such as Book Project Manager or Book Packager. This type of virtual assistant is usually a skilled graphic designer practiced in designing book covers; he or she often has training and experience as an editor or proofreader; is knowledgeable about formatting and file conversion, etc. And he or she usually knows quite a bit about social networking and online marketing.

Often, as in my own case, a book publishing VA knows so much about publishing because she is herself an indie author.

A publishing assistant can also save money on your project by bringing a lot of skill and value for reasonable fees—often offering discounted package pricing on various combinations of publishing tasks. But even if you already have your publishing To Do list covered, even hiring an online marketing or social networking assistant can make your post-publishing life so much easier by doing most of the promotional work for you. Either way, adding a virtual assistant team is a sure-fire way to accomplish the thing you often daydream about—finding more time to write.

Thanks again Jean for the post! Check out Jean on her website or blog:

webwranglerjean.com
blog.thetaskwrangler.com
jmbauhaus.livejournal.com

Jean Marie Bauhaus works as a freelance web designer and virtual assistant when she isn't writing. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma with her husband Matt, an awesome and mighty chihuahua named Pete, a box turtle named Matilda and an office full of cats.

A paranormal investigator becomes the subject of her own investigation after stumbling into the crosshairs of a malevolent spirit. Finding herself a ghost and imprisoned in a house that’s haunted by the spirit’s other victims from across the ages, Veronica “Ron” Wilson discovers an afterlife that’s full of surprises, the biggest of which is that ghosts can still fall in love.

Available as an e-book on Amazon and Smashwords.
Kindle edition (Amazon.com) – $2.99
Nook edition (BN.com) – $2.99
Smashwords edition (Nook, iPad, PDF and more) – $2.99

The Kindle 2 Might Be King of the E-book Readers but It Ain’t King of the Beach

2011-08-14T22:56:00.002-04:00

Okay, so there’s a lot being said about the new Kindle 2. More features, an overhaul on its body design, an unlimited number of books to download, a lightweight frame (which is great for all of you who lug War and Peace around), improved bookmarking and highlighting systems, yadda yadda. Oh, not to mention—and this is for the single guys—if a woman like the one below sees you reading a Kindle, she will almost definitely invite you to dinner. Really.

Sounds great, yes? But have you ever taken a Kindle to the beach? I don’t recommend it.

First off, when I’m at the beach, or even poolside, I usually get wet at some point. Water and electronics don’t mix. While hanging out on an island in the Philippines, I had a few too many beers and tried to toss a friend in the pool because…well, I can’t remember the reason (those pesky beers). But I do remember him tossing me in a little later—while I was reading my Kindle. If I didn’t have Spider Man-like reflexes, the vacation would have been over—permanently—for my dead-tree-book killer (actually, if I had said reflexes, I probably wouldn’t have ended up in the pool!).

Secondly, when I’m at the beach, I usually get some sand on me. Sand and electronics don’t mix. At best, it will scratch your screen. At worst, it will get inside the device and short circuit something so that all your amazing new Kindle will be good for is a late-night beach bonfire.

Third, beaches are ripe with thieves. Why not? Where else do people go only to take off their clothes and leave their belongings unattended?? (And if you think hiding your wallet or Kindle under a sunhat while you go frolic in the ocean is a page out of the secret agent’s how-to-be-clandestine handbook, think again). On the other hand, who’s going to steal a paperback novel? The closest a paperback gets to being stolen is when you “lend” it a friend…because you’re never getting it back!

And finally, there’s been a lot of hype about the electronic paper display technology. And, yeah, it’s better than trying to navigate your smartphone outdoors, but it’s still tougher to read than real paper with sunglasses on and the equatorial sun beating down on you.

So in conclusion there are a lot of things to like about the Kindle 2, but there’s always going to be room in my suitcase for a couple paperback novels when I go on vacation.

A couple more strikes against the Kindle 2, in no particular order of awfulness:

No SD slot. While the Kindle can easily hold 3,500 books, what if you have 3,501 books?

Flight attendants will tell you to turn it off on take off and landing. You can’t explain that it’s epaper and uses no current. You just can’t. It’s like explaining evolution to fundamentalist creationists.

It contains a battery. Remember, the Kindle is mortal. It will die on you when you don’t have your charger.

It’s bottom heavy. The internal battery makes the device want to plop face down on your chest. I read it last night when I was sleepy and it kept knocking me on the forehead (pesky beers again).

Still no color. For now, commercial e-ink is still limited to gray scale. Amazon did bump up the technology from 4 to 16 shades of gray, which makes the photos a lot more detailed, but no amount of gray can turn a black and white face into flesh. Sigh.

Who Are The Baddest Vampires (and Vamp Hunters) Of Them All?

2011-08-11T09:31:00.005-04:00

Guest blogger and vampire romance writer Arshad Ahsanuddin's favorite vampire-related characters!

Top Vamps:

#1: Lestat de Lioncourt (Vampire Chronicles): By far the most interesting of Anne Rice’s vampires, Lestat was a reactionary and defiant figure in my early exposure to vampires. Rejecting the traditional gothic sensibility in favor of the erotic modern interpretation, he was a change of pace in my reading pleasure.

#2: Lucien LaCroix (Forever Knight): Born a Roman general in Pompeii, Lucien was mentor and sire of the title character of the series, Nick Knight. Unlike, Nick, however, Lucien embraced his vampiric nature, and constantly attempted to entice Nick into abandoning his attempts to shed his curse and become human.

#3: Angelus (Buffy the Vampire Slayer): The dark side of Buffy’s lover Angel, Angelus came out to play for an entire season of Buffy, and periodically in Angel. He was vicious, amoral, and had some of the best lines in either series.

#4: Thomas Raith (The Dresden Files): Harry Dresden’s half-brother, Thomas is the black sheep of his family. Born a sexual predator with a natural allergy to love, he tried to leave his vampiric nature behind when he fell in love with his lover Jessica, rendering her anathema to his touch. He was tough, loyal, and highlighted the problems associated with being beautiful, rich, and sexually attractive. We should all be so lucky.

#5: Saetan SaDiablo (Black Jewels): The epitome of the Guardian archetype, Saetan rules a realm of demons and the dead. He extended his life for 50,000 years to find a queen to serve who would live up to his standards of honor. He impressed me with his honor, ruthlessness, and humanity.

#6: Asher (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter): The tortured and scarred former lover of Jean Claude, Asher struck a chord with me as the survivor of a great trial, seeking to recapture the love that he lost.

Top Vamp Hunters:

#1: Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer): The archetypal bad-ass teen heroine, her character evolved from wisecracking high school student to general of an army of vampire slayers, learning lessons about life, loss, and love along the way.

#2: Abraham Van Helsing (Dracula): A man of science, unafraid to embrace faith and superstition if it explained the facts, Van Helsing is the prototypical vampire hunter aginst which all others are measured.

#3: Edward (Anita Blake): Called Death by the vampires, he is a cold-blooded killer, ruthless and unyielding. As part of an undercover operation, however, he acquired a girlfriend and a son, and had to adapt his worldview to accommodate their existence. His attempts to adapt remained quite entertaining in the face of the books’ descent into gratuitous erotica.

#4: Geralt of Rivia (The Witcher): A professional monster hunter, his mystical mutations and alchemical potions provide him with an edge over his enemies that a normal human would lack. He often finds himself in the middle of hostilities between humans and the other races, such as elves and dwarves, taking neither side but identifying with both due to his own unnatural origins.

#5 & 6: Sam and Dean Winchester (Supernatural): Human monster hunters, groomed to fight and indoctrinated in lore by their father, their family drama in the face of the horror of their lives continues to hold my interest despite my significant disdain for most network television programming.

Author Bio:

Arshad Ahsanuddin is Canadian-born, but lived in the United States for most of his life. He is currently a practicing hematopathologist, a physician who specializes in using biopsies and laboratory data to diagnose diseases of blood, bone marrow, and lymph nodes, such as leukemia and lymphoma. Yeah, a blood doctor writing about vampires. The irony is not lost on him. It certainly amuses his colleagues.

Social Media:

Website: http://pactarcanum.com/

Blog: http://pactarcanum.com/blog/

Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pactarcanum

Twitter Handle: @pactarcanum

Book links:

Kindle version: http://www.amazon.com/Sunset-Pact-Arcanum-ebook/dp/B004TTWMNG

Nook edition: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sunset-arshad-ahsanuddin/1030617301?ean=2940012314819

Smashwords edition (multiple formats): http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/61128

Print edition: http://www.amazon.com/Sunset-Pact-Arcanum-Book-One/dp/145635485X

Video Trailer: http://youtu.be/zdvchNFqSu4

Book Blurb:

Los Angeles, 2040. The terrorist Medusa and her followers threaten to destroy the metropolis with a nuclear bomb. One individual, the vampire Nicholas Jameson, comes forward to oppose them. As Nick takes on the terrorists, the fragile peace between the races hangs perilously in the balance as the supernatural peoples are exposed. Can Nick lead the four races into peaceful coexistence, or will the final war destroy them all?
With millennia-old magic, emerging romance, and ever-shifting allegiances, this inventive new series unveils a scintillating, homoerotic world of Nightwalkers, Daywalkers, Sentinels, and Humans, who battle for world dominance in the not-too-distant future.

Thanks so much, Arshad! Remember to check out his blog mentioned above!

The Situational Thriller - Wrong Place, Wrong Time

2011-07-28T23:34:00.003-04:00

I write situational thrillers. You know, those books or movies you’ve seen when the protagonist is smack-dab in the middle of something nasty, and you’re thinking: that could happen to me. One of my favorites is Scott Smith’s A Simple Plan. Why? Because as I read it I was thinking, Yeah, I would have taken the money too. A couple prominent films along the same lines that come to mind are Open Water—what would you if your scuba diving boat has left you stranded in the middle of the ocean? And Frozen—two guys and a girl stuck on a ski lift in freezing weather. Oh, and some hungry wolves far below!

Why do I like situational thrillers? Because, like legal thrillers with courtroom drama, the suspense is inherent. Why do I write them? My lighthearted answer: because they’re easier for me to write than other thrillers, such as action-adventure, medicine, legal, etc. I love reading action-adventure, but, man, does James Rollins and the crew do their homework. Same with the other genres I mentioned. You have to know your stuff. And truthfully, I like telling the story, not doing the research. Sure there is research that goes into situational thrillers. But you’re usually dealing with regular characters in regular environments (albeit exceptional situations), which makes it easy to take that initial “What if…?” idea and run with it.

My novel White Lies, which will be released by Oceanview Publishing in spring, 2012, is about a woman who tells a single white lie which quickly spirals out of control until her life and the lives of all those close to her are in jeopardy. What I enjoyed about writing it (aside from taking morbid amusement in sinking the protagonist deeper and deeper into trouble), was the fact that it touched on some pretty significant themes, namely the existential theme you are what you do, not what you say. Or, simply put, action speaks louder than words. In the end, it comes down to realizing you’ve muffed up and taking responsibility for your actions. After all, everyone has told a lie at some point. Who cares? The real judge of character is how you handle that muff up when it begins to turn sour. Do you take the apparent easy way out and tell another lie? Or do you man up and bite the bullet? It’s an interesting question, one in which the answer might not be what you would have yourself believe.

The Pros and Cons of Traditional Publishers

2011-07-26T05:49:00.006-04:00

Most authors would love to be published by a big New York or London publishing house, become a best-selling sensation, and have their book in bookstores and libraries all around the world. Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? So are there really any cons to traditional publishers?

First, a quick rundown of how traditional publishers work. You, the author, finish your manuscript, write a query letter, and send it off (sometimes with a synopsis and sample chapters) to an agent. If the agent likes it, he or she will send it off to an editor he has relations with (hopefully he’s not mailing it off blindly!) You wait. And wait some more. Wait long enough until you’re sure the editor has rejected it or fed it to his dog. But if you’re lucky—and talented, of course—the editor will pass it on to some of the other editors he works with. If all concerned are interested, the publishing house will buy the rights from you and pay an advance on future royalties (anywhere from $1000 to $10,000 for first-time authors). The house puts up the money to design and package the book, prints as many copies as it thinks will sell, markets the book, and finally distributes the finished product to the public. There are several advantages to taking this path to publication:

The prestige of being backed by Macmillan, Penguin, etc.

These guys are professionals at editing, printing, and distributing books.

Their books are more easily accepted by retailers, libraries, and other outlets.

Some marketing costs may be covered.

Again, sounds pretty good. But like most things in life, there is a flip side. Here are some cons in no particular order:

You need an agent to avoid the slush pile!

Lack of control over the process and the finished product. For instance, you might hate the cover but have no say to change it.

The rights of the book are held by the publisher, which can include digital, audio, etc.

If you don’t sell many books, you might be quickly forgotten and have a difficult time getting a second book signed, as publishers move on to the next big thing very quickly.

Royalties are only 6-12% of net sales.

And time. It takes 18-24 months (or longer) for a publisher to bring a book to market (I’m talking about fiction; non-fiction is often topical and can be rushed to press).

In conclusion, I write this article not because I’m advocating skipping the traditional route and becoming self-pubbed. But only to show that nothing is perfect, and that there are advantages and disadvantages to all forms of publishing.

Good luck with whatever avenue you take!

Page Critique, Entry 1 - Feedback

2011-07-26T01:13:00.006-04:00

Thanks to Andrew for providing this feedback! You can check him out @ http://vizproductions.blogspot.com/
Also, if you want to see the original edit, with the suggestions, go to the page critique archives just below the banner, or scroll down a few blog entries.

***Click on the image to see the full screen version***

America's Drunkest Authors Part 2

2011-07-21T05:42:00.003-04:00

Continuing with America's drunkest and brightest, here are the final five of the top-ten countdown. Please comment if you agree/disagree or have any others you believe should have made the list!

#5: Hunter S. Thompson

He wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Is there anything more that really needs to be said?

Quote: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."

#4: Edgar Allen Poe

In his first year at university, Poe gambled all his scholarship money, and it was his gambling addiction that led to alcoholism. It was reported by school systems that he showed up in class drunk even during the examinations. He had little resistance to booze and easily became violent and irrational when he drank too much. Even so, he finished with the highest grades in his class and became the best student of his generation. Some newspapers at the time reported his death as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation", euphemisms for deaths from disgraceful causes such as alcoholism.

Quote: "I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom."

#3: William Faulkner

Faulkner himself stated on several occasions, and as was witnessed by members of his family, the press, and friends at various periods over the course of his career, he did not drink while writing, nor did he believe that alcohol helped to fuel the creative process. It is now widely believed that he used alcohol as an "escape valve" from the day-to-day pressures of his regular life, including his never-ending and maddening financial straits, rather than the more romantic vision of a brilliant writer who needed alcohol to pursue his craft. Nevertheless, his drinking experiences influenced his novels, poems, short stories and screen plays.

"There is no such thing as bad whiskey. Some whiskeys just happen to be better than others. But a man shouldn't fool with booze until he's fifty; then he's a damn fool if he doesn't."

#2: Ernest Hemmingway

Like nearly all the great drunks, Hemmingway wasn't too picky when it came to what he drank. While in Europe he cunsumed everything from wine, cognac, brandy, grappa and absinthe. On safari in Africa he claimed he was never inebriated, though his hunting companions testified his first drink arrived with the dawn and that “his drinking would have killed a less tough man.” While covering WWII from the front lines, he kept his canteen filled with gin. On a typical evening in Cuba he “started out with absinthe, drank a bottle of good red wine with dinner, shifted to vodka in town then battened it down with whiskeys and sodas until 3am.” A journalist reported that he “usually starts drinking right away [upon waking up] and writes standing up, with a pencil in one hand and a drink in the other.” His friend, Denis Zaphiro, said, “I suppose he was drunk the whole time but seldom showed it. Just became merrier, more lovable, more bull-shitty. Without drink he was morose, silent and depressed.”

Enough said.

Quote: "An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools."

#1: F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald was kept in champagne in the '20s, already a crumbling alcoholic in the '30s, and dead by the end of '40. In the '20s, he introduced himself to party guests as “one of the most notorious drinkers of the younger generation,” or as “F. Scott Fitzgerald, the well-known alcoholic.” His friend Ernest Hemingway (#2 on our list!) experienced such stagecraft firsthand when, during a trip with “Poor Scott,” Fitzgerald was convincing himself that he was dying of “consumption of the lungs” and demanded that Hemingway find a thermometer to ascertain whether a fever boiled in his blood. He was a product of his era, the so-called Lost Generation. While in Paris, he hung out with Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Ford Maddox, all who would get spend the evenings getting smashed, drinking up life, drinking up each others company. Fitzgerald himself noted: "Sometimes I wish I'd went through those good times stone cold sober so I could remember everything--but then again, if I had been sober the times probably wouldn't have been worth remembering."

Quote: "First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you."

Honorable mentions go to:

Philip K. Dick
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Jim Carroll
Tennessee Williams
Jack Kerouac
O. Henry
Eugene O'Neill
John Steinbeck
John Cheever
Dylan Thomas

Oh--and, of course, David Duchovny for his role in Californication!

America's Drunkest Authors Part 1

2011-07-19T22:14:00.001-04:00

Charlie Sheen, Robert Downey Jr., John Belushi, and Gary Busey have fueled the popular conception that actors love to snort coke. Slash, Janis Joplin, Scott Weilman, and about a thousand other musicians have made heroin addiction synonymous with the rock-star lifestyle.

But what of writers? What is their drug of choice? I would argue booze. It might be a stereotype, but who can't call forth an image of a writer as an eccentric, cigarette-smoking, whiskey-drinking recluse?

So, with that in mind, who was/is history's drunkest wordsmith? Read on!

#10: Charles Bukowski

In his twenties, Bukowski was told to give up drinking or he would die. He never gave it up and he lived until he was 74. (On a side note: his gravestone bears the simple inscription "Don't try"--possibly as a warning to the numerous writers who try, but fail, to imitate his writing. Thanks, Charlie!)

Quote: "Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now."

#9: Dorothy Parker

Throughout her life, Parker struggled with alcoholism and depression. She spent her last years in New York, often depending upon friends to help her financially as she spent the money from writing as quickly as she earned it. She was in very poor health due to the heavy drinking and died alone in a hotel room on June 7, 1967 at the age of seventy three.

Quote: "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy."

#8: Raymond Chandler

While writing a the script of The Blue Dahlia for Paramount, Chandler could not compose an ending. He finally admitted he was a “serious drinker” but by an effort of will had overcome his addiction and was now abstinent. This was the trouble. Alcohol gave him “an energy and a self-assurance that he could not achieve in any other way”. He could not finish the script sober. But he could finish it, at home--drunk. And he outlined a plan whereby he’d drink steadily, eat no solid food and subsist on glucose injections from his doctor. Sounds fun!

Quote: “Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl's clothes off.”

#7: Jack London

Quote: "I was carrying a beautiful alcoholic conflagration around with me. The thing fed on its own heat and flamed the fiercer. There was no time, in all my waking time, that I didn't want a drink. I began to anticipate the completion of my daily thousand words by taking a drink when only five hundred words were written. It was not long until I prefaced the beginning of the thousand words with a drink."

#6: Stephen King

If you've read On Writing, you'll know of King's party with the bottle (and cocaine). In that memoir, he revealed he'd been so shattered by his alcohol and drug abuse in the 1980s that, even today, he cannot remember working on many of the books he wrote back then. At one point he resorted to buying antiseptic mouthwash for its alcohol content. Around the time he was writing It and Misery, he was sober for only three hours a day. His wife often found him passed out in a puddle of vomit next to his desk.

Yeesh--maybe SK should have been number one on the list! But the next five are all good, so check back tomorrow!

Hitler Discovers Google+

2011-07-18T20:50:00.000-04:00

This is a spoof of Hitler--apparently an avid Facebook user--discovering Google+ for the first time! Very funny! (Note: I want to second what Jack Humphrey said on his website--where I first saw this--that I will only post a Hitler video if it makes him look stupid.)

Resistence is Futile

2011-07-18T08:42:00.002-04:00

This is seriously something straight out of Star Trek. I'm not going to say anything more because I don't want to give it away. But WTF!!!!!! (Credit to Janet Reid, literary agent; I first saw this on her blog.)

Page Critique, Entry 1

2011-07-16T23:52:00.001-04:00

Okay Andrew! Please do not be deterred by all the red marks! They make it appear as though there are a lot more corrections than there actually are… My ms. looks similar when I get it back from my editor!! Overall comments: The first paragraph has to go… it just doesn’t fit with the story, which starts with a bang with Braden running from the guards. This is a much better place to open. Also, you tend to overwrite your scenes. Remember, simple is best. Your goal should be to make your writing invisible, and let the story tell itself. I only reviewed these two pages, but I have to say that I enjoyed what little I read. Braden’s a fun, likeable character, and you seem to have the making of an entertaining plot! Good luck with it and let me know how it progresses!

***Click on the image to see the full screen version***

Damn You Auto Correct!

2011-07-16T02:22:00.000-04:00

I try to keep most of my posts about writing, the publishing industry, or whatever else along those lines. But I think I'm going to have to stick one or two of these in every now and then. They're just so damn funny!

The End of Harry Potter

2011-07-15T05:56:00.000-04:00

Today marks the release of the final Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, Part 2. It is the end of a lucrative, decade-long film franchise that consists of eight films and over two billion dollars in box-office revenues...so far. In tribute, check out the following Harry Potter parodies compiled by CNN:

Weird Writing Habits of Famous People Part 2

2011-07-15T05:06:00.001-04:00

#7: Flannery O'Connor
Wrote for only two hours a day, facing a blank wall so she would not be distracted by anything.

#8: Vladimir Nabokov
Knew there would be a Russian on this list! Wrote everything on note cards. According to him: “My schedule is flexible, but I am rather particular about my instruments: lined Bristol cards and well sharpened, not too hard, pencils capped with erasers.”

#9: Eudora Welty
Only a face a mother could love. She used to pin up her stories all over her room so they formed a continuous line... Isn't this what crazy people do in asylums??

#10: Thomas Wolfe
Not so strange: he uses a typewriter, sets a goal of 1800 words, and stops when he reaches it... what is a little weird is that he triple spaces... Who the heck triple spaces? But it's the other Thomas Wolfe--Thomas Clayton Wolfe, the early 20th century novelist--who takes the cake: he wrote standing over a refrigerator, because he was apparently too tall to sit!

Weird Writing Habits of Famous People Part 1

2011-07-14T06:45:00.001-04:00

This is something I read in the Huffington Post... Who would have guessed? The weirdest thing I do is bang my head on the desk! X_X

#1: Truman Capote
He wrote lying supine with a glass of sherry in his free hand. According to him: “I am a completely horizontal author. I can’t think unless I’m lying down, either in bed or stretched on a couch and with a cigarette and coffee handy. I’ve got to be puffing and sipping. As the afternoon wears on, I shift from coffee to mint tea to sherry to martinis. No, I don’t use a typewriter. Not in the beginning. I write my first version in longhand (pencil). Then I do a complete revision, also in longhand.”

#2: John Cheever
Wrote in his underwear.

#3: Francine Prose
Writes in her husband's flannel pajamas (I think the weirdest thing is that she's a writer and her last name is Prose!)

#4: Ernest Hemingway
Wrote in the morning to avoid the head. Perhaps more interesting is what he told F. Scott Fitzgerald: “I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”

#5: William Faulkner
Drank whiskey every day! Nice. (No wonder he looks so happy there!)

#6: T.S. Eliot
Powdered his face green with to look cadaverous and had people call him "The Captain."

Yeah...I think Eliot takes the cake. The final five coming in the next post!

Ummm... Where's the fiction section??

2011-07-13T05:10:00.000-04:00

Hilariously Bad Amazon Review

2011-07-08T06:11:00.000-04:00

I feel bad for the guy....
(click on it to see the larger version)

2011-07-05T06:52:00.001-04:00

Congo by Michael Crichton

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

First off, I didn't want to write a review on this book because everyone has probably already read it. But I saw it there in my "read" book list and remembered what a good read it was. Michael Crichton (RIP big guy) was a great writer whose most unique talent, I believe, was making complex stuff simple. There's no one quite like him, not even James Rollins, who does a good job following in his footsteps. Anyway, you probably know the plot. One thing I have to mention, if you decide to read this book again, is the outdated technology! There's nothing better than hearing MC describing a the "marvels" of 1980s technology. It makes it all worth it (that and the talking ape!).

View all my reviews

2011-07-04T05:41:00.001-04:00

The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read this when I was at Smuggler's Notch in Colorado on a ski trip with my family. I was thirteen or fourteen, I think. Anyway, I finished it in the three days I was there, reading late, late in my bed (sharing the room with my brother!). It was an amazing story. What I liked most: how different it was from the typical fantasy books I'd read at the time. There were a few adult themes, if I remember correctly, but it takes you to a totally different world. If you like offbeat fantasy (and orphan stories) you'd probably like this one.

View all my reviews

2011-07-03T23:35:00.001-04:00

Hell by Jeffrey Archer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don't usually read non-fiction, but I like Archer so I gave this one a shot...and it was oddly absorbing! It's crazy to think this guy once had ambitions to be prime minister. Anyway, I guess he can't complain too much, given his success with writing. If you like this type of thing, give his book a go!

View all my reviews

Ghostbuster's Slimer Narrowly Avoids Eviction

2011-07-01T01:42:00.000-04:00

The New York Public Library escaped being shutdown during the 2012 budget fight. Thanks should go out to mayor Bloomberg and, especially, the people of New York for raising their voices over the matter.

Top-Selling Book 2010

2011-06-30T22:57:00.000-04:00

While checking out covers, I came across this: Amazon's top-selling book in 2010. Surprisingly, it was fiction. It beat out Bush's Decision Points, which happened to be #1 at Barnes & Nobles. (Coincidentally, The Girl was #4 on B & N).

Amazon's Best Fiction Cover 2011

2011-06-30T22:44:00.000-04:00

This was one of Amazon's six finalists in the fiction category. It's by the guy who wrote Fight Club.

You can read more about the book here.

The Hand that Reads Us

2011-06-28T19:18:00.000-04:00

I don't know where I came across this; I think a friend sent it to me. Anyway, thought it was pretty cool, and since the people working behind the scenes here (which is just me!) didn't have any pictures posted yet, we (I) decided this would be a good start.

Back to the Future: Getting Started

2011-06-28T05:25:00.000-04:00

Every unpublished writer knows the catch-22: you need an agent to get published, but agents often don't take on unpublished writers.

Well, there's some truth to that, especially if you're looking to get signed by one of the big 5 (or is it 4 now??) houses. But there are a lot of quality independent publishers out there who don't require agents. The following is a list I've made over the years (none are self-publishing platforms or POD):

Snowbooks; Medallion Press; Variance Publishing; Ravenstone Books; PM Press; Leapfrog Press; Insomniac Press; Dzanc Books; Replacement Press; The Permanent Press; Unbridled Books; Black Lawrence Press; Coach House Books; Bancroft Press; Soho Press; Carina Press; Serpent's Tail; Small Beer Press, WiDo Publishing.

Good luck!

First post!

2011-06-17T06:31:00.000-04:00

This is my first post! I feel like one of those guys who says "Testing, testing, one-two-three" into the mics at weddings. I'm sure I have more to say than that but I'll leave it until tomorrow. Blogging's exhausting! lol