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I will be at Borders locations in Columbus, Cincinnati and Crestview Hills, Ky., this weekend to discuss and sign "The Developers." Here are the specifics:
2 p.m. August 12
Borders, 4545 Kenny Road, Columbus, Ohio
7 p.m. August 12
Borders, Princeton Plaza Shopping Center, Cincinnati
2 p.m. August 13
Borders, 2785 Dixie Highway, Crestview Hills, Ky.
My brother, Chris, recently recounted a tulmultuous occurrence in our lives. Here's the text of that fateful day.
While there are many things to consider when writing, one of the most important items has to be the audience. If I write the greatest story in the history of literature, and it's a war story, there's a good chance that people who aren't interested in war won't like it.
"The Developers" isn't about war, and it's not the greatest story in the history of literature. Maybe the top 10, but not the greatest. Ha! Even when you anticipate that you know your audience, there's still something that just doesn't fit.
Authors who are either self-published or with small publishers have an extremely difficult time getting the word out about their novels. Most large publishing houses have money devoted to advertising, and well-known authors usually have their own publicists to handle marketing.
You receive a lot of spam, right? Apparently, so does everyone else.
In a recent report compiled by SoftScan, close to 90 percent of emails sent in July were spam. It should be noted that SoftScan is a company that offers anti-spam software, and that it also acknowledges that fewer actual emails were sent in July because of the holiday, according to vnunet.com.
People outside of Kentucky might think it's somewhat bizarre that government officials are now blocking state employees' Internet access to blogs that are critical of Governor Ernie Fletcher.
Unfortunately, it's not that crazy. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.
The current administration has made a name of cutting off as much negative opinion as possible, and since June 23, state workers cannot resolve the Bluegrass Report and other statewide blogs.
Sometimes we take for granted our ability to type in domain names in our native language. It's true that the most of civilization accepts English as the way of the Internet, but researchers agree that it doesn't necessarily have to stay like that.
Of course, this means that in the near future, you might be able to type accented letters, Chinese characters and even cave paintings into your web browser.
I have two more book appearances this month, both during the last full weekend in September. I'll be at both the Baltimore Book Festival and Baltimore Comic-Con.
It's amazing how many people online now have never experienced the original Atari. You still see Space Invaders and Centipede appear in various places occasionally, but I wonder how many people even know how popular these games were in the late 70s and early 80s.
Since the comments page is getting pretty full, I decided that I should pull out some of the newer items on occasion. Here are the two most recent reader reviews for "The Developers."
Anyway, great book. I love any fiction books that can keep me interested in the plot and characters. Awesome pop culture references.
I'm really getting into the characters. I think you do a great job in setting up the characters, their pasts, etc. You are good at writing women, by the way. How did you learn how to do that?