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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.
To preview today's book signing, The News-Enterprise ran an article in Thursday's Pulse, its entertainment guide. The article is just a brief overview, but it is an article nevertheless. Here's the text of the preview:
Humor and technology collide in 'Developers' (08/03/06)
Louisville author coming to E'town for book signing
By The NE Staff
ELIZABETHTOWN - Purdue graduate and Louisville resident Ben Woods will be in Hardin County to sign his new book "The Developers" from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 4, at Waldenbooks in Towne Mall in Elizabethtown.
I will be at the Elizabethtown, Ky., Waldenbooks in Towne Mall 5-7 p.m. Aug. 4 to discuss and sign my latest book, The Developers. The humor-fiction novel mixes the insane and obscene with technology, romance and pop culture. But while the book's web development group tries to make its mark on the virtual world, it encounters pre-eminent issues that will soon be shaping the Internet of the future: Are individuals losing their remaining privacy due to the World Wide Web? Will online social interaction eventually replace in-person gatherings as a necessary means?
Louisville Mayhem on Friday, July 28, was a success. We had a pretty good turnout, a lot of food, people took home some nice prizes (and some silly ones) and we raised a little money for Volunteers of America. Thanks to everyone who made the evening possible, and for the great turnout.
Here's the list of winners:
Carl West - four-color pen
Eric Bailey - bingo bucket
Mary Rising - bingo bucket
Nick Ress - Integrity computer bag
Dave Plummer - tub of cheese puffs
Sharon Adams - smiley face t-shirt
Just for an instance, don't be a spam hater. You don't actually have to open anything in your inbox with "enlargement" in the title. Just play along for the simple fact of nostalgia.
I'm not usually one to steal ideas for a column, but this one was too good to pass up. Macworld had a story in its April edition about free stuff on the Internet. I wouldn't consider myself one of those people who go to different fairs with the sole intention of seeing how many magnets and pencils I can collect in a plastic Go Army bag, but if something's cool and free, I'll give it a try.
If you use Yahoo email and you are one of those people who save every email, it looks like you won't need to empty the trash anytime soon.
Yahoo announced that in May, the company will over unlimited storage capacity.
While it's doubtful Richard Simmons has already finished reading my book, "The Developers," it is worth noting that he already has good things to say about it.
Simmons, who is constantly referenced in the book as a lookalike of one of the characters, Rex Burns, recently responded to the book copy I sent him at his Burbank location.
"Thank you for your kind words and sense of humor," Simmons wrote on an autographed photo. "You are a gifted man!"
If you are familiar with the Periodic Table (and if you aren't, please have a chat with your chemistry teacher soon!), you might be interested to know that someone has compiled a list of English words that can be spelled with chemical symbols.
No, the person wasn't me. Actually, the computer did most of the work, but Dr. Nandor's Exhaustive Chemical Words Pages shows a multitude of ways to combine elements to form words.