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It's official: The Developers has an official distributor. Biblio Distribution, out of Lanham, Md., will handle all distribution of The Developers, effective immediately. OK, it's sort of effective immediately because right now, Biblio doesn't have any books. But I've just ordered a third printing, and the company should have the books at the beginning of March.
For the fourth straight weekend, I'll be making a book appearance, this time at home in Louisville, Ky. I'll be at Carmichael's (2720 Frankfort Avenue) 4-6 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 12. Make sure you don't go to the Bardstown Road one because I won't be there!
Please stop in and say hi to me or my local publicist, Elizabeth Woods, if you get a chance. Elizabeth is my grandma, one of the main proofreaders for 'The Developers' and an avid bingo player.
There have been rumors for many years, that eventually, it will cost a user to send an email. And since spam has become a ridiculously annoying part of everyday work, the chatter for paid communication has picked up again.
But I still didn't believe something like this would happen anytime soon, until I saw that America Online and Yahoo are beginning to implement a system that will give preferential treatment to companies who pay for sending bulk emails.
If you're close to my age (under 80, but older than 5), you may remember one of the earlier educational games, Oregon Trail. This game possibly accurately depicted random people following Lewis and Clark in their quest for new land, gold and Texas tea. Or, wait, Texas wasn't around yet. Was there tea?
Anyway, the game taught multiple skills, none of which helped you make tea. But they did help kids make critical decisions on how best to outfit a caravan across an unknown wilderness, with food, clothing, weapons, etc.
Because I receive a decent number of questions about a multitude of things, ranging from writing and publishing to computers and programming, I wanted to make myself a little more available to those of you who can't get in touch with me.
Starting today, I will be available on both AOL's Instant Messenger and Google Talk around the clock. So if you have a question or comment, just send it along, and I'll get back to you. It might not be immediate, but I'll try to within a day or so.
AOL screenname: WoodsBenA
GoogleTalk screenname: bwoods43
Fellow Baltimore writer Spencer Compton will be sharing commentary from his new book, "Get Real" at 7pm tonight (Oct. 26) at Red Emma's Bookstore and Coffee House.
At a typical office job in the 21st Century, you are guaranteed to come into contact with a number of individuals who have no idea what they are talking about. Of course, that doesn't mean that they cannot pretend they are intelligent.
Like most people (I hope), I spend a lot of time thinking. My best thinking moments by far are when I'm in the shower in the morning, just after a nap and anytime I'm at Wal-Mart.
This is a couple of days late, but after waiting and realizing the New Albany, Ind., News-Tribune wasn't going to put the feature article about me online, I decided to type it myself. Here's the great article reporter Greg Gapsis wrote about the recent book signing I had at Destinations Booksellers in New Albany:
Self-made man
First-time author's novel embodies humor, energy
Greg Gapsis - 2/5/06
During high school and college, I worked at Kentucky Kingdom amusement park in Louisville, Ky. Besides battling racuous crowds and the blazing heat, one thing that was interesting to me was trying to keep track of the different people I was seeing throughout the day. As a games attendant (a.k.a. carnival barker), I would attempt to personally say things to people that I saw multiple times, whether at different games or at different parts of the park. This was mostly just a sales tactic, and I think the customers likely thought I was training to have my own magic show.