Articles

Nine-year-olds care about winning baseball games. Just ask Peter Smith, Maurice Robinson and Billy Rogers.

Peter has been to many Washington Nationals games this year, and he just recently started keeping track of the team's boxscores. Maurice listens to Baltimore Orioles games and his great-grandfather, who tells tales of John McGraw, Babe Ruth and Frank Robinson. Billy never seems to come inside until after dark, usually because he is in front of his house, playing baseball with the neighborhood friends.

I'll be heading back to familiar territory this weekend as I host a book talk in Crawfordsville, Ind., at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Crawfordsville Public Library. A little later in the day (3 p.m. CST), I'll be at the Champaign, Ill., Borders.

I lived in Crawfordsville in 1998-99, working at the Journal Review during my time there. I will be discussing writing and publishing at the library, as well as explaining the process of putting together my novel, The Developers.

I just wanted to thank everyone who stopped by during my weekend Borders book tour. I was really encouraged by the turnout in Columbus, especially considering I know few people up that way.

If you're looking for directions to some place specific, you can usually find that information at various Internet mapping services. Or, if you want to find out more information about some place in town, or maybe a place you're going on vacation, that place usually has a website.

But what if you want to find out BOTH of these things at the same time, possibly while standing on your head and singing random early '90s music?

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.

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.

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.

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.