The Developers

By now, I'm sure that everyone and his or her dog (assuming said dog is on DogBook) has heard the hubbub relating to new Facebook privacy policies. I have to be honest: I haven't read every single story about it, primarily because I don't intentionally publish stuff online that should be private. In general, people rarely read terms and conditions before signing up for something online, but hopefully now, people will check out Facebook's privacy terms and decide whether or not they want to keep their account.

For no reason whatsoever, I've decided to over "The Developers" for a buck on the Kindle this month. I tried to offer it free, but the lowest I could go was a dollar. Anyway, if you have a Kindle, check it out!

As a knockoff of my literary agent list, I have decided to supply you with the short list of publishers I have contacted for my latest book venture. After querying agencies for a few months, I started contacting more mid-range publishers with the hopes of avoiding agencies altogether. This is not to say that bypassing an agent is beneficial to everyone; I think it's worthwhile in my case for a few reasons:

I meant to do this a long time ago, but I wanted to determine how many states I've covered with "The Developers" reviews. By this count, it looks like 18 plus Washington D.C. It would be pretty cool to hear from someone in every state, but let's face it, how many copies of my book are lying around in South Dakota?

I haven't quite made the New York Times best-seller list just yet, but copies of "The Developers" are getting their places in the sky. I've secretly placed a few books on Southwest airplanes, so if you are flying Southwest anytime soon, make sure to check the seat pocket in front of you. Sorry, I didn't include any drink coupons!

I found out the other day through an internal company email that AOL has recently purchased two companies as part of its local strategy initiative. I was immensely surprised when checking out one of them, Patch, which is essentially a community-based website geared toward providing info with a small-town flavor.

I remember reading or hearing something a few years ago that said only 10 percent of all books published ever sell 1,000 copies or more. I cannot seem to find exact numbers anywhere, however, I found a boatload of other statistics on the Para Publishing website. The self-publishing numbers are pretty low ... only 3.4 percent of Xlibris copies have sold more than 500 copies, for example.

In 2007, I had my first taste of the Baltimore book scene at the CityLit Festival. Last year, I was a part of the event, so I figured I might as well join in again! The festival takes place 10 a.m.-4 p.m. April 18 at the downtown branch of the Enoch Pratt library. I'll be there with colleagues Sean O'Connor and Brad Samuelson.

A few glaring items came to mind as I finished reading Roszak's "The Cult of Information:"

Google recently announced a new product available for a number of cell phone devices called Google Latitude. The program allows you to see other people, assuming they have opted into the system, on a Google-generated map.