Holidays and Your Writer: Advice to Readers, Families, and Friends

~ David Biddle ~ 5 Comments

kindle-christmas

This is a repost from earlier in December. 

Indie authors are setting up shop in bedrooms and dining rooms and kitchen tables on every street in every neighborhood from Staten Island to Oahu. In 2005 about 300,000 new book titles hit the shelves of bookstores and the pages of Amazon. In 2012 I’ve read estimates of over 1,000,000 titles — just for this year alone!

It used to be when I told people I was working on a book, they would look at me like I was some cute, exotic monkey creature with bucked teeth and big brown eyes. Now they say, “Oh, do you know Ed Jones or Continue reading →

5-Star Review for Implosions of America at El Dink UK

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Trying to get people to pay attention to serious fiction (what the hell else do we call it?) in this new Indie World is not easy. Finding folks who appreciate the raw and the real can feel quite futile.

So when someone does get what you’ve done, it’s pretty special. The folks at El Dink a UK independent book review of all things Kindlesque just posted a review of my new story collection, Implosions of America. The Tweet I got letting me know this truly stunned me:

“We’ve just reviewed Implosions Of America by @dcbiddle and it’s…. awesome…fb.me/2pNtot0jU”

See the full 5-Star review from Barry at El Dink here:

5-Star Review for Implosions of America “Nine short stories about love might help us understand what the hell is wrong with America”

Click the cover to check out the book.

 

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New Publishing Frontier Lesson #37: DIY or DIE

~ davidbiddle ~ 2 Comments
Doctor Oliver Sacks.
Doctor Oliver Sacks. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Oliver Sacks has a fabulous essay at the back of yesterday’s New York Times Book Review called “Reading the Fine Print.” Everyone who reads needs to check it out. Dr. Sacks, one of this world’s most important thinkers about human consciousness (his most recent book, Hallucinations, is just the tip of the iceberg), bemoans in his essay the demise of large-print books. He acknowledges the end of large-print has come about because e-Books can provide any size type a reader desires, but that’s not good enough for him. Sacks doesn’t want a sterile electronic reading experience, he wants “books with heft, with a bookish smell, as books have had for the last 550 years, a book that I can slip into my pocket or keep with its fellows on my bookshelves where my eye might alight on it at unexpected times.”

Continue reading →

Who Are We?

~ davidbiddle ~ 1 Comment

Today’s mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut may well rip this country apart. Gun control is another of the issues that simmered during this year’s election while both sides did their best not to lift the lid. You can already see the posturing on both sides if you read the news accounts.

“Not the time to be talking about gun control.”

“Oh, yeah, guess what? Now’s the time. We’re marching.”

Continue reading →

The Teachings of James Bond and Other Work Coming Out This Month

~ davidbiddle ~ 2 Comments
Fighting Monkey Press

Fighting Monkey Press just posted an essay I modified for them called “9 Things I Learned from 40 Years of Following James Bond.” I posted a very long version of this piece here a month or so ago. Pavarti Tyler who honchoes Fighting Monkey says its her favorite guest post yet. Check it out. Also, check out Pavarti’s blog and book offerings HERE. If you like my piece, make sure to share it through your networks. As I’ve noted here recently, this is the season of sales and reach for writers. We can’t make things work without the help of readers, bloggers, and other authors.

I’ve also been informed that a review I wrote for Reality Sandwich on Dr. Ben Continue reading →

Reviewers and Bloggers Desperately Needed for Implosions of America

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My latest collection of nine stories needs reviewers and thoughtful readers to blog about it. I can’t get the book posted to any major indie distribution site without at least five reviews. I’ve got two right now. Check them out here.

These are not happily-ever-after stories. They are not simple, nor are they normal. I’ve been told they are very much like Continue reading →

The Smell of Water: a short passage from Ex:Urbia, a work-in-progress…

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All of life is composed of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon. Mostly it is water that fills living cells and acts as the medium for organization and awareness. Water, then, could be God. And carbon, the devil. Or perhaps water is the fundament of heaven and God the electricity that flows through it, and the other trace elements the pantheon of gods. And carbon the devil.

If there is a heaven, and a God, why do we need to consider it as all in another world, another plane? It seems that it would be much more efficient for heaven and hell and the general mayhem of the cosmos Continue reading →

Behind Blue Eyes: #rockfiction center stage

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I discovered the hashtag #rockfiction about a month ago when I stumbled onto the Behind Blue Eyes website: http://behindblueeyes.ca/

Anne-Marie Klein is the author of a series of rock ‘n’ roll Behind Blue Eyes novels that trace the development of the fictitious young musician, Ian Harrington’s climb toward success during the 1970s heyday of popular music. Remember those days when Rock was King? Remember Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert? Blue Oyster Cult? Peter Frampton? Deep Purple?  Three Dog Night?  Continue reading →

Really Dumb: Migrating to a New Web Host

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I have been planning on upgrading this website’s offerings for the past three months and learned in the process that what I wanted to do isn’t feasible using the standard WordPress.com system. So I decided yesterday to move to WordPress.org, which is actually just using their software on a WebHost of my choice. I chose BlueHost.

This is my first post on this new system. It’s still not set up properly. I’m hoping that my domain name translates within the next 48-hours. If you Continue reading →