“If I hadn’t been 66 years old and had a $105 Social Security check coming in every month, I don’t know what I would have done. But for me it wasn’t a matter of giving up. It was just a problem of what to do next.” Colonel Harland Sanders Writing a book is hard. As it turns out, selling a book you...

My apologies for the clickbait headline. It is a fictional construction designed to help make a serious and valid point. My hope is that your instincts kick in and you keep reading to see what happens next. Speechwriters have long known what neuroscientists, psychologists and evolutionary...

My Journey to the Top of the Best Seller List I played the Trump card a few months ago and not much happened.  I am playing it again now with lowered expectations but no loss of hope. The circumstances and timing are too good to pass up:  Trump is in Scotland bragging about how the people there...

My Journey to the Top of the Best Seller List Desperate times call for desperate measures. It may be time for me to play the Trump card. A little background: I am not a political person, at least publicly, and especially not over the internet. From what I have observed, there are only two sides,...

My Journey to the Top of the Best Seller List I entered my novel in the 3rd Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published eBook Awards last year, and have just contacted me with the results. No, I didn't win. But they said so many nice things about my book that I find it hard to believe I wasn't the...

My Journey to the Top of the Best Seller List I haven’t posted in awhile because I was waiting to see the results of my experiment in advertising. The results are in. They are encouraging, but inconclusive. Here’s the story: After looking around and comparing audience demographics, reach, cost and...

My Journey to the Top of the Best Seller List “You Gotta Have Art” was a series of TV commercials that aired in the 1970s to promote the Detroit Institute of Arts. It is also an accurate description of what you need for your front cover when you publish a book. The snappy jingle from those...

My Journey to the Top of the Best Seller List As is the case with virtually everyone else who has ever written a book, self-publishing was not my first choice. I wanted a major (or minor, or any) publisher to take on the task of making my novel available to the public. And why not? To begin with,...

My Journey to the Top of the Best Seller List Before we proceed any further on our climb to the top, in the tradition of comic book heroes and movie sequels I would like to take a moment to explain the origins of The Guardian of Detritus. I’m hoping this will be interesting to curious readers and...

This sounds like a spy thriller but it is just my way of adding one more weapon to my social media assault: tweeting. I have been advised by a social media expert that tweeting about my book will be much more effective than blogging or posting on Facebook, so I have opened a Twitter account as...