I’m doing a lot of things here in Las Vegas that I only dreamed of doing when I lived in Oregon, especially small town Oregon. Sometimes I think I rolled myself into a little ball and cut out everything else. Some of that was health-related, some of it was the demanding job, but some of […]
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This morning, a regular reader of my blog forwarded a tweet to me from a bookseller and writer about supply chain issues for books. He then suggested I blog about those issues. I had planned to, but I had a vague hope that they would improve. The bookseller’s tweet disabused me of that notion. The […]
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21I spent the morning researching things like BookTok and NFTs for writers and Substack. I was going to write about each, but you know what? I don’t want to. Here’s the thing: I’ve been blogging now on the publishing industry—the indie publishing industry in particular (which some folks still insist on calling self-publishing)—for 12 years […]
Continue ReadingI threw out a book of essays in August. I mean literally tossed the book in the trash. The book was considered one of the best books of 2019 by a whole bunch of mainstream literary reviewers, all of whom are on my suspect list now. The book is exceedingly well written. The author writes […]
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Trying to wrap my brain around the possibilities for growth in the digital sphere hurts. Seriously. Because the markets are so big and the opportunities so vast that I’m not capable of grasping it all. For a long time, the digital divide wasn’t just generational. It was also location-based. When the Kindle came into being […]
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All of the changes since March of 2020 brought a lot more people into online shopping, which includes buying books. Our market has grown and, with the slow decline of Amazon as the default marketplace, will continue to grow. I’ve dealt with these changes in the previous two posts on the changes the pandemic hath […]
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We are moving through this pandemic more divided than ever. I’m not talking about politically. I’m talking about economically and with the virus itself. First, the virus. Access to the vaccine is deeply uneven across the globe. Early on, poorer countries were unable to buy vaccine. Now, the U.S. and E.U. countries (as well as […]
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From the moment I started writing these weekly business blogs, I covered the attitudes of online retailers who wondered how they could appeal to customers. If the company was big, like Amazon or Walmart, consumers shopped online when they trusted the website or knew that their information would be safe. I’m resisting the urge to […]
Continue ReadingI’ve had a bit more time to read in July than I had in June, although it has truly been crazy around here. I’m hoping that August won’t be quite as insane. I read a favorite author who is known for twists as we moved. I could only read a bit here and a bit […]
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I’m going to pretend I’m smarter than I am, because the term in the title is not mine, and my understanding of it is an inch deep. For years, Dean and M.L. Buchman used to talk about achieving ground effect with their writing. Now, please understand that Matt (M.L.) writes military romances featuring pilots. Dean […]
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