I heard this song first, then listened to a few more. It’s addictive and frankly makes me want to stop what I am doing and just write. The power of music that helps you to process, and digest, thoughts and feelings, and be able to paste them on a blank sheet as something melodic and beautiful, is an amazing art form. I’m talking about writing, not playing music; I play music terribly, however I enjoy music expansively. Gabin (French: [ɡabɛ̃]) is an Italian pop band consisting of Massimo Bottini and Filippo Clary. Their name is a reference to the most popular French actor of the 1930s and 1940s – the antiheroJean Gabin. Learn…
Amazon’s Big Problem with Kindle Print Books. Are You Affected?
Still Twitchy After All This Time! What used to be a streamlined process of publishing a print book with Createspace, has become somewhat of a debacle with Kindle Print Publishing. Many people, going back as far as the start of 2017, long before the merger, found that their print editions would stall right at the Online Previewer stage. The process would hang until an error popped up, offering no clue as to the problem. I have just experienced that SAME error with a client book. It uploads fine, passes the auto checks for fonts, pagination, and so on, right up until the previewer is to kick on. Then it just…
🔔 A Killer List of Books You Should Buy for Christmas! 🧞♂️
Books make an affordable, high-quality, and enjoyable gift for Christmas, birthdays, as well as other notable days throughout the year. So let me ask you… “When and what was the last book YOU purchased?” This year, we have offered you many interviews with bestselling, and notable authors, in our magazine, most with a wide selection of titles, as well as authors from ur bookstore selections. For your convenience I am listing some of these authors here, including my own book, Homo Idiotus. Click the link on the author’s name -–– it will take you to their Amazon author page where you can use the “Look Inside” feature to learn more about the…
Another Happy (JS Ririe Books) Winner.
JS Ririe let us know that one of the winners of an autographed Book 1 & 2 of her Indecision’s Flame series emailed her. Amber Homer of Boise, Idaho was one lucky recipient. “I’m so excited I won your books!!! I love reading and I admire those who put their passion on paper. I’ll definitely write a review after I read them,” Homer wrote. She also promised to pass it along to daughters, Makenna & Kaila (pictured). If you have not checked out JS Ririe’s books, you should do so. But you should also join her newsletter mailing list so you can stay up to date on her releases. There are more coming.…
😀 One Happy (Peter James) Book Winner
Steve Cattrell, who won the personalized and autographed hardback of Peter James‘ Absolute Proof, sent us this photo after receiving his copy. We hope he enjoys it, and also wish to thank Peter James for taking the time to do the signing (he was out of the country promoting his new book.) From Peter’s Website: “Absolute Proof is a thriller that grips from the outset but it’s also incredibly thought-provoking, asking some of life’s biggest questions about science and faith, setting big pharma and high church on a collision course that could change the world. I was thrilled when Peter asked me to provide the narration for his latest, most compelling…
Will You Die Before You Are Published, and Does It Matter?
Let’s face it, everyone wants recognition, many want fame and fortune, and a few want power. But for the majority or writers, we write to EXPRESS ourselves––cheaper than therapy, better than solitude––allowing us to find peace in an otherwise conflicted world. Am I wrong? The sad fact is that so many people are writing and submitting that it does, to some degree, mute out your efforts. That is not to say you should give up, but that you should be aware you are a writer-addict in a world filled with writer addicts. But ignore that for now. We all ackowledge that the old axion: “If you build it they will…
URGENT: Authors Need to Read This! Publicists, too!
URGENT: Authors Need to Read This! Publicists, too! As a magazine publisher, one of the biggest problems I encounter during layouts is imagery; specifically the fact that most authors have low-resolution headshots and book cover images, totally unsuited to any print publication. Your print images should be at least 300 dpi to ensure a high quality image. Yes, they look great on the computer screen or smartphone or Website, BUT these pictures are low resolution, often smaller sized images at 72 dpi. DPI means dots per inch. On a small monitor, 72 dots in the space of one inch is not bad. And images sized to fit on the screen…
Print/Digital Royalties and the New Kindle Print Process Pricing
Createspace has started phasing out of the self-publishing business, shifting to the Kindle Direct arm of the business, and in the process, changing up the costs and royalties involved. With some variations for book sizing, the calculations for deciding how to price and what you will get as a royalty are based on a formula. The royalty rate is a fixed 60% for standard, and 40% for expanded distribution. But that is, of course, not including deducting for the cost. Calculating the cost is straightforward: A flat $0.85 fixed cost is added to (page count x $0.012). For a 350 page book the cost would be $0.85 + (350 x…
The Scam of the Bestseller List
Have you ever wondered how one gets on the bestseller list, whether the New York Times, USA Today or even the Amazon list? Simply put — every bestseller list is a lie because no bestseller list measures the best selling books. Let me repeat that, so you can grasp the gravity of what it means. No bestseller list measures the actual best selling books. Tucker Max, co-founder of Book in a Box has a lot to say on the subject. In his editorial in Entrepreneur Magazine, he details all the reasons why you should avoid the goal of these lists. Read it at https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/280520 Thoughts? I wonder whether authors on the bestseller lists…
An Author Challenge From A Bestselling Author! Is This Right For You?
A LIFE-CHANGING CHALLENGE! Bestselling Indie author, Mike Wells, has a challenge for authors who have completed a novel in any genre (as long as it has a strong suspense element – romantic suspense, sci-fi suspense, espionage, international crime, mysteries/detective, etc.) The challenge is finding an author compatible with Mike’s style, someone who would like to co-author their work with Mike, using Mike’s branding; massive exposure, high-selling, and his bestselling status. “It’s very difficult to find a good match and we (my wife, who’s a fantastic story editor) wind up having to say no to about 95% of the writers who show interest,” Mike says. “The book you submit should already…
Writers: Join our Facebook Group and Promote Yourself!
Writers: we are happy to promote your work. We know how tough it is to get traction, to reach an audience, to interact with readers, and more. And so our group WELCOMES you. Our Facebook group is attached to our Facebook page, boasting about 3K followers, our Twitter pages boasting a collective $4.5K followers, our Website with a large daily traffic flow. https://www.facebook.com/groups/BooksNPiecesMagazine <<<< It’s worth YOUR support and will allow you to promote your work, interact with followers, and gain lots of new friends. Come join the fun. We’ll treat you kindly! ~WG
Should Authors, Actors, Artists etc, Keep Their Politics Out of Their Art?
Editorial: It’s a disturbing trend. Everywhere you look, actors, authors, anyone with a degree of visibility, all seem to favor pushing their political views to their audience, over the content for which the viewer came. You cannot escape it. Actors are the most vocal, however recently, browsing through some books I was interested in reading, I picked up a copy of a bestselling author (name withheld) and considered purchasing it. When I flipped through to the back, to the acknowledgements, I could not help but see the authors commentary on the 2016 elections and how he would find a bunker were 2017 no better. It went on from there. I…
Meet the Famous Writer – George Washington – Yes THAT George Washington
Here’s a writer you should recognize – George Washington. Yes, THAT George Washington. Aside from being a prolific writer of letters, all of which you can read on this site, the first President of the United States was also one helluva dancer. He is well known for dancing through the night, and was quite sought after. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/washington-the-writings-of-george-washington-vol-xiv-1798-1799 Enjoy.
A WARNING TO WRITERS AND A SOLUTION
Are you looking for a publisher to help get your book ready? Cover, edits, proofing, layout, uploading, marketing…these are all aspects involved. And there are many publishing companies willing to help you. You may have seen a few on television commercials, some with a religious element, others just a lot of empty promises. So how can you tell? DANGER, WILL ROBINSON! I’ve been a writer and a publisher for many years. I’ve seen many companies come and go, offering all elements for a fee, or sharing the royalty you make. Deciding on a company is easy; if they charge you anything, run as fast as you can! But be warned,…
Notebooks, Apps, Programs and How You Prep to Write
If you’ve spent any time reading up on other writers and how they manage their work, you probably have an idea of how to arrange, organize, manage the elements that are involved. Certainly, it is easier to manage a short story––although it is more difficult to write a good short story than a novel––than it is to manage the elements of a novel. You might write a short story quite quickly, a short enough time period to be able to remember all the parts in your head; however, a novel, which extends over vast pages and time frames, character arcs and so on, it is easy to get lost. A…
Writers-Submit Your Stories
BNP Magazine is accepting short stories for possible publication in Books ‘N Pieces Magazine. Payment on publication. Click the SUBMIT tab for more information.
Your Short Story is Rejected. Now What?
Your Short Story is Rejected. Now What? I get many short stories submitted each month. Sadly, most are not at a stage where I can publish them. For many authors, short stories appear to be the easiest form of writing; short, easy to finish. This is deceptive; a good short story is much harder to write than a novel. A novel offers anywhere from 250-500 pages to develop characters, flesh out the details of scenes, include descriptive, yet non-essential narrative to fully flesh out the world in which the story takes place. You also have the luxury of slower pacing. For a short story to work, the writing needs…
It’s 2018. Do you know where you will get published yet?
Welcome to a new year, already slipping by faster than the last. They say that as you get older time becomes your mortal enemy, losing more of yourself to the past, and less to the potential of the future. I’d like to think that on some quantum writer scale, time never ends; merely convolutes into new experiences, seamlessly joining one life to another life without fanfare. That is, if you believe that the purpose of existence is to experience rather than to just exist. As a writer, I think back to my youth. No cares about time back then; simply cares about gratification, evolution to a more mature shell of…
The Quest for Relevancy in the Meaning of Life: Too Many Fish in a Small Pond
Let’s face it; there are just too many people in the world, all vying for attention, whether for personal gratification, professional goals, sales, or just to remain relevant. These days, with a global attention span that barely exists (aside from endless repetition of social media posts) we find ourselves struggling for identity. Sure, the big names among us can sit back and enjoy the recognition having passed through the swamp and up into the blue sky where the air is cleaner and there are fewer fish. And in this quest, whether political, literary, artistic, lack of relevance is akin to a death sentence; obscurity after a time of prominence. How…
Petering Out? It’s All About Time.
Do you find your initial surge of creative brilliance petering out midway through a story, novel, or whatever you may be doing? Do you stop, cast doubt upon the worth of your work, vacillate between continuing or abandoning your project? Perhaps, you might tell yourself, you just need a break for a bit, you know, to allow the creative “juices” to flow again. So you put the work aside and find a distraction to help you clear the stagnancy, in the hope that you will return to finish. But you never finish. The manuscript sits hidden, a potential unrealized, list to your lack of conviction, discipline, or even the available…
