Have you ever read a banned or challenged* book? Chances are that if you had a public school education, you’ve already read plenty of them. The Grapes of Wrath? Banned for its religious and labor union references. Brave New World? Banned for references to drug use and sex without benefit of marriage. The Catcher in the Rye? You name it. One of my favorite novels, Lolita, has been on a banned or challenged list pretty much every year since its publication. Continue reading “Celebrate Banned Book Week”
Author: Laurie Boris
Laurie Boris is a freelance writer, editor, proofreader, and former graphic designer. She has been writing fiction for over twenty-five years and is the award-winning author of four novels. She lives in New York’s lovely Hudson Valley. Learn more about Laurie at her website and her Amazon author page.
Getting It Right: It’s Academic
I work a few days a week at a nearby college, mainly plucking typos from website copy and asking people to use consistent written language. Choose the futile metaphor of your choice (affixing gelatin to trees, managing herds of cats) and yeah, sometimes it feels like I do a bit of that, too. It’s also made me ridiculously aware of the academic terminology errors in the novels that I read. For instance: Continue reading “Getting It Right: It’s Academic”
Smashwords Now Offers Preordering, But Is It for You?
When I heard that Kobo was gearing up to let authors upload books on preorder status, I didn’t know that Smashwords would soon be leading the charge on most of its premium channel distributors.
Yes, Mark Coker and company are now offering preorders, but in a public beta test. The big news is that you don’t have to be James Patterson’s staff of assistants or Hugh Howey to make your next book available for preordering. Continue reading “Smashwords Now Offers Preordering, But Is It for You?”
Blogging for Dollars: How to Sell Your Blog on Amazon
You sell your ebooks on Amazon, perhaps, but did you know you could sell subscriptions to your blog there, as well?
That’s one way Barry Parham, award-winning author of humor columns, short stories, and essays, is getting more eyeballs on his work. He started syndicating his weekly humor column, My Weekly Mooncalf, partly through his own blog subscriptions and partly via Kindle downloads from Amazon. “It wasn’t hard to do,” Parham said, “but I did need a quick primer on RSS, and in my case, WordPress.” Continue reading “Blogging for Dollars: How to Sell Your Blog on Amazon”