Authors Electric

'Write about what you know' is still common advice for beginning authors. When I heard that way back in my pre-publication days, my first thought was: 'well, that's going to make a boring book!' I was still in my 20s at the time and actually knew very little, so I plunged headfirst into the fantasy and science fiction genre, deliberately writing about what I didn't know (and really couldn't be expected to know much about) since I was inventing entire worlds and travelling to distant planets. Much easier, and less chance of getting found out with some glaring error that would make wiser readers who did know laugh behind my back... or, more likely these days, in a scathing online review. Or so I thought. I soon discovered inventing fantasy worlds is just as difficult as learning about our existing world, since even magic needs some rules otherwise the whole plot just collapses. All the same, it was rather fun creating them. After experimenting with short genr...

Last month , I began my list of notable self-published books. These books, though, are not in any particular order (well other than the order in which I read them). Before I talk about this month's selection, however, I want to talk a bit about my method of finding these books. I know quite a few authors of self-published books, and they're all really good, a few may even make this list, but I wanted to focus more on writers I had not read before. The point of this list is, after all, to get more self-published authors as much exposure to new readers.  It is surprisingly hard to find self-published books by new authors, though, since one of the biggest drawbacks to self- or small-press publishing is the lack of promotional funds. However, thanks to social media promotions, which are not nearly as expensive as you might think, I found it fairly easy to discover new writers just by browsing my Facebook news feed. In fact, over half of the novels I'll be discussin...

I have met a lot of writers. Like real, published-by-big-houses, award-winning, best-selling novelists. Writers you know, writers that your kids have tests on, and writers that your kids read to avoid studying for tests on the writers your kids have tests on. Writers with Wikipedia pages I once had dinner with Joseph Heller because I told him at a signing that I was writing my Master's thesis on his work. I had to explain to Kurt Vonnegut at the same dinner that no, it wasn't because  Slaughterhouse-Five wasn't good enough for me. I didn't have a camera, so this picture of them with their wives (from an entirely unrelated event) will have to suffice. I used to play D&D with a World Fantasy and Bram Stoker Award winner. I correspond regularly with another Bram Stoker Award winner. I've eaten several lunches with T.E.D. Klein . I used to work with the guy who wrote the Wishbone books . I am also good friends with both Kelley Wilde and our own Reb MacR...