There are things in my personal library that offend me

Red Rising

There is violence in this book. Violence and heart, love and pain. People die terrible deaths. Painful deaths. The info dumping in the first quarter of the book was a bit overwhelming at first, but necessary. I mean, how else are you going to learn the rules of society on Mars? If you can get through that, it is well worth it. I wasn't expecting to find Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Ender's Game, and a gorydamn pound of Greek Mythology woven into one. (I know, that's what all the reviews say, and they're right.) The prose is unique. Entertaining. And now I have to wait until 2015 to read the rest. Bums. I'll start re-reading now.

April is here already!

Time has flown. I can't believe it's April already!

What will be at the book signing?
Paperbacks of all 3 books in The Phoenix Project Series, a few copies of the special Compendium Edition of The Phoenix Project Series, copies of Saratoga (this has been an Amazon Bestseller in it's genre since it's release!) and me and my sharpie!

Breakroom wisdom

This almost happened last week

;)

Comparing Books and Music

I've been waiting for someone to post on this! 

Comparing Books and Music - Books & Such Literary Management : Books & Such Literary Management

And while Rachelle has some good points of how Books and Music differ. I find it hard to ignore the similarities between Indie Authors and Indie Musicians and Indie Filmmakers, and that is reaching out, grassroots, connecting with your fans, making appearances where people can actually shake your hand and not gaze at you from afar, and building a fan base from the bottom up instead of advertising convincing you that thisperson is the next best thing.

I don't want to talk about the monetary differences. Because at the end of the day, money doesn't mean much. You can't take it with you when you die and it's not going to make you happy. Some of the best times of my life were when I was so poor I could only afford a head of iceberg lettuce and a package of ham each week for groceries. If you're writing for money, if your playing for money, your in the business for the wrong reasons.  We do this because we love it. We hire editors and book cover artists to create a unique reading experience because we love writing and the process of putting a book together. (And I don't mean one ridden with errors, read the preview on amazon, you can usually tell if you're interested in the book and its quality before purchasing.)

We don't see Adam Levine slapping the Indie singer/songwriters on their ass with vicious words. He started a TV show for them. The only people I see who mimic this, are the Indie authors who made it big and haven't forgotten where they started.

Image via http://strugglingmuso.wordpress.com/category/comic-strip/page/2/