I just finished reading Dierdre Madden’s Authenticity , which explores some topics that have been very much on my mind lately. The book looks at the lives of four artists in Dublin, around the year 2000. Roderic Kennedy is a successful painter in his late forties. “Successful” here means he’s able to practice his art full-time, keep a studio, and not starve. He has a little reputation and some respect among the local critics and patrons.

His brother, Dennis, has an artistic soul, which is to say, he’s sensitive and unusually attuned to and appreciative of beauty. He learned early on that he didn’t quite have the talent to fulfill his dream as a concert pianist, so he chose a career in a bank that would offer him a stable life.

Thanks to Bryan Cyr at Everything Noir for posting a review of my book!

I got an email from a fellow author who is considering raising the price of his Amazon Kindle title. At $2.99, his e-book is so much cheaper than his paperback that people aren’t buying the paperback.

I’ve seen this same phenomenon with my book . The electronic version sells about 10 times as many copies as the paperback. Amazon’s more voracious readers tend to go for e-books, because they consume so many of them. When self-published authors advertise through any of the promo sites that send out email blasts to their subscribers, we’re reaching mostly those voracious Kindle readers.

This is one of the best novels I’ve ever read. Williams’ writing and insight are far above most of the writers we praise today. He is consistently deep and clear, driving directly to the heart of meaning. When I find books like this–and there are few in the world–it makes me wonder why so many people bother reading all the crap that’s out there. In fact, I had a hard time reading anything for several weeks after finishing this book, because everything else seemed so poor by comparison.

I’ve read a number of Coetzee’s books, and this one is my favorite. It’s been a few years since I read it, but it made quite an impact. It’s not quite as dark as Disgrace. I haven’t read every book out there, but among the ones I’ve read, this and John Williams’ Stoner are the two best novels of the late 20th century.

Years ago, I wrote a story that included one character who was crass, uncouth, racist and sexist. He was a minor character, making one brief appearance.

I finished the first draft of a new book a couple of weeks ago. That means I have a lot of work ahead. My wife, Lindsay , has already started making comps for the cover.

I’ve read a few of Leonard’s books, and this is my favorite so far. This one stands out from the others primarily for its portrait of the protagonist Mitch and his wife, Barbara. Leonard always does a good job of portraying criminals and people whose lives are on the decline. In Mitch and Barbara, he does an exceptional job of portraying two strong, intelligent people determined not to let their lives go down the drain.

I changed the e-book price on Warren Lane from $4.99 to $0.99 on all platforms, from Saturday, Sept. 19 through Sunday, Sept. 27. I posted a link to the book on my Facebook page, and friends shared it. That resulted in 2 sales before the promotional sites started pushing the book on Monday. (Most people in my FB network who wanted the book already had a copy. Hence the low sales.)

The aim of the sale was to increase readership, not to make a profit. I knew I’d be taking a loss here. I spent about $600 to promote through a number of sites, which are listed below. I was going to post the actual sales figures for the book, because I like openness and transparency (I’m an open source developer by day). But I learned that publishing sales numbers violates the terms of service for both Amazon and Kobo. So the most I can do here is talk about how the promotions affected my sales rank.

I’ve been reading Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s Plato at the Googleplex , in which Plato shows up in 21st century America to promote his books and engage in Platonic dialog with contemporary American thinkers, writers, researchers and technologists.

In one of the early chapters, the woman who is escorting Plato through Google headquarters (the Googleplex) mentions to a friend that she has escorted many writers on their book tours, and that “writers are the most insecure people in the world.”