books Archives - Page 7 of 10

Murder in Ocean Hall – Free for Black Friday!

Murder in Ocean Hall is free for Black Friday! Normally $2.99, I’ve marked the price of the Kindle edition of my first novel down to zero.

In this murder mystery, the world’s most famous oceanographer is killed – when a whale falls from the ceiling of the Natural History Museum and crushes him. Suspects are many and it’s up to a cynical detective to solve the case. Murder in Ocean Hall draws upon my knowledge of DC beyond the monuments. Along the way, you’ll learn about the fascinating history of the city and why it works – or doesn’t.

It’s a fun, quick read that has received five-star reviews on Amazon. Download it today!

Find Small Business Success with The Pumpkin Plan

Around this time each year, you’ll see a news story about a farmer with a record-sized pumpkin, one much bigger than anything grown by his neighbors. How did he do it? How did he find success in the pumpkin patch?

He did it by nurturing his best pumpkin, a principle that can be applied to any small business. That’s the message of The Pumpkin Plan, a new book by Mike Michalowicz.

To make your business thrive, you must weed your garden, like a good farmer. This means removing the pumpkins that are too small or not worth your time, so as to focus on the one great gourd that can grow bigger than all the others.

In other words, the Pareto Principle. 80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients. The key to growth is to focus on the most profitable activities of your business.

(I satirize this idea in my novel Don’t Mess Up My Block, where my narrator chooses to eliminate all distractions – even family – to concentrate on getting rich.)

The most interesting section of The Pumpkin Plan is where Michalowicz talks about failure. So many entrepreneurial titles gloss over the hard work of building a business – yet, this is the norm. Each year Americans start one million new businesses, nearly 80 percent of which fail within the first five years. Michalowicz frankly discusses how his company was eating him alive, consuming every waking hour and ruining his family life. Only by concentrating on what he did best was he able to escape this trap. He learned to weed out the activities that weren’t worth his time so as to focus on his best customers.

Michalowicz is a serial entrepreneur who started his first business at the age of 24, moving his young family to the only safe place he could afford – a retirement building. With limited resources and no experience, he systematically bootstrapped a multi-million dollar technology business, sleeping in conference rooms to avoid hotel costs. After selling his first company, Mike launched a new business the very next day, and in less than three years, sold it to a Fortune 500 company. In the Pumpkin Plan, he describes his life story as well as the stories of similar entrepreneurs.

This is not a book of theory. It’s chock-full of real-world examples from people who have had to sell products, make payroll and keep themselves sane. Chapters expand on the Pumpkin Plan concept, with checklists on how to discover what you do best and how to get back on track if you stray.

What’s your Great Pumpkin? This Halloween, find out with The Pumpkin Plan.

Amazon Prime Members: Use Your Free Kindle Borrow

If you have Amazon Prime, you get to borrow a Kindle book each month from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.

Don’t let your September borrow go to waste! You have just a couple days left to use it. Both of my books are available for FREE through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library

Don’t Mess Up My Block

Can you fake it til you make it?

Don’t Mess Up My Block is a parody of self-help books. This funny and cynical tale follows the adventures of Laurent Christ, a man who pursues self-improvement to its logical conclusion – he reinvents himself with a brand-new name and history. He drops a hundred pounds, shaves his head and goes on the road as a management consultant.

Everywhere he goes, comic disaster follows as companies follow his glib counsel.

cover of Murder in Ocean Hall

Murder in Ocean Hall

When the world’s most famous explorer is murdered at the Smithsonian, it’s up to a cynical Washington detective to solve the case.

Bob Fundwell dies in the Smithsonian’s Ocean Hall when the life-size replica of a whale falls from the ceiling and crushes him.

Murder in Ocean Hall is inspired by true events, including the real-life controversy over the discovery of the Titanic, as well as my two decades in Washington, DC. This fact-based murder mystery takes you behind the scenes of our nation’s dysfunctional capital, revealing the real city beyond the monuments.

Borrow one now and the other in October, when you can borrow another Kindle title!

I Was a Game of Thrones Skeptic

I was a Game of Thrones skeptic. When I heard George R.R. Martin described as an “American Tolkien”, I scoffed. This struck me as heresy. Lord of the Rings is one of my favorite books of all time. How could some contemporary American author match the artistry of the Oxford-educated Tolkien, a master of linguistics, a scarred veteran of World War I and a brilliant stylist?

And the HBO series didn’t help. While I still haven’t seen it (I don’t have the cable channel), the swords and sorcery epic seemed more about sexposition than anything else.

Seeing all the Game of Thrones books in the book store, so many of them and with tiny print on cheap pages, made me recoil. The books looked too long and too pulpy.

What changed my mind? Reading the first book – A Game of Thrones.

While I don’t think he’s an American Tolkien, he’s a good storyteller, capable of propelling a plot over thousands of pages. So many characters – it really changed my mind about how much readers can absorb and remember. The first fantasy novel I’ve picked up in a couple of decades, A Game of Thrones is good, dirty fun, filled with sex and violence of all kinds.

What makes his authorial vision unique:

Amorality – There’s no divinity guiding the characters, no Valar or Gandalf pushing the world toward good. No selfless men like Aragorn. The characters in Game of Thrones are just like us, with our desires for sex and violence. People who are too noble end up being killed while the most intriguing characters (Tyrion) are a mix of good and bad.

Plotting – Martin should write a book on plot. The action starts immediately, from the first page. Characters are placed in real peril and forced to make life and death decisions. There are consequences to what they do – nothing can be undone. Rarely do white knights arrive to rescue people and, if they do, it usually leads to greater peril. Martin cleverly alternates perspectives, challenging readers to keep pace with his breakneck story.

Game of Thrones is a tale for our times, for the readers of today. I wouldn’t call George R. R. Martin an American Tolkien. I’d call him a modern one.

The $100 Startup – Chapter Three: Follow Your Passion… Maybe

Some books deserve a closer read. One of these is The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau.

I’m a writer. I’ve written screenplays, short stories and even several novels. Writing and (more recently) photography are my passions. I’ve followed my muse, as much as I could afford to.

But make a living at my passions? I had the dream of being a Hollywood screenwriter until I actually visited LA. And I’d love a book deal but the publishing world is in disarray these days. And the dream of being a professional photographer is undermined by countless photographers (including, at times, me) willing to work for free.

Besides, I really do like working on web sites. I love the immediacy and creativity of web publishing.

The idea that there must be some way to combine my writing, photography and web skills into some sort of coherent business is why I bought The $100 Startup.

In chapter three, Guillebeau addresses the artist within all of us, the countless people who have wanted to turn their hobbies into money-making operations.

The key is to find the overlap between your passion and the what people will pay for. He puts it in this somewhat clunky formula:

(Passion + skill) -> (problem + marketplace) = opportunity.

The best example comes from Guillebeau’s own life. I first started reading his blog during his quest to visit every country in the world. Did he get paid for this? No. He gets paid through related services, like his books and guides. As Guillebeau expains:

…you don’t get paid for your hobby itself; you get paid for helping other people pursue the hobby or something indirectly related to it.

Another example is Benny Lewis. He loved learning new languages and discovered that total immersion was key to picking up a new tongue. He learned seven languages in just two years. Pushed by his friends, he developed Speak from Day One (check out the insane video).

But how do you determine what the market will pay for? A tough question, but Guillebeau offers a checklist. You need a hobby that you’re passionate about. And have other people asked you for help with this hobby? Are they willing to pay for your expertise? These questions will be explored in greater detail in chapter six.

Remember, too, the admonition from chapter two that business success comes from helping people. So, how do you use your skills in a way that helps people?

This chapter has a lot of relevance for artists and other creative types. Not everyone wants to turn their art into a business, however. It’s one thing to take photos that you enjoy; quite another to try to sell them at a farmer’s market. Guillebeau underestimates the difficulties people may have in exposing their art to the cruelties of the marketplace.

If you decide to turn your passion into a business, choose wisely and have a thick skin.

Local Examples

I have a couple of inspiring examples of my own, people I know in Washington who have turned their passion into businesses.

Jon Gann created the DC Shorts Film Festival, with a desire to put on a show. Now in its ninth year, it was named as “one of 25 festivals worth an entry fee” by Moviemaker Magazine. Jon created DC Shorts because he believed that filmmakers deserved to be treated better.
Everyone loves stories about ex-lawyers doing something other than law, like Philippa Hughes of the Pink Line Project, a local web site covering the arts.
Julianne Brienza has the occasionally impossible task of running the Capital Fringe Festival every year. This Montanan has successfully brought oddball theater to serious Washington.

Full disclosure: I’ve worked with all of these people and they’re all awesome.

Bonus

Artists are at war with themselves. Creating art is making something imperfect, that’s not going to match the perfect vision in your head. On Writer’s Block is an excellent little book on overcoming this hurdle as is Do The Work.

Reading this chapter, I was reminded of Do What You Love and The Money Will Follow. Sounds like flippant advice in these dour economic times but the book’s message is that what you’re passionate about, you will do better than anyone else.

A nice companion to this chapter would be The Art of Possibility. It’s a beautiful little book about envisioning your future.

The $100 Startup – Chapter One: Unexpected Entrepreneurs

Some books deserve a closer read. One of these is The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau.

I’ve been a fan of Chris for years, being an avid reader of his popular blog and his earlier book, The Art of Noncomformity. He writes about escaping from cubicle nation and leading the kind of life that you want – a heady dream in this time of chronic recession.

What makes him different from a hundred other authors selling this idea?

Practical – He is one of the best writers on the practical details of being a freelancer or running a small business. In his books and blogs, he writes about the sometimes painful aspects of running a business, from getting publicity to organizing a product launch.

Realistic – Chris does not promise to make you rich. His work is filled with examples of everyday folks who have managed to improve their lives. The $100 Startup includes stories of real businesses, with dollar figures attached to them. Some are impressive, but others are quite modest.

Honest – I distrust books which only talk about success. Chris is honest about what’s worked and not worked in his entrepreneurial journey. The $100 Startup contains stories of disaster, as well as triumph.

But enough about Chris. What does his book say?

Chapter One: Renaissance

This first chapter sets the stage. It begins with a sadly typical story – a veteran sales professional gets unexpectedly laid off. What happens next is like a quirky episode of Portlandia. This salesman goes into the bedding business, and pioneers the industry’s first-ever mattress delivery by bicycle.

This story (and related case studies) introduce the idea of micro-entrepreneurship, an idea which has been around for centuries. These are one-person businesses. And they can be setup for less than $100. (The $100 figure is a bit arbitrary. Some of the businesses discussed in the book cost more, some less, but the point is that you can set up a business no matter how little money you have.)

The best part of The $100 Startup is that it is grounded in real stories. These case studies come from Guillebeau’s study of “unconventional, accidental entrepreneurs.” His subjects were interviewed and required to submit financial data. For the book, he profiles a wide range of “microbusinesses” that are successful and low-cost.

They were also created by people who decided to follow their passion. But they did more than just that – they found the sweet spot between what they were interested in and what the market will pay for. These businesses build upon skills that people already have. This is illustrated by the wonderful example of Scott Adams. He took his modest art skills, sense of humor and business experience to create Dilbert.

The basics of business are very simple, according to Guillebeau:

Product or service: what you sell.
People willing to pay for it: your customers.
A way to get paid: how you’ll exchange a product or service for money.

This, of course, is the hard part and where most business books falter. They say “you can change the world!” but skip over the bothersome details. The rest of The $100 Startup will closely examine these three concepts, down to the dollar figures of other microbusinesses.

The chapter ends with a touch of the quaint – James Kirk (really?) leaving his IT job and crossing the country to start Jamestown Coffee in South Carolina. His quote makes a nice coda to the chapter:

There was one moment very early when I realized, this is what I want to do, and this is what I am going to do. And that was that. Decision made. I’ll figure the rest out.

This theme of action bias is a constant one in Chris’s writing, the idea that it’s better to take action today rather than defer your dreams endlessly.

Summary

In this first chapter, Chris has explained the idea of microbusiness, teasing the case studies of ordinary people that he’ll examine in greater detail in the rest of the book. These inspiring tales of doing what you love are grounded in the reality of finding something fun that people will actually pay for. And owning a quaint coffee shop is the perfect story to close with, since it personifies the American Dream, 2012 edition.

Check out the video trailer for the book for more inspiration and to see what a yarn entrepreneur looks like.

Next Up: Chapter Two – Give Them The Fish, or the surprisingly uncommon idea that business should meet the needs of consumers.

Don't Mess Up My Block – Free Thru Memorial Day!

Don’t Mess Up My Block is free through Memorial Day! Normally $2.99, I’ve marked the price of the Kindle edition of my funny novel down to zero. Download it today!

Even if you don’t have an Amazon e-reader, you can still read the book through the Kindle app on your Mac, PC, iPhone or iPad.

Don’t Mess Up My Block

The secret to success is to not let other people “mess up your block.”

Or at least that’s what Laurent Christ thinks, in this satiric novel disguised as a self-help book.

Laurent comes from North Dakota, like Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby. He thinks his teachers got it all wrong – Gatsby is a hero.

And like a modern-day Gatsby, he reinvents himself with a new name and history. Laurent drops a hundred pounds, shaves his head and goes on the road as a management consultant, providing advice to corporations around the county. Everywhere he goes, comic disaster follows as companies follow his glib counsel.

But failure is not going to stop him. One man and a story – that’s all you need to make it in America.

As a management expert, he’s inevitably drawn to Washington, DC. But even he is appalled by the intransigent bureaucracy he finds in the city. Maybe he’s been wrong about everything. Maybe you need more than a catchphrase to find success in this country.

Laurent tells the sprawling story of his life in Don’t Mess Up My Block, a novel that examines the American faith in gurus and easy solutions. It’s a satire that takes aim at the times we live in, skewering incompetent bureaucrats, greedy consultants, social media experts and Baby Boomers everywhere.

Don’t Mess Up My Block is a fast, funny read and one that’s perfect for your weekend beach trip. And it’s free!

The Getaway Car: Practical Writing Advice from Ann Patchett

UPDATE: The Getaway Car is no longer on Amazon! If it returns, I will update this page.

Ann Patchett provides practical advice on writing in The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life.

I’ve written four books, numerous short stories and several screenplays. The questions I get most about writing are the practical ones. What do you write with? Where do you write? How do you find time to write?

Answers to these questions are supplied by novelist Ann Patchett in The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life. It’s like a FAQ for aspiring writers.

Writing is a Habit

Do you need to get an MFA in Creative Writing? Not if it means going into debt, according the prudent Patchett.

Should you turn your desk away from the window, to avoid distractions? “Desk positioning does not a real writer make,” according to the author.

Are you really a writer? Spend one hour a day for thirty days writing to find out. Sit down and do the work. You’ll be amazed at how much you can accomplish.

She also believes that writer’s block is a myth. If you were stumped by a complicated math problem, do you have math block? No, you’re still working on the problem, even if you have no evident progress.

Writing is Craft

Patchett also punctures the idea that “everyone has a great novel in them.” Would you say that everyone has a five-minute mile in them? Writing is a craft that must be learned.

Her description of plot is the best I’ve ever read:

The plot of a novel should be like walking down a busy city street: First there are all the other people around you, the dog walkers and the skateboarders, the couples fighting, the construction guys swearing and shouting, the pretty girl on teetering heels who causes those construction guys to turn around for a split second of silence. There are drivers hitting the brakes, diving birds slicing between buildings, and the suddenly ominous clouds banking to the west. All manner of action and movement is rushing towards you and away. But that isn’t enough. You should also have the storefronts at street level and the twenty stories of apartments full of people and their babies and their dreams. Below the street, there should be infrastructure: water, sewer, electricity. Maybe there’s a subway down there as well, and it’s full of people.

This rang true with me. A novel can’t be just about one thing. All your characters, even the most minor ones, are heading somewhere, pursuing their own destinies. They exist in a dynamic world and, if it’s a good novel, are worthy of stories of their own.

The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life is a Kindle Single. It’s a slim volume but at $2.99 is a bargain for anyone seeking answers on the craft of writing and the realities of the writing life.

Chat with Me on May 12 About Murder In Ocean Hall

Join me on May 12 at 3 PM for an online chat about my novel Murder in Ocean Hall. My mystery about the murder of the world’s most famous ocean explorer is the first book club selection of the Independent Author Index. This new site is a place where “readers meet authors” and is a good example of how communities are forming online to discuss books.

Looking forward to answering questions on May 12!

Borrow My Books and Keep Me in Beer Money

There’s a reason why Amazon is such a titan in the e-book world – it delivers income to writers. It does so seamlessly, easily and without authors having to do anything. You don’t have to hound publishers for checks or wait for the results of some sort of mysterious accounting process.

Amazon posts sales results weekly. For me, it’s just beer money, as I watch my two novels sell in dribs and drabs. Still, it’s something. My work is getting out there and I’m making some cash, even if it’s not going to get me more than a six-pack or two.

And the company constantly innovates, like with their Amazon Prime program. Among other benefits, you can borrow select e-books for free. And authors get a share of a pool of money set aside for the program. In March, it was $600,000!

Each time one of my Kindle titles got borrowed last month, I received $2.18, according to the Amazon press release. That’s a nice royalty, considering one of my novels is 99 cents and the other is $2.99.

So if you’re an Amazon Prime member, borrow my books please! You don’t need a Kindle either. There are Kindle apps for the iPad, iPhone, Mac and PC.

Murder in Ocean Hall is a great read if you like mysteries set in DC. A reviewer wrote that it will take you behind the scenes of the city and show you how things work – or don’t work. It’s a mystery novel written by someone who actually lives in Washington and knows the neighborhoods beyond the monuments.

Looking for something fast and fun? Then check out Don’t Mess Up My Block, a satire of the self-help biz. Follow the adventures of Laurent Christ as he pursues success across an American landscape littered with greedy consultants, social media frauds and incompetent bureaucrats.

Check them out! And remember, borrowing my books will keep me in beer, an essential element of my creative process 😉