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Self-Publish and Prosper or Mainstream Publish and Perish?

Getting your writing published in book form has long been the penultimate goal of authors across the world.  I’ve made my fair share of money in the publishing marketplace and one thing I can confirm is how much the industry has changed over the last 20 years.

Fifteen years or so ago, you could easily get a $15,000.00USD book royalty advance from a major computer book publisher.  You knew going into the job that, at the end of 90 days, you’d be fifteen large richer.  It was a great way to earn a quick living.  Once you had a book or two, the major computer magazine publishers would come calling, and you could write a 10,000 word essay and make $5,000.00USD for that weekend effort.  It was a rich and rewarding life, but then the chain came off the sprocket with the rise of the interwebs, the internets, the web.  Many book publishers were consolidated with other houses, or entirely demolished in bankruptcy, and all the great computer magazines are as dead now as the tree pulp they were printed on.

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Best of Boles Blogs Volumes 1, 2 and 3 Now Available on Amazon Kindle Direct!

As you may know, over the past few weeks, I have been working on a “Best of…” series for the Boles Blogs Network to give you a way to find our work in the palm of your hand via Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.  You may now read The Best of GO INSIDE Magazine and The Best of Urban Semiotic Volumes 1 and 2 using your Kindle, or smartphone or tablet or desktop — and now, today, you are also able to read three mighty volumes from the rest of the network in Best of Boles Blogs Volume 1, and Volume 2 and Volume 3 — all via Amazon!

Here’s the PR blurp for Volume 1:

Welcome to — “Best of Boles Blogs, Volume 1 (2007-2012)” — where we provide to you a unique, redacted and added value reading experience from the following fine blogs found in the 14-blog strong Boles Blogs Network: WordPunk, Memeingful, Celebrity Semiotic and Panopticonic. Weighing in at over 57,000 words and 155 standard typewritten pages, you are now able to read the keenest, edited, and reconstructed, works of David W. Boles in this exclusive Kindle Direct Publishing edition!

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Following Kurt Vonnegut to Write a Great Story

I love Kurt Vonnegut with a passion of a thousand fires and was devastated when he passed away five years ago. He wrote some of the best short and long fiction that I have ever read including Player Piano as well as some amazing advice for writers, all of which I positively love. One of his best pieces of advice came in the form of eight tips for writers, which I read about once a year to keep it somewhat fresh in my mind.

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Life is Loss: We are Our Deficits

As we continue to mourn the death of Dr. Howard Stein, we are left to ponder the joy of knowing him and, in missing him, we begin the healing process by remembering the important lessons he taught us.

One of the most poignant conversations I had with him in the last few weeks of his life dealt with age and growing older.  Howard reversed an important expectation for me, and I appreciate the reality of that sobering.

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Is Handwriting a Dying Art?

Let me give you a few questions to ponder. When somebody tells you that they want to give you their phone number, do you reach for a pen and paper or do you open your contact list in your phone? If you want to remember an appointment, do you write it down on a calendar with a pen or pencil or do you set up an e-mail reminder? When you have an idea that you don’t want to forget, do you write it down in a journal of some sort or do you digitally record it, perhaps e-mailing it to yourself?

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