Did you know today is National Author’s Day?* Not many people do. How to celebrate? Well…um…how about…kiss an author today!
Speaking of authors, I guess I am one now. Officially. Mostly. Sort of. Apparently enough of one that my ideas have already been lifted. As usual when being co-opted, I feel a mix of amusement and anger. This time I also feel a touch of envy.
I heard about Squidoo over a month ago; closer to two months, actually. I checked out the site and decided it looked like too much work. Later, I decided it wasn’t too much work, but I didn’t have anything written down.
Yesterday afternoon I decided to just go for it. So here’s my Squidoo lens, with more lenses planned. To find out more about Squidoo, click here (this is a PDF).
It took me four painstaking hours to come up with that little bit of text. But now that I’ve done it, I can do it again! It’s not that it’s fun, but it’s sort of like creating an instant Web site without all the coding. I can think of all sorts of topics I want to Squidoo about (I don’t know what the actual verb would be).
I haven’t played much with this Web 2.0 stuff (beyond blogging) but this first experience was great. Next time, I hope I can get my lens up in just a couple hours.
If anyone else has created a Squidoo lens, let me know!
In a recent Newsweek bit, a very enterprising fiction author is promoting his book by joining book clubs and discussing his work. He’s become so popular that book clubs are now booking him to appear and talk. I assume his sales are up too.
That’s a smart guy.
But what about non-fiction authors, particularly those with controversial subject matter or languishing sales? There’s only one way to promote such a book: think big.
Something old, something new, lots of borrowed. Scattered and untimely random thoughts.
One night I made my usual illegal U-turn onto Northwest Highway after 2:30am. It was a weeknight. I was tired, probably a bit liquored up and ready to head home. A girl in a beat up red car (Ford or Buick or something) pulled up next to me and motioned at me. She looked normal and there was no one in the car with her. I pulled into an empty restaurant parking lot and she pulled next to me. I thought she might’ve been a lost dancer or drunker than me. Since I had a cell phone (a different one which I knew how to operate) I was ready to call the police if she was in trouble.