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Thanks to all the Dead Guys for many entertaining and enlightening blog posts over the years - I'm sure I've read the vast majority of those 3,464 posts!
Hail and Farewell
Jeff Cohen So that was it. We hope you liked it. This is the 3464th post on HEY THERE'S A DEAD GUY IN THE LIVING ROOM, and unless someone else parachutes in and decides to add some thoughts, it is the last. We've had quite a good run here but it's time to shut off the lights and lock the doors b...
Agreed, Erin. I'm glad to hear you've never had security issues. Last year, the company whose security plugin I had been using was itself hacked! So no one is 100% safe...
http://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/security-data-protection/ithemes-plaintext/
An Open Letter to Authors
by Erin Mitchell Having recently completed the re-vamp of the Bouchercon 2015 website (please check it out!), I’m motivated to make this plea… Dear Authors: Yes, my day job is marketing books. When people ask me what I do, I say, “I connect books and readers.” Much of what I do is online, and my...
If you take Kristi's advice and go the WordPress route, I strongly advise hosting it on WordPress.com (you can have your own URL like myname.com forwarded to myname.wordpress.com). The reason is that WordPress and its plugins are CONSTANTLY being updated due to hacking threats, and if you don't stay on top of it, your site can be hacked and blacklisted. I've been working with WordPress for years and I spend WAY too much time dealing with security issues. Hosting at WordPress.com takes a lot of the responsibility off your shoulders.
I will also say that I think SquareSpace sites tend to be a LOT nicer than Wix ones. I'd recommend SquareSpace. They often have free trial offers so you can give it a whirl before shelling out any money.
Also, if you want to quickly/cheaply turn a regular HTML web site into a mobile site: dudamobile.com.
An Open Letter to Authors
by Erin Mitchell Having recently completed the re-vamp of the Bouchercon 2015 website (please check it out!), I’m motivated to make this plea… Dear Authors: Yes, my day job is marketing books. When people ask me what I do, I say, “I connect books and readers.” Much of what I do is online, and my...
I can understand not going if you are charged separately for the banquet, but for conventions where the banquet is part of the registration fee, like Malice and Left Coast Crime? Sorry, I'm too cheap not to take advantage of food I've already paid for, even if it is hotel food (and I'm a vegetarian, so it's probably going to be an uninspiring pasta dish). Plus sometimes you get a killer toastmaster, like Lee Goldberg or Brad Parks.
Skip the Banquet. But Go to the Conference.
Jeff Cohen NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ--This past weekend was spent (after moving Eve into her apartment on 116th St. in East Harlem) at the Deadly Ink mystery conference, the only such gathering in my home state of New Jersey. I was on three panels, saw many good friends, sold a few books, discussed publ...
Bob was on Jimmy Kimmel Live last week, and Jimmy held up the book and there was a close-up shot of the cover. I wish you could go on some national talk shows, but I guess being able to do dramatic science experiments is more enticing than just talking about a book. Still, it was some nice publicity!
10 Is a Magic Number
Today marks the release of my tenth published book (not including the short-story collections and novella I put out myself). You know what that means, right? I have an actual oeuvre! English majors -- feel free to start writing papers about me. (I don't know if 10 books is really the official di...
When I was younger (and less discriminating), I'd often see 100 movies a year in the theater, but now I've turned into one of those boring middle aged people who sees two movies a year. I did see "Gravity." And "Frozen." (Don't judge.) I fall out of the filmgoing habit during the endless summers of superheroes, and then don't bother going back once the "quality" flicks come out in the fall.
Oscar Hopefuls
Jeff Cohen Let's have a brief break from the crime fiction and take stock of another form of entertainment close to my heart. It's film awards season! Everybody who has ever been near a movie set is about to hand out some statuettes in anticipation of the Academy Awards on March 2. And because ...
"But how come when women indulge in the same kind of activity it's 'just in good fun'?" It's all about the power imbalance. Going back to my college women's studies classes here for a sec... Women "lack the institutional power to systematize their prejudice against men." There's a lot of interesting stuff out there on the web on this topic. (For what it's worth, I have never posted a beefcake pic anywhere, but depending on your friends' "brands" - i.e. are they romance writers? - I don't think it's necessarily inappropriate. I could probably come up with circumstances where it would be appropriate for a guy to post sexy photos of girls, for instance, if he was a photographer for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue.)
Sex! Facebook! Other Keywords!
Jeff Cohen Personally, I find social media hilarious. I participate only on Facebook and Twitter, but I do admire the forms. I think the quick movement on Twitter is great for people with fast wit, and the more relaxed, familial style at Facebook leads to some people making statements they would...
And for San Francisco Giants fans:
"When it's time for a change, think Speedy Oil Change and Tune-Up." It's always weird to watch one of the Fox games and NOT hear that when there's a pitching change.
"Grab some pine, meat."
Take Me Out to the Thesaurus
Jeff Cohen Abner Doubleday did not invent the game of baseball. He also did not publish books. That was Frank Doubleday. I know; you're surprised. But on a recent trip (immediately post-storm, when refugees were leaving New Jersey to find electrical power) to Gettysburg, PA, it was revealed to...
As I argued in this space a few weeks ago, the reason ebooks should be cheaper (I'd say 1/2 the cover price of a regular book) is because you don't actually "buy" them -- you license them. You download a file and the seller determines what you can do with it. I purchased an ebook copy of "Gone Girl," and when someone asked to borrow it, I had to say, "Sorry -- I can't do that, I'd have to let you borrow my e-reader" (I'm obviously not that good a friend!). If I buy a hardcover, I can turn it into a coaster, use it to build a fort, regift it, donate it to Friends of the Library, etc. If I buy an ebook, it sits in my e-reader, and that's it.
EBook pricing and other myths
Lynne Patrick I wasn’t really in publishing long enough to become fluent in the language; I just picked up a smattering here and there, enough to kid myself, and occasionally other people, that I knew what I was talking about. So when I read about the current developments and disputes in the trad...
I haven't started reading the actual book yet, but the copyright pages in the front matter made me laugh out loud. That's a first!
My New Book Is FREE!!!
You have to do strange things to sell ebooks. One of them, apparently, is give scads of the danged things away. It's counterintuitive, I know. Imagine someone going up to Henry Ford and saying, "It'll tell you how to sell bunches and bunches of Model Ts, Mr. F. Don't charge any money for 'em!" F...
While we're sharing Groucho clips... he duetted on Gilbert & Sullivan's "Beauty in the Bellow of the Blast" with his young daughter Melinda. If you know "The Mikado" at all, the idea of a tiny girl singing Katisha is pretty hilarious. She's supposed to be old, and therefore unattractive. (See how far we haven't come since "The Mikado" was written in the 1880s?) Anyway, Melinda is just ADORABLE. http://youtu.be/Jt9a4Dt8U9g
A Writer's Evil Thoughts *Except Julia Spencer-Fleming
Jeff Cohen What a Crime Fiction Writer* Thinks When... Another author is given a huge advance on a new book: My book's as good as that one. (It must be my agent's fault.) The Edgar nominations come out, and the author's work is not among them: This thing is so political. The Edgar nominations...
Janet, I agree... real books are still the best!
Are There E-Books in Heaven?
Sue Trowbridge, filling in for Erin What happens to your ebooks after you die? To be honest, that question had never occurred to me until I read this article from the New York Times, in which Kyle Jarrard asks Amazon.com’s customer service what will become of his digital library once he’s passed...
I belong to a mystery book group that meets every Tuesday night (we do break for 3 months in the summer and around the holidays). It sounds crazy, but it's been going strong since the 1970s. I joined 10 years ago and we have a core of 10-12 regulars who come every week. It's a huge commitment of time, and not everyone can read a book a week, but I enjoy it so much that I've stuck with it. I suspect my group is an outlier in the book-club world, though.
Book club mistakes to avoid
1. Meeting too frequently - Because people who belong to book groups tend to be avid readers, they want to have time to read books of their own choosing, aside from the ones that have been selected for the group. Although I know of groups that meet on a monthly basis, I am much more comforta...
I felt the same way about Sara Henry's 'Learning to Swim,' which is also up for a lot of mystery awards -- even the cover art looks much more like literary fiction than crime. Still, they were both excellent books (and suspenseful -- maybe that's why they're being recognized in the genre?) and if the crime award nominations help them find a readership, so much the better.
Before I go to...
I don’t get jetlag. Correction. I’ve never had jetlag before this year. My journeys across the Atlantic reached double figures some time ago if you count there and back again as two, and aside from a depressed appetite (no bad thing!) and a couple of very early nights at the beginning of each vac...
A few weeks ago, my book group read a multi-award-nominated mystery published by one of the Big Six. The detective enters the murder victim's home to look for clues, and she notes that much has been removed from the apartment, including his refrigerator. A few pages later, she is dusting the refrigerator for fingerprints. The funny thing is that when I pointed out to the savvy readers in my group, no one else had noticed this huge error! Sigh... no wonder self-published authors don't think it's worth paying for an editor, when even the biggies make glaring mistakes.
Old habits die hard 2
Lynne Patrick Sometimes blog posts are a good way to put your thoughts in order on a particular topic. Last week I found I was giving myself a whole list of good reasons for changing my mind about self-publishing. Heck, for a few hours I even found myself considering going down that route with so...
I have a lot of signed books, including quite a few with inscriptions from authors I know personally, which, of course, I treasure. However, if I don't know the author, I would really rather just have a signature. Not because I'm going to sell it on eBay, but "To Sue, from [name]" isn't that meaningful to me.
A few years ago, my husband & I went to a David Sedaris book signing (this was when you could still see him for free at smallish bookstores -- now I think he only speaks at ticketed events in large auditoriums). Sedaris asked us for our names and where we lived (which, at the time, was in Albany, Calif.). I thought he was just making conversation, but he signed, "To Sue & Joe, the whores of Albany. David Sedaris." That's probably the most bizarre signature I ever received!
Sign Language
Jeff Cohen A brief commercial to start: FOR WHOM THE MINIVAN ROLLS, the first Aaron Tucker mystery, is now available for the first time on audiobook! The good folks at BooksInMotion have released MINIVAN unabridged, with a terrific reading by Damon Abdallah. You can download it here or buy a CD ...
I'm relieved that the eminent Neil Plakcy said a kind word about the TV show, because I enjoyed it too -- though perhaps because *my* dog is named Bibi, so the husband & I were joking about "don't trust the Bibi." Is the show destined to be a particular favorite amongst those who own dogs with "B" names? Oddly enough, the word "bitch" is spoken on the show, if not in the title. And at least it's better than "$h@! My Dad Says."
Female Dog. That's It.
Jeff Cohen It absolutely cracks me up that (at least this week) ABC is airing a sitcom called "Don't Trust the B____ in Apt. 23." (That's the real name; I'm not censoring it.) I only saw a minute of the show, and it wasn't funny, but the title is hilarious. Words have never offended me. I can't...
OK, I have a BRILLIANT idea!! Take the money raised by selling the badges and donate it to a literacy nonprofit. I was involved with this year's Left Coast Crime conference and we raised several thousand dollars for the Sacramento Library's adult literacy program. What better way to celebrate our love of reading than to help create new readers?
I will also add that probably some of those non-book readers may be reading other things. My dad, for instance, almost never reads books but he does read 3 newspapers a day and subscribes to several magazines.
Readers, Powerful and Otherwise
by Erin Mitchell On April 4, the Pew Internet & American Life Project released their latest survey, which focuses on e-reading habits, but also contains this little nugget (as reported in the Huffington Post, emphasis added): 19% of respondents aged 16 and over said that they hadn't read a singl...
I concede the rest of your points, but the advantage of Print On Demand technology is that you DON'T need to wind up with boxes and boxes of unsold books -- you can have the books printed one copy at a time if you want.
Some observations about PW Select
PW Select, for those of you not familiar with it, is a quarterly feature within Publisher's Weekly that is devoted to the world of self publishing. Initiated at the end of 2010, I was glad to see that PW was finally going to give some recognition to worthy authors who were, for whateve...
Another example: people who got hooked on "The Number One Ladies' Detective Agency" may now be more willing to check out books by other African authors like Michael Stanley, Deon Meyer or Malla Nunn. And speaking of the Scandinavians, I read recently that almost all the translation work in crime fiction now is one-way -- Swedish/Norwegian/Danish to English -- because most Scandinavians are fluent in English and don't want to wait for books to be translated into their native tongue. Go into any bookshop in Scandinavia and there will be an enormous selection of books in English. Compare that with France, where the average bookshop has not a single book in a language other than French.
Save That Book From Drowning
Marilyn Thiele Before I sat down to write, I read the blog posts from earlier this week. I was going to comment on Erin’s from yesterday, regarding authors from other countries, but decided that what I wanted to say was too long for a comment. I am in full agreement with Erin, but here is a book...
One of my local independent bookstores, Diesel in Oakland, frequently groups books by color -- for instance, yesterday I noticed a big display of books featuring jackets in the exact same shade of blue. It is eye catching, but of course the disadvantage is that the books don't necessarily have anything in common except for the color. (They do have plenty of more conventional displays, like the store's best selling titles.)
Eye Catching
Marilyn Thiele A phone call from the supplier of the book covers I carry in my store led me to today’s thoughts on the many roles a small business owner plays. She asked for the Purchasing Department. When I indicated that she had the right person, she asked if she had also reached Accounting, M...
This post could have used a bit more BSP! Where is your bookstore? I clicked on your photo and the link just goes to an empty placeholder site.
Beginnings
Marilyn Thiele Jeff’s invitation to join “Hey There’s a Dead Guy in the Living Room,” combined with that time of year when we think about where we’ve been and where we’re going, got me thinking about my love of mysteries and my lifelong dream (now fulfilled) of owning a mystery book store. Whe...
I was feeling pretty darn good about having read 67 books in 2011 (exact same number as in 2010) until I saw that Sarah Weinman had Tweeted that she had read "340 books in 2011," and that was "a lot but not as many as in recent years."
Also by the numbers
Last week, I had the misfortune of having to follow Erin's wonderful literary take on The Night Before Christmas and now this week I find myself following beautifully poignant posts by both Erin and Benjamin, two very tough acts to follow. However, I was also inspired by Josh's post...
I'm not Jewish, but since my husband & I are living thousands of miles away from our families, we don't celebrate a "traditional" Christmas. We used to do the movie/Chinese food thing, but we've noticed that the movie theaters are getting more & more crowded on Xmas, and it ain't just Jews. The last straw came a few years ago when we tried going to an early Xmas matinee showing of "Frost/Nixon" and it was sold out. This year, I jokingly suggested that we go to see the early matinee of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," because who else would want to go see a grim Nordic crime drama on Christmas Day? But it wouldn't surprise me if it was packed. Anyway, I can't wait to hear what you & the family wind up seeing. You couldn't drag me to "We Bought A Zoo" or "Tin Tin" (too uncanny valley!), but I do want to catch "The Artist" and "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy."
Herding Cats
Jeff Cohen It's that week again. Every year, my family--that is, myself, my wife, and our children, who are now young adults--look forward to Christmas. This is because it's a day we set aside (you should pardon the expression) religiously for two things: Chinese food and a movie. We're Jews. It...
You know, Jeff, Julia Spencer-Fleming has won ONE Agatha, and Louise Penny has won, like, a half dozen of them. So she might be jealous too. Who wouldn't want a whole shelf full of teapots?!
The Monster Within
Jeff Cohen Halloween! Scary, kids! Actually, I've always considered Halloween as a day to pretend to be someone (or something) else and run around getting free candy. Never really thought of it as frightening in any way. But since it is the day of the year we indulge in camp scares, let's exam...
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