UNPUBLISHED! What??? Is that even a thing? It is, as I discovered last Monday when I went to the book page for Never Speak on Amazon. I do it at least once a day to check my sales rank—a shameful practice which I try to justify by knowing that I’m far from alone. When I…
Marketing Your Art is a Special Hell
But only if you think it is. Like many of my stories, this one has a front end (the present) and a back (the past.) I’ll start with the past. 1980 I was living in a fifth floor walkup in the scary northern tip of Manhattan, trying to get someone—anyone!— to pay me to…
The One Indispensable Word of Advice for Writers
Persist. Four years ago, I’d completed two novels in a mystery/thriller series. There was a lot of media buzz about self-publishing, and I was on the fence as to whether to go that way or hold out for a traditional deal. Over the months that I hemmed and hawed over my dilemma, I sensed that…
The Most Gripping Thing I’ve Read in Years
It’s not a book in my preferred mystery/thriller genre, not a book at all, or even short story, but this New Yorker article, about the best-selling author of the mystery/thriller The Woman in the Window. The article is a very long read—12,000 words—but I scarfed it down in one sitting, even though I’d laid down…
Ghost Writer
I hear voices. Scornful voices. In my head. They whisper –“You’re not a real writer.” ”No one’s published your book. You’ve never written for the New York Times or the New Yorker. Real writers…” I do my best to ignore them and keep writing. The same voices used to say, “You’re not a real composer. You’ve never received…
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