Watch this incredible impressionist perform Shakespeare in celebrity voices.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8PGBnNmPgk
The Bestseller Code: Decoded
Last week, to great fanfare, a new book analyzing bestselling books hit the market. In my opinion, The Bestseller Code: The Anatomy of the Blockbuster Novel by Jodie Archer and Matthew L. Jockers is intriguing and provocative, but ultimately an exercise in futility. Every author wants a short cut to achieve bestseller success. What if there is an algorithm that, if followed, will produce a …
Fun Fridays – September 23, 2016
For those of you who may not have heard, Karen Ball’s father passed away this past week. She has been providing in-home care for a long time. He was a former pastor and loved the old hymns of the faith. My father passed away four years ago this month. He too loved the old hymns and particularly liked to hear me sing “How Great Thou Art.” The lives of these two fathers are what …
A Call for Entries in the 2017 Edition of The Christian Writers Market Guide
As announced earlier this year, I have taken over the responsibility of publishing The Christian Writers Market Guide. This is a huge undertaking, and I have secured the expertise of Lin Johnson to help compile the information in the next edition. Since it has been almost two years since the last edition, many things have changed. We are reaching out to those who were listed in the last edition to …
The Work of a Cover Designer
We have all heard the phrase “a book is judged by its cover.” And it is true. We all do it. Even when the cover is as small as a postage stamp in an online bookstore. It is the first impression of what’s inside. Rarely will you buy the book after you’ve read it. Instead you make the purchase before reading. What you are buying is the promise of the cover, and the title, and …
Happy 50th Birthday, Star Trek
It was 50 years ago this week that the TV show “Star Trek” made its debut on NBC (September 8, 1966). It lasted for only three years and 79 episodes, but continues to influence our entertainment culture to this day. Did you know who the original producers were? If you guessed Gene Roddenberry you would be half right. The other half of the funding for the show came from Desilu …
Some Industry News – August 2016
Isn’t it a fact of life that when you go on vacation or try to slow down in summer or during the holidays that something is going to happen? Or do your family cars like to get flat tires or let their batteries die while in your driveway? Such was last week. (We had a car battery decide that it needed a permanent vacation while in the driveway the morning I was trying to go to work.) In the …