Book-to-market

Rick Frishman. Pres Planned TV Arts and co author of GUERRILLA MARKETING FOR WRITERS

Reed Floren

It's a sturdy enough tale, but David continues to suffer from the problem of trying to yoke together his idiotic puns with epic grandeur and tragedy. Moreover, he essentially writes two characters: the snarky, amoral, and cowardly anti-hero who flouts all the rules and conventions of his blighted society, and the chowder-headed and brutal muscle-bound thugs that seek to oppress the protagonist. Basically, it seems pretty clear that David was frequently thrashed in high school, and this has shaped his worldview. The strong are morons who delight in violence, so if the weak are to survive, they have to be filled with hate and contempt towards all and be ready to bail out at a moment's notice.

David's material is actually pretty good. Even though he and his POV characters rail against the inequities of society and the futility of doing good, they do harbor hearts of gold and end up doing the allegedly right thing despite themselves. And like Weezer (or was it some other band?), he is trying to break your heart. He has a knack for abruptly interrupting his comedy hijinks with sudden wrenching horror or sorrow. (Not to mention that each of his novels features A Dark Secret, wherein one major character will reveal a hidden and wretched chapter from his or her past to explain why they can never again laugh or cry or trust anyone.) Some day, though, David will have to step it up and bust out of his own stereotypes and drop some of the goofier kidstuff.

The reader is guided through Apropos' life, by Apropos. This way we get to see everything from his point of view, and at the same time we get to see that view evolve. Apropos is a character who becomes loved by the reader because he is so easy to hate at times. He is honestly one of the most "human" characters I have read in a book in a long while. He is very real.

The story is great and driven. There are twists and turns and you never quite know what the whole plot is because you only get a little at a time. Mr. David savors it like a good New York Strip steak, giving us one bite at a time. The dialogue is also great, very witty and humorous.

From the mind of a man who reinvented DC Comics' Aquaman, with the Time and Tide 4-issue mini-series, and the subsequent 50 issues that came later; and from the mind who gave a voice to many of the sidekicks of DC's favorite heroes in Young Justice, comes a great story about a man who would not let Destiny/Fate/whatever rule him. A man who would definitely not ride through life as a sidekick.

I love this book and cannot wait for the third. If you have not picked up this book or the first I suggest you do so. You will love it.

Keep up the good work Peter!

The book covers many topics such as style, manuscript, illustrations, editors, copyright, ISBN, bar code, establishing your business at home, developing mailing lists, how to market ant promote your book on a limited budget, and much more. It consists of three parts. The first one is about making a book from idea to printing. Writing the book is the easy and pleasing part, very the tip of the iceberg of book-publishing. The second part of the book is on business of publishing, as writing is an art and publishing is a business. And the third part is on publicity, promotion, and marketing. In appendix you'll find the list of some useful publications, periodicals, association and distributors' magazines, book distributors and wholesalers, mailing list sources, other useful contacts, and a sample of the Book marketing plan by Five Star Publications.

Dan Poynter said about this book: this is your recipe, your coach, your mentor, your guide, your beacon, and your secret weapon. And he is quite right. I recommend this book for writers and small publishers.

If you consider yourself to be perceptive, or if you have studied other books on body language, you probably will not find anything earth-shattering or new here, but for a newbie, trying to pick up basics, this is a quick intro.

There was no thought, logic, or consistency to matters of time, travel time, and geography; and I found that very aggravating.

In this initial book in the series, however, we are treated to Ashen who never really takes the novel into her own hands. Instead, she reacts. Reacts to Zazar, the witch-woman who raises her, to the Bog people among whom she is raised, and to the man who captures her. Prince Florian (Ashen's half-brother) is not much of a character either. All he is is greedy. Although the Sea Raiders are set up as good-guys, their cold-blooded attack on the bog people put me off.

I liked Queen Ysa. Alone among the characters in TO THE KING A DAUGHTER, she knows what she wants and sets about getting it. The fact that Ashen is in her way means little to her--and why should it? Ysa believes she is doing what is right for the kingdom and there is every evidence that she is right. At least she is making decisions and moving the book forward.

The writing and the setting are too compelling not to look forward to the next book in this series. Although I had troubles with the novel, I still found it hard to put it down. Just don't expect a WITCH WORLD.

First of all I've always found their advice frustrating. On one hand they kind of half-heartedly recommend passive index investing and then they go about telling you about the latest stock-screening get-rich-quick fad. Toss in a couple dubious stock picks along the way and you have nothing but a mixed message.

I think this book is a pretty shallow attempt for these two to make up for the really bad advice they gave in their other books over the years. They take several chapters explaining away (in hindsight) how wrong they were, but even in this light they fail to embrace proven strategies and instead go about telling you what stocks to own (Starbucks anyone??). Basically this book is trying to convince you that "This time it's different." They are now trying to mend their ways and show that now their advice is worth listening to and all the stuff they said before was wrong and they're very sorry you lost so much of your money using their strategies. And oh, by the way, we still offer for sale this nifty stock investment newsletter and website for a really great price!

I really think the best approach is to concentrate your portfolio on passive index funds compromising various asset classes (domestic, foreign, bonds, real estate) and just rebalancing once a year. This is a very proven strategy that will beat virtually every actively managed portfolio/fund with far less stress (and taxes). Most major pension funds follow an indexing approach for a good reason: It works.

For a much better read try out The Coffeehouse Investor, books by Larry Swedroe, Bogle, and William Bernstein. Send these two jesters back to the circus...

If you've read or heard them before, there's no need for this one. Try to find somebody who has beaten these bad times.