Member Blog

The UK photo book software developer, Taopix, has announced its new collaboration with Silicon Valley’s on-line self-publishing engine, FastPencil. This will offer an opportunity to picture book self-published authors to have a real choice about illustrations in their books instead of the difficult price sacrifices needed on the mainstream suppliers, such as Amazon’s Createspace.

Self-publishing involves a three-way partnership between the author, the e-commerce/publishing company and the actual book manufacturer. In this instance, the digital print company – the Taopix customer – will be able to offer photo book manufacturing services to authors and FastPencil will provide the […]

When I started research on my book about the morals of bullfighting I traveled to Seville, the capital of Andalusia in Spain, where I met a wonderful American self-published author, Kitty Witwer. She wrote a book about being a female bullfighting fan, “Divine Addiction“, which is basically hailed as the “Almost Famous” of the taurine literary world, journaling her trips to Central and South America and her beloved Spain, following handsome bullfighters, then treated like rockstars, across country in trains, planes and automobiles – whatever you think of bullfighting this book is a great “road […]

When I was thirteen I bought a lot of CD’s. I would spend hours flicking through the alphabetically lined racks on the hunt for Madonna, Guns and Roses, or the soundtrack for “Days of Thunder.” I would turn it over and take in the pictures. I would pull out the little booklet and pray that the lyrics had been printed inside so I could learn them and prove that I was a real fan by singing along when it came on the radio. I loved the whole process of CD buying. I still love music, but yet I haven’t bought […]

It was natural for me to want to write mysteries.  My parents loved to read them and I became one of those kids who hid with an apple and a book to get out of something more responsible I was supposed to be doing.

For a number of years I wrote and occasionally submitted, trying to stay abreast of what was selling and which publisher was buying what.  No success with fiction, some with nonfiction.  Then I published a mystery/romance with what is now Author House, and I did about 50 percent of everything wrong.  Typos aside, it wasn’t my […]