Every author I know gets asked the same question: How do you write a book? Scott provides simple, basic information about writing and book and links to more practical advice.

It's a simple question, but it causes unexpected problems. On the one hand, it's nice to have people interested in something I do. If I told people I fixed toasters for a living, I doubt I'd get many inquires. People are curious about writing and that's cool and flattering. Rock on.

But on the other hand, the hand involving people who ask because they have an inkling to do it themselves, is that writing books it's a topic so old and so well tread by so many famous people that anyone who asks me, with the seriousintent of discovering secret advice from my small brain and limited writing experience, is hard to take seriously.

Here's the short honest truth: 20% of the people who ask me are hoping to hear this - Anyone can write a book. They want permission. Truth is you don't need any. There is no license required. No test to take. Writing, as opposed to publishing, requires almost no financial or physical resources. A pen, a paper and effort are all that has been required for hundreds of years. If Voltaire and Marquis de Sade could write in prison, then you can do it in suburbia, at lunch at work, or after your kids go to sleep.

Check the rest of the article our here.

Scott is an author, public speaker and consultant. He worked as a manager at Microsoft from 1994-2003, on projects including (v1-5) of Internet Explorer, Windows and MSN. His blog is pretty solid.

He started his own consulting practice in 2003. Wrote the best seller "The art of project management" (O'Reilly 2005). And teaches a graduate course in creative thinking at the University of Washington.

His newest bestseller, The Myths of Innovation, about the truths of creativity and innovation, was published in May of 2007. You can watch a video of him talking at amazon.com's headquarters about the book.

He's an excellent speaker for hire, and frequently performs interactive talks, workshops, and courses for organizations, conferences and the occasional living room couch.

Born, raised and a resident in Illinois for most of her life, Valerie Connelly now lives with her husband, Michael, in Wisconsin north of Milwaukee. She divides her time between publishing, writing, teaching, painting landscapes and waterscapes, and traveling to visit her grown children.

Valerie shares her experience as a publisher:

I am a realist. As a publisher of books, this is an essential personality trait. So many of the authors I work with and for are purely dreamers that I have to be a realist. Reality has a face, and it is made of numbers ¯ mind-numbing, dream-busting numbers.

Here are some of those numbers that will boggle the mind of even the most sober realist.

At Book Expo 2007, the buzz was saying that in 2006, 280,000 titles were published in the United States alone, which meant 80, 000 more books were published in the United States than in 2005. This means that of the titles published in 2006, each title had 279,999 competitorslast year. However, only a relatively small portion of these titles actually sold books in quantities that were notable. Why? Because there were 279,999 competitors for the readership's attention, and some titles were far better promoted than others. Some had money supporting their visibility. Some had a famous name as the author. Some had a famous person as the subject of the book. Some had the power of Hollywood emblazoning their tales with films. Some were a phenomenon like we have not seen before. Of course, that phenomenon was Harry Potter. But, the fact is the vast majority of these titles sold 100 copies or less.

Now, let's project conservatively into the future. If this increase were to continue as it did just last year, adding 80,000 books to the pile of newly published books each year until 2015, by that time, each book will have 999,999 competitors, and 5,572,000 more books will have been published in the United States alone. This is simple, third-grade math.

Ms. Connelly's years as an advertising copywriter, graphic designer and print shop owner served her well as she founded Nightengale Press in July of 2003. By January of 2007 Nightengale Press has published more than 40 authors, with 57 books among them, and several more coming through the process into print every month. Nightengale Press has evolved into Nightengale Media LLC offering its authors a first class website, bookstore, marketing opportunites and more.

Read the rest of the article here.

Just happened across a good post that's pertinent to the small press, in regards to contracts, etc. It's from 'Miss Snark' — an unidentified blogging literary agent:

First, anyone who writes to me and says "I have a contract in hand and I need an agent" gets a call back that day. Many times I've not taken the author on, but I've looked at the contract and given a few pointers. It's the very least I can do - sort of like banking some good will to make up for some of my other less savory activities.

'Miss Snark' goes on to say:

However, you can always find an attorney versed in intellectual property to give you some advice. You need to be VERY clear that you just want a review, not a negotiation. You also want to sent some limits on time so you don't end up with a bill that's bigger than your mortgage.

She suggests this even when "no money" isinvlolved in the transaction.

Anyway, read more here.

Beginning in the late 1980's (and early 1990's), QuarkXpress and Adobe have tussled to see who would reign supreme and become the top choice in desktop publishing. In the 1980's Aldus Inc. had a desktop publishing program called PageMaker.

Aftewards, QuarkXpress Inc. released QuarkXPress, which become Aldus's main competition. Throughout this ongoing saga, QuarkXpress became victorious in the 1990's when PageMaker could not keep up with the competition.

In 1995, Aldus was bought out by Adobe, but PageMaker was not to become Adobe's main goal—they had their sights set elsewhere. They had other ideas up their sleeve. Since QuarkXpress become victorious, they slowed production of their software, and updates slowed too. Many years later, Adobe came to release InDesign, which was meant to be the "QuarkXpress Killer".

Adobe has made many successful applications. If it is for world wide web, or print they seem to have covered everything. Adobe InDesign adds to Adobe's high-end lineup of programs. Many who currently use other Adobe products, such as Photoshop, or Illustrator, will notice the similarity in interfaces. This makes it great for switching from one program to the next, because many of the tools are the same. A great example of this is that you cannot take an Adobe Photoshop file into QuarkXpress, but you can do this with Adobe InDesign.

Those who are working on switching from QuarkXpress to Adobe InDesign. however, have faced difficulties in adjusting to the new layout and manner by which things work. If you are a die-hard QuarkXpress user and you do not feel like giving Adobe InDesign an opportunity, then you might just want to recosnider that. 

Many users are changing over from QuarkXpress to Adobe InDesign because there is a need in the market for a solution that works. With Adobe dropping new products with great new features every couple of years, you will always be ahead. To be fair, QuarkXpress has been the industry standard for desktop publishing for a long time, and it is a great layout application. I guess it really all boils down to personal preference in the end.

Like PC vs. Mac, it comes down to how you like the feel about all the pros and cons.

With Adobe striving to do new and better things all the time, I feel Adobe InDesign is the best choice.

If you are someone that uses QuarkXpress, it is a good idea for you to take a look and get familiar with InDesign. This goes the same for Adobe Dobe InDesign users, learning a bit about QuarkXpress won't hurt you, it can only help you as you move forward.

Often print-on-demand (POD) looks great. You can publish one book at a time when it's ordered.

But, think again. After many years of writers coming to me saying they did not make the return on their investment going with a POD, and my research noticing the poor returns from POD, I say consider all the options.

Some Things to consider before you go with POD

1. Take notice how many other writers and books are listed on the POD webpage.  Like a store, your audience wo not go to the POD site looking for your specific book. In fact, the people who go are other writers like you. They do not want to buy your book, they visit because they think this is a simple way to be on a webpage where one can sell books. So who will buy?
2. Take notice that when you do get listed you get only a few hundred words to describe reasons people should buy your book. That's not enough to compel yourvisitor to buy your book. Without a doubt, the writers that make real cash are the ones who put up an book webpage. Talk about easy. You can make a three-page book sales letter site that when marketed, will bring only the prime prospects to it. The ones who are already your targeted market. These kind of sites cost less than $550. That's a low outlay for a big pay off.
3. POD does not mean publishing. These places are not really publishers just because they take your book and make digital copies for you. They are publishers. If they are publishers, then they are really charging too much. And, they have control of your book and can charge you 40-50% premium before you get copies of you book. If you go POD, it's much better to go with a POD publisher such as Deharts.com where you maintain full control of the book. You or your fulfillment person takes delivery of the books and distributes as you need. Your coach advises to publish only the number you can sell in three to four months. Now, you have more cash to spend on promotion, publicity, and marketing.
4. Research the POD company well. Has it been in business for years and has a solid record? If they go out of business, your book goes out too. One popular POD company may be cheap, but you cannot talk to a real person for customer service. Automatic or email service is no service. Recently, one really fine writer researched 10 of them and was totally confused. I asked him what were the prices and service promised? Over $3000 for some. He was not sure what he got for that. Many places charge little to publish, but require extra cash for editing, proofs, art work, and marketing kits.

Sweet Potatoes an amazing collection of fiction praised by the likes of Harry Matthews and David Antin, and Kikuko Otake's Masako's Story: Surviving the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima are now on the way to press.

It's been a hectic couple of weeks as Mr. Lou Rowan will soon be coming to Japan to read from his new book at the Four Stories Series in Osaka, and Otake, a survivor of the atomic tragedy at Hiroshima, will be reading from her book at peace rallies and other venues in the United States this summer.

We hope to finish proofing Yoko Danno's retelling of the Kojiki this month and get it to Coach House.