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Reality Check: Does Market Research Work for Books?
It’s January 2011 and I’m in a school auditorium in Ardsley, N.Y., standing in the aisle in front of 60 seventh-graders, reading from I Represent Sean Rosen, my first attempt at writing a novel.
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All About the Book
Today marks one year since I quit my day job as a bookseller.
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Rock ’n’ Roll Fantasy
I love music but I can’t play it.
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Discovery Begins on Authors’ Homepages
For most authors the worst fate is to be ignored, and they spend long hours promoting themselves and their books on social media to make sure that doesn’t happen.
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Overcoming Four Words That Can Chill
Mike Joachim is the book buyer at the Paper Store. He’s previously worked for Hudson Group airport stores, Learningsmith, Interstate Distributors, and BJ’s Wholesale Clubs.
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Double Duty
Trebor Healey is novelist whose previous books include Through It Came Bright Colors, a selection of the InsightOut Book Club and the winner of the Violet Quill Award and the Publishing Triangle’s Ferro-Grumley Award for Fiction.
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Fewer Books: A Rescue Plan for Barnes & Noble
After administering the oath of office to Vice-President Joe Biden, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor rushed to New York for an appearance at Barnes & Noble, because, Jon Stewart said, “She wasn’t sure it would be there later.”
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How I Broke My Chuck Klosterman Curse
Most writers seem to have self-doubt genetically encoded into their beings.
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Overcoming the YA Obsession
All of us face that moment... The moment when you’re asked to do something you don’t want to do, and you have to make a decision: move forward with their way, or build your own highway.
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A 2,000-Plus-Page Dictionary Teaches a Lesson
My dictionary has always been a springboard for inspiration, especially when I’m in the early, just-thinking stages of a project.
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To Tweak or Not to Tweak
Recently, I traveled back in time 30 years or so, where I met my younger self.
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Who Knows Best: Author or Publisher?
Some time last March, my brand-name publisher and I hit a major roadblock.
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What I Learned from James Patterson
I’ve been lucky enough to write with James Patterson for the past two and a half years.
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Reading Books in L.A.
When I tell people about my book club—started by my mother, held at the local community center, and open to the public—the conversation sometimes grinds to a halt, ending in a semi-uninterested, “That’s so sweet, you and your mom.”
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Doing 50,000 Words in 30 Days
As you read this 750-word essay, I’ll be taking a nap.
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The Best Route for Authors to Take (When Signs Ahead Say ‘Merge’)
There has been a lot of discussion, predictions, and all kinds of rumblings since the recent announcement of the upcoming merger of Random House and the Penguin Group.
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Judging the Awards
Award season is here and along with the celebrations come the mutterings and complaints.
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Amish Reading List
“What do the Amish think about your books?” That question gets tossed at me whenever I’m at a book event, and the answer isn’t all that surprising.
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The Joy of Shared Reading
Books and conversations about them have always been an important part of my life. Reading books provides us with the opportunity to reflect, immerse ourselves in cultures beyond our own borders, and affords us the occasion to consider ourselves in the context of the generations who have come before.
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Too Much Information
An old adage says the role of literature is to delight and to instruct, but contemporary novels often seem more intent on instruction than pleasure. It’s a confusion of veracity with authenticity, a reluctance to let a novelist’s research stay where it belongs—in the background of the book, if it’s in the book at all.
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