Songs Unheard, Books Unread: If Not for Readers

When I was fresh out of college, the only thing I wanted to do was sing. I knew that eventually I would want to write my stories, but first I ached to sing them. After several years of struggling in the New York scene, and singing only occasionally in various clubs, I came to realize that creating music meant that there had to be ears to hear it. Otherwise, my songs were nothing more than abstractions created in isolation, floating in the air with no place to land, to be made real.

I left New York, and in a round-about way (too complex to go into here), I finally ended up creating my stories in words and in pictures. But, like my music, my stories need Read More

Barney Rosset: Literary Pugilist

Barney Rosset by Sally Wiener Grotta

Today, as Daniel and I drove home from Philadelphia, we were listening to NPR’s “All Things Considered,” when they announced that someone from the literary world died — not a writer but one of the most important publishers of our time.

I knew before they said any name that, sadly, one of my heroes – Barney Rosset – had passed away.

I first met Barney Rosset whenRead More

Turning Up the Volume on eBook Profitability

Yesterday, at the Digital Book World conference among the various sessions I sat in on was “Doing It on Their Own: Self-Publishing Authors Find Success.” Three of the speakers were Bella Andre , Elle Lothlorien and Bob Mayer, all of whom have had enviable success in ePublishing. In fact, Bella earned seven figures last year. Yes, you read that correctly. She earned over a million dollars from self-publishing her e-Book romance novels. Yikes!Read More