Thursday, June 30, 2016

Interview With Author Gregory Seller



1. What inspired you to write your book? While living in New York a few years ago, I was intrigued by the number of  “dark properties” in our neighborhood and in other parts of the city.  “Dark properties” are multi-million dollar condominiums that have no one living in them, and whose ownership is hidden from public records.  Through my own research and in subsequent newspaper investigations, I learned that many of these properties in New York, and in other American cities, are owned by members of the Chinese Communist Party who are hiding illicit assets outside of China.  Other foreign officials from countries like Russia were also buying such properties because, unlike opening a bank or securities account, ownership of real estate assets is easy to hide under existing American laws. What made the Chinese ownership most intriguing was not only the size and scale of foreign assets owned by Communist Party leaders, but the intense and brutal efforts being made to repatriate these assets after a regime change in China.

2. What is it about? My story is about a wealthy and successful hedge fund manager from Beverly Hills who discovers a dark and ultimately deadly secret about the source of billions of dollars he manages for his largest client.  Using events taken from current headlines, a regime change in China ensnares the hedge fund manager, his associates and family in a deadly battle for possession of the secret assets. Chinese agents are secretly dispatched to the United States to take control of these assets, but not for the Chinese people.  The assets are to be taken by the new leaders of the Communist Party, and all those who know the true source of these funds must be permanently silenced. 

3. What do you hope will be the everlasting thoughts for readers who finish your book? Greed is as old as human existence, and is a powerful motivator for success, wealth and power.  But greed can also make us avoid the tough questions that may have answers we don’t want to hear, especially when money is involved. It’s not the questions you ask which make a difference in your life; it’s the questions you don’t ask.  In this story, it is the questions never asked that lead to a desperate struggle for survival, revenge, and redemption. 

4. What advice do you have for writers?
This is my first novel, so I’m not qualified to give advice except to say it is fun to write about what you know.  My background is in finance and investments, and I’ve tried to tell a compelling story, based on current events, centered around the world of finance.  I hope readers find it not only thrilling, but that they learn something about the investment world as well.

5. Where do you think the book publishing industry is heading? It seems to me that the whole publishing industry is becoming more reader-driven.  Social media has made it easier than ever before to see what people like to read and what drives their interest.  I think this makes it easier for both publishers and authors alike to create even wider, more diverse and creative content than ever before. 

6. What challenges did you have in writing your book?  The biggest challenge was getting the grammar and layout in the proper format for a well-written novel. I believe I wrote a good story, but was concerned that readers find it well-written as well.  Fortunately, I hired a good editor who didn’t suggest many changes in the story, but was a big help with proper format, style and grammar for a novel. 

7. If people can only buy one book this month, why should it be yours? Unlike other books on the shelf this month, Vanquish of the Dragon Shroud is a fast-moving thriller, taken from events in current headlines.  Once critic compared it to a Hitchcock-style thriller.  And, if you want to learn more about the high-stakes investment world, this is a fun way to do it!

For more information, please consult:
www.gregoryseller.com | www.gregorysellerauthor.com

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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2016







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When Barnes & Noble Closes Its Doors



Five years ago I was lamenting the closing of Borders – not just a store, but the entire chain.  It was the low-point in the book industry. Combined with the raging Great Recession and the e-book explosion that created uncertainty and left the book publishing industry in a quandary.

The book world sounds healthier today.  Bookstore sales are up.  Printed book sales are up.  Audiobooks are expanding. New indie bookstores are opening and flourishing.  But then comes along a piece of bad news I just can’t seem to reconcile.

A large bookstore is closing today in Manhattan and nothing will replace it.

Barnes & Noble is closing its huge corner store with two floors on Third Avenue and East 54th Street, the one that anchored one of the city’s richest neighborhoods, a well-populated area of residents, corporate offices, and retailers.

I don’t know why it went out other than the building it was housed in wants to renovate.  But if the store was coming back afterwards, they would’ve said so.  If it was temporarily relocating, they would’ve said so.  Instead, it had a lame-ass sign on the interior glass wall saying it thanks patrons for coming for 21 years.  If it wants to really thank us it would service us and open up a store nearby.  It merely instructs us to use the nearest store on 46th Street and Fifth Avenue.

B&N has a golden opportunity to grow with New York City.  This place has over 20 million people in any given day, based on commuters from New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Westchester, Long Island, and Rockland County, as well as vacationers, business trip visitors, college students, and 8.4 million residents.  Their bookstores should be available to service the curious minds of the masses.  With every store closing they concede the marketplace to Amazon.

People can’t go looking for bookstores.  No, they need to be there as staples of the community, readily available when you need one and always there to be discovered by wandering souls strolling the streets.  Once the store closes, that business is lost and maybe 10% – if that – gets shifted to other stores.  The rest just disappears or morphs to Amazon.

Maybe rents are too high and books just can’t compete against higher-priced items in a city that houses some of the world’s richest retailers.  Come June 30th when this store closes, I’ll be mourning what was and what could have been.

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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2016
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Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Interview Author Dudley Mecum



Author of the new novel, A Sojourn Among the Avatars of Wisdom

1.      What inspired you to write your book? My book is a gift to my younger self. I experienced a lot of setbacks when I was young, perhaps more setbacks than most people endure. A seventeen-year stretch of stuttering as a young adult preceded chronic Lyme disease, which causes constant headaches. That tag team prevented me from experiencing much success in life. When the stars didn’t align to provide me salvation from my current state of affairs, I endeavored in a new adventure, one that required a great deal of patience.  Fifteen years passed until my idea became reality. When I turned to quote books for inspiration, the wisdom revealed was compiled author or by subject, which is very dry and lacks context. So, I felt the need to find a more cohesive, yet entertaining medium in which to impart the wisdom of the ages that gives hope for those who have endured a lot of adversity in their lives, perhaps more misfortune than their fair share.

Complementing the themes of adventure and wisdom, I included the traditional literary devices such as symbolism (such as chapters one and three), irony, and foreshadowing. Finally, my book is an homage to Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School, a mid-19th century art movement. The story depicts three out of four scenes from his Voyage of Life series of paintings, which can be viewed by clicking the web link below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_Life

In essence, my book conveys not my wisdom, but the counsel of the world’s greatest sages, allowing my younger self to avoid common mistakes and achieve a greater success in life. Similarly, I’m hopeful that most readers will find my narrative entertaining and its underlying wisdom compelling.

I turned to writing as a productive endeavor. Given my misfortune, how would I craft something that served as beacon of hope to others? It would have to be something akin to celestial navigation.

Weather permitting, celestial navigation allowed the ancients to navigate across the unforgiving seas. Many a seafarer looked to the heavens for guidance and received it. What about us land dwellers? What guideposts are there along the “river of life”? Not the familiar constellations of stars that grace the night’s sky. What then? Quote books compile wisdom by author or by subject. Each quote is like a star in an alien sky. It is only in relationship with other stars that enables celestial navigation to take place.

Accordingly, we look to the heavens for some pattern of stars that joins wisdom across subjects.  In essence, we are searching for constellations of wisdom: a pattern in the sky that will guide us through the trials of life. What would be found inside this new compendium of wisdom? It should have the counsel from the world’s greatest sages. That would be a start.

However, the end result would be exceptionally dry, like a parent lecturing a child before that youth has a chance to get a word in edgewise. Then how would the conversation unfold? It would be a dialog between the person seeking advice and the individual giving it. Since we'd all like to have our own private conversation with our favorite sage, we'd all split up accordingly.

But such dialogs wouldn’t be effective because the end result would be too discordant: there would be too many conversations going on at the same time and the resultant wisdom would not be conveyed. Perhaps a better way to impart knowledge would revolve around the adventures of a central character, which calls for the suspension of disbelief.  Moreover, a “fish out of water” story would be even better. One that involves leaving this realm and returning to it after having his hopes and dreams dashed, one that forces him out of his comfort zone. Add external conflict and self-doubt, and we have instances in which the possibility for change exists for the protagonist, and by extension, for those who seek it.

2.      What is it about? Chris Cole enjoys aiming for the stars. After he rockets into orbit aboard the space shuttle, his mission is cut short when he is the victim of an accident aboard the International Space Station. Whisked back to earth for medical observation, Chris is eventually released. Before his return flight to Kennedy Space Center the next day, Chris decides to attend a nearby medieval fair with an acquaintance—a decision that will change the course of his life forever.

Shortly after his arrival at the festival, the king unexpectedly selects Chris to be a contestant in a tournament. As Chris’s quest to become a knight begins, he learns how to wield a sword, battle foes, and achieve greatness. Unfortunately, villainy, treachery, and a crucible await him. As enemies emerge from the shadows, others use him as a pawn to settle old scores. Guided by a cast of colorful characters who dispense timeless advice, Chris is overcome with self-doubt as he ponders whether it is really possible to change his destiny. In this gripping fantasy tale, wisdom of the world’s greatest philosophers and modern sages is brought to life as one man attempts to escape from a prison of his own making.

3. What do you hope will be the everlasting thoughts for readers who finish your book? That readers can profit from the wisdom gleaned from my narrative, if they so desire. There’s no need to repeat the mistakes of the past or stand still when the world’s greatest sages have already articulated the steps for success in life.

4. What advice do you have for writers? Write about the subjects that are dearest to you. I found something that I was passionate about.  It takes a lot of passion to complete a book over the long haul, or in my case, about fifteen years.

5. Where do you think the book publishing industry is heading? Originally, I thought that book stores would disappear, but there appears to be a revival.  Concerning the link below, it suggests that future authors should “integrate more multimedia into e-books.”  Still, as the story noted, “amped-up e-presentations would undermine the ostensibly separate process of reading traditional—literary—books in the traditional way.” http://lithub.com/can-the-literary-survive-technology/   Regardless, it’s possible that books, like movies, might migrate toward a VR experience while leaving some remnants of its traditional form.  As a result, that would make it harder for self-publishing authors to succeed.

6. What challenges did you have in writing your book? My book became a Rubik’s Cube of sorts because certain scenes called for specific wisdom and vice versa. In addition, I had to figure out who would impart what wisdom and in what order. The end result called for a colorful cast of characters and a multitude of scenes in which advice would be solicited.  Moreover, it took me a long time to research the space shuttle, the international space station, and Mount Everest. In addition, I needed more time to research medieval-era clothes and how to wield a long sword.

7. If people can only buy one book this month, why should it be yours? No one has ever woven the wisdom of the world’s greatest philosophers into fiction.  In addition, my narrative contains traditional literary devices such as symbolism, irony, and foreshadowing. Finally, for those who are fans of the Hudson River School, my book is an homage to Thomas Cole. Accordingly, I consider my narrative to be the “Swiss Army knife” of books.

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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2016


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Founder of Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day Speaks Out



Interview with Jenny Milchman

  1. What inspired you to create this special day? Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day began when my own kids were little and I was taking them to Story Hour at our local bookstore nearly every week. Fun and edifying for them, latte and a new book for me. I asked myself, “How many children know the joy of time spent like this—and how many parents?”  But the Day really began years—decades—before that, when I was a child myself, growing up in a town with four independent bookstores, each of which provided shelter for me during the inevitable upheavals of childhood. I wanted to do something to expose the next generation to their magic.

  1. How did you go about promoting it? The very first thing I did was float the idea for Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day on a listserv of mystery readers called DorothyL. This was back in 2010, and before you could say the word ‘book,’ bloggers, authors, and readers from all across the country were getting the word out. Just two short weeks later, eighty bookstores celebrated the very first TYCBD. That summer, my husband and I packed the children who started it all into the car, along with bookmarks and posters, and we drove cross-country, visiting bookstores. That year, participants numbered 300, and things have grown ever since so that in our sixth year, we have 800 participating bookstores in all 50 states and on 5 continents! (I’m still holding out for Antarctica).

  1. Where can more people get information about participating stores? Our website has this fun, interactive map: http://takeyourchildtoabookstore.org/bookstores

  1. How should we celebrate this day?  If you have a child, or know a child, or are a child at heart yourself—go into a bookstore this December 3rd (Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day is celebrated the first Saturday in December to coincide with holiday gift giving). Perhaps your local bookstore will be celebrating—or perhaps you can introduce them to the Day. Even just spending time in the bookstore will be a celebration—and a chance for you to support a local business and introduce a child to the joys of unplugged time. And don’t limit your visits to TYCBD—I always say that this is one holiday that can be celebrated every day!

  1. Why is it so important that we get kids to appreciate books, especially printed ones from physical stores?  There is increasing research that shows our constantly connected life is, paradoxically, responsible for a great deal of disconnect. And the associated risks and unintended consequences (which extend to cognitive, social, even health realms) are particularly perilous for children, who not only miss out on real time, tactile, and interactive experiences—but may never have been exposed to them in the first place.  Books and bookstores counteract these negatives—and I am by no means saying that all technology and virtual connection is bad. But it does come with downsides, and one way we can mitigate these is by making sure children spend time in modes besides digital ones, do activities that encourage “single task focus,” and give their minds a chance to build interest and stimulation versus passively taking it in. In other words, let them ask a bookseller about a book, find it on a shelf, then take it home and read it.

6. How else can we grow literacy in this country? Libraries are huge, equalizing forces in the fight for literacy and dissemination of knowledge. Visit your local library in addition to your bookstore. If you have time, volunteer at a literacy organization, or make a financial contribution to one. Finally, being a reader yourself—letting people, children included, see you with an open book in your hands—is probably the single biggest catalyst in creating a desire to read. It’s been shown that children of avid readers are more likely to become readers themselves.

  1. What more do you believe can be done to promote independent bookstores? It’s a two part effort—members of a community must vote with their dollars, be willing to support this bricks and mortar resource by understanding that its stock will cost more than it does online where there’s no rent to pay, heating/cooling costs, and the like.  Then the bookstores themselves must get creative in terms of their “value add”. The most successful ones I’ve visited all over the country have full and rich events calendars—you can’t meet Lee Child on Amazon—or they give book clubs and writers groups a place in which to meet, have cafes to purchase a treat as you browse, employ booksellers who are true curators of the stock, and offer pleasing, inviting spaces in which to wile away an hour—or a day.  Bookstores are hubs of their communities, and what they offer simply can’t be found anywhere else.

Jenny Milchman is the author of three thrillers published by Ballantine/Penguin Random House, each of which she promoted by visiting bookstores nationwide with her family on what has been called “the world’s longest book tour.” Jenny founded Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day in 2010.
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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2016
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Do You Know Your Literary Geography?



Millions of people are planning family vacations for the summer and one place to consider for ideas on where to go if you love books is a cool site,  www.PlacingLiterature.com.

The website may not be able to tell you which beach, national park, or natural wonder to visit, but it does highlight over 3,000 locations that serve as settings from novels, short stories, poems, and plays.  In the past three years, readers, librarians, publishers, educators, and authors have mapped out the street corners where a significant scene took place from a favorite piece of literature.  For example, locate Jackson Island, near Hannibal, Missouri, and you’ll see it’s the island introduced in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

It’s a creative way to learn geography and study up on literary trivia and cultural lore.

Users, when clicking on a city – or by author or title – csn view a photo of the location, search Google or Wikipedia for more information on the place, purchase the book from a local bookstore, write a review on Good Reads, share the place on social media, and report they’ve been on that particular location.

Literary explorer should be amused at the site.

The crowdsourcing website invites anyone to make an entry.  You can follow them on Facebook.com/placingliterature and @placinglit.

The site recently issued a press release to call attention to the revamping of the three-year-old site, saying this:

"Exploring the literature of a place or browsing the location from a particular author or book has never been easier.  You can now search by location (Verona, Central Park, Castle Elsinore); by author (Cormac McCarthy, Bernat Metge, Robert Ludlum); or by book (Canterbury Tales, Anne of Green Gables, Love in the Time of Cholera).  You can also browse collections of literary locations that have been curated by museums, libraries, publishers and cultural organizations around the world, including by the State Library of Queensland (Australia), St. Thomas Moore Chapel at Yale University, the Amistad Center, the Catalan Literary Heritage Network and the Mayor of Doonesbury.  Featured authors such as Hugh Howey, Assaf Gavron, Matthew Thomas and Brian Freeman have also created maps of their own novels.

So many books exist in places that aren’t real or take place somewhere else in space.  Don’t look for a map of Heaven, Hell, Mars or the Matrix any time soon.  But this attempt to map out the locations of books and authors is one to be applauded and represents a modern way to highlight the rich literary culture that we live in.
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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2016
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Sunday, June 26, 2016

Social Media Shares Fail To Yield Clicks



People are more willing to share links than they are to read the links that they share. According to a study reported by the New York Daily News, Columbia University and the French National Institute found that only two in five people will click through and read the story they receive from links on social media.  The other three in five will share the story to friends, colleagues, and followers without having actually read what they passed on.

It could be the study is flawed in some way or perhaps it is society that is flawed.  We live in a culture that thinks nothing about liking, sharing, and retweeting content that it doesn’t even look at.  The empty testimonial granted by the person sharing unread links means nothing.  Worse, people may read something because they assume a trusted source read, liked, and agreed with it.  It just goes to show you that you can’t even trust those that you trust when it comes to information.

It’s hard enough to validate the accuracy or legitimacy of a social media post or link and it gets messier when we believe a trusted third party looked into it and recommended it to us.

Another point of concern about social media is that a lot of claims get made in tweets or short FB posts that may come from a bigger story or study, but because social media is fast and short, we can’t always discern the accuracy or veracity of the content.  As you can see, people quickly share stuff they don’t read or even agree with, let alone study deeper.

So what might this mean for authors and book promoters?  Well for one, you should realize that your links may get circulated, but not necessarily read.  Catchy headers and strong visuals could be enough to induce people to pass your stuff along but it may take something else to read it.  And when they read it, how often will that yield an action step such as buying your book?

We’re quick to send out or share content but as suspected, we don’t have the time to read everything that’s floating around in the social media universe.  We should not take it as an indication of support or popularity. When something was re-tweeted a million times or liked on Facebook, because people are just doing it automatically without much thought or concern.

The math in the study sounds crazy.  The study examined the Twitter pages for five major news outlets over a one-month period last summer and found that the posts had a combined 2.8 million shares, reaching 75 billion people – but yielded only 9.6 million clicks.

“People are more willing to share an article than read it,” Arnaud Legout, the study’s co-author, said in a statement.  “This is typical of modern information consumption.  People form an opinion based on a summary, or summary of summaries, without making the effort to go deeper.”  

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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2016


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Saturday, June 25, 2016

Is There Free Speech For Advertising?



Buzz Feed announced it is canceling a recently signed advertising deal with the Republican National Committee.  Buzz Feed said it won’t run ads touting Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, because it finds him bad for people’s health, just as it bans cigarette ads for the same reason.

I want to applaud them for taking a stand and pointing out the hate, racism, sexism, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant venom spewed by Trump should not be given a bigger platform than he already has.  The site was willing to pass up big money in order to remain ideological and pure.

On the other hand, I think this is a tremendous disservice for media companies and free speech.

Sure Trump poses a real threat to our nation, and the hope is that enough sane people will vote in November to defeat not only him, but his agenda.  But should a media outlet get involved in politics by refusing to run ads from those it disagrees with?

Theoretically, and journalism ethics to be invoked here, a media outlet must provide fair coverage in its reporting of content.  No one is saying otherwise.  But if the advertising opportunities aren’t provided to all viewpoints, especially those of a major political party, is that almost as bad as editorializing and slanting one’s media coverage?  Ad suppression shouldn’t be tolerated, should it?

If Buzz Feed says they like the taste of Marlboro cigarettes, so they’ll ban ads of all competitors - that would seem wrong.  If they say, as an industry, they won’t run ads for any cigarettes that would seem more balanced, though it still calls into question if we should encourage media companies to pick and choose which industries it will accept ads from.

But Buzz Feed isn’t saying it’ll ban all political ads – just those involving Trump. This doesn’t seem fair, not that Trump is much of an innocent victim.  I’m more concerned about the precedent it sets.

Buzz Feed gets 200 million monthly unique visitors.  It’s a global network for news and entertainment that, according to its site, “creates and distributes content for a global audience.” They may not be The New York Times, but they report and aggregate the news.  They make up the new media ecosystem that includes traditional print – TV – radio, websites like Huffington Post, and social media, from FB and You Tube to Twitter and Instagram.  The editorial content at all news outlets must be produced without bias, with respect for the law, and common decency.  Advertising standards at these outlets may allow for a different kind of discretion to be used, but I think the more open the outlets are to accepting ads from any and all, the freer our society truly will be.  Editors don’t need to slant editorial coverage or ban specific ads.  But we need to do a better job of training and informing citizens and media consumers of how to uncover truth, and how to take responsible action based on such truth.  In other words, Trump can advertise all he wants.  But you and I should know he’s a loser.

 That’s a real democracy – freedom to speak, an obligation to support free speech, and the education of all to filter out truth from lies, good ideas from bad, right from wrong.  Buzz Feed’s ban won’t make Trump go away or be any lesser of a threat – but it has diluted its image as a news outlet.

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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2016
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