Next Noble Pen Meeting

July 12th, 2018 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Award-winning SF author Harlan Ellison (wikipedia) died recently at age 84.  He wrote over 1700 works, including short stories, novellas, episodes for Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, and Star Trek, and films scripts. He was sometimes called “America’s weird uncle” because of his outspoken and contentious personality and the unusual situations and portrayals in his stories.  Here’s a remembrance.

Victories

Randy did a local signing, which was a very limited success.

Education

If you self-publish, you are responsible for the “cover” art, which you hope will have entice people to buy, whether print or ebook.  There is lots of advice on line.  You can find cover-builders on line, suchas this one or this one that will let you upload images or sell you theirs.  This site shows covers that they think don’t do a good job of selling.  Some of the titles could be improved, too.  See what you think.  And here’s another collection of questionable book covers.

The “blurb” testimonials usually seen on the back covers of books are a common marketing device, intended to convince the reader that other people think it is a book worth reading.   The word blurb was coined in 1907.  A search for the terms blurb request will find many articles about getting people to help you by writing them.

Noelle Sterne has some thoughts about gathering testimonials.  Here’s another view, saying the blurbs are a small factor in readers choices but still worthwhile.  Best-selling authors get too many requests to comply unless you have some  connection to them.  More advice on requesting a blurb.

Upcoming Schedule

Jul 12
Uriah
Logan
Aime

Jul 19
Ciuin
Stacie
Logan

Jul 26
Open slots

Aug 2
Nick
Open slots

Aug 9
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill