How Traditional Publishers SUCK On eBooks

  I’ve been working hard on new edits for my two Amazon bestsellers, Die By Wire and Perfect Killer (and a new cover for PK … preview it here.). But I got an email last night pointing out just how badly traditional publishers suck at ebooks. And they used one of my own books as [...]

Traditional Bad Editing: Not Just For The Self-Published

Supporters of traditional publishing often tout editing as one of the advantages of the legacy process. And, of course, anytime people who are enamored of the old ways find an editing mistake in a self-published book, they point out how inferior the indie route goes. (Another take on that issue here: How Traditional Publishers SUCK [...]

I do NOT Think That Thinking Undermines Religious Faith

But, that’s the gist of this new study that devalues religion and any sort of “gut” feeling:  Thinking can undermine religious faith. I think the conclusions of that article are flawed by insufficient data and inadequate analysis. I think that people who THINK they’re thinking can UNDER-think the issue because of pre-conceived opinions and scientific [...]

Amsterdam in Bloom – Flowers To Die For

From the tulip mania of the mid-1600s to today’s vast flower exports from The Netherlands to the world, Amsterdam has been a place marked by blooms and beauty amid intrigue and shenanigans. All but one of my books (Perfect Killer) has had some part of it set in Amsterdam. And almost all of Die By [...]

Amsterdam In Pictures From Die By Wire Heroine Mira Longbow

One of the wonderful thing about being an author is the ability to re-live experiences through a character’s actions, to re-see favorite sights and to re-think thoughts evoked by a walk through old scenes. Of course, nothing is ever the same — whether I recall a scene in a daydream or play the thought in [...]

Sgt. Bales’ Lawyer Should Ask If He Was A Secret Drug Guinea Pig

Was Staff Sergeant Robert Bales a secret drug guinea pig in the military’s attempts to chemically enhance warfighter efficiency? The proof that such a program to develop a “brave pill” existed can be found in these Government Freedom Of Information (FOIA) documents from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and in the extensive  factual [...]

Perfect Killer Succeeds As Fiction AND Fact

I set out to write a non-fiction book on why good people do evil things. Perfect Killer– originally published in 2005 by Forge/Tor — has a lot of current significance in the cases of the: Robert Bales Afghan massacre, Trayvon Martin case and Mohamed Merah assassinations in France. ARE THERE DIFFERENT LEVELS OF EVIL? Clearly, [...]

We Are All Staff Sgt Robert Bales

We are all Staff Sergeant Robert Bales. My last post here (From Saint To Devil: A Path Carved By Head Injury), examined a real-life, medically researched case of Phineas Gage, who was transformed by a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) from a fine, upstanding man into a profane, violent thug. I ran across Gage’s case as a [...]

From Saint To Devil: A Path Carved By Head Injury

Phineas Gage woke up one day as a saint and went to bed a devil. All thanks to a brain injury. The following comes from Chapter 32 of my fact-based, investigative thriller, Perfect Killer which deals, among other things, about how the ability to act morally and “do the right thing” can be altered by [...]

Free Die By Wire eThriller Download With Print Purchase

Marvel to Bundle Free Digital Download with Print Comics “Starting in June 2012, Marvel Comics will bundle print copies of all Marvel super hero comics priced at $3.99 with special codes so the comic book buyer can download a free digital copy of the same comic.” Major book blog Galleycat posted that yesterday. Post author [...]

California Poppies Popping In Our Backyard!

March 4 The first California poppies of 2012 blooming in the native plant garden in our back yard. 75 degrees and sunny! Wider view

How Learning Languages Turned Die By Wire’s Heroine Into A Sniper

“Love tulips, puppies, long walks on the beach, fine wine, foreign travel and killing bad, evil mofos.” — From Mira Longbow’s profile at her Guardian Sniper blog Without a gift for languages, Mira Longbow would never have become a Guardian Sniper, and would never have been the heroine and star of Die By Wire. When [...]

Matching Military MREs & Wine?

In previous chapters, of DIE BY WIRE, Mira Longbow and Jackson Day have focused on the mission and done their best to ignore their past — the good and the bad. In this chapter, they’re on the run. And as with all battles, there come breaks in the action. And everybody has to eat. The [...]

Afghanistan Quran Violence: Strategic Incompetence, Criminal Stupidity

Quran burning: enough ignorance and stupidity to go all around. But we should expect more from Obama and his generals than from extremists who believe their religion that can only be maintained through violence and death I wrote extensively about this and how it relates to Die By Wire  several weeks ago in a post: [...]

Jackson Day’s “Listen & Destroy” Mission In The Iranian Boondocks

In an earlier post (Die By Wire’s Wounded Warrior Hero: Sleepless Before The Mission), I wrote about the beginning of Jackson Day’s listen-and-destroy mission in the Iranian boonies. It offered you some background about him and his Iraq firefight history with heroine Mira Longbow.   CHAPTER FOUR Northeast of Kuleh Sangi, Iran Day struggled through [...]

Guardian Sniper Mira Longbow takes on Evil In Amsterdam

DIE BY WIRE -  CHAPTER ONE Amsterdam Debate thundered through the black iron gates of the Agnietenkapel and sprawled into the Oudezijds Voorburgwal. Arguments about God, evil and religion shattered the university district’s late-evening calm. Age-old questions with no answers ricocheted among the antique brick facades of lean, tall houses that stood shoulder to-shoulder along [...]

Why Die By Wire’s Heroine Thinks The Military’s “New” Women-In-Combat Policy Still Stinks

Pentagon to Loosen Restrictions on Women in Combat – NYTimes.com “This is nothing more than one more pat on the head and a ‘don’t worry your pretty little head and get your nails messed up’ piece of misogynistic stupidity,” said Iraq Army veteran Mira Longbow. Longbow, the heroine of Die By Wire, was court-martialed for [...]

Stop The Global Horror Of Child Brides

One of Die By Wire‘s most horrifying and heart-breaking NON-fictional threads is the issue of young girls — some as young as nine or ten years old– who become virtual sex slaves to men often in their 40s to mid 50s. Not only do these girls have their lives ruined by brutal and sustained sexual molestation, [...]

PubWeekly “Clarification” On ABA Boycott of Amazon: Anti-Trust Concern Is Reason For Deleting Comments

Yesterday, Publisher’s Weekly issued a clarification that looks designed to get the American Booksellers off the anti-trust hook with their much-discussed (Indie Booksellers Tell Indie Authors To Go To Hell) Amazon book boycott (ABA’s IndieCommerce Site Dropping Amazon Publishing Titles) . It also appears to show why PW deleted numerous comments on the subject. The [...]

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Asides

“A page-turner extraordinaire,…

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Great Perfect Killer Review! h…

ShareGreat Perfect Killer Review! http://t.co/82qETCKR “Intense, action-packed…fast-paced, story that has no down time” #kindle #thrilller

NEWS FETCH – MAY 17, 2012: T…

ShareNEWS FETCH – MAY 17, 2012: TOP NEWS Labor firm settles federal lawsuit over local vineyard workers’ treatment Si… http://t.co/sC5BqkCo

Corkage Rip-Offs http://t.co/s…

ShareCorkage Rip-Offs http://t.co/sevmSJc1 If they’re going to screw you on the wine, why let them screw you on the food? Just say NO!

Shortage? Ot Not? Are Growers …

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NEWS FETCH – MAY 16, 2012: T…

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NEWS FETCH – MAY 15, 2012: T…

ShareNEWS FETCH – MAY 15, 2012: TOP NEWS Global Supply: Bumper wine crop predicted in Chile Import/Export: Aussie far… http://t.co/TsmsGb34

Obama goes all control freak w…

ShareObama goes all control freak with his biggest donors. http://t.co/1FoiZJ2X

We are what we read. What we r…

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You know you’re getting old wh…

ShareYou know you’re getting old when rebellion involves not flossing.

@VinoIndustry @barryeisler Thr…

Share @VinoIndustry @barryeisler Thriller Writers have me on the indie publishing panel in July. Will be interesting

@barryeisler I think it’s call…

Share @barryeisler I think it’s called “sucking up.”

@AmeliaCeja @cejavineyards Mik…

Share @AmeliaCeja @cejavineyards Mike Thompson’s a great guy and gets my vote. But his robocalls are driving me bananas!

@BigHempy One More robo-call f…

Share @BigHempy One More robo-call from Mike Thompson & I vote for one of the GOP candidates. And I’m a registered Democrat! Sick of the calls!

One of the garden lizards. We …

ShareOne of the garden lizards. We also have many quail and a king snake my daughter named Fred http://t.co/kddiXGdD

Maxwell park, Sonoma http://t….

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NEWS FETCH – MAY 14, 2012: T…

ShareNEWS FETCH – MAY 14, 2012: TOP NEWS The $1,000 Wine App: PA Pushes The Envelope of Cluelessness Updating the Men… http://t.co/hXNMK20R

The $1,000 Wine App: PA Pushes…

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“Richly textured,troubling, an…

Share“Richly textured,troubling, and literate thriller,” http://t.co/BJiupZXj Perfect Killer Set in the Misissippi Delta #free #kindle #romance