Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Issues in Internet Law - Download Now for School!

Now available as an electronic download to your computer, laptop, iPhone, iPad, Kindle, Android devices, and more! Save up to $35 off the print edition price! Download the 10th edition of Issues in Internet Law: Society, Technology, and the Law from VitalSource !




The 10th edition of Issues In Internet Law: Society, Technology, and the Law has been updated for 2016 with the latest cases and trends in Internet Law. The new edition not only has an expanded glossary, and expanded statute and case indexes but a new chapter devoted to the NSA's spying on Internet users and a first look at the European Union's Right to be Forgotten court ruling and its aftermath.

Topics include:
Privacy: Invasion of Privacy, Public Records, Workplace Privacy, Employer & ISP Monitoring, Data Collection, Data Retention, Data Breaches, the Right to be Forgotten, E-Mail & Chat Room Privacy, Web Site Privacy Policies, Behavioral Marketing, Flash Cookies, Device Fingerprinting, Privacy & Children, Metadata, Border Searches, FISA & the USA PATRIOT Act, the NSA, FISA Court, PRISM, XKeyscore;

Free Speech: Defamation, SLAPPs, Gripe Sites, Revenge Porn Sites, Mugshot Sites, Blogs & Vlogs, Obscenity & Pornography, Harassment & Hate Speech, Prior Restraint, Repression, Student Speech, CDA, Anonymous Speech, Commercial Speech, Expressive Conduct;

Social Media: Misuse, Ownership, Coerced Access, the Courts;

Cybercrimes: Spam, Phishing, Identity Theft, Spyware & Malware, Cyberstalking, Cyberbullying, Computer Trespass, Wardriving, Virtual Crime;

Intellectual Property: Copyright, Trademark, Patent, Trade Secrets, Creative Commons, Linking, Framing, File-Sharing, Fair Use, Public Domain, Work-Made-For-Hire, DMCA, VARA, Domain Name Disputes, Keyword Advertising, America Invents Act;

Business & the Internet: Internet Taxation, Internet Interstate Commerce, Web Contracts, e-Discovery, Corporate Securities, Crowdfunding, Reg A, Reg D;

Also: Cloud Computing; Digital Currency; Right of Publicity; Web Accessibility; Net Neutrality; Online Reputation Management; Social Media Monitoring; Podcasts; Geofiltering; Digital Journalism; Hyper Local Web Sites, Digital Estate Planning; Sexting; E-Books and many more subjects.

Concisely written and covering a broad range of topics, this is the most current book of its kind!


Reviews:

“Concise overview of Internet-related legal issues.” (Law Library Journal)

“Although it deals with the complex legal issues surrounding the Internet, it is written in layman’s terms and illustrated with ‘ripped from the headlines’ court cases.” (Amazon)

“The concepts and issues are presented in a way that is sufficiently rigorous but very easy to read, making the book one I can recommend.” (Computing Reviews) * “A valuable resource, well-researched and well presented.”

“I want a copy on my bookshelf always within arm’s reach.”

“The anecdotal nature made it easy to understand the underlying legal concepts.”

“It is imperative that schools adopt this book in a way which would help young students gain knowledge about the various issues involving the Internet.” (Indian Journal of Intellectual Property Law)

“Issues in Internet Law: Society, Technology, and the Law will be a welcome addition in both academic and public law libraries… It should be acquired by libraries for its concise overview of Internet-related legal issues.” (Law Library Journal)

Monday, August 29, 2016

You’re Dead Meat!

We hear a lot about bullying these days. It’s trending in the news and the media and the Millennials act as if they’ve just discovered it. The truth is, bullying has been around for a very long time. As a kid, I was bullied in school just about every day. I had two perennial bullies who were the bane of my school years, but there were others who came and went— predators who recognized weakness when they saw it and who took gleeful pleasure in causing pain in those they knew wouldn’t or couldn’t fight back.

Most of them were little boys my age who didn’t look particularly terrifying to any adults, who wouldn’t have recognized them as bullies. In the world of kids and grown-ups, they were the Eddie Haskells of our world – the unctuous troublemaker teen on TV’s “Leave It toBeaver” who would always say “yes sir” and “you look lovely today, Mrs. Cleaver” to the parents, never hinting at his true nature. I say most: some were girls and they could be just as cruel as the boys. Worse, back then we were taught never to hit a girl – that would be a cardinal sin, so girls had carte blanche to bully as much as they wanted without fear of any consequences.

I was thinking about my grade school classmate Joseph today. I wish I could call him a friend, but in truth, I didn’t really have many friends growing up. I didn’t hang out with other kids, I didn’t go to parties with them, I didn’t go to their houses after school, I didn’t do the things friends do, so when I met Joseph I really didn’t know how to be a friend. But I was always pleasant to him and I even looked up to him. He was one of the Italian boys at our school and back then that meant he was a decent kid who came from a family steeped in strong morals and values. It also meant he knew how to take care of himself, if he had to, in a fight. I, on the other hand, was an avowed pacifist. I was against the ongoing Vietnam War and all wars in general. I thought fighting was wrong and rational people should be able to solve their differences peacefully. That made me a wimp in the eyes of many, with a target painted on my back.

One day, Joseph observed a boy bullying me. He told me at lunchtime, the next time the bully did that, I should tell him “Joseph said that if you do it again, you’re dead meat.” I had no idea what “dead meat” was, but to my 12-year-old ears it sounded awesome. Later, in the schoolyard, the bully approached me and I relayed Joseph’s message to him, word for word. He looked up, glanced across the yard, and saw Joseph nodding at him. I think Joseph even smacked his fist into his palm one time. The bully released my shirt collar and slowly backed away. That particular bully never bothered me again.


I don’t recall if I ever thanked Joseph. I probably did, but if not, I’m doing it now, 45 years late. I’m sure Joseph doesn’t remember that day, and probably doesn’t even remember me, but I never forgot him or his act of kindness. He didn’t have to fight the bully or even say a single word to him, yet he made a difference, eloquently and powerfully. When I wrote The Adventures of Mackenzie Mortimer coming-of-age trilogy, one of its defining precepts was “If you have the power to make a difference when no one else can, then you have a moral obligation to do so.” It’s one of the most important things I’ve ever written. A 12-year-old boy named Joseph understood this; if we can teach this to other kids and maybe even to their parents, we can make the world a better place, beginning by eliminating bullying.

Friday, August 26, 2016

Download Issues in Internet Law!

Now available as an electronic download to your computer, laptop, iPhone, iPad, Kindle, Android devices, and more! Save up to $35 off the print edition price! Download the 10th edition of Issues in Internet Law: Society, Technology, and the Law from VitalSource !




The 10th edition of Issues In Internet Law: Society, Technology, and the Law has been updated for 2016 with the latest cases and trends in Internet Law. The new edition not only has an expanded glossary, and expanded statute and case indexes but a new chapter devoted to the NSA's spying on Internet users and a first look at the European Union's Right to be Forgotten court ruling and its aftermath.

Topics include:
Privacy: Invasion of Privacy, Public Records, Workplace Privacy, Employer & ISP Monitoring, Data Collection, Data Retention, Data Breaches, the Right to be Forgotten, E-Mail & Chat Room Privacy, Web Site Privacy Policies, Behavioral Marketing, Flash Cookies, Device Fingerprinting, Privacy & Children, Metadata, Border Searches, FISA & the USA PATRIOT Act, the NSA, FISA Court, PRISM, XKeyscore;

Free Speech: Defamation, SLAPPs, Gripe Sites, Revenge Porn Sites, Mugshot Sites, Blogs & Vlogs, Obscenity & Pornography, Harassment & Hate Speech, Prior Restraint, Repression, Student Speech, CDA, Anonymous Speech, Commercial Speech, Expressive Conduct;

Social Media: Misuse, Ownership, Coerced Access, the Courts;

Cybercrimes: Spam, Phishing, Identity Theft, Spyware & Malware, Cyberstalking, Cyberbullying, Computer Trespass, Wardriving, Virtual Crime;

Intellectual Property: Copyright, Trademark, Patent, Trade Secrets, Creative Commons, Linking, Framing, File-Sharing, Fair Use, Public Domain, Work-Made-For-Hire, DMCA, VARA, Domain Name Disputes, Keyword Advertising, America Invents Act;

Business & the Internet: Internet Taxation, Internet Interstate Commerce, Web Contracts, e-Discovery, Corporate Securities, Crowdfunding, Reg A, Reg D;

Also: Cloud Computing; Digital Currency; Right of Publicity; Web Accessibility; Net Neutrality; Online Reputation Management; Social Media Monitoring; Podcasts; Geofiltering; Digital Journalism; Hyper Local Web Sites, Digital Estate Planning; Sexting; E-Books and many more subjects.

Concisely written and covering a broad range of topics, this is the most current book of its kind!


Reviews:

“Concise overview of Internet-related legal issues.” (Law Library Journal)

“Although it deals with the complex legal issues surrounding the Internet, it is written in layman’s terms and illustrated with ‘ripped from the headlines’ court cases.” (Amazon)

“The concepts and issues are presented in a way that is sufficiently rigorous but very easy to read, making the book one I can recommend.” (Computing Reviews) * “A valuable resource, well-researched and well presented.”

“I want a copy on my bookshelf always within arm’s reach.”

“The anecdotal nature made it easy to understand the underlying legal concepts.”

“It is imperative that schools adopt this book in a way which would help young students gain knowledge about the various issues involving the Internet.” (Indian Journal of Intellectual Property Law)

“Issues in Internet Law: Society, Technology, and the Law will be a welcome addition in both academic and public law libraries… It should be acquired by libraries for its concise overview of Internet-related legal issues.” (Law Library Journal)

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Download the 10th Edition of Issues in Internet Law!

Now available as an electronic download to your computer, laptop, iPhone, iPad, Kindle, Android devices, and more! Save up to $35 off the print edition price! Download the 10th edition of Issues in Internet Law: Society, Technology, and the Law from VitalSource !

The 10th edition of Issues In Internet Law: Society, Technology, and the Law has been updated for 2016 with the latest cases and trends in Internet Law. The new edition not only has an expanded glossary, and expanded statute and case indexes but a new chapter devoted to the NSA's spying on Internet users and a first look at the European Union's Right to be Forgotten court ruling and its aftermath.

Topics include:
Privacy: Invasion of Privacy, Public Records, Workplace Privacy, Employer & ISP Monitoring, Data Collection, Data Retention, Data Breaches, the Right to be Forgotten, E-Mail & Chat Room Privacy, Web Site Privacy Policies, Behavioral Marketing, Flash Cookies, Device Fingerprinting, Privacy & Children, Metadata, Border Searches, FISA & the USA PATRIOT Act, the NSA, FISA Court, PRISM, XKeyscore;

Free Speech: Defamation, SLAPPs, Gripe Sites, Revenge Porn Sites, Mugshot Sites, Blogs & Vlogs, Obscenity & Pornography, Harassment & Hate Speech, Prior Restraint, Repression, Student Speech, CDA, Anonymous Speech, Commercial Speech, Expressive Conduct;

Social Media: Misuse, Ownership, Coerced Access, the Courts;

Cybercrimes: Spam, Phishing, Identity Theft, Spyware & Malware, Cyberstalking, Cyberbullying, Computer Trespass, Wardriving, Virtual Crime;

Intellectual Property: Copyright, Trademark, Patent, Trade Secrets, Creative Commons, Linking, Framing, File-Sharing, Fair Use, Public Domain, Work-Made-For-Hire, DMCA, VARA, Domain Name Disputes, Keyword Advertising, America Invents Act;

Business & the Internet: Internet Taxation, Internet Interstate Commerce, Web Contracts, e-Discovery, Corporate Securities, Crowdfunding, Reg A, Reg D;

Also: Cloud Computing; Digital Currency; Right of Publicity; Web Accessibility; Net Neutrality; Online Reputation Management; Social Media Monitoring; Podcasts; Geofiltering; Digital Journalism; Hyper Local Web Sites, Digital Estate Planning; Sexting; E-Books and many more subjects.

Concisely written and covering a broad range of topics, this is the most current book of its kind!


Reviews:

“Concise overview of Internet-related legal issues.” (Law Library Journal)

“Although it deals with the complex legal issues surrounding the Internet, it is written in layman’s terms and illustrated with ‘ripped from the headlines’ court cases.” (Amazon)

“The concepts and issues are presented in a way that is sufficiently rigorous but very easy to read, making the book one I can recommend.” (Computing Reviews) * “A valuable resource, well-researched and well presented.”

“I want a copy on my bookshelf always within arm’s reach.”

“The anecdotal nature made it easy to understand the underlying legal concepts.”

“It is imperative that schools adopt this book in a way which would help young students gain knowledge about the various issues involving the Internet.” (Indian Journal of Intellectual Property Law)

“Issues in Internet Law: Society, Technology, and the Law will be a welcome addition in both academic and public law libraries… It should be acquired by libraries for its concise overview of Internet-related legal issues.” (Law Library Journal)

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

How to Write a Book Review

I write a lot of different things – articles, novels, textbooks, short stories – but the one thing I don’t write is book reviews. Why? Because I’m simply not qualified to write a book review. A book review is different from a comment or opinion. Opinion is subjective: I may like or dislike a book, a painting, or a song and not even be able to tell you why. That’s just how I feel about it and others may agree or disagree and none of us is right or wrong. That’s the very definition of art. But craft is different. Craft deals with technique; it is objective, not subjective, and there are standards by which performance can be measured. Was the singer off-key? Is the anatomy in the drawing incorrect? Is the book filled with grammatical errors? Those are objective and quantifiable qualities that can be judged.

However, in rare cases, a creator will put an artistic twist to his craft creating a hybrid that purposely breaks the rules of the art form changing objective craft into subjective art. Tiny Tim and his ukulele would have been a music teacher’s nightmare but his act became a freak success. Pablo Picasso's abstract art style challenged conventional forms of representation, such as perspective, which had been the standard since the Renaissance. Had he been an art student, his teachers would have flunked him. Poet e.e. cummings eschewed capitalization and would cavalierly disregard punctuation when it suited him. Arthur Rimbaud turned the world of poetry on its collective head. Edgar Allan Poe was a central figure of Romanticism, one of America's first short story authors, and regarded as the inventor of the detective fiction genre. Today he is an acclaimed writer read by every school child. Yet, he was never able to earn a decent living from his writing and died in poverty. When art and craft combine, the masses – including critics and reviewers – cannot always recognize the wheat from the chaff.

I don’t have the hubris to claim that ability so I do not choose to be a reviewer. Sure, I’ll offer my opinion on whether I like a song, a painting, or a book. But I don’t want to embarrass myself like my third grade classmate who gave his book report on George Orwell’s Animal Farm summing it up as a rather boring book about farm animals. I first read it when I was seven years old, and then again at age 15. The teenaged me discovered I was reading a completely different novel, a brilliant allegory about the Bolshevik Revolution. I was amazed at how perspective – acquired through maturity and life experience – could change one’s interpretation of an artistic work like a novel. How could I ever review a novel? All I might do is offer my limited perspective of how I viewed it through my life experience and educational background. I had no idea how the same words might resonate differently with someone else who had grown up in a completely different world or who read these same words through a prism of a much broader education then I had received. How much might I have been missing because I didn’t study history, linguistics, or philosophy? How many books might I have judged poorly because I only saw the farm animals and not the philosophical allegories that lay behind them? How many bad reviews might I have written based on my own shortcomings and not on any failings of the writer?

If you just want to comment on a book you've read or leave an opinion, then you should treat it like a third grade book report. Begin by listing the title, the author’s full name (make sure you spell it correctly), the genre, and a brief description or summary of the book, being careful not to give away any spoilers or the ending. You don’t want to spoil your audience’s pleasure in reading this book by ruining it for them. The whole idea of the book report (or review) is to pique your audience’s interest and entice them to read the book and form their own opinions. Conclude with your opinion but always acknowledge, whether you loved it or hated it, that this is merely your own opinion and you recognize other readers may or may not agree with you. Don’t state your opinion as fact. Let your audience come to their own conclusions.

To do that, help the audience find the book. List the ISBN: this is a unique identifying number for every book published. Think of it as a Social Security number for books. With that ISBN, any reader can walk into a bookstore and ask the store to order the book for them if they don’t have it on the shelf. They can search for that ISBN online and find sites that sell the book. Libraries can locate a book using the ISBN. Every edition of a book has its own unique ISBN, so you can immediately refer to an earlier or later printing, an annotated edition, or one using large type.

Tell your readers what formats the book is available in: hardcover, paperback, Kindle, EPUB, Audiobook, etc. Include a picture of the cover with a link to where they can buy copies. (If you’re making money when people click the link as an affiliate, include a disclaimer to reveal that). Add a link to the author’s Website or blog. If you wish, you can also note the publisher, the book’s dimensions, and the page count (or word count if it’s an ebook).

Now if you really want to write a book review, let’s turn to the  elements you should include in your review.
 1. Plot: Is it formulaic and cookie-cutter (”Save the Cat”) or original and creative? Is it hard to follow? Does it make sense? Are there subplots interwoven?
2. Characters: Are they well-defined? Are they 3-dimensional or do they come across as cardboard figures? Do they have individual personalities or could the dialogue between characters be interchangeable? Are these real people with human failings?
3. Dialogue: Does the dialogue fit each character? Does that sound like something a character with that personality and life experience would really say? Is the eight-year-old using a college-level vocabulary? Is the southern sharecropper suddenly extremely knowledgeable about commodities trading? Is the sociopath displaying empathy? Does the dialogue move the story along or is it merely filler, or worse, serving as an info dump? Is there an appropriate balance of dialogue versus exposition?
4. Pacing: Does the story flow smoothly? Are there action scenes to break up the monotony? Are there moments of suspense? Or does the story drag on like one long, boring monotone?

5. Theme: Does the work contain one or more themes? What are they and how are they represented? Is there a message within the story?
6. Symbolism: Is there an underlying meaning  to the author's tale (remember Animal Farm), or in the selection of character names? Often names will have symbolic meanings.
7. Avant-garde: Did the author break any established literature or writing rules or conventions? You may find this annoying and disconcerting because the author is doing something unexpected. The question is, Was this done on purpose, for effect, or because the writer was a novice who didn't know any better? A good writer always knows the rules and then sometimes goes on to break them on purpose. If that’s the case, don’t rush to judgment to hold a writer’s innovation and creativity against him or her. Personally, I’d rather a writer take chances, even if they don’t pan out quite the way the author wished, then to read the same boring cookie-cutter material.

8. Professionalism: Has the writer learned his or her craft? Here I’m talking about technique, not artistic vision. Is the writing style consistent? Does the author use foreshadowing, irony, symbolism, allusion, and metaphor? Does the author establish the setting for each scene or just launch into dialogue? Is the writing concise and crisp, or filled with redundancies and clichés? Does the author use simple declarative sentences, or multiple compound sentences and run-on sentences? Is there a proper balance of exposition and dialogue or does the author rely too heavily on one and not the other? While adverbs and adjectives are essential parts of speech, does the author overuse or misuse them? Is the prose overfilled with unnecessary details? Is the writing filled with exclamation marks? Does the writer properly use “said” for most of his dialogue attribution tags or does he amateurishly substitute anything but (e.g., implored, opined, or my favorite I caught once- ejaculated). Even better, does the writer use a beat of action in lieu of the tag? You can’t giggle, laugh, sigh, or smile spoken words; those are actions. The characters must say words, not smile them. Are there spelling, diction, grammar, or punctuation errors? In other words, was the editor out to lunch, or in the case of self-published novels, was there even an editor?

9. Layout: If it is a self-published book, is the layout professional? Are there unacceptable widows and orphans on the pages? Sufficient margins? Proper leading between lines? Readable type font and size? Proper formatting?
10. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Finally, what do you feel were the strengths of the book? Its weaknesses? Books are like people; none of them is perfect. They all have their strengths and weaknesses; their good points and their bad. The question is, when you add them up, is this person or book someone you would want to befriend or avoid?
11. Accuracy: Is your review factually accurate? The best way to look like an amateur reviewer is to get your facts wrong. I have had reviewers quote things that never appeared in my books; or confuse my main protagonist with someone else in such a way that it showed they hadn’t even read the book. In fact, I had one reviewer admit in the review he had never opened the book before he went on to review it. Another reviewer filmed a video book review: she held up the book to the camera, mispronounced the title, and flipped through the pages, presumably to show that it was, in fact, a real book— That was it. The entire review lasted nine seconds. I even had one reviewer who told me she had intended to leave a five-star review but cut it down to three stars because she thought my depiction of a torture chamber showed I must’ve been a terribly depraved and perverse individual to have dreamed up all those devices; I explained none of what offended her had come from my warped mind but rather from the Catholic Church during the Spanish Inquisition. I’m simply not that creative.

Here’s a final test. Get in touch with your old English teacher. (Never lose contact with your English teachers; they are the most valuable friends you may ever make as a writer). Give her your book review and ask her to grade it. If she gives it an “A”, post that sucker. Anything less, take it back to the drawing board and work on it. Not only will you end up posting a dynamite review, but you’ll learn how it feels to be both the critic and the critiqued. 

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Download the 10th Edition of Issues in Internet Law!

Now available as an electronic download to your computer, laptop, iPhone, iPad, Kindle, Android devices, and more! Save up to $35 off the print edition price! Download the 10th edition of Issues in Internet Law: Society, Technology, and the Law from VitalSource !




The 10th edition of Issues In Internet Law: Society, Technology, and the Law has been updated for 2016 with the latest cases and trends in Internet Law. The new edition not only has an expanded glossary, and expanded statute and case indexes but a new chapter devoted to the NSA's spying on Internet users and a first look at the European Union's Right to be Forgotten court ruling and its aftermath.

Topics include:
Privacy: Invasion of Privacy, Public Records, Workplace Privacy, Employer & ISP Monitoring, Data Collection, Data Retention, Data Breaches, the Right to be Forgotten, E-Mail & Chat Room Privacy, Web Site Privacy Policies, Behavioral Marketing, Flash Cookies, Device Fingerprinting, Privacy & Children, Metadata, Border Searches, FISA & the USA PATRIOT Act, the NSA, FISA Court, PRISM, XKeyscore;

Free Speech: Defamation, SLAPPs, Gripe Sites, Revenge Porn Sites, Mugshot Sites, Blogs & Vlogs, Obscenity & Pornography, Harassment & Hate Speech, Prior Restraint, Repression, Student Speech, CDA, Anonymous Speech, Commercial Speech, Expressive Conduct;

Social Media: Misuse, Ownership, Coerced Access, the Courts;

Cybercrimes: Spam, Phishing, Identity Theft, Spyware & Malware, Cyberstalking, Cyberbullying, Computer Trespass, Wardriving, Virtual Crime;

Intellectual Property: Copyright, Trademark, Patent, Trade Secrets, Creative Commons, Linking, Framing, File-Sharing, Fair Use, Public Domain, Work-Made-For-Hire, DMCA, VARA, Domain Name Disputes, Keyword Advertising, America Invents Act;

Business & the Internet: Internet Taxation, Internet Interstate Commerce, Web Contracts, e-Discovery, Corporate Securities, Crowdfunding, Reg A, Reg D;

Also: Cloud Computing; Digital Currency; Right of Publicity; Web Accessibility; Net Neutrality; Online Reputation Management; Social Media Monitoring; Podcasts; Geofiltering; Digital Journalism; Hyper Local Web Sites, Digital Estate Planning; Sexting; E-Books and many more subjects.

Concisely written and covering a broad range of topics, this is the most current book of its kind!


Reviews:

“Concise overview of Internet-related legal issues.” (Law Library Journal)

“Although it deals with the complex legal issues surrounding the Internet, it is written in layman’s terms and illustrated with ‘ripped from the headlines’ court cases.” (Amazon)

“The concepts and issues are presented in a way that is sufficiently rigorous but very easy to read, making the book one I can recommend.” (Computing Reviews) * “A valuable resource, well-researched and well presented.”

“I want a copy on my bookshelf always within arm’s reach.”

“The anecdotal nature made it easy to understand the underlying legal concepts.”

“It is imperative that schools adopt this book in a way which would help young students gain knowledge about the various issues involving the Internet.” (Indian Journal of Intellectual Property Law)

“Issues in Internet Law: Society, Technology, and the Law will be a welcome addition in both academic and public law libraries… It should be acquired by libraries for its concise overview of Internet-related legal issues.” (Law Library Journal)

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Back From the Dead

No, I’m not dead… And neither is this blog. I’ve simply been too busy to post this past month. So let me catch you up with what I’ve been doing.


I’ve finished editing More Essays of a Reluctant Blogger, the second collection of essays from this blog. It should be available at the end of this month.
I’ve placed my e-Storybooks – my short stories that are available in Kindle format – on Payhip.   Previously, they were downloadable from Amazon but moving to Payhip means I can offer them for less than Amazon’s minimum price of 99 cents, so most of them are now price at 50 cents. I’ve also placed all of my current novels in EPUB e-book format on Payhip:

Until now, my books have only been available in print editions and in Kindle format for e-books. But I’ve spent part of last month creating EPUB editions of all of them and making sure they have the widest distribution possible. You’ll find these books on Apple iTunes, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo, Scribd, 24 Symbols, Inktera, and Smashwords.  Here are links to the EPUB versions:

Finally, I took the month off from blogging to write a brand-new novel called Cops and Robbers. It’s a short book written in the vein of Twin Peaks, in other words, a dark comedy/crime drama. Early reviews from beta readers have a very favorable and I hope to have some advance reading copies (ARCs) available at the Imaginarium Convention in October in Louisville, Kentucky. In upcoming blog posts, I’ll talk more about Cops and Robbers, my upcoming appearance at the Imaginarium Convention, and what I’m currently working on now. Until then, keep reading!