All Blog Posts Tagged 'bizarre' (74)

I work at a country Inn rumored to be

haunted. And I’m not just saying that. The Inn has been

written up in books about haunted places and actual ghost hunters have spent

nights trying to capture on film inhabitants of the great beyond. One of more

frequent questions I get asked by people who know the Inn’s

history is if I have ever seen anything out of the ordinary? Now, I’m at the

Inn late at night, I’ve done inventory in the “haunted” wine cellar at two…

Just a quick post before I spend my weekend working at my

job and this little piece of promotion disappears into cyberspace. If you’re an

indie writer and have a book to sell than check out the site below, Indie

Snippets. They have a pretty good base of readers and having my books placed

there has increased traffic to my book sites. I think they’re a little

backlogged right now, but take a moment to fill out their submission form. It’s

free, and free is always…

Lately, I’ve been blogging about memories, life experiences,

writing, my take on the publishing industry, etc. So, today I’ve decide to do

some good ole’ fashioned promotion. My latest three books, all released in the

last year, are now available for just $1.25. As I mentioned in a previous post,

although these books all came out around the same few months, they took more

than a decade for me to consider them finished. They all have been

professionally edited,…

I’ve been pondering the notion of my books one day going

viral and selling millions of copies. I’ve been pondering how much my life

would change and what I would do with my time if I didn’t have to work at a

conventional job anymore. Of course, I would still write books, that’s a given,

but what else would I do with my time? I guess it depends on the amount of

sales. A million copies sold would allow me to live a life of ease, but if

you’re talking in the millions,…

I dreamt of my dog last night. It has been exactly six

months since I made that awful decision to put him down. He was deaf, crippled,

and going blind. I had spent the last months of his life in denial of his

condition and constantly cleaning up his incontinence. When I went to work I

would have to line the floor with newspaper and still would come home to

messes. Finally, when all he could do was eat, sleep, and spin in circles, I

decided it was time. It took…

Once again, I’ve made the cardinal sin of trying to market

my books on forums and threads, and once again, a bunch of people are sending

me nasty replies. Which is fine if these forums and threads had a policy of no

author marketing, but they don’t. I learned early on that trying to post of

those sites gets you a base of enemies real fast. But what still confuses me is

the length that some people will go to, to make you feel bad for even trying to

distribute your…

Tis the season to be spooky. That said, AFTER is now half

price for the Halloween season. Many of you read my article on pricing and I

received many comments both good and bad about lowering the price of my books

and the perceived worth of the material inside. I believe that by temporarily

lowering the price of my books I will be able to generate a larger audience who

will appreciate a good, original story and want to check out more of my stuff.

If you haven’t checked…

The year is 2005 and I just signed with my agent at

Fineprint Literary. I was full of hope and excitement and dreams of hitting it

big. Unfortunately, three and a half years later we ended our contract. Now,

with six books available for sale and another four on the way I’m beginning to

wonder if it is worth the effort to try and get signed again. Considering the

average “good” agent receives over 100 email queries a day, what are my odds of

getting discovered even if…

Yeah, I had a top agent once; Gary Heidt at Signature Lit. Yeah, at one time I was

also signed to one of the best agencies in NY; Fineprint Lit. Yeah, I got phone

calls that editors wanted to buy my books. Yeah, you guessed it, they all fell

through in the end. But you know what? I don't care. Cause now, I can write,

publish, and sell anything I want. When I was signed to these agencies I got

dozens of rejections, not because my stuff was bad, the editors all said,…

Got another interview posted. Please check it out.

http://anthonycardno.com/?p=264

Lately, I've been getting into the interview thing. You'd be surprised how

many bloggers are looking for material and are willing to give an interview

with nothing in return. Of course, whenever I'm interviewed I promote it

heavily throughout the web which drives traffic to their blog. It's a symbiotic

partnership. Though I'm not sure how many sales these interviews generate, it

does give me lots of exposure. And I have gotten some nice feedback by…

Hey all,

There’s a new site that will promo your book for free. It’s
called Indie snippets. They’ve listed two of my books so far and will do more
in the coming weeks. Here are the links to the pages. Check it out.

http://www.indiesnippets.blogspot.com/

I’ve seen the commercials; a young child is telling a story as the computer automatically types it, fueling an imagination-laced story. The commercial makes it seem like anyone can be a writer. But by definition, what is a writer? I believe the term will soon be obsolete. Why? Because with speech recognition anyone can sit at a computer and talk into it, but it takes an artist to tell a story that fascinates. I do believe that soon millions of people will call themselves writers…

I asked myself this question after a dear friend died of pancreatic cancer only eight days after his initial diagnosis. The experience left me feeling empty and searching for purpose. I wrote DROP OUT as a way of dealing with the senselessness of it all. Writing the book allowed me to explore why we are here on this Earth and in this physical world. Since the story revolves around one man's loss after 9/11 I believe the book is even more relevant as the anniversary of that terrible day…

And so the waiting begins. The hurricane is coming. It’s always strange the denial people feel before a disaster hits, especially a day like today. Here in Pennsylvania, it’s a sunny, beautiful day. But I’m not fooled. I’ve been watching the weather channel and I know it’s coming. I know in 36 hours my life will be significantly changed if the storm gives us a direct hit. I’m not saying I’m going to lose my house or anything like that, though we may get some pretty serious storm damage, I’m…

     By now most people are aware that a hurricane is coming our way here on the east coast. I’m pretty safe in Pennsylvania, but I sympathize with those along the shore. I know it’s going to be a rough ride.

     Besides the wind, rain, hail, and destruction, there is something fascinating about watching Mother Nature unleash her wrath. It makes you think that with all our technology we’re still vulnerable when it comes to our environment. Perhaps, one day we will be able to…

     Finished my newest middle grade sci/fi novel, INSECTLAND yesterday and now it’s off to get its cover. I am using my usual ebook cover person, Judy Bullard. This is a book I started in January of 1997 and have been tweaking ever since. It’s funny how some novels can be written in a few months while others, like this one, can take years.

     Actually, I think I need to clarify something here. It didn’t take me this long to write the book, I actually wrote the book in four months…

Here is an excerpt from one of my novels.

PULP

By

N. D. Ostroff

CHAPTER 1

How it all began

I knew I shouldn’t…

My wife and I live near a lake and every morning we take a long walk. Well, this morning my wife turns to me and says out of the blue; “You need to make 1.4 million dollars.”

“Done,” I replied.

“No really,” she pressed. “We need 1.4 million dollars.”

“Why that amount?” I asked.

She gave me this answer. 1.4 million dollars is the number she came up with that will allow us to retire; which sounded good to me since we’re both in our early forties. She came…

     For years and years, I dreamed of hitting it big as a writer. That dream kept me going through twelve hour days slaving in a corporate kitchen, through hard financial times, and even through bad relationships. The dream got closer when I signed with a top NY agency and even closer when editors of big publishing houses were requesting my stuff. But alas, the big viral hit still hasn’t happened. The books are written and being written, and quite a few are available for purchase and have…