GetPublished! Radio Show Goes Live Today

No April Fool - just fools for love of books and spirited debate. 

Featured Guest - Mark Coker, Founder and CEO of Smashwords


The GetPublished! premiere hour-long episode features three in-studio interviews with authors: William Anthony (I Am Fire and Air, YA sci-fi), Gary Young (Loss and Found: How We Survived the Loss of a Young Spouse), and Ruth Frechman (The Food Is My Friend Diet). Gary is also Director of Professional Development of the Independent Writers of Southern California (IWOSC) and President of the Publishers Association of Los Angeles.

Also on the show - call-ins with questions from listeners and Gerald's monologue on how he published his father's memoir.

eBook Suggestion of the Month: The Battle of $9.99

Looking for an educational, fascinating read on how the E-Book industry has revolutionized our reading an purchasing habits?  We suggest The Battle of $9.99:  How Apple, Amazon, and the Big Six Publishers Changed the E-Book Business Overnight by Andrew Richard Albanese. 

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Photo courtesy Independent Writers of Southern California (IWOSC).

The first person who posts a comment below with the obvious answer will receive a complimentary copy of My Inflatable Friend.

"Rubber Babes" Sneak Preview

The renowned fratirist and author of My Inflatable Friend reads from the second whimsical book in the series of Rollo Hemphill's misadventures.



The event was at Barnes & Noble last Sunday on the Santa Monica Third Street Promenade. Also reading that day were IWOSC colleagues Regina Apigo, Bob Birchard, Dr. Diane DeLaVega, Ron Vazzano, Telly Davidson, David Groves, Stephen R. Wolcott, Flo Selfman, Dale Henderson, Gail Wichert, Christine Candland, and Marvin Wolf.

Steve Jobs Disappoints Me

I had assumed that Apple was just holding back from entering the e-book market. Its competitor Sony, after all, has been taking the cautious road by marketing its Reader device in a grass-roots campaign that seems to be aimed at librarians and academics. Then along comes Amazon with Kindle, which perhaps rightly emphasizes convenience and instant gratification via wireless distribution.

And of course I'm pleased that My Inflatable Friend is available not only in softcover, but also in Kindle e-format.

But if Steve Jobs is to be believed, he just doesn't want to play the game. At all. There will be no iPod for books (unless you credit the little-publicized ability of the iPhone to display PDFs). Here's what he said recently in the NY Times.

Perhaps he should pop over to Goodreads, where librarians and other book junkies flock to await the End of Print As We Know It!