First Review for "Dancing Prince"

Dancing Prince has its first review on Amazon, and it’s a five-star. Thank you, Carla!

“What does one say when you have lived so intimately with the Kent-Hughes family, suffering with them in their sorrows and rejoicing in their achievements and triumphs. Always and most importantly delighting in the way their every path in life revealed their Christian passion and commitment. I am sorry their fans don’t get to continue walking with them but pray their lives will impact many faithful and searching readers.

“As a side note, I was reluctant to read the epilogue for I expected to be disappointed with a story going in a totally different direction after so thoroughly enjoying the 5 books in the series. What a surprise awaited me. You will NOT be disappointed.”

You can see the review at the Amazon page.

"Dancing Priest" Free on Amazon Kindle This Week

Dancing Priest, the first novel in the series, is free on Amazon Kindle this week. 

Michael Kent…
A young man studying to become a priest finds love, and learns that faith can separate.
A university cyclist seeking Olympic gold finds tragedy, death and heroism.
A pastor thousands of miles from home seeks vocation and finds fatherhood.

Sarah Hughes…
A young woman living abroad finds love and loses family.
A university student meets a faith she cannot accept.
An artist finds faith and learns to paint with her soul.

Dancing Priest is the story of Michael Kent and Sarah Hughes and a love, born, separated, and reborn, in faith and hope.

Book 1 in the Dancing Priest series available here. 

"Dancing King" available on Amazon

As of this afternoon, "Dancing King" - the third novel in my Dancing Priest series - is available on Amazon, both the paperback and the Kindle editions. They both went live today (and they're temporarily on separate pages).

The paperback is here: https://www.amazon.com/Dancing-King-Book-Priest/…/ref=sr_1_2 and the Kindle version is here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077Y6MPWY/ref=sr_1_1

The book’s description: “Michael and Sarah Kent-Hughes arrive in Britain, to live permanently and prepare for the coronation. But forces are at work to frustrate Michael’s every move, with the aim of stopping him from being crowned king. As Michael assembles his staff and begins to find his way, he learns what it means to depend upon people and his faith.”

“Poetry at Work” Featured at the High Calling; Kindle Edition Now Available

My new book Poetry at Work has been featured at The High Calling. In The High Calling’s Community section, an excerpt of the Tweetspeak Poetry article by L.L. Barkat has been posted. You can read it here. 

And the Kindle edition of Poetry at Work is now live at Amazon.

Poetry at Work – First Review at Amazon

I review a lot of books each year. I know the effort that’s required to review a book. Reading the book is often the easiest part.

How do you describe it? How do you explain what you like (or don’t) about it? Where do you find references to the author about other works or background? And don’t forget to keep notes – quotes you might want to cite, examples, descriptions, the aspects of the work that particularly struck you.

Book reviews are work. If you do them regularly, you can create an organized process. But they’re still work. And for those of us who write them, we generally have the same reason for sticking at it: we love books.

So when I see a review of one of my own books, I know what went into it.

The first review of Poetry at Work was posted on Amazon yesterday. The review’s title: “Young's heart of a poet is poured out extravagantly on every page.” You can read the review here. 

Thank you, Elizabeth Marshall.

Book Stores

The news first arrived as an email, asking for help. The Book House, a fixture in our local community for more than 30 years, had been notified that its building was to be torn down.

The building is an 1863 farmhouse. It’s to be torn down with nearby structures to provide the space needed for a storage facility.

The officials in the neighboring community where The Book House is located are not known for their devotion to history or historical legacy. An old 19^th century stone church recently stood in the way of a new gas station. A win-win scenario was created – the gas station developer removed the church (stone by stone) for it to be rebuilt at a winery in a rural area. Instead, the bricks were unceremoniously dumped on the property and pillaged by people looking for stones for paving, their gardens, and who knows what else. The church is gone forever.

The new developer says he’s trying to work with The Book House, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The municipality calls the bookstore an institution. Well, so was the church.

I have a strong personal connection to this particular book store. I’ve been a regular customer since 1986. And it’s the location of the poetry alcove I wrote about for Tweetspeak Poetry.

The book House is notable for another reason than the old building it resides in. In a time where small bookstores are rapidly disappearing, even used bookstores, The Book House has not only survived but has managed to hold its own against the chain stores and even Amazon.

It’s a used bookstore that expanded into new books that expanded into selling books online. On the premises are 200,000 books. In the warehouse are another 80,000 books. Available online are yet another 80,000 books.

Barnes and Noble is ailing, and the prognosis doesn’t look good. In St. Louis, Borders is gone. The Kirkwood Bookstore is long gone. So is Pudd’n’Head Books, Successful Life bookstore, One Way Bookstore, Paul’s Books, The Library Ltd., Brentano’s, B. Dalton’s, Waldenbooks, and several used bookstores. We’re down to Barnes and Noble, a few small bookshops, and Wal-Mart/Sam’s Club.

I’m partially responsible for this state of affairs. Most of the books I buy today are from Amazon. I’m not attracted by the price. I am attracted by the convenience and the huge selection that is likely to have anything I am looking for. Those are the benefits. (I pay a use tax on internet purchases, so there’s no tax benefit involved here.)

There’s also a cost. To buy a book on Amazon is to miss the smell and feel of a bookstore, the chance discovery of a new book by an author you love, or to be captured by a new title or an old one. When I was in Barnes and Noble recently, looking for a gift, I walked out with the gift, but I also walked out with new books by Jaroslav Pelikan and Peter Ackroyd that I didn’t know had been published. I just happened to see the books in the “new history titles” shelf. Despite knowing my purchase history, Amazon would not have recommended these books when I came to the site.

The book publishing business is staying in upheaval. We’ve all been waiting for it to finally calm down, but that’s not likely to happen. The industry is going to stay in upheaval, largely thanks to technology. Many bookstores will not be able to survive, but others (like the Book House) will be able to figure out how to find a way to compete. Amazon has set its sites on the publishing part of the industry, and where that will lead is anyone’s guess.

In the meantime, The Book House in its small iconic building will likely have to look for a new home – or perhaps a new lot, if the developer is sincere about paying the building’s moving costs. The shop probably couldn’t sustain the moving costs and still remain profitable.

The developer has the right to do what he wants with his property. But a storage facility? Sheesh. 

There is an online petition asking the municipality to stop. I signed it. We spend a lot of money at restuarants there.

The bookstore has been given its 90-day eviction notice.

Photograph: The Book House. The gabled area above the porch is the poetry alcove.

What I’m Learning about Book Publishing

Since June, I’ve been working with a personal trainer on core conditioning and general physical strengthening,  with a nice leavening of cardio work thrown in for good measure. On Monday, while I’m grunting and groaning with routines like “dead bugs” and “bear crawls,” He told me his grandmother was reading Dancing Priest, and couldn’t put it down. “She’s raving about what a great story it is,” he said.

Of course, I agreed.

Yesterday, as I’m staggering around trying to recover from TRX hamstring curls, “mountain climbing,” and more bear crawls with an eight-pound ball on my back, he told me his grandmother had finished it and was telling all her friends about it.

“When’s the next one coming out?” he asked.

“The day after Thanksgiving,” I said. “It’s out.” I told him he could get A Light Shining at Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or could even call Barnes & Noble or small bookstores locally and order it. “If enough people call asking for it,” I said, “bookstores are much more likely to stock it in the stores, that is, if they’re still around next week.”

I’m learning about the book publishing, book marketing, and the book retail business. The industry is going through convulsions, and there’s no sign of settling down any time soon. Two local bookstores closed recently in St. Louis; the fact is that a small bookstore, the kind so many of us grew up with, simply can’t compete with an Amazon. The ones who are still trying to be general bookstores are going out of business; the ones finding specific niches are hanging on, at least for now. (One of the ones going out of business in St. Louis actually stocked Dancing Priest for a time.)

None of us likes change. When it comes to books, we like to think it’s still the era of Maxwell Perkins editing the likes of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe at Scribner’s. Perkins died in 1947. The industry he knew continued on for another 25 years or so, and then disappeared forever. (If you want to read an excellent biography of Perkins, try Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg. It was originally published in 1979 and reissued in 2008.)

A statement of the obvious: Amazon is blowing the industry wide open. Not only has it upended the retail industry, it’s now moving into publishing in a major way. Want to guess why so many traditional publishers tried to establish prices of e-books with Apple? (And got into trouble with the Justice Department as a result?) The answer is a six-letter word that’s the name of a river in South America.

Amazon is a huge factor, but it’s not the only agent for change. Technology is upending the book industry, too. Print-on-demand printers essentially mean anyone can publish, for any length of time, a paperback book. E-books are starting to dominate adult fiction. Self-publishing is exploding. Did you know that even blockbuster bestselling author Jackie Collins is experimenting with self-publishing? Old forms of publication are new again, like serial publication – it worked for Dickens in the 19^th century and it looks like it might be working again today. All kinds of digital magazines are promoting fiction, short stories, poetry, and “creative non-fiction.”

There are even publishers like Diversion Books that work like a traditional publisher with one exception – they handle only digital books.

The single most overused word in the book industry now is “platform,” as in, an author has to have one. Experts point to social media – go ye therefore and subdue Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube. Millions of writers are chasing millions of potential readers on social media to prove to publishers they have what it takes to sell books and make money.

If you’re a new writer, no matter who you’re publisher is, you’re going to be largely on your own. It’s a fact of life today in the book business. Yes, I know, I want to spend all my time writing, too, but that simply won’t work any more if you expect to be published and read. You’re going to be largely responsible for your own marketing and promotion, even if you have a traditional publisher.

One thing to always remember: It’s all coming apart, yes. But that is often the absolute best time to throw yourself into something and see what opportunities are there. And the opportunities are there.

‘Dancing Priest’ Free on Kindle

My first novel, Dancing Priest, is free on Amazon Kindle today, tomorrow and Thursday:

Michael Kent…
A young man studying to become a priest finds love, and learns that faith can separate.
A university cyclist seeking Olympic gold finds tragedy, death and heroism.
A pastor thousands of miles from home seeks vocation and finds fatherhood.

Sarah Hughes…
A young woman living abroad finds love and loses family.
A university student meets a faith she cannot accept.
An artist finds faith and learns to paint with her soul.

Dancing Priest is the story of Michael Kent and Sarah Hughes and a love, born, separated, and reborn, in faith and hope.

(And if I had to pick my favorite scene in the book, it would be the closing ceremonies in the Olympic Stadium in Athens. Or the Christmas Eve scene with Michael and young Jim. Or possibly the Last Tango in Edinburgh. And then there’s…)

Merry Christmas! 

What I’m learning from readers (and a giveaway)

Today, I have a guest post at Imperfect Prose, Emily Wierenga’s blog, talking about what I’m learning about fiction, my own books, and myself from the people who have read Dancing Priest and (now) A Light Shining.

There’s also a giveaway of a copy of either of the two books – just leave a comment and a name will be selected at random and announced next Friday. (And many thanks to Emily for hosting my article.)

I’ve also set up an author’s page at Amazon. (It’s one weird feeling to do that.) I used one of the photos my wife took when we were in London. You can visit it at Amazon.

Update on "Dancing Priest"

Dancing Priest is now available for Nook at Barnes and Noble, in addition to Kindle at Amazon.

And the book has its first blog review. Louise Gallagher, over at Recover Your Joy, must have read it almost straight through the night. She posted her review this morning. Part of what she said was this: "I had to read the whole thing. I couldn't stop. The story kept pulling me on. In. Into the lives of two people whose journeys intersected, separated, intersected, separated. And no. I'm not going to tell you which direction they ended up in. You'll have to read it all for yourself."

It's a wonderful review. Of course, I'm biased. But still, it's wonderful.

"Dancing Priest" is Available on Kindle

We thought it would happen Thursday, but the Kindle version of my novel Dancing Priest is now live on Amazon.

The Nook version should be available soon at Barnes & Noble. And a few days after that for iBook.

I am sitting here very quietly. Very quietly.

I am trying to be cool.

I am not succeeding.

Thanks to Doug Spurling at Spurling Silver for bringing the news to my attention.

I am staying calm.

I am so NOT staying calm.

That Box from Amazon

I've been biding time with my reading, getting around to a few things I had put off for a while. Two books were related to work -- Roger D'Aprix's The Credible Company and Jim Shaffer's The Leadership Solution -- both about internal corporate communication. I also read the museum guide to a show I saw last May at the Chicago Art Institute on the painter Edward Hopper, the artist who painted "Nighthawks," among a number of iconic American works.

Just biding my time -- waiting for the box from Amazon. This afternoon, as I pulled into the driveway, I saw the box on the front porch. I'm like a kid at Christsmas when I know books I've ordered have finally arrived. In this box were Travis Thrasher's Admission; Chris Fabry's Dogwood; Marlo Schalesky's If Tomorrow Never Comes; and Charles Martin's When Crickets Cry. I'm waiting on Adam Blumer's Fatal Illusions from another supplier.

Ah, the delightful anguish of deciding what to read first...