Advice for Writers in 2013

It dawned on me this afternoon that I haven't yet dished out my usual annual bit of advice to new writers who are wondering how they might succeed at penning their first novel this year and making a killing off of it. Especially in E-Book format.

Three years ago I might have told one of these persons to jump on the social media bandwagon. To make their presence known on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Linkedin and more. I would have told them to invest in virtual book tours and to spend a couple of hours each day marketing their work on-line. I would have told them to start a blog and use it to offer advice on the writing process, and to present essays that show off the human side of the writer writing them...Or something like that.

Times have changed.

Social media isn't nearly as effective as it used to be. Virtual tours have most definitely taken over from the dreaded traditional book signing tour, which is a great thing, but they no longer help propel much in the way of sales. That is, you want to make a living at this gig. Blog writing is still a popular form of journalism, but it has become more of an outlet, writer-to-writer, reader-to-reader. A way to share information for free.  And frankly, there are too many bloggers out there who can't even write a proper sentence much less a novel.

So, you ask yourself, if none of the old tried and true methods of promoting your work in the digital age no longer work, than how in the world am I to sell my books?

The answer is simple: Write as well as you can, and then write some more. The only thing that will truly sell your work year in and year out is to write great books.

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You Wanna Be in Film?

I've always wanted to be in the movies.

When I was a kid I acted out every action/adventure role you can imagine. From cowboys and Indians, to WWII solider, to swashbuckling adventurer. I even set up the scene of Christ's crucifixion once which gave my parents pause to say the least. "Oh dear God he's building a cross!"

These days I write novels that get considered by the movies as possible full-length feature productions for either cable TV or the silver screen. I've been read by Clooney, Spielberg, DeNiro, Pacino, and more. While a lot of my books have come close, none of them thus far have been produced. But hey, that's Hollywood.

However, now, with the advent of book trailers, my books are coming alive on digital film if only for a minute or two at a time. Some of these trailers can be quite the professional productions. In fact, Amazon studios is sponsoring a new contest for my newest release Murder by Moonlight. They are inviting any film maker from around the globe to produce a book trailer for "Murder." The winner takes away $3,000 and there are also cash prizes and signed books for the runner ups. Thus far there have been entries coming in from around the globe. The last time Amazon Studios ran a contest like this for the suspense novel SEED, the winning entry led to major motion picture deal. How sweet is that?

There's still time for you to make your mark in the film world. Here's how:
http://studios.amazon.com/projects/16983

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What's Old is Hot

"As a kid, I used to stare at the Apple spinning on the turntable for hours and hours..."

Remember the feeling of buying a new album?
Not a compact disk, but a real vinyl LP. If you still didn't have you drivers license your mother or father carted you to the record store and you dropped the five bucks you earned from delivering papers or babysitting, and you stared at the cover art all the way home. Once insde the house, you shot up to your room, peeled away the plastic, smelled the good smell of the cardboard sleeve that somehow combined with the smell of the vinyl record to create a fragrance that in my life anyway, has never been replicated. You slipped the record onto the turntable praying it wouldn't be warped, and then you gently set the needle onto the record. You sat yourself down on your bed with the album cover gripped in your hands and you listened for the first pops and hisses and scratches that can only come from vinyl, until the music kicked in and transported you a million miles away.

That experience has never been duplicated for me in the modern age of music downloads and internet radio stations. Music has gone from being a very personal emotional event to something more like a plastic backdrop. Instead of enjoying a one on one with the music artist, we now create for ourselves, our own particular brand of Muzac. The loss of the personal music experience that could only come from vinyl is almost like losing a language or even a religion.

But now vinyl is back. In a big way. This holiday season, one of the bestsellers is, and will continue to be, newly remixed and repackaged albums from some of the bands we have loved the most for decades. The Beatles, The Who, The Stones, and more...Now I need to go out and buy a new turntable. What's old is hot again, proving it's not the technology we're after, but the experience. The personal experience.

Look for the same thing to occur in the books. While E-Books, Kindles, Nooks and other digitized versions of books will continue to take off and even dominate the market for years to come, there will come, sooner than later, a resurgence not only of paper books, but beautifully bound rich paper volumes. What's old will be hot.

It's one thing to keep up with technology and always be moving forward. But it's another to abandon entirely the personal experience we once shared only with ourselves when we cracked open a brand new novel, or when we gently, hopefully, placed that diamond needle down onto a new album

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Killer Off Roading in Chianti

In this video, we come upon a felled tree that is blocking the road. Checco decides to get a little creative in attempting to move it out of the way so we can pass on through, reach the summit, and then drive down into the valley and the little town of Greve where we will have lunch.

___

The Chianti region of Italy is renown for its mountain vineyards, olive oil farms, a lush countryside filled with wild game including deer and boar, and a peaceful, healthy lifestyle that hasn't changed in centuries. Mostly it's know for its famous wines. It's a place to visit in order to escape the hustle and congestion of the cities. A place to eat, pray and love as the saying goes. To forget about your mortality for a while.

Or is it?

This past spring I wrote about motorbiking in the Chianti mountains. At the time it seemed like a dangerous prospect. But that was nothing compared this past Tuesday when I accompanied my fixer and friend Francesco "Checco" Tassi on an off-road tour of the Chianti mountains in his small Jeep. Imagine if you will, motoring at high speed along steep narrow paths that barely accompany the width of the vehicle, with deep, brown-water hidden ruts on the driver's side and only inches (and sometimes not even that) from the passenger side door, sheer cliff drops off one hundred and two hundred feet or more, and maybe you get the picture.

And I thought Egypt was dangerous.

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Muslim Brotherhood the New Brown Shirts

That sign behind me doesn't say Benevolent Men's Club...It says Muslim Brotherhood Headquarters. It's a blurred because we had to move fast or else face some serious trouble...


Anyone out there who believes the Muslim Brotherhood is a myth or that these guys are still men of ideas and simple faith who gather together every Friday to play cards and shoot the shit or that they are not interested in pretty much crushing anything Judeo-Christian in the world, had better listen up.

The MB exists.
They are filled with rage and hate directed at the west.
They carry weapons.
Dangerous weapons. AKs locked and loaded with doubled-up banana clips held together with both duct tape and colorful cloth, the colors of which represent a specific set of beliefs (see paragraph no. 1).

Not only are Jews unwelcome in Egypt, they require special documentation. There is, at present, one synagogue left in Cairo, but it is a tourist attraction now since there are estimated to be less than 200 Jews left in a city of ten million inhabitants. I can bet that estimate is inflated. Because if I were a Jew here, I'd be leaving. 

In many ways, Egypt and much of the Middle East has become pre-war Germany and the Muslim Brotherhood, the new Brown Shirts. The police command little respect here as evidenced by the motorists who fearlessly scream and shout out obscenities at them. Perhaps it's always been that way or just perhaps, the police aren't exactly the ones in charge here. People, especially women, have experienced their physical brutality in the streets.  

Not only is it dangerous for me to admit I'm an American (I've been Canadian for weeks), but should I tell anyone who cares that my significant other and our daughter is Jewish, I might have a real problem on my hands. Perhaps you feel I'm being overly dramatic. Trust me, I don't want to test my theory out in any which way possible. So I've kept my mouth shut, my eyes and ears open, and my fingers crossed as I make my way across the desert country.

Listen, in many ways I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. But it's one thing reading about what's happening here in the papers, but it's quite another thing living it. Fearing it. It's disconcerting, to say the least. knowing there are countries that exist in the world where my loved ones are not welcome, not to mention, safe. 

 Martyrs R' Us....

At present, the Middle East is exploding. What results from fallout of that explosion remains to be seen. One thing is for certain, if the Muslim Brotherhood continues to take charge, like they have in Egypt (much to the dismay of many Egyptians, especially women), then a major Judeo-Christian vs. radical Muslim conflict is inevitable.

But wait just one minute...I totally forgot about 9/11/2012 Benghazi, Libya raid and the simultaneous attack on the US consulate in Cairo's Tahrir Square...I've forgotten about more than a decade of conflict in the Middle East. We already are at war. Or perhaps I should be a little more open-minded and objective about the whole situation. In the words of the late journalist Martha Gellhorn who spent her fair share of time in pre-war Germany: "Fuck all that objectivity shit."
  

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Egypt in the Future Tense

The very poor and the very curious (photo: Vincent Zandri)

The present tense of Egypt is solidly rooted in a past tense of revolution, assassinations, military crack downs, religious ferver and, of course, its rich heritage of stunning antiquities, both discovered and yet to be excavated. Amidst all this is a sense of instability and anxiety. While the new president is described to me by my Cairo fixer, Dendera (not her real name), as a moderate, he is also a card carrying member of the Muslim Brotherhood. And this is precisely what has her so concerned.

Fresh kill for the feast (photo: Vincent Zandri)

 
Dendera is a small, richly tan-skinned young woman in her mid-twenties who is both very well educated and career-minded. So much so she has shunned the notion of a boyfriend since her life is so busy with school, work, and her extended family. She has a kind smile, a soft voice, huge brown eyes and she has made the decision to always wear a scarf around her head to hide her hair when in public. She is religious, but not fanatically so. She believes in equal pay for all. Men and women. She wants to have a life which includes traveling beyond the borders of Egypt. But when she tells me this while standing outside the massive, ancient sea-side castle in Alexander, her characteristic smile begins to fade. She shrugs her shoulders, lowers her head and walks on.

 
When I catch back up to her, I try and cheer her up by telling her that if she ever gets to New York she must look me up. She perks up and regains that smile. She tells me she'll message me on Facebook. That during the revolution, Facebook and Twitter became so important to the young protesters. A cheap and effective way to communicate to the rest of the world one people's passion for freedom and a break from the old tyrannical ways. That freedom was exercised however briefly until supreme power was handed over to the Muslim Brotherhood. When I ask Dendera if it will be possible for Egypt to maintain the freedom that so many died for in the streets of Cairo while maintaining a government run by Muslim fanatics, she shakes her head, looks one way and then the other.

"No," she whispers.

But that whisper, however quiet, hits me like a scream.

We walk silently for a while along the hot pavement. On occasion, Dendera's hand brushes up against mine. The touching sends a wave of electricity up and down my spine, as if I were suddenly sixteen again.

"Don't forget," I say, after a time. "You can find me on Facebook."

"I will message you," she says.

"New York," I remind her. "I will be your guide this time."

She giggles.

"I would like to see the Statue of Liberty. Is it true that it's possible to climb up insider her?"

"It's true," I confirm.

"Lady Liberty," she says. "This dream is something I carry for one day."

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