Have you ever bought anything simply because someone sent you a postcard?



Hardly a day goes buy that I don’t get some kind of promotional postcard in the mail, offering me everything from pizza to carpet cleaning to the services of a competent, experienced realtor. These cards go directly to the recycling bin, destined for the Mixed Paper section of the local recycling station.



But they must work, otherwise people wouldn’t send them to me.



Postcards are a… Continue

Anyone been following the Margaret Seltzer story? The woman who grew up in in Sherman Oaks CA, graduated from a private high school, and managed to pass herself off an LA gang member? Her publisher is shocked, shocked to discover she made it all up. Apparently all they know about gang life in Los Angeles is what they've read in the New York Times and seen in HBO documentaries.



Of course, authors of memoirs have always been allowed to play fast and loose with the truth. Mostly… Continue

A bit of background here. I belong to an online community called www.goodreads.com which is a place where readers discuss books. We have some lively conversations, especially in the group called "Books I Loathed."



One of the books that came up was a children's book by Shel Silverstein called The Giving Tree. Depending on your point of view, it's a poignant parable of unconditional love, or the toxic relationship between a narcissistic male and a pathetic self-destructive… Continue

Not exactly.



But I am in the position of being able to exploit a current news story to sell a book that was written five years ago. (Yes, the wheels of publication do run slowly.)



Yesterday, an eco-terrorist group called the Earth Liberation Front (using the adorable acronym ELF) set fire to three multi-million dollar mansions in a Seattle suburb. Fortunately, the houses were unoccupied and no one was hurt or killed. Of course, ELF prides itself on never harming a living… Continue