Tag: LDS

Self Publishing Possibilities

Twenty years ago I set out to write the Arthur-can-write-like Louie L ‘Amor western with gunfights, brawls and all that goes with it.

Didn’t turn out that way.

Louie L’Amour’s muse wasn’t splitting time between Louie and me.

As I’ve heard from others, when a writer really gets into his work, his characters seem to step in, take over and at times even change the total nature of the writing.

What was born was entirely within my own life experience and perception.

I wrote and sent this manuscript to a New York literary agent I’d listened on Larry King’s old all-night radio talk show while delivering the USA Today into boxes all over Vancouver.

The agent told me to forget it. There wasn’t a market sufficient for religious literary fiction. So I forgot it and missed my opportunity to step in front of the Left Behind writers ten years before they created their stuff.

This novel is self-published which is the point of the diary. As one or two advertisments out there point out, vanity publishing is now possible on a scale equal to individual resources.

Normal shipping is 3-5 days after order unless there’s a holiday going on. Also – as we did – the account holder/author can buy copies at cost from the printer (that is, minus the markup).

Books are printed on demand and authors don’t have to buy their books in lots of 100 or more in order to facilitate distribution.

My writing here came about because my wife, Lietta, wanted a printed version for our home and I looked into it.

The result is what you see here. Possibilities suggest themselves, shorter tracts, booklets, brochures, collections of essays, how-to manuals, and other stuff.

Yeah, check out my novel which has not been re-written, modernized nor edited from its original 1986 form when I was still trying to figure out the “he said”, “she reponded,” “they shouted” dialogue narrations

– not to mention avoiding too much head thoughts and not enough description via action.

But then, Mailer, Vidal, even Louis L’Amour are not in danger from the likes of me.  

Son of Mormon Prophet Maxes out to Mitt

Although Mitt Romney has said that he will not take orders from the LDS (Mormon) church, it is clear that many Mormons are excited about his candidacy.  He has received millions of dollars in donations from people in Utah, and many of them are Mormons.

I began to wonder if any of the so-called “General Authorities” of the church had contributed to Mitt.  So I went to opensecrets.org to check.  I couldn’t find any.  I guess they’ve sort of figured out that would be too obvious.  

But I was surprised to find that many of the children of the first presidency of the church (the prophet and his counselors) had maxed out their donations to Romney.  (OK, I wasn’t really that surprised.) Details on the flip.