Ack, I got my first comments on my blog. Of course they came from friends but that's okay. Friends got to do what friends got to do.

Anyway, I just word from a mystery/crime style bookstore in the US that they might be interested in having me come down and read. That's cool because the Canadian government gives writers grants to attend a US launch of their book if it's published by a foreign publisher. And since Forge is a foreign publisher in Canada, then it qualifies. It would be nice to get this reading because I can then attend a mystery Con in the same area around the same time.

I'm also going to meet with someone to help me create a Wordpress style site.

Hey BigTimeWriter followers. It's been an interesting time for me in the Bigtimewriting world. First, I've been in touch with my US publicist. She seems nice, like me she was into punk in the 90s so I impressed her with the names of bands my band opened for in Edmonton: Suicide Machines, SNFU, Mad Caddies, Chixdiggit, Groovie Ghoulies and some more. She was impressed. Some days I still am cause we were a good punk band.

But I've also had tough dealings with my agent. She reamed me out (some of it undeservedly s0) because I asked for help to get a reading NYC. The bookstore said no, and I felt disappointed that she didn't push hard enough. But she was angry at me because I asked her to help and though she has health problems she went all the across NYC to request a reading, even though she knew they would refuse my request for a reading. My thinking was that if you knew they would say no, why go through all the trouble of going over there and then blaming it on me. To teach me a lesson? So from now on, I'm trying to get readings without the help of my agent.

She also got on my case about my web presence. As I said in an previous post, my presence on the web (at least in the traditional sense which is an interesting thing to say, the web in the traditional sense because I grew up in the time before everyone had a computer so to call something like the web traditional is really odd) is extremely limited. I have a website that just links you to hear. And I have this blog that has only only follower and that no one has ever commented on. But I'm still out there on the social networks and making connections with people through that and through e-mail messages. Blogging has always bugged me. What I have to say isn't so important that I think I have to share it with the universe. And it's writing for no audience and worse, for a professional writer like me, no pay. And spending time blogging every day cuts into the other important things I need to do, like write for money, write my next novel and take care of my family. And now (or as early as two years ago), some experts are saying that blogging is dead, at least for people like me who don't have a shitload of fans who read my books.

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/16-11/st_essay

http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2008/08/blogs-as-dead-m

I mean look at this blog. I have one follower, one person who sometimes reads this. And it's taken several weeks to get that. On FB, I have 755 friends (that's pretty low compared to some), and I got 100 new ones in the past week. I can get more info out to those people much faster than this blog.

So I'll blog her to talk about writer and bigtimewriter but you can also find me on FB and be my friend. Or just go to an online bookseller and pre-order my novel as an e-book or a hardcover.

http://www.amazon.com/Fall-from-Grace-ebook/dp/B00457X80I/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&m=AZC9TZ4UC9CFC&s=digital-text&qid=1287629631&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.com/Fall-Grace-Wayne-Arthurson/dp/0765324172/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1287629701&sr=8-3

http://www.amazon.ca/Fall-Grace-Wayne-Arthurson/dp/0765324172/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287629570&sr=1-2