“Can I be happy without a ring on my finger?”

What is remarriage after a divorce? This is a wonderful, scary, heart-breaking and joyful question to ask.

Divorce is often said to be even harder than death. It certainly has the factors of rejection, fighting and conflict that make is so damaging. Some people carry the cuts and hurts of a divorce around…

 I just put together a Facebook fan page for Author Neil D. Ostroff. http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Facebook-Page-of-Author-Neil-D-Ostroff/124794694205967?sk=info

I sent out a bunch of notices through social marketing and guess what? I already have almost 2,000 likes. The internet is just amazing! Anyway, I’ve got everything in place for my winter marketing blitz. I’ve got programmers and search engine specialist listing my book sites, I’ve…

It’s done! I’ve just put money into promotion. A pretty good chunk, actually. I’m starting with Kindle Nation Daily site. I’ve done some research and heard a lot of positive things about this site and what it can do for your sales. They even have a statistics page that shows you all the books whose ranking went down after placing ads. I signed up for two campaigns. One, the bigger one, won’t start until March, which is fine because hopefully there’ll be many more Kindle owners by then. The…

My brother sent me an article the other day that inspired me beyond belief. I’ll attach it at the end of this post. Basically, it’s the story of a self-published success. I know, I know, I’ve read a thousand of them, also. But this one struck me different, mainly because this author did everything I have done to market and promote with one exception. She used the pay promotion on her sites and I have not. See, I’ve been mistakenly foolish with my numbers. I was putting book sales in…

Been doing the interview thing a lot lately and I think it’s starting to pay off. Not only does my name come up more often in search engines but I’m noticing visits to my blog and website are increasing. Of course, this could also be the result of my article experiment, which I’m waiting for the final stats. Speaking of my Author’s Den website, I recently signed on with GoDaddy to build a website myself that I can update, and let me tell you, it’s not nearly as easy as they claim. I spent…

Do you know if you write a page a day that within one year you will have written a book? How many times have I heard that one? If that one book takes a year to write then the revision process would have to take many years. Truth is, writing a first draft is the easy part. I can usually belt one out in a few months. But the revision; forgetta’bout it. That’s the time consuming stuff, though I am getting better at it as I get older (and hopefully wiser). I’m also getting better as a writer.…

Hit 6,000 words today on my new novel. It's an easy and exciting write because anything can happen in a world that isn't real. I see the book getting a little deep in the philosophical area once the characters begin to realize the nature of their existences and how it all could just disappear. We'll see where the story takes me. Right now, I'm still developing characters and relationships and setting the scene for a wild ride through the possible and impossible.

 …

As some of you know I started a new book a few days ago. The title is IMAGINATION and it’s the wildest concept I’ve had yet. Here’s the preliminary tagline: (What if everything around us, our friends, our surroundings, the universe, what if all we experience is just a figment of someone’s imagination? And what if that someone is dying?) I’m very excited about this one as I’ve been thinking about this possibility for a long time. The book will be written in the style of one of my earlier…

Okay, well… here it is. The $55 article written for me. Now,

the next step is the company will send this to three hundred article submission

services, and people, and companies looking for content. My Blog address and

Author’s Den address will be attached to the article so readers can connect

with me. I reset my site stats to zero and will closely monitor that over the

next ten days (the run I was promised). I average about twenty-five bio hits a

day on my AD site and…

It’s raining today. Drops slide down my window like translucent

snails. Water puddles in the street. Worms

tunnel up from drowning liquid and sprawl across the sidewalk. And here I sit

in front of my computer belting out another novel. I forget who said it, but I

remember a quote that summed up the writing life completely. The quote went

simply; being a writer is like having homework every day for the rest of your

life. And that’s true for the serious, passionate…

I just did something that I’ve never done before. Something

I ignorantly hoped to avoid but always knew would happen. I just paid hard

earned dough to promote my books. Well, not my books individually, but my blog

and author’s site. I signed up for two marketing ideas that I believe may

actually work. I also have a third PR person in line to do search engine

optimization. Who would have thought being a writer and selling books could get

so complicated. The first site…

Happy Thanksgiving to all! That said, I have to tell you

that since I’m in the service industry, I work every Thanksgiving. So today,

black Friday, is my day to celebrate. Oh it’ll be a hoot. Got the family coming

over, got friends of the kids stopping by, got lots of food and drink. By the

time most of you read this I’m going to be knee-deep in overindulgence. But for

now, I must write. This post is only the beginning of about two hours I’ve set

aside this morning to…

Got a new book coming out next

week and I must say it’s a great feeling. Not because I finished another book,

but because I finished a book that I started writing in 1997. As I slowly weed

through more than two decades of manuscripts, there’s a certain joy that comes

each time one is finally declared “finished”. Even as I re-read the manuscript

for the thousandth time, I could still picture myself fourteen years ago,

sitting upstairs in my sweltering bedroom pumping…

I applaud Kindle and the new digital revolution for allowing

me to publish and sell my books. I’ve spent the better part of the last twenty

years writing non-stop and have accrued quite a collection. Like a diligent

author, I market and promote heavily online, but have yet to hire an actual

publicity person (that will come in time). That said, I just got my monthly

royalty statement from Kindle Direct Publishing. Now, the amount won’t allow me

to quit my job and move…

I’m sitting on the dock this morning, my fishing rod baited

with a shrimp and hoping to catch some lunch when a strange thought occurred to

me. Fishing and becoming a successful author are similar activities. Except

when you’re fishing, you use bait to catch stuff and when you’re a writer you

use your books to try and catch something, that something being an agent,

publisher, or audience. The analogy expounds even further. With fishing, the

quality of bait is directly…

As I write this I am on vacation. Yes, vacation. That magical two weeks a year when you leave your cares behind and head off into the sunset. In my case, this is Key West Florida. It’s beautiful! Right now it’s 82 degrees and sunny with low humidity. I watched the recent snowstorm in the northeast on television and thanked my lucky stars that I left Pennsylvania two days before it hit. I do write on vacation, usually in the morning before the high heat of the day sets in, but it’s not nearly…

I’ve been doing a lot of marketing/promotion lately for my

books and have come up with a “must-be-on” list for writers who want to promote

their books. These website provide free services that can really get your books

noticed. There are many other sites out there but I highly recommend you

concentrate your marketing efforts on these. Did I mention that they are…

I work at a country Inn rumored to be

haunted. And I’m not just saying that. The Inn has been

written up in books about haunted places and actual ghost hunters have spent

nights trying to capture on film inhabitants of the great beyond. One of more

frequent questions I get asked by people who know the Inn’s

history is if I have ever seen anything out of the ordinary? Now, I’m at the

Inn late at night, I’ve done inventory in the “haunted” wine cellar at two in

the…

I’ve been pondering the notion of my books one day going

viral and selling millions of copies. I’ve been pondering how much my life

would change and what I would do with my time if I didn’t have to work at a

conventional job anymore. Of course, I would still write books, that’s a given,

but what else would I do with my time? I guess it depends on the amount of

sales. A million copies sold would allow me to live a life of ease, but if

you’re talking in the millions,…