What my barber said about book sales

He said: "Why do they come to Barnes and Noble, read the books, but don't buy them? Imagine they come to my shop to read the newspapers instead of taking a haircut? I'd kick them out." There is some hairy wisdom in this saying.

A Russian deal for my novel

I've got a Russian deal for my novel My Life at First Try. It should be published in Moscow within a year.

On exposition

People ask me if there is room in a flash fiction story for exposition.

In skillful hands, exposition might be arousing. However, if you mean "discourse or an example of it designed to convey information or explain what is difficult to understand," then there is little room for that in a flash.

Think a postage stamp. The price and the picture and a bit of glue and nothing else, yet it does carry your thoughts from point A to point B.

Reviews

Bad reviews hurt, even if they are unfair. The Library Journal said about my novel:

"The novel reads more like a family blog and offers few tangible rewards."

Though I had about a dozen other good reviews from the places like People Magazine, Kirkus Review, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune and was featured in Ingram's Advance, it still hurts.