Daniel Stolar Publicizes His Own Book

Strange, I thought I had already blogged about this. Daniel Stolar describes the futility of trying to promote his own books. Of course, the irony is that this essay (which was blogged about like crazy) probably did more to promote his book than any publicity he did locally. Which only underscores why Kevin Smokler’s Virtual Book Tour is such a grand idea. (That is, if you believe that book publishing is a good idea anymore).

BTW, I worked for a summer in a bookstore and wrote a similar first-person account. I remember a quote from business wonk Peter Drucker: Any bookstore worker who knows how to read anything more than the shelf tag is hopelessly overqualified.

My solution: we ought to have a law (or constitutional amendment) requiring authors to have actually written the books sold under their name. Ghost-written books by celebrities occupy lots of shelf space, promotional dollars and attention from store managers.