Memento Mori: Remember We Die

A Stoic Approach To The Inevitable “What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance.” ― Epictetus If you read my most recent poetry book you would’ve seen a section titled: What the gods sound

Publishing and Marketing A Poetry Chapbook: Experiments, Successes, and Failures (Episode 5: Giveaways, KDP Select, and a return to Social Media)

2 Days Until Roll-Out We are getting close folks. If you were to check right now, you would see that both the paperback and kindle are live in Amazon right now.  So why am I claiming the roll-out is still two days away? On Monday, Feb. 3, my book will be free on Amazon for

Publishing and Marketing A Poetry Chapbook: Experiments, Successes, and Failures (Episode 4: Talk To People (The Long Game, Email Marketing)

3 Days Until The Book Is Live As I mentioned in the last post, the book is actually already live, at least the paperback version is. I broke down some of the reasons for that in the last post. The kindle version will go live tomorrow, and it will be priced at $4.99. Here’s a

Publishing and Marketing A Poetry Chapbook: Experiments, Successes, and Failures (Episode 3: Pre-Launch Strategies)

6 Days Until Air Alright, I have 6 days left until my book will officially be live on Amazon, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret. It’s actually already live.  At least in paperback form. Why do I already have it live if I’m not officially releasing it until next week?

Publishing and Marketing A Poetry Chapbook: Experiments, Successes, and Failures (Episode 2: Creating Your Book Cover)

9 Days Until Launch I have about 10 more poems to write in the next 9 days in order to fill out this book. So I obviously am spending all of my time writing and perfecting these poems right? Well, about that… You guessed it. Instead, I decided to jump ahead to cover design. Why?

Publishing and Marketing A Poetry Chapbook: Experiments, Successes, and Failures (Episode 1: The Grand Beginning)

The Trials and Tribulations Of An Artist Who Hates Marketing So it begins. The grand experiment. As some of you know, I have self-published one poetry book, The Cosmic Hello: Lessons in Codependence if you click that link it will allow you download that book for free, and join my email list. Or if you

20 Books, Blogs, and Podcast Episodes About Creativity That Will Help You Publish Your First Book This Year

  Whether You Want To Self or Traditionally Publish These People Will Help You On Your Journey I’m in the process of publishing my 2nd book this year. The first one, which was self-published is available for free download by signing up for my email newsletter.  The second book, which is traditionally published through Finishing

3 Modern Poetry Books You Have To Read Right Now – January 2020

Modern Poetry Books I Can’t Put Down This January 1. Mouthful of Forevers by Clementine Von Radics   Clementine Von Radics is one of my favorite modern poets, and she’s also a great social media follow. This collection came out in 2015, and it’s full of some of the most haunting imagery of any poetry book

How To Stop Chasing Happiness, And Just Be Happy

Get Yourself Off The Hedonic Treadmill “Most people are like all stomachs: they cannot remain satisfied for a long time.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana When I was getting my undergrad in English, I was not always the most studious member of my university. I wrote recently on the ways I’ve had to trick the laziness out of

How To Deal With Tragedy

What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today     “He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra     I’m an English teacher at an all-boys school, and sometimes it’s my job to make high school boys interested in literature that was written