Discovering LULU!

I just discovered LULU, an Internet publishing program that does books for free,
and since I had a few book-length manuscripts on hand, and no publisher were knocking down the doors to my house, I published them on LULU. When you know how to use LULU, it only takes twenty minutes or so to publish a book. Amazing. And it's free. You pay according to the number of pages and the amount of a royalty you want
for each book.

So, in just a few days, I published a memoir (of sorts) of mine, EXCULPATORY EVIDENCE and two mysteries: THE RASHOMON CASE (which deals with different ways of analyzing the film Rashomon) and TERMINAL PAPERS (which is about writing compositions).

You can get an ISBN number for $34.00 and then it will be listed on Amazon.com
and other Internet booksellers.

The problem with publishing books on LULU and competitors such as IUniverse
is that you don't have distribution and have to figure out ways to market your
books. But it costs around $500 to publish a book on IUniverse and Xlibris
and it's free to publish a book with LULU.

LULU has published something like 15,000 books...all available as
Print-on-Demand books. LULU represents a revolution in publishing...it seems
to be a completely automated system that enables you to publish a book, as
long as you have it on a file.

I made a collage to use in one of my books and believe I've posted it to my blog. I don't know how to write something in my blog and then upload an image. In essence, everything I do with this blog, except for what I write here, is a matter of chance and luck.

This is a collage I made recently 

This is what I looked like fifty years ago 

Decoder Man

For many years I was "The Secret Agent," a title given to me by George Gerbner, Dean of the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania. In recent years, as I've become more interested in semiotics, I've switched to "Decoder Man"--but the two are quite similar for what I decode at things discovered or found interesting by my other persona, "The Secret Agent."

If I can ever figure out how to upload files from my word processor, I'll reveal some of the secrets I've found and codes I've decoded.

My Other Super-Hero Identity: Decoder Man 

Problems of the Creative Artist

I think I uploaded the cover of one of my academic mystery novels. What I'd
like to do next is figure out how to upload text that I've written in Word...
and perhaps offer a mystery one segment at a time. I'm exploring this matter
and will see what I learn.

Decoder Man

Cover of my Mystery 

Televised Football is Postmodern.

The question I'm discussing today is football postmodern. Football isn't but televised football is,
because thanks to television you see many different views of a given play and thanks to the new
cameras available, you get a number of different perspectives on the plays as they occur.

So there's a big difference between the game of football and the television version of the game.
The television version is highly mediated, with numerous reaction shots of coaches and players
and thus the game it turned into two dramas. In the first, there is the matter of the outcome of
the game. In the second, we become involved in the reactions, feelings, and emotions of the players
and the coaches.

Seeing something from a number of different perspectives is, by nature, a postmodern matter.
So many fans, who have never heard of the term, are actually caught up in a postmodern
activity...whose impact may go beyond televised football.

January 14, 2005

THE WRITER'S LIFE

For the past 35 years I've been involved with any number of editors in any number
of publishing houses. With some pubishers, the editors have come and gone, one after
another...They seem to have vanished into thin air.

There are various aggravations involved in writing...sometimes it takes years for
a book that has been accepted to be published. In other cases, editors send your
manuscripts to professors for evaluations. These professors are so busy that they
can't get around to reading your manuscript for months and months...and then
when they do, they often send very negative reviews...or indicate that you, the
author, really need them to co-author the book you have written.

One editor told me, "I've rejected better people than you!" and suggested I find
another hobby.

On the other hand, there are some wonderful people you deal with and so you
have to learn to accept rejections without getting depressed or blown away by them...
Just put the manuscript into an envelope and send it to another editor.

So the moral is--reject rejection and carry on.

I once had the idea of creating a reversal of the rejection slip--a
reject-rejection slip to send to editors who rejected my manuscripts. But someone
else actually did that.

Meanwhile, I have manuscripts that professors are dawdling over, that editors
are too busy to get to, and I carry on.

Tsuami Irony

There was an article in the Financial Times to the effect that authorities in Thailand
knew about the earthquake two hours before it hit Phukett, but didn't wish to disturb
the tourism industry, lest there wasn't a tsunami. So in this case it seems that not
wanting to disrupt tourism led to the deaths of many tourists--a tragic irony.

I am trying to figure out how to upload material so I can put some of my material that I've already written on, rather than have to retype it. I also have some art work I'd like to use. I've been away in Vietnam for a while, and then it took a month to get over the jet lag from the return flight.

Gabriel at cheesboard 

What I hope to do is eventually learn how to post material I have written elsewhere to my blog. I have a mystery that I would like to publish serially, but before I can do that I have to learn how to take material from files I've written with Word for Windows and post it on my blog.

I did upload a drawing I did but I don't know how I did it...so it will take a while for me to get up to speed on this blogging matter. I have a book I've got to work on so I'll be taking a break from blogging until the middle of July...or around then.
Once I learn how to upload files, I'll start "publishing" a mystery I wrote in my blogs.

I think I've learned how to post images. The only problem is I don't know what I did. But I'll give it another try another day.

Now, I've revealed that I'm a secret agent. I'll tell how I became one soon.

Arthur Asa Berger as Secret Agent 

June 15, 2004

I haven't posted a blog for ages...in part because I was waiting for new software
to be created to allow me to post images on my blog...and in part because I have
a lot of trouble figuring out how to do anything on computers.

In the six months that I've not done any blogging, I can see that the technology has improved considerable and this sheet on which I'm writing this blog is much different from the screen I used to compose my blogs on.

I've been writing journals for 50 years now...so the idea of writing every day is not a problem. What is a problem is writing and wondering whether anyone is there to see what I've written. I write books and never know what happens to them, either...but I have a notion that someone, somewhere, might possible read one of them. Or part of one of them.

If I can figure out how to post images, I'll put on some of my cartoons and other drawings. It was my friend Howard Rheingold, a writer who lives a few minutes away from where I live, who suggested I start writing blogs...I took a walk with him today and he urged me to go back to it.

THOUGHTS ON THE WAR IN IRAQ

Here are some random thoughts about the war in Iraq, now in its second week.

1. Are we "saving" Iraq by destroying it? As you watch the images of the bombing of Baghdad
and of the dead civilians, the fire fights, and so on, I can only wonder if this is the best way to "save"
Iraq from Saddam...he may be a monster (and there are many others like him) but is the medicine
we're using--blowing up Iraq--worse than the ailment?

2. What is is that led Bush to decide upon this war? American public opinion supported the war
only if the United Nations backed it...and Bush was unable to obtain this backing. Was this
diplomatic disaster on the Bush administration's part behind Bush's decision to go to war? Was
Bush's revulsion against Saddam's monstrous behavior behind it? If so, will Bush's revulsion
against various monstrous dictators lead to other wars?

3. How long will American public opinion support the war? We were told the war would be
"weeks, not months" and we were led to believe that this war would be similar to the last Iraq
war, that lasted 100 hours. But this time we've invaded Iraq and aren't repelling Iraqis from
Kuwait. The American public is very fickle and if we don't get a quick win, and a relatively
painless one--from our point of view, which means not many casualties--public opinion may
change.

SOCIAL CLASS AND NECK LENGTH

I've often thought it might be interesting to measure the length of necks of women in working class,
middle class and upper class women's magazines.

A number of years ago I made a brief survey and this is what I found:

Upper Class Magazines: Long, graceful, swan-like necks. Think Modigliani here. Think six feet models with 4% bodyfat.

Middle Class Magazines: Ordinary length necks--like the girl next store, unless she's a supermodel.

Working Class Magazines: No necks, to speak of. The heads of women in these magazines seem to be tacked
on to their shoulders without much benefit of neck.

So "class" shows. To get ahead it seems you need a long neck!