Timothy's Thoughts

I purchased 42 Months Dry after seeing a request from the author for top reviewers to review the book. I am not a top reviewer, but I thought I would review the book anyway. I can only hope that the author will return the favor. The thing that made it stand out is that it is a retelling of a biblical account of the life of a prophet in a modern setting. I used a similar approach when I wrote the book For the Love of a Devil . Mine was based on Hosea, but in this book Zach Bartels tells the story of Elijah. 42 Months Dry is different than you might expect because Bartels puts a gun and a cigarette in his main character’s hand and the character is known to curse in fits of anger. That may be offputting for some readers. The tone of the story is rather dark and the body count is high, but for people who like that kind of story, I don’t think they will be disappointed. Bartels is a skilled storyteller and it is obvious that he studied Elijah before writing the story. That is more ...

T here are a number of terms in the publishing industry that have very little meaning when we start talking about self-publishing. remainered - A book is remaindered if the publisher is overstocked. At some point, the publisher decides that it will cost more to hold on to the books than what he will get from selling them. The books are either sold in bulk at a discount or they are destroyed. Most self-publishers won’t run into this situation if they are using POD to print their books. But if the author has several boxes of books in his garage or living room, the day may come that his wife says, “you are going to have to get rid of those books.” At that point, his book is going through the process of being remaindered. sell in - This is the number of books that are ordered by retailers. We would like to see this as a large number, but most self-publishers will have a low number. If a book is selling well, you will find that Amazon.com or any other store that is getting a lot of re...