M. Stefan Strozier

So I was on jury duty and the judge asks, “Has anyone ever worked in law enforcement in any capacity.” And I said, well, yes, I am an MP in the army. The prosecutor’s eyes got wide with joy and the defense lawyer jumps up and request that I be removed from the jury and that was it—I was gone. And I thought, ‘that was easy!’, I may never have to serve on a jury, which is rather paradoxical because despite this fact, I am basically very hard to convince and would probably side with a defense 9 out of 10 times.

–

So I met with Jimmy Gary, Jr. and his partner about this movie and documentary about PTSD and it looks like a go, I will be directing the documentary and a consultant for the movie. And it’s a paid gig, including travel. And turns out I know a lot of vets through my press, World Audience, Inc. But then we started talking about my play, Guns, Shakles & Winter Coats and he wants to produce it again, and I was like, let’s do it! But it’s amazing how much that play changed his life, this whole movie and documentary (sponsored by PBS, by the way—and others) came from my play. And now he’s talking the big leagues for this production and has the contacts this time.

So things are starting to turn, finally.

–

So I am writing my memoir, The Labyrinth, and just having a riot! I thought it was going to be very hard work but it’s actually a lot of fun. I have Kyle Torke to thank for editing, it makes it much easier to just go back and add to the places where he made notes. But the first part is just this ****-to-the-wall-tour-de-force of writing—and I just went in and made it even more powerful!

I am girding my loins for the final writing of The Labyrinth…

The Labyrinth is currently ranked 7 millionth at Amazon! Publishing and marketing books these days is about how many friends you have—I never said I liked the current climate; I accept it as fact. And I have grand designs to make it so that books are judged on merit. I say this because this is a fine book or memoir, if I do say so myself and every single person who ever read it said so too in emphatic terms or in reviews—and these are NOT yahoos that reviewed this book but a wide variety of serious critics. Yet I am no. 7,000,001. In my humble opinion, there is something wrong with that, you uncultured Americans, frothing at the mouth, screaming at fevered pitch about Hollywood and politics. Why don’t you read a little more, learn to speak like someone with a brain? Or perhaps that asking too much of a people who can’t find Iceland on a map.

Now, I will grant you that The Labyrinth needed an editor and Kyle Torke, English PhD did “extensive” editing of it and I am now doing the final tweaking. Plus, I’ve added pictures and some artwork by Christopher Taylor, who designed the cover. I am adding to the ending about my brush with fame and, oh!, the mighty lessons I learned about that, and the success of World Audience, Inc. Ditto with my theater work. And we’re tweaking the cover to add “2nd Edition!” Just between you and me, there really was never a 1st Edition, it just was not finished yet and having “2nd edition” tends to sell more copies. If this gets famous as it deserves and you have an original copy, it will be a collectors’ item!

Then it’s on to my epic poem and finishing the revising of my poetry and uploading that to its second edition. World Audience is reaching  more bookstores, and I’ve already got my stories into stores in New York (and elsewhere). Once I have all 3 books done, I will flood the bookstores with them and go on my book tour! My problem is never creating great work; it’s making it past the middleman. Once I am in the door, it’s all over. It was true with my plays, too. Once these books are read, they will sell big time.

You know, I’ll tell ya, I roll along and it’s like nothing special is happening and then KA-RACK! Ka POW! Shazam!! I get this jolt of creativity like a hot poker down under. You can quote me on that, my explanation of the creative process. Do you remember that cartoon, Shazam? Man, I am feeling pretty good right now. Everything is coming together after years and years of work. World Audience is airborne, taken flight. At this rate, by May I will be a Phat Cat, baby, living high on the hog. Watch out, buster! Kyle Torke is sending me The Labyrinth—my very well-received memoir—this weekend and I am going to rock and roll on that, and then it’s on to my poetry and my epic poem. And, my Peeps, I saw the first sales report of my short stories and its selling! I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised. And there were more sales recently. I placed copies in some big bookstores in New York too!

So last night, I finished my revision of La Revolucion, my 5-act play about the Mexican Revolution. I got to the end, finishing the cutting of all the fat and doing some rearranging here and there. I cut a bunch of the Chorus Leader’s songs where they were repeating the action and it works much better now. Now I have to think about what to do with this play. This is the last stage. It’s almost like I’ve been working for about 3 years on this play just to get to this very point! In other words, I had to spend all this time creating parts that work and now I have to assemble them. But how? It has to have an order and logic. The love story will be a major part.

But this part will go fast and then it will be over! Oh! But with my books done I can go on my book tour in New York and New Jersey and then move on to Moctezuma! which I already have started and it too is rolling along like grease lightning.

–

Kevin Gray, the author of On the Strand, below, just got his book selling at the John Brown Museum in Kansas. I thought that was pretty cool. World Audience has amazing reach. It’s kind of weird when I think about it, you know, that what I am creating here at my desk is affecting so many people in so many places—the power of words. My own words and the words of our authors, but these are authors I select based on my style, and the format is my own doing, down to the font and every detail, with the help of a few. It’s one thing to be rejected but when you’re accepted, it’s kind of cool, eh?

Oh, Broadway…the author of Trump the Musical, Bernard Margalit, and I met with the composer so she is writing the music and it’s another perfect match. Then we’re doing a staged reading for producers. And the buzz is that this just might work…And Bernard has finished a 2nd play, The Girl from Ipanema with music of Carlos Jobim, and this too has that special feel to it. Holy Cow, all this book news and now I might have a piece of a play or two on Broadway? I’ll be in my box seats…

Again, I remind you, I am an artist and I do not care about politics. The House does not have enough votes to pass the final bill when it arrives next week, despite wishes to the contrary. And frankly, I have problems with this whole scheme of “health care”.

So now what happens? President Obama will become a failed president. And of such great potential, that he is almost…Tragic. Unlike President Clinton, who lost the House to the Republicans in dramatic fashion, Obama will never recover. Obama will never be able to be as cool as ‘slick Willy’. Obama will retire to his room and ‘think’.  And that’s a damn shame.

George W. Bush was bad. But in Europe, George Orwell’s vision had a certain sting to it that could be mollified with a bit of culture. What do we have in America, Mr. President? I’ll tell you: a Puritanical police state. If that is not hell, than I do not know what is. That is why we voted for you, Mr. President. And you have not saved us for this horrible thing.

Tisk, tisk, Mr. Obama, if only you and your Liberal cronies had brought me on board as your speech-writer. And now look how you are paying for your negligence. So much wasted potential. Oh well. Someone will replace you. It was fun pretending, as Hemingway said.

Alas, I am using your story for my Tragic hero, Moctezuma! It is such a perfect fit. A nation that was so strong, isolated, that he lost. And still I have the last word, do I not? You have fit my mold, perfectly.

Here is an interview with Dr. Kevorkian where he talks about his memoir, glimmerIQs, that he wrote in prison, which is published by World Audience, Inc. Coming soon is When the People Bubble POPs. I am very glad to be his publisher, I share he sense of theatrics coupled with non-materialism. And, like him, I have no problem with being radical to the nth degree and challenging authority—though I didn’t go to jail . Then again, he is famous and I am not (so far; but then I take the long road).

I’ve noticed that since publishing these books, World Audience has attracted many submissions on books about care for the dying and similar subjects, the only one Dr. Kyle Torke (our editor-in-chief) has accepted so far is Be the Noodle by Lois Kelly, which in fact I am working on tonight and will be out soon.

Despite the typical resistance I get in my role, always detailed here, Dr. Kevorkian has found the right publisher. Publishing is in chaos, no one argues that. Who to bet on, then? Bet on World Audience, unless you want to go back to 1999. But further, we are not just a publisher but a social media group of sorts that is a membership of writers that owns a New York State publishing and media corporation (a very new one). And one of established, excellent writers, young and old. I am not sure anyone can even match our standard of excellence right now, in March, 2010, in that regard. And having this backing, if you will, to a weighty subject such as Dr. Kevorkian purports it to be, adds a level of gravitas to it, which is what his legacy has always sought and never obtained—not surprising in America. Frankly, Random House can’t do that any more as such a hyper-commercial press that it has become. In any event, he is a very, very nice man and I enjoy chatting with him on the phone from time to time.

Buy your copy today!

This actor and producer, Jimmy Gary, Jr. contacted me because he is producing a feature film and a documentary—both shows have to do with PTSD and combat veterans.  And he threw my name in the hat as a director, I think for the documentary, but I didn’t catch all the details; we’re meeting Friday so I will update you then. It’s paid work, and he says even if I am not the director he wants me as a military consultant. The documentary is apparently with PBS.

Anyway, you’re saying why in the world would he care about M. Stefan Strozier for any of this? Because he played Sgt. John Brown in my first play, Guns, Shackles & Winter Coats, back at my first production in 2005, see his stage credits. And according to him, it changed him and now he’s done all this work on behalf of veterans, so he’s going back to the source of it all—me.

Well, this is very humbling no matter what happens, and it’s what it’s all about, why I write. Still, it’s frustrating to not be able to reach more people with my plays!

World Audience just published this new crime book: The Long Slide by Blair Oliver, Ph.D. and Peter Soliunas ISBN: 978-1-935444-58-9, and like all of our books, it is getting great reviews and selling well and is very popular. I’ve been very busy lately with books, books, books. They come in waves, then there is a lull, then another wave. I am just at the end of a big wave. A couple more books to move to press and then I start looking again. Sales keep rising and zero—count ‘em zero—returns, for months. I will hazard a guess that people like World Audience books! The cool thing about being a publisher is that right now all of these thousands of people are out there soaking in something from my press, and our authors. My vision and asthetic is changing our culture as we speak. And even though a major publisher sells many more books, how many are returned, or bought simply because of advertising dollars?—and thus having little if any impact.

J. Matthew Nespoli is marketing his book, Broken, very well. He will have a booth at the LA Times / Authors Den Book Fair and his staff from www.nakedwordsurfer.com selling his book.

Dr. Frank Romano has started on his next worldwide book tour as you can see in the post below. He will be in NY next month and we’re going to set up a booth in Times Square and sell his book for 2 days—that will be a blast because Frank is very cool.

Dr. Jack Kevorkian has started a tour in conjunction with his upcoming movie and book.

There is a lot more happening as World Audience takes its first steps into becoming a major force in New York publishing. It was only a matter of time for this day to arrive. I don’t care what other publishers say; they are full of it. I act. Now. If you’re not an author at World Audience, where are you and what are you doing?

–

As for my own writing, I am just a couple of pages away from the first revision of my 5-act play about the Mexican Revolucion. I have gone through and made it much more focused and taut. And I have expanded parts and characters quite a bit. Now, the last stage is to shuffle the deck, in its entirety. That means changing the order and promote plots and demote other ones.

I should have The Labyrinth, edited, back from Kyle Torke in a matter of days and then I am going to greatly expand it and publish the 2nd edition. I’ve lowered the price and raised the discount.

Then I will finish my epic poem about 9-11 over the following weeks and publish the 2nd edition of my poetry chapbook. I will meet Sergey Cherep in New York at the art fair later this month to see what he’s painted about my poetry, which I will post here.

Meanwhile, I’ve already started on Moctezuma! my second 5-act play and it’s moving much faster. I expect to be done by the summer too. Then to Benito Juarez and last Porfirio Diaz.

I have no idea what any of this is going to do for me, professionally or personally—except to say that World Audience is very much on track to be a huge force this year. And it does not matter if any hippy freaks like Charlie Rose or Frank Rich refuse to acknowledge that World Audience is a major force, so long as we keep publishing great books that are very well-reviewed and bought and liked by our readers.

Perhaps I am trying to follow a similar path in my own career, and just keep churning out more and more excellent and complex work that no one else can even imagine doing. Something has to give. By the end of this year, given my press and my theater company (I didn’t even tell you about that; I’ll do so later) and all of this work of mine, I should be able to step back and say, “I am the man.”

Storm Over Morocco by Frank Romano, PhD, (World Audience, ISBN 978-1935444251)

Israel & West Bank Interfaith Events (Will be in Israel and West Bank from April 2-14)

APRIL

Organize and participate in interfaith events- Jenin, West Bank, April 13, 2010

Possibly organize an interfaith event in Jerusalem between April 3 and April 12.

Frank Romano- Author Events
(Storm Over Morocco, 2010)
APRIL
April 17- Saturday-BORDERS, 1 – 7 pm, 2825 Santa Rosa Ave., Santa Rosa, CA
April 23-Friday-BORDERS, 11:30 am – 2:30 pm, 600 14th St., NW, #100, Wash, DC
April 24-Saturday-BORDERS, 2 – 7 pm, Deptford Mall, 1750 Deptford Center Rd.,
Deptford, NJ (near Philadelphia)
April 25- Sunday-BORDERS Express, 1 – 6 pm, White Marsh Mall, 8200 Perry Hall Blvd, Baltimore MD
April 30- Friday-BORDERS, 6 – 9:30 pm, 1500 16th Street, Suite D, Oak Brook, IL

MAY
May 1-Saturday-BORDERS Express, 1 – 8 pm, Chicago Ridge Mall, Ridgeland & 95th Street, Chicago, IL
May 2-Sunday-BORDERS, 2 – 7 pm, 755 West North Ave., Chicago, IL
May 8-Saturday-BORDERS, 1 – 7 pm, 2437 Southcenter Mall, Tukwila, WA (near Seattle)
May 9-Sunday-BORDERS, 1 – 7 pm, 3000 184th Street, SW, Lynnwood, WA (near Seattle)

Frank Romano- Invitations: Guest Speaker
APRIL
April 15
All day – Santa Rosa High School, Santa Rosa, CA, Teachers William Lyon & Amanda Newlon, English, Writing & French classes
5-6:40 pm – Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CA, Professor Nancy Morales, Advanced Linguistics (not confirmed)

April 16
10:53- 12:39 pm – Maria Carrillo High School, Santa Rosa, CA, Teacher Mary Kay Pedersen, Advanced (4th Year) French
1:30 – ?  - Santa Rosa High School, Teachers: William Lyon & Amanda Newlon, English, Writing & French classes  (not confirmed)

April 19
10:30 am – 12:30 pm – Santa Rosa Junior College, Petaluma campus, Petaluma, CA, Professor  Gloria de Blasio, Puente English Class
6:10 pm – 7:45 pm – College of Marin, Novato campus, Novato, CA, Professor Nancy Morales, Elementary Spanish (mixed levels)

April 20
7:30-9:20 am – Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, Prof. Nancy Morales, Advanced Spanish Conversation & Composition
10:10-11:45 am- College of Marin, Kentfield campus, Kentfield, CA, Nancy Morales, Elementary Spanish (mixed levels)

5-6 pm – Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa campus, Santa Rosa, CA, Prof. Todd Strauss, Advanced French (French 4)

Very interesting. For the fisrt time, Internet advertising is making more money than print. This is great news for a 21st century press like World Audience Publishers; but the war still rages, despite this article’s claim that there will now be fewer print companies closing because they have founds ways to adjust. No, they have not done that yet or they would be online. It’s one or the other thing. The Web takes money from the print companies so either you come over to our side or you die.

Magazines are holding about steady with a slight raise; but I’m not really worried about print magazines, they are slowly dying too, just much more slowly, and they will hang on to a much smaller chunk of change.

The reality is online advertising works. I’ve tested it myself and I was able to use it in precise and very useful ways to attract excellent clients and customers.  But with print it is a scatter shot approach and that difference is what is going to keep advert dollars going to the Web.

Look at this! An army sergeant says the movie that just won best picture is based on him! And he’s from the great state of New Jersey. Good luck, buddy. So not only is everything mediocre—it’s stolen too! But really, my friend, do you expect to win? They have a right to take anything they want from you, even your identity. The movie is more important that your soul, and your body, which you gave in defense of your country. (Now I am being sarcastic.) Plus, it was a woman director and she needed to win this year and really deserved it this time around. Let’s be patriotic, OK? It’s for Hollywood, after all.

The hottie with the big butt who is married to white trash that she loves very much.

“It was her time.”

–

I’m sorry, I’m trying here to not be so cynical anymore. I’m in treatment. It’s not going so well.

Goes to President Obama for playing such a great president! But really, “The Hurt Locker”? Versus a 3-D Liberal agenda movie? Where have all the good movies gone? Oh well.

I am now into Moctezuma! and I was researching Martin Luther, who’s life and purpose peaks before Charles V in one of the most dramatic courtroom scenes and trials of all history, which itself would make a great play. But then I realize that Luther’s whole thesis was about the Catholic Church being greedy with money and lusting for more. I had already planned on tying in the Old World of Europe with the New but could not figure out how to do it, other than some pretty boring stuff involving some king. But with Martin Luther,  now I can tell that story too and link it to the Spanish quest for gold, and bring in the Holy Roman Emperor, who is a major player in Cortes’ life and action. So I have opened with that very scene. Perhaps I need one before it where he is nailing the trestise to the church door…not too shabby, eh?

Today was a great day, thanks for asking. Tomorrow I meet World Audience’s first employee, my executive assistant. Next is my New York office, this year.And unlike President Obama, I achieve my goals—every single time. Sometimes I amaze myself and achieve a goal without even trying, I’m so damn good. When that happens, I always say, “Sometimes, I amaze myself.” Doubt me if you like, you won’t be the first to misjudge or underestimate M. Stefan Strozier and then be wrong. I’ve gotten so used to it that I use your biases as a sales advantage. If I really don’t want you around, I just whip out my “Strozier: certified schizo” card—-that usually sends ‘em packing fast (or their eyes get real wide and their faces go pale). Next is evicting Random House from their 5th Ave skyscraper. You can go back to Germany is you like. World Audience, Inc. is going to be a raging monster! Like Godzilla! Run for cover, fools! That’s me, breathing FI-YA!

Yeah, I’m feeling good right now and the main reason is ever since my reading of La Revoucion, my 5-act play about the Mexican Revolution, in January, I’ve been rewriting it. And frankly, it hasn’t been easy. To write a 5-act play is very difficult. But I want to do what Shakespeare did. And I was starting to get discouraged there for a while—especially after the reading when I saw how much more work I had left. And plus, who cares? No one, apparently. I have no idea what I am going to do with this play once it’s done but I don’t care anymore about that—I am through worrying about it. (Although Jose Esquea of Teatro La Tea said to send it to him and I have a contact in L.A.)

Now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It works now and very well. It’s much leaner and meaner. The love story is major and central to the plot! What was a long story (and that does not work on a stage) is now a rough and tumble play. And now I know how to write a massive, epic 5-act play like Shakespeare—forget about it. Next is Moctezuma! and it’s rolling along fast!—already. Yes, I keep saying it, 2010 is the year. First my stories, now I’ve tamed this bear; then my memoir The Labyrinth, which Dr. Kyle Torke is done editing; then my epic poem (yes, I am going to write an epic poem this summer!) about 9-11 and my poetry chapbook; then a book tour!; and producing theater with La Muse Venale, Inc. Hollywood: I even forgive you. I am open to you making a movie of one of my plays. In fact, I may find an agent and write a screenplay.

From Joe Hart (it will be at Amazon tomorrow):

“This book of stories is short and it reads fast.  I think it would be better read in as close to one sitting as possible in order to keep the feel of the whole experience.   The feel of the stories ties them together.

The author of these stories wrote a book of poems called “Schizophrenia Poems” – this gives an indication of the nature some of the stories, though not all.  And it’s best exemplified I thought in the first story, “The Farm”.  (Also by the way in “The Temptress” ["The Tigress"]- about a young man, recently out of a mental hospital, making his own identity, and “Happiness in New York City”  - an ironically titled story about a homeless man who hallucinates a visit from god.)  ”The Farm” is a wonderfully written piece on the life and mental aberrations (including vivid hallucinations) of a young boy, who in a later story is diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic.  I believe the book is autobiographical-ish, though the main character in each story usually has a different name.  The author is also a playwright, and I thought the dialog flowed smoothly – clean and natural.

I won’t reveal anything further about plots of stories.  Except to mention that one, “Seashore of Lake Michigan”, is I believe about an adolescent boy with mental problems testing a friendship.  ”"The Man and His Wife” is right out of Kafka, succinctly and effectively written.  There is a long story about a sensitive man’s reactions to the Gulf War (before, during and after his going there).  The grandfather of this man was himself in a war, had shot an enemy soldier in half, and never stopped feeling remorse and regret for it.  At one point, in a car with his grandson, he cries and cannot stop for 10 minutes, then recovers and drives on.  A story about rejection struck me as pure feeling – the whole thing, emotion inhabited every sentence.  I felt it.  Though there was nothing maudlin or melodramatic about it.  There is a story about a shipwreck, excitingly told, leaving two men alone, adrift on a raft – an Irishman and an Englishman.  The title story (probably not autobiographical!) has a great ending.  The story called “Hollywood’s Last Hurrah!” (ostensibly true) started out reminding me of Capote’s collection of essays on people he’d known, then turned into Dostoyevsky’s “Notes From The Underground”!
I’ve mentioned something that struck me about several of the stories.  I liked this book very much, and recommend it.”

—Joe Hart

This is from Prof. Louis Phillips. He says some stories have “bitterness” to them. Well, at the end a couple do, but that is sort of the point, the book overall is the arc of my life—told through wild, imaginary stories where I am more or less the protagonist and describing real-ish events. And the stories were written at that point of my life, so for example, the stories in the middle were written in my 20s and don’t have a trace of bitterness in them because I was, well, you know, a typical young man. And if there is a trace of bitterness creeping up on me in the last couple years, I can deal with it, because from it I’ve written some damn good work and my bets are now paying off i.e. World Audience Publishers and La Muse Venale, Inc. and theater in general. So yes, I am at bit bitter right now—I want success and I want it now!! And I have earned it and proven how good I am and I’m tired of wading through….When I’m finally done and have reached my goals—maybe this year—and I’m sitting on a beach with a margarita, shrimp on the fire, all that bitterness will have not only been worth it (to spur me on) but wash off me like water off a duck’s back.

–

Tired of  the  anemic, navel-gazing, midlife crises stories that dominate so many literary journals these days? Well, then you should read some of the crazy-laced, fevered, and volatile stories that make up  M. Stefan Strozier’s first collection – The Magical Publishing Pen. The stories have strong currents of feeling through them and some contain a bitterness that is hard to chew upon. But these stories  will be difficult to forget: A man remembers his father’s advice – “Always remember that you’ve had Hollywood all of your life”  — and ends up briefly involved with an exotic wrestler, Hugh Hefner, and a locker room scene that teeters on the brink of surrealism; in “The Tigress” the narrator, who had been diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic, restores  an old tractor engine and in the process restores himself; in “The  Man and His Wife” a beleaguered husband watches his wife transform into a giant spider.  No, these are not stories for the squeamish; these are not stories for puritans. But they are alive, and that’s what good readers deserve

—Louis Phillips

Author of The Woman Who Wrote King Lear and Other Stories

—

And Joe Hart on Happiness in New York City (another story in the collection):

“It was a very affecting and effective story, I felt. I liked it very much.”

And the title story:

“Your title story has a great ending!”

Matt Ward of Mary Celeste Press put up 3 free copies of my stories at www.goodreads.com and in just a few days 506 entered to win. More reviews are coming soon. Joe Hart, who’s blurb is a few posts back is still reading and says, “I am into the book now, no longer just reading one a night.”

Today again is an all-time high for this blog!—by like 3 times. I am continually mystified by this blog. But take the day off; have a drink on me.

In this video, Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher and member of a family that has always owned the NY Times, lays out his vision for integrating his company with the future (in March of 2010?). It’s interesting how families have owned the major papers for a century—or slightly longer: the Chandlers and the LA Times, and formally the Bancrofts of the WSJ. Alas, this trend is dying, as these last two are gone now and even Rupert Murdoch is leaving with no family legacy. So, that last man standing—representing the last family—is going to change fate! I am all ears.

His 3 core ideas are quality, a recognition of world-class journalism, and democracy. Already, I am lost. But that’s okay. My little brother is a journalist (who even went to a Ivy League journalism school) and he’s a punk that I used to smack the crap out of—and he too never made much sense, even after whooping his ***. So please, continue. He goes on to talk about how the NY Times is changing but it was mostly fluff from that point forward; except for two points.

One, that the NY Times will become a multi-platform media company. In this strategy, I agree. World Audience is a multi-platform publisher, with POD books, eboks and audio books, as well as much other media, not to mention the media we use to market our titles. However, I part company is his concept that content will become more interactive and the content provider must think of a new bell or whistle every other day. Content is content and it’s all-powerful. (You gotta admit, I can turn a phrase from time to time That means content drives the marketing strategy. There’s no way around it, at least on the Web.

But then Mr. Sulzberger goes on to say that the NY Times will charge people for content in 2011. And with that, the last of the last fell on his sword. He made a weak defense that online ads will work with a pay wall;  but he can’t have it both ways. He says the NY Times is one of the greatest Web sites on the Internet. It’s comments like these that reveal a babe in the woods in terms of understanding how to be a 21st century publishing company, such as World Audience, Inc. is. Not only can this claimed title of the best Web site change over one weekend; but it means nothing. It’s not like readers spur the entire Internet to read the writers at www.nytimes.com. And this is going to justify people paying for that content? Yeah, right.

So good-bye, NY Times.

–The sampler of my stories, The Magical Publishing Pen, has been downloaded nearly 600 times in less than one month at Skive and World Audience.

–Today is an all-time high for this blog, page views and visitors—and it’s still early.

–My plan is to finish the rewrite of the 2nd revised edition of my memoir, The Labyrinth, in a couple of weeks, working with Kyle Torke, PhD, and then my poetry chapbook with it’s epic poem, and go on a book tour by the summer.

–World Audience grows at light speed. I think by this fall we will be seriously competing with major publishers in New York i.e. no-kidding-putting-them-out-of-business.

–I am producing Trump the Musical, by Bernard Margalit, which is getting a staged reading for Broadway producers in a few weeks. The music is being arranged now. And now I have more plays to produce.

–Work on my 5-act plays continues and later this year a production of La Revolucion, Villa y Zapata. Look for my next play, Moctezuma! soon too. It will probably be me at the top of my game. If I faltered coming around the last turn with La Rev, I am back up and running—ever read HORSEMEAT by Charles Bukowski?

Bloggers can cover restricted media events and write about them, according to this article. Hey, now we’re talking. I can think of a few events that I’d like to visit, not really to “cover” them like a journalist—who cares about that?—but to give the event that old-time “M. Stefan Strozier” feel. This blog is probably best categorized somewhere in entertainment, and there could be some interesting things to see, say, Fashion Week. Can you imagine what I would have to say about that?? It says you have to have written 6 times about restricted events in the last 2 years. I probably have done that 60 times.

–

Chris Anderson thinks the iPad will revolutionize magazines but not for 10 years, according to article. He wrote “The Long Tail” and then another book that he admitted he plagiarized. This article says Conde Nast did not lose readers in 2009. What? That’s a big fat lie, if ever I’ve heard one, and I’ve read enough to confirm it. It sounds like certain parties are trying to “beef up” their chances.

However, the iPad will revolutionize things faster then 10 years. I think it will take as long as the iPod—about 2 years—to become the main way magazines and newspapers are sold. But not books, though it might make publishers some money. Books will take 10 years before they are profitable as electronic books, and even then only about 50% of the market share.

You heard it here first.

It looks like Playboy is getting ready to close up its operations. That’s too bad, it really. I wonder if my satire, written in June when Playboy’s troubles started, had anything to do with it. This is every blogger’s secret desire, to influence events. It’s like when Conan O’Brien was battling Major Booker of Newark, NJ, I was blogging about that; but then he too is now gone. More realistically, I am quick to sense a trend and then join it, but I am still one of the voices of the jury. Then again…

That brings me to Ms. Huffington, who says she didn’t destroy newspapers. And she cites her rules for making online content successful—or profitable. I don’t disagree with her points; but they don’t seem very vital to me. I think it has more to do with creating a brand, with your content. Your brand sells your content. That’s why the NY Times means next to nothing online, which makes them very mad. The NY Times is a printed newspaper brand and its marketing does not transfer online directly (it could have, if they had started a decade ago). But of Ms. Huffington’s “4Es”, yes, you have to have energy, but then every writer does, so it’s a non-factor. (Maybe journalists need to be be reminded of that.) And enthusiasm? I can be a pretty unenthusiastic guy. I am, after all, a product of my generation, but look what I’ve created. Furthermore, the core of World Audience is of an age 42-44. So, enthusiasm? Naaaahhh. Engagement, yes, but only up to a point. She seems to think that the content provider or social network has to do 100% of the work here. I am not so sure. I think it’s 50-50. I demand a lot of people. The best deliver and I work hard to keep them at my side. Finally, empathy? Huh? My first reaction is, “Screw that.” She seems to think there is some huge marketing trend and potential here. I don’t know, not for what I am doing: publishing books. I am trying to reach readers—Not Web page readers or even newspaper readers (the online ones, that is). I want book readers. Real book readers don’t need my empathy. They just want a very good book from a very good publisher they recognize as excellent.