National Read a Book Day

Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever. Philip Pullman

One of these should do nicely.

Look and Listen

Whispersync is an Amazon feature that allows you to switch between an ebook version and an audiobook of the same title. It’s a pretty cool way to read at home and listen to books on commutes or jogs. (This link explains Whispersync.) Not all books sold on Audible.com are set up for this synchronization feature, however. For my own audiobooks, only The Shopkeeper is Whispersync ready. Bummer. But at least Amazon says they’ll eventually get to the other books in the Steve Dancy series.

How do you know which books in your Kindle library are set up for Whispersync? Amazon has made it easy. To reference your Kindle library against existing Audible Whispersync titles, you can just log into Amazon.com/matchmaker which automatically lists every Kindle book you ever bought that has a Whispersync companion. This list will also give you the discounted cost to add the audiobook to your library. This may not be very valuable for books you’ve already read, but when I showed the list to my wife, she immediately added several of these titles to her to-read list.

If you buy a print book, the Kindle version may be discounted—sometimes to 99 cents—and if you buy an eBook, the Whispersync audiobook is discounted. Consuming books visually and/or audibly has become a snap. If you don’t have lots of idle hours to read, try a combo approach. 

Coming soon to a theater near you!

Hollywood is remaking The Magnificent Seven, one of my favorite westerns. (Darn, I wished they had asked. I could have sold them material for a great, new western script.) The original film was made in 1960 and broke new ground for Westerns. The loner, with or without a sidekick, was nowhere to be found. Instead, an ensemble cast kicked up so much dust with twenty eight hoofs that filming became difficult at times. The Magnificent Seven introduced antihero gangs to theatrical westerns. Previously there were western antiheros, notably Shane and Hondo, but these were deeply flawed characters rather than outright bad guys called upon to do good. Nine years later, The Wild Bunch seems to have taken most of the credit for elevating antiheroes who flock together.

The Magnificent Seven is a buddy story which heavily relies on the chemistry of the characters. This played out exceptionally well in the original and hopefully will work for the remake as well. Of course, everything was not always copacetic on the sets of the original film. Throughout the entire movie, Yule Brynner never removed his hat to expose his bald head. Steve McQueen was such a notorious scene stealer that he exasperated Brynner, who took him aside and threatened to remove his hat if McQueen upstaged him again. Legend has it that McQueen behaved himself for the remainder of the shoot.

The new Magnificent Seven is due in 2016,  directed by Antoine Fuqua, and staring Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Lee Byung-hun, Luke Grimes, Wagner Moura, Haley Bennett, Matt Bomer, and Peter Sarsgaard. Let’s hope it’s as good as the first one.

Too much information

Honest westerns filled with dishonest characters.

Speed bumps take readers out of the story.

The final throes of revising Jenny’s Revenge reminded me that too much information doesn't help a story. Nothing bores a reader more than needless explanations about trivial matters the reader can fill in for themselves. Pointless factoids, excessive description, and extraneous words make an otherwise good novel clunky and laborious. 

This old lesson has special application to my writing because I have a need to neatly tie up every little thing. My brain somehow requires an explanation for every action by every character. This is important for the main plot, but can be distracting when it comes to tributaries. In fact, some tributaries can turn the plotline into a muddy mess. I also have a habit of siring orphans. In an initial draft, I'll launch a subplot, never to return to it. Most readers may not remember the distraction, but the dead end will irritate those that do. More often than not, I find a simple solution: send the orphan to the bit bucket. 

My goal during revision is to cut everything that doesn’t move the story forward. Goals aren’t always achieved, so it helps to have trusted critics that will give you honest feedback. Revision is not an event, but a process that encompasses several iterations.

This is why I believe good novels are not written, they’re rewritten. 

A New Year Resolution

We celebrated the New Year with our kids and six grandchildren. It was a blast … and tiring.  Great start of a new year, but this morning, when I had an opportunity to catch my breath, I realized I had already burned a month of the new year. Wasn’t it just a little while ago that computers threatened Armageddon at the turn of the century? Time flies, especially when you’re having fun. If slowing down time requires staying bored, I guess I’ll opt for a mad dash to the finish line.

Death Valley 20 Mule Teams

Our home for the next week ... minus the ocean

Speaking of staying busy, we head out Friday for a week of camping in Death Valley, although it seems a stretch to call it camping when we'll be living in a friend’s 40+ foot diesel pusher motorhome. Our transit and sojourn will be considerably more comfortable than the twenty-mule teams that used to haul borax across the valley to a rail spur. Those hardy teamsters thought a fringed whorehouse pillow positioned between their buttocks and the wood bench was the lap of luxury. I have to admit that I enjoy investigating frontier lifestyles with modern conveniences close at hand … especially flush toilets.

It’s been years since I visited Death Valley National Park and I’m looking forward to it. But planning the trip brought a thought to mind. Cattle drives, 20 mule teams, and the Pony Express are iconic imageries of the Wild West, but none actually lasted long. Although ranching and cowboys exist today, the great cattle drives had a relatively short lifespan of about twenty years. 20 Mule teams lasted only six years. The Pony Express operated for only eighteen months. All three of these frontier enterprises related to transportation, and all were obsoleted by the American penchant for speed. Our hell-bent for leather culture demands that we get stuff faster and faster. Nothing lasts unless it figures out how to deliver goods or services quicker tomorrow than it did yesterday.

For the most part, speed serves us well … except for passing through life. In that particular case, I think scrubbing off a bit of speed would be beneficial. Come to think of it, I’ll make one more New Year’s resolution: stop on occasion to smell the roses. 

e-books, delivered at the speed of light ... well, sort of

Jenny's Revenge at The Fictional Cafe

The Fictional Café has previewed the first chapter of Jenny’s Revenge, the fifth novel in the Steve Dancy series. 

If you enjoy fiction, bounce around the Fictional café. You’ll find author interviews, sample writings, book reviews, and pod casts. Membership is free.

Honest Westerns ... filled with dishonest characters

The Real Wild West

An Editor on the Comstock Lode by Wells Drury

Previously, I wrote that Mark Twain is my favorite Western writer. Twain actually experienced the West at its rowdiest and Roughing It describes his experiences with humor and a touch of the storyteller’s art. Owen Wister is another author who experienced the real Wild West, which gave The Virginian its authentic feel. Wells Drury’s An Editor on the Comstock Lode is yet another great source for Western lore. In fact, its organization and humorous writing makes it an indispensable reference source for Western writers. Drury’s time as a newspaper editor in Virginia City gave him a front row seat to the goings on in that raucous town. His book covers:

• Everyday life in the West, including entertainment, food, and city services
• Practical jokes galore and lots of Yarns
• Saloon life and etiquette
• Gambling
• Bad-men and bandits, gunfights, and stage robberies
• Mining
• Financial history and shenanigans
• Journalism, including Mark Twain
• Politics
• Western Terminology
• And sketches of the prominent people of the Comstock Lode and Nevada politics.

My favorite, of course, is the chapter he dedicates to Candelaria and its suburb of Pickhandle Gulch. This mining camp figures prominently in my Steve Dancy Tales, but I chose to call the main town Pickhandle Gulch because I liked the name. Fiction writers get to bend history to suit their story. It’s one of the fun parts about being a novelist. I suspect Twain, Wister, and Drury did a bit of bending themselves.

Honest Westerns filled with dishonest characters.

Why print books are different

Mike Shatzkin

Mike Shatzkin has posted a discerning article about how print books are different than digital books. It’s common to assume that books will proceed along the same path as the digitization of music and film. Shatzkin disagrees. He claims books are very different from their digital cousins and make a number of good observations.

• Readers routinely switch between print and digital
• Whether digital or analog, music and film require power and a device to be consumed. Books require neither.
• Compared to the digital variety, Shatzkin contends print books are easier to navigate, and that navigation is not a critical function for music or film which for the most part are consumed serially.
• Print presentation can be more aesthetic. Digital book devices inhibit interior design. For music and film, there is no difference “between the streamed and hard-goods version.”
• Motivation is different for book buyers. Music and film are consumed mostly for entertainment.  Books are frequently bought for educational purposes, making the ability to browse more important. This gives bookstores an advantage over online retailers.
• Digital music and film is superior to analog which drives digitization. This driver does not exist for books.

Shatzkin argues that there are innate differences between books, film, and music which will alter each media’s adaption to the digital world. One of the most significant being that ebook readers still buy and consume print. Music and film buffs seldom go back to the prior generation technology.

Although I tend to agree with Shatzkin, he did miss a few advantages of e-books. First, they’re lighter. I’m reading a big, heavy print book at the moment and I don’t take it to bed with me because my hands get tired holding it up. Currently, I fall asleep with Tom Wolfe on a kindle. A second advantage of e-readers is the ability to read them one-handed. My wife makes fun of me, but when one of my hands is busy shoveling breakfast into my mouth, I turn the page on my Kindle by bouncing it against my nose. Try that with a print book.

Word of Mouth Revisited

I’ve contended that word of mouth is the greatest marketing tool available to authors. Word of mouth includes book clubs, online recommendations at sites like Goodreads and LibraryThing, reader reviews, and good ol’ fashioned face-to-face conversation. Word of mouth does not include anything the author says, including social media leavings that come from gallivanting around cyberspace. Potent word of mouth comes unexpectedly from a trusted source. Every author’s marketing strategy must focus on generating positive word of mouth.

Recently, I had confirmation of this axiom. In the first of August, I ran a discount promotion for a couple of days for the e-book version of The Shopkeeper. I don’t believe in offering free e-books because there is no lasting effect beyond a couple days. Many people gather up free books and never bother to read them. I’ve discovered that there is an entirely different dynamic for 99¢ e-books. Evidently this tiny fee motivates people to read the book.

 I decided to use a brief 99¢ price for the first novel in the Steve Dancy Tales to give a boost to the entire series. It worked far better than I expected. Not only did The Shopkeeper sell almost two thousand copies, all the other books in the series showed accelerated sales. Actually, it has been over a month since the promotion and all five books in the series still sell at more than double the pace of sales prior to the promotion. Free e-books have no legs, but 99¢ e-books seem to have a long tail.

None of this was news to me. But I did make an observation about this promotion that had previously eluded me. If a promotion goes well and readers like the book, then word of mouth accelerates sales in other formats and for other books by the same author. I never track audio sales because they’re small compared to other formats. I kept an eye on them this time, and I noticed a major surge in sales about a week or so after the promotion. Print sales also surprisingly increased, and sales of my other books grew significantly. The additional sales could only come from word of mouth because none of these other books or formats were discounted or promoted beyond my normal feeble efforts. People who liked The Shopkeeper told other people about my books. Some marketing gurus tell you to make fans out of your readers. Good advice, but if you really want to sell lots of books, turn your readers into your own personal sales force.

How? Write an engaging story that never jerks your reader out of the story. This means you need to keep the story moving forward, avoid unnecessary plot detours, and have it all professionally packaged. If you enthrall your readers, they’ll tell their friends, family, and neighbors about this great new author they found. After you have a large and growing sales force, you can concentrate on what you really love to do—write.

Life without laptop

Last week I wrote about living without my handy Kindle. I relearned how to buy a paperback at the airport and life went on. Something far worse happened. My laptop went belly-up. Now, that shouldn’t have been a big problem, except my desktop computer is a massive-screen Macintosh that I use to edit home movies and my wife uses for everything I can’t do. That means the machine is loaded up with graphical, video, and photographic software. No Microsoft Office. Since Microsoft no longer allows the Office suite to be installed on three machines with a single license, we live without it on our Macintosh. The absence of this ubiquitous app occasionally irritates me, my wife almost never notices. And it’s her machine after all.

I use my trusty portable computer four to eight hours every day, so this appendage is a life necessity. I immediately ran to a couple of stores and eventually decided on a new machine. Being clever, I decided to go home and buy it on Amazon to save a few bucks. I get free shipping and I could read hard copy books I had bought for research on my next Steve Dancy Tale. Except … it was just ahead of the Labor Day weekend. Not only did the machine not get delivered, the holiday weekend backed up deliveries so much they didn’t get it to me until Thursday. Evidently, 2-day shipping is a highly elastic term.

Normally, I’m relegated to the basement with my laptop. During this hiatus, I was regularly upstairs asking my wife when she would be done with the computer. I paced around with a heavy footfall until she relented and let me use her machine. I wanted to try Open Office, check email, see how many of my books had sold, visit social sites, and generally get my computer fix. (I found Open Office to be wonderful substitute for the MS variety, but misgivings about compatibility with the next release kept me from working heavily on my next book.)

Then the big day arrived—my brandy new computer sat on my front porch. Now I can get back to writing … just as soon as I get everything reloaded and organized to my liking.

Life without Kindle

I carry my Kindle with me almost everywhere I go. Now, instead of fuming at airport security, I read or shop for my next book. If my wife asks to run into a store, I wait in the car and read. I even read in the interminable lines at Starbucks where no one seems to know how to order a cup of coffee with less than fourteen words. I cheered when the FAA finally ruled that my Kindle wouldn’t cause a fiery crash if I forgot to turn it off. Now I can read during that bouncy ride down the tarmac while the aluminum behemoth decides whether it wants to fly that day.

In other words, my Kindle became an appendage. Until I forgot it in San Diego. When I got to Lindbergh Field, I discovered I had left my trusty device in our condo. Darn. I couldn’t figure out what to do. Then I remembered the good ol’ days when I used to read words on paper. In short order, I bought the Jack Reacher novel Never Go Back by Lee Child.

The first surprise was the paperback price of $9.99. No wonder I liked my Kindle. The second surprise was how much I enjoyed reading a real book. It instantly brought back memories of sand chairs beside Bass Lake or the Pacific Ocean, reading in bed, and getting lost in a story on an airplane. Really lost. Once, I didn't notice that we had aborted two attempts to land until the pilot interrupted my trance to tell us lowly passengers that if he couldn’t land this time he was diverting to another airport. What? Where had I been during all of this? Reading a paperback.

That got me thinking. I have never been that lost while reading a Kindle. There is something about the mechanical nature that interferes with total absorption. In a real book, I never think about flipping a page; I never stop to look up the definition of a word; I never adjust the little light bulb thingy; and I never glance down to see how far I am from the end. I wondered: are real books superior?

Then I thought about my son. I thought about how hard it is to tear his attention away from an electronic device. I thought about how automatically he jets around content, moves between reading different devices and even effortlessly switches between text and audio books. For me, reading a paperback was nostalgic, for him it would be foreign. Did I look back on good times with paperbacks the way my mother insisted that screenwriting was better when television broadcast in black and white.

I’d think some more about this, but I’m lost in a Jack Reacher novel I picked up at an airport.

Apropos of Nothing

Five actors and a ham.

The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend

When I attended the Tucson Festival of Books as a panelist, I also joined the audience in a number of other sessions. One of the best sessions was a panel discussion of the book, The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend. This is a fantastic book that every Western enthusiast should read.  It’s really three stories, perfectly interweaved. A factual description of the abduction of Cynthia Parker; A historical critique of the novel, The Searchers by LeMay Alan; and an intimate look at the John Ford classic film The Searchers, starring John Wayne. The theme used to unite the stories is how history turns into legend until myth is stronger than facts. A fascinating read on many levels.   

"This is the West,sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

From Bestselling Indie-Novelist to Also-Ran

I self-published The Shopkeeper in 2007. It seems like a lifetime ago, but in indie-publishing terms, it was an eon. I stumbled into indie-publishing by accident. At the time, I had a New York agent with a major firm, but he declined to represent my Western because he said the advance would be less than a decent down payment on a small Korean car. He explained that his 15% wouldn’t be worth his time.  Okay, I decided to self-publish the novel. The Shopkeeper found an instant audience and it was consistently in the Top 20 bestselling books in the Western genre, and at Christmas it often ranked as the #1 Western.

In 2007, most indie-books were nonfiction. In fact, self-published novels were so rare; I pretty much had the field to myself. For a couple of years I was the bestselling indie-novelist in America.

Alas, good things never last. Today I hear there are 30,000 indie-books published each and every month, with most of them being fiction. My lonely world suddenly became very crowded. What happened? The Kindle. It was also introduced in 2007, but it took a few years to get rolling. Those were my years, when print dominated genre fiction.

I would lament the good ol’ days, but I sell more books than I used to. It’s just I can no longer claim bestselling status. I’ve published seven novels and two nonfiction books, five of them Steve Dancy Tales. As of this writing, all five Steve Dancy novels are ranked at less than 30,000, with the nine year old The Shopkeeper ranked at #75 in Kindle Westerns. My novels for the Barnes and Noble Nook are doing better than I expected as well. (The Shopkeeper is ranked at under 4,000 overall.) More important, actual sales are better than they have ever been.

The moral to the story is that progress isn’t necessarily scary or harmful—just different. e-books brought indie-authors vast numbers of new readers. Yeah, the ubiquitous device also brought competition, but with an expanding market, there’s room for everyone. Besides, savvy readers weed out the charlatans that crank out a book after book that they price at less than a cup of coffee. It seems newbie indie-authors flame-out more frequently than want-to-be actors in Hollywood. There’s some great stuff out there in the indie world, but to compete in this crowded market requires study, effort, and a love of writing. Good novels don’t just happen. Authors write and rewrite them until readers want to flip the pages all the way to the end.

So here’s a piece of advice from an ol’ fogey—if you want to sell a lot of books … write a darn good one.

Working Vacation?

Yours Truly on an overhead wave.(Who're ya gonna believe, me or yer lyin' eyes.)

Writing and surfing and sun and good food and better friends. How could I have a better vacation? (Is it a vacation if you're already retired?) Jenny's Revenge is going well, the surfing so so. All the rest of it is perfect. The peacefulness of our getaway is about to expire. My daughter and her grandkids arrive tonight. Then it will be kinetic, noisy, and loads more fun. The energy level in our condo will leap 200%. Okay, that's a gross understatement. Anyway, I better get to writing, because starting tomorrow I'll only have snatches of time for the following week. Then we'll return home to Omaha, where I have vowed to focus on the next Steve Dancy Tale.

  

Three novels for $9.99

Publishing advice for a relative

A relative asked for advice on how to publish a math book he had written. I've included my answers below in the hope it might help other aspiring writers.

I would strongly suggest traditional publishing for a math book. You are correct that traditional publisher have access to the proper sales channels. In fact, academia seldom buys self-published books, so traditional publishing is your best, and possibly only, option.

Many people say you must have an agent to traditionally publish. This is true for fiction and popular nonfiction, but not always required for specialized nonfiction. Some publishers accept non-agented manuscripts. My suggestion is to seek an agent and a publisher simultaneously. To find out how to do this, spend a few hours in a library with Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Publishers, Editors and Literary Agents. Read the articles about how to write query letters, book proposals, select an agent/publisher, etc.

Here are a couple of publishing clichés that became clichés because they are often true:

Fiction is published based on the author’s platform, and published nonfiction is based on the author's credentials. 

Nonfiction is sold with a book proposal; novels are sold as a complete manuscript.

This means you should stress your math credentials in your query letter and book proposal. Book proposal formats vary, but they all include a sample chapter, Table of Contents, a section on the author, and a section on the target market.

Don’t worry about a publisher stealing your concepts. Also, if the agent you query is listed in Herman’s book, you don’t need to be concerned about him or her stealing your ideas either. You will need to use your judgment with friends and colleagues.

All of this means you should not wait until your book is complete to your satisfaction. Hone one chapter until it is as good as you can make it and include the other sections required in a book proposal. Then send query letters out to publishers and agents simultaneously. Don’t send a proposal or manuscript unless you get a positive response from a query because it will just end up in a slush pile destined to be read by an intern … someday … perhaps. If you use this approach, you will have plenty of time to complete the entire book to your satisfaction. In fact, publishers assume nonfiction books are not complete at the time of contract signing. A standard clause is a book delivery schedule.

Which brings us to terms and conditions. The sad truth is that unless you are famous or have committed a high-profile felony, you have little influence over the T&Cs, which include royalties. This is true if you negotiate the contract yourself or have an agent negotiate it on your behalf. These contracts are boilerplate for the most part. The agent’s job is to secure the biggest advance possible. My agent also negotiated out a first-rights clause for a second book, but he was able to get little else. Ancillary rights are demanded by traditional publishers. Wiley even insisted on the theatrical rights to my computer management book. (I was thinking of a musical.)

The primary benefit of an agent is to get your manuscript moved to the top of the pile. Agents also know the interests of different publishers and can keep you out of cul-de-sacs. If you query publishers directly, use Herman’s book to select publishers that specialize in your subject or market. 

Nowadays, traditional publishers are paying higher royalties on e-books, but nowhere near the direct payments to independent authors. Traditional publishers pay an advance, so they are concerned first with earning back the advance. Indie-authors higher royalties reflect the fact that they receive no advance and pay publication costs.

Traditional publishers will take care of “cleaning up a book.” Wiley assigned an editor and 3 line editors to my book. They also insisted on control over the title and cover. It’s been many years since I published The Digital Organization, and things may have changed, but basically the publisher calls most of the shots.

As for my books, if you are interested in history, I recommend Tempest at Dawn. If you like action/thrillers, then I would recommend The Shopkeeper or The Shut Mouth Society.

"Weird Al" Yankovic - Word Crimes

Now, this is fun.

Reading to a child instills a love of books

Cartoon by Grant Snider

As Grant Snider so apply illustrates, a child is likely to fall in love with a single book. At least, initially. Still, no matter how many times I read the same story, a child curled up in my lap feels like I found  Ponce de León's elixir.

We moved to Nebraska to be close to our grandchildren. It was a great decision. We experience unexpected tidbits of joy every day. I've made a discovery, however. When my wife or I engage in a new activity with any of our grandkids, the initial fun wears out far earlier for us than for them. They can go on forever. That's one of the reasons reading to a child is such a good idea for grandparents. The child learns to use their imagination and reading becomes a pleasurable remembrance they carry throughout their lives. And grandparents get to sit in a comfy chair—something I can do longer than my grandkids.

Reading: The Struggle … Really?

Reading a struggle? Tim Parks writes that modern man’s addiction to electronic gadgets means reading is relegated to odd snatches of time. His advice is that we dinosaur writers need to adapt and learn to tell a story in fewer words than were used in the theme song for The Beverly Hillbillies. (The 87 word tune at the beginning of The Beverly Hillbillies is famous for terse storytelling.)

Park opens his New York Review of Books article by writing, “The conditions in which we read today are not those of fifty or even thirty years ago, and the big question is how contemporary fiction will adapt to these changes, because in the end adapt it will. No art form exists independently of the conditions in which it is enjoyed.”

Adapt? Writing a story using Twitter might be fun and even creative as hell, but it would not be a novel. Park doesn’t actually suggest that writers restrict themselves to 140 characters, but he does predict that a novel “will tend to divide itself up into shorter and shorter sections, offering more frequent pauses where we can take time out.” To a great extent, this is because Park apparently believes fiction is art and must be studied, rather than merely enjoyed.

He writes:

“Let’s remember just what hard work it can be to read the literary novel pre-1980. Consider this sentence from Faulkner’s The Hamlet:

‘He would lie amid the waking instant of earth’s teeming minute life, the motionless fronds of water-heavy grasses stooping into the mist before his face in black, fixed curves, along each parabola of which the marching drops held in minute magnification the dawn’s rosy miniatures, smelling and even tasting the rich, slow, warm barn-reek milk-reek, the flowing immemorial female, hearing the slow planting and the plopping suck of each deliberate cloven mud-spreading hoof, invisible still in the mist loud with its hymeneal choristers.’”

Could he have found a more writerly example? Mark Twain would never write a sentence like that. For that matter, neither would JK Rowling, Stieg Larsson, or Raymond Chandler. Good grief. Maybe it was pompous writing, not texting that drove people away from long format fiction.

Except that people have not abandoned novels. Novels are increasingly popular. Instead of the novel adapting to modern lifestyles, our lives have adapted to reading in a different manner. Many of us do our reading on e-readers that we bring with us all the time because they weigh less than a Little Golden Book.  

A good novel is the best stress reliever ever invented. A good novel captivates the reader. A good novel instantly transports the reader to another place and time. And a good novel is inexpensive and accessible. 

A novel provides a unique escape from the relentless pinging for our attention. Despite what our ego may tell us, being constantly tethered to an iThingy is not obligatory. The world will not miss you for an hour or so. When you need a break, just turn off your other devices and open a novel. Give a storyteller some dedicated time and you’ll be able to handle your concerns and responsibilities with aplomb.

Need a gift for Father’s Day—June 15th.

My father is furthest out on the wing.

Father’s Day is special. I use the day to remember a father I never knew. He died in WWII in the cockpit of his P-51. Since I was born after he shipped out to Iwo Jima, we never met, but I grew to know him through his brothers and sisters. If he was anything like them, he was a fine person.

I also like connecting with my kids, even though they’re now adults. The best gift they ever gave me was six grandkids. Now, that’s a great present! I don’t need anything more from them, but who am I to go against tradition. I look forward to my gifts because they always show thought, and that means more than the gift itself.

If you’re looking for a gift idea for your father, I have a great idea—books.  

In a previous year, I wrote:

Books are great gifts. For a few dollars, they provide hours of entertainment that can be enjoyed anywhere. A good book sheds life’s tensions as it transports the reader to another place and time. Of course, I’m biased. I write books and hope you’ll pick one of mine as a Father’s Day gift. But even if you don’t, all books bring unique pleasure.

The best gift is a vacation … and the least expensive vacation is a book. A novel effortlessly transports the reader to another world. With a good book, dad can take a fifteen minute vacation or while away an entire afternoon. Either way, he returns feeling refreshed and more content with life.

Gift books don’t have to be fiction. A respite with a nonfiction book about a special interest can also be relaxing. The great thing about books is that there are numerous ones for every interest, hobby, sport, or enthusiasm. If for some reason, your dad can’t get away to fish, golf, or whatever, he can frequently find a few minutes to read about his favorite activity. A good book allows him to indulge himself and possibly pick up a few pointers.

There is another reason I like to give books as gifts: I can write something personal on the flyleaf that won’t get thrown out like an old greeting card.

The most important thing is to remind your father that you love him. The perfect book is far more personal than most gifts because it’s aimed directly at what you father enjoys. Put some serious thought into the right book to show you really tried to please him.

By the way, there's still time to order one of the Steve Dancy Tales for Father's Day.

Honest Westerns ... filled with dishonest characters.