P.J. MacLayne

This week we’re supposed to  gather notable quotes from influential people in hopes of inspiring our readers. But if you’ve followed my blog, you might realize that I don’t always do things in the most conventional fashion. With that warning, I give you a list of things they NEVER said.

• “Just the facts, ma’am.“
  • This, the best known quote from the Jack Webb series Dragnet, was never said by Sgt. Friday in any of the Dragnet radio or television series. The quote was, however, adopted in the 1987 Dragnet pseudo-parody film starring Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks in which Aykroyd played Sgt. Joe Friday.
  • Correct versions:

“All we want are the facts, ma’am.”

“All we know are the facts, ma’am.”

Source: Urban Legends via Wikipedia

Elementary my dear Watson
Meaning: 
The supposed explanation that Sherlock Holmes gave to his assistant, Dr. Watson,

when explaining deductions he had made.

Origin:
In fact the line doesn’t appear in the Conan Doyle books, only later in Sherlock Holmes’ films.
He does come rather close at a few of points. Holmes says “Elementary” in ‘The Crooked Man’, and “It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you” in ‘The Cardboard Box’. He also says “Exactly, my dear Watson, in three different stories.


The phrase was first used by P. G. Wodehouse, in Psmith Journalist, 1915.

Source: The phrase Finder

Abraham Lincoln is frequently misquoted:

“There is no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. there is nothing good in war, except its ending.”

In 2014, model Bar Refaeli posted this quote on her Instagram, attributing it to Lincoln.

Unfortunately, she’s more than a century off. In reality, it’s a “Star Trek” quote, according to the Times of Israel.


In a season three episode of the show, Spock, Kirk and Lincoln all end up in a battle with villains from history and, although the Lincoln character does utter those words, the real Lincoln did not. #oops

Source: New York Daily News

“Those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” — Dr. Seuss

It certainly feels Seussian, doesn’t it? All topsy-turvy and self-affirming. But he never wrote it. It was something an extremely successful (remarkably non-childlike and whimsical) businessman and presidential adviser, Bernard Baruch, said to a newspaper columnist who asked him how he handled the seating of all the rich bigwigs at his dinner parties. “I never bother about that. Those who matter don’t mind, and those who mind don’t matter.” However, Baruch was probably quoting an already well known phrase from the 1930s coined by that great philosopher Anonymous. The first part of the quote, “Be who you are…” just attached itself over the years.

Source: Mental Floss

Here’s another one, just for fun.

Have you ever been misquoted? Join the greats! 

Let’s find out what the rest of the gang put together for us. Just follow the links below. And please leave a comment, if you feel so inclined. But don’t quote me on that—or do, as the case may be! 

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August 15 – Quote Post – Pull together multiple quotes from influential people (other writers, publishers, industry experts).
Rules:
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2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use ‪#‎OpenBook‬ when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
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This week we’re doing a statistics post, so I decided to revisit an old post pf mine. 



I’ve not had much luck with paid advertising, and as a result. I’m always shy about doing it. My last book launch, I hired a company to arrange a blog tour for me. They warned me up front they wouldn’t guarantee sales, I should look at it as a way to get my name out there. It was good they made the statement, because I didn’t see a jump in sales on any day I was featured on a blog stop.

But I’ve been hearing good things about RobinReads in various groups I’m a part of, and decided to give it a try. The cost was withing my budget, and I wanted to see if it would increase sales.

First off, it was incredibly easy to sign up. Their criteria for accepting a book is posted and easy to understand. Here’s what the sign-up page says is their criteria for a listing:

So that was the old post. Now for some updated information. RobinReads has upped their prices, and I’d have to sell a lot more books to break even. The sales of the collection Stories of Sun, Sand and Sea jumped when we advertised with RobinReads, putting us into the top 100 in Amazon sales in several categories, although not in the overall Amazon standings. I believe this is the right image of that day:

So would I still advertise with RobinReads? The answer is a big yes, even though I didn’t see the hoped-for bleed over into sales of my other books. Maybe next time!


To find out what other authors are sharing this week, check out the links below.

August 8 – Survey Post/Statistics Post – Collect some data or do a bit of research and share the results. Highlight key takeaways, important findings, or ways to implement the new information.
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use ‪#‎OpenBook‬ when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
Wordpress:

Custom Blog:

Code for Link:

get the InLinkz code

This week we’re doing a statistics post, so I decided to revisit an old post pf mine. 


I’ve not had much luck with paid advertising, and as a result. I’m always shy about doing it. My last book launch, I hired a company to arrange a blog tour for me. They warned me up front they wouldn’t guarantee sales, I should look at it as a way to get my name out there. It was good they made the statement, because I didn’t see a jump in sales on any day I was featured on a blog stop.

But I’ve been hearing good things about RobinReads in various groups I’m a part of, and decided to give it a try. The cost was withing my budget, and I wanted to see if it would increase sales.

First off, it was incredibly easy to sign up. Their criteria for accepting a book is posted and easy to understand. Here’s what the sign-up page says is their criteria for a listing:

So that was the old post. Now for some updated information. RobinReads has upped their prices, and I’d have to sell a lot more books to break even. The sales of the collection Stories of Sun, Sand and Sea jumped when we advertised with RobinReads, putting us into the top 100 in Amazon sales in several categories, although not in the overall Amazon standings. I believe this is the right image of that day:

So would I still advertise with RobinReads? The answer is a big yes, even though I didn’t see the hoped-for bleed over into sales of my other books. Maybe next time!

To find out what other authors are sharing this week, check out the links below.

August 8 – Survey Post/Statistics Post – Collect some data or do a bit of research and share the results. Highlight key takeaways, important findings, or ways to implement the new information.
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use ‪#‎OpenBook‬ when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
WordPress:



Custom Blog:

Code for Link:

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Based on the research I do, I bet I’m on a government watch list somewhere.

But, I suspect many writers of mysteries are. We write about things that are against the law and—hopefully—make them believable even if they only happened in our imaginations.

That means we have to learn a lot about topics that normally are untouchable in polite society. What’s the best way to dispose of a body? Can you tell what caliper a bullet was by looking at the exit wound? What shape will a body be in if found two years after death in the desert?

Okay, I haven’t used any of those in one of my books—yet.  I have, however, learned a lot about guns in general.

My heroines are not shrinking violets. In fact, they kick ass when its needed. Luckily, I have a husband who was an armorer in the military so he’s my first source of information. If needed, I can turn to the several guys at work who are hunters and are willing to talk about ammo and shooting in general. There’s also a email group that I am a member of where the participants discuss anything and everything crime related. If all else fails, I resort to a writer’s best research friend—Google.

Although I’m still no expert, I know a lot more about guns than I used to. For example, a revolver and a pistol are not the same thing. Sure, they are both handguns, but the way ammunition is fed to the chamber is different. (Kind of like a square is always a rectangle but a rectangle is not always a square!)  Oh, and did you know cops always have a bullet in the chamber? And while an AK-15 is not a real gun, the AK-47 is.

As a writer, there are times when I need to take “liberty” with the facts to make a story work. and while some people may object to that, as long as it’s done deliberately and with great care, I feel there’s nothing wrong with it.

The problem with doing research on the internet is that’s it easy to get lost. By that, I mean to wander from one interesting fact to another because it might be useful to your current writing. For example,I went looking for the handgun manufactures that have the best reputations. Glocks made the top ten, but barely. The Sig Sauer, which I’d never really known about, was #1. So that’s what I gave my heroine in Wolves’ Knight for her “personal” carry. (Plus a retired police officer recommended it.)

So far I haven’t explored the topic of really big guns. Cannons. I could easily lose an hour or two in that topic. Ones that are so big they need their own railroad track to move on.  Guns that can hit targets 70 miles away. I don’t know how I’d work one of those into my books, so I’ll close that window on my computer and come back to all of you.

Now let’s do a little research and find out what the other writers in this hop have to say. You can find them by following the links below. And, as always, feel free to leave me a comment! Who knows, you may lead me to an interesting topic to waste my time on the internet—I mean research!

Oh, and to whomever the poor soul is from the unnamed government agency that watches over me, thanks for reading!

August 1, 2016
Research Post. Post your interested, unusual or eye opening research. Or, in the alternative, you can post about how you research.
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use ‪#‎OpenBook‬ when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
Wordpress:

Custom Blog:

Code for Link:

get the InLinkz code

Based on the research I do, I bet I’m on a government watch list somewhere.

But, I suspect many writers of mysteries are. We write about things that are against the law and—hopefully—make them believable even if they only happened in our imaginations.

That means we have to learn a lot about topics that normally are untouchable in polite society. What’s the best way to dispose of a body? Can you tell what caliper a bullet was by looking at the exit wound? What shape will a body be in if found two years after death in the desert?

Okay, I haven’t used any of those in one of my books—yet.  I have, however, learned a lot about guns in general.

My heroines are not shrinking violets. In fact, they kick ass when its needed. Luckily, I have a husband who was an armorer in the military so he’s my first source of information. If needed, I can turn to the several guys at work who are hunters and are willing to talk about ammo and shooting in general. There’s also a email group that I am a member of where the participants discuss anything and everything crime related. If all else fails, I resort to a writer’s best research friend—Google.

Although I’m still no expert, I know a lot more about guns than I used to. For example, a revolver and a pistol are not the same thing. Sure, they are both handguns, but the way ammunition is fed to the chamber is different. (Kind of like a square is always a rectangle but a rectangle is not always a square!)  Oh, and did you know cops always have a bullet in the chamber? And while an AK-15 is not a real gun, the AK-47 is.

As a writer, there are times when I need to take “liberty” with the facts to make a story work. and while some people may object to that, as long as it’s done deliberately and with great care, I feel there’s nothing wrong with it.

The problem with doing research on the internet is that’s it easy to get lost. By that, I mean to wander from one interesting fact to another because it might be useful to your current writing. For example,I went looking for the handgun manufactures that have the best reputations. Glocks made the top ten, but barely. The Sig Sauer, which I’d never really known about, was #1. So that’s what I gave my heroine in Wolves’ Knight for her “personal” carry. (Plus a retired police officer recommended it.)

So far I haven’t explored the topic of really big guns. Cannons. I could easily lose an hour or two in that topic. Ones that are so big they need their own railroad track to move on.  Guns that can hit targets 70 miles away. I don’t know how I’d work one of those into my books, so I’ll close that window on my computer and come back to all of you.

Now let’s do a little research and find out what the other writers in this hop have to say. You can find them by following the links below. And, as always, feel free to leave me a comment! Who knows, you may lead me to an interesting topic to waste my time on the internet—I mean research!

Oh, and to whomever the poor soul is from the unnamed government agency that watches over me, thanks for reading!

August 1, 2016
Research Post. Post your interested, unusual or eye opening research. Or, in the alternative, you can post about how you research.
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use ‪#‎OpenBook‬ when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
WordPress:



Custom Blog:

Code for Link:

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I discovered home when I was eighteen years old.

Sounds like a line from a romance novel, doesn’t it? But what I fell in love with was the mountains.

Growing up in northwestern Pennsylvania, I was surrounded by the Allegheny Mountains. I spent hours as a teenager walking and bicycling in the hills that surrounded my childhood home. The forests and meadows were part of my nature. I studies the plants and knew which ones were food and those that had other uses. I even knew where a few rare plants were sheltered.

But after high school, I took a Greyhound bus west to a college.far from my familiar surroundings. It was an exciting transition—new surroundings, new friends, new educational challenges. It was wonderful, and I was on a continuous high.

And then it happened. For one of the classes I was taking, we took a weekend field trip. In a college-owned bus, we piled in our sleeping bags and luggage and took off to study local flora. The road we took was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Hairpin turns, sharp inclines, cliffs that dropped hundreds of feet from the side of the road.

Finally we got to the top. And I never wanted to go down again. I’d found my place on this earth.

After that I could not be content with rolling hills. I needed sharp peaks and deep valleys. I joke that I must have been a mountain man in a previous life. Some days, I’m not sure it’s a joke. The mountains are where I feel the most like myself. From the lower reaches where you have to have to lift your eyes to see the snow-covered peaks to the upper heights where you can see for miles and beyond that’s where I want to be. When I’m among them, I feel fulfilled.

Life’s journey hasn’t always allowed me to make my home among the mountains. Bit even when I lived in what other people considered paradise, I wanted to leave and return to my personal heaven or as close to it as I can get while I’m still alive.

Soon after the trip, I met a wonderful man and fell in love again. He loves the mountains too, so he doesn’t mind sharing me with them. Most of the time, anyway.

To find out what other people are sharing, see the links below. And if you want to share something, you can o it in the comments. Thanks for reading!

July 25, 2016
Personal Experience Post – Let your guard down. Form a connection with your readers by sharing a deeply personal experience.
Rules: 1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use ‪#‎OpenBook‬ when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
Wordpress:

Custom Blog:

Code for Link:

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I discovered home when I was eighteen years old.

Sounds like a line from a romance novel, doesn’t it? But what I fell in love with was the mountains.

Growing up in northwestern Pennsylvania, I was surrounded by the Allegheny Mountains. I spent hours as a teenager walking and bicycling in the hills that surrounded my childhood home. The forests and meadows were part of my nature. I studies the plants and knew which ones were food and those that had other uses. I even knew where a few rare plants were sheltered.

But after high school, I took a Greyhound bus west to a college.far from my familiar surroundings. It was an exciting transition—new surroundings, new friends, new educational challenges. It was wonderful, and I was on a continuous high.

And then it happened. For one of the classes I was taking, we took a weekend field trip. In a college-owned bus, we piled in our sleeping bags and luggage and took off to study local flora. The road we took was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Hairpin turns, sharp inclines, cliffs that dropped hundreds of feet from the side of the road.

Finally we got to the top. And I never wanted to go down again. I’d found my place on this earth.

After that I could not be content with rolling hills. I needed sharp peaks and deep valleys. I joke that I must have been a mountain man in a previous life. Some days, I’m not sure it’s a joke. The mountains are where I feel the most like myself. From the lower reaches where you have to have to lift your eyes to see the snow-covered peaks to the upper heights where you can see for miles and beyond that’s where I want to be. When I’m among them, I feel fulfilled.

Life’s journey hasn’t always allowed me to make my home among the mountains. Bit even when I lived in what other people considered paradise, I wanted to leave and return to my personal heaven or as close to it as I can get while I’m still alive.

Soon after the trip, I met a wonderful man and fell in love again. He loves the mountains too, so he doesn’t mind sharing me with them. Most of the time, anyway.

To find out what other people are sharing, see the links below. And if you want to share something, you can o it in the comments. Thanks for reading!

July 25, 2016
Personal Experience Post – Let your guard down. Form a connection with your readers by sharing a deeply personal experience.
Rules: 1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use ‪#‎OpenBook‬ when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
WordPress:



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Welcome to this week’s edition of the Open Book Blog Hop, where a group of authors share their ideas on random topics. This week we’re making predictions about how changes in technology will
affect us as writers.

I’m going to start with one easy prediction, then move on to something that’s more in the out-on-a-limb realm.

Smart watches are the upcoming technology. And they’re useful for many things, like tracking the weather and stock market, but can you imagine reading a book on that little screen? So my prediction is that someone will develop an app that will read the books in your e-book library to you—without needing it to be in an audio book format. And then tie that same technology into Amazon’s Echo Alex speaker system (and similar products.)

Alternatively, there will be a way to project the display onto a wall or whiteboard to make it easier to read. The technology already exists for laptops, so why not for smart watches?

As writers, the new technology may present formatting issues. We’ll need to adapt our existing books into a new setup so the watches can read them correctly, and format our new offerings for yet another market. Same goes for our blogs and websites. As always, the early adapters will get the lion’s share of the initial market.

Now onto a prediction that’s a long shot.

Remember in Star Trek how everyone could talk to everyone (almost) and understand what everyone was saying? Even though they were from different countries and planets and solar systems? The universal translator (that came in various forms in different shows and movies) searched for similar patterns that occur in many spoken languages and, over a series of words, and interpreted them for the hearer.

That translator only works for the spoken word. I predict someone will develop a translator to interpret the written word. Maybe that’s not such a long shot, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that capability already exists in super computer form. But how about in a hand-held device for the masses? Sure, you can go on line and find translations for specific languages, but what about a device that you can run over the page of a book and it will read the text to you in whatever language you select? Think of the possibilities that would open up to us as writers!

We’d immediately have our books available to a world-wide audience without paying for translators for every language. How great would that be? Of course, we’d need to change up our writing style or subject matter to fit more of the international audience. I’m not sure how wolf shifters would translate into a Hindi marketplace. Would readers from all over the world read our blogs if we didn’t write them to include topics of interest to a broad audience? We as writers would have to work a lot harder to make ourselves “attractive” to the new market.

So those are my predictions. What are your predictions? Feel free to share in the comments below. And to find out what other writers on the loop have to say, follow the links below.

Predictions Post – How changes in the industry, in technology or in the tools (social media, blogging, etc.) will affect your ability to earn a living or make your mark as a writer.
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use ‪#‎OpenBook‬ when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
Wordpress:

Custom Blog:

Code for Link:

get the InLinkz code

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Open Book Blog Hop, where a group of authors share their ideas on random topics. This week we’re making predictions about how changes in technology will
affect us as writers.

I’m going to start with one easy prediction, then move on to something that’s more in the out-on-a-limb realm.

Smart watches are the upcoming technology. And they’re useful for many things, like tracking the weather and stock market, but can you imagine reading a book on that little screen? So my prediction is that someone will develop an app that will read the books in your e-book library to you—without needing it to be in an audio book format. And then tie that same technology into Amazon’s Echo Alex speaker system (and similar products.)

Alternatively, there will be a way to project the display onto a wall or whiteboard to make it easier to read. The technology already exists for laptops, so why not for smart watches?

As writers, the new technology may present formatting issues. We’ll need to adapt our existing books into a new setup so the watches can read them correctly, and format our new offerings for yet another market. Same goes for our blogs and websites. As always, the early adapters will get the lion’s share of the initial market.

Now onto a prediction that’s a long shot.

Remember in Star Trek how everyone could talk to everyone (almost) and understand what everyone was saying? Even though they were from different countries and planets and solar systems? The universal translator (that came in various forms in different shows and movies) searched for similar patterns that occur in many spoken languages and, over a series of words, and interpreted them for the hearer.

That translator only works for the spoken word. I predict someone will develop a translator to interpret the written word. Maybe that’s not such a long shot, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that capability already exists in super computer form. But how about in a hand-held device for the masses? Sure, you can go on line and find translations for specific languages, but what about a device that you can run over the page of a book and it will read the text to you in whatever language you select? Think of the possibilities that would open up to us as writers!

We’d immediately have our books available to a world-wide audience without paying for translators for every language. How great would that be? Of course, we’d need to change up our writing style or subject matter to fit more of the international audience. I’m not sure how wolf shifters would translate into a Hindi marketplace. Would readers from all over the world read our blogs if we didn’t write them to include topics of interest to a broad audience? We as writers would have to work a lot harder to make ourselves “attractive” to the new market.

So those are my predictions. What are your predictions? Feel free to share in the comments below. And to find out what other writers on the loop have to say, follow the links below.

Predictions Post – How changes in the industry, in technology or in the tools (social media, blogging, etc.) will affect your ability to earn a living or make your mark as a writer.
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use ‪#‎OpenBook‬ when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
WordPress:



Custom Blog:

Code for Link:

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No, you didn’t miss a post from me last week. I was out of town and had no internet access. It was great, but now it’s time to come back to real life.

This week we’re talking about things that matter to us. As my title indicates, I picked the broad topic of human rights. I considered narrowing the topic, but back in high school, when I was first being introduced to the politics of women’s rights, I decided that the rights of all people were important, and I haven’t changed my philosophy. If anything, my areas of interest have grown broader over the years.

The men’s rights movement was the breakthrough  that led me to explore beyond women’s rights. The concept that women were automatically considered better parents than men floored me because my own father was a wonderful and caring parent. Besides, if we were talking about women being equal, shouldn’t that extend to equality both good and bad? I couldn’t find the fairness in being considered automatically “superior” in any field based on sex alone. Isn’t that what the women’s rights movement was fighting against?

Gradually, my world perspective grew larger. The Civil Rights Movement was only the tip of the iceberg. The issues of Native Americans began making the news. Remember the occupation of Alcatraz?  The American Indian Movement and Russell Means? I don’t know too many people who do. Fascinating US history that I suspect doesn’t make it into history textbooks. 

Somewhere along the way, my interests became international. So many issues, so many causes. Women not being allowed to drive or vote or have any rights under the laws of many countries. Children being forced in prostitution or slavery or used to fight in territorial wars. Men and women not being able to have opinions that are in opposition to the “official” position of their government. The struggles of the LGBT community all over the globe. Usable food being wasted or deliberately destroyed while people go hungry.

What can one person do about all the many issues? Admittedly, not much, other than pay attention and educate themselves  about what is going on in the world. Sign a petition or two or three. Pick one or two causes to donate money to. And when the opportunity arises, share your knowledge with other people. If we work together, we can make a difference.

To find out what other authors care about, follow the links below.

July 11 Why ____________ matters to me. Share what you’re passionate about. Strong opinion pieces allowed.
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use ?#?OpenBook? when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
Wordpress:

Custom Blog:

Code for Link:

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