What's the best way to get books in English in Israel?

I'm in center city Jerusalem, where there are probably a dozen new and used bookstores that sell books in English within walking distance of where I live. There are also a few libraries a little farther away with very limited selections. I have at least twice as many books as any of them. The American Consul library stopped offering books at all a long time ago, but the British library in Baka I understand has a good selection. My understanding is that it charges a membership fee, though. The selections in all the bookstores, both new and old, are very, very limited. They never have what I want. 

The "free" shipping from BookDepository and BetterWorldBooks really just means they up the price of books to include shipping. If you use a VPN and list the USA as your address, you'll get a different, much lower price. Still, sometimes they have decent prices for books, especially BD with books from the UK.  BWB might have that with some old used books. 

Amazon has real free shipping on most new books if you order $49 or more for many but not all items. (If you order books from some local bookstores, they'll just buy them on Amazon for you.) 

If you're into comics and/or graphic novels MyComicShop sells new ones at 35 percent off with preorders, and you can set up shipping so your orders only go out when they top $50. Their international shipping is $25, so it pretty much evens out. They do an excellent job packing everything, and their customer service is wonderful. But they do only deal with comic books, graphic novels, and comic book novel adaptations. You can also add older comics, graphic novels, and comic strip collections, to your preorder orders if they have them in stock. Prices vary depending on collectibility and condition. (You can also sell in demand issues in good condition back to them, but I don't know how that works.)

Someone recommended AwesomeBooks to me, so I'm ordering 10 used books from AwesomeBooks, and shipping is £11.90. Still, most of the books are 60% off with an additional 20% off coupon code (awesome20 for new customers), so it's still a good deal. These aren't books on my want list, just books they have on sale. The total cost for the order is about $40, so that turns out to about $4 per used book. We'll see if it turns out to be worth it or not.

I hope this helps.

What Pinterest Has to Offer Writers and Illustrators

I like Pinterest. It's visual, girly and intuitive, which works very well for me. A lot of my fellow writers and illustrators, though, want to know what Pinterest has to offer them. They're already spread thin with Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Why join another social media outlet? 


Pinterest has so much to offer if you use it right. I'll get to that in a moment, but first I need to explain what Pinterest is and who uses it. 


Pinterest is used mostly by girls and women, and their main interests are shopping; beautiful things, people, and places; pop culture; and cooking, design and D.I.Y. projects. 


Pinterest is a visual cross between Twitter and Facebook. Like Facebook, you can share, like and comment on images, and you can see the comments others have made. Like Twitter, you don't have to follow someone to see their posts or their boards, and there's a search engine that lets you find images by topic. Another thing, unfortunately, that has carried over from Twitter and Facebook is spam. You just can't escape it nowadays. Pinterest is in its beta stage right now, so the only way to join is to get an invitation, which is easy to do through your Twitter and Facebook friends. Once you join, Pinterest will ask you if you want to follow the boards of your Facebook or Twitter friends, which is an easy way to find things you want to repin (provided your friends have the same interests). 


Pinterest also has categories of topics. "Geek," for example, is one of my favorite topics. Some people like to have boards that are all based around one color. I have a board that's only on chocolate. I find images for it by searching for chocolate, although sometimes I'll search websites for chocolate and pin images from them. Since I'm interested in writing, books, and cover design, I also have boards on those topics. 


Here's a link to all of my boards in Pinterest:  http://pinterest.com/shevistories/

People can follow individual boards. They don't have to follow all of a person's boards. There are some people, for example, who only follow my Chocolate Love board. If you're a writer, I suggest you follow my On Writing and Dream boards. I think you'll find them inspirational. Designers might be interested in my board on Well Designed Book Covers. 


So how have I seen writers and illustrators use Pinterest? 

• First, keep a board on books in your genre to attract readers of your genre. If you write dystopian, for example, posting your book next to a lot of pictures of The Hunger Games is not a bad idea. Post your book's cover and write a little about your book, using keywords to make it easy for Pinterest's search engine to find it. 

• Also announce if your book is on sale (remember that shopping is a major interest in Pinterest). Keep boards of things you find interesting, inspirational, and so on. Perhaps others will find them interesting and inspirational too. 

• Follow the boards of your followers that you find interesting. 

• Comments on images you find interesting, but please don't spam or overtly self-promote. 

• Some writers like to post images of actors and places that fit their book or WIP. I have a board of images connected to Ride of Your Life. It's not a very popular board, but who knows? Maybe it will attract people in the summer when they're looking for amusement parks and roller coasters. 

In short, Pinterest is another way--a visual way--to connect with readers and colleagues. It's girly, which tends to make it nicer, but there's also a popularity aspect. 

Like me, tweet me, share me, PIN ME!

If you want people to go to your blog, post the image first on your blog and then pin it on a board in Pinterest. 


If your book is on sale, make sure to to pin the image of the cover from the store where it can be bought at a lower price. 


But above all, don't act like a spammer. Act like a real person who truly likes the same things Pinterest users like. Create a lot of boards, so Pinterest users can get a sense of who you are and why they might like to read your books.




What about you? Are you using Pinterest? If so, what do you like to pin and repin? If not, why not? I'd love to hear from you, so please post your thoughts on Pinterest below.

Want to get it perfect? Why that's the worst thing you can do.

I've been teaching my home-schooled daughter a course on creating graphic novels. The course is partly about writing and partly about illustrating. Both are connected. They're both ways to tell a story. The story you want to tell is up to you.


My daughter has come up with a great idea for a story, and she's very excited about it. That's wonderful. She wants to be a writer someday, and this course will teach her a lot about that. I'm teaching her a lot about that. I've been an editorial cartoonist, and I used to edit a comics magazine. Each issue of Iton HaComics (The Comics Paper), which was a Hebrew comic book comprised mostly of American comic strips, included an article I had written on a comics related topic. I also have a teacher's certificate, and am an experienced writer, editor, and illustrator, so I think I'm a pretty good teacher when it comes to this topic.


We've been using You Can Do a Graphic Novel by Barbara Slater as our "textbook." Slater shows you don't have to be a great artist to create a great comic book. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning how to write and draw a graphic novel. It might be just a start, but it's a very good start.

There are some things the book doesn't get into, though, things like overcoming perfectionism. You might think perfectionism is a good thing--wouldn't it be great if we could all get it perfect the first time?--but perfectionism leads to fear, and as Yoda says,  “Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” 

First you want to get it perfect. Then you're afraid that--surprise, surprise--you can't get it perfect. You can't. No one can, especially not the first time. It's impossible. Then you get angry with yourself and with your work because you can't do the impossible. Then you hate your work, so you give up on it. And then you and your work suffer. And that does lead to the Dark Side, because you're depriving the world of the gift you could have given it, and if you go around feeling miserable all the time, you'll make the world around you miserable as well.  

You suffer because you've given up on something before you've barely started. Creating a comic book--or a graphic novel, or a short story, or even a blog post--isn't about getting it perfect. No one cares if your character's eyes look gorgeous. No one. So stop obsessing over those eyelashes, and just get the story written and the pages laid out. You can edit later, but only if you actually write the darn thing. You can change the drawings around over and over, but it will be a lot easier to do if you didn't waste ten minutes drawing eyes you might have to edit out later. 

Look at Barbara Slater's artwork. It isn't gorgeous. But it's THERE. She's done it. She created something. So has Scott Addams, the creator of Dilbert; Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts; Cathy Guisewite, the creator of Cathy; and many other comic strip artists who don't draw particularly well. Maybe one day you'll be a great illustrator or a great writer. Let me tell you a little secret. Even then you will not get it perfect. It's an impossible dream.

So forget about trying to get it perfect. Let go of your fear. Instead, embrace joy. Because the truth is that writing and illustrating are a pleasure. They're fun. They're all about dreaming on paper. As far as I'm concerned, they're the most fun you can have. So have a ball.