Who else treats a writers bar like a 3 am gym session? 🍻📚 You sit down for “just one paragraph” and suddenly you’ve punched out a few thousand words before last call. I’m currently in Thailand on my way back to Vietnam, parked up in a very minimalist shipping-container hotel. It’s a brutal 21°C, jets are roaring down the runway from Don Mueang Airport, and apparently my brain decided now was the perfect time to write. Is this just how it works? Something about mild weather, airport noise, and being slightly unhinged seems to unlock peak productivity. Who else writes best at ridiculous hours, in ridiculous places? PS I really recommend shipping containers as temporary hotel rooms about $20 a night US private bathroom solid secure with great air-conditioning. It’s a bargain. They would be an excellent idea to solve the housing crisis for the vulnerable.

Love your thoughts on my upcoming cybercrime trilogy trailer. Especially where I add my credibility at the end! I’m integrating it with my After Midnight noir late night fictitious call in show. I’m hoping to get traction on the channel to drive people to my books. We have to keep innovating as self publishers.

Question for the group: What’s the strangest or most out-of-the-ordinary book you’ve ever come across? For me, it was #nyc by Jeff Mermelstein. It’s a photo book with no traditional text at all. Instead, it’s made up entirely of close-up photographs of people’s phone screens—mostly text messages—captured on the New York subway and around the city. Tiny, private conversations frozen in public space. Some messages are funny, some heartbreaking, some deeply uncomfortable. Together, they form a surprisingly emotional portrait of modern city life. The project started around 2017 and was published in 2020, and it sparked real debate in the publishing and photography world about privacy, voyeurism, and what storytelling even looks like in the smartphone era. There’s no narrative voice, no captions—just raw fragments of human connection. It really stretched my idea of what a “book” can be. So I’ll ask again: What’s the most unusual, unexpected, or downright strange book you’ve seen—or published? I’d genuinely love to hear what’s out there beyond the usual formats.

Has anyone ever thought about writing a book… about nothing? 🤔📘 Hear me out. I’ve got a very analytical brain (occupational hazard from my past life as a cyber-crime analyst 🕵️‍♂️), but I’ve always loved Seinfeld — the greatest show about nothing ever made. Every episode: nothing happens. Yet somehow it’s brilliant. You’ve got Kramer bursting through doors, Elaine losing her mind over tiny injustices, George Costanza doing everything wrong with absolute confidence, and of course Jerry Seinfeld calmly observing the madness like a philosopher with a laundry problem. So it got me wondering… What would a book about nothing look like? No grand plot. No epic quest. Just observations, minor annoyances, inner monologues, missed phone calls, awkward silences, and the quiet absurdity of everyday life. Would readers love it? Would Amazon’s algorithm have an existential crisis? Would George self-publish it and still complain? Curious to hear your thoughts — has anyone tried this, or secretly wanted to? 😄

We talk a lot about books📚 in here (and I 💙 that), but I’ve noticed something interesting 👀 People really light up when we get a little more personal and talk about life outside of publishing. So let’s do that for a minute. I’d love to know where everyone is from — city, state, country, wherever you’re calling home right now. 📍 I live in Illinois not too far from Chicago. Along with @Jeff Baer @Steve Gast @Susan Wright @Tara Adler @Angel Conway and probably a handful more!! I know @MJ Berst is in Wisconsin. I know we have @Bradley Deacon living in Vietnam / @Nicole Lesley in Australia Would love for everyone to drop it in the comments 👇 It’s always cool to see how global (and diverse) this community really is.