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Read, every day, something no one else is reading (e.i. Cold River - smile). Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.
Christopher Morley, American Novelist, Journalist, Poet (1890-1957)

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: Russell Reich’s prophetic words
As long as self-publishing remains a viable and potentially lucrative alternative for many writers, I’m having a hard time hearing Gal Beckerman bemoan the standard failures of publishers and the publishing industry as a whole.
For writers who are already willing to take some responsibility for their book's design, marketing, and even editing, the additional work required for a self-published book (printing, fulfillment) is relatively benign as long as you believe in what you're doing and hire good people to help. When I co-authored, designed, and published my own book, I felt that no setback during the process ever rose above a level of minor inconvenience; I was simply having too much fun to let printer glitches or a few bumpy legal negotiations bother me much.
• One greatly needs beauty when death is so close - Maurice Maeterlinck
Even when it comes to inexact sciences -- Ms Universe competitions, federal elections -- creating odds for your book on Amazon is deadlier than most Samizdat - Self Publishing [First-Time Nonfiction Author A Learns That Getting Published Is Not Necessarily the Hard Part; Not materialistic enough. That is the problem with the young today. Less and less they want stuff, more and more they want experiences]
• · A secret Paris cavern, the real underground cinema At a loss to know who built or used one of Paris's most intriguing recent discoveries
• · · Alcohol makes us happy for no reason. But wine – ah, it gives us a reason to let alcohol make us happy without one Trouble with political art and ghost circle; [Kerry Chikarovski's autobiography, Chika, will be disappointed to hear that there is absolutely no sex in the book, just plenty of politics. Chika co-author Luis Garcia assured our spy at the launch that he had asked Kerry if there was anything she needed to confess, and had been assured that there wasn't. "She's a good Catholic girl," said the Cuban missile Chik lit is no bodice-ripper] (Bob Carr would push a copy of his speech under your door, with a plaintive note saying 'Alan, can you give me five minutes on this tomorrow?')
• · · · The sacrifices needed to keep up honesty are simply too great. And thus I am afraid we can expect, in the future, from our artists only those kinds of extravagant behaviour that we know to expect, and we can safely enjoy the shocks and surprises that do not really shock and surprise, while we can note with satisfaction that the dangerous Other has been domesticated, that their unseemly clothes are just another kind of uniform, but deep down the artists are just like ourselves, no freer. Liberty is a mirror, and when we cannot bear to look at it, we smash it in order to pick up little splinters of freedoms-for. Artists are still important to uphold and to interpret notions of "freedom"
• · · · · It is there that he was bitten by the library bug How I Fell In Love With a Librarian and Lived To Tell About It [ How The Internet Saved Bookstores It wasn't too long ago that many were predicting that the internet would kill bookstores]
• · · · · · Moving Kabala into the mainstream without much dumbing down ... The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus