Quotes from Andrew Shaffer

'First Step 2 Forever' is a hardcover, multi-colored monstrosity that clocks in at 240 pages... half of which feature full-page pictures of the 16-year-old Bieber.

Celebrating Christmas without subscribing to Christianity is like watching the Super Bowl without watching a regular season game. Some people watch the Super Bowl for the commercials; others watch it for the halftime show.

Visibility is one of the most difficult parts of the self-publishing equation. No matter how great your book is, it is fighting against a tidal wave of cheap ebooks on Amazon.

Chicago is a city built on architecture, and there are plenty of buildings to scale.

If you can pay enough people to buy your .99 ebook and review it positively, and crack one of Amazon's bestseller lists, readers are going to check it out. Especially at a low price point like .99. Customers are suckers for the fallacy that the cream rises to the top.

'Anthems' was a harsh indictment of American foreign policy; the video for the first single featured an American flag engulfed in a pool of oil, imagery which might have been risque in 2002, but seemed unimaginably passe in the last year of Bush's presidency.

Biden is actually a wonk at heart. Despite his gaffes, he's very cerebral.

Don't respond to haters' taunts - even politely. Ignore them. If nobody takes their bait, most will grow bored and move on.

In their political careers, Obama and Biden faced down lobbyists, Tea Party carpetbaggers, and Washington gridlock.

In the White House, Obama was driven around in an armored Cadillac limo nicknamed 'The Beast.' In 'Hope Never Dies,' he blows his book deal advance on 'The Little Beast,' a black Cadillac Escalade upgraded with military-grade armor and shocks so good 'you can drive over a land mine and not spill your tea.'

With traditional publishing, books might be pulled due to plagiarism or libel - but rarely for content, and especially not without a widespread outcry.

In 'Hope Never Dies', Biden attempts to disguise himself with a beach look, hoping that the incongruity of it will allow him to snoop around Wilmington without being recognized. Obama, on the other hand, knows the best way to keep a low profile is to just be himself.

Treat haters in your online spaces just the same as you would in the real world. If they're not respectful to you and your customers, kick them out.

This is a common misconception about antidepressants: many people believe they're simply 'happy pills' that will wipe a person's emotional slate clean. Used correctly, antidepressants can lift the fog of mental illness.

Buying reviews of ebooks that include downloads is a well-known way to 'juice' an ebook's sales rank and attract new readers.

It was a struggle to humanize Donald Trump, who was the antagonist in my satirical thriller 'The Day of the Donald'. Of course, I heard from some readers who thought I made Trump too likable.

The higher a book's sales ranks, the better chances it has of being noticed by Amazon's internal recommendations engine.

After finishing my undergraduate work at the University of Iowa, where I took creative writing classes taught by Writer's Workshop students, I applied to half a dozen MFA writing programs.

Barnes & Noble, along with other independent bookstores, are refusing to stock Amazon Publishing titles. They'll order books from the online retail giant if customers ask, but bookstores have so far declined to be 'showrooms' for Amazon.

Every published writer, myself included, was at one time unpublished. All writers know what rejection feels like.

It's not always caving to pressure: Sometimes criticism hits close to home; sometimes criticism changes our minds about something we've put out into the world.

In 2009, the American Library Association recorded 460 challenges reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom.

You don't want to write the same story again, but people are like 'We want the same story but different.' Well, how do you do that?

Everybody has a breaking point. It's tough to ignore the impulse to respond with anger.