2015
A Vet’s Take: Quit Jerking-Off
I'm a veteran. Many, if not most, of my friends are veterans as well. My social media feeds are full of veterans--some I know in real life, some who are friends of friends. In the aftermath of the attacks in Paris, you can't swing a dead cat around my Facebook feed without hitting a dozen posts from veterans proclaiming their readiness to gut every ISIS bastard they can find and fill their chest cavities with bacon. Images of Lady Liberty rucking up and yomping across the ocean toward a smoldering Eiffel Tower compete with those of a bald eagle sharpening [...]
Tom Ricks Reviews ‘Continuing Actions’
Tom Ricks has an impressive resume. With five books under his belt (including the best-seller Fiasco), a Pulitzer prize for his reporting with the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, and contributing editor for Foreign Policy Magazine, Tom has made a career out of calling bullshit on things that don't seem right. Which is why I am so very pleased with his review of my second book, Continuing Actions. Here's a link to the review on his blog: Tom Ricks Review by Tom Ricks, Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter for the Wall Street Journaland Washington Post, bestselling author of Fiasco, Senior [...]
Marketing Strategy: Reviews
You are probably saying "What? Why's Dan writing about his marketing strategy on his blog about coming home from war?" Well, because it involves you, that's why. As you probably know, I've just published my second book, Continuing Actions. Now that the book is available on amazon.com, my efforts shift from production to marketing. Hence, this post. The most valuable marketing tool available to a self-published author are the reviews posted on the book's amazon.com product page. These reviews allow potential readers to see what other readers, just like them, thought about the book. The best reviews give a little background [...]
Continuing Actions Is Now Available On Amazon
I'm very pleased to announce that my second book, Continuing Actions: A Warrior's Guide to Coming Home is available for purchase at the following link: Continuing Actions: A Warrior's Guide to Coming Home I have written several posts explaining what this book is about, how it is different from my first one, and why I chose to write it. I won't rehash any of that here and will just close with this: Continuing Actions is the book I wish I'd read before going into combat. It wouldn't have changed what I did in Iraq, but it would have better prepared me to [...]
What’s In A Cover?
As the release of Continuing Actions: A Warrior's Guide to Coming Home draws near, I thought I'd share a little bit about the cover design that the team from Ascent created for it. I might be able to write, but that is where my creative talents end--I am not a visual arts kind of guy. For both of my books, I have outsourced the creation of the cover design with little-to-no guidance about what I wanted them to look like. Usually my instructions to the design team went something along the lines of, "I don't want this, or that. I want [...]
New Interview in Encinitas Magazine
My apologies if this post is too small to read clearly. Here is a link to the online issue of Encinitas Magazine where you'll find this article on pages 16 and 18: Encinitas Magazine
Dr. Jonathan Shay Has Written The Foreword For Continuing Actions
I intended to have Continuing Actions completed and available for sale by last May--thank god I blew that deadline. If I hadn't, I would have missed out on an opportunity that felt so remote I hardly allowed myself to consider it a real possibility. But I delayed publication, took a chance, and Dr. Jonathan Shay agreed to write the Foreword for my second book. For those who don't know Dr. Shay, here's a short list of his credentials and accomplishments: He's a clinical psychiatrist (MD) with 20 years working with Vietnam veterans at the Boston VA, a classical scholar (PhD), the best-selling [...]
Continuing Actions v.s. After Action
"What's the difference between Continuing Actions and After Action?" This is the response I've gotten from several people after I told them about my upcoming second book. In fact, I've heard that question enough times that I decided to write this post to explain the difference. To begin with, let me list their similarities: Both books are non-fiction, both about combat and its after effects, both include my personal experiences in Iraq and afterward, and both were written to fill gaps in our modern understanding of what it means to be a warrior. They both contain information I wish someone had [...]
Update on “Continuing Actions: A Warrior’s Guide to Coming Home”
After a year and a half of work, my second book, titled Continuing Actions: A Warrior's Guide to Coming Home, is nearing completion. I've just finished the final edits and am turning my attention to interior formatting, cover design, and cover copy. Once those final pieces fall into place, the book will be available on amazon.com in paperback and Kindle formats. When I finished my first book, After Action, I took a deep breath, patted myself on the back, and prepared to do something else. After almost three years of writing and editing, I was ready to put that book behind me and [...]
Clay Hunt Act–A Good Start
Thanks in no small part to the lobbying efforts of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act is heading to the President's desk. This bill is designed to, among other things, increase accessibility of mental health treatment for veterans. This bill only passed because the pressure applied by various veterans groups kept it on politicians' "to do" lists. That's no small feat when you remember they also had to squeeze in another vote to repeal ObamaCare (56th and counting). But they did vote on it, and pass it, and now the Clay [...]
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