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Hey brother and sisters I am traveling to Cuba Sept 10-15 and asking if anyone has advise for food, drinks, music ,art and of course where to "if any honey spots" for and to find Cuban cigars? Any help is greatly appreciated! My first time going to Cuba from US. Thank you guys! Robert Rogers

So I wrote a book! Those in the ‘Best book I’ve read in the past 30 days’ thread have probably already read my obnoxious post about the book that I just recently released, but I thought I would share my experience with my fellow BOTL—maybe someone on here has published already and wants to chime in or maybe one of you want to do the same one day. Or maybe it’s a cathartic experience, I don’t know. Sharing is caring, as they say. Anyway, I wrote this as a kind of ‘Q & A’, mostly to break it up so that it doesn’t come across as one giant douchy soliloquy. What’s your book about? First of all, the book is called ‘Skin’ and I classify it as a Horror/Thriller novel with a tendency toward the former. However, I don’t think it fits in the traditional horror genre; it’s really story about a family struggling to deal with their issues with a little bit of supernatural thrown into the mix. As a brief synopsis: a family (3 brothers) head to their recently widowed mother’s house for the winter holiday. Blah, blah, blah a storm rolls in and the power cuts out, and eventually they find themselves near freezing. Along the way, something in the blizzard calls to them, drawing them out into the cold. What was your inspiration? Well, I have three brothers and we were at my parent’s house one Christmas… and a blizzard touched down… and the power went out… hmmm. A branch, heavy with snow, fell from a tree like a spear, which surprised me: I didn’t think that a tree branch would fall like that. Anyways, it went right through the porch (part of which is still lodged there today) and I thought, “What if the branch hit something in the ground, something that has been buried there for centuries?” And thus ‘Skin’ was born. How long did it take to write? The whole process—writing, editing, beta reading, designing cover, etc—took me 18 months. The reason it took so long? I just didn’t have that much time to write; I work full time and I have two young daughters. So where did I find the time? I wrote ‘Skin’ entirely on my blackberry on the bus/subway to and from work. Why independent publishing? I’m an impatient man; after finishing the book I couldn’t imagine waiting for responses from agents… and then publishers. I also love the idea of doing it my way—why do the big five publishers get to be the gatekeepers? Why not let the public decide? What tipped the scales was that publishing on Amazon (via CreateSpace for paperback and Kindle Direct Publishing for e-book) is dead easy. Really. It’s laughably easy. What was the hardest part about writing the book? Two answers: 1) staying motivated, and 2) marketing. 1) Although it took me 18 months to complete the book, it wasn’t an everyday thing. Sometimes I just got bored or tired and took a break—listened to music on the bus instead. The thing is, there was no one telling me to hurry or even encouraging me to finish. In fact, the opposite was often true; there were those that were telling me to give it a rest, take breaks, do other things (all during the editing process), etc. I think Hemmingway said, “Write when you’re drunk, edit when you’re sober.” Well, since I couldn’t get drunk on my way to work and write on my blackberry, I often had some scotch while editing. Yeeeeah, this probably didn’t help. 2) Yeah I know, ‘marketing’ is not ‘writing’ the book, but it is a critical part of the process. Someone more experienced than I coined the term ‘author-preneur’ and, although it carries a pretentious air that I don’t particularly care for, it seems pretty accurate. I wrote the book. Great. Now what? There are about 1.5 gajillion books available on Amazon and other platforms. How the F#$k does mine get noticed? How do I make it discoverable? How does mine float to the top of the slush pile? These are things that I am trying (a perpetual endeavour) to figure out. Marketing, branding, pricing, etc, are all part of the ‘entrepreneur’ aspect to writing and selling books. This **** is hard. Well if you managed to make it this far through my post, good on ya. I guess that means you were interested. If you are really interested, and want to help out a fellow BOTL, you can check the book out here: http://amzn.to/1Eo2PwG. If you read the book (err… if you read AND like the book), please leave a review (part of the whole blegh marketing). If you have any questions, ask away. Now I’m off to suck on a Lusitania and drink a fifth of Ardbeg… and edit my next book. Cheers, Pat

A perfect Portmann Week-End We, Frank and I, were surprised to learn that it was not going to be the small, uncomplicated affair we expected, but a "Portmann Havana Group Reunion" dinner at a Michelin rated restaurant in St Gallen / Switzerland. Oh well, worse things can happen in life ... Like the traffic jam we saw on our way down, stretching basically for three-quarters of the way but fortunately on the opposite direction. We arrived on time for a glass of champagne and a Robusto at Portmann Cigars in Kreuzlingen, then just a quick pick up of the hotel key, no changing, and off to St Gallen and the highly rated "Segreto" - a one star Michelin restaurant belonging to the Abacus software group. For more text and pictures : http://flyingcigar.d...rtmann-weekend/