As much as I loved the Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic series Castle when it was on TV, one drawback was that it gave people the impression that once writers publish a book or two, they start raking in the tall dollars and live the good life in penthouses with so much free time they can solve crimes in their spare time.

“Oh wow, you got a book published? You must be doing so well!”

Well sure, if you count stumbling through your day job because you spent a few hours last night working on a scene that you just…couldn’t…get…right, then yeah writers are living the high life.

One of the cool things you get to do is learn all about things other than writing, like marketing and promotion. So you get a third job too, like learning a graphics program like Photoshop or it’s free cousin (and my favorite) GIMP.

The image you see at the top of the post is my new bookmark. It’s the result of a Sunday afternoon learning about layers, DPI and text effects. Thank God for all those GIMP users who uploaded how-to videos to Youtube. For the record, that’s also how I learned about plumbing and lawnmower repair.

So, if you come out to see me at a signing I’ll hook you up with one of these fantastic bookmarks and you can take home a book or two. See? It works out great for both of us.