When was the last time you went to the library? Hopefully recently, and if not you are missing out! Big or small, urban or rural, five stories or one floor – no matter what, libraries are safe spaces that welcome all. What’s more, they are far more than just a place that holds books. They do many different things for many people with many stories to share. Have you ever wandered into your local library without a direction? Have you gone into the fiction section just to check

I am the child of a successful writer and a librarian. To me, nothing beats the smell of a good book. Whether it is old and musty or fresh off the shelf, something about the smell of paper and ink and binding glue just makes the reader want to nestle in whatever cove they have available and have a warm, cozy read. Newspapers, magazines, books, each has a distinct smell and feel and tangible heaviness that reminds the brain that there is something to do. Present Tense, of cou

ebook is an odd term. Sure, the idea of an electronic book is intuitive in its purest form. You share an author’s words online in a pleasantly readable form instead of printing them onto paper, binding them, and shipping them to a warehouse. That definition is very limiting, though. The technologies which make ebooks possible are multimedia storytelling platforms, where words are only one part of the experience. Imagine you could tell the same stories – with the same exact

Switching careers – especially if you start your own business mid-career – will leave you short on so many resources: time, money, backup support, and in some cases even energy and hope. You will have only one thing in almost infinite surplus: advice. With the goal of cutting through that clutter instead of adding to it, I’d like to highlight the four books which helped me the most when I left a lucrative consulting job in late 2013 and co-founded Present Tense LLC. The books

There's an old axiom that everyone has a book in them and I, for one, agree with it. There's also a slightly more cynical version that ends with "and that's where it should stay," but I don't necessarily agree with that. And it's not what I'll be addressing in this post. I can probably count on one hand the number of people I've met in my life who didn't have an idea for a book they wanted to write. And the vast majority who do have that book in them tend to admit it once the

A book can be an invaluable marketing tool for yourself or your business. By book, I don’t the mean the proverbial Great American novel, that half-finished pile of fiction that so many people supposedly have stored in the cloud somewhere. I mean a focused, well-crafted non-fiction book. Whether in e-form or physical form, books are a very efficient way to transfer knowledge with enough depth and detail to establish and enhance the author’s reputation and give readers useful i