It is the discovery process. It isn't figure it out and then write what you've learned... not for me. The learning and breakthroughs come from the writing, research and re-writing process.

I've been part of the recovery (from addiction) community for years and years. While 12-step fellowships provide peers, engagement and all the benefits of community, the 12-step program has too much of a theistic bent for my irreligious worldview. So I went looking for a secular daily reflection book in or around 2007. I couldn't find one and I thought, "What the F***! How can that be in the 21st century." So with some goading from my recovery friends: Your a writer Joe; you've been clean and sober since disco; why don't you write one? It seemed at the time that I didn't have the time but what was playful jeering, became a call to action and by January 2013, Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life was published and finally, there was a daily reader for atheists, agnostics and everyone. And it has caught on with everyone; it satisfies an unmet need for nonbelievers but everyone likes it for its contemporary look at recovery challenges, culture and lifestyle.

I come from the music business and indie music has been around since Punk bands couldn't get signed to labels and they learned to record, tour, sell and do all the business side of the music business. I knew it was a viable legit option.

It could have been something by Dr. Seuss, Richard Bach's Johnathan Livingston Seagull or my parents magazines - I don't remember what it was so impact? Not so much, next question.

I delegate cover design. I don't cut my own hair, engineer my own song recording, fix my car. I leave cover design to trusted professionals.

I read mostly non-fiction (and yes, history, addiction, mental health, memoirs, sound recording - all very pleasant). The great fiction I do read is foist upon me by loved ones.

iPhone 6+

Does anyone really know what marketing techniques lead people to buy? I don't. I write for magazines, I use google-ads, I speak at conferences. I don't know which of these things causes people to act.

what; one desk? I have a spare bedroom desk, a basement desk by the printer and generally work at the dining room table.

Montreal. Big impact. Montreal (and Quebec City) are most European cities in North America. Montrealers have a certain ironic distancing. America is, you know American, someone we learn from and get amused with but we don't take anything USA literally. Montreal has little zealotry. Live and let live is the vibe and even though I don't live there any more, it informs my abstract, agnostic look at life.

We'll see about that. Sales are slow but growing: 24,000 since 2013. Maybe better that I thought but most quarters are better than the one previous and this particular book plays well with a growing demographic of people in recovery who don't believe in a prayer-answering, sobriety-granting kind of higher power. Why wouldn't I be a Smashwords partner?