• Welcome to Rian’s webpage, the author of several books!

    Hello, and thank you for visiting this page. Inside, you can find information about Rian's books, travels throughout the world, teaching English, writing, random thoughts, daily activities, and experiences in Asia.

A Great Video on Self-Publishing

This video from Gillian Perkins really helps out with some things that I wasn’t too aware of before like upwork.com and 99designs.com . The first site can help design a book cover and format the book as well. It also has editing services for your manuscript. Of course she is selling a service as well… … Continue reading

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Recommended ways to promote your book

OK, after reading through pages and pages of “how to promote your kindle book for free (but not really)” blogs, sites, etc. I’ve come to the conclusion that most of them will not work (and especially won’t work for free). Here are three things that I’m trying, and I will update to let you know … Continue reading

Japan is the *perfect* place for FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early)!

Japan is well suited to be a place to save money in order to retire early. Let me give some reasons: The best public transportation system in the world (at a cost) – I don’t say this lightly, but Japan has the world’s best system of public transportation. It is a smaller country, densely packed, … Continue reading

After checking out some sites that offer “free” reviews for self-published authors…

It seems that most of them are offering this service for free + a modest fee if you want the review in a reasonable amount of time (if at all!).  Most of the fees range from $50-300 with various perks increasing as the dollar amount increased. I checked the previous books to use this service … Continue reading

Thinking about how to get my stuff “out there” more

So I wrote my third book A Vampire in Kyoto, sent it to friends, got feedback, made revisions, did some advertisements (paid and otherwise), announced my book to various genre Facebook groups, got some feedback on Reddit, did some Amazon promotions (free and otherwise), but so far no dice. I can’t get much attention from … Continue reading

How to get started teaching EFL in Asia

A few thoughts for those who want to get started teaching EFL in Asia (I don’t have experience outside of Asia or the USA). Get some kind of training in EFL . This usually requires some on-site instruction. This often takes place in some kind of practicum and/or methodology course. This basically means gaining instruction … Continue reading

Make writing a regular habit

I’ve just read two inspiring blogs about writing here and here. There are so many good books out there that I haven’t even gotten to yet. Much of the advice is similar to that of Stephen King’s book On Writing and Heinlein’s five rule’s of writing. It all boils down to: Write regularly Finish your writing Publish your … Continue reading

Meeting with friends

My old friend Al visited me, and we went to Namba for some izakaya (Torizoku, a famous chain) along the river. We talked about our other friends and life in the USA. Al might be getting married soon he said, and his girlfriend Connie seems very nice. I hope to go to their wedding which … Continue reading

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