What’s New at The Writing King: Week of August 2, 2026

Aug 7 · Business, Ghostwriting

My Company Is Paying for My Ghostwritten Book. Who Owns It If I Leave?

This week, who owns a ghostwritten book when your company pays for it, and what happens to it if you leave.

Aug 7 · Critical Thinking, Society

Yuri Bezmenov and the Four Stages of Subversion

This week, the KGB defector whose 1984 interview keeps resurfacing, what in it is documented, what cannot be tested, and why the mechanism no longer needs a KGB.

Aug 7 · Book Marketing, Writing Craft

Steamy Lit, Tampa: A Romance Bookstore With an Open Submission Form

This week, the Tampa romance bookstore that built its audience on Instagram first, drew a hundred people to a soft opening, and publishes a form for authors who want stocking.

Aug 7 · Critical Thinking, Cybersecurity

The Morris Worm: The Night the Internet Learned to Distrust Itself

This week, the Morris worm of 1988, the night a few thousand administrators learned the network itself could be turned against them.

Aug 7 · Book Marketing, Writing Craft

Who Hosts Author Events in Tampa Bay

This week, every venue in Tampa Bay that runs literary programming, what each one wants, and why the libraries are the half nobody asks.

Aug 6 · Book Marketing, Writing Craft

What to Do With a Box of Unlabelled Photographs

This week, the box in the closet: the order that works, how to date a photo nobody remembers, and the format quietly rotting in your garage.

Aug 6 · Ghostwriting, Memoirs

Should I Hire a Ghostwriter to Write a Revenge Memoir?

This week, why revenge memoirs backfire, and how to write about someone who hurt you without it becoming revenge.

Aug 6 · Business, Ghostwriting

Should I Hire a Ghostwriter to Write About My Business Failing?

This week, whether to hire a ghostwriter to write about your business failing, and how to do it well.

Aug 6 · Ghostwriting

What If My Ghostwriter Keeps Talking About Their Own Life?

This week, what to do when your ghostwriter keeps talking about their own life instead of yours.

Aug 6 · Book Marketing, Writing Craft

Mojo Books & Records, Tampa: Nineteen Years From a Nook

This week, Tampa's largest independent for books and records, the daily open buying counter, and what nineteen years of physical media being written off looks like from inside.

Aug 6 · Book Marketing, Writing Craft

You Have Eleven Hours of Audio. Now What?

This week, what to do with eleven hours of a parent talking: the five steps, the one everybody stalls at, and the honest hour count.

Aug 6 · Ghostwriting

Can a Ghostwriter Turn My Speeches, Podcasts or Videos Into a Book?

This week, how a ghostwriter can turn your speeches, podcasts or videos into a book.

Aug 5 · Business, Personal Growth

Royce Blake: Your Voice Is an Instrument, and You Are Playing Three Keys

Royce Blake spent more than thirty years as a major market radio personality and now coaches vocal confidence. He argues most people do not have a confidence problem but a communication problem, and that the pause is the single highest return technique anyone can learn.

Aug 3 · Business, Personal Growth

Mike Merkur: Driving the Bus While the Pizza Flies

Mike Merkur is a Toronto toy inventor with two patents filed on encoding language as color, and the host of the Impossible Puzzles Show. The conversation turns on what fifteen firings taught him about thinking differently, and on leadership as absorbing chaos so nobody else has to.

Aug 6 · Observances, Writing

International Chess Day: The Game That Was Supposed to Die

On International Chess Day, July 20, marking the founding of FIDE in Paris in 1924 and recognized by the United Nations since 2019, Richard Lowe looks at what happened to chess after Deep Blue beat Kasparov in 1997. The game everyone said was finished is now played by 605 million adults. He draws the parallel to AI and writing, maps the three phases of a chess game onto book structure, and argues that chess notation is the oldest case for writing your story down.

Aug 8 · Careers, Personal Growth

Don’t Live in Fear: The Walls You Built and How to Get Past Them

Don't Live in Fear joins Prepared, Not Paranoid on The Writing King. I lost a job I wanted because I was too chicken to talk to people

Aug 8 · Artificial Intelligence, Book Marketing

The Day Your Website Died: Optimizing for AI Search

The Day Your Website Died joins The Publishing Series on The Writing King. I got good at ranking websites, then the traffic changed shape

Aug 8 · Critical Thinking, People

Everybody’s Prejudiced: Including the Man Who Wrote This

Everybody's Prejudiced joins Enemies of You on The Writing King. I will put mine on the table before I ask about yours

Aug 8 · Book Marketing, Publishing

Sell Your Books: Marketing Without the Hype

Sell Your Books joins The Publishing Series on The Writing King. Most book marketing advice is written by people who never marketed a book

Aug 8 · Artificial Intelligence, Business

The Death of Thinking: What Outsourcing Judgment Costs

The Death of Thinking joins Enemies of You on The Writing King. You do not feel a slow loss going

Aug 8 · Artificial Intelligence, Personal Growth

The Birth of the Augmented Human: What Goes Right When You Use AI Properly

The Birth of the Augmented Human joins Enemies of You on The Writing King. A force multiplier with no real precedent

Aug 8 · Business, Critical Thinking

Stuck in the Middle: Wars, Weapons, and the Next Thirty Years

Stuck in the Middle joins Enemies of You on The Writing King. The Iran war is not the subject. It is the entry point.

Aug 8 · Critical Thinking, People

The Villainization of America: Why the Story We Tell Ourselves Matters

The Villainization of America joins Enemies of You on The Writing King. My grandfather spent three and a half years in a Japanese prison camp

Aug 8 · Business, Critical Thinking

The Enshittification of America: How Good Businesses Were Taken Apart

The Enshittification of America joins Enemies of You on The Writing King. I never set out to write about the decline of American business

Aug 8 · Business, Critical Thinking

The Emasculation of America: What Bezmenov Described and Nobody Acted On

The Emasculation of America joins Enemies of You on The Writing King. In 1984 a KGB defector explained exactly what was being done

Aug 8 · Business, Publishing

Make a Living as a Self-Published Author: Build the Business Behind the Books

Make a Living as a Self-Published Author joins The Publishing Series on The Writing King. Authors have never had it better, and most still make nothing

Aug 8 · Personal Growth, Technology

Turn Off the TV, Get Off Your Ass, and Do Something: Getting Your Time Back From the Screens

Turn Off the TV, Get Off Your Ass, and Do Something joins Enemies of You on The Writing King. They say they are too busy. Then they watch Netflix for four hours.

Aug 7

The Library: Every Book by Richard Lowe

Richard Lowe has written 73 books across nonfiction and fiction, all grouped by purpose instead of date so you can find what you actually need, whether that's survival skills, publishing advice, or a good story.

Aug 7

Philosophy: A framework offered on its merits

A philosopher argues the divide between divine and human is a mistake, then tests that claim against death, ethics, suffering, and how we raise kids, asking only that you check it against your own life.

Aug 7

Writing: Craft, explained instead of gestured at

Two books that finally explain the craft advice everyone gets wrong: how to show instead of tell, and how to turn scattered blog posts into a book that actually works.

Aug 7

Lived: Two memoirs, one inherited and one first-hand

Frank Hoeffer II survived three and a half years as a Japanese POW and wrote it down. His grandson and a woman who turned childhood survival skills into career superpowers share their stories.

Aug 7

The ADHD Series: Working with the brain you have

Two books tackle ADHD in places that demand constant performance: marketing and church. Both stop blaming your brain and start questioning the system designed for someone else.

Aug 7

Real Life, Handled: The parts of adult life nobody hands you a manual for

Three books on the stuff adults actually face: throwing parties without burning out, clearing your house without losing what matters, and seeing through relationship advice that doesn't work.

Aug 7

Prepared, Not Paranoid: Ready for the bad day without organizing your life around it

Being ready for emergencies doesn't mean you're paranoid or need to turn your life upside down. Learn what actually matters to have on hand, and why most people's real barrier to preparedness is fear, not logistics.

Aug 7

Digital Self-Defense: Protecting your household from what is online

A 2:47 AM phone call and lost family photos sparked three books on protecting your household from online threats, scams, and the psychological tricks platforms use to manipulate us.

Aug 7

Enemies of You: Arguments about what is being done to you, and by whom

Richard Lowe has written eight connected arguments about the forces quietly working against you: private equity gutting businesses, outsourced thinking, degraded national character, and screens stealing your life.

Aug 7

The Publishing Series: Getting a book made, published and sold

Richard Lowe spent years publishing 113+ books and now shares exactly what worked: how to publish, sell, and build real income from your writing without the noise.

Aug 7

The Working Life: Surviving, and occasionally winning, inside a job

A career insider who survived 30 years in corporate America, including 20 at Trader Joe's, wrote six books on how to handle bad bosses, layoffs, and toxic workplaces, all built on one simple idea: most job advice is written to help your employer, not you.

Aug 7

Working for Yourself: Building something that pays without an employer

Learn how to build income without a boss: four books cover the consulting, LinkedIn, networking, and platform selling strategies that actually work.