Category: Anthony Zatti

RIP, Anthony Zatti


This past year I grew to know an older gay men who lived in New York. His name was Anthony Zatti and he was fascinated with digital publishing. I was fascinated by his interest. And we started communicating together through facebook with private messages and status updates. I just learned he passed away this afternoon through a mutual friend and I wanted to say something about him in a post. His books are here on Amazon. And I wrote two posts about him here.

He often told me stories of what it was like to be in the military years ago, long before DADT and everything that has transpired since the repeal. In the photo above, he’s on the bottom right. Along with getting his digital books out, in a new world of publishing he’d just discovered, he was fascinated with what was happening in the military, too.

I know he had a partner. I know he was a professor at Brown and worked for a large bank. In fact, he had a long list of professional credits that always left me in awe of what he’d been able to accomplish during his lifetime. He worked as secretary to the President of the Revlon Corporation, and became friendly with celebrities like Susan Lucci and Lauren Hutton.

He also read most of my books, and gave me comments and advice I truly appreciated. The biggest compliment he ever gave me was that he saw most of what I wrote was based on my own personal experiences as a gay man. It was Anthony who inspired me a great deal to publish my own book on Amazon, and take that chance alone. When I look back at our private conversations on facebook, I smile when I see how serious he was about getting his own books out and the enthusiasm with which he did things. We talked about writing blurbs and other publishing things, and always went back to talking about our personal lives. We’d planned to meet up and have lunch sometime this summer. I was hoping Tony would get a chance to meet him. I’m sorry we’ll never get that chance now.

If you’re reading this Anthony wherever you are, RIP. It was a great pleasure knowing you for the short time I did.

Thank You Amazon…


I just saw a blog post thanking a brick and mortar bookshop, which was clearly meant to promote the bookshop, on a publishing blog. It’s a sneaky little thing I’ve seen alleged publishing professionals do, letting readers know in a subtle way they don’t like or care for digital publishing. Trust me, you never see them promote Amazon, Kobo, or any other form of digital publishing.

So I decided to say my own small thank you to Amazon. They don’t need my help with promotion, but I’m doing it anyway. Last I checked, a good deal of my own sales come from Amazon, so I’m more than qualified to thank them.

I posted earlier about a friend who is re-releasing his novel, which is LGBT fiction set in the year 1961. The title is “Camping in the Backyard Going Forward.” The author is Anthony Zatti. And he’s doing this on Amazon, as a trial promotion with free books.

He’s doing this as a free Kindle download on Amazon for a limited time, and from what I’m hearing the free downloads have been flying off the cyber shelf. Like I said, it’s free, so check it out. And, when the promo is over, the digital price is only $2.79.

No author would ever have been able to do this at a brick and mortar bookshop. And I find it amazing and spectacular to see that authors are now capable of doing this on Amazon. But more than that, it’s also amazing that readers now have options to read for entertainment they never had in the past. And that we don’t have to depend on the questionable taste of a handful of people what goes on our reading lists.

Free Kindle Book on Amazon: "Camping in the Backyard Going Forward" by Anthony Zatti

I’m not exactly sure how this works. But a friend of mine is having a book released for free through Amazon and I wanted to give him a shout. The title is Camping in the Backyard Going Forward, and the author is Anthony Zatti.

Here’s his post on facebook, verbatim:

It’s now less than five hours until you can get a copy of my book, Camping in the Backyard Going Forward, from Amazon/Kindle for FREE. That’s right for FREE. You can get it for your Kindle or to read on your computer for FREE right after nidnight tonight. You only have a limited time to take advantagre of this promo offer by Amazon/Kindle Books/Anthony Anthony Zatti.

And here’s the Amazon link.

I don’t think I can get this one for free. I don’t own a Kindle and I’m not a Premium Kindle Member. I own Kobo and NextBook. But for those who own Kindles, I would imagine it’s worth your time to check out a free e-book and see if it’s for you. I do this all the time on Kobo and I’m usually happy with what I receive. I’m also planning to buy the book anyway as soon as I’m finished reading Merv Griffin’s new bio (Oy…what a tale of deceit).