Monday, August 24, 2009

Book Trailer: TRANSCENDENCE by Gabriel Horn and Amy-Krout-Horn

A great new Trailer by E. Joyce Moore for the book "Transcendence." This is a truly inspiring book that is being used by St. Petersberg College in Florida for a course this Fall.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

INCREASE YOUR PRESENCE ON AMAZON


Please review the following information as it can be beneficial to your Amazon sales. At the bottom of this page there is a link to AuthorCentral. I would advise that you sign up-it is free!

If you go to http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JOVPOG you will see my personal page at Amazon. Click any book, and if you scroll down-you will see my photo and a link to my bio. All of these things are picked up by Google and increases your internet presence and this is what this tool is all about-increased presence and sales!

Subject: Amazon.com Author Central Update - August 18, 2009
Hello,

We are excited to let you to know about a simple but important change that will help many more Amazon customers find Author Pages and Author Blogs and learn more about you and your work.

In short: We now link to Author Pages from book detail pages on Amazon. A new feature called “More About the Author” can be found right under the Product Details section on book detail pages. Examples below:

http://www.amazon.com/Skeletons-at-Feast-Chris-Bohjalian/dp/0307394964/

http://www.amazon.com/Family-Man-Elinor-Lipman/dp/0618644660

http://www.amazon.com/Goth-Girl-Rising-Barry-Lyga/dp/0547076649

This is a simple and perhaps obvious feature. But it’s also one that many authors asked us about, so we wanted to tell you the good news as we rolled it out. We thought it also might be a good opportunity to share a bit about what we’ve been doing with Author Central and what to expect from us in the coming weeks and months.

At Amazon, we’ve made our goal to give authors a more prominent “customer-facing” role within our store. This will not only be helpful and fun for Amazon customers, but we love the idea of enabling authors to better promote themselves and their work and to reach both fans and new readers. In pursuit of this goal, we think Author Pages is a great new feature. They are further improved by the data you contribute via Author Central. So why wait to launch “More About the Author”? And what about features like Author Blogs?

When we build something new at Amazon, we often introduce it in a “soft” way at first, allowing us time to work out some kinks before we increase its prominence within our store. Over the past few weeks, we’ve had the chance to find and fix any number of bugs, many of which you told us about (We’re not done, of course, so please keep the feedback coming!)

As we’ve improved Author Pages, we’ve steadily made it easier to find them. For example, a few weeks ago we made them easier to find in search. We also added a link from author names on detail pages (take a look right under the book title on a detail page – hovering over a hyperlinked author name will yield a link to the relevant Author Page). “More About the Author” is another step forward as we methodically increase the prominence of author information across our store.

Of course, there’s still so much to do – we have many new features in the works, including improvements to what you see already. For example, we want to allow customers to navigate from Kindle detail pages to Author Pages the same way they do from detail pages for physical books. Also, the current “More About the Author” feature is extremely simple -- it doesn’t yet do “smart” things like link directly to fresh Author Blog content. We expect to add both of these features in the coming weeks. (If you’re wondering about the change from the “old” Author Blog feature, the simple explanation is that the previous implementation proved a relatively inefficient use of detail page space. We want those pages to be as tuned as possible to selling your books –we think our new implementation will not detract from that goal while still exposing your Author Blog content for interested customers.)

So stay tuned and thanks for your patience and support while we keep improving the beta version of Author Central. Contact us any time at: https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us.


Best regards,

The Amazon Author Central Team
http://authorcentral.amazon.com

Saturday, August 15, 2009

THE HEROES AND OTHER STORIES


JUST RELEASED BY ATTMPRESS, THE HEROES AND OTHER STORIES BY KAT HAUSLER

Set against the colorful, yet sometimes strangely cold, backdrop of Manhattan, the stories in this collection are peopled with a very particular breed of heroes, not quite what they're fighting for. Here you will find characters in progress, people still getting to who they are: a self-conscious student who feels incomplete without a partner, a talented artist blind to the beauty of his own work, a couple who can't bring their love of an idealized past into the present, and an unstable woman whose breakdown causes those around her to realize their own frailty. These everyday heroes all have their own flaws and failings, all fall short time and time again, but struggle on, after worthy but elusive ideals: a sense of self, and a connection to the world around them.

About the author:
Kat Hausler is the youngest of four siblings, and grew up in Northern Virginia. She spent several years in and around Greenwich Village while studying German and Creative Writing at New York University, but since 2008 resides in Berlin, where she writes, teaches English, and is studying to become a certified translator.

WIDOW'S WALK RELEASE


JUST RELEASED BY ATTMPRESS, WIDOW'S WALK BY KENNETH WEENE!

About Widow's Walk

Widow’s Walk is a story of faith and its effects on already flawed characters. Set in Boston in the 1980s, it is the story of Mary Flanagan and her children, Sean and Kathleen. Mary’s husband, Sean, Sr., died at the wheel of his M.T.A. bus. Her son, Sean, Jr. is a quadriplegic, injured on his way to a brothel in Vietnam; Kathleen, divorced and unable to have children, works and lives at a hospice that primarily serves AIDS patients; there she lives a mechanistically faithful life, but one devoid of belief. This unhappy family structure is erected on the bedrock stoicism of Mary’s Irish Catholicism. It is that faith which is tested, changed, and strangely reaffirmed over the course of the tale.



Two events upend Mary’s world. The first is her friend, Lois’s, move to Florida . The second is Sean’s decision to seek rehabilitation in a center in Minnesota – a decision initiated by Jem, a home health aide whose own life reflects a faith of care and service.



Mary finds herself looking for new meaning and direction in her life. In the process she meets two unexpected people, Arnie Berger, a college professor, an agnostic or perhaps deistic Jew, and love interest, and Pat Michaels, a minister, whose view of a joyous faith is much at odds with Mary’s rigid theology. She also moves into a housing share and becomes friends with Amelia Callaghan, the misanthropic house owner.



Sean’s life, too, is dramatically changed because he falls in love with and marries one of the aides at the rehab center. He returns to Boston married, employed and expecting their first child.



Given the remarkable changes in her mother’s and brother’s lives and influenced by Max, one of her dying patients and a man whose story and faith are powerful and unique, Kathleen also seeks love. She meets Danny, a young man tied to his overprotective mother and unable to deal with his own feelings of inadequacy.



Sadly, Kathleen and Danny’s relationship ends in disaster, rape, and abuse. Danny flees. In her own way, Kathleen does too; she becomes catatonic and dependant.



Mary unable to come to terms with her sense of guilt and responsibility towards her daughter – is powerless to keep those feelings from coming between her and Arnie.

In the end, Mary can not live with her unhappiness and dies of “the pain of her soul,” a diagnosis provided by the caregiver, Jem, who had originally encouraged Sean to make his momentous move. Mary’s death creates a strange psychological space in which Kathleen takes on her mother’s place in the world.



About the Author:

Kenneth married his wife Roz in 1968 and went to U. of Iowa for a year, from which Roz graduated. He transferred to the Institute of Advance Psychological Studies at Adelphi University , Long Island , NY . He completed a PhD in psychology and worked as a psychologist from 1970 until 2001. During part of that time he worked for The Counseling Service of The Long Island Council of Churches. Despite his great interest in religion, he did not seek ordination until 2002. Why? Because he had been raised Jewish and only started really thinking about his own faith as an adult. He saw no advantage in upsetting his parents by seeking ministerial ordination.



He started writing, primarily poetry, in the 1980s. Regarding Widow's Walk, Weene says, "Stepping away from full-time work was the best decision I ever made. Writing this story has given me tremendous personal satisfaction, and it has shown me an avenue for expression I will always treasure."

KEN WILL SOON BE ON A BLOG TOUR.


Themes, Topics and Perspective Audience for Widow's Walk

There are a number of the themes and topics included in Widow's Walk. These include:

* Role of faith in life
* Possibility of love
* Meaning of life and of love



If you would be interested in interviewing Kenneth during his tour, or highlight him or his book in some other way including a review, feel free to contact – virtualblogtours@yahoo.com.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life

A GOOD BOOK, IS A GOOD BOOK. At ATTMPress, we believe that when we come across something that will improve lives, you should know about it. The new release by Dr. Judith Orloff comes at a time when people can use all of the help they can get!

Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself From Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life by Dr. Judith Orloff

A Guide to Staying Brave and Positive During Stressful Times

Picture yourself in a traffic jam but feeling utterly calm. Or not letting your supervisor’s bad mood frustrate you. Imagine being peaceful instead of worrying. Or enjoying nurturing relationships and a warm sense of belonging in the place of loneliness. This is what it feels like when you’ve achieved emotional freedom.

National bestselling author Judith Orloff MD presents new solutions for dealing with emotions in our hyper-tense world. She invites you to take a remarkable journey, one that leads to happiness, serenity, and a mastery over negativity that pervades daily life. You possess the ability to liberate yourself from worry, anger, and fear. True emotional freedom is closer than you think.

Synthesizing neuroscience, intuitive medicine, psychological and subtle energy techniques, Dr. Orloff maps the elegant relationships between our minds, bodies, spirits, and our environments. With humor and compassion, she shows you how to identify the most powerful negative emotions and how to transform them into hope, kindness, and courage. Compelling patient case-studies, stories from her on-line community and workshop participants, and from her own private life illustrate the simple, easy-to-follow action steps that you can take to cope with emotional vampires, disappointments, and rejection.

Emotional Freedom is a road map for those who are stressed out, discouraged, or overwhelmed as well as for those who are in a good emotional place but want to feel even better. As Dr. Orloff shows, each day presents opportunities for us to be heroes in our own lives: to turn away from negativity, react constructively, and seize command of any situation. Complete emotional freedom is within your grasp.

“A must read for anyone who's tired of feeling frustrated, lonely, jealous, or emotionally tense. Dr. Orloff shows you how to achieve a lightness of being and feel more positive and peaceful. Highly recommended.”
Deepak Chopra



To purchase “Emotional Freedom” with 100 free gifts from noted transformational leaders such as Dr. Christiane Northrup, Dr. Michael Beckwith, Dr. Bruce Lipton, Shirley Maclaine and more go to: http://www.drjudithorloff.com/emotional-freedom-promotion. For more information about the tour, please visit: http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2009/07/emotional-freedom-by-ju...

Friday, August 7, 2009

BOOK SIGNING FOR TRANSCENDENCE BIG HIT!


Amy Krout-Horn, co-author with Gabriel Horn, had a very successful book signing in Iowa at the Blue Moon Cafe and Hill Avenue Bookstore. At the Blue Moon cafe, lines for her book, TRANSCENDENCE, were already out the door when she arrived. She sold out of her books! Amy also gave a talk to the fans which is a great way to create a buzz about your book. Congratulations to both Amy and Gabe whose sales have been great and who know how to 'get out there' and market their message.

Monday, August 3, 2009

KATHLEEN GAGE TELESEMINAR-BECOMING A BESTSELLER!


Add Kathleen Gage to the mix with Nikki Leigh and Carolyn Howard-Johnson and authors should have all of the tools they need to help sell their books. I just got this email and felt authors would be smart to have a listen.

One of the greatest mistakes an author (or soon to be author) can make is to believe their book will fly off the shelf into the reader's hands with no marketing effort at all. Somehow, someway people will hear about their book, everyone and their brother and sister will buy it because of some magic dust and they can live happily ever after. STOP! This is not the way it is.

The truth is, most authors experience so much frustration because their book never sells more than a few copies; they lose money on the book and their dream of countless numbers of people reading their book remains just that...a dream!

There are other authors who make money on each and every book they write, sell thousands of copies and have the satisfaction of knowing lots of people are enjoying their writings.

The distinction of the author selling lots of books is they have taken full responsibility around the marketing of their book(s).

Which best describes you? The magic dust author or the realistic author who knows you don't have to be a starving artist to be a great writer?

If you want to be an author who not only sells your books, but sells lots of them, join me on August 20, 2009 for my bonus teleseminar How to Become an Online Bestseller.

To have your spot reserved all you need do is get my report by the same name.

http://www.streetsmartsmarketing.com/bestsellerreport.htm

This is going to be an informative, fun and lively teleseminar. You will learn more in one hour about using the Internet to market your book than most authors learn in years of research.

You will learn the exact formula of how I sold over $23,000 worth of my book, The Law of Achievement, in a 24 hour period. And how the book became an online bestseller. And...how doors opened that otherwise would not have because of the visibility I got from the sales of the book.

If you're among those who want to take full responsibility for your destiny as an author this session is for you.

Go to
http://kathleengage.com/
For more info from Kathleen!

Sunday, August 2, 2009

GET YOUR BOOK MARKETING 'HOJO' WORKING!


ANOTHER BOOK MARKETING GURU, CAROLYN HOWARD-JOHNSON, has offered more tips on marketing your book. If your book is on idle, perhaps it is time to look at other ways to promote and market. As Carolyn clearly says, marketing is not a 'one shot' activity. This may be a bit corny, but if you do not put in the time, you will not make a dime. Again, there are many great links in this blog to follow and if you want your book to be a success, there is no time like the present. I have used Carolyn's books in my own marketing efforts. They work!

In terms of promotion it matters not a whit who publishes your book, you, dear author, must learn to promote it if you want to give it a fighting chance on the freeways of commerce. If your name isn’t King, Grafton, Oates or Bradbury, forget a free ride. Even famous names like these once paid their promotion dues and some still are. John Grisham’s story about selling books—store to store, person to person, out of the trunk of his car—is legend, if not letter-perfect true.



Further—and this is the more vital part of this message—no matter how big the budget or adept the publicity and advertising department of your publisher, there are some things they cannot do as well as you can. They, after all, are the publishers. For the public, the magic is in the author’s name, her smile, her story, her signature.



It is said that business and art don’t mix. Actually they mix very well. The chances of success for artists who are natural promoters (Think Warhol. Think Dickens.) grow incrementally compared to artists who prefer to remain cloistered.



The reasons that authors tend to fail at promotion are two-fold. They think they must only show up at bookstores with a good pen because that’s all that is expected of Hilary Clinton or J.K. Rowling. They may be frightened by the magnitude of what they suspect they must do to give birth to this book of theirs—their baby—and so they dig in their heels and go into a severe state of denial.



My HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers (www.howtodoitfrugally.com) addresses both groups. Unfortunately authors often don't hear about the need to promote until it is too late or nearly too late for their books. That almost happened to me. And that is the reason I wrote THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T. I should have added or CAN'T. There just isn't that much profit built in the sales of book these days. It troubles me because now there are books out there--mine and others--that teach authors to market their book for very little money. The cost of a book should not be too much for a writer to invest in the future of his writing career.



THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER will lead you up the publicity rungs of the publishing ladder. You’ll learn what you might do before your book is published, what you must do soon after it is published and beyond. Consider everything offered in the book, as if you were testing desserts at a smorgasbord; then select what suits your book, your personality and your pocketbook.



You will need to know how to write and assemble a media kit, write a great media release (please call them media releases, not press releases!), how to write a great query letter so you can ask (and get!) reviews. You should have a Web site, and a blog. A newsletter is also a good idea. And this is just for starters.



To do all of the above things, you'll need to know how to build a contact list. Without a list of your personal contacts, your fans (as your popularity grows) and the media, all else is to little or no avail. Marketing is not a one-shot thing. You, the author hold the future of your book in your hands. No matter how much your publisher or publicist or anyone else loves your book, they will not love it as much as you do. So, why would you neglect giving it a great start in life?



When you finish THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER you’ll know what it took me—with a publicity background—three years to learn. Publicity for authors is a specialized arena of public relations. I tripped and fell into many PR potholes; negative experiences can be good teachers but learning from a book like this is less painful.



THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER is not a text. It contains many opinions—some as black and white as the page you find them on. You may also notice omissions. I avoided topics that have been covered ad infinitum and for which I have nothing new to add but you will find some new (or rarely used) ways to promote that have not been scorched, stirred and then warmed over.



I hope you'll learn what you can and do what you can. Give your publisher a break. At a very minimum, the two of you are partners. Know that the publishing world is not operating with the same ground rules they did even a couple decades ago.



The good news is that THE AUTHOR is in charge of his own career these days.

Award-winning author of the HowToDoItFrugally Series of Books for writers, including USA Book News' award winners
The Frugal Editor http://budurl.com/TheFrugalEditor
The Frugal Book Promoter http://www.amazon.com/Frugal-Book-Promoter-What-Publisher/dp/193299310X/

SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER, HoJoNews@aol.com.



Blogs for Writers: http://www.SharingWithWriters.blogspot.comhttp://TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com

Saturday, August 1, 2009

WEB 2.0-WHAT IS IT AND SHOULD YOU CARE?


I have asked several good book marketing friends to help our authors in their book promotional efforts. Their advice is so good that it should be of benefit to all! Nikki Leigh has become a leading expert in Web 2.0 and offers these insights. readers are strongly advised to follow the links for more great information and book marketing tips.

Web 2.0 – What is It and Should You Care?
By Nikki Leigh


Learn to Sell More Books

An Online Home for Authors Who Want to

Learn to Promote Their Books More Effectively
http://www.learntosellmorebooks.com/

Web 2.0 – it isn’t as complicated as it sounds and it is very beneficial for you to learn more about it. Let me start by saying that you are probably already using Web 2.0, but you don’t know it. Web 2.0 is a term that is being heard more often each day. These are great new options that we have on the internet and they can be very beneficial to you and your promotion.
What is Web 2.0
The simplest definition of Web 2.0 is “any option that gives you the opportunity and ability to interact with others”. Interacting with potential customers is something that should be important to any author or business person that wants to get information out about their product or service.
In the past, we were limited by how much and how easily we could communicate on the internet. Think back a few years ago when only people who knew HTML code could post information online. However, with the arrival of Web 2.0, almost anyone can post content online to share with other people.
This is the biggest difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 -
• Web 1.0 – Webmasters could post content and basically had control of what was available
• Web 2.0 – The general public can post content and has control of what is available
Below are questions to give you examples of Web 2.0 options on the internet.
• Have you posted a video on YouTube?
• Have you watched a video on YouTube?
• Have you read or posted information on a blog?
• Have you listened to or recorded a podcast?
• Do you have a profile page on MySpace, Facebook, Linked or other social networking sites?
• Have you posted pictures on any picture sharing sites on the internet?
All of these are examples of Web 2.0 and many people are already using Web 2.0 technology without knowing it. But, why is this important to your promotion?
Why You Care
Authors, artists, and other business people benefit when they get their message in front of their target audience and when they can interact with potential customers. Web 2.0 gives you many ways to do that. One advantage is that you can reach a worldwide audience if you want. A second advantage is that you can do targeted marketing to reach only the people you choose. This targeted marketing gives you the best chance of making a sale because it gets your message in front of the people who want or need the product or service you want to sell.
Below are some social media and Web 2.0 examples and the benefits from each. The ideas I share here are just some of the ways to use these websites to promote your work. The options are only limited by your creativity. One of the things I love about my work is customizing a promotional campaign for business people and their products or services. There are unlimited ways to do this with Web 2.0.
Facebook – Facebook gives you the opportunity to network with new people. You can search to locate your target audience and then present your product or service through your profile page, various applications, groups and fan pages you can easily create to promote your work. Facebook also offers targeted advertising on their site.
My Space – This site offers the chance to meet new people and network with them. Searches for your target audience are possible on MySpace. Your profile page, bulletins, blog posts, comments, videos, pictures and discussion groups provide opportunities to present your information and to communicate with other people.
YouTube – YouTube is a great place to post videos or promotional trailers about you and the products or services you offer. This is a great opportunity to literally speak to your target audience. There are also tools to get your videos in front of more people. You can comment on videos that attract your target audience to get your name in front of them.
Amazon – People with items on Amazon have many ways to build up a presence on the Amazon website, their sales pages, through a blog on Amazon, submitting ratings and comments – to name a few. I’m working on an e-book to help people increase the effectiveness of their Amazon presence.
Linked In – This website is a great place for business people to network. It is different from MySpace and Facebook, but it provides extensive business information and background for members. You can connect with others, write testimonials, share details about your professional background and much more. An interesting area of Linked In is the “answers” section. It’s a great way to boost your online credibility.
Online Credibility
We’ve all seen and heard about scams on the internet. It’s a great place for people to establish and promote a business, but that also attracts people who want to make a fast buck and who cheat people. That is one reason why it is important to build online credibility. Through the internet, you can network and do business with people around the world, if you want. That distance makes it important to prove your expertise and help potential clients see you have something of value to offer. You can do this through the information you share, answers and comments you post, examples of your work, testimonials and references from past clients and much more.
Use Blogs to Promote
Anyone who wants to promote on the internet needs to have a blog. Having an effective and active blog is no longer an option. A blog gives you the chance to get yourself in front of people who need your product or service, share useful information, stay in touch with potential clients, and more. However, once you start a blog, it is critical to keep it active. Search engines love blogs. This means that you and your information will be in search engines almost overnight. When people are searching for something – the vast majority start with a search engine. They need to be able to find you there.
Virtual blog tours are a great way to utilize Web 2.0 options. In the tours I coordinate, I use blogs, podcasts, radio shows, and any other avenues that I can find to get the word out about a client’s product or service. Your information gets into the search engines right away and is archived so people can find your details long after they are posted.
The internet is a gift for people who want to promote their business, products or services to a small or large audience. There are many free promotional options on the internet that we can utilize. Who you target is up to you, but either way, the internet is a gift that you need to unwrap and dig deeper into the opportunities that it offers.

Nikki Leigh is an award winning and best selling fiction and non-fiction author. She has over sixfteen years of promotional experience. This background has been helpful with her book promotion and her new promotional venture, Promo 101 Promotional Services which offers many online promotional options. Her promotional books - Book Promo 101 and Book Promo 201 lets her share many of the things she's learned. For details about Nikki Leigh, visit http://www.nikkileigh.com. For detailed promotional and virtual blog tour information, visit - http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/. She also has a blog where she posts a wide variety of promotional articles - http://promo101tips.wordpress.com/ - check the category list for any specific topics that are of interest to you.

You can see her book on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Book-Promo-201-Internet-Marketing/dp/159431716X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249135511&sr=1-1