18 BILLION

Did we learn our lesson from 9/11? Is it still possible that terrorists could strike American soil? We like to think not, but does our desire match reality? In an exciting new book, Jack Gresham paints a scenario that is not only feasible, but frightening. Reminiscent of Abe March's, "They Plotted Revenge Against America," Jack's portrait of a possible attack reminds us that that if we fail to be diligent, the next terrorist attack to make the news could be in our backyard.

America in the bull’s-eye
New thriller explores the reality of a United States in the midst of a terrorist attack.




18 BILLION
By Jack Gresham
Synergy Books / November 2009

SYNOPSIS: In Washington, D.C., a cell of Afghan terrorists—armed with a nuclear weapon—conspire to rob the Federal Reserve Bank of New York of 18 billion dollars. The money is intended to fund Mohammed of Babylon, who is the prophesied redeemer of Islam. Mohammed, however, is a man of peace and must find a way to rectify the wrong done to the United States without angering his followers.

In the meantime, a federal investigation into the attack uncovers a frightening plot by an international corporation to fund and manufacture global terrorism, leaving the feds wondering what it will take to counter the terrorism already set in motion.

The book leaves readers asking themselves, “Could something like this really happen?”


ORLANDO, Fla. – From the Oklahoma City bombing to the attacks on the World Trade Center, it seems the United States can never stray too far from the crosshairs of terrorism. Even today, suspicions are swirling around the recent shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, speculating it was a religiously fueled act of jihad. Is this tragedy a chilling reminder that, eight years after September 11, America is still at great risk of terrorism?

Author and former Air Force pilot, Jack Gresham explores the consequences of this possibility in his new international thriller. The first of four books in the “Mohammed of Babylon” series, 18 Billion (Synergy Books, 978-0-9823140-0-5, November 2009, $15.95) takes readers on a suspenseful and thought-provoking journey to a modern-day United States, once again in immediate danger of terrorism.

“There is a lot more going on in the world than we are told by the government or even by the media,” Gresham says. “I want to submerge readers into this alternate world and raise the question ‘Could this really happen?’ in their minds.”

In 18 Billion, Afghan terrorists in Washington, D.C., use nuclear weapons to rob the Federal Reserve of 18 billion dollars. The money is stolen to fund Mohammed of Babylon, a peaceful leader who is the prophesied redeemer of Islam. Shocked to find himself at the center of religious extremism, Mohammed must find a way to right the wrong committed against United States without forfeiting the trust of his people.

“18 Billion isn’t just a story about a terrorist attack in the United States and its outcome,” Gresham says. “It’s also about a man who is conflicted between his belief in nonviolent jihad and the fundamentalist principles of his followers.”

As the story unfolds, the government discovers an international corporation by the name of Global Consultant Ltd. that poses an even greater threat. Concerned with money over ideology, the corporation forces American officials to consider just how far they will have to go to protect their country from terrorism.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jack Gresham started his career as a jet pilot in the United States Air Force, before earning his degree at the University of Miami School of Medicine in 1961. He established a specialization in orthopedic surgery and spent five years in Saudi Arabia developing an orthopedic surgery and rehabilitation department in a local hospital. Before his retirement in 2004, Gresham went on numerous medical mission trips abroad to places such as the Ukraine, Brazil and Africa. He also recently completed a tour on the board of directors for the Learning Institute for Elders (LIFE) at the University of Central Florida. Gresham currently lives with his wife, Moena, in Orlando, Fla. For more information, please visit www.jackgresham.com.

Ten Steps to Effective Blogging

THE FOLLOWING IS A GUEST BLOG POST BY AUTHOR MARVIN WILSON

IMPORTANT NOTICE-MARK 2/20 ON YOUR CALENDAR. OUR GUEST BLOGGER WILL BE KATHLEEN GAGE-SHE WILL POST ON KEY THINGS AUTHORS MUST DO...SHE WILL BE AVAILABLE TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS ON THE BLOG!

NOW BACK TO MARVIN:

Ten Steps to Effective Blogging

So, you’ve started a blog. That’s great. No, really, it’s important nowadays, if you are an author, to have a blog. But remember one very important thing about blogging. Just having one doesn’t mean anyone is going to go to it. There are millions of blogs out there in the Blue Nowhere, so thinking that just publishing a blog is going to get you traffic, page views, followers, and ultimately help you sell more books, is akin to using needle in the haystack logic. It’s like publishing a book as an unknown author and thinking just because it’s there people will flock to buy it with no self-promotion on your part. Not gonna happen.

When I first put up a blog, some five years ago, I was absolutely thrilled when someone actually visited it and … even left a comment! It was a circle-this-day-on-the-calendar type of event. Take the wife out and celebrate. Today my primary blog has regular visitors from around120 countries across the globe with new “unique” visitors all the time, gets over 200 hits, close to 100 visits, twice that many page loads, and receives an average of 20+ comments per day. Not bad. Certainly not the kind of traffic a blog written by a household name famous blogger gets, but enough to make a significant impact on my book sales. How did I make this happen?

I thought you’d ask, as have many other novice author/bloggers, so that’s why I put together this crash-course post on how to get your blog spiffed up, running on all cylinders, and most of all … noticed, with regular readers. After all, that’s what we want, right? Lots of loyal readers who enjoy our style of writing, look forward to our posts on our blogs, and as a result will figure investing in our books is a good idea.

So let’s get started. Follow these ten steps to the letter, and I guarantee that within months you’ll have a popular blog with an abundance of readers.

1. Post regularly. I put up a new post every day. Most popular blogs do this. You can get away with say, three posts per week, but no less. Otherwise, people will not log onto your blog regularly. Why should they? It’s the same old same old when they do. An aside fringe benefit to daily posting is, it is excellent discipline and practice for a writer. You have to come up with something interesting, even shoot for brilliance, each and every day, and on a different subject every day. It keeps your muse sharp and available. When I’m feeling particularly brilliant, I write several posts in a single day and store them. That way, when I get a day where I have that dreaded “deadhead” feeling, I have several good posts I can use to keep the blog moving and my readers happy. Oh and also important in this topic, keep your posts reasonably short. Blog-hoppers have a maximum five minute attention span. Read your post and time how long it takes. If it takes more than five minutes to read it, cut it down or people will either not bother to read it at all, or just skim read it and not get all the content. This post, for instance, is way too long. I’m only doing this for a special interest group who will (I hope) find it of enough interest and value to read the whole thing. If I were doing this on my primary blog I’d make it a series and only post a couple tips per day.

2. Have a theme for your blog. People do Google searches for blogs on topics of interest to them. Search engines seek out blogs for people looking for specific subjects. You want to attract people who are interested in good books, and people who like to read books in your preferred genre. You don’t have to have a blog mission statement that is limited to just books, although you can do that, but you might include reviews of other books, invite other authors to be featured on your blog, or post writing tutorials, or post about interesting developments in the industry. Use your imagination, figure out what you can write posts well about that is of enough interest to you to keep you inspired to write about it. And you can be somewhat eclectic if you have several such areas of interest and expertise. My blog statement includes lots of humor, all things literary, promoting spiritual growth, and even an occasional political/social/economic rant. Also – your blog name should be the same as your url. That way people will find it easier to remember and return to your blog. If you blog is titled, let’s say for example, My Meandering Muse, your url should be http://mymeanderingmuse.com

3. Provide value in your posts. Nothing is more annoying than a blog that does nothing but tout the author’s own books and/or products. It’s all about relationship marketing, hmm? Nobody wants to be “sold” something when visiting your blog. Soft sell them on you by becoming a source of valuable information and entertaining reading. Your posts should include links to interesting sites, new and exciting software and/or other programs of interest to your readers, how-to information, notices of events happening they’d like to know about, trends in the industry – whatever. Tell a humorous story that makes them laugh occasionally. Your blog is not all about you. It’s about your readers and providing value to them. Do that and they will love you and wind up buying your books.

4. Get your blog looking good. Even with stock blog services like Wordpress and Blogspot, there are tons of custom themes available to make your blog have a distinctive appearance. Do a Google search for “free custom layouts for blogger (or wordpress)” – pages of sites will come up, with thousands of themes to choose from and how to information on installing the html code into your blog. Experienced blog-hoppers yawn when they log onto a blog for the first time and see a standard, boring, regular ol’ layout with no pizzazz to it. In addition, if you use wordpress, which I prefer for a lot of reasons, having used WP and blogspot, you can, for a small fee, upgrade and have the “wordpress” taken out of your url. This looks more impressive to the professional blogging community. Url’s with “blogspot.com” or “wordpress.com” in them are considered small potato blogs. It looks best and most impressive to have simply,Your Name Here– trust me on this one.

5. Add some gadgets. Gadgets drive traffic to your blog. Both blogger and WP have scads of free gadgets in their standard dashboard offerings. Plus you can do Google searches for additional interesting gadgets. Add a statcounter and check it often – track how much traffic you are getting and from where. Put a flag counter up in the sidebar. Add a translator gadget for foreign visitors. Put up a picture of your book cover (yes, this kind of soft sell self-promo is okay) and have it hyperlinked so when people click on it they go to the book’s buy page. Start a blogroll where you list with links some of your favorite blogs that might also be of interest to your readers. Just look into this, you’ll be amazed at how many gadgets are available. A word of caution here, don’t overdo it. Some blogs get so gadget crazy they look cluttered and detract from the post itself. Find a good balance for your style and readership. Again, it’s all about, value, value, value … select gadgets that will be of interest and/or assistance to your readers.

6. Link your blog to all your social networks. If you are not Twittering, Facebooking, Goodreading, Linkedining, all those amazingly powerful tools available to help get your name out there, shame on you, you should be. If you are, good for you, if not, start right now, and have your blog url linked and fed into your profile page. People go to your facebook page, see a snippet of your blog post, find it interesting, click on it, and BAM! – You have another visitor to your blog. This is how we roll, peeps. Get with the program.

7. Cross link your blog to multiple other sites with hyperlinked words and/or phrases within your posts. If you post about a particular author, or book, or blog, or interesting website, or whatever, put that mention in bold and hyperlink it with the site’s url so when people click on it they can go right to the subject matter you are posting about. This accomplishes two good things. One, it adds value to your post, the convenience of being able to click and go with ease if they want to find out more about the subject. Two, search engines will recognize the links on your blog and people visiting those other sites may be attracted to your blog as well. Bingo was his name-oh … more traffic for your blog.

8. Ping your blog. There are several good pinging services available for free. My favorite one is http://pingmyblog.com On this site you can key in your blog name, your blog url, select “all,” click on “agree to terms,” click on “Ping My Blog,” and presto – your blog gets sent out to dozens of powerful search engines all around the planet in a snap. After I started pinging, within two months my blog traffic increased threefold. And it keeps growing. Every time you publish a new post, ping your blog.

9. Visit other blogs and comment on them. Do a Google search for blogs with topics of interest to you. Visit them, read the posts, and this is most important … leave a comment! Not just some wimpy “Great post!” or “Love your blog!” kind of rubbish, compose a real comment with some content that lets the author of the post know you actually took the time to read the post and have something of interest to add, share, or ask a question about. You are a writer, hmm? Write like one. An important axiom to remember here: comment unto others as you would have them comment unto you. One of the first things I do when checking out a new (to me) blog to see if it might be a good spot to host a stop on one of my virtual book tours, is check to see how many comments the blog gets on average. If it’s less than 10 per day, I pass. You want comments, and a boatload of them, all the time. This is imperative, along with high traffic volume. I always click on the statcounter and see what the traffic volume is like. Traffic and comments are the two largest indicators of a successful blog. So again, how do you get traffic and comments? Become a visitor and commenter on other blogs. Once you get noticed as a regular reader on several blogs who leaves well written and interesting comments, not only will in most cases the authors of those blogs start visiting your blog, their readers will start noticing you and hop on over to check your blog out as well. Also important here, when you leave a comment, make sure and either hyperlink your signature with your blog url, or put your blog url under your signature. Just one link, please. You look blatantly self-promoting if you list all your twitter, facebook, myspace, primary website, and blog links. Keep it to one, no more. The best most professional way to do it is to hyperlink your signature. Here is the html code for doing that, using my name and blog url – which you simply replace with yours to make it work for you.

Marvin D Wilson">Marvin D Wilson

Substitute your blog url for the blue characters (blog url) and your name for my name, and this formula will allow you to hyperlink your signature, making it easy for people to click on your name and go directly to your blog.

10. Once you have your traffic and comments up to a respectable level, host other authors and bloggers as featured guest posters on your blog. If you hear on another author’s blog that he/she is planning a virtual tour soon, offer to host a stop for him or her on the tour. If you like a certain blogger who posts on topics of interest to your readers, offer to let them do a guest post on your blog. They will in most cases offer to return the favor at some time or another, and both of you benefit, as your readers will learn about them, and visa versa. If you are fortunate enough to land a really popular author and/or blogger as a guest, you will be exposed to many new blog-hoppers as their fans will visit your blog and some of them will like yours and become regular visitors of yours.

In closing, I would advise you to get ready to roll up your sleeves and do a lot of work. Getting a popular blog going is not an easy task. It requires discipline and determination. You will at first find it a monumental undertaking, but take heart. It gets easier. Once you get some momentum going, it will become second nature to you, and feel as easy and natural as fixing your morning coffee. The benefits are many. You will make new friends. The blogging community is full of wonderful, friendly, and interesting people, who love to help each other out. You will experience the joy of logging onto your blog after not having been there for a couple hours and seeing several new comments and your traffic for the day is skyrocketing. And most importantly for us authors, eventually you will see a dramatic increase in your book sales, and when you release that next book, you will have a waiting readership that loves your style of writing and will buy your next novel.

And in the end, that’s what we all want, hmm?

~~~~~


Statcounter - http://www.iwebtrack.com/free-web-page-counter/stat-counters.htm

Twittering – http://twitter.com

Facebooking – http://www.facebook.com

Goodreading - http://www.goodreads.com/

http://pingmyblog.com – http://pingmyblog.com (wink and lol)

FLASHING MY SHORTS

JUST RELEASED

FLASHING MY SHORTS
BY

SALVATORE BUTTACI

Writing stories under 1,000 words is certainly challenging. Called flash fiction, micro-fiction, sudden fiction, and postcard fiction, these quick writes have become quite popular today. They succeed in accommodating readers on the go who lack the luxury of sitting down for long periods of reading. Like patrons at a smorgasbord, they can taste a little of this fine dish and a little of that. They can leave the table without fear of being still hungry.
"With dry humor and a deep sense of irony, Salvatore Buttaci has delivered a book of sparkling gems. These quick stories make us laugh, think, and at times cry. They take us to the core of reality and at other times to the wonders of fantasy."

-Kenneth Weene author of Widow's Walk

SHAMAN CIRCUS

JUST RELEASED!

BY GAIL GRAY

In New Orleans following Katrina all bets are of; all masks dissolved. "Don't forget the sham in shaman," Jacob Laguerre lies to his new apprentice, Alex Hampton. When Alex, a twenty-eight year-old anthropology professor goes on field-study to post-Katrina New Orleans, he enters a chaotic and altered landscape where he's psychologically, physically and spiritually challenged by the sarcastic mentoring of the mulatto, Laguerre, a current day voudou shaman.
Both Laquerre's and Alex's psyches struggle through stages of transition and rebirth as their lives are enmeshed with a group of quirky fringe-dwellers, as colorful and eccentric as the New Orleans itself. Lily Hampton, a sculptor, torn between her love for both men; Mavis, an artist who spent nights in her attic, but survived the floods; Perry Laguerre, Jacob's hermaphroditic twin, and Bad Jacqui, lesbian owner of a French Quarter bar: are pulled together to form the cynical but ultimately idealistic team who vow to stay in post-Katrina New Orleans.
They all follow a taut path between madness and redemption in the no man's land of Refrigerator Town as they assist in the aftermath and healing of both the city and those who remain.

LILY'S ODYSSEY

JUST RELEASED!

BY CAROL SMALLWOOD

This psychological detective novel explores the once largely unacknowledged-not only soldiers get post-traumatic stress disorder: that child abuse whether it is overt or covert incest, is a time bomb. Lily's Odyssey unfolds with the inevitability, impact, and resolution of an ancient Greek play. The dialogue rings true, the journey conveyed with moods and half-tones, to portray fragmented Midwestern characters with poignancy. From child to grandmother, Lily's voyage is told with lyricism, humor, and irony through a poet's voice to distill American life in religion, marriage, and family. A contemporary odyssey without maps by a woman short listed for the 2009 Eric Hoffer Award for Best New Writing, a National Federation of State Poetry Societies Award Winner.

Political Analyst and Author Earl Ofari Hutchinson Dissects Obama’s First Year in Office

In keeping with our policy to promote books with a message, even if we did not publish them, we offer a look at the following great book that speaks on a timely topic.

How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge
(Middle Passage Press, Los Angeles, January 2010)
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Author and political analyst Earl Ofari Hutchinson takes a no-political holds barred look at Obama’s first year in office in his new book, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He answers one compelling question: Did he fulfill the massive and sweeping promise he made to restore hope and effect change in America?

He examines the attacks and counterattacks from the GOP and the Democrats on Obama. He delineates the differences and similarities between Obama and Bush in waging the war on terrorism. He assesses the towering battles over health care, the economy, racial attacks, the GOP counterinsurgency, Afghanistan, and the Henry Louis Gates flap. He provides readers with a guide as to how Obama will continue to govern.

How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge offers a virtual political clinic on the crisis and challenges that the nation and its first African-American president faced his first year in the White House.

To book Earl Ofari Hutchinson for an interview and/or commentary on the promise and pitfalls of Obama’s first year in office. Call 1-323-383-6145 to schedule. Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a nationally acclaimed author and political analyst. Hutchinson is the author of ten books on race and politics in America.

His three most recent books are:

* How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge

* How Obama Won

* The Ethnic Presidency: How Race decides the Race to the White House

His featured interviews and comments on race and politics have appeared in: Time Newsweek New York Times ABC’s World News Tonight.

He has been a guest analyst on:

* Fox News John Gibson Show

* O’Reilly Show

* Hannity & Colmes

* Glenn Beck Show

* PBS Lehrer Report

* NPR’s Talk of the Nation

* CNN News Shows

He is the National Political Writer for New America Media and a regular contributor to: the Huffington Post

Order now from amazon at http://www.amazon.com/How-Obama-Governed-Crisis-Challenge/dp/1439259925

EMINENT MURDER

Eminent Murder
By Joe Crain

JUST RELEASED and now available at http://allthingsthatmatterpress.com

Clayton Longley, a successful businessman, has returned to his hometown when his family's small cattle ranch is threaten by a contrived eminent domain claim. The local political clique, former schoolmates of his, has a land grabbing heritage and the ensuing conflict degenerates to murder.

To complicate matters, Clay encounters his old love, now married to one of his adversaries. He fights back with his own defense or is it old-fashioned frontier justice? The Longleys are distant relatives of the famous Texas outlaw Wild Bill Longley and Clayton has to cope with the bad blood of his own heritage and a secret he can never share.

Eminent Murder is a thriller set in Byar County, Texas, complete with longhorns, a Texas Ranger, modern outlaws, guns, aircraft and the men who wear white hats.

About the author:
Joe Crain has a B.A and a MEd. He's a retired Navy pilot and aerospace contractor. Joe and wife Donna live on Lake Livingston in East Texas where they enjoy family, boating and RVing.

Eminent Murder is a second novel. The first, Wind Ahead of the Wing, relied heavily upon Joe's flying experience in the Navy Hurricane Hunters.