Phyllis Zimbler Miller's Blog: Phyllis Zimbler Miller Author, page 37

Be Careful of Sand Traps When Writing Reviews on Amazon

In the midst of my quest to learn as much as possible about effectively using reviews to promote an author’s books on Amazon/Kindle, I appear to have stepped into a sand trap.

Luckily marketer Aggie Villanueva wrote a blog post that alerted me to the problem and enabled me to dig myself out from under.

Briefly, here’s the deal:

Writing book reviews, especially books in your genre if you are an author yourself, is a good promotional tool. People can click on your name and signature automatically attached to your review by Amazon and be taken to your Amazon public profile where you can include information about your book.

In my book TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO MARKET A BOOK ON AMAZON AND FACEBOOK, I recommend writing reviews after optimizing one’s Amazon public profile (instructions on how to do this are included in this book).

Mea culpa: I should have realized that another author’s recommendation that I later followed to include a hot link to your own book in a review was likely to be a violation of Amazon’s review guidelines. (This tip is NOT in my book.)

I was very pleased with how I had legitimately worked in the mention of a book of mine in connection with the book I was reviewing, and then the ability to add a product hot link is conveniently there on the review function:

But as Aggie Villanueva explains in this excellent blog post, including your own book link is not an approved action for an Amazon book review.

(Here are Amazon’s own review guidelines: http://www.amazon.com/gp/community-help/customer-reviews-guidelines)

As soon as I read Aggie’s post — because I know how careful she is in everything she does — I immediately went to my reviews to correct my errors. Amazon had already removed several of the incorrect reviews I had done, and I edited the one incorrect review still remaining.

In retrospect, I should have considered the implications of this strategy before I did it myself. I had always wondered why Amazon allowed a product hot link in a review, and I was too willing to believe it was for the purpose of this strategy.

I hope that this post (and Aggie’s original post) will save other authors from stepping into the sand trap that I did. Or if you are already in that sand trap, dig yourself out right now!

On the other hand, Amazon offers wonderful opportunities for authors to legitimately promote their books. See some of these legitimate techniques in “TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO MARKET YOUR BOOK ON AMAZON AND FACEBOOK: Action Steps You Can Do Immediately Whether You Are Traditionally Published or Self-Published”

News flash: On Tuesday, July 24, and Wednesday, July 25, Pacific time, the KDP Select ebook thriller CIA FALL GUY and the KDP Select ebook TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO MARKET YOUR BOOK ON AMAZON AND FACEBOOK will be available for free download on Amazon.

CIA FALL GUY will be at http://amzn.to/L38eiP and TOP TIPS will be at http://amzn.to/N5H0Gj Mark your calendars now!

© 2012 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. A new nonfiction ebook of hers is TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO MARKET YOUR BOOK ON AMAZON AND FACEBOOK and her newest fiction ebook is the thriller CIA FALL GUY.

Click here to visit her Amazon author page at amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller

She also has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the online marketing company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com

Back of the Book Strategy: A Funny Thing Happened Along the Way on Amazon

I have no proof of what I am about to say; I only have what I am observing. Yet I think this is worthwhile enough to share with other authors.

At this point I have four Kindle nonfiction ebooks and three Kindle fiction ebooks on Amazon. Five of the seven titles are KDP Select at the moment (ebook exclusive on Kindle for a 90-day period at a time).

The two non-KDP Select fiction titles I am now in the process of having removed from other sites so that I can make these KDP Select.

Until a few days ago at the end of each of my ebooks there might be one link, probably to my author website.

Then I got the idea of specifically listing under fiction and nonfiction subheads the title of each ebook and the link to that ebook’s sales page on Amazon.

I realized that there was not enough motivation for many of the readers of one of my ebooks to click on a link to see what else I have written.

If I used the titles of the books as billboards, perhaps the title and the link to Amazon would generate interest in checking out a title or titles.

(I purposely did not put descriptions below the book titles because that would be too much information.)

Each of the seven ebooks would have six of the following (the ebook being read would not have its own title in this list):

My fiction books on Kindle in the U.S.:

Technothriller LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS (co-authored with Mitchell R. Miller) — http://amzn.to/N6YyFZ

Thriller CIA FALL GUY — http://amzn.to/L38eiP

MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL (2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award semifinalist) — http://amzn.to/OXrBhh

My nonfiction books on Kindle in the U.S.:

HOW TO SUCCEED IN HIGH SCHOOL AND PREP FOR COLLEGE — http://amzn.to/MAsw5v

HOW TO SUCCEED IN COLLEGE AND PREP FOR BEYOND COLLEGE — http://amzn.to/L2AGTQ

HOW TO SUCCEED BEYOND COLLEGE — http://amzn.to/Mc13DT

TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO MARKET YOUR BOOK ON AMAZON AND FACEBOOK — http://amzn.to/N5H0Gj

Then I would end the list with the following just in case someone really wanted to see all my titles, including two books that are not ebooks for specific reasons:

Phyllis Zimbler Miller’s Amazon Author Central Profile at amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller

Now there’s an important point to notice in this new strategy. I am NOT sending people to the website page for each of these books, even though those pages do exist.

I am sending people straight to where they can buy the ebooks (ranging in price at the moment from $2.99 to $4.99 plus the five on KDP Select are free for Amazon Prime members who own a Kindle).



Now we come to what I have observed:

I believe that these links to the other books’ sales pages on Amazon are having an effect. I am beginning to see purchases in my KDP dashboard that I do not believe would be there except by being listed at the end of TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO MARKET YOUR BOOK ON AMAZON AND FACEBOOK.

Of course, this required a lot of effort to go back and add the html code to these ebooks, re-convert the book to the Kindle mobi format, and re-upload the book to KDP. I am at an advantage as my business partner Yael K. Miller has recently taught me how to do this and is available when I scream “help!”

The one fly in the ointment for me personally is that I do not have access to the html for HOW TO SUCCEED IN HIGH SCHOOL AND PREP FOR COLLEGE. In order to put my new strategy in place for this book I will have to spend hours and hours converting the Word doc to html.

If I continue to see indications that my new strategy is valuable, I will make the time to re-do the html conversion so that I have access.

This is surely particularly important to do as HOW TO SUCCEED IN HIGH SCHOOL is the first of a 3-book series. Readers could benefit by being able to click to the Amazon sales pages of the second and third books in the series.

(Yes, I do not use the automatic conversion on the KDP platform. I know that coding is too delicate to be entrusted entirely to a software program.)

If any of you are already using this “back of the book” strategy, please leave a comment below to say how this strategy is working for you.

© 2012 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. A new nonfiction ebook of hers is TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO MARKET YOUR BOOK ON AMAZON AND FACEBOOK and her newest fiction ebook is the thriller CIA FALL GUY.

Click here to visit her Amazon author page at amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller

She also has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the online marketing company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com

New Ebook: “Top Tips for How to Market Your Book on Amazon and Facebook”

I am very excited to announce that my new ebook TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO MARKET YOUR BOOK ON AMAZON AND FACEBOOK: Action Steps You Can Do Immediately Whether You Are Traditionally Published or Self-Published has just come out on KDP Select (Kindle’s special program).

This ebook is purposely short so that you can read it quickly, then go back a second time and follow the steps.

Here is one paragraph of a five-star review from Clayton Bye on Amazon (I do NOT personally know him) that makes me so pleased because this is what I hoped to achieve with this short ebook:

How does the book stack up against the title? I found something useful right out of the gate. In fact, I’m 65% of the way through Miller’s book, and I’ve found three solid suggestions I was able to put into practice within minutes. This is better results than you get from most books of this kind. And I loved her specific examples.

And here is his concluding comment:

Definitely a read worth the $2.99 on Kindle

(The ebook is FREE for Amazon Prime members who have a Kindle.)

And this is the production description I wrote for the ebook’s Amazon page:

Whether you are traditionally published or self-published, you need to participate in the marketing of your books and ebooks.

The good news? There are tons of free social media sites on which to do this.

The bad news? You only have so much time to devote to marketing your books.

What is the best use of your marketing time?

To begin with, utilize first Amazon and second Facebook to get your book in front of targeted readers.

Sound easy?

It is relatively easy even if you are a non-techie IF you know what you are doing.

This short book TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO MARKET YOUR BOOK ON AMAZON AND FACEBOOK is a how-to to quickly and correctly start using Amazon and Facebook as part of your book marketing efforts.

Here are the major information components in this book:

FIRST STEPS ON AMAZON: CREATE AN AMAZON PUBLIC PROFILE

FIRST STEPS ON FACEBOOK: CREATE A FACEBOOK PERSONAL PROFILE

SECOND STEPS ON AMAZON: CREATE AN AUTHOR CENTRAL PROFILE

SECOND STEPS ON FACEBOOK: CREATE A FACEBOOK AUTHOR PAGE

KINDLE DIRECT PUBLISHING (KDP)

AMAZON AND KINDLE CATEGORIES

AMAZON ON FACEBOOK



Get this ebook right now, read it once, then turn on your computer and follow along to start revving up your online book marketing today!

Buy on Amazon U.S. — http://amzn.to/N5H0Gj

(Buy on Amazon U.K. — http://amzn.to/Nj2HEQ )

P.S. If you do not have a Kindle, you can get free Kindle apps for PCs, Macs, iPads, etc. on Amazon. This is a very short book so it is easy to read on a computer and then immediately start implementing the steps.

© 2012 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. Click here to visit her Amazon author page at amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller



She also has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the online marketing company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com

Surviving Trauma: PTSD and “Battling Bare”

My novel MRS. LIEUTENANT deals with the fears in 1970 that newly married wives at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, had of their husbands being killed in Vietnam.

I know those fears because I personally had those in 1970.

What I realize now, so many years later, is that, had my husband gone to Vietnam and survived, he would have come home a changed man.

Today this aftereffect of trauma is called PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – and it can be triggered many years after a trauma event (not necessarily combat trauma) and can severely impact the life of the PTSD sufferer as well as his or her family and friends.

For the past four years I have done volunteer work online to help spread information about PTSD. And some of you already know about my newest project to focus attention on PTSD – the proposed TV drama Solomon’s Justice. (Click here to read this proposal.)



Battling Bare:

The news article “Military Wives Strip Down to Raise Awareness About PTSD: Battling Bare” by Sarah B. Weir in Shine (from Yahoo!) is a poignant story of one military wife trying to get help for her husband.

As I have explained to non-military people, while the military says it wants to help active-duty military personnel who suffer from PTSD, there is a huge risk of reaching out for help, as Ashley Wise found out when she contacted the Family Advocacy Service at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

In desperation, she had a friend use eyeliner to write on her bare back the following:

Broken by battle,

Wounded by war,

I love you forever,

To you this I swore:

I will quiet your silent screams,

Help heal your shattered soul

Until once again, my love, you are whole.

Wise posted a picture of her bare back on Facebook (“like” the Page at https://www.facebook.com/BattlingBare) and started the organization Battling Bare – “until every soldier is whole.”

Read Wise’s compelling story now.

© 2012 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. Read the true backstory of her newest thriller CIA FALL GUY at www.CIAFallGuy.com and click here to visit her Amazon author page at amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller

She also has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the online marketing company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com

Why I Am Putting All My Eggs (Books) in Amazon’s Basket

I am an author and a marketer.

As a marketer I believe that one should get the most possible exposure for one’s product (in this case, a book or books) in the places where one can find one’s target audience (book and ebook readers).

This philosophy has led me to choose to have my fiction and nonfiction ebooks on as many ebook sites as possible. Of course Amazon’s Kindle is number one, but I thought it was important to have my ebooks also available at Nook, iPad, Smashwords, etc.

I was dead wrong.



Why?

Because as an author I want the best exposure for my books, which is not necessarily the largest number of online retailers.

Let me explain:

I want my ebooks to be available where I have a chance to stand out in the crowd – where I do not have to rely only on a prospective reader’s keyword search to find my books.

In other words, I want to be on Amazon because I can have a robust author page that includes pulling in my most recent blog posts. (Yes, this is available on some specialized book sites, but these sites do not have the huge market share that Amazon and the Kindle estore have.)

In addition, as an author, I can talk to a real person at Author Central whenever I need help with my books, such as making sure that the KDP ebook and the CreateSpace paperback of the same title are linked together.

Plus I want one trusted retailer to whom to send all my prospective book buyers – a retailer whose algorithms take into account how many people buy my books.

In other words, do I want 10 book sales spread out over 10 different sites – one book for each site? Or do I want all 10 books bought at one site that will notice these 10 purchases?



My decision to put all my eggs in one basket:



Now I have decided to allow my author persona to override my marketer persona. I have decided to choose one online platform with the best opportunities for my books and ebooks.

And AMAZON/KINDLE wins hands down.

(Do I worry that there are people who don’t have Kindles and therefore can’t read my Kindle ebooks? No, because there are free Kindle apps for the iPad, computers, etc.)

Okay, I decided on Amazon as my one basket for selling my books and ebooks. But I could not just flip a switch and do this.

In fact, I’m in the midst of carrying out this marketing plan and here are some of the steps I have had to take:

My newest ebook, CIA FALL GUY, is in good shape as I simply put it on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) as a KDP Select (ebook exclusively on Amazon for 90-day periods) and will then publish the paperback via Amazon’s CreateSpace (which I have already used several times).

The second ebook in my 3-ebook series for teens and young adults – HOW TO SUCCEED IN COLLEGE AND PREP FOR BEYOND COLLEGE – is also in good shape, as I put it on Kindle as a KDP Select and will then publish a paperback via CreateSpace.

The first ebook in the series – HOW TO SUCCEED IN HIGH SCHOOL AND PREP FOR COLLEGE – has been a challenge because I hired an ebook “self-publishing” company to do the distribution.

When I realized that this ebook had been uploaded to the company’s Kindle Direct Publishing account and not mine (and therefore I could not make changes to the ebook), I set off to reclaim this ebook.

First, I had to wait until the company removed this ebook from Kindle. Then I uploaded the ebook to Kindle under my own account. Still, the ebook does not yet qualify for KDP Select.

Now I wait for the company to remove the ebook from all the sites to which the ebook was uploaded. When this happens, I will switch HOW TO SUCCEED IN HIGH SCHOOL to KDP Select.

(Note that KDP Select’s exclusive ebook provision does not prevent the paperback from being available – I have already used CreateSpace to publish the paperback of HOW TO SUCCEED IN HIGH SCHOOL.)

And I’m contemplating removing the ebooks of LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS and MRS. LIEUTENANT from Smashwords, Nook, etc. I would like these books also to be KDP Select.



Why would I do this before I have even tried the free days available via KDP Select?



First, I want to target my marketing efforts more directly as explained above.

Second, I love the marketing advantage of being able to say for a KDP Select ebook – “Amazon Prime members can get this book for free.”

This Amazon Prime member option is a tremendous opportunity to encourage sampling without reducing an ebook’s price to zero, which I tried for LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS.

In other words, keeping an ebook’s price at, say, $2.99 while Amazon Prime members can get it for free does NOT devalue the ebook. It simply rewards Amazon Prime members – the people probably most likely to buy more of an author’s books.

In conclusion, I admit as a marketer that this will be an ongoing marketing experiment. But from my author’s perspective, I’m excited about putting all my eggs into one basket that supports authors.

P.S. There are some recommendations I’d love to make to the execs at Amazon in order to make things even easier for authors on Amazon. If you are one of these execs and you’d like to hear my ideas, email me at pzmiller@millermosaicllc.com

© 2012 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks:

Read the true backstory of her newest thriller CIA FALL GUY at www.CIAFallGuy.com

Visit her Amazon author page at amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller

She also has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the online marketing company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com

Aggie Villanueva and Phyllis Zimbler Miller Discuss Self-Publishing Sand Traps

Amazon guru Aggie Villanueva and I recorded a half hour conversation about the pitfalls of being an indie publisher but not owning all the rights to your book.

Listen now to this very valuable information we share.

To listen on the site click on the arrow below:

To download the MP3, click here.

Click here to visit Aggie’s Promotional a la Carte site.

Category Hurdles for Authors on Amazon

I wrote the blog post “Puzzling Out Amazon Categories for Books and Products” for my company Miller Mosaic blog. I highly recommend you read that blog post first before reading this one.

Why am I now switching what in essence is part 2 of that original post to this blog?

The detailed information in this post is for authors rather than for a general audience.

I have made some interesting discoveries since trying to follow Aggie Villanueva’s advice as described in the above blog post. In fact, I’m thinking about writing an ebook with this information in more detail because it is so important and so hidden.



Let’s begin:

I followed Aggie’s advice about researching specific sub-categories for my books and ebooks on Amazon.

Changing the book categories was not that difficult because via authorcentral.amazon.com you can actually talk to a real person, who can make these changes. But only for the book categories — not the Kindle categories.

Then I used the email contact form on kdp.amazon.com to ask for changes in the Kindle categories. I got a long email back explaining how I had to first remove the old categories myself and then email Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) to add the new ones.

If you go through the KDP information fields when submitting an ebook, you are only allowed to choose a category that drills at most down one level below the top level.

But the advantage, as Aggie explains, is in drilling down as many levels as possible.

This is why, once I removed the old categories, I had to ask KDP to add the drilled-down new categories rather than add them myself. These lower levels are not available through the information fields.

Got that? Makes no sense to me. If I had designed the info fields, I would have allowed authors to drill down themselves as far as the categories go.

Next hurdle: You must have uploaded your book to KDP yourself under your own login. If you used an ebook conversion company that uploaded under the company’s login, you cannot make any changes yourself. You must ask the company to do so.

And here’s the real pitfall. I was told that the company that had converted one of my books was only allowed to add one drilled-down category, whereas I could add two if I were the publisher via KDP (as I knew from Aggie’s book).

This is when I began to understand the difference between self-publishing and indie publishing. And right after I understood the difference, I read this explanation in Jeff Benningtons’s book THE INDIE AUTHOR’S GUIDE TO THE UNIVERSE:

I’ve been down the roads of self-publishing and what I call indie publishing. An indie author, in my opinion, is in complete control of their publishing project, including cover design, pricing, editing, formatting, and ownership of the ISBN …

A self-publisher, as I see it, is one who contracts a pay-to-publishing business ….. or any other service that charges to publish an author’s book.

Okay, I did not realize this distinction until my newest author efforts with Amazon and Kindle.

And this is a major WARNING, so be sure to think about what this means.

© 2012 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of fiction and nonfiction books. Her newest fiction book is CIA FALL GUY (on Kindle Select here — free for Amazon Prime members), the idea for which came from a May 1972 bombing of the U.S. Army’s Officers Club in Frankfurt, Germany.

Read more about the backstory of this book at www.CIAFallGuy.com and then email Phyllis at pzmiller@millermosaicllc.com if you would like to consider writing a review on the book’s Amazon page. Phyllis will email you a Kindle mobi format, epub format, or pdf format for reviewing.

Pricing Hurdles for Authors on Amazon

I discussed the opportunities and sand traps of Amazon’s category choices in the post “Category Hurdles for Authors on Amazon.” Now I am going to discuss pricing hurdles on Amazon.

At one point I temporarily changed the price of technothriller ebook LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS from $2.99 to free. Then I changed the price back.

While other sites then also changed the price back, Kindle continues to show the price as free even though I changed the Kindle info.

Based on the genius of Aggie Villanueva in her new book AMAZON CATEGORIES CREATE BEST SELLERS, I have decided to concentrate on sending people to Amazon and Kindle to buy the paperback or ebook of LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS. But I do not want to give the book away.

Why wouldn’t Kindle agree to change the price back to $2.99 when I requested this?

Because on an ebook site run by Sony (and I didn’t realize the ebook was available there until the Kindle support person emailed me this information), the price remains 0, and Amazon matches the lowest price.

I have been told that, if I get Sony to raise the price or remove the book, Kindle will return the price to $2.99. Thus I have spent time with a Sony ebook customer service rep, who could take my request and send it on to whatever department does not take phone calls but might do as I have asked. (I have yet to learn what happened with this request.)

Finally, I had a surprise when I joined Faydra Deon’s Independent Author Index at indaindex.com and clicked on all the links she provides to find an author’s books on different book sites around the world.

She correctly indicates that we authors may be unaware of all the online places where our books and ebooks are offered for purchase.

This would not necessarily be a problem, although it is unlikely that anyone buying books on most of those sites has ever heard of me or my books.

It is a problem if you want to make your ebook a Kindle Select (requires exclusivity for the ebook for 90-day periods on Kindle) and you thus have to figure out how to get your ebook off all those other sites that list your ebook but are not making any sales.

FYI: Choosing Kindle Select for CIA FALL GUY enables me to choose five days during the 90-day exclusive period when the ebook is free. This is a much better solution than my own attempt to make the ebook of LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS free for a few days and then put back the price.

© 2012 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of fiction and nonfiction books. Her newest fiction book is CIA FALL GUY (on Kindle Select here — free for Amazon Prime members), the idea for which came from a May 1972 bombing of the U.S. Army’s Officers Club in Frankfurt, Germany.

Read more about the backstory of this book at www.CIAFallGuy.com and then email Phyllis at pzmiller@millermosaicllc.com if you would like to consider writing a review on the book’s Amazon page. Phyllis will email you a Kindle mobi format, epub format, or pdf format for reviewing.

Movie “John Carter”: In Storytelling Less Is Often More

To please my husband, I watched with him the two-hour sci-fi movie “John Carter,” the film that caused the chairman of Walt Disney Studios to lose his job. (In other words, heads had to roll for such a hugely expensive flop.)

But it didn’t have to be a flop.

Even if a better story had not been filmed, judicious editing ‐ leaving at least 20 minutes of the confusing and unnecessary opening on the editing room floor ‐ could have somewhat saved the movie.

For screenwriters and directors, this is an important lesson. Just because we like the idea of a huge opening sequence of one side shooting the other (in “John Carter” heaven knows which side was which at that point), it does not mean our targeted audiences will enjoy the probably hugely expensive technical shots.

Which brings us to the next question:

Who was this movie for?

It certainly was not for children ‐ not entertaining for them — and it certainly was not for most other demographics. I’m not even convinced teen boys thought this a fun movie.

John Locke in his informative book “How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months” (affiliate link) talks about knowing who your intended audiences are before you start writing a book.

While I do not necessarily agree with him about this for fiction books — stories have a way of developing a life of their own, I do agree that, when a book is finished, it needs to be evaluated in light of who are the intended target audiences. And sometimes judicious tweaking needs to be done to appeal to those audiences.

(How wonderful that as authors we simply “cut” words and do not have to “cut” expensive computer-generated scenes.)

Perhaps “John Carter” would have done better if a couple of book editors had been employed to “edit” the story.

(And certainly a more memorable title was needed for the film. Some suggestions from my husband: “John Carter of Mars” or, better yet, “John Carter and the Princess of Mars” in order to help attract the female audience.)

Bottom line? In films and books, less is often better than more. We all need to remember this when creating imaginary worlds.

© 2012 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of fiction and nonfiction books. Her newest fiction book is CIA FALL GUY (on Kindle Select at http://amzn.to/L38eiP ‐ free for Amazon Prime members), the idea for which came from a May 1972 bombing of the U.S. Army’s Officers Club in Frankfurt, Germany.

Read more about the backstory of this book at www.CIAFallGuy.com and then email Phyllis at pzmiller@millermosaicllc.com if you would like to consider writing a review on the book’s Amazon page. Phyllis will email you a Kindle mobi format for reviewing.

Solomon’s Justice, PTSD, Suicides and CIA FALL GUY

Author Theodore Knell, who spent 22 years as a British Special Forces soldier, has written a compelling post about my proposed TV drama project “Solomon’s Justice.”

Theo’s post begins:

As a nation we routinely ask our military to do things that only the bravest few of us would dare to do, to see things that no one should have to see, and to watch their friends, colleagues and innocent men, women and children die in horrific circumstances. Then we ask them to live with the consequences for the rest of their lives.

Why are we then surprised when the lives of these very courageous souls begin to unravel?

The morning after this post appeared The Wall Street Journal carried this news blurb in the front-page “What’s News” section:

Suicides among U.S. troops are surging, averaging nearly one per day this year, the fastest pace since America began a decade of war.”

The small article insides include the information that there were 146 suicides in the first 148 days of this year. “That is 17% more than at the same point last year and 24% ahead of the 2010 pace.”

I met Theo via the Internet when his nonfiction book FROM THE CORNERS OF A WOUNDED MIND was published. It is an amazing story written in narrative and poetry of the effects of PTSD brought on by the experiences our soldiers must endure to protect us.

Visit (and “like”) his Facebook Page for his upcoming book A HELL FOR HEROES — www.facebook.com/AHellForHeroes

Then read his entire post in connection with my proposed “Solomon’s Justice” project.

And consider what you can do to help active duty military personnel and veterans survive and thrive despite being damaged mentally and physically by their service. Perhaps you know someone who would be interested in furthering the “Solomon’s Justice” project. If so, email me at pzmiller@millermosaicllc.com



P.S. Read the publication announcement of my novel CIA FALL GUY on Mary Elliot Raynor’s military retro blog.

© 2012 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of fiction and nonfiction books. Her newest fiction book is CIA FALL GUY (on Kindle Select at http://amzn.to/L38eiP ) — the idea for which came from a May 1972 bombing of the U.S. Army’s Officers Club in Frankfurt, Germany. (Read the blog post about this bombing.)