Riduan Mohamad Nor's Blog, page 8
October 13, 2018
Online GED Classes and Study Guides For Effective Test Prep At Home
If you are planning to take the GED test, you should take your test prep seriously. As they say, the key to happiness is doing everything- whether big or small undertakings – with your heart. This includes preparing and studying for your GED test which can ultimately give you a better life. But what GED test prep works best? Should you enroll in a local class or look for online GED classes? Maybe you ought to hire a tutor?
These are all viable methods, but if you need to take your budget in consideration, know that there are various no-cost or low-cost GED test prep programs. For one thing, you can study for your test at home, particularly if it is not possible for you to go to a classroom at night to attend local GED classes. Here are your options for a customized GED test prep plan that you can carry out in the comfort of your home.
Be aware of what the requirements of your state are for taking the GED test. This is the task that you should primarily complete before doing any measures for your test prep. Obtain thorough information about what is required for taking the GED test before starting your study program. This way, you wouldn’t waste your time or money on stuff that don’t matter.
Look for a reliable study guide. If you go to your local bookstore, you will find numerous GED study guide books published by different companies. You will also realize that each of these books utilize different strategies and approaches for GED test prepping. Browse through every book that you find interesting and read the first few paragraphs and pages. Flip through the chapters, too. Now, which of these books do you respond better to? Choose that which is easily digestible for you because that resource is going to be your GED test prep teacher. Note that these books can be pricey, but you have a more affordable option, and that is to use an online GED study guide. Look for a credible website through its Google ranking and user comments and reviews.
Enroll in an online GED class. Learning through online GED classes is convenient because you can do it at home or anywhere you can bring your computer to. You can join online GED classes while in the coffee shop, the library or the park. Choose an online GED class website wisely. Some of them are free yet reliable, and there are those that are free and substandard. Again, determine how your chosen site fares in Google and refer to comments and reviews about it.
Set up your personal study space which is free from distractions. Remember that you’ll be spending most of your study time in this area. It should be your place of test prepping retreat especially if your life is hectic because of your job or your family. Creating a study space that provides privacy for a GED study program that works best for you is indeed essential.
Learn the details about the content and coverage of the GED test. Do this before beginning your GED study program. What you need to do is to study about the right topics. Focused studying is smart studying where you skip exerting your effort on subjects that don’t matter.
Know your strong and weak areas by taking practice tests. As you study through online GED classes, it’s time to evaluate what you have learned so far. What you should do at this point is to take practice tests so you can figure out if your test prep had been effective. Are you getting high scores? Or else, which subjects did you find most difficult? Work on these problem areas and decipher how you have improved by taking periodic practice tests.
Reviewing through GED online classes and study guides are a novel and motivating way to prepare for the GED test. The Internet is becoming an indispensable tool in shopping, banking, networking and in distance education, among others, and online resources for GED test prep programs have become effectual and reliable.
October 12, 2018
Educate The Students With Audio Books
There are different types of medias that can help us in learning. One of these medias comes in the form of audio books. These materials are gaining popularity year after year. These are books that are recorded to heard not to be read. The benefits of learning through these materials is that you can listen to it anytime and anywhere you want.
There are a lot of advantages on learning through these materials. Usually it is cheaper to have a copy of an audio book rather than buying it's printed version. A lot of money could be saved using these materials. You do not need to buy audio books for the whole class. One to five copies of these can accommodate the whole class. While the whole class is listening to the book being played, the teacher could focus on another task. The problems of printed books are that most copies are rare and hard to find. Publishers often makes small copies because of low demands. However with audio books it is easy to find copies. With the use of Internet with audio books, you can find free and downloadable copies. The great thing about these medias is that, it is either cheap or free.
Studies shows that more and more children find it more interesting to learn through listening to audio books rather than reading. Listening to these materials makes it more interactive. Research shows that 85% of our learning or gaining knowledge comes from listening and comprehension skills. We are compiled to listen attentively, especially to the topics that interests us. Students could learn how to pronounce certain words, and could master it perfectly with the help of an audio book.
Others may say that listening to much could hinder our reading skills. However that is not true. Our vocabulary and pronunciation skills could be widen. By listening to the audio book and at the same time reading the written copy. Another important advantage it has over other medias, are that audio books are not limited to the classroom. You can listen to these materials while you commute to school, cooking, gardening, having your exercise or waiting for your doctor.
It is very important for students to be exposed to literatures and history. Through reading, students could see it boring. Reading through a large and heavy books may disinterest students. However with audio books the rate of students getting bored is minimal. Other sound and effects may be added for additional enjoyment. It let them be in the story it self, promoting role playing in the process. It widens there range of imagination, it forces them to think outside the box. Instead of being bored to sleep with reading, listening could make it more fun and enjoyable.
Still learning through other medias could be great for you. Listening through this kind of materials are just another way to learn. With these kind of materials you can multi-task, it is cheaper than buying a book, it is very convenient and easy to have access. Through time it may be the best way to learn anything that you want. Still learning is not limited through listening, there are still a lot of ways on how to learn.
The ADD Guide to Internet Moneymaking – Get Rich Click by Marc Ostrofsky Book Review
Stuffed like Granny’s Thanksgiving Turkey
Making Money Online. Mmmm, doesn’t that sound awesome! Easy money, right? Well, maybe it could be according to millionaire internet pioneer, Marc Ostrofsky. In his book, Get Rich Click, Ostrofsky provides multiple moneymaking ideas and examples of people who used them to made money online, big money. Additionally to several pages of accolades on the book (mostly from other successful online marketers), the book contains 17 full chapters of methods to potentially break into the internet monetary market. Mr. Ostrofsky also gives the reader input on developing a mindset to get into this business, plus loads of references to resources for tools or additional information.
What I liked about this book is the fact that is does indeed deliver the goods. The methods presented are proven methods for making money on the internet and Ostrofsky gives you enough information about the method to at least get your started, should you wish to pursue further. So in regards to quantity, this book is a hands down winner. If I sat down and wrote out a list of every single way you might be able to make money on the internet, from selling personal items on eBay to selling domain names for millions of dollars (Ok maybe the domain name for millions of dollars isn’t up for grabs anymore – unless you are keeping your eye on the future of the dotMobi domains), I don’t think I could have covered the field any better than this book does.
The other thing I liked about this book is the resources provided. Within every method described in the book, Ostrofsky does a good job of providing links to resources for tools or providers that are valuable to the newbie entrepreneur. Additionally, at the end of the book, there is a whole chapter dedicated to resource and supplier information.
Because Get Rich Click is packed with information that serious lookers for internet opportunities could benefit from, I highly recommend it. I applaud the authors style to present important key processes in easy to follow numbered sequences or with bullet points. As someone who reads a high volume of technical information on the web or in books, it is refreshing to see the steps broken down into little chunks that are easy to read and digest. The book is also broken down into small sub chapters so it goes pretty quick and for those of us that may only be interested in one specific method or two, the book is laid out to easily accommodate them. I don’t recommend this of course, because you will not get your money’s worth from the book by just cherry picking a method or two.
Now my Grain of Salt
Despite my recommendation of the book, to give fair warning for anyone with their hand hovered over the “buy now” button on Amazon; I would like to point out a few things I did not like about the book.
First – although the book appears to be organized in a nice standard Microsoft Word Outline with titles, and sub-titles with text attached to it, sometimes the organization of the author’s thoughts get a little off course. For example, in the chapter titled “Collecting Your Payments – Fast and Easy”, the author gets into collecting payment with credit cards and using drop shipping and so on. So far, so good. But then right in the midst of that, he presents a flow chart and a concept about Database Marketing and talks about the qualifying and selling leads. What? What does this have to do with getting paid? I found examples of this ADD writing style throughout the book, which could be more attributed to bad editing than bad authoring, but either way it does take away from the flow quite a bit.
Second – you cannot get through the book without feeling a little bit snookered either. Clearly many of the references provided by the author must be obtained by a link back to his website. No doubt this is for a monetary affiliation with that referenced product or service. While the book IS about making money online and I cannot fault the author for trying to make money as he proposes to you, the reader, it would be so refreshing to read a book about online marketing or monetizing that is truly altruistic from the author (like they claim they are.) “I made money so I want to give back, blah, blah, blah…..” Make no mistake about it; besides the profits Ostrofsky is making from book sales, his intention is connecting to you, the reader, as a potential income source. So, keep that in mind. I personally don’t have an issue with it and frankly, given the chance, I would probably do the same thing myself. Still, it’s nice to dream of truly giving individuals whose only motive is to give back to the community.
Finally, the last thing I didn’t like about the book is the author self-aggrandizement that is splashed throughout the book. Again, this is super typical for this type of book where the author uses his/her own success as the most shining example of how to do whatever they are promoting in their books. Maybe I’m not being fair here, because of course we wouldn’t want to hear from the author unless they hadn’t done something to establish themselves as an expert on the topic. Still, I keep hoping to find one that is not like this. I think it is entirely possible to present your success without coming across as an ego maniac name dropper. Get Rich Click is not as bad as that but there was enough self aggrandizement in the book to irritate me once in a while.
Summary
OK so maybe I’m jealous or maybe I just have never been good a fit for over the top salesy stereotypes that tend to write these money making books. Hint, hint…does this mean this type of personality is a requirement in mindset to be successful? No, I don’t really believe that is true. In fact, when you think about the concepts promoted in this book for “online” success, which implies individual non-corporate achievement, self entrepreneurship, and an independent spirit, then the opposite logically might be true. I’ve given Mr. Ostrofsky a little bit a grief for his salesman like style in the book but nevertheless I still applaud him for creating a story and an example of individual spirit and ingenuity. These are the stories that interest us and make us buy books to see if there is anything we can do to emulate these stories.
This book is just too filled with good information not to read it. You may have to investigate a little further any specific method that appeals to you, but the book does provide a comprehensive overview of each method presented. I rate a book of this genre, which is intended to inform and educate, by how much I actually learned. And I did learn from this book, plus I also got several good ideas and resources I intent to look into further. I feel you will too.
Good Books For Teens And How To Select Them
As the weather is improving and giving way to warmer days, the time to travel around the country internationally is around the corner. Whether it’s for vacation or sightseeing, everybody especially teens need good reading material to get them through long journeys in the car, airplane or ship.
Even though there are other portable means of entertainment like mp3 players, in car DVDs, smart phones etc, and reading is still a favorite pastime for teens. With the explosion of teen’s books a few years ago such as Twilight and Harry Porter’s series a lot of teens have been drawn to reading. For some it provides an opportunity to know the story really well or to compare the actual story to the movie, while for others it is an escape from everyday activities.
Choosing a book for a young adult or teenager could be challenging, they are in their formative years and what they read has the potential to influence their thinking. Below are some tips on how to select appropriate books and reading materials for a teenager.
Recommendations From Other Readers
This is one of the best ways of getting excellent reading materials especially if you have other individuals that share the same hobby as you. Word of mouth is the best form of advertising and ones an individual you trust and respect their judgment recommends a book to you, more often than not, you always buy the books based on their recommendation.
Direct Observation
With the proliferation of digital media, sometime you cannot really figure out what an individual is reading or listening to on their digital media without coming close to them and taking a look at their machine or asking them. It is a lot easier to take note of the title of a book a teen is reading for example in an airport or public place without disturbing them from their reading. You can then check the title on your own and see if it’s something that might interest you
Reviews On The Web
This is one of the best ways to find excellent reading materials you never thought of and also a wide range of topics to research on before selecting a book to read. With the internet you do not have to step out of your comfort zone to go looking for what might interest you, simply go on line and do a quick search and you will taken to pages where you can read excerpts from the book, reviews by other people that have read them, whether good or bad and also recommendations. Some internet savvy authors also give away samples of their books online just for you to get a test of their writing style. So you can sometimes get free digital books online and could be exposed to a new writer without leaving your home.
Teens have diverse and varied interests. And reading interests are also that much diverse too. There are teens that enjoy vampire books, those that enjoy friendship books, Christian books, works of fiction and nonfiction, and a whole lot of different genre. Birds of the same feather flock together they say, but sometimes teenagers need to step out of that circle and broaden their horizon, by reading materials which their immediate circle of friends are not reading. It provides exposure to new discoveries, new experiences and new learning.
The Popularity Audio Books
Audio books are gaining popularity all through out the world and in every generation. There are so many reasons why this is happening. There are lots of people who enjoys using these products, sellers sees this as a great stream of cash flow. Another reason is the excitement and enjoyment, when you listened to the recording of your favorite artist or author reading the book. It is also designed to help salespeople be more successful and a great way for people to sharpen there vocabulary skills.
People nowdays are so busy, that they do not have the time to read a book or two. With the busy lifestyle that we all have, we can not do anything that we want. We have other work to do enclosed reading. However with audio books we can listen to our favorite novels and stories anytime we want. Rather it is when we drive to work, cooking our food, having our daily exercise, waiting for your doctor or even before we sleep. You do not have to read the whole thing, you just have to listen. You spend less energy listening rather than reading. It is more comfortable and it's automatically bookmarked when you pause or stop it.
Another reason why it is gaining popularity, is that more and more people wanted to listen to their favorite stories rather than reading it.
While the first format of audio books were recorded on cassette tapes and CD's. You could not take it anywhere you want, unless you have a portable CD player or a cassette player. However with the recent changes in our technology, it is almost certain that these kind of products will be on the top. Cellphones now a days could be used for entertainment, like listening to music or playing some videos. MP3's and iPods are fast evolving. These could play any video or audio format and audio books are not a exception. With these you do not need to carry large and heavy books around just to learn or read something that interest you. All you need is a cellphone, MP3 player, iPod or anything that could store and play these.
The largest booster for audio books is the Internet. Going online on the Internet. You could see a lot of freebies and other stuffs. Websites offers free audios books or event let you rent a audio book. It is a growing business. A lot of people use the internet to find there favorite audio books. Most of them do transactions online. It is much easier and hassle free. With just a click of a mouse you can buy your favorite books. Not only the customers but the retailers and authors seize this opportunity to sell there products.
Then lastly why these products are rapidly gaining it's popularity is that it is cheaper than buying a paperback book version of the novels and stories that you want. It takes a little amount of money to reproduces a lot of copies of these items. Thus reducing the retail price. Get into this trend, because it is not going anywhere. It will take over the book industry in next decades to come.
Book Review: The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr
The question of whether new media technologies are mind numbing is an age old one, going back to classical antiquity. Nicholas Carr, in his new book The Shallows, a nuanced and considered study on the ill effects of too much Internet usage, uses the fascinating example of Plato and Socrates.
History of New Media Technologies
In Plato’s well-known dialogue Phaedrus, the philosopher has Socrates discussing the merits of writing with Phaedrus. Socrates relates a story about a meeting between the Egyptian god Theuth, who amongst other things invented the alphabet, and Thamus, a king of Egypt. The technologically savvy Theuth argues that writing will be a boon to society, allowing for the storage of information and hence providing ‘a recipe for memory and wisdom’. Thamus disagrees, and suggests that writing will have a deleterious effect on memory as people lazily rely on what is held in these early data banks. Thamus goes on to say that writing will not create true wisdom, as people will not cultivate their minds. It will rather create a kind of fake wisdom. The dialogue makes clear that Socrates agrees with Thamus.
Plato was not on Socrates’ side in this matter. In The Republic he argues against poetry, which in antiquity represented the oral tradition. Poetry was declaimed in public, rather than written down. Plato felt the advantages of writing superior to a purely oral culture. Writing would encourage the reader to be logical, self-reliant and rigorous.
Even back in fourth century BC Greece there was concern that the new technology of alphabet based writing had the power to change the way the mind worked. Many centuries later, modern machines would have a noticeable effect on thought and literature. In 1882 German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche found his eye sight failing and couldn’t concentrate when trying to write with pen and paper. To resolve this problem he ordered a Danish-made Malling-Hansen Writing Ball typewriter, which would allow him to close his eyes and tap away on the keys. The philosopher found that the forceful banging of the contraption during composition had a discernable effect on his writing, making his prose tighter and more telegraphic. He concluded that, ‘Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.’
The Shallows has an alarming subtitle: what the Internet is doing to our brains. It’s tempting to think from this eye-catching book blurb that Nicholas Carr is keen to scold Internet users and predict the decline and fall of Western civilisation. This is thankfully not the case, and The Shallows surprises with its long historical view and balanced analysis of how media affects the quality of our thinking and reading. For every advance in information technology, there has been a clamour of voices warning of its dangers. When the Gutenberg press revolutionised the accessibility of information, Robert Burton, author of An Anatomy of Melancholy (1628), bemoaned the plethora of books and the mental befuddlement they caused. “One of the great diseases of the age is the multitude of books that doth so overcharge the world that it is not able to digest the abundance of idle matter that is every day hatched and brought into the world”. Sound familiar?
How the Internet Affects the Way We Read and Think
The basic conclusion of The Shallows is that what a new technology gives with the one hand, it takes away with the other. The more ease and convenience the Internet places before us, the more it takes away from our ability to exercise our brains more rigorously. It promotes light, scattered reading. And for all the information we so hurriedly glean, much of it is quickly forgotten. If it is remembered, it’s so fractured that it can’t be integrated into an overriding schema or logic that benefits our understanding of the world, or ourselves.
The Shallows provides many examples of how cognition is diminished by the Internet’s powerful ability to store, collect and sort information for us. In one study, two separate groups of people were set an identical online task. One group used programs that provided helpful prompts, therefore making the task more ‘user friendly’. The second group were not given these same prompts, but had to figure out the task more for themselves. Eight months later the two groups were assembled again to do the same puzzle. Those who had done the more intellectually demanding program, were able to complete the task twice as quickly as the ‘user friendly’ program group. Dutch Researcher Christof van Nimwegen found that the group using the more difficult program were able to plan ahead and plot strategy, while the other group relied more on trial and error to get through their puzzle.
Another study mapped how much information is retained when reading text with hyperlinks. Hyperlinks have been hailed by many educationalists as a new path to improved learning. To test this theory, Canadian scholars gave seventy people an Elizabeth Bowen short story to read, ‘The Demon Lover’. One group read the story straight through, without links. The second group read the story studded with hyperlinks, as you’d find in any online article. The hypertext readers in subsequent interviews on what they had read reported they found the story confusing and ‘very jumpy’. The other group had no such difficulties.
To add further alarm to this mix, one researcher tracked the eye movements of Web users, by attaching a small camera that plotted eye movements as they read pages of text. The eye reads Web pages in the shape of an F. We merely read the first few lines of text, then the eye quickly plummets to the bottom of the page. (Disheartening news for those writing online articles!)
What are the lessons to be drawn from The Shallows? The Internet is surely an awesome and powerful tool that has enhanced our lives incredibly. Who wants to go back to standing in bank queues when all your banking can be done from the comfort of home? What writer or researcher would want to go back to haunting the stacks and dusty corridors of libraries, when so much more can be accessed with the click of a mouse?
An over reliance, or obsession, with the Internet as the be all and end all of wisdom, intelligence and information, however, is a mistake. Just as pre-literate societies produced great oral poetry, and could cultivate a deep intellectual and philosophical consciousness, so can we moderns also find other routes to intellectual stimulation. Reading books without the non-stop interruptions of the Internet is one way. Sitting in a silent natural setting, and ‘reading nature’, is another way (again, studies have found that we think much more clearly in these peaceful environments).
A reading culture that is now moving inexorably to the Internet from the printed page is a culture of ‘F’ shaped reading: superficial, fragmented, shallow and forgetful. What this means for our intellectual and cultural future is anyone’s guess.
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr. Published 2010 by W. W. Norton and Company. ISBN: 978-0-393-07222-8
Can Ebooks Compete With Traditional Books? The Good, Bad and Ugly Side of Ebooks and Books
Tech geeks have long ago predicted that with online e-commerce, your traditional brick-and-mortar bookstores would soon go the way of the dodo bird. Online book retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble took some time to take off but eventually nibbled a substantial share of the book-loving markets going to corner bookstores to buy books. But the traditional bookstores didn’t die. Some may have closed shop but for reasons less attributable to the emerging online commerce.
Then came the eBooks, those non-editable electronically digitized books and reference manuals often downloaded on the internet in PDF file formats, had pundits extolling its virtues and likewise predicting the demise of the printed matter. To a large extent, they sounded no different from those who have predicted the death of the LP albums with the advent of the music CD and MP3s. For a while, they did disappear in music stores, but a niche market has been thriving for music lovers who consider analog records superior to digital ones.
Books vs eBooks
Will the same path be reserved for the printed books? They probably won’t go that route. Then again, it may be too early to tell. There are indications that point to the advantages and disadvantages of either. Here are some.
While many book lovers find hardbound books a joy to behold and read, paperbacks are hardly a joy to read as they require some effort to maintain open the page you are reading. eBook readers, especially the likes of Kindle which has no backlighting to strain the eyes, have made reading any paperback novel effortless.
You need batteries to use an eBook reader. And we all know that batteries have a way of dying on you when you need them the most. Unless you have a bagful of spare batteries, the printed book wins hands down when you have to read books in an extended camping trip or when vacationing out in the boondocks or remote pristine island that has no electricity.
When you drop a book, there’s nothing to fret about. When you drop an eBook reader, you can say goodbye to whatever you are reading and its contents.
Reading a book makes you look intellectual. Reading an eBook in a Kindle or iPad makes you look cool.
There are no free books from bookstores. The best deal can be had in thrift bookstores where you can get a buy-one-take-one deal or get a title for a few cents. But there are free eBooks of titles in the public domain. These are often your titles of great literary masterpieces.
Corollary to the above, eBook readers open up literary hundreds of thousands of book titles at your fingertips which you can download within seconds or minutes depending on the file size. You also have the ability to search with instantaneous speeds. Try that in a corner neighborhood bookstore.
An eBook reader costs a lot more than a book, typically 10x to 20x more. You will need to get at least 10 titles stored in it to break even. But that’s not a problem with the new generation of eBook readers that allow you to store hundreds if not thousands of titles in its memory. You can also go virtual ‘cloud computing’ where the titles are stored in remote servers and any eBook reader that supports the format can read them wherever you go and using someone else’s eBook reader.
Tips on Organizing Your Used Books Inventory
Selling used books online is not much of a daunting task. At least not until you find your simple hobby of selling books to buy new titles turn out to be a profitable business. Deciding to put up an online bookstore means that you no longer intend to sell used books online just because you want to de-clutter your bookshelf; in fact, this can mean getting new shelves for your inventory.
One of the challenges faced by an internet bookseller is organizing his or her used books inventory. It becomes more challenging if the bookseller is not a reader himself. If you know your titles, authors and book genres by heart, it will be a lot easier for you to sort out your inventory in terms of how the customers choose to browse your online catalogue. For this purpose, it is practical to organize books in terms of book genre or subject, author and price.
Books by price
Times like these, you can always find customers who are looking for bargain books. As an internet bookseller who offers mostly used books, customers flock to your store mainly because they don’t really go after the book condition; they are buying from you because you sell the same content for half the price of what they can get from a seller who has the books new. Sorting your used books inventory by price is giving readers who are on a tight budget a nice treat.
Books by genre/subject
First, categorize your used books inventory between fiction and non-fiction. Further categorize fiction by genre and the non-fiction by subject or trade. In betweens such as poetry, coffee table books and reference books may fall on separate main categories. Again, this will be an easy task if you know your books but you can always find help online. You can check how Amazon organizes their book catalogues. Better yet, you can always turn to the copyright page of the book where you can find its ISBN information and how the Library of Congress recommends writing the book’s title/subject card.
Books by author
Most customers who know exactly what they’re looking for will benefit if you choose to organize your used books inventory by author’s name. That way, they can skip the titles they don’t really need and go directly to a particular book. If the customers don’t find the exact title, chances are, they are interested in reading books of the same author. If your online book catalogue is sorted out alphabetically by the author’s last name, you might still land a sale on that book that you have and can probably ask the customers to put the particular book they are looking for on their wishlist.
Just like in other online businesses, the trick in selling used books online is in knowing what the customers need. This doesn’t only apply in choosing what books to sell but in helping the customers find what they’re looking for. Try to sell used books online with full attention to such details.
Finding Free Urdu Novels to Read
Source by Asad Asrar
“Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so slightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible”. -Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf is a very popular fiction writer. Her quotes on popular literature and fiction are simply the realties explained so well. For example, consider another quote on women fiction writers given below.
“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction”. Virginia Woolf
This reality could not be explained better than this. It seems that most of the female writers in India and Pakistan have money and their own rooms because Urdu language sees many women fiction writers.
Fortunately, the Urduliterature is seeing many great popular fiction writers. The Urdu popular fiction scene is very hip and happening. However, the Urdu is also not lacking either. Nevertheless, it is not as happening as the popular fiction. Of course, the reason for this is that the audience for the Urdu literature is lesser in number.
One reason that people cannot read the Urdu literature is that the books are too expensive to buy. The common person of Pakistan simply cannot afford to buy the Urdu books. The publishing houses of Pakistan have monopolized the books market and they have caused artificial inflation in the price of the books in Pakistan.
The good news is that the Urdu books and novels can be found in Pakistan absolutely free to read. There are two main ways to find free Urdu books in Pakistan. One is to get the books from libraries and the other is to read them online.
The library scene in Pakistan is very disappointing. There are too few libraries and not accessible to much of the public. Many libraries are exclusive for different groups of people. The examples of these exclusive groups of people are students, government servants, armed forces personnel, and people living in urban posh areas. However if you belong to one of those exclusive groups of people consider yourself lucky! Now you can access a variety of Urdu books free of cost. You can get them issued for days or an entire week to read comfortably.
General people who do not have access to the libraries will have to rely on the online free Urdu novels for reading them. For some people reading a novel online can be a little or too much uncomfortable. Of course, the people who are used to reading books would find it hard. Some people are not comfortable or even familiar with operating the computer at all.
Another thing that is required for reading free Urdu books and novels is the internet connection. The internet connection should be high-speed; otherwise, there will be a lot of nuisance while reading the novel. The broadband internet works fine. When one sees the excellent and exquisite collection of the Urdu novels available on the internet, may be one can overcome the discomfort of reading from the computer screen.
Online Publishing for First-Time Authors – How to Publish Your Book Online
Source by Don Penven
Is reading books a lost art?
One would think that with the modern marvel of TV programming, satellite and cable TV, streaming video and DVD dispensing kiosks popping up all over, the public at large would have lost interest in reading books, but that just is not so.
What it took was Amazon's Kindle to re-awaken the reading public.
I read a news article recently that said, "Only about 30% of all books sold are from brick and mortar bookstores." The rest of the sales are online purchases, mostly of electronic "ebooks." An eBook is a complete novel or it can be a work of non-fiction-like How-To manuals that are automatically downloaded directly to the purchaser's computer, iPad or electronic reader as soon as the credit card information is verified.
Getting Published-Ahhh, There's the Rub
So is getting a book published easier these days? Yes and no! Conventional, hardcopy publishing is still much like climbing a greased flag pole for the first-time author. Most-if not all-big-time publishers like Random House, Harcourt-Brace, Random House and Harper-Collins require all submission come through a literary agent, and they are really nit-picky about which literary agent! The rub is that most literary agents are too busy with their existing stable of published authors to give your manuscript even a glance.
Benefit From My First-Hand Experience
In my case, I began the hunt for a publisher back in 1999. It was not unit 2008 that I finally decided to go with what the industry terms a "vanity publisher," but the one I chose did not charge me for publication -nor did they make any effort to promote my novel, "Surrogate Warrior." Yes, today you will find it listed on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and previously on some bookstores that have shut down. Most importantly, my first real sales were not for the hardback or softcover issues-my sales are coming from Amazon's Kindle.
I will soon be looking into getting my publisher to convert Surrogate Warrior to the "Nook" format on Barnes and Nobel. My problem was that when I signed my publishing contract, I neglected to get electronic publishing rights. I own the copyright and have an ISBN assigned to the book, but I signed a contract back before electronic publishing became the publishing behemoth it has become today.
Methods for Publishing Your Book Online
1. Find a Vanity Publisher like I did-there are many out there. Just read the fine print when it comes to eBook publishing. Many such publishing houses will not charge to create your book from your manuscript but few offer professional editing. What you wrote is what you get-typos and all. My publisher did not impersonate any charge to create the finished publication, but they make their money selling books to their authors. My book in particular was way over-priced for a soft cover volume- $ 27.95! But for a small fee they converted the story to the Kindle format.
2. Do it yourself! Amazon and B & N encourage authors to format their own works and submit them. CreateSpace.com handles Kindle entries and they offer the tools online for submitting your work for consideration. They even have a free cover designer you can use. This is an ideal option if you have a completed work read for submission.
3. If you have an idea for a book but have not created it yet, I will recommend a self-help tutorial on my website that will guide you through the creation of an ebook-from blank page to completed work.
I have a second novel that is about 2 / 3s complete. I will be eliminating the middleman publisher and going directly to Kindle and Nook. I understand that Amazon pays a 70% royalty on Kindle books. Most of these works sell for around $ 10.00. Do the math.
Riduan Mohamad Nor's Blog
- Riduan Mohamad Nor's profile
- 57 followers
