Jo Robinson's Blog, page 65
November 16, 2014
Meet Guest Author Charles E Yallowitz
Originally posted on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog..... An Author Promotions Enterprise!:
Balancing Act of the Author and Parent
I wanted to be an author since high school. That’s where the story begins and the ensuing years ended up being me doing everything except pushing the author career. I outlined ideas, wrote a few books, and designed characters whenever I had a chance. I’m a fantasy author (waits for groans and cheers to die down), so my stories were my own escapism from the retail and office jobs that I kept finding myself in. Now before I lose everyone to the doom and gloom, I’ll get to the good stuff.
As I said, I was still writing, but I wasn’t sharing. One day I noticed someone I knew from high school was publishing on Amazon Kindle. I reconnected and learned more about it. Then I met another Kindle author who showed me the ropes around the time my work life was looking…
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The Sunday Show – David M Prosser – What Does the World Need Now?
XXXHUGS!XXX
Originally posted on Smorgasbord - Variety is the spice of life:
We all will leave a legacy of some kind behind us, not only in, but also for our children. We will be remembered for our relationship with others and for our actions or achievements. Also if possible we will leave behind something that moves our family, friends, neighbourhood or environment forward in a much more positive way.
Most of us are very happy to offer our opinion on every subject under the sun from corrupt governments, terrorism, celebrity media coverage, the state of youth today etc…. but given the chance to influence radical changes in our society and for future generations – what key areas should we focus on?
What the World Needs Now, the song first made famous in the 60s by Jackie DeShannon and later by Dionne Warwick, states that it is love that is needed. This new series is called What Does the World Need Now? And…
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Mama Africa: Miriam Makeba, A Revolutionary Musician
Originally posted on thegatvolblogger:
She was affectionately known as Mama Africa: her real name was Miriam Makeba. She was a South African musician. She was a revolutionary. And with music as her weapon of choice, she bravely fought against Apartheid, bringing the plight of millions of black South Africans to the collective consciousness of the world.
This poignant quote of hers encapsulates Miriam Makeba:
I look at an ant and I see myself: a native South African, endowed by nature with a strength much greater than my size so I might cope with the weight of a racism that crushes my spirit.
The picture she painted comparing herself to an ant is very apt. She was a young, charismatic, vivacious and beautiful black woman who appeared fragile, but beneath her vulnerable exterior, she was extremely resilient.
She had to be to bear the burden of white racism and apartheid that from her birth…
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Author Feature: Viv Drewa
Originally posted on Nicholas C. Rossis:
You may have seen Viv hanging around. She’s the wonderful lady who shares my posts on two blogs, her main one being http://theowlladyblog.wordpress.com/ . And yet, we know next to nothing about her. Why is she so supportive of Indie authors? Why is she so taken with birds – owls in particular? Who’s the woman behind the cool owl logo?
In an attempt to answer these questions, I’ve asked her for an interview. She’s graciously accepted, and here are the answers we’ve all been waiting for!
The Usual
Hi Viv, it’s great to have you here. Now, I know that you’re an author yourself, and yet you don’t promote your books at all on your blog, dedicating it instead to the promotion of others. So, here is your chance to talk a bit about you!
Thanks so much for having me, Nicholas!
What inspired you to write The Angler and…
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#AUTHORS – instead of trying these, contact me: (Part 3 – LAST in series)
Originally posted on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog..... An Author Promotions Enterprise!:
Do any or all the following :D (My thanks to Phil the Tasmanian Devil for sourcing these photos)
Go c limbing Mt. Wellington.
Stand on the Edgewalk in Toronto.
Go uni-c
ycling in Norway.
Sit around at Yosemite.
Walk over a crevice.
G
o G
lacierboarding anywhere.
Bik
e
on the Cliffs of Moher.
OR
You could do the SENSIBLE thing and send me a Guest Author article (if you’re not already in my Authors Hall of Fame)
OR
If you are already in my Authors Hall of Fame, why not send me an article about a subject of your own choice…
Why?
To remind everyone that you still occupy the world of the living and demonstrate your writing talents are also alive and well.
REMEMBER – MARKETING IS NOT A ONE POST / PROMO / ADVERT THING
IT NEEDS TO BE REPEATED – WITHOUT SPAMMING!
Take advantage of…
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November 15, 2014
Fine Feathers~
Originally posted on 
It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds~ Aesop
My love affair with birds started when I was a very young child. I bred and raised parakeets and cockatiels as a kid. I had two egrets, one pigeon, two cockatiels, and one great blue heron find me at picnics or hikes or at home, who I adopted and raised at various points in my life.
I talk to birds wherever I am and they tend to talk back. You should try it. I highly recommend it.
Birds just make me happy. Always have and I find more and more now that I am retired, that the things that made me happy as a kid, still make me happy as an adult, and once again now, I have time for them!
I cannot however adopt a bird until I stop traveling, so I get my bird fix these days…
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Author Presence: Gravatar.com
Originally posted on Lit World Interviews:
Author Presence: Gravatar.com
You have a blog. Either a well established or at least one set up with things on it, or you just did it recently with me. Now let’s get your Gravatar. Gravatar.com is a site that you put an image on, as well as other information, that will be used on WordPress.com when you post articles or comment on other peoples articles. And yes, you will be commenting. So don’t give me that look or attitude. One thing about WordPress.com is that it has a great author/writing community that supports one another.
When you log into Gravatar.com it will basically tell you that you need a WordPress.com blog/account. Now you see why I had you go ahead and just get that out of the way. Now for some things to do that are similar to what you die with About.me.
So you have gone to Gravatar.com and…
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Got this email from a friend….
:D :D
Originally posted on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog..... An Author Promotions Enterprise!:
Time is like a river. You cannot touch the water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again. Enjoy every moment of life. As a bagpiper, I play many gigs. Recently I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper’s cemetery in the Nova Scotia back country.
As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost and, being a typical man, I didn’t stop for directions.
I finally arrived an hour late and saw the funeral guy had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight. There were only the diggers and crew left and they were eating lunch. I felt badly and apologized to the men for being late.
I went to the side of the grave and looked down…
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Sticks and Stones
I don’t generally take “days off”, so if anyone noticed my total absence since Tuesday night, it was because of my usual nemesis otherwise known as Telkom, my dodgy internet provider. I’m only just back online now, but before I get to catching up with everyone I want to share a quickie.
If you’re going to launch any sort of direct attack, you firstly need to have all your facts straight, and secondly, if you’re going to attack authors in particular, you really should try getting your spelling and grammar right. When I came across a vitriolic article, broadly consigning Indie authors and their self-published books to the foulest, most evil smelling nether pit of hell, I originally thought that it had to be a (pretty lame) attempt at humour. And then I realised that it wasn’t intended to be funny at all.
The article How Readers Can Avoid Buying Bad Ebooks by Indie Authors is pretty much a hate spittle froth rant, and normally I would just move on, but it occurred to me that a writer who is just starting out on our crazy beautiful Indie road, and hasn’t actually published yet, might take such drivel to heart, and be totally put off. Also, reading through some of the comments, in one of his replies he says, “…you should be culled and made into bio fuel just like 95% of other indie authors…” Now that’s just plain nasty.
Firstly he mentions stumbling across poorly edited books with abysmal cover art that are wretched reads, and among other things, are “rift” (pardon?) with spelling mistakes. I’m guessing he means rife. Then he goes on to suggest ways and means to “…avoid falling prey to indie writers… I admit that at that point I had to wait a little for my laughter to subside. Yes there are some really bad self-published books out there, but they will get consistently bad reviews, people will stop buying them, and their authors will either have to put in the required time to make them saleable, or give the whole Indie thing a miss. A huge chunk of the massive amount of Indie books out there are one offs, and languish unseen right at the bottom of the rankings. Nobody with a grain of common sense is going to buy such obviously bad books. He must have bought quite a few though, to bring on such a peculiar rant.
Then he says “…Segregation is what we need, but many authors have been crying foul saying that if there is a dedicated indie author section in major online bookstores, no one would browse it. They are right…” Really? So then, nobody would head over to books by K A Tucker? She used Amazon KDP to self-publish several books, including Ten Tiny Breaths, incredibly successfully before being noticed by Simon & Schuster. How about H M Ward? NYT and USA Today #1 Bestselling author, she still is a totally self-published author, and has sold over four million books since she first hit that old publish button on Amazon THREE years ago. Barbara Freethy went the other direction – from traditionally published to self-published. Now, if you look for the name of a traditional publisher in the front matter of her Ebooks you won’t find one. Why did she go Indie? Because traditionally published books go out of print, and publishers don’t actively market them forever. Ebooks are forever though, and Indies who care about writing good books, and sharing their tales with readers do consistantly market for the portion of forever allocated to them.
He does suggest checking to see who published a book before you buy it, and if there is no sign of a traditional publisher, you’re to avoid it like the plague. Sigh. Then he says that Indie authors are too cheap to publish using Createspace, so if an author has a paper book available that means they’re fine to buy. He says “…. If a book is only available as a Kindle Edition, this should raise some serious red flags…” Hang on a bit till the laughter stops. Createspace is free dude – you don’t get cheaper than that, and most established Indie authors do have their books available in paperback versions. It is a choice whether or not to publish paper books, and not an indictment of quality.
Some more genius advice from our worthy writer of inane articles is “…Indie authors traditionally rely on bargain level pricing in order to appeal to readers. The average indie title ranged from .99 to $3.99, whereas the average price of traditionally published material is $9.99 to $18.99. My advice, if you are looking for new books is try and browse from the most expensive books to the least. This might not work in all cases, but should avoid the hundreds of thousands of self-published titles on Amazon, Barnes and Noble or Kobo…” Naah fella – I’ve bought most of my traditionally published books when they’ve been on special offer, i.e. 99 cents to $3.99. I bought Stephen King’s Under the Dome for 99 cents. So don’t hold your breath while everyone rushes around looking for $18.99 books to read. $18.99? Seriously?
So yes, there are many terrible Indie published books out there, but they are totally irrelevant to any discerning reader. There is also a golden layer of absolutely brilliant self-published books floating above them, written by Indies who have made it their work to learn the ropes of their business, and to publish the best work that they can, and writers of such very silly articles will make not the tiniest bit of difference to their continuing successes. Sticks and stones old chap, and a little more research maybe, and words like that still won’t hurt us us.
November 9, 2014
Dying Man’s Daily Journal – The blessings of giving
Originally posted on Dying mans daily journal:
I was walking around in a Target store, whe
I was poking around in the blog yesterday and saw I have 134 saved draft posts. Decided to go back in and check out to see my thoughts back then.
This is a draft post from back in July/08. I don’t know where I gotten this from and I have no idea if it is a true story. I don’t care if it is true or not. For me what is important is the message it delivers. Plus, it brought a tear to my eye and I don’t want to cry alone
n I saw a Cashier hand this little boy some money
back.
The boy couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 years old.
The Cashier said, ‘I’m sorry, but you don’t have enough money to buy this doll.’
Then the little boy turned to the old woman next to…
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