Archives for October 2012

Claire Bullimore: Brain Tumor’s Travel Tale

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Claire Bullimore was diagnosed with a intraventricular meningioma, in other words a brain tumor the size of a grapefruit at the age of 25.  After her own battle, Claire set up a free supportive social network called “Aunty M Brain Tumours” www.aunty-m-brain-tumours.co.uk

It is for individuals and families affected by a brain tumor. She uses social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and WordPress

It is not always easy for a person from the outside to see what is really happening to someone affected by a traumatic experience as such as this. The book shows the true emotion of a person dealing with the hardships of a brain tumor  surgery, recovery and then the scars inside and out.

Written as a series of diary entries you will feel like you are there, going through the journey. There is love, friendship and courage – you will cry, laugh, find out things you did not know before. This book can help families and friends or even outsiders to see what a brain tumor survivor really wants you to know.

Available Now on 

Amazon E-Book £4.53

LuLu PaperBack £7.00

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Author Brittany Geragotelis: Six-figure Publishing Deal

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Remember the blog post about Wattpad I wrote in January?  This Canadian book “forum” has experienced explosive growth since its inception and has become the world’s most popular destination to upload and read e-books.

MacLeans Magazine now wrote about Wattpad: “Could Wattpad be the ‘killer app’ for aspiring writers? On Wattpad, anyone can write and get feedback—just ask Margaret Atwood”.

They explained that Brittany Geragotelis  was an aspiring author who had written six novels – all of them had been rejected by publishers. She worked as an editor at American Cheerleader magazine. In October of 2010, a digital venture from Toronto called Wattpad, asked her if she would promote the company in the magazine. She was a “big book nerd” and Wattpad—an interactive online forum where anyone can upload their own writing, and readers can read, comment on, and even contribute—was compelling. With nothing to lose, she wrote a novel and gave it away, one chapter at a time, for six months.

Within a week, the first chapter of “Life’s a Witch” had been read a couple of thousand times. By the time she finished writing and uploading the entire book, it had been read six million times. Half a year and 19 million reads later, Brittany Geragotelis had a new literary agent and a six-figure deal from Simon & Schuster.

Wattpad now has nine million visitors who spend about 2.2 billion minutes on the site each month 6.5 million “stories”— in 24 different languages—have been uploaded. Recently Margaret Atwood joint and published three new poems, Thriller Suite, on Wattpad.  Wattpad received more than US$17 million venture capital, some of that from Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang.
MacLean’s article

Calvin Reid from Publishers Weekly wrote: “YA Author with Huge Wattpad Fan Base Tries Self-Publishing” and “Swamped by Offers, Self-Pubbed YA Author Gets Agent and More”.

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are almost 570 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Follow on Twitter: @111publishing

And don’t forget to spread the word on other social networking sites of your choice for other writers who might also enjoy this blog and find it useful. Thanks, Doris

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Now: Penguin-Random

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The New York Times wrote today that Bertelsmann, the owner of Random House, and Pearson, which owns Penguin, said that they had reached an agreement to combine the two publishing houses to create the largest consumer book publisher in the world.

It is said, the deal would give the combined companies greater scale (and a global market share of more than 25 percent) to deal with the challenges arising from the growth of electronic books and the power of Internet retailers. Google? Apple? Amazon?

Together, Penguin Random House would have a book list that includes contemporary best sellers like Random House’s “Fifty Shades of Grey” and Penguin’s back list of classics from authors including George Orwell. Read the article about the book publishing industry “getting smaller to get stronger”.

According to Wickipedia Pearson has quite a few imprints:  Allen LaneAveryDialDuttonDorling, Berkley BooksGrosset & DunlapLadybirdPlumePuffinPenguinPutnam,Michael JosephRiverheadRough Guides, and Viking among others.

Among Bertelmanns some 2000 subdivisions, subsidiaries, and branches are Random HouseRTL GroupGruner + JahrArvato, and BMG Rights Management.  Bertelsmann is majority owned (77.4%) by the Bertelsmann Foundation, a non-profit organisation and political think tank founded by the Mohn family. The Mohn family owns the remaining 22.6% of the company.

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are almost 570 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Follow on Twitter: @111publishing

And don’t forget to spread the word on other social networking sites of your choice for other writers who might also enjoy this blog and find it useful. Thanks, Doris
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How to Submit Your Book to Barnes&Noble?

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You might be already on Amazon, but you want to get into Barnes & Noble, the second-biggest book retailer, next to Amazon. You also want to have your book on Apples iPad, Baker & Taylor, Waterstones, WH Smith, Gardner’s (60+ retailers including Tesco, Book Depository, Hive, and Kalahari), Ingram (50+ retailers including BooksonBoars, Diesel, BOL.com), and including libraries?

Want to receive payments once a month?
Paid via electronic transfer, GB£ cheque, or PayPal in any currency.

Are you living outside the USA, you are an Indie Author / self-published and you don’t want to go through all the hassle with opening a US branch? And you don’t want that aggregators (who call themselves often publishers) get a fat commission every time your book is sold – for years? 

You want to keep 100% of the royalties you get from online / off-line retailers?
Don’t want to go through 52 pages of instructions how your manuscript should look like?

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Help is on the way: a British company, eBookpartnership, uploads to all these on- and off-line retailers. Authors describe them as “fast, efficient and friendly service”. Their website is very detailed and informative.  Authors are charged a standard low annual fee per title no matter of how may retailers you choose to distribute your titles with. Per title: £29, AUD40, US $40, Can$40, €35, NZ$50

You choose to have your book uploaded to any or all of the following retailers and distribution partners:
Amazon: They can list on your eBook on all Amazon’s Kindle Stores: US, UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.  In North America: Apple, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Ingram. In Europe to: Askews & Holts, Blackwell’s, BlioBook, Depository, Kalahari.net, Waterstones, Whitcoulls, WH Smith

If your e-book needs conversation, they seem a bit on the pricey site. A European e-book formatter, I can recommend, is Matthias Czarnetzki, English and German-speaking, and who offers e-book formatting from 35 Euros. http://mczarnetzki.de

Good to know:  there are alternatives to aggregators who don’t reduce your royalties. Tell us your experiences with uploading to US-based retailers.
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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are almost 570 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Follow on Twitter: @111publishing

And don’t forget to spread the word on other social networking sites of your choice for other writers who might also enjoy this blog and find it useful. Thanks, Doris

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Denise Deegan: And By The Way

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Denise Deegan is the bestselling author of seven contemporary novels, four for adults and three for young adults.

Her first butterfly novel, And By The Way, was published as an e-book in the USA just last weekend.
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Six months ago, I lost my mum to cancer and my dad, ‘The Rockstar’, to work.  Now, I don’t do close. That way I won’t get hurt.  My friend Rachel won’t let give up on me. And that’s a problem.
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So is David McFadden, a guy in my class who says he wants to help. Six months ago, he could have, but didn’t.  Now, it’s too late.
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The last person I’m going to listen to is David McFadden.  When he calls me Ice Queen, I’ll show him just how right he is.
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REVIEWS
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‘Deegan nails Alex’s caustic teen voice, and leaves the reader rooting for her heroine throughout…’ Irish Independent.
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‘This is a gem of a book; intriguing, deep and thoughtful. Alex is a feisty heroine, and her voice rings strong and true. It’s fun entering the world of the privileged teen, with their credit cards, fake tans and less-affluent friends. Teenagers – and adults – will adore this book. It kept me up half the night.’ Irish Examiner.
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‘An engaging and emotional read that leaves you wanting more – bring on the second instalment.’ RTE Guide.
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‘It was such a powerful, emotional, beautiful book, one I loved to pieces and gobbled up as fast as I possibly could.  I just can’t wait to read more by Deegan – it was just so freaking amazing!’ The Book Addicted Girl, blog.
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‘We can’t explain our fascination with the spawn of the rich and famous but it won’t go away. AND BY THE WAY… is our latest addiction and it’s the first title in the new BUTTERFLY NOVELS series….super compelling.’
Kiss Magazine.
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‘AND BY THE WAY… is a journey through grief, love and self-discovery. It’ll break your heart and make you laugh – both at the same time. And by the way…you’re going to love it.’ Dubray Books, Staff Recommended Reads.
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‘I absolutely loved it. I was so engrossed in it that my family started pulling it out of my hands.’ Author Keris Stainton.
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‘This is an absolute gem of a series.’ I Want To Read That (blog).
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‘The coolest thing about the setting, besides it being Dublin (these books capped off a 4 or 5-book Dublin binge that started with Tana French’s murder squad and ended with Skippy Dies) is it’s, like, real Dublin? You know, written by someone who lives there for people who live there and not translated for American audiences, or featuring an American girl who goes to study abroad in Ireland to find her (so insignificant they might be non-existent) Irish roots.’ Forever Young Adult.
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‘It was such a powerful, emotional, beautiful book, one I loved to pieces and gobbled up as fast as I possibly could.  I just can’t wait to read more by Deegan – it was just so freaking amazing!’
Book Addicted Girl
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More info:
twitter: @denisedeegan
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AUTHOR BIO
Denise Deegan is the bestselling author of seven contemporary novels, four for adults and three for young adults. She began her writing career with a book of non-fiction. Her books have been published in Ireland, the UK and Commonwealth, Germany, Holland and Korea. She has been a nurse, a china restorer, a pharmaceutical sales rep, a public relations consultant, an entrepreneur and a college lecturer. Her short story, Checkout Girl, was inspired by her days carrying out the toughest of all these positions. Denise lives in Dublin with her husband, two teenage kids and their dog, Homer.
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Orion’s Cartwheel – An Odyssey to Discover his Destiny


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In the summer of 1980, a maverick young doctor gave it all up, to hitchhike around the world. The first arc he carved with his thumb stopped a little red pickup that took him over the horizon. Like his mythical hunter companion, Orion, he was on a vision quest, propelled toward the dawn to have his sight restored.  

This is the story of that five-year odyssey to discover his Destiny.

Available at Amazon, 340 pages, $ 9.99

Author’s Bio:

 

Lawrence Winkler is an ancient physician and phenomenologist, traveler, mushroom forager, and amateur naturalist. As a young man, he hitchhiked around the world, for five trans formative years.  His middle age is morphing from medicine to manuscript. He has a passion for habitat protection, including the (hopefully) final repairs on a leaky roof. Westwood Lake Chronicles was his first book. He lives on Vancouver Island with Robyn and Shiva, tending their garden and vineyard, and dreams.
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Just launched: FRENCH BLEU

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French Bleu
titled after a vintage nightclub in Paris, is a novel of discovery, personal triumph and heroism amidst death, illness and captivity.

Olivier, a pilot rescues stranded and desperate souls from famine and war torn areas of Africa. Daniela seeks that which is amiss in her own life, while Brie, a strong woman must find a destiny that awaits her own ambition. A vineyard in the picturesque, garden-like Loire Valley unites these characters while Paris captures their hearts desire.

The Author:
Caroline Clemens was a Registered Nurse for twenty years in hospitals across America working in Intensive Care Units and Recovery Rooms. She discovered a love for the written word two years ago and began writing. She writes poems at gardenlilie.com, articles for therivermuse.com and has just completed her second novel. Married to Michael and mother to her son Matthew, and twin daughters Megan and Kristan, she lives in Atlanta where she enjoys her children’s activities, traveling, fishing, music, writing and living in the south.

French Bleu http://gardenlilie.com/book-shelf/

Available now online at Barnes & Noble and Amazon. 

 

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Book Contest: Try New England Book Festival

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The grand prize for the 2012 New England Book Festival winner is $1,500 cash and a flight to the awards ceremony in Boston in January, 2013. Submitted works will be judged by a panel using the following criteria:

1. General excellence and the author’s passion for telling a good story.
2. The potential of the work to reach a wider audience.

The 2012 New England Book Festival will hold its annual program honoring the best books of the holiday season on Saturday, January 19, 2013 at the Omni Hotel in Boston. We are currently accepting speaker proposals and exhibitor applications for the day festival.  Entry forms are available online at newenglandbookfestival.com/enter.html

The competition is currently accepting entries in the following categories: non-fiction, fiction, children’s books, biography / autobiography, young adult, how-to, cookbooks, science fiction, photography / art, poetry, spiritual works, compilations/anthologies, gay, unpublished stories and wild card (for books that don’t neatly fit elsewhere). All entries must be in English. Books published on or after January 1, 2010 are eligible. E-book entries are welcome.  Multiple submissions are permitted but each entry must be accompanied by a separate form and entry fee.
$50 Entry Fee. Deadline is November 25, 2012.

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are almost 570 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Follow on Twitter: @111publishing

And don’t forget to spread the word on other social networking sites of your choice for other writers who might also enjoy this blog and find it useful. Thanks, Doris

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Turn Your Manuscript into a Cash Cow

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antique radio .

Do you remember my blog “Split Your Book Apart“? What else could you do with your manuscript and your copyright? One of the suggestions was audio.  In other words: Re-purpose your manuscript and make more out of it than just a book and an e-book. Why not additionally create an audio-book from your novel or even from non-fiction? Audio-books are becoming more and more popular!

  • Your readers can listen to your audio-books, which can easily double their book consumption because they are using time that previously was not available and turning it into valuable “reading” time.
  • They can listen in the car, bus, train, plane… while exercising, walking or hiking, on the beach or while doing mundane tasks around the house or yard.
  • Special needs readers, such as blind ones will have access to your written words in form of an audio-book.
  • Audio-books can be listened to on an iPod or iPhone/SmartPhone or other MP3 player, even on most e-readers such as Kindle and Nook.

A membership at www.Audible.com (owned by Amazon.com) is a good deal for your readers. They can choose from various plans, and easily download digital audio-books to their preferred device. Or they can go to their local public library to get audio-books for free.
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There are three ways of producing an audio-book:

  1. You do it all yourself. If you are on a very tight budget you can make audios with some relatively inexpensive equipment.
  2. You use a narrator who is specialized on audio books and who gets a percentage of royalty after production of your audio-book (for which they charge too).
  3. You organize a professional production and keep all your royalties for yourself.

Here are some tips to achieve this:

  • You should find an experienced sound editor and an audio director to get the most out of your studio time and ensure a quality production. Check the packaging on audio-books in stores to see if a producer is credited.
  • Choose only the ones who are used to work with audio books.
  • Get a good microphone and a screen to soften explosive sounds.
  • If you choose professional help, try to find a trained speaker, such as a graduate from an actor school or drama school.
  • A professional voice-over artist website has a large pool of excellent audio performers and will greatly enhance your project. Order sample audios, emailed to you, to evaluate talent.  The ball park figure for an audio book production service ranges from $500 – $1.200, but can be higher, depending on the books’ length.

To have your audio-book sold, check www.Audible.com / Amazon.com. You will be referred to ACX, the Audiobook Creation Exchange  where you get tons of good advice how to narrate your own audio book or what to look for when outsourcing.  I was positively surprised how well they explain in detail the whole process for author on their website, including case studies, how much you will earn, contract samples and how to promote your audio-book. Check it out before you start your project!

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are almost 570 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Follow on Twitter: @111publishing

And don’t forget to spread the word on other social networking sites of your choice for other writers who might also enjoy this blog and find it useful. Thanks, Doris

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Pay What You Want … for a Bundle of eBooks

Readers in the UK who could choose a bundle of e-books and spend more than $1.1 Million (£700,000) in under two weeks as they were allowed to choose the price they want to pay. The Humble e-book Bundle works on a revolutionary pay-what-you-want scheme, to raise money for authors and charities, wrote the Guardian recently.

This experiment from major authors including Neil Gaiman, Lauren Beukes, Paolo Bacigalupi, John Scalzi, Kelly Linkand Cory Doctorow, allowed readers not only to choose the price for a collection of e-books, but also how it should be distributed between the author, the retailer and several charities. The result has shattered all expectations.

The Humble e-book Bundle is an extension to e-books of an experiment in pricing from Humble Bundle which has already been applied to music and games.  So far, 80,625 bundles of books have been sold, for an average price of $14.18 at a total of $1,143,151.85. People feel like they’re getting a great deal and helping good causes.  Humble Bundle is now planning future e-book bundles. Its business development director Robert Martinez said the last two weeks’ experiment had made an impact on the e-book scene “that cannot be ignored”.

“What Humble Bundle has believed since their launch in 2010 is if you simply treat the customer with respect, then they will reciprocate in kind. It was a risk for sure, but a risk everyone involved felt was worth taking.  The authors are thrilled, publishers are shocked, customers are thankful, and Humble Bundle is…well, humbled” wrote Huffington Posts’ Robert Martinez.

John Scalzi, one of the authors wrote a comment to the monetary side of the experiment. And he gives the real reasons  why the “bundle” was such a success. Author Stephen Woodfin wrote: “Sites like Humble Bundle are a really cool twist on eBook buying.”

Visit www.humblebundle.com to buy your bundle.

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are almost 570 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Follow on Twitter: @111publishing

And don’t forget to spread the word on other social networking sites of your choice for other writers who might also enjoy this blog and find it useful. Thanks, Doris

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