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Friday, January 30, 2009

Not Arguably: The Best Assessment of the Future of Novels and Books In Past Few Years!

In its Arts section, Time magazine has presented what may be the best assessment of the future of books and the publishing industry of the past few years--and a lot has happened in the past few years. My mini review and the link to this essential reading from the pen of Lev Grossman , is at www.sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com. I hope you'll subscribe to the blog while you're there.

Best,
Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Writers Can Do Good Just by Letting People Know

Some school children in Texas are doing are trying to do some good in Afghanistan. MSWA writers might be interested in helping them out by publicizing what they are doing or contributing in some other way. Go toA: http://mrslieutenant.blogspot.com/2009/01/pennies-for-blankets-texas-elementary.html

What Can You REALLY Expect from Book Fairs

I'm popping in here because I figured that the recent post at No Hum-Drum Book Fairs Allowed would interest MWSA members. It's the real thing. What to expect and how to get free publicty (but not get too rich!) using book fairs. Go to www.sizzlingbookfairbooths.blogspot.com.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

SMASHWORDS.COM

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/474

Mark Coker of Smashwords.com, the new web site for self published e-books, got tired of dealing with the submission process for mainstream publication. His service reformats Word or RTF files for all of the various e-book formats, including iPhone, which is now generally agreed to be the dominant platform in the future for e-books (based on the installed base of units in readers' hands). Moreover, he allows you to set your own price and returns 85% of the net to the author. The upload process is easy to manage. You can also give away the work or allow customers to set their own price. This looks like a good place to beta-test fiction and get audience reaction (the link above is to my e-book BUYING RETAIL: A DIFFERENT KIND OF DETECTIVE STORY). This site is highly recommended.

I have also become a contributor for a new blog--Self Publishing Review. This was created by Henry Baum, another guy who got tired of dealing with the process. It's a very professional Web site with lots of good information mostly oriented towards the print side of self-publishing. The goal here is to create more professional products and diminish the prejudice against self-published work. My novel, THE SHENANDOAH SPY, is still selling well, despite the recession.

We're off the book tour for the moment, trying to get the second book ready for publication later this year. We'll start up again in March or April.

Francis Hamit
http://www.selfpublishingreview.com/

Thursday, January 15, 2009

PLEASE HELP SAVE MILITARY LIVES!

Golden Griffin Award Recipient:
Please vote for my Post Combat Stress Disorder concept and Purple Heart Medal proposal sent to President-elect Obama. Please help save the lives of America's brave warriors! Please send to friends and relatives in your e-mail address book. Thanks for your help and consideration! Sincerely, Peter (& Brenda) Griffin Griffin's Lair http://www.grifslair.com

CLICK BELOW:
http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ideas/viewIdea.apexp?id=087800000004u3T

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

C'mon! You Know You Want To Learn More About Editing

All you need to do is go to http://yvonneperry.blogspot.com . There will be a link to listen to Yvonne Perry and Carolyn Howard-Johnson's podcast, "Converssations with Editors." We talk about the most common errors we see in manuscripts we edit and about questions some of our blog visitors have posed (www.thefrugaleditor.blogspot.com)covering the questions we have received on the topic. Go directly to the podcast at http://yvonneperry.blogspot.com/2008/12/do-you-have-questions-about-editing.html.


Submitted by Carolyn Howard-Johnson
MWSA blogger and author of Tracings, a chapbook of poetry and Military Writers Society of America Award of Excellence winner

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Ops for Authors Living In Southern California or Those Who Want to Travel




MWSA Members Inivted to Join Us as a Participating Author at the LA Times Festival of Books

Booth planner Chistine Alexanians invites you to participate in our next LA Times/UCLA Festival of Books booth--the last weekend of April 2009--and/or any of the value-added programs aligned with the fair. The book-signing portion of the fair requires that you attend, the others do not.

(To see the 2008 video made by Rey Ybarra, go to Best Selling Author Television site

http://www.veoh.com/channels/BSATV)

Our group of authors will again be sponsoring a booth at the LA Times/UCLA Festival of Books on April 25, and 26, 2009. We focus on making a humdrum fair into a sizzling success and from past experience, we make changes every year based on what we learned the year before and the year before that.

One hour (50 minutes to allow set up) signing segments cost $150 for the first and $100 for the second day. The fee includes display in the booth for the full two days.

For cost, participation details and benefits of a cross-promotional booth like this, please go to www.sizzlingbookfairbooths.blogspot.com.

To participate send an e-mail to Christine Alexanians at chalexwrite @ yahoo.com. She can invoice you for PayPal or give you an address to send a check. Please put "LA Times Fair" in the subject line and please let her know the programs you would like to participate in so she will know how to bill you. She will then send you details for participation and answer other questions regarding this show. The booth promotion will be handled by Christine and Carolyn Howard-Johnson.

PS: You can see from the photo that your new MSSA president Joyce Faulkner is a big fan of this coop booth!

Monday, January 5, 2009

"We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."
George Orwell

'Ed Freeman... A True Hero'

You're an 18 or 19 year old kid. You're critically wounded and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley, 11-14-1965 LZ Xray, Vietnam. Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8 - 1, and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the MediVac helicopters to stop coming in.

You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know you're not getting out. Your family is 1/2 way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you'll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.

Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter, and you look up to see an un-armed Huey, but it doesn't seem real, because no Medi-Vac markings are on it.
Ed Freeman is coming for you. He's not Medi-Vac, so it's not his job, but he's flying his Huey down into the machine gunfire, after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come.

He's coming anyway.

And he drops it in, and sits there in the machine gunfire, as they load 2 or 3 of you on board.
Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire, to the doctors and nurses.

And, he kept coming back...... 13 more times..... and took about 30 of you and your buddies out, who would never have gotten out.

Medal of Honor Recipient Ed Freeman died at th eage of 80, in Boise, ID...

May God rest his soul...

Oh yeah, Paul Newman died that day too. I guess you knew that.

He got a lot more press than Ed Freeman.

*For Those Who Fought For It, Freedom Has A Price The Protected Will Never Know*

~ANONYMOUS~

MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL

Richard Lowry's Blog