November 22, 2008
Friendly friend as I call her
For all the time she’s been there
To cheer me up when I am sad,
To coo me down when I am mad.
A person who’s worth keeping,
Through each day of my every living
Hope this will lasts and never fade;
A friendship she and I had made
friendly friend as I call her
For all the time she’s been there
I promise to love her with everyday I
spend.
I love her now, I love her then,
And I’ll still love her ’til the end.
Source: www.isnare.com
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November 22, 2008
What is it exactly that copywriters DO when they produce new text for a site makeover? You often see the advertisements; a designer is looking for a freelance web writer who is going to create content around a number of keywords. There’s not a lot more information about the process. What are the tricks of the trade and how do you get value for money when hiring a freelance writer?
When you discuss a site makeover with a copywriter, be prepared to answer a lot of questions. Any writer needs to know the answers to at least these questions before he can meaningfully go to town on your content;
What is the site’s line of business?
Who is targeted?
How does the client want their web content to reflect their goals?
What is the number of pages of the site?
What is the site’s current conversion ratio?
What have site owners done in the past to change this?
What are the conversion ratio targets?
Is the corporate identity still in tact?
What is the identity now and what are the reasons for the change?
Most copywriters have their own style in creating creative text. But note that not every copywriter is necessarily a website copy writer. Everybody goes about content some way or another, but generally people tend to focus on a number of aspects that are wider than merely writing some text and mentioning a number of keywords.
I have developed this strategy for writing successful content for my clients; I will sit down and spell out what I call the ‘vital communication factors’ of a website. The main points of sale of a business website. Or the general idea behind a general interest website. Or the philosophy, reason for being of an entity other than a business, general interest.
It is around these vital factors, that I will begin to create the skeleton of links and click throughs, or the navigational path. Weaving the text into the navigation is the next stage. I tend to assign some weightings to all the internal hyperlinks, which mirror their importance to the website’s vital points before I write the text.
The hyperlinks of any website can be roughly divided in four categories with no real distinctions but which you need to employ using a rule of thumb:
a) Clix generating click throughs (brand awareness)*
b) Clix generating repeat visits by internal referral
(e.g. bookmarks, newsletter signups, brochures);
c) Clix generating traffic (agreements for inbound
links, online marketing for third parties);
d) Clix generating sales
*Do not confuse our use of the term “click throughs” with click
throughs as in the pay per click concept. Pay per click is all about inbound
traffic into a site. Here, I am discussing the internal navigational path.
Once I have the idea of a website’s structure along these lines, I start floating into the writing stage and as I go along, I tend to keep a continuous check that the profile of the content and links actually match up with the vital points.
Each website is unique of course and to categorise the links into four categories very rigidly does not make sense. For instance, a link to an article that has also been published elsewhere on the web creates both inbound traffic and repeat visit value and possibly also a click through.
It makes sense to assess each link and construct content around it on using common sense. In this process, I tend to take into account a number of factors, including the navigational path, design possibilities and optimal content size.
Although most sites differ, the links making up the navigational path are generally quite similar in their relation to the vital points; click throughs are generally way less closely related to a site’s vital points than for instance sales clicks. Or at least when you build up your sales idea right, the ultimate click will be entirely logically connected with your business concept. As for the middle two categories, they generally are somewhere in the middle in relation to vital points too.
There is not a lot else to writing good website content, apart from gloating over the results with your clients a few months later!
About the Author
This article was brought to you by the writers at www.contentClix.com. Check out our tailormade content packages www.contentClix.com/ezine2-0
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November 21, 2008
Publishing Trends: Traditional vs ePublishing
You’ve done what most people only talk about. You’ve written a book, spent countless hours agonizing for just the right words only to delete many of them in the painful editing process. After many months, or perhaps, many years, you have a manuscript ready for submission. You’ve heard all about the struggles for new authors: slush piles, solicited queries only, scam artists and cons, but you know luck or fate or sheer talent will eventually deliver your precious manuscript into the right hands at the right time. I can’t say that isn’t so. After all, JK Rowling, Stephen King, Danielle Steel, Nora Roberts, Tom Clancy and every other bestselling author were once unpublished and unknown. I can tell you that the odds of receiving a lucrative contract with a traditional publisher as an unpublished author are not in your favor.
According to Associations of American Publishers (Press Release, 2003) ” U.S. book sales totaled $26,874,100,000 in 2002, a 5.5 percent increase over 2001…” While these numbers are encouraging, it is important to note that 75% (Curtis, 1995, p. 5) of books on the bestsellers lists, were written by authors with proven bestselling titles. Why is this? Well, as a reader, you are more likely to invest $15, $20, or $30 if you have some familiarity with the author’s work. Not only are readers more likely to choose known authors, so are publishers, motivated by bottom line, dollars and cents. Considering a small publisher will receive 5000 unsolicited queries a month, a junior editor earning $25,000 a year may be able to read four or five a day. You can see that the cost to evaluate some 60,000 queries can be $125,000 a year. (Curtis, 1995) If only 1% of unsolicited queries are sent to senior editors, who in turn accept 1%, the publisher has invested nearly $50,000, before any contracts are signed, any printing is done, or any marketing undertaken.
What of eBook sales? According to Jim McClellan (2004), “Open eBook Forum (OeBF) estimated overall sales for the year (of eBooks) at around $10m.” This is a small but growing percentage of the total market. “In the third quarter of 2003, e-book sales were up 37% over the same quarter in 2002, according to a new sales report from the Open eBook Forum (OeBF)…In that quarter, 2,159 new titles were published by the 30 largest publishing houses, and sales added up to $2,591,465. It was good enough to spur sales of the millionth e-book for the year by September.” (Fluckinger, 2003). Because eBook publishers incur less expense (no printing, distribution costs) royalty payments to authors is usually 40% of wholesale price versus 15% of traditional publishing. Readers also benefit from reduced production costs, saving 30%-40% per title. Therefore, previously unknown authors are more likely to be noticed.
Regardless of which path you travel, ultimately quality will count. The competition is staggering and it will take exhaustive self promotion to draw readers, but if it isn’t well written, no amount of marketing fluff will capture their attention for long. If you offer a quality product and meet or exceed your reader’s expectation, word of mouth could set you apart from the pack.
Resources
Curtis, R. (1995).
How to be Your Own Literary Agent. Houghton Mifflin Company, NY.
Fluckinger, D. (2003). E-book sales hit the million mark for 2003. Retrieved March 10, 2004 from PDFzone.com
Lisa Hood is the author of “Shades of Betrayal” and “Shades of Revenge”. She has been writing for over 10 years and is presently working on her third suspense novel, “Shades of Jealousy.” She is also the Talent Liaison @ BOOKJOBBER.com. Other articles by Lisa Hood can be downloaded from http://www.bookjobber.com/articles.asp or mailto:lisa_j@bookjobber.com
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November 20, 2008
In this article the author is going to carry out custom writing services market overview providing comprehensive survey of the market divided into the following categories: market identification, market size, market segmentation, market growth speed, market customers, principles of operation, financial characteristics, quality of products, pricing policies, regulations, competitors and leaders, current trends within the industry, market success factors, and other categories. The research is structured in such a way as to group related issues in a logical order.
Market identification
Custom writing services market is a sector of the e-commerce industry. Custom writing services are fee-based.
Market size
The precise size of custom writing services market is unknown, though some rough estimate could be made. The number of competitors in the market approaches nearly 200. It is also known that around 30 percent of organizations in the industry have annual turnover amounting to $120,000 approximately, whereas other 70 percent have almost twice as low annual turnover. Total market size is estimated at $10,800,000 annually. The size of the market in relation to the economy is yet unknown.
Segmentation
Segmentation is the process of allocation of particular homogeneous sub-markets within a heterogeneous market. A market is a multitude of sub-markets that have similar motivations.
In the case with the market concerned, segmentation is interpreted as follows. Companies that operate within the market could be divided in accordance to specialization differences into such categories: (a) generally-oriented companies; (b) particularly-oriented companies. Generally-oriented companies are those that produce custom-written papers on a wide variety of topics. As a rule, such organizations hire writers representing different specialties or simply those able to perform on appropriate level in one or several fields. Companies ascribed to another organizational category usually operate within a narrower framework. In the market there are companies that offer custom-written papers exclusively on math, physics, sociology, the African-Americans, William Shakespeare, Charlotte Bronte, etc.
Other products and services offered by the industry representatives include proofreading and editing services, and pre-written papers.
It is noteworthy that there are companies in the market that offer both custom-written and pre-written papers. This, however, may have nothing to do with violation of ethics, but what about privacy of those students who previously ordered a custom-written paper, which might have been later re-sold to another student?
Growth speed
Growth rates of the market are varying over the time. Thus, in 2000 there were nearly 25-30 companies offering custom-written/pre-written essays, term papers, cases studies, and other types of research papers. Over the 5-year period the number of companies in the market grew up to nearly two hundreds.
The leap in growth rates of the market is noticed to take place in 2003-2004 when sudden change in pricing occurred. The number of companies in the market increased almost 30 percent and now estimates around 80 companies. This leap was probably caused by the tendency towards ecommerce solutions being new to hoards of entrepreneurs in a number of developing countries like India, Ukraine, Poland and other countries. Companies headquartered in these countries began offering similar services but with lower fees as compared to those located in the U.S., Canada, or Australia. More on pricing policies see in Pricing.
Today, market’s growth speed is rather low as the market is full-fledged due to a variety of services offered by market participants.
Geographical distribution of services
It is worth mentioning that the researched market is a subdivision of ecommerce industry. This gives ground to conclude that either products or services produced by industry’s parties are of intangible character rather than of tangible. This especially concerns custom writing services market, which offers its customers intangible products delivered to them mostly via email.
It should be clear that no matter where a company holds its general/backup office, it operates worldwide.
The only principle that regulates geographical distribution of custom-written papers is linguistic attachment. Among major countries using the service are: the United States of America, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, and some European and Asian countries.
Seasonal character of the market
Another aspect of the market is its seasonality. Seasonal character of the examined market is sharply defined. As services offered by the market participants are oriented at student needs throughout the academic year only, the season of active sales almost coincides with the academic year. The first half of September – usually passive – is compensated with several weeks in June.
Such seasonality of the market explains its instability of prices. It was noticed that prices for services increase throughout the year with peaks in December – January and April – May; and drop dramatically during the summer season.
Customers/Clients
Customers of online services such as custom writing services are usually students of high schools, colleges, and Universities, of 16 to 25 years old. As pricing in the market is relatively low, target group of the market covers the so-called middle class and higher. A research shows that in 2005 from 14 percent to 23 percent of students (considering seasonality correction) have in due time applied to custom writing services (IAS, 2005). In other words, one-seventh to one-fourth of students has bought at least one paper during 2004-2005 academic years. The same research provides data that gives ground to conclude about the growth of the market. It is declared that in 2003 peak rate of students who applied to the service at least once was 25 percent, whereas in 2005 it is estimated to reach 36 percent (IAS, 2005).
Customer loyalty
Customer loyalty is obviously a behavior demonstrated by frequent or systematic purchases of a company’s product or service. Customer loyalty could be achieved through customer-friendly pricing policies, various discount programs, incentive plans etc. Customer loyalty is also an aspect of a company’s customer retention or loyalty programs.
Customer retention programs are usually complex systems that include two or more elements listed above. As regards the market of custom writing services, the following was noticed in the course of the research held by the author: (a) more than 80 percent of the market uses basic techniques in acquiring customer loyalty such as permanently variable prices that depend on demand for the product or service throughout the year, bonus plans (such as bonus key that allows up to 4 percent reduction), and other techniques; and (b) nearly 10 percent of companies within the market use complex customer loyalty programs such as flexible discounts (sometimes up to 30 percent!) in a combination with weekly feedback bonuses, personal selection of a writer, order status check, 24/7 customer care, and other modes of customer attraction.
Factors that influence buyer’s choice
Among factors that have impact on customers’ choice in the market of custom writing services are price, quality of products and services (including exclusiveness, professionalism, and compliance with the requirements), and delivery time.
As to price and quality of a specific service, these two factors are the most important. It is vital for companies to balance between price and quality values since optimum correlation between these two categories benefits both a service provider and a customer. It is worth mentioning that there are companies that offer papers written by Ph.D.s for “;as low as $8.95 per page”;. Quality of a paper is directly related to its price and vice versa.
In respect of the delivery time, many companies offer urgent order accomplishment within 12 (and sometimes even 
hours. Some of them limit the volume of an order to certain number of pages, though there are some companies that accept urgent orders without volume limitation.
Pricing
Custom writing services market has been experiencing a decline in prices lately. As it was mentioned earlier in this research, there had been fall in prices in 2003-2004 caused by sudden increase in market’s growth rates. By far, average fees are kept at the level of $15 per page for regular (5+ days) orders, $20 per page for urgent (24 to 48h) orders, and $30 a page for extremely urgent orders (within 24h).
There are companies offering custom-written papers half price as compared to average pricing. This fact may indicate that a company either hires instant workers from developing countries or is new to the market and provides such a low pricing policy in order to enter the full market and gain certain status.
Principles of operation
Principles of operation are the same throughout the industry. Intangible nature of products produced by competitors in the market implies single system of relationships between a company and a customer irrespective of an organization’s capacities.
Companies that offer custom-written papers (essays, term papers, case studies, literature reviews, executive summaries, dissertations) operate through their websites. Websites are supplied with all necessary and optional features such as credit card processing system (necessary), online customer service (optional), and auto-responder to provide existing customers with automated thank yous and newsletters, and other features.
A customer places an order, which is then forwarded to a writer. This step is omitted in small companies where two or three people wear several hats, e.g. one person could perform as an administrator, a writer, and a customer service representative. If there ARE a couple of writers working for a company, one of them accomplishes an order, which is then delivered to the customer via email.
It is worth noting that major attention is paid to a company’s website. It is common for a company producing custom-written papers to have as many webmasters as writers. Hard to believe? In your opinion, what is the correlation between webmasters/programmers and book reviewers working for Amazon.com?
Competitors and leaders
As mentioned above, the number of competitors in the market estimates nearly 200. Leadership in the market where companies offer custom-written papers of any kind is defined exclusively due to a company’s website’s ranking in various search engines. The most powerful search engines are Google, MSN, Yahoo!, Altavista, and Alltheweb. Moreover, websites are ranked in accordance to their content oriented at different key words. Thus, different websites could be leaders in the same search engine, though for different keywords or phrases.
Regulations
Being a subdivision of the ecommerce industry, custom writing services market is regulated by nothing but several codes like BBB Online that refer to web entrepreneurs. In general, ecommerce industry is poorly regulated.
Current trends within the industry and market success factors
Among current trends in the market particularly three aspects are worth mentioning: (a) constant fall in price; (b) constant increase in the number of competitors; and (c) diversification of services offered by companies.
Constant increase in the number of competitors is obviously caused by simplicity of operations and growing number of freelance writers who once decided to start out their own business.
Permanent fall in price is caused by growing number of competitors and similarity of services offered by companies in the market.
Finally, diversification of services is a logic consequence of the same increase in the number of competitors.
Among factors for success in the market the following issues could be mentioned: …
About the Author
Serge Chepurko, a freelance writer in the past specializing in a variety of fields one might term as ‘humanities’, now writes for Your Personal Writer, a young company offering custom-written essays and term papers with a guarantee of successful performance.
Read full version of this article at href://www.personal-writer.com/overview1/
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November 20, 2008
“I’ve got to prepare a talk tonight. I think I’ll just pop over to the idea store for some fresh concepts.”
“I’ll do some work on the novel, then. Could you get me a bag of inspiration while you’re over there? Oh, on second thoughts, why not stop by Sarah’s first? She might have some spare.”
What a pity it doesn’t work that way. There’s no one ready-made source of great ideas. They don’t just arrive to order, oven-fresh and neatly packaged, from Ideas-to-go. Yet, at some point, each of us will need to summon up ideas for a talk or a piece of writing, perhaps under pressure of a deadline.
So what can we do to help the process along?
Know how you work best. For some people, ideas bubble up while they’re taking a shower or washing the dishes, for others they shape up best on a jog or on the daily drive to work. Some people like to kick ideas around with a few like-minded friends, while others work best alone and in silence. Some find that time pressure results in their best ideas, while for others it induces panic and blankness.
Keep track of what gets your creative juices flowing and take advantage of it.
Relax. Creativity guru Jurgen Wolf (whose site www.brainstormnet.com is a treasure trove of creative ideas) suggests sleeping on the problem whenever possible. Just before going to sleep, and just after waking, are among the most fertile periods for developing new ideas, so take advantage of this by keeping a pen and pad on the bedside table. If you don’t have time to sleep on it, put your feet up and a favourite CD on (many people find classical music, especially Bach and Mozart, very effective).
Start from your own experience. Look at your education, your career and your hobbies and interests. Nobody else has had quite the same experiences as you, and other people will be interested in hearing about new topics. Even activities they share, such as parenting, or working life, can still provide interesting material when looked at from your own unique angle, especially if your experiences of them have been amusing or educational.
Look out for issues you feel strongly about. Most people have a few topics that act like a red rag to a bull – if you don’t know what yours are, just ask your friends! Or flick through a paper and watch out for news that makes you want to grab your pen and dash off a letter to the editor. Any topic you feel strongly about will make for powerful and sincere writing, and even if you only know a little about the subject, you can always do some research to fill in the gaps.
Stimulate your imagination with something different. I first encountered this technique in a book by Edward de Bono, and it’s surprisingly effective for something so simple. Take a word, picture or object at random – from a dictionary, newspaper, or magazine, or even just the first thing that catches your eye when you look up from the page – and find ways to apply it to the problem at hand.
Brainstorm ideas related to your topic. There are few things more demoralising than carefully crafting a talk or article only to discover that it’s half the length it should have been and you’ve run out of material. Start by jotting down any ideas, facts and anecdotes related to the topic, then roughly plan the structure of your talk. Spider diagrams or mind maps are excellent for helping to organise your material (If you haven’t used them before, or if you’d like to know more about them, Tony Buzan’s The Mind Map Book explains in detail how they work).
Fill the gaps. If you’re talking about a subject you’re already familiar with, you will probably have most of the information you need, although you might still want to check the odd detail in a reference book or with someone else who knows the subject. If you’re researching a subject that’s newer to you, you may need to visit the library or search the internet for more information. You may also need to seek out stories or quotations to illustrate some of the points you are making, and as well as dictionaries of quotations, there are a number of web sites which can help you do this. For example, The Internet Movie Database is full of film trivia and quotes, and lyricserver.com can help you track down relevant song lyrics.
Get a head start. Now you know you can come up with great ideas at short notice, but why not make life a little easier by getting a head start for next time? Keep these techniques in mind and you’ll be amazed how many of the things that happen to you can spark off ideas for your next talk. Keep a notebook and jot them all down, and next time you come to prepare a talk you’ll have your own idea store to pick from.
About the Author
Stephanie Cage is a UK-based author of fiction and poetry, as well as several business reports. Read more of her work at www.stephaniecage.co.uk.
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November 20, 2008
Lots of of the moneylenders wil show you a rate of interest that looks honest but feels gravely or so after some time. Nowadays you can look into interest rates quickly at websites and visualize if there are other sneaky conditions you should be aware of. You should be clever today to check up if you have a super deal or if you don’t with the moneylender that offers you a bank loan. It doesn’t matter if you live in Bartlett Tennessee or in Ames Iowa a safe online analysis will spare you often a lot of ail. Check out to see if the bank who is tending to give you a credit loan is beneficial. A merchant bank in Palmdale California or so can have a total totally different actual interest rate for a 15000 dollar loan then a bank in Bowie Maryland and that makes a huge clear difference in your yearly pay backs.
Translated in Dutch it means: Woon je in Wierden of Doesburg en hebt u BKR. Lenen met zonder BKR is nog nooit zo eenvoudig geweest. Koop een ander huis met bkr zonder toetsing geld lenen, 442194 euro is altijd mogelijk om te lenen. Van Dinkelland tot Helden, geld lenen met zonder BKR registratie kan hier altijd.
That’s the reason why now you really need to check over and visit if you can have a money loan at a fine percent loan rate. 13.5 percent loan rate may come out so ok but will that be invariant after you’re going to repay your money loan.
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November 19, 2008
Indeed I’m weak for I blasted by ecstasy,
vailed lids I have and death bent.
Idle am I? Tenables dirt?
Am I real jump drossy?
The mighty sun at last took me away from field,
he post’d above mine pole,
he uplift’d my beaver that,
he could say o’ercrows just mine conceit
My face, the sun spoke was a nickname,
for it’s milch that he said,
that mine reality’s face was retrograde
of what his soul saw that’s idle.
He gave a rose button to mine hand,
presently after he, mine God unfold himself.
Repair to dead end of when I forgot me,
to tape the love out of time to another.
The flow’r button grew with mine hands chariest,
and fin’lly, able to see,
naught the button is but mine feelings unseen,
and at last the laud, I heard for they’re lovely.
I listed my button from the heavy world,
for mine feling grew to trick of fame.
Whenever the button’s around, yes she always is,
conceit of mine post through my brains.
I’m now cutpurse not of bliss,
for now I have mine,
withal of love from mine heart and her,
now drossy I am not for I’m but a lover aye.
About the Author: I was changed ’cause of thou.
I was uplifted from the dark-pitch room by your ows hands albeit you know not.
Source: www.isnare.com
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November 19, 2008
We’ve holidayed in several alpine snowboarding holiday resorts such as Gourette, Montroc, Flegere and Grand Massif, however all told through all my ski holidays Chamonix Haute Savoie without a shadow of a doubt is my most popular mountain to go for ski holidays in France.
The provenance of alpine history and dwelling to the sensational Monte Bianco – at 4807m the EU’s tallest summit – Chamonix Mont Blanc boasts a unmatched snow record, a long snowboarding season (November-May), unmatched extreme mountain snowboarding, and views horizons to die for. So Chamonix Mont Blanc France has an multinational renown since it has just about the most prominent, difficult, and thrilling skiing procurable anywhere in the world.
Chamonix Mont Blanc is big and also befuddling, and that is before we even consider the neighboring ski towns; including Brevent, Megeve, Meribel, La Mongie and Risoul.
The Monte Bianco skiing lift pass covers ten local, and fourteen territorial ski areas; with terrain upwards of 3843 metres, all over 220 button lifts, and 730 kilometers of skiing tracks – with the bulk of the skiing fields above 2000m. It caters for every standard from initiates as well as experts. Click on the skiing areas section for detailed look at each of the popular areas: La Clusaz, Val-d’Isere, Auron, Plateau de Beille, Les Deux Alpes and Verchaix.
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November 18, 2008
You have permission to publish this article electronically or in
print, free of charge as long as the signature box is included.
Word Count: 507 at 65 characters per line
Thanks,
Judy
===============
Book Promotion Myth —
The Best Place to Sell Books is a Book Store
Judy Cullins
©2001
When most people think of buying books they think of
bookstores. Marketing guru, John Kremer, author of
1001 Ways to Market Your Book says “I’m glad I
don’t rely on retail “brick and mortar” bookstore sales
for my income, but it will be nice to add that icing on
the cake into my cash flow again.”
In the past three years, John has sold 45,000 copies of
his book, many from non-traditional marketing strategies;
his web site, his eMagazine which offers tips, products and
seminars, specialty stores, foreign markets, libraries, and
back of the room sales. Because he is a recognized name,
he and other bestsellers by famous authors get a lot of shelf
space in the bookstore–cover side out. For your lesser-known
book, only your spine will show and after three months of
initial placement, your book will fade away unless you put
on your promotion hat to get customers to the store.
In one book coaching session, a new client thought he wanted
to sell to the bookstores. I asked him who was his particular
audience. He said business people. What kind of business
people? Do these people go to the “brick and mortar” bookstore
for a business book? Or, will they be more likely to visit a
particular business Web site for specific kinds of business books?
DID YOU KNOW?
*Seventy percent of US adults haven’t been in a bookstore
for the last 5 years
*Bookstores sell only 45% of all books sold
*Bookstores return non-sold books to the author-think of the
Starbucks people dripping their coffee and scone on your book.
The author will get those returns.
*Bookstores will take 90 days, even a year to pay you for your
total book sales
*Bookstores only order two or three copies at a time because of
limited shelf space
*Bookstores buy only from a distributor or wholesaler.
Why the big push to get a wholesale or distributor and get into
the bookstore? These people represent so many other authors;
don’t you wonder how much attention your book will receive?
They exact healthy fees, around 55%. That leaves a small profit
for the author, and remember, bookstores, distributors and
wholesalers don’t promote your book!
After her distributor went belly up and she lost $160,000, one
author said she would rather have more control over her priceless
products. She distributes them all herself now through various
venues that suit her personality.
Authors spend a lot of time and money chasing the improbable,
when the “golden egg” of self-publishing and self-promotion is
right in front of them. In my opinion, I’d sell my books everywhere
except the bookstore!
=============
Judy Cullins: author, publisher, book coach
_Ten Non-techie Ways to Market Your Book Online_
http://www.bookcoaching.com/products.shtml
Subscribe to FREE ezine “The Book Coach Says…”
mailto:Judy@bookcoaching.com
About the Author
Judy Cullins is a 22-year veteran publisher, book coach, and author of _Write your eBook or Other Short Book–Fast!_ and _Ten Non-techie Ways to Market Your Book Online_, and 30+ others. Known as the Non-techie eBook Queen, Judy helps people to market their products and services online. She publishes “The Book Coach Says…” a free monthly eZine. Email her at Judy@bookcoaching.com and visit her Web site at http://www.bookcoaching.com.
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November 18, 2008
First I will tell you a brief history of the Passover festival.
Passover is the oldest and most important religious festival in the Judaism traditions, commemorating God’s deliverance of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and His creation of the Israelite people. The Passover festival begins at sunset on the 14th of Nisan (usually in March or April) and marks the beginning of seven day celebration that includes the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The focal point of Passover is a communal meal, called the Seder (which means “order,” because of the fixed order of service), which is time of rejoicing and celebration at the deliverance for the Hebrews that God accomplished in the exodus.
Since its inception Passover has traditionally been celebrated in the home with family and friends as they eat meal together. It has always been customary to invite guests to share the Seder meal, especially newcomers to the community. A Seder meal in most Jewish homes is an elaborate feast, with food, games for the children, and to tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt. It is not unusual for Seder to last three or four hours.
The Seder involves everyone present since they all share in this festival with reading and singing. While the father or grandfather is usually the leader of the service, others have roles as well. The mother of the home lights the festival candles that signal the beginning of Passover, the youngest child asks the four questions, the children help eliminate all Chametz, leaven, from the house, search for the hidden Afikomen (symbolic piece of Matzah, unleavened bread) and open the door for Elijah, the parents or the grandparents usually start to tell the story of the exodus, and various others are designated to read or lead certain portions of the service.
Passover is really more than festival. It is a teaching experience, especially for the children, intended to call people to their identity as the People of God. The Passover Seder tells the story of God’s grace in history and calls on all the participants to experience and share in the story as their own story.
There has been increasing interest among Christians in this ancient festival. There are several reasons for this renewed interest, they are: an increasing sensitivity to cultural and societal problems and corresponding desire to learn about others; renewed awareness of the importance of the Old Testament Scriptures as Christian Scripture; the desire and need in our modern world to recover sense of the sacred through liturgy and sacrament, and the willingness to find new and innovative ways to worship. Most importantly, however, is the wonderful picture the Passover gives to believers of what Jesus Christ, our Passover Lamb has accomplished for us.
I would encourage Christian families to begin a tradition of having a special Passover celebration. Children love this celebration and will look forward to it each year. It is a terrific teaching opportunity and helps us draw our focus toward the eternal significance of God’s and Jesus Christ’s passion. Good Friday would be the best day to consider, but anytime during the Easter season would be appropriate. A Christian Passover celebration is really not difficult, but it does require some planning so it would be best to start your arrangements a few weeks in advance.
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