The Cuckleburr Times » books

Connecting with Bloggers to Promote Your Book

A Guest Article Writer — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 11:51:30 +0000

Article by L. Drew Gerber

When it comes to promoting your book you can’t forget about bloggers. Successful bloggers have a targeted and engaged audience that you would love the opportunity to reach out to. Whether it’s self-help, green-living, finance — you name it — the people who follow these blogs look to the blogger as someone who represents their voice and provides new and cool insights into what’s cutting-edge in their niche.

Before you begin pitching bloggers, you’ll have to find them first. It’s easy to search on Google for bloggers related to your expertise. If you’re a green-living author, you can simply type in “green-living blogs” and you’ll find links to these blogs, articles mentioning them, blog posts about these blogs and blog posts about these blog posts about these blogs. Usually you’ll find the most popular blogs related to your expertise, and because they are the most popular they will also be the hardest to break into. But right off the bat though, you have your goal: Get your book reviewed on that blog!

If you’re just starting out, you should find a less popular blog or one who maybe has even more of a niche following your book would be fit for. Sites like Technorati are really helpful in narrowing down blogs and bloggers to start building relationships with. You’ll definitely find the most popular ones and the most popular posts, but they also have comprehensive directories with each blog’s authority ranking on the particular subject manner, i.e. green living. You can search Technorati just like you would search Google and start browsing blogs with the reach you’re committed too. Make a realistic list of five or so blogs you’d want your book reviewed on, then get ready to begin building your relationship with them.

Before you reach out to the blogger, make sure you know the blog and you’re keeping up with the kinds of content that is being posted. Note if they have guests that do book reviews and ask yourself whether or not this blog is truly a good fit for you and your book. If it is, start by posting comments with good commentary or additional thoughts wherever you can. The goal here is to show the blogger and its followers you’re an avid and engaged fan of what they have to say, and you have a genuine interest in being part of this community.

Once you’ve established yourself in the community, it’s time to reach out to the blogger with an email. Make it short and simple, telling them you really enjoy the blog and was wondering if they were in need of anything. Ask if they accept guest-bloggers or do reviews of books. By now though, you should have a good idea whether they do or don’t, but ask anyway and give them a taste of what you could offer. The key here is to be extremely polite and not to overload them with information. Keep it short and sweet. It could take a couple of exchanges before they ask to review your book, but remember it’s relationship building. It takes time.

Once you’ve had your book reviewed, be sure to show your gratitude. Now don’t worry about finding their home address and sending them a thank you card or gift basket. But really the most important thing you need to do is follow-up with an acknowledgement. They’ll appreciate it.

So by all means, brag about yourself to everyone you can possibly brag about yourself to. Get on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and tell the world about how your book was featured on this blog. Provide a link and drive as much traffic as you can to the blog and really be a voice for support. Send them to the blog’s main page not just to the page you’re featured on. The idea here is to increase the whole blog’s readership and create returning fans. Make sure you keep on top of the comments and respond and engage the community of followers who are commenting on your feature.

And then keep it up. Play an active role in this newfound community where you now belong. Try to provide fresh content whenever and wherever you can and stay in contact with the blogger and continue to develop your relationship.

L. Drew Gerber is CEO of Wasabi Publicity, Inc. (www.PublicityResults.com) and creator of www.PitchRate.com, a free media tool that connects journalists, publicists, and experts. Gerber’s business practices and staffing innovations have been revered by PR Week, Good Morning America and the Christian Science Monitor. His companies handle international PR campaigns and his staff develops online press kits for authors, speakers and companies with Online PressKit 24/7, a technology he developed (www.PressKit247.com). Contact L. Drew Gerber at:AskDrew@PublicityResults.com or call him at 828-749-3548.

Create Buzz for your eBooks

A Guest Article Writer — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 15:35:53 +0000

When marketing ebooks, your target market is a little different, since most ebooks are geared to those who are quite proficient in the use of technology. Certainly, this does not mean you should completely neglect offline means of marketing, but simply that most of your marketing efforts should be geared towards the internet. Here are some tips on how to market ebooks:

Build a website or blog around the ebooks that you are marketing, and add additional compelling and relevant content so that people will get an idea of your writing style and what they will learn from reading your ebook. Of course, make it easy for them to order from your site.

Write some articles on the topic of your ebook, with a link to your website. Submitting articles to directories establishes you as an authority on the subject, especially when someone does a Google search and comes up with dozens of articles you’ve written on the subject.

Guest blog posting on relevant sites can help market both your website and your ebook. Of course, you will link back to your website, and perhaps reciprocate by allowing the other blog author to guest post on your blog as well.

Auction sites like Ebay are good places to market your book. Be sure that you have a good sales letter written to use for this purpose, and market it there, allowing for both ‘buy it now’ and auction purchases. This is also a great way to collect testimonial feedback to add to your website and other marketing efforts.

Facebook pages are a great way to generate buzz about your ebooks. Build your page, and also add other similar pages to your page’s favorites and join relevant groups. Also suggest your page to those of your Facebook friends you believe would be interested, because when they ‘like’ your page, all of their friends will also be exposed to it.

Contact sites or blogs that publish book reviews, and reading groups. Both will read your ebook and then publish information about the book on their site. This can be a great way to interact with readers of your ebook as well, but replying to comments.

Also, promote your ebook offline in relevant areas. For instance, if your ebook is about Mediterranean cooking, a grocery store would be a great place to promote it. If it’s about gardening, perhaps a home center or garden store, but always make it relevant to the book.

Article by Denise Gabbard of Discount Vouchers, where you will find Argos.co.uk discount vouchers and Comet discount codes.

Selling to the Competitive User

A Be My Guest Author — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 17:21:27 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Landy Chase, Author of Competitive Selling: Out-Plan, Out-Think, and Out-Sell to Win Every Time.

Nothing is more rewarding for any business than taking an account away from a competitor. Successfully persuading a competitive user to leave their existing vendor for you takes an enormous amount of patience, skill, and strategy. Unfortunately, most business people don’t approach the strategic issue of competitive loyalty properly, and they pay for it with limited success in their take-away efforts.

To be successful in taking accounts away from your competitors, you have to begin by looking objectively at the situation from the viewpoint of your potential client. Consider for a moment the implications to your prospect. By asking them to move their business to you, you are essentially asking them to:

Tell the current supplier that they are fired;
Go through the process of setting up an account with a new supplier, including all of the tedious, time-consuming paperwork;
Get to know a whole new set of people to work with;
Get to know a whole new set of different and unfamiliar procedures;
Take the risk of making a bad business decision, and paying the consequences.

This collectively adds up to a sobering fact that you must accept and work with: Unless your prospective client is having a major problem with their vendor, trying to persuade them to abandon that relationship is an exercise in frustration and futility.

Does this mean that you should abandon your efforts to sell to the competitive user? Not at all. The key to success here is to abandon the notion that you can immediately replace the existing supplier. Instead, re-think your strategy for success. Look for ways to supplement the existing relationship without replacing it, by providing a product or service that meets a specific special need that the primary vendor is either not capable of addressing, or has chosen not to.

Unless your prospect is having a major problem with their vendor, trying to persuade them to abandon that relationship is an exercise in frustration and futility. This approach is much more productive, and gets you over the two major obstacles you face in selling to the competitive user:

(1) You find a way to get your foot in the door and prove yourself.

(2) You turn the prospect into a customer, opening the “pipeline” for additional opportunities if you deliver.

My biggest new client one year was a competitive user who told me initially that they were happy with the resource that they were using, and weren’t open at that time to new alternatives. Accepting this, I was able to persuade a decision-maker within the account to allow me the opportunity to supplement their existing relationship by delivering a specialized service that the current supplier was not addressing.

This initial program soon led to more opportunities, and before long I had successfully acquired a full business relationship that has proven to be one of the best I have ever had. This strategy worked because I requested — and received — a small opportunity to prove myself, without threatening the existing vendor relationship.

Look for ways to supplement, not replace, the needs of the competitive user. By delivering value on a small scale now, you can position yourself to reap big rewards later.

Landy Chase, author of Competitive Selling: Out-Plan, Out-Think, and Out-Sell to Win Every Time, founded his own sales training and consulting firm in 1993 and has clients in more than sixty industries on five different continents. He has delivered more than two thousand paid presentations as a professional speaker and holds the Certified Speaking Professional (CPS) designation from the National Speakers Association, the highest earned level of excellence in the industry. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.

For more information please visit www.LandyChase.com.

Author Interview: Michael Stevens, Author of Fortuna

Kay Elizabeth — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:11:59 +0000

I’m delighted to share here an interview with author Michael R. Stevens about his new book, Fortuna. Michael began his writing career in high school as a music columnist for the Vallejo Times Herald, his hometown newspaper. After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley as an English major, he served two years in the U.S. Army’s Berlin Brigade, then began a career in high-tech marketing, first as a writer and later as a creative director and Silicon Valley ad agency executive. Concurrently, he managed the technical development and marketing of two successful software products. At present, Michael is a contributing editor for several high-profile web sites in the technology arena.

In addition to writing, Michael Stevens is a serious amateur musician who has produced four CDs. He lives in Berkeley, California, and at an undisclosed location in Second Life.

Fortuna is his first novel. So on with the interview!

Start to finish, how long did it take to write Fortuna?

Eighteen months.

How did you get the idea?

I learned from NPR that online role-playing games have real economies, just like America or Japan, and I thought that was astonishing. That special sword you need in order to kill a particular dragon? It’s worth actual dollars. You can buy stuff like that on eBay. And if I steal your sword while we’re playing online, you can sue me in a real-world court. That’s already happening in Asia. I was also attracted by the anonymity of these games. How far will people go if no one knows who they are, and their actions have no consequences? Of course, in the book, there are consequences.

Which part of the writing process did you enjoy most? Why?

Like most professional writers, I have a sort of ritual. I write almost exclusively in cafés, usually in the morning. What could be better than to be in a place where there’s a lot of intellectual energy, you get these wonderful caffeinated drinks—maybe a croissant—and then you get to do the same thing Hemingway or Sartre did? By the way, I should say that drinking lots of coffee is arguably the only talent I share with those great writers.

What part of the writing process did you find most challenging? Why?

Dealing with editors! When I worked in advertising, my writing often got edited in ways that harmed the project, and over the years I came to hate that. So I have this automatic negative reaction to the editing process that’s not always fair to the editor.

Did you have to do any special research while writing Fortuna? If so, what did you research and how did you conduct the research?

I read a lot of books about Renaissance Italy and the major houses. Some of it was very detailed, like issues about coinage and interest rates and other business practices. I also studied the paintings. I didn’t have to research the technical stuff. I knew about that by working with dozens of high-tech companies over the years.

Do any of the characters in Fortuna have an autobiographical component? If so, which character, and how are you similar?

The autobiographical components are negligible. I did attend Stanford, and I was an executive in a rather large corporation, and I think that helps give Fortuna an authentic feel. But neither Jason nor his father are stand-ins for yours truly.

How did you get the ideas for the characters in Fortuna? Are any of the characters based on people you know?

I think every character in every novel is based on people the author knows or fragments of people pieced together in new ways. But as far as specific characters in Fortuna, what the lawyers so often recite is true: “any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.”

What do you think is your protagonist, Jason Lind’s, most admirable quality?

He questions things.

What do you think is Jason Lind’s least admirable quality?

Through much of the book, he can’t act with conviction, at least that’s how I see it. He has a little of Hamlet’s fatal hesitation, not that I’m comparing myself with Shakespeare. I think most readers would agree that he should commit more fully to his girlfriend in real life rather than chasing after an online heroine.

How do you think you are most like Jason Lind?

I have always had a question about how I fit into society. I still do.

How do you think you are least like Jason Lind?

Jason wants to plan things. I tend not to look before I leap.

What is your interest in online role-playing games?

For me, online role playing games are like an e-mail or instant messaging service that lets me conveniently connect with people. Second Life also helps me to keep my other languages sharp because, at different times of the day, there are people online from all over the world. The role-playing aspect for me is nil. I am not part of a Gorean clan or anything like that.

What do you think attracts Jason Lind to Fortuna—the escape, or the anonymity it affords him?

The English major in me has to point out that Jason Lind isn’t a person, but a literary creation. Having said that, I think the short answer is escape. In Fortuna, Jason is an adult. In real life—“RL” as gamers say—Jason plays a role that is subordinate to the adults who run things.

What do you think, in general, is the allure that draws people in to online role-playing games?

Romance, sexuality, adventure, and violence are the primary themes of most online role-playing games. It’s sad, but that’s why people play. We live in a lonely, angry society. And online role-playing games give us a chance to have what we feel is missing in our lives anonymously. That removes a lot of inhibitions. A third factor is the lack of consequences. If a woman walks on the wild side and finds herself about to be attacked in a dark alley, she can just press the delete button.

Do you think there’s a real danger in becoming compulsive, such as Jason does, when playing online games?

Yes. There are people who are online eight, ten, twelve hours a day, so yes, the danger is real. At the same time, this may be a good thing for some people, for example, those who are confined to a bed due to chronic illness.

How possible—and plausible—do you think a virtual community such as the one you present in Fortuna is?

There’s no issue of possibility or plausibility. Such virtual communities exist. For example, there is a large online “Gorean” community with villages, costumes, etc., based on the (notorious and trashy) “Gor” novels of John Norman. There are also several such communities revolving around vampire lore. It is amazing to me, I’ll say in passing, how many women seek out the role of virtual slavery in these communities.

As someone with a background in technology, how have you seen gaming evolve over the years? Do you think gaming has changed for the better? Why or why not?

The great leap forward in online gaming communities was the introduction of graphics, which are becoming increasingly realistic as time passes. The older virtual communities were based entirely on text, which combined dialog and what might be called stage directions. (He grasps her by the shoulders and pushes her down onto the bed. She whimpers, “No, please.”) Some say that the text approach has fewer limitations and is more imaginative.

You present a great deal of detail about Renaissance Florence in Fortuna. What is your interest in Renaissance Florence?

Renaissance Florence was the birthplace of the modern global economy. In many ways it was the Silicon Valley of its time. It was also the birthplace of Machiavelli. If our business leaders and politicians would study Renaissance Florence more carefully, we would be much better off as a nation.

Do you intentionally draw parallels between today’s Mafia families and the prominent families of the Renaissance?

Yes. They are quite similar. The style of execution, for example, hasn’t changed at all. Nor has the importance of execution itself as a tactic.

What made you want to write a novel?

Isn’t that the dream of every English major?

Which writers influence and inspire you?

Not very many, and they’re not politically correct. Frank Herbert, the seventies’ science fiction writer. John Updike. Lawrence Durrell and others, I’m sure.

If you could give an aspiring author one piece of advice, what would it be?

I think attending writers’ conferences is very, very helpful, especially when it comes to selling and marketing a novel. It’s really the only way to get a good understanding of what the players are like: the agents, the acquisition editors, even the other writers, who can be friends as well as competitors. Also, aspiring writers should read my blog at www.fortunathebook.com, where I tell all about what it’s like to actually get published.

What is the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?

Somebody once told me that every short story should begin with something like, “Tom Smith glanced at his watch. Eleven thirty. If he didn’t get to the top of the mountain by noon, he’d be dead.” I think particularly today, in the era of short attention spans, each segment of a novel has to be like a short story that keeps people turning the pages. This approach, I should add, does not preclude the exploration of important, complex questions.

The worst?

“Writing is re-writing.” I say, get it right the first time. If your work needs a lot of editing, you’re not very good.

What do you hope readers will take away from Fortuna?

I hope readers are led to question some of their romantic visions of what human societies are like, and to take a new look at Machiavelli’s vision. I don’t mean that it’s a good idea to simply kill your enemies—it’s not!—but other aspects of his work have relevance, particularly in U.S. foreign policy and also in understanding the problems that plague inner cities.

What’s next for Michael Stevens? Any other books in the works?

My next project is a novel of industrial espionage set in Berlin, 1923, during the Weimar Republik and before the rise of Hitler. The working title is “U,” which is the chemical symbol for uranium.

Fortuna is available from all good bookstores, including Amazon, now.

Many thanks to Michael and also to Maryglenn at OceanView Publishing for allowing us to share this interview! – Ed.

How to Make Your Book a Bestseller – By Harnessing the Incredible Power of Internet Marketing

Stephanie J. Hale — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 23:55:23 +0000

If you’ve written a book or if you want to get your message out to the world, there has never been an easier time to become a bestselling author. The Internet has provided writers with an unprecedented opportunity to spread their message and reach more readers at a faster rate than ever before.

So let me take you through the process step-by-step of how to turn your book into a bestseller and gain more ‘customers’ or readers.

Your number one priority is to give away something of value to your potential readers. It sounds back-to-font – but trust me, it isn’t.

You might give away valuable content such as: a ‘how to’ article; a free ebook or report; an ezine; a teleseminar; or an MP3.

Better still, team up with other experts who can provide this free content. So if your book is about dog breeding, contact other pet experts. Or if your book is about gardening, contact high profile gardening experts (preferably those with a large database or ‘list’ of clients).

Tell them you’re offering the chance to promote their business if they’d like to offer something for free in return. It’s a win-win situation: they provide you with a freebie, you promote their website to your readers.

When you put a value on these free bonuses, it can run into thousands of dollars. This makes a $9.99 book phenomenal value – in fact, readers will sometimes buy a book just to get their hands on the bonuses.

On the day your book is launched, ask all the experts who gave free bonuses to help promote it. They can do this via their own mailing lists, as well as social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Chances are they’ll also want to bulk-buy your book to sell to their own clients. If everyone promotes your book on the same day, you can very quickly push your book onto the bestseller list for your particular niche on Amazon.

Even if it only hovers there for three seconds, that’s all it takes. The kudos of having a bestselling book lasts a lifetime! I even have a client who used this technique successfully to push her poetry book (self-published 5 years previously) to bestselling status.

What to do with your ‘customers’ or readers when you have their contact details? Write to them at least once a week. Get to know them: let them get to know you. Share valuable information with them.

Follow these simple steps and you will be well on your way to becoming a successful author.

Stephanie J. Hale is a leading writers’ coach and publishing scout. She’s worked with bestselling authors and top literary agents for over 20 years. She specializes in helping writers get the publishing deal and readership they deserve. Find more FREE publishing tips at: http://www.richwriterpoorwriter.com

Does a “Chief Innovation Officer” Inspire Your Team?

A Be My Guest Author — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 12:07:37 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Robert F. Brands, Author of Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival.

Who inspires your team?

Who develops the ideas, promotes an environment that fosters creative camaraderie, nourishes esprit de corps — and steers the organization toward greatness?

In short, who is your Chief Innovation Officer?

Every organization that grows by creating new products or services or aspires to out-class the competition needs a Chief Innovation Officer, or CIO.

In Robert’s Rules of Innovation, “Inspiration” is the first and most important of the 10 imperatives. Inspiration drives everything else — from ideation to new product development to risk-taking itself.

Yet the selection of the CIO, and the definition of his or her tasks in seeing that these challenges are skillfully mastered, can make the difference between innovative success and failure.

What does the CIO do? He or she . . .

1. Shows support from the top. Ideally, this position is held by the organization’s chief executive or president — someone who leads by example and “walks the talk.” Alternatively, and in a larger organization, he or she may be a “Crown Prince” — someone hand-picked by the executive leadership to oversee the task of inspiring greatness from within the team. It’s important that if the CIO is not the CEO or president, that he or she has the blessing of the senior executive. Otherwise, his or her ideas, inspirations or suggestions might be rebuffed.

2. Communicates Overarching Goals and Progress. The imperative should be to overcommunicate and under-promise. Such communication keeps the organization focused on the vision, successes and failures.

3. Builds a “Communication Corridor.” This practice of two-way traffic enables ideas to flow freely for equal consideration and sharing throughout a trusting enterprise. The open-door policy gives every participant a voice and motivation to say what needs to be said — even if they believe the project at hand is a losing proposition. Fear of retribution should never discourage people from speaking their minds.

4. Connects the Silos. Better yet, he or she demolishes them. Knock down the barriers that keep silos apart by creating cross-functional teams.

5. Commissions Cross-Group Stakeholders. These “champions across projects” should have the authority and budgets to test, learn and lead multiple groups through the process and assure ownership across groups is achieved. Bullies need not apply. These champions should encourage buy-in so innovation isn’t stymied or blocked.

This isn’t just for Fortune 500 corporations. Smaller organizations have more to gain from installing a CIO. This helps send the message that the position — and the commitment behind it — are vital to the organization’s long-term growth.

Whatever the size of the organization, inspiration is only valid if it’s derived from the vision, mission or strategy of the company — and driven by an executive empowered to see it through.

Robert F. Brands, author of Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival, is President and founder of Brands & Company, LLC (www.innovationcoach.com). Having gained hands-on experience in bringing innovation to market, creating and improving the necessary product development processes and needed culture, he delivered on his charter to bring “at least one new product per year to market” — resulting in double-digit profitable growth and share-holder value.

For more information please visit www.RobertsRulesofInnovation.com, become a fan on Facebook, Facebook.com/RobertsRulesofInnovation, and follow @InnovationRules on Twitter. For details on bulk orders of Robert’s Rules of Innovation please visit 800 CEO Read.

Three Secret Weapons for Entrepreneurs

A Be My Guest Author — Sat, 29 May 2010 21:17:11 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Renee & Don Martin, Authors of The Risk Takers: 16 Women and Men Who Built Great Businesses Share Their Entrepreneurial Strategies For Success.

These weapons are three broad business strategies that can help you to create a new business or push your company to the next level of success:

Go on a treasure hunt and find an underserved niche
Buck the conventional wisdom
Spot a new trend and pounce

If you adopt these strategies as your entrepreneurial mantras, so to speak, you’re more likely to identify and take advantage of real opportunities to expand your company’s product line and customer base. The stories of America’s highest-achieving entrepreneurs prove that applying these strategies in imaginative, clever and timely ways can help catapult a small start-up to the status of industry leader.

Go on a Treasure Hunt and Find an Underserved Niche
In the business world, there’s nothing more exciting than finding an underserved niche that represents a lucrative market that everyone else has failed to spot and target. That’s like finding gold bullion at a crowded beach — it was there for everyone else to see, but you were the one who took notice of that golden glint in the sand.

That’s what happened to Gary and Diane Heavin, founders of the Curves International fitness franchise system. When the company launched in 1992, the Heavins had just $10,000 in savings to invest in their company. Today, Curves is the world’s largest fitness franchise system, with 10,000 franchise locations in 65 countries.

How did Curves soar to the top? Instead of competing head-to-head with fitness giants like 24 Hour Fitness or Bally Total Fitness, the Heavins opted to serve the fitness needs of three underserved niches: middle-age and older women who are eager to get in shape but might feel intimidated by large gyms teeming with young, hard bodies; busy working women whose schedules could more easily accommodate the Curves 30-minute workout; and budget-conscious women who simply couldn’t afford the pricey monthly membership dues charged by the major gym chains. Early on, Curves clearly distinguished itself from the pack of gym competitors; its services and clientele were different.

Targeting an underserved niche is a path that small start-ups can take. Even a huge multi-billion-dollar company can’t offer everything for everyone. Targeting the right niche — one that other business owners have neglected or ignored — can help build a strong and loyal customer base while limiting competition.

Another entrepreneur who followed this strategy was Liz Lange. She launched a phenomenally successful designer maternity clothing company. Liz Lange Maternity eventually sold for an estimated $50 to $60 million in 2007. She also partnered with Target to launch a secondary, discount version of her line.

Like the Heavins, Lange reached the heights of success by targeting an underserved niche. In her case, that meant zeroing in on the needs of pregnant fashionistas — women who refused to let a pregnancy deprive them of their fashion sense. Lange used newly developed stretch fabrics to create chic, fitted and stylish maternity clothes. They were nothing like the tent-like and frumpy maternity clothes widely available in department stores.
Buck the Conventional Wisdom
Bucking the conventional wisdom means ignoring those who say “It won’t work” or “It’s never been done that way.” When entrepreneurs overly rely on conventional formulas for success, they’re left with a business that’s, well, conventional.

The most successful entrepreneurs are willing to veer away from established formulas and ways of thinking. If you’ve launched your own business, don’t just blindly accept the so-called best practices of your industry. Look at them with a hyper-critical eye. Dissect them, slice and dice them, contemplate different “what if” scenarios in your mind.

With no capital to speak of — just $700 in cash — John Paul DeJoria, cofounder of hair products giant John Paul Mitchell Systems, bucked the conventional wisdom when he launched the Paul Mitchell line of hair-care products and decided to sell them solely to stylists and salons — never to supermarkets or drug stores. Today, the company boasts more than $900 million in annual salon retail sales.

That unique system of distribution nurtured exceptional customer loyalty. The Paul Mitchell brand not only provided quality hair products for use in salons; it also created a new revenue stream for the stylists. Many of their own customers bought the shampoos and conditioners for use at home.

Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx, bucked conventional wisdom when she approached hosiery mills with the idea of manufacturing footless pantyhose. The product she envisioned was a body-shaping undergarment that would hide panty lines and firm up a woman’s backside so she could wear her favorite slacks and open toe sandals with confidence. Blakely knew there was a market for such a product. But time and again, she was told footless panty hose was simply a bad idea. The mills were accustomed to making hosiery designed to improve the appearance of a woman’s legs. But Blakely was trying to convince them to manufacture a product that was completely hidden under clothes. She got rejection after rejection. It’s a good thing she persevered, though, until she finally found a willing mill in North Carolina. Today, Spanx’s estimated retail sales are in the neighborhood of $350 million.
Spot a New Trend and Pounce
Often, a shift in cultural or economic trends will create new entrepreneurial opportunities. Sometimes that shift arises from advances in technology. Geek Squad founder Robert Stephens was paying attention to such trends when the home PC market exploded. He figured out that most PC owners had limited technical knowledge. If their hard drive crashed, they were thrown into a state of panic. But unplugging their PC and hauling it off to a repair shop, where it would stay for a week or so, wasn’t an attractive option. Stephens spotted the trend, pounced and captured an emerging and underserved niche. Geek Squad made house calls.

When Stephens launched Geek Squad back in 1994, the cash-strapped college student had just $200 to invest in his business. But that same business eventually fetched millions in 2002 when he sold the business to Best Buy.

Andy and Rachel Berliner launched the Amy’s Kitchen brand of organic vegetarian frozen meals because they realized that more and more Americans were trying to eat healthier diets, eschewing processed foods in favor of organic vegetables. Vegetarians themselves, the Berliners were also keenly aware that they’d have no formidable competition. They had personally sampled the frozen vegetarian meals already on the market and they were terrible. The Berliners knew if they used quality ingredients and recipes, their business would thrive. Today, Amy’s Kitchen generates annual revenues of $270 million.

All these entrepreneurs are featured in a new book, The Risk Takers: 16 Women and Men Share Their Entrepreneurial Strategies for Success. The book explores in depth how hugely successful entrepreneurs have applied these three strategies — and seven others — to propel their business to the top of the heap.

For entrepreneurs, it’s often easy to lose sight of long-term goals when you’re preoccupied with day-to-day business operations. But keeping these three strategies in the forefront of your business planning can help keep you on track to take your company to the next level and beyond. Throughout the life of your business, you can channel your creative energies into finding new and fresh ways to apply these principles to create competitive advantage, expand your product line and customer base, and keep your business vital. Just think of them as your three secret weapons.

Don Martin epitomizes the rags-to-riches entrepreneur success story. Raised in poverty in a small town in the Ohio Valley, over the next four decades he founded and built the largest privately held insurance brokerage in California: Cal-Surance. Ranked in the top fifty of insurance brokerages in the U.S., Cal-Surance generated over $200 million in annual revenue.

Renee Martin was a dynamic real estate broker when she switched careers entirely, to work in community service. She became a rape counselor, a court-appointed special advocate for The Children’s Court (CASA), a director of community relations of a child abuse crisis center, and a public relations spokesperson for many community organizations. After publication of the book, she and Don coauthored, The Survival Guide for Women, she became a frequent and popular speaker at women’s seminars across the country.

The Martins also collaborated on TeamThink: Using the Sports Connection to Develop, Motivate, and Manage a Winning Business Team. They live in Palos Verdes, California.

For more information, please visit www.RiskTakersBook.com.

Book Excerpt: The Power of Half: One Family’s Decision to Stop Taking and Start Giving Back by Kevin Salwen and Hannah Salwen

A Book Excerpt Author — Sat, 29 May 2010 13:20:21 +0000

Hannah’s Take: Starting a Family Conversation

Many people tell me they can’t believe how much my family talks about issues. This can be especially shocking for people who often know my silly side. But for my family, dinnertime brings us together during crazy weeks filled with school and sports and work. Even if your family is rarely together during the week because of conflicting schedules, make sure to have meals or time together over the weekend. Then the trick is to find something that every member can have an interest in.

In our family, we look for ways to expand events into discussions. For example, a TV show about a celebrity’s mansion I saw one night led to a conversation about why Americans (including us sometimes) become fascinated with celebrities. A couple of things I saw online gave me plenty to think about and discuss with my family.

If the environment is your thing, try going to www.thestoryofstuff.com and watch Annie Leonard’s video about where the products we consume come from and what that does to the earth.

Regardless of your passion, just try to get the conversation started with someone in your family.

When my family began discussing the deeper issues of the world, my parents started listening when Joe and I spoke. They were open to new ideas, and in these conversations they tried hard to make us all equals. They made an effort not to be bossy and they listened with open minds.

For instance, one night at dinner I brought up a school assembly speaker who had described the genocide in Darfur. My parents didn’t try to educate me immediately on what was going on there; instead, my mom quickly grabbed a story about Darfur that she had seen in the newspaper that morning and read a bit to all of us. Joe threw in what he knew about Darfur, and suddenly we were talking — really talking. I think we stayed at the table at least fifteen minutes longer than usual that night because we felt connected.

Activity

Sometimes it’s really hard to know what will spark a good conversation. Nathan Dungan of Share Save Spend (www.sharesavespend.com), a website that teaches kids about money, has some great ideas in his packet of “Discussion Starter Fun Cards.” Some are better for younger kids, some for older. For example:

How would you feel if you spent half as much on gifts (birthday, holiday, etc.) this year?
If you were to give more money to a charity of your choice, what cause or organization would you pick? Why?
How does immediate gratification get in the way of giving away money?
If you can only give what seems like a little bit of money, why give?
When have you bought something that you didn’t really use or enjoy once you had it?
If you inherited $50,000, what would you do with it?
What is the best thing about sharing?

The above is an excerpt from the book The Power of Half: One Family’s Decision to Stop Taking and Start Giving Back by Kevin and Hannah Salwen. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Copyright © 2010 Kevin and Hannah Salwen, authors of The Power of Half: One Family’s Decision to Stop Taking and Start Giving Back

Warm, funny, deeply moving and wholly uplifting, The Power of Half is the story of how one family slammed the door on the status quo and threw away the key.

For their family project, the Salwen family is investing in the Hunger Project. For more information about that project and how you can create your own, visit www.thepowerofhalf.com.

$1 of each copy sold will be donated to Rebuilding Together, serving America’s low-income home-owners and providing critical repairs at no charge to those with the greatest need. For more information, visit www.rebuildingtogether.com.

Resting the Busy Mind

A Be My Guest Author — Fri, 28 May 2010 12:29:10 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Author of the book Rebel Buddha, which is scheduled for release in November 2010.

Sometimes we’re angry but forget why. We may not be sure of the real reason for our anger, but our gut feeling says our anger is justified and we hold on to it. We start to think of justifications for our anger: the time our friend forgot to call, insulted the family dog, was late for the movies, never picks up checks, and constantly complains. Suddenly, we have lots of reasons to be angry. The list is endless. That cheers us up, and our busy minds are satisfied for a moment.

Whether it’s anger or passion or just our “to do” list, the mind always seems to be actively involved with something. One instant, it runs outward toward something it sees and wants, the next moment, it retreats inward toward some engrossing thought. Then it’s back to our friend and the anger that’s becoming so familiar. Our minds are always busy keeping track of this and that in our inner and outer worlds. It’s like having a job and a family — between the two, there’s hardly any break. One thought leads to another, and that thought leads to a third. At some point, we lose track and can’t remember how we got to where we are. When the mind goes around and around like this, it’s like water that’s stirred up all the time. It never has a chance to settle and become calm and clear. You can even have trouble sleeping because your mind is not at rest.

If you know your mind is busy and full of thoughts, then that’s actually not too bad. But often that’s not the case. Sometimes we’re juggling five or six trains of thought and the emotions attached to them. With so much going on, the mind starts to get agitated and confused. We can’t see clearly how disturbed our minds have become. We also can’t see that there’s no logic to our confusion. Still, we remain very diligent and patient when it comes to holding on to our thoughts. We try to keep them all alive, to keep up the steady stream of thoughts. If the stream starts to slow down or stop, we immediately try to revive it. We even have gadgets to help us hold on to our thoughts — pocket PCs, Palm Pilots, notebooks, iPhones — so we can record anything. It’s all there: your emails, texts, schedules and shopping lists. That’s not always a bad thing, but with all this going on, it’s easy to see how our minds never get any rest.

Our problem is that this busy mind can lose its connection to its real nature. When we take time to look beneath all this activity, we discover a sense of spaciousness and awareness, peace and happiness, that doesn’t change from moment to moment. It’s always there for us. The Buddha taught that this is the actual reality of our minds. To reconnect to that reality, we need to slow down and relax — totally let go and rest our minds. Then there is the possibility of the mind clearing up, calming down, and tuning in to its basic state of peace and happiness.

So how do we rest and relax our minds? There are a number of things that can help. You can nourish and relax your body with a healthful diet and exercise, especially yoga. You can take breaks, go for walks, listen to music, and disconnect for a while from the cyber-, info-, and techno- worlds. But what can help the most is the practice of meditation where you are just watching your thoughts and resting your mind on the coming and going of your breath. This style of meditation is simple, can be practiced anywhere, and has a strong impact on our well being. Once we become comfortable with the basic technique, which is described in many places, we can take a closer look at our thoughts.

The first thing you’ll notice is how many thoughts you have, how they’re always shifting and changing, and how the mind chases after them. The practice is simply to notice when your mind wanders off and bring it back to the present, again and again. The way you come back is by letting go of the thought you’re following. Once you notice it’s there, you don’t hold on to it. Then you’ve cut the momentum of the stream of thoughts instead of encouraging it. There’s a sense of relief when you’re not being dragged around by your thoughts. It doesn’t matter whether the thoughts are positive or negative. If a good thought appears, you don’t need to improve it or rejoice in it; just let it be as it is. If a bad thought pops up, you don’t need to get upset about it or try to block or change it. You can just let it be as it is.

The way to really rest our busy minds in meditation is to let go of all thoughts about our thoughts. We can simply relax as our thoughts come and go. The more relaxed we become, the more we can see the mind’s spacious, wakeful quality, which we’ve been more or less blind to. When we see this, we are seeing what the Buddha called our “enlightened potential,” which everybody has.

What this means is that we can find our own happiness and peace of mind just as we are in this very moment, because it is within us. We don’t have to change our thoughts or change ourselves into someone else. We don’t need to think that who we are, this “me,” is not good enough, smart enough, or lucky enough to be happy. We don’t need to be Mother Theresa, Bill Gates or the people in the Vogue magazine ads to be happy. If we think we do, we don’t have to chase after that thought. We can just let it go like any other, and rest our busy mind.

© 2010 Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche is a widely celebrated teacher known for his skill in making the full richness of Buddhist wisdom accessible to modern minds. A lover of urban culture, Rinpoche enjoys writing poetry and creating art of various kinds in his leisure time. Based in the United States for the past 20 years, he devotes much of his energy to his vision of a genuine American, and Western, Buddhism, free from the cultural trappings that sometimes distort the Buddha’s essential message of wakefulness. Born in 1965 in northeast India, Rinpoche received comprehensive training in the meditative and intellectual disciplines of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism under the guidance of many of the greatest masters from Tibet’s final pre-exile generation. Among the many organizational roles he juggles, he is the founder and principal teacher of Nalandabodhi, an international network of Buddhist practice centers. His latest book is Rebel Buddha (Shambhala Publications) forthcoming in November 2010. For more information please visit Rinpoche on Facebook, Twitter and his Website.

Innovation Gone Too Far? — The Toyota Recall

A Be My Guest Author — Fri, 21 May 2010 12:02:49 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Robert F. Brands with Jeff Zbar. Robert is the Author of Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival.

Once upon a time, to start your Toyota Camry, you placed a key in the ignition and turned until the electrical connection was made and the engine started.

To accelerate, you pressed the gas pedal, which pulled a cable attached to a mechanical throttle. Assuming the shift had been manually placed into gear — the car moved.

Today, electronics and computers have replaced many of the mechanical parts that once made cars move. To start many cars or place them in gear, buttons are pushed. To accelerate, the gas pedal is connected not to a cable, but to a computer — via electronic circuitry.

In light of Toyota’s massive recall of 10 million Camry, Tercel, Prius hybrid and luxury Lexus models (and that’s a shortened list), one has to wonder: At what point does innovation encourage failure?

In other words, has Toyota gone too far? In the interest of fairness, these issues potentially affect any modern automobile. Already, GM is facing recalls related to steering.

The costs — in terms of finances and consumer confidence — can be great. As Toyota mechanics are correcting millions of cars and consumer confidence lags, rival automakers have reported double-digit sales growth.

But the question of innovation for innovation’s sake — or for the sake of “technological evolution” — begs to be asked. Sure, innovation of the vehicle and the way it’s manufactured cuts costs, including labor and benefits. We continually innovate to cost reduce. But now, cars don’t just turn on with the turn of a key. And when they don’t roar to life as expected, the corner mechanic must be trained not only in auto repair, but in computers technology (assuming he or she owns the equipment).

This reminds me of a story. It was the 1970s. Two adventurers once were traveling by pick-up truck in northern Mexico when their vehicle broke down. The local mechanic took a look under the hood, grabbed a coffee can of old parts, and fashioned a fix.

How does this all relate to the innovation imperatives? In Robert’s Rules of Innovation, it mentions two key imperatives that seem to have gone awry here. First, Toyota sought the imperative of value creation in pursuit of innovation. Yet any value created through their innovation-gone-awry is more than lost through the recall and labor costs and lost sales and good will.

Second, who has been held accountable? After first declining to do so, Toyota President Akio Toyoda made a very public appearance on Capitol Hill. He apologized and promised to “do everything in my power” to ensure the malfunctions and tragedies don’t happen again. Do Americans buy it? Can Toyota afford to wait and wonder?

To that end, the complexity of the conundrum facing Toyota at one point was belied by the simplicity of their first apparent fix. After spending days in conference over how to remedy the stuck throttle, high-paid engineers came up with a simple solution: Shorten the gas pedal.

To be sure, in the end, the issues facing the automaker were far more complex than nipping an inch off a too-long pedal. But could the issues have been remedied in the designer’s or accountant’s office years ago — when the company believed innovation would save money?

We — and Toyota — may never know. But we’ve learned that innovation poorly planned can have the greatest expectations, but the worst outcomes.

Stepmother Sisterhood: The Pros and Cons of Online Support

A Be My Guest Author — Tue, 18 May 2010 19:06:02 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Rachelle Katz, Ed.D., LMFT, Author of The Happy Stepmother: Stay Sane, Empower Yourself and Thrive in Your New Family

“Why didn’t someone tell me that I would always be second in line? Why didn’t someone tell me that I would never have my husband completely to myself? Why didn’t someone tell me that I’d feel so alone and alienated from friends and family who just don’t understand my struggles? Why didn’t someone tell me?”
–Tired of it all

“Tired of it all,” a stepmother who posted this comment in an online discussion board, is not alone in her struggles. As a psychotherapist and stepmother, I know from both personal and professional experience the difficulties faced by many stepmothers. We find ourselves depressed and exhausted from doing all of the work, without getting any of the rewards of motherhood. Despite attempts to bond with our stepchildren, we can be rejected and ignored, feeling like outsiders in our own homes even after years of marriage. Some of us must endure incessant phone calls and other intrusions from ex-wives. These and other problems, compounded by unsympathetic attitudes from family members and friends who believe ‘we made our beds, now we must lie in them,’ contribute to many stepmothers feeling angry, overworked and unappreciated.

What are stepmothers to do when our emotional lives tip out of balance? Until recently, psychotherapy has been our only resource. With no (or limited) traditional support groups, dealing with the daily frustrations of stepmotherhood could feel incredibly isolated. Now, thanks to the Internet, no matter where you live, you can find a supportive stepmother community. By participating in online chat rooms or discussion groups, reading blogs and online magazines, listening to podcasts and webinars, we no longer need to rely solely on professional assistance to overcome depression, anxiety, and other negative emotions we may be experiencing; we can receive help from our peers — other stepmothers who understand what we are going through from having been in similar circumstances. According to positive psychology, the single greatest predictor of success during a challenging time isn’t intelligence or past experience but social support.

I stumbled upon the value of the Internet by accident. To gather research for a self-help book I was writing for stepmothers, I began a website, stepsforstepmothers.com that consisted of an online questionnaire for stepmothers to fill out. As a way to thank the women who participated in my study, I added an online chat room as a place for them to brainstorm, release stress, seek advice, and get reality checks from each other. In my wildest dreams I never imagined that my site would be part of a larger movement of stepmothers helping each other!

There are many online chat rooms and discussion groups that have been developed just for stepmothers. Most are free, and ask members to follow three basic rules:

Be respectful of other members.
Maintain confidentiality. What is discussed in the support group is not to be shared with outsiders.
Be Non-Judgmental.

The Pros of Online Chat Rooms

When these basic rules are followed, online chat rooms provide a safe environment where members can explore their feelings, and get valuable feedback and support. It doesn’t matter that members are often separated by thousands of miles. Access to the Internet provides them with instant companionship. For those who might be reserved or shy about discussing their problems in front of strangers, it offers anonymity. While problems may not be solved entirely by talking to a peer, feeling understood by someone walking in your shoes is nonetheless a very powerful experience that can be immeasurably helpful, as this stepmother shared in an online chat room:

“Before finding this site, I thought I was the most horrible person for having the feelings and thoughts I did about being a stepmother. I have gotten a lot of good advice and have applied it to my life which has really started to bring about a positive change. You women have all been a lifesaver to me! I truly believe that if I had not have found this site and received your advice and support, I would not be where I am today in my marriage and in my relationship with my stepdaughter.”
–Looking for Hope in all the Right Places

The Cons of Online Chat Rooms

Most members of support groups try their utmost to respect each other, be non-judgmental, and give constructive advice. Unfortunately, there are occasions when some members who are very embittered by their experiences respond to another member’s question or concern with negativity. Therefore, you must carefully consider if each suggestion you receive is beneficial to your situation before following any advice.

In other cases, some members may complain bitterly about their partners, stepchildren, and ex-wives. While online chat rooms may be the first place where stepmothers feel safe to release negative emotions, this outpouring of emotion is merely the first step to feeling healthier and happier. To release negative feelings with which they are burdened, stepmothers must be willing to take positive actions after expressing their frustrations. Some women, however, remain stuck at the venting stage, and can infect everyone with their toxic energy. When joining any online community, it is always important to monitor the energy of the group; if dissatisfied with one group, try another. Stepmother online chat rooms can be found on websites, Facebook and Yahoo! discussion groups, among other Internet venues.

Remember, online forums are public. Anyone in the world can read what you write including family members or strangers with serious emotional problems. To avoid harassment, when participating in any online forum it is important to protect your identity by choosing online screen names that others will not associate with you. For further protection, it is a good idea to slightly alter personal information, such as the ages and gender of your stepchildren, or the city where you reside. This can prevent predators from violating your personal space.

What to look for in a Good Online Group

The quality of online groups varies greatly, and it is important to select one that will help rather than harm you. In selecting a group, consider these factors:

Make sure the group is active, and has several participants. Groups can be started with the best of intentions but some don’t generate much interest and have few, if any members to keep discussions vibrant and fresh.
Make sure the group is mostly positive in tone. Be careful of members who are angry and negative; their advice is skewed in an unhealthy direction.
Make sure members are truly compassionate and considerate. Sometimes members can hold dogmatic beliefs, and be critical if others disagree with their points of view. Make sure members of the group do not pressure others to conform to their ideas.
Make sure that a sense of community and democracy permeates the group; no one dominates the others in the group.
Make sure the group has no hidden agenda of selling, endorsing, or promoting any products or service other than providing peer support.
Make sure the group meets your needs, and shares your values.

A New Way of Life

We stepmothers now have the technological resources at our finger tips to help each other achieve more balanced, serene lives. With these advances comes a responsibility, to be kind and respectful to everyone with whom we interact in online chat rooms. We must be mindful that all of us are struggling, and that some of us are more fragile and drained than others, and can be easily hurt by a dismissive or disrespectful comment. With this awareness, the Internet gives us the chance to make a powerful difference in each other’s lives.

Consider joining a stepmother support group. Your input will be appreciated by other members, and, perhaps most important, you will be embraced with enthusiasm and compassion by others who know what you are going through. You will receive the guidance and encouragement you need from those who have “been there,” as you embark on your journey toward a life of greater peace and fulfillment.

Online Chat Rooms or Discussion Groups:

Secondwivescafe.com

Stepchick.ning.com

Steptogether.org

Childlessstepmoms.org

Stepmomsonamission.org

Stepsforstepmothers.com

© 2010 Rachelle Katz, Ed.D., LMFT, author of The Happy Stepmother: Stay Sane, Empower Yourself and Thrive in Your New Family
Rachelle Katz, Ed.D, LMFT, writes from a place of both personal experience — she’s been a stepmother for nineteen years — and professional expertise. A psychotherapist with twenty-five years of experience in private practice, since 2004 she has empowered thousands of women through her Web site, www.stepsforstepmothers.com.

A Dog’s Inspiration to a Writer and the World: How the Life and Death of a Golden Retriever Might Save Us From Ourselves

A Be My Guest Author — Tue, 18 May 2010 18:12:08 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Michael Cogdill, Author of She-Rain: A Story of Hope.

On the morning of May 29, 2008, I lifted Savannah from her bed, carried her to the car, and made the longest seven-mile drive of my life. At the office of a veterinarian, welcomed by that profession’s unique form of love, I soon lay on a cushioned floor beside a golden retriever who showed virtually none of her age, watching both my hands stroke the face that had welcomed me home for thirteen years.

The answer to a yearning awaited us that morning. It was part of the quiet covenant I made with Savannah the day my wife, Jill, and I adopted her. When a sweet dog’s bloodline comes in confluence with our own, we human animals take on a sacred devotion. As sickness comes on hard and takes down the joy of living, caring dog owners are committed to shouldering our beloved family member to a merciful death. On the floor that morning, I answered Savannah’s courageous outreach for that death, allowing her to carry me. The peace that arrived in her final breath lifted the tide of my heartbreak. As I nearly drowned in sadness, Savannah showed me to the shore of a graceful goodbye.

Later that day, a prominent friend in Hollywood, fresh from the same grief in his own family, shared with us some comfort, but also a spiritual yearning of his own: Why would God measure the lifetime of dogs, and other animals we love, by a virtual hourglass when we live by a calendar? Why so little time on earth for those so good and loyal? It seems a cruelty.

After these months of healing, and the reporting of countless human tragedies on television, I’ve arrived at a conclusion: Savannah’s too-short life, like that of all sweet dogs, calls us to a fine urgency dogs get after big living. They seem illiterate of worry, yet able to read joys that elude us. They quietly shout to us: Wag your backside to music instead of your tongue to malice. Wallow less in pity and more on the bed of the one you adore. Give yourself, extravagantly, away.

I still fail her, of course. I live too much in my worries and sorrows and too little on the joy path she wore for me. Yet in these times of media-saturated human disaster, a thought of Savannah improves me as a man, recalls me to life as a writer. Her memory sets off some musing about the hope found in the life and death of a good dog. See if these truths make the news of your times easier to bear:

Savannah feared nothing about death. She went to it with eyes full of gratitude for the way her life had been. Her eyes seemed to draw from some deep well of love, way beyond the crust of words. Even in her final hour, sick as she was, she lived as a divining rod to this love. No matter how I tried to comfort her, she served me – right to her last moment. The kidney failure that was stalling her life was no match for the servant’s heart within her.

The high pitch of biased media, politics, and the vitriol of social debate held no allure for Savannah. She made grace her way of life. She ran from loud voices and bounded to gentility wherever she found it. We could trust her to be tender, even with the smallest child. Savannah taught me there’s nothing so powerful in this life as a truly gentle woman or man.

There is no vanity in such dogs. They split mud holes, then track adoration across the floors of the humans who forgive them. They surely wonder why we care so much for things and so little for helping one another have simple wellness and fun. Savannah never cared for the size of my car. She simply loved the ride. She measured none of my money in how she valued me. In times of my sorrow, she made certain to place her head under my hand, letting me read a sense of all-will-be-more-than-well in its Braille.

With the too-often forgotten elderly in a nursing home, Savannah visited with no consciousness of herself. The sights and smells that repulse too many humans never seem to repel a good dog. Something innate about Savannah longed to care for everyone. She never appraised anyone by their politics, religion, or race. No human bloodline or job pedigree held any sway. Savannah treated the ignorant as kings and the malicious as queens. Even avowed dog haters valued what they found in her, and she loved them without pause.

Such a dog will forgive to the point of endangering itself. Some may argue enough hatefulness will turn any dog, even the most generous and kind. Perhaps this forms a caveat to us as well. Maybe good dogs teach us we will eventually draw back what we put into the world. Or is it that forgiveness becomes a form of capital we spend to the great shock of our enemies, an investment from which we draw the interest of turning enemies into friends? After every trip to the vet, on the heels of cavity exams every sane creature loathes, Savannah forgave Jill and me. We never had to ask.

In the afterglow of thinking of her, I adore considering how living so might change humankind. What might the news look like if everyone were so devotedly kind to everyone else? My job — as a writer of news and fiction — would so beautifully change.

Within an hour after putting her into that permanent sleep, I sat weeping at our kitchen table and wrote an open letter to Savannah. It let my grief out to run, with the memory of her a comfort at my knee. I leave you with a passage of it here, and a wish that the news of our future days will improve, changed in some small way by the legacy of Savannah.

“You tracked to the child who lives in me always. In this man you found a boy who loves you, sweet girl. Even in death, somehow you will always lead the boy in me home. I will follow your trail. And together, in the grand wet and muddy fun places of memory, we will be glad.”

Michael Cogdill is blessed as one of the most honored television storytellers in America. His cache of awards includes 24 Emmys and the National Edward R. Murrow for a broad range of achievement, from live reporting to long-form storytelling. His television credits as a journalist include CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, and The Today Show, and Michael’s interview history crosses a wide horizon: The Reverend Billy Graham, Dr. Mehmet Oz of Oprah fame, Dr. Henry Kissinger, Abby Hoffman, Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator John McCain, Howard K. Smith, James Brown, Keith Lockhart of the Boston Pops and many other newsmakers. His coverage credits include Presidents and Vice Presidents of the United States.

Michael spent ten years writing She-Rain, letting it evolve into a world of fiction drawn from his upbringing in Western North Carolina but reaching far beyond. His other writing credits are Cracker the Crab and the Sideways Afternoon – a children’s motivational book, and a self-help volume, Raise the Haze. Michael makes his home in South Carolina with his wife, Jill (a publishing entrepreneur), and their second-generation golden retriever, Maggie. He’s currently working on his second novel.

For more information, please visit http://she-rain.blogspot.com.

How an Agent or Publisher Evaluates a Manuscript

Robert L. Bacon — Thu, 06 May 2010 17:47:34 +0000

I contacted Kay Elizabeth recently about several issues, one of which was my desire to provide an article with exclusive content for The Cuckleburr Times, and another was to make a formal offer to her readers via my editorial service, The Perfect Write®, of a free first-chapter (up to 5000 words) manuscript critique, along with a line edit of the first three pages (if applicable). Should this interest anyone, I’ll explain where to send your material at the end of this article.

I asked Kay for suggestions on a topic. She mentioned that–once authors submit material–the ensuing wait during the evaluation process can often be almost too much to bear, and writers might appreciate learning what agents and publishers consider when making a determination whether or not to accept a manuscript. I thought this was a great subject to write about, and I hope the information that follows will be of some benefit.

While there are Many Vagaries in the Publishing Industry, Certain Writing Elements are Scrutinized in Similar Ways

We all are aware of the standard disclaimer that accompanies any rejection. It states that this was the agent or publisher’s opinion and should be regarded as highly subjective. And while this is 100% true, there are certain areas that are not speculative, and these encompass the physical appearance of the text, proper grammar, prudent use of punctuation, fluency of the prose, and the perceived viability of the project from a marketing perspective. Here is an explanation of each element in the order I listed, but the chronology should not be construed as indicative of the level of importance of each.

Appearance

Yes, this counts. And in a big way. Every agent or publisher or editor I know demands double-spaced material. Most also prefer two spaces after a period (and colon). In addition to being easier on the eyes, double line-spacing enables room for annotations, while also providing the needed area to make revisions. On a peripheral subject, I prefer reading text on the printed page, and I also initially edit a manuscript by manually making changes to the hard copy. This means that I routinely print out the drafts that are E-mailed to me, and I can assure everyone that I’m not alone with respect to how I work.

Now a word about the double space after a period, which seems to confuse many people. The reason for this is the same as the double line-space, since it enables more white space to facilitate a revision should this involve punctuation or moving a clause from one location to another. What seems to make the double space at the end of a period hard for many to accept is because of the way finished material is printed. Final copy is not treated in the same manner as submission material. A book always has justified margins, for example, yet no one should ever submit a draft laid out this way, since added spaces after words indicate a typing error.

There are numerous other issues regarding manuscript submission appearance, and you can click this link if you’d like to read a detailed article I wrote on effective manuscript formatting. The final issue I want to cover in this subsection involves page numbering. It’s a must! Yet I cannot tell you how many drafts I receive that are unnumbered. If anyone should ignore everything I’ve written in this article about how a text should appear, or what I cover in the full article on manuscript formatting, please pay attention to the way to lay out a template in the top-left corner of a manuscript.

Grammar

Someone asked me recently how much material I need to read to determine if a person can write. Believe it or not, sometimes it only requires a sentence or two. I read this line recently: The arm was tortuously bent and in great pain. First, the writer meant to use the word torturously, since a meaning for tortuously is bent, and the tautology of bent “bent” is certainly not what the author had intended. Second, an arm itself cannot be in great pain. It’s the person who is in pain. But even if I’m nitpicking and an arm can in fact be torturously bent, this was followed by telling me again in the same short sentence that the arm was in great pain. A short while ago I had a writer thank me for expediently getting to his material. He meant expeditiously, as in quickly, or at least I hope he did, since expediently means to reach an end result by whatever means necessary.

In taking a look at a draft, every agent, publisher or editor knows that no matter how careful a writer might be, mistakes occur. So I’m not ragging on a typo, which everyone makes, and we all get so close to our work that even the most obvious rudimentary error can often elude us. Yet all of these issues become mute when it comes to the use of the wrong words, improperly modified antecedents, dangling or misplaced participles, sentence fragments, repetition, and choppy prose. And these are just some of the bugbears that can cause a manuscript to be rejected.

Punctuation

Readability should be job number one for any writer. And nothing can inhibit fluent prose more acutely than the overuse of various punctuation elements. For me, in fiction writing there are three basic troublemakers: the exclamation point, the parentheses, and the semi-colon.

Exclamation points should be used sparingly, very sparingly. Click this link for an article I wrote on exclamation points. And click this link for an article I wrote on why a parentheses should never be used in fiction. Semi-colons are a wonderful tool, but for mainstream fiction they too should be kept to a minimum. They tend to slow the pace, since the reader inherently has to consider the reason the semi-colon was inserted in the text. What I just wrote may make no sense, but read a sentence with a semi-colon and then ask yourself if it didn’t stop you to consider why it was utilized.

Simply stated, if an agent or publisher notices an abundance of exclamation points, semi-colons, or the use of a parentheses, this can signal a draft’s early grave.

Fluency of the Prose

I facilitate writer’s workshops sponsored by the local library system in the county in South Florida where I reside. And in my series overview I state that the purpose of my programs is to provide an understanding of what is required to write fluent prose at a level which would be appealing to a major royalty publisher.

The smoothness of a narrative is paramount if an agent or publisher is going to accept material. Should a draft read rough, it’s going to be put down, and the odds of it being resurrected are comparable with the numbers for getting hit by a meteorite.

The timeworn adage of reading material out loud is still the best way I know to determine the fluency of what we write. And to take this one step further, if a writer can get someone else to read a draft out loud the first time that person has seen the material, this is a fantastic way to get a true feeling for the fluency of the text. When the reader stumbles (and he or she will), make note of the problem areas–and revise them!

Viability of the Project

Here is perhaps the most difficult pill for any writer to swallow. A friend of mine who was published by a major imprint some years ago had a recent manuscript rejected because it was felt that it would be just another midlist work. Every publisher wants one thing: the next big book. For an author with an established readership that guarantees bankable numbers, this is not an issue, but for a previously unpublished writer, or someone like my friend who had been out of the mainstream for a while, this thinking presents serious problems.

Many other issues can affect a publisher’s decision, among them that one author’s plot might be too close to something recently published by the same house. Or the genre is not quite right. You can click this link for an article of mine that provides a detailed explanation on how important genre is to publishing decisions. In another critical area of contention, the publisher could feel that a book is just not a good platform, which means there might not be enough of a perceived market for a specific plot line. I can think of nothing more frustrating than writing a perfectly good story and having it rejected for any of the reasons I just cited, but these are factual examples of why some very fine manuscripts never make it into print.

There are Other Issues

This article is by no means inclusive of everything agents, publishers, and editors look at when evaluating a manuscript. All of the issues would result in a tome. And there are scores of books in print that discuss in much greater detail the various aspects of what I’ve truly just touched on. Two elements I didn’t cover in this piece were dialogue and dialogue punctuation. It would’ve made this article twice the size of what it is now.

But let me just mention that some publishers go right to the dialogue before reading the first line of exposition. If it’s good, they read on; if not, the draft is put down. And I get a lot of material with improperly punctuated dialogue. For a general overview of dialogue, a very good treatment can be found in the dialogue section of SELF-EDITING FOR FICTION WRITERS, by Browne and King (I strongly suggest reading the “Easy Beats” subsection twice). And even though it’s a load in more ways than its sheer bulk, THE CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE is in my opinion the quintessential resource as a medium for illustrating how to punctuate dialogue.

Free Opening Chapter Critique and Three-Page Line Edit

As I stated in the opening, The Perfect Write® is expanding its service to authors by providing a free critique of a manuscript’s opening chapter (up to 5000 words) and, if applicable, a free line-edit of the first three pages. The material should be double spaced, with the pages numbered, and everything must be pasted to the body of an E-mail (no attachments will be opened) and sent to theperfectwrite@aol.com.

I’ll let each of you know about lead time when I see how much material I receive and where your material fits in the queue. I do all the work myself and I thankfully have a backlog of paying clients, so I ask that everyone be a little patient. I will get to you.

Also, if anyone would like to receive my free Newsletter from The Perfect Write® that focuses on writing prose at a publishable level, it is sent every-other-Tuesday, and you can subscribe by clicking this link, which will take you to the home page of my web site at theperfectwrite.com. Just scroll to the bottom of the page and fill out the simple two-step sign-up form. You will be sent an opt-in link, and when you click it, or paste it to your address bar and click enter, this completes the process.

Article by Robert L. Bacon.

Finding Your Buffalo

A Be My Guest Author — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 05:22:33 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, author of the book Rebel Buddha, which is scheduled for release in November 2010.

There is a story about a farmer who owns a buffalo. Not knowing that the buffalo is in its stable, the farmer goes off to search for it, thinking it has strayed from home. Starting off on his search, he sees many different buffalo footprints outside his yard. The footprints of buffalo are everywhere! The farmer then thinks, “Which way did my buffalo go?” He decides to follow one set of tracks and they lead him up into the high mountains, but he doesn’t find his buffalo there. Then he follows another set of footprints that lead way down to the ocean.

However, when he reaches the ocean, he still doesn’t find his buffalo. His buffalo is not in the mountains or at the beach. Why? Because it is back home in the stable in his yard.

Like the farmer, we search for happiness and peace of mind outside ourselves. We search for freedom from our troubles high up in the mountains, at pristine, beautiful beaches, and in the serenity of retreat settings. In all of these places, there are footprints everywhere, signs of like-minded seekers searching for happiness and a more enlightened existence. In the end, you might find traces of the contentment and illumination they realized. What you will not find, however, is the one thing you are looking for — your own happiness, peace of mind, and enlightened nature. You may find someone else’s version of it, but it is not the same as finding your own.

No matter how much you may admire and long for the happiness and freedom of mind you perceive in someone else, whether it’s a great spiritual master, a bestselling self-help guru, or a true, modern-day hero or heroine, finding your own wakefulness, your own enlightenment within, is much different. It is like finding your own buffalo. Your buffalo recognizes you and you recognize your buffalo. The moment you meet your own buffalo is a very emotional and joyful moment.

In order to make our own discoveries, we have to start right here where we are. We have to search inwardly rather than outwardly. From the Buddhist point of view, ultimate happiness — the state of freedom, or enlightenment — is within our minds and has been from beginningless time. Like our buffalo comfortably resting in its stable, ultimate happiness has never left us, although we have developed the idea that it has left home. We think it is somewhere outside and we have to find it. With so many footprints leading in different directions, so many possibilities for where it could be, we may start to imagine things. We could think that it was stolen by a neighbor and is gone forever. We start to have all kinds of misconceptions and mistaken beliefs.

From the Buddhist point of view, there is nothing within our ordinary life that we need to reject or leave behind, and the state of enlightenment is not a place we go to from here. It is not a place that is found outside of where we are right now. If you wanted to find a perfect get-away from all your stress and unhappiness, where and how far would you go? To the other side of the world, to the International Space Station, or just the nearest bar? Your body would be somewhere else, but still, you would be taking your stressed, unhappy mind with you. What we are actually trying to leave behind is the mind’s confusion, which keeps us from being happy. It is how our minds function when we are in those mountains, at the beach, at work or at home, that determines whether we are happy or unhappy, awake in our life or sleeping through it.

According to the Buddha, the actual point of all our efforts on the spiritual path is simply to return to the state of complete wakefulness, which is the true nature of our minds. Our minds are brilliantly clear and aware naturally, but that brilliant wakefulness is hidden from our view by clouds of confusion. These clouds are caused primarily by the turbulence of our thoughts and emotions. There is so much commotion going on in our minds that our view of who we are and what the world is like is distorted.

If that’s the case, then how can we recognize the wakeful nature of our minds? The Buddha taught many methods of meditation, which bring stability, peace, and clarity to our agitated minds. Through the practice of meditation, we begin to relax; we feel like we’re waking up and coming to our senses. It’s a very ordinary, but profound, experience that deepens over time and transforms our view of life. When we start to work with our mind in meditation, there’s a sense of effort, but as we go along, it becomes more effortless. A good example of this is a bird taking off from the ground. When the bird wants to fly, it first has to run a little bit and then push down against the ground, so it can leap up into the space of the sky.

So long as we are looking outside of ourselves, there is no place to go, no end of the road, where we will one day find perfect happiness. Ultimately, the awake and peaceful mind that we are looking for is with us right now, in this very moment. We don’t have to pack our bags or follow someone else’s trail to discover the true nature of our mind — the buddha within us. That buddha is always within our reach.

Do you see it? Where are you looking for your buffalo?

© 2010 Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche is a widely celebrated teacher known for his skill in making the full richness of Buddhist wisdom accessible to modern minds. A lover of urban culture, Rinpoche enjoys writing poetry and creating art of various kinds in his leisure time. Based in the United States for the past 20 years, he devotes much of his energy to his vision of a genuine American, and Western, Buddhism, free from the cultural trappings that sometimes distort the Buddha’s essential message of wakefulness. Born in 1965 in northeast India, Rinpoche received comprehensive training in the meditative and intellectual disciplines of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism under the guidance of many of the greatest masters from Tibet’s final pre-exile generation. Among the many organizational roles he juggles, he is the founder and principal teacher of Nalandabodhi, an international network of Buddhist practice centers. His latest book is Rebel Buddha (Shambhala Publications) forthcoming in November 2010. For more information please visit Rinpoche on Facebook, Twitter and his Website.

What Really Happens When You Land a Book Deal: Publishing Myths and Realities You Need to Know

A Guest Article Writer — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:34:15 +0000

For many aspiring authors, the prospect of landing a book deal sounds like the ultimate ticket to success. And while a contract with a major press can come with some perks, there can be some unexpected surprises along the way. Here’s what you need to know to get into the game with your eyes wide open.

Myth: Once you hand over your manuscript, your book will be on bookstore shelves right away. Patience is essential when working with a traditional publisher. It takes most major publishers about a year to complete your book and put it into distribution. With the amount of red tape they have going on, the process takes much longer than most realize. Just don’t expect to see your book on shelves within a few months, as this is highly unlikely unless your book is rushed to market under special circumstances.

Myth: Your book will be produced exactly as written. Each publisher has different editorial processes, guidelines and goals. Your developmental editor may want to rework sections of your book or ask you to add or even remove content. Though you will be involved in the editing process and asked to turn it all around quickly, you may or may not like the proposed changes and you may or may not have a voice in the ultimate outcome. Some book deals end up getting cancelled during the editing process when the author and publisher fail to agree on changes.

Myth: You will have input on the cover design. Cover design is an area where you will probably have little input. The publisher will design something and may send it to you for review, but requests for changes are not likely to be met. This is a point in the process when you may have to accept that your work is no longer exclusively yours.

Myth: Your book must be finished before you pitch it to a publisher. This is actually true for fiction books—publishers want to see the whole story before a deal is made. But nonfiction books are an exception. During the pitch process, most publishers want to see an outline and two or three sample chapters. If they like your work and offer you a book deal, you can actually negotiate the remaining time needed to complete your manuscript.

Myth: Big Press = Big Marketing. Don’t expect much marketing at all since most publishers don’t have big marketing budgets. The bulk of responsibility almost always falls on the author. You might appear in the publisher’s catalog, in a press release, and may get featured at a trade show, but don’t count on them landing you an appearance alongside Matt Lauer. Those efforts are reserved for established, big-name authors. Smaller publishers may actually work a little harder to assist with marketing since they have more riding on the success of each title, but as a rule, authors should set expectations very low.

Myth: Once you land a book deal, your author career is set for life. Just because you sign a deal with a publisher, there are no guarantees that they will want your next book, even though your contract will likely stipulate that they get first right of refusal on your next book. Your first book must perform exceptionally well before the next book will be considered for publication.

Keep in mind that you may not want to publish another book with that same publisher. There are many reasons why you might want to move on—creative differences, other publishers that are a better fit for your genre of writing, or you may decide to pursue self-publishing opportunities. This can be a catch-22 as you must give your current publisher the chance to evaluate your next book idea before you can be released from your contract. (Hint: if you want out, pick an idea you know they won’t want!)

Myth: Authors make tons of money. The vast majority of authors will tell you that there is not a lot of money to be found in a traditional book deal. Sure you get an advance check, which on average comes in around $5,000 to $10,000, unless you are a celebrity. Then you have to earn that back before you will see another dime.

Perhaps most surprising is what authors earn in royalties from book sales. You can expect to make around $1 to $2 per book sold and with numbers like this, you’ve got to sell a lot of books to generate a substantial royalty check. To make matters worse, most publishers only pay authors twice per year, so don’t expect to see your monthly income increase because of your book. Some authors create other revenue opportunities around their books from things like speaking (which can command $2,000 to $10,000 fees), consulting and related information products.

Myth: You can purchase your own books at cost. As surprising as this may seem, your contract with a publisher will probably allow you to buy your own books at just 40% to 50% off of the cover price. So if you have a book that sells for $20, you will be lucky to buy your copies for $10 each. Since the publisher’s cost is likely far less than $10, they are still generating a significant profit from your orders. This is a point that can be negotiated so remember to ask for a deeper discount when you receive your contract offer!

Myth: If you self-publish, you kill your chances of landing a book deal. If you self-publish a book and achieve some success by selling 1,000 copies or more, you can actually improve your chances of landing a traditional book deal. Publishers want authors to come to the table with a ready made “platform.” This means that they want to know that you have an audience. Selling a significant number of books proves that you have that audience and raises your appeal. Just ask Christopher Paolini, the teenage boy who wrote and self-published “Eragon,” or Richard Paul Evans who wrote “The Christmas Box.” Their self-publishing success stories landed them multi-million dollar book deals.

I know several authors who have been approached by major presses, which can demonstrate an interesting shift in power. In one case, an author who publishes instructional books for a specific trade quickly turned down a rather substantial offer. He simply makes too much money on his books to give his margin away. He also didn’t want to give up control since he has built his own distribution channels so that his books are devoured by his target market. The publisher didn’t relent and instead returned with an even bigger offer. He turned that one down too.

There is still much to celebrate about receiving an offer for a book deal with a traditional publisher. The added credibility can bring plenty of opportunities with the media, speaking, consulting and much more. But it is important to know what you’re getting into before you venture forward so that you can navigate the waters like a pro.

About The Author

Stephanie Chandler is an author of several books including “The Author’s Guide to Building an Online Platform” and “From Entrepreneur to Infopreneur: Make Money with Books, eBooks and Information Products.” She is also the host of http://NonfictionWritersConference.com , the only virtual writers’ conference for nonfiction authors. For author and speaker details visit http://StephanieChandler.com

All Roads Lead to Rome — Even on Valentine’s Day!

A Be My Guest Author — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:49:48 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, Author of Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy: A Feast of 175 Regional Recipes

This year, Valentine’s Day falls on a Sunday, and I’ll be celebrating it with my kids and grandkids “Roman style”. After all, St. Valentine’s origins are actually considered Roman, although many of us look for romantic dishes like lobster, oysters and chocolate covered strawberries. I say keep the holiday simple, wholesome and still full of love with one or two delicious pasta dishes that can be put on the table in literally twenty minutes. That way, there’s more time for lots of hugs following dinner!

Regardless of whether you decide to treat your spouse, loved one, or the entire family to these dishes, Valentine’s Day does need a little chocolate to top off the meal. And at my house, I’ll be serving my traditional chocolate crepes, served with a little fresh whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. Now THAT’S AMORE!

LINGUINE ALLA CARBONARA
From Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen, published by Alfred A. Knopf

Makes 6 servings

Salt
6 ounces slab bacon, in one piece
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 large yellow onions, sliced ½-inch (about 3 cups)
1 ½ cups hot Chicken Stock or canned reduced-sodium chicken broth, or as needed
1 pound linguine
3 egg yolks
Coarsely ground black pepper

Bring 6 quarts of salted water to the boil in an 8-quart pot over high heat.

Remove the rind, if necessary from the bacon. Cut the bacon into ¼ inch slices, then cut the slices crosswise into ¼ inch strips. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the bacon and cook, stirring, until the bacon is lightly browned, but still soft in the center, about 6 minutes.

The amount of fat in the skillet will vary depending on the bacon. If there is more than 3 to 4 tablespoons of fat in the pan, pour off the excess. If there is less than 3 to 4 tablespoons, add enough olive oil to measure that amount. Add the onions and cook until wilted, but still crunchy, about 4 to 5 minutes. Add the stock, bring to a boil and adjust the heat to a lively simmer. Cook until the liquid is reduced by about half.

Meanwhile, stir the linguine into the boiling salted water. Return to a boil, stirring frequently. Cook the pasta, semi-covered, stirring occasionally, until done, about 8 minutes.

Ladle off about a cup of the pasta cooking water. If the skillet is large enough to accommodate the sauce and pasta, fish the pasta out of the boiling water with a large wire skimmer and drop it directly into sauce in the skillet. If not, drain the pasta, return it to the pot and pour in the sauce. Bring the sauce and pasta to a boil, stirring to coat the pasta with sauce. Check the seasoning, adding salt if necessary. If necessary, add as much chicken stock or pasta cooking water as needed to make enough sauce to generously coat the pasta. Remove the pan from the heat and add the egg yolks one at a time, tossing well after each. (A salad fork and spoon work well for this.) Add the grated cheese, then the black pepper, tossing well and serve immediately in warmed bowls.

CREPES WITH CHOCOLATE AND WALNUTS
Palacinke
From Lidia’s Italy, published by Alfred A. Knopf

Makes a dozen palacinke, serving 6 or more

For the palacinke:

2 eggs
2 cups water
1 tablespoon dark rum
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons sugar
⅓ teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
8 tablespoons melted butter or more
Finely grated zest of 2 lemons

For serving:

10 ounces excellent bittersweet or semisweet chocolate (12 ounces, or more, for extreme chocolate lovers)
1 ½ cups walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped
1 cup heavy cream, chilled (plus sugar to taste)

Recommended equipment:

A small ladle (⅓ cup volume or slightly larger)
A 7-inch crepe pan or a non-stick skillet, 7-inches wide on the bottom

To make the palacinke batter, whisk together the eggs, water, rum, vanilla, sugar and salt in a large bowl, until well blended. Sift the flour on top, a bit at a time, whisking each addition until smooth. Drizzle in 4 tablespoons of the melted butter, whisking until the batter has slightly thickened, with the consistency of melted ice cream. Finally, whisk in the lemon zest. Put the remaining 4 tablespoons of melted butter in a small cup and keep it warm.

Break or chop the chocolate into small pieces and put them a bowl set in a pan of hot (not boiling) water. When the chocolate begins to melt, stir until completely smooth and keep it warm, in the water, off the heat.

Set the crepe pan or skillet over moderate-high heat until quite hot. Pour in a couple tablespoons of butter, quickly swirl it all over the pan bottom, then pour excess butter back into the cup, leaving the bottom lightly coated with sizzling butter. (If the butter doesn’t sizzle, heat the pan longer before adding the batter). Immediately ladle in a scant ⅓ cup of batter, tilt and swirl so it coats the bottom, and set the pan on the burner.

Lower the heat to medium and cook the palacinka for a little less than a minute, until the underside is lightly browned in a lacy pattern. Flip it over with a spatula and fry for a half minute or longer, until the second side is lightly browned, then remove it to a warm platter. Heat the empty pan briefly, then rapidly coat it with butter, fill it with batter and cook another palacinka. Repeat the sequence, stacking up the finished palacinke on the platter, until all the batter is used up.

Fill and serve the palacinke as soon as possible, while fresh and warm. Keep the platter in a warm spot and cover the stack with a tent of foil or a large bowl turned upside down. Whip the heavy cream, unsweetened or with sugar to taste, to soft peaks. Stir the melted chocolate and reheat it if necessary so it is smooth and warm.

Take one palacinka off the stack and place it with its lacy-patterned side down. Spoon a generous tablespoon (or more) warm chocolate in the center of the pancake and spread it over the palacinka, leaving an inch wide border uncoated. Scatter a spoonful of chopped walnuts on the chocolate layer then fold the round in half, hiding the fillings, and fold again into a plump quarter-round.

Fill and fold all the palacinke the same way. For each serving, place two rounds, overlapping, on a dessert plate, heap some cream on top, scatter some nuts on top of the cream and drizzle warm chocolate in streaks and squiggles over the palacinke and the plate.

Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, coauthor of Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy: A Feast of 175 Regional Recipe, is the author of five previous books, four of them accompanied by nationally syndicated public television series. She is the owner of the New York City restaurant Felidia (among others), and she lectures on and demonstrates Italian cooking throughout the country. She lives on Long Island, and can be reached at her Web site, www.LidiasItaly.com

Book Excerpt: Broken Whole by Keith Adams

A Book Excerpt Author — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:04:16 +0000

I have always been strongly compelled to organize, categorize and understand every piece of information in my life. Now, as I felt my mind expanding infinitely in all directions the flood of ideas through my brain was becoming almost impossible to handle. I was, for the moment, still able to control it, but I was close to being overmastered. The hardest thing was to figure out simple priorities against the raging background of my thoughts. And now the pressure was vastly increased by the screamingly high priority of not worrying my partner, Ben. He’d called me, out-of-the-blue, almost in tears because I was late for our meeting with our couple’s counselor, and I’d immediately set off to try to get across to West Hollywood.

At all costs, I thought, I had to protect him from worry. For weeks, I’d known that my increasingly confident and ambitious demeanor had made Ben anxious. I knew he thought that I was becoming slightly manic, so I’d gotten into the habit of concealing things from him: I didn’t want his worry to restrain me from achieving my goals. Ben’s last boyfriend had had episodes of intense mania as well, so this only increased my desire to hide from him all signs of any behavior that he might wrongly interpret as manic.

For the moment, I could still wrestle my thoughts to a stand-still long enough to remind myself, every other minute, that it wasn’t life-or-death. If I missed the meeting with our counselor, Ben would be upset; very upset: but we’d get through it.

At the Renaissance Hotel on Highland, I tried to get a taxi, but the hotel staff ignored me. I became briefly and savagely furious with them until, once again, I managed to recall that my sense of urgency was self-imposed. But that thread of rational thought kept disappearing in the vastness; I couldn’t hold onto it for more than a few seconds at a time. Each time it slipped my grasp, my focus would return to the urgency of protecting Ben at all costs.

I wasn’t scared about myself, however, until I rounded the corner onto Hollywood Boulevard. And then I felt, just for a second, that it might be possible to drown in the deluge of my own thoughts.

I tried again to hail a cab. It was rush-hour; traffic barely moved, and all the cabs were full. I was, by now, almost panicking with the urgency of saving Ben. It had finally become impossible for me to have a rational perspective; I really was drowning.

I redoubled my pace, crossing through traffic to catch a cab in the other direction, anything. Once more I momentarily recalled the lack of real urgency, but only briefly, before crashing back, with increased violence, into a skewed sense that making the meeting with Ben and our couple’s counselor was life-or-death.

I steeled myself: ‘Calm down, there’s no rush.’ A second later, I looked at the time, and started to run. The clash of priorities began to feel like a pile driver in my head; then a constant thunder. I ripped my expensive watch – a sexy, masculine watch with a wide leather strap that Ben had given me – off my wrist, and threw it, along with my cell-phone, into a parking lot, hoping that if I could no longer tell the time, the raging confusion would cease. But it only got worse.

Dimly through the clattering chaos, I momentarily heard a shining clear note: instead of worrying about Ben, I should take care of myself. This was my own crisis now, not Ben’s: I was falling headlong into the void, and had to save myself. Moreover in saving myself, I’d save Ben too. If I lost my mind, Ben would shed far more than the few tears he’d cry at my missing our counseling appointment. It seems so obvious now; but that’s a symptom of mania: that you can get so consumed by something that it makes you blind to all other priorities. In this case I was so driven to protect Ben that I was quite literally driving myself insane.

That gleaming note I’d felt moments earlier disappeared again in the gathering murk; I felt my sanity slipping away; I knew I needed to medicate myself immediately, either with drugs or alcohol. I pitched into a Mexican restaurant.

‘I need a drink,’ I grated out to the petite hostess, who looked at me worriedly, taking in the contrast between my wannabe-superstar appearance – six-foot-six, hair spiked with blond highlights, dressed in a tight-fitting, black open-necked Miu-Miu shirt – and the desperation presumably written on my features.

‘You’ll have to wait for a table.’

‘You don’t understand, this is an emergency,’ I shouted.

She looked at me as if I were an alien, and then shrugged. I strode into the bar, grabbed a bottle of tequila, and walked out, ignoring the bartender’s flailing arms and angry shouts.

I was on Sunset Boulevard by now, just east of La Brea. I drank about a fifth of the bottle: it tasted foul. Vodka is my drink, I thought randomly. My mind was still falling into chaos; the alcohol wasn’t working.

I went into a 7-Eleven, where the cashier looked up at me, startled, seeing the open bottle of tequila in my hands, not exactly looking like a typical wino.

‘Call 911!’ I said, urgently.

The cashier barely even made eye-contact with me before switching back to his customer. I couldn’t understand why nobody could see my pain. I was running into intense alienation wherever I turned.

I shouted at him, ‘Call an ambulance, now!’

‘Get lost!’ he told me.

I was amazed that he didn’t seem the least bit scared of me. I slammed my fist onto the counter, and poured the bottle of tequila all over it.

‘Now will you call the police?’ I needed help, any kind of help. I knew I needed to be restrained and medicated.

A young gay customer yelled at the cashier, ‘Call 911!’ The kid led me outside.

‘Here, I’ll call them,’ he said, soothingly.

I tried to sit down, but I couldn’t keep still. He couldn’t get through to 911; he was on hold for ten agonizing minutes; I couldn’t wait. I crossed the street through moving traffic, and entered the strip-mall on the corner, which contained a Starbucks, nail salons, and some jewelry stores. I thought the police would come eventually, and I was concerned now that they’d think me dangerous, that bullets might fly.

The tequila was finally slowing down my thoughts. Somehow, I suddenly instinctively knew the worst of the crisis was passed; I’d saved myself. But there were still the consequences of my actions to deal with, and I was still far from being myself. I heard sirens, so I went into one of the salons to sit peaceably, my hands clearly visible so the police could see I wasn’t armed (although it’s not clear why I thought there was the possibility of a shoot-out). I was completely exhausted and intolerably thirsty. The tall Asian transsexual who was doing somebody’s nails, kept looking over at me, a half-smile alternating on her pretty face with curiosity. I prayed she wouldn’t say anything to me.

The police never came, so eventually I went outside. I still wanted to go to the emergency room, but maybe now I could do it without police involvement, I thought. I convinced a kindly Filipino security guard that I was having a medical crisis, and he lent me his cell-phone so that I could call 911.

He had, ironically, a blue-tooth headset, my first exposure to one despite my recent over-immersion in technology, and it took me a while to get it to work for me. But I couldn’t get through to 911 – I was kept on hold for even longer than the kid across the street had been. I knew Ben would be worried. It seemed impossible, but it had only been thirty minutes since I had left the Renaissance after failing to get a taxi there.

I finally gave up on getting through to 911, but I didn’t know who else to call. I didn’t want Ben to know what had happened – at least not yet. But Ben’s cell-phone number was the only number I knew by heart, and neither of my therapists had listed phone numbers, so finally I had no alternative but to call Ben. He was frantic. He’d been calling and calling, getting my voicemail. I told him my cell-phone was dead, and asked him not to ask me any questions; just come and pick me up.

At last I could let the tension breathe out of me. I thanked the security guard for the use of his phone and asked him if he could please find me some water. He looked at me dubiously, so I started to pull off my $300 belt to offer in exchange for a bottle of water. He relented and got me a bottle of water, declining the belt.

When Ben picked me up, I had to figure out how to explain to him everything that had happened that day (because, you see, this headlong rush through Hollywood was only the climax of an astonishing day.) I knew it wasn’t the right time to tell him anything about what had preceded his tearful call from our counselor’s office less than an hour earlier. Nonetheless, my mind was still racing, and there was the manic temptation to explain myself fully. I kept holding onto the fact that I couldn’t possibly tell him everything without scaring him; I had to simplify things. I kept saying to myself ‘breathe’, as a mantra to remind myself, through the haze of explanations yearning to be spoken, not to be driven to make Ben understand everything. I wrote ‘breathe’ on a scrap of paper as we drove home, because I didn’t trust myself. And once I got home, I wrote it out again, on more scraps of paper, so I’d see it everywhere.

Later that night, as I got ready to take a shower, I looked at the scrap of paper on the sink with the word ‘breathe’ written on it. I suddenly had the image of Ben finding it, picking it up, and thinking it was another indication that I was not entirely in my right mind. We had a decorative bowl in the living-room full of pebbles of green glass bought from Pottery Barn. So after my shower, I grabbed a few green pebbles, and left them in inconspicuous places replacing the pieces of paper. Now I knew that every time I’d see one of those pebbles, it would remind me of ‘breathe’, and I’d stop trying to put into words what was going on in my racing mind.

But would I still remember ‘breathe’ in the morning? I surreptitiously stuffed a pebble underneath the sheet on my side of the bed, knowing that whenever I woke up, the physical discomfort would reconnect me to ‘breathe’.

The next morning, things returned to a surprising degree of normality between us. We were both anxious about what had happened; but also eager to please each other. I felt sure that I’d never again let worry for Ben drive me to the edge of insanity. I also knew that it was going to take a lot of dialogue before he could fully understand what had happened the previous day. I had no idea there were even worse days to come; that the first, as yet undiagnosed, manic episode of my life hadn’t wrought, by any means, all the damage it held in store.

Keith Adams perennially wonders how an abnormally tall, working-class boy from the North Sea coast of England ended up in a house in Hollywood with two dogs, and his partner, a leading medical research scientist at UCLA. Although he writes for a living (computer code), he always hoped to do “real writing”, from experience. That opportunity came from being diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2006, after a serious brush with insanity. At one point, he seriously believed he would be a combination gay superstar / epochal intellectual / latter day Messiah. Quite obviously, he became none of those things, but he did survive the inevitable crash to tell the tale, thanks to the support of friends and family.

His book, “Broken Whole: a California tale of Craziness, Creativity and Chaos”, a raw but entertaining memoir of mania, is available in e-book form from Chipmunka Publishing (paperback due later in 2010). Read additional extracts, and more about the author, at his website.

How to Sell More Copies of Your Book – Simple Marketing Tip For Writers & Authors

Stephanie J. Hale — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:55:55 +0000

Rich writers understand that writing a book is only the beginning, not an end in itself. They are often marketers first and writers second.

Marketing may sound like a dirty word especially to literary or academic writers. I understand that. I used to feel the same.

But let me ask you this. What’s the point writing a book if you can’t sell the darn thing?

If you really want to make a successful career as a writer, you can’t afford to ignore marketing.

What I recommend – if you haven’t done it already – is to think about ‘joint ventures’ to sell or promote your book. Don’t be put off by the business jargon – this just means looking for other people who can help sell and publicize your book for you.

So, for example, if you’ve written a book about childcare, are there any professionals who could promote you to their list of clients? If you’ve written a book about dogs, are there online vets or dog schools who could promote your book to their customers?

Why would they do it, you might ask? Simple. If your book aligns with their service, they are adding value to their clients by telling them about you.

Now listen up – some businesses have ‘lists’ running into hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions. Most mainstream publishers on the other hand are happy if they sell five thousand books – this is considered a ‘successful’ print run!

Do it today. Right now. Write a list of 50 potential joint venture partners.

Feeling nervous or a little intimidated? Yes, we all do. Even with 20 years experience, I still get butterflies at times. But if your goals aren’t making you even a little scared, you’re probably not setting yourself big enough goals!

Breaking through that ‘fear barrier’ is what separates out bestselling authors and millionaire writers from the rest. Even if 40 business owners say ‘no’, and 10 say ‘yes’ this could make a massive difference to your book sales.

Is this book your passion? Does it make your heart sing? If so, can you afford not to take this step today. Try it – what have you got to lose?

Stephanie J Hale is a leading writers’ coach and publishing scout. She’s worked with bestselling authors and top literary agents for over 20 years. She specializes in helping writers get the publishing deal and readership they deserve. More FREE publishing tips at: http://www.richwriterpoorwriter.com

3 Ways to Get You Through the Holidays

A Be My Guest Author — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:52:44 +0000

This Be My Guest Article is by Ed and Deb Shapiro, Authors of Be the Change: How Meditation Can Transform You and the World.

The holidays are a tough time, when demands are constantly being made on our patience, coping capacity, and endurance! When things are not going your way or they look topsy-turvy and you just want to scream; when your day appears chaotic and you are not sure if you are coming or going; or when it feels like it is all piled on your shoulders, then this is the ideal moment to resource yourself by just stopping, being still, and breathing.

You do have what it takes within you to do everything and still be peaceful, but you may need a reminder to just stop and breathe. So here are three moments to regenerate yourself and remember why you are doing all this in the first place. All it takes is a moment to look within and reconnect with your loving heart. You can get it together even when you think it is all falling apart!

Mini-meditations can be done on a train, walking down the street, at an airport, standing at a bus stop, in an elevator, while chopping vegetables, or while sitting in the bathroom — often the only place you can guarantee you will be left alone! Silently count your out-breath up to ten times, or walk with awareness of each step for up to ten steps. Or relax each part of your body, then silently repeat “soft belly” for five breaths.

If you are at work, then use your lunch hour to find a quiet spot, perhaps in a park, or even in the office if everyone else has gone out. If you are traveling then use that time to consciously breathe, letting your awareness follow your breath from the nose tip to your belly and back out again. If you are driving or operating machinery and feel you are getting tense, then stop for a moment, focus on any part of the body that is feeling tight and breathe into it, until you relax and let go. Silently repeat “soft shoulders” or “soft neck” and so on.

As you walk down the street or ride an elevator practice a mini-loving kindness by silently wishing everyone be well, wishing that everyone be happy. In the office you can spend a few moments repeating the names of everyone you work with and wishing them happiness. On your way home from work reflect on your day and generate loving thoughts to all those you met. When you send out loving thoughts it relaxes the space around you and dissipates any chaotic or disturbing energies. What you put out comes back to you tenfold.

1. Mini Breath Meditation

Sit comfortably with your back straight. Take a deep breath and let it go. Begin to silently count at the end of each out breath: Inhale . . . exhale . . . count one, inhale . . . exhale . . . two, inhale . . . exhale . . . three. Then start at one again. Just three breaths and back to one. Simply following each breath in and silently counting. So simple. Do this as many times as you want, eyes open or closed, breathing normally.

2. Mini Walking Meditation

You can do this walking along a country lane, a city street, in the office or the garden. You can walk slowly, normal or fast, whatever feels right. As you walk become aware of your walking, of the movement of your body and the rise and fall of your feet. Become aware of your breath and see if you can bring both your breathing and your walking together. Just walk and breathe with awareness for a few minutes.

3. Instant Letting Go

Find a quiet place to sit, have a straight back, and take a deep breath and let it go. Then quietly repeat to yourself: “My body is at ease and relaxed . . . my heartbeat is normal . . . my mind is calm and peaceful . . . my heart is open and loving.” Keep repeating this until you have let go of the tension and are at peace. Then take a deep breath and have a smile on your face!

Enjoy the holidays!

Ed and Deb Shapiro, authors of Be the Change: How Meditation Can Transform You and the World, are the award-winning authors of fifteen books on meditation, personal development, and social action. They are featured bloggers for the HuffingtonPost.com and for Care2.com, teach meditation workshops worldwide, work as corporate coaches and consultants, and are the creators and writers of the daily Chill Our inspirational text messages on Sprint cell phones. The Shapiros’ books includeYour Body Speaks Your Mind, winner of the 2007 Visionary Book Award; Voices From the Heart with contributors such as President Gorbachev, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and Bishop Tutu; and Meditation: The Four-Step Course to Calmness and Clarity. Ed, from New York, trained in India with Paramahamsa Satyananda, with Sri Swami Satchidananda, and with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Deb, from London, trained with Tai Situ Rinpoche. The Shapiros have taught meditation and personal development for more than twenty-five years. They currently reside in Boulder, Colorado.

For more information please visit www.EdandDebShapiro.com.

Three Flawed Ideas that Could Mean a Cold Homecoming from Copenhagen

A Be My Guest Author — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 19:31:15 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Scott Bittle & Jean Johnson, Authors of Who Turned Out the Lights: Your Guided Tour to the Energy Crisis.

International conferences have one thing in common with vacations: they’re great while you’re there, but coming home to workaday reality can be painful.

The Copenhagen conference on climate change could turn out like that. The session will be full of world leaders, bold speeches, and promises to shift the world away from fossil fuels. When he’s at the conference, President Obama will pledge a 17 percent cut in greenhouse gases for the United States, even though legislation is barely moving in Congress. Eventually he’ll have to come home and sell the American public on all the hard work needed to make that happen.

The problem is that many Americans have latched onto three flawed ideas that sound good, but that in reality are improbable or just plain wrong. Left unaddressed, they could derail debate and make it extremely difficult to make progress. The scary thing is that most experts know these ideas are far-fetched, but politicians often embrace them anyway.

Here’s a look:

Flawed Idea #1: We Should Be Energy Independent

For a country that got its start with the Declaration of Independence, it’s easy to see why this phrase has an attractive ring to it, especially when it implies that we can show OPEC and Hugo Chavez the door. Unfortunately, policy organizations across the political spectrum, ranging from the Council on Foreign Relations to the Brookings Institution and the Cato Institute, all say actual independence is a pipe dream.

A little history is useful here. The last time the United States could supply all its oil needs was the year Elvis Presley got his draft notice: 1957. Almost all our cars, trucks, and planes run on petroleum-based fuels, and we import nearly 60 percent of the oil we use. This isn’t going to change quickly. In fact, the federal government is projecting we’ll still be importing about 40 percent of our oil in 2040.

And don’t expect having more domestic oil to protect us from price swings. There’s a global market in oil, and that will continue whatever we do. U.S. energy companies buy and sell their products and services worldwide, as do oil companies elsewhere. Experts point out that Great Britain, which exports oil thanks to its North Sea offshore rigs, gets hit just as hard by world oil prices as we do.

The far better strategy, most experts say, to make sure we have lots of different sources of energy — not just oil — supplied by lots of different companies in lots of different places. It’s that old “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” thing, because even a U.S. basket full of U.S. eggs might have problems — such as hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico knocking out a chunk of U.S. oil production and refining. Then we might be happy to import a little oil from somewhere else.

Flawed Idea #2: Cheaper Is Better

In tough economic times, nobody wants to pay more for anything, especially gas. It hurts millions of people who are just trying to stay afloat, and makes everything from toasters to pop tarts more expensive, because nearly everything we buy gets shipped in something running on some form of oil. But really cheap energy has some worrisome downsides.

For a start, cheap energy means there’s no incentive to change. Cheap gas leads normally reasonable people to buy cars that practically inhale the stuff. Not to mention the fact that when conventional energy prices are low, alternatives can’t get off the ground because they can’t compete. Really cheap oil prices even reduce investment in oil itself, especially oil in out-of-the-way places and “unconventional” forms.

Flawed Idea #3: We Can Fix This Fast If We Want To

Almost every day you hear about another fantastic new energy breakthrough — new technologies, new sources of energy, new products that use energy much more efficiently. Some of them might very well work out nicely eventually, but just because something’s on TV doesn’t mean it’s ready for prime time.

Take hydrogen fuel cells, for example. The technology dates back to the Apollo space program in the 1960s, and it could be a great source of electricity with little pollution. But experts say it will take years of research before you can make fuel cells light enough and practical enough for cars. Plus, just having the technology isn’t enough. It’s got to make sense economically. Yes, there are people out there who’ll pay more because a product is “greener,” but realistically most customers won’t buy an electric car if it’s significantly more expensive than a regular one — and for the foreseeable future, they will be. Even things we know how to do take time. There may be wind turbines sprouting up all over Texas, but experts say a reasonable goal is for the U.S. to get 20 percent of its energy from wind by 2030 — 20 years from now. Countries like France rely on nuclear power to reduce emissions, but Watts Bar, one of the last nuclear plants built here, took 23 years to go from initial construction to actual operation. Clean coal is an option, but the best estimates are that we could have 40 percent of coal plants using technology that removes carbon dioxide by 2050.

Quick, cheap and made in the USA is a good slogan, but it’s wishful thinking at best, and a dangerous distraction at worst. Solving energy problems means thinking realistically about what we can do — and how quickly we can do it. If we don’t, the President’s pledge in Copenhagen may be a promise with no pay-off.

©2009 Scott Bittle & Jean Johnson, authors of Who Turned Out the Lights: Your Guided Tour to the Energy Crisis

Scott Bittle, co-author of Who Turned Out the Lights: Your Guided Tour to the Energy Crisis, is executive editor of PublicAgenda.org, where he has prepared citizen guides on more than twenty major issues including the federal budget deficit, Social Security, and the economy. He is also the website director for Planet Forward, an innovative PBS program designed to bring citizen voices to the energy debate.

Jean Johnson, co-author of Who Turned Out the Lights: Your Guided Tour to the Energy Crisis, is co-founder of PublicAgenda.org, and has written articles and op-eds for USA Today, Education Week, School Board News, Educational Leadership, and the Huffington Post Website.

For additional energy resources and supplemental material, please visit www.whoturnedoutthelights.org