Inexpensive Gift Ideas for the Literate Dad

Are you floundering over what to buy for dad this year?  I always buy books for my father (my mother too) - and this year is no exception.  Just knowing that I can pick something that fits his taste, and at the same time provides him with much needed relaxation, pleasure and intellectual stimulation is enough incentive for me to keep getting the same type of gift each year.  If you're wondering what to buy, books are great gift ideas and personalising your choice to your dad's taste is really thoughtful. 

If Dad isn't a big reader, then nonfiction is a pretty safe bet. You can buy manuals, guides or coffee-table books on almost any topic.  Biographies of people Dad admires or people from historical periods that Dad is interested in are also good.  If in doubt, go for award winners.  This year's National Book Critic winner for biography was Robert Caro's The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson.  This year's Pulitzer Prize winner The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss.  I think either of those would be a hit with most fathers - even those who don't normally hunker down with a book.   

For fathers who enjoy reading, you could do worse than picking an award winner in whatever genre they like.  for example, I got my own dad, a sci fi fan, the novel 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson.  The book won the 2012 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the plot summary sounds like it's just up his alley (normally I pre-read the books I send him, but haven't read any sci fi this year). Why not tuck in (perhaps instead of a card), a poetry chapbook as well to really stimulate Dad's literary imagination.  Imagining the Future: Ruminations on Fathers and Other Masculine Apparitions is the book of poetry I co-authored with Carolyn  Howard Johnson and can be either purchased as a super-inexpensive e-greeting card or sent as attractive paperback. To get you in the mood, here's a poem from the collection:

Horizon Scanning

Your eyes squint at glare

wavering between dreams

imaginary lines

or clear delineations

from this point

it’s not possible to judge

take a stand from your degraded platform

speaker’s corner cardboard soapbox

microwave radiation

blocking your ears

you can shout your head off

until everyone gathers

it won’t change reality

or will it?

28 billion light years

one edge to the other

there you are

explorer without a map

scratching your head

the horizon problem flakes those broad shoulders

Atlas in messy hair

and bell bottoms

every mystery you solve

invokes another.

Writing - How Nature can be a Muse

Watching this video of masses of seafoam covering the beaches of an Australian town got to me wondering just how polluted our oceans have become. The foam was caused by the churning of the waters in the Pacific by a cyclone.

Although it seems funny and people were walking through the foam laughing at its uniqueness, I have to think it’s a bad sign and that possibly those people shouldn’t be playing in what could be a toxic substance.

Combine this event with the odd weather patterns seen world-wide, the destruction Sandy caused, the many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes of the past year or two and it’s so obvious this world is going through massive changes (which are apparently cyclic according to studies of climate change).

The only question is this: are we exacerbating those changes through pollution, fracking, draining natural resources?

Would you be brave enough to walk this close to a lava flow and take a sample? I know I wouldn't.





As a writer I imagine several scenarios for possible stories. What do you see when you view these two videos?

Rebecca Ryals Russell
MG/YA Fantasy Author
Fantastical Worlds of Rebecca Ryals Russell

The Best Thing To Do with a Book Is Ruin It!

By WritersOntheMove member Carolyn Howard-Johnson

I always suggest that people mark up their books. I suggest it in The Frugal Book Promoter (http://budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo). I even market with a photo of the first edition of The Frugal Book Promoter that publisher Nancy Cleary sent me. The book is bristling with her Post-It notes and fat with turned-down pages. And pictures speak a thousand words.


When you make notes in the margins, your book becomes a much better resource than when you turn corners down. But either approach is better than a pristine copy stuck away on a bookshelf somewhere.

I once fully annotated to a paperback biography of Michelangelo when when I was staying in Florence for an extended period of time. I just wrote anything that popped into my head including that I had just walked down the street where M's museum marked his birthplace.

I eventually gave that book to my grandson who was big on literature! I think it was a much nicer gift than something new.

Usually teachers discourage marking books because it seems destructive. I think it's just the opposite. It makes a book your own. My new year's resolution is to mark up more of my books and it turns out that Antoine Wilson, author of Panorama City, plans on doing the same thing in 2013. He says, "For years I've been folding down page corners as a means of noting remarkable passages, but when I go back to these, they're baffling." He resolves to do more scribbling in books, too

And how do I know this? I read it in the LA Times. It's not too late to make a resolution of your own, is it? At least not too late for something this simple!

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including the award-winning second edition of, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor .

Book Marketing - To Niche or Not to Niche

By Karen Cioffi

I was recently asked about having a marketing niche. The writer wanted to know what a niche was and if it was important. Since there might be other authors/writers out there who aren't sure I'll share my answer here.

A marketing niche is simply a specific topic you’re focusing on. One writer may write for children, another may write business content. Then there are also more specific niches: writing children’s picture books or writing specifically on business incentives in the business arena.

And, there are niches within niches. In the writing arena, you can be a children’s author, a romance author, a nonfiction writer, a biographer, a ghostwriter, or copywriter, among a number of other niches. So, to say you’re a writer, while it may be true, it’s not specific enough. It doesn’t give the listener, reader, or viewer enough information about you and what you have to offer.

Having a specific niche is important so you can create the element of expertise in it. This doesn’t mean you can’t have more than one niche, but you do need to keep them separate and promote each separately.

For an example, I’m a children’s writer of picture books through middle grade books. I’m also a nonfiction health, business, and marketing writer.

If I had one website for all these niches, I wouldn’t be focused. And when marketing, who would I market to? I wouldn’t want to bring people looking for health information to a children’s book site or vice versa.

You can’t market to everyone; you need to decide exactly who you will focus your marketing efforts on. And, that audience needs to be brought to a site that focuses on that niche.

The adage, ‘jack of all trades, master of none,’ comes into play. You don’t want to be known as someone who knows a little on a lot of things. You want to be known as a master, or expert, in one or two specific fields or niches.

Karen Cioffi is an award-winning author, ghostwriter, and author/writer online marketing instructor. Check out her e-class through WOW! Women on Writing at:
Give Your Author/Writer Business a Boost with Inbound Marketing

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MORE ON MARKETING

4 Tips to an Effective Subscriber Opt-in
Author Website Blues – Simple Fixes, Huge Benefits
Kindle Select – What Works and What Doesn’t

10 Website Landing Page Must-Have Elements Free Webinar

It's been a while, but we have our next webinar scheduled and here are the details:

Title: 10 Website Landing Page Must-Have Elements (Find out if you have all 10 in place)
Date: June 28, 2013
Time: 4PM, EST (U.S.)
Presenter: Karen Cioffi
Duration: around 30 minutes
Cost: Free

This webinar will go over 10 of the most important landing page elements, ones that are must-haves for authors, writers, marketers, and home/small businesses. You'll want to sign-up to see if you have all 10 in place.

And, the first THREE to register and request to have their websites used in the webinar will get a website review focusing on those 10 elements.

Plus, they’ll be a couple of website bonus tips!

With the new AnyMeeting plan I signed up for only 25 attendees can be in on the LIVE webinar. It’s during the live event that you can ask questions and get answers! So, sign-up now!
Those who register after the first 25 will get the replay.

Hope to see you there!

TO REGISTER JUST CLICK ON THE LINK:
http://www.anymeeting.com/PIID=E956DD8689483E

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For full details please visit our Workshops Page. Just click on the navigation link above.

Please note: Attendees, if not already a subscriber, will automatically be signed up to The Writing World Newsletter.

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P.S. To keep up with writing and marketing information, along with Free webinars, join us in The Writing World (top right top sidebar).

Karen Cioffi
Award-Winning Author, Freelancer/Ghostwriter

Author/Writer Online Platform Instructor
Build an Online Platform That Works

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Targeting Specific Audiences Part 3 (results for one specific audience)

Targeting specific audiences, Part Three:  Results for the one specific audience… 

Guest Post by Steve Moore

The following is the third part of the report on my ad campaign associated with the Montclair Film Festival.  That campaign was described in Part Two.  How will I measure the success of my campaign?  To use the marketing word du jour, what are the metrics?  I can think of two in general: website traffic increase and book sales increase.

I used the built-in CysStats from my WordPress software to measure website visits and hits.  For the week previous to the release of the Film Festival catalog, I was averaging about 700 visits and 800 hits per day.  After the release to volunteer personnel, the number of hits went up to 1600 but the number of visits stayed about the same.  I returned to the “steady state” until a week later, the first weekend the general public had the catalog, when I obtained about 1800 visits and 1900 hits (April 12), but the next day it settled back to 800/900, almost the initial steady state—this 800/900 level became a new steady state with peaks on weekends, until the release of the Montclair Times Magazine.

The Montclair Times Magazine ad was released to the public on May 2.  This had a wider distribution than the Festival catalog.  There was only a slight bump on that day.  There have been other slight bumps, which I attribute to the sporadic reading of the Montclair Times Magazine (it goes to subscribers in the Montclair area, but these include doctors, dentists, and lawyers’ offices).  As of May 15, I’ve achieved a new steady state around 900 visits and 1000 hits.  For me, this increase is hardly significant, but I’m hoping the magazine ad has a long tail.

Did this increase in website traffic translate into book sales?  From the catalog ad, no.  Both Amazon and Smashwords showed pathetic performance up to the Montclair Times Magazine ad—just the same old dribs and drabs.  There was only a slight uptick after the magazine ad.  Perhaps the difference was that the magazine ad had the cover of The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan; the catalog ad did not.  Both referred readers to my website that lists all eleven of my books available at that time (I have since released Teeter-Totter between Lust and Murder).

I’m writing this report now (May 15) rather than waiting to measure any long-tail effect because these statistics are metrics for an open system.  The release of a new book and some new reviews will start making it difficult to separate cause and effect.  For now, I think it’s being wise to say that this campaign didn’t work.  I’m more convinced than ever that rising above that sea of ebooks, even those in the same genre, is quite difficult because of the competition.  The chances of success, say sales of 10,000 for one book, is perhaps more likely than winning the Power Ball Lottery, but not by much.

Am I discouraged?  Yes.  Will I throw in the towel and stop writing?  No!  It’s too much fun.  I hope my writing also provides entertainment value for those who read my blog or my ebooks.  That’s always been my goal—to entertain.  In libris libertas….

Steven M. Moore  
Author of The Secret Lab, Pop Two Antacids and Have Some Java, The Midas Bomb, Angels Need Not Apply, Teeter-Totter between Lust and Murder, The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan, Full Medical, Evil Agenda, Soldiers of God, Survivors of the Chaos, Sing a Samba Galactica, Come Dance a Cumbia...with Stars in Your Hand!
http://stevenmmoore.com

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Read Parts One and Two of this three part series:

Part One - The Marketing Conundrum
Part Two - One Specific Audience

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P.S. If you haven't yet, please sign up for our newsletter, The Writing World. To find out why visit: http://thewritingworld.com or fill in the opt-in on top of the sidebar right here!

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Leonard Marcus: Let the Wild Rumpus Start

Leonard Marcus's presentation on Maurice Sendak (1928-2012) concludes in Part Five of this series from my notes taken at the Highlights Foundation workshop, "Books that Rise Above," that I attended in Honesdale, PA last October. Today, the focus is on Leonard's explanation of how Sendak wrote Where the Wild Things Are.

Leonard pointed out that Sendak looked at every part of life for ideas and inspiration; he read widely, not limiting himself to children's books. In children's literature, some of Sendak's influences were:

*Lewis Carroll's, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: Makes fun of every kind of authority

*Charles Perrault's Puss in Boots: Is far from a sweet rendition of childhood

• The cat bags a rabbit in the forest and presents it to the king as a gift from his master
• He orders the country folk along the road to tell the king that the land belongs to the "Marquis of Carabas", saying that if they do not he will cut them into mincemeat. (You get the picture!)

*A. A. Milne's, The Story of Babar: The mother of Babar, a young elephant, is shot and killed by a hunter on the first page
*Beatrix Potter's, The Tale of Peter Rabbit: On page 1 Peter's father is turned into a pie

Sendak's Deductions

• Children's bad behavior is fun
• Children like to be scared
• The intense feelings wrought by these books are beautiful
• Sendak wanted to knock art off its pedestal and instead, foster what the average child cared about

Some of Sendak's Innovations

Sendak's innovations in Wild Things can be summed up in two words: No rules. His illustrations get bigger and bigger until they push the words off the page, before shrinking back. Max does not appear on the cover. The title page gives the story away: that Max is in charge, not the monsters-- he kicks them away. As Leonard explained, we are tipped off that the scary things are Max's creations, that maybe Max is the scary one. Indeed, Max is dressed in an original costume that makes him look different than an ordinary boy. Thus, his playful animal-like appearance may be safer for children when dealing with their own monsters and demons than a normal boy's appearance would. The monsters themselves are presented in a way we can handle; perhaps helping children make their own monsters and demons less scary.

Wild Things Pierces the Soul

To find his story, Sendak wrote a different version every day for a month. Little by little the story evolved. But, he got stuck in the middle. He had to ask himself: why would a child like Max choose to go back home when being sent to bed without supper? Sendak knew every child is hungry for the love of his mother; that it is a deep-seated need. Max struggles with his desire for freedom, but finds he can't do without the ordered (and warm and loving) structure of HOME, represented as a hot meal. So, as Leonard so eloquently stated, the most brilliant ending (the last line) in all of children's literature is that supper awaited Max when he got home (he woke up), "and it was still hot." Thus in the end, children can confront the Wild Things and feel good about them.

Leonard's take-away: Everything today rests on the effort Sendak made in children's literature. He used his opportunity to speak out for children, to support children's First Amendment rights. My take-away: Learning about the time and care Sendak spent in his creations has helped me revisit time and again my own current creation. Also, how my own expereiences can better serve children, of course, in an entertaining and fun way. In a nutshell, to stamp out any triteness in my own work.

If you would like to read past posts in this series, please visit:

Part One: Two Ways to Hook and Keep Your Reader

Part Two: Nouns Need to be Concrete and Appear More than Once

Part Three: Tent Pole Structure

Part Four: Leonard Marcus: Maurice Sendak, Storyteller and Artist
 

Leonard Marcus's biography

Next month: Behind the Scenes with Deborah Heiligman
In future posts: A link to the complete list of "Books that Rise Above" will appear at the end of this series. Then look out, more to come!
Sources: Google searches to complete references to Sendak's influences from children's literature.



Linda Wilson, a former elementary teacher and ICL graduate, has published over 40 articles for children and adults, six short stories for children, and is in the final editing stages of her first book, a mystery story for 7-9 year olds. Publishing credits include seven biosketches for the library journal, Biography Today, which include Troy Aikman, Stephen King, and William Shatner; Pockets; Hopscotch; and true stories told to her by police officers about children in distress receiving teddy bears, which she fictionalized for her column, "Teddy Bear Corner," for the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office Crime Prevention Newsletter, Dayton, Ohio. Follow Linda on Facebook.