For the first time since the publication of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Facts On File) in 2003, Google Books has recently added an extended preview to its listing of the title.

The preview includes a full-screen color reproduction of the cover, which features artwork by celebrated artist Jacob Lawrence, the foreword and authors’ notes, and free access to more than 100 pages of articles ranging from profiles of Chicago Defender editor Robert Abbott and the Abyssinian Baptist Church to Broadway star and social activist Sophie Tucker. Access is also available to a list of encyclopedia topics and a comprehensive appendix of maps detailing such subjects as the Great Migration, the development of black music, and the Harlem Renaissance’s influence around the world.

In addition to providing access to the generous preview itself, Google has also made available a preview widget that may be embedded in a blog or on a website. You can obtain the widget simply by clicking on the “link” icon in the upper right corner of the page for Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance and copying the code labeled “embed.” Once you’ve copied the code, paste and save it in your blog or on your website. The widget is ideal for educators and readers addressing subjects associated with the Harlem Renaissance/Jazz Age, American history in general, or examples of award-winning work by contemporary authors.

Google Books has made widgets available for the following titles as well:

ELEMENTAL the Power of Illuminated Love
The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois
The American Poet Who Went Home Again
I Made My Boy Out of Poetry
Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World

Each of these serves as great introductions to the books themselves and makes a great addition to literary and education websites. If you happen to be an author yourself, you might consider checking the availability of widgets for your own books and adding them to your author profiles.

I also recommend Twitter as a great way to microblog other Twitterers with links back to your own book blog or website.  With that in mind, BiblioScribe.com now has a place where members (free membership) can place their Twitter address and description.

The display page is located HERE.

Sign up with BiblioScribe to take advantage of free press release and article submissions.

ALSO…

I just found this site that shows you a way of potentially getting thousand’s of new followers on Twitter, I just started using it myself and its starting to work already at http://Twitter.com/WealthVirtues.

To get more information on the Tweetergetter tool, visit http://tweetergetter.com/WealthVirtues

Here’s to more free book marketing!

This observation is particularly evident in April 2008 for three strong reasons. Number one: this is indeed National Poetry Month and celebrations of it are in full swing, complete with the first “Poem in Your Pocket Day” observed on April 17.

Number two: the great and mighty 92^nd Annual Pulitzer Prizes were announced this month with Junot Diaz taking the fiction prize for his novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; Tracy Letts picking up the drama prize for August: Osage County; Robert Hass receiving the poetry prize  for Time and Materials; Saul Friedman receiving the nonfiction prize for The Years of Extermination; John Matteson getting the biography prize for Eden’s Outcasts; and David Lang receiving the music prize for The Little Match Girl Passion. Music icon Bob Dylan received a special citation “for his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.”

The third reason April is such a powerhouse month for books is because April 23 is World Book and Copyright Day. Instituted by UNESCO in 1995, the idea for World Book and Copyright Day grew out of the practice of giving one book as a gift with every book purchased on Saint George’s Day in Catalonia. April 23 itself was adopted as the symbolic date for world literature in recognition of  Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, all of whom reportedly died on this same day in the same year of 1616. In addition, it is the date of birth or death of other notable authors like Vladimir Nabokov, Manuel Mejia, Druon, K.Laxness, and Josep Pla.

As stated on the United Nation’s website: “It was a natural choice for UNESCO’s General Conference to pay a world-wide tribute to books and authors on this date, encouraging everyone, and in particular young people, to discover the pleasure of reading and gain a renewed respect for the irreplaceable contributions of those who have furthered the social and cultural progress of humanity.”

 
by Author-Poet Aberjhani
author of The Bridge of Silver Wings
and Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance

As a writer, do you really need a web site, even if you are just writing articles offline? Yes!

 Here are 5 simple reasons why and where to start:

(1) People need to be able to find you. If they like your article in a magazine they will often Google you or look online at the magazine’s web site to see how to contact you. It’s good if you have an email, but you don’t want that on the magazine’s web site or you will soon be bombarded with spam. And it may sound silly, but if you don’t have a web site and are trying to market yourself or your business in some ways, it’s assumed you just don’t know what you are doing.

Anyone who has a business either designs or hires someone to design a web site for them. Would you have a delivery service without a vehicle or a restaurant without a menu? That’s you without a web site. Just do it.

(2) The good news is that you really can do your own site. Gone are the times when we had to hire web designers at $75-$200 per hour (and yes, I was a web designer, so I am allowed to say that.) Now you can whip up a presence on a blogging service like wordpress.com – for free– and have the added benefit of being “pinged” and getting your fresh content out there. (FYI: If you don’t know what “ping” means, don’t worry about it. Just know when you hit the “publish” button WordPress will take care of letting the search engines know about you.)

(3) Create some profiles so people can find you. If you set up a blog or web site, that’s a great place to send people to who are looking for your fresh content, latest publications, profile and how to hire you. But if they just Google your name, the odds are that they may not find you on the first few pages, especially if you have a common name (and millions of names are “common” on the Internet.) So go to web sites like Amazon.com, Goodreads.com, Facebook.com, Squidoo.com, linkedin.com, and even Myspace.com and mess around to create a profile that at least sends people back to your site. The size of these social networks help them rank high and people will be able to find you more easily.

(4) Start writing articles to give away. Yes, I know, if you are a paid writer that sounds less than appealing. But there are some perks:

• Magazine/newsletter editors often have extra space in their publications or online content and may put in some keywords to find an article or expert writer on that topic for the space they are trying to fit. I’ve been there and found articles/writers from their free articles online; I’ve also been a writer whom magazines have found because of my free articles.
• You need to become known as an expert in your niche field, and that takes more than 2-3 articles on your topic each year in hard-copy magazines. Marketing on the web with articles can help make it impossible for people to get away from you when they type in keywords you have taken over. And there are thousands of keyword phrases no one is writing about, for example, “marketing in the catering business article” is a term that, according to an keyword service, not one web site has targeted. Same with “article on direct marketing personal selling” Hmmm…  With just a few clicks you can know what phrases in your niche aren’t being clicked on. See my blog “faves” for my favorite service where I get this info!
• You can find what topics are most appealing by how many clicks they get and then query magazines on these topics. It seems it’s never the topics you would expect that have a lot of hits. Articles sites like www.ezinearticles.comand ideamarketers.com are great ways to get your content out there and then build on it for your queries.

(5) If you’re a writer you are assuming that there are a few other people out there who are interested in your topic. Find them! Go to social networks like Squidoo.com or Ning.com and find the groups. On Ning.com for example, each group you participate in you are given a “page” where you can also blog. Most Ning sites have it set up so YOUR blog posts to the main site of the web page automatically. Once you get the hand of these, start your own social network and be the founder of the hub, creating the ability to be considered the expert. Plus, you can email all the members with a touch of a keystroke. (Gold!) Participating in these networks is great because you can also ask for feedback, quotes, anecdotes  dexamples from people, create a poll, etc. These are all helpful in writing new articles.

In the past, having a web site could seem overwhelming. Learning to program html, uploading via ftp, using meta tags and paying those monthly service fees whether you made 2-cents or not was draining–sometimes to your spirit of the project, sometimes to the pocketbook. Today, with blogs having great template, easy to use programs, and the ability to make them into Widgets and get them on people’s web sites all over… the possibilities for exposure are endless.

 And the sooner you start, the better your odds will be over the next writer who specializes in your topic and finally decides to get online next year. One of the reasons my organization still ranks incredibly high on the major search engines is because I’ve been online since 1997.

Keep me posted on your progress!

——————————

Lisa and Joel Copen have a variety of experience in founding a nonprofit that receieves over 80,000 visitors per month, music and sound editing, web design, and book marketing and publishing. They look forward to your ideas to make the series of ebooks on book promotion a practical tool to help you sell more books!

A native of Savannah, Georgia, Mickles said his surprise best-selling novel is based on stories passed down to him by, “My grandmother, Beulah Tremble. She was born not too long after slavery ended in the United States and her parents had actually been slaves. She lived to be 100 years old and at the time when she passed on to me the stories that had been passed on to her, I really had no idea what a powerful legacy they would turn out to be.”

The novel takes place during the Civil War and tells the story of two best friends, one black and one white, who discover they are actually brothers. Torn apart by the violence and politics of the times, they nevertheless struggle to recognize and preserve their newfound kinship for their own sake as well as for their families’. The novel is the first in a projected four-part series. Part two, titled Isaiah’s Tears, has already been written and Mickles is currently working on third and fourth titles.

In his foreword for the book, Aberjhani, the award-winning author of “The Bridge of Silver Wings” and “Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance” (Facts On File), notes that Mickles demonstrates a willingness “to examine the cracks and crevices of history in order to tell a story others might not be willing––or even able for that matter––to tell. It is the story of how Blacks and Whites stumbled across the dividing lines of race and slavery only to discover that each was as flawed, needy, and human as the other.”

In addition to being an author, Mickles operates a taxi service in Savannah and often shares his stories with passengers. For more on the writer, please visit his website at http://creativethinkersintl.ning.com/profile/AuthorofBloodkin .

–end—

With the infiltration of Internet venues that harbor and propagate pseudo professional and fraudulent “writers” – even encouraging it by “looking the other way” – there has been a significant rise in plagiarism of the protected works of professional writers. Though hard numbers have not yet been established, this writer, after a great deal of research, estimates that it has risen by as much as 42 percent over the past five years.

This not only affects professional writers but also the people who hire these plagiarizers to write books, articles, etc. for them. So how can one protect him/herself from these covert intellectual-rights bandits of the 21st century? I’m glad you asked. Here are a few ways:

1.) Knowing what plagiarism is is the first step in protecting yourself. So let’s define plagiarism. In very simple terms, plagiarism is when someone uses another’s works without permission. When something is originated in writing, the government acknowledges this ownership, especially when the c inside the circle symbol plus the date and owner’s name are included with the piece. This says that only you have the write to publish, print, copy or change the piece. And anyone else must be granted specific permission from you to do any of these things with your work.

Now there are certain nuances that you should also know about. Things such as the fact that someone can include a certain (small) amount of your work in theirs IF they site the author and where it was quoted from. And in most cases, this is a good thing, as it helps promote your works, if the quotes are used in a good light. There are limits to just how much someone can quote. Also, just because someone rearranges the order of words or sentences does not excuse them from copyright laws. You can learn more about these things and more at Western Connecticut State University’s website at the following link: http://library.wcsu.edu/web/about/policies/plagiarism/#question-1. You will learn a great deal about plagiarism there.

2.) If you are someone who hires writers, especially for books or articles, avoid the low-cost writers and stick with the professionals. When it comes to services, to consider hiring a low-priced book writer is only asking for failure and even serious trouble. Unlike shopping for hard goods, like clothes, basketballs and sod for your backyard, you cannot seek out professional services in the same manner – whether you are looking for writing services, a good lawyer to represent you or someone to put new brakes on your car.

You might be able to find a deal on the brakes themselves, though doing so might have grave ramifications, still is it worth chancing things on shoddy or inferior craftsmanship? What about saving a few bucks on a very-low-priced lawyer, and as a result you still end up having to pay a big fine or even worse get sent to jail for something you didn’t do? Would that be a good deal? What if you were to take your lifelong dream of having a book published, but instead you end up with something that even your loving mother or grandmother couldn’t find anything nice to say about it? The answer is, it is simply NEVER the thing to do when it comes to services.

HERE IS MY POINT: The greatest instance of plagiarism comes from pseudo professional writers. And of the 42 percent estimated increase mentioned above, 40 percent comes from these very writers. I do not, in fact, even like calling them writers, as they do not in any way fit the bill. In fact, they taint an otherwise honest, hard-working and professional field. So if you sense some of my irate feelings, such feelings are justly stewing.

Case in point, I received a 350-page book from a client needing professional book editing services. He mentioned that he had paid $4,000 to a book writer to write it. After I stopped choking, I politely told him that there was no doubt in my mind that there was something wrong with his book.

I began to edit this “book” and shortly into it, I could tell there were two different voices. This suggested that there had been two different writers, which raised two red flags that things were not hopeful for my client.

To make a long article short, I investigated and found 45 percent of this book had been plagiarized word-for-word! My client was a businessman with a good reputation. And if I had not caught this, his business and reputation could have been seriously damaged. Not to mention what could have happened to his life over the legal ramifications.

But it took a professional to find this. And it takes professionals to write, edit, proofread, format, market and print books and articles of any quality. Staying clear of the low-priced writer is essential for all but guaranteeing that you will not run into plagiarism issues. What is low-priced? Well, pay attention to what someone offers you. This plagiarized book for my client, who by the way is still working with me to this very day on his ongoing books, took about 8 months to write at $4,000. If you do the math, you can see that this “writer” made about $115 per week. How can a professional, full-time writer ever live on that? That’s below poverty level. So using this system can be very helpful. If someone is offering you poverty rates to write your book or article, what does that tell you? For one thing, they are not a very good writer if they have to stoop so financially low to get work.

Also, know that a 350-page book should take at least 12 months to write if it is to be accurate, professional and of high quality. So if someone offers you such a book in 6 months, run in the other direction. Steeling others’ works is the only way to accomplish this. Also, professional book writers make between $100 and $250 per page. That is a very good rule of thumb.

3.) If you are a writer or someone who hires one and you have some works that you would like to see if anyone is using portions without permission, there is something you can do on-line. Go to plagiarismchecker.com and type in more than 6 and less than 32 words – verbatim – from a passage of your book or article and click the “Search” button. If anything is on the Internet, links will show up in the resulting webpage of the websites that contain your intellectual property. Continue to do this with different sections of your book or article. The more you include (up to 32 words) the better, as this does a more accurate job at detecting only sites that contain your specific work. There are other similar checkers on line, such as http://www.neilstoolbox.com/plagiarism-tester/. This one lets you type up to 50 words at a time.

Though it is an extremely effective way to catch on-line bandits, it is not foolproof, as it of course does not cover offline (brick & mortar) works.

I’m going to continue to research ways to protect ourselves from fraudulent representation of written works. If you know of other ways to detect plagiarism, please feel free to share them with me and I will add them to this article and share this information – with your permission, of course – with the rest of the world, and we’ll all be a little better off for it.

Robert S. Nahas is a professional book writer and president of WriterServices.net He has written numerous published books of his own and for others, and helps aspiring writers and authors achieve their dreams of getting their books written, published and selling well. You can get more information on how to find good book writers for hire, how to get published, find a good agent, find funding… and more at http://www.thesavvyauthor.com You can find more information on R. S. Nahas

So I haven’t really looked at my statistics. I am not a “hot blogger” and though it would be nice to get some fabulous keyword and jump to #1 on Google (like I’ve been taught in my formal internet marketing seminars) I’m not holding my breath.

But I just got onto Feedburner to glance my statistics.  And these numbers surprised me!

The first column is the date, the second it the subscribers for that day.

3000? Then 1400? then nearly 3000 again? I quickly looked up what I’d blogged about that day and guess what? It was the days I posted my articles that I said were free to reprint.

So before I did a little happy dance, I wanted to make sure I knew what a ”subscriber” really was. Feedburner says this:

Okay… so it looks like those numbers are legit. So far I’ve not found any announcement on Feedburner triple their numbers accidentally or anything.

So what did I write that was so amazing? I was just as curious as you so I went and looked! The posts are titled:

• Romantic Ideas for Chronically Ill Women to Romance Her Husband (Jan 16)
• When Your Wife is Ill and the Romance Ain’t Happening (Jan 17)
• A New Twist on Prednisone (Jan 19) — not sure if this hit a news feed somewhere or people with Google alerts clicked or what. It may have been the 16th and 17th catching up. The 19th was a Saturday, so maybe people at home were catching up on their reading?

One thing I know for certain is that my efforts to write articles on a more consistent basis, and use the Unique Article Wizard (see the link down on the bottom right under “My Faves”) I am definately gaining some new visitors. Just 24 hours after I released these 2 articles, with the keywords I was targeting, I was holding the top 35 slots on Google out of 50 (yes… amazing, isn’t it)

So… you never know. Promoting your book is always a work in progress and oftentimes one big experiment. Today I discovered that something I thought “just may work” is actually working. And that is a good thing.

——————————

Lisa and Joel Copen have a variety of experience in founding a nonprofit that receieves over 80,000 visitors per month, music and sound editing, web design, and book marketing and publishing. They look forward to your ideas to make the series of ebooks on book promotion a practical tool to help you sell more books!

This project allows you to create your best ever collection on any subject. You could do the best recipe books ever, best quotes ever, best authors ever. I created a lens on the best Adoption Scrapbook Album ever (which happens to be my book…)

Squidoo continues to have a very high page rank for Google, so your book’s information may just pop up on top of Google from a Squidoo site when it doesn’t elsewhere, so it’s definately worth the 30 minutes or so it takes to set up.

——————————

Lisa and Joel Copen have a variety of experience in founding a nonprofit that receieves over 80,000 visitors per month, music and sound editing, web design, and book marketing and publishing. They look forward to your ideas to make the series of ebooks on book promotion a practical tool to help you sell more books!

In my magazine, HopeKeepers, we featured an article and at the end of the article gave the author’s bio and web site. Unfortunately, her web site was www.myfirstname-mylastname.com.

When the paragraph was justified, unfortunately her bio appeared to say:

Now… the hyphen was actually in the correct place, but a reader believed the hyphen was there because of the page break (makes sense, someone on my staff should have caught that!) and she typed in the URL www.myfirstnamemylastname.com and bought one of the books from the web page, believing it to be Christian material. Needless to say, this was not our writer’s web site.

I received an email from the reader, who visited the author’s web site believing
it to be Christian material, bought the book and started reading. She was then
appalled that the woman who “supposedly had written for our Christian audience
had written a filthy, nearly-pornographic book.” Thankfully, I discovered the
error, but I wondered about the many times this must happen when people use a
hyphen in their name and it’s forgotten by the time people get to their computer.

Another reason is that as an editor and someone who is looking for authors who may be interested in being chat guests for our web site community, it’s easier for me to locate you. When
I type in your name to a search engine I am going to get nearly ever place online that sells your book. The first place I always try to locate an author is by typing
his or her name into the URL.

——————————

Lisa and Joel Copen have a variety of experience in founding a nonprofit that receieves over 80,000 visitors per month, music and sound editing, web design, and book marketing and publishing. They look forward to your ideas to make the series of ebooks on book promotion a practical tool to help you sell more books!

I’ve purchased a few different softwares and they’ve been great! One package had more technology info than I wanted to deal wtih and I asked for a refund. It was issued promptly!

So click here to find out morre and check out today’s deals. And yes… it’ is an affiliate link. A few little affiliate links like this help me keep this site going, so I hope you won’t mind.

There have been a number of software packages I have purchased in the past and then they’ve shown up on Dealdotcom.com for about half the price. Ooooo. Hate it when that happens. But that also shows me they are getting people with quality products to participate and that increases my trust of their other products.

You can read more about products they’ve had in the past… and you’ll be wishing you were a member last week!

——————————

For more Book Marketing Tips SIGN Up to receive our RSS feed and you’ll be entered to win a copy of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books by John Kremer.

Lisa and Joel Copen have a variety of experience in founding a nonprofit that receieves over 80,000 visitors per month, music and sound editing, web design, and book marketing and publishing. They look forward to your ideas to make the series of ebooks on book promotion a practical tool to help you sell more books!