Blog Archives
Justice in the Age of Judgment
Anne Bremner’s and Doug Bremner’s Justice in the Age of Judgment is a critical examination of the role of media and the public amidst some of the most publicized murder trials in recent history. While Bremner uses the tumultuous trial of Amanda Knox, a young American falsely convicted of murdering her roommate in Italy, as a segue for covering the effects of the media on other well-documented trials involving the likes of O.J. Simpson, Casey Anthony, Susan Cox Powell, and Ahmaud Arbery, her primary focus is the imperfections of the American judicial system.
Bremner does a stellar job at introducing each case in a manner that is accessible to readers while maintaining a modicum of compassion and respect for the wrongfully convicted and victimized. Both authors provide just enough background information on each case that the reader leaves with a fact-based, impartial view of all sides of the subject matter. They manage to keep the tone enthusiastic and conversational enough that the reading experience does not feel cumbersome.
Bremner’s background as both a full-fledged attorney and a front-facing legal analyst gives her a unique lens by which to evaluate these cases. She excels in leading with facts – even when the courts and the public seem to disregard these facts – and encourages readers to examine flaws of contagion bias in a time where misinformation run amok is powerful enough to sway due process. She displays a shrewd understanding that in the digital day and age, the fight for justice involves keeping the facts in the public eye as much as possible so that these facts alone make it to the courts. Moreover, she displays a keen heart for true justice, the ideal that structures her life’s work.
Justice in the Age of Judgement is an accessible, thought-provoking analysis of the judicial system, as evidenced by the cases discussed. This in-depth look at media and law is insightful and educational.
Pages: 280 | ASIN : B07TH9WMHT
Conservative Views 101 Plus
![Conservative Views 101 Plus by [Gall, Alex]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41OA9qKivRL.jpg)
Life is more difficult now than it was a few years ago. More and more people have to work multiple jobs just to stay above water. Utilities cost more than they used to and money is losing value. By the time one receives their salary, it’s already spent. With high trade deficits and national debts, people have much less purchasing power. What is happening now that was not happening before? How have we gotten to this point? What conversations do we need to have to change things? How can there be more employment opportunities? How can the citizens live to work as opposed to working to live?
Alex Gall has produced a well-written account of everything people should be saying but will not. The language used in the book is strong but not abrasive and drives the point home effectively and firmly. The authors passion and commitment to the subject matter is commendable and infectious. I consider myself to be an average citizen, I read the occasional hot headline. But this book made me look a little further, and a little deeper, and find something that was shocking and appealed to the citizen in me. This book is delivered from the point of view of a concerned citizen painting a picture, a person who is inviting others to a well thought out and open conversation.
I would appreciated more references of source material because, as stated previously, this book will leave you digging for more information and getting more involved in politics. Some statistics or studies to back up the subject matter would have been appreciated. This book is well researched and is laid out in an easy to follow manner in a compact and readily available format. At times I felt the content a bit dense, or maybe the topics overwhelming. I had to put the book down and think about what I just read. This book certainly causes one to reflect. But once you come out of your reflection, once you put the book down, you will come away with an overriding need to do something.
There are some sensitive topics covered but the author uses a neutral approach which is inviting. His approach to the subjects is completely ‘take it or leave it’. This is one of the best qualities of this book. The fact that the author lays out his position without dragging people with him. The intensity of the book and the truth in the subject matter will carry you effortlessly.
This book does a fantastic job of starting a serious and necessary conversation. This is necessary for anyone who wants to be an informed citizen.
Pages: 260 | ASIN: B079YP7LGM
Your Book Launch Timeline —What to Do When to Launch a Book That Sells
What’s your launch strategy?
95% of authors I ask this question to reply “I don’t have one” or say “I’ll post a link to my book on social media and hope for the best”.
Hope is not a strategy and won’t get your book on the bestseller lists.
But you know what will?
A carefully orchestrated book launch.
Here’s what you do:
Assumption: the entire execution time from idea to launch is 5 months.
5 MONTHS BEFORE LAUNCH – POSITIONING
You start with the end in mind. What do you do when you want to launch a successful business? You look for a niche that you can dominate. You look for a blue ocean. It’s the same with books.
The majority of books fail because nobody sat with the author to help them them find a category which they can both fit in (so that librarians know how to categorize their book) and stand out (blue ocean).
Take my book How I Sold 80,000 Books. This is my big business card.
How does it fit in? It answers the question “How do I sell more books?”, just like its competing titles.
How does it stand out? It solves the question “How do I sell more books?” using the 4Ps marketing mix framework.
4,5 MONTHS BEFORE LAUNCH – OUTLINE
Writers often label themselves as planners vs. pantsters. I’m a huge believer of planning.
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”
YOU know where you are going — you want to hook your readers, give them an unforgettable reading experience and get them to take action.
To be able to achieve that, you need an outline.
4 MONTHS BEFORE LAUNCH – WRITE
NaNoWriMo gives you one month to write a 50,000-word manuscript. Thousands of writers manage to reach that goal.
If you don’t love to write but still want a book, you can speak it to your phone and then get a ghostwriter to shape it into book material.
3 MONTHS BEFORE LAUNCH – DEVELOPMENTAL EDIT
Wow! You should now be holding a first draft of your professionally written manuscript in your hands. Congratulations!
Do you run and publish it? No, not just yet.
You need to know if there are any gaps or loose ends.
That’s what a developmental editor does.
If they find room for improvement, the manuscript goes back to the ghostwriter. If you get all green lights, you’re off to… no not quite to the races… you’re ready for copy-editing.
2,5 MONTHS BEFORE LAUNCH – COPY-EDITING
This is the fun task of going through your manuscript as many times as necessary to make sure that every comma and period is in place.
This is a must. It shows respect for your reader and it should also completely eliminate any future negative reviews regarding writing style.
2 MONTHS BEFORE LAUNCH – A STUNNING COVER
The first thing people will judge your book by is its cover. The cover consists of two main elements: the title and the artwork.
With the title of a non-fiction book you want to show people what results they will be able to achieve when they read your story.
A great example is Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace. If anybody is in a financial struggle, even just holding the book entitled Financial Peace in their hands will bring a sense of peace to them.
Another great approach is a “How to” title. They’re oldies but goodies. They work. For example, when someone buys How I Sold 80,000 Books what they are really buying is that result.
Next is the artwork. Most of your readers won’t be looking at your book in real size. They will be looking at a thumbnail next to other similar book as they search Amazon.
That’s why your book needs to fit into the other books in its genre but also stand out as being unique.
The most important thing to remember is that the title needs to occupy at least one third of the cover. It needs to be clearly visible as a thumbnail. Then you want one big image.
I recommend you order two or three different covers and then let your target audience choose the one that works.
1,5 MONTHS BEFORE LAUNCH – LAUNCH TEAM AND ENDORSEMENTS
- a) You should now have an ARC – an advanced review copy to build your launch team and get endorsements.
Create a landing page where people sign up and get a free review copy of your upcoming book as soon as they leave their email.
This allows you to build your email list and gives you the ability to mass mail all your team members during launch (crucial for the success of your launch).
Where do you get your launch team members? Anywhere your target audience hangs out. Reach out to Amazon reviewers who reviewed books similar to yours, write relevant articles on blogs (guest posts) and invite people to your launch team, appear on podcasts and tell listeners about your upcoming launch, reach out to existing connections.
Remember that about 30 percent of the people who join your launch team will actually leave a review, so if you want to launch with 50 reviews, you need more than 150 people who committed to do so.
You keep building the launch team until about a week before launch (where the time to read the book becomes too short).
- b) Simultaneously you want to reach out to people who could endorse your book so that you can add their quotes on your cover, inside the book and on your Amazon page.
Reach out to your connections, ask for introductions. It’s easiest to get an endorsement from someone you’ve already got an established relationship with but if you don’t it can be a good reason to start engaging with someone.
1 MONTH BEFORE LAUNCH – FUNNEL IN PLACE
Book royalties are great, but you will almost always generate more revenue on the back end than on the front end.
That’s why you need to have a link inside your book that will take your readers to your landing page so that they can subscribe and you can offer them your other books, products or services.
2 WEEKS BEFORE – OPTIMIZE FOR ONLINE SALES
Amazon looks like a bookstore but in reality it’s a search engine. That’s why your book needs to be optimized for online sales.
What this means is that you need to know what readers are looking for and make sure your book pops up at the top of search results when they are looking for answers your book provides.
That’s why I start with keyword research before I even come up with the titles. The full title and subtitle of How I Sold 80,000 Books is packed with keywords, which I found using dedicated software.
Another aspect is choosing the right category. We already touched upon it in positioning. By choosing the right categories you will be visible to those readers who want to read your book most.
You also need a captivating book description and an outstanding bio.
LAUNCH – IT’S SHOW TIME!
Your Amazon page looks stellar (great cover, title, description, bio, author pic, endorsements). Your book is optimized for online sales (keywords, categories) and it’s a book people will want to buy (and continue their relationship with you via your funnel that’s in place).
The #1 strategy here is successful communication with your launch team that you’ve been building up.
I recommend doing a free launch where you make your book free for a few days and urge your team members to download the book from Amazon (even if they already have the ARC) and leave a review which will be marked as “verified”.
Mail your launch members daily, giving them updates on the progress of the launch and sharing milestones, such as copies downloaded, number of reviews written or bestseller rank reached.
After the free days are over, set your book at $0.99 for a week or two and monitor sales. Increase your price every week or two (be consistent) by a dollar with all other factors unchanged and that will allow you to know (not guess) at which price point you make the most in royalties.
As soon as you’ve got your price point right, move to paid advertising (AMS ads, FB ads) and PR opportunities as well as partnerships to keep sales coming, build your list and increase your world domination!
LAUNCH DONE – NOW WHAT?
For more strategies on selling books by the truckload go to http://www.authorwisdom.com/ and download your free copy of my award-winning guide “How I Sold 80,000 Books” now.
Alinka Rutkowska is a multi-award-winning and #1 international best-selling author.
She’s a coach who transforms struggling writers into profitable authorpreneurs.
She’s the founder and CEO of LibraryBub (http://librarybub.com/authors/), which connects librarians with award-winning and bestselling books from independent publishers.
She’s the founder and host of the 5-Figure Author Challenge (http://www.5figureauthorchallenge.com/ which gives authors winning strategies to get to 5 figures in 5 months.
She’s been featured on Fox Business Network, affiliates of ABC, NBC and CBS, Author Marketing Club, The Author Hangout, Kindlepreneur, Book Marketing Mentors, Examiner, She Knows, She Writes, The Writer’s Life and many more.
She’s a sought-after speaker. She’s been voted top 5 speaker and named most creative book marketer at the Bestseller Summit Online.
Download Alinka’s free award-winning guide “How I Sold 80,000 Books” at http://www.authorwisdom.com/
The Perfect Research Subject
Dennis William Hauck Author Interview
A Transformed Man details an astonishingly prolific man with unbridled passion as an actor, writer and director with a zeal for mystical life. Why was this an important book for you to write?
I have always been interested in personal transformation and how a person’s beliefs influence their actions. After working with Shatner, I realized what an amazingly energetic and prolific man he was. As his career progress, he was always very open and public with his beliefs and feelings. For me, he was the perfect research subject the perfect example of a transformed man.
This biography is very detailed. What kind of research did you do to ensure accuracy of the subject?
I interviewed people who knew him personally, including the cast and crew of Star Trek, and researched hundreds of public sources and media. Then, I organized everything chronologically, and published a thousand annotated credits of his acting career in a book in the Greenwood Press Performing Arts series called William Shatner: A Bio-Bibliography. That made it much easier to compose an in-depth biography of him that was concise and accurate.
What is one thing that surprises you the most about William Shatner?
His passion for life. He is totally engaged in everything he does. People have no idea how perceptive and sensitive he is. He is also an athletic guy, who stays very active even at the age of 87.
What is the next book that you are writing and when will it be available?
I am working on a biography of the Elizabethan alchemist Dr. John Dee that focuses on his mathematical and scientific contributions.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
![William Shatner: A Transformed Man by [Hauck, Dennis William]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51mnUSXvMlL.jpg)
This biography of William Shatner adds some surprises beyond the all the stories of his eccentric behavior. It reveals what really makes the man tick. The author has done his footwork, talking to all the cast and crew and sifting through sixty years of archives, and he has come up with many amazing insights, including the shocking source of the Star Trek franchise. This is a moving portrait of a fascinating man, an in-depth and often unsettling biography of a modern icon. This is a book for people who don’t give a damn about Star Trek.
Project Bodi: Awaken the Power of Insight
Project Bodi: Awaken the Power of Insight by Hosein Kouros-Mehr is a sci-fi fiction book that goes into an alternate world of Google and its reign in 2030 and beyond. Although it’s a fictitious book, there are so many parts of it that relate to the world that we currently live in so reading this book was like looking into the future. A scary and not so distant future. The book focuses on Google Health and the impact that artificial intelligence has on the future of work.
This book took a bit for me to get my head around, but once I did, I devoured it. I love reading about alternate worlds and dystopian futures and although this book was a somewhat dystopian future, the similarities between what’s happening in our world are obvious. Artificial Intelligence is scary because we don’t know much about it as a species and yet continue to use it with reckless abandon and for me, messing with things that we don’t fully understand can only lead to trouble.
How much of a role should artificial intelligence have within society? This book suggests that the way things are going, artificial intelligence should not only be expected but welcomed with open arms. However, as the story goes on, I felt more linked with Austin than I did with Beth. As much as I want to be hardworking and driven, my smartphone and social media is a constant and easy to access distraction from my work. Although I might have talent, it’s surely being squandered by my lack of dedication and focus to the task. It was refreshing to see this written in a non-condescending way as that is so often the case when people write about younger generations.
I found myself reading this book with ease. Although the book switches between three different characters, including the CEO of Google, the language is easy to understand and easy to follow. As we are dealing with some interesting concepts throughout this book, it’s a huge bonus that the perspectives that are shown in the book are easy to understand and easy to read and are delivered with relaxed and concise language.
I really liked the different perspectives that were shown throughout the book. It varies from the younger guy whose distracted yet shows promise, the senior worker whose given a mountain of a task with little room to fail and the CEO of the company that’s taking over the world. Despite these differences, the perspectives between them all show that there’s similarities there as well. The pressure to stay on top of your game in a world of never ending challenges and pressures. I liked the passages about subconscious. We often forget that our strongest tool is our mind and once we sharpen it, we can be unstoppable.
I really enjoyed this book. It was an easy and eye opening read that showed me what the future will possibly look like.
Pages: 219 | ASIN: B072QX9YZX
One Smoking Hot Fairy Tail
![One Smoking Hot Fairy Tail (The Water Kingdom Book 1) by [Kevin James Breaux]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/513irkUe6gL.jpg)
The media loves a good story, and what better than one of a sexy model, party girl, drama queen, and spoiled brat? That is Sabrina London, or at least that was Sabrina London. Now the starlet has settled down, quit drugs, gotten her life together, and is ready to move on. If only her family hadn’t disowned her, oh and did I mention she is a Fairy? Keven James Breaux has created another world filled with magic, ancient history, and modern drama. One Smoking Hot Fairy Tail is about more than just fairy’s, it has vampires, the undead, shapeshifters, and other magical beings. Sabrina’s dream of settling into a new normal and moving on with her life is interrupted when the creator of a new nicotine addiction drug, DUST, pursues her in an attempt to cut off her fairy wings. With the help of her otherworldly friends and one human Sabrina must attempt to stop Alexander Kintner.
Kevin Breaux sets the novel in Los Angeles, not too far into the modern future. Sabrina is a socialite with her bodyguard and friend Mira living in luxury, but she is unhappy. Her father disowned her after a video of her breaking into a laboratory and having sex with her boyfriend and vampire Cade made the media rounds. Vampires and fairies are supposed to be mortal enemies but love knows this not. Sabrina is still deeply in love with Cade. Sabrina’s other good friend is Moselle; Moselle is part of the ancient undead. The human involved in this unlikely group is Jackson, he works for Moselle’s father in advertising and he falls in love with Moselle, she feels the same way, their love is also forbidden under the traditions of the otherworld’s. The relationship dynamics of all the characters are complex and while the love stories are secondary to the action plot of dismantling Alexander Kintner’s DUST operation they are useful in learning the history and culture surrounding the otherworldly.
One of the great things about this novel, is the history. Breaux manages to weave into his story line ancient Egyptian mythology and facts. There is great detail presented into how the otherworldly are created and it is explained in a manner that is fluid to the story line so you don’t feel like you are reading a dissertation in the middle of your novel. It is told through personal experience of the characters and given a strong emotional component not just a sterile list of how to instructions. You really get to know the characters through these flashback memories and they advance the story line as well so you can better understand why some of the characters respond as they do. Breaux brings the reader into their world, he presents the information as deeply hidden secrets in the world of the otherworldly and emphasizes the dangers of this information getting out into the hands of mortal humans.
One Smoking Hot Fairy Tail is an engaging book that will leave the reader turning the pages to see what happens next. Kevin Breaux is able to tap into the reader’s emotions to draw them in and give them a real connection to the characters. Jackson the human in all this is relatable to many. His reactions as he finds out more and more about his new friends is believable. Breaux ends this novel with a cliff hanger leaving the reader to wait for the next installment to see how things continue. I think this is going to be a great series for Breaux.
Pages: 319 | ASIN: B01EB65RJM
LITERARY TITAN 