Putting It On Paper - The Ground Rules for Creating Promotional Pieces that Sell Books

Title: Putting It On Paper - The Ground Rules for Creating Promotional Pieces that Sell Books
Author: Dawn Josephson
Publisher: Ground Rules Press A Subsidiary of Cameo Publications LLC
Category: Non-fiction / Self-help
ISBN: 0-9744966-1-8
Rating: 8/10

Review

PUTTING IT ON PAPER - THE GROUND RULES FOR CREATING PROMOTIONAL PIECES THAT SELL BOOKS by DAWN JOSEPHSON is clear in its target group - authors who need to promote their books and who lack the resources to engage capable people like Dawn to do the job.

The need to promote the book is of course very well known and accepted. Once the need is accepted, the choices are clear: either engage a competent Author Services Outfit or do it yourself. When the author tries to do it, he/she soon finds that writing the book was far easier than writing suitable promotional literature about the book.

Dawn does an excellent job of explaining the various promotional tools, starting from the cover letter to the press/media kit to bookmarks, postcards etc. Her style is easy and interesting. She gives good examples of each tool.

I was especially interested to learn that the author has to prepare a ready-to-use review too, to help out the harried editor of the publication where the review is expected to be published. As an independent reviewer, I always read the book before trying to write a review. So this was a new angle indeed. It may be an acceptable practice in some cases, but I personally feel that an independent reviewer is to be preferred. And there are many nowadays willing to review books of upcoming authors too, like myself!

The author may consider bringing out a companion workbook with more examples of actual real life promotional tools and especially the transformation of each from a 'Not OK' to an ‘OK’ state. With a few exceptions, all the examples given in the book are finished pieces.

The present book will certainly help new authors and even experienced authors refine their approach to creating powerful promotional materials. Compared to the amount of information given, the price appears to be quite reasonable. A good buy.

Principled Profit

Title: Principled Profit
Author: Shel Horowitz
Published by AWM Books

Category: Non-fiction / Self-help
160 pages; ISBN: 0-9614666-6-9

Rating: 9/10

Review

'Principled Profit' by Shel Horowitz is an excellent book on ethical marketing, abundance mindset and other innovative ideas. They are innovative from the typical materialistically oriented, aggressive, 'If You Win I Must Have Lost' perspective. It may or may not appeal to the typical A-type (Ambitious, Aggressive and often Angry) pusher, but it will certainly open the mental doors to a different and more efficient ball-game of marketing. Instead of the Win-Lose mentality, it talks consistently of Win-Win situations and gives plenty of examples.

The book is a comprehensive tour of ethical marketing, where the marketer is a partner of the client right through. And where 'There Is Enough For Everyone' is the recurring concept. Cooperation is more efficient than competition, and competition should be a friendly 'I Help You - You Help Me - Together Let Us Build A Better World For All' is the key theme in this small but great book.

Unlike many 'professional' reviewers, I do read through the book carefully, though it takes a lot of time and effort, since basically I am a book-lover. So, I can't but help notice editorial or style problems, spelling and grammatical errors etc. I do make notes of them as I read, in the book's margins. I also note down some very good points which strike a resonative Aha in my mind. I am happy to report that Shel's book had very few adverse notes when I finished reading and several 'good', 'excellent' etc., comments spattered through out.

Chapter 18 is the best chapter in the book and will give you a gist of the whole book. So read that short chapter first apart from this and many other reviews/endorsements in the beginning of the book, so that you can decide whether the book is for you or not. The "Resources' at the end of the book and the Index add value to the book.

If you are in any way connected with marketing of a product or service, this book is definitely for you. Even if you are not directly involved in marketing of anything, since you need to market yourself without selling your 'self', PRINCIPLED PROFIT will give you several ideas.

My score for this book is 9/10 and rating for this book is 'Excellent'.

Peacemaker

Title: Peacemaker
Author: Dan Ronco
Published by: Winterwolf Publishing

Category: Fiction / Thriller
Pages: 284
ISBN: 0-97527-114-8

Rating: 8/10

Review

"Peacemaker" is a Thriller by Dan Ronco. The main character in the book is not any human being, but a self-adoptive, 'intelligent' Virus built into an Operating System. All other characters are human beings drawn into different roles, depending upon their fears, values etc.

Dianne Morgan wants to bring the Federal Government to her knees with Peacemaker, the Virus. She is utterly ruthless and doesn't mind using any one and throw them when finished. She uses her body as a bait to get many men to do what she wants. Ray Brown, a brilliant software architect is one of her victims. His other weakness is alcoholism. However, he overcomes both of the weaknesses to fight the virus.

The book has all the usual ingredients, suspense, sex, violence, betrayal etc. to keep the reader hooked. But at some places, the ideas thrown out are quite disturbing and the scenario, presented by the author seems too close to the present reality to be dismissed as fiction. The over- dependence on computers all over the world is well portrayed in the book, in the aftermath of the virus shutting down almost all the computers in the world. The black out, the chaos, the anarchy etc., described is too real to be dismissed as fiction. May be such books will alert some strategic management groups in various governments around the world to introduce checks and balances so that in the event of a massive strike by such a malicious computer virus, the damage will be still controllable.

The book is easy to understand even to a lay man though knowledge of computers and software will be useful. Similarly the few pages about the nuclear reactor are easy enough to follow even for a layman, though for a technically informed person, the scenario is easier to follow.

All in all, a good buy to keep you engaged for a few hours.