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Burning the Midnight Oil Book Zine - a FR*E*E monthly ezine for writing parents. ******************************************************************* You are receiving this e-zine because you subscribed through e-mail. Unsubscribe information is below. ******************************************************************* TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. WELCOME NOTES 2. QUOTES FOR THE MONTH 3. EDITOR'S ARTICLE: KEEP WORKING ??“ AND SELLING ??“ WITH A WRITER??™S INVENTORY By DAWN COLCLASURE 4. CONTEST CORNER 5. ADVERTISEMENTS 6. GUEST ARTICLE: 3 Clever PR Tricks! How To Use Them, And... How NOT To! By: CRAIG GARBER 7. BOOK EXCERPT: SPIRAL by Denise Turney 8. MARKETS 9. INDUSTRY INTERVIEW 10. BOOK GIVEAWAY 11. WHAT??™S UP WITH THE BOOK??™S WRITERS 12. BOOK NEWS 13. POETRY SECTION 14. SITES SITED 15. FREEBIE CORNER 16. WRITING PARENT TIPS FOR JULY 17. FORUM NEWS 18. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES 19. UNSUBSCRIBE INSTRUCTIONS ******************************************************************* Welcome Notes Hello, Everyone! Welcome to another issue of the Burning the Midnight Oil Book Zine! As always, feel free to E-mail me anytime at BurningMidnightOil@hotmail.com with comments, suggestions or just to plain chat. Once again, please accept my apologies for getting this to you late. Between working on projects, parenting and arguing with my computer (and bad Internet connection), things got a little held up! I also got a little stalled in getting some parts of the E-zine put together, but I??™m hoping that after reading this GREAT issue, the wait will have been worth it! It??™s the LONGEST issue I??™ve done so far, too! With summer coming to an end, it??™s no surprise that families are making a fast break to grab those cherished last days of sunshine and flip-flops. This can endanger your writing career if you??™re spending more time at the beach than you are writing and trying to sell your work. The solution? Have a writer??™s inventory! With an inventory of articles, short stories, essays, poetry, etc., all at the ready for you to submit, you??™ve got more time to keep tossing out work and fit in those picnics to the park, too! And with children home from school, an inventory can help you keep your income afloat. Below is my article all about a writer??™s inventory: What they are, how to build one, how to manage one and what it can mean for you. If you don??™t have an inventory now, start yours today! It??™ll come in handy during these final summer days and last you through the next time beach season rolls around. You??™ll also get to read Craig Garber??™s excellent article on three clever PR tricks and how you should (and shouldn??™t) use them. Of course writers are going to jump on any PR opportunity they can all in the name of getting themselves and their work out there, but some tactics can be a little off-putting, if not just a little bit on the weird side. Craig??™s advice is straight-on and I encourage readers to keep his pointers in mind the next time they think bout renting a hot air balloon ... or a dancing bear! Enjoy this issue! Hugs, Dawn Colclasure Editor and Publisher http://dmcwriter.tripod.com/ ******************************************************************* Quotes for the Month ???Know that the amount of criticism you receive may correlate somewhat to the amount of publicity you receive."??”Donald Rumsfeld "I don't care what they call me as long as they mention my name."??”George M. Cohan "There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary."??”Brendan Behan "Publicity can be terrible. But only if you don't have any."??”Jane Russell "No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool. Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks."??”Erica Jong "In America, the race goes to the loud, the solemn, the hustler. If you think you're a great writer, you must say that you are."??”Gore Vidal "Some reviews give pain. That is regrettable, but no author has the right to whine. He invited publicity, and he must take the publicity that comes along."??”E. M. Forster "Of course I'm a publicity hound. Aren't all crusaders? How can you accomplish anything unless people know what you are trying to do?"??”Vivien Kellems ******************************************************************* EDITOR??™S ARTICLE Keep Working ??“ and Selling ??“ with a Writer??™s Inventory Copyright 2004 by: Dawn Colclasure You??™ve got an editor??™s interest. You want to keep that interest alive. An editor ends up rejecting your submission, but you forget all about mulling over this when asked, ???Got anything else???? Sure, you reply, and whip out an article that??™s been in limbo on your hard drive. You??™ve been able to keep that editor??™s interest thanks to that article being ready to pull out of your inventory, and there are plenty more should you get the same result. You??™ve got plenty more because you??™ve got an inventory of work to submit. A common piece of advice writers share as far as rejection goes is to pitch a new idea to the editor. In some cases, it would not be a new idea that you could end up pitching, but a new manuscript. And if you??™ve got a stocked inventory of material you??™ve written just waiting to be submitted, you can rest easy knowing that you??™re prepared for such an instance. But if not, take heart. You can start building your inventory now. One way to do this is to write something, anything, every day. Write and keep writing any chance you get. Whether you jot down a cute anecdote, a joke you overheard, a humorous essay, short story or slogan idea, you??™ve done your part in adding to your inventory of work. And adding a little extra something means more credits, more bylines and more sales. What you write is entirely up to you, but don??™t limit what you get ideas to write. If you get an idea for a short story, don??™t toss it out the window because you write greeting card verse. As writers grow, so do their interests and styles. You may be writing greeting card verses today, but tomorrow might see you writing fiction, books or articles. If anything, writing something different can serve as practice. Also, you never know when you??™ll get the opportunity to get published elsewhere, and that short story can be your ticket to a wider audience. You don??™t need to do any major work to keep your inventory stocked. Most of the things you can put into your inventory, that you can easily find a home for later, are articles on writing, slogan and greeting card ideas, essays, poetry, short stories, plays and even anecdotes. For the material you write for your inventory, you don??™t need to do any heavy research, interviews or legwork to write something for your inventory. And any rejected writing that did take that kind of work can safely find a temporary home in your inventory. Keep these articles in mind the next time you find a new market for them. Another way to stock your inventory is try writing old material from a different angle. If you??™ve written an article on common food poisoning sicknesses, you can recycle this piece to be a short news item on cases of food poisonings happening at schools, common food packaging errors that can result in food poisoning or how to tell if someone has food poisoning. Look for an extra article or story idea in the work you have on hand to create more. Check out some writing contests or writing exercises to get ideas for more material to write. Add them to your inventory ??“ or consider entering those contests now. Now that you have ideas on ways to get material for your inventory, think of how you??™d like to manage it. This will save you the headache of finding just the right type of material to submit to a particular market. If you keep everything on the computer, save everything on a disk. Right now, this very minute. Once your hard drive goes, so will all of your inventory. Next, consider breaking it down into folders. Use one folder and label it ???Inventory??? then create more folders within it for articles on various categories (label each folder ???Articles on Parenting???) or fiction works assigned to each folder (such as ???Horror Short Stories??? or ???Fantasy Script???). If you keep everything as a hard copy, file them the same way. The good thing about having an inventory is not that it keeps you selling or working, but that it keeps you writing. The more you write, the better you??™ll write. And the better you write, the more you will sell and face less rejection. But in case rejection does happen to sneak up on you, feel better knowing that you??™ve got a handy inventory of other work just waiting for you to submit. *** Dawn Colclasure edits and publishes the Burning the Midnight Oil Book Zine, which is a product of her book: BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL: How We Survive as Writing Parents (Booklocker). She is also a poetry editor for Skyline E-Magazine, contributing writer to the newspaper SIGNews and a staff writer for the Web site, The Shadowlands. She??™s been published both on and off the Web, in magazines such as Mothering and American Fitness, and Web sites such as Absolute Write, Writing Etc. and Writing World. Visit her on the Web at http://dmcwriter.tripod.com/ . ******************************************************************* CONTEST CORNER Memoirs Ink Second Annual Personal Essay/ Memoir/ Creative Non-fiction Contest. The contest is open to any writer in English. Max 3000 words. First Prize: $1000; Second Prize: $500; Third Prize: $250. Winners published at Memoirsink.com. Entry Fee $10. Deadline August 1, 2005 (postmark). Late deadline August 15, 2005 (requires additional $5 fee). Please read full guidelines at www.memoirsink.com/docs/contest1.html. Please email questions to Kimberli at memoirs_ink@yahoo.com. ******* The 2005 Bards and Sages Writing Contest ends August 1, 2005. Winners will be announced September 1, 2005. We are accepting poetry, flash fiction, short stories, and novellas in horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. Cash prizes and publication to top three winners in each catagory. Complete details can be found at http://www.bardsandsages.com/contest We have also put out a call for short stories and artwork for an upcoming anthology Dead Men (and Women) Walking, a collection featuring tales of zombies, vampires, ghouls, and other undead. NO VAMPIRE ROMANCES! Complete information on the project is available at http://www.bardsandsages.com/deadmen This is not a contest, but a call for submissions, and there is not a deadline as of yet. ******* The 3rd Annual Sean O??™Faolain (http://www.munsterlit.ie/literarycork/corkery.html) Short Story Competition 2005 There were 486 entries from all over the world for the 2004 competition. We would like to thank everyone who entered and wish them good fortune with their writing careers. Each year the competition will have a different judge, so do not give up trying. An annual short story competition dedicated to one of Ireland??™s most accomplished story writers and theorists, sponsored by the Munster Literature Centre Judge: For 2005 is Vincent McDonnell First Prize: ?‚¬1,500 and publication in the literary biannual Southword Second Prize: ?‚¬500 and publication in Southword Four other shortlisted entries will be selected for publication in Southword and receive a fee of 50 euros 1. The competition is open to original unpublished short stories in the English language of 3,000 words or less. The story can be on any subject, in any style by a writer of any nationality, living anywhere in the world. 2. Entries should be typed. The entrant??™s name and contact details must be on a separate piece of paper. Manuscripts cannot be returned. 3. Each entry must be accompanied by an entry fee of ?‚¬10, or ??10 stg or US$15 or AU$18 or Can$16. You may make as many entries as you want. Cheques and money orders should be payable to the Munster Literature Centre. An entry form is not needed. 4. Closing date is July 31st 2005. All entries must be postmarked before or on that date (in plainer English, entries posted before or on this date will be accepted after July 31st provided they are sent by airmail). Entries will be accepted by post only at the following address: The Munster Literature Centre, Frank O'Connor House, 84 Douglas Street, Cork, Ireland. (There is no post/zip code) 5. The winners will be announced at the International Frank O??™Connor Festival of the Short Story (http://www.munsterlit.ie/FOC/2003frame.htm) in Cork in September 2005 . The winners will be invited to read their prize winning stories at the festival. 6. Enclose a self-addressed stamped postcard to acknowledge receipt. 7. Judge??™s decision is final. 8. It would assist us greatly if you let us know how you first heard of this competition, whether through a mailshot, word of mouth, classified advert, flyer newsprint story, link from another site or search engine. For further information contact: The Munster Literature Centre, 84 Douglas Street, Cork. munsterlit@eircom.net ******* 4th Annual FundsforWriters Essay Contest http://www.fundsforwriters.com/annualcontest.htm Theme: "They Actually Paid Me to Write" FundsforWriters sponsors an annual essay contest to allow writers to express success in some manner. This year, the theme is They Actually Paid Me to Write. Now, the next question is what do we expect with that theme? We are not picky. Read on. ?· Describe getting paid for a simple assignment. ?· Elaborate on your first paid gig. ?· Maybe you landed an assignment for a really stupid topic. ?· You got the chance to write about something so easy it was a crime to pay you. ?· Someone paid you way too much (yeah right). ?· Possibly someone paid you an insulting amount like a penny a word. ?· You stumbled into a contract due to weird fate. ?· You already had it written and they paid you more than you sold it for earlier. ?· Anything that makes us marvel, laugh, cry, get angry, scratch our heads, shake our heads, or want to call up someone and say "hey, you wanna hear something cool?" AND...as is the FundsforWriters way, we offer two categories - the FEE category and the NO FEE category. Many writers do not believe in paying while others have no contrary opinion about an entry fee. Here we offer both so everyone has a choice. This way no one has an excuse not to submit. Prizes Category I - ?·$5 ENTRY FEE ?·First prize - $ 150 ?·Second prize - $ 30 ?·Third prize - Book copy - THE SHY WRITER: The Introvert's Guide to Writing Success Category II - ?·NO ENTRY FEE ?·First prize - $ 50 ?·Second prize- $ 30 ?·Third prize - Book copy - THE SHY WRITER: The Introvert's Guide to Writing Success Guidelines (Please Read Carefully) ?·Not to exceed 700 words. ?·Essay format only. ?·Deadline October 31, 2005. ?·Email preferred to hope@fundsforwriters.com. Fax and snail mail accepted, though. ?·No attachments to emails. Embed in the email itself. (Viruses are nasty creatures.) ?·Entry fee $5 or ZERO dollars. Payable via PayPal or check. ?·Note ENTRY FEE or NO ENTRY FEE on your submission. ?·Must be original and unpublished. ?·Must be in English. ?·No limit to the number of submissions. ?·All writers must be 18 or older. ?·Do not bother with SASE for winners lists. Winners posted on website and in newsletters. ?·Single or double-spaced accepted. ?·Winners and public notified by December 1, 2005. ?·Winners published in FundsforWriters newsletters and/or website. ?·Other submissions considered for publication, but will be paid the standard rate of $30 if selected. ?·Panel of editors and published writers to make final determination. http://www.fundsforwriters.com/annualcontest.htm ******* The Litchfield Review Contest Postmark Deadline: Winter Contest- Feb 28 Summer Contest- October 31 The Litchfield Review (www.thelitchfieldreview.com) seeks original, unpublished poems, essays and short stories for its 2004 Winter Contest. The overall winner will receive $250 and other prizes of $100 may also be awarded. All prizewinners will be published in The Litchfield Review. Runners-up may also be published. All writers we publish will receive a free copy of the issue in which they appear. We are a new journal offering a forum to emerging and established writers; our only criterion for acceptance is excellence. We look for good stories beautifully told, quality poetry of substance, and creative nonfiction that lingers long in the minds of readers. Contest guidelines: Please send two copies of each submission, both labeled with name and contact information. For each 3 poems or 1 prose work, the reading fee is $10.00. Unlimited submissions for a reading fee of $13.00. Please make checks payable to The Litchfield Review. THE LITCHFIELD REVIEW 7 Bonna Street Beacon Falls , CT 06403 ******************************************************************* ADVERTISEMENTS PRESS RELEASE STAR PARTY The Astronomical Society of the Desert will hold its next monthly public star party on Saturday July 30th at our new Mountain Observing area. Go up Route 74 for 15.6 miles from the intersection of Hwy 111 and Rt. 74 (Monterey Ave.) in Palm Desert. Turn left at the sign for the Sawmill Trailhead and Riverside County Disposal Station (Pinyon Flats Campground is on the right). This is 0.4 miles past the Sugarloaf Cafe. Follow this road until you reach the parking lot on the left hand side. We meet in the far end of this parking lot. Jupiter, the famous Hercules globular star cluster (M-13), the ring nebula, star clusters, galaxies, and other deep sky objects will be seen. We will also see the Constellations Sagittarius, Scorpius, Virgo, Ursa Major (the Big Dipper), Ursa Minor (the Little Dipper), and many more. A sky tour will be given to point out all of these objects. As always, this event is FREE and everyone is welcome. Telescopes and giant binoculars will be provided. Please dress warmly as the mountain nights do get cold. Observing will begin at sundown and continue into the night. For directions and more information go to our web page at: www.astrorx.org or call John at (760) 329-9029. ****************************** Dear Dawn, The Learning In Our Own Way Conference is a content-rich event that will provide you with valuable information and practical ideas about how to create an individualized education for any type of learner. This is information that you will use and think about for years to come. I??ve designed the conference so you will have a maximum amount of time to interact not only with each other, but with the speakers and presenters as well. Many of these speakers do not come to New England often, and, if they do speak around here, it is to groups that usually don??t allow the general public to attend. NOTE: This is your last chance to save on early registration for The Learning In Our Own Way Conference, August 12 ? 14, 2005 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Woburn, MA. Register on-line using your credit card by midnight, July 12, to save $19 on each registration: www.learninginourownway.com Have your registration postmarked by July 12 and mailed to me at: The Learning In Our Own Conference, PO Box 176, Medford, MA 02155 Children and teens are also invited to participate in the weekend and there will be activities and performances scheduled just for them throughout the weekend. Best wishes, Pat Farenga Host, www.learninginourownway.com PS Here are some highlights from the general conference program: Keynotes Eight Kinds of Smart: Building on a Child's Assets for Success in School and Life: Dr. Thomas Armstrong Weapons of Mass Instruction: John Taylor Gatto Workshops The Myth of the ADD /ADHD Child: Dr. Thomas Armstrong Homeschooling Children with Special Needs: Cindy Gaddis Possibility in the Face of Probability: Matt Hern. Working with Gifted Children: Meredith Warshaw. Demystifying Math: Beyond Textbooks and Measuring Cups: Loretta Heuer The Price of Praise: Naomi Aldort The Fourth Purpose: Making a documentary movie to change education: John Gatto and Roland Legiardi-Laura College Admissions for Homeschoolers: Loretta Heuer Individualizing Learning: Styles and Time Frames: Cindy Gaddis Learning Centers for Teens: How they work and are sustained. Matt Hern and Ken Danford. Homeschooling A,B,C??s: Sophia Sayigh Schools that Work with Homeschoolers: Dr. Patricia Montgomery Writing Together: Milva McDonald Panels Learning Disabilities - Issues Professionals Struggle With: Pat Farenga Uncollege: Ken Danford Grown Homeschoolers: Sarabeth Matilsky Classical Music and Homeschooling: Nicky Hardenbergh Homeschoolers of Color: Venus Taylor Teens Without Schooling: Ken Danford Ivan Illich on Education: Gene Burkart and Matt Hern Special Event A Tribute to John Holt: Pat Farenga For details about the programs, registration forms, hotel, and other information visit: www.learninginourownway.com Please share this information with anyone you think will be interested in these ideas and this event. Thank you, Pat Farenga The Learning In Our Own Way Conference August 12 - 14, 2005 Crowne Plaza Hotel, Woburn, MA Voice: 781 - 395-8508 Fax: 781-874-1053 www.learninginourownway.com ****************************** Dear Dawn, LIVE Conference-call Interviews with your favorite homeschooling authors and speakers! Special guests: Robert Kiyosaki, Pat Farenga and 30 of the most trusted names in homeschooling. Here's the information you've been looking for on time management, organization, homeschooling through High School, Christian Homeschooling and much, much more!! Four hours of back-to-back interviews each day from July 25 - August 4th Homeschool.com hosts this FREE event and you'll kick yourself if you miss it! To receive the conference-call number, passcode and speaker schedule, please register at: www.Homeschool.com/registration. We'll send you the final schedule as soon as it is available. It's a Homeschooling How-To Marathon! Thank you, Pat Farenga The Learning In Our Own Way Conference August 12 - 14, 2005 Crowne Plaza Hotel, Woburn, MA Voice: 781 - 395-8508 Fax: 781-874-1053 www.learninginourownway.com ****************************** It??™s here! Finally, a Credit & Collections guide for Everyone! Become the Squeaky Wheel, a Credit & Collections Guide for Everyone ISBN# 0970664516 $29.99 paperback or e-book Visit www.michelledunn.com to preview! Tune into WCCM 1490 on Monday 18, 2004 at 8:45 am to hear Marc Lemay interview Michelle Dunn for his AM Drive Program! Also check out The Record Enterprise and The Wall Street Journal next week for more interviews and articles with Michelle Dunn! Do you already have a business? Do you have slow paying customers? Do you want to make more money easily? Then you need to Become the Squeaky Wheel! This Credit and Collections Guide for Everyone is loaded full of tools that will help you: ?· Improve your collection techniques and procedures ?· Learn how to read a credit report ?· Learn how to extend credit ?· Learn Federal and State credit laws ?· Learn about interest and late fees And most importantly, learn how to be in control of your accounts receivable and not let it control you. The clear benefit of this book is to help you obtain and retain good paying customers, therefore enabling you to spend more time at what you are good at and increase your cash flow. This great jam- packed book includes all the laws you need to know when collecting money. This is a valuable Manual you will want to keep on your desk and refer back to time after time. Order now at www.michelledunn.com or amazon.com THANK YOU to everyone for your support in my creation of this book and providing your expertise to help the many people who will use this book to be more successful in their business. If you are interested in providing this valuable resource to your clients or ordering for yourself visit www.michelledunn.com for more information or email michelle@michelledunn.com Order your own copy today! www.michelledunn.com www.credit-and-collections.com EDITOR??™S NOTE: You??™ll get a chance to read my inspiring interview with Michelle in Volume 2 of BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL: How We Survive as Writing Parents! ****************************** M E D I A R E L E A S E CONTACT: Carolyn Howard-Johnson E-mail: HoJoNews@aol.com For Immediate Release Finishing Line Press to Publish Award-Winning Novelists' First Chapbook of Poetry Cincinnati, Ohio: Finishing Line Press has signed award-winning novelist Carolyn Howard-Johnson for her first chapbook of poetry, Tracings. To be published the fall of 2005, Tracings will touch chords--both major and minor--for readers interested in nostalgia, tolerance, culture and aging. The author traces her life's experiences and for her it feels like "a movie reel running backwards." Howard-Johnson's poetry has appeared in literary journals like the Mochila Review, Banyan Review and Poetic Voices and in a variety of journals and magazines, both print and online. One of her poems won The Pedestal Magazine's first annual Readers' Award and her poetry has also been honored by Long Story Short. The author's first novel, This is the Place, has won eight awards. Her book of creative nonfiction has won three. She is a columnist for Home D???©cor Buyer as well as several online review sites like www.bookreviewcafe.com, www.sellwritingonline.com and www.myshelf.com, and reviews theater and movies for The Glendale News-Press. She also is an extension division instructor for UCLA???‚¬?„?s Writers???‚¬?„? Program and her book THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON???‚¬?„?T is USA Book News' Best Professional Book of the Year. It is published by Star Publish. The Finishing Line Press has been providing a place for today's poets including a women's series and annual prize since 1998. J. C. Morrison is the editor. Learn more about Carolyn Howard-Johnson at http://carolynhowardjohnson.com. The Finishing Line Press is at: http://finishinglinepress.com # # # # Support Materials available on request. Carolyn Howard-Johnson, Author THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T, Winner USA Book News' "Best Professional Book 2004" #1 Bestselling E-book at: http://starpublish.com/starbooks.htm. Purchase the paperback at http://www.amazon.com/. Learn more at: http://carolynhowardjohnson.com/ . "This book might be nicknamed The Frugal Promo Bible." David Herrle, Editor, SubtleTea.com ******************************************************************* GUEST ARTICLE 3 Clever PR Tricks! How To Use Them, And... How NOT To! by Craig Garber Today's tip is going to be on the "lighter" side. See, in a few days it's going to be April Fools Day, so I figured a little levity was in order. Know how April Fools Day actually came about? Well, the "exact" answer's a little sketchy, but historians reckon it had something to do with the introduction of the Gregorian (modern-day) calendar, which happened in 1580. Moving the official "New Year" from March 25th back to January 1st, caused some confusion, and the people who just didn't "get it" were jokingly called "fools". Now here's something else you may not know about: Did you know, in 1998 Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu, called... The "Left-Handed" Whopper! This burger was specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. It's true! According to the ad, the new "Left-Handed" Whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger special sauce, whatever), but all the condiments were "rotated" 180?° degrees for the benefit of all the lefties out there. So what do you think of this, at least from a marketing standpoint? And how about this one: On April 1, 1986, the French newspaper 'Le Parisien' shocked the people of France, by reporting that a confidential agreement had recently been signed, to... Dismantle the Eiffel Tower! This international symbol of French culture was instead going to be rebuilt in the new (at the time) Euro Disney theme park going up, just outside of Paris. And where the Tower used to stand, a 35,000 seat stadium was going to be built for the 1992 Olympic Games. Amazing, hey? And maybe you can remember when this happened: In 2002, British supermarket "Tesco" published an advertisement in The Sun, announcing the historic and successful creation of a genetically modified "whistling carrot". (And as a very important side note here, I was actually at the Grand Opening of the new Tesco in Dunstable, back in 1993 -- very memorable I must add -- loved the clotted cream.) Anyhow, the ad explained how the carrots were genetically engineered to grow with tapered airholes on their sides. Then, when you fully cooked the carrots, these airholes caused the vegetable to whistle. Again, pretty weird, right? Well, the truth is, all 3 of these stories were April Fools Jokes created by the companies themselves. And yes, it is unusual to see a company having a sense of humor, and poking fun at itself, but as you can also see, there's some great publicity opportunities available when you do come up with something creative like this. Remember, if you're going to use publicity to try and "promote" yourself, you can do it in 3 ways: 1. Be Newsworthy! If you can enter the conversation that's currently going on in your prospect's mind, related to current events going on at the time, this is one sure-fire way of getting noticed. And from experience, I can tell you the best way of being newsworthy is by being controversial -- in other words -- Going against the grain! So for example, if everyone is telling you why you should eat low carbs, you'd want to talk about why eating low carbs isn't good for you and what you should really do. Or, tell people the Eiffel Tower is being moved to the newest Disney theme park, if you want publicity for Disney. 2. Have some kind of "wacky" new invention! And when I say "wacky", I mean fun and outrageous, like the "whistling carrot", or the "left-handed burger", or the coffee bean-counting contest that accurately predicts the winner of the election in your town. NOT "wacky" as in stupid, like the guy who once called me up and wanted me to help him sell his portable cabanas you stuff inside the trunk of your car and then lug over to the beach with you. Again, if you can tie your "wacky" promotion into something that's going on in your prospect's lives, it's even better. 3. Offer a solution to a problem! The more "popular" the problem, or the more "severe" the problem (or, the more "perceived" severity), the more important your solution will be. Anyhow, hopefully you can take a cue from some of these examples, and apply them to your particular situation. See you next week. P.S. The other way of getting publicity is by acting like an idiot, but remember, you only reap... what... you sow! And believe me, the last thing you want, is to start attracting idiots as clients and customers -- life's tough enough working with "normal" people. True? See you next week. Any comments? Send them to me by scooting over to the contact form on my "Here's How To Contact Craig" page (http://kingofcopy.com/tips/aprilfools.htm changing in the next week or so to http://kingofcopy.com/tips/aprilfools.html), and maybe I'll publish them next time. I appreciate your feedback! And if you haven 't already done so, go ahead and click here right now to sign up for my FREE Tip Of The Week -- it's the Number One Direct-Response Marketing And Copywriting Newsletter for independent business-owners. ABOUT CRAIG: Craig Garber is America's Top Direct-Response Copywriter. You'll find hundreds of marketing tips to increase your sales, and his insanely popular FREE Direct-Response Marketing Tip Of The Week, on his website, www.KingOfCopy.com. Copyright ?© Craig Garber. All rights reserved.??? ******************************************************************* BOOK EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK: SPIRAL by: Denise Turney Author of the books Portia, Spiral and Love Has Many Faces Go to - http://www.chistell.com (I'd love it if you visited me online!) For excitement, suspense, mystery, romance - the Truth! PART I Chapter One The summer of 1934 was an unusual summer in Louisville, Kentucky. It was the summer children became scared to go outside and play. Although they never said a word, not even amongst each other, the children knew through the many warnings their parents gave them something more fierce, dreadful and evil than ghosts, goblins and imaginary monsters was outside . . . maybe at the park, just around the corner from their family home, perhaps at the edge of the school yard. . . .. "Come 'ere, little girl," a wiry, middle-aged man said while he curled his finger. "Come on, now. I ain't gonna hurt you. I know you're going home from school. It's a long way. Come on with me. I'll give you a ride home so you don't have to walk all that long way." The freckle-faced girl grinned shyly at the man who was leaning out of the side of a rusty, old pick-up truck smiling and winking at her. A moment later, the little girl sat on the passenger seat with the man. She giggled each time he reached over and tickled her. In between a burst of laughter, the girl looked up at the man and asked, "What's your name?" PART II Chapter Two Four years later like a bad dream that would not end, evil snaked its way to Memphis, Tennessee and Tammy Tilson, a fiercely strong-willed woman, moaned, "God, help me," as she made her way from her bedroom to the bathroom. Her vision was blurred. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. "Oh, God," she whispered while she neared the bathroom, "Who killed that little girl?" It started yesterday evening when the news aired. Tammy had been in the kitchen cooking cube steak and mashed potatoes when she heard, "News Flash." She turned away from the stove and turned the radio up. "All of Memphis, a little girl is missing. The child was outside playing in front of her parents' home on Monroe Street when neighbors say they saw a Coloured man pick her up in a truck. Before the little girl's neighbors could race to her rescue, the man grabbed her and sped down the street. The little girl hasn't been seen since. . . " That was last night. Now it was early morning, and men were still being ordered from their homes or right off the street to report to the police precinct. There, angry police officers lobbed a series of questions at them in loud, threatening voices. "Where were you last night, nigger?" "I didn't ask you where you were in the morning, you fucking moron. Don't wanna hear another word about morning. Damn it! I'm asking you where you were between the hours of ten and eleven last night! You work? You got a job? Got your own car? Did you drive that car last night? Where'd you go? For how long? Were you gambling last night, boy? Do you like little girls? Ever killed before, nigger?" The possible answers to the questions only brought more questions to Tammy. After all, her husband, Philip, was one of the men rounded up early this morning. He told her he had been working at their grocery store when cops came down to the store, their car sirens blaring, grabbed him by the back of his neck and snapped a pair of tight handcuffs around his wrists.. They drove him to the police precinct and questioned him for five long hours. Tammy glanced at a clock on the wall. It was six o'clock in the morning and her husband had only been home for two hours. She went into the bathroom, closed the door and sat on the toilet with her head between her knees. Life had never been easy for her. She'd grown up the daughter of a woman who took ill with "bad pressure" when she was only seven years old. Tammy couldn't remember a time when her mother played with her or spent longer than two hours out of bed. Oldest of her eleven siblings, from the age of seven, Tammy grew up taking charge and working as hard around the house and on her family's farm as a grown man. Even now she couldn't remember a time when she wasn't working. Not until she was grown and married did the hard work bring a reward. She and her husband were the first Coloureds in Memphis to open their own business at the center of town, a place usually reserved for companies owned by wealthy entrepreneurs and adult children of former politicians who hadn't outgrown riding their father's coattails. They were the first people in town to go door to door asking for signatures to sign a petition to have "mysterious" house fires on the poor side of town fully investigated. They stood up to the mayor when he told them "y'all ought to be grateful folks support y'all and allow y'all to thrive in these parts. Truth be told, in a lesser town, y'all would've long been dead . . . shot or something 'nother." After she sat on the toilet with her head between her knees for a few minutes, Tammy looked up. She watched a caterpillar inch down the window and thought about her husband. He was good to her and their four children. She knew she was the only person he trusted. All his life he'd "made-do" and kept his deepest thoughts to himself. He was like a locked door that would only open for her. If not for her, he wouldn't have told a soul he was the one who came upon his mother hanging from the barn loft. He was only six years old. All he knew to do was scream and run. Mothers didn't kill themselves he told himself while he ran to tell his father to hurry and get his mother down from the top of the barn. His mother wasn't dead. She was just swinging in the air. It was all so easy to believe until his father raced back to the barn with him. The tortured look on his father's face and the hard groans moving up out of his mouth made him step back and hide behind his father's thick legs. After he told Tammy the story when they were first married, he never said the words "my mother" again. To Tammy it was as if her husband had no mother. It was as if he was born straight out of his father's rib. Seconds later, when Tammy heard her daughters talking in their bedroom, she stopped recalling the past, stood from the toilet and washed her face. She'd keep moving. She'd stand with her shoulders tall and walk like she didn't fear anything. For her children, she would. "It's gonna be all right," she repeated to herself until she entered her bedroom and saw her husband, Philip, wrestling in his sleep. Her husband had never been in trouble with the law. The cops had no right to embarrass him in front of their customers, handcuff him and force him to go with them to the precinct, a place where justice was never allowed for the poor or the Coloured. While Tammy watched Philip try to sleep, she thought back to their first grocery store. If not for the store, her husband and she would just be farmers who'd never break even despite how many hours a day they worked. She almost smiled. She was the one who talked Philip into purchasing the large grocery store they bought seventeen years ago. She didn't even argue when he demanded that the store be named after his kin. Two weeks later the store was torched and burned to the ground. Tammy ran after the hooded men in the trucks and two police cars as they laughed and cursed their way back down the street, away from the burning store. "You bastards! God'll get you for this! God'll get you for this!" she shouted while she threw heavy rocks at the trucks and cars. She didn't stop throwing rocks until she heard one of the car windows shatter. "We'll get another store," Philip told her that night while he sat next to her on the front porch cradling a shotgun in his lap. "Do you know how much money we're out? Insurance company ain't gonna give us no money for the store. They'll say it was our fault the store burned to the ground." "I know. I know." He reached out and tapped her hand. "We'll build a new store. And if those ignorant asses burn this one down, they're gonna get a load of what's in this here shotgun." With the help of men in the community, they did build another store, nearly twice the size of the first one. The grand opening of Tilson's Grocery Store in Greasy Plank, a small town in Memphis, Tennessee's Shelby County, was the first story on the cover of Memphis Prize, the city's only Coloured newspaper at the turn of the century. Most houses in Greasy Plank were small, wood structures. Most women in the town still pushed their laundry up and down splintered wood boards before they dipped the laundry in a tin pail of soap and water and hung the clothes on the line in the back yard. Roads were narrow and seemed to stretch for miles with there not being many businesses or shops nearby. Greasy Plank was country, a place where grass, dirt and weeds ruled over brick, mortar and concrete. The closest highway to Greasy Plank was twenty miles from the town. Strangers didn't stay in the town long. Old timers ran them out with hard stares and bitter gossip. It was a town that consisted of the memberships of four churches, New Mount Holly, the church the Tilsons attended, being largest of the four. Everyone in Greasy Plank went to church. Children from the town grew up and married former classmates. Adults stayed in the town until they died. The biggest business in town was Tilsons Grocery Store. More customers shopped at Tilsons than made deposits and withdrawals at the bank, visited the theatre or went shoe shopping on Beale Street. Every night, with a loaded shotgun nearby, Philip and Tammy cleaned out the grocery store cash registers and counted money customers exchanged for clothing, meat and produce. Tammy placed the money inside a tin box beneath their bed. Monday, she climbed inside the family truck and drove through the business districts paying invoices. Other revenue remained locked in the tin box until she had time to get uptown to Beale Street to Shant's Savings & Trust Company and deposit the money in Philip and her account. Winter Tammy didn't go to the bank; instead, Philip and she gave money to the poor. Within the last month, twice, after the police chief refused to investigate a series of house fires, they lent two neighborhood families money to rebuild homes nightriders burned to ash. They also donated a large sum of money to a home for retarded children. Every donation they made was in the memory of a little girl named Bobbie Long. "Keep this quiet," Tammy would ask when she dropped the checks off. Tammy turned and watched Philip run his hand across his face. She reached out and stroked his back until she felt his muscles relax. "Mama warned me," she whispered while she rubbed her husband's back. "Mama warned me a day like this would come." She sighed. The first seer in the family - that's what her mama was. She saw things happen long before they ever did. She went around trying to warn people. "That's what so hard about bein' a seer," she told Tammy when Tammy was a little girl. "When don't nobody else see what you be seein', folk go 'round callin' you crazy. Seers get they root off family trees, Tammy. Trace the root, Chil'! Trace the root!" All those years ago as a small girl, Tammy shook while she watched her mother's eyes roll in her head. Then she watched her mother press her head into her bed pillow, cough and wipe spots of blood away from the edges of her mouth. "Be careful who you let be on our family tree, Tammy. I done tol' ya. I done tol' ya. If'n you don't, gurl, yous gonna help birth a thing called crazy. Yes. Yes." Then her mother closed her eyes and died. Shaking thoughts of her mother further into her memory, Tammy sat erect and reminded herself how much work had to be done. A man was coming by the store at one o'clock. He telephoned from Louisville, Kentucky yesterday morning. He told Philip he peddled written works for a living, particularly essays authored by Carter G. Woodson and Frederick Douglass, and thought Tammy and he could sell the books and pamphlets. Tammy argued and shouted with Philip for a whole ten minutes when he told her about the man. "You don't even know who that man is," she said. "We can't afford to go around trusting people, especially people we don't know, Philip. How many business people were calling us before we made a success of the store? Wasn't nobody coming around here before. Since we opened the store all kinds of people knocking on our door. People want to take a free ride on our name. That ain't happening. Nobody wants to see us win, Philip. Nobody. Every single prominent man right here in town wants to see us fall. No," she added shaking her head.. "We don't need no outsiders coming around to stir the pot." When Philip responded to her with silence, she lowered her voice. "I just want us to have what we built together stay between the two of us. We did this together, Honey. It's ours, our children's and our grandchildren's, right on down the line." When he smiled at her, she reached out and took his hand inside hers. "Mama?" Tammy rubbed her husband's back one last time then she pushed off the bed and walked into the hallway and looked inside her sons' bedroom. "What, Son?" She looked at the closed curtains and sniffed the strong odor of musk coming out of the bedroom. "Please open those curtains and windows." David pushed the curtains apart. She stood akimbo. "I'm waiting." In one jerk, he finished parting the curtains and pushed the windows up. The lines in his forehead deepened since his mother entered the room. "Mama, I'm doing the best I can." "I'm not talking about the curtains. What do you want?" "Nothing. Never mind." "Child, what all has been going on with you lately? Don't you know I've got enough on my mind as it is? I don't need you adding to my troubles." She went out of the room then she turned back and entered it again. "And if you think you're grown enough to come creeping in here any ol' time you feel like it, you best do some more thinking. I know you were out late last night. Don't think I don't know." She looked at him with a pointed brow. "Ain't nothing out late at night but trouble. Make sure you're in early from now on. Things are happening around here. Only fools stay out late at night." She mumbled. "Sixteen years old." Then she shook her head, turned and went downstairs. David scowled. At his side, his younger brother, Jonathan, sat up. His hair was disheveled; the corners of his eyes had a hard white crust on them, evidence of a long night of sleep. Peering over his shoulder and looking at his brother, David mumbled, "Lay on back down, Jon." "Who were you talking to?" "Mama, and so what?" "I just asked." Silence. Jonathan gazed at his brother. "In a funk?" David was silent. If he had to describe his feelings for his mother, he would say, "I love her. I hate her." His mother had always been hardest on him. These last few months he heaped his greatest disappointment upon her. He fell in love with a girl by the name of Margaret Armstrong, the daughter of a man his mother hated. Jonathan looked over his shoulder at David. "Mama?" David lowered his head into his hands. He was angry with himself for not having gentler, warmer . . . kinder feelings toward his mother, but he couldn't bring himself to deepen his love for her. Each time he tried it seemed she hurled an insult or a comment that relayed how deeply disappointed she was in his behavior at him. He peered up at his younger brother. "She's my mother. I'm supposed to love her." His jaw trembled. "I'm trying so hard to do that." "You still leaving?" "I don't know." He sighed. "I want to. That's the only way I'm ever going to learn to love Mama. I have to leave." "Life ain't no fun when you live it full of regret, Man." David was silent. "Everybody up! I'm cooking breakfast! If you're not down here soon, you won't eat!" Philip jammed the pillow over his ears. He felt nauseous and thought about running into the bathroom to vomit. Glancing at the small, rotary clock on the nightstand, he saw it was 6:15. His eyelids felt like they weighed two pounds each. If he had left the store when he normally did, the cops would have never cuffed him. He'd have been home, and he knew no one wanted to confront him and his wife when they were together. His wife knew the law and would sue, but him - alone, all he could do was argue and plead for more time to set things straight. He'd been at the store late because one of the regular customers was shaking so badly when he came by the store last night he felt he had no choice except to stay with him. He listened while the customer talked about seeing a group of men climb out of a truck up on the railroad tracks. While his eyes ballooned, the customer swore to Philip that he saw the men dump a body into the river that ran just over the cliff at the back of the tracks.. "Keep it to yourself," Philip coached the customer. "So long as you're living, don't you ever tell one soul what you saw. If you tell it, these backwards cops'll only think you did it, and you'll be the one to end up in jail or swinging from some tree with your neck broke out in the middle of nowhere." Pushing off the bed, Philip swallowed rising vomit until it burned in his throat. Down the hall, his oldest daughter, Melinda, hurried out of the bathroom. "Janice, you ready to go downstairs?" Her twin sister Janice stood behind the bedroom door so her brothers wouldn't see her snapping her bra closed. "Yes. Mama said we have a lot of work to do today." "We always have a lot of work to do." Her bra fastened, she tossed Melinda a pair of wool gloves. "Here. Catch." A vase of yellow tulips decorated the center of the large newly hewn table. The flowers seemed like a decoy, a sign of how much effort Tammy was putting into convincing her family that everything was all right. Above the flowers, sunrays came through the windows with a strong glare, and yet an ominous foreboding pointed at the family. The kitchen was numb with silence. A little girl was missing. She lived on Monroe Avenue. Her father was a lawyer. Investigators were already out knocking on doors. Buster, the family's black and white spotted mutt, was in the back yard eating from an old dinner bowl Tammy decided she no longer needed. Tammy glanced out the back, screen door at Buster and wished someone at the table would speak. David stared at the wall clock so hard he saw the minute hand move. Beneath the table, Janice nudged Melinda with her foot. Tammy turned from facing the screen door and sipped her tea. "Nice day, isn't it?" "Sure is," Philip answered. David chewed on the hot cakes. "So, Dad, you going to the fights tonight?" "They're only on Saturdays," Philip answered. Tammy pursed her lips. "Ain't nobody going no where at night no time soon in this here family." Philip chuckled dryly. "We cannot afford to get our names caught up in anything bad." Philip raised his hand to signal his wife to be silent. Then he resumed eating his syrupy hotcakes. She stared at him blankly. "I ain't seen or heard nothing! You know what kind of night I had." He shook his head and grimaced. "You know what kind of night I had. I was only at the store late on account of working so hard. I don't know nothing about no missing girl." "The kids might belie-" His fist banged the table. "I work hard. I ain't never broke no law, and you know it. I'm not gonna sit here and let you try to say I was wrong for what happened last night. I ain't gonna stand for it." Tammy was silent. Philip sat against the spine of his chair. Tammy jerked her head away from her husband and looked out the screen door. After he cleared his throat, Philip said, "Doctor told you about worrying so much. Why you think your pressure's up? You keep on. You're gonna work yourself into a real bad heart attack. Doctor done told you." Tammy looked hard at her husband, as if she could stare the truth into him. "I know you haven't done anything, Philip. That's not what I'm trying to say. But I don't want this going on and on." She ran her hand across her face. "When them people come knocking, Philip, you gotta get to the bottom of this. You know they're coming back. You gotta tell them things just so they'll go away and stay away. If you don't, we could be going on with this forever." "Let's not talk about this madness in front of the kids?" Tammy sat still for a moment. Images of a little girl running through weeds and tall grass, hurrying away from death, flashed across her mind's eye and she cringed. She looked at her own children before she said, "You're right." She pursed her lips and nodded. "You're right. We'll talk about it later." She stood. "I hope you all liked breakfast. I made hot cakes because I know how much you all like them. If you're all finished eating, we gotta get moving. We have a lot of work ahead of us. Melinda, you and Janice, get these dishes cleaned up. Jon and David, go with your father. There ain't time for any of us to be fooling around." Her shirtsleeves were rolled to the elbows. "Girls, I'll be upstairs. We're going to strip these floors and clean the bed linen." She talked while she walked out of the kitchen. "Janice, you wash. Melinda, you dry. You two do it better that way." After her father and brothers left the kitchen, Janice listened to her mother's footsteps until she could no longer hear them. Then she rested her chin in the palm of her hand. "I thought I heard Mama up last night. I don't think she slept at all. Somebody kept coming by here knocking on the door. Mama must have talked to I don't know how many people last night." Tammy was standing outside the bathroom door when she shouted, "Stop the yakking and get to business!" The sisters lowered their heads while they waited for the sink to fill with sudsy water. "I thought I heard Mama crying last night. I've never heard Mama cry before." "You didn't hardly hear Mama crying. Mama never cries. Never. Nothing can make Mama cry. Mama's tough. Mama's strong." "Yes," Melinda added with a tight brow, "But she's also human. When are you gonna see that Mama's human? She's only human, Janice." Tammy raised her voice. "All right! I told you once!" Janice whispered, "What do you think she meant about Dad telling things in a way so the cops won't come back? Dad doesn't know anything about that girl from Monroe Avenue?" Melinda pressed her finger against her lips. "Ssshh, Mama's coming downstairs." Tammy stepped inside the living room. "You two almost done?" She ran her hand across the coffee table. She frowned when she turned her hand over and saw dusts on her fingers. She exited the living room and then the kitchen as quickly as she entered them. "Hurry and finish." With her back turned, she didn't see Melinda roll her eyes. She went outside into the shed next to the rear of the house. She tossed rags and moved old pieces of furniture and boxes. "Where's that bucket?" Janice hunched her shoulders and covered her mouth with her palm. "So what do you think Mama meant?" "I don't know. Dad must know something. Somebody must have told him something." She raised then lowered her shoulders. "Maybe he saw a stranger around town or something. I don't know. I heard there's been some strangers coming around here." She stared into the sink. "Maybe Mama's trying to scare Dad into not staying down at the store so late anymore." She sighed. "I don't know." The back door swung open. The porch area surrounding the back door, the area the three family dogs huddled and slept in was dirty with paw marks and loose dog hair. Tammy wiped her brow while she walked through the back door carrying a bucket. It was 7 o'clock in the morning. At 3:30 that afternoon, Melinda, Janice and Tammy were finishing the last load of laundry-the bed covers. The brown and white house on Jeanette Place, in Shelby County, was clean. Melinda and Janice stood on the front porch staring into the sweating face of an angry police officer. "Told you to let me in, Girls. I need to talk to your folks about some important business." "My dad is away and my mama isn't down here right now." Tammy ran down the living room stairs. "Melinda! Janice! Didn't you two hear me calli--" The officer smirked when Tammy met his glare. "How, you doing, Tammy - Mrs. Tammy Tilson? How you doing?" "Go upstairs, Melinda and Janice. Please. You two go now. Leave me alone to talk with the officer." The police officer laughed. "Oh, now, Tammy. Don't be like that. We're all family around here. Small town folk. We all know each other. You know better. Call me Henry right out. Just say Henry." Melinda and Janice were upstairs leaning around the top corner listening hard to what their mother and the police officer had to say to each other. "You ain't got no right coming around here bothering with my children, and you well know that. I ain't gonna to stand for it. You and your other officer friends ain't about to harass me and my people. You ain't seen a fight yet, you come snooping around here again. It's bad enough y'all kept my husband down at that hell of a place last night." She squinted. "You better not ever cuff none of my people again.. Do and you'll regret it like nothing you can ever think of." The officer rolled his cover round and round in his hand. "You just make sure your husband's got a good explanation for why he kept your store open longer last night than the city permit allows." "Permi-" "And you make sure your husband comes down to the police station to tell us what that good friend of yours, one of your faithful customers, told him last night." When he turned to leave, he pointed at her. "You make sure all that happens, Mrs. Tammy Tilson." Tammy stood on the porch like a deep-rooted oak tree in a front yard. She didn't move until the cop drove down the street. Then she started wiping her brow and wondering why the last few summers in Greasy Plank were so hot, so full of the devil's bite. She closed the front door and lowered her head. She choked back emotion until she heard her daughters calling her at which time she stood tall and walked toward the stairs. "Is everything okay, Mama?" "Yes, Melinda. Now please stop asking so many questions and you both come down here and help me pull something together for supper." While they watched their mother's back move away from them and closer to the kitchen, Melinda and Janice looked at one another. So often when they communicated with each other, they didn't utter a sound. It was as if they were joined at the soul the day they were conceived. When challenged, they defended each other with loud arguments or with an eerie silence. As soon as Tammy entered the kitchen, the back door swung open. "Did the three of you finish cleaning up?" Philip asked. His sons followed him. Mud and dirt splattered their pants. "We sure busted our rumps out on the farm and at the store today. I even tuned that raggedy truck. Cut my hand good on one of them wires doing it too." Tammy didn't speak. She promised herself that she wouldn't burden her children with the recent, unexplainable events in town. Since the day her children were born, they'd known safety. She was angry with herself for mentioning the missing girl in front of them at the breakfast table. She vowed to do no more. Despite their advancing ages, she wanted her children to know and to especially feel that they were safe. "We got everything done. We're just getting-" She peered over her shoulder at her daughters. "Supper ready. And," she added, "How did it go with that man who was visiting from Louisville?" Philip laughed. "He didn't even have any books. He just kept asking me a whole lot of questions about your father and especially your mother." Chapter Three On the top row of the splintered bleachers at Booker T. Washington High School, David Tilson, one of the city's brightest students, and, thanks to his parents' role in business, politics and social life, one of Shelby County's most well known sons, clenched his fists. David was only sixteen and already in the twelfth grade. "The boy with the dreams," that's what his classmates called him. Late last night David's life took him beyond books, ambition and ideals. Last night David became a witness to a murder. ******************************************************************* MARKETS The following are market information for PAYING MARKETS. Name: Northwest Baby & Child Address: 15417 204th Avenue SE, Renton, WA 98059 Print or Electronic?: both Web Site:nwbaby.com Guidelines online?: yes Description: Monthly newspaper Audience: expectant and new parents and parents of young children in the Puget Sound region of Washington state. Types of material published: newspaper and website Current needs: short (750 words or less) articles about parenting topics Departments easiest for new writers to break into: parent-to-parent, health and safety Rates: $40 for articles Rights: one-time and web Tips for Querying Writers: Go to our website and review writer's guidelines. Send all articles via email, embedded in text rather than as attached file. We do not respond to unsolicited material unless we are going to use it in a current issue. Contact (name of editor and E-mail and/or address info): Betty Freeman editor@nwbaby.com Editor Northwest Baby & Child snail mail address above ******************************************************************* INDUSTRY INTERVIEW This month I got to interview Lisa Allmendinger, the one, the only editor at I LOVE CATS MAGAZINE. Despite her busy schedule, Lisa was kind enough to take the time to answer my questions for this E-zine. Some of her answers were real eye-openers!!! Visit I LOVE CATS MAGAZINE here: http://www.iluvcats.com/ Q. What are your experiences in the magazine world? A. I have been the one and only editor of I Love Cats magazine since 1988. Q. How did you end up at I LOVE CATS? A. I got my job through the New York Times -- seriously. I was the news editor at a daily newspaper in New Jersey and had applied for the managing editor's job, which I thought I deserved and didn't get it. I went home rather annoyed that Friday night and perused the Sunday Times and there was an ad for a new animal magazine looking an editor. I applied, beat out 300 other applicants, and the rest is history. Did I mention that I had NO CLUE how to run a magazine? The only thing I knew about magazines was that I had subscriptions to a lot of them. However, I did have to my credit an award-winning pet column in the daily paper as well as a very prestigious NJ Veterinary Association award hanging on my wall. It was a steep learning curve the first few months, but after that, the last 17 years have been a piece of cake. I've helped launch the careers of a fair number of new writers, who have gone on to have books published, etc. And many of them say it's because I was willing to give them a chance. I say it was just the kick in the pants that these talented writers needed to jump-start their careers. Q. What can you tell us about the magazine, I LOVE CATS? And do you really love cats? :) A. I Love Cats is a G-rated magazine for cat lovers. We cater to what I call John Q. Cat Lover and owner. It's not that we ignore the cat-showing segment of cat lovers, as I do run stories about them and about purebred cats, but the content of the magazine is reader driven and after 17 years, I know what types of stories the readers of I Love Cats want to read. And, of course, what they don't want to read. Readers of I Love Cats love the "gee shucks, cute stories about My Cat Mittens," that was found along the side of the road and now lives a life of luxury. They want the Chicken Soup, feel good stories about Trixie, the cat who was there when everyone else in the cat lover's life was not. And they want the latest in health care stories, the newest products on the market stories, stories about animal shelters and volunteers. They want it all. Well, let's see, how do I answer the Do I Love Cats question? The same way I always do. "No, I do not own a cat, so therefore I cannot be considerate biased toward or against any breed of cat, including mixed breeds." Q. Please share with me a typical workday as an editor of a magazine. A. Oh my. Let's see ... do you want your readers to be "purr-suaded" or "dis-suaded" from wanting to become the editor of a magazine? I Love Cats has an extremely small staff, which means that as the editor, I do 90 percent of the work. On average, I receive about 100 emails, give or take a few, PER DAY in addition to snail mail. Then there are the phone calls from advertisers and PR people, the office itself, because I work out of my home and the magazine office is in NJ. I, personally, read every submission that's sent to me and respond to them. I am constantly planning future issues, answering reader, advertiser, PR and writer questions. I'm pretty much the I Love Cats' answer person. Q. What are some common mistakes writers querying/submitting make? A. OH, LET ME COUNT THE WAYS!!! -- smile. My Top Three 1. I think my biggest complaint involves e-mail submissions. Writers are not including THEIR NAME, email address, snail mail address and phone number ON THE MANUSCRIPT. They put it on the cover letter, but not on the actual manuscript attachment. I tend to print out the attachments to read them when I have a spare minute and it's REALLY ANNOYING having to go back through all the e-mail to piece together a cover letter with the actual manuscript. 2. Again, with the ease of sending e-mail, writers toss everything but the kitchen sink in an email to an editor. They use the buckshot principle ... if you scatter enough stuff in an editor's face perhaps something will stick. I have writers sending three and four manuscripts in one submission, 10 photos, credentials, you name it. My feeling about submissions is ... stick to the KISS principle. (Keep it simple, stupid). Give an editor only the vital information. We have very short attention spans and if your cover letter goes on forever, you're going to lose us, or in this case, at least THIS editor. Remind me if you've been published in I Love Cats before, but in most cases, I will recognize your name. Let the story speak for itself. If you want to give a one paragraph synopsis, fine, but don't tell me the entire story in your cover letter. I am capable of reading the manuscript. REALLY. 3. And this is a toss-up, here -- either writers who do not read my guidelines and submit stories that are totally unsuitable or writers who thank me for rejecting them. I'm not sure where this practice started, but you might want to poll a number of editors and see if they don't agree with me. Don't waste an editor's time with a note that thanks them for reading a story and rejecting it. With the advent of e-mail, this has become standard practice and it's a waste of everyone's time. The writer's who could be writing something new or submitting their story elsewhere and the editor's, like me, who do take the time to open every email. Q. What are some of your favorite issues of the magazine? A. Every issue is my favorite ... how's that for being politically correct? Q. What topics do you hope to see covered in future issues? A. I have an editorial calendar, hopefully, up at www.ILuvCats.com. Q. What makes your magazine different from, say, magazines like CAT FANCY? A. Not as many ads, darn it ... no, seriously, Cat Fancy and I Love Cats have two very different audiences, for the most part. They do tend to cater to purebred cats more than I Love Cats does. I Love Cats doesn't have as many pages, but it has more stories per issue than Cat Fancy does. Q. What are some common misconceptions people have about I LOVE CATS Magazine? A. I haven't a clue. Q. Any tips for the writer trying to break into the magazine? A. Get a couple of back issues to see what types of stories I have in the magazine, read the guidelines on www.ILuvCats.Com and folo them. Take a look at my editorial calendar, which, come to think of it, might be under the advertising section of the magazine on the Web site, and then submit something that's fun and clever. And, before you hit that send button, file your cover letter as a draft, re-read your submission, come back and read it one more time an hour or so later before you send it. ******************************************************************* BOOK GIVEAWAY Wanna score a FREE BOOK?? Win a free paperback copy of Lost Boy Lost Girl by Peter Straub (read all about this award-winning horror novel here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0449149919/qid=1121645258/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-3727565-1727129?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) How to win? Simple! Be the fifth reader to E-mail me will with any quote from this E-zine! E-mail me at: BurningMidnightOil@hotmail.com Good luck! ******************************************************************* WHAT'S UP WITH THE BOOK'S WRITERS? The following is news of writers you can read interviews with in Volume One of the MIDNIGHT OIL book: THIS COMES FROM ALISON LAKE, INTERVIEWED IN VOLUME ONE UNDER THE NAME ???ALISON BURKE???: Friends and Family, Just want to let you know that Ohio University Press will be publishing my book under its original title, Colonial Rosary: The Spanish and Indian Missions of California, in fall 2006 as part of its Western Americana series. It??™s been a long road but will be worth the wait with a reputable publisher. Those who ordered my book from Amazon, please be sure you get a refund. Warmly, Alison ******* GOT THIS FROM JIM VINES, ALSO INTERVIEWED IN VOLUME ONE: Here's the story the L.A. Times did on my friend David and our movie "House At the End of the Drive." Hope you get a kick out of it. Link to story: http://tinyurl.com/e2hde ******************************************************************* BOOK NEWS What's the latest with the first volume of BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL: How We Survive as Writing Parents? No book news this month. ******************************************************************* Poetry Section World of Superstition Copyright 1995 By: Dawn Colclasure In a world of superstition, everyone flees from the black cat. The number ???13??? has been abolished and every girl in church keeps on her hat. The mouse is used as a cure for different ailments, a howling dog is a bad omen. In a world of superstition, having crooked things is not uncommon. No one ever walks under a ladder and the mirrors are all gone. Lanterns are never put on the table and everyone ALWAYS starts with the right foot when putting their shoes on. No one ever starts anything on a Friday, and the fire is always given someone??™s cut hair. That??™s the world of superstition. Aren??™t you glad we don??™t live there? Bio: Dawn Colclasure edits and publishes the Burning the Midnight Oil Book Zine, which is a product of her book: BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL: How We Survive as Writing Parents (Booklocker). She is also a poetry editor for Skyline E-Magazine, contributing writer to the newspaper SIGNews and a staff writer for the Web site, The Shadowlands. She??™s been published both on and off the Web, in magazines such as Mothering and American Fitness, and Web sites such as Absolute Write, Writing Etc. and Writing World. Visit her on the Web at http://dmcwriter.tripod.com/ . **** Sew Right Copyright by: Suzan L. Wiener She sewed the quilt with trembling hands, Yet determined to get it done. She could have received extra help, But refused to ask anyone. The lady prided herself With fine stitches that were just so - Everything was perfectly matched, How her wrinkled face did glow. Then one day it was completed; Folks came from all over to see. Now that cherished quilt is mine - Grandma made it for me. Bio: Suzan L. Wiener has had numerous writing articles, poems, short stories and fillers published in many national publications and online Web sites, such as Canadian Writer's Journal, Mocha Memoirs, Writing Etc., T-zero, Poetry Press, among others. She won first place in a contest for NEB Publishing. **** the blind pianist Copyright 2005 By: Millie Colclasure tapping your fingers...so smoothly the song appears "this is my story" you whisper in my ear this is your way of speaking to me, but the meaning is something you will only see. Closed eyes, hiding your little thoughts, silent moments, my heart stops. Your gloved hands, silk...white...so fragile. Your eyebrows deepen, your song...so agile. My tears, you will never see, you will never know, your own beauty. You stay so still, listening to the silence when the story completes, time ticks so slowly, amongst the empty streets, leading you to nothing, but what is it that inspires you? You create something, but in your mind is it so true. ...Your melodies paint beauty...but you will never see the colors. copyright 2005 Millie Colclasure Bio: Millie Colclasure is a young aspiring multimedia artist, but her main passion has always been writing. She owns a poetry and prose community on deviantart.com here: http://monolith-verses.deviantart.com/ Her main art site is here: http://gingerbreadxcoffin.deviantart.com/ and her print store is here: http://gingerbreadxcoffin.deviantart.com/store/ ******************************************************************* FREEBIE CORNER Get THREE Free E-books by Dr. Philip Humbert: 1. My book on personal finance is called, "Making Money, Creating Wealth" and it has been the most popular of the books. Get it at: http://philiphumbert.com/eBook.htm 2. My book on creating systems to support you and make success easier and faster than ever before is called, "Personal Eco-Systems?„?: Creating Systems for Automatic Success." Get it at: http://philiphumbert.com/Eco-System.htm 3. Finally, everyone has goals. To help you select and commit to goals that reflect your values, your dreams and your priorities, I've create an ebook called, "Goal-Setting 101?„?" and you can get it at: http://philiphumbert.com/GoalSetting.htm ******************************************************************* SITES SITED The following are interesting, helpful sites that I??™d like to pass on. National Atlas: http://www.nationalatlas.gov/ EverythingScary.com: http://www.everythingscary.com/ Movie Bloopers: http://www.moviebloopers.com/ EHow.com: http://www.ehow.com/ Reality Clock: http://www.realityclock.com/ Room to Read: http://www.roomtoread.org/ Web Puzzler: http://imagiware.com/puzzle/ 42 Publicity Tips for Authors and Small Publishers: http://101publicrelations.com/sr40.html ******************************************************************* WRITING PARENT TIPS FOR JULY: Tip: Leave a current project window open on your computer, if you are able to leave your computer on. This way, those free few minutes you can spare to write won??™t be wasted waiting for everything to boot/load. Tip: Try to start your project the minute you think of it. Tip: Don??™t put off reading to your kids or watching an educational program with them. Inspiration can come in the most unexpected of places! ******************************************************************* FORUM NEWS Due to inactivity, the forum has been deleted. ******************************************************************* WANNA SUBMIT TO THIS E-ZINE?? I am always open to submissions for the E-zine!! Feel free to submit any of the following: 1. An article. Any style and length. Articles must relate to writing, being a writing parent or successful business/marketing ideas. If the article is a reprint, you must own the reprint rights. 2. Tips for writing parents. 3. Advertising info, a freebie link, fan mail or, if you are included in the book, news and updates on what??™s going on in your writing life! 4. Poetry: Any style and length. All poetry used for E-zine must be appropriate for a family-friendly publication. The use of religious poetry, if at all, will be dependent on the poem??™s merit and will not reflect the beliefs and practices of the E-zine??™s publisher or readers. Se.xually explicit, violent, ra.cist and po..rnographic poetry will NOT be used and will be deleted. Please only submit poetry which is in your name and which you have rights and reprint rights to. The editor is not liable for poems used. The decision of the editor is final. I prefer to use free reprinted articles whenever possible but I do offer payment, as well. Payment is only allotted to article and poetry submissions. You may choose any one of the following for compensation: -->$5, paid in the form of a money order, on publication, for articles of 200-500 words and poetry, any length. -->$10, on publication, for articles 501-2000 words. -->A complimentary copy of the book, BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL: How We Survive as Writing Parents. Book will be sent once your article is published. ******************************************************************* You are subscribed to this E-zine because you requested a subscription or signed yourself up on your own. To unsubscribe, send a blank e-mail to: 59308-unsubscribe@zinester.com |
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