Saturday, December 24, 2016

Holiday Gift for My Readers: 3 for 1 eBook





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From December 23 to December 28
Purchasing one of my books on Amazon, and sending the receipt by email,
will give you two more FREE ebooks.
Just take a pic of your sales receipt, and add it to your email,
sending it latest on December 29 to 111Publishing a t gmail d o t com

You will receive two more books of your choice for FREE.  Don’t forget to state in your email which of the books you would like.
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111 Tips on How to Market Your Book for Free: Detailed Plans and Smart Strategies for Your Book’s Success

111 Tips to Create Your Book Trailer

Book Marketing on a Shoestring: How Authors Can Promote their Books Without Spending a Lot of Money

111 Tips to Get FREE Book Reviews: Best Strategies for Getting Lots of Great Reviews

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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all

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Sunday, November 27, 2016

eBook Gifts for the Holidays






Early Holiday Gift for My Readers: 3 for 1 eBook

From Nov 25 to 11:59 EST on Monday, Nov 28
Purchasing one of my books on Amazon, and sending the receipt by email,
will give you two more FREE ebooks that are listed below.
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Let all your writer friends know about this!
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Just take a copy or pic of your sales receipt, and attach it to your email,
sending it latest on Tuesday, Nov 29 to 111Publishing a t gmail d o t com

You will receive two more books of your choice for FREE.  Don’t forget to state in your email which of the books you would like.
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111 Tips on How to Market Your Book for Free: Detailed Plans and Smart Strategies for Your Book’s Success

111 Tips to Create Your Book Trailer

Book Marketing on a Shoestring: How Authors Can Promote their Books Without Spending a Lot of Money

111 Tips to Get FREE Book Reviews: Best Strategies for Getting Lots of Great Reviews

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Happy Sunday and Cyber Monday : )



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Did you know: 
Amazon gives you a free one-month-trial for Prime
it's also a great gift for Christmas!


Friday, November 25, 2016

Your FREE month of Amazon PRIME Membership





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Amazon Prime Membership FREE Trial:
You will receive free two-day shipping year-round, including right before the holidays.  Not a member?  You can still reap the benefits of the deal when you sign up for a free one-month trial.  At the end of the Amazon Prime free trial or your chosen membership period, your card will be charged automatically for the next membership period.  Which means, as long as you order by December 22, your gifts should arrive in time.  Here are all the benefits of the membership:
  • Free Two-Day Shipping
  • No-Rush Shipping Credit
  • Guaranteed Delivery (Which Can Result in Free Prime)
  • Same-Day Delivery (in certain areas)
  • Restaurant Delivery: Get FREE one-hour delivery
  • Prime Video: unlimited streaming of movies and TV episodes
  • Kindle Owners’ Lending Library: access to members in the U.S.
  • Free Audible Channels for Prime
  • Music and Video add-on Subscription
  • Streaming Music, Movies, and Television Shows
  • Unlimited Cloud Photo Storage
  • Free Kindle eBooks
  • Early Access to Deals
  • Prime-Only Prices and Coupons
  • Prime Pantry
  • Amazon Family
  • Amazon Household
Best of all about Prime is that you can share nearly all the perks with another member of your household. Read also: Christmas Gift Shopping in 15 Minutes?

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Today Nov 25 only - HARRY POTTER 8-Film Series



Today only, save on "Harry Potter" film collections
while supplies last and ends at 11:59 PM (PT) 
on Friday, November 25, 2016

Run Time for these bestsellers: 1180 minutes (almost 20 hours)

See more offers:



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Thursday, October 13, 2016

Book Sales Numbers in the USA by AuthorEarnings




AuthorEarnings.com  commented in their October 2016 report: "This October surprise flat-out blindsided us… What had happened was that after two and a half years of quarter-over-quarter growth, Indie eBook market share shrinks significantly."  

The reasons for this change to the 2-year climb can only be speculative.  Maybe Amazon promotes more legacy publishers to offset their gradually reduction in print book discounts?  

Another reason could be that Amazon Prime and KU customers are  buying less e-books, as they can read them for free.  And the amount of Prime members is constantly climbing... 


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Here are the findings of AuthorEarnings.com in a nutshell:
  • Indie ebook market share drops all the way back to early 2015 levels.
  • Traditional publishers regain a little lost ebook ground.
  • Amazon publishing imprints grow a lot.
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Another important clarification of Nielsen's BookScan Reports:
"With print sales at independent ABA bookstores up a tiny bit, but book sales at all major US bookstore chains and mass merchandisers down by almost an order of magnitude more, then why does Nielsen Bookscan’s “Retail & Club” sector still report that US print book sales are up 5% overall?"
AuthorEarnings: "The answer’s pretty simple.
  • Nielsen Bookscan’s “Retail & Club” sector doesn’t primarily track US physical bookstore sales anymoreit also includes online print sales, including Amazon’s.
  • Nowadays, more than 50% of the total sales reported in Bookscan’s “Retail & Club” category are Amazon.com online print sales; US physical bookstore sales now make up the minority.
  • In the past 12 months, fueled by deeper Amazon print discounts,Amazon’s online print sales have exploded–growing by a double digit percentage year-on-year.
  • Those fast-growing Amazon online print sales have more than offset the collapsing sales at physical bookstores, leaving us with a 5%overall net print-sales gain for the US.
  • When Bookscan lumps both together into one reporting category, it completely obscures this rapid shift in where those books are being bought, letting us see only the net 5% overall print-sales gain (including Amazon)."

    "The media mistakenly reports that net 5% gain
     as a nationwide increase in sales at “bookstores.”

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Monday, October 3, 2016

111 Tips to Get FREE Book Reviews


COMING SOON:
111 Tips to Get FREE Book Reviews
e-Book, covering the best strategies for getting lots of great reviews - including over 1,200 direct links (clickable links to each website!) to reviewers and book bloggers.


Book Bloggers and Reviewer contact addresses can be found at the end of each chapter.  And if you send us an email, using our contact form at 111Publishing.com, you will receive twice a year the latest reviewer contacts.
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Even More Benefits for REVIEWERS:
Send us a link to your review at Amazon or Goodreads of this upcoming book 111 Tips to Get FREE Book Reviews  o r  for the already launched:  111 Tips on How to Market Your Book for Free and we will refund you an Amazon gift card for two book purchases.
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Table of Contents

  • WHY ARE REVIEWS SO IMPORTANT
  • HOW TO GET FREE REVIEWS?
  • THE IMPORTANT LAST PAGES
  • WHERE ELSE TO FIND REVIEWERS
  • VIRTUAL BLOG TOURS TO GET REVIEWERS
  • WHAT BOOK REVIEWERS LIKE
  • EXAMPLES OF REVIEWER SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
  • HOW TO CONNECT WITH INFLUENTIAL BOOK BLOGGERS
  • HOW TO PITCH TO BOOK BLOGGERS / REVIEWERS
  • PLANING YOUR PITCH TO BLOGGERS / REVIEWERS
  • PAID BOOK REVIEWS
  • EXAMPLES OF PAID REVIEW SITES
  • NEWSLETTER MAILING PROMOTION SERVICES
  • PAID BOOK REVIEW CONNECTING SERVICES
  • PAID REVIEWS FOR TRADE PUBLISHERS
  • GOODREADS REVIEWS
  • AIM FOR AMAZON TOP REVIEWERS
  • EDITORIAL REVIEWS
  • AMAZON READER REVIEWS
  • UNCOVERING FAKE REVIEWS
  • APPLE iBOOK REVIEWS
  • AUDIO BOOK REVIEWS
  • HOW TO PREPARE YOUR BOOK FOR REVIEWS
  • ADVANCE REVIEW COPIES (ARC)
  • REVIEWS READ BY LIBRARIANS
  • WHY STAMP YOUR BOOK “REVIEW COPY”?
  • IMPORTANCE OF PRESS KITS / MEDIA KITS
  • ENDORSEMENTS FOR YOUR BOOK
  • MEDIA BOOK REVIEWS
  • TIPS ON HOW TO GET MEDIA BOOK REVIEWS
  • READER WEBSITES / FORUMS / COMMUNITIES
  • BOOK GIVEAWAYS at READER COMMUNITIES
  • JOIN GOOGLE+ REVIEWER COMMUNITIES
  • JOIN THESE GROUPS TOO
  • HOW TO WRITE BOOK REVIEWS
  • HOW TO DEAL WITH NEGATIVE BOOK REVIEWS
  • WHY READERS - YOU - SHOULD WRITE REVIEWS
  • CAUTION: DON’T LOSE YOUR REVIEWS
  • HOW TO LEVERAGE YOUR BOOK REVIEWS

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Getting your book reviewed is the direct outcome of these three factors combined: 
Preparation - Presentation - Luck of the Draw. 
You can at least totally influence the first two! For the last one, I cross fingers for you!

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Friday, September 30, 2016

Publishing Consultation via Phone or Skype




It’s a budget-friendly way (only $79) to get started with your publishing process, building your platform and marketing your book(s).  Consider discussing your book with an experienced (30+ years) publishing and book marketing professional, in a personalized conversation.


This package includes a meeting of up to 3 hours – or two meetings of 1,5 hours via phone in North America or Skype (worldwide).  And if 3 consultation sessions, each an hour, is more convenient for you, that’s fine too.

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Great Benefit for Your Publishing Ambitions, if :

  • You are you thinking about publishing your own book?
  • Do you have a book you think will sell but don’t know how to market it?
  • Do you want to start seriously publishing in POD (Print-on-Demand)?
  • Do you want to learn all the in-and-outs of navigating Social Media?
  • Do you want to avoid costly mistakes and time-consuming “trial and errors”?
  • Do you want to do it right from the beginning, publishing in a professional way?

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How it Works:
As better you are prepared as more you will get out of our “meeting”.  Write down all your questions you might have in regards of publishing and book marketing.  Prior to our conversation, you’ll fill out a comprehensive questionnaire, designed to familiarize us with your opportunities and audience.  We will buy and read your e-book or go through parts of your manuscript if it is a print book only and study / evaluate the questionnaire, once it is filled out and returned to us.
After the consultation session you will get an analysis of your book and/or your publishing concept.

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Practical, Results-Driven Steps.
Your consultation will focus on your most effective strategies for your book marketing and will help you prioritize practical, results-driven steps to best promote you and your book.  If you haven’t published before we will help you to become familiar with all the possibilities available and their pro’s and con’s, so that you can make an informed decision and avoid the many traps that are out there.

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Topics We Will Discuss:
We will provide a comprehensive introduction to book marketing as well as more targeted feedback on specific concerns and questions, including but not limited to:

  • Evaluating your cover art, cover copy, author bio, and pricing strategy
  • Ensuring that your book looks professional, not self-published
  • Having your book in print, e-book and audio format
  • Building your platform and author brand
  • Social media opportunities such as Google+, Goodreads, Twitter, FB, Pinterest etc.)
  • Working with a traditional publisher or POD
  • Where to get an ISBN, find editors, e-book formatters, lay-outers, cover artists
  • Selling through Amazon and other online retailers
  • How to get book reviews – before and after your book launch
  • Book Distribution and direct book sales
  • Public Relation and media campaigns
  • Possibilities of translations or foreign right sales
  • Getting bookstores and libraries to carry your book – worldwide
  • How to avoid traps at “self publishing” and “vanity publishers”

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After your consultation, we will send you a follow-up guide with hundreds of tips and links that will help you with your future publishing and book marketing activities. This way you don’t have to get distracted by taking notes while we are talking, and you will always have a “blueprint” for future book publishing.

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Our publishing and book marketing consultation and coaching is appropriate for and can be tailored to writers who are going the traditionally or the self-publishing route.

A very affordable fee of only ***US $79*** allows every author to get professional advice and help.  Order secure and conveniently via PayPal.

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Saturday, September 17, 2016

Key West for Writers


Key West Literary Seminar

Every year in January this literary seminar takes place, and several writing contests are running.  Key West was always popular with writers.  Key West was to have been just a stopping-off point for Hemingway when he arrived on the ferry from Havana in 1928. 





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Hemingway Did Not Plan to Stay Long.
But the Ford automobile that should have been waiting at the docks was delayed, so the embarrassed car merchant offered the author accommodations at the Trevor and Morris Apartments located above the dealership.  Soon after, Hemingway moved into a Spanish colonial villa at 907 Whitehead St., which was his home through December 1939.  Now a registered National Historic Landmark, the home is open to the public as a museum honoring the island's most famous literary resident.

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Tennessee Williams Worked in Key West Too.
During the years Tennessee Williams lived in Key West, FL, he swam at South Beach every morning before sitting down to write.  “I work everywhere,” Williams said of Key West, “but I work best here.”
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EMERGING WRITER AWARDS:
Poets and writers living in the United States who have not yet published a book with a major publisher are eligible to apply.  Three Emerging Writer Awards are presented each year:
- Poetry
- Short Story
- Novel-in-progress

Winners receive full tuition support for the January Seminar and Workshop Program, round-trip airfare, lodging, a $500 honorarium, and the opportunity to appear on stage during the Seminar.   Runners-up for each award will also be offered financial assistance packages.  http://www.kwls.org/awards/emerging-writer-awards/  

NO ENTRY FEE.




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Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Help to STOP Monsanto - Organic Consumers Assoc.


Reblogged from
https://action.organicconsumers.org/content_item/oca-email?email_blast_KEY=1356594

You be the judge.

If you could be “judge for a day,” which of Monsanto’s crimes would you take the most satisfaction in prosecuting?
Would you hold the world’s most famous corporate criminal accountable for poisoning the people of Monte Maíz, Argentina—the “City of Death”—where glyphosate has caused a huge spike in miscarriages and cancer?
Would you bring down the hammer of justice on Monsanto for making the lives of India’s farmers so desperate that nearly 300,000 of them have committed suicide?
Or would you look closer to home, where here in the U.S. Monsanto's calculated infiltration of regulatory agencies resulted in the unleashing of cancer-causing GMO's into our food system without safety testing?
Where non-GMO farmers whose crops are contaminated by nearby GMO crops are sued by Monsanto for “illegally growing” the company’s patented seeds?
Where Monsanto's attacks on independent scientists and journalists have ruined careers?
And most recently, where the Biotech Bully’s big spending corrupted our democracy to the point where Congress ignored the will of 90 percent of American citizens and instead, at Monsanto’s bidding, stripped Americans of the most basic right to know if our food has been contaminated with toxic pesticide-drenched GMOs?
Monsanto’s crimes against human health and the environment, on a global scale, are well-documented.
And yet, with great arrogance, diabolical planning and riches acquired at the expense of human suffering and irreparable harm to the environment, Monsanto carries on with business as usual, even as it looks to merge with yet another corporate criminal, Bayer.
With less than a week to go, we are far short of our fall online fundraising goal. Fortunately, corporate heroes like Mercola.com and Dr. Bronner’s have stepped up with a matching funds offer—but we need your help to raise $85,000 by midnight Friday, September 16. If like us, you believe Monsanto has to be stopped, please make a contribution today. 
On October 15-16, in The Hague, Netherlands, a panel of five distinguished international judges and numerous lawyers will hear testimony from 29 witnesses representing five continents. OCA will pay for many of these witnesses to fly to The Hague, so they can tell the world how Monsanto has devastated their lives, their farms, their careers, their countries.
The International Monsanto Tribunal is a citizens’ initiative. It is being organized by the people, to give Monsanto’s victims a voice, on an international stage. While the opinions that will be issued by the judges are non-binding, this tribunal, as has historically been the case with citizens’ tribunals, will create grassroots pressure on governments and the United Nations to hold Monsanto legally liable for its criminal activity.
I am on the Monsanto Tribunal organizing committee, and OCA is making a substantial financial commitment to the tribunal, because we believe this initiative is a necessary step in bringing down what is arguably one of the worst multinational corporations in history.
But the Monsanto Tribunal is just one example of our ongoing work to expose Monsanto and its allies. We have much more work to do.
In 2017, OCA will work tirelessly to expose the health hazards of glyphosate and other poisons peddled by Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta and the rest. We will test as many food products as we can, for as many toxic chemicals as we can find—and pressure the mainstream media to publish our results.
We will go after the food companies that mislead consumers with blatantly false product labels.
We will continue to provide financial support to US Right to Know, a nonprofit dedicated to exposing the lies behind slick PR campaigns by biotech, food and pharmaceutical companies, and attacks on scientists and journalists.
We will launch a massive education and media campaign exposing the link between Monsanto and a factory farm system that produces toxic food, pollutes more water and air than any other industry, treats workers unfairly and inflicts unconscionable suffering on animals.
It would be easy to give up this fight—especially after Monsanto’s masterful manipulation of Congress, which led to passage of the DARK Act.
But giving up is exactly what Monsanto wants you, all of us, to do. 

Monday, September 5, 2016

Why Staying in Hostels in Europe?



Take a quick view at the world's best hostels, and you'll see they've not only got bars, restaurants, cosy beds, pristine showers, and gorgeous wooden interiors, but they've got a slew of activities to suit a variation of travellers, and they're starting to have more of the extras you never knew you wanted, too... The bunk beds have dividers and curtains, and each bed in Lisbon's Home Hostel gives the sleeper a little ledge near their head with two outlets, so you can doze off while charging your phone or your iPad, and you don't have to worry about it getting stolen from the corner of the room.

At Lisbon's Home Hostel, the bar sells small and large beers for 2 Euros, and happy hour cuts those prices in half. You can buy a whole bottle of wine for 6 Euros, and the hostel's home-cooked three-course dinner comes with unlimited wine and beer... for 10 Euros total.


Cities like Lisbon, Porto, Budapest, Berlin, Corfu, Madrid, and Krakow have turned to hosting clean, beautiful, stylish hostels to entice frugal, under-30 backpackers and partiers.

In turn, the classics – cities like London, Paris, and Rome, where hostels can be great but aren't yet as established, common, or uniformly excellent – are getting stale.  They're not bringing in anyone new, because they've never had to.  Their appeal is historically documented and obvious. They're not creative and are lazy.  Why not try something new.

The "Hoscars" The Best Hostels in the World
Best Small Hostels:
1. Soul Kitchen (St. Petersburg, Russia)
2. Budapest Bubble (Budapest, Hungary)
3. Adventure Queenstown Hostel (Queenstown, New Zealand)
4. Hostel One Paralelo (Barcelona, Spain)
5. Mosquito Hostel (Krakow, Poland)

Best Medium Hostels:
1. Home Lisbon Hostel (Lisbon, Portugal)
2. Travellers House (Lisbon, Portugal)
3. Yes! Porto Hostel (Porto, Portugal)
4. Goodmorning Lisbon Hostel (Lisbon, Portugal)
5. Living Lounge Hostel (Lisbon, Portugal)

Best Large Hostels:
1. Tattva Design Hostel (Porto, Portugal)
2. Yes! Lisbon Hostel (Lisbon, Portugal)
3. M Montreal (Montreal, Canada)
4. The Cat's Pajamas Hostel (Berlin, Germany)


Best Extra-Large Hostels:
1. Wombats City Hostel Budapest (Budapest, Hungary)
2. HI – Boston Hostel (Boston, United States)
3. PLUS Berlin (Berlin, Germany)
4. Wombats City Hostel Vienna – at the Naschmarkt (Vienna, Austria)
5. Abraham Hostel Jerusalem (Jerusalem, Israel)

Follow here the yearly HOSCARS, the best hostels worldwide.


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Surprising Facts About Your Mac Computer






After a year, using my MacBook Air, got slower and slower, and the browser even froze. I checked out "All my files" and found out that most of my images where double, triple and some were even seven times stored! For hours and hours, I deleted images and files. Learning about your Mac computer, and using these tips from CleanMyMac will save you time and space on your Apple device - that I had wasted. Learn here about your Mac:
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Your Mac computer has huge “ghost” folders
System files on your Mac’s hard drive take up easily 60 gigabytes on average, according to MacPaw engineers. These files are mostly useless — logs, caches, and application leftovers (like iTunes junk). And what’s even sadder, you can’t access them even if you have admin rights. Due to system errors OS X may sometimes lose permission and needs a cleaning.
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Mac stores just everything
Every picture you viewed on Facebook or elsewhere on the web may stay on your Mac forever. Until you clean it manually. For instance, Twitter alone stores an image cache of many gigabytes within the depths of your Mac.  Even the most innocent websites store their cache in virtual memory, which means your Mac eventually gets slower.  And, the longer your apps work in the background, the more cache it generates.
Browsers are meant to collect cache data to give you a quicker access to the websites you’ve already visited. But very often this turns into real mess, resulting in browser freezing, persistent notifications, and pop-ups. Your Mac remembers everything you clicked, watched or even typed to your friends. Think of the chat history in your messengers. Some of them store data remotely on their cloud servers. To sum it up, a regular browser cleaning is a practice worth thinking about.
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Some Apps Drain the Battery
Junk applications or a stealthy malware running in the background can drain your Mac’s battery faster. Surprised? Yes, Macs do get infected with junkware and there’s no easy way to get rid of it. Ironically, this may happen after you’ve downloaded an antivirus software (some free antiviruses can be a nightmare to delete).
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Battery Issues:
Every application which heavily exchanges data with an online server is a potential battery-drainer. The same goes for numerous opened tabs in browser.  But if your battery dies too fast you shouldn't immediately rush to a store to buy a new one, there's still something you can do. First, go to Activity Monitor app and check which programs are using more power. Quit and uninstall all the unused vampire applications.
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Your Mac Loves Copies.
iTunes and Photos being generally superb tools, but have a strange habit of creating excess copies of files whenever they can. For example, if you keep your photos in the iCloud library, all your images are stored in the cloud.  But when you view these images on your Mac, Photos creates cached copies locally.  So even if you keep all your photos in iCloud, their local copies are still wasting space on your Mac.
iTunes has long-established reputation of a tricky application because of the Library issues.  After many years of use and back-uping, it may be out of order.  The music folders you deleted years ago may still be indexed and contain useless artwork and playlist files.  And, if your music collection is big enough, these junk files may result in gigabytes taken from your memory.
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Your Mac Stores Too Many Extra Languages.
Your Mac can speak nearly all Earth’s languages, but all those hundreds of localizations are taking a whole lot of space. Why keep these 150 language versions forever in your system?
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To keep your Mac cleaner and faster, consider using CleanMyMac 3  
Everyday it cleans 1 million Macs worldwide being installed on every 3rd Mac on the planet.  It helps you clean your entire Mac, runs basic Mac maintenance, monitors its hardware health, frees up gigabytes of memory on your drive by going through hidden system folders.  It wipes away large and old files, fixes errors and makes Mac work faster.  MacPaw offers free download for trial which gives users only one free scan and one free cleanup rather.  This means you can clean your Mac for one time, then you’d have to buy the license key for further using.
Some cautions however:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5672608?tstart=0


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Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Do You Own a Small (Publishing) Business?






If you are a small business person, not only in publishing, but also in other fields - from trades, retail, media, to all the consulting businesses, such as lawyers, architects, builders or accountants and do not have a blog: LinkedIn offers a sensational platform that you can use for free. 

If you DO have a blog, you have the opportunity to connect your LinkedIn platform with your existing blog to drive new traffic and attention to your platform!  Posts on LinkedIn which you publish will appear as part of your professional profile

More and more Social Media sites open publishing platforms to all its members.  Every member has these publishing privileges.  Posts you publish will appear as part of your professional profile.  From there they can be shared with your immediate networks, and snippets can be used to "feed" social media posts and tweets.

As one writer said:  “Just another thing to keep traditional media awake at night.”
What about you?  Are you going to publish articles or duplicate your blog on LinkedIn? 

Read more: 
http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/own-a-small-publishing-business/


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October 8, 2016: Indie Author Day




Mark your calendar for October 8, 2016: Indie Author Day.  On this day, indie authors and all members of the writing community will gather at their local libraries to participate in community-based activities like author panels, book readings, writing workshops, presentations from local industry specialists and more.  


Why Should I Participate in Indie Author Day?

Besides being a unique opportunity for libraries and authors to connect locally and globally, Indie Author Day offers an exciting chance to network, discover new friendships and form business partnerships. It’s incredibly important for all authors, regardless of whether they’re traditionally or independently published, to get involved with their fellows in the writing community, shop at their local bookstores, and frequent their local libraries. These are the individuals and the institutions who will be your biggest support group.
Read more at: IngramSpark    


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Sunday, July 31, 2016

Sign in to Social Networks on iPhone & iPad






Isn’t it great that you can take a picture or shoot a short film with your phone and immediately post it on Twitter, Vimeo, Flickr or Facebook?  Schedule posts on-the-go...  No need to download it first to your computer.  You can post a picture to social media without leaving the Photos app. Have more fun on social media save a lot of time with these features!

Apple explains on their support page how to share content from iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. Use the “Settings” menu of your device to connect to your social-media accounts.  Sign in, share content, or update your contacts and calendars with information from social-media profiles.


Apple explains how to sign in to a social media account: 

Tap Settings, then scroll down and tap a social network, such as Twitter.  Sign in with your username and password for that social-network account.  If you forget your username or password, visit the company's help page.  For example, Facebook and Twitter offer online support to help you with your account.

Share and post content without switching to a social-media app:
After you sign in to your social-media account from your device's Settings menu, you can share content on social media right from Safari, Photos, and some other apps.  For example, open Photos, tap a picture, and tap Share icon. Then tap a social network, like Facebook, to share the picture from your Facebook profile.


Update your contacts with social-media usernames and photos:
Follow these steps to update your contacts:
Tap Settings.
Scroll down and tap the social network that you want to use. 
Tap Update Contacts.


Today's best-known social platforms began on the web, the iPhone — by putting social media in our pockets — is what helped the industry explode. As a user enjoy the simplicity and ease of use.


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Saturday, July 30, 2016

The Answers to These Questions are Still Missing...


I could not help but re-blog this fantastic questionnaire …. written by Journalist David Cay Johnston, and author of DIVIDED: The Perils of our Growing Inequality.



Photo Wikipedia

Reporters, competing Republican candidates, and voters would learn a lot about Trump if they asked for complete answers to these 21 questions.  So, Mr. Trump…

1. You call yourself an “ardent philanthropist,” but have not donated a single dollar to The Donald J. Trump Foundation since 2006.  You are not even the biggest donor to the foundation, having given about $3.7 million in the previous two decades while businesses associated with Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Entertainment gave the Trump Foundation $5 million.  All the money since 2006 has come from those doing business with you.
How does giving away other people’s money, in what could be seen as a kickback scheme, make you a philanthropist?

2. New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman successfully sued you, alleging your Trump University was an “illegal educational institution” that charged up to $35,000 for “Trump Elite” mentorships promising personal advice from you, but you never showed up and your “special” list of lenders was photocopied from Scotsman Guide, a magazine found at any bookstore.
Why did you not show up?

3. You claimed The Learning Annex paid you a $1 million speaking fee, but on Larry King Live, you acknowledged the fee was $400,000 and the rest was the promotional value.
Since you have testified under oath that your public statements inflate the value of your assets, can voters use this as a guide, so whenever you say $1, in reality it is only 40 cents? 

4. The one-page financial statement handed out at Trump Tower when you announced your candidacy says you’ve given away $102 million worth of land.
Will you supply a list of each of these gifts, with the values you assigned to them?

5. The biggest gift you have talked about appears to be an easement at the Palos Verdes, California, golf course bearing your name on land you wanted to build houses on, but that land is subject to landslides and is now the golf course driving range.
Did you or one of your businesses take a tax deduction for this land that you could not build on and do you think anyone should get a $25 million tax deduction for a similar self-serving gift?


6. Trump Tower is not a steel girder high rise, but 58 stories of concrete.
Why did you use concrete instead of traditional steel girders?

7. Trump Tower was built by S&A Concrete, whose owners were “Fat” Tony Salerno, head of the Genovese crime family, and Paul “Big Paul” Castellano, head of the Gambinos, another well-known crime family.
If you did not know of their ownership, what does that tell voters about your management skills?

Photo Wikipedia


Read all the 21 telling questions by David Cay Johnston at Alternet.org

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Monday, July 18, 2016

IN THE HEART OF OUR SOULS by Victoria Ngangu







Mark Your Calendar!
Free ONLINE eBook reading event on 
Sat. July 23, from 10 AM to 2 PM Pacific Time
by Victoria Ngangu from her book: 
IN THE HEART OF OUR SOULS




From the Poor Country of Congo to American Author

Victorine Ngangu and her great-grandfather were not paid for work they did because of their ethnicity.

When Victorine Ngangu discovered that a photographer and one of her friends had forged her signature so that they could sell Ngangu’s photographs to a major U.S. company, she was outraged. Without her knowledge and consent, 144 of her photographs were sold. Ngangu was never paid and did not receive an apology from the photographer, her friend or the company. Those people walked free of charge in the court of law. In 2012, Ngangu filed a case with local police to bring them to justice but received no satisfaction.



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Saturday, July 9, 2016

Thriller LAST STOP: PARIS


FREE @ Amazon on Saturday, July 9, 2016


Interview with Author John Pearce:

John, which of your characters is most interesting to you?

That’s a really good question, and a tough one. My own views aside, because by now they all feel like members of the family, Jen — the sort-of-bad girl — was the most commented-on character in Treasure of Saint-Lazare.

This time things seem to have changed. Eddie is the one most early readers like. He’s an interesting guy — full of contradictions, slow to anger but unremitting once his decision is made. He’s confident but at the same time has an abundance of self-doubt.

He was, after all, a Special Forces company commander in Kuwait, and much of the plot of my first two books stems from one brief, brutal incident during that time.

I wanted to create a character who should have everything he could ever want, but whose perfect life is derailed by something over which he has no control, in this case something that was part of his father’s military service sixty years before plus the incident in Kuwait.

He’s rich, but his fortune really doesn’t matter much. He’s loved by the perfect woman, but can’t handle it and spurns her (don’t panic; they rectify that).  He falls into bed with the wrong woman, who turns out to be totally unlike his first image of her, or so he thinks. In other words, he’s like most of us — screwed up, incomplete, unhappy at least some of the time.
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How did you get the original idea for the series?
A lot of my ideas come during my daily four-mile walks. The “what if” idea for this one came that way one day, and then I went looking to see if there were a historical hook I could use. That’s when I found Italian Renaissance painter Raphael’s well-known self-portrait, which has been missing since 1945.

Then I found a bunch of interesting characters and put them into difficult positions to see how they worked themselves out.
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Are they based on real people?
I picked up a couple of names from people I know, but otherwise every character in it is totally fictional, or such a broad combination of attributes that they are anonymous. That excludes a few historical public figures, of course. Nobody could create a character worse than Hans Frank, the butcher of Poland who got his start in German politics as Hitler’s personal lawyer. Even his own son thought he was scum — enough so to write a book about it.
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How do you go about researching and writing?
Jan and I spend a couple of months in Paris each year, and that’s when I do the detailed research on scene locations. I make a lot of notes and take a lot of pictures. On this year’s trip we also went to Frankfurt for a short visit to make certain I hadn’t mangled anything too much — the manuscript was done but not beyond correction.

We lived in Frankfurt when we were journalists a long time ago. It’s changed a lot, but the old railroad station is in the same place, and nothing much has changed about Sachsenhausen, where Jeremy takes a long walk on his way to meet the old retired Stasi agent who provides the key that unlocks one very important part of the plot.

I take a lot of pictures. I dictate a lot of notes to my pocket recorder, which Dragon translates into something like English. Those go into Evernote, there to rest until I need them.

The writing itself is done in Scrivener on my MacBook Pro. In Paris, I write in the lovely old Mazarin Library, which is part of the French Institute, right across the street from the Louvre by way of the bridge that used to have uncounted thousands of love locks on its railings. The city took them off out of concern their weight would do permanent damage.

I print the manuscript (many times; the whole thing is still on a shelf above my desk at home, and it’s a stack of paper two feet high). I edit in longhand, and then when I can’t do any more I send it off to my editor, Jen Blood, in Maine. She works it over thoroughly — three times. Then it’s done.

John, thanks a lot for taking the time to talk about your latest book in the series.
Best of all: it is free as ebook on July 9, 2016! 
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Stop-Paris-Eddie-Grant-ebook/dp/B017OTZN4W




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Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Some Indie Authors Get Their Books Into B&N







Barnes and Noble just issued a press release on its Nook Press print-on-demand service: All submitted titles will be vetted for approval and have to meet the company’s outlined standards.

Authors will also be required to be “eligible Nook Press authors,” meaning their titles must be available as ebooks on BN.com and NOT included in Amazon’s KDP Select category!


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And: “The opportunity is limited to titles whose eBook sales [of a single title] have reached 1,000 units in the past year.”  In-store book signings and live events will be limited to those whose “eBook sales (of a single title) have reached 500 units in the past year.”
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Hopefully, this time B&N will actually identify the needs and wants of self-published authors and the many small presses which are still forced to rely on a POD-based model for their paper editions. As Goodereader.com said:

“If they want to take down Amazon, give the authors a reason to make the switch.”

and TheFuturePublishing commented:

"But the devil’s in the details: the program is for “eligible” NOOK Press authors, defined as “those print book authors whose eBook sales [of a single title] have reached 1,000 units in the past year.” The in-store promotion is for “those print book authors whose eBook sales [of a single title] have reached 500 units in the past year.”
To try for bookstore access eligible authors must then submit their print books “for review by Barnes & Noble’s Small Press Department and one of the company’s corporate category buyers”. To participate at in-store events authors need a “review from a Barnes & Noble store manager.” vBut how many copies might the chain order? How long will they keep those precious books in inventory? vWhere will they be displayed? vWhat about returns of unsold copies? So far there are lots of unanswered questions..."

And a warning by Bestselling Author David Gaughran:
"To clarify: Nook Press Author Services are provided by Author Solutions. The Nook Press e-book platform is run internally, it’s some of the add-on services etc. that are outsourced.    I don’t know what about that has changed with this announcement, if anything."



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