Simple Gadget Becomes an Ice Breaker; Opens Door for Promoting Book

It’s made with four pieces of bent wire and two plastic “hinges.” A simple book holder⎯purchased a few years ago as an item for personal connivance⎯has become an icebreaker in the world of book promotion.

Discovered at a local B&N, it was the answer to how I could comfortably and easily read a book while eating out, something done daily since an intimate knowledge of the kitchen is not in my realm of experience.

The item immediately drew attention. It became a regular occurrence for strangers to stop and ask questions. Inevitably, the conversations led to a discussion about favorite types of books and authors.

When I became a book peddler as well as a reader, I did not make an immediate connection with the book holder. The only thing I discovered was that I hated to approach strangers cold turkey and ask, “Do you like to read mysteries?”

Then came the day when I was sitting at a table outside a Barnes & Noble. A gentleman who had just left the store, package in hand, stopped to ask me about the book holder. The conversation moved from it to the type of books we liked to read.

Now I just happened to have several bookmarks with me that day, left over from an earlier event. When he said he loved mysteries, I gave him a bookmark for THE PROVIDENCE OF DEATH and the standard POD spiel about green books that saved trees. He was told that the book could be ordered.

The man went back inside the store, bought one of the book holders, and stopped again on his way out the second time. Not only did he thank me for info on the book holder, he told me he read the bookmark and ordered a copy of the book.

Needless to say, whenever I’m now sitting in a public place, a few bookmarks are in hand. If a stranger breaks the ice, approaches me about the book holder, it’s very easy to steer the conversation around to the point where I am offering the person a bookmark for THE PROVIDENCE OF DEATH.

It may not be a quantum leap in book promotion, but for a guy who hates to do the cold-turkey approach with strangers, it’s a nice feeling to hand a person a bookmark, suggest they might like to buy my book, and have them thank me in return.

A Brookins Book Review

BITTER LEGACY
By H. Terrell Griffin
ISBN: 978933515960
Hard Cover, 2011, from
Oceanview Press, 346 pages

This is the fifth in the Matt Royal series. It’s a punchy, hard-bitten thriller that starts at a run and accelerates from there. If the runner tires a bit toward the end of the marathon, well, that’s not so surprising. If readers are looking for a tightly wound, very male trio of protagonists, here they are, all interesting characters with strong back stories mostly hinted at. They are three buddies who have each other’s back with little question, regardless of circumstances or how big and evil is the adversary.
Principal operator here is Matt Royal, our narrator. He’s a retired lawyer, living a pleasant life on Longboat Key down in the Florida Islands. He’s just coming back in town from a week of sun, seafood, sex, and beer, with a fine example of American womanhood. Meanwhile his second best friend, Logan Hamilton, has been plugged by a sniper.
Town’s in turmoil, several unknown thugs are apparently gunning for Royal, and a citizen Matt met once wants his help with an unknown but possibly valuable law suit. The plot is not very complicated but it is eminently satisfying for readers who like this sort of thing. The framework gives the narrator plenty of opportunity to comment on various societal ills and the author uses those opportunities. He uses them well, and I never felt as if the story had been set aside for a few pages while the author expounded. All the details enriched Matt Royal’s character and never were a distraction. I lost track of the number of attempts on Royal’s life, all of which ended badly for the professed killers, but there were several, varied, inventive and fun.
The novel is aptly named and roars to a satisfying conclusion with almost no missteps. Smoothly written, I enjoyed the novel immensely. This is a strong thriller with every attribute one expects in the genre.

Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com, www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

Dickens' Dispute With Publisher Led to Self-Published Christmas Classic

Stories about authors who turn to self-publishing because of small earnings from traditional methods are not new. One hundred and sixty-seven years ago today, on December 19, 1843, one book went on sale via that route with mixed results.

Thirty-one year old Charles Dickens had experienced a measurable degree of success when he began to write A CHRISTMAS CAROL in the fall of that year, but his financial situation did not measure up to the same degree of success.

The need to support his parents and some of his siblings, and the pregnancy of his wife—the fifth of what would be ten—had prompted Dickens to write A CHRISTMAS CAROL in less than six weeks, a rush to have it on sale for the upcoming holiday season.

He rejected his publisher’s lump-sum offer for the book, wanted instead a percentage of the profits. When the publisher rejected the idea, Dickens decided to finance the book’s publication out of his own pocket.

It was an instant success. Critics praised the book. That, and the price of the book, only five shillings—one that everyone could afford—made it an instant success. The first edition of six thousand copies was sold by Christmas Eve.

Dickens also wanted the book to be a first-class offering. It was bound in red cloth with gilt-edged pages, and included hand-colored etchings and wood-block engravings done by John Leech, an illustrator for the magazine Punch. It still stands as an outstanding example of such.



He had hoped to clear at least a thousand pounds, a kingly sum in 1843, on the first edition. But his net profit came to only a bit more than two hundred. The book continued to be a best seller. By May 1844, the seventh of what ultimately would be twenty-four editions was sold out.

The history books do not tell us if Dickens came out money ahead by his decision. But they do tell us that A CHRISTMAS CAROL, probably one of the most widely known seasonal stories in the English language, was self-published.

Elizabeth Edwards Gets It Right; Christian "Experts" Do Not Understand

The headlines about Elizabeth Edwards “leaving God out of her last goodbye” first hit me as shocking. But, after the reading the comments as to why such was being said, one thing became very clear. The so-called religious experts who made the comments utterly and completely do not understand the situation.

The most blatant example of this lack of understanding came from one expert who said, “I notice at (sic) her farewell statement an odd aspect to her three saving graces. She doesn't list faith in God as one of them.”

What this pundit called odd was this statement. “I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces—my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope.”

What Elizabeth Edwards said is a statement from a person who life led her to have not only have a clear understanding of a personal relationship with a higher being, but also where one turns to sustain that relationship. I would not have been unable to say this nine years ago.

That was before a routine operation to repair an aneurysm in my leg led to a post-op MESA infection, a year-long medical misadventure that included four different hospitals and nine operations, eleven days in ICU, flat-lining the monitors twice, and four and a half days on life support.

I survived that misadventure, albeit with a leg that has about thirty percent of normal usage. But that proved to be only the beginning. Four years after the leg operation, my wife of forty-one plus years was killed in a vehicle crash.

Over the past four years, I have often remembered something the surgeon told me after the medical misadventure with the leg. He said there was no medical basis for my still being alive. The only explanation he said he could offer was that I never gave up.

I still have not given up. And if someone had asked me why, before Elizabeth Edwards’ statement, my answer would have been the same as hers, but not as eloquently stated. Would I have used the word God in my answer? No. I have come to know that the higher being, which Christians call God, exists and is found exactly where she said: “my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope.”

If that means I think, as Donald Douglas said on a website named American Power, that “being anti-religion is cool,” that I “use non-theological theology,” and get “props from the neo-communists,” then so be it.

But also I offer up a prayer. May Donald Douglas, the other pundits of his ilk, and the people who say they will be at the lady’s funeral as a protest to her comments, come to learn the true meaning of the Christian concept of God, and where to find it without having to suffer the travails of life as did Elizabeth Edwards.