I’ve trained lots of sales people and there’s an acronym often used in sales meetings that applies very well for cover blurbs. It is AIDA and it means Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. The cover and the cover blurb have a big job. They have to grab a reader’s attention, capture their interest, provoke desire for … Read more
It’s Cinco de Mayo. Like St. Patricks Day and Oktoberfest, it is celebrated by more people outside the country of origin of the holidays than those within. Cinco de Mayo really took off as a day of celebration as the result of intense promotion by beer breweries who began to promote the holiday in the … Read more
I talk to a lot of writers and wannabe writers. I’ve found that many do not know what to write about, especially in the beginning. There is a writer’s mantra oft repeated that says “write what you know.” Now some dispute the validity of that statement saying that if it were to be true how … Read more
For those who love the philosophy of ambiguity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of english: Atheism is a non-prophet organization. If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes? I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, “where’s the self- help section?” she said if she told me, … Read more
Self-publishing has historically carried something of a stigma. There was this underlying opinion that only those authors not good enough to win a contract with a major publisher would eventually self-publish out of vanity. This is, of course, not entirely true. I suspect major publishers might have been behind the idea, mostly to increase their … Read more