“If You REALLY Knew Me.”

surviving the specter

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I Wouldn’t Want It On TV Because…

Blog of a Mad Black Woman

Person One: I support gay marriage but I wouldn’t want it on TV because my kids would see it, and I don’t want them to be gay or something.

Person Two: yeah I totally understand, I hate it when black people are on tv because I don’t want my kids to be black

Person One: Ummm… but black people don’t have a choice

Person Two: now you know how fucking stupid you sound

I saw this and had to share it, because it really did make me laugh. ‘Person Two’ is spot on about how stupid ‘Person One’ sounds.

If my son Max turns around one day and says he’s gay, I have no problem with it and will support him one hundred percent. Just like I support his Godfather Ricky. In fact, it really bothers me when I hear people say things like “God made Adam and Eve…

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Je suis Charlie

blindoggbooks

I have loved satire since I was old enough to laugh.

I loved satire even before I knew that using humor to draw attention to serious issues was called satire.

In my lifetime I have learned more about the world through humor than all other news sources combined.

Johnny Carson, David Letterman, PJ O’Rourke, Dave Barry, Stephen Colbert, George Carlin, The Onion…these are my most trusted sources of information. The first time I saw The Daily Show (going way back to the days before Jon Stewart was the host) I thought it had been created specifically for me.

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/full-episodes/bfns01/january-7–2015—ava-duvernay

For many years I hid this fact from almost everybody I knew for fear of being seen as uneducated, uninformed or just a clown who pretended to know what was happening in the world.

Second to the comics, my favorite part of the newspaper has always been the political cartoons.

That’s…

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My #Book #Marketing Secret by #Indie #Author Nicholas Rossis

Extremely useful tips!

Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

I made this on Quozio.com

My marketing strategy is really simple. In fact, it can be summed up as follows:

• Be real,
• be fun,
• be helpful.

If you do that, people will buy your books simply because they will like you and will want to support you. In other words, “if people like what you’re saying, they’ll like what you’re selling.”

I have read many marketing guides, but have come to realize that it all boils down to how people perceive you. In marketing speech, your brand.

Having a consistent author brand is liberating. It allows you to publish pretty much anything you like, irrespective of genre. People will read your books because you have written them – and they trust you to offer them a good time.

That’s great. How about some real tips now?

The other day, a visitor to my blog asked me for…

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My 5 New Year’s Resolutions!

1. Write more blogs

2. Read other people’s blogs and reply to them

3. Finish my latest book

4. Write reviews for every book I read

5. Sell more books!

Of course I need to lose weight, exercise more etc etc, you know, all the usual stuff, but these are just plain boring resolutions, and I’ll never stick to them!

How NOT to get promotion for yourself and your book …

A follow-up of ‘How to get promotion for yourself and your book’ This is ‘How not to get promotion for yourself and your book’ Originally written the other way round!

Books: Publishing, Reading, Writing

So, you’ve written and published a book. Congratulations! Good for you!

And welcome to the club … I have some sobering news, though. You are not the first, nor will you be the last, to write and publish a book – TODAY! So far this year, 2,396,061 books have been published, worldwide. How do you expect its possible for any one book to compete with numbers like that when searching for interested readers, not to mention buyers with money to spend? And how can any one author ever suppose their newly published book is better or more important than those other 2 million+ books, so much better that one author can expect readers, bloggers and reviewers to fall all over themselves in an attempt to help promote and publicize said book?

Many of these delusional, self-centred authors do exist, unfortunately … so many, in fact, that I feel the…

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HOW to get promotion for yourself and your book …

Great suggestions

Books: Publishing, Reading, Writing

Two days ago I wrote a blog post that proved to be the most popular, in terms of reach and reaction, of any I’ve ever written! Thanks to everyone who read, liked, shared, reblogged, followed my blog, and commented on it. I guess I hit a nerve with the topic of authors behaving badly and how to avoid becoming one. It seems this kind of behaviour is definitely prevalent and a problem on social media, because so many of you agreed with me and my guests who also offered quotes on experiences they’d had dealing with these self-centred authors.

I took a negative tact on that last post, because it’s a fun angle to come from with this kind of list, and I’ve had success with that approach in the past. It also allows me to write in a humorous and sarcastic voice – which I hope was the voice…

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Latest Review – Impromptu Scribe by Alex Morritt

Impromptu Scribe by Alex Morritt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Short stories are not usually a genre I would choose, but I did enjoy this interesting and varied collection. There are stories in this book that would resonate with everyone. The author’s clever perception of characters brings the stories to life. I particularly enjoyed ‘Fallen from Grace’ and ‘Hubert & Hector.’ ‘A Trip Down Memory Lane’ was touching and evocative. ‘Lost in Translation’ was a classic example of a husband not listening to his wife! How many times have we heard of this sort of thing happening? Several stories left me wanting more, for example – ‘Coyotes.’ I feel this one could have continued for a bit longer, but perhaps that’s just me. I recommend Impromptu Scribe as an easy to read, dip into book, and I am sure there is a wealth of stories yet to be written.

View all my reviews

Simplicity – The Key to Brilliance

Many suggestions here to think about!

Let's Reach Success

We are all trying to get more of everything in life. And when we do, the desire increases and we want even more. This way satisfaction is never achieved and we become greedy creatures looking for ways to satisfy our needs.

But more is not the answer. Less is.

We try so hard to achieve more, be better, have more of certain feelings and qualities, possess stuff, bring more people into our life, have more things to do, speak more and get information all the time.
But we never actually experience any of that. And this makes it pointless.

That’s because of complexity. We’re overburdened. We can’t breathe freely, or slow down, or enjoy one thing at a time.

The solution lies in simplicity. Because it’s the key to brilliance.

Regardless of where you are in your life now, what you have and where you’re going, you need more…

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Why It’s Not So Hard to Succeed

I just had to re-blog this!

Let's Reach Success

Many people aren’t successful because they are afraid to fail. Or because they give up after some time, don’t find the power to try one more time, listen to the nay-sayers, don’t believe in themselves, aren’t confident or think they aren’t good enough.

Well, most people are wrong.

By Jeff Kubina @Flickr

Because success and happiness are possible. Every human being has the ability and potential to live a great life and do whatever he puts his mind to. But they simply choose not to do it. And they stay in their comfort zone – where nothing new, exciting or challenging will ever happen – for the rest of their life.

And if you start thinking about it and analyzing all the things that could go wrong, you can come up with a thousand reasons not to follow your dreams and work on your goals. But that is just…

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