Writers in the Sky has been busy working with multiple clients this month, but we somehow managed to create a video about our company. We would appreciate your comments, feedback, and ratings on YouTube. If you are so inclined, feel free to share it with friends or…
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Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKuuaYGhf5g.
Author James Ross will be joining us today on Writers in the Sky Podcast to discuss his book about the game of golf.
Prairie Winds Golf Course on the east side of St. Louis. Follow the adventures of Justin Ventimiglia and Keith Puccio as they explore a slice of life that they never knew existed. Observe the special relationship between adolescent boys, a cast of grown golfing misfits, and a young man battling the demons of cancer.
Known best for living life to the fullest James Ross decided early on that he was going to work to live, rather than live to work. With a persuasive demeanor and a “don’t-take-no-for-an-answer” attitude he embarked on a journey that allowed for him to live life along the way.Author of a series of books based upon golf, James Ross will be joining us on Writers in the Sky Podcast June 27, 2008.Born in Central Illinois in the early 1950s James Ross grew up wanting to be a professional athlete. He was the oldest son of a high school basketball coach and a homemaker. Early in his life his dad took a job as a textbook salesman for a division of Doubleday. Soon thereafter the family relocated from the cornfields of Illinois to the Metro St. Louis area.
He took up the game of golf at the age of twelve when the family moved to a golf course development in the western suburbs of St. Louis. His passion for the game grew from that moment on and with continued practice he became a low-handicap player. Mr. Ross was a three-sport athlete in high school and accepted an athletic scholarship to go to college. After one year of that he transferred to the University of Missouri in Columbia. There he was a member and social chairman of Beta Theta Pi fraternity until he graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration with emphasis on real estate and finance in 1974.
After a few years of traveling and a two-year stay in Los Angeles at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena, Mr. Ross returned to the St. Louis area to embark on a career in sales. After turning fifty he decided to get in touch with the creative side of his mind and sat down to write. Three years later his first novel, Lifetime Loser, was published.
Upon completion, the writing bug had consumed him. Before his first novel was finished he had begun the second book. Finish Line is a continuation of the happenings in and around the fictitious setting of Prairie Winds Golf Course on the East Side of St. Louis. Drawing inspiration from his characters, the third book, Tuey’s Course, is in development.
When he is not writing, Mr. Ross is out looking for a golf game around town or traveling to some warm weather destination to enjoy an amazing life. Many of his stories will be centered on a sports theme complete with applicable analogies. Being a native of the Midwest they will also carry references to the heartland of America.
Known best for living life to the fullest James Ross decided early on that he was going to work to live, rather than live to work. With a persuasive demeanor and a “don’t-take-no-for-an-answer” attitude he embarked on a journey that allowed for him to live life along the way.
Jerry D. Simmons, the author of What Writers Need To Know About Publishing, is coming to Writers in the Sky podcast today on June 6, 2008 to share his experience and help authors understand what goes on inside major publishers. Jerry has worked for 25 years for Random House and Time Warner Book Group—both major New York publishing houses. His new site, NothingBinding, is an online social networking outlet where authors may sell their books and readers can find the books they are looking for. 
Author Christina Hamlett will be joining Yvonne Perry on May 30th, 2008 to discuss her latest book, Movie Girl!
winning author, instructor and script consultant, as well as a professional ghostwriter with The Penn Group in Manhattan. Her credits to date include 25 books, 125 plays and musicals, 5 optioned features, and hundreds of articles on the performing arts, humor, health, travel, and how to's that appear in trade magazines, newspapers, and Internet websites throughout the world. Hamlett is a graduate of California State University, Sacramento, where her degree in Communications led to stints in all aspects of media, including cable television, radio mystery theater, and fundraising campaigns. She was the manager and director of The Hamlett Players, a theater repertory company that provided performance opportunities for new actors and toured original stage plays to communities not served by traditional theater arts organizations. She credits her mentor, the late Sylvia Burack, for her ongoing love of - and commitment to - the live theater experience. In addition to continuing to pen one-acts for Plays, the Magazine for Young People., she has won numerous awards for her full-length scripts and participated in living history programs through the California Governor's Mansion, Sutter's Fort, and Southern California's Heritage Square. 
script that will finally make the boy of her dreams say the words she's been longing to hear. Unfortunately, the senior hottie who won her star-struck heart from the very first moment she saw him has yet to discover she even exists.
Amy Y. Martin is an entrepreneur, author, philanthropist, wife, mother and quite literally, a survivor. Mrs. Martin is originally from Schenectady, New York but her family eventually moved to North Carolina where Amy and her family continue to live today.
Tim Stewart was raised on a farm where he was controlled by nature, not a clock, but he soon learned that he had better be on time when he joined the U.S. Army and left for basic training in 1973. By the time he retired as a Captain in 1998, he had been a military policeman, a motor pool dispatcher, a combat medic, an infantryman, an infantry platoon leader, an infantry executive officer, and an infantry company commander (twice). He had taken a unit to Germany and provided training for one of the elite units. He was also a trainer at the Officer Candidate School where he was the Distinguished Candidate of Class 29-84.Click here to listen to Part 1...
Synopsis of the book:
Positive Force offers a positive alternative to gang involvement. It is a fictional story, but comes complete with a constitution that can be applied to help young people focus their energies on 
positive action vs. negative influences. Oakwood is divided by 5 gangs. The main characters are a nurse, a cop and a red headed youth. A patient of the nurse’s, who has been silent for twenty years, screams when she sees a tall red headed young man on the street. The nurse discovers that the young man looks eerily like the woman’s son, who died as a result of gang violence. The nurse begins a journey to find the young man. She begins this search while raising a freshman basketball player and a seventh grade son as a single parent. She starts at the police department. Here, she meets the head of the city’s gang commission, who is also raising a freshman basketball player and a seventh grader as a single parent. They are forced to live in the same house when the officer’s house is destroyed by gangs, thinking they have killed his sons. The sons are very much alive and have to wear disguises to attend school. The fun begins when his freshman son is recruited by the gangs, and it is discovered the red head is the ghost of the nurse’s patient, who can’t cross over until the cause of his death (the gangs) is removed. Positive Force replaces the gangs. The old woman meets her son and breaks her silence. The ghost crosses over, then returns with wedding rings for pair, and rings for each of the founders. If gangs return, the ghost can be called back by any two ring bearers joined together. “Positive force is an attitude of positive action over negative influences.”
Click here to listen to part 2...
For more information please visit http://timstewart.npauthors.com/. His book is available http://timstewart.npauthors.com/ http://www.bn.com/ , http://www.amazon.com/ as well as all major electronic book sources.
Tim Stewart is the author of Positive Force. He will be Yvonne Perry’s guest on Writers in the Sky Podcast on May 16!positive action vs. negative influences. Oakwood is divided by 5 gangs. The main characters are a nurse, a cop and a red headed youth. A patient of the nurse’s, who has been silent for twenty years, screams when she sees a tall red headed young man on the street. The nurse discovers that the young man looks eerily like the woman’s son, who died as a result of gang violence. The nurse begins a journey to find the young man. She begins this search while raising a freshman basketball player and a seventh grade son as a single parent. She starts at the police department. Here, she meets the head of the city’s gang commission, who is also raising a freshman basketball player and a seventh grader as a single parent. They are forced to live in the same house when the officer’s house is destroyed by gangs, thinking they have killed his sons. The sons are very much alive and have to wear disguises to attend school. The fun begins when his freshman son is recruited by the gangs, and it is discovered the red head is the ghost of the nurse’s patient, who can’t cross over until the cause of his death (the gangs) is removed. Positive Force replaces the gangs. The old woman meets her son and breaks her silence. The ghost crosses over, then returns with wedding rings for pair, and rings for each of the founders. If gangs return, the ghost can be called back by any two ring bearers joined together. “Positive force is an attitude of positive action over negative influences.”
TGI Friday! I have uploaded a new show to my podcast this week! Roger Parker will be joining us today on Writers in the Sky Podcast!
Here are some announcements from our readers of Writers in the Sky Newsletter this month:
Author Solutions, Inc., the creators of Wordclay, just launched another free service I think your readers and listeners would be interested in. It’s called AuthorTree, and it’s a free Website creation service. It’s available for any author to use, regardless of their publisher. The service allows authors to add a variety of features to their Website, including author biographies, detailed book information, book reviews, excerpts, a calendar of author events, ordering capabilities, a link-sharing tool and a blog. For more information and to start building your author Website, visit http://www.authortree.com.
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$1,000 for the First Chapter of a Novel? Now That's a Writing Contest!
The third annual Writing Show First-Chapter-of-a-Novel Contest is awarding $1000 for the best first chapter of an unpublished novel. We're also offering four other cash prizes and ten 750-word critiques. Early deadline May 20, 2008; late deadline June 20, 2008. Winners announced on October 1, 2008. Full rules, instructions for entering, and more detail can be found on The Writing Show Website at http://writingshow.com/contests/2008/2008callforentries.html.
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The Morning Nudge is sent each morning to subscribers of Suzanne Lieurance’s list. Her words to inspire are to motivate you to get a little writing done each day. To become a subscriber, email Suzanne at suzannelieurance@hotmail.com or visit her Web site: http://www.workingwriterscoach.com.
Elizabeth “Bo” Drury is a writer of short stories and has one completed book length story ready to submit to an agent or publisher. She wrote a column for a small town newspaper for several years before trying her hand at fiction. Her work can be seen on Authors Den and Long Story Short, an e-zine publisher.
Elizabeth recommends:OUR GOLDEN YEARS For those of you who are approaching the golden era of your life and for those of us who have already made it, congratulations. So many have not been as fortunate as we have been. We’ve survived the tender years of growing up, adolescence, first loves, losses and disappointments, wars, weddings, children, and now retirement. Some have been successful, others have just skimmed by, but here we are equal in our needs, and we all have them. What to do now that we have made it thus far? How to cope with problems we face in declining years? A gentleman writer I came in contact with recently has a collection of books he has written, filled with truth, humor, and facts that removes the sharp edges from the reality of our shared dilemma. Three books: Senior Moments, More Senior Moments, and Years of a Million Dreams by David W. Silva are well worth reading; you get so much for so little. Available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
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Free Phone Seminar on the Power of Ebooks
Only a few short years ago, E-Books were irrelevant. Today, E-Books have become an extremely powerful tool for test marketing a book, generating revenue, building up an e-mail list, producing leads for your business, starting a small business, generating greater profits and expanding your reach.
As a special gift to my subscribers and friends, I have persuaded David Riklan, the founder of SelfGrowth.com and e-book marketing genius, to offer an exclusive free TeleSeminar on “The Power of E-Books and E-Book Marketing.” To sign up for this no-cost TeleSeminar, go to http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?Clk=2350226
David has developed an astonishing strategy using E-Books to help him generate massive revenue, increase traffic to his website and help build up an enormous email list of over 950,000 subscribers! In one 24-hour campaign, he generated $108,142 in revenue from E-Book sales alone. He has used this same E-Book strategy to help make his website the #1-ranked Self Improvement website on the Internet. SelfGrowth.com now gets over 900,000 visitors a month.
In addition to the $108,142 he earned, he has used free E-Books to generate many thousands of qualified subscribers and even used his first E-Book to test market his successful print book. Best of all... he created an informative useful E-Book from scratch in less than one week! Sound enticing? During this informative free TeleSeminar, he’ll teach you how you can do the exact same thing -- and more!
Whether you are an author, a small business owner, or have a great book in your heart, an effective E-Book strategy is necessary to skyrocket you to success in 2008! He only has room for 100 of my subscribers and friends to attend this exclusive seminar, so sign up fast while space is still available. To sign up now, go to http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?Clk=2350226
E-mail Carol Denbow: CarolDenbow@gmail.com
Website http://www.BooksByDenbow.Weebly.com
Free monthly e-zine A Book Inside Book reviews on request, query first
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Yvonne Perry will be leading a workshop for the Tennessee Writers Alliance 3rd Annual Writer's Conference. She will present two, 1.5-hour workshops on Book Promotion in the Digital Age: Online Book Marketing.
Other experts include: Bill Brown, Author, Vanderbilt Professor (poetry); Gloria Ballard, Author, Journalist for the Tennessean (creative non-fiction); Lantz Powell, Author, Owner/Agent of Literary Agency for Southern Authors; (What Agents Want) Tamara Baxter, Author, ETSU Professor (Manuscript Critique); Tracy Crudup, Author (Romance genre); Jimmy Carl Harris, Author, Professor Southeastern Louisiana University (Write Risky-Fiction).
The 2008 conference will be held at Battleground Academy in Franklin, TN June 6th (1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.) and June 7th (9 a.m.-4:30 p.m.) To register for the conference, go to http://www.tn-writers.org/Workshops.asp.
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The Future of the Book: Traditions of Today Meet the Technology of Tomorrow
Bookhitch is close to releasing its community book. This book is is the creative result of the bookhitch Community Book Project. It represents a unique concept whereby many different authors wrote the plot line and our community voted how the story would progress. This book embodies inventive collaboration and the future of the publishing industry, containing technological advances throughout.
Every Book includes RFID Tags, QRCode Technology, and is printed using state-of-the-art equipment using environmentally friendly techniques and paper. It is not only distinct in its features and overall concept, but it represents a worthwhile cause: all of the profits from the sale of each book are being donated to educational organizations.
We have just launched our sneak peek page, where you can take a look at the current cover design and find more information about QRCode technology and RFID tags. Visit http://www.bookhitch.com/sneakpeek.aspx for more information.
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Many people set out to create a freelance writing career for themselves. Yet, somewhere along the way they get discouraged and give up. They give up because they can't stay focused and they don't know the correct steps to take to create the career they're longing for. Also, they have no idea of what they should be doing and when they should be doing it.
If you're ready to learn how to stay focused, ready to learn what you need to do in order to build the writing career of your dreams, and ready to learn when you should take each step to create this career, here is the help you need. My new Working Writer's Summer Bootcamp will lead you step by step, through three months of intensive training to create the writing career of your dreams.
Only ten writers will be accepted into this program. These ten writers will work together closely over the summer. They will participate in weekly 55-minute group coaching teleclasses and in weekly manuscript critique telesessions. They will start building a freelance writing career right away!
Register for Working Writer's Summer Bootcamp before all ten spaces are filled. Sign up Here Today! Boot camp starts Monday, June 2, 2008. Email Suzanne Lieurance: suzannelieurance@hotmail.com or visit her on the Web: http://www.workingwriterscoach.com .
NothingBinding.com is the leading Social Networking site for Independent Authors to promote their books, attract new readers, and connect with fellow writers. The gateway for writers to tap into a worldwide audience through audio and video, biography, inspirations and excerpts from their books and from their hearts. What's more, readers can discover hidden gems—truly without boundaries—that just are not available at traditional booksellers and other venues. Now finally, unheard voices and untold stories can be shared and heard, savored and enjoyed. NothingBinding unites Authors and Readers everywhere, across the globe. The strength of the independently published book is the great numbers of authors and readers around the world, that log on from near and far to congregate at www.NothingBinding.com.
Online book publicity workshop June 2-27, 2008, helps authors build buzz.
Got a book coming out you want to promote? Has your publisher’s publicist moved on to other projects? Do you have a book in stores that you know deserves more media attention than it’s getting? Do you need to know more about book promotion for your next book proposal? You need “Book Publicity 101: How to Build Book Buzz,” a dynamic online course taught by a veteran publicist and author.
Offered June 2-27, 2008, the class is taught in a forum format, with lessons and homework assignments posted online in a private, password-protected forum. The highly-interactive course covers:
· How to create a book publicity blueprint you’ll be excited about
· The single secret most authors don’t know about generating ongoing media exposure
· The most effective and cost-efficient publicity tactics
· How to generate buzz online using virtual book tours and other techniques
· Radio and TV producer hot buttons
· How to bring an energizing new level of creativity to your publicity efforts
Students receive instructional materials and resources and complete weekly assignments that help them discover how easy it is to create book buzz. Student interaction on the forum offers fresh perspectives and new ideas for all participants while one-on-one instructor guidance and input takes your work to the next level. A free-for-all Q&A corner lets students get answers to questions not covered in the course materials, making this a highly-personalized learning experience for nonfiction and fiction authors.
The class is taught by Sandra Beckwith, a recovering award-winning publicist; publisher of the free e-zine Build Book Buzz; and author of three books, including two on publicity topics.
Registration is $179 and limited to 20 students. Send course inquiries to Beckwith at sb@buildbookbuzz.com or register at http://www.buildbookbuzz.com/workshops/book-publicity.htm.
This perennial blooms each spring in Yvonne's garden. Her neighbor, Shara Lunn, took this photo. To see more of Shara's work go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/cakesbyshara.
Roger Parker will be joining Yvonne Perry on Writers in the Sky Podcast May 9th, 2008!TGI Friday! I have uploaded a new show to my podcast this week! Ron Firmin will be joining us today on Writer's in the Sky Podcast to discuss his latest book titled Fire Your Financial Planner.
with Yvonne Perry:
TGI Friday! I have uploaded a new show to my podcast this week! Anne Da Vigo will be our guest today on Writers in the Sky Podcast!
energy? Do you want to improve your writing skills? Here's a book with a solution. Coffee and Ink: How a Writers Group Can Nourish Your Creativity shows you how to use a group to kick start your writing and keep going. The authors, veteran members of Northern California’s the Monday Night Writers Group, have over the years won awards for their short stories, poetry, and creative non-fiction. To help other writers, they’ve packed Coffee and Ink with plenty of tips and entertaining examples that will make your fingers itch to phone your writer friends and pick up a pen.
Anne Da Vigo will be our guest on Writers in the Sky Podcast April 4th, 2008!
