Rights and wrongs of divorce

If your relationship is breaking down and you have children, a house and shared possessions, you need to know your rights –check out Divorce and Separation Today.If you are not an expert in the finer points of matrimonial law, which thankfully, few of us are, then Uli Doheny-Adams guides you effortlessly through a baffling legal minefield, explaining your rights in divorce and separation.

The guide explodes a few myths along the way and demonstrates:

• How the legal process of divorce and separation works
• How the principles behind care, custody and access to children
• What happens to marital property – especially the house
• Understanding the role of the courts

In fact, Divorce and Separation Today packs in so much detail, it’s possible to DIY your own divorce, especially in conjunction with an online legal service such as Net Lawman where you can also obtain all the forms and letters referred to in the book, with completed examples.

Amazon’s New Rival

DragonCub, a dynamic new Internet based marketing medium, specifically geared for authors, publishers and booksellers, was officially launched in January 2009. This unique selling system enables authors to market their books and CDs at very low cost. DragonCub only take a mere 20% commission of an author’s fixed retail price.

“We found a growing demand for a simple, cheap method to publicise and sell books and CDs online. DragonCub fulfils that need,” says Miriam Taylor, DragonCub’s sales manager.

DragonCub’s system is dead simple. Visit DragonCub’s website, click the ‘enter my book’ button, and then click ‘enter my book as DragonCub for sale’. Finally, click FAQs button.

DragonCub have far-reaching plans for expansion that include issue of informative news releases, combined with inventive SEO and Adword promotions. To retain a high quality service DragonCub are using the same Internet marketing firm as their sister company Net Lawman, the leading online supplier of legal documents and templates.

“We aim to make it easy to sell literature, books and CDs through our system. Furthermore we’re based in the UK, a major advantage for British and European authors,” says Miriam.

“I guess DragonCub’s unique promotional venture is invaluable for new and unknown authors, desperate to reach a wider audience to publicise their book,” says Steve Poole, author of The Allotment Chronicles, published by Silver Link Publishing. “Publishing a tough field and DragonCub have made promotion vastly easier.”

DragonCub provides for all non-technical book markets, and sells titles in hard or soft copy. They also market abridged versions of an author’s work, dubbed DragonShort. DragonCub convey an author’s own blog style web page along with descriptions of the product and synopsis.

DragonCub welcomes authors, especially new ones and for the next month only, offer a unique chance to advertise free of charge for one year.

DragonCub are also offering another unbeatable offer. The first 5 authors to place their book with DragonCub will get free PPC publicity for three months. Dragoncub currently offer a discount Google Adwords campaign, as part of the package, should an author choose it.

DragonCub works closely with their authors and suppliers, issue customer invoice along with special delivery labels for packages. Customers pay direct into DragonCub’s e-commerce system. DragonCub pays authors each month, minus the 20% commission. Authors and publishers are also free to deal with and supply customers at no extra cost.

All Dragoncub asks of authors and publishers is to redress any cash imbalance due to a customer cancelling orders, deal with customer complaints and ensure prompt delivery of orders. Nothing could be simpler.

DragonCub are plainly honest, proffer no misleading ideas on the number of books an author might sell. Sellers are also given freedom to remove a book when merchandise levels are depleted.

Naturally, authors are responsible for all legal aspects within their book including copyright, plagiarism, permissions to source material, rights for use of pictures/drawings and other editorial points, including accuracy.

For further information about DragonCub and the services they provide visit:

http://www.dragoncub.com/books

WRITE THAT BOOK

“Procrastination is the ultimate laziness,” said Dr Johnson. He wasn’t kidding. So stop procrastinating and write that book. Plan the story first. Ten chapters should suffice for a short story or novel. More chapters can be added later. Draft a rough outline of each chapter in four to five lines. Only jot down the key elements. This provides a useful starting point to work from.

Develop a sales pitch/blurb to the editor to promote the story. This adds impetus to story writing and inspiration for the synopsis.

“Yes, I can write but it’s not good enough to publish.” Funnily, many good writers have said this, but admit, other published literature isn’t half as good as the stuff they’ve penned themselves. Abolish this negative idea, otherwise nothing will ever materialise. So get it down on paper or if working on a computer, saved as a Word file. Don’t worry about correct grammar, at the first draft stage. Creativity is the key thing. It’s better to edit text on completion of the story. In most cases, a second re-write is vastly superior.

When writing, start the story with a thunderclap phrase to hook the reader from the word go. Don’t begin with a drab sentence like:

Strange as it may seem, the other day… This waffles and won’t snare a reader.

Instead, begin with something like:

I could have died when… This is far better and dramatic.

Give the story a mission. What is the hero or heroine’s goal? How do events affect the characters? Find out how to develop gripping narrative and dialogue. Real life experience helps to portray incidents. For instance, having a baby, facing up to an operation or involvement in a road accident. Research for technical accuracy to add realism. If writing a story set in the past, find out what everyday life was like. How did people travel, what did they earn, what did they eat etc.

Completion of a story is incredibly rewarding, so write that book, now.

Insiders Guide to Vanity Publishers

Expressions like co-operative publishing, joint venture publishing, subsidy publishing, and self-publishing are misleading to say the least. They all mean the same thing, ‘vanity’ publishing. Yet scores of small publishers advertise their services on the web. Some publishers go to great lengths to conceal from the author, all the costs involved, which suddenly escalate half way through production of a book.

There are good vanity publishers just as there are bad. How does an author tell the difference? Here’s some clues.

• A good vanity publisher will not tell an author their book is a well-written masterpiece. Instead they will discuss the true market potential of a book and the best way to proffer it to the public.
• Good vanity publishers don’t say their service is better than competitors and swamp a new author with copies of revue cuttings, which are often little more than colour photocopies. Instead, they describe their service they offer, and leave an author to decide.
• Good vanity publishers do not offer subsidised service or give the impression of being philanthropic.
• They do not offer to publish books as the market demands (like Lulu). Instead they agree to publish X number of books at a fixed price and say more copies are optional at a later date.
• Good vanity publishers don’t claim to have a marvellous marketing department and say the author stands to recoup the financial outlay through royalties, which far exceed everyone else’s.
• Good vanity publishers do a lot of work on behalf of an author. They get maximum publicity, gain an ISBN, proof-read the manuscript and work closely with the author. Good vanity publishers will design the cover, provide typesetting and proofs before printing, ensure distribution and get the book placed on legal deposit in national libraries.

So to recap, good vanity publishers are candid and reliable.

Of course the next step is marketing – www.DragonCub.com can help there of course.

Five tips to boost your book sales on the web

 

Instead of stacking rejection slips by touting your manuscript around agents and traditional publishing houses, a podding agreement will let a publisher take your manuscript, edit and format the text ready for firing out paperback or hardback copies as soon as the orders come in.

DragonCub will also help with marketing the book, but because DragonCub cuts the overheads, you earn a bigger royalty on each sale.

You can also help yourself sell more books online with these five simple steps:

• Team up with a podding partner like DragonCub
• Set up a website – call the site <yourbooktitle>.com. This is easy to do with a blogging tool alled WordPress. Then, write one or two articles a week for your blog inking to your book page on the podding site.
• Let people know about your blog by setting up accounts on social networking sites – the type of site depend on your readers
• Join forums and online communities that specialise in your niche and offer free articles based on snippets of your book in return for links back to your site or your book sales page.
• Politely ask any readers who comment on your book to post their comments on your book sales page. Reader recommendations are valuable resources that drive sales.
• The objective is to raise the profile of your book by raising your profile on the internet. Every site that carries one of your articles, blogs or comments with a link back to your sales page makes your book easier to find for interested readers.

  Your readers are out there – you just need to team up with online publishing experts like DragonCub to help you find them.

How to sell your book and receive 100% of the sales price

DIY publishing is now considered trendy as opposed to thirty years ago, when mainstream publishers invited new and unknown authors along to preview prospective works.

Assuming an author has X number of books printed either through a vanity publisher or even a small press, the next step is to get the book out there, to be read. Take time to decide the best strategy.

• Identify the target audience, age, income, career and residential location of prospective readers.
• Look at the competition and evaluate the market demand and prices.
• Devise a statement that spells out why this new book is special (often called the unique selling point or USP).
• Develop a market plan, work out the financial outlay required, and whether sales will recoup the cost of printing, binding etc.
• Advertise the publication in local papers, magazines, newsletters etc. Convince news editors to publish press releases about the new book.
• Get postcards, leaflets or flyers printed (fairly cheap these days) at a copy shop.

Caution, almost no self-published book gives a significant return on an author’s investment in time and effort, so don’t give up the day job.

So where does it all end? Hopefully like the effort of one, now famous author, who initially made little profit from a self-published book but gained loads of publicity. Then one day a copy ended up on the desk of a creative consultant. The result, a well-known 3202 mainstream publisher snapped up the work. By the year 2000, the book sold over 300,000 copies and became a best seller. It can happen. How? Sign up at www.DragonCub.com today for free and sell your book, for free! DragonCub is the new kid on the block – a force to be reckoned with in the area of online books sales. They are offering a special deal where 100% of the sales profit goes to the author / publisher. No gimmicks, no sales spiel, just pure marketing heaven for your new book.

Boosting you book sales on the web with podding

Podding is a relationship between an author/writer and a ‘print on demand’ publisher. It is effective way for writers to increase book sales on internet. In Podding, writer cuts out all the middlemen costs and go to a Podding publisher like DragonCub who takes a manuscript, edit and format the text ready for firing out paperback or hardback copies as soon as the orders come in.

DRAGONCUB’S UNIQUE OFFER

DragonCub, a brilliant new online marketing outlet, currently offers authors, publishers and booksellers an unbeatable opportunity to reach a wider audience at very low cost.

DragonCub was officially launched in January 2009, to meet increasing demand for economical, easy to gain, publicity. DragonCub welcomes books from fresh and unknown authors in particular. For the next month only, DragonCub offer a year’s free advertising on their website.

Furthermore, the first 5 authors to place a book on DragonCub’s website will receive free PPC publicity for three months. As an optional extra, authors can get a discount Google Adwords campaign as part of the deal.

“We only charge 20% commission on an author’s fixed retail price, for this terrific service,” says Miriam Taylor, DragonCub’s sales manager.

The system is dead easy to use. Here’s how it works. To enter a book, authors only need to visit DragonCub’s website, click on ‘enter my book’ button, and then click ‘enter my book as DragonCub for sale’. Finally, click the FAQs button.

“In order to provide a high quality service, we are using the same Internet marketing company as our sister firm, Net Lawman, the leading online supplier of legal documents and templates,” adds Miriam.

DragonCub provides for all non-technical book markets, sells titles in hard or soft copy and even sells potted versions of an author’s or a publisher’s work in small volumes dubbed DragonShort.

DragonCub publicise an author’s own ‘blog style’ web page in addition to sales blurb and synopsis. DragonCub works closely with authors and publishers, issue customer invoices and special delivery labels for each order. DragonCub also ensure swift payment to authors every month, minus the 20% commission.

In short, all the author or publisher has to do is ensure prompt delivery of orders, respond to customer complaints and amend financial shortfalls, should a customer retract his order. That’s all there is too it.

“For authors branching into self-publishing, DragonCub’s special offer is a terrific boost to reach wider readership,” says Steve Poole, author of The Allotment Chronicles.

As part of the publicity campaign and to provide inspiration to authors, DragonCub plans to run a series of highly informative articles and features about writing and publishing. Topics will cover key aspects of self-publishing, how to sell that book, finding target markets, gaining an ISBN and useful tips for successful writing. Other subjects will include impressing editors, getting agents and marketing strategies.

DragonCub make no pretence about the number of books an author might sell and stress it could be much greater or far less than estimated. Authors are entitled to remove a title from the website, for instance, when merchandise levels are depleted.

DragonCub clearly emphasise non-liability for the editorial content of a book. All authors that submit works to DragonCub are responsible for the legal and technical aspects regarding the story or subject matter in their book, including copyright, accuracy, seeking rights, permission to quote and avoiding plagiarism and other editorial details.

Further information about DragonCub’s unique offer can be found at:

http://www.dragoncub.com/books