Title: Prequel

Author: Rachel Maddow

Publisher: Crown

As Reviewed on Maddow's Amazon Buy Page

     I am considering this a review and hope you will, too.  It is slightly edited from a recommendation I sent to a housebound relative who reads voraciously and sends recommendations to me--about three a week. You will see I found some reasons for reading it that might be quite different from the usual reader.  Here it it is:

Dear Reader: 

     You don't know Rachel?  Rachel is a highly  talented …and educated…MSNBC host, podcaster, writer…She writes with humour and much irony. And she avoids lots of unnecessary latinate words, and that's the kind of thing someone who also makes her living with words notices.  Her knowledge of political  history is prodigious. She is an antidote to the crap going on in the world right now. 

     You said you avoid TV.  I think many thinking people turned away from  TV because of all the misinformation that’s going on there. My trajectory was just the opposite.  A long, long time ago when I was in my writing/retailing/getting-an-education era of my life I didn’t watch much, either —almost never. I started watching because I found it an antidote to all the misinformation we have been inundated with in these times of mass media--including the internet. \

     You may recall, I am pretty fussy about what I read. Or not. We had the decade-long gap where we didn't communicate. To update you, I am an ex journalist major, as well as a recovering journalist. I am truly grateful to my journalism experience because of the perspective it has given me and, frankly, the background it has given me for my other writing.  I am pretty much settled on NBC and MSNBC as a major TV news resource because they have a huge staff of trained journalist/reporters stationed all over the world. They even cover financials with a separate cable station, CNBC.   CNN  is my next favorite as a reliable resource, but it seems their new CEO is letting it (or causing it) to slip lately.  And I probably haven't missed a "60 Minutes" on CBS segment in decade.

    Make no mistake, I listen and read from resources that are on both sides of the political spectrum.  I even recommend Dr. Frank Luntz’s, “Words that Work," in the Appendix of several of my books. One needs to know how both sides of politics manipulate the words they use. (Luntz even includes a list of words that can be used when one wants/needs to influence (copywriting and advertising are good examples ). He tries to be fair and noncommittal about politics but sometimes slips. His expertise in the worlds of marketing and politics is prodigious. His readers come to understand how our entire population is being manipulated with words and that saddens me.  That said, I think you find much to learn from Luntz and much to love in Rachel Maddow's newest book.  Even history buffs will be surprised at what they didn't know.

More About #TheNewBookReview Blog 

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Authors, readers, publishers, and reviewers may republish their favorite reviews of books they want to share with others. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read and love. Please see submission guidelines in a tab at the top of this blog's home page or go directly to the submission guidelines at http://bit.ly/ThePlacetoRecycleBookReviews or to the guideline tab at the top of the home page of this blog. Authors and publishers who do not yet have reviews or want more may use Lois W. Stern's #AuthorsHelpingAuthors service for requesting reviews. Find her guidelines in the right column of this blog home page (a silver and gold badge and threee silver-gray circles beneath it. Carolyn Wilhelm is our IT expert, an award-winning author and veteran educator, she also contributes reviews and posts on other topics related to books. Reviews, interviews, and articles on this blog are indexed by genre, reviewers' names, and review sites so #TheNewBookReview may be used as a resource for most anyone in the publishing industry. As an example, writers will find this blog's search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. #TheFrugalbookPromoter, #CarolynHowardJohnson, #TheNewBookReview, #TheFrugalEditor, #SharingwithWriters, #reading #BookReviews #GreatBkReviews #BookMarketing HowToDoItFrugally http://bit.ly/ThePlacetoRecycleBookReviews. Pre-format the post editor for each new post. Cancel Save Post published

Boost Book Sales with a BOGO Offer (Buy One, Get One Free)

Hi there fellow authors,

It's Lois W. Stern here, your NewBookReview Blog Spot Review Acquisition Coordinator, sharing another helpful tip with you: 

This is a great way to grow book sales and brand awareness on a small budget.

The supermarkets do this all the time: BOGO (Buy One, Get One Free) and you can use this same idea to boost book sales.

 

Try bundling a couple of your titles into a 2 for 1 offer. Then send your offer out to your list, post it on your social media pages, add dit to your newsletter, and promote it in any other creative places you can think of. 

Your offer might look like this: “Buy (1st book title) at (add list price) and get (2nd book title) for FREE. And if you decide to include free shipping, be sure to use USA MEDIA RATE. When you ship your books, include a friendly message thanking them for their interest and telling them you hope they enjoy your books. This will cost you only a couple of dollars, but you can get barrels full of free PR in return.

(Here are a few ways to benefit from your investment. 

Just be sure to ask permission first, as courtesy builds trust.)

• Add their name to your newsletter list.
• Ask them if they could write a testimonial about your books. Then use that testimonial to further spread the word about your books.
• Post a thank you to them for purchasing your books on your social media pages, while adding a picture of your book cover. 
• If they give you a great testimonial, ask them if they would expand it into a review, then post it on any of the creditable online book review sites, and send you the link once that review is posted.
• Submit their review to The New Book Review blog spot, following the format provided at:

https://thenewbookreview.blogspot.com/2023/05/send-us-your-fav-book-review.html .

If you think it’s worth a small investment to get the word out about your books, 

how about giving BOGO a try?

Sci-Fi Author Joy V. Smith Shares Writing Tips from The Frugal Editor

Title: The New Book Review
Subtitle: HowtoDoItFrugally Series of books for Writers
Edition: 3^rd Edition
Author: Carolyn Howard-Johhson
Publisher: Modern History Press
Buy on Amazon
Multi award-winner including Reader Views, The Irwin Award
Pages 279

Reviewed by Joy V. Smith 

 From beginning to end, I learned what I needed to know--and there was so much I didn't realize I needed to know--to help me with my writing. She covers editing helps and resources, grammar, punctuation, computer aids, agents' pet peeves and warnings about CAPs, quotation marks, and exclamation points (one of my pet peeves), And a lot more! (heh, heh)

Of course I can't remember everything so I've used a lot of little flags. In checking some out for this review, I came across the cut and paste warning. Btw, that ruined a recent ms I sent out (the paste ended up after the end of my story). And I see there's a copyright shortcut. Don't miss the dialogue warning (cut back on those italics). Ah, there's helpful advice about hyphens and prefixes, etc. And helpful background on Smashwords and Kindle, plus info re: formatting. (I had to hire formatters for them.) I also needed to focus on front and back matter recently. (A little late....)

I wish I could memorize all that essential info, but that's what my little flags are for. (I'm glad we can end a sentence with a preposition.) I'll be rereading it.... Highly recommended because it'll save you from writing and publishing mistakes. (Nah, I'll skip the exclamation point this time.)

Note: I received a review copy from the publisher in return for an unbiased and honest review. 

 

More About the Reviewer

Joy V. Smith has been writing stories since she was a kid and made her own little books. Later she wrote articles--including interviews with editors, artists, and writers--and short stories. The closest she came to writing long stories was writing sequels to her stories. Then she learned about NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. She started writing novels then and finished several over the years; there was a lot of editing to be done; Joy owes a lot to her patient editors. Her books include: Strike Three, Sugar Time, Taboo Tech, Velvet of Swords, Well Met by Water, Detour Trail, Cold New Planet, Pretty Pink Planet, Hot Yellow Planet, Hidebound, and The Doorway and Other Stories. 

 

She also collects books by her favorite authors and pop-up books, and, of course, reference books and books on writing.