CONTINUED: Madeline Becomes A Star by Peggy Wheeler-Cribb

Written from Madeline’s puppy point of view, readers are able to gain insight into Madeline’s thoughts and feelings, as well as the facts surrounding her adventure.

If you are blessed to have a youngster in your life, this is one book that I highly recommend. I have no doubt that it will become a top favorite of your little loved one!

Book Description

Madeline the dachshund thought the best thing that ever happened to her was being adopted by her pet parents from a dog rescue, but that was before she became famous! Madeline was content living the life of a normal everyday dog. Then one day Madeline became a star after a video of her playing with her friend, the ghost crab, went viral! Join Madeline, the rescue dog, on her rise to fame and her adventure to New York City!

About Author Peggy Wheeler-Cribb

Peggy Wheeler-Cribb grew up in Earles, SC. She lives with her husband C.L. in Pawleys Island, SC. Peggy has two children, Diane and Darwin, and two grandsons, Jason and Nathan. She also has two step-children, Valerie and Brian, and four more grandchildren through them: Kaitlyn, Pressley, Chance and Peyton. 

Peggy is an award winning educator, as well as a community leader and presenter. She owned and directed Happy Time Preschool for 33 years. She is the founder and director of Grace Church Ministries for Special Needs Children at First Baptist Church in Georgetown, SC.  Peggy and her family volunteer in the ministry every week and are supporters of local animal rescues. Peggy delights in all children and strives to live by Colossians 3:23: Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men. 

About Illustrator April Bensch

April Bensch

April Bensch grew up in Tampa, Florida, where she developed a
deep appreciation for the visual and performing arts. She has enjoyed calling Pawleys Island her home for the past 15 years, where she has become an award winning artist, illustrator and mother of 3 beautiful daughters. April has taught art to children of all ages and delights in bringing color, personality and life to the characters she illustrates, bringing joy to readers both young and old. You can view her artwork at www.aprilbensch.com or view her last illustrated book, “Twas the Night Before Jesus” at www.ontheedgeproductions.org.

Visit the following sites for more about Madeline Becomes a Star!

Amazon link:   http://amzn.to/1a2KbzU

Website: http://www.wonderfulwienerdog.com

CONTINUED: Monk In The Cellar

What goes on in the minds of men and women who have chosen to forgo the fulfillment of marriage and procreation? Do they forever wonder what they are missing, or is their dedication to God’s service so all- consuming that this is never a concern? It prompted me to consider the many material items that I regularly take for granted such as my home, car, golf clubs, computer, tablets, television in every room, my iPhone. And how about those intangibles such as complete freedom to schedule my time, food, clothing and accessories choices, the free will that we have been given to make our own decisions? What does a monk know or even care about these things?


This is no boring tale. It is a story of deception, the existence of guardian angels (which I personally believe have been sent to my rescue on numerous occasions), a man’s two encounters with near death experiences and his desire to do the right thing for the welfare of others.
The story contains several golden nuggets of wisdom such as, “Evil is so easy. That’s because it usually starts off with something small.”

Dave Griffin’s writing style brings the reader steadfastly into the scene with his vivid descriptions that present a movie-like reading experience. The question is raised in my mind: Is Brother Jesse a monk who toils at scholarly endeavors to serve the Almighty or because he chooses to live a safe, uncomplicated existence? How will he react when extenuating circumstances thrust him into an unexpected leadership role?

Not only is this a fascinating book, but it originated and continues as a blog--complete with photos and accompanying music from YouTube! Visitors access the site at http://www.monkinthecellar.blogspot.com. According to the author, “Monk In The Cellar was originally published serially in a blog that has accumulated thousands of hits. The author occasionally has to respond to emails and explain the blog is fiction and that Jesse is not an apostate or a heretic. Nor is he a real person. Jesse is anyone who at times doubts the purpose of the universe, but continues to search for his path anyway.”

I was simply mesmerized by this selection. I know that a story is good when certain aspects of it continue to pop back into my mind once the final page has been read and I have moved on to another book. I also recognize that a story is good when you know you should be doing a million other things, but the heart of the tale is drawing you back to continue reading, and you just can't stop yourself. Everything else must wait.
Writers are always told to write based on what we know--what is familiar to us. I could easily detect that at least a portion of this story involved a road that David has personally traveled. He’ll have to be the one to tell you where the fiction ends and the fact begins. David Griffin isn’t just another person who tells a captivating story. He is truly a talented artist who paints a canvas with words.

Book Description

Monk In The Cellar is the story of eleven monks who live in a decrepit Catskill Mountains Resort they converted into a monastery. Brother Jesse and his little band will be evicted from his home of forty years when Irish overseers decide to sell the monastery to pay off the Order's  debts. Jesse hides in the cellar print shop and ruminates most days.  When he's given a laptop and later finds an open Wi-Fi signal in the air, the aging monk posts a tell-all blog, a narrative of his order's deceit and his own disappointment. Along the way, he falls in love with his guardian angel, who later becomes his real estate agent. Monk In The Cellar is a beautifully funny account of a man who is afraid of getting old, of a life examined and found wanting.

What Prompted David Griffin to Write this Particular Book?
“I just write what comes into my head and I do it constantly, although not as much as in prior years. I have a story list of 170 stories I've written since I began writing creatively in 2007. I have over 200 ‘Starts’ and other stuff I'm working on.

I don't know why I wrote Monk, but I remember its genesis. At a writing group meeting in Woodstock in 2010, I suggested to someone they write a blog. The woman answered she wouldn't have anything to write about and I replied, ‘Make it up.’

On the way home that day, it occurred to me I could do the same, and from somewhere came the idea of writing as monk in a monastery that I placed about three miles up the road from my house.

I learned how to use Blogger and started it up. I was posting 4 or 5, sometimes 6 times each day the first month. A few people wrote to me and even asked advice. I had to reply that the blog was a spoof, and no one seemed truly upset by it. It then occurred to me I could probably turn it into a book.”

About David Griffin

David Griffin is retired from a career in corporate education and  communications. His essays and short stories have appeared in online journals as well as print magazines. He is a member of the South Carolina Writers Workshop and other writing groups. David publishes his essays at www.windsweptpress.com and self-publishes a book of stories each year that is well received by those who love him. He seldom hears from those who don’t. Griffin writes the popular blog Monk In The Cellar, and at readings plays the main character Brother Jesse with some degree of authenticity. The blog is now a novel by the same name. 
After 35 years at the foot of the mountains near Woodstock, NY, David now writes from coastal South Carolina , where he lives with his wife and her dog.

Amazon link:
http://amzn.to/19e21eQ

Website:
http://www.windsweptpress.com

Blog:
http://monkinthecellar.blogspot.com

Automated Tweeting Experiment

CONTINUED from main page of the blog.

by David Griffin
 

I constructed the tweets (I've sent him 8 or ten) and here's one as an example:

What’s a monk do for fun? Find out
@MonkInTheCellar bit.ly/18fTGp3


In each tweet is a bitly link back to the web page Indie Promotor created for me.  It's a simple page with my bio and links to Kindle and Amazon so you can buy my books.  If you want to check his page for me it's here:

http://indiepromotor.com/david-griffin/

Although Indie Promotor (his name is David Weeks) specializes in Kindle and other epubs, he agreed to also list my print editions on Amazon.

Multiplying 3 tweets per day times 30 days times the same 76,000 followers of Indie Promotor we can state that on 6,840,000 occasions, someone ... often the same person, of course ... saw a tweet pop up in their mail about Monk In The Cellar.  At the end of three months that figure will be 20 million.  And that does not take into account the re-tweets, some by people who also have thousands of followers.  I've seen numbers like 1800 and I remember a retweet by a fellow who had over 21,000 followers.

Sounds impressive.  Surely some of those tweets resulted in the sale of even my two dollar novelettes.  Not so, but in a moment I'll get to the results for the first thirty days.

Here's why the results won't be very impressive.  First, we know nothing about the 76,000 followers.  Second, some ... maybe a high number ... may be annoyed with their reader filling up with tweets, and are not in a mood to buy anything I might write.  Although almost all the retweets I've seen have been simply a replay of the original without any comment, I did see one where the retweeter answered the question, "What's a monk do for fun?" by commenting "Probably not send out the same tweets endlessly."

There are other reasons, but I don't want to make this a scholarly paper.  Here's a more quantitative report of the first month's results.  I've seen a very, very slight uptick on hits to my Monk In The Cellar Blog and my main web page for Windswept Press.  I would not swear in court that the reason for this tiny increase in hits is due to Indie Promotor's Tweets.  My sales on Amazon and Kindle have increased by exactly zero.  That's right, I haven't sold a book in the last thirty days.  I didn't sell a book in the thirty days before, either, but clearly over 7 million tweets and retweets have not lifted my book off the launch pad.

I will wait  for the end of the  3 month period to make a final judgement.  Who knows?  Maybe something will take off.  But  I'm forming the opinion, despite  the success with  Twitter by others, that it's not working for me.

I consider the $55 a very good investment.  It is always good to try something and if it costs money it is usually money well spent.  If in fact tweeting (at least in this manner) doesn't prove to be beneficial to me after two more months, I will be happy to have spent $55 to find out rather than waste a lot of time tweeting in the future.

Now would be a good time for any of you to use the Comment facility on this blog to give me your thoughts.  I'm sure someone wants to comment about my using the same tweets over and over.

-  Dave Griffin

CONTINUED: M1 Brothers

Book Description

Bill Hancock takes the reader on an adventure that chronicles life in the early fifties. M1 Brothers is a fast paced story that mingles military adventure with history, espionage, courage, honor and humor. The M1 Brothers find fraternity, love and deception, deal with psychological issues and create mischief akin to MASH.

Main character, Charlie Canfield, CC to all, is the reluctant scion of a lineage of warriors. He worries about his ability to emulate these heroic predecessors even though he possesses the means that can make it possible.

Hancock's cruel and cunning North Korean master spy is Bek Man Sue. His goal is to disrupt and overturn the South Korean government, while brutally punishing adversaries. Brian Roberts is the uniquely talented pawn in this masterful tale as it whirls across the treacherous hills behind the DMZ (demilitarized zone).
 

In the Words of Bill Hancock
 
“This book was written because it is a story that I felt a need to tell. It is fiction based on historical fact that chronicles life in the early fifties. Our country had ended a terrible World War just a few years earlier at an enormous cost of life and wealth. The veterans of that war, who were deeply scarred in many ways, were finding their places back in society and now a new threat appears that many of their children are called to repulse. New members are called into the fraternity of the good to combat an ongoing existence of evil.”

 
About Bill Hancock
 
The author has more than 50 years of technical and management experience. Some 44 years were spent working for various corporations and another 8 years running his own consulting company. During all this, he gained recognition as a management and cost model innovator, product developer, inventor, technical author and mentor.

As a consultant, he worked on the Lockheed Martin Federal Systems Merlin Helicopter Training Program in England. Then he returned to create training materials and teach NASA approved classes in Project Management Fundamentals, Parametric Cost Estimating, Work Breakdown Structure and Configuration Management at NASA facilities around the country.

While at IBM for 26 years, he started as an engineer in the Information Records Division and worked on printing equipment for paper products sold by the corporation. To most IBM means International Business Machine Corporation, but to many within the corporation, it means I’ve Been Moved.

After a few years, he moved to the Federal Systems Division to work as a test director and reentry vehicle trajectory analyst. When that assignment was complete, he moved on to the Manassas, Virginia FSD plant to become a software cost engineer, systems and software cost engineering manager, subcontract program manager, deputy program manager and program manager.

Prior to IBM he worked for Ingersoll-Rand as a project engineer and developed the first fluidized hospital bed for burn patients. Before Ingersoll-Rand he held a senior designer position at Curtiss-Wright Electronics Division, a designer job at Bendix Corporation, a junior designer job at Curtiss-Wright, a draftsman position at Trowbridge Conveyor Co., and his first job was as a junior draftsman at Hewitt-Robins Inc. While working for Hewitt-Robins, Bill Hancock was called into service during Korean War in Army to serve as infantry soldier and battalion draftsman in Korea.  All education after high school was at night at Stevens Institute of Technology, Fairleigh Dickinson University and Newark College of Engineering.

Bill is now happily retired and enjoying life in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Link to Amazon page:  http://amzn.to/1fuOIy6

CONTINUED: I Like A Little Bit of The Handsome Americans Myself

They are pursued throughout by Arnold Porkwinder who deals in chrome and wants his $804.04 in back rent.  With him is Mr. Watanabe, a Japanese gentleman with unique insight and an expert baseball card flipper.

In the Words of Richard Lutman

I Like A Little Bit Of The Handsome Americans Myself is a quirky road novella set in the early seventies. There is no deep meaning in this novella which took me a month to write.  A crucial and very funny pseudo love scene occurs in a Laundromat which inspired the cover.  Pacing was important.  Most of the action is dialogue-driven so the chapters had to be short. 

J.R., one of the main characters, is based on a real person.  Many of the scenes in the novella actually occurred.

On the back of a shack door in Rhode Island, three names were scrawled across the rough wooden surface followed by the words ‘The Handsome Americans.’  After a night of drinking several pitchers of beer at a local bar and watching a very bad band perform, one of the beer drinkers said “There they are--The Handsome Americans,” which brought much laughter.  Every time another bad band performed or a conversation got long winded out would come, “I like a little bit of the Handsome Americans myself,” said in the most serious tone possible.  The name seemed appropriate for the band and the title of the novella. 

About Richard Lutman

Richard Lutman lives in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  He has a MFA in Writing from Vermont College.  He currently teaches short story classes as part of Coastal Carolina University's Lifelong Learning program.  His fiction has appeared in: Verdad, Slow Trains, The Green Silk Journal, Dark Sky Magazine, The Bicycle Review, Epiphany Magazine, The Petigru Review, Deep South Magazine, The Newport Review, Dew on the Kudzu, The Corner Cupboard Press, The Green Briar Review, Bethlehem Writers Roundtable and Prick of the Spindle. He has also won local and national awards for his short stories, nonfiction and screenplays.   He was a 2008 Pushcart Nominee. 

A chapbook of his flash fiction was published in June 2009, a long narrative poem in 2011 and a chapbook of four short stories in 2013 by The Last Automat Press.  A novella entitled "I Like a Little Bit of the Handsome Americans Myself" can be found on Smashwords and Amazon Kindle.  Another novella, "Iron Butterfly" can be found at The WriteDeal Publishers.

Link to Amazon page:  http://amzn.to/1auwyH0

Link to Richard Lutman’s website:  http://www.wordrealm.net

CONTINUED: The Yellow Doll by David Soma

These experiences actually enhanced my reading of The Yellow Doll, as there were times when my parents and I were maneuvering across the miles of western desolation when I could visualize a band of Indians lined up on their horses, positioned all along the top of a looming cliff in the distance. I could almost see them patiently awaiting the arrival of the next wagon train that was rolling across the prairie. They salivated in anticipation of the pending attack on the unsuspecting trespassers from the east. Okay, I know I have always had a vivid imagination.

Back to The Yellow Doll, however. This book contains surprises, and I do love surprises. If you think that its title suggests a sweet story about a favorite toy, lovingly clutched by a child as she and her parents head west, you’ll want to think again. It’s more about an unlikely group, traveling to a western destination called Deadwood.

I won’t be a spoiler by revealing too much information, but this story encompasses a quest for a better life, a little bit of semi-romance, greed, violence, photography as was experienced in the 1870’s (no digital camera efficiency here), prejudice, a blur between upholding the law and breaking it, smuggling, murder, fear, outlaws, rudimentary commerce, illicit activity, deceit and definitely adventure.

This is one of those books that prompted me to pause when I read the final words. I wanted to know more about that place, era, location, history and the facts on which The Yellow Doll is based. This selection made me curious, entertained and intrigued me. It offered me an enhanced vision of the wild west as 19th century inhabitants must have known it.

Book Description

As America celebrates her centennial in the summer of 1876, the gold rush in the Dakota Territory of Deadwood Gulch draws an eclectic crowd of villains and heroes. There are those who want to seek their fortune and those who will do anything to destroy them.

Traveling photographer Niles Dewy sets out with his business partner, Rubee, to photograph the excitement—and do a little business on the side. It doesn’t take long for his new friend and traveling companion Sarah Culbert to discover Mr. Dewy isn’t everything he seems, especially when they have a strange encounter with Sheriff Clay involving the Yellow Doll. But Sarah has a few secrets of her own …

The group arrives in Deadwood, and Niles crosses paths once more with Wild Bill Hickok. But Hickok’s death starts a chain reaction that has explosive results. With the law closing in and a host of unsavory characters just waiting to destroy him, Niles’s run of good luck is about to expire, and only time will tell if he’ll survive.

Amazon page:   http://amzn.to/16ZtRZe

Why Did Soma Write The Yellow Doll?

“For ten years as I performed as James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok  in Deadwood, South Dakota, I was constantly asked, "Why did Jack McCall kill Wild Bill?" The myth of that legend made no historical sense to me, and I began to research the events taking place in the Deadwood Gulch mining camp in 1876.  I found there was a series of killings in the camp on the first three days of August that year, and Hickok was just one of them.  There very likely was a connection between all the murders.  Thus the novel The Yellow Doll, which is my historical theory on why Wild Bill Hickok was assassinated by McCall in Nuttles & Manns Saloon on August 2, 1876 in Deadwood Gulch, Dakota Territory.”

About David Soma

David Soma was born and raised the Badlands of western South Dakota. History has always been his passion, studying history and journalism at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona.  In the 1960s he began to live that history - as a western character actor at Old Tucson Studios, appearing in dozens of motion pictures and television westerns, eventually performing in the Gunfight At The OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona and finally as Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood, South Dakota.  After retiring, his time is divided between the mountains of western Wyoming and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.   While wintering in Myrtle Beach, he teaches American western frontier history through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Coastal Carolina University offering classes in the Myths And Legends Of The American West, Myths Of The Hollywood Westerns and Before During And After Lewis & Clark.  He also performs historical one-man shows as Wild Bill Hickok throughout the country.  The Yellow Doll is his third novel.

 

Closing Thoughts

As previously stated, The Yellow Doll is full of surprises. Prepare for a wild ride to Deadwood and beyond!

Internet Radio: Beach Author Network Presentation

Introduction

◦      Contact information

▪      Robert Sharpe (843) 808 -0777

▪      Web site www.biteradio.me

▪      email biteradiome@aol.com

·        Explain the creation of BITEradio.me

Promotional Opportunities:

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Radio – Types of Programming

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·        would be beneficial for book tours

▪      some have Internet streaming – usage is usually limited to those in area aware of streaming

◦      Cons

▪      limited number of 'talk' stations

▪      finding program(s) that supports book content

▪      One-time only airing

·        Satellite

◦      Pros

▪      subscriber listeners

▪      more apt to purchase goods and services

▪      wider geographic range

◦      Cons – same as traditional terrestrial stations

▪      limited number of 'talk' stations

▪      finding program that supports book content

▪      One-time only airing

·        Internet-based – 'podcast' shows

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·        My Experience

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Guest resources

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http://herewomentalk.com/  - local Myrtle Beach based talk radio focused on women – Kay VanHoesen/Owner

http://toginet.com/ - variety of talk hows (AuthorTalk features self-publisher, AuthorHouse authors)

http://www.bbsradio.com/  - has live shows and fee-based access to archived shows/wide range of categories

http://www.heyzmediaproductions.com/ - variety of paranormal/life advice/history type programming

www.iheartradio.com – music/talk/television

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Source Resources

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