Noah Baird wanted to attend the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, but his grades weren’t good enough (who knew?).  However, his grades were good enough to fly for the U.S. Navy (again, who knew?), where he spent 14 years until the government figured out surfers don’t make the best military aviators. He has also tried to be a stand-up comedian in Hawaii for Japanese tourists where the language barrier really screwed up some great jokes. On the bright side, a sailboat was named after the punchline of one of his jokes.

He has several political satire pieces published on The Spoof under the pen name orioncrew.  Noah received his bachelors in Historical and Political Sciences from Chaminade University, where he graduated magna cum laude. He knows nothing about hoaxing Bigfoot. Donations to Clarity is his first novel.

You can visit his website at www.noahbaird.com or his blog at www.noahbaird.wordpress.com.

Connect with him at Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Noah-Baird-Writer/100193913390453.

About Donations to Clarity

The plan was simple: hoax bigfoot, then sell tours to bigfoot enthusiasts. The plan wasn’t brilliant, and neither were Harry, Earl, and Patch. The three chemical-abusing friends only wanted to avoid the 9 to 5 rat race, but their antics attract the attention of a real bigfoot. When the misogynistic Earl is mistaken for a female bigfoot by the nearsighted creature and captured; it is just the beginning of their problems.

The U.S. Government has a plan to naturalize the mythical creatures living within the U.S. borders.  The problem is the plan needs to be carried out carefully.  You can’t just drop little green men and Sasquatch in the middle of Walmart without warning Ma and Pa Taxpayer. The naturalization program is not ready to be set into motion, and the rogue bigfoot is bringing too much attention to itself, including a feisty investigative reporter who uncovers the truth of the government conspiracy and two bigfoot researchers. No longer able to contain the situation, government agents are tasked with eliminating the bigfoot and all witnesses.

Between bong hits and water balloon fights, Harry and Patch come up with a plan to save Earl and the lovestruck bigfoot. Where do you hide a giant, mythical creature? In an insane asylum, because who is going to listen to them?

Along the way, the three friends learn Star Wars was a government training film for children, the truth behind Elvis meeting President Nixon, and the significance of the weight of the human turd.

Welcome to Book Marketing Buzz, Noah.  Can we begin by having you tell us a little about your book?

The plan was simple: hoax Bigfoot, then sell tours to bigfoot enthusiasts. The plan wasn’t brilliant, and neither were Harry, Earl, and Patch. The three chemical-abusing friends only wanted to avoid the 9 to 5 rat race, but their antics attract the attention of a real Bigfoot. When the misogynistic Earl is mistaken for a female Bigfoot by the nearsighted creature and captured; it is just the beginning of their problems.

The U.S. Government has a plan to naturalize the mythical creatures living within the U.S. borders.  The problem is the plan needs to be carried out carefully.  You can’t just drop little green men and Sasquatch in the middle of Walmart without warning Ma and Pa Taxpayer. The naturalization program is not ready to be set into motion, and the rogue Bigfoot is bringing too much attention to itself, including a feisty investigative reporter who uncovers the truth of the government conspiracy and two Bigfoot researchers. No longer able to contain the situation, government agents are tasked with eliminating the Bigfoot and all witnesses.

Between bong hits and water balloon fights, Harry and Patch come up with a plan to save Earl and the lovestruck Bigfoot. Where do you hide a giant, mythical creature? In an insane asylum, because who is going to listen to them?

Along the way, the three friends learn Star Wars was a government training film for children, the truth behind Elvis meeting President Nixon, and the significance of the weight of the human turd.

What is the first thing you did to promote your book once your publisher accepted your manuscript?

I started researching how to promote the book. I got into the habit of keeping up to date with what was happening in the industry by reading the book section of the Huffington Post, etc.

After that, what happened?

I set out a plan on how to approach promoting the book. I set up a website, a Twitter account, a Facebook fan page, etc. I began contacting bloggers to see if they would review the book. I sent out press releases.

What did your publisher do to promote your book?

They promoted the book through their website and blogs, as well as press releases. Some of the other writers also interviewed me, etc.

What’s your opinion on blogging?  Do you see that it is helping sell your book or is it not making much difference in terms of sales?

I hated the idea of blogging. My first few blogs were of me whining about blogging. Here’s part of the first blog I wrote:

I don’t want to write a blog. I want to write a book. Even the word sounds unappealing: blog. Say it out loud. Boring, right? “Buhlog”. Sounds like you’re trying to get a spider web out of your mouth. I understand the reason I should blog is to connect with a fan-base, get my name out, promote the book, etc. Blogging just seems counterintuitive to me. Any jerk-off with a keyboard can blog. An author writes books. I’m not implying I’m better than bloggers, or that all bloggers are crap, but there are plenty out there digitally converting the mundane into cyber flotsam.

My mental picture of what writers do is probably skewed. I want to do what Hemingway did: drink, fish, write. Maybe run with the bulls in Pamplona. Papa did not blog (I know there weren’t blogs then; just go with me on this). When my publisher told me I needed to start blogging, I told him I wanted to pull a Hemingway: drink, fish, write. We could negotiate on the fishing, but I was going to remain firm about the drinking and writing. Since I’m sitting here writing this blog (and drinking), we can see who won that little argument.

My other issue with blogging is I don’t know how or what to blog about. What’s the theme? Do I write about my life? My life as a writer? I’m not a good enough writer to think I could teach you anything about writing. Someone suggested I blog as Bigfoot; like a Bigfoot celebrity diary. I have to tell you: after writing a book with Bigfoot in it, I’m fucking sick of Bigfoot.

I still don’t know what the general theme of this blog should be. So, for this entry, I’m going to tell you the things I’ve learned since becoming a writer.

I learned local papers don’t review books. There’s one person in a cabin in Montana who reads books and posts reviews on the internet. Newspapers just link to those reviews.

I should’ve practiced my signature. Sharpies make crappy signatures permanent. To compensate for my poor penmanship (or should it be ‘penpersonship’ in this politically-correct America), I doodle dog turds and monkey faces. It was either that or pretend I have palsy.

If you call the newspaper in Ithaca, NY and mention ‘Bigfoot’ and ‘marijuana’ in the same sentence, you will have a long conversation with everyone in the newsroom about Bigfoot and marijuana. I couldn’t persuade them to review my book, but I did get a great brownie recipe.

I don’t think the blogging has done much for the sales. What is interesting is I have a substantial amount of people who follow the blog. However, the people following the blog don’t seem to be purchasing the book.

I understand using the social networks to promote your books is also an effective marketing tool.  Do you find it is or isn’t?

This is another one I’m not so sure about. During the first few months the book was available, I had more fans on Facebook than I had purchases. Social networking may be an effictive tool, but I haven’t figured out the combination that works for me.

Besides blogging and using the social networks to promote your books, what other ways are you promoting your book?

I’ll tell you what I did that didn’t work. I updated Wikipedia pages to include my book. For instance, my book has an Elvis impersonator in it, so I added my book to Wikipedia’s Elvis impersonator page. However, Wikipedia would drop my updates to the pages. Whoever owns each particlar page has to approve of your update. In most cases, mine were not approved.

The book also has a chapter where two characters break-up only using Pearl Jam song lyrics. I joined the fan forum through Pearl Jam’s webpage to promote the book, but that didn’t translate into sales either. I would get into these chatrooms, pretend to be someone else, and name-drop the book. I thought a bunch of fans of the band would eat this stuff up, but they weren’t having it.

If you had to pick just one book marketing tool that you’ve used to promote your book, which would you say has been the most effective?

I would say nothing I’ve done has been effective enough to call a marketing tool. I posted flyers in coffee shops, read for theater groups, begged every blogger on the web to review the book.

Self-promotion has been much harder than I anticipated. I now understand why the guys in KISS and David Bowie wore make-up and 7 inch heels. I’ve considered turning writing into a performance art. I thought I could type the Star Spangled Banner, light the laptop on fire, and smash it on stage; but these laptops too expensive to trash every night.

What are your experiences with offline promotions such as booksignings?

Bookstores don’t have an open door policy for book signings. When my book was released, I checked my local booksellers to ensure they had the book in their inventory. Then I called to offer my availability to sign books in the store. Seems logical, right? Wrong. Some bookstores can be a pain-in-the-ass about letting new writers come in for signings. They either wanted to evaluate the book to see if it’s suitable for a signing, or it was a flat “No” because new writers don’t have a large fan base. Some bookstores are essentially Amazon.com showrooms. They just can’t afford to host signings. It seems counterintuitive to me; meeting the authors in your community was one of the great things about bookstores.

Thank you for this interview, Noah!  We wish you much success!

C. Elizabeth lives in St. Albert, Alberta, Canada. She stumbled upon writing, it found her, she finds writing a peaceful escape and is very excited to have her characters come alive in her readers’ minds. Her contemporary romance novel, Absolute Obsession, is about 42 year old Rose Gerbaldi who by an intervention of fate unites her heart and soul with 30 year old British movie star, Michael Terrance. Please visit and blog with her at www.celizabeth.ca. Connect with her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/search/users/CElizabeth4 and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1567713637.

Welcome to Book Marketing Buzz, C. Elizabeth.  Can we begin by having you tell us a little about your book?

Thank you for having me, I’ve been looking forward to this.

Absolute Obsession is about loving wife and mother, 42 year old Rose Gerbaldi, who, through a sequence of remarkable events, falls in love with 30 year old, British movie star, Michael Terrance, a man she has never met and one who she can never have. Though her decisions are made, unbeknownst to her, fate is conspiring to put her back on the path that it had so lovingly entwined for her and Michael.

What is the first thing you did to promote your book once your publisher accepted your manuscript?

The first thing I did was create a website and contacted book stores for in-store signings or to stock Absolute Obsession on the shelves.

After that, what happened?

Things went a little crazy. There was always so much to do to get the word out and along with my full time job and family, the hours ran out very quickly – it was time bring in the professionals.  I hired Pump up Your Book to put me on a virtual book tour for a month and it was great, people got to know me and Absolute Obsession was getting some attention, not to mention giving me some free time to focus on other things.

What did your publisher do to promote your book?

Wings ePress Inc. promoted through their website as well as all the bookselling websites, such as Amazon and Fictionwise.

What’s your opinion on blogging?  Do you see that it is helping sell your book or is it not making much difference in terms of sales?

I love blogging, whether it makes a difference or not I don’t know, but one thing it does do, it keeps my creative side moving along.  Never stop writing, you might lose it.

I understand using the social networks to promote your books is also an effective marketing tool.  Do you find it is or isn’t?

I use as many social networks as I can. Does it help? It’s too early to tell at this point.

Besides blogging and using the social networks to promote your books, what other ways are you promoting your book?

I am using two PR firms, Pump Up Your Book  for my virtual online visibility and Gal-Friday Publicity out of Vancouver, BC for the personal touch, face to face interviews, etc..

If you had to pick just one book marketing tool that you’ve used to promote your book, which would you say has been the most effective?

Up till now I’d have to say Pump Up Your Book, but the other marketing plans are just starting up, I’m certain they will have an impact as well.

What are your experiences with offline promotions such as booksignings?

The majority of my book signings have been a wonderful experience. I do love meeting the people and hearing some of their stories. So far, it has all been a great and wonderful unexpected journey thanks to everyone.

Thank you for this interview, C. Elizabeth!  We wish you much success!

Thank you for having me, it was fun. Cheers!

Giveaways, Contests & Prizes!

Join C. Elizabeth at the Pump Up Your Book Live! November Author Chat / Book Giveaway Party on Friday, November 18 starting at 8 p.m. eastern!

Char will be giving away a copy of her book! You could win a beautiful copy of Absolute Obsession simply by attending the chat and asking her a question. All there is to it!

For details on chat, visit the official chat page for the November authors at Pump Up Your Book Live!

THE PUB ACROSS THE POND, by Mary Carter, Kensington, 336 pp., $10.95.

“Sometimes leaving home is the only way to find where you belong….”

Carlene Rivers is many things. Dutiful, reliable, kind. Lucky? Not so much. At thirty, she’s living a stifling existence in Cleveland, Ohio. Then one day, Carlene buys a raffle ticket. The prize: a pub on the west coast of Ireland. Carlene is stunned when she wins. Everyone else is stunned when she actually goes.

As soon as she arrives in Ballybeog, Carlene is smitten, not just by the town’s beguiling mix of ancient and modern but by the welcome she receives. In this small town near Galway Bay, strife is no stranger, strangers are family, and no one is ever too busy for a cup of tea or a pint. And though her new job presents challenges–from a meddling neighbor to the pub’s colorful regulars–there are compensations galore. Like the freedom to sing, joke, and tell stories and, in doing so, find her own voice. And in her flirtation with Ronan McBride, the pub’s charming, reckless former owner, she just may find the freedom to follow where impulse leads and trust her heart–and her luck–for the very first time.

BOOK EXCERPT:

Prologue
Declan
The Greatest Love Story Ever told in Ballybeog

It was the greatest love story ever told in Ballybeog when everyone was drunk, but nobody wanted to go home, and all other great love stories had been told.

Name’s Declan, but I’ll answer to most anything as long as yer thirsty and polite, and in that order. Ah, say nothin’ until you hear more. I’ve been a publican at Uncle Jimmy’s going on twenty years now. Most days it’s good ole craic, but sometimes when you’re a publican, you’ve gotta be a bags. I wasn’t sure Carlene Rivers, the Yankee Doodle Dandee who won the pub, had that in her. She had sweet written all over her, and I hate to say it, but girls like that always seem to attract the wrong kind of lads. I’ve seen many a sweet lass get the guy of their dreams, only to watch them turn into their worst nightmares. Over time their men belly up to the bar more than they do the bedroom. Because the Irishmen who “do”, usually don’t hang around here. And Ronan McBride was no exception.

Nobody thought the lad would ever settle down. There are three kinds of Irish men. Those who do, those who don’t, and those who say they might but probably won’t. Ronan McBride was the latter. He was thirty-three years of age but still hadn’t worked out his boyish ways. I don’t know why nature makes those marriage-phobic-men so alluring to the women, a course, no one would disagree that he was the best looking man in the family, and I’m not just saying that because he was the only man in the family. His father James McBride (or Uncle Jimmy as he was known around here), had passed, God rest his soul, leaving Ronan, his mother, and six sisters to run the McBride family pub. In heavenly retrospect, I bet James wishes he would’ve just left the pub to the girls; it would have been an insult to his only and eldest son all right, but as I said, sometimes when you’re a publican, you’ve gotta be a bags.

As the song goes, Ronan was a rambler and a gambler, although he was never a long way from home. I can’t tell you what it was that made the birds go absolutely mental over him, except he was over six feet and had all his hair. Let’s just say he had his pick of chickens in our little town, not to mention a hen or two who would’ve liked to sink their beaks into him.

But it was Carlene who got folks to whispering that maybe, just maybe, our terminal bachelor might mend his wayward ways. There was something in the air whenever those two were in the same room. A bit of a spark you might say, especially when they were arguing. Yep, things certainly hummed when they lit into each other, and for anyone watching it was great craic. Although we worried about Sally Collins, of course, she’d been absolutely lovesick over that boy her entire life. Still, it did me good to see that beautiful Yankee bird come into town and shake up his world, and my money was on her from the beginning.

But despite cheering the lass on, I understood Ronan’s terror. For some, there’s nothing more frightening than love, except maybe running out of ale. I was like him meself, one of the Irishman who don’t. And let me tell you, many are the nights when I’ve regretted it. Cold, long, rainy nights when I’m lying in bed and I close my eyes and some skirt that I chased when I was a younger lad comes skipping into my dream, all pretty, and bouncy, and smelling nice, only to start giving me shit for letting her go. Worse than the terrors, those dreams. I’ve known Ronan since he was a squaller, and I didn’t want him to make the same mistakes I did. I used to say, ‘What’s for you, won’t pass you’, but I know it’s a lie. I let them pass me. I always thought there’d be more time.

I’m in me seventies now, and it’s probably too late for me. I’m a scrawny looking thing with black wire glasses and I’ve a tuft of silver bird nest sitting on me head, but I’ve been told I still have a right nice smile, (even if they’re not all me original teeth), and believe it when I tell ye I got me share of tiddly-winks back in the day. I’m not much over 5’5 which I read in some touristy-type book is average for an Irishman. The average Irishman, according to this book, is 5’5, drinks four cups of tea a day, has 1.85 kids, and spends three euros a day on alcohol. I don’t know where the writer of these so-called facts was getting his information, but it sure t’wasn’t here, cuz some of our lads spend five euros an hour on the black stuff. That’s a pint of Guinness for you blow-ins.

To make a long story short, I’m just your average Joe Soap. I make up for it in other departments if you know what I mean. Ah, but this story isn’t about me or my regrets, so I hope you can put away all lurid thoughts of my national endowments. If you want to take that matter up on a one-to-one basis, and it goes without saying that you have to be a good-looking bird, then you can Facebook me. I didn’t join the fecking thing until the pub went up for raffle in America, but now that I’m on it, I reckon I might as well make the most of it. On that note, if anyone has an extra goat to give away, I’m on that farming game and I can’t seem to get a fecking goat no matter what I do, so send me one, so, if you please.
To make a long story short, we were a nice, quiet town until that fecking raffle went viral. That means a lot of people on the internet saw it. The tickets were sold in Irish festivals all over America, and they went for twenty-dollars apiece. Everyone and their mother wanted to win a pub in Ireland. And if Carlene’s mother looks anything like her daughter, I would’ve gone for a mother-daughter combo, but the Young Yank came on her own. And in the wink of an eye, our quiet little town weren’t so quiet n’more.

Situated on the West Coast of Ireland, we’re nestled on the edge of Galway Bay. We might be small, but we’re mighty. Close enough to Galway City we only need to follow the scent of heather and lager along the coast to lay our fingers on her thriving pulse, but tucked far enough away that until that fecking raffle, we didn’t get too many blow-ins.

We’ll call our little village, Ballybeog, or in Irish, Baile Béag, which means “Little Center”. I picked it because it sounds pleasant and Irish-y and because nobody in their right minds wants me to use its real name. Not out of shame, mind you, but for fear of being over-run by Americans like what happened in Dingle when the dolphin showed up. Nothing can ruin a sweet little village faster than a gaggle of Americans tracking down their “Irish roots” with their iPhones and dodgy laminated diagrams of supposed family trees.

Regardless, everyone will be treated as if they’re welcome at the McBride family pub. This is the place to be. Drink away your troubles, catch up with the locals, watch a horse race, listen to traditional Irish music, play a game of pool, or darts, or cards, and see how much better life treats ye after a nice pint. Or two. Or twelve. Nobody keeps count except the Americans. Right now the place is jammers. We’re waiting on a bride. So let me tend to my other customers now, but doncha worry. I’ll check back to see how you’re doing, or freshen your pint. And if you get half a mind to be neighborly, don’t forget to send me a fecking goat.

– Excerpt from The Pub Across the Pond by Mary Carter.  Visit the author’s website at www.marycarterbooks.com.

John Banks was born in Asheville, NC.  His storytelling is very much in the Southern tradition, with a special affinity for humorists such as Mark Twain and the Old Southwest school of writers.  Though entirely imaginary, much of the material in Glorify Each Day must have come from his many years as a teacher in the public schools and community colleges of his native state and from the three years he spent as an a community college administrator.

Visit his website at www.819publishing.com or his Facebook Fan Page here.

Welcome to Book Marketing Buzz, John.  Can we begin by having you tell us a little about your book?

In the broadest sense, it’s a novel about man’s capacity for violence – his tendency to lash out and hurt those people he loves the most and the effects his violence has on his own development as a person and on the people around him.  Specifically, I had an image in my head of two young boys, best friends, who get into one of those fights that young boys are always getting into that are usually over with quickly and are just as quickly forgotten.  But what if one of those typical quarrels took a really violent turn, perhaps accidentally or perhaps not so accidentally?  How would that affect the young perpetrator throughout his life?  What type of person would he have to be in order to do  such a thing?  I thought those were very interesting questions.  But at the same time, I was also writing some humorous pieces that had nothing really to do with violence or man’s inhumanity to man, so I ended up creating this main character who incorporated everything I was writing about so that he was actually rather funny and charming but also had this very dark side to him.  On the whole, I think it worked out very well.

What is the first thing you did to promote your book?

To get it reviewed by as many people as possible.  It’s gotten good reviews, so I’m hopeful that that will translate into sales.

After that, what happened?

Well, I haven’t really been too active in promoting my book.  I’m not a very good salesman, unfortunately.  Literary-minded fiction can be a tough sell, especially for first-time authors, and unless I want to spend thousands of dollars on a publicist, which I don’t, it would require a lot of hard work on my part to push my book, and frankly, I would rather spend my time and energy being a writer and working on my next project rather than spend all the time that would be necessary to publicize this book to a great extent.

What else have you done to promote your book?

I enjoyed setting up a website for the book and doing these blog posts are a lot of fun.  As long as it’s something that I enjoy that doesn’t force me to neglect my next project, then I’m game for it.  The “Look Inside This Book” feature at Amazon is really neat.  It gives you a chance to read the first chapter of Glorify, and the people who have read the book have all said that the first chapter was really gripping and worked to draw them further into the book.

What’s your opinion on blogging?  Do you see that it is helping sell your book or is it not making much difference in terms of sales?

Well, that remains to be seen, doesn’t it?  I certainly see a great potential for blogging in terms of sales.  Anything that allows you to put your ideas before the public has to be a good thing, although I also see the beginnings of overkill, where you have so many outlets now for information there tends to be a dilution of everything.

I understand using the social networks to promote your books is also an effective marketing tool.  Do you find it is or isn’t?

Oh yeah, Facebook has been a great tool for me to get the word out.  Without a doubt.

If you had to pick just one book marketing tool that you’ve used to promote your book, which would you say has been the most effective?

Since my book has just been published, Facebook has been great at letting everyone I’m friends with learn more about the book.  Hopefully, as time moves on, the blogs and Amazon reviews will help expand my readership.

What are your experiences with offline promotions such as booksignings?

I haven’t done any book signings.  I think they might be more effective for me if the book can generate some online publicity.  The book is only being sold online, so that’s what my focus is on.

Thank you for this interview, John!  We wish you much success!

Dr. Mitchell Gibson is one of the world’s leading authorities on the interface of science, the human soul, and the frontiers of human consciousness. He is the best-selling author of Your Immortal Body of Light, Signs of Mental Illness, Signs of Psychic and Spiritual Ability, The Living Soul, and Ancient Teaching Stories.

He has delivered addresses to many of the world’s largest conferences related to science and consciousness. These include, The International Science and Consciousness Conference, The Sivananda Ashram Annual Symposium, International Institute of Integral Human Sciences, The SSGRR-IT Conference on Advances in Electronic Medicine in Italy, The Southeast Regional Unity Ministers Conference, The Northwest Astrological Association, The American Federation of Astrologers and many others.

Dr. Gibson has been a consultant for Fortune 500 companies, Hollywood celebrities, professional athletes, A&E Network, NBC, ABC, and CBS regional affiliate television stations, newspapers, radio stations.

He has been a guest on hundreds of radio programs and was the host of his own TV show in Phoenix called “The Doctor’s Corner” for more than eight years. He has been a consultant for A&E for a project entitled “The Other Side”. He was also contacted as a consultant by the History Channel for a project entitled “Seekers 2012″.

Dr. Gibson was born in Pinehurst, North Carolina on August 24, 1959. He was born to William James and Mary Magdalene Gibson. One of five children, Gibson’s parent’s separated when he was 6 years old and he grew up in Ellerbe North Carolina; a small farming community near Pinehurst.

Gibson excelled in academics and received a full scholarship to Florida A&M University. He majored in Premedical Science and graduated at the top of his class, magna cum laude.

Dr. Gibson received his medical degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He then completed his residency training at the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia. During his last year of residency he served as Chief Resident in Psychiatry and received the Albert Einstein Foundation Research Award for his work in Sleep Disorders.

Dr. Gibson then moved to Phoenix Arizona where he became Chief of Staff at the East Valley Camelback Hospital in Mesa Arizona.

Dr. Gibson has been listed among the Top Doctors in Arizona in the Phoenix magazine on several occasions. He has also twice been named to the Woodward and White listing of the “Best Doctors in America”.

In 2003, 2004, and 2005 he was honored with listings in the Consumer Research Council of America’s compilation of the Top Psychiatrists in America. He is a Diplomat of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, the American College of Forensic Medicine, and the American Board of Forensic Examiners.

Welcome to Book Marketing Buzz, Dr. Gibson.  Can we begin by having you tell us a little about your book?

The Nine Insights is a book that is designed to be a guide for those who wish to rise above the suffering and confusion that so often marks this path of existence.  As a medical professional, the Creator has given me thousands of profound moments of transformational insight.   I began keeping notes on these insights and stored them away in a journal that over time, became the basis for this work.  From time to time, I shared these insights with friends, family, clients, and colleagues.  Simple in their presentation, profound in their scope, The Nine Insights are meant only as a reference.  Each chapter presents one insight as a unique entity.  The stories and vignettes that support each insight are in large part based on my personal clinical experiences.  From time to time, I have included a number of famous stories from history that help to outline the deeper perspectives of some of the insights.

Thank you for this interview, Dr. Gibson.  What is the first thing you did to promote your book once your publisher accepted your manuscript?

I set up a tour on Pump Up Your Book.  I also began production of my video trailer.

If you had to pick just one book marketing tool that you’ve used to promote your book, which would you say has been the most effective?

Far and away, the virtual book tour.  Reaching people through the medium of an online tour has made the whole process of book tours and appearances much easier.  I love the concept.

Do you do more promoting online or offline and which do you prefer?

Online for sure.  I like the simplicity of the medium and the ease of which you can reach so many people.

Do you use social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to promote your books and have you had any success with it?

I use Facebook a lot.  I like the ability to post almost anything you want about a new product and instantly have thousands of individuals share the process with you.

Do you own a blog and how often do you update it?  Did you set up your blog solely to promote your book and what is its effectiveness?

I have a blog on my social media site called Ganden.  It is a site set up around my spiritual dvds, books, and cds.  I update it frequently, and the address is www.ganden.socialgo.com

Do you recommend authors getting publicists to help them promote their books?  Do you have one?

I have worked with publicists on a number of occasions. I do not have one at present.  The publicists that I have worked with have been very helpful and extraordinarily patient with all the detail involved in promoting a book.

If an author prefers to do it alone rather than hire a publicist, where should they  start?

Set up a virtual book tour, and then get some review from the services that are available.

Thank you for coming, Mitchell!  We wish you much success!

Join Mary Carter, author of the women’s fiction novel, The Pub Across the Pond (Kensington), as she virtually tours the blogosphere September 20 – November 11, 2011, on her second virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book!

About Mary Carter

MARY CARTER is a freelance writer and novelist. The Pub Across the Pond is her fifth novel with Kensington. Her other works include: My Sister’s Voice, Sunnyside Blues, She’ll Take It, and Accidentally Engaged. In addition to her novels she has written two novellas: A Very Maui Christmas in the best selling anthology Holiday Magic, and The Honeymoon House in the best selling anthology Almost Home. She is currently working on a new novel for Kensington.

Readers are welcome to visit her at www.marycarterbooks.com.

Visit her at Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mary-Carter-Books/248226365259.

About The Pub Across the Pond

“Sometimes leaving home is the only way to find where you belong….”

Carlene Rivers is many things. Dutiful, reliable, kind. Lucky? Not so much. At thirty, she’s living a stifling existence in Cleveland, Ohio. Then one day, Carlene buys a raffle ticket. The prize: a pub on the west coast of Ireland. Carlene is stunned when she wins. Everyone else is stunned when she actually goes.

As soon as she arrives in Ballybeog, Carlene is smitten, not just by the town’s beguiling mix of ancient and modern but by the welcome she receives. In this small town near Galway Bay, strife is no stranger, strangers are family, and no one is ever too busy for a cup of tea or a pint. And though her new job presents challenges–from a meddling neighbor to the pub’s colorful regulars–there are compensations galore. Like the freedom to sing, joke, and tell stories and, in doing so, find her own voice. And in her flirtation with Ronan McBride, the pub’s charming, reckless former owner, she just may find the freedom to follow where impulse leads and trust her heart–and her luck–for the very first time.

Visit her official tour page here! If you would like to ask Mary a question, be sure to stop by Pump Up Your Book’s September Authors on Tour Chat/Book Giveaway starting at 8 p.m. eastern on Friday, September 30. She would love to meet you!

Pump Up Your Book is an innovative public relations agency specializing in online book publicity for authors looking for maximum online promotion to sell their books. Visit our website at www.pumpupyourbook.com to find out how we can take your book to the virtual level! Don’t forget to check out our December special!

Contact:

Dorothy Thompson, CEO/Founder Pump Up Your Book

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THE EDGE OF GRACE, by Christa Allan, Abingdon Press, 336 pp., $9.97.

When Caryn Becker answers the telephone on most Saturday morning, it’s generally not a prelude to disaster. Except this time, her brother David’s call shifts her universe. Her emotional reserves are already depleted being a single parent to six-year-old Ben after the unexpected death of her husband Harrison. But when David is the target of a brutal hate crime, Caryn has to decide what she’s willing to risk, including revealing her own secrets, to help her brother.  A family ultimately explores the struggle of acceptance, the grace of forgiveness, and moving from prejudice to love others as they are, not as we’d like them to be.

BOOK EXCERPT

The last two words I said to my brother David that Saturday were “oh” and “no,” and not in the same sentence–though they should have been.On an otherwise ordinary, cartoon-filled morning, my son Ben sat at the kitchen table spiraling a limp bacon slice around his finger. His last ditch effort to forestall doing his chores. I was having a domestic bonding experience with the vacuum cleaner. My last ditch effort to forestall the house being over- taken by microscopic bugs, dead skin, and petrified crumbs. I’d just summoned the courage to attempt a pre-emptive strike on the intruders under the sofa cushions when the phone rang.
I walked into the kitchen, gave Ben the “don’t you dare touch that phone with your greasy bacon hands” stare, and grabbed the handset.

It was David. “I wanted you to hear this from me,” he said. An all-too familiar sensation–that breath-sucking, plum- meting roller coaster feeling–I’m thinking he’s been fired, in a car wreck, diagnosed with cancer, six months to live . . . But, no, it wasn’t as simple as that.He told me he was leaving in a few days for a vacation. With a man. Leaving with a man. Crossing state lines from Louisiana to Mexico to share sun, sand, and sheets with a per- son of the same sex.

My universe shifted.

He came out of the closet, and I went into it. For perhaps only the second time in my life, I was mute. Not even sputter- ing, not even spewing senseless syllables. Speechless.

“Caryn, are you still there?”

No. I’m not still here. I’m miles away and I’m stomping my feet and holding my breath in front of the God Who Makes All Monsters Disappear.

I think I hear God. He’s telling me I’m the monster.

Wisps of sounds. They belonged to David. “Did you hear what I said? That I’m going away?”

I hung up. I didn’t ask “Why?” because he’d tell me the truth my heart already knew.

“What did Uncle David want?” Ben asked.

I spun around and made eye contact with my unsuspecting innocent. “Get that bacon off your finger right now, mister. Wash your hands, and go do whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing.”

He shoved the bacon in his mouth, his face the solemn reflection of my emotional slap. From the den television, the Nickelodeon Gummy Bears filled the stillness with their
“. . . bouncing here, there, and everrrrrywherre . . .” song. “And turn that television off on the way back to your
room.”

“Okay, Mom,” said Ben, his words a white flag of surrender as he left the room.

Now what? I decided to abandon the vacuuming. Really, was I supposed to fret about Multi-Grain Wheat Thin crumbs and popcorn seeds when my only sibling was leaving for Mexico with another man?

– Excerpted from THE EDGE OF GRACE

Benjamin Kane Ethridge is the Bram Stoker Award winning author of the novel Black & Orange. He also wrote a master’s thesis entitled, “Causes of Unease: The Rhetoric of Horror Fiction and Film.” Available in an ivory tower near you. Benjamin lives in Southern California with his wife and daughter. When he isn’t writing, reading, guitaring, he’s defending California’s waterways from pollution. His official web presence is www.bkethridge.com and you can Facebook him here, www.facebook.com/benjamin.kane.ethridge and Tweet him here, www.twitter.com/#!/bkethridge. He’s also on Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/benjaminkaneethridge

Welcome to Book Marketing Buzz, Benjamin.  Can we begin by having you tell us a little about your book?

Well it’s a dark fantasy called BLACK & ORANGE. It deals with a Halloween cult attempting to merge our world with a land of sacrificial magic and chaos. The two people who can stop the cult have been deal a very poor hand, which they have to use for the sake of all humanity.

What is the first thing you did to promote your book once your publisher accepted your manuscript?

I went on to various internet forums that are receptive to the subject matter of the novel and posted about the book and the scheduled release date. I also ran a contest for those who preordered the book. I should have done more in this phase, but I wasn’t as privy to marketing then, and still have much to learn.

If you had to pick just one book marketing tool that you’ve used to promote your book, which would you say has been the most effective?

Advertising on sites where readers go has gained me more exposure. Sales? I’m not yet certain because of my book’s perceived seasonal nature. Many buyers are holding off until Halloween season to purchase or read the novel.

Do you do more promoting online or offline and which do you prefer?

I’m not a salesperson, so online works better for me.

Do you use social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to promote your books and have you had any success with it?

Yes and yes. Moreso with Facebook than Twitter. I’ve just only started to build a Twitter following. It’s far more difficult to attract flesh and blood people. Spambots have proven absolutely whorish in their pursuit of me. It’s hard to say no, but alas, they will never buy my book or tweet quirky little things to entertain me. I must abstain.

Do you own a blog and how often do you update it?  Did you set up your blog solely to promote your book and what is its effectiveness?

I have a blog on LiveJournal. I’m not terribly good at updating it, and that’s generally because I haven’t seen a great deal of feedback from my posts there. I think with blogs you have to invest yourself in building and keeping an audience, and I’d rather do that with my fiction than by showcasing my daily foibles. I’ll keep trying my best to be a more interesting person though and hopefully I’ll have content for future posts. Perhaps I need a pet platypus or something? Dress him up in different period piece costumes every week? I’d tune into that.

Do you recommend authors getting publicists to help them promote their books?  Do you have one?

If you’re as green as I am about this stuff, oh yeah. I have a publicist running my virtual book tour, but outside of that I have no representation.

If an author prefers to do it alone rather than hire a publicist, where should they start?

There are many great books out there on guerilla marketing techniques, as well as Dummy, Idiot and all other sort of how-to books with degrading titles. They are really helpful and many can be demoed and purchased in e-format as well. I’m waiting for “The Moron’s Manual to Marketing.” Joking, of course (until someone publishes it).

Thank you for coming, Benjamin!  We wish you much success!

And I thank you for having me. Take care.

Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books

Book Marketing Buzz: Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books is a continuing series to help authors learn how to promote their books. If you would like to be a guest blogger for our book promotion and publicity series, click here.

Today’s guest blogger is Wayne Zurl, author of A New Prospect (Black Rose Writing).

Following A NEW PROSPECT’s release in January I’ve learned more about post-publication marketing, social networking, and Internet promotion than I ever wanted to know. I joined Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin and post things to them faithfully—at least four times a week. I signed up for another dozen internet sites to get my name and book title(s) out there to readers and other writers, bloggers, interviewers, and reviewers. When the book won the 2011 Indie Award for best mystery, I retraced my steps and made sure all the sites with author pages were updated and any site capable of taking new information received an appropriate blurb.

With the help of a brilliant local computer guru, I now have a website where he posts the summaries for my full-length novel in print and all the novelettes I’ve written now being offered in audio and eBook formats. The home page also shows what new titles are under contract and scheduled for release. For fans who like to read stories in the proper order of occurrence, I provided a chronology section. Photographs of the area where the stories take place receive compliments from readers. I also make periodic updates to my events/appearances calendar, show links to the author’s sites I belong to, reviews, endorsements, interviews, and other writer’s personal sites. I maintain a diary to accommodate personal thoughts, short stories, and outtakes from my published books. Be sure to update your site often. Lookers lose interest if they don’t see frequent changes and additions.

Immediately after publication I arranged for personal appearances at local libraries, storefront book shops, and any venue willing to host a book signing. Festivals, civic organization and book discussion group meetings and even markets and coffee houses make good places to meet potential readers.

Recently, I booked a two month virtual book tour. I’ve got great hopes for that. The publicist is a real go-getter. She’s got me jumping through hoops completing interview questionnaires, writing up guest blog posts, and arranging for my publisher to send books to reviewers. I may be a dinosaur when it comes to modern methods and technology, but I know where to find someone who can act as my pathfinder.

Wayne Zurl grew up on Long Island and retired after twenty years with the Suffolk County Police Department, one of the largest municipal law enforcement agencies in New York and the nation. For thirteen of those years he served as a section commander supervising investigators. He is a graduate of SUNY, Empire State College and now lives in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee with his wife, Barbara.

Prior to his police career, Zurl served on active duty in the US Army during the Vietnam War and later in the reserves.

Eight (8) of his Sam Jenkins mysteries have been produced as audio books and simultaneously published as eBooks.

Join Lilian Duval, author of the literary fiction, You Never Know: Tales of Tobias, an Accidental Lottery Winner (Wheatmark, Inc.), as she virtually tours the blogosphere June 6 – August 26 2011 on her first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book!

Lilian was born in New York City to French-speaking parents and went to public school with a French accent so thick that she was assigned to the slowest of four first-grade classes. “Thunder, not TUNDER!” the teacher scolded her in front of the class. “Mother, not MUDDER!”

“I got rid of my accent all right,” Lilian says in perfectly generic American English. “I also gained a lifetime habit of imitating people’s pronunciation. One of these days someone is going to punch me in the nose for that!”

She continues, “In those days, nobody worried about kids’ self-esteem. Medals for everybody? Forget about it! And those classrooms—they were labeled 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, and 1-4. You knew where you stood from Day One.”

Undeterred, her mother cajoled the principal into moving Lilian to class 1-1, where she spent her extra class time making up little stories in the margins of her schoolwork. The teacher in P.S. 89 was not happy about those marked-up papers and let her know it.

“Things got better in the third grade,” she remembers. There was a school-wide writing contest at her elementary school in North Bellmore, Long Island. The topic was libraries. “I was pretty hopeless at sports,” Lilian admits. “If someone threw a ball, I ducked. But I liked books.” In her essay, she wrote that books in the library were like houses on a street, and the rows of shelves were like roads. The rest of her metaphors were good enough to win her the first prize, presented at a school assembly: the book “A Child’s Garden of Verses” by Robert Louis Stevenson. “I read it over and over, but was disappointed because I’d really wanted a trophy, like the athletes got.”

That contest was the beginning of Lilian’s writing career. Along the way she has held an improbable array of jobs. Here are some of them, in chronological order: Nurse’s aide in a nursing home at age 16, where her specialty was emptying bedpans. Bookkeeper’s assistant at O. Henry Steak House in Greenwich Village. Suburban reporter for the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Massachusetts, where a highlight was a report on the local pickle factory. Teacher of English as a second language to Indochinese refugees in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Instructor of computer programming at a professional school.

And, for 16 years, computer software developer for a long string of financial institutions in New York City, culminating with Lehman Brothers in the World Trade Center.

On September 11, 2001, Lilian was on a NJ Transit commuter train heading to New York when the terrorist attacks took place. Arriving at Hoboken Terminal, passengers were told to board trains and return home. All the PATH trains and ferries were carrying people one way only—west across the river to New Jersey.

Lilian’s husband, George, was already in his office at a brokerage firm on the 25th floor of One World Trade Center. “We couldn’t call him. He couldn’t call us. We panicked and couldn’t do anything.” Not until 2:00 p.m. did she and their three grown children learn that he’d escaped on foot across the Brooklyn Bridge while the towers were crumbling. Five days later, he revealed to his family that he’d been invited to a technology meeting at Windows on the World on the 107th floor that morning, but was so busy with administrative duties that he’d forgotten to attend.

“For two weeks after the attack, everyone at Lehman cried, hugged, and comforted one another,” she recalls. “We were installed across the Hudson River in Jersey City and crammed together into small cubicles. Our windows faced the Manhattan shoreline, where we watched smoke rising from the collapsed towers for weeks. It was devastating.”

Then the programmers were moved to midtown Manhattan and seated in the middle of a trading floor. It was chaotic. With 400 traders standing on their feet and yelling into their phones all day, writing a line of coherent software code was almost impossible. “So I went to Staples, bought a sheet of poster board, and set up a barrier between me and the guy opposite me at this long, narrow table. I could still hear him, but at least I couldn’t see him jumping and gesticulating.”

That act of defiance marked the end of her programming career. Fired from Lehman (“that was easy!”)—while there still was a Lehman—she became a technical writer for a software company and continued writing fiction on the side—lots of fiction. Her two books, You Never Know and the forthcoming Random Acts of Kindness, were inspired in part by those shattering events and a passion to capture what life means to us all.

Lilian Duval lives with her husband George, a native of Singapore, in a small house in New Jersey overlooking a large county park. They have two sons and a daughter, all independent and ambitious, and several cats. She’s an amateur classical guitarist and enjoys attending concerts and plays in New York City.

But writing has always been her calling. In her own words, “The most enjoyable activity I can imagine is to invent some characters, make them a little larger than life, set them bickering and thrashing against each other and their fates, and enact a fictional resolution that makes more sense than the chaos and unpredictability of our complicated lives.”

You Never Know: Tales of Tobias an Accidental Lottery Winner asks the question, “What happens when an ordinary person becomes extraordinary?”

Tobias starts out in life much the same as any of us—not rich, not poor, with imperfect parents and unlimited ambition. When he’s twenty years old, his future is altered in irreparable ways after a tragic car accident pushes him down a new path. The once-promising anthropology major is forced to abandon his dreams in order to care for his orphaned, brain-damaged younger brother.

In his late thirties, Tobias works in a bookstore, trying desperately to make ends meet to support his family. His daily grind only reinforces the sadness that broken dreams and bad luck bring in their wake.

How many times have you heard someone say, “If only I won the lottery?”

When Tobias finds he has won the Mega Millions lottery, his unimaginable bad luck seems to have changed into unimaginable good luck … or has it?

Over peaks and valleys, this uplifting journey will challenge the limits of luck, life, and what we value most.

Find out more about the complications of Tobias’s friendship and rivalry with his best friend, Martin; the effects of all this bad luck and good luck on his marriage; and the struggles of his brother, Simeon, once a talented cartoonist, in … You Never Know.

If you’d like to visit Lilian Duval’s official virtual book tour page, click here. Lilian will be on hand to answer all your questions and giveaway a few of her books, too!

You can visit Lilian’s website at www.lilianduval.com. Connect with her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/lilianduval and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lilian-Duval/121776657899250?sk=wall. Watch her book trailer at YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TcjPlyKrX9I.

Pump Up Your Book is an innovative public relations agency specializing in online book publicity for authors looking for maximum online promotion to sell their books. Visit our website at www.pumpupyourbook.com to find out how we can take your book to the virtual level!