THE WHITTAKER FAMILY REUNION by Shirley A. Roe Book Trailer

Allbooks Review on Blog Talk Radio, Saturday Feb. 21st at 9 p.m CST

Listen to Shirley A. Roe on blog talk radio, Saturday Feb. 21st at 9 p.m. CST or 10 p.m. EST
Secrets of Success is the show topic with Adrienna Turner. Shirley will be discussing various subjects concerning reviews, author promo, publishing etc. She will also discuss her three historical fiction novels
Dreams and Nightmares, The Whittaker Family Reunion and A Call to Faith and Freedom.

Tune in: www.blogtalkradio.com/Adrienna-Turner

On-line auction for diabetes research

Allbooks Review wants to let everyone know about a great charity that we support.
Every May, in honor of Mother's Day, NYTimes Best-selling author Brenda Novak holds her on-line auction for diabetes research. Brenda began the auction five years ago, determined to find a cure to the disease that afflicts her youngest son. To date, Brenda, along with other authors, readers, publishers, agents, and businesses have raised over $500,000--money that's gone directly to research. This year, all the money raised will go to the DRIF (Diabetes Research Institute Foundation).

This year's auction begins on May 1st, 2009 and will run through the 31st. Donations are being accepted or you can stop by to see any of the hundreds of items already listed--and check back frequently as new items are added every week! From gift baskets filled with goodies, to once-in-a-lifetime vacations, books, artwork and much, much more.

Visit www.BrendaNovak.com and click on "auction" to help us find a cure to this terrible disease.

Rocket Man, Free Download Day, the wait is over…

Get a FREE copy of Rocket Man today Feb. 4. Quick post to say that the Free Download day has begun!!! Don’t waste any time, go to the link below and grab your free copy now:

http://www.theebooksale.com/zen-cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98&products_id=428

Tell anyone you know about it… the more the better.
Enjoy!! RealTime Publishing at www.realtimepublishings.com

Allbooks Review February 2009 Newsletter

Happy Valentine’s Day

Nominate us for a listing in Writer's Digest's 101 Best Sites of The Year. Please send your nomination, along with our web name Allbooks Review and our URL www.allbookreviews.com to: writersdig@fwpubs.com Subject "101 Sites".

Thank you for all of your support.

*****************************************************************************
Allbooks Review Editor’s Choice Award for 2009 winners will be announced shortly.

In the News: With the world economy the way is, China isn't buying our old paper to recycle, meaning that wastepaper prices have dropped dramatically. Therefore selling unsold books as remainders is about the only way to get rid of them. And that means that POD published books and e - books are starting to look like a smarter choice.



Magazines and Newspapers to be decimated in 2009
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The worldwide media sector is in for a hard time in 2009 according to a report by Deloitte that was featured in the Financial Times. With advertising revenues set to fall by 20%, one in ten of every magazine and newspaper will either have to close, reduce its frequency of publication or become an online-only publication. In the U.S., it is feared that many local media publications will fold following a downturn in car advertising revenue. For the first time in US history, more people are getting their news from the internet rather than newspapers. A report by the Pew Research Centre (http://www.journalism.org) states that 40% of respondents get all their news online, as opposed to 35% from newspapers. The figure for online news has increased 16% since September 2007. The situation regarding job losses is so bad that the UK site http://www.journalism.co.uk has started a special page listing job losses in the media sector on both sides of the pond. For more on this depressing story visit: http://tinyurl.com/54qgry
http://www.journalism.co.uk/5/articles/533044.php and http://www.journalism.org/

Feature

What in Heaven's Name Are Big Publishers Thinking?
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From Carolyn Howard Johnson:

Recently Diane Ward sent me an article on "TheNew Austerity in Publishing" from The New York Times. I thought I'd share reporter Motoko Rich's rundown with you and then let you know how I feel about it. Ready?

Rich says the publishing world's "cushy, schmooze fest seems to be winding down." Before you can appreciate these austerity cuts you have to know that last year Macmillan brought its entire sales and marketing staff from New York to Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. Further the partying included spa treatments and wine tastings. If you have never been to that hotel, I need to tell you that it is ultra plush. The new austerity program includes:

~For Macmillan in 2009, no Hotel del Coronado. A Webcam meeting instead for two of its meetings and only one in - person meeting is on the docket. The article didn't say where that one shindig might take place.
~Salary freezes or layoffs or both for HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Penguin Group, Random House, Simon & Schuster.
~Simon & Schuster canceled its usual cushy holiday party.
~Random House substituted a cafeteria pizza lunch for its usual plush cocktail party.
~Across the board editors are being asked to scale back on their two - martini lunch meetings.
~Random House will not be returning to Bermuda for a conference in 2009.

The article states all the reasons the publishing is in trouble other than the current economic downtrend. It also talks about the old days in publishing when executives considered the use of a towncar a luxury.

So, what were these publishers thinking when they were throwing these kinds of parties? I know. You're thinking, well, she's the Frugal Girl. Naturally she'd hate this.

Well, I wouldn't mind a good spa treatment and I might accept one if offered except that I've seen too many emerging authors disappear and despair because these same houses have been downright cheap with promotion budgets for any but their top grossing authors.

I've seen poor, unsuspecting authors assigned editors who can barely proofread.

I've seen authors asked to provide their own book tour funds and do their own or hire out their own indexing.

I've seen editors move from publishing house to publishing house because of what? They couldn't be moving because they are being paid well or because the working conditions are second - to - none!

I've seen fewer and fewer new poets and literary authors published since I've been watching. And catalogs grow sparser. And midlist authors get neglected.

According to Rich, this is an industry that Bennett Cerf was once supposed to have said was "never meant to support limousines." So what were these executives thinking.

I'll tell you what. The same thing now defunct AIG and Lehman Brothers was thinking. It was about immediate profits rather than long - term products and greed rather than concern for their own people and their own industry.

It may be too late to tell these giants to watch their backs. I wish them well. I'd like to have a book published by them in spite of all these tales of gluttony, both real and metaphorical. That may be because I was raised up revering these names and words like "literature."

Nevertheless, it's a new world out there. We have new printing technology and entrepreneurial authors (some of who were made that way by the very stinginess of these publishing houses). We have the Web that offers niche opportunities and marketing methods never dreamed of two decades ago. And we have authors interested in giving other authors a hand, in writing and giving of themselves unselfishly (evidenced by this cooperative newsletter).

It's about the time the big publishing houses got it. If they get frugal and go back to their roots, this will all be for the best. If not, authors will keep writing without them.

Call for Submissions:

Allbooks Review is now offering an Author’s Page, for $75 per year. You prepare your page to tell readers anything you like. Bio, book titles, where to purchase, etc. Include a photo of yourself, and a covershot for your books. Each additional year is only $25. Get a full page ad that you can send your readers to. Just like having a website without the fuss. Contact me at: allbookreviews@aol.com for details.

REALTIME PUBLISHING AND ALLBOOKS REVIEW HAVE JOINED FORCES TO PROVIDE POD PUBLISHING

Authors: At last a reasonably priced POD source that produces excellent quality books for prices the author can afford. Excellent distribution packages, Allbooks Review included, Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble listing and much more. All from a reputable firm.

For all of the publishing details and costs, go to

www.RealtimePublishings.com

Manuscripts must be submitted for approval prior to publishing, please contact me at this email.

allbookreviews.com or if you go through the website above, let them know Allbooks Review sent you.


Remember to post your book signing, guest speaker events on our Bookstore page. Simply send us an email with details of your events and we will be happy to post them. Just part of the Allbooks service to our authors.

Success Stories

We love to hear of your success stories, submit them to us at: allbookreviews@aol.com

Author, Shirley A. Roe and Dawn Beaumont Lane will be participating in Books Alive 2009, in Panama City FL. On Feb. 7th. Books Alive is a wonderful conference for authors, readers and speakers held annually at Gulf Coast Community College.


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ALLBOOKS INTERVIEW

Please state your name and location.

J. A. Hunsinger
Grand Junction, CO, USA

Tell us the title and publisher of your book:
Axe of Iron—The Settlers
Vinland Publishing, LLC
16192 Coastal Hwy.
Lewes, DE 19958 USA

Tell us about yourself:
I am retired from an aviation career. I am a fulltime writer fully engaged in a lifetime passion of telling the story of the Norse Greenlanders settlement adventures on the North American continent through the eyes of the characters. My Axe of Iron series will be five novels telling the story of a people who have disappeared from history. Where did they go? My series will speak to that question.

When was the book released?

The official publication date is 1August2008. However, books are available through my distributor beginning the week of 19May2008:
http://www.atlasbooks.com/marktplc/02175.htm

Give us an overview of your book.

AXE OF IRON—THE SETTLERS
by J. A. Hunsinger

SYNOPSIS

This novel is a tale of survival, strife, love, and the quest for a new home in the face of hostile opposition. Conditions of manifest destiny propel a large contingent of Norse Greenlanders from relative security into an odyssey of exploration and settlement out over the unknown waters of the North Atlantic, to a North America of one thousand years ago; to a land, they called Vinland.

The chieftain, Halfdan Ingolfsson and his second-in-command, Gudbjartur Einarsson, spend a winter gathering 315 men, women, and children from the two Norse settlements on the southwestern coast of Greenland. Early in the spring of AD 1008, the company sets sail aboard six large cargo ships. Five days into the voyage, in the strait between Helluland and Markland—present day Hudson Strait—a gale holds the flotilla in its grip for four long and arduous days.

***

Vinland Publishing, LLC
16192 Coastal Hwy.
Lewes, DE 19958-3608
877-884-8481
info@vinlandpublishing.com
www.vinlandpublishing.com

What inspired you to write this book?

My Axe of Iron series is the culmination of lifelong interest and research into the Medieval Norse Greenland settlements and specifically their total unexplained disappearance from Greenland by the mid-15th century. They lived on Greenland for 500-years, from 986 to about 1425. Nobody knows what happened to them; where they went; nothing. This lack of insight left a large historical gap that my novels attempt to fill.

How is your book different from other books in this genre?

To my knowledge, no writer has ever written a character-driven series of novels that follows a large, mixed group of Norse Greenland people as they struggle to settle on the North American continent 1000-years ago. They must overcome every adversity and hardship to survive. The outcome of the series is pre-ordained: it will make perfect sense to the reader because it is the only possible answer to an enduring historical enigma.

Where can people buy your book?

Before publication, 1August2008, the book is available for purchase on my website: http://www.vinlandpublishing.com or from my distributor: http://www.atlasbooks.com/marktplc/02175.htm

After publication, it will also be available nationwide at all major booksellers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, Borders, Baker & Taylor, Ingram Books, Hastings, etc.

Are you working on another book? If so when do you expect it to be published?

The next book of the series, Axe of Iron—Confrontation will be published soon.

If you self published, what advice can you give to fellow writers?

I prefer the term, independent publisher, rather than self-publisher. The difference being I am completely responsible for the entire process and do not work through or with another publisher. I formed a conventional publishing company that will also publish selected works from other authors at some point in the future. I formed this company so that I retained full ownership of my titles. I employ professional editors, composition/format people, marketing/distribution/ warehouse facilities, and advertising professionals, just like any other publisher. If you want control of your literary efforts this is the only way. It costs money and it is lots of work, but the results are satisfying.

If published traditionally, tell us how you benefited?
N/A

Can you share one of your marketing successes with us?

Yes, type J. A. Hunsinger, or Axe of Iron—The Settlers into your favorite browser: Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, MSN, etc. You will find details of the book and the author on the first page that comes up. I am happy about that.

How did you find Allbooks Reviews and what are you hoping for in your relationship with us?

I specifically sought a Canadian company because my series takes place in the Provinces of Newfoundland/Labrador, Newfoundland Island, Quebec, and Ontario. The Canadian market is very important to this effort because my tale involves pre-historical Canadians. I hope to work closely with Shirley Roe, and everyone at Allbooks Reviews in the coming weeks/months/years.

Was the low cost a surprise? What other things would you like Allbooks Reviews to offer writers?

The cost was very reasonable. I purchased the full promotional package and six months of promotion on your website. After the first six months, I purchased the Author’s Page. I am certain that more will follow if I obtain results from this first exposure to your market.

Thank you for this interview and best of luck with your book.

Thank you, I appreciate the opportunity very much.