Benefits Of Self-Publishing

So you've just finished writing your first manuscript and you think it's ready for the world. Congratulations! Not many aspiring authors get to this point. Your next step now is to publish it. But you know how hard this part can be. There is too much competition from veteran writers and if it's your first time, there's a slim chance you'll get traditional publishers' nod. Even when you decide to hire an agent, it still won't be easy because even agents rarely work with first-time authors. So what seems to be the solution? Try self-publishing.

Publishing your own novel may not give you as much prestige as having a mainstream publisher take on your work, but it's a good start. A lot of these companies take notice of first-time writers after they've self-published good material. Besides, there are many advantages to self-publishing, including the following:

TIME

Benefits Of Self-Publishing

To put it simply, self-publishing will have your book printed fast. There are many self-publishing companies that allow you to do this. They will automatically upload your work online and it can take as little as a month and a half for it to reach retailers. This means you can have a clearer picture as to when you can expect your novel to be released. When you are writing something that is significantly related to a particular time of the year, such as the opening of another school year or the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, you know just how to set your schedule so that your work is released in perfect timing.

CONTROL

Obviously, when you self-publish your work, you only have yourself to make it better. No need to deal with publishing company editors who can practically manipulate your work according to how they see fit. They'll even get to decide what to put on your book cover. These may feel synonymous with giving up your full freedom as a literary artist. After all, the reason you write is because you have your own way of telling reality as you see it from your eyes, even when you've written fiction. To have someone else take that freedom away is defeating the essence of your artistry.

PROFIT

Remember that if a publishing company decides to publish your work, it's theirs and they'll only pay you about 10% in royalties from your book sales. And if you have an agent, that 10% will even be entirely yours. With self-publishing, everything your book earns is your own.

Benefits Of Self-Publishing
Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

Would you like to read an online romance novel? You can find inspiration for your romance book by visiting NowandForeverBooks.com.

Definition of Mass Media

According to YourDictionary.com, the definition of Mass Media is those means of communication that reach and influence large numbers of people, especially newspapers, popular magazines, radio, and television.

In my own personal estimation, Mass Media goes along with Information and Communication Technology in this day and age so as to mold a new-fangled way of life to the majority living in this global generation.

Mass Media are those media that are created to be consumed by immense number of population worldwide and also a direct contemporary instrument of mass communication.

Definition of Mass Media

Nonetheless, Mass Media is considered as the fourth estate of the society as well. It is the fourth branch of the government. The voice and weapon of the people and the society as whole.

Then again, by and large when we speak about Mass Media, we immediately perceive that these are communications media that reach the mass of people. From Audio recording and reproduction like records, tapes, cassettes, cartridges, CDs, to Broadcasting Media such as Radio, Television, Cable, to Film or Motion Pictures whether in Cinema or in DVDs, and the Digital Media, the Internet, Mobile Phones, Satellite, and ultimately the Publishing or Print Media which includes Books, Newspapers, Magazines and the run-of-the-mill marvelous Video games.

Needless to say, whatever we have in mind about Mass Media, on th whole, it is all about innovation and modernity that is continually evolving and producing ways to speed up the way humanity is subsisting.

On the whole, I consider the following as the various definitions of Mass Media. Hence, it is now your turn, I urge each and every one right now if what is your definition of Mass Media.

Speak your mind and spread the word!

Definition of Mass Media
Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

Francis Lloyd Sauza is blogger who loves music, arts, geography, history and communication. He likes surfing the web, writing, reading, singing, traveling, listening to music. He's also a Visual Artist and having his area of expertise in Computer Graphics Lay outing, Designing, and Painting, he truly love the outdoors.

Using the Five Senses to Enhance Your Writing

Sight

This is the one sense that provides most of the detail for our stories. Our words become our readers' eyes, giving us a blank canvas upon which to paint a picture to tell our story. From the sight of a common fear, such as a spider creeping silently along the floor to the glimpse of a shadow on the stairway... sight is our greatest source of horror inspiration and description. When describing the sight of something terrifying there's a huge resource at the writer's disposal, because we can use our other senses to add glorious, gory detail to our descriptions. Here's an example of how all five of our senses can be used to describe a simple scene:

The apple was bright green, its skin polished and shining as it nestled in the fruit bowl (sight). The scent was fresh, as though the fruit had just been plucked from the tree (smell). She took it from the bowl, her fingers closing around the firm smooth skin (touch) as she lifted it to her lips. The apple crunched loudly (sound) as her teeth cut through the skin into the tart, juicy flesh (taste). As the fresh juice ran down her throat she noticed a small black speck moving slowly in the creamy flesh. Closer inspection revealed that she hadn't just taken a bite from the apple - she'd bitten through a fat, juicy worm.

Using the Five Senses to Enhance Your Writing

Sound

Remember when you were a small child, and your parents put you to bed? Perhaps there was no nightlight, and the TV room was at the other end of the house...

You're lying in your bed. All alone. Desperately waiting for your eyes to accustom to the dark you hear it - a soft, scratching noise - and it seems to be coming from under the bed. It lasts only a moment before it stops. You wonder if you were hearing things, and you're so desperate for the darkness to lighten you forget to blink. The blackness seems to swirl around you, cloaking you in a thick, black fog through which no light can penetrate. Suddenly it's there again, only this time the scratching seems closer. And louder. It seems to last a bit longer this time. So you hold your breath, because that darkness doesn't seem to be lifting. You've lost the sense of sight, so by not breathing you hope to hear the sound more clearly, and identify its location...

The description above relies on the complete absence of the sense of sight. This is where fear comes in and can play a major descriptive role - in this case blind fear. To compensate for loss of sight the sense of hearing becomes more acute, so the writer can introduce other horror-inducing thoughts and impressions. Where is the sound coming from? How close is it? Will I be able to feel it if it decides to climb on the bed? When will my eyes get used to the darkness? Should I start panicking now? If I get out of bed will it jump on top of me?

Touch

This sense conjures up description of things most us will probably try to never touch, like slime, frogs and warty skin. All these items are perfect for the horror/scary genre, but writers can also take the more ordinary touch phobias and use those items to horrific effect. Some people cannot bear to touch velvet, while others are terrified of touching paper. Still others find their skin crawls when they encounter cotton wool...

Opening the wooden box in the hotel bathroom, she recoiled in horror. Nestling quietly in the bottom of the box, white and shining, was a cluster of cotton wall balls. She stepped back, collapsing on the side of the bath. The mere thought of feeling those soft fibres squeaking as the ball pressed against her skin was enough to induce goosebumps. She wrapped her arms around herself in a subconscious effort to protect her body from the fear she'd had her entire life. Just thinking about cotton balls made her skin crawl. She moaned quietly, remembering the silent noise they emitted when squeezed; a noise that seemed to pass right through her skin. Through her panic she wondered if she'd remember to pack her facial sponges...

Descriptions of this particular sense can been embellished with the use of physical reactions to feeling certain items; goosebumps, stepping away from the source of horror, collapsing with fear, subconscious act of defence (hugging the body) and a noise of fear (moaning). All these reactions add to the reader's imagination, while adding to the picture your words are "painting".

Smell

Bad smells in the horror/scary genre usually mean something bad is about to happen or has already happened. The smell of rotting or burning flesh is probably the most common description applicable to this genre, and the description of the smell can also be used to indicate how the death occurred. Bad household smells range from two week old pizza languishing in the refrigerator to potatoes burning in a pot on the stove. Adjectives include: smelly, reeking, fetid, malodorous, rank, putrid and noxious.

As she applied the finishing touches to the client's hair, a sharp smell suddenly assaulted her nostrils. It was a smell she hated and dreaded, because it was an odour so terrible the memory remained burned into the subconscious forever. She froze as the acrid stench filled the air, assaulting her nostrils and her throat with its foul flavour. An instant later her salon filled with gasps and shrieks of horror. She turned towards the three ladies seated underneath the dryers. Mrs Hamilton and Mrs Edgar had managed to wriggle out from underneath their dryers, but poor Mrs Smith was unable to move. One of the pins from her rollers had obviously caught in the dryer, and ignited her hair. Smoke was seeping out of the top of the machine, which had started to spark. Placing her hand over her mouth and nose in a attempt to banish the malodorous scent she started to move towards Mrs Smith, who screamed as flames began flickering out of the dryer..."

Taste

Most, if not all of us, have an aversion to a certain food. We don't like to eat it and the taste of it makes us feel sick. Perhaps the mere thought of tasting it is enough to induce some horrible thoughts and feelings.

The candlelight caught the designs on the wineglass, casting a dark crimson glow on the table. He lifted the glass to his lips, the rich musky flavour of the cabernet sauvignon still drifting over his taste buds. At the first sip of the wine he almost choked. There was obviously something wrong with this new bottle of wine, for the liquid in his mouth had a bitter, sour taste. Although the consistency was the same as the previous glass, there was an acidic flavour he could not identify... although it seemed vaguely familiar. He swirled the liquid around in his mouth before swallowing it. It seemed to sting his tongue and burn the roof of his mouth, and when he swallowed the acrid liquid his throat tingled. Suppressing the urge to cough he reached for the glass of water next to his plate and took a sip. As the cool water cleansed the tart taste from his palate his hostess lifted the bottle he'd used to fill his wineglass... and poured balsamic vinegar over her plate of salad.

Writers have a magnitude of adjectives at their disposal when describing the horror of tasting unappetising food. These include: pungent, sour, acrid, bitter, fetid, stinking, putrid, decaying, rancid, reek, stale and bad.

Real life can be far more fascinating than fiction, and using our senses in our writing proves this truth. So the next time you sit down in front of your keyboard tap in to those five senses, and see just how they can colour your words!

Using the Five Senses to Enhance Your Writing
Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

The writer was born in Africa, and lived there for the first 38 years of her life. She worked in the world of public relations for over five years, running her own PR company and dealing extensively with the world of journalism and the print media. She is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/, a site for Writers. Her blog can be visited at: http://www.writing.com/authors/zwisis/blog

Self-Publishing - Publish a Book Today

Why Self-Publishing?

The obvious reasons would be that its fast easy to do and very cheap. Anyone trying to publish using a big publishing company will see that it not only takes time and money to get a deal up and running, you need more than basic knowledge of the business and its rules and regulations. Leaving a publishing deal with a big publisher feeling unsatisfied is something a lot of wannabe authors have experienced.

So, instead of taking the step into the shadows of real publishing, you choose the option of self-publish your new masterpiece. You'll get all the numbers up front and have a complete control of what happens, pricing, where to sell and the book itself. You can of course get professional help with anything involved in the self-publishing deal if you need to, but that will of course add some costs to your publishing adventure.

Self-Publishing - Publish a Book Today

Become a Self-publishing Bestseller

You dream about becoming the next big, bestselling author around the world and happily self-publish your new 98page book about cactus smoothies. Soon after the release of your book to the world market you sit by your computer, late at night with all the lights out in your house, your family in bed sleeping and only the flickering light of the screen playing over your sad face as you check the sales stats showing no sales of your book.

A lot of people jump into self-publishing with the hopes and dreams of becoming the new Stephen King, only to find that the real world is much harder than they thought. Just because you can publish a book, offer it to almost every living soul on the internet, doesn't mean you will sell any copies of it. Having this in mind can make your publishing less painful.

What can Self-Publishing Do for You?

Once you have published your book you can of course call yourself published author. Technically this is correct but the term published author used by self-publishers is something frowned upon by "real published authors" having their printed books published through a publisher. This doesn't mean you can't say it!

Book quality is something some may care about and others not. If you're going for a published book and nothing more, take some written material you may already have and string your texts together using a program like OpenOffice. Once you have enough pages just slap an image of a cat on the front, give it a name, save it as a PDF and your ready to publish. No one will like the book and it will look like something the cat dragged in. This type of self published books only results in your name and reputation being connected with low quality work, and that is not a good thing.

My advice is without any doubt that you should put in some good hours of work, at least trying to create something useful. You might not have the best book out there nor the most innovative but if you at least format it well, create a table of contents, fabricate a good front page and do it all with some sense of criticism of what you're doing, you'll at least end up with a book readers can see you cared enough about to put in some work.

The best is of course if you can go all the way. Come up with a good idea, do research, plan the book, gather material, write and format and keep the quality up all the way through.

How to do Self-Publishing?

There are a number of sites online specializing in self-publishing. They offer you all the services you may need and can take care of your every need. Self-publish using them is so easy that anyone can do it in a matter of hours from deciding to try it out.

My advice is for you to take the step and see how it's done. You may find that it's even easier than you thought. And hey, who doesn't want to call themselves, a published author!

Self-Publishing - Publish a Book Today
Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

Kenth "The Designer" Nasstrom, Sweden
Visit the site Free Newsletter Templates for more information about Newsletter Creation in general and how to self-publish your books.

Publishing Scams: Six Red Flags That Scream "Rip Off"

It's heartbreaking. You go to a local fair and there at the author's table is a row of smiling hopefuls, eager to sell their books. A few are beautiful books, either self-published or produced by traditional publishers. But so many are poorly written, poorly produced, with amateurish covers and cheap bindings. The author's smiles are wearing thin as they realize that the world isn't flocking to buy their books, and they're just beginning to wonder if there's something wrong with this picture.

Score another for the vanity presses. The poor authors, with no knowledge of the business end of publishing, have been snookered out of hundreds or even thousands of dollars and now have cases of unmarketable books serving as very expensive doorstops.

In these days of POD (publish-on-demand) technology, the vanity presses may promise to ship the books when they are ordered, which at least relieves the author of having to warehouse the books. But the vanities still charge large amounts of money and the author is still left with an empty bank account and shattered dreams.

Publishing Scams: Six Red Flags That Scream "Rip Off"

Or worse. Some scammers take money from hopeful authors and deliver nothing at all.

The good news is that with a little knowledge, it isn't too hard to spot a scam. Here are some obvious red flags to look for:

Red Flag #1: "We'll publish your book for ONLY 5!"

Remember this one rule above all: legitimate publishers pay YOU for the rights to publish your book. You should never have to pay anyone to publish your work unless you choose to self-publish.

To get a book published, you have to write the very best book you can. You must study the market, and use a current market guide to select the most appropriate publisher. You submit your manuscript using a standard manuscript format, which is described in most good books on writing and publishing. While you wait for a reply, you go to work on your next project. If a publisher is interested, an editor will contact you and make an offer. The publisher will pay you an advance against royalties, and once the advance is earned back, you will earn royalties on further sales. You or your agent may also sell other subsidiary rights, such as foreign translation rights or movie rights. Chances are high, however, that your manuscript will be rejected. If that happens you select the next publisher on your list and send the manuscript there, then go back to work on your next project.

If you want to self-publish, the best way to go about it is to create your own small publishing company. You give your company a name, you choose a good printing service, you buy the ISBN number and file for copyright. If you pay for "publishing," but the book bears the imprint of another publisher, that company is a vanity publisher. A good printing service will encourage you to use your own imprint. You have a much better chance of getting a distributor to carry your books if you use your own imprint. Most distributors steer clear of vanity publishers.

If you want only a few copies, such as a memoir meant only for family, look for a good book binding service.

Red Flag #2: "Authors wanted by major publisher!"

No legitimate publisher ever has to advertise for authors. All major publishers have gigantic slush piles stacked high with far more manuscripts than they will ever be able to use, most of which are of poor quality. If you see an ad in the back of a magazine that offers to "publish" your book, or suggests that they "need" authors, chances are high that it is a vanity press.

Red Flag #3: "We know the secret for instant success!"

There is no "instant success" in the publishing world. Most famous authors worked hard for years to become an "overnight success." Sometimes a lucky break will propel a new author to the top of the bestseller list, but remember, their story is just one out of millions. Most authors never get that kind of fame. If the opening page of the site talks about how your book could be a best-seller, be cautious. Real publishers don't make those kinds of promises, because they know the reality of the publishing business.

Red Flag #4: "Traditional publishing is dead/a rip-off/not worth your time."

A publishing company that disparages traditional publishing is almost certainly either a vanity publisher or an outright scam. What they are disparaging are long-established honest businesses that carefully select the manuscripts that are most likely to sell and pay the authors for the rights to publish these works.

Red Flag #5: "We'll list your books on Amazon.com!"

Getting your book listed on Amazon.com is as easy as going online and filling out a form. Anyone can do it. And a listing on Amazon isn't a guaranteed path to success. Even in this day and age of online commerce, something less than 10% of all books sold are sold online. The vast majority of books are sold through bricks-and-mortar bookstores. While you may possibly be able to talk your local bookstores into carrying your self-published book, the only way to get it into bookstores across the nation is by getting a distributor to carry it. That can be expensive (which is one reason that the vanities don't bother with distribution), and distributors won't touch vanity books (which is the other reason). Distributors and bookstores also don't like POD (publish on demand) books, because they can't be returned if they don't sell. Booksellers, unlike most businesses, expect to be able to return or destroy unsold books and get their money back. It sounds crazy to other businesses, but that's how it is. If the publisher can't offer distribution services to get your book into bookstores, it's not a publisher that will serve you well.

Red Flag #6: Bad review on Preditors and Editors and Writer Beware

Yes, it's really spelled that way, for alliterative purposes. Preditors and Editors is a website chock full of scam warnings and wise advice to writers. Writer Beware, on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America website, has a list of current scam alerts. Both are useful when researching a potential publisher. If any publisher disparages either of these sites, beware!

If you can spot these red flags, you can avoid most publishing scams. The best way to protect yourself, though, is to educate yourself about the publishing industry. Read as many books on writing and publishing as you can get your hands on. Find out how the industry works, and find out how to market your work in the genre you are writing for. Stay abreast of industry trends by reading Publisher's Weekly or visiting their website. With a little education, you can help put the scammers out of business.

Publishing Scams: Six Red Flags That Scream "Rip Off"
Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

Karen E. Bledsoe is a children's book author, and has written many books for the school and library market. For more information on writing for children, see her website at http://www.gkbledsoe.com