One of the joys of working with AuthorViews is being able to keep up with the ongoing activities of those we have had the pleasure of filming. Today, I would like to share with you a very interesting online seminar presented by Antonio Crawford.
Mr. Crawford is the CEO of Top Book Sales Inc., as well as the Owner and Publisher of Kaizen Publication LLC. He is the author of The Quest for Wealth, a book that talks about managing your finances and faith; co-author of the ebook 101 Ways to Generate Top Book Sales and contributing author in Chicken Soup for the African American Woman’s Soul. He is also the author of a children's book, Henrietta the Hyena, about which we recorded a video interview with him while our team was in Charlottesville back in 2007.
Maintaining his reputation for incredible productivity, Mr. Crawford is giving an online seminar: Transform Your Book, Brand and Business into Multiple Informational Products! Here is a little info on what you can expect:
The traditional publishing model was designed to publish books not create entrepreneurs or build businesses. The newer model, self-publishing and print-on-demand is perfect for writers and info-preneurs that want a solution to make money fast, increase exposure or grow a business.
Writing a book and turning that book into multiple informational products to sell to your clients can be both profitable and exciting. Fact, successful info-preneurs create eBooks, CDs, MP3 files and other info-products to increase their residual income. So could you!
To learn more about how you can create info-products to grow your business, or increase your brand awareness attend the upcoming Teleseminar: Transform Your Book, Brand Name and Business into Multiple Info-Products.
The 60 minute Teleseminar will be held on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 8pm EST.
Join Mr. Crawford on the call and receive a free eBook and MP3 file.
Check back soon for more exciting news about AuthorViews authors and their current projects, as well as more new videos coming soon!
AuthorViews is proud to bring you two minutes with Gary Thomas in which we talk about his contribution to the Pelican Press book Louisiana In Words. We had the privilege of catching up with Mr. Thomas at the 2008 Tennessee Williams Literary Festival in New Orleans where he shared with us some truly explosive fishing stories and more.
Take a quick foray into the wilds of Louisiana with Mr. Thomas at the helm.
Everybody knows about YouTube. Newscasters make reference to it in stories, cable shows countdown the most ridiculous videos, and parents worry incessantly about the content their children might run across. It has joined the ranks of Internet sites like Google, Yahoo, and Facebook as a top-tier service.
Copyright holders, especially the corporate ones, also try to keep tabs on YouTube content. In their case they do so not for entertainment value, but in order to be able to make a takedown request if something they own gets posted to the site. Now copyright and intellectual property are major bugaboos of the digital age, much contested topics argued across a multitude of platforms. This post does not intend to address that argument. What this post does do is direct you towards one of the more interesting websites to grow out of the ongoing controversy: YouTomb.
YouTomb is a site contructed by MIT Free Culture, geared towards keeping tabs on top-tier takedowns on the YouTube platform.
In their own words:
MIT Free Culture became especially interested in the issue after YouTube announced that it would begin using filtering technology to scan users' video and audio for near-matches with copyrighted material. While automating the takedown process may make enforcement easier, it also means that content falling under fair-use exceptions and even totally innocuous videos may receive some of the collateral damage.
As YouTube is not very transparent with the details surrounding this process and the software used, YouTomb was conceived to shed light on YouTube's practices, to educate the general public on the relevant copyright issues, and to provide helpful resources to users who have had their videos wrongfully taken down.
The front page shows a column of videos along with the name and link to the group who requested the takedown and a note on how many days the video has been online. No matter what your position on the copyright debate may be, this still makes for great surfing. You can even filter the results so that you can view the collected takedown requests of a single group or company. For instance, as I write this, the top three videos Warner Brothers Communications has requested be taken down are a new Batman: The Dark Knight movie trailer and two videos ripped from an old Seinfeld episode. Below it are clips from old episodes of The Gilmore Girls and a lot of classic Scooby Doo.
AuthorViews is excited to bring you the latest in our ongoing series of two-minute interviews with authors around the world. In this installment, we get the privilege of hearing from Betsy Carter, the founder of the award-winning magazine New York Woman. A former writer for publications such as Esquire and Newsweek, she continues to write for a variety of national magazines.
This is far from Ms. Carter's first foray into the land of book-length writing. Her memoir Nothing to Fall Back On was a best seller and her fiction debut, The Orange Blossom Special, was part of NPR's Summer Reading 2005 program.
The conversation we had with her at Tess Fest 2008 was about her newest novel Swim To Me, a book praised by numerous reviewers. Joanne Wilkinson of BookList says, "In her warm, appealing second novel, Carter displays a sure feel for her 1970s Florida setting, right down to the aqua color schemes." Publisher's Weekly says of her work, "The results are sensationalist, predictable and satisfying."
Get your feet wet with us as we join Betsy Carter on a romp that takes us from the Bronx to Weeki Wachee Springs in Tampa, Florida!
Here at AuthorViews, we have a long standing interest in online video and its deployment. After all, we've been at this for years now -- our first videos were filmed on January 24, 2004, at a studio in New Orleans. As a result, we tend to keep an eye on the constant evolution of video and how it is used in the online world.
With that in mind, there are two news items that mark a long-awaited evolution in the way people use web-based video that I would like to share. Join me as we take a quick look at some of the developments that have occurred now that the hurdle of long download times is basically a thing of the past.
On June 24, LawInfo.com issued a press release about their plans for the future. Those plans heavily feature online video as an integral component:
Video is rapidly emerging as the new online medium of choice -- in fact, it is estimated that one billion consumers will watch video on the Internet by 2012. In an effort to expend the potential of video within the legal industry, LawInfo has gathered together a team of innovative and accredited professionals in web marketing and media production to build out a new, strategically-designed website featuring online video.
When faced with a legal issue, especially a serious and time-sensitive issue such as being arrested, having to file for bankruptcy, or fighting for child custody, the last thing a person needs is to be hit with complicated legal jargon and confusing procedures on what steps to take. LawInfo has produced online videos that take the mystery out of the legal process by breaking down complex legal problems into clear, easy-to-understand solutions. These "how-to" videos feature answers to legal questions in all major areas of law, including family law, estate planning, criminal law, business, bankruptcy and labor and employment.
Online video is also a critical marketing tool for attorneys. To provide its clients with maximum exposure and to help the public find the right attorney, LawInfo is offering law firms and other legal professionals an opportunity to sponsor a pre-existing online video, or to customize a video tailored to their specific practice, in the area of law of their choice. Further, LawInfo is encouraging clients to submit their own video package which will be accessible to all LawInfo site visitors and marketed by a team of specialists to ensure it reaches the widest possible audience.
It would seem that the legal community has caught wind of the effectiveness of video. While the videos are hosted on the site, there is no mention that I can locate of syndicating them across the web. Still, even with absence of the viral component, this is still an evolutionary leap for the website. We wish them well in their experiment and will be watching to see how things develop.
The obsession with video is far from confined to our own shores here in the U.S. The Chinese seem to have quite a taste for it as well. Loretta Chao of The Wall Street Journal's China Journal Blog brings us some interesting numbers gleaned from a recent CNNIC Report:
The report said that as of the end of 2007, one out of every 1.3 Internet users in China used online video. The survey also found that video users’ incomes were higher than the average income of Chinese Internet users, with 30% making over 2,000 yuan a month.
China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television is still doling out licenses for online video sites at this point, although according to Chao, most of the recipients are government-owned concerns.
It will be interesting to see how the proliferation of online video and China's climate of intensive regulation interact. Will China embrace the possibilities of online video or will it try to stuff the Djinn back into the bottle as best they can?
AuthorViews is proud to present two minutes with the legendary GiO! We had the honor of catching up to this New Orleans icon during the 2007 Tennessee Williams Festival right here in the Crescent City.
In this brief 120 seconds, GiO talks about her time on Bourbon Street as well as her contribution to Louisiana in Words.
GiO came to perform in New Orleans during the 1988 Republican Convention and got hooked on the architecture and feeling of decay exuded by the city. With ten years of dancing behind her and degree from New York's Pratt Institute, she moved to New Orleans possessed of a vision. A vision of re-igniting the fires of classical burlesque and bringing it acknowledgement as a legitimate art form.
Dubbed "The Burlesque Queen of New Orleans" by The Times-Picayune, she reigned on Bourbon Street for seventeen years. This highly educated woman has also been a radio host, poet, performance artist, and much, much more since the day she came to New Orleans and discovered that it was her home.
Eloquent, playful, and lovely to behold, even with only two minutes, GiO is not one to miss!
Ladies and Gentlemen, AuthorViews is proud to announce two minutes
with Pamela Davis-Noland. It's an intimate video chat that we performed at
the 2008 Alternative Media Expo in New Orleans, in which she spoke about
her debut novel, Coffee Colored Dreams.
Ms. Davis-Noland deserves points for persistence. If she had crumbled
when her first promised book deal fell through, then theater goers
would have been deprived of a powerful stage presentation. That's
right, after pursuing the tricky route of self publication Ms.
Davis-Noland has brought her story to the stage where it is garnering
rave reviews.
Take two minutes and get to know this rising star!
AuthorViews is proud to present two minutes with Vicki Lane, author
of The Elizabeth Goodweather Appalachian Mysteries. We
had the pleasure of catching up to Mrs. Lane at the 2007 Virginia Festival
of the Book where she speaks about Old Wounds, her most recent
book in the series, as well as her own personal background.
Originally from Florida, Mrs. Lane has lived in Appalachia for more than
thirty years now. Describing her past as that of a "back to the earth
hippie," she keeps her books rooted in the realities of daily life in
the mountains outside of Asheville, NC. She takes particular pride in
the fact that she is often told that she got the dialect of the area
right.
Step into the mountains with Vicki Lane and you will never look at them
the same way again!
On Saturday, May 31, 2008, the Publisher's Marketing Association (PMA) celebrated its 25th birthday. Everyone on the AuthorViews team would like to extend the heartiest of congratulations to them on this special occasion!
To usher in their next quarter century, the PMA took the occasion of their birthday party at Book Expo America to announce a new name and a new logo to better reflect their mission. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the newly inaugurated Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA)!
Looking back over the 25 years, Florrie Binford Kichler, President, IBPA, says, "Growing from a few visionary publishers in 1983 to more than 4,000 members today, our association has a strong legacy on which to build as we continue expanding to better serve the independent publishing community. Our new name truly reflects our mission, and The Independent Book Publishers Association is looking forward to standing shoulder to shoulder with independent publishers, offering support, education, and advocacy for the next 25 years…and beyond."
Along with the new name and logo, the IBPA has launched a spiffy new website for your surfing pleasure. Go stop by and wish them happy birthday!
AuthorViews is pleased to introduce R. Scott Taylor, author of the supernatural crime thriller Stingy Jack.
We had the pleasure of meeting with Mr. Taylor in New Orleans at the 2008 Alternative Media Expo to talk about his book and the Irish Ghost, Jack O'Keefe (no relation to Steve) that is one of its main characters.
Because of O'Keefe's actions during his life, heaven did not want him. Having tricked the Devil twice during his life made hell equally inaccessible. Now Jack O'Keefe, a modern spin on the classic Jack O'Lantern myth, must roam the Earth in penance. It is through his eyes that 17th century Ireland is brought to the readers in the context of stories told to professional thief Adam Beesler.
Inspired by Steve O'Keefe's workshop at the Erma Bombeck Humor Writers Workshop in 2008, Time Bete press-ganged a crew, hoisted the jolly roger and set out to make a pirate video for his pirate book. Many bottles of rum and nautical miles later provided us with a cryptic map. I will not go into detail about the misadventures we had or the villains we defeated on our way to the promised treasure, but I will share the spoils of our efforts with you!
About the Author
Tim Bete (pronounced “beet”) began his nautical adventures as a child sailing on Buzzards Bay off the coast of Massachusetts. At age 10, he longed for a small cannon to put on his grandfather’s 30-foot wooden ketch—a quick, two-masted vessel that is perfect for catching other ships so you can plunder ’em. His parents scuttled the cannon idea, saying he “would terrorize other boats with it.” That’s exactly what he had in mind.
Bete's parenting advice has been published in dozens of newspapers, magazines and Web sites, including the Christian Science Monitor, Atlanta Parent, Big Apple Parent, Northwest Family, FathersWorld.com and ParentingHumor.com. His first book, In the Beginning…There Were No Diapers, was a 2006 Foreword Best Book of the Year finalist.
Bete’s hobbies include pushing his luck and skating on thin ice. In his spare time, he’s director of the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop.
About the Book
If you're like most parents, you long to raise your children as pirates but just don't know how. In "Guide to Pirate Parenting," Cap'n Billy "The Butcher" MacDougall provides everything you need to know to turn your little powder monkeys into happy, healthy buccaneers. In Guide to Pirate Parenting you'll learn: . Ten benefits of raising a pirate . At what age your child should be able to remove a bottle cap by taking out his glass eye and using his eye socket as an opener . Which offense requires administering The Flying Dutchman Wedgie . How to prevent sogging the quartermaster . The best place to maroon your disobedient child . How to remove chewing gum or a giant octopus from your child's hair . The difference between plundering and pillaging . How to convert your minivan into a pirate schooner . When to smack your teenager in the side of the head with an oar Each information-packed section ends with "Your pirate's progress," a short quiz that shows whether your child is reaching his or her pirate development milestones.
WARNING: The following post contains images and content related to crispy-on-the-outside-pink-and-juicy-on-the-inside, delicious and tender meat of all varieties, and may not be suitable for vegetarians. If you find such material offensive, please read no further.
AuthorViews is thrilled to introduce Scott Gold, author of the juicy and succulent meat guide book, The Shameless Carnivore: A Manifesto for Meat Lovers.
We met up with Gold at the 2008 Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival to talk about his gourmet debut, as well as the research, interviews and shocking taste-tests that make the book so informative, comprehensive and fun.
The Shameless Carnivore is NOT an anti-vegetarian outcry for people to kill and consume animals recklessly. Rather, it's a thoughtful, humorous and research-driven exploration of the "integrity of meat," complete with personal accounts of Gold's experiences with different types of meat, the history of hunting and meat-eating, meat recipes and more.
Was Scott Gold involved in an outrageous Vegan Conspiracy? If The Shameless Carnivore were a cut of meat, what kind of cut would it be? Find out now in this mouth-watering two-minute video. After the clip, if you're still hungry for a second helping, feel free to check out an excerpt from the book at the Random House website. Bon Appetit!
AuthorViews is proud to present two minutes with New Orleans-born author Alice Wilson-Fried, cut from her interview at the 2008 Alternative Media Expo in New Orleans.
We met up with Wilson-Fried to discuss her fiction debut, Outside Child, a wonderfully written and believable mystery set in New Orleans. The main characters, Ladonis Washington and her brother HeartTrouble, grow up in the notorious Magnolia Housing Projects of Uptown New Orleans -- where Wilson-Fried lived for most of her childhood.
Built in 1941, at its height, the Magnolia Projects housed more than 2000 people in over 1400 apartments. But by the time Hurricane Katrina flooded the area in August 2005, the Magnolia Projects were almost completely vacant. Now, almost 3 years after the storm, the city has begun to demolish the abandoned ruins.
For the past couple of decades, the Magnolia Projects were known throughout the entire country for their insanely high violent-crime and drug-use rates. According to Wilson-Fried, however, the projects weren't always like that.
In this video, Wilson-Fried talks about what the Magnolia Housing Projects were like when she was a child, before gangs, drugs and violence plagued the community. In Outside Child, Wilson-Fried takes the reader through a seemingly neglected period of New Orleans history. If you like the video, feel free to check out an excerpt from the book at Wilson-Fried's website.
AuthorViews would like to introduce cartoonist Caesar Meadows, creator of the comic strip Mumbeaux Gumbo, which appears monthly in the New Orleans magazine Where Y'at.
Growing up in New Orleans, Meadows would buy his comic books at local K&B Drug Stores, which were bought out by Rite Aid in the late 1990s. He spent a great deal of his childhood enjoying comics and ultimately taught himself how to illustrate and write his own cartoons.
In addition to Mumbeaux Gumbo, Meadows has another strip called Qomix published by Antigravity Magazine. Meadows self-publishes both strips as micro-comics -- miniature versions small enough to fit in your pocket -- and sells them in hand-made cardboard packages shaped like pyramids, robots, TV sets and microbuses.
Meadows does most of his work out of Jigsaw Junction, a quaint house in Reserve, LA, that serves as both his own personal art studio and one of Louisiana's only public libraries for comics.
In this video, Meadows discusses the role comics played in his childhood and why he chose to name his strip Mumbeaux Gumbo.
AuthorViews would like to introduce TJ Fisher, co-author of Orléans Embrace with The Secret Gardens of the Vieux Carré.
We have been trying to meet up with Fisher for a few months now, but we just can't seem to synchronize a convenient date for an interview. So unfortunately, we don't have a new video to release today.
Well, video or not, Orléans Embrace with The Secret Gardens of the Vieux Carré is an extremely worthwhile book that deserves mention.
Orléans Embrace is the perfect coffee table centerpiece, with nearly 400 beautiful photographs of the majestic gardens of the French Quarter (taken by ward-winning photographer Louis Sahuc) complimenting a passionate and galvanizing narrative about the Crescent City's struggles and triumphs since the storm.
Although Fisher was born in Florida, she is considered by those who know her as a native New Orleanian. Not only does Fisher love New Orleans -- its people, its culture and its charm -- but she has been actively involved in the post-Katrina movement to restore and rebuild this great city. In Orléans Embrace, Fisher and co-author Roy Guste do a remarkable job conveying to readers the significance of the historic French Quarter and why it must be preserved.
Also, I would like to thank Morgana Press, the New Orleans-based publisher that released Orléans Embrace, because all their proceeds from the book go directly to the preservation of the French Quarter.
AuthorViews is pleased to present two minutes with author Edward J. Branley, cut from his interview at the 2007 New Orleans Book Fair.
Computer consultant and avid blogger, Branley is all over the New Orleans online community -- and has been for over a decade. Whether it's food, news, politics, music or computers in the Crescent City, you'll have no trouble finding Branley's thoughts on the subject. He runs numerous NOLA websites and blogs, including the extremely popular YatPundit, a general interest blog about New Orleans. From YatPundit, you can find links to Branley's other work.
In this video, Branley talks about his book, New Orleans: The Canal Streetcar Line, and explains why this line of public transportation in particular is so important to New Orleans.
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