1. I didn’t recall contacting them offering them the book (or, if I had contacted them, it had been so long ago I couldn’t remember). Suffice it to say it was ‘out of the blue’.

2. Upon visiting their site, I noted that they did indeed review romance books, and many of them, but that they seemed to concentrate on what I will politely term ’spicy’ (one could also substitute the words, ‘erotic’, ‘exotic’ and ‘explicit’ if you get my drift). Here are a few examples of some of their recently reviewed titles:

• Good Will Ghost Hunting: Demon Seed by Lesli Richardson
• Naughty Fantasies by Jade James
• My Wicked Vampire by Nina Bangs

In short, the majority of their titles contain the words paranormal or erotic (if not both) in their genre descriptions. Not exactly the audience that I expected In the Brief Eternal Silence in particular nor Double Edge Press in general to garner.

However, I had been invited to submit, and I’ve never deemed myself a snob. So off I sent the book to be reviewed. But I do have to confess a certain curiousity as to what the results would be of my submission.

Friday, the results came in. Here is the official Night Owl Romance Reviews review:

Review: In the Brief Eternal Silence by Rebecca Melvin (Double Edge Press) Historical

The Duke of St. James is on a mission–to find the culprits who murdered his parents when he was but a boy of 10 years old. Along the way, he finds that the whole matter goes a lot deeper and contains more conspiracy than he could ever imagine–and might even involve the crown. Falling in love was the very last thing he wanted to do. 

Miss Elizabeth Murdock is as plain as the day is long–and she likes it that way. She doesn’t like attention and prefers to blend into the background. Then the Duke of St. James comes into her life and turns it upside down.

Love creeps up on both of them–but vengeance has to be dealt with first, as now it is not only the life of the Duke that is in danger, but Miss Murdock’s as well.

How can the Duke end his vengeance and get the murderers before anyone else gets killed? Or will the murderers succeed before he and Miss Murdock can find true love? Have to read to find out.

This book took me by surprise. It started out kind of slow but once it picked up I was definitely hooked. This wasn’t the type of book I usually like to read but I have to say I enjoyed it immensely. This kept me reading to the end–and it was a very satisfying ending at that.

Happy reading,
The Night Owl Romance Staff
Night Owl Romance
Stay Up Late With A Great Novel
http://www.NightOwlRomance.com

For a review, I’ll take that one. Considering it’s competition, I’m not complaining in the least.

Everyone have a great Sunday.

A wonderful premise that captures the Austen era. Ms. Burris has a beautiful voice. I felt she nailed Charlotte’s persona. It was a bit of a struggle for me to get through the heavy number of characters and lull as the storyline traveled by sea–but once there, the beauty of the plot and setting was enthralling. I am so happy Charlotte got her Happily Ever After. Poor Mr. Collins was handled with humor and taste. A very elegant story. A very elegant heroine. A very elegant author. I am now a fan of your work & will be looking out for more. Well done!

Danielle Thorne
Author of The Privateer

Thank You, Danielle.

Review Date: 05/09/09 

Rating:

Rules of Attraction: Fourteen Practical Rules to Help Get the Right Clients, Talent and Resources to Come to You by Mark Deo

Market Analysis:

Amazon sale price: $12.21. List Price: $17.95.

If this were a paperback printed on demand: cost per page: $0.013 x 228 pages = $2.96 to print + .90 per cover = Total print cost of $3.86. The List price is $17.95 – 55% wholesale discount = $8.08 – total print cost of 3.86 = $4.22 gross profit margin per book for the publisher. Amazon, on the other hand, is making a tidy $9.87.

Book ranking as of today: 227,587. Approximate Amazon Sales between 10 to 30 books a month if this remains consistent in that ranking area. So the publisher net income is between $42.20 and $126.80 a month through Amazon. This of course would not include books sold through other outlets. As this book is newly released just as of this past week, this ranking is likely to fluctuate a great deal.

Review:

Addressing the Intangibles

Mark Deo’s work is a refreshing and thought-provoking read, especially for someone who has read their share of ‘business’ books. Business books in general seem to reside in one of two categories, those that are just vague enough to be useless, and those that go after their subject and the area of the author’s expertise with razor sharp clarity, which are a great deal useful in that one area.

The Rules of Attraction confounds the two categories cited above. It is neither vague nor pointed, but embarks on a journey that does indeed highlight the author’s area of expertise: business philosophy and the value of intangibles. As I said, it is not vague. Mark Deo writes clear and compelling prose that delves into the 14 Rules cited in his title. Many go contrary to long-held ‘rules’ that every business has automatically operated by for decades, including such shockers as rejecting business, advertising sucks, and suicide by marketing.

In addition to radical thinking when it comes to the intangibles of business, he also offers some radical thinking when it comes to the tangibles: how many books have you read that actually recommend deciding on your color and design before your message? But Deo makes a convincing argument for the importance of garnering attention first through color and design, so that the message, whatever you ultimately decide it to be, will actually be read. His numerous case studies with before and after ads are worth the cost of the book in and of themselves. I can guarantee that after reading this work, you will never again write up the text of an ad and then squeeze a few images in wherever they may fit.

Ultimately the true value of this book lies in not giving you direction on the small details of your business, but in evaluating your business in the large-picture sense and in a no-nonsense, realistic manner. Gone are the days where a company labored over a ‘mission statement’ that was quickly forgotten in less than a month even by those assigned to write it. Deo introduces a new day of tapping into true passions, true visions and winning heartshare over marketshare.

Reveiw Date: 04/13/2009

Rating:

Content Rich – Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web by Jon Wuebben, published by Encore Publishing Group (independent publisher), 270 pages (hardback edition)

Market Analysis:

Amazon sale price: $15.56. List Price: $19.95.

If this were a paperback printed on demand: cost per page: $0.013 = $3.51 to print + .90 per cover = Total print cost of $4.41. The List price is $19.95 – 55% wholesale discount = $8.98 – total print cost of 4.41 = $4.57 profit margin per book.

Book ranking as of today: 30,832. Approximate Amazon Sales between 50 to 70 books a month if this remains consistent in that ranking area. So the publisher net income is between $228.50 and $319.90 a month through Amazon. This of course would not include books sold through other outlets.

Review:

Jon Wuebben’s Content Rich – Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web is a small jewel in the world of self-help/how-to books on how to go about setting up a web-site that is found by searchers and utilized. It’s primary focus is on copywriting as an industry, but his advice is invaluable for anyone who is setting up a commercial web-site and is doing their own copywriting (writing the text for each page).

Where other books I have read cover a large gambit of web marketing in its entirety, Jon Wuebben covers what he knows best with laser sharp clarity. And as SEO (search engine optimization) is a primary, basic and absolute crucial element to any web site business, I can not stress how primary, basic and absolutely crucial it is to read a book that presents a comprehensive guide on how to go about it. The surprise is that it is neither hard nor particularly time consuming. SEO may be the best kept secret in the entire web industry, not due to how complicated it is, but due to how prevalent the misconception is that it is complicated.

Jon Wuebben brushes away all the mystery surrounding SEO and lists the steps to take, the reasons behind them, and the results you can well expect. He adds other elements that are both useful and fascinating, from Press Release Writing, Blogging and even Twittering, but this is all mere bonus material as one gets more than the worth of the book in the SEO aspect alone.

A must have for those serious about e-commerce.

This weekend, he brought a book, which I found on the coffee table. It was a big, huge hardback with over 400 pages, a bright, shiny cover, and I was instantly intrigued. “Who’s book is this?” I asked whichever kid happened to be wandering by and thinking that my husband had brought in some new reading material. When I received the answer that it was our visitor’s book, I was both surprised and impressed. I didn’t know he was a reader, and with his only being in ninth grade and tackling this sizable hardback, I didn’t know that he was a reader of immense proportions. My opinion of him, which was already good, went up. Perhaps we could officially adopt him instead of merely having him hang about a good deal of the time.

I picked up the book and found that it was this title:

Review date: 04/05/09

Rating:  

 A Lion’s Tale: Around the World in Spandex by Chris Jericho is not my normal reading. I don’t follow wrestling (although I do recall watching the matches of Andre the Giant, Chief Strongbow and ilk when I was a kid. I had three older brothers, you must remember, and there were only three channels on the television). But with a title containing the words, around the world in spandex, how could I resist?

I picked up the book to get an idea of whether it was any good and I was hooked. My weekend was shot. I started the book Saturday afternoon, and, after refusing to take our guest home until I had finished it, I closed the cover Sunday evening at 5:30. “Okay, Dallas. I’m done. I can take you home now.” I think he was relieved I was a fast reader. Visions of being held hostage for three or four days must have begun dancing in his head. Either that, or leaving me the book and facing the wrath of his older brother who had already claimed rights to reading it next.

No, I’m not a wrestling fan, but I am a fan of a good autobiography with a clear voice, and Chris Jericho tells a good and compelling tale, totally unabashed in allowing the reader in on every humiliating mistake of his, and others’, careers. I quickly learned that our suspiciions as kids watching Chief Strongbow and Andre the Giant that the matches were rigged and the wrestling staged were true. After reading Chris’ work I can assure all wide-eyed wrestling fans that not only do they pull their punches, but they know going in who’s going to win, even the (gasp) title bouts. A good wrestler is one who loses when told to lose, and manages to make the other guy look good while doing so.

Chris has no qualms in revealing that and every other ’secret’ of the wrestling world, and I finished the book with a new appreciation of the industry: it’s the last vaudeville show on earth, complete with desperate, starving performers and a motley crew of characters that would put any circus to shame. The stunts, the ‘ribs’ (practical jokes) and the sometimes depravity described gives an insider view of one very bizarre, yet very tight-knit, world.

What won double kudos from me is that Chris, in his ‘let it all hang out’ style of story-telling also addressed his Christian roots, his Christian faith, and had absolutely no problem head-lining Jesus Christ under his acknowledgments.

I can’t recommend this as your typical Christian read, but for those of you who don’t mind some bad language and allusions to some pretty sick behavior by some characters, this is a rollicking good story.

One of the little perks of being a publisher/author/blogger, I am finding, is being contacted on occassion by other authors to take a look at their work. This phenomenon first began with Souls of Steel by Philip Garrow (submitted not by the author, but by a friend of the author), which should in itself be a cautionary tale that although asked to review and receiving a free copy to do so is not going to sway me on my opinion. It continued with a contact from Andy Sernovitz requesting that I read his upcoming book after discovering my review of his first (and although I took him up on this offer, I have as yet to receive the book. Perhaps he took the cautionary tale of Souls of Steel to heart).

The latest request has come from Jon Wuebben, President and CEO of both Telegent Media, LLC and Custom Copywriting for his book Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web. As his book appears to be selling well without my review, I was flattered to be contacted with the offer.

The book arrived yesterday (with a nice autograph in it, as I always ask for one in these situations. After all, if nothing else at the end of the day, I should have a nice collection of original autographed titles in my library to impress my grandchildren with — see, kiddies, I once tried to create a family empire for all of you, but, alas, it wasn’t to be. I do however have these nice autographed books! At which point, my grandchildren still to be born at some point in the future will say, “What’s a book?”) and I began reading last night. So far my notes include the words, undeniable enthusiasm, excitement and fun. Although I only read through the introduction and the first chapter, I already have the distinct impression that Mr. Wuebben is utterly sincere. He has found a way to make a profit on what he is passionate about and has no qualms in sharing his knowledge. A rarity, I have found, when it comes to business ‘how-to’ books, the main objective seemingly to be how to give enough information to entice sales without actually creating competition in the field that one is knowledgable in. I know my first thought upon picking up a ‘how-to’ is: if the author’s making so much money doing what they are doing, why do they need to write a book and sell how to do it?

The exception, I’m thinking, may be when it comes to the very field I am in: writing. Writers like to write, and invariably they like to write to the point that they get around to writing about writing, and if that includes how to make money from writing, that will be written about also. Witness my own blog. There is absolutely no earthly reason for me to blog about my failures and successes other than like a person who talks too much and doesn’t know when to shut up, I write too much and don’t know when to take my hands off the keyboard. Diahrea of the fingers, if you will.

But, in regards to Mr. Wuebben’s work, I’m enjoying it very much, and if the practical advice he offers matches his enthusiasm in presenting it, I’m anticipating a great read. And a far from dry one.

Everyone have a great day!

Here’s the link: http://longandshortreviews.blogspot.com/2009/03/unlikely-missionary-by-skylar-hamilton.html