Attention authors of cookbooks! Here's a place to submit a few of your recipes.
http://southernfood.about.com/library/recipes/blsubmitrecipe.htm
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Leads From Linda - Off to the Big Screen!
FIVE STAR PUBLICATIONS ANNOUNCES GROUNDBREAKING NEW DIVISION:
FIVE STAR SCRIPTS LAUNCHED TO TAKE AUTHORS FROM
THE BOOKSHELF TO THE BIG SCREEN
(CHANDLER, AZ)—It takes more than a great book to make a great movie—authors need industry connections and scriptwriting know-how that often take years to develop. Recognizing this gap, Five Star Publications is pleased to announce a groundbreaking new division with “reel possibilities,” Five Star Scripts. With 25 years of publishing and marketing experience under her belt, Five Star President Linda F. Radke has joined forces with former actor and award-winning author and screenwriter Lisa Cerasoli to provide Hollywood hopefuls with an insiders’ edge.
“I’ve always encouraged my clients to reach for the stars,” said Radke, “And now we’re helping them aim higher. With the unique services available through Five Star Scripts, authors have access to new resources to help them take their work from the bookshelf to the big screen, and we’re thrilled to be part of the process.”
Their team is not only comprised of noted scriptwriters like Jim Byrnes and Robert Potter, but Radke and Cerasoli will also utilize the expertise of Sandra Siegal, of Siegal Entertainment, Inc. Siegal also owns a management company based in Beverly Hills, CA, and works as a producer and producing consultant. She has over 20 years involvement in both film and television.
Herself, a 15-year industry veteran, Cerasoli’s credits include starring roles as “V” on General Hospital, Zoe in The Pretender and many more. Her second book is due out in April 2010.
"Our mission with Five Star Scripts is to create a vehicle for authors to join the ever expanding world of entertainment,” said Cerasoli. “In partnership with each author, our team will determine if a manuscript has movie or pilot potential. And then we’ll get to work at making that dream a reality.”
Launched in January 2010, Five Star Scripts offers the following services:
- Evaluation of unpublished manuscripts for script/screenplay potential
- Evaluation of published titles for script/screenplay potential
- Script/screenplay writing and rewriting services
- Editing services
- Full production services in transitioning scripts and screenplays into books including writing and editing, graphic design, layout, packaging and promotion
- Industry services based out of Los Angeles: coverage, consulting, pitching, promotion and producing
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Teaser Tuesday
Greetings! It's that time of the week again for another Teaser Tuesday!
"Beano, having not only escaped the heat of the kitchen but of the unfolding drama in the bar, slowed his pace after he had exited the alley that served as a service lane for Bertha's and the funeral home which sat directly behind. Most of the other buildings along the alley had been long ago deserted when Flybait, which had originally been named Flairby, Texas after its founder Philo Flairby, suffered financial collapse when the railroad exempted the rails and laid new track 130 north."
"In a 1988 speech, President Ronald Reagan declared, 'There seems to be an increasing awareness of something we Americans have known for some time: that the ten most dangerous words in the English language are, Hi, I'm from the Government , and I'm here to help''
"By the time Personal Ensign stepped into the starting gate for the $1 million Breeders' Cup Distaff on November 5, 1988 Randy Romero had crossed the boundary from good to great, from hot young flash into one of the best riders in the country. New York had been his final challenge, one he conquered completely, finishing as the leading rider at the 1986 Belmont Park fall meeting with fifty-four victories despite not riding in New York full-time until that spring."
"Thank God it was over. In many ways, 1969 had been a dreadful year - the fighting, the drinking, the ill health, the trials of making 'Anne of the Thousand Days'"
"Beano, having not only escaped the heat of the kitchen but of the unfolding drama in the bar, slowed his pace after he had exited the alley that served as a service lane for Bertha's and the funeral home which sat directly behind. Most of the other buildings along the alley had been long ago deserted when Flybait, which had originally been named Flairby, Texas after its founder Philo Flairby, suffered financial collapse when the railroad exempted the rails and laid new track 130 north."
"In a 1988 speech, President Ronald Reagan declared, 'There seems to be an increasing awareness of something we Americans have known for some time: that the ten most dangerous words in the English language are, Hi, I'm from the Government , and I'm here to help''
"By the time Personal Ensign stepped into the starting gate for the $1 million Breeders' Cup Distaff on November 5, 1988 Randy Romero had crossed the boundary from good to great, from hot young flash into one of the best riders in the country. New York had been his final challenge, one he conquered completely, finishing as the leading rider at the 1986 Belmont Park fall meeting with fifty-four victories despite not riding in New York full-time until that spring."
"Thank God it was over. In many ways, 1969 had been a dreadful year - the fighting, the drinking, the ill health, the trials of making 'Anne of the Thousand Days'"
New Reviews at Feathered Quill
It's been a very busy time at Feathered Quill Book Reviews. We just posted a whole slew of reviews, with more on the way in the next few days. Here's a sampling from various genres....
- An Irish Country Girl By: Patrick Taylor
- Daughters of the Witching Hill By: Mary Sharratt
- The Keeper’s Gift (or Uley’s Journal) By: Richard Bowers
- A Life Fractured By: Susan Hollingworth
- Life of Shouty: Good Habits By: NeonSeon
- Jekel Loves Hyde By: Beth Fantaskey
- Green Energy: Crucial Gains or Economic Strains? By: Matt Doeden
- The Skinny on Credit Cards: How to Master the Credit Card Game By: Jim Randel
- From Beer To Maternity By: Maggie Lamond Simone
- If a Dolphin Were a Fish By: Loran Wlodarski
Monday, April 5, 2010
Finding a Good Editor
By: Barbara Ardinger (please see Barbara's bio at end of article)
A friend and I were talking about books a few days ago. With me, that’s not unusual: I’m always surrounded by books. When I’m not editing potential books, I’m reading novels. My friend and I write book reviews for both print and electronic media, and what came up in our recent conversation was the fact that we’re seeing more and more books published by print-on-demand and vanity presses. What we’re seeing in these books are lousy production values. I told her I had recently declined reviewing a book that the author had obviously just pulled out of her printer and taken (I guess) to Kinko’s. It was double-spaced and lacked even a single page number. And it was filled with typos and usage errors. “I’m seeing a lot of books I think are really unfinished,” I said. “Authors who use ‘it’s’ for the possessive. Whose subjects and verbs don’t agree. Who can’t punctuate dialogue correctly.” “For sure,” said my friend. “And semicolons where there should be commas. Unintentional sentence fragments. Colons in the middle of a sentence.” We both chuckled. “Why don’t more authors read The Elements of Style?” I asked. Her reply: “People who can type seem to think that’s all it takes to write a book. Sometimes they don’t even know they need help.”
We were not, alas, just complaining to be complaining. We’re both seeing diminished editing. So let me state what I know to be true. Inexperienced authors seem not to know what good editing is. But it’s not always their fault. Some traditional publishers, who are interested only in making money, have zero interest in good writing. And I’d swear they’re hiring sophomores as editors. When they make changes that introduce errors into a book—this has happened to me and many of my friends—such editors are not helping the author Some of the on-demand presses and very small presses do offer editing services, but they’re almost always both expensive and insufficient. I’ve done editing for print-on-demand presses, so I know they often hire people they call “evaluators” (who have responded to those “earn big money at home” Internet ads) to edit manuscripts. The publisher gives the evaluator a handy checklist and instructions to “follow the rules.” That’s what they call editing.
So what’s an inexperienced author to do? Here are a few things you need to know about finding a good editor:
1. Don’t ask your husband or your best friend to edit your book. They love you. They’ve probably been supporting you in the hard work of writing a book. They don’t want to break your heart by changing or criticizing your work. What you need is fresh eyes. You need an editor who will spot errors you don’t even see anymore, either because it’s a fine point of grammar or usage you don’t know about or you’ve seen it so often you don’t even see it as an error.
2. Don’t try to save money by hiring the cheapest editor. When you pay cheap, that’s what you get. If you’re going for cheap, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll get an expert. A college drop-out or an English major who took a lot of literature classes but avoided all the advanced grammar classes won’t be able to help you very much. Someone who studied grammar but knows nothing about anything else, like history or psychology, may not be very helpful, either.
3. Find a good editor before you go to a literary agent or publisher. A good editor who will help you not only with your manuscript but also with the emails you send to literary agents or publishers can be worth her weight in gold. Everything you write needs to be clear. Without typos. Without common usage errors. You’re judged by your emails before the agent or publisher even looks at your book. The money you pay your editor is an investment in yourself.
4. Keep in mind that your reader doesn’t live in your head with you. You need an editor who can help you “translate” your rough draft into something both full-bodied and readable. The rough draft is a mind-dump: you just get everything on paper (or on the screen), but then it requires good editing so other people can understand what you intended to say. When I’m editing, I’m forever writing notes to my authors. “As written, this says so-and-so. Is that what you really mean? Can you please clarify?”
My friend and I firmly believe that anyone has the right to write a book. I once edited a book written by a young man who was in jail for robbing banks to support his drug habit. I’ve edited books for people whose opinions I don’t even begin to share. But they have the right to write. And it’s my job to help them write better. My published authors consistently tell me that they’re glad they didn’t go with cheap or inexperienced editors. And that’s what warms the cockles of an editor’s heart.
Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D. (http://www.barbaraardinger.com/), is a published author and freelance editor. To date, she has edited more than 200 books, most of them for authors going to small, vanity, or on-demand presses. The 200 projects are both fiction and nonfiction and also include screenplays, children's books, academic discourse (textbooks and doctoral and master's theses), web site text, and some poetry. Fiction edited includes romance, action-adventure, science fiction, western, mystery, historical, speculative, and horror novels. Nonfiction edited includes philosophy (mostly mainstream metaphysics and New Age), Calvinist theology, holistic health, science and technology, political tracts, business topics, history, and memoirs and biography. The authors live around the U.S. and around the world, and for many of them, English is their second language. Barbara has also taught university classes in writing and public speaking and has worked as a technical editor (four different industries).
Barbara lives in Southern California with her two rescued Maine coon cats, Heisenberg and Schroedinger. When she can get away from the computer, she goes to the theater as often as possible—she loves musical theater and movies in which people sing and dance. She is also an active CERT (Community Emergency Rescue Team) volunteer and a member (and occasional secretary pro-tem) of a neighborhood organization that focuses on code enforcement and safety for citizens. She has been an AIDS emotional support volunteer and a literacy volunteer. She is an active member of the neopagan community and is well known for the rituals she creates and leads.
Friday, April 2, 2010
New Website for Authors
We're passing on news that one of our friends in the publishing industry just launched a new website service we feel would be of interest to you.
We encourage you to it out: http://www.firstchapterplus.com/
We encourage you to it out: http://www.firstchapterplus.com/
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