Came across an unique business in an article by Brittany Lyte of the  Stamford Advocate. The business is called “Demand Poetry” and is run by Elizabeth Howard. She gets back to the essence of writing by putting words in ink on paper with an electric typewriter. For a modest fee, she takes requests and writes poems for men who don’t know how to express their feelings to their wives or girlfriends. It reminded me of Cyrano De Bergerc; romantic and wistful. Typing poems takes us back to a simplier time when we had time to ponder our feelings rather than just banging out a text message in harsh abbreviations that flits through the air and vanishes with a click of the delete key. Howard’s poems can be framed as a lasting memory of emotion.

Great ingenuity! Wishing her success as she helps us pause in our frantic lives to examine our inner world.

Here’s her link: http://elizabethhoward.net/demandpoetry/

For the next 3 months “Small Business Rocket Fuel: Marketing Tools to Boost Revenue” will be available via KDP Select for borrowing for Amazon Prime members. This is a great way to try out the series and see how much it can benefit your small business, regardless of whether you’re a writer, consultant or other small business owner.

During this time period, the book will not be available on Barnes and Noble due to restrictions set by Amazon.

An interesting interview with Joe Konrath was just published (see link below). Here he further expounds on his results as a self-published author. He cites significantly better earnings by self-publishing books for a low price while at the same time devoting less time to marketing than he had for this traditionally published novel. He states that publishers take over 52% of the cover price while authors receive only a bit more than 17%.

The article is definitely worth reading. One caveat though is that nowhere in the article does Joe mention his release with Amazon’s new imprint Encore. This leaves me wondering, if self-publishing is so fantastic, why sign a deal with what is ostensibly another publisher? Sure Amazon isn’t a traditional publisher per se, yet it aspires to be one. That is one question I’m sure many writers would be interested in hearing the answer to.

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/j-a-konrath-responds-our-interview-with-jamie-raab_b46413

http://elitzr.com/is-amazons-konrath-concession-a-sign-of-things-to-come/