Which Route to Take to Publishing

Which Route to Take to Publishing





The traditional
route. You look foran agents and/or publishers.
• Write
a blurb. (A short description of the book.) Think about this as your
elevator pitch or the first few lines of your query letter. You have 50 words
or less to describe your book. This is a skill that takes time to develop. Look
for help from writing groups, check out the back of your favorite books. Play
around with what to say. Search the Internet for help – (“writing a blurb”).

• Write a query letter. (This is a
letter to the publisher or agent you hope to sell or represent your book.) Again, this is a skill that takes practice to
develop. Get help from writer groups, books, friends, and the Internet – (Do an
Internet search on “query letter”.)

• Make sure the book is ready for
publication: well edited, no grammatical errors or holes in the story line.
(This is where having a critique partner is very valuable or paying an editor
to find your mistakes .)

• Formatting the file. (Check to
make sure you have the file in the format the publisher or agent requests.) The
font is usually, Time Roman or Courier News 12pt. The line spacing is usually double spaced.
The authors name, book title, and page numbers are usually required on each
page, but might differ with each publisher and agent. Check out the submission
guidelines on their website to see how they want the manuscript formatted. (Do
an Internet search on “publishing companies” or “literary agents”.)

• Remember when you sign with a
publishing company, or an agent, you are entering into a legal and binding
contract. Make sure you know your rights going into the contract and what it
might take to get out of the contract. Think of it as a pre-nup. If you are
unsure, seek legal counsel. (If you want more information, do an Internet
search on “reviewing literary contract”.) There are people who will review a
contract for you and advise you of any potential heart aches.
- Self-publishing-
• Write
a blurb. (A short description of the book.) Think of this as your pitch to
potential readers of your book. You have 100 words or less to describe your
book. This will be displayed on Amazon and other sites to help sell your book.

This is a skill that takes time to develop. Look for help from writing groups,
check out the back of your favorite books to see how it is done. Play around
with it, search the Internet for help. (Do an Internet search on “writing a
book blurb”.)

• Make sure the book is ready for
publication: well edited, no grammatical errors or holes in the story line.
(This is where having a critique partner is very valuable. Also if you are
looking at self-publishing this might be where you consider hiring a
professional for help.) There are a number of companies and individuals out
there that can help you. Talk to other
authors and ask for recommendations. Also if you are on social sites, seek out
connections with people willing to help.

• Cover Art is the single most
important marketing tool next to the quality of the book. If the company you
plan to use does not provide cover art. Find a good cover artist to create your
vision for the book.

• Formatting the file. (Each
e-publishing company has their specific guidelines.) Smashword.com has a
comprehensive free book that will take you through the various steps to prepare
your file for publication.

• Choosing the company you want to
publish your book. (E-book)
1.
Some of the companies will format your file and prepare your book for the
different e-book readers (Nook, Kindle, iPad). They will charge you a
percentage of your sales as payment or a flat rate.

Smashwords.com is a free site where
you can sign up to publish your book or story. You will need to sign in and
then fill out information about yourself. (You can do this as an author even if
you dont publish through them.)

You set the price and decide which distributors you want. If you want you can opt out and publish
directly with Amazon on your own.
They also assign you an ISBN for free. (ISBN “International Standard Book
Number” is a unique 13-digital numerical identifier given to your book that
allows retailers to manage and track your book.)

2.
Amazon has detailed
instructions on how to publish with them at kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing or download their book “Build Your Book for
Kindle.” You will need to sign in and fill out information about yourself. Also
you need to agree to their terms and sign up with the Author Central. (Note: this is separate site from their publishing
site. It allows you to write a bio, collect your books in one place and send
your RSS feed from your blog into the Amazon site.) (A RSS - “Really Simple
Syndication” allows information to flow from one website to another
automatically.)
• Choosing
the company you want to publish your book. (Paper) Usually a company will
do what is called “print on demand,” meaning they do not print the book until
someone orders it from their site.

- This requires a number of things to consider. Look at what you are getting
and what control you are giving up before making a decision. (Do an Internet
search on “comparing self-publishing companies.”)

• Other informational sites that can help you make a decision on where to
publish your book. (Search “self-publishing an e-book” on the Internet) Again talk to other authors. They can tell
you the companies they dont like or have had problems with – Check RWA and
EPIC for a list of approved publishers.)I hope this helps you decide what you want to do. Best of luck in your publishing endeavors,Tina

The Latin Mass and the latest modern crisis!

The Latin Mass and the latest modern crisis!

We get news this morning that former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey warns that the Church of England faces extinction withing a generation. Well, no, probably not. What the Church of England is facing—along with the liberal wing of Catholicism, Church of Christ, United Church of Canada, and the Mainline Protestant churches—is the possibility of being one generation away from becoming utterly irrelevant to the larger culture.

By way of analogy, think of unicyclists. There aren't many but there are some and every generation sees new unicyclists. The unicycle is not in danger of extinction. That said, the cultural significance of the bicycle is an important issue, the unicycle not so much. The Church of England is one generation away from having the same cultural stature as a club for unicyclists.

That is the source of the crisis that spurred Rev. Carey to speak out.

That is also why the demographic problem that so many others have worried about for decades now never concerned Rev. Carey in the past. He's never really cared about issues of survival; what matters to him is cultural status. If anything, Church leaders like Carey used to argue that concerns about demographics of the C of E were driven by scaremongers.

Okay, it would be easy to cynically suggest that Carey is only scared now because he thinks journalists are going to erase his name and number from their list of contacts. But that's not fair. Carey is far from stupid and neither is he any more vain than the rest of us. In any case, he is not going to survive even one more generation so he can hardly be said to have a personal material interest in the matter.

Let me suggest another explanation. And it begins with an often forgotten aspect of modernism and that is that modernism was always an elitist and anti-populist movement. Modernists were people who rejected huge swaths of modern culture. They hated what they regarded as sentimental art and religion. They could see that one of the unexpected legacies of Romanticism was to establish a giant market for sentimental art and religion but they hated that stuff.

That is why, despite the obvious popularity of sentimental art and religion, they went to war against it. They argued that the modern world had no place for sentiment. In their view, the thing that made "modern" really modern was that it was cut off from the past. They emphasized a discontinuity. They screamed of a crisis that called for immediate action.

And it is important to grasp that. Too often, the debate is seen as one between reformers and the the status quo but there are really no people in the status quo camp. Anyone who has followed the Latin Mass movement within the Catholic Church, for example, will know that there has been far more reform there than in the larger church. These reforms were all made in the interest of restoring the Latin mass to what was hoped to be a "purer" form but they were reforms nevertheless,.

In fact, if you look to people in the Carey camp, they will cheerfully admit bore you to death with their tales of having been unable to make any reforms in recent decades.The Most Reverend John Sentamu told the Synod – where leaders will debate how to persuade traditionalists to accept women bishops – that they spent too long 'arguing over words and phrases, while the people of England are left floundering amid meaninglessness, anxiety and despair'.
The lie here is in the second part. The people are not floundering. They are singularly unaware of any crisis. In fact, if there is one thing that characterizes modern life it is the rather stunning lack of crisis. Stunning because they are constantly being told that really bad things are happening out there and yet ... yawn.

Rev. Carey is actually playing the same tune he has always played here. He is a charter member of the Church of the Modernist Crisis. Crisis is the card he always plays. He's never particularly cared about poverty unless it's part of a poverty crisis. He's never cared about female clergy or feminism unless that too can be linked to a crisis. He never cared about declining population of the Church of England until he could make a crisis out of it.

Whatever it is going to take to get people back into churches, assuming such a thing is desirable, for there are bad churches as well as good ones, it isn't yet another retired church leader hectoring a numb and bored population about the latest crisis.

RESOLUTION FAIL

RESOLUTION FAIL


Well, it is January 3rd and I havealready failed to keep my New Year's Resolution to be a "Love Ninja".

I thought it would be difficult to maintain my love while driving to and from work. I had a comment from Smalltown Me that she has the same issue with tourists driving in her area. I was thinking that I need to come up with a mantra to chant while driving to keep my mind otherwise engaged while navigatingin and around the other human beings on the road (see? I wanted to call them idiots but I didn't...)

But driving has been ok. I tapped my horn at someone who didn't notice the light had changed and they actually waved a thanks.I gave him a thumbs up. Very loving.

USBank, on the other hand is neither giving or getting my love and while Iwas not bitchyto the person who (after going through 5 menus and then being transferredtwice and being on hold then having torepeatstrings of numbers and personal identification) told me the error message I received when I could not upload my bills from Quicken to the bank was not their issue. Even though the error message was quite specific about the source of the problem.

When I informed him I was at work and not on the computer with Quicken he was quite snippy. He said I need to call again when I am home in order to fix it. I wanted to tell him how unhappy I am with my banking experience this morning andin the past few months (I won't even go into the problems they created when they changedthe Health Savings Accounts.) I wanted to tell him that I spent 15 minutes at home trying to make the bills upload and then 12 minutes at work just waiting to talk to a human. But I didn't. Ihung up on him.

I immediately felt shame for my behavior. So while I have broken my resolution already, I know I can do better. Love, forgiveness and kindness in the face of unhelpful, alleged customer service - om.

Most Christians Reject the Power of the Atonement because They Lack Real Faith

Most Christians Reject the Power of the Atonement because They Lack Real Faith


The following are questions about faith I was asked once - and the answers I gave:

"So what I was asking is this: If the first gift of the atonement is eternal life, and it is given to all, do I need faith in Christ for it?"
The first gift of the atonement isn't "eternal life". It's salvation from physical death (an actual, real, physical resurrection of some sort) - or, as we term it, immortality. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." (It's indisputable, imo, that the resurrection was seen by the early saints as literally physical, especially given the description of Jesus' appearance in Luke 24.)

"If I must qualify for eternal life, why do I need faith in Christ for that?"
I believe the numerous admonitions of Jesus himself and of his early apostles saying that there is more to everlasting life than mere immortality is THE central theme in the Bible. We could be vegetative and still be immortal. What the Bible teaches is that we not only will be resurrected (be physically immortal), but that we also may become "eternal" ("at one" with God). This principle is what constitutes the "New" Testament - by which the "Old" Covenant of collective servant-hood was replaced by the "New" Covenant of personal "heir-ship". The verses and passages that teach this change are almost innumerable in the New Testament, so I won't quote them in this post - but they just are brutally difficult for most people to accept.

The idea of true "at-one-ment" is counter-intuitive to most mortals, since we know we naturally are separated from God by a bridge we simply are unable to cross on our own. Because it is so blatantly counter-intuitive, it takes REAL, DEEP, ABIDING faith in the teacher of it (Jesus) and those who taught it after his death (Peter, James, John, Paul and others) to accept it.

Thus, it takes no faith to receive the free gift of immortality - unless one counts the pre-mortal decision to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior (and I do count that decision), but it takes "abiding" faith to believe the unbelievable.

Jesus, the scribe, and the first command.

Jesus, the scribe, and the first command.



The next bit in Mark is told again in Matthew—from a very different point of view.In Mark, right after Jesus answered the Sadducees crazy hypothetical resurrection story, he took one more question. A scribe really liked his answer to the Sadducees, and wanted to know what was the greatest command. He also really liked Jesuss answer to his question, and said so; to which Jesus approvingly responded, “Youre not far from Gods Kingdom.” vT('Mk 12.34','g')In Matthew, same background: The Sadducees asked Jesus their resurrection poser; Jesus skilfully parried them. But this time, the Pharisees gathered together for the purpose of testing Jesus, and turned loose their Law-expert in order to challenge him. There was no mutual admiration in this story at all. Just hostility.So… which story is what really happened? I know: If you firmly believe the bible has no errors, youre gonna pursue some convoluted explanation which permits both stories to be true. Heres a popular spin: Perhaps the Pharisees recruited this scribe to challenge Jesus, as Matthew said; but deep down, the scribe kinda admired Jesus, and so their exchange was a lot more friendly, as Mark said. The gospel-authors simply skipped all the other details, and as a result this only looks like disharmony.Heres the problem with this idea. It makes both authors out to be biased liars: Matthew only wanted to slam Pharisees, and deleted any sympathetic ones; Mark only wanted to portray some of them as friendly, and in this story skipped the hostile ones. So neither told the truth. The only way we discover it is by reading both gospels together. But since the authors never expected their gospels to be read together, it means one, or both, intended to deceive. (Probably Matthew, since he quoted Mark in many places.) In defending inerrancy, you create a way bigger problem.Whats more likely? Simple: The authors were biased. (Thats not necessarily a bad thing. Both were biased in favor of Jesus being Messiah, you know.) They both had the raw story: Someone asked Jesus about the first command, and Jesus replied. But Matthew happened to read his own pessimism into the story, and Mark chose to read his own optimism into it. It means neither was lying, although one or the other (or both) was a little short-sighted. Like Mark has it, some scribes and Pharisees were sympathetic to Jesus. And like Matthew has it, some Pharisees were totally out to get him. Whether this guy really was, we have evidence both ways…meaning we dont definitively know where he stood.Its like any contradictory idea in the bible: If you cant balance out the ideas, suspend judgment. Me, Im an optimist, so Im admittedly slanted towards Mark. But who knows?—maybe Matthew is correct. Still: Suspend judgment.Well, lets read the stories.
The noble scribe.Standing there, listening to the discussion, was one of the scribes. Recognizing how well Jesus answered the Sadducees, he asked him, “Which command is first of all?”Jesus gave this answer: “First is, Listen, Israel: Our god is the Lord; the Lord is One; and you must love your god the Lord with all your heart, life, purpose, and might. v('Dt 6.4-5') Second is, Love your neighbor like yourself. v('Lv 19.18') No command is higher than these.”The scribe told him, “Excellent, Teacher. You speak the truth: Theres One, and theres no other but him. And to love him with all ones heart, intelligence, and might; and to love ones neighbor as oneself? Its greater than every burnt offering and sacrifice.”Jesus, seeing how wisely he answered, told him, “Youre not far from Gods Kingdom.”No one else submitted questions to him.—vF('Mark 12.28-34','g')The question “Whats the first command?”—meaning whats the one we oughta follow first of all, more than the others, not which command God literally gave first, like “Let there be light”—wasnt a question the Pharisees came up with on the spot. Its actually one of the more famous questions the Pharisees taught their students.Jesus answered with the Shemá, which the Pharisees used as a creed and recited twice a day. Its called the Shemá because it begins with that word: Shemá Yisraél: YHVH elohénu, YHVH ekhád. (Although Hebrew-speakers tend to use adonái/“my LORD” instead of YHVH/“Jehovah,” out of respect for Gods name.) The Shemá is the first verse of this passage:Listen, Israel: The LORD is your god. The LORD is One. Love your god, the LORD, in all your heart, life, and everything.
—Moses, vF('Deuteronomy 6.5-6','h')Jesus added to it another scripture the Pharisees were fond of: Loving ones neighbor as oneself. In the Babylonian Talmud theres this story about Shammai and Hillel, the greatest rabbis of the Pharisees.At another time, a certain pagan happened to come to Shammai and told him, “Make me a convert—on the condition you teach me the whole Law while I stand on one foot.” Shammai drove him out with the yardstick in his hand.So he went to Hillel. Hillel told him, “Dont do to your neighbor what you find hateful. Thats the whole Law. The rest is its commentary. Go learn it.”—Sabbath 31aHillels version of “Love your neighbor as yourself” comes a lot closer to Jesuss “Do for others” v('Mt 7.12') —its passive, not active—but its generally the same idea. Love your neighbor. As Hillel said the rest of the Law is its commentary, Jesus said in Matthew: “The whole Law and Prophets hang from these two commands.” So the Pharisees would automatically agree the Shemá, plus “Love your neighbor,” was the right answer.Some Christians get very annoyed when I point out the Pharisees already had an answer to this question, and Jesus restated it. They prefer the idea they grew up with: Somehow the Pharisees didnt know the answer, cause they were great big hypocrites who thought the greatest command must have to do with animal sacrifice or something. But then wise, omniscient Jesus clued em in, and told them it was about love. Cue the Beatles song: “All you need is love, love; love is all you need.” They hate the idea Jesus mightve taken the answer from Pharisees, of all people.But truth is truth, no matter where you get it from. Revelation is revelation, no matter who proclaims it. The high priest, corrupt as he was, rightly called it about Jesuss death. v('Jn 11.50-51') And from what we know of Hillel, he understood grace, mercy, and love a lot better than Christians expect any Pharisee would. Likely he had a relationship with God; and if so, it stands to reason hed understand the supreme importance of “Love God” and “Love your neighbor.” Dont fault him for his wayward followers who later opposed Jesus.Likewise the scribe who asked Jesus the question: He immediately recognized the truth of Jesuss answer, and how much more valuable the commands were than sacrifice—as the LORD and his prophets stated time and again in the scriptures. He, too, likely had a relationship with God. Hence Jesus said of him, “Youre not far from Gods Kingdom.”Ive heard pessimistic preachers (who, it seems, had Matthew in mind) take that statement of Jesuss and flip it over: “Not far from the Kingdom,” they claim, means “Not in the Kingdom—and you arrogantly thought you were in the Kingdom, didnt you? You self-righteous hypocrite.” Which is wholly inappropriate. Jesus paid this scribe a compliment; he didnt unkindly bash him, as if his praise of Jesuss answer was some form or sarcasm. This is just another example of people reading their ill-will into another persons statement, instead of accepting it at face value. Both the scribe and Jesus meant to be kind to one another. We have to read it that way—much as wed rather condemn Pharisees (not that Mark ever identified this guy as a Pharisee) or try to make the Mark version illegitimately jibe with Matthew.But now lets turn to Matthew.
The less-noble Law-expert.The Pharisees, hearing Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, gathered together. One of them, a Law-expert, asked a question to test him: “Teacher, which is the greatest command in the Law?”Jesus answered him, “Youll love your god, the Lord, with all your heart, life, and purpose. v('Dt 6.5') This is the greatest and first command. Likewise the second: Youll love your neighbor like yourself. v('Lv 19.18') The whole Law and Prophets hang from these two commands.”—vF('Matthew 22.34-40','g')Lukes version of the first command has some similar language to Matthew. But it comes out of the Law-experts mouth instead of Jesuss, and instead of following the Sadducees question, it led into the story of the good Samaritan. I include it here, just to be comprehensive.Look, a certain Law-expert got up to test Jesus, saying, “Teacher, what action will help me inherit eternal life?”Jesus told him, “Whats written In the Law? How do you interpret it?”In reply the Law-expert said, “Youll love your god, the Lord, with all your heart, life, might, and purpose. v('Dt 6.5') And your neighbor like yourself.” v('Lv 19.18')Jesus told him, “Correct answer. Do this and live.”—vF('Luke 10.25-28','g')Nitpickers want to get at all the different ways the gospels translated Deuteronomy—so are we to follow God with our heart, life, and purpose; or our might too, as in Mark and Luke?—and miss the point. Were to love the LORD with everything.Were to love him with our leváv/“hearts,” which in that day meant our intellect, not our emotions; emotions were in the guts. Were to love him with our nefésh/“life-force” (Greek psykhí), or soul, or life: Our actions and lifestyle need to reflect the love of God. Were to love him with our meód/“exceedingness,” which Greek-speakers struggled to translate, just as English-speakers do, so the best they came up with are diánoia/“purpose” and iskhýs/“might”: We need to put our entire being into the love of God. Its not enough to just approve of him, or like him, or agree that Jesus is Lord while ignoring his commands. We have to purpose to follow him, and do so with all our might.Matthew skipped the scribes praise of Jesuss answer, and Jesuss praise of the scribe, and leapt right to the “How can Davids son be Davids master?” lesson. But in his version of the story, theres no praise to give: This was a test of Jesuss orthodoxy. You know how Jesus tended to teach, “Youve heard it said… but I tell you,” v('Mt 5.21-22, 27-28, 31-32') as a way to straighten out the nutty things the Pharisees taught, and replace them with his own commentary on the Law. Here, the Pharisees were looking to see what sort of respect Jesus even had for the Law: Would his priorities in the Law be different from theirs? Turns out no: Jesus recognized love came before everything else. Thing is, even though the Pharisees taught love for God and neighbors comes first, too many of them didnt practice love for God and neighbors first. Cause you know, hypocrites.And that should be a warning to us Christians as well: Do we practice love for God and neighbors first? Or do we do as the pagans, and practice love for self first? Love for our own first? Love for family and friends first? No love for strangers, for those who are different from us, for those who are still full of sin and evil? No love for God, cause we dont even try to obey him; we just do our own thing and figure grace takes care of our deficiencies? Do we follow Jesuss first commands, first?

For 2nd Generation of Surface, Tweaks From Microsoft - NYTimes.com

For 2nd Generation of Surface, Tweaks From Microsoft - NYTimes.com


Meanwhile, the 5th-generation iPad is likely to be unveiled over the next month or so
"And it appears that Microsoft will be leaving many tablet sales to the competition with the new offerings, too. The latest Surface tablets will not be available in smaller 7- to 8-inch versions, the most popular size in the market. The iPad mini and other devices in that size have become clear favorites among tablet shoppers because their compactness makes them easier to hold with one hand.
The Surface tablets have 10.6-inch screens, behemoths by tablet standards. This year, 57 percent of worldwide tablet shipments are expected to be in the 7- to 8-inch category, while 17.8 percent will be in 9- to 10-inch category, estimates IDC, the research firm. Tablets with 10- to 11-inch screens, like the Surface, are forecast to account for about 17.4 percent of the market.
Mr. Panay suggested that Microsoft will eventually offer a mini version of the Surface, but not until it is confident that it has the right product."For 2nd Generation of Surface, Tweaks From Microsoft - NYTimes.com

Consensus on global warming crisis

Consensus on global warming crisis


Peer-Reviewed Survey Finds Majority Of Scientists Skeptical Of Global Warming Crisis:... Now that we have access to hard surveys of scientists themselves, it is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus.