Lulu.com did a study of book titles and determined what makes a good title. The company looked at every title of nonfiction and fiction books from 1955 to 2004 and analyzed what works. But of course, the title doesn’t guarantee failure or success since the analysis says The DaVinci Code is considered less likely to produce a best seller.

As a result of the study, Lulu.com has a Title Scorer so you can test your title.

Another article shows we judge a book by its cover. An author whose book cover got a makeover saw her book sales double. I try to look beyond the book’s title and cover to judge it, but I admit some books turn me away with their bland titles or covers. Here’s another article on the topic.

Looking at my bookshelf, I see bland covers there, too. In reality, when we pick a book, many things come into play and it most likely varies with each purchase decision. Things that affect our decisions:

* How did you find out about the book?

* Do you know the author?

* How much does the book’s topic grab you?

Then the rest of the stuff like the title and cover helps us with our final decision, if we haven’t made one yet.

I’m a member of an online book club and one of the neatest things — though I don’t participate — is the conference call with the author of the book we’re reading. Turns out our book club leader wasn’t one of the few who came up with the great idea as according to USA Today, it’s becoming popular.

These calls are a great opportunity for book clubs and authors. Book clubs get closer to the author and feel a personal connection while authors gain sales, publicity, and goodwill. HarperCollins makes it easy for readers and authors to connect with its Invite the Author.
(more…)

New Year resolutions… whether or not you make ‘em or believe in ‘em, here’s one book that can help you improve your life. It has worked for many others and me. We had a health scare yesterday in which my daughter and mother-in-law were panicking. I remained calm for most of it (which is amazing in itself) because I knew we could be worrying over nothing. Using QBQ (see below), I kept asking myself, “What can I do about this?” Everything is A-OK and we’re thankful things turned out the way they did.

In his previous book, QBQ! The Question Behind the Question, John G. Miller shows how to change our thinking by asking questions in a different way. In Flipping the Switch, Miller provides more examples on how to ask questions to hold ourselves accountable in work and life. Doing this leads to five advantages Miller calls the Advantage Principles:

*Learning

*Ownership

*Creativity

*Service

*Trust

The book takes only an hour to read and quickly pulls someone out of the doldrums and changes them into a ball of energy, hence Flipping the Switch. Asking QBQ helps us avoid becoming defensive and pointing fingers and changes a person’s thinking from “It’s her fault” to “How can I fix this?” [ More ]

Successful blogger, Robert Scoble, and co-author Shel Israel, push businesses to blog and explain why it would benefit them. The “naked” in the title represents talking straight to the readers rather than filtering the blog’s contents through company public relations, lawyers, executives, and phoniness.

The book starts with a foreword from Tom Peters and proceeds to show why blogging is an efficient way for businesses to communicate with customers, prospects and the world at large. The authors go back in time and give an overview of blogging’s history. Many examples appear to show how companies have benefited from blogging. [ More ]

From the Sponsor: A blog on hair restoration? Indeed!

Hollywood starts buzzing its movies long before they come out. You see a movie in the fall and its previews show movies coming out in the following summer. Book Publishers are starting to adopt the same approach. One author’s book has received mentions in magazines and blogs. Many authors send their books to reviewers at least a month before the official release. I’ve seen this firsthand as I’ve got a couple of books I’ve just finished and they’re not due out till January.

If I had a book, I’d do the same… contact bloggers, book reviewers and media that cover the same topic or industry as the book.

It’s also okay to find reviewers long after the book comes out even over a year later. I’ve reviewed many books over a year old. Not all books are outdated as quickly as software — heck, some are never outdated. [ Link Tara ]

Commercial Break…

Imagine a job in which you set your own hours, and live wherever you
please: at the beach, in the mountains, in an apartment in Paris,
London, or Berlin. As a copywriter, you can.

Back to your scheduled programming…

With all the price comparison sites available, I’m posting them all in one post because it’s just tough to keep up and remember them all. The first three places I go whenever I shop are Froogle, Pricegrabber, and ISBN.nu.

I don’t just buy from the place offering the best price. It also depends on the business’ reputation. If no ratings are available for the business, then I search elsewhere like the Better Business Bureau and BizRate. Offertrax lets you store, compare and receive price alerts.

Pronto is a Firefox shopping comparison plugin.

Another thing to consider is the best time of the year to shop for certain items. MSN Money lists the best times of the year for the following. Also, some of these have special notes.

• Air conditioners: winter
• Airline tickets: Varies
• Appliances: Ask stores about warehouses of returns and floor models in mint condition.
• Big appliances: September and October
• Bicycles and outdoor gear: January
• Boats: January, February and March
• Cars: September
• Cell phones: any time
• Computers: July and August
• Cookware: April and May; October and November
• Flooring: Wholesalers offer “buy direct” prices online to public for over 1,000 square feet.
• Furniture: January and July. Also find out if the store has an outlet or website that sells floor samples, discontinued styles or returned merchandise with deep discounts.
• Gas grills: winter
• Jewelry: Avoid the holidays, Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day
• Linens and bedding: January
• Mattresses: year-round
• Real estate: spring
• Recreational vehicles: fall and winter
• Rugs: Department stores markup rugs big time so stick with wholesalers.
• Toys: October and November
• TVs and home theaters: winter holiday sales and January
• Vacuum cleaners: April and May
• Wedding: winter

Most Often Used

Froogle results look like typical search engine results. It also explores sites that often don’t appear in the comparison shopping site lists. I’ve found some great deals here.

Pricegrabber is the one I go to the most outside of Froogle. I think its comparison chart is the easiest to read and scan.

PriceScan is similar to Pricegrabber and easier to read than the ones listed further down.

ISBN.nu.

Books

AddAll does books, music, movie, and magazine.

Best Book Buys also compares book prices as well as music, videos, electronics, and bikes.

BooksPrice searches for lowest price on new and used books, CDs and DVDs. Also includes a feature for finding the best price when buying more than one book since shipping costs could be lower due to the combined order.

FetchBook

ISBN.nu does only price comparisons for books. While I find better deals through Amazon Marketplace or elsewhere, this is a great starting point.

Local Stores

8coupons: Coupons in your zip code.

SalesHound.com

ShopLocal

General Price Comparison Sites

The following sites are similar in how they produce their results and they don’t have a neat chart like Pricegrabber or MySimon. Their results are similar to Froogle, but I think Froogle provides better results. I recommend using a few sites when looking for a specific item as every site links to different stores.

CostHelper reports what people are paying.

DealTime

MySimon is one of the first price comparison sites I’ve used. Its site doesn’t look good in Firefox.

PriceComparison

SearchAllDeals searches all deals and coupon sites in one shot.

Shopzilla

SortPrice

Yahoo! Shopping

Coupons and Discounts

Most of these sites are junky or have a ton of popups, but I’ve found coupons here.

BigSavings

CoolSavings requires free registration.

CouponHaven

CouponSaver

CouponSurfer

CouponTweet: Coupon codes from twitter.

Current Codes

eCoupons

eDealFinder

FatWallet

Free Shipping

KeyCode Coupons

NaughtyCodes

Rather-Be-Shopping.com

RetailMeNot

ShipGooder: Compare shipping rates.

SmartSource – grocery coupons

Online Deals

These sites list bargains and big sale items. The best place is Woot, but it only shows one item per day. Once in a while, it’ll post a new item as soon as one sells out for a certain amount of time (usually 24-hours).

Alice: This is a little different. What you do is enter the products you normally buy. “For each product you add, you’ll get automatic coupons, reminders when you’re running low, and easy re-ordering tools so you never run out again.”

DealHunting

Deal of Day

Dealsea: Short-term deep discounts.

Hot Deals Club

ShopStyle: Enter your favorite brands and the site emails you when there’s a sale.

SlickDeals.net

ugenie provides discounts on bundled items.

Discounted Shopping Stores

American Science & Surplus – science bargains

Cheap Tickets – travel

Dawdle: Buy and sell new and used games

Deep Discount DVD for DVDs.

Expedia Travel – travel

Farecompare – travel

Farecast – travel

Free CD Software

Kayak – travel

Lowestfare.com – Travel

Overstock

Priceline – travel

SmartBargains

Updated: September 26, 2010

Get Clients Now! is an excellent and highly recommended book. Easy to read. Short. Clearly outlined steps. Flexible. Can’t beat that.

The book is ideal for small businesses or people who are the sole proprietor of their own business. It also makes a great tool for coaches.

As a result of Hurricane Katrina (this started before Rita and Wilma),
the writers of AbsoluteWrite.com banded together and decided to write a
book full of stories of strength. 100% of proceeds go to charity. I
never claimed to be a good storyteller, yet I lucked out as my story is
in the book. Wil Wheaton, Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game), and many
other talented writers contributed. Read more about it on the Stories of Strength Web Site. The book is available as a download or a printed copy.

Here’s a mixed bag entry as these aren’t long enough to warrant their own entries. Marko Mihelcic has a growing list of interviews and asked me to join the list. Thanks, Marko. It’s an honor to be among a pool of talented folks. Maybe he needed a black sheep.

When I read a great article that makes me think of a friend or colleague, I share it. Alas, I can’t share them all as some require free registration. I think the burden of registration outweighs the the opportunity to read the article. That’s the rant in the latest eNewsletter Journal. Also, there’s a new issue of meryl’s notes newsletter.

I’ve been meaning to post this list of book resources for weeks. Finally got off my duff and fixed it up. I would’ve liked to expand the summary, but then I’d never get it posted and these sites deserve visitors.

I love books. Wave a book sale in my face and I’m there. Sometimes I wish I had a book-related blog / resource like these folks have. Why not do it now? Because these are great places to go and no sense in getting the game this late. I have enough going on with meryl’s notes, Bionic Ear, CSS Collection, and InformIT. These don’t even include the couple of other places where I occasionally contribute. So rather than regretting not starting a book blog, I list them here.

Some of these sites have book discussions going. I LOVE talking books with others. Not just one book like in a book club, but many. Alas, no time to devote. Priorities, priorities, priorities. Contact me if you know of more quality resources.

Beatrice
http://www.beatrice.com/

Ron Hogan reports on literary news and musings.

Between the Lines
http://editorialdepartment.com/e-zine.html

Monthly email newsletter published by The Editorial Department, a book publishing company. Provides insight into craft of writing and the publishing scene.

BookFestish
http://bookfetish.org/

Book reviews, articles, book and author news, and links to many book-related resources, blogs, and review sites. Beautiful design.

Blog of a Bookslut
http://www.bookslut.com/blog/

Jessa Crispin is the blogger behind the risque name and her partner in literary crime, Michael Schaub, also contributes. The blog provides updates on the national literary scene. Reviews are super honest with rant and wit added into the mix.

Books for Understanding
http://aaupnet.org/booksforunderstanding.html

Resource to find books on current events. New bibliographies are compiled when a major news story breaks or public debate heats up.

Booksquare
http://www.booksquare.com/

All about “news and views of authors.”

BookThink
http://www.bookthink.com/

BookThink has newsletters covering book-related topics and insider information for booksellers, market report regarding in-demand books, a discussion forum, book-related links; book reviews, interviews with authors, and tutorials on book repair, grading, terminology, buying for resale, selling books, and more.

Complete Review
http://www.complete-review.com/

“A selectively comprehensive, objectively opinionated survey of books old and new, trying to meet all your book review, preview, and information needs.”

Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind
http://www.sarahweinman.com/

Sarah Weinman is the crime fiction editor for The Baltimore Sun. Get commentary on crime and mystery fiction.

Creativity Portal
http://www.creativity-portal.com/

Not only do you get writing prompts (and all you can eat, too!), but also imagination prompts. Enjoy articles, instructional Web resources, and a Mirecle33 Creativity Patch (yes, it’s spelled that way) on topics related to writing, creativity, and arts & crafts.

The Elegant Variation
http://www.marksarvas.blogs.com/elegvar

Literary blog.

ForeWord magazine
https://www.forewordmagazine.net/

Magazine that publishes book reviews from independent presses. If you’re an author or publisher, you can register to add books to its list of books being published within a timeframe. After registration, go to the My Books tab and add the titles. There is no charge for this listing. [ Link: Publicity Hound ]

Fresh Eyes
http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/me…

Blog by a Vermont bookseller.

GalleyCat
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/

Blog about books and publishing.

Grammar Hell
http://www.grammarhell.com/

I love the name of the site and its sense of humor. You know you’re in for fun when the tagline is, “Help end brutal assaults on language. I wanna be this site.

Independent Publisher
http://www.independentpublisher.com/

Articles on publishing and promotion. Subscribe to the newsletter to stay up to date.

Litblog Co-op
http://lbc.typepad.com/blog/

Unites literary blogs to draw attention to the best fiction, authors and publishers who struggle to get noticed an overcrowded market.

Literary Saloon
http://www.complete-review.com/saloon/

“Literary weblog at the complete review. It offers opinionated commentary on literary matters, as well as news from and about the complete review, literary news, links, musings, and the occasional tirade.”

Maud Newton
http://maudnewton.com/blog/

“Occasional literary links, amusements, politics, and rants.”

Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/

The site has many book reviews, book resources, publisher resources, writers resources, and more. Writers and publishers can submit books for review and reviewers can submit reviews per the instructions.

Mothers Book Bag
http://mothersbookbag.com/

Mom’s read books, too! So we may not read as much or as fast as we’d like, but we do what we can so our brains don’t turn to mush. Covered books are in related to parenthood in some form and there are author interviews. A wonderful find.

OCLC Top 1000
http://www.oclc.org/research/top1000/…

OCLC Research has updated its list of the top 1000 titles owned by member libraries. The “purchase vote” of libraries around the globe.
selected the works that have been judged to be worth owning.

Old Hag
http://www.theoldhag.com/

Book reviews and literary blog.

ParaPublishing
http://parapub.com/getpage.cfm…

Dan Poynter is the go to person for everything you want to know about publishing. This site has lots of valuable resources including this huge list of fascinating facts and figures about the book industry, articles related to books, a free information kit for authors, and an excellent newsletter.

The Publishing Game
http://www.publishinggame.com/

Read articles on book marketing, self-publishing, and finding an agent so you can make your next move.

Reader2
http://reader2.com/

Find new books to read and keep list of books you read or recommend. You can search for new books to read in the categories of your interest, export your latest read books or recommended books to your site or blog, find users with similar taste and look what they read, and track your friends’ reading lists.

Readerville

http://www.readerville.com/

Book lovers talk about books. Also has forums for discussions.

Time: All-Time 100 Novels
http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/…

Two Time critics pick 100 best English language novels from 1923 to the present.

What Should I Read Next?
http://www.whatshouldireadnext.com/

Enter a book, author, or both and get recommendations for what to read next.

Updated: February 8, 2006