Month: December 2012

Author Tools: Help a Reporter (HARO)

HARO LogoHelp A Reporter (HARO) is a handy tool for authors in two ways. HARO can help you find a source to interview when researching a book, and it can provide you with publicity and other related opportunities that you couldn’t have found on your own.

HARO Email
Email from HARO

Signing up for HARO is free. Just go to their home page and click “sign up today.” Yes, HARO does now offer pay packages, but if you scroll down to the bottom of the page – you will see the Basic page is still available for free. What does this mean? Well, three times a day you will receive a HARO email with a list of stories being worked on by reporters who need sources to interview. Not all of these are newspaper reporters – they are bloggers, authors, television shows, magazines and more. The stories are organized according to category, and if you see one that interests you, just click on it and it will bring you to the details further down in the email. The key to getting reporters interested in your “pitch” is to make sure you respond immediately. These emails go out to thousands of people, and whoever replies first is going to get their attention. Be concise with your pitch and be quick. Continue reading “Author Tools: Help a Reporter (HARO)”

Product Placement in Books?

Even the casual TV or movie watcher may have noticed a recent barrage of product placement. Action heroes drive particular brands of black SUVs while the camera focuses lovingly on their nameplates. Cranky reality show judges sip from bottles labeled with the prominently displayed names of popular carbonated beverages, although what they’re actually drinking is anybody’s guess.

It’s all about the bucks, bucko. Production costs for movies and television shows are climbing so high that pretty much anywhere a set dresser can smack a well-heeled company’s logo, it sticks. Publishers, too, are feeling the painful pinch, and are always looking for the next way to cash in. Continue reading “Product Placement in Books?”

Video Trailer: Outcome, a Novel

What if, through no fault of your own, you become ill and need an organ transplant? Who’s going to come to your rescue when you’re put under a bad surgeon’s knife? In this medical fiction novel, a young woman and her Labrador Retriever flee a barrier island as Hurricane Ivan roars towards them. But a policeman is about to make a horrible mistake.

There is despair and hope, loss and recovery, guilt and romance; and a world of characters who spring to life around the central tragedy of the ensuing car crash and it is through Karen’s organ donation that a woman with liver disease may be given a second chance. But what happens when a pilot aborts the transplant team’s flight? And what becomes of the hurricane-battered dog who escapes the crushed metal pile into the blowing sand and gusty wind? And above all, what happens in the operating room during one of the most difficult surgeries performed in medicine?

Outcome, the medical suspense novel by Dr. Barbara Ebel, is available through Amazon.com, Amazon UK, and Barnes & Noble.

Would Anyone Notice if I Quit Social Media?

Guest post
by Emma Meade

In the past 12 months I have spent countless hours of my life on Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads. I’ve roamed around the blogosphere reading posts, leaving comments, tweeting links to interesting articles and writing for my own blog. If I were to delete every online account of mine tomorrow, would anyone notice or care? Being honest, I’d have to admit few would. And why should they? I have many blogs I enjoy, people on Twitter whose tweets and links amuse me, but if they upped and quit the virtual world and I never read another blog post or tweet from them again, I wouldn’t be broken-hearted, at least not for very long. Continue reading “Would Anyone Notice if I Quit Social Media?”