The Lives of 12 Famous Female Authors

The Biographies of the lives of 12 Famous Female Authors come to life in this book which includes sketches on such women as Anne Bradstreet, the first published author in the American colonies and Mary Wollstonecraft, author of the Vindication of the Rights of Women.

12 Famed Female Authors Biographies of Their Lives

Contents include:

Louisa May Alcott by Sarah K. Bolton
Jane Austen by Elbert Hubbard
Anne Bradstreet by Helen Campbell
Elisabeth Barrett Browning by Sarah K. Bolton
Charlotte Bronte by Elbert Hubbard
George Elliot by Elbert Hubbard
Margaret Fuller Ossoli by Sarah K. Bolton
George Sand by Lydon Orr
Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley by Elbert Hubbard
Harriet Beecher Stowe by Sarah K. Bolton
Mercy Warren by Montrose J. Moses
Mary Wollstonecraft by William Godwin

Anne Bradstreet Her Life and Times

In celebration of International Women’s Day

Anne Bradstreet and Her Time by Helen Campbell

Anne Dudley Bradstreet 1612 – September 16, 1672) was the first poet and first female writer in the British North American colonies to be published. Her first volume of poetry was The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, published in 1650.

From the Introduction: “Grave doubts at times arise in the critical mind as to whether America has had any famous women. We are reproached with the fact, that in spite of some two hundred years of existence, we have, as yet, developed no genius in any degree comparable to that of George Eliot and George Sand in the present, or a dozen other as familiar names of the past. One at least of our prominent literary journals has formulated this reproach, and is even sceptical as to the probability of any future of this nature for American women.
What the conditions have been which hindered and hampered such development, will find full place in the story of the one woman who, in the midst of obstacles that might easily have daunted a far stouter soul, spoke such words as her limitations allowed. Anne Bradstreet, as a name standing alone, and represented only by a volume of moral reflections and the often stilted and unnatural verse of the period, would perhaps, hardly claim a place in formal biography. But Anne Bradstreet, the first woman whose work has come down to us from that troublous Colonial time, and who, if not the mother, is at least the grandmother of American literature, in that her direct descendants number some of our most distinguished men of letters calls for some memorial more honorable than a page in an Encyclopedia, or even an octavo edition of her works for the benefit of stray antiquaries here and there. The direct ancestress of the Danas, of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Wendell Phillips, the Channings, the Buckminsters and other lesser names, would naturally inspire some interest if only in an inquiry as to just what inheritance she handed down, and the story of what she failed to do because of the time into which she was born, holds equal meaning with that of what she did do.”

How to Use Pinterest to Promote Your Book

You may think of Pinterest as a place where scrapbooking fans, home interior aficionados and fashionistas go to hang out online and share images, but Pinterest is a social networking site that can be used for so much more. A year ago, Pinterest increased its unique visitors by 155 percent in one month alone, according to HubSpot. Today Pinterest is evolving its features to include business — and not just personal — accounts. Pinterest is raising brand awareness and also driving purchasing decisions. So before you write off Pinterest as a crafty outlet you don’t have time for, consider that Pinterest can be used as a social media marketing tool to help promote you and your book.

If you aren’t yet familiar with Pinterest, it’s a social media platform where you can visually share photos, images, graphics and videos by pinning them to online bulletin boards that you create. Most people with Pinterest pages develop themed boards to comprehensively cover their areas of interest. What better way to identify and connect with your ideal audience than through your shared interests?

If you are just getting started with Pinterest, the first thing you need to do is to request an invite from Pinterest. If you don’t want to wait, ask a friend who is already connected to Pinterest to invite you. Once you have a Pinterest invite, you can add Pinterest to part of your overall social media strategy to market you book. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Maximize your Pinterest profile. Make sure you fully fill out your profile with a compelling image that represents you and your brand. Include a description about you that makes people want to know more. Include an image of your book. Connect your Pinterest page to your website so your visitors can easily click through and get to your website. In your settings, make sure you aren’t hiding your Pinterest page from search engines.

Start pinning. Pinterest is the place for visual creativity. Pin up photos of your book, well-designed quotes, video trailers of your book or invite other people to share photos reading your book. Create boards on your Pinterest page in themed categories for things you and your target audience like. Pinterest is great for novels. For example if your novel is based in a particular country or part of the country or a particular time period, you can collect links and images to represent that time and place. You can have a board about your book tour and pin the sites of indie bookstores who are hosting you. There can be a board where you pin all the great reviews about your book. The ideas are endless, and remember that it’s just a fun, graphic way to curate information.

Make sure your pins are connected. When you pin images that are your own, make sure they include links back to your website so when people click on or share your images, they go back to your website. Link back to specific landing pages on your site to showcase your book. If you pin other people’s images, be sure to cite the source, but you can include your website in the description of the image.

Follow people you want to follow you back. Use Pinterest to make connections. Begin to follow and share images from people you want to connect with. If you regularly interact with their Pinterest boards, they are likely to take notice of you and follow you back.

Encourage followers to share your images by adding the Pin It Button to your website. Make sure your pins are attracting your target audience. You want your pins to be shared by your followers so they can spread the word about you, your Pinterest page and your website.

Add the Pinterest Follow Me button to your website and your other social media platforms. You can encourage people who go to your website, Facebook, and Twitter pages to also join you on Pinterest.

When your readers know and like you as an author, they want to know what you like. Pinterest can help you grow a following by connecting to others through your similar interests. Tell your story through your Pinterest page in creative ways and soon you will be on your way to building your Pinterest community.

Fauzia Burke is the Founder and President of FSB Associates, a digital publicity and marketing firm specializing in creating awareness for books and authors. For online publicity, book publishing and social media news, follow Fauzia on Twitter: @FauziaBurke. To talk with FSB and ask your book publicity questions, please join us on Facebook.

© 2013 Fauzia Burke. All Rights Reserved.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fauzia-burke/how-to-use-pinterest-to-p_1_b_2672036.html

2 Free Ebooks!

I found these FREE ebooks on Amazon…. get ’em while they’re FREE!

Write with Passion… Sell with Power! Easily Create, Self-publish,and Market Your Own ‘How to’ Ebook?

How to Twitter: Getting Started with 30 Daily Do-ables

Looking for some chocolate recipes for Valentine’s day?

Decadent Chocolate Recipes for Chocolate Lovers

The Great Conspiracy

“They found them slaves! but who that title gave?

The God of Nature never formed a slave!

Though fraud or force acquire a master’s name,

Nature and justice must remain the same;—

Nature imprints upon whate’er we see,

That has a heart and life in it, BE FREE!”

Cowper

When doing research on abolition and slavery for Black History Month, I had no idea that I would run across this gem of a book. I knew it deserved republishing! Here is a new edition, complete with photographs of historic figures to give it a fresh retelling.

The author, John Alexander Logan was a solider and political leader from Illinois. He was a Republican, a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1867 to 1871, and of the United States Senate from 1871 until 1877 and again from 1879 until his death in 1886.

This is his historic account of the history of slavery, the slave trade and the civil war. As he says in the introduction:

“But, while tracing the history of the Great Conspiracy, from its obscure birth in the brooding brains of a few ambitious men of the earliest days of our Republic, through the subsequent years of its devolution, down to the evil days of Nullification, and to the bitter and bloody period of armed Rebellion, or contemplating it in its still more recent and, perhaps, more sinister development, of to-day, he has conscientiously dealt with it, throughout, in the clear and penetrating light of the voluminous records so readily accessible at the seat of our National Government. So far as was practicable, he has endeavored to allow the chief characters in that Conspiracy—as well as the Union leaders, who, whether in Executive, Legislative, or Military service, devoted their best abilities and energies to its suppression—to speak for themselves, and thus while securing their own proper places in history,”

The Great Conspiracy: Its Origin and History a partisan account of the Civil War (Complete Volumes) by John A. Logan (Illustrated)

Harriet Tubman The Moses of Her People

Harriet Tubman The Moses of Her People is the second ebook offering for Black History Month. There are not very many people who have graced this planet that have been as brave as Harriet Tubman. A leader in the underground railroad, she traveled back to the south to rescue other slaves 19 times at her own peril.

From the introduction: “From the introduction: “This woman was the friend of William H. Seward, of Gerritt Smith, of Wendell Phillips, of William Lloyd Garrison, and of many other distinguished philanthropists before the War, as of very many officers of the Union Army during the conflict.
After her almost superhuman efforts in making her own escape from slavery, and then returning to the South nineteen times, and bringing away with her over three hundred fugitives, she was sent by Governor Andrew of Massachusetts to the South at the beginning of the War, to act as spy and scout for our armies, and to be employed as hospital nurse when needed.
Here for four years she labored without any remuneration, and during the time she was acting as nurse, never drew but twenty days’ rations from our Government. She managed to support herself, as well as to take care of the suffering soldiers”

My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

 

In honor of Black History Month I am publishing several historical biographies and auto-biographies of Americans who influenced the emancipation of the blacks from slavery.  I’ve started with the auto- biography of Frederick Douglass, the great orator.

He was a leader in the abolitionist movement and noted as a spelling binding speaker.  ” He stood as a living counter-example to slaveholders’ arguments that slaves did not have the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens.   Many Northerners also found it hard to believe that such a great orator had been a slave.^{” 1}

Holding multiple public offices after the Civil War, Douglass was active in the United States struggle to maintain freedom for all men and women. 

From the introduction:

“When a man raises himself from the lowest condition in society to the highest, mankind pay him the tribute of their admiration; when he accomplishes this elevation by native energy, guided by prudence and wisdom, their admiration is increased; but when his course, onward and upward, excellent in itself, furthermore proves a possible, what had hitherto been regarded as an impossible, reform, then he becomes a burning and a shining light, on which the aged may look with gladness, the young with hope, and the down-trodden, as a representative of what they may themselves become. To such a man, dear reader, it is my privilege to introduce you.

The life of Frederick Douglass, recorded in the pages which follow, is not merely an example of self-elevation under the most adverse circumstances; it is, moreover, a noble vindication of the highest aims of the American anti-slavery movement. The real object of that movement is not only to disenthrall, it is, also, to bestow upon the Negro the exercise of all those rights, from the possession of which he has been so long debarred.

But this full recognition of the colored man to the right, and the entire admission of the same to the full privileges, political, religious and social, of manhood, requires powerful effort on the part of the enthralled, as well as on the part of those who would disenthrall them. The people at large must feel the conviction, as well as admit the abstract logic, of human equality; the Negro, for the first time in the world’s history, brought in full contact with high civilization, must prove his title first to all that is demanded for him; in the teeth of unequal chances, he must prove himself equal to the mass of those who oppress him—therefore, absolutely superior to his apparent fate, and to their relative ability. And it is most cheering to the friends of freedom, today, that evidence of this equality is rapidly accumulating, not from the ranks of the half-freed colored people of the free states, but from the very depths of slavery itself; the indestructible equality of man to man is demonstrated by the ease with which black men, scarce one remove from barbarism—if slavery can be honored with such a distinction—vault into the high places of the most advanced and painfully acquired civilization. Ward and Garnett, Wells Brown and Pennington, Loguen and Douglass, are banners on the outer wall, under which abolition is fighting its most successful battles, because they are living exemplars of the practicability of the most radical abolitionism; for, they were all of them born to the doom of slavery, some of them remained slaves until adult age, yet they all have not only won equality to their white fellow citizens, in civil, religious, political and social rank, but they have also illustrated and adorned our common country by their genius, learning and eloquence. “

To purchase on Amazon:

 

“My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass – An Autobiography (Illustrated)

 

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass

Ebook Sales Increase as Kindle Use Grows

With all the talk and holiday hype about Kindle sales going up, those of us who write and publish ebooks were very excited. Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s all true!

Last Friday my husband and I made our first subway treck from Brooklyn to Manhattan in about a year. On the first train I counted 3 Kindle readers and on the transfer I saw another 4! Now this may not sound like a lot, but I am here to say that I HAD NEVER SEEN ANYONE READING A KINDLE ON THE SUBWAY BEFORE! This is great news for ebook writers, as ebook sales are now soaring!

“According to the Association of American Publishers monthly StatShot report, children’s and young adult digital book revenues exploded nearly 300 percent in May compared to the same period last year.

Here’s more from the release: “The overall industry (including all sectors: Trade, School, Higher Ed and Professional/Scholarly) grew 7.3 percent year-to-date 2012 vs. YTD 2011 … Reflecting seasonal consumer buying trends”

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/category/sales-stats

Amazon Reports Ebook Sales UP

According to an article I read today on theverge.com, Amazon is reporting a rise in ebook sales.

It’s a little odd, then, that in its newest quarterly earnings report, Amazon is calling attention to the fact that its sales growth for physical books is flattening out. This isn’t just tossed-off; it’s direct from founder and CEO Jeff Bezos: “our physical book sales experienced the lowest December growth rate in our 17 years as a book seller, up just 5 percent.” This is Amazon’s original business, for years its core in digital retail, and brick-and-mortar bookstores across the country are shutting down. Amazon’s growth in this market was only 5 percent? And Jeff Bezos is pleased with this?

Bezos is only highlighting this figure because it lets him brag about the bigger number in Amazon’s new dominant market: ebooks. Ebook sales at Amazon have grown by 70 percent year over year, says Bezos, making it a multibillion-dollar category for the company. “We’re now seeing the transition we’ve been expecting,” Bezos writes. Both Amazon and its customers are becoming fully digital.

2011 was the year of the e-reader, but 2012 was the year of the ebook
Here too, some context is helpful. In 2011, ebooks were a four-year-old business for Amazon — still relatively new, but fairly mature, with Amazon clearly the dominant player in the market. More e-readers were sold in 2011 than any year before or since, the lion’s share by Amazon. Those e-readers sold plenty of ebooks. For Amazon to grow seventy percent in 2012 over its sales in 2011 is a pretty remarkable achievement. It suggests that the ebook medium itself hasn’t only arrived, but still has strong potential for growth, and that Amazon is likely to continue to be the global leader, even as it opens up new markets.

This is very encouraging news for ebook writers!! We are still basically on the ground floor of a vast and growing business! So, keep writing!

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/29/3930158/amazon-digital-metamorphosis-ebooks-up-70-percent-video-print-books