Arbor Books Picks 2009 Holiday Favorites

Independently published books are filling a much-needed role as affordable gifts this year, but which ones should you buy?

Arbor Books (www.arborbooks.com), a backbone of the independent publishing movement for more than a decade, has compiled a list of some of its favorite titles to help consumers get right to the good stuff this holiday season.

"Our brief list of suggestions is a fun way to highlight some of the best books produced by the independent presses we've worked with--and a way to help consumers sort through the thousands of titles released each year," says Joel Hochman, co-founder of Arbor Books.

This year's list includes children's books, wealth-building books, personal memoirs and holiday-specific titles, and covers the entire family when it comes to genres and reading levels. According to Mr. Hochman's partner, Larry Leichman, "This list gives the whole family something to look forward to."

The independent publishers on the recommended reading list for this holiday season hail from around the country. The authors come from around the world.

"The presses that Arbor Books works with are very special," says Mr. Leichman. "Just as the independents in the music, film, theater and art industries forge new paths, making available works and titles that would not be available to consumers otherwise, so do these independents in the publishing field, and we're proud of each and every one of them."

Below is the list of Arbor Books' picks for the best of the holiday season:

1. Self-Help

Susan Bosscawen, Blueprint Your Future: Creating Powerful Personal and Career Results through Alignment (ISBN: 0615273912)

Raymond Salcido, LCSW, Chaos to Balance—A Life Changing Strategy (ISBN: 0-9822302-0-6)

2. Children's Fiction

Jolie Vanier, Puwaii Adventures With Joliea & Friends...The Adventures Continue (ISBN: 0-9822341-1-2)

Shannon Bates, Yes! You Can! An Iknowicant Tale (ISBN: 0-9821509-0-3)

3. Business/Personal Finance

Santiago Maggi, Investment Strategies for Uncertain Markets (ISBN: 0615325815)

David Schumacher, PhD and Steve Dexter, Buy & Hold Forever: How to Build Wealth for the 21st Century (ISBN: 0-9701162-6-8)

4. Personal Memoirs

Judy Joseph Hamlin, From Riches to Happiness: A Semi-Autobiography by an Enlightened Orange County Woman (ISBN: 0615310362)

5. Business Memoirs

Michael J. Ellis, The Metabolife Story: The Rape of Cinderella (ISBN: 0-9822402-0-1)

6. Business/Management

Debi Brown, It’s All in the Delivery: How to Move Mountains Without Crushing the Villagers (ISBN: 978-0-9812098-0-7)

7. History

Barbara Schwartz, Mercy, Mandates, Merger (ISBN: 978-0-615-28720-1)

8. Religion

Catherine Walters, The Hand of God: A Message of Faith and Love (ISBN: 0-9818658-6-0)

9. Mystery

Rick Ward, The Lawmaker (ISBN: 0-9823564-0-4)

Christine Whitehead, Tell Me When It Hurts (ISBN: 0-9822946-0-3)

10. General Fiction

Ryan O'Reilly, To Nourish and Consume (ISBN: 0-9794128-1-1)

11. Thrillers

Rick Ward, Blood-Stained Justice (ISBN: 0-9823564-4-7)

12. Science Fiction/Fantasy

Timothy A. Bramlett, Sharkey and the Parallel Universe (ISBN: 0-9796444-2-9)

13. Medical/Health

Dr. Vikki Petersen and Dr. Richard Petersen, The Gluten Effect: How "Innocent" Wheat Is Ruining Your Health (ISBN: 0-9822711-0-7)

Dr. David Siroospour, MD, FACS, Spinal Surgery Myths: A Surgeon’s Personal Experience With Back Surgery (ISBN: 0-9823362-0-9)

14. Family/Parenting

Armen G. Ketchedjian, MD, Will It Hurt? A Parent's Practical Guide to Children's Surgery (ISBN: 0-9815373-0-8)

Kay Mixson Jenkins, Who Is Pee Dee? Explaining Parkinson’s Disease to a Child (ISBN: 0-9819129-0-7)

All of these books are available on Amazon.com, where millions of holiday shoppers are searching for just the right books to give to friends, spouses or relatives. Mr. Hochman says that he believes these titles are a good start.

"As the country begins a period of economic and spiritual renewal, it's a pleasure to be a part of a movement of small presses and independent publishers," he says. "The people in this field, with their optimism and vision, are the future of publishing as they break the stranglehold of the larger, traditional publishing houses. We're proud of each and every one of them."

Arbor Books (www.arborbooks.com), a mainstay of the independent publishing movement throughout the world, is a provider of ghostwriting, editing, self-publishing and marketing services to individuals, corporations and independent presses.

Best Buy, Verizon to Boost E-Book Sales by Millions

(New York, New York)--Best Buy and Verizon have joined the eBook craze witha new reading device that may rival Amazon's best-selling Kindle.Called the iRex DR800SG, it is already one of Europe's most popular e-readers. Priced at $399, the touch-screen device will be able to buy digital books and newspapers wirelessly through the 3G networks of Verizon, AT&T and Sprint. Suppliers include Barnes & Noble's e-bookstore and NewspaperDirect, offering more than a thousand papers."Over five million e-readers are expected to be sold this year as eBooks continue to grow exponentially in popularity," says Joel Hochman of Arbor Books. "Add this to the millions of cell phones that can also act as e-readers and digital books are expected to take an even larger chunk of print sales."Thousands of Best Buy employees have been trained to demonstrate e-readers like the Sony Reader and iRex, and all the chain's 1,048 stores will have dedicated areas to showcase the different devices.The black-and-gray iRex (with an eight-inch screen) is similar to rivals like the Kindle DX, which has a ten-inch screen and costs $489, and Sony's new $399 Reader Daily Edition with its seven-inch screen."E-Books and eBook downloads are the future," says Larry Leichman of Arbor Books. "Just as with music, our publishing industry is undergoing an exciting revolution. Content will be king. Anyone with a book--whether ghostwritten or written with a ghostwriter--will have an equal shot at fame and fortune."Barnes & Noble said it planned to market eBooks "in really big and interesting ways" to the seventy-seven million customers who walk into its stores every year.The immediate goal for the eBook market is to bring the costs of e-readers to $99 or less, which could happen if wireless providers like Verizon subsidize the devices and sell them in their stores, as they do with netbooks. This could happen soon if e-readers continue to sell well because wireless providers get paid for the bandwidth required to distribute content--a potential major revenue stream.For now, the next anticipated steps are Apple's entry into the market with a more general-purpose tablet computer and Google's possible move with its own device to complement its book catalog and book programs.

E-Book Revolution: Sell Your Book Direct To Customer

eBooks have taken over the publishing industry -- just like iTunes took over the music industry.

Downloads are clearly the future. While paperback and hard cover book sales plummeted, sales of eBooks tripled in June.

The good news is that it means more money for authors, more money for self-publishers. Less money for publishers.

No more printers. No more publishers. No more distributors. No more brick and mortar stores.

Even Barnes & Noble has hopped on the eBook bandwagon: it will offer more than one million download books within a year.

eBook FACTS: The genius of the Amazon Kindle was in it's ability to instantly download books anywhere, anytime directly to the device. The Kindle's stand-alone, wireless feature is appealing on three levels: 1) instant gratification, 2) convenience, 3) it is synched to the wireless/download future -- along with music and soon movies and television. Books are way overdue to be digitized. People are often reading two or three books at a time, eBook customers often download dozens of books a month, traditional books are bulky and take up space, people like to move with a library of music and a library of books when they go places (vacation, doctor's office, train/bus to work, gym, etc.).

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Our eBook blow-out price is still only $895
That price includes setting up your eBook account, getting your manuscript eBook-ready (including front and back cover), uploading the files, AND setting up your eBook web page on the eBook stores. If you have published with another company, the price is $1,195 to reset text files. Charts, graphics and photos are an extra $75 each due to the extra work involved (if you want them included).

STUDENTS, SCHOOLS GET NEW 9/11 COURSE

(New York, NY)—The 9/11 terrorist attacks are the subject of a new course that will be taught in America’s classrooms.

Aimed at junior high and high school students and initially targeted for schools in New York City, California, New Jersey, Alabama, Indiana, Illinois and Kansas, if successful, the course will be offered nationwide.

“The 9/11 terrorist attacks are among the most pivotal and dramatic event in America’s history,” says Steven M. Centore, author of the new book One of Them: A First Responder’s Story. “The attacks continue to reverberate throughout the country and the world and for that reason alone should be taught to every kid.”

Mr. Centore is a federal employee, a 9/11 first responder, a nuclear physicist and a Navy veteran who has appeared at congressional hearings to advocate for the medical care and financial support of the thousands of first responders who were made ill by contaminants when the World Trade Center collapsed. His book details his own personal experience at Ground Zero on 9/11 and after.

“On September 11, 2001 our nation’s path was forever altered. Later, as we went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, our course was again changed. Thousands of Americans have been killed or wounded, more than a trillion dollars have been spent on the ongoing ‘war against terror,’ and our government has passed Draconian laws against our citizenry—leaving us with an uncertain future,” adds Mr. Centore.

The 9/11 course was developed by the New-Jersey-based September 11th Education Trust in collaboration with educators. The curriculum includes:

· Videos, lectures and interactive exercises
· Interviews with elected officials including former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
· Interviews with 9/11 first responders, rescue workers and survivors
· Interviews with 9/11 victims and their family members
· Mapping of terrorist activities via Google Earth

“It’s very important that we help our younger generations understand what really happened that day and why people sacrificed their health and even their lives in the rescue and clean up efforts,” says Mr. Centore.
To learn more about how you can help or to buy the nationally acclaimed book One of Them: A First Responder’s Story, visit www.SteveCentore.com or www.wadv-oneofthem.com. The book is also available on Borders.com, Target.com, Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.
For more information about One of Them: A First Responder’s Story, contact Steven M. Centore directly at Scentore@yahoo.com.

WORLDWIDE ASSOCIATION OF DISABLED VETERANS, INC. and author Steven M. Centore chose Arbor Books, Inc. (www.ArborBooks.com) to design and promote One of Them: A First Responder’s Story. Arbor Books is an internationally renowned, full-service book design, ghostwriting and marketing firm.

World's Largest E-BOOK Store to be Opened by Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble is challenging Amazon's Kindle.

Barnes & Noble said that it will offer more than 700,000 titles, including more than 500,000 public domain books from Google Inc., and that it expects to be able to offer more than one million titles within a year.

Under the plan, Barnes & Noble also struck a strategic partnership with Plastic Logic, maker of the Plastic Logic eReader device due in early 2010.

Book formats supported by the new Barnes & Noble e-bookstore include those that can be viewed on Apple Inc.'s iPhone and iPod Touch, BlackBerry smartphones and most Windows and Mac computers.

FIND A JOB BY WRITING AND PUBLISHING A BUSINESS BOOK

FIND A JOB BY WRITING AND PUBLISHING A BUSINESS BOOK (New York, NY)—With millions of executives interviewing for fewer openings in a dwindling job pool, the savvier among them are employing a stand-out device to separate them from the crowd: their own (usually ghostwritten) business books.

The fact is that being an author of a business book remains the fastest way for any corporate executive to establish instant expertise and status, according to public relations and marketing experts who recommend hiring a ghostwriter for speed and project management.

“Having your own book looks great on your resume, gives you, the executive, and the job interviewer something to talk about, is better than a business card, and leaves an impression that can’t be beat,” says Susan Bosscawen, a former banking executive and the author of "Blueprint Your Future" (www.blueprintyourfuture.com).

Ms. Bosscawen hired Arbor Books to help publish her book independently. The exciting news is that her book was recently reviewed by “The Miami Herald.”

“A business book that showcases your talent and communicative skills is a huge bonus on a resume,” says Joel Hochman of Arbor Books (www.arborbooks.com) a full-service firm that has helped dozens of business leaders create books. “That distinction can lead to higher-paying positions, speaking engagements and lucrative consultancies.”

According to Larry Leichman of Arbor Books, ghostwriting is an expedient means to getting an executive onto the business stage. It garners publicity, separates the businessperson out from the pack, and gives voice to opinion. The business world is apparently listening—a flood of independently written and produced books have hit the market in recent years.

Particular investment is being made in ghostwriting the content, whereas the publishing and marketing costs have dropped significantly.

“Social media and business networks are exploding, and it seems like almost everyone has a Twitter feed, a Facebook page and a blog,” says Mr. Hochman. “But business pros everywhere seem to agree that when we ghostwrite a business book, the impact is far greater. Your book becomes a showcase because a business ghostwriter—like the ones we have on staff—can turn you into a distinctive personality, a leading expert in your field.”

According to Mr. Hochman, his firm’s clients want a combination of services, including:

* A quality book that runs anywhere from a short, 96-page work to 400 pages and more* Stand-out cover design* Just a few copies to hand out

* Positioning on Amazon and availability in Borders and Barnes & Noble

* An eBook/Kindle version of the book ready for download

* An Audio book—they’re hot on iTunes and other sites* Marketing by people with connections in the industry Arbor Books is a full-service book-packaging firm (www.arborbooks.com).

FIND A JOB BY WRITING AND PUBLISHING A BUSINESS BOOK

(New York, NY)—With millions of executives interviewing for fewer openings in a dwindling job pool, the savvier among them are employing a stand-out device to separate them from the crowd: their own (usually ghostwritten) business books. The fact is that being an author of a business book remains the fastest way for any corporate executive to establish instant expertise and status, according to public relations and marketing experts who recommend hiring a ghostwriter for speed and project management. “Having your own book looks great on your resume, gives you, the executive, and the job interviewer something to talk about, is better than a business card, and leaves an impression that can’t be beat,” says Susan Bosscawen, a former banking executive and the author of "Blueprint Your Future" (http://www.blueprintyourfuture.com/).

Ms. Bosscawen hired Arbor Books to help publish her book independently. The exciting news is that her book was recently reviewed by “The Miami Herald.” “A business book that showcases your talent and communicative skills is a huge bonus on a resume,” says Joel Hochman of Arbor Books (http://www.arborbooks.com/) a full-service firm that has helped dozens of business leaders create books. “That distinction can lead to higher-paying positions, speaking engagements and lucrative consultancies.” According to Larry Leichman of Arbor Books, ghostwriting is an expedient means to getting an executive onto the business stage. It garners publicity, separates the businessperson out from the pack, and gives voice to opinion. The business world is apparently listening—a flood of independently written and produced books have hit the market in recent years. Particular investment is being made in ghostwriting the content, whereas the publishing and marketing costs have dropped significantly. “Social media and business networks are exploding, and it seems like almost everyone has a Twitter feed, a Facebook page and a blog,” says Mr. Hochman. “But business pros everywhere seem to agree that when we ghostwrite a business book, the impact is far greater. Your book becomes a showcase because a business ghostwriter—like the ones we have on staff—can turn you into a distinctive personality, a leading expert in your field.” According to Mr. Hochman, his firm’s clients want a combination of services, including: * A quality book that runs anywhere from a short, 96-page work to 400 pages and more* Stand-out cover design* Just a few copies to hand out* Positioning on Amazon and availability in Borders and Barnes & Noble* An eBook/Kindle version of the book ready for download* An Audio book—they’re hot on iTunes and other sites* Marketing by people with connections in the industry Arbor Books is a full-service book-packaging firm (http://www.arborbooks.com/).

How to Choose a Ghostwriter

An aspiring author has a lot of choices when it comes to choosing a ghostwriter, be it a firm or a freelancer. Choosing the right ghostwriter doesn’t have to be hard if you follow a few simple rules.

If you’re looking for a ghostwriter, there are several must-ask questions that will steer you away from the fly-by-night freelancers. The process of looking for a writer should be as thorough as looking for a doctor.

Before you sign a contract with someone to write your book, make sure that he or she has proof of the following:

* He or she is NOT a referral agency farming out your work to incompetent writers.
* A relationship with a publishing law firm and insurance company—for your protection.
* Full insurance against PLAGIARISM and defamation lawsuits.
* A guarantee that you own 100 percent of ALL the rights, profits and royalties to your book.
* A listing with Dun & Bradstreet and Literary Market Place.
* Writing supervised by professional, on-staff editors and proofreaders.
* Total confidentiality and nondisclosure—you don't want your ghostwriter claiming ownership after you’ve nailed your book or movie deal.
* Full publishing and promotional services including literary agents, TV, radio and print.
* All the promises in writing—be sure that everything is marked in the contract!

There are a lot of people making a lot of promises to hopeful authors. Good firms will guide you through the entire process of writing your book, from concept to marketing.

How Ghostwriting Works

Ghostwriting is a booming industry used by everyone from large corporations to your favorite celebrity to your neighbor’s grandmother. But few people who are looking for a writer really know how ghostwriting works.

The process usually follows these steps:

1) Initial interviews: the opening phase with the ghostwriter about the book’s concept and audience.

2) Outline creation: a crucial roadmap for the writing of a book and a good protection against veering off from the established plot (in fiction) or content list (nonfiction). It can also prevent lost time if another writer must be brought in to work on the project.

3) Initial writing sample: the writing of the first chapter and a review of the tone, language and style.

4) Writing: the phase in which the bulk of the book will be written based on writer-and-client collaboration through additional interviews.

5) Review: once the manuscript is completed, a final pass by an editor and/or proofreader—similar to a punch list used in construction. At this juncture, the manuscript may also be sent out for peer review.

6) Marketing: the phase where the manuscript is either sent out to agents and publishers and/or self-published. Self-publishing options include traditional printing, POD, eBook (digital download) and audio book. Marketing includes posting on Amazon, Borders and Barnes & Noble; library distribution; and publicity through traditional and online media.

If you’ve contracted with a ghostwriting firm and they don’t do something as basic as an outline, run for the hills. The initial interviews are also critical for the ghostwriter to get a sense of the client and the direction of the project.

Many Print on Demand Companies (POD) Fall Short of Promises

Print on demand (POD) is making headway as an alternative for some self-publishers, but a number of companies that employ the process are failing to meet the expectations of authors and book buyers alike.

POD is a process whereby books are printed one at a time with a glorified Xerox machine, as opposed to using a traditional web offset printing press that runs off 50, 500, 1,000 or more copies of a book.

While the actual method of printing is not a major problem, the quality of service offered by the companies in the business of POD can be spotty.

Recently, there has been a spate of articles in major news publications—The New York Times, TIME, US News & World Report and others—discussing the option POD provides self-published authors. However, rarely are the shortcomings of the POD method addressed.

While print on demand offers authors the chance to self-publish, industry insiders question the quality of the editorial and customer support offered by companies like Author Solutions and Lulu, and instead support a new model that includes ghostwriting and professional marketing for those asking, “Where can I get my book published?”

Some shortfalls seen in POD companies include:

· Poor editorial support
· Unattractive cover design
· Amateurish back-cover copy and layout
· Inadequate marketing support
· Embarrassingly bad production quality
· Problems with royalty payments to authors

E-Books Getting Some Color, But Slowly

If you’ve ever read an eBook, you've probably noticed something: they’re all in black and white. But that could change in the coming years as manufacturers race to overcome the many technical challenges faced in switching from black and white to color.

Currently, Fujitsu is the only manufacturer with a color reader. It’s Flepia e-book is only sold in Japan and other manufacturers are finding that overcoming the technical hurdles presented by color—slow refresh rates, inadequate screen size, problems with brightness and poor clarity—is taking longer than they expected.

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, says that his Kindle platform is “years away” from a color version.
While Apple is rumored to be working on a touch screen, color reader, it appears that book aficionados will have to wait to enjoy the vivid colors in their favorite books.

Once e-books are available in color, they might include features such as author reviews, links to similar books and even video.

Google Gives Orphan Books a Home

Google’s never-ending quest to build a modern-day oracle—a super-repository of all human knowledge—has hit a snag. It has to do with what are euphemistically called "orphan books."

The six-year-long Google Book Search project, which scanned 7 million books into electronic format, included many of these orphan books. These are books with no clear rights holder (for example: the author is long dead, has no heirs and the publisher is out of business).

Orphan books can cover every subject, genre and category.

The Author's Guild and the Association of American Publishers, among others, sued Google because they claimed the search engine giant was violating copyrights by making these orphan books available over the Internet for a profit.

Google recently settled that suit for $125 million while agreeing to give 63 percent of all profits to the Book Rights Registry, a non-profit that will distribute the money to benefit the writing and reading public (whatever that might mean).

So far, Google will have the right to offer a preview of twenty pages of each book and then sell it at a price they determine. But Google isn't out of the woods yet. Other groups are claiming that Google is essentially monopolizing the online-library format. Amazon, for one. We wonder if the original Oracle (the one at Delphi) had to deal with copyright issues and lawyers.

iPod Becomes Second Option for Reading eBooks

With the emergence of Kindle, e-books have become an increasingly popular alternative to paperbacks and hardcovers. Digital books are about to spread further and faster with the addition of the iPhone and iPod Touch as platforms for reading eBooks.

Amazon announced that they are optimizing more than 300,000 e-books for the Safari browser used by Apple. iPhone and iPod Touch owners can preview, download, read and transfer e-books with their handheld devices.

What’s even more impressive is that users can automatically synchronize their devices to pick up on the last page they read, no matter which device they happen to be using at the time: Kindle, iPhone or iPod Touch. Customers can preview and purchase the New York Times bestsellers and even read the first chapter for free before deciding to buy.

Unfortunately, Kindle newspapers, magazines and blogs aren’t yet available on Apple’s handheld devices, but the books that are available can be enjoyed using a bunch of great new features. If you have the iPhone 2.1 software update, which is required for this application, you can read in portrait or landscape mode, change background and text colors, turn pages by tapping on either side of the screen and pinch to zoom into images.

Online Textbooks the Wave of the Future?

Digital text books have now officially arrived: The upcoming school year will be the first without paper textbooks for California, which has one of the largest school systems in the nation.

California is looking to close a $24 billion budget gap, so it’s going to use online textbooks for its math and science courses. Last year California spent $350 million on textbooks alone.

Online textbooks will be easily updatable and students will be able to download their books to handheld devices like the iPod. Poorer students present a problem for budget-crunching California because the state will likely have to purchase computers and readers for those families that cannot afford them.

You can be sure other states will be paying attention. If the Golden state's move to online text books saves them money it could become a trend across the nation as states seek ways to tighten their belts and avoid raising taxes.

What's more, this is just one more giant step in the e-book revolution...

New “In-Motion” Comics Coming to iTunes From Marvel

One of the biggest names in entertainment is getting in on the eBook revolution - in a distinctly unique way.

Marvel comics will sell "In-Motion" comic books in Apple's iTunes Store. The comics will feature animated panels suited to the iPhone and iPod Touch and will include voice-overs from famous actors.

These same comics will later be released in the traditional paper format.

Just a footnote: In the first quarter of 2009, major American publishers earned more than $25 million in wholesale revenues from e-books, according to the International Digital Publishing Forum.

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