You are about to embark on the most exciting enterprise of your life -- publishing a cook book! You will soon learn that writing a cook book is truly a fun, exciting and challenging project

As the pioneers of aviation took to the air not skies, in their human powered mechanical contraptions, what must have been said and thought
Complicated pulleys and chain systems enclosing a lunatic, perhaps!
Or overly optimistic cyclists with designs above their head, even.
Yet they left us with the beginnings of international and inter-planetary travel, its

Too many sales letters are shaped into paper airplanes and flown into trash cans because freelancers write sales letters that sell their services. These freelancers have never listened to the quietly- whispered secret that says their sales letters should sell solutions, not services, to yield the best results.
Solutions are jewels; they shimmer in sales pieces.
Prospects will peruse your sales letter if they discover you have a solution or solutions to their existing or future problem or problems.
To write a "solution-savvy" sales letter follow the copywriter

3 Tips when Writing Articles
Do you love to write Do you want to put those writing skills to good use Perhaps you want to see your name published whether it be in a newspaper, magazine, e-zine or other forms of publication. Heres 3 tips to start off your New Year.
1. Brainstorm
Once youve decided what your writing is going to be about, brainstorm. Think of a new angle for your article. For example: If youre writing for your local newspaper about an author, dont necessarily write only the obvious details. Is there something about this author that makes them unique What is so great about the book theyve written, can you tie it with a current news event and or holiday
2. Removing the Fluff is a Must!
When writing a first draft, its expected to h ave at least some fluff. Fluff is words, sentences, certain aspects of your article that dont necessarily add to your article. An example would be:

If you think proofreading equals editing, then youre wrong! Editing is a lot more than just scrutinizing your manuscript for misspelled words or missing punctuation marks.
As a whole:

Edit only *after* youve written the *whole* piece. If you stop to edit after every paragraph or sentence, you will disrupt the flow of your thoughts.
It is better to take a break before starting to edit a long manuscript so you

"I read and walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me." -- Anna Quindlen, Living Out Loud.
When aspiring writers tell me they lack time to write, I pose

I am twenty three years old, have sold over four thousand copies of my first book in a matter of a month after its release and recently been contacted for contracts with Random House and Harper Collins for two new titles. I think a good deal of my recent success is highly correlated with my Reading for Charity Contest and the attention it has drawn. Ill explain the entire background, but as pre-thought I think it first manifested itself through a combination of my looking for a good way to market my first book, while balancing out my karma a bit. A way to interweave my love of novel writing, increase my books visibility and provide a benefit to society in some way shape or form. All of these tasks have seemed to be accomplished- although my karma could still probably use some more balancing.
What is the Reading for Charity Contest: Over sixty organizations, a group of corporate sponsors, and a handful of volunteers are the result of the charity contest. I took my very recently published book and decided to give away a certain percentage of its profits to charity. There was a catch though, the charity I will give my book profits to is being voted on, by the readers. So once you read my book, you can go to my webpage or find me at one of my book tours and vote for your favorite cause and the highest voted cause receives the profits Which should be quite a bit. That was the reading for charity contests basic beginning. Its the focal point of everything else that now surrounds the contest and of course my book. The contest was than expanded on by a few different means which, furthered the accomplishment of my goals.
1 Rather than your basic book tours I turned my book tours into a way to highlight the organizations participating in the contest. I have a large stand representing all of the participating organizations with their information and donation cards. Next came along a couple of benefit events- a silent auction, a couple of benefit dinners etc... Things that were really quite easy to put together, but could have a great benefit for the charity groups I was working with. Now this may seem like a good deal of work, which it was, but the benefits for the organizations had been huge, and the benefits for me personally has been equally spectacular.
The benefits all of this had for me: I was able to get involved with over sixty non-profit organizations and use my book and contest as a way to highlight their efforts and eventually provide them with a financial benefit as well. There is no truer statement that giving is a two way street. In return for my help with the organizations the organizations did their best to help out me. I am featured with my book in over fifty non-profit newsletters, on a large number of webpages, as well as postings and fliers from the organizations. Some organizations have newsletters with readers in the ten of thousands. It is equivalent to being featured in fifty newspapers across the country that are targeted directly to the reader.
2 The book tours are not only philanthropic, but also bring in a good deal of people and create a lot of buzz. After some attention a number of companies offered to sponsor the events. I was able to receive all of my marketing material for my book and contest for free from corporate sponsors. T-shirts, fliers, book marks, posters, business cards, mail outs, coffee cups, even mousepads with my book cover on them. My entire marketing plan which is now pretty extensive costs only about five dollars a month to cover the price of my website, that is it and nothing more.
3 When you have a purpose and are providing aid you directly relate with the community you are assisting. Since the organizations I have involved are spread out throughout the entire United States it has proved to be an excellent source of publicity, from radio, to newspapers, to magazines, even a couple of upcoming television shows. It has given my book an unbelievable pr hook in a market where it is difficult to get a story in a paper just because you recently published a book..
4 In basic when people read my book they are doing more than just being entertained, each copy bought goes directly to a great cause. The readers of the book are allowed to interweave their love of reading with a greater purpose in an interactive fashion. Once again a win-win situation.
I would like to expand a bit on the reading for charity contest idea. I think there are a world of ways to further the efforts and provide the joint benefit for some organizations out there, and assist me in my publication and book marketing endeavors. As a model however it has been incredibly successful, I think there are a lot of incredibly creative ways to market a book on a low budget like I originally had and turn it into a success. Once again I will state that giving something always brings in something, and in my case, it brought in an incredible book career.

About The Author

Zachary Weiner is 23 and has been published in numerous magazines and newspapers. He is the author of the recent novel "City at Night" and the upcoming novels "A Simple fate of twists" Ballantine Books "The Experts Speak" Harper Collins.

The Netherlands is a country known for its religious, ideological and ethnical tolerance. But what is perhaps less known is that it is also a country religiously divided into a northern part dominated by a culture of Calvinism and a southern part, which is predominantly Catholic. Today, when people speak of below the rivers they refer to the Catholic provinces and when they talk about above the rivers they are pointing to the Calvinist provinces north of the geographical border of the rivers Maas, Waal and Rhine, which roughly run parallel to this historical and cultural border.
When the Netherlands declared independence from Spain in 1579 by the Union of Utrecht and were recognized by the peace agreement with Spain by the signing of the Treaty of Munster in 1648, the Low Lands as the Netherlands is literally translated, did not include the southern provinces. Only with the defeat of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna in 1815 were these provinces included, and not until 1831 when Belgium gained independence were the borders constituted that comprise the Netherlands as we know it. Culturally though, the southern provinces and especially the province of Limburg the hind leg of the Dutch lion where I grew up belonged to the Catholic sphere of influence. Even in present day the Netherlands, it makes a huge difference in attitude and perspective on life if you are from above or from below the rivers.
As a child I slept in the attic room of our home, which had 5 windows that looked like embrasures cut out in the rooftop. In the small distance that separated the small town of Papenhoven from adjoining Obbicht to the south, I could see the church belfry in the center of town rising high above its surrounding, the short line of farms and single family houses of red brick stone and tilted tile roofs. Looking out of a loophole in my little fortress in the attic, to the west I looked over fields of golden grain stalks billowing like ocean waves to a slight breeze. From my window I could clearly see the river Maas cutting through the landscape meandering along, and at the other bank of the river, Belgium. I lived on the narrowest stroke of land in the Netherlands, where Belgium and Germany squeeze the hind leg of the Dutch lion. On the other side of our house was the Juliana canal and only 2 or 3 miles further to the east lay Germany, the old heartland of Charlemagne, buried in the nearby famous Dom of Aachen. Like in Belgium, most people in Limburg are Catholic, so are the schools, the soccer clubs and of course the fanfare, the drill band to be found in each small town in Limburg. The Episcopal College, my secondary school, was located in Sittard, a border town with Germany and 5 miles from my home. Diligently for almost 6 years, I bicycled every morning through the alternating corn and grain fields, meadows and small villages on my way to school.
I never liked school very much, not even my Catholic primary school, the Saint Joseph school. At first of course, I didnt think much of it, like small children never do. The world to small children is simply what exists immediately around them. To the young childs mind, there is no other happiness than the one that surrounds them. At Catholic school we would say our prayers each morning before lessons started, and on Friday and Tuesday mornings the local priest would teach Bible classes. All this constituted my childhood happiness in which I participated wholeheartedly like all children did, even though my parents were from above the rivers, and even though now the faithfulness of Catholicism is a strange entity to me. As a young child I didnt give it much reflection, nor could I. With the wisdom of hindsight, it might look cruel that it was always Mohammed, the Moroccan kid whom the substitute teacher used to pick on, until one day the teacher, holding him firmly by his neck, pushing him out of the classroom, ended up busting his head through a glass panel in the door. Yet, I didnt think much of it. Now, of course I recognize the scholastic methods of Jesuitism, and the dominance of structured discipline in Catholicism at my school over the Protestants care for nurturing each childs inner nature and the diversity of individual personalities. I didnt think much of it, even though my most profound school memory has always been boredom and aloofness from the Catholic methods of education.
My parents of course did not grow up in Limburg, but they moved there when I was barely a few weeks old. They raised me in the progressive spirit of northern reformers like Comenius, Rousseau and Froebel, allowing me as a young child to explore my own needs, drives, feelings and thoughts and form my own personality freely and spontaneously. The only limitations I faced were the limitations of common reason, which were without exception explained to me rationally after which it was left to me to decide on my actions AND bear the consequences that resulted from them. This of course was the worst preparation for attending a Catholic school one can imagine, with its more rigorous perception of social hierarchy and educational method. Yet, alternatives to attend other schools are scarce in Limburg unless you are able and willing to travel more than an hour daily to reach one of the few Montessori schools in the south. Thus, my parents being pragmatic and practical people, I completed Saint Josephs elementary school and entered a Catholic secondary school called the Episcopal College, a name reminiscent of its past when it was an integrated part of the monastery still located in the adjacent building. A few monks even taught some classes there until as late as the early 80s. I will not draw out all the petty arguments, my naively offending inquiries into the reasons for certain rules and disciplinary measurements that followed, and the tensions between me and the school master and head teachers that arose. Enough to draw out a particular scene, which engrained itself in my precious and unraveling awareness as a budding teenager. It was this experience, which was to become my sobering way of light while finding my way through the dreary labyrinth of the world.
Once, we were given back our graded Latin exam to review. We could take them home with us, but had to hand them in the very next day. Of course, it came to be that I forgot to pack my papers and I apologized, pledging I would bring back the exam the next day. But it caused my teacher great anger and he punished me by ordering me to hand copy the schools regulations and hand them in with the exam the next day. Unfortunately too, I was the only student who had forgotten his exam and I suspected a personal vendetta in his harsh and unreasonable punishment. Now I understand his reaction was a typical scholastic pedagogical method that must be common in the Catholic training of a teacher, but I also resented his incompetence as a pedagogue who failed to acknowledge the reasonable nature of the child I was.
At first I didnt, no couldnt, take his response serious and in a calm manner of disbelief I politely replied: I am sorry, I will return my exam tomorrow. I couldnt and still dont see the loss of returning the exam one day later, but it seemed to make a huge difference for my teacher, who insisted.
The next day I came to school and handed in my exam without the composition, which as a result accumulated to a doubling of the writing imposition for each extra day I was late. In the following lessons again it was doubled until finally I was excluded from Latin classes overall and was called into the principals office to explain my behavior.
The school principal, Bitsch, had the posture of a saturated pig, adorned with a friendly neighbors smile, in which I hoped to find the insight of reason. Maybe I should have abandoned all hope the moment I entered his office and heard him recite a quote from the Bible. Of course I forgot the quote, as I also did not know the answer to his question of where in the Bible the quote was located. He provided the answer for me, although I could not know if he was sincere in answering, more than I had been. His compromise was for me to copy the school regulations ten times by hand, encouraging me to be the wiser of the two and just swallow my pride. This halfhearted attempt to reason made an even weaker impression upon me than the complete lack of it in my authoritative Latin teacher Hanssen. The punishment was ridiculous from the start and I could not submit myself to ridicule. The main conclusion I drew from this was that my enthusiasm for formal education definitively cracked and it was not long after this that I would drop out of the Episcopal curriculum.
Despite dropping out of school, I never lost my enthusiasm for learning. However, I never lost my skepticism for formal education and have become an autodidact by heart. I consider learning a life-long obligation without end in the line of Comenius thought. I think back of my days at school now with a certain bitterness for the professional pedagogues who could not recognize a childs nature and instead of stimulating it to find its own path, they attempted to curb and bend it to serve their own purpose. Nevertheless, I am a warmhearted supporter of education for all and the principles promoted more than 400 years earlier by the Czech educational reformer Jan Amos Comenius. Comenius was born in 1592 and brought up in Bohemia in the present day Czech Republic; and like I did, Comenius suffered from incompetent teachers as a child. But despite their incompetence, he grew to love learning and proper education as the pillar of societal reform and human progress.
In a time of fierce religious conflicts, Comenius was the head of the Union of Brethren, the first Reformed Church in Europe, which followed the principles of the Czech reformer Jan Hus 1369-1415 and was brutally suppressed by the Jesuit King Ferdinand of Habsburg. Despite the incredible hardship he would suffer in life, from an early loss of parents, wife and children, home and experiencing the Habsburgian contra-Reformist suppression and the cruelties of the 30-Years War between the Catholic League and the Protestant German princes, Comenius was able to find his way out of the Labyrinth of the World and regain the Paradise of the Heart. His book of that title would become a classic in European literature, while Comenius himself grew to become one of the most celebrated educational reformers in history. He advocated reforming the old medieval scholastic method and introducing a more child-friendly method of education, which in our time has become so evident.
Being a refugee most of his life, Comenius was finally settled in tolerant Amsterdam in 1556 until he died in 1570. He now lies buried in the Wallonian Church in Naarden, the Netherlands, a place of pilgrimage for many Czechs, to whom Comenius is one of their biggest national heroes. Still his name is associated with the Comenius Education program of the European Union and the Comenius Medal, one of UNESCO

If you are not a successful author yet, incorporate the following 10 Secrets:
1. Treat your book as a business.
You spend many hours creating a masterpiece to help your audience. It follows then, you need to set up a regular time schedule to market and promote it.
2. Create a flyer for each book you offer.
Hand out your flyer at business meetings or at any public place. Ask your audience to pass the flyer along to friends and associates. Offer one free report or ezine on the flyer to get new email addresses to send promotion to later.
3. Create a line or two about your book in your signature file that goes on every email you send.
After your name, title, and benefit statements, add something like: eBk: "Write your eBook or Other Book--Fast!" Include your addresses and phone numbers too.
4. Invest some money in book marketing.
Contact a book coach and schedule a low-cost introductory session to see if you are a match and will get what you need. Many authors print too many copies or use an expensive service to get book finished instead of putting aside an equal amount to market it.
5. Take a teleclass on how to market your book.
These low cost and low time investments can make your book the great seller it should be. Discover inexpensive ways to market via the phone and email. How convenient!
6. Dont get fooled by high-cost services.
If its too good to be true, it isnt true. When you hire someone to do it all for you, it can cost over $1000 a month with small results. Check out what services fit your budget, and get a realistic picture of what your results will be.
7. Delegate some of the marketing.
Like me, hire a low-cost computer assistant from your local high school. They know more than many professionals. For under $10 an hour, you can multiply your promotion exponentially via ecommerce your assistant does for you 2-3 times a week.
8. Set a dollar goal for your book each month.
Dont count copies sold. Count each months book sales. Put your goal near your workstation to remind you of what you want. Dont price your book too low, so youll appreciate an easy experience--getting what you deserve for all your work.
9. Learn more about Internet book marketing.
Think about reaching hundreds of thousands of your audience every week. When you give them what they want--free information--they will eventually buy. Many authors go the traditional path of talks, ads or press releases. They dont always pay well for the effort.
10. Dont stop marketing.
Many clients come to me and say they are discouraged their book didnt sell well in four months. Replace doubt with patience for the process. Success takes many months, but once you get it, the Internet keeps it multiplied for you.
Knowing the secrets of successful authors can help you receive the same prestige and become a household word.
Judy Cullins © 2004 All Rights Reserved.

About The Author
Judy Cullins, 20-year book and Internet Marketing Coach works with small business people who want to make a difference in peoples lives, build their credibility and clients, and make a consistent life-long income. Author of 10 eBooks including "Write your eBook Fast" and "How to Market your Business on the Internet," she offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, The Book Coach Says...and Business Tip of the Month at http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml and 140 free articles.
judy@bookcoaching.com

We hear a lot these days about more books actually being sold outside the traditional bookstore. Think about it. When was the last time you actually took time to linger and explore the bookshelves When did you last impulsively grab a book, flip it over, read the blurbs, and finger through a few chapters Lets face it, most of us are too hurried.
So Whats The Point
If you dont take the time to browse, why expect your potential customer to do so
Try This:
Grab about five copies of your book, and head for the "Ma and Pa" stores in your hometown area. Pick a time when you know it wont be too busy. Talk to the owner or manager. Ask him if you may set up a small display on his counter. Offer him a percentage of each sale.
Get Impulsive!
Go for the impulse buyers! Havent you at one time, while waiting at a cash register, seen a small display of books on the counter Before it was your turn to get checked out, you grabbed it, became excited, and added it to your other purchases Maybe it was a novel set in your locale. People love reading tales taking place in their familiar surroundings.
They think, "Oh, Ive driven that road! I know where it is!
Wheres the next landmark Have to find out!" They feel they become a "part" of it.
Is your book set in your region Try your local gift shops, bed and breakfast inns, pharmacies, hair salon, even the little "quick stops." You get the picture.
Is the hero in your book of Italian descent Is there a lot of ethnicity Head for the specialty shops like that little corner deli. Pesto. Gnochi. Fresh-baked focaccia. Get your book on that counter!
Maybe kayaking through turbulent river rapids is a large part of your novel. Or sky diving, race car driving, hang gliding, deep sea diving. Head on out to the sporting goods stores.
Whatever, go for it. Take control.
Another Idea
Grab your books and get a booth at the local festivals taking place in and around your area. Maybe share one with an author friend. In my area, there are different festivals every weekend throughout the summer and early fall. In the winter, many craft fairs. Think "thousands of potential customers!"
What Are You Waiting For
I know youre thinking, "But I only want to write!" That may be so. Promoting is time consuming. But whats the alternative Your book just sets there and gathers dust. So ease on out of that chair, and head on out. Let people know about your book. Talk it up. Readers who love your book will add another dimension to your promotion - word-of-mouth advertising!
Start Small and Think Big
Some stores you approach may not work! Granted. But youll get the ball rolling and your mind spinning. "Where else can I sell my book" Youll find yourself eyeing every little store as a possibility, while driving your car or strolling the sidewalks of your hometown. Who knows, you may even become your hometowns next "celebrity!" Give it a try!

About The Author
Mary Holzrichter
Do you enjoy reading quality fast paced action novels Do you like to write them Either way, visit ActionTales.com . We offer some great titles for
readers and an unbeatable publishing deal for authors.