Cool Book Of The Day

Pitch reporters with our up-to-date media databases:

Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: Adult children and their parents, specifically adult women and their mothers, people interested in tearooms and in drinking tea.

Q: What is the book about?
A: This is a collection of essays revealing the issues of the mother-daughter connection in adulthood. Over cups of tea in a variety of tearooms in Iowa this mother and daughter share their feelings about aging, role changes, work, and self-esteem. We live in a fast-paced world where little time is made for the relationships we value. Together this mother and daughter make time for tea and conversation and in the process reveal the story of their unique beginnings. Ultimately they learn about themselves and each other one tearoom at a time.

Q: Why are you the best people to write this book?
A: My mother and I have a compelling story to tell. I was a foster child who moved into the my foster parent’s home during my turbulent adolescence. Since our beginnings, and over the past 30 years, we have learned how to unite, love, and define the true meaning of family and what is required to make blended families work.

The themes discussed in Under the Tea Leaves resonate for older women who long to have time and relationship with their adult children in our busy culture where distance is a fact of life. The book also reaches younger women who are struggling to understand their adult parents, particularly their mothers.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: Our readers have expressed their enjoyment of the book as a way to sample the tearoom experience and gain understanding through the universal themes expressed in the essays. People have also mentioned feeling inspired to make more of an effort to find quality time for those relationships that matter most to them and even go on a tearoom journey of their own.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: Our web site is www.underthetealeaves.com. We are available for book discussion groups via conference call or if available in person. We encourage book group discussions of the themes of our book and have presentations available regarding specific topics of Under the Tea Leaves.

Pitch reporters with our up-to-date media databases:

Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: Salty Dogs will appeal to dog lovers as well as beach lovers.

Salty Dogs is a photographic journey of 39 different breeds of dogs enjoying all the beach has to offer. Tails gyrating with glee, the dogs in Salty Dogs dig in the sand, tackle monstrous waves, retrieve sticks and toys and explode into waves. Seeing their joy and their ability to live in the moment, brings a smile to the face and a brief reprieve from the stress of everyday life.

Each set of photos are accompanied by quotes that fit the action in the photos.

Q: Why are you the best person to write this book?
A: Capturing dogs in action is my passion and the beach is my preferred place to photograph dogs. I have haunted the beach every since my first visit 10 years ago with my own Jack Russell Terrier puppy, Molly, by my side.

I happened to glance out and saw two surfers going out. One was carrying a large Golden Retriever. I asked my new friend to watch Molly and quickly waded out to get pictures of the surfing golden retriever. As I clicked away, the surfer positioned his dog on the board and pushed him into a wave. With a huge canine grin, the Golden rode the wave till it folded over him and only a nose showed.

The slides from that day hooked me. Instead of pictures showing dogs obeying their owner’s wishes, my slides showed dogs obeying their natural instincts. I soon quit my job at our family garden center and started photographing dogs. My photographs of dogs have appeared in Dog Fancy, Dog World, Popular Dogs, Dogs for Kids, Just Labs and other national publications.

Browntrout, Willow Creek Press, Reiman Publications and Petprints calendars all feature my breed photographs. My images have also appeared in books published by Wiley, Willow Creek Press, Adams, Barron’s Educational and other publishers.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: Salty Dogs is the first national book to feature dogs at the beach. Other dog photo essay books are illustrated with dogs interacting with the camera; Salty Dogs captures dogs interacting with life. They are taking a break from the reality of living in a human world and acting in the most instinctual ways of a dog.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: If you enjoy dogs being dogs, you will enjoy Salty Dogs.

Pitch reporters with our up-to-date media databases:

Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer:

•Entrepreneurs
•Solopreneurs
•Business owners
•Marketers
•Creative talent in marketing, advertising, and promotion departments
•Advertising, entrepreneurship, and marketing students

Q: What is the book about?
A: This handy guide is packed with excellent visual examples, comments by top creative talents, applicable advertising techniques and more. Marketers, entrepreneurs and students looking to learn how to write powerful copy, design great layouts, use color and type effectively, develop heart-stopping headlines and think more creatively, will find this is book is an invaluable resource.

Written in an easy-to-read style, readers will learn specific techniques to create an on-target consistent look, choose an appropriate tone of voice, and create an on-strategy message for their materials, so their promotions will be noticed, not invisible. Creating advertising and marketing campaigns that deliver a “wow” effect require the kind of innovative and strategic thinking explored in this work.

Applauded by Al Ries, co-author of the advertising classics, Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind and The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, this book is “loaded with lots of great ideas and concepts. Guaranteed to stimulate your thinking and your creative juices.”

Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the Guerrilla Marketing book series sums it up best: “In Street-Smart Advertising, Margo Berman gives you the answers to the questions you must ask if you’re embarking upon a battle for the buzz that you want to be sure to win.”

Q: Why are you the best person to write this book?
A: Margo Berman is an award-winning creative director, speaker, inventor and professor of Advertising and PR at Florida International University. She was a marketing consultant for 20 years, with her own ad and PR agency – Global Impact. She’s won numerous regional, national, and international creative awards for clients like American Express, Alamo Rent A Car, and Banana Boat.

Margo’s produced and hosted an interview talk show in Miami: Artists About Themselves. And has written articles for journals and reference publications including the Encyclopedia of Advertising.

As a corporate trainer, she conducts seminars and webinars in the areas or creativity, advertising and branding. Margo invented tactikPAK®, a patented system of learning in nine business disciplines (U.S. Patent No. 5,927,987).

She also has created the training series Mental Peanut Butter® and co-authored three books on spirituality. Street-Smart Advertising: How To Win the Battle of the Buzz™ was released in September of 2006 by Rowman & Littlefield. Margo has produced two 6-part webinar series based on her book: Street-Smart Advertising and More Street-Smart Advertising. She also has CDs and DVDs on Mental Peanut Butter®, How to Write Killer Copy, How to Create Great Ads at Breakneck Speed and How to Keep Your Creative Juices Flowing, as well as an inspirational program: Soaring, Not Just Flying.

Currently, she is writing her next advertising book, which will be released in 2008, by the same publisher. The working title is Collaborative Copy and Design: Strategic Visual & Verbal Solutions.

Margo has received Outstanding Teaching and Research Awards from the university. She was the 2001 Woman of the Year in Communications Education. In 2004, her Web site, www.UnlockTheBlock.com won a national Clarion Award. In 2005, she was named a Kauffman Faculty Scholar. Then, in 2006, she received the Dean’s Outstanding Faculty of the Year Award.

Margo Berman brings a rare clarity to an often-mystifying topic: marketing mastery.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: Rich in relevant insights, Street-Smart Advertising: How to Win the Battle of the Buzz offers hands-on techniques for powerful writing, innovative design, and precise use of color, enhanced by stimulating exercises. Included are firsthand comments from the creators of some of today’s most innovative campaigns, such as the Aflac “Duck,” Subway’s “Eat Fresh,” and Burger King’s “Subservient Chicken.” In easy-to-understand language, Berman gets to the heart of creating on-strategy, on-target advertising messages that are easy-to-grasp and hard-to-forget. The book explains the latest, most effective methods to understand and engage the consumer through observational research, media intersection, and interactive media.

In addition, it includes more than 60 visual examples, typographical examples, quotes from creative talent, case studies, self-promotion examples, international color chart, and creative exercises to stimulate right brain thinking. Berman’s book doesn’t just discuss new ways to reach a specific audience it also clearly shows how to develop breakthrough campaigns that create a buzz.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: Anyone looking for a handy how-to marketing guide will love being able to read the chapters in any order. For example, readers can:

•Improve their strategic and critical thinking skills in chapters one, six, and nine

•Delve into the power of typography in chapters two and three

•Fine-tune their graphic design skills in chapters four and seven

•Strengthen their promotional writing with easy-to-apply slogan development and writing techniques in chapter five

•Understand the psychology of color in chapter eight

•Gain insight into campaigns through short case studies in chapter ten

•Learn about powerful self-promotions in chapter eleven

•The visual references throughout the book will help everyone gain a deeper appreciation of how innovative campaigns work and what makes them so memorable.

Pitch reporters with our up-to-date media databases:

Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: People close to retiring or those who have recently retired.

Q: What is the book about?
A: The book is about developing the attitude to make your retirement years the best years of your life. There’s no time to waste figuring it out. This book helps you sort through choices that need to be made with many references to go with it. It is humorous, easy to read but important information for those who aren’t sure what the retirement future holds. It is NOT a book about finances.

Q: Why are you the best person to write this book?
A: After retiring, it took me over a year to “get it.” I want to help others get a jump start and not have to figure it out. The clock is ticking.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: Most books about retirement have to do with financial planning. I would be the last one to take advice from on that subject. This is about the attitude needed…and, it’s funny.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: It makes a great retirement gift. Once people buy it or receive it, they come back to buy it in quantity.