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Find Out What Might Have Happened off Cape Cod on a Stormy February Night in 1952, in Our Kindle Nation eBook Of The Day, John M. Urban’s A Single Deadly Truth

The waters off the Outer Cape have been taking seamen’s lives for centuries. Now, in a very contemporary sea yarn by John M. Urban, they give back A Single Deadly Truth:

Here’s the set-up:


On the stormy February night in 1952, the 500-foot oil tanker Pendleton snapped in half in 60-foot seas off Cape Cod. The ensuing rescue of the Pendleton ranks as one of the most heroic stories in the history of the US Coast Guard. That much is true. John M. Urban’s novel A Single Deadly Truth explores another story that might have begun that same stormy night – Just $2.99 in the Kindle Store!

In a work of fiction, A Single Deadly Truth tells that another ship sank that same night, just a few miles from where the Pendleton went down. The ship’s sole survivor remained committed to taking the story, and the ship’s location, to his grave. Until now.

A Single Deadly Truth features a thirty-five year old college professor and part-time harbormaster named Steve Decatur. He spends summers living aboard an old wooden sailboat in the town of Harbor Point, Massachusetts. When Decatur’s friend, a lobsterman and diver named Chris Blanchard, is found dead off Cape Cod, Decatur is called on to retrieve the man’s boat. Along the way, there’s growing evidence that Blanchard’s death was a murder, not an accident.

To the end, Decatur remains persistent in uncovering the truth. In doing so he uncovers a much larger crime.

About the Author:

Like his protagonist, John Urban has worked as a college professor and he sails the waters of Southern New England on an old wooden sailboat that he restored. He is a regular contributor to the blog Write On The Water. His short stories have appeared in the anthologies Seasmoke and Deadfall.


The ocean was his desired destination from an early age. As a boy living a landlocked life in Western Massachusetts, nights were dedicated to reading about boats and watching Flipper and weekends were spent boating and fishing, April-to-October, on Long Island Sound.

Thoughts of a career at sea ended early after a stint at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, but the circle of life has come around some years later in the form of the fictional world of Steve Decatur.

Urban lives just outside Boston and spends his summers near the waters edge of Buzzards Bay and Rhode Island Sound. A Single Deadly Truth, published on Amazon Kindle, is Urban’s debut novel. A second Steve Decatur mystery is due out in 2011. For more information: http://www.johnmurban.com/

And here, in the comfort of your own browser, is your free sample:

Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert, Saturday, January 29: Ruth Downie’s Medicus Explores the Salacious Side of the Roman Empire, plus … Kindle Your Creativity for Just $2.99 with D.D. Scott’s Muse Therapy (Today’s Sponsor)




Publisher’s Weekly said that “the salacious underside of Roman-occupied Britain comes to life” in this morning’s latest addition to our 200+ Free Book Alert listings….

But first, a word from … Today’s Sponsor

(Ed. Note: About a year ago, acting on a recommendation by Seth Godin, I read a remarkable book entitled The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle by Steven Pressfield. It was a pretty remarkable book — all about removing or avoiding the sources of friction that were keeping me from getting done as much as I would like to get done — and it has had an effect on my life nearly every day since I read it.

But it was a bit dry in places, and I suspect that it was also a bit of a guy’s book, if you don’t mind my saying so. Neither of those was a deal-breaker for me personally of course, but I remember daydreaming at the time that it would be great if somebody could come along and deliver a similar message that might be more vivid, more lifely, more fun, and more accessible, including, of course, to women.
And so, now, along comes the woman of my dreams, or of my daydreams in any case, to write an incredibly smart, funny, and truly inspirational book that could be the spicier sibling of Pressfield’s book. And I am here to tell you that, like The War of Art, D.D. Scott’s MUSE THERAPY: Unleashing the Inner Sybil is going to have an effect on thousands of people’s lives nearly every day once they have read it. –S.W.)

“D. D. Scott is a creative dynamo!
–Misa Ramirez, author of Living the Vida Lola, a Lola Cruz Mystery


Muse Therapy: Unleashing Your Inner Sybil
by D.D. Scott
5.0 out of 5 stars 3 Reviews
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
Don’t have a Kindle? Get yours here.

Great Read For Writers & Readers!
Must Have If You Are A Writer!

Ignite your Creative Fire!

Here’s the set-up:

MUSE THERAPY utilizes fun and fabulous tools to inject life into writers’ tired and/or stressed out muses. By showing you how to analyze your muses’ funks, rein in your creative divas and ultimately up your page counts, D. D.’s created a writer’s go-to-manual for “muse disorders”. She’ll help you dig deep then deeper still into your writer psyche.

Why is she helping writers the world over? Here’s the scoop…

Once upon a time her muses weren’t ticking. They were ticked off. Why? Because they were too damn tired and stressed out trying to find their way on the Yellow Brick Road to Publishing Oz. Screw the Happily Ever After. Her creative divas couldn’t produce past page one.

Saying that writing-for-publication is tough is the bolder-than-bold-faced understatement of the new millennium. And with today’s huge economic and technological changes, it ain’t gettin’ any easier.

But once D. D. shows you how to recognize, acknowledge and accept your muses’ afflictions and teaches you her tricks, tips and “trips” to treat the word witches of your writing world, you and your muses will be cranking out pages with gusto.

Plus, you won’t be alone in your journey. Her MUSE THERAPY tips and tricks continue to be apropos no matter where a writer is in his/her career. By sharing fantastic and at times roll on the floor, laugh out loud anecdotes she gathered – either interviewing or attending workshops given by the romance genre’s hottest stars – she proves this assertion.


What the Reviewers Say
DD Scott is a creative dynamo! Muse Therapy should be on every writer’s book shelf/ebook shelf. Get inspired, channel facets of your creativity you never knew you had, and energize your writing self.
–Misa Ramirez, author Living the Vida Lola, a Lola Cruz Mystery


I don’t know how D.D. Scott does it! Going from fiction to non-fiction writing and making both so much fun to read!!! As a writer, I was beginning to get ‘stuck’ a few times. When I found Muse Therapy, I did the exercises D.D. Scott suggested and my “lazy Lucy” went from the couch to the keyboard in seconds!! Now she’s “lucky Lucy,” and doesn’t fail me AT ALL!! When she does get lazy, I break out my Muse Therapy and read a couple passages to get Lucy back at the keyboard.
–Tonyak


I’m not a writer, BUT, as an avid reader, this is awesome, too, as it gives you a great insight as to what it takes to creatively write a book. D.D. Scott has a great voice, & she is funny too, so the combination makes for a great read. You can learn so much & have fun doing it! Buy this one!
–Ann
About the Author
D. D. Scott’s romantic comedies are all about sexy, sassy, smart, career-driven women and the men who complete them. They’re a bit chick lit with a gone-country twist. She’s agented, and her series The Bootscootin’ Books – think Sex and The City meets Urban Cowboy – debuted with book one BOOTSCOOTIN’ BLAHNIKS in August 2010.

She’s a member of RWA as well as RWA’s Chick Lit Writers of the World, Kiss of Death, ScriptScene, ESPAN, and IRWA Chapters plus serves on RWA’s History Committee for the National RWA Board. She’s been a guest blogger on Romance Writers on the Journey, Inside the Writer’s Mind, Daily Dose Fantasy Romance, Romance University, and Romance Lives Forever. She blogs with group blog Savvy Authors the second Friday of every month, is linked to on Romancing the Blog and also has an active blog of her own on her website at www.DDScott.com. In addition, her first RWR article was published by RWA in the July 2010 issue.

Also a Writer’s Go-to-Gal for Muse Therapy, D. D. debuted her Muse Therapy Live Workshops this past March and April for GCCRWA’s Silken Sands Conference in Florida and RT BookLovers’ Convention in Ohio. In addition to MUSE THERAPY: UNLEASHING YOUR INNER SYBIL (the book version of her Muse Therapy Online Classes & Live Workshops), STOMPIN’ ON STETSONS is also available. For updates on her books, her sexy, sassy, smart neurotic writer’s life blog, and for a schedule of appearances and Muse Therapy Sessions, visit her website www.DDScott.com. While there, sign-up for her mailing list for chances to win fabulous tchotchkes.


Click here to download Muse Therapy: Unleashing Your Inner Sybil (or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!

Each day’s list is sponsored by one paid title. We encourage you to support our sponsors and thank you for considering them.
Authors, Publishers, iPad Accessory Manufacturers:
Interested in learning more about sponsorship? Just click on this link for more information.

Free Contemporary Titles in the Kindle Store
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Just use the slider at right of your screen below to scroll through a complete, updated list of free contemporary Kindle titles, and click on an icon like this one (at right) to read a free sample right here in your browser! Titles are sorted in reverse chronological order so you can easily see new freebies.

With “Kindle Singles,” Amazon Shows Off Its “Harvard Degree” in eBook Pricing

Other bloggers and journalists have joined Amazon’s own press office this week in making a big deal of Amazon’s “brand new” initiative called “Kindle Singles,” and I think it’s a big deal, too.

But brand new? Not so much.

First, let’s take a straight-on look at Amazon’s press release announcement of Kindle Singles, on Wednesday, January 26: Priced between $0.99 and $4.99, at a length “typically between 5,000 and 30,000 words, each Kindle Single is intended to allow a single killer idea — well researched, well argued and well illustrated — to be expressed at its natural length.” Nothing cheesy about that, right?

And despite grousing from some quarters that Kindle Singles are just a way to increase the cost-per-word for Kindle customers (I disagree), the initial launch of 22 Kindle Singles titles has done very well. The day after launch various Kindle Singles offerings dominated the Kindle Store’s Movers and Shakers list, and as of Saturday afternoon January 29 all 22 titles were in the Kindle Store’s overall top 4,000, 16 were in the top 1,000, and two are in the top 100. That’s actually a brilliant launch for such a diverse array of 22 titles by authors who, with a few notable exceptions like Jodi Picoult and Pete Hamill, are not bestsellers.

But here’s what I found a little amusing: 

Amazon has been down a path very similar to this one before, almost exactly a year ago. On January 25, 2010, Amazon issued a press release for a new venture called “Harvard Business Review Short Cuts.” There are differences, of course. Few of the Short Cuts authors had any name recognition at all, their Short Cuts were nothing more than repurposed chapters, and they were all priced at $3.99 each. Even though Amazon says that Kindle Singles will be “priced between $0.99 and $4.99,” all 22 of the initial offerings are priced between $0.99 and $2.99, and the average price is just $2.22. They are a diverse group of offerings, topics, and genres, and many of the authors are well-known in one field or another.

At the earlier $3.99 price point, the “Harvard Business Review Short Cuts” program was a pretty dismal failure. Indeed, back on July 12, 2010 the program was Exhibit A for my post entitled “Pricing to Fail: Case Studies in Dumb Pricing – Harvard Business Review Short Cuts, the Irrelevance of Cost Issues,” in which I described the program’s January 2010 launch and then wrote:

Six months later, the initiative looks like a failure, despite heavy promotion by Amazon and the valuable imprimatur of the Harvard Business Review Press. Most of the titles are languishing far out the “long tail” in Kindle Store sales rankings, i.e., over 70,000 in most cases. Part of the problem, it seems likely, is that the “Short Cuts” series is overpriced, with a list price currently set at $3.99, discounted 20 percent by Amazon to $3.16. Even at $2.99, a reader wanting to work through all eight to 12 chapters of the full books from which these short-form ebooks are drawn would have to shell out roughly $25 to $35. One would think that anyone with the wherewithal to be able to digest Harvard Business School materials with his morning coffee would also be capable of the number-crunching necessary to determine that the convenience of bite-size ebook chapters is more than offset by the high price. At $1.49 to $1.99 each, “Short Cuts” might well be a winning proposition.

So, kudos to Amazon, for it is clear that they went to school on the pricing issues that made the Harvard collaboration a loser and came back with the combination of content and pricing required to make Kindle Singles a brilliant success. Here are the first 22 offerings, with introductory text from Amazon:

Each Kindle Single presents a compelling idea–well researched, well argued, and well illustrated–expressed at its natural length. From an elaborate bank heist in Lifted, to Congolese rebel camps in The Invisible Enemy, to Jodi Picoult’s moving portrayal of family in Leaving Home, they offer nuanced journeys of both fact and fiction. This first set of Singles was selected by our team of editors, and includes works by Rich Cohen, Pete Hamill, and Darin Strauss. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we have.

The Real Lebowski

The Real Lebowski by Rich Cohen. He wrote the first draft of Apocalypse Now. He discovered Arnold Schwarzenegger. He wrote Clint Eastwood’s “Go ahead, make my day.” The Vanity Fair writer and author of Sweet and Low trails tough-guy screenwriter/director John Milius as he fights to find his place in a transformed and unwelcoming movie business.
$2.99

The Invisible Enemy

The Invisible Enemy by Jonathan Littell. On assignment from Le Monde, the acclaimed novelist (The Kindly Ones) chronicles a forgotten war–the Lord’s Resistance Army’s terrorist campaign in Congo–and its devastating effect on innocent families.
$1.99

Leaving Home: Short Pieces

Leaving Home: Short Pieces by Jodi Picoult.  The deep pains and powerful pleasures of parenting: those are the extremes explored here by the extraordinary novelist Jodi Picoult. In three short pieces that display her wide emotional range, Picoult weaves together stories of love and loss with heartbreaking simplicity.
$2.99

They Are Us

They Are Us by Pete Hamill. From the eminent journalist and novelist comes a common-sense plea for a new immigration policy, one that asks America to embrace its illegal-alien population, not condemn it. Hamill advocates a fresh look at amnesty and pardon policies, offering illegal immigrants a “hand of welcome.”
$0.99

Octomom and the Politics of Babies

Octomom and the Politics of Babies by Mark Greif.  Eight babies. A financial crash. The porn offers. The infant formula. How one woman became a scapegoat for America’s troubles–but taught us how both the mighty and the powerless are gaming our system. This comic, provocative, wittily argued essay from n+1 suggests that the real meaning of Octomom reflects the way we all live now.
$1.99

Lifted

Lifted by Evan Ratliff . The thieves had a handpicked crew, a stolen helicopter, a cache of explosives, and a plan to rob a $150-million cash repository. The Stockholm police had a tip-off. Ratliff, a writer for Wired and The New Yorker, recounts the inside story of an audacious 2009 bank heist, and the race to solve it.
$1.99

Pakistan and the Mumbai Attacks: The Untold Story

Pakistan and the Mumbai Attacks: The Untold Story by Sebastian Rotella/ProPublica.  The latest reporting from ProPublica, the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom, reports on the U.S. investigation of the 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai and provides a detailed picture of the ties between Pakistan’s intelligence service and a leading militant group.
$0.99

Darkstar

Darkstar by Christopher R. Howard. In this pre-apocalyptic love story, Sailor, a homeless Irish teenager who’s haunted by a diabolical voice, seeks to reunite with a soul mate he hasn’t seen since boyhood, as a cosmic event threatens to extinguish life on Earth. Howard’s fiction has appeared in McSweeney’s, and his first novel, Tea of Ulaanbaatar, comes out this May.
$2.99

How To Not Succeed In Show Business By Really Trying

How To Not Succeed In Show Business By Really Trying by Claudia Lonow.  The road from Knots Landing actress to success as a Hollywood TV writer proved a bit bumpy for Claudia Lonow. It involved a high school crush accused of murder, includes unfortunate professional encounters with Michael Keaton and Mary Tyler Moore, and culminates in a boyfriend-bonding experience at a Van Nuys sex club.
$1.99

Long Island Shaolin

Long Island Shaolin by Darin Strauss. Karate belts are for losers. So novelist (and 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for his memoir, Half a Life) Darin Strauss discovered as a teenager growing up on Long Island, during a brief brush with Kung-fu mastery, suburban-style. One handy lesson learned: if two lions meet, they don’t have to fight.
$1.99

Rescuing Evil: What We Lose

Rescuing Evil: What We Lose by Ron Rosenbaum. The author of Explaining Hitler and the forthcoming How the End Begins explores the controversial use of the term “evil,” in a provocative analysis that leads from Hitler to a psycho serial-killer cabbie in London. Rosenbaum makes a powerful case for the connection between evil and free will.
$1.99

Chinese Dreams

Chinese Dreams by Anand Giridharadas.  After six years exploring his parents’ native India, Anand Giridharadas–a young technology columnist for the New York Times and International Herald Tribune and author of India Calling–returns to China to measure a vast, troubled nation’s accomplishments and dreams.
$2.99

The $500 Diet

The $500 Diet by Ian Ayres.  What if every pound you lost also saved you some hard-earned cash? When Ian Ayres, a law professor at Yale, wanted to drop from 205 pounds to 180, he put his money where his mouth was. And it worked. The author of Carrots and Sticks shares his unique, incentive-based plan for losing weight.
$2.99

Piano Demon

Piano Demon: The globetrotting, gin-soaked, too-short life of Teddy Weatherford, the Chicago jazzman who conquered Asia by Brendan I. Koerner.  At age six, Teddy Weatherford was working in a Virginia coal mine. Two decades later, he was the jazz king of Asia. Koerner, a Wired contributing editor and author of Now the Hell Will Start, tells how a piano legend in a sharkskin suit lived the American Dream by leaving it behind.
$1.99

Journey to the Edge of the Light: A Story of Love, Leukemia and Transformation

Journey to the Edge of the Light: A Story of Love, Leukemia and Transformation by Cristina Nehring.  At what should have been one of the happiest moments of her life–on the eve of a rave review of her 2009 book, A Vindication of Love, on the cover of the New York Times Book Review–Cristina Nehring learned that her young daughter had leukemia. There began a journey through the medical world, and into her little girl’s heart.
$1.99

Beware Dangerism!

Beware Dangerism! by Gever Tulley.  Don’t let your kids climb on a jungle gym, eat bugs, or lick batteries. These are just a few of the standard-issue warnings that Gever Tulley, co-founder of the Tinkering School, tells us to ignore in this counter-intuitive essay. His basic message is both empowering and fun: Do try this at home.
$2.99

Reboot-enanny

Reboot-enanny by Rebecca Huval.  A young woman with dreams of a songwriting career finds friendship–and an audience–among a group of 1960s folk musicians who still live and thrive right where it all began, in Greenwich Village.
$0.99

The Business of Media

The Business of Media by Larry Dignan. For journalism students, writers, and aspiring media moguls everywhere–a guide to navigating the brave new world of the media, circa 2011. Larry Dignan, editor in chief of ZDNet, parses the past and forecasts the future for a media universe that seems to re-invent itself almost daily.
$2.99

The Dead Women of Juárez

The Dead Women of Juárez by Robert Andrew Powell.  It sounded like one of the great murder mysteries of our time: who was killing the women of Juárez? Journalist Robert Andrew Powell went to the Mexican border town to investigate, and separates fact from myth in a saga that eerily echoes the plot of Roberto Bolaño’s epic novel 2666.
$1.99

Days of Thunder

Days of Thunder by Thorsten Schier.  Ever hear of the New York Thunder? Didn’t think so. They’re New York’s number-two pro basketball team. Maybe you should try rooting for them. They could use the help. Thorsten Schier spends a season inside the (rented) Thunder locker room.
$0.99

The Happiness Manifesto

The Happiness Manifesto by Nic Marks.  Modern research proves the ancient wisdom that “money can’t buy you happiness.” But then why do our governments see their main task as simply growing GDP? Nic Marks, the founder of the London-based Centre for Well-Being, sets out an ingenious new way of defining national goals, and in the process reveals five ways people can nurture their own happiness.
$2.99

Homo Evolutis

Homo Evolutis by Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans.  Enriquez and Gullans–two eminent authors, researchers, and entrepreneurs–explore a world where humans increasingly shape their environment, their own selves, and other species. They envision a future in which humankind becomes a new species, one which directly and deliberately controls its own evolution and that of many other species. One of the inaugural TEDBooks.
$2.99

Kindle Nation’s Free Weekly Digest, January 27, 2011: Kindle Tips, Kindle Lending, Kindle Freebies, and the Kindle Revolution

IN THIS ISSUE – CLICK ON THE TITLES TO READ:
The Kindle Revolution and the Bottom Line: Amazon to Announce 2010 Corporate Earnings After Stock Market Close Today, January 27, 2011
Kindle’s New Lending Program May Not Be for Everyone, But It’s Definitely for Some: Lending & Borrowing Grow By Leaps and Bounds Through New “Kindle Lending Club”
From the Kindle Nation Mail Bag: Kindle User Tip – The Kindle Clock: Setting and Finding The Time on Your Kindle
INCOMING! IDENTIFY! IDENTIFY! Yes, It’s the Kindle Revolution
Kindle Nation Free Book Alert: Over 200 Free Contemporary Books!
Kindle Nation Weekly Sponsor:
A Novel by Deborah Wallis
another 5-star read @ just $2.99!

Deborah, I just finished listening to the excerpt on my Kindle and I’ve gotta say you’ve hit the sweet spot. Even though the genre is not usually my cup of tea I could tell right away that you’ve got terrific command of the tools of your trade as a novelist. I’m setting it up … as a Free Kindle Nation Short, and I will be in touch. Cheers, Steve
That’s the email message I sent immediately after I first read the work of this week’s sponsor, debut thriller novelist Deborah Wallis, and I meant every word. We’ve had three previous Free Kindle Nation Shorts authors who have turned up later signing AmazonEncore contracts, and after reading Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines: Murder at Cherry Point it would not surprise me a bit if Deborah Wallis turns out to be the third.
Here’s the set-up:
For the first time in more than a year, Abby Weaver’s family is together when her husband, Major Danny Weaver, returns home safely from Iraq. But only a few months later, a twist of fate puts him in the cockpit of a Harrier spinning out of control during the Cherry Point Air Show. Abby and her six-year-old son, Chris, watch in horror as their lives explode in a fiery crash on the tarmac in front of them.
Was it an accident or murder? Determined to find out what happened, Abby is drawn into the same sordid squadron secrets that Danny had stumbled onto before his death, secrets someone may have wanted concealed badly enough to kill for. As she hunts the person she believes murdered her husband, Abby becomes the hunted in this heart-pounding page-turner.

And here’s another author’s take:
It has become a cliche to say that you couldn t put a book down, but I literally stayed up all night turning the pages of Deborah Wallis’s new thriller. Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines: Murder at Cherry Point gives the reader a rare glimpse behind the Marine Corps chain link fences. This rip-snorting read offers real insights into the day-to-day events, the politics, the competition, and, yes, the intrigues of the military life. And it will keep you biting your nails the whole time.
–Edward Barnes Ellis, author of In This Small Place

Click here to download SWEET DREAMS AND FLYING MACHINES (or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!

Each week’s newsletter is sponsored by just one book. We hope you will consider our sponsors’ titles.

Free Kindle Nation Shorts – January 28, 2011: Free Your Inner Novelist With D.D. Scott’s MUSE THERAPY: Unleashing Your Inner Sybil, A Free Excerpt

Free Kindle Nation Shorts – January 27, 2011

Free Your Inner Novelist
With D.D. Scott’s

MUSE THERAPY:
Unleashing Your Inner Sybil
————-

A Free Excerpt

By Stephen Windwalker
Editor, Kindle Nation Daily
©Kindle Nation Daily 2011


About a year ago, acting on a recommendation by Seth Godin, I read a remarkable book entitled The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle by Steven Pressfield. It was a pretty remarkable book — all about removing or avoiding the sources of friction that were keeping me from getting done as much as I would like to get done — and it has had an effect on my life nearly every day since I read it.

But it was a bit dry in places, and I suspect that it was also a bit of a guy’s book, if you don’t mind my saying so. Neither of those was a deal-breaker for me personally of course, but I remember daydreaming at the time that it would be great if somebody could come along and deliver a similar message that might be more vivid, more lifely, more fun, and more accessible, including, of course, to women.
And so, now, along comes the woman of my dreams, or of my daydreams in any case, to write an incredibly smart, funny, and truly inspirational book that could be the spicier sibling of Pressfield’s book. And I am here to tell you that, like The War of Art, D.D. Scott’s MUSE THERAPY: Unleashing the Inner Sybil is going to have an effect on thousands of people’s lives nearly every day once they have read it.
What I haven’t mentioned is that, like The War of Art, MUSE THERAPY is written with writers in mind. But with both books, the messages will resonate far more widely than just among the community of writers or, in the case of MUSE THERAPY, romance writers.
Whether you are working on the next great read to feature a Fabio clone on the cover (with or without Stetson), any other form of creative endeavor, or frankly any activity that requires you to focus on working solo to harvest your individual talents, D.D. Scott has written a book that could change your life, and give you plenty of laughs in the bargain!
Here’s the set-up:
Romantic Comedy Author and a Writer’s Go-To-Gal for Muse Therapy D. D. Scott is treating you and your muses to the book version of her wildly successful Muse Therapy Online Classes and Live Workshops.
MUSE THERAPY utilizes fun and fabulous tools to inject life into writers’ tired and/or stressed out muses. By showing you how to analyze your muses’ funks, rein in your creative divas and ultimately up your page counts, D. D.’s created a writer’s go-to-manual for “muse disorders”. She’ll help you dig deep then deeper still into your writer psyche.
Why is she helping writers the world over?
Here’s the scoop…
Once upon a time her muses weren’t ticking. They were ticked off. Why? Because they were too damn tired and stressed out trying to find their way on the Yellow Brick Road to Publishing Oz. Screw the Happily Ever After. Her creative divas couldn’t produce past page one.
Saying that writing-for-publication is tough is the bolder-than-bold-faced understatement of the new millennium. And with today’s huge economic and technological changes, it ain’t gettin’ any easier.
But once D. D. shows you how to recognize, acknowledge and accept your muses’ afflictions and teaches you her tricks, tips and “trips” to treat the word witches of your writing world, you and your muses will be cranking out pages with gusto.
Plus, you won’t be alone in your journey. Her MUSE THERAPY tips and tricks continue to be apropos no matter where a writer is in his/her career. By sharing fantastic and at times roll on the floor, laugh out loud anecdotes she gathered – either interviewing or attending workshops given by the romance genre’s hottest stars – she proves this assertion. You’ll hear from:
Allison Brennan
Jennifer Crusie
Cynthia Eden
Janet Evanovich
Jennifer Greene
Nancy Haddock
Gemma Halliday
Linda Howard
Eloisa James
Marcia James
Jayne Ann Krentz
Debbie Macomber
Nora Roberts
Karen Rose
Tawny Weber
Welcome to “therapy”…MUSE THERAPY that is.
Click here to download D.D. Scott’s MUSE THERAPY(or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!
Free Kindle Nation Shorts – January 28, 2011

An Excerpt from
MUSE THERAPY:
Unleashing Your Inner Sybil
by D.D. Scott
Copyright © 2010, 2011 by D.D. Scott and published here with her permission

INTRODUCTION
Once upon a time my muses weren’t ticking. They were ticked off. Why? Because they were too damn tired and stressed out trying to find their way on the Yellow Brick Road to Publishing Oz. Screw the Happily Ever After. My creative divas couldn’t produce past page one.
Let me clarify a bit. I’m not talking about my ticked off muses from yester
year, before I wrote this book to give your muses a good kick in the pants. I’m talking about my yesterday muses, or maybe the day before that, or last week and last month. ‘Cause here’s the thing…our creative divas are a constant work in progress (hereinafter referred to as WIP) as are the manuscripts of our hearts that we’re trying like Hell to get published.
Saying that writing-for-publication is tough is the bolder-than-bold-faced understatement of the new millennium. Writing-for-publication is a bitch! There’s just no sweeter-than-raw-sugar way to say it. And with today’s huge economic and technological changes, it ain’t gettin’ any easier.
The ruby slipper advice that once took your manuscripts from the slush pile to Emerald City has been re-shoed. Editors have been there, done that and are looking elsewhere for the ‘Yes…I want that one’. It’s a new publishing world, and if you want to make it, you can’t be anything less than brave and fierce in your determination. Not only do your muses need to be dancing like nobody’s watching. They’d better be dancing their asses off for the long-haul.
But how can our muses keep bootscootin’ when publishers continuously change the beat of what they want and don’t want? When no one else is still gutting it out with you on the dance floor? When the music we like isn’t the crowd favorite or worse yet, it’s the genre publishers insist is dead?
For years, seven to be exact, I pondered these less-than-stellar writing-for-publication realities…just like you are now. Frankly, I still ponder them every day while getting my BITCHOK groove on (Butt In The Chair Hands On Keyboard) producing the next batch of pages I hope to sell to some editor somewhere over the publishing rainbow of rejection.
But not until January of 2009 while I was comfy on the couch in a Smoky Mountain chalet in Tennessee, with a spirited fire crackling and warming my fluffy-socked feet, did I discover Muse Oz.
On that frigid, snow-frosted mountain night, I was looking for a way to make my writing-for-publication career plan break out and stand out from the slush pile pack. I’d always been a big fan of NOT running with the wolves. Instead, I like to stay out of the pack and ahead of the leader dog just a smidgeon. So how could I get myself to be a Seth Godin Purple Cow on my Yellow Brick Road to bestsellerdom?
Godin, a Tufts and Stanford educated marketing guru, said in his New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller PURPLE COW that to transform your company (or yourself), you’ve got to be “remarkable”…as remarkable as a Purple Cow in a barnyard full of brown Hiefers.
Here’s what I knew for sure…Writers didn’t need to be reminded how tough writing-for-publication is. We all “get” that! Nothing “remarkable” about that. It just plain sucks. And on those rare occasions we forget, there are plenty of books out there emphasizing the realities of Publishing Hell and crashing creative spirits.
What writers need are fun and productive techniques to keep their muses cranking out pages ’til some editor somewhere likes what they put on the page and offers them the “big bucks”…or just bucks period.
To keep my muses cranking out manuscripts I rely in part on multiple award-winning poet, playwright, filmmaker and iconic creativity teacher Julia Cameron’s THE ARTIST’S WAY. Cameron taught me (and reminds me each time I return to her book – which is a bunch) that writers, like all artists, fly in the face of failure on just their “wings and a prayer”. We continue traveling writing-for-publication paths because those fascinating but at times treacherous roads feed our souls, awaken our spirits and boost our zest for life.
Beyond Julia Cameron’s guidance, I rely on my own unique brand of psychobabble bullshit cultivated by my studies at Purdue University. I graduated magna cum laude with a BA in Political Science and Psychology. Basically, I’m qualified to lie then make reasonable excuses for and an analysis of the world’s beyond crazy antics. Seriously though, I love analyzing what makes leaders and the groups they lead tick. In addition, I have a knack for public speaking and teaching. I simply love to share and debate ideas.
So back to my Smoky Mountain chalet but add a gin and tonic with lime to the fire-warmed, toasty scene I previously set. I was taking a class that night – add perpetual student to my resume – by award-winning writer and instructor extraordinaire Randy Ingermanson, aka The Snowflake Guy, on how to write what he calls a “SuperArticle” or “Pillar Article” to capture people’s attention on a world-wide stage. Randy pushed me to think about what it was I knew and could teach writers in a unique way that would also introduce D. D. Scott to the world in a big, splashy, one-of-a-kind blitz. What could I write to make the buzz (at the water-coolers near the publishers’ slush piles) about me and my writing?
Finally…I had it!
Thanks to Seth Godin, Julia Cameron, The Snowflake Guy, a fabulous fireplace in a mountain chalet and my share of gin, I discovered a way to be a purple cow on my way to Publishing Oz. And boy would my parents be thrilled I was actually going to use my college degree! I reached for my legal pad and pencil – how I start most all of my writing projects – and MUSE THERAPY FOR WRITERS: UNLEASHING YOUR INNER SYBIL was born.
MUSE THERAPY utilizes fun and fabulous tools to inject life into writers’ tired and/or stressed out muses. By showing you how to analyze your muses’ funks, rein in your creative divas and ultimately up your page counts, I’ve created a writer’s go-to-manual for “muse disorders”. I’ll help you dig deep then deeper still into your writer psyche.
Once I show you how to recognize, acknowledge and accept your muses’ afflictions, I’ll teach you tricks, tips and “trips” to treat the word witches of our writing world.
My techniques are built upon poking good-natured fun at just how closely our life as writers parallels that of the best mental health maladies.
By showing you how to keep your BITCHOK groove on, I’ll keep you laughing out loud and producing a plethora of pages. Using creative exercises such as Muse Therapy “trips”, collaging as a WIP of your WIP, “Rorschach-inspired” Feng Shui, Bi-Polar and Neurotic Writing, and stimulants like bitchy signs when coffee, chocolate and martinis aren’t enough, I’ll empower you to regain sovereignty over your creative dynasties.
You may know you need MUSE THERAPY. You may not. Depends on whether or not you’re in denial. Although you DID pick-up this book which could be a significant clue, let me convince you beyond reasonable sanity that you damn well need to continue reading.
When any of the below sound even remotely familiar, you need MUSE THERAPY:
1. Your muses aren’t ticking. They’re ticked off.
2. Your muses are in a funk saying “up yours” instead of upping your page counts.
3. Even great sex or a new pair of shoes can’t rein in your creative divas.
4. The following sessions sound appealing:
** Unleashing Your Inner Sybil
** Writing Bi-Polar: I Suck vs. I’m a Genius
** What Do You Mean I’m Neurotic? No, I’m Not. Well, Not Exactly. But Okay… There Are Times When. Like You Need To Know That. Anyway, I Was Thinking, My Jeep Is Red
** Rorschach For Writers: I See Dead Lines
** Stimulants: When Coffee, Chocolate, and Martinis Aren’t Enough
** Goin’ Jungian
** Muses and Misplaced Aggression – Kick Your Own Ass Not Somebody Else’s
** Word Witch Paranoia
** Rockin’ It With Anal Retention
5. Your word witches are on their way to publishing Oz but the Yellow Brick Road you’re bootscootin’ on…well…the damn thing never ends!
6. Everyone says your writing is a waste of time, a “hobby” that will never “pay-off”.
7. You feel the urge to tell everyone in reason six to (I’m thinking of a phrase that starts with a 4-letter-word and ends with a ‘you’, ‘off’ or ‘me’).
Here’s the secret MUSE THERAPY reveals…upping page counts isn’t done by hurling nasty insults at your muses. Oh no. When writing-for-publication, you must wine and dine those divas. Whether it’s with coffee, chocolate, fabulous finds in some chic boutique, or with what I call Muse Therapy Trips, it’s all about pampering those chicks and chucks ’til you get out of them exactly what you want…and then some.
To do this, you must discover why, when, where and how your muses produce fabulous bursts of ideas on your screen and manuscript pages. With MUSE THERAPY, you’ll have a terrific time conquering your creative divas and taking back the crown of your personal Muse-ville kingdoms.
And you’re not alone in your journey. My MUSE THERAPY tips and tricks continue to be apropos no matter where a writer is in his/her career. By sharing fantastic and at times roll on the floor, laugh out loud anecdotes I gathered – either interviewing or attending workshops given by the romance genre’s hottest stars – I’ll prove this assertion. You’ll hear from:
Allison Brennan
Jennifer Crusie
Cynthia Eden
Janet Evanovich
Jennifer Greene
Nancy Haddock
Gemma Halliday
Linda Howard
Eloisa James
Marcia James
Jayne Ann Krentz
Debbie Macomber
Nora Roberts
Karen Rose
Tawny Weber
You’ll appreciate and relate to the at times hilarious at times appalling and embarrassing flops and miss-steps they endured on their way to bestseller superstardom.

Believe you me, I was shocked to garner attention from such writing greats!
I conceived MUSE THERAPY: UNLEASHING YOUR INNER SYBIL as an online class that I’d be lucky to attract interest in since, at that time, I was still unpublished. But I debuted the idea at RWA’s National Conference in Washington D.C. in July 2009 to gigantic kudos then booked seventeen online classes and live workshops within the next sixty days (including being asked to provide “therapy” for the 2010 RT Convention in Columbus Ohio). Muses were evidently hurting all over the globe, and I’d realized the awesome reach of my approach. I’d created a huge hit for writers to heal their partners on the page!

And wow was I completely humbled when class participants continued asking me to write a companion book. Even though I had no clue what the Hell I was doing (just ask my agent), I soon set out on that non-fiction Yellow Brick Road with gusto. Like I’ll show you to do, I reined in my creative divas. You’re reading the results.

So let’s get started…the next book you read could be yours!
Grab a comfy couch or your favorite chair and put up your feet. It’s time to give your muses a big-time boost of productive power. Note: I’m serious about putting up your feet. Get comfortable. Whatever form that takes for you.
Besides a comfy couch or chair, you’ll need the following tools on your MUSE THERAPY journey:
  1. A Journal or Notebook – one that really makes your muses wake-up and take notice. Something so in line with their tastes that they’re dying to crack open the cover and get to work. For example, I love anything hot pink and chocolate brown in color, and the more sparkles on it the better. So I snatch up those puppies wherever and whenever I find ’em. And don’t forget the equally fabulous pen or pencil your muses also can’t resist. Oh, and if you’re a techno person, using your PC, laptop or notebook, or smart phone is perfectly fine too. MUSE THERAPY is all about whatever works for you and your muses. Who cares what anyone else thinks of your methods and tools?
  1. A Reward Box to fill with slips of paper containing treats for yourself as rewards for reining in your creative divas and upping your page counts. For example, I might jot down that I’d like a mani or pedi or mani/pedi combo – depending on my budget. Or how about an evening at the movie theatre instead of at home with my DVR? And I’d love to have another massage. So I write down all these treats and toss them into my Reward Box. Every so often, after I’ve met another production goal, I pick a slip from the box and treat myself and my muses to something I know ahead of time I’ll beyond love. And as in the above MUSE THERAPY tool, of course it’s okay to put all your rewards on some techno-terrific spreadsheet too!
To pamper your muses, you must first pamper yourself. In MUSE THERAPY, it’s all about you, Baby! Give yourself permission to be queen of your creative domain. Your muses will be glad you did and so will you.
Just don’t fool yourself into thinking once you’re done with this book, you’re good to go. Writers are WIPs just like their WIPs. Our
muses can always use a tune-up. And MUSE THERAPY FOR WRITERS: UNLEASHING YOUR INNER SYBIL is the right mechanic as verified by the following bestselling authors:
“Had a blast doing this. Love your idea, and hope you have a terrific time with it!” – Jennifer Greene aka Alison Hart

“Sounds like fun, and I’m sure will help people.” – Eloisa James

“Love your subtitles :)” – Allison Brennan

“All the best! I have to find a time…I’ll be home long enough to take the whole course!” – Nancy Haddock
“I really REALLY appreciate your asking for my input. I’m so excited… and know it’s going to be amazing. I’ll send people your way!!” – Tawny Weber
“Thanks so much for asking me to participate! This was fun. :)” – Cynthia Eden
“Thanks so much for including me in your workshop quotes! I really like your “voice” and humor. Let me know if there is anything else I can do.” – Marcia James
So get back on that couch of yours and put up your feet. You’re ready to embark on your first of many MUSE THERAPY sessions. Take note of the creative exercises I teach that really make your muses dance like nobody’s watching. You’ll return to these fun and fabulous tools whenever your creative divas need another kick in the pants.
Most writing books harp on and on and on about the beyond bleak chance you will ever see your book on a shelf or e-reader screen. Instead of dampening your creative zest, yet again, with additional cold shots of discouragement, we’re going to focus on reigniting the fiction and/or non-fiction flames kindling your muses. Using unique exercises and tools, we’ll warm up your muses and analyze their funks then rein in those fickle divas and up your page counts.
Playing on the “crazy trip” writing-for-publication is (even on a good day), we’ll assess your writer’s journey in a parody-like roast as if you are the next great mental health case study.
We’ll study and continuously build-on laugh out loud visuals including photos, art work reproductions, bitchy signs, comics and cartoons. Using these outrageous images, I’ll help you stimulate and reinvigorate your cranky, stressed-out muses.
Focusing on laughter as the best and most successful therapy, MUSE THERAPY shows you and your muses it’s okay to be “crazy” as long as your “crazy” works for you by upping your page counts and taking back the throne of your creative empires.
Welcome to “therapy”…MUSE THERAPY that is.

CHAPTER ONE
NAME THAT MUSE
You’re still reading. Bravo! I take it you’ve decided you need a writer’s go-to-gal for muse “disorders”. You’ve committed yourself to staying on the “crazy” writer’s journey to publication. For that, you should probably be committed.
Instead, pat yourself on the back. Go ahead. Give yourself a hearty tap. Few people are waiting in line to do it for you, right? So have at it! Congratulate yourself for being at the top of your creative game. You’re not in denial. And shame isn’t blocking your momentum ’cause you’re still “in therapy”. You must be in the writing business for fun, fortune and fame.
What? That’s not it? Okay. At least that last ideal looks fabulous on paper. You gotta see it to believe it. Right?
So bad jokes aside, let’s get started.
I’m going to remind you again, like I will throughout the book, that you’re not alone in your take-back-the-power struggles. For example, New York Times bestselling author of historical romances and Fordham University Shakespeare professor Eloisa James told me “My muse doesn’t fizzle because I can’t allow her to…I keep my imagination alive…”
Yes. Even New York Times Bestsellers have to work at keeping their muses on the ball. But not just the top of the chart authors have to pamper their muses. Here’s what a couple of my Muse Therapy Online Class participants shared with me about their on-going struggles with their creative divas:
“I’m still trying to get my muse back here. She sent me a postcard from some beach in Tahiti saying that I was the one who needed therapy and not to bother her while she is sunbathing, swimming and dancing with (insert names of hot cabana boys)…Oh and the chocolates I sent her were good but she wants dark chocolate next time and more rum. Grrr.”
“A few weeks ago, I had a big push and submitted a bunch of stuff and now I’m waiting to hear back. And, I guess my muses feel like they needed a vaca(tion). Haven’t heard a peep from them. Guess I’ll have to call them out…”
When you’re fin

INCOMING! IDENTIFY! IDENTIFY! Yes, It’s the Kindle Revolution

We have dispatches from all over this week, and they all bear the same identifying marks.

Russ Grandinetti, Amazon’s vice-president for Kindle Content, addressed a Digital Book World panel yesterday and summed up the changes that are taking place in the world of publishing and reading like this:

“However fast you think this change is happening, it’s probably happening faster than you think.”

Grandinetti also said that, already, Kindle books are outselling their hardcover counterparts in Amazon’s store by a 3-to-1 ratio.

So, between Grandinetti’s statements and items we have reported here previously, we’ve had plenty of basis lately for concluding that:

  • Kindle content sales are dominating content sales for other ebook platforms; and
  • Kindle content sales are dominating Amazon’s print book sales.

But Grandinetti also provided some tantalizingly Amazonesque numbers that, if they spread across a range of titles, would demonstrate rather convincingly that the Kindle content delivery system is enabling Amazon to gain an unprecedently dominant position across the board in bookselling.

According to Publishers’ Marketplace (a paid subscription site serving, mainly, the traditional publishing industry), Grandinetti said, for Emma Donoghue’s bestselling novel Room, “total Kindle sales are equal to 85 percent of Nielsen BookScan’s print sales number.” Extrapolating from that equation, Publisher’s Marketplace concluded that Kindle sales amounted to 40 per cent of all sales in all formats by all retailers for Room.

Room is published by agency model publisher Hachette, and the Kindle edition is currently priced by the publisher at $11.99, so it is likely that the Kindle sales of Room would have amounted to only 75 to 85 percent of Amazon’s total sales for the title. Thus, if we add Kindle editions and hardcover sales by Amazon, Amazon must be at or above 50 percent of all sales in all formats by all retailers for Room.

How stunning a development is that? Well, prior to the launch of the Kindle in 2007, Amazon was widely considered to account for somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of all sales of all books in all formats by all retailers. It now appears that the Kindle’s incredibly friction-free content delivery system has given Amazon a real chance to double, and perhaps triple, that share of the total bookselling market.

Not so fast, one might say. Amazon has nowhere near that 40 to 50 per cent market share when it comes to textbooks. Or children’s books. Or cookbooks. True enough, and it probably won’t get to those levels in those categories for a long time, if ever.

But Amazon doubtless has even higher market shares when it comes to indie authors’ books, a huge percentage of which are published direct-to-Kindle. And we are seeing greater evidence every week that indie authors are the fastest growing segment of content producers in the ebook revolution, with the most recent stories of brilliant success surrounding bestselling Kindle Store author Amanda Hocking, whose $2.99 ebooks are currently #2, #9, and #12 among all books in the Kindle Store.

Likewise, Amazon certainly has higher market shares than 40 to 50 percent when it comes to books for which the company itself is the publisher, through AmazonEncore and AmazonCrossing. But that can’t be much, right? Because Amazon is a retailer, not a publisher, right?

Well, whatever you want to call it, that’s fine. But it’s worth noting here that The Hangman’s Daughter, the #1 book in the Kindle Store with well over 100,000 copies sold in less than two months, is published by AmazonEncore. And there will be more of these, many more.

Finally, the last bit of incoming information comes from our own Kindle Nation Survey. We’ll wait until the survey is closed at midnight Hawaii time January 31 before we begin to break it down. For now we’ll just say that more than any previous survey, this one makes it clear that readers are in charge, and that the meaning of the Kindle revolution in terms of our reading behavior lies predominantly in three dramatic developments:

  1. Readers are deciding what they want to read, and factors like a traditional publisher’s imprimatur and new release status and the stigma of “self-published” are losing force.
  2. The influence and recommendation systems that lead readers to specific books are changing dramatically so that influences like massive front-of-store placements and even bestseller rankings are giving way to informal recommendations and new sources of influence.
  3. Readers have taken over much of the role of setting prices in the new book business by delaying purchases of books they want to read if the prices are, in their judgment, too high. The publishers who drew lines in the sand behind their right to set prices under the agency model won a Pyrrhic victory, because as Wall Street market makers know, an item’s price does not really become a price when a seller offers it; it becomes the real price when a buyer pays it. Publishers continue to set new release prices reflexively in the $12-$15 range, but only two of the top 20 bestselling ebooks in the Kindle Store are priced above $9.99.

For the agency model, and for brick and mortar bookstores, we are over halfway to “game over.” Whether the publishers who have stood behind the agency model can survive past mid-decade remains to be seen, but nothing about the way they are playing their hands should inspire confidence.

Imagine the action and ideas of The Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol in good, clean prose, and you’ve got our Kindle Nation eBook of the Day, Terrence O’Brien’s The Templar Concordat – And here’s a free sample!

Loved The Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol, but you wish Dan Brown could lose his fixation with all the arty esoterica? Terrence O’Brien’s The Templar Concordat could be the book that hits your sweet spot….
Here’s the set-up:

When the truth is your greatest danger, and the enemy knows the truth, things can only go downhill when the enemy finally gets the proof. And that’s the proof the Hashashin get when they steal what the Vatican doesn’t even know it has.


Now the infallible decrees of two Twelfth Century popes and three kings, stolen by the Hashashin, threaten to catapult the bigotry, bias, and religious blood baths of the Third Crusade straight into the Twenty-First Century.

When Templars Sean Callahan and Marie Curtis are drawn into the mess, they face an ancient enemy that has already nearly won the battle, a newly elected Mexican pope being undermined by entrenched Vatican powers, world class scholars who will sell their prestige to the highest bidder, and terrorists lingering over lattes in sidewalk cafes.

Moving from Rome to London, Switzerland, and Saudi Arabia, Callahan and Curtis are desperate to find some way to stem the success the Hashashin are having enlisting the majority of moderate Muslims in their Jihad.

Outmanuevered at each step by the Hashashin, only a last ditch roll of the dice has any chance of success. But it’s the only chance they have.

Right here, in the comfort of your own browser, is your free sample: