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Greetings,
Welcome to the second issue of TaleCatcher™
News. This issue is a bit late, since Jill and I were on vacation
in New Mexico last week. Future issues will appear early in the
month.
Nothing captures the exuberance of Spring better
than an ungainly forsythia exploding into bloom. The same spirit
of new growth took hold in the Neugent household as Bill’s
book logged remarkable sales throughout the month of March. Check
out the News Headlines below.
Bill Neugent
The Amazon top-500 author of No
Outward Sign
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You've
Got To Be Kidding |
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Clain Anderson of Chapel Hill, N.C., is IBM's
director of client security and is scheduled next month in Miami
to give a lecture on “Defending Cyberspace.” Not expected
to attend that lecture is Anderson’s 17-year-old son, Loren,
who will probably still be in a Long Island jail, charged with grand
larceny, identity theft, and criminal possession of a forged instrument.
According to Kieran Crowley, writing for the New York Post, the
younger Anderson “is accused of masterminding an identity-theft
[computer fraud] that was used to illegally withdraw cash from ATMs.”
The youth had allegedly run an ATM counterfeiting scheme in North
Carolina before moving from his family's home to Long Island, where
he rented a $2,300-a-month luxury garden apartment. “Asked
how it felt, as a computer security executive, to have his own son
arrested for computer fraud, [the elder Anderson] replied, ‘I
have no comment.’”
You've
Got To Be Kidding Archives
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Treasure
Hunt Clue |
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In the novel (page 334), Harry Redman said,
“I’ve started to write my age in a number that begins
with seven, a number I’ve always considered lucky.”
Harry is an extremely clever man.
This is the first substantive clue in a contest
that will result in someone winning $1,000. Remember, this is a
game of skill and no purchase is necessary.
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News
Headlines |
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Bill’s first press
release brought a sales surge to start the month. Soon thereafter,
three
articles in the press created another burst of sales. For most
of the month, No Outward Sign averaged an amazon.com sales rank
of 10,000, which is excellent—in the top half of one percent
of all the books on Amazon. At the end of the month, sales slumped,
in part because Bill had already plumbed the market of friends,
relatives, and colleagues and in part because he’d taken a
break from book promotion to prepare his keynote speech on cyberterrorism.
On the last day of March, Bill and Jill gave their
first public performance as a tag team, teaching a workshop
for fifty writers. The workshop, Self-Publishing and Marketing Your
Own Book in the Digital Age, covered:
• Bill’s rules for writing a
scene
• Approaches Bill tried to obtain an agent
• Bill’s book marketing plan
• Steps, costs, pros, and cons of print-on-demand
publishing
• Jill’s design decisions and guides for the
web site
• Jill’s list of steps, tools, and costs for
building the web site
• Promotional items bought and their costs
• Marketing adventures
• Book promotion turning points
• Amazon.com sales rank and which marketing ploys
worked best
The slides
are available in .pdf form on the web site in a 4M file. Feel free
to peruse them and share them with colleagues.
As the month ended, Bill also prepared for
his first radio interview and a series of major keynote speeches.
Summaries will be posted to the web site as marketing
adventures.
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Sound
Bites |
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Bill once served as an altar boy, which explains why his initial
Sound Bite picks at old scabs. Check out The
Confession.
When Bill and Jill figure out how to do streaming
audio, these Sound Bites will come alive.
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Advertisements |
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If you're one of the lucky readers who have
one of the limited-edition first-hundred copies of No Outward Sign,
the News section of this eZine will help you judge the value of
your investment. If you don't own one of these beauties, but would
like to, there are still some left, although the supply is dwindling.
Just contact us at bill@talecatcher.com. If
you'd like to pay an outrageous price for one of the first ten numbered
books (ranging in price from $50 for 10/100 to $1,000 for the original,
genuine 1/100), consult first your therapist and your significant
other and then contact us at bill@talecatcher.com.
Enjoying this newsletter and wish there were more to read? Try the
novel. It's better than drugs, better than a stiff workout, better
than a hot bath:
Buy
No Outward Sign
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Copyright
Information |
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© 2003 Bill Neugent, All rights reserved. You are free to use
material from the TaleCatcher™ News eZine in whole or in part,
as long as you include the following attribution:
From Bill Neugent's TaleCatcher™ News eZine. Please visit
his web site at http://www.talecatcher.com for more news, tips,
and entertainment.
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Final
Notes |
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DID YOU LIKE THIS EZINE? Please forward it to your friends and associates
and anyone else who you think might appreciate it.
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