Underscore Your Resolution with a Book or Two

Most New Year’s resolutions usually go no further than a scrawled list on paper, soon crumpled up and tossed away.  That’s true for me anyway.  Well, Amazon has come up with an approach that may provide substance to your resolutions.

Amazon has identifed 10 of the most popular perrenial  resolutions.  And, of course, for each resolution, Amazon points you to some of the major books that will help you accomplish your goal.  Not surprisingly, several of these resolutions might apply to individual writers.  Take a look at Amazon’s 10 New Year’s Resolutions.

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Books for Writers: Which Are YOUR Favorites?

How about doing your fellow writers a favor?  Share with us the titles, and perhaps even a word or two, about your favorite books for writers.  Just click on the COMMENT link at the bottom of this post — it will only take a moment to share your thoughts.

Of course, with this question, I’m presuming that writers do in fact read books about the art, craft and business of writing.  But I could be wrong.  Maybe everyone finds that information now online.

Or perhaps you simply have not yet found the book that really answers the questions you have about writing.  If so, how about describing your “dream book” for you as a writer?  Maybe one of our readers will sit down and write it for you.

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A Bow to Natalie Goldberg and Amazon’s New Promotion Tactic

I love Amazon.

Now that I’ve ceated a purchase history, the company computers occasionally send me recommendations for additional reading, based on my previous purchases. That’s how I learned about Natalie Goldberg’s latest book Old Friend from Far Away about writing memoirs. I smiled when I realized that I had already savored her Writing Down the Bones.

Of course, I clicked on the recommendation link. And I made even another discovery Amazon has come up with yet another tactic for selling books: an online video featuring the author. What a heart-warming and inspiring video it is! Take a look at it, for both the inspirtation, as well as an introduction to yet another Amazon promotional strategy. Such videos are probably not yet available to us unknown writers, but, hey, we can do our own and post them at YouTube.

You can buy some of Natalie’s books via our own specialized bookstore, featuring our hand-selected books and categorized to facilitate your browsing. The whole bookstore is powered by Amazon, but Becoming A Writer Seriously gets a small sales commission, enough for a Starbuck’s coffee, if you buy through our storefront.

For your convenience, I’m also pointing you to a full listing of Natalie’s books, though purchase from this list bypasses our commission. But that’s OK with me. The main thing is to whet your appetite for a provocative book to spur you on with your own writing.Technorati Tags: video promotion

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New Books on Writing from MacMillan

MacMillan has a number of new books about writing that look quite interesting, including one just released by Grammar Girl. Worth a look. I’ll probably add these to my Book Store shelves, which means you will be able to buy them right from this blog site — just click on the Book Store tab along the top and look at the new releases link.Technorati Tags: writing books

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New Books for Writers at Amazon

Many of you may have never discovered the blog’s PRODUCTIVITY STORE. It is powered by Amazon, but the contents are totally mine; I am the one who has stocked the store’s shelves. I periodically scour Amazon offerings in 15 categories of interest to writers and add them to the Productivity Store for your convenience. You can read in-depth reviews of all books, itself an education in writing. And you can order any item online, with payments and delivery managed by Amazon.

I’ve just added a new category — New Recommendations — and two new selections. Check ‘em out. And while visiting the store, take a look at the other 14 categories I’ve set up — just click on one of the categories listed on the right to see the items I’ve found most interesting.

The store, by the way, is always open, 24 hours day, 365 days a year. You can always visit by clicking on the store’s tab along the top of this blog.

While I’m talking about such things, you may wish to take a look at the blog’s YOUR ONLINE WRITER’S OFFICE, our affiliated site that brings together in one place a horde of writing-related content and entry points into a variety of writing tools and even an online word processor. Once there, you’ll find several tabs along the top, each containing useful material. The OFFICE is also open all the time — you can find its link in the right sidebar, though you have to scroll down a bit.

I’d love to get some feedback about these often-overlooked resources. Please leave a comment by clicking on the COMMENT link below.

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A Classic: Becoming A Writer

One of the genuine classics in books about the writing life is Dorothea Brande’s Becoming A Writer, first published in 1934. Fortunately, it has been reprinted, with a foreward by John Gardner. This book offers very wise insights into the process of writing. It served as one of the inspirations of my blog.

You can order a copy via Amazon from the Productivity Store, an Amazon “storefront” which I have personally customized for writers. You’ll find there the books that I recommend in many different categories of writing. Consider this your very own online store for your writing needs — books, hardware, software, it’s all here. And it is often updated with new selections, carrying my own brief blurb — and a click will take you to the Amazon page featuring full information about the book, with especially useful user reviews.

I consider this “store” one of the more valuable features of this blog/website. I hope you’ll take a look.

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A New Resource for Writers: Productivity Store

In our continuing effort to provide a full range of resources for writers, we announce today the opening of our new PRODUCTIVITY STORE, a highly customized facility, powered by Amazon, presenting hand-picked books, software, even hardware to help writers become more productive. You can find it 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in the tab along the top of this blog. Just click to enter. You won’t find this store anywhere else on the internet.

You will find a range of categories about the craft and business of writing. We have collected some of the best, most highly regarded books in each category. You yourself can make recommendations of books to add to our shelves. The very best appear right on the front page of each category, but in many of the categories you can dig down through several pages of additional resources. You can’t go wrong with any of them. Click on any title to read full descriptions and user reviews. You can order any item right from our Productivity Store — it will be processed and shipped by Amazon and its affiliates, assuring you of good service.

We encourage you also to check this blog’s Table of Contents in the right sidebar to see what resources we have already discussed in more detail. There you will often find free alternatives in the form of e-books, websites and shareware that are not available from Amazon. Also in the Books, Websites and Software tabs along the top of the blog, you’ll find even more information and reviews.

Since you are visiting this blog, you are probably a writer. If YOU have written a book that is for sale at Amazon, please let us know. We’ll add it, no matter what its genre, to our special category By Our Blog Readers, giving you yet another outlet for your book. This category also allows us to build further our community of readers.

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• FOUR CORNERSTONES of PRODUCTIVITY 4 WRITERS

  After more than two years of blogging, I've come to realize that there are four areas writers must address to improve their productivity: Thinking, Organizing, Writing, Promoting. Below are some of the best books to help you master these challenges.

• 1 - THINKING

  

  
• .....

• 2 - ORGANIZING

  

  
• .....

• 3 - WRITING

  

  
• .....

• 4 - PROMOTING

  

  
• ..... VIDEO FOR WRITERS here offers only four out of a large collection of video useful to writers. To see an annotated list of all of them, just click on the title of the box below. .....

• see all videos

• ________________ Add this to your site

• Tags

  Add new tag Amazon Kindle Attention Economy blog creation blogging Book Marketing continuity marketing Craft E-book e-books ForthChapters how-to Index card iPhone Isaac Mizrahi John Haydon Kindle marketing New media Nozbe Organizing PDF converter POD productivity promoting Publishing Rives self-publishing social media software SuperNoteCard sychronization TED Time management time tracking Twitter Twuffer Video VIDEO FOR WRITERS Web 2.0 WordPress Word processor Writers Resources Writing Zoho Office Suite

• TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Select Category 1-GENERAL  (3)    1-Introduction  (1)    2-Quick Start Advice  (18)    3-Miscellaneous Topics  (83) 2-FIRST STEPS  (2)    1-Finding Time  (32)    2-Organizing Your Workspace  (25)    3-Collecting Ideas  (19)    4-Joining the Community  (31) 3-PUTTING WORDS ON PAPER  (7)    1-For General Writers  (15)    2-For Novelists  (18)    3-For Scriptwriters  (7)    4-Alternatives to Word  (22)    5-Writing Online  (32)    6-Alternative Office Suites  (20)    7-Word & WordPerfect Tricks  (7)    8-Specialized Writing Tools  (49)    9-For Mac  (17) 4-CREATING CONTENT  (4)    1-Story Development  (3)    2-Research  (6)    3-Saving Your Work  (14)    4-The Craft of Writing  (4) 5-THE BUSINESS OF WRITING  (1)    01-Agents  (3)    02.Markets  (11)    03-Other Sources of Income  (20)    04-Submissions, Pricing & Billing  (9)    05-Print on Demand  (30)    06-eBooks and AudioBooks  (50)    07-Marketing and Promoting  (47)    08-Blogs & Websites  (38)    09-Podcasts & Teleconferencing  (15)    10-Equipment for Writers  (15)    11-Keeping Up with Software  (10) 6-OTHER RESOURCES  (0)    Book Stores  (7)    Learning Opportunities  (4)    Magazines  (1)    Miscellaneous  (4)    Newsletters  (2)    Other Website & Blogs  (15) Uncategorized  (227)

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