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Self-Editing: Two Half Brains Make a Whole Writer | by Deborah J. Lightfoot Sep. 20, 2011 | $0.99 | 13079 words | Sample 30% |
| Author bio: I began as a journalist, or at least that's what I got my degree in. After college, I worked for a newspaper, then as a magazine editor and feature writer. These days I earn my living as a freelance editor for a national nonprofit organization. I've written three award-winning books of history and biography. I'm a member of The Authors Guild. My newest work is a fantasy, WATERSPELL, an intricate, multi-layered trilogy about a girl and the wizard who suspects her of being so dangerous to his world, he believes he'll eventually have to kill her ... which poses a problem for him, since he's fallen in love with her. My married name, and a name I've sometimes been published under, is Deborah Lightfoot Sizemore. |
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Semicolons and Colons: A Guide for the 21st Century | by Lenny Everson Aug. 28, 2011 | Free! | 2834 words | Read a sample |
| Author bio: List of Completed Works by Lenny Everson Novels • Death On a Small, Dark Lake. 67,700 words. Our hero snags a body in a remote lake. • Death on a Rocky Little Island 71,500 words. Our hero convinces a friend to take a canoeing trip to the 30,000 islands. • Mount Moriah 50,000 words. A strange sequence events involves a priest, a poet, a CSIS agent, a space alien, four horny teens, among others. My most fun fiction. • Last Exit to Pine Lake. 45,000 words. A dying writer goes back into the bush to off himself. Grimly literary. My best fiction. Novelettes • Granite and Dry Blood. 9,700 words. Our hero wants to write a book on Massassauga Park. Various people would prefer that he didn’t. • Death on a Foggy Spring Portage. 11,800 words. One member of a paddling group is found dead on a muddy portage. Screenplays • Murder on a Foggy Spring Portage. One member of a paddling group is found dead on a muddy portage. Plays • Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont. Ghosts of the two Métis leaders meet in today’s world to remember their lives. A short (20-minute) play for two actors. Full-Length Poetry Books • The Minor Odyssey of Lollie Heronfeathers Singer. A middle-aged woman tries to connect with her aboriginal ancestry. • In The Tavern of Lost Souls. Four poets meet at a grungy bar once a month to give their poetic answers to random questions. • Love in a Canoe. A set of five chapbooks and a songbook about the love of canoeing. With illustrations. • Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont are Dead. Ghosts of the two Métis leaders meet in today’s world to remember their lives. Includes the play. Poetry Chapbooks • Encounter in a Small, Old Cemetery. Autumn. Midnight. Poet visits a small, old private graveyard. Best poem I ever wrote. • Fire and Ashes. Poems about life’s flames and regrets. • The Empty Tarmac of a Long-Abandoned Airport. Poems about having a midlife crisis. • Love Poems A compilation • Pray for Me: 22 Poems Probably Slandering God and Jesus • Ballads from an Unlucky Fisherman: Poems from a fisherman • Tweetable Limericks. 60 limericks small enough to be tweets • Hiking Poems. Co-Authored Poetry Chapbooks • Who Would Be a God? Susan Ioannou and Lenny debate the merits of being a god. • How to Dance Naked in the Moonlight. Katherine L. Gordon (Celtic pagan) and Lenny (skeptic) confront the ceremony. • Cats and Dogs. With I. B. Iskov • For Ko Aye Aung: A Plea for His Release from Prison. For Amnesty International, with other poets. Non-Fiction Chapbooks • If You Condemn Gays: The Bible on Homosexuality and Other Items. • The Architecture of Suburban West Kitchener. A light look at house styles. • The Architecture of The University of Waterloo. A light look at the campus buildings. • Making Tourist Attractions for Towns and Small Cities. Advice. • Technological Solutions to Global Warming. • Hyphens: A Guide for the Early Twenty-First Century. • Colons and Semicolons: A Guide for the Early Twenty-First Century. • How to Review Draft Technical Writings • Rebecca’s Trail (Grand River Trail) in Winter • 7 Temples to Bill Gates: a modern mystery • The Great God Pan - or Not • Two in a Tent: Camping Humor. • Why Haven't Aliens Contacted us? Songbooks • Dance Songs for Weddings Available on Smashwords • Canoe Songs. part of a set of six chapbooks about the love of canoeing. With illustrations.. Available on Smashwords • 18 Dingbat Songs for Kids Available on Smashwords |
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Reading English News on the Internet: A Guide to Connectors, Verbs, Expressions, and Vocabulary for the ESL Student | by David Petersen July 08, 2011 | $7.99 | 27987 words | Sample 20% |
| Author bio: I am a writer and educator, with degrees in psychology and theater studies, certificates in English teaching and Japanese proficiency, and more than a decade of experience as a professional translator. I was born in Canada, but have spent most of my adult life traveling and working abroad. Along the way, I've climbed Mt. Fuji, touched noses with a Maori elder in New Zealand, snorkeled in Fiji, survived a tsunami evacuation in Samoa (and more recently, Nagasaki), snuggled a koala in Australia, chaperoned high schoolers on a bus tour of England, thrown up in the Czech Republic, attended grad school in Malta, worked on an archaeological dig in Spain, had laser therapy in Germany, taught at a university in Hungary, scaled pyramids in Mexico... Translation is my bread and butter, and writing is my passion. |
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The Passive Activist | by Graham Murray June 30, 2011 | $0.99 | 2096 words | |
| Author bio: As a full-time author, I have what is possibly the best ‘job’ in the world, though I do not see writing as a job. Having been blessed with a vivid and active imagination, I am never short of material around which to build a story and have enough backlog material to last several lifetimes. In any event, storylines are everywhere. Just look around you - wherever you are - and there’s your story! Even a pitch-black room is a story in itself if you have the imagination. A writer without imagination is called a blank page, or ‘writer’s block (which I do not believe even exists). That said, my work tends to include elements of humanity, loss and grief, revenge, retribution, riddles and a plethora other hooks to keep readers turning pages (or hitting ‘Nextâ€). Some of my simple riddles in stories have yet to be solved! (see “The Importance of Looking Right†for an example.) If you’re a ‘skipper’, i.e. you tend to ‘skip’ over blocks of text, then my work is definitely not for you. Very often in my stories, EVERY word is there for a reason, and if you’re a ‘skipper’ you are sure to miss a critical clue or aspect of the story which may render it meaningless to you. Who skips over stories anyway? Why read at all if you’re going to do that? In one of my stories, it is a single punctuation mark that emphasises the point of the story. Although it is a single ‘ . ’, the relevance of that single period runs into several paragraphs. The story in question is “Small Merciesâ€. All authors include aspects of their own life and personality in their writing. When I read back through some of my material, I often wonder how true this is. If a psychologist were to attempt to compose a ‘profile’ of me based on my writing, I would certainly either be the weirdest or most wanted person on earth! All of my stories contain a moral in one form or another and I like to keep these obscure and make the reader think about what they have just read. I never ‘spell it out’ in any of my stories. If you didn’t ‘get it’, your either skipped over a critical clue or misunderstood a vital part of the story. Read it again – the answer is ALWAYS there! Some people have read my short stories several times before they finally see the clues. And then they find them all! Try “To Be Frank†as a classic example of clues dotted all over the place. Many readers do not get this story, even right at the very end, where I DO spell it out. Amazing. As for my ebook entitled, “Li’l Red in the Hoodâ€, I am always flabbergasted at how many people simply do not get what that story is all about. 99% of readers completely miss the point! Hint: it is British comedy! That may explain a lot . . . I take great pains to include these little titbits in my work, often taking days just to write a few paragraphs to ensure that the words are precisely the way they need to be. For me, writing is like building the innards of a fine Swiss watch. The face (cover) is easy, but the mechanism (story) is what makes it . . . well, Swiss. And therein lies the difference between experienced and new writers. New writers have yet to learn the subtle nuances and tend to blurt out stories, rather than sneakily guiding and misleading their readers and then smacking them with a punchline. My regular readers know that I make my books free for the first 24 hours or so, but then I charge for them. See my various works on the reasons for this. I don’t give away my work other than for promotional reasons. Freebies don’t pay the mortgage! Newbies just don’t get this. Between May and December of 2001, I sold just over 34,000 copies through Smashwords’ Distribution Channels, although I publish mainly on Amazon. 2012 looks like being a better year and hopefully we have now seen the end of all the vampire/werewolf/lesbian tedium and the real, adult fiction can come to the fore once again. I sure do miss it. If you need to contact me for any reason, the information is in any of my books, printed or ebooks. I look forward to hearing from you. I try to answer all my email, although this can take some time as my inbox gets quite hectic at times. |
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Come Again? | by Graham Murray June 24, 2011 | $0.99 | 6171 words | Sample 30% |
| Author bio: As a full-time author, I have what is possibly the best ‘job’ in the world, though I do not see writing as a job. Having been blessed with a vivid and active imagination, I am never short of material around which to build a story and have enough backlog material to last several lifetimes. In any event, storylines are everywhere. Just look around you - wherever you are - and there’s your story! Even a pitch-black room is a story in itself if you have the imagination. A writer without imagination is called a blank page, or ‘writer’s block (which I do not believe even exists). That said, my work tends to include elements of humanity, loss and grief, revenge, retribution, riddles and a plethora other hooks to keep readers turning pages (or hitting ‘Nextâ€). Some of my simple riddles in stories have yet to be solved! (see “The Importance of Looking Right†for an example.) If you’re a ‘skipper’, i.e. you tend to ‘skip’ over blocks of text, then my work is definitely not for you. Very often in my stories, EVERY word is there for a reason, and if you’re a ‘skipper’ you are sure to miss a critical clue or aspect of the story which may render it meaningless to you. Who skips over stories anyway? Why read at all if you’re going to do that? In one of my stories, it is a single punctuation mark that emphasises the point of the story. Although it is a single ‘ . ’, the relevance of that single period runs into several paragraphs. The story in question is “Small Merciesâ€. All authors include aspects of their own life and personality in their writing. When I read back through some of my material, I often wonder how true this is. If a psychologist were to attempt to compose a ‘profile’ of me based on my writing, I would certainly either be the weirdest or most wanted person on earth! All of my stories contain a moral in one form or another and I like to keep these obscure and make the reader think about what they have just read. I never ‘spell it out’ in any of my stories. If you didn’t ‘get it’, your either skipped over a critical clue or misunderstood a vital part of the story. Read it again – the answer is ALWAYS there! Some people have read my short stories several times before they finally see the clues. And then they find them all! Try “To Be Frank†as a classic example of clues dotted all over the place. Many readers do not get this story, even right at the very end, where I DO spell it out. Amazing. As for my ebook entitled, “Li’l Red in the Hoodâ€, I am always flabbergasted at how many people simply do not get what that story is all about. 99% of readers completely miss the point! Hint: it is British comedy! That may explain a lot . . . I take great pains to include these little titbits in my work, often taking days just to write a few paragraphs to ensure that the words are precisely the way they need to be. For me, writing is like building the innards of a fine Swiss watch. The face (cover) is easy, but the mechanism (story) is what makes it . . . well, Swiss. And therein lies the difference between experienced and new writers. New writers have yet to learn the subtle nuances and tend to blurt out stories, rather than sneakily guiding and misleading their readers and then smacking them with a punchline. My regular readers know that I make my books free for the first 24 hours or so, but then I charge for them. See my various works on the reasons for this. I don’t give away my work other than for promotional reasons. Freebies don’t pay the mortgage! Newbies just don’t get this. Between May and December of 2001, I sold just over 34,000 copies through Smashwords’ Distribution Channels, although I publish mainly on Amazon. 2012 looks like being a better year and hopefully we have now seen the end of all the vampire/werewolf/lesbian tedium and the real, adult fiction can come to the fore once again. I sure do miss it. If you need to contact me for any reason, the information is in any of my books, printed or ebooks. I look forward to hearing from you. I try to answer all my email, although this can take some time as my inbox gets quite hectic at times. |
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Guia Prático da Reforma Ortográfica | by Walace Freitas May 15, 2011 | $0.99 | 21981 words | Sample 20% |
| Author bio: Professor Walace Cestari, natural de Vila Isabel, professor de LÃngua Portuguesa, Redação e Literatura. Formado pela Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, leciona em vários colégios e cursos da rede particular e estadual do Rio de Janeiro. |
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Book on English Grammar, Punctuation and Capitalization. | by The Gifted Learning Project April 15, 2011 | $0.99 | 12788 words | Sample 3% |
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300 Days of Better Writing | by David Bowman July 07, 2010 | $9.95 | 64371 words | Sample 20% |
| Author bio: David Bowman, MA, MBA, brings nearly 20 years of experience as a writer, editor, instructor, and communications consultant to his exceptional writing guides. He has a straightforward, practical approach to writing and writing instruction. Having worked with business professionals, adult learners, and authors, David Bowman understands the writing issues that they face, and he can help you learn the strategies for powerful, professional written communication. David Bowman is the owner and chief editor of Precise Edit and has provided editing services since 1992. He is also a top-rated writing instructor for the University of New Mexico. |
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Common Writing Errors Workbook | by Katherine Ploeger July 01, 2010 | $14.95 | 33988 words | Sample 20% |
| Author bio: Writer, Writing Coach and consultant, Editor. Published author since 1980 with more than 55 book, report, instructional materials titles that have been published and self-published. Former college English (writing) professor with an MA in English - Composition and an MFA in Screenwriting. Currently writing an adolescent mystery novel. |
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Writing Clear Prose | by George Perkins April 28, 2010 | $2.99 | 28592 words | Sample 30% |
| Author bio: Born in Massachusetts, writer, scholar, world traveler. Books to date have sold over a million copies. |
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