MSI Press Blog

  "Shannon Gonyou's book ... allows us to shadow her in her new marriage and as she builds not only a family but a tradition, " says Angel Ackerman of Parisian Phoenix Publishing.  Click HERE  for the full review. For more posts about Shannon and her book, click  HERE . For more conversion stories, click  HERE . For more memoirs, click  HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com. 

  It is Tuesday. Time to tall turkey. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today's topic addresses book reviews. Why are they important and what they will do for you as an author. And why a lot of reviews do not turn immediately into a lot of increased sales. Why you should care about reviews : Reviews get the news out about your book. Even bad reviews can result in publicity that brings out book sales. Some bookstores (e.g., the Barnes and Noble chain) usually check out book reviews before stocking a book from an independent publisher (which is a hard-to-get agreement to begin with); in my experience, the minimum required is 25 good (4-5 stars) reviews. There are a significant number of pe

  As I believe it is for most of us, I have moments where I question myself - what I've managed to accomplish in life, and where it all stands in this particular time and place. Do I do enough for God's Kingdom? Do I have a positive impact on those who move within my circle, or at least within my reach? Sometimes I think so. But not always. It is written in John 4:44 that not even Jesus Christ Himself had honor in His own country. One explanation offered is the factor of familiarity. Those who watched me grow up, with all the pitfalls and mistakes of youth, already have a preconceived notion of who I am. Those who are aware of my adult downfalls probably view me from a tarnished perspective. Do you feel this way, at least sometimes? Read the rest of the post HERE . Read posts about Marti and her book HERE . Read more posts about letting go HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publi

  The Conversation on Raw Story speaks to how cancer cells become "immortal" through a mutated gene that allows melanoma to overcome the normal limits on reproduction. Read about it HERE . Read more about Cancer Diary posts  HERE . Blog editor's note: As a memorial to Carl, and simply because it is truly needed, MSI Press is now hosting a web page,  Carl's Cancer Compendium , as a one-stop starting point for all things cancer, to make it easier for those with cancer to find answers to questions that can otherwise take hours to track down on the Internet and/or from professionals. The web page is in its infancy but expected to expand into robustness. To that end, it is expanded and updated weekly. As part of this effort, each week, on Monday, this blog will carry an informative, cancer-related story -- and be open to guest posts:  Cancer Diary .   Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .

  From the author’s point of view, there is probably little of overwhelming significance. The author had maintained a blog in the wake of the publication of her book, Living Well with Chronic Illness, a well-received book. After a couple of years, she came to me, the publisher of that book, with the suggestion of organizing these blog posts and putting them into book format. (Nothing super-exciting in this, either. Many authors try to do this with their blog posts.) From the publisher’s point of view, many authors do indeed try to turn their blog posts into books simply by downloading them into a manuscript. This rarely works, and we would not be interested in such a book. However, Joanna organized these in ways that were easy for readers to access. She put thought into the publication, and, as a professional in the field, she knew what blog posts would be of most help to readers interested in the topic. So, she came to us with a pretty solid proposal. Based on that and the fact that h

(graphic from posts of Julia Aziz )   Today, as I watch the remaining leaves swirl down from our maple trees and scatter at the slightest touch of wind, I feel a sense of letting go within myself. It speaks to my heart of change and movement, in each of our lives, at the appointed times of God. I know that change is inevitable, yet it stirs something wistful within me, something that makes me yearn to hold on. But I can't. Read the rest of the post HERE . Read posts about Marti and her book HERE . Read more posts about letting go HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount

Excerpt from  Publishing for Smarties  by BL Ham  Appropriate Responses  Instead of feeling and expressing resentment, there are four much more useful things that you can do. These are:  become excited; analyze the letter for educative information;  revise your manuscript, if warranted; and  find another publisher who might be interested in your book. Become Excited  Why should you become excited? Because finding a publisher is a lot like selling a product. Actually, you are selling a product: your book. Just as it usually takes about ten cold calls to sell a product or get a donation for a worthy cause, so, too, it takes many rejections (typically, dozens more than ten) before you will get a nibble from a publisher, especially if you are a first-time author. So, count each of those rejections as an indication that you are getting closer to an acceptance, just like salesmen do.  Analyze the Letter  Analyze any information at all that is in the rejection letter for any enlight

  I doubt that much more needs to be said. We (the community of Old Mission San Juan Bautista) placed the headstone on the grave of Sula, known here as an MSI Press author, this past week. May she rest in place, having served her community well for 17 years. See Sula's Face Book page . See more posts about Sula . See more Caturday posts. Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal .

  Arthur Yavelberg, author of A Theology for  the Rest of Us , questions the aphorism a picture is worth a thousand words . See what he thinks HERE . Read more posts by and about Arthur and his book  HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com. 

  "... a conversion story that stands to strike a chord with many," according to Michelle Anne Schingler's review of Since Sinai (Shannon Gonyou) in Foreword Reviews . Click HERE for the full review. For more posts about Shannon and her book, click HERE . For more conversion stories, click HERE . For more memoirs, click HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com. 

  Wishing all our authors, staff, readers, and friends a happy Thsnkasgiving today.  If you feel like kicking back and reading, here are some Thanksgiving-related posts . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com. 

Arthur Yavelberg, author of A Theology for the Rest of Us , recently wrote a column, Transcending Normality , for the Arizona Daily Star . Read more posts by and about Arthur and his book  HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com. 

  Jim Ostdick is a retired Earth Science teacher who lives on the ancestral lands of the Amah Mutsun Ohlone near the central California coast. In Walks Far Man: In Step with History on the Pacific Crest Trail , Ostdick recounts his Pacific Crest Trail hiking experiences in the context of a larger, more vibrant story, thousands of years in the making. His intentions are threefold: to identify and honor the indigenous tribes who occupied and traveled the lands traversed by today’s Pacific Crest Trail; to draw appreciation and respect for the cultural traditions of these tribes, and to describe, with humor and humility, his 2,650-mile walk from Mexico to Canada. Ostdick began hiking the Pacific Crest Trail at Campo, California in 2001 and crossed the Canadian border in 2009. Along the trail, he became increasingly introspective. He gradually began to feel empowered by the synthesis of self, the Earth, the Sun and wind and stars, the raging rivers, the trickling creeks, and the effects of

It is Tuesday. Time to tall turkey. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today's topic addresses -- what is a good one, what is a bad one, and what do the specialized terms actually mean? I have been answering these questions in a series of posts, using, to start, our contracts, and will go through them paragraph by paragraph. Then, I will look at some other publishers' contracts for differing content. A few weeks ago, we talked about paragraph 8, as found in a hybrid contract. We will now return to a discussion of traditional contracts and look at paragraphs 8-12. Please keep in mind, though, that the paragraphs in your contract may not be in the same order; however, they will contain t