MSI Press Blog

  INTRODUCTION  On a balmy afternoon in July, the weather turned ugly shards of lightning, booming thunder, roiling green and black clouds, and an angry wind that shook our trailer unmercifully. Forecasted tornado warnings in the Edmonton area had me peering through rain streaked windows at a darkening sky, scanning for dreaded vortexes that would prompt a hasty retreat to our campground’s washroom.  A little brown head bunted my leg, chimpanzee-esque eyes expressing concern. “Don’t worry,” I said, “The odds of dying in a tornado are 20 million to one.” It’s the ONE I’m worried about, she replied, continuing her frantic pacing.  An hour later, sanity returned with mottled gray skies and peaceful prairie breezes. Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher, said it best: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” That’s good—being stronger may have helped us survive even worse weather yet to come, Canada’s “Storm of the Century.”  In 1960, John Steinbeck traveled across th

The following excerpt comes from Dr. Fisanick's book, The Optimistic Food Addict (Chapter 6):               The roads were thick with ice the night I told my parents I was pregnant. My boyfriend and I broke the news to my mother first, as we sat on that old, gold couch in the living room, waiting for my dad to get home from the midnight shift.               My mother, who had been a teen mother herself, was disappointed, probably because she knew the hard road ahead of me. She wanted me out, and she was sure my dad would feel the same.               I had just turned seventeen and was in my senior year of high school. I was an underachieving Honors student. I stopped caring about school the day I met my neighbor’s blond haired, blue-eyed best friend. And there I sat next to him, five months pregnant with his child.               The trailer where I grew up was cold that night, like always. The lack of insulation and ancient oil furnace meant frozen pipes and the necessit

  Recently released: book trailer for When Liberty Enslaves by Jerry Aveta:  When Liberty Enslaves Book Trailer. Read more posts about Jerry and his book HERE . Watch more book trailers HERE . See more books on bestseller lists HERE Sign up for the MSI Press LLC monthly newsletter (recent releases, sales/discounts, awards, reviews, Amazon top 100 list, author advice, and more -- stay up to date)   Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC?  We help writers become award-winning published authors. One writer at a time. We are a family, not a factory. Do you have a future with us? Turned away by other publishers because you are a first-time author and/or do not have a strong platform yet? If you have a strong manuscript, San Juan Books, our hybrid publishing division, may be able to help. Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Planning on self-publishing and don't know where to start?  Our  author au pair

For Caturday fun, enjoy the trailer from How My Cat Made Me a Better Man by Jeremy Feig. LISTEN TO THE TRAILER HERE For more posts about Jeremy and his book, click HERE .  Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .

  Excerpt from Travels with Elly (MacDonald) - from chapter 2, ALBERTA  “If we hope to preserve our way of life, the first thing we must do is rediscover our respect for the land, the water, and the entire natural world. And if we do manage to regain that respect, then we must make sure that human beings never lose it again.” (Quote from the late, The Honorable Dr. Lois E. Hole, displayed on a plaque at the Lois Hole Centennial Provincial Park in St. Albert)  Shortly after crossing the border, we entered Crowsnest Pass, site of the devastating Frank Slide. In the early morning of April 29, 1903, a mountainside came thundering down in the darkness, burying most of the town of Frank and killing 90 people, the highest death toll from any slide in Canada. Massive boulders, remnants of the slide, remain piled 30-metres high on both sides of the road. An Interpretation Centre provides personal stories of survivors and dynamic, hands-on educational programs. To forewarn residents

Larry MacDonald has a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology and over 30 years of experience RVing and freelance writing for various magazines, including  MotorHome ,   Trailer Life , and   Canadian RVinglds . His book,  RV Oopsies: 101 Dumb Things That RVers Do!  is a compilation of ten years of research on RV mishaps, rated from “dumb” to “dumbest,” with helpful hints on how they could have been avoided. A “must-read” for all RVers, new and seasoned, wanting to save some grief and cash by learning what  not  to do while RVing. In his subsequent t book, Travels with Elly: Reflections on Canada by an RVer and His Dog , the author travels from coast to coast in a trailer with his wife and pets, including their poodle, Elly, in order to gain a better understanding of his adopted country. An informative read for armchair travelers with a spirit of adventure, for those wanting to learm more about Canada, and for any cross-Canada traveler, especially RVers and dog lovers. Travels with Elly won t

  Watch the (just out) trailer for  The Book That Almost Got Me Fired  by Kelly James on Youtube or at Literary Titan . CURRENTLY #4 ON AMAZON'S LIST OF HOT NEW RELEASES. Book description: You're 52. Divorced. Single mom to a teenaged son and a tween daughter. Happily self-employed but worried about the cost of health insurance, the inevitable impact of perimenopause on your body, and whether you should keep dating a sexy plumber who's sweet and funny but lives an hour away and doesn't seem that into you. So, after 22 years of fulltime freelancing, you take a day job as a tiny, creaky cog in the corporate American machine where you're decades older than most of your coworkers - and you write about it. The Book That (Almost) Got Me Fired: A Year in Corporate America is an entertaining, midlife memoir that shares what (and what not) to do when you make that corporate leap. Read more posts about Kelly and her book, click  HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC monthly n

San Juan Books is the hybrid division of MSI Press LLC. It allows first-time writers to become published in a traditional way through the reduction of risk by sharing publication costs. All other publishing features are traditional in nature, and most SJB authors go on to be offered traditional contracts for their subsequent books. SJB publications are available as paperback, hard cover, and e-book versions. SJB authors' books very much hold their own against their contemporaries in the traditional publishing division. Indeed, a number of them have outsold their traditional compatriots, and many have gone on to write books that have been subsequently traditionally published by MSI Press. Today, San Juan Books presents author Larry MacDonald. Larry MacDonald has a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology and over 30 years of experience RVing and freelance writing for various magazines, including  MotorHome ,  Trailer Life , and  Canadian RVinglds . His book,  RV Oopsies: 101 Dumb Things Tha

  The following excerpt comes from RV Oopsies by Larry MacDonald: INTRODUCTION   “What’s the dumbest thing you’ve done while RVing ?” That’s the question I’ve been asking fellow RVers over the past 10 years. Every year, adventurous folks like us go camping in our RVs, and every year, we do some dumb things. Mostly, these are minor mishaps like running out of fuel or leaving something behind at a campsite, but sometimes they are major blunders, resulting in damage to our rigs. For the most part, RVers are a pretty smart bunch! Yet, mishaps do occur not only to newbies but to seasoned roadies as well. If you’re one of us, you can probably think of at least one dumb thing that you wish you hadn’t done while RVing. The good news, though, is that all of these mishaps can be avoided. Each year, I selected ten mishaps reported to me, ranked them from Dumb to Dumbest, and published an article “RV Oops Awards” in several RV magazines in the US and Canada. This book presents 101 “awards,” incl