Hawking Dreams: A Review of John Locke’s How I Sold 1 Million Ebooks in 5 Months

I finished How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months feeling like I ate a full meal but yet left still hungry. My appetite unsatisfied I expected more though Locke delivered what he promised simply to tell his story. The best selling self-published author is the first to sell one million ebooks on Amazon. While it was not a single book but a crime series and a western title it nevertheless remains a major feat. With a two point business plan he offers sound advice more appropriate for the neophyte writer with dreams of making a mint selling ebooks. His advice is no different from dozens of other “How to for Dummies” books. Locke never claimed to teach successful internet marketing though he does rely on the three much touted tools of social media, Facebook, Twitter and a blog.

There is no secret formula. Locke is well trained in sales and marketing. His success came through trial and error recognizing what works and what doesn’t and building a solid marketing plan. Either by luck or happenstance he had the good fortune of writing a blog entry that went viral.  That plus other efforts produced strong name recognition.

The key is to keep ’em coming back, and the way to do that is by mastering the four P’s of Marketing: Product, Price, Placement, and Promotion. (1) Have a good solid Product (a good book); (2) Placement or distribution, having your product ready and easily available; (3) the Price must be competitive giving true value; and (4) developing an effective advertising and Promotional strategy.

None of this is easy and requires much work. A best seller boils down to a good book, getting the word out, and developing a strong following.  Locke admits he’s not a great writer but he does know how to appeal to the lowest common denominator with low prices.

At least that’s how I see it–and now after writing this review with some thought and perspective my meal digested and I’m feeling sated.

The Price of Passion: A Review of The Agitator’s Daughter

John Cashin’s death in March has renewed interest in Sheryll Cashin’s 2008 memoir The Agitator’s Daughter. It is the story of her father’s political fortune, his rise and fall and the price of passion as told by a precocious daughter coming of age in Huntsville Alabama during the height of the civil rights movement. She shares how family wealth dissipated with the moderate success of John Cashin’s political commitment. In the early 70s as a student at Fisk University I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Cashin speak. At the time uninterested in his subject, politics, I remember being struck by his energy. He had an almost larger than life presence, confident, boastful and driven. Sheryll Cashin’s story bears out this impression.

John Cashin and brother, Herschel, during their Omega partying days at Fisk made a pledge to continue the work of their great grandfather Herschel V. Cashin a radical Republican legislator in Reconstruction Alabama. The legislator’s political career like most African American office holders ended with Reconstruction and the disenfranchisement of African Americans sweeping the South.  Brother Herschel studied law unable to earn a living in Alabama when the State enacted Jim Crow legislation depriving those studying out of state the right to practice leaving John Cashin alone to fulfill their fraternal pledge.

John Cashin became a dentist joining his father in a successful Huntsville Alabama practice. After military service and a tour in France he would return home to finish grand father Herschel’s work founding the National Democratic Party of Alabama in 1968. The Party became a prominent voice for Black voting rights and an important player in local politics in Black-dominated communities. It began the process of dismantling the segregationist chokehold on Alabama’s political process.

The Party in the name of Black voting rights would enjoy successes and suffer defeats until its demise in 1976 at a time when John Cashin’s reversal of fortune and personal calamities would mount. Sheryll Cashin laments the price her father paid for his commitment.  A bitterness evolves to acceptance enabling the Georgetown law professor to no less carry on a family tradition of service and good works. Her memoir is an inspiring historical account delving into morality and the price of passion.

Sleepless Nights: The Drew Smith Series

Washington, DC (May 3, 2011) — Sleepless Nights, the first released of the four volume Drew Smith Series, is loosely based on DC’s infamous 2003 Colonel Brooks Tavern murders. The protagonist in Norwood Holland’s new novel is like no other before.

An African American attorney managing a successful solo practice finds himself enmeshed in complicated relationships and complicated cases. A stark difference from other fictional detectives Drew Smith is a distinctly new type, professional, single, urbane, a good looking playa charming the ladies, clients and Judges alike all in the pursuit of justice.

Drew Smith takes on shady clients solving cases fraught with danger and romantic intrigue. The legal wizard, while frolicking with an exotic dancer succumbs to a midlife crisis. Haunted by nightmares foreshadowing an awakening reveals an empty life prodding Smith to find solace in the arms of therapist Zoe Settles.

Life gets more complicated when the attorney is pressed into service solving a vicious robbery that leaves three dead and the city enraged. Drew Smith and his devoted sidekick Julio Mejia work to free his young client on the trail of a crazed gunman responsible for a growing body count. In the end, the gunman and the dancer combine forces to bring Smith down. When death comes knocking Drew Smith faces the fight of his life.

A break out novel, Sleepless Nights abounds with despicable and lovable characters plus all the universal elements: love, sex, jealously, betrayal, murder and revenge. It has a narrative depth that sets it apart from the current flood of Urban Fiction. The author conveys a dark hard-boiled view of the underside, sprinkled with sex and violence, elements that make the contemporary genre popular among the teen and 20 something as well as the mature readers looking for a well written hardboiled yarn with compelling characters.

Author Norwood Holland is a lawyer and freelance writer. He blogs at www.EditorialIndependence.com. For more information about the book, visit www.SleeplessNightsNovel.com.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Sleepless Nights
The Drew Smith Series
By Norwood Holland
293 pages
ISBN 978-0-983-16560-6
Available on Amazon, including Kindle and Nook
Windmill Books Ltd.

The Other Sister by Cheri Paris Edwards

The Other Sister

The author’s second novel The Other Sister neatly fits into the popular Urban Christian Fiction genre.  It’s the prodigal son recast as the daughter returning home with a lot of baggage stuffed with dirty laundry.  Sanita Jefferson, a preacher’s daughter left her midwest home to get an education in California but somehow sidetracked to Hollywood dreaming of stardom as a video vixen.  There she engaged in sinful conduct falling under the spell of a different kind of preacher man.  The family has its own drama when the prodigal child returns.  Unlike the biblical father James Jefferson withholds his forgiveness.  The older sister Carla copes with professional challenges and an unrequited love when the object of her affection sets eyes on Sanita.  The major and minor cast of characters are all clearly drawn including a lecherous deacon, the busy body church lady and loyal non-judgmental friends.  Sanita’s journey is a spiritual homecoming offering lessons in forgiveness, redemption, and a return to faith.

The story is told from the Third Person Omniscient point of view and what more appropriate technique for a story of faith.  Most editors and agents frown upon this writing method viewed as distracting and confusing jumping from one character’s mind to another.  Cheri Paris Edward appears to be adept in mastering the technique.  As one blogger explains:  “This style is often frowned upon, and comes under fire from many writing style authorities. Nine times out of ten at least, it’s a liability to the book. But there are a few stories that must use this style and come out better for it. Since these stories are few and far between, writers are encouraged to use careful judgment, and avoid omniscient viewpoint unless it would add something extraordinary.”

Like a soap opera, once you get into the drama and characters there’s a desire to follow till the end.  Full of conflict and surprising turns chocked with saccharin melodrama The Other Sister is an extraordinary book.

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s novel Wench provides a glimpse into the life of a slave woman favored by her Master.  It depicts the complicated consequences of bearing his children and coping with the precarious possibility of falling out of favor.  It’s an unsettling tableau of 1850 Southern slave practices particularly American white slave masters vacationing without their wives rather preferring their slave concubines.  The protagonist Lizzie labors under a complicated burden torn between loving and despising her master.

The setting is the resort Tawawa House near Xenia Ohio, and where now stands Wilberforce University.  The story opens during the summer 1852.  The plot focuses on the relationship of Tennessee planter Nathan Drayle and his slave concubine Lizzie.  Other subplots delve in the lives of five other slaves particularly the women and their masters.  Plans to escape to freedom are hatched with assistance and extinguished by betrayals.

Reading Wench one cannot help but wonder:  What kind of man would lay with a woman at night then tie her up like a dog on a grounded spike the next morning as did Lizzie’s master?  Slave women were forced to comply with sexual advances by their masters on a regular basis. Consequences of resistance often came in the form of physical beatings; thus, an enormous number of slaves became concubines for these men.

Most often the masters were already bound in matrimony, which caused tension and hatred between the slave and the mistress of the house. Many “mulatto” or racially mixed children also resulted from these relations.   The “status of the child” followed that of his or her mother, the child of a white man would not be freed based upon patriarchal genealogy.  Born into slavery these children also became a sore reminder for the mistress of her husbands’ infidelity.  Undeniably those slave masters are the ancestral forbears of a great many White and African Americans.

Publisher:  Harper Collins (Amistad); New York Fiction: ISBN:  978006170647  Date:  2010, 290 pages

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