When the newest version of your book GreenLight shows up next to a celebrity’s, what do you do? You promote! GreenLight audiobook is now available wherever you listen. On medium such as ListenUp, OverDrive, KOBO, Libro.fm, scribd, googleplay, and more.
Feeling down or discouraged? Listen in now. Or Gift it to someone who is sick, fearful or demotivated during this very long period of the Pandemic.
Booklovers Reading App
Naive to the fact there are many reading apps available? As a writer I guess it’s important to know the different media available as a resource. So too should booklovers. So I delved in and here I share 9.
AMAZON KINDLE
AUDIBLE
BLINKIST
GOODREADS
LIBBY BY OVERDRIVE
COMIXOLOGY
EPIC!
MARVIN 3
SCRIBD
Hope this has enlightened you to review the lust and select one or two as your favorite. Oh and by the way, if your own medium is missing, do share. We would love to hear.
My writing journey began when I was 10 years old doing an important entrance exam to enter high school. I wrote a fiction story and was so engulfed that I did not realize I was doing an exam. Suffice it to say, I excelled. I went on to writing policies and procedures in the Pharmaceutical and healthcare industries in my International Human Resource Leadership Career.
Finding Meaning
My journey found meaning during my dissertation writing process as I pondered what to do for a 3-year writing project to meet the requirements for my doctoral studies. I wanted to do something that would make a difference to society. After deciding on researching the topics of Leadership and Success, my dissertation received outstanding recognition.
Challenges Along The Way
I was thrilled to have achieved my personal goal and Published my first book from my dissertation title Success Strategies of Leaders. The process was longer than anticipated and challenging as it involved translating the research from academic writing to storybook form in anticipation of public readership.
As many inquired about how to achieve success, I wrote Success Strategies Workbook to show them how. I was then recognized by the University for writing books based on my research as an example to other doctoral students. I was later invited to advise Doctoral students on the process I followed.
Community Leadership Initiatives
Along the way, I got involved with the Institute of Caribbean Studies in Washington DC doing work within our community, and was appointed as Chief Judge for the 30 Under-30 Millennial Change-makers. It was an initiative held at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) annually.
Same Goal–Different Paths
I subsequently published Books on Motivation to encourage New Entrepreneurs and individuals along their Career Success Journey. A few years later, I went on a slightly different path and published GreenLight, a book which contains stories of encouragement, inspiration, and exhortation. In response to reader request, I obliged and converted GreenLight into my first Audiobook. A different path but the process was enlightening and boosted my creativity.
Book Coach
As my writing journey progressed, aspiring new and longtime authors reached out asking for help. It transformed by role as coach for organizational Managers, employees, and Career Changers into my most enthusiastic role as Book Writing Coach as I responded to private and public calls for help. I also became a member of the writers community of South Florida for Authors of Color.
Satisfaction From New Authors
It brings me great joy and satisfaction as new writers experience novel personal growth when their first book has been released. My greatest pride is having worked closely with Reggae Music Matriarch Patricia Chin as she wrote to leave her legacy of a lifetime contribution, initially working close to Music Icons like Bob Marley while nurturing the careers of artists, Maxi Priest, Shaggy, Beenie Man, Sean Paul and more.
With more books on the horizon, my Writing and Book Coaching Journey continues. Thanks for allowing me to share my journey with you. Do share yours.
The book club. It was the first. The apologies came in droves. Oh I started but couldn’t finish. It was the kids, the husband, household chores and so much more. Who has time to read anyway?
My secret and I remained silent. I had ordered the required paperback to be read by the time the group met. But delivery time would be a few days before the meeting. For sure I would have barely started much less finished reading.
Audiobook Rescue
Then the idea came to me. Why not order the audiobook version online and start listening immediately? Then by the time the paperback arrived I could finish my reading with the hard copy. And that I did.
So as the group complained they finally asked and I told them what I did. The envy on their faces grew like a fiery furnace.
I shared that experience to acknowledge that audiobooks work. As an author of several books on Success, leadership, and career development, my last book was different. It was more inspirational. The book GreenLight is filled with anecdotes, uplifting short stories, prayers and exhortations. Readers share it’s encouraging benefits. Many inquired of its audio format. So I complied.
AudiobookBenefits
Not an audiobook reader? Here I share 5 advantages:
1. Better Time Management
2. Enjoy the convenience of multitasking. You can listen while working, commuting or running.
3. More than one one person can read simultaneously. Road trip anyone?
4. Greater reach for authors as consumers are given wider choices of eBook, paperback or audio. Whatever their reading style, there’s an option.
5. Ability to read more books in a shorter time.
So while some are skeptical, audiobooks is the fastest growing channel these days and offer great benefits to those still on the fence.
What kind of reader are you? Audio, paperback, eBook? Do share, we would love to hear!
Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. ~Ursula K. Le Guin
We have all had our favorite books that we have read from a young age. Some have left an impact on our lives. On a B&N public forum, a reader asked “What Book has stayed with you long after you’ve read it?” Fellow readers poured in with responses. Here I share a few that may prove worthwhile for your vacation, getaway, or a mid-summer night’s read.
Where there’s purpose, there’s meaning. Reflecting on my Book Talk on Caribbean Americans and the Excerpt from Caribbean National Weekly Newspaper.
“Entering the business world in American can be a hard task when you’re a Caribbean immigrant, from navigating a new culture of commerce, to establishing your own value in the marketplace. Addressing this tricky quagmire, African-American Research Library and Cultural Center (AARLCC) hosted Dr. Shelly Cameron as she discussed her book, “Success Strategies of Caribbean American Leaders.”
The talk, explored strategies on how to be successful, inspired by effective traits from Caribbean-American business leaders, from the challenges they encountered after migration, to the factors that most influenced their success.
The project, said author Dr. Cameron, was inspired by the familiar confusion over “why some immigrants are successful yet others are still struggling?”
The book breaks down findings from a study at Nova Southeastern University, collaborating with successful Caribbean-Americans in…
Developing your writing craft is not easy. As authors we stick to it because it’s our passion. The zeal with which we are connected is likened to a web but one in which we wish not to escape.
Many are the traditional thinking that authors hardly make money, let alone survive while working on their craft. But what do you say to the likes of Stephen King, Poet Maya Angelou, Harry Potter’s J.K. Rowling and countless others. You may say that they are successful because they are well known. Banish that thought and delve into the story of Stephen King who was rejected so many times that he actually threw in the trash his best selling novel. Were it not for his wife, the world would not have enjoyed this story’s amazing work.
So here I share excerpts of my presentation on the topic of “From Books to Bucks”, held at the South Florida’s Writers Book Festival.
Books 2 Bucks
Write Quality Work
Books can have babies. Think of workbooks, series, and so much more
Want to go from Books to Bucks, Select from the list, focus your craft on the point(s) you believe you will get best win, then promote, promote, promote. Marketing your work is the key to success and it does not have to cost you a ton. Use social media wisely. It can help you grow into something you never thought you could be.
I end with encouraging you to Be Serious about your craft. SHOW UP and promote, promote, promote.
Humbled to lead Panel Discussion on How To Make The Leap From Writer To Entrepreneurat the South Florida Writers Group Book Festival and Writers Conference February 22-23.
Panelists, Dr. Susan Davis, Dr Thea White and Susie Ingram will discuss the writing craft and How to Make the Leap from Writer to Entrepreneur.
I was flying out of the Fort Lauderdale International airport to Washington DC for a conference when I heard the familiar voice of Broward County’s newly appointed Mayor VC Holness announcing welcome to visitors. Mayor Holness made history recently when he was unanimously voted to become the first Black Mayor to lead the county. Indeed an achievement.
Success Strategies Research
Personally I extend my own congratulations because years ago when I conducted my research on Success Strategies of Caribbean American Leaders in the United States with Nova Southeastern University, Mayor Holness quite willingly agreed to participate in the phenomenalogical study. At the time he was Commissioner. In the research he shared the strategies he used to become successful as well as the challenges encountered along the way.
Regardless of how we feel about politics, his appointment signifies a goal he went after and achieved.
Mayor Holness continues to strive. To work hard to show those who wish to achieve that it can be done through hard work and dedication.
It was 1965, after splitting from Harold, when she began her career as an editor at Random House where she was instrumental in publishing American writers and luminaries such as Angela Davis, Henry Dumas and Muhammad Ali.
Yet, she knew there was a story that still needed to be told, one she hadn’t read or seen before.
At first, she was private about her own writing and would do so as a pastime very early in the morning before her boys would wake.
“I remember reading the ‘Bluest Eye’ and thought it was wonderful,” said Robert Gottlieb, a Random House colleague and the chief editor of the Alfred Knopf sub-division.
When Random House got wind of the fact that she was publishing, they wanted to keep her work in house and so, with the exception of one book, Gottlieb got to edit all of her books while they were published through Knopf.
Her first book, as Morrison claimed, intentionally eliminated the white gaze without “codes or notes explaining things to white people,” as she decided to put the entire plot on the first page.
“Quiet as it’s kept, there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941. We thought, at the time, that it was because Pecola was having her father’s baby that the marigolds did not grow.”
It was 1970 and “The Bluest Eye” boasted a story inspired by a conversation Morrison had had with an elementary schoolmate in Lorain many years before.
Her friend told her she had been asking God to give her blue eyes and he never did.
“How painful … can you imagine that kind of pain?” Morrison recounted for filmmaker Timothy Greenfield-Sanders in the “The Pieces I Am” documentary. “So, I wanted to say, this kind of racism hurts. This is not lynchings and murders and drownings. This is interior pain. It’s so deep to know that an 11 year old would think that if only she had some characteristic of the white world, she would be OK.”
