First Word

1. Stay focused on your objectives. 2. Study the current marketplace, identify the trends, figure out what people are buying and the consumer tastes. 3. If bills are piling and checks not coming, do not get caught up in the bills. It's a negative distraction and will not solve your financial crisis. 4. Look for as many new opportunities as you can to build business. 5. Consider reaching out and doing more networking. 6. Do more public speaking. Speaking gigs attract business because you are the center of attention. 7. Use speaking to do back-of-the-room sales and promotions.

I have been waiting for you in the sky-painted night I have dreamed of you and felt you in my bed I have brushed the tips of my fingers against my wish for you I once thought I could persuade your heart Coax you into my awaiting arms Yet like a timid creature it moved, it shied away Dear Soul Mate, I am waiting Can you feel me? Do you know me? When will you come be with me? The answers are more riddles The questions more obvious Dear Soul Mate, I have waited so long now Time has ticked away Dust become ashes Timber become petrified My warm heart melting in the heat Dear Soul Mate, Are you out there? Do you hear me? Do you want me? Because I want you! Michelle Gamble

1. The media won't take you seriously pitching your own products. When it comes to publishing and self-publishing, the media especially won't take your book seriously. It will just go in the pile of unprofessional "perceptions". 2. Credibility, which dovetails into what the no. #1. You want to position yourself as a creditable professional. This doesn't always apply if you ARE a publicist. I can approach my contacts on my own projects because I have a known publicist. 3. Proper contacts -- your publicist should know who in the industry to contact. It's better when your publicist knows the media people. It makes it easier to get their attention. For example, my contacts know 3L Publishing books are first-rate books. So, when I call and put a book in front of a media person's face, that person will take it more seriously since it's got the 3L logo on it. Do you need to hire a proper publicist? If so, contact 3L Publishing at 916-300-8012 or email i...

6             Derek Pendergrass was a washed-up, small-time politician from the town of Shingle Springs, California. Derek had been the senior-class president and parlayed his mediocre success into an eventual seat on the City Council. Derek was 32, prematurely gray, and so arrogant that most people who really knew him hated him. Yet he put on an impressive bravado of charm and working-class sophistication that people related to. So when he lost his seat on the council he ran for assemblyman in the California State Assembly in the state capital, Sacramento.             Once Assemblyman Pendergrass took office his hubris and arrogance was widely embraced by other politicians whose own egos ruled everything they did. That same year Assemblyman Pendergrass married Leona Thorn, a chief information officer at the California Franchise Tax Board. Leona was blo...

1. This is a great exercise (one of my favorites): sit down and just write a sentence or better yet take a sentence you already wrote somewhere else. Remove a word that probably isn't necessary. Now do this five more times. Compare the results. Read the first sentence out loud and then read the second sentence out loud. Which sentence is better written? 2. If you want to do a thorough edit, read your manuscript backwards. It can be tedious, but what you're really doing is looking at it word by word. 3. Another excellent technique to edit is to take a piece of paper and cover up the other words. Our eyes has a tendency to wander without us realizing it. Covering up the other words keep your focused. 4. Really great writers typically don't make this mistake, but it's my pet peeve: ending a sentence with a passive verb like is, are, was, would, etc. 5. The infamous passive voice. When you avoid writing in the passive voice your writing will improve. Active voice gi...

At 3L Publishing (www.3LPublishing.com), we offer different levels of book coaching services. What is a book coach? A book coach offers one-on-one guidance, input, ideas to make your manuscript work better, accountability to help you finish, and general editorial feedback. What are the benefits of a book coach? One-on-one attention Professional guidance and input into everything about your manuscript, including: General editing Comments every step of the way through the manuscript Examples of how to fix structural writing Specific writing samples of what that writing should look like A private lesson and monthly sit down with your coach to review your current work and discuss it. Overall feedback on your work  Here is a recent blog being written by one of our 3L clients who is using Michelle Gamble to take her new book Grains of Truth from idea to final novel. Elizabeth discusses her experience working with Michelle's help to slowly write her first novel. Please...

The forthcoming novel being published by 3L Publishing (www.3LPublishing.com) is titled The Abused. Eight addicts go to rehab and instead of recovering, someone starts killing off the patients.  5             Frank Haley was a 20-year veteran of the California Highway Patrol. Like most patrolman, Frank loved his motorcycle best. The feeling of the open air and being on the road exhilarated him. He named his bike Mitzi after his first love, a girl he met at the academy who got hit by a tow truck driver who was on meth and didn’t see her on the side of the road. Mitzi died on impact, and Frank grieved his love and gave homage to her by naming his motorcycle after her.             Over the years his superiors had encourage the astute patrolman to take the supervisor’s test and come in off the road, but Frank had no interest in a desk job. He felt perfectly s...

This is an excerpt from Michelle Gamble's forth-coming novel The Abused being published by 3L Publishing in the summer of 2016. The book is about eight addicts who go to rehab only to have one of them start killing each other off.   4             Deacon Curio was a good-looking Italian with smoldering hazel eyes and sensual lips that most women ached to kiss. His beautiful ringlet curls he kept short so they created a generous wave in his black hair. He was born in Italy and raised in the United States when his Aunt Milliana fled their hometown of Revenna. They ran away from her nephew’s abusive father Samuel whom Deacon resembled so strongly they could have been twins.             Dorothia, his mother, had suffered years of abuse at his father’s hand. Young Deacon had witnessed one particular fight in which his father kicked Dorothia so many t...

I have been coaching a new writer whose book is titled Grains of Truth . It's enjoyable to work with a first-time writer, which is one of the specialties of 3L Publishing . We like to work with people from the beginning of the process to the end. I always tell writers it's better to use our consulting and coaching at the beginning of a project vs. the end. The reason is time. A new writer who is inexperienced can easily get off-track. When they bring a fiction or nonfiction book to us and it got off-track then they often feel discourage because all the work has to be revised. If you start at the beginning we can guide, coach and provide our expertise to help you write a winning first draft.   The number one benefit of using a book coach is accountability . When you start a new project and get distracted, you might find it easy to quit working. With a coach you will be encouraged and held accountable for your goals. Just having someone who is invested in your su...

The book cover and the title are your first marketing messages to grab potential readers. A great book cover counts as much as the title. In the nonfiction area in particular, a subtitle holds equal weight. You can have a creative title, but your subtitle must spell out what your book is really about.  So here is a lesson most authors should embrace:   It's okay to have a unique title for your book as long as your subtitle says what the book is specifically about . You don't need to make the subtitle "sexy" either. If the book's main title is so eclectic that the reader won't honestly understand it right from the start, then the subtitle should spell out the rest. Our Foreign Rights Agent Nigel emphasized this tip. He said book buyers need to know in less than a second what your book is about or they'll pass it right by and move on to the next.