Archive for February, 2011

Warming Reads

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

The winter can be a cold and lonesome period with days spent contemplating long hours away.  We ask ourselves where we’ve been and what’s on the horizon.  Family, friends, and aging are often the center of swirling thoughts that wander in search of answers.  And these are the same subjects confronted by authors in a selection of books currently on the shelves here at FSB.  To help persevere during this cold season, we hope the following books offer you insight, guidance, companionship and a warm smile or two.

Falling Apart in One Piece by Stacy Morrison

Just when Stacy Morrison thought everything in her life had come together, her husband of ten years announced that he wanted a divorce. She was left alone with a new house that needed a lot of work, a new baby who needed a lot of attention, and a new job in the high-pressure world of New York magazine publishing.

Told with humor and heart, her honest and intimate account of the stress of being a working mother while trying to make sense of her unraveling marriage offers unexpected lessons of love, forgiveness, and dignity that will resonate with women everywhere.

Falling Apart in One Piece from Simon & Schuster is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Changing Shoes by Tina Sloan

In Changing Shoes, Tina Sloan addresses the issues and feelings most women eventually have to deal with, using humorous personal anecdotes from her personal life (starting with her first pair of Chanel pumps) and her twenty-six years on Guiding Light (where she started out in a pair of white high heels and a fitted nurse’s uniform and finished off in sneakers and modern nurse’s scrubs).  Changes in her looks, love life, career, and family are managed with footwear to match: broken-in black flats when taking care of her aging parents, lavender “Cinderella” shoes to seduce her husband, and pink snow boots to hike Mount Kilimanjaro.

Changing Shoes from Gotham Books is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Tales From the Yoga Studio by Rain Mitchell

In Los Angeles, yoga teachers have become celebrities and designer tank tops can cost a small fortune.  Still, many students flock to the relatively unglamorous Edendale Yoga in the hip, out-of-the-way Silver Lake neighborhood.  It’s here where Lee uses her extraordinary teaching skills and unusual empathy to help students gain control of their bodies and possibly their lives as well. But will  Lee’s students have learned enough from their beloved teacher to help her when she faces financial problems and a marital crisis of her own?

Tales From the Yoga Studio is a warm, funny, and gripping novel about the gift of connection and the joys of discovery, featuring five amazing women you will never forget.

Tales From the Yoga Studio from Plume is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

The Longevity Project by Howard S. Friedman

For years we have been told to make lists and obsessively monitor when we’re angry, what we eat, how much we worry, and how often we go to the gym.  So why isn’t everyone healthy? Now, based on the most extensive study of long life ever conducted, The Longevity Projectreveals what really matters across the long run — the personality traits, relationships, experiences, and career paths that naturally keep you vital.

With self-tests that illuminate your own best paths to longer life, and a deeper scientific understanding than we have seen before of the true causes of long-term health, this book will change the conversation about what it really takes to optimize your chances for a long, healthy life.

The Longevity Project from Hudson Street Press is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

FeatureMe2 Website Reviews: FSB Media

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

by Ken Ishii

Recall the short story “The Elves and the Shoemaker” by the Grimm Brothers about a shoemaker who went to bed expecting to work hard in the morning and woke to find his job had been miraculously and masterfully completed by a pair of spirited supporters.

The bunch of us here at FSB work hard for our clients, but we also put great effort into letting others know what our mission is and hope to get noticed for the services we provide.  But yesterday we had our own “shoemaker” moment when in our Twitter stream we caught a tweet from the fine folks at the FeatureMe2 blog about a review of FSB.  Unbeknownst to us, FeatureMe2 had written a thorough review of one of our websites, FSB Media, and featured it on their blog.  It was a surprising and terrific discovery that let us know how many of our authors feel when they see their hard work recognized in front of millions on the web.

We would like to thank Kay and Mike from FeatureMe2 for taking the time to review our company, website, and services when their list of priorities is already so long. We’re proud to feature the review below and look forward to answering any questions from the comments section.

For honest, thoughtful and balanced reviews of books, games, movies, software, TV shows, and websites, we hope you turn to FeatureMe2 as they have both the expertise and experience of running an outstanding review site.

The following is a review of FSB Media from FeatureMe2 Website Reviews posted on February 15, 2011 by Mike@featureme2.com. For more reviews on the latest media on or offline, visit featureme2.com.

FSB Media will be of interest to many of you bloggers out there like myself who not only have a love for reading great books but also enjoy discussing or reviewing them as content on your blogs.

FSB Media is an arm of FSB Associates, one of the most talented Book Promotions companies in the business. How FSB Associates was founded and grew into the company it is today is a great story but one perhaps better saved for another day. My interest in this website review is to bring book bloggers a fabulous source for possible content.

FSB Media provides the book blogger with free content from published authors and publishers that helps publicize their book. Their client list is a very long and prominent one so no matter what genre you’re blogging about you are sure to find something that interests you at FSB Media.

Having great content to work with is a blogger’s dream and FSB Media comes through in flying colors. You will not be disappointed in the selections available to you as a book blogger or reviewer. You may be thinking that there is some gimmick here or something you will end up being asked to purchase. Simply put, FSB Media is a business and like any other business they have a duty to their clients (authors) to place books in the most appropriate places on the web. So the only catch here is that you need not apply if you’re running a spam site, link farm or if your site has nothing to do with book reviews/discussion.

Also you need to understand that some books you request may be deemed not suitable for your site. This would have nothing to do with your talents as a writer or reviewer but the audience you cater to. For example if your blog is about tractor pulls and speed racing how many of your readers do you think would be interested in the latest release of a book on ladies fashion?

Ok so you pass the test you say. You love books, you love blogging, you have a great looking site with an excellent readership, and getting a free book now and then to write about sounds like a gift from heaven. So what is the next step?

Use the “Click Here to Visit Site” button located in this review and visit FSB Media. Spend some time there learning what they do and how they do it. Get to know some of the authors by reading their bio’s on the Authors pages. Then contact FSB Media with some details about you and your site and explain why your site would be a good fit for their program.

Once accepted you are in for another wonderful surprise….the helpful service you get from the staff!

Leyane Jerejian, Anna Suknov and Julie Harabedian work very hard to liaise with bloggers and ensure your start with FSB Media is a great one! My wife Kay has reviewed books from FSB Media for a couple of years now and she has yet to need assistance that was not provided in a fast, efficient and friendly manner. It really is like you become part of the FSB Media family once you start blogging about the authors and books they make available to you. The staff are a real pleasure to deal with and their enthusiasm for their work shines through.

Now to be honest it is a give and take situation. FSB Media provides you with the latest content by well known and bestselling authors, as well as the new author just getting that first publication date. In return you as a professional writer/reviewer are expected to give each book you select the best possible open and honest review you can. This is the magic that makes FSB Media such a delight to work with.

Use the red button located at the top of this review and take a little nosey around their site. Meet some of the authors that you may soon be writing about, then contact FSB Media if you feel you’d be a good fit. Their standards are high. Who knows, you may be a perfect match!

FSB Media Connects Bloggers With Books!

Twitter Tweet Anatomy

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

by Ken Ishii

For authors, Twitter is an incredible platform for promoting not only your book(s), but publicizing you – as an author, as an expert, as a person.  Twitter gets compared to Facebook and texting when, really, it’s a social networking platform unlike anything out there.

There are millions of people on Facebook and it’s the top social networking service for good reason.  Using Facebook is a great way to connect with friends, family, and people that have decided to “like” you.  But if you’re looking for new users to introduce your book to, it can take a great deal of time and effort to get outsiders to visit and interact on your page.

Using Facebook is arguably becoming one of the most time consuming activities in the US that many simply can’t afford.  Some would rather email or text each other.  A bit too direct for most marketing campaigns to be successful.

Twitter combines the economy of texting with the networking power of Facebook to create something too fast and far reaching to ignore.  Getting started is as easy as signing up on the Twitter website.  Enhancing your experience and finding marketing success, however, is a whole other game.  We collected several resources that will help you get engaged with the millions of people that are having just as many conversations every second of the day.  Fauzia Burke has an article, Twitter 101: Tips to Get You Started, on The Huffington Post that will get you up and running so you don’t end up spending time wondering what retweets or hashtags are.  What the heck is a Bit.ly anyway?  You’ll find out soon enough.

One of the difficulties I notice people having even after reading a tutorial is getting used to the endless streams of confusing text racing back and forth between users.  To that, I say there’s nothing like hands-on experience.  But for now, I’ve put the brakes on a few tweets for you to examine at your own pace.  Bonus!  Click on the messages with links to go to the articles that are mentioned in the tweets below!

Twitter’s 140 character limit may be the very reason for its success.  It forces conversations to get straight to the point.  With this limitation, though, you’ll find users getting creative with their tweets using abbreviations and compressing text.  While an entire list is hardly practical, it is good to know some of the basics and we have them listed below to help decode the tweet-speak.

Going forward you’ll probably be interested in employing Twitter to help promote your book.  Twitter Power by Joel Comm will show you how to use Twitter for marketing purposes which will help build awareness for your book and strengthen your personal brand.  See the video below for more information.

Looking for Balance in a 24/7 World

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

By Fauzia Burke

It is not uncommon for me to get business e-mails at 6:30 a.m. or 12:00 midnight. Until recently, it was also not uncommon for me to answer them. However, this year for my birthday I’ve decided to give myself the gift of balance.

We live in a culture of 24/7 work and it has become normal to many of us. We have raised the expectation of availability to a point that is unhealthy. Recently, a potential client wrote to me on a Saturday, then wrote back on Sunday wondering why I had not e-mailed him back. Another prospective client emailed me at 10:30 on a weeknight and by 8:30 the next morning had written again, a little frustrated, asking for a response. Another person asked to talk to me on a Saturday, and when I informed her that I don’t work on the weekends, she was irritated.

I realized that by trying to always play catch up and accommodate the 24/7 expectations, I was feeling exhausted, overwhelmed and unbalanced. To get some solutions, I turned to an author who has written a book on the challenges we face at work today. I asked Tony Schwartz, author of “The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working,” how to handle the 24/7 expectations. He said, “We can’t control the expectations of others, but we can seek to manage them. Above all, it makes sense to try to invest your energy in what you have the power to influence.”

What I am discovering is that living on this crazy cycle is a choice, being “open” 24/7 is a choice. We ourselves have set up these expectations. Everyone I know seems to be tired and overwhelmed because we are trying to stay ahead of the information overload.

And we are not alone. According to Daniel Patrick Forrester, a client and author of “Consider: Harnessing the Power of Reflective Thinking In Your Organization,” “25 percent of our workdays are spent immersed in information overload.” I asked him for some advice on how to tackle all of the information coming at us.

Information abounds and will forever compound as the world further connects. What we all can do is to force time into our habits and routines to simply think and value reflection as much as we value responding to the onslaught of data that will forever pour over us.

We are taking no time to think, to consider, to plan or to dream. All we are doing is trying to stay ahead of e-mails, Tweets, DM, status updates, LinkedIn invitations and more.

Seth Godin recently wrote a blog called Lost in a Digital World which was retweeted 952 times within 24 hours. He recommends that we turn off the noise and turn on the productivity.

One of the biggest disadvantages of technology is the lack of “thinking time.” Forrester tells us that the reason we have so little time to think is because, “our habitual use of technology and bias for immediacy and rapid response has contributed to fragmenting our attention across many issues at the cost of allowing deep exploration around any one issue.”

Many of us depend on multitasking as the only way to get everything done. However, there is a cost to all this multitasking, I worry that we are doing nothing to the best of our abilities. Schwartz talks about the myth of multitasking: “The brain can’t do cognitive tasks at the same time, so you end up dividing attention between them, as your brain switches back and forth. The result is that you do an injustice to everything, and everyone your splitting time between. We’re sequential beings, not simultaneous. One thing at a time: it’s been around as a basic principle since the dawn of time!”

In the last six months, I have made some small changes in my life. Twice I took two weeks off completely unplugged. To tell you the truth it takes a few days to find a rhythm, a few days to remember how to “be” without the noise, but after that it is blissful. And you know what? The world did not stop, nor did anyone miss me. I just slipped in and out of the river of digital information with no consequences. I found that when I returned I had better ideas, more energy and fully formed thoughts. This year I plan to take more steps for creating balance in my life. Like anything else it’s a choice and like anything new it will take some practice.

Why not join me? I say to my fellow workers, set some office hours and stick to them, take back your lunch hours and unplug during dinners, family times and vacations. We deserve our own time and even more importantly our own attention.

Author Spotlight: Conor Grennan

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

This week we would like to feature Conor Grennan, author of the newly released memoir, Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal.

Little Princes follows Conor Grennan’s adventure through war-torn Nepal where after volunteering at the Little Princes Children’s Home in the village of Godawari, he realizes the unsettling truth about how children ended up in the orphanage.  In remote mountainous parts of Nepal, parents unknowingly surrendered boys and girls to con men and traffickers after paying large sums of money.  Parents had hoped that their children would be safe from Maoist insurgents forcibly recruiting members to revolt in the area’s civil war.  It was learning this horrifying truth that triggered Conor Grennan to take action by leading a quest to reunite the lost children of Nepal with their families.

After volunteering in Godawari at the Little Princes Children’s Home in 2004, Conor Grennan returned to launch Next Generation Nepal (NGN), a nonprofit organization dedicated to reconnecting trafficked children with their families in postwar Nepal.  See more about Next Generation Nepal in the video posted below.

Pop Culture Madness is featuring an excerpt of the first chapter of Little Princes. Take a look to get a feel for the surroundings that set the stage for this truly memorable and touching story.

Conor Grennan is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the NYU Stern School of Business.  He currently resides in Connecticut with his wife and son.  Little Princes (William Morrow) is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

For more information about Conor Grennan and Next Generation Nepal, visit nextgenerationnepal.org and join the community on Facebook.