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Today Lavaine is doing well and able to go about life in a manner which would never have been thought possible in 1986. This was the year which he was diagnosed as HIV+. The first treatment for HIV was called AZT, in 1988.

By 1995 other treatments had been developed but with very limited success. At that time much research had been done and it was found that more drugs than just one or two used together could in most cases ‘demolish’ the HIV to such an extent that it was unable to replicate in the body.

This was to save countless lives and those people who are fortunate enough to live in countries where these drugs are available have a very good chance of living with HIV, and not progressing to Aids.

The HIV virus is notorious at being able to ‘hide’ in the human body, so there is no cure. The drugs available are in various classes and although they work in different ways, are formulated to prevent the virus from replicating. HIV attacks the very cells which are there to fight disease and mop up pathogens which are entering the body every moment. A lack of these cells inevitably leads to infections going unchecked, which in turn lead to serious illness.

There are cases of a very small number of people who are resistant to HIV. Some will never become HIV positive, Whilst others who do are very slow to become ill, and are termed ‘Lon-term non-progressors.’

Perhaps Lavaine is one of these but doctors have always treated him as any other patient, with similar treatments.

So the book is available and is downloadable from the website: HIV-Muscles.com. It costs $9.99 and for every book sold 1$ will be donated to Aids Charities.

Written by Ray Penn, Author of HIV-Muscles.

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There are over ten thousand daily, weekly and monthly newspapers in the United States and Canada. For the first time author they are a valuable source of free publicity. They are hungry for news and your new book is news. When approaching these papers there is a list of things that are frowned upon and another list of things under the heading of don’t you dare. We will examine the latter category first.

Never start your press release with the headline in all caps or in bold or underlined type. Capitalize your heading as you would a title for a book and no more. Never use a barrage of personal pronouns as you must stay in the third person. Never forget to place a summary statement just after the headline. That is a few sentences that will bait the reader so to speak. It should make them want to read what follows next in the main body. Never, never, never include any personal or contact information in the summary statement or body of your press release. Save the contact info for the last “about” section of the press release, that is what it is for. In that final section, go gently. It is ok to include such info as the projected target of your book, telephone number, web site and other contact information. A note on your credentials is ok too, that is your degrees or experience or anything that qualifies you to have written your book.

Essentially there are four parts to any good press release and they are as follows:

1. The headline: One or two sentences that describe what the news is all about. Don’t get dull; if you lose the reader here you have lost the reader for good. Don’t say Author Has New Book On The Social Problems of Latinos. But rather try something like”Fiery Latinos Who Have Found Ways to Escape the Fire in the Neighborhood.” Don’t worry as much about it making sense to everyone. Worry more about how it catches their attention, their curiosity or even their imagination. Most editors have played mind games with the public since the invention of op-ed science; you may as well jump in too.

2. The Summary Statement: This consists of one, two or three sentences that summarize what the body of the release is about. Here you must use phrases that offer solutions, new views, controversy, or outright absurdity. If you have written a book on how to lose weight without dieting, try something like. Author Says Diets are Dead At Last.

3. The main body: This is the meat and potatoes section of the release. Choose those finer points of your book those things that comprise the heart of the matter. Use contrasts; compare your ideas with existing ones. If you have written a novel, frame the story line succinctly from the most intense parts of your book rather that a complete overall narrative.

4. Biographical information: Stay in the third person and do not make a sales pitch. Stick to credentials, experience, qualifications, and contact information. Got a web site, use it first and all other contact info as a secondary only.

The ways commonly accepted for submitting press releases to newspapers is in transition. You will still have good results by sending faxes but it is also ok to use e-mail. Newer ways are to use news feeds but at this moment it seems that only big news gets picked up and the wires are very crowded with national and world events for the most part. It will help if you approach editors first to ask if you can send them a news release. If you’re not sure how to approach them just ask which editor might be interested in your particular kind of submission. Most editors are very congenial when approached this way and as they say, get your foot in the door. All of this takes a great deal of time and only the very serious need apply for this job.

It almost pains me to say that you must check you spelling and grammar very carefully. Use a word program to write your release first then send it out. It is ok to send the same release to many papers. And it is ok to send them more than one time but you should space your submissions out over a period of several weeks not days. Try to re-word each submission if possible so as not to give the impression that you are bombing them in hope of a result. You may get shot down but don’t get discouraged. Some editors will just ignore you unless you have a book on the New York Times best seller list. One other very sad thing to report is that if you have used a POD publisher or you are self published you will rarely get the attention of the major news papers. If your book creates a minor national controversy or if it should leap in sales overnight they might bend their rules.

Where do you get the lists of newspapers? Many lists exist online that will cost you nothing. You can subscribe to a media service that will provide you with huge lists of newspapers but that will cost you from two to five hundred dollars. If that is worth it to you then have at it. Remember newspapers will only put your release in once so when new things arise about you or your book send them the news.. Like anything else in the public domain, some newspapers will reject you, some will be indifferent and some will think you are the cat’s meow. Hang in there, it is worth it.

Rev Bresciani is the leader of a non-denominational ministry in the New Orleans area. He has written many articles over the past thirty years in such periodicals as Guideposts and Catholic Digest. He is the author of two books available on Amazon.com, Alibris, Barnes and Noble and many other places. Rev Bresciani wrote, Hook Line and Sinker or What has Your Church Been Teaching You, published by PublishAmerica of Baltimore MD. He also wrote a book about to be released by Xulon Press entitled An American Prophet and His Message, Questions and Answers on the Second Coming of Christ. You can see more about Rev Bresciani on his own website at http://americanprophet.org

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You have a non-fiction book in mind. You know it’s going to be great and it’ll help a lot of people. But you also have mountains and mountains of material–so much good information! So much excellent research! How do you organize it all to create a powerful book? Here are the basic building blocks of a non-fiction book. Keep these in mind and you won’t get overwhelmed by your material.

1.) Think About Your Reader

When you think about your reader you’re thinking two things: “What does the reader get out of my book?” and “What kind of relationship do I want to establish with the reader?” One of your duties as an author is to offer your reader something of value which could even change their life for the better. Ideally you’ll make it clear what this value is when you title the book. It’s pretty clear, for instance, what you’ll get when you pick up Stephen Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. This could also provide the structure for your chapters. If you’re teaching how to improve your golf stroke in 10 steps, you could include a chapter on each step. You don’t have to make it more complicated than that.

As for your relationship with your reader, what do you want it to be? Will it be a teacher/student relationship? Peer-to-peer? A storytelling relationship? If you’re writing a biography, you may want to be a storyteller and have your reader be a listener. Will your voice be friendly and homely? Or authoritative and formal? The point is that you’re always asking yourself “To whom and I speaking and how do I want to be heard?” What choices will best suit your audience?

2.) What’s Your Theory?

Theory is how the writer is proposing to make his ideas play themselves out. It’s how it all works. In Anthony Robbins’ book, “Awaken the Giant Within”, he’s making the point that you are in control of your decisions and you can really tap into your human potential. Well, how do you do that? His theory of how you do that is to become aware that you are in control of everything that happens within you. You are in control of your emotions, of making choices, of creating what he calls “neuro associations” that will draw you towards a positive behavior or help you move away from a negative behavior. That’s his theory.

I’m assuming if you have already decided to write a non-fiction book that you have a plan that you’re presenting to the world. Non-fiction books are often the result of what you do in your everyday life; you may notice that things could work better if people did things in a different way. Maybe your how-to just makes more sense, or it fits your readers better than someone else’s theory. That’s why it’s important for you to have your own ideas. It truly is about what you’re bringing to the book, how much you’re putting yourself into it, because that’s what brings energy and vitality to the work and makes a lasting impression on the world.

3.) What Stories Will You Tell?

Stories are a crucial ingredient in non-fiction books. They are what will help bring your points home to the reader and make them real. Most writers use anecdotes from their professional lives. Life coaches use stories from clients, real estate brokers use stories from people they’ve worked with. Stories help the reader see that 1) other people have dealt with the same problems and 2) the writer has direct experience and knows how to bring about a successful solution.

When you use stories you’re also using an ages-old technique–it’s even used in the Bible, where stories (or parables) are told to educate the reader on complex concepts. I think our brains still respond positively to this technique. Stories can be a softer way of taking medicine–that spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down!

4.) What’s Your Call to Action?

When you craft a call to action for your reader, you are designing a way of telling them, “Here’s what you do now that you have this information, here’s how you make it work.” Let’s use a weight loss book as an example. Maybe the theory is about overeating. If you were writing this book, you might want to include calls to action throughout the book giving the reader different strategies about how to avoid overeating. You’ll include how not to overeat in restaurants, how to avoid overeating at bedtime, how to avoid overeating while traveling or at buffets, whatever.

In some books the author will present questions and exercises. That’s part of a call to action because it makes the reader stop and absorb what they’ve just learned and even to design their own action plans based on their own unique circumstances. In our example above, you might challenge the reader to choose two alternative things they could do instead of overeating.

What’s Next?

Now you have to write the book! Keep this structure in mind and you’ll be well on your way to creating a powerful book that will inform, educate and–in the best of all possible worlds–change the way we live for the better.

© 2006 Sophfronia Scott

Author and Writing Coach Sophfronia Scott is “The Book Sistah” TM. Get her FREE REPORT, “The 5 Big Mistakes Most Writers Make When Trying to Get Published” and her FREE online writing and book publishing tips at http://www.TheBookSistah.com

Sophfronia is also author of the bestselling novel, All I Need to Get By. If you liked today’s issue, stay tuned for more because The Book Sistah also offers FREE audio classes, FREE articles, workshops, and other resources to help aspiring authors get published and market their books successfully.

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