All I Want is Everything

Genre: non-fiction/Women’s Issues
Publisher: Kim Upstone (November 24, 2009)
ISBN:978-0984077229

Kim Upstone is the owner of A New Day A New Vision which is not only the name of her company, but her life philosophy. Kim believes that each new day we can create a new vision for ourselves, home and environment. As an author, motivational speaker and intuitive designer she resides with her family in Scottsdale, Arizona. With a background in interior design and interest into the effects of environment upon individuals. Accreditation in staging and feng shui soon followed, in additionto study in the field of neuro- architecture. Her first book Step by Step To Sold and Feng Shui to Sell are reflections of those principals. Created as guide for home sellers looking to prepare their home by combining Feng Shui and Staging techniques.

Feng Shui for Special Needs, her second book, is given out as a free ebook for people with life and learning challenges. Based on her own personal experience, and working with special needs children and adults to make enhancements to their environments all in an effort to allow them to flourish.

Her new book All I Want Is Everything released in December 2009 is drawn from her life’s journey of searching how to find her everything and learning to dance in the storm. All I Want Is Everything is a guide to help women reclaim happiness and peace in the search for their everything.

Review

I was excited from the beginning when reading Kim Upstone’s “All I Want is Everything” when she took my favorite quote and expanded upon it.

No one can keep your light bright but you, and although a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle, you cannot keep another candle burning brightly by dimming yours.

And, I was not disappointed as I continued on reading.  Ms Upstone hit close to home with her poignant examples of the ways in which we set ourselves up for failure and unhappiness, keeping our spirits empty by the ways in which we scramble to fill them. She is right when she says that disappointment and unhappiness become the norm. I see it everywhere in many people.
I love when these books give you exercises, as I feel like they are involving me in my healing process – a doing instead of telling – a practical application of the lessons.  And, Ms. Upstone’s book is like chemistry for the real (social) world. I was so excited to see different exercises instead of the same old tried and true ones.  In fact, the first exercise alone, even though I struggled to do it, led me to a profound discovery in my own personal life. She took something I have always known, have read over and over in various books and yet was still unable to do, and she put it into words that I could finally understand. It made sense, and is going to become my new mantra!
Now, shocking me, rather than just giving me a bunch of fancy worded vague advice ( I have read a lot of self-help books), she gave me not only practical advice of what to consider, and what not to consider…but also practical applications like suggestions of how to respond.  Amazing.  Actual words with which to respond so that those I encounter cannot steal my spirit, my light. I have written it down and I am going to carry it around with me until I learn to react that way instinctively! I mean so many times I have read to not surround yourself with people who are dark spirits, and Ms. Upstone does say this to, but also gives us ways to deal with them when we have to.  It is really impossible to avoid them completely, I mean what about all the people you encounter just going to school events for your kids?
Well, now all this was written just after reading the first chapter!  To my delight, Ms. Upstone kept up this pace throughout the book.  In every self-help book there are things that touch each one if us depending on where we are at in our lives. And, this one touched me where I am out right now. Maybe not every word of it, but it was about the best I have read. I am putting her up there with my favorite, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer in effecting my life over-all. I have pages in my notebook of notes, exercise and now practical advice. Thanks, Kim Upstone!

The new site will have the many more pages to show off your books. There will be comprehensive services like word press web design with search engine optimization and statistics ncluded , virtual book tours, video book trailers with uploading to 50 or so video sites, comprehensive reviews, book cover contests, video contests, author interviews, author internet radio shows. press releases, banners, ads, badges for fans to put on their web sites, self publishing advice, social network book promotion, and many more. There will be free and paid services. All paid services will include free distribution. This will all be designed to give you time to do what you do best, WRITE!

In fact, to include you from the start, we are having a “Name the Site Contest.” we will give the winner a $25.00 gift certificate to Amazon. So all you creative people out there, think of a clever name for the new website. Submit your entry to trish@trishsilver.com. We will announce the winner on June 1, 2010.

I am proud to announce that my friend,Pamela Schaefer, has her own Internet video show.  Pam

Trish Silver
author of When I Remember Love
http://trishsilver.com

Trish Silver, author of When I Remember Love
available at http://trishsilver.com and Amazon.com

John Cole : While America Sleeps:  An FBI Whistleblower’s Story. A former
FBI agent high up in the hierarchy blows the whistle and lets us in on what has really
been going on.

Keith David Henry: A Trilogy:  Architects of the Aquarian Age

Don’t Read This Book If You’re Right
The Invisible World and Other Obvious Things
Terra:  The Search for the Divine Feminine
These are books that show us a different way to  think.

Michelel Montgomery: River of Tears, A woman’s struggle as she searches for her missing husband leads to shocking revelations about him, his family, and the crime of adult kidnapping.

Steven Nedelton: Crossroads, a thrilling, paranormal spy novel.  Prepare for a late night,
you won’t be able to put it down.

Sharon Cupp Pennington: Mangroves and Monsters,  a romantic mystery.

The  Promote Your Book page has been updated as it will be every month. There are authors with excellent tips as well as 13 links to use to market your books.  If you know any other authors or blogs to help us or marketing links, please email them to me at trish@trishsilver.com.  Finally anyone who was not selected for the January spotlight will be honored on the New Authors Links page.  December spotlighted authors will also be honored on this page.

Trish Silver provides a wonderful take on what life for a contestant
on a reality television show is like after the last performance. She gives a
remarkable view of the world beyond and how a star is born. The original
music that was made for the novel only adds to the magical ambiance that
Ms. Silver so marvelously crafts. This is a story for anyone who has ever
been in love or ever dreamed of finding the special person meant for them.

If any of you have exciting news like this, please comment here and let us all know.

I am also excited because my book video won first prize on http://yougottareadvideos.blogspot.com
for October and is featured on http://www.authorsden.com. My book is featured there also.
Please go to that site and review my book. I have more than 20 excellent reviews
on Amazon. I am very grateful to those who reviewed When I Remember Love so favorably.  I  also need
reviews on the Authorsden, http://www.shewrites.com, and http://www.goodreads.com
These are great sites for authors which is also why I had to tell you all they did for me.

Also new authors, please submit your books for consideration for the January spotlight.
You are guaranteed a spot on my New Authors Links page whether or not you are chosen for
the Spotlight on New Authors page.  Find out the details at http://www.whenirememberlove.com/new-authors.html.
If you know any other good sites for authors or any authors who are helpful to new authors, please write a
comment to this blog.

I hope you all have a wonderful and safe  holiday season.

Trish

Marti Rulli,  Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour: an investigation of
Natalie Woods death.

Chuck Weinblatt,  Jacob’s Courage: a love story set in the time of the Holocaust.

Julie Achterhoff,  Quantum Earth: a paranormal look into the environmental disasters we are all facing.

Gunter Swoboda, Mountains of the Sea: an adventure in the South Seas set in the late 1700’s.

Lisa Lipkind Leibow,  Double Out and Back: an important novel about women who ride the emotional  roller coaster  of infertility treatments.

Please visit the  Spotlight on New Authors page.  Visit their websites and blogs.  I hope you will find a book or two to buy and enjoy.

Thanks to Mick Moore for the great job he did on the video.   Thanks to my publicist, Janis Friesler who found the contest and encouraged me to enter it.  Thanks to my song writing team, Alan DiCenzo and Judy Simpson for the beautiful background music.  Thank you,  Dick Wells for singing the song with your beautiful voice.

I have been under the weather for the past few days.  When this passes, I have a lot of blogs to write so stay tuned.

Trish

When the characters in my book came to me in a dream and I started to write my great American romance  novel, I never thought that I would publish it. Well… with much perseverance and sweat, blood and tears, I actually did finished it. It took me four years because of many obstacles (that I will divulge in a later blog). I had twelve readers to start out with and they all gave me honest criticism as I finished each chapter. A writer needs  input and they validated me and my talent. Most of my readers thought it was an exceptional work of art and a couple readers thought that it needed more conflict between my two main characters. I pondered the thought, but as the story unfolded I knew that I didn’t want to demean their love and so I wrote it my way. I dared to write a “love story” between two married altruistic people with a hot sex life. Writing those sexual scenes and keeping them fresh was not easy, but extremely necessary and my characters guided me through it (thank you Jenna and Aidan).

I became a new unknown energized author and sent out a few query letters to agents. They always were kind and wrote me back that although the premise of my story was interesting, they had too many authors at the present time.

I went to The Romance Writer’s of America Conference in San Francisco with a finish manuscript and a lot of enthusiasm. The first and last agent I talked to loved my presentation, but wanted to cut my novel down from 127,000 words to 90,000 (the standard for the industry). I was horrified and said no thank you. She looked at me like I was insane, shaking her head from side to side in shock. She assured me that her editor would do a great job with the revisions. I, in turn, said that I wasn’t interested. I had a songwriting team to think about, and I suspected  from speaking to this nice agent that my rights would be taken away forever.

I knew  it was the beginning of the recession, but I was savvy and almost from the inception saw the writing on the wall. I would most likely self- publish and as agents told me politely I would be shooting myself in the foot. Ouch!! I knew that it would be expensive, but somehow I would find the money and promote the book myself.

I studied self-publishing and here is what I learned:

FAMOUS SELF-PUBLISHED BOOKS:

Remembrance of things Past, by Marcel Proust

Ulysses, by James Joyce

The Adventures of Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter

A Time to Kill, by John Grisham

The Wealthy Barber, by David Chilton

The Bridges of Madison County

What Color is Your Parachute

In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters

The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield

The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. (and his student E. B. White)

The Joy of Cooking

When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple

Life’s Little Instruction Book

Robert’s Rules of Order

OTHER FAMOUS AUTHORS WHO SELF-PUBLISHED

Deepak Chopra

Gertrude Stein

Zane Grey

Upton Sinclair

Carl Sandburg

Ezra Pound

Mark Twain

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Stephen Crane

Bernard Shaw

Anais Nin

Thomas Paine

Virginia Wolff

e.e. Cummings

Edgar Allen Poe

Rudyard Kipling

Henry David Thoreau

Benjamin Franklin

Walt Whitman

Alexandre Dumas

William E.B. DuBois

Beatrix Potter

(Thanks to Dan Poynter’s website for this info; see www.parapublishing.com)

REJECTED BY PUBLISHERS

Pearl S. Buck – The Good Earth – 14 times

Norman Mailer – The Naked and the Dead – 12 times

Patrick Dennis- Auntie Mame – 15 times

George Orwell – Animal Farm

Richard Bach – Jonathan Livingston Seagull – 20 times

Joseph Heller -  Catch-22 – 22  times (!)

Mary Higgins Clark – first short story – 40 times

Alex Haley – before Roots – 200 rejections

Robert Persig – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – 121 times

John Grisham – A Time to Kill – 15 publishers and 30 agents (he ended up publishing it himself)

Chicken Soup for the Soul – 33 times

Dr. Seuss – 24 times

Louis L’Amour – 200 rejections

Jack London – 600 before his first story

John Creasy – 774 rejections before selling his first story.  He went on to write 564 books, using fourteen names.

Jerzy Kosinski – 13 agents and 14 publishers rejected his best-selling novel when he submitted it under a different name, including Random House, which had originally published it.

Diary of Anne Frank

Stephen King’s first four novels were rejected. This guy from Maine sent in this novel over the transom,
said Bill Thompson, his former editor at Doubleday. Mr. Thompson, sensing something there, asked to see subsequent novels, but still rejected the next three. However, King withstood the rejection, and Mr. Thompson finally bought the fifth novel, despite his colleague’s lack of enthusiasm, for $2,500. It was called Carrie.

During his entire lifetime, Herman Melville’s timeless classic, Moby Dick, sold only 3,715 copies.

(thanks to Barbara Florio Graham, and her website,  www.simonteakettle.com)

Not bad company for a new author who is getting “Great” reviews!

I then studied traditional publishing:

Authors’ advances were being slashed radically as a result of the slump. Together with the canceling of contracts because a delivered manuscript was ‘not good enough’ or is behind schedule, this is all part of publishers’ trying to do something to cut their expenses. The cutting of publishing lists to trim down savings in books has been the foremost feature of the recession to date, so far authors are worried, with an ensuing sadness over the mid list. Bright new writers are experiencing greater difficulty than ever before in getting their books taken on by a publisher. Now figures are emerging that even premier authors are having their advances disappear.

Self-publishing was the path I choose.

The romance genre, of which I write is doing very nicely, thank you, in spite of the recession. I hired a publicist, marketing coach, and a Web master. We are all learning to work together as a “team”, but I am confident that we will succeed. It’s not an easy road,
but I have a passion and that passion is to have my voice be heard.

Trish Silver

Author of  When I Remember Love
www.trishsilver.com

www.wheniremberlove.com/Free-Book.html Please visit this Web site for a free copy of my book. The books are going fast…only for the first hundred people (shipping and handling prices apply…US only).