Washoe, first of a new species to experience original sin, experiences death.

The news report said:

(AP) SPOKANE, Wash. - October 31, 2007 - Washoe, a female chimpanzee believed to be the first non-human to acquire human language, has died of natural causes at a research institute.

Washoe, who learned American Sign Language in a research project in Nevada, died Tuesday night at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute at Central Washington University's Ellensburg campus, said institute co-founders Roger and Deborah Fouts. She was born in Africa about 1965.

A memorial is planned for Nov. 12.

May god bless.

Nothing like tooting ones own horn

Wilderness House Literary Review and ISCSPress editors and authors are named Cambridge Massachusetts Poet Populist finalists.

The editors of ISCSpress would like to extend their congratulations to members of our community who have been named Cambridge Poet Populist finalists. The Cambridge Poet Populist is an informal office for a local poet, chosen by the people to represent poetry for the City of Cambridge.

The Poet Populist will facilitate the creation and appreciation of poetry throughout the city for all residents of Cambridge. The Poet Populist will maintain a schedule of public appearances throughout their one-year term in the position. The Cambridge City Council will award $1,000 for the first year.

Our finalists friends are:

Irene Koronas, is the poetry editor of Wilderness House Literary Review (whlreview.com) and author of “self portrait drawn from many,” Ibbetson Street Press, Somerville MA, 2007, http://www.lulu.com/content/929148. ISCSPress had the pleasure of designing this book.

Molly Lynn Watt, is the editor of the annual “Bagel Bard Anthology,” designed and published by ISCSpress, Volume 1, http://www.lulu.com/content/261048; Volume 2, http://www.lulu.com/content/729666. Molly is also the author of “Shadow People,” Ibbetson Street Press, Somerville MA, 2007, http://www.lulu.com/content/596300. ISCSpress designed this book.

Philip Burnham, Jr., is the author of “A Careful Scattering,” Červená Barva Press, Somerville MA, 2007, http://www.lulu.com/content/1214473. ISCSpress designed this book.

Deborah Priestly designed the cover of the Bagel Bard Anthology # 1, edited by Molly Lynn Watt and published by ISCSpress.

Wilderness House Literary Review has published Diana DerHovanessian, another finalist. Kudos goes to the remaining finalists as well, Richard Cambridge, Denise Bergman and Jean Dany Joachim. We will make an endeavor to include them in future editions of the Wilderness House Literary Review.

Wilderness House Literary Review Volume 2, number three released online

LITTLETON, MA – October 8 2007 – The Wilderness House Literary Review committee is pleased to announce that Volume 2 number 3 has been released on the Web. This edition of WHLReview.com includes works of fiction by novelist Anne Brudevold as well as short fiction by Andrew Bertaina, Brett Yates, Jim Woods, John Hildebidle, Randall Brown, Ruth Jespersen, Shannon O’Connor, Susan Tepper, Sylvia Holt and Terry Sanville. As well as essays by Lloyd Hudson Frye and Tom Sheehan and poetry by Anne Brudevold, Abbott Ikeler,Alan Britt, Bonnie Marie,Carolyn Gregory, Chad Parenteau, Chris Crittenden, Diana Der-Hovanessian, Duane Locke, Eleanor Goodman, Felino Soriano, Gloria Mindock, Howard Lee Kilby, Irene Koronas, Irisha Pomerantzeff, John Hildebidle, Jon Ballard, Judy L Brekke, Julia Carlson, Michael Amado, Patrick Carrington, Shannon O’Connor and Tino Villanueva, Tom Sheehan.


Wilderness House Literary Review has compared favorably by Boston Globe to Ploughshares, the literary magazine from Emerson College. WHLR is a result of the collaboration between a group of poets and writers who call themselves the Bagel Bards, Industrial Myth and the Wilderness House Literary Retreat. The Wilderness House Literary Retreat is supported by the Rotary Club of Littleton Massachusetts.

WHLReview.com is sponsored by Industrial Myth and Magic. Industrial Myth is a Public Relations firm based in Littleton Massachusetts. Industrial Myth maintains a practice specializing in literary properties. It’s not good enough to just have a better mousetrap--you need a more compelling story. It’s not just advertising, it’s not just marketing, it’s not just product design … it’s everything. It’s an industrial myth and that’s magic. See www.industrialmyth.com.

Contact Steve Glines, sglines@industrialmyth.com, 978-633-3460

Guaranteed Overnight Theater

GOT at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education.

This past weekend I participated in Guaranteed Overnight Theater or GOT. I haven’t had so much fun in years. We survived in spite of my mistakes. Silly me saying the event would start at 5 P.M. on a Friday – what was I thinking … that theater and writer types live on the same schedule I do? Twelve people showed up and two promptly left. I think I must look scary. One gentleman came in very late with a rather morose short story he wanted converted into a script. When it was clear that wasn’t going to happen he left. We lost another overnight – an email stating that she would rather work on her own plays and did not wish to collaborate further. Well la de da, that left 8 of us.

By 10 PM we had the outline of 7 mini scripts and a framework that would tie them all together. By 10 AM we had reassembled and disassembled to work on our various scripts. By 1 PM we were ready to rehearse. We managed to do about 3 walkthroughs before the show.

Four Bagel Bards participated, Gloria Mendock (I designed her first book), Anne Brudevold (we’re serializing her novel “Hunter Moon” in WHLReview.com), Jacques the Haitian Firefly (no comment) and me.

We played to a packed house of twelve. The work was titled “The Open Mike” (or “Modern Vaudeville”) and began with your typical open mike poetry by Wilhelmina Shakespeare followed by Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemmingway. This was for warm-up. Then we did "The Pig and the Wolf," how theatrical types would have changed "the three little pigs" and "Little Red Riding Hood." The next playlette was titled, “Dating through the Decades,” in three acts. Following up on a theme that worked we did, “Internet Speed Dating in Person.” This was very funny with Jacques delivering the punch line flawlessly. Jacques also started in “The Dance Class,” where he believably seduced his way through a dance class leaving a student dazed and confused which lead to “The Shrink.” In “The Shrink” a traumatized dance student explains why he’s fallen in love with a sex addict. Another punch line delivered perfectly. “Brra dump dump,” says the imaginary drum. The last act had Anne Brudevold tormenting Jacques as a sadistic massage therapist in “The Last Gas.” Throughout the open mike Gloria Mindock and I played “the audience” sitting with a table between us on stage dripping sarcastic battery acid lines between playletts.

Enjoying himself in the audience was David Bertolino, former proprietor of “spooky World” and now an aspiring playwright and theatrical producer. His next work will be opening in Boston next May – Oh, how can we possibly wait? – is called “Deep Throat, the play.” Seriously, see www.deepthroattheplay.com.

We had a blast and hope to repeat our stunt in January when we can next have access to the little theater at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education (or sooner should another theater materialize).

Photos:
Top - Jacques & Sophya in "Dating through the decades"
Middle: Sophya, Jim, Jacques and Mary Ann (standing) in "Speed Dating"
Bottom left: Lynn in "The Pig and the Wolf"
Bottom right: Jim finishes the script of "The Shrink"

Glittering literati to honor famed poet Jack Powers

The glittering literati of Boston will be gathered this weekend to honor the acclaimed poet Jack Powers on the occasion of his 70th birthday. If you have never heard of Jack Powers then you have not been part of the literary scene in Boston for any of the last 40 years. Jack founded “Stone Soup Poetry,” the oldest continuous open mike venue in Boston bringing the likes of Laurence Ferlenghetti, Gregory Corso and many more to the scene. Stonesoup also published over 20 poetry anthologies and dozens of individual poetry chapbooks. Jack was also on the founding board of FIRST NIGHT.

The event is a potluck dinner this Saturday Sept 15, 2007 at 5 P.M. at the International Community Church in Allston, 30 Gordon Street. Expect to see the pick of Boston’s glamorous and not so glamorous literati there. Music by the "Blue Dust Drifters" and Jennifer Matthews.

The small press scene (is there any other literary scene in Boston?) is very incestuous. Gloria Mindock, proprietress of Červená Barva Press, has just published a collection of poems titled “Blood Soaked Dresses” with Ibbetson Street Press. While Ibbetson Street’s proprietor Doug Holder’s latest book “No One Dies at the Au BonPain,” published by another small press, Sunnyoutside is received glowing reviews from Ibbetson Street author and small press bad boy Hugh Fox and in Small Press Review. ISCSpress, as usual managed the production of “Blood Soaked Dresses” and Hugh Fox’s latest, “Way, Way Off the Road.”

Rumor has it that bagel bard, Simmons professor and all round nice guy, Affa Michael Weaver is preparing a new volume of poetry to be published by one of the big boys (a brand name NYC publisher) and after a front page interview in Poet & Writer and an upcoming splash in Poetry magazine his national and international fame is beginning to spread beyond Boston, Baltimore and Taipei. I smell major literary prize.

In other news “Guaranteed Overnight Theater” or GOT is coming to Boston (Cambridge actually) next weekend, September 21 and 22. GOT has been a perennial favorite in Philadelphia for the last 10 years. GOT is unlike any other theatrical experience. Halfway between improvisation and tag-team writing GOT puts writers, directors and actors together for 24 hours of creativity. Starting Friday evening the team writes a play or series of plays, Saturday afternoon they rehearse and Saturday night a performance is given. It should be exciting. GOT will be at the theater at the Cambridge Center for Adult education.

Pale imitation of a poem

Pale imitation of a poem
for Jack Powers

Inspiration on the back, side,
inside flap of an old utility bill
three poems to be read once
then placed in a filing system
only a fireman could love:

“Old man rises
for Madonna with child
noisy, smelly, subway car
modern manger, god bless,
god bless”

“Screams to the Almighty
murder the infidel
blasphemous
pox upon your house
… all your houses ….
And we wonder why God is silent?”

“bus
travelers in common
a conversation stricken
at our destination when
we become fearful, alone again.
Why? When we had
so much in common?”

On the first day of school

Remembering your first day of school

The First day of school
was the best day of my life.

It was the start of a new year,
the next incarnation, reinvention of me.

Not beige and sullen as I left it in June
but tan, strong and muscular - energized.

Voices deeper,
horseplay harder.

I showoff what I’ve learned this summer,
that I too can be strong and, oh, I read a book.

It said that your first day of school
was the best day of your life.

That your redesign of yourself,
your, my, our act of renewal brought us closer.

Exciting thoughts to keep us warm this winter
if darkness spoil or obscure our vision.

Remember the first day of school
you wore petticoats and I was so proud.

Musings on a long weekend

Last Monday I was at the Out of the Blue Gallery to hear Anne Brudevold read poetry at the Stone Soup poetry venue. Stone Soup is the oldest poetry venue in Boston at 35 plus years. I wanted to hear Anne read. I love her prose but hever heard her poetry. Her novel “Hunter Moon” is being serialized by Wilderness House Literary Review (whlreview.com) expect another couple of chapters in the next issue available about October 1. I’ve been editing the novel for Anne over the last year or so as part of my job at ISCSpress (iscspress.com). Some literary agents we know are now reviewing it. Expect it to be published next year sometime. Thom August’s mystery novel “Nine Fingers,” another editing job by yours truly, has been picked up by Dorchester Press and will be out in January.

Chad Parenteau, the current moderator at Stone Soup said from the podium that I was in the “office, I mean the audience.” It’s beginning to feel that way since we are producing, editing and designing so many books for the small press community in Boston.

Speaking of Wilderness House Literary Review, Gloria Mindock of Červená Barva Press has finished editing an anthology of Volume 1 of WHLreview. ISCSpress is publishing it and it should be available in a week or so.

We’ve also just finished doing layout for three; yup count em, three books for noted Boston poet and playwright Don DiVecchio. The books include a volume of poetry titled “Circle of Crows,” a collection of plays, poetry and stories titled “Voices from the Invisible” and a wonderful broadside titled “Eleven Ways to Change the World.”

An upcoming releases also created by ISCSpress and to be published by Červená Barva Press is Phillip Burnham’s touching poetic tribute to his wife titled “A Careful Scattering.” Phillip’s book is a collection of the Christmas cards he created with wife over a 40-year period. Phil wrote the poems while his wife, Louise (who died of cancer in 2002) and their daughter Elizabeth created the visual art. It’s beautiful and I’m sure will be a hit for Christmas this year.

Irene Koronas's poetry collection "Self Portrait Drawn From Many" is a pick of the month in the Small Press Review

Our own Irene Koronas (a bagel bard) has received the kudos of the Small Press Review for her book of poetry. Irene Koronas is not only an ISCSpress editor, she is the poetry editor of the Wilderness House Literary Review. We are doubly pleased because her wonderful volume of poetry was designed by ISCSpress and published by our partners at Ibbetson Street Press . Can a Pulitzer nomination be far behind?

Click here if you'd like to buy the book.

Why is it so expensive to market a book?

With publishing on demand the act of publishing a book is very inexpensive but if a book is printed and no one knows about it so no one buys it … does it count? Selling books requires marketing and selling the book. Marketing is the act of making a potential reader aware of the book you are trying to sell. Marketing is expensive. The author, substituting time for some of the cost, can do most of these steps. When major publisher promotes a book they pay for everything, this is what they pay for:

1. Well before publication: A review in Kirkus Review, the Library Journal, BookSense, Publishers Weekly, specialty reviews, regional reviews, etc. Most of these outlets require a fee of between $100 and $350 for a review with no guarantee that you’ll like what the review says. Of course every venue for your review needs a galley, which must be printed, prepared, mailed with followed up. Pre-publication marketing can easily top $3000.
2. Press releases. During the commercial life of your book the publisher and the authors publicist will send out many press releases. The first one will announce that the book will be published with a very short synopsis. Every event in the life of the book should be announced. In general the first press release takes the most work. The public relations team needs to learn all about you, the author (what makes the YOU so newsworthy) and about the book (what makes it special: why, on earth, should I read this book instead of other book). A publicity campaign involving just 5 press releases can easily cost $2000.
3. Web site. Press releases are pointless if they don’t direct the reader someplace. Today a website is a necessity. Creating a simple website can cost $500 - $1500. Remember there is a professional photograph to be taken, professional copy to be written and a designers time all of which cost money, plus hosting and domain name. Creating a unique website requires obtaining a domain, contracting for a web site, designing a simple web site that should contains the following information:
1. The authors biography
2. Photograph of the author and book cover
3. The Authors list of other books (if any)
4. A synopsis of the book you’re selling today
5. The book tour – signings, sightings and readings
6. Publication information for bookstores, libraries and teachers
7. A way for the public to buy the book directly via
   i. POD printer
   ii. Amazon
   iii. Paypal button
   iv. Link to your publishers e-commerce site

A professional e-commerce enabled web site designed from scratch (with recycled copy from press releases) may cost, when all is said and done, $1500 or more.

4. Post publication reviews & interviews. Targeting secondary reviewers in Newspapers, magazines, specialized book review venues including literary journals and radio and television. Find a select number of reviewers, contact them, ship books to them and follow up. Generating 5 reviews (again no guarantee they’ll like the book) requires contacting 20 – 30 potential reviewers. Cost: roughly $1500 plus books and shipping.
5. Marketing Collateral is the stuff they give away in pursuit of product recognition: business cards, bookmarks, postcards, posters, fliers, brochures and everything else needed to get peoples attention. A small collection of business cards, bookmarks and postcards can cost $500. A full-blown direct mail campaign to 3000 bookstores could cost $15,000 to $20,000.
6. Bookstore marketing. To sell books you can either sell directly to the end user (that’s what your web site is for) or you can sell through a middleman. A middleman can be a distributor, a bookstore, a grocery store, a drug store or any other organization that sells books. You’d be surprised who sells books, look around. In the long run you want your book to be in bookstores. Promoting your book to the chain stores is best accomplished by generating buzz and demand. If people ask for your book, they’ll carry it. The independent bookstores are different. You want to market to the independent bookstores because they will give you the widest opportunity for book signings and local publicity. For a book signing tour you’ll need to first contact all your local bookstores within some distance of a zip code by sending them a flier telling about your book, all about your planned marketing blitz in the area, and your book tour schedule (when you would like to schedule a book signing), a mail-back postcard and some bookmarks and a poster. The cost of contacting 100 independent book stores is roughly $2000. The costs of a bookstore marketing campaign could include:
1. collateral design & packaging
2. collateral printing
3. mailing list rental
4. fulfillment (labeling and mailing the kit)
5. Follow up phone calls
7. Book clubs, reading clubs, open mike venues, specialized distributors, or any specialized marketing. Every book is unique. Every book has a unique collection of possible sales and marketing venues. Exploring each venue takes time and money. The big-boys are both adept and efficient at this kind of marketing.

This is what a major publisher would do for a book in the middle of their list. They would spend a lot more on a Harry Potter book. If you self-publish or are published by a smaller publisher without a marketing budget you may still be able to reap sizable rewards simply by creating a website and issuing a press releases.

HINT: One of the missions of ISCSpress is to provide marketing services for self-published authors and smaller publishers. We can’t make it any less expensive but we do the work so you don’t have to. You just have to write.

Sorry for killing, eating your priests

For those of you who have read my book "Seven days in Fiji," I had to laugh when I saw this in todays issue of Fiji Times. It's about a long overdue reconciliation. Just click on the headline above.

Bookswim – a library for the rich and lazy

Every once in a while an idea comes along that takes advantage of Americans propensity to be incredibly lazy. First there were fast foods. Then there was pizza delivery, then Netflix DVD delivery and PeaPod grocery delivery, and so on. I get the impression from TV commercials that that most Americans are beer guzzling or bon-bon eating creatures far to fat to get out of their Barcaloungers.

This vision of America doesn’t include a high level of literacy. Indeed I would guess that the average household today doesn’t have more than 2 or 3 books, gifts probably. I’ve been in houses where no books were in evidence. Five hundred years ago Shakespeare made a go of live performances because books were so expensive and the populous illiterate. One hundred years ago books were cheep and authors made the rounds of Vaudeville halls as Pop superstars. Those days are gone and the mind numbing effects of TV have created a population that views the production of the daily tabloid as a literary achievement.

Into this dubious world enters an online company called bookswim.com that claims, “what netflix did for movies bookswim will do for books.” It’s a Netflix for books. Bookswim is a cross between a book club and an online library. Yes, the business model has you renting books. Of course they have all the most popular books, novels, non-fiction, hardcovers and paperbacks. They don’t have any of my books (I looked) but they do have books written by my cousin (http://tinyurl.com/22agx8) with a handy pointer to Amazon.com if you’d rather buy the book than rent it. You can probably ask for books to be included. I’ll ask them to stock everything I ever wrote. That ought to double my sales.

For $20 (actually $19.99 but who’s counting) you get to order three out of a library of 150,000 titles and if it’s in stock they will mail it to you immediately with a postage paid mail-back envelope … just like Netflix. You get to keep the books as long as you want and for $20 a month they would love you to keep them forever. Mail back a book and they’ll mail you another.

What a wonderfully clever idea you might be saying until I remind you that the public library is FREE and mine delivers.

ISCSpress to servicice small publishers and independent authors

Doug Holder and I announce the creation of ISCSpress as a service bureau and subsidized publisher for authors and small publishers. Click on the title (above) for the press release.

Poets Corner is a 30 minute local access TV show in Littleton MA My first time on TV - It didn't make me look to bad, just fat.

The New Wilderness House Literary Review is out

Wilderness House Literary Review Volume 2, number two released online

LITTLETON, MA – July 5 2007 – The Wilderness House Literary Review committee is pleased to announce that Volume 2 number 2 has been released on the Web. This edition of www.WHLReview.com includes works of fiction by novelist Anne Brudevold as well as short fiction by G Emil Reutter, Tom Sheehan, John Hildebidle, Jim Woods, Marc Simon and Susan Tepper. As well as essays by Lloyd Hudson Frye and Tom Sheehan and poetry by Micheal Amado, Barbara Bialick, Bob Boston, Brian Foley, John Hildebidle, George Jack, Bonnie Pignatiello Leer, Corey Mesler, Christopher Mulrooney, Rita Catinella Orrell, Chad Parenteau, Pam Rosenblatt, Sara Satterlee, James Whitley and Ernest Williamson III.

Wilderness House Literary Review has compared favorably by Boston Globe to Ploughshares, the literary magazine from Emerson College. WHLR is a result of the collaboration between a group of poets and writers who call themselves the Bagel Bards, Industrial Myth and the Wilderness House Literary Retreat. The Wilderness House Literary Retreat is supported by the Rotary Club of Littleton Massachusetts.

Industrial Myth is a Public Relations firm based in Littleton Massachusetts. Industrial Myth maintains a practice specializing in literary properties. It’s not good enough to just have a better mousetrap--you need a more compelling story. It’s not just advertising, it’s not just marketing, it’s not just product design … it’s everything. It’s an industrial myth and that’s magic. See www.industrialmyth.com.

I hope no one objects to my ad at the end. :)

Politics

It’s a rare event here in Massachusetts that we get to choose a new Congressman. Once elected most congressmen run more or less unopposed and the general public spends years grumbling about the lack of choices. This year there are five Democrats and two Republicans running for congress from the fifth district, an embarrassment of political riches. Yet few people are excited, few people show up at political events and fewer still participate in the local political process at any level.

Politicians are not sprung fully formed from fissures opened from Hades for the sole purpose of delivering tormentors and oppressors to the ballot box, as many would seem to believe. All politicians start out as concerned citizens who run for local office with a sincere desire to help fix things. If they are successful they may run for higher office and eventually they show up on a ballot that really counts. This is the point where most of the electorate discovers the candidates and pronounce them all wanting and wish for additional choices.

The new majority of the “un-enrolled” electorate has deliberately, if unintentionally, disenfranchised themselves by placing the two major political parties at arms length. Almost all political opinions fall into the camps traditionally called “Liberal” or “Conservative” and the two major political parties do, for the most part, represent those two views. If the Republicans have become the party of the lunatic right or the Democrats, the lunatic left it’s because the “un-enrolled” center have chosen to abrogate their responsibilities to participate in the political process. You have no one to blame but yourselves.

As Tip O’Neil said, “all politics is local,” and between the races for Selectman the races for Congress is an entire spectrum of political action denied to those who remain un-enrolled, un-engaged and un-aware. Every town in the Commonwealth has a Democratic and a Republican town committee. It’s at the Town Committee level that candidates for state office first make themselves known. By the time someone runs for State Representative or State Senator it’s likely that they have been active in a Town Committee for years, it’s likely that they have worked for some other politician of their political persuasion and it’s likely that they know or have personally met most of the political leadership of their party from the town committee chairman up through Governor, Congressman, Senator or beyond.

The sad truth is that most Town Committees (both Republican and Democratic) find it hard to recruit active members. The result is that a small group of political activists of one extreme or the other determine who will be viable candidates for state government and as a result who will supply the feedstock for higher office.

Seven Years to Seven Figures

Seven Years to Seven Figures,
the fast-track plan to becoming a millionaire
© 2007 Michael Masterson; $24.95;
John Wyley & Sons, Hoboken NJ

Review by Steve Glines

I’ve been doing everything right so how come I’m not rich. I’m a perpetual entrepreneur, I love to write and I have a million good ideas. That’s the gist of this book. There are dozens of great rags to riches stories in this little inspirational volume. There is the guy that was a fantastic salesman who quit his job, went into the import/export business only to fail, declare bankruptcy and resurrect himself as a copywriter and is, of course, now a multi-millionaire. There is also the tireless want-a-be writer-housewife who eventually buys a mail-order copywriting course (conveniently written by the same author) and ends up a millionaire.

What is never mentioned is the luck, blind ability to sell anything and friends with lots of cash that always accompanies the successful stories. There are people who can sell sand to the Saudis or ice to the Eskimos. Occasionally those people fail for one reason or another but if they do they pick themselves up and sell something else. There is such a thing as a natural talent in sales just as there is such a thing as a natural talent in sports, writing and every other occupation. It’s not news that a natural salesman succeeds nor is it news when someone succeeds by being in the right place at the right time. As Woody Allen once said, “90% of life is just showing up.”

An acquaintance of mine was a computer salesman in the early 1980’s. There were lots of small computer companies around then most of which went broke. He had been working for one small computer company that was faltering so he looked for another, similar job. As luck would have it the only job that was offered to him was as the second salesman for a startup that went on to become the third largest computer manufacturer, a name brand and a darling on Wall St. He retired when his sales commissions exceeded $10 million dollars and the company decided that the customers should be house accounts. We all wish we were that lucky but most of us are not.

Most entrepreneurs fail, not because they don’t have a good idea, not because they aren’t willing to work hard enough but usually because it takes longer to sell whatever it is that they are selling than they thought or the items cost more to manufacturer, store, support and ship then they thought. You never see these stories in the “jack-em-up-and-gloss-em-over” style of success books. Success is more often than not a combination of persistence and luck.

I went to a lecture by the founder of a large supermarket chain. He was honest enough to admit that luck played an enormous part in his success. His first venture was a produce stand, which quickly went broke. His second venture was in a small “mom and pop” grocery store. It too went broke. Then he launched his mega-chain supermarket by accident. Someone in the audience asked what was the difference between venture #2 and the successful one was. His answer surprised everyone. He said he got so far in debt that his bank and his suppliers couldn’t afford to let him go broke and that as long as he kept opening up new stores both his bank and his suppliers thought, hoped, wished for his success. Eventually he was successful but he admitted that his suppliers and his bank were foolish to give him the credit and that his experience taught both his suppliers and his bank never to do that again. He was very lucky, and very rich.

I will confess that reading “Seven Years to Seven Figures” got me excited. After all most of the success stories were build around copywriting, which is what I do. Of course, to become a better copywriter I need to subscribe to a be-a-better-copywriter website which, how convenient, also happens to be owned by the author. The more I read the more I realized that this is one large advertisement for books, courses and counseling by Michael Masterson and his colleagues.

Much of the advice is useful though obvious while other advice interesting but “easier said than done.” For example in a chapter about becoming an expert the author lists how to become an expert:

1. Narrow down your field of expertise
2. Master your subject
3. Promote yourself

How you promote yourself is equally simple:
1. Develop your own newsletter
2. Get articles published in trade journals
3. Get invited to shows and seminars
4. Write books
5. Take advantage of Public Relations

There is nothing in this book I can argue with. All of the advice offered, the tips, tricks and techniques are all right on. The stories offered are insightful and inspirational and the fact that I’m a baby boomer without a retirement plan or income was not lost on this thick skull. What is missing, however, is the fact that for every 10 great ideas that should succeed, and would under the right circumstances nine will fail. If you have the tenacity to survive nine or more successive failures then there is hope and if you are one of them you don’t need this book.

The race for the 5th.

I love history. It’s what defines us, shapes our decisions and molds our future. I love politics because politics is the feedstock of history. You could say it’s history’s cutting edge. I’ve participated in every election since 1968, one-way or another. It’s been interesting and I can honestly say I’ve never met a politician I disliked.

I may despise their politics but I can’t bring myself to dislike anyone who is willing to strip naked before us in public and offer to do what most of us just want taken care of. Some of the politicians I’ve met may be corrupt, I don’t know, but they sure aren’t getting rich. If we complain about the quality of the candidates then just look at what we are willing to pay them. A state representative in Massachusetts only gets $48,000 a year so don’t expect many people to run for that job. Any kid out of law school is going to make more.

If politicians have large egos so what? If you aren’t going to pay your politicians a decent wage but expect them to be Mormon clean then ego is about the only motivation besides doing-good (which I always find suspect – I don’t think I would have liked Gandhi) and martyrdom (equally suspect) that’s available besides corruption. I never met the Mayor of Providence RI.

This quiet rant brings me to the current race for Congressman in the 5th district here in Massachusetts. Congressman Marty Meehan got tired of waiting for Ted Kennedy to retire or John Kerry to win the Presidency so he could run for the U.S. Senate so he quit his job in mid term to take the job of the President of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, which gave him a significant pay raise over his congressional salary. This is the first “big” political opening in years so there is a lot of interest among local ambitious politicians.

I have a personal interest in this race. Paul Tsongas was a genuine good guy. I like to think I talked him into running for President of the U.S. when no other Democrats had the courage to run – we had an hour-long chat on Easter Sunday 1991. His widow is one of the candidates running for congressman. On an appeal to emotion she should be a shoe in but she doesn’t even live in the district not that it’s ever stopped a Kennedy but she’s not a Kennedy. Hillary Clinton aside I don’t count being married to a politician the same thing as political experience; riding in a car is not the same thing as driving a car.

My personal favorite in this race is Jamie Eldridge. He’s a live at home, 30 something, state representative from the town next door, Acton Massachusetts. He too is a genuine good guy if I am any judge of character. His politics is about as far left as you can get in a very left leaning state without falling out of the local mainstream. It’s easy to guess where he stands on every issue. He’s still idealistic which is charming. If he wins I hope he doesn’t become too cynical to soon.

What sparked this outburst is a new technology. We have all seen polls taken every day and published in the local newspapers. These are just abstract numbers that often don’t mean much to us; we have no vested interest in the results. Of course we are thrilled when our boy (or girl) is on top and we deride polls when our favorite is out of favor but still a poll is an abstract concept. Enter inklingmarkets.com. When you sign up on inklingmarkets.com you are given a virtual bank account of $5000 to bet on “stocks” anyway you want. You get a daily account of how much you have earned or lost. In the case of a political race the dollar value of your candidate is equal to the percent of the vote he will get on Election Day, the total value of the race is $100. You can buy puts and calls; bet that a particular “stock” will go up or down.

Here is the current “market” for the Congressional race for the Massachusetts 5th district:

Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot

Carl Sagen was a master poet and visionary astronomer. This is an inspiration.

Profit from Uranium

Investment University’s Profit from Uranium
Copyright 2007, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken NJ
$29.95, 38 pages.


Trying to review a technical investors manual as a work of literature is an experiment. I’m not sure how one is expected to evaluate such a book. At roughly one dollar per page it’s an expensive and dull read. As a book in the “how to make a million” genre I find it a little thin and not particularly deep or insightful. However when taken as a book on who to invest in if you’ve already made up your mind about Uranium as a good investment then it’s probably OK if you’ve never heard of Google.

I grew up in the “duck and cover” era. Uranium was both the savior and nightmare of the Utopian society we were promised. We had to be prepared, at any moment the Great Bear of the North would send his vast fleets of bombers (and later missiles) hurling down upon us. Although we were 40 miles outside New York City we had to be prepared to duck under our desks as soon as we saw the flash. That was kindergarten. By first grade they realized that we would have several hours or at least several minutes warning so we practiced marching into the purpose built shelter designed to withstand (or so they told us) the explosion of multiple atomic bombs a few miles away and protect us from the insidious poison that was radioactive fallout for weeks if necessary. There was talk that our parents would not be allowed to pick us up if the sirens went off and that the Police had machine guns to mow our parents down if they tried. No one believed it and my parents had a basement fully stocked with water and canned goods.

It was a scary time to grow up in. We knew that when we were 18 we would be drafted and if we were very lucky get to see an atomic bomb go off in the desert of the American Southwest. There were communists hiding in closets and under beds and it paid to be vigilant. The Uranium mines of Canada and the far west were in full production and if you were a coal miner you headed west where the yellowcake was as sweet as the gold was a hundred years earlier. Atoms for peace promised a never-ending supply of almost free electricity. Uranium was king. Utopia died a slow death.

The cold war gave way to the Vietnam War and the threat of mutually assured destruction stabilized all but our third world proxies and we found out that all those miners were dying of Uranium poisoning. Our unlimited free electricity suddenly had a price to pay in decayed waste, poisonous for thousands of years into the future. Uranium suddenly wasn’t so pretty any more. The US called a halt to building new atomic power plants but this didn’t stop the French or the Japanese who embraced atomic power with gusto. Largely because of atomic power Europe has some of the cleanest air on the planet. An American traveling in Europe can’t help but notice it.

America’s aversion to new Nukes survived the gas crisis of the 1970’s, the rampant inflation of the 1980’s and the Gulf war of the 1990’s. A petroleum engineer we know once said, “there’s no shortage of oil, there’s lots of it, it’s just a matter of what you’re willing to pay for it.” Adjusted for inflation we’ve been paying just about the same amount we always have for oil. What changed?

China and 911! Since 1949 mainland China has had a series of “Great leap forwards” that mostly resulted in economic belly flops while Taiwan and Hong Kong exploded economically. China finally got a clue about the same time Great Britain relinquished control over Hong Kong. Since then the Chinese economy has exploded. Whatever excess capacity existed in 2000 is gone, absorbed by the demands of China and India where economic growth marches on in double-digit percentages year after year. An unfortunate confluence of events have finally led us, in the U.S., to realize that without a drastic change in the way we do business our way of life is near an end. This has created a renewed interest in nuclear energy and alternative, preferably, “green” sources of energy.

America has a habit of waiting until the last moment before acting and when we act it’s often in an unreasoned, almost desperate fashion. Suddenly every town wants a wind farm, every house needs to be a source of solar energy every field of grain a source of ethanol for our cars. Suddenly nuclear energy looks “green” as we realize that it’s the America of the 1950’s with out the terror but with the promise that we secretly hope for.

So what does an investment portfolio look like in the new world order? If we want windmills GE reminds us that they are in the business with their series of eco-ads. I’m sure there are other vendors of windmills … in Holland perhaps? If it’s ethanol you want then Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) would like you to think that they’ve been on top of it for decades. I’m not sure if there are any publicly traded moonshiners out there to invest in. No one is touting the conversion of coal into liquid fuel or the burning of the Alberta tar sands yet so if you are a fad investor do your own google search. If you believe that Uranium is the future and want to forget that the associated problems of radioactive waste have not been solved then do a google search or buy this book.

Without giving away the plot, which consists mostly of naming the characters, let me give you a hint: Australia, Canada and a publicly traded company created by the U.S. Government. Keep in mind that there is a risk to investing in Uranium that is not mentioned in the book. In the U.S. at least, the promise of fusion has been just around the corner for decades. If a breakthrough occurs and fusion can be captured, bottled and commercialized then Uranium will resume its place as a source of very destructive weaponry and not of joy. Not a very “green” investment.