New Edition: Best Selling Book About Donald Trump 2016

This is the new, updated edition of the best selling book about Donald Trump: So You Think You Can Be President. Available on Create Space -  Amazon 

Recommended Book For Lawyers in Private Practice

    

GET AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION IN A CROWDED FIELD

Read this essential book for lawyers written by a lawyer, that every young lawyer and lawyers in private practice should read:

The Divorce Lawyer’s Toolkit: Your Secret Weapon For Getting Ahead of the Competition was written by a lawyer for lawyers – especially those who are in private practice and are in the beginning years of their careers. This is an essential book for lawyers that every young lawyer should read.

Let’s face it, lawyers are a dime a dozen on every block in every city in every neighborhood in every state in the country. Actually, there is a glut of lawyers in the world. Everybody and their brother Jimmy is a lawyer. So the competition is fierce. How do you stand out and distinguish yourself from the herd? Well, naked lawyers stand out but they are not very distinguished and they certainly aren’t going to bag those clients. So you need to think differently but not so differently that you make a jack ass of yourself.

What Marion TD Lewis attempts to do with this book is not to solve all your business development problems  with one book but to offer you another good resource in your toolkit to help you succeed in your career and your law practice.

The truth is that building starting and sustaining a practice is not easy. It takes hard work, planning, patience, good support and the right tools.

This book will help you. It is a good tool devised specifically for you to help you succeed – if you are serious about your success. Read it and digest it and put the ideas into action. You will see the transformation. You will see the magic.

• Get your copy today on Amazon.com

• Available in hardcover version or Kindle e-book

• And please consider leaving a review.

 

How to Write a Good Book and Sell It. Article by NYT Bestseller

WHAT IS THE RIGHT WAY TO WRITE A GOOD BOOK THAT WILL SELL?

I have been trying to engage more on Twitter and someone retweeted something I tweeted and so I went to his Twitter page and he had this link and so I thought I would share it. It is all about how to write a good book and also how to brand and how to market, etc. It is a podcast.

http://publishingprofitspodcast.com/how-to-write-a-better-business-book/

How to Build an Author Platform Step by Step?

DO YOU HAVE AN AUTHOR PLATFORM?

For starters, this post is not a "how to" manual. It is really a question. Because it is all I ever hear from publishers and from experts on websites about authors and book publishing. And there are tons and tons of articles on the Internet about the subject matter but I still am not sure if I can ever succeed at getting me one of these. And I have been reading a lot of these articles.

For example:

• Build Your Author Platform: 7 Manageable Ways to Start From Scratch by thewritelife.com

• Your Writer Platform: How to Build Your Following Before the Book by yourwriterplatform.com

• A definition of Your Author Platform by Janefriedman.com

• How  to Build an Author Platform in 10 Hours Per Week by bookbaby.com

And this is just for starters. There is just so much information on this topic! The question really is how to parse through all the noise and actually come out with a "platform" that is big enough to sell books - preferably sometime before you croak. Am I right?

I don't have the answer to this question. Below find some of the tips I picked up from my research of the issue:

First, it is important, I think, to know what an author platform is. What is an author platform? According to Chris Robley of bookbaby.com, an author platform is a "fancy buzzword folks in the book business use to talk about an author’s fan engagement, their social media and web presence, the size and dedication of their readership, and their connectedness to other authors, bloggers, critics, agents, publicists, publishers, etc."

How are you doing so far with that? Do you have a social and web media presence and if so how big is it? The bigger it is the bigger your platform, I think. That is the rule of thumb: big social media presence, big author platform. But as Mr Robley points out, it is not just the social media. You also have to have an "in" with other authors and people in the book industry. How are you doing with that? I imagine much better than I am at this point.

Next point. You have to publish a lot to build a big platform. This means submitting work to online journals, magazines, blogs, newspapers, etc. Obviously, if you are a niche writer you need to keep your work relevant to this niche and to seek out publications in your niche. (and don't worry about the rejection letters just keep submitting till you get that climax.)

After. You need a website but that is without saying so maybe the point is that you need a few websites going simultaneously, as opposed to just one website, because obviously every writer has a website or blog or both. (what is the difference anyway??) And you need a massive following on these sites and blogs. The bigger the following the bigger the blog, the bigger the platform you can boast.

Then. Get on TV or radio as often as possible discussing whatever - preferably stuff relating to your niche.

Did I say. Develop a niche? This is key to being able to target an audience that becomes your "target market" and frankly, your customers and this will go far towards building your platform.

On top of that. Name drop your celeb friends and get them to name drop your book during media appearances. Or just hitch your wagon to someone famous the way Kim Kardashian did. Or date someone famous. That way you will be famous yourself and it is the easiest way to build your platform and sell your books.

Critically important. You need a mailing list. So you have to solicit emails from people who visit your website by using pop ups & free downloads and stuff like that to entice them to sign up.

Understand this: it is all about your ability to influence. You need to be good at winning friends and influencing others with your words, deeds and achievements in order to build a big platform. How do you do this? Create value. Solve problems. Give answers to life's tough questions. They will love you.

Understand that you need to think of yourself as a brand. It's like you are the Nike in the book industry. You have to get everybody to want to "wear" you no matter how ridiculously high your price of acquisition is. How do you do this? One way is to create "scarcity" and "exclusivity." This could contradict the whole point of building a big platform because you will end up with fewer people rather than more people when you are so exclusive. But in a way, growing your platform is not just a numbers game. It is the quality of the people you have at your finger tips, not the number. The quality of people in the self-publishing domain would seem to be people most likely to buy your books. The way you brand yourself could determine who is willing to buy your books.

Finally. Join as many communities as you can and be visible in them (both online and offline.)

________________________________________

Check out my publications and books here: author page on amazon.com

Not Making Any Sales of Your Kindle Book After All Your Efforts? The Importance of Keywords on Kindle for Self Publishers of e-Books

SELF PUBLISHING AUTHORS MAKE MISTAKES WITH KEYWORDS ON KINDLE!

Not Getting Any Sales on Kindle for Your e-Book? Are you making the same mistake I was making, per chance?

I just discovered a mistake I have been making with publishing books in Kindle's digital marketplace. Apparently, I have been inept at choosing keywords to describe my books. My personal mistake is that I use all these one-word keywords rather than a combination of word strings. So instead of saying, for example "books about divorce" I would just write "divorce" as a keyword.

A friend alerted me today that this is a big mistake. He told me that people don't search using just one word. The search using a word string. So he says that I have to discipline myself that each time I write a description of my book on Amazon, that I have to use a word string as the keyword. And Kindle allows you up to 7 keywords. So this would be 7 keyword word strings.

Wow. No wonder I haven't been selling a lot of books!

So I went in and changed a bunch of kywords for most of my books. Of course now the books are in review for 12 hours so that will kill 12 hours of potential sales. But oh well. Let's see if this modification changes anything.

_________________________________

Check out my latest paperback

https://www.amazon.com/Infidelity-Cheating-Love-Affairs-Divorce/dp/1537203452/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1472380407&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=author+central%2C+marion+td+lewis

Today is Donald Trump Day!

So over the years, I have written about Donald Trump. Here are 4 of those books all available on Amazon. Just click the link:

What Would Donald Trump Do If

Quoted: 100 of Donald Trump's Most Memorable Bites & Disses

Conversations with Oprah Donald Trump & Jesus

Quoted 2

Useful websites & tools for WRITERS e-publishing & Self-publishing authors

DIGITAL RESOURCES FOR WRITERS

I have spent the morning researching websites for self publishing authors. Really, I guess I am procrastinating. Now that I have finished Infidelity I am moving on to the next book in the trilogy, Alimony. This will be a much more difficult and involved book than Infidelity, I think. So I am kinda looking for all sorts of ways to delay. Hence, I have been just scrolling around the Internet, reading stuff. There is so much to learn! I really don't see how any self-publishing author navigates this maze and still has time to write! OMG. Case in point, below are some terms and vocabularies and websites and tools I picked up that I wanted to reinforce in my own brain. I find that when I write about something, it helps me to retain it. So if you already know these things, skip to the next post. But if you are learning with me, dig in.

HERE ARE SOME USEFUL TERMS, TOOLS, & SITES FOR WRITERS:


1. Bookbub:
bookbub.com
This is a little bit snooty because not just anybody can get their books talked about. But if you can pass muster, you should: "BookBub is a free daily email that notifies you about deep discounts on acclaimed ebooks. You choose the types you'd like to get notified about — with categories ranging from mysteries to cookbooks — and we send great deals in those genres to your inbox."

2. Perma Free:
It is a system of making your digital book permanently free on Amazon. check out smashwords.com for more details.

3. Goodreads:
goodreads.com
A maze of a website but all self-respecting authors are on it and know how to navigate it. If you understand what they are talking about, please tell me because I just get a headache trying to figure my way around goodreads.com. And it makes me very, very perturbed.

 4. Nook
It's a tablet and e-reader. Like Kindle. A competitor for Kindle. "Kindle Oasis v Nook Glowlight Plus"

5. i-book
A kindle competitor offered by Apple.

6. Kobo
"kobobooks.com Founded in December 2009, Toronto-based Rakuten Kobo Inc. is one of the world's fastest-growing eReading services, offering more than 5 million eBooks and magazines to millions of users across the world."

7. kboards.com
This site is a "user board for Kindle, the family of wireless reading devices from Amazon."

8. Smashwords.com
"Smashwords is the world's largest distributor of indie ebooks.  We make it fast, free and easy for any author or publisher, anywhere in the world, to publish and distribute ebooks to the major retailers.

FOR AUTHORS, PUBLISHERS AND LITERARY AGENTS, Smashwords offers quick and easy e-book distribution to most of the world's largest e-book retailers.  We provide free tools for marketing, distribution, metadata management and sales reporting.  At Smashwords, our authors and publishers have complete control over the sampling, pricing and marketing of their written works.  Smashwords is ideal for publishing novels, short fiction, poetry, personal memoirs, monographs, non-fiction, research reports, essays, or other written forms that haven’t even been invented yet."

9. Slickdeals.net

A venue to post alerts for deals on your books and other things

10. Pickfu.com

Get feedback on stuff like book covers etc. before you publish.

11. e-junkie.com
"E-junkie is designed for people who want a feature-rich shopping cart for their own website or blog, without having to be expert coders or deal with the headaches of a bloated off-the-shelf software suite. We’ve gone for that perfect balance between simplicity and customizability.
How does it work? We have a Seller Admin panel where you add products and then receive short code snippets for Add to Cart or Buy Now buttons to embed anywhere you want—just copy and paste our code into your page. Great for sites on Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, or anywhere that supports Javascript (we also offer codes that work anywhere you can't use Javascript).
After your buyers build their order through a cart that displays inside your own page, we guide them to secure checkout with their choice of any payment method you accept, among the wide variety of payment services we support. After checkout, we automate and secure the digital delivery of download files and codes. We also support the sale of physical products with tax and shipping calculation, inventory management and many other features."

__________________________________________

Click here to get it on amazon

Can Facebook Ads Help Self-Published Authors to Sell Books?

SHOULD I BUY FACEBOOK ADS?

A few people have advised me to buy Facebook ads to help jumpstart my new book writing endeavour - especially now that I have finished the hot and sexy Infidelity. So, my advisers tell me that Facebook ads will help drive people to my e-books and paperbacks on Amazon.com and Kindle, help me become an Amazon bestselling author in no time flat. None of these people actually bought Facebook ads, btw. But they assure me it is a good idea if I bought Facebook ads. Can they be right?

I am a little bit skeptical.  I have been doing research on this and it is mixed at best.

I DID A GOOGLE SEARCH ON "FACEBOOK ADS TO SELL BOOKS" 


If you Google "How to Use Facebook Ads to Sell Books," as I did, you will get a healthy return of great websites and posts such as:

• How Authors Can Use Facebook to Sell Books - digitalworld.com
• Successful Book Marketing Using Facebook Ads - the creativepenn.com
• How to Use Facebook ads to Sell More Books - authorscrib.com
• Facebook Advertising for Authors - Selfpublishingadvice.org

There is this one article Why Facebook Cannot Help You Sell Books by Michael Alvear for Digitalbookworld.com. One quote that I particularly remember is this one:

Let’s review: Facebook shows your posts to less than 16 percent of your fans, and you have to pay to reach the other 84 percent. And even if you do, only two-tenths of 1 percent of the people who see a post about your book will even click on it.
Facebook gets you closer to book sales in the same way that jumping up and down gets you closer to the sun

I really got very nervous when I read that. This guy sounds experienced with this stuff and he really thinks that it is a TOTAL WASTE OF TIME to buy Facebook ads to sell books.

As I continued my research, I read the following by a guy named Mark Dawson, "Facebook is the single most powerful marketing and promotional tool that is available to authors, be they traditionally or self-published."

Hme...what does he know that Alvear doesn't. The article goes on to talk about some staggering sums he spends on advertising, like nearly 4 grand per month! This guy is not talking about folks like me who are just breaking into the business and are "virgins" with this marketing stuff.

I think the best advice I read was this by authorscrib.com:

Facebook Ads aren’t meant for selling low prized books like the common $0.99 and $2.99 books on Amazon. If you are still thinking about using Facebook ads to help you sell more books, you can do so NOT by directly selling using Facebook Ads, but using it to build your mailing list by offering something in exchange for your target book audience’s email and name and draw them into your sales funnel where you can finally sell them your books through relationship based email marketing.

CONCLUSION

OK. I think I get it. I will not be buying any Facebook ads not even for Infidelity.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=infidelity%2C+by+marion+lewis

I created a slide show of my books on youtube!

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/s42AiayQMCc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

What do you think? Is it beyond cheesy or what?

INFIDELITY HITS THE KINDLE STORE and AMAZON PAPERBACKS

MY NEWEST AND LATEST BOOK HAS DROPPED!

Infidelity: Cheating, Love Affairs & Divorce

WHERE CAN YOU PURCHASE THIS BOOK?

• It is available on createspace.com for $7.99
• It is also available in the Amazon Paperbacks for $7.99
• And of course the e-book version is available for $2.99 on Kindle.

I fancy myself to be an aspiring poet

POETRY

So, in addition to wanting to write 100 books, I also fancy meself a bit of a poet but I don't dare call myself a poet so that is why the title These Are Not Poems seemed so perfect to me.  Cause really, I am not a bleeping poet and I know it.

This is my first book of poetry that I put out there but hardly the first set of poems I ever wrote. I don't know where the others are right now but I am sure that I will find them one day. What do you think of the cover? I changed it from the one below it. Do you think it is better?

What are the poems about? Life. The earth. God. The World. People. Nature.

You can find them on amazon.

Still waiting on Infidelity. Will publish on Thursday...

THIS IS THE NEW COVER

THIS WAS THE OLD COVER

HOW TO BECOME A KINDLE MILLIONAIRE: 5 Best Practices According to the Research to create a successful e-book

THE KINDLE MILLIONAIRE

I am not a Kindle Millionaire. I have barely sold anything on Kindle. This is why I am researching how the successful authors do it so that I can turn at least one of my 100 books (yet to be written) into bestsellers. Maybe it will be the latest one? Infidelity? I have found some new information I want to share about what seems to be the best practices - based on my research. Here are 5 best practices:

1. You have to figure out market demand for your book.

That means you have to research the market and look at demographic information to determine likely demand for your book and your book's niche.

2. Go on Amazon's website and get to know who the bestsellers are in your niche.

Then find out what it is that makes them bestsellers. Look at everything from the reviews they have received, their rating and ranking on Amazon, how they actually describe their books. Emulate.

3.  Study how other authors price their books and stay within that parameter.

On Amazon Kindle the "sweet spot" seems to be between $0.99 cents and $2.99. This is not the same for paperback, btw. Only for the e-books.

4. Use social media such as Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

This is essential but it seems that it is not the tool for direct promotion only for creating connections and expanding your network.

5. Create a blog that helps you promote the book. 

Blogs seem to get universal praise in the book-writing industry. If you have an e-book and you don't have a blog that corresponds, that seems to be a red flag.

This website is helpful: http://fourhourworkweek.com/2009/06/29/how-to-build-a-high-traffic-blog-without-killing-yourself/

Wanna Make $1,000,000 Selling/Self-Publishing Divorce e-Books on Amazon Kindle? You Have to "Game" the System!

TO SUCCEED ON AMAZON KINDLE, YOU HAVE TO GAME THE SYSTEM!

I am still waiting for my last e-book Infidelity to go live on Kindle and now I am doing some research into marketing and selling e-books. I have to confess I don't like the marketing and selling part at all.

I just read this article and I think I am going to bring up my lunch. Apparently the only way to be successful selling e-Books on Amazon Kindle (and paperbacks on Amazon) is to "game the system."And get other people to write the books for you. Yes, that's Right. To succeed at this you have to outsource your creativity. Here are some of the points I got from that article. Some are good and as I said, some make me want to puke:

HERE ARE TIPS THAT I LIKE:

1. Get someone to create your cover for you on Fiverr. (It is only $5.00 apparently although I must say I am not ready to do this even though it could be a good idea. I like to create my own covers with create space)

2. Give due attention to the book's description on Kindle (I need to keep this in mind myself.)

3. Solve a problem for your reader. (Non-fiction self-help books seem to do well on Kindle and those that solve a problem for their reader seems to have a better chance to succeed. That probably means that I am not going to spend too much time on my Paris memoirs - cause nobody cares!)

4. Make sure it has an outstanding cover that has a bold design, strong colors and a sexy image. (I don't know if I have done this with any of my books! I think my covers are definitely not very sexy)

5. Copy-edit for little typos (this is where I will get into a lot of trouble. I think I miss a lot of edits.)

6. Check out other people's books on Kindle and read the negative reviews and learn from these reviews (I would have never thought of doing that!)

7. Understand that the Kindle business is an impulse business (that means that your books can't be too expensive since people are not going to impulse buy very expensive books. Fine. But I wonder what it the cut off price? It doesn't say in the article.)

8. Create a niche. (I like this idea and while I write about a lot of different topics, I do write mostly about divorce since that is what interests me the most, and so I think I am in the "divorce niche." Is it fair to say that, do you think?).

THESE TIPS ARE NOT FOR ME BUT YOU COULD LIKE IT

1. Hire a ghostwriter from either elance, Craigslist, or Warrier Forum. (It is good to know this option exists but for now, I am going to try to write all 100 books myself. I hope people are not gonna be thinking that I am outsourcing my stuff cause this is too hard!)

2. Outsource the book and just do the editing (as I said, I want to do the entire book myself but you could have a different plan so if this works for you, go for it)

3. Pay for your reviews. (Well, first of all I have no money but second of all, it seems unseemly.. I mean, who knows? I could change my mind one day but for now, I think this is a little bit not ok.)

SO WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?

I don't know what this all means. I am just sharing. These are just the tips I just picked up as I begin my research into how to market and sell my Kindle e-books and I am sure one or two writers will read this blog at some point, and I would like to share what I learn with you. It is a whole process and I am sharing the experience as I go along.

So that's all for now. Talk soon and have a nice day.

____________________________________

Check out my book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Win-Achieve-Business-Success-Concepts/dp/1536952826/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1472381297&sr=8-1&keywords=win%2C+marion+td+lewis

Do Free Giveaways of e-books (Free Downloads) Help Authors to Sell More of their Books?

Hello Everyone!

So I just finished Infidelity. It will be published on Thursday on Createspace, Amazon paperbacks and Kindle. Yeah! I am not going to start the next book till the weekend. The next book is Alimony but I am going to take a few days to rest my head and think with a different side of the brain for a little bit.

Right now I am making lunch and while that works itself out, I am researching how to market and sell e-books online. As you can see I have been doing a lot of writing but not exactly the same amount of selling. Giggle, giggle.  I am definitely not a good saleswoman, OK? I have no idea about sales. But I have been trying to learn about it.

A lot of people who have been successful in marketing and selling e-books on Kindle, advise free downloads and free giveaways - as a sales and marketing strategy -  for a limited period. What do you think about this? Have you done this yourself? Was it effective as a sales and marketing tool?

I am thinking of making Infidelity a free download for 24 hours on Thursday on Kindle. What do you think? I sort of think that when things are free people may not value it so much and it could possibly not work. But I think it would be fun to give it a try.

So I have decided. I have just decided right now. In real time.  Infidelity will be a free download for 24 hours on Thursday in the Kindle Store. Yeah! Get it while it's hot!

I hope you will read it and give it some good reviews. Help me make it an Amazon Bestseller.

See you later! Talk soon!

Katy Perry's "Fight Song" and I am pumping to finish the divorce book: INFIDELITY

Good morning!

I just woke up and hit my laptop almost immediately. I am listening to Katy Perry's "Fight Song" and I just blogged about it for Divorce Saloon.

Right after I eat my breakfast, I have to continue with my current project Infidelity.

I need to finish this by midweek, at the latest.

How to Market and Sell an E-book on Kindle - 12 Steps For Beginners

12 TIPS FOR BEGINNERS WHO WANT TO MAKET THEIR E-BOOK ON KINDLE

I have been writing like an absolute nut job this weekend. I am still working on the book Infidelity. I have tentatively completed the cover as I said in the previous post, and then it occurred to me, heck, how are you gonna sell all these e-books Missy? How are you going to turn all these books into Amazon bestsellers? What the heck are you doing slaving away like this? For what? Who is going to read this stuff? Where are your readers Missy?

And so I stopped and I thought, "OMG." And so, I put the manuscript aside and did some research, and I just deflated like a balloon because selling e-books sounds like hard work! It is way harder than writing up all this stuff!! My god! And sheesh, I write a lot of stuff from divorce books, to books about food, society, law, language,  you name it. I have a lot of topics, ideas and books. But it is not worth it if I am the only one reading. I must be out of my mind!

Well, if you are also writing up a storm, if you are a writer in the same boat, here is what I have learned so far about selling these e-books on Kindle or anywhere for that matter. Read with a grain of salt and see if there is anything on the list that you think will help you:

HERE ARE 12 TIPS THAT MIGHT HELP YOU

1. Participate in AMAZON KDP Select - always. Stand for Kindle Direct Publishing.  Research it if you don't know what that is. Start here.

2. Blog about your book (yeah! I am doing that instinctively. At least I get one out of 12!)

3. It's all about SEO - on Amazon, Google & Facebook ads - and this needs the right keywords so you have to research keywords in your niche and when you do your marketing you have to incorporate them into your materials including your blog. As you know my niche is basically divorce books.  But it is not all I write about. Still, I have to find the right keywords for that and god knows, I don't know where I am going to find time to do that along with everything else I am doing at the moment.

4. Apparently, you also have to join Ingram in addition to Amazon and Createspace (e-book distributor) and Bookhub. (I read that on Huffpost.)

5. Then, you have to get friends and family to review your book and give you lots of stars - if you can. My friends and family are just saturated with all my projects so I am not going to bother them but you should tap yours if you haven't reached saturation point.

6. Also, you have to constantly update your Author Central profile on Amazon. You are going to need a nice author photo which I don't seem to be able to upload because of the pixels, but...

7. Then, you need to price your book right some people say $0.99 and others say no less than $2.99 (who knows which is correct?).

8. You need to understand that e-books are not going to make you rich. If you sell 100 books, it is plenty. Do it for fun, not to make a lot of money.

9. Investigate alternatives to Amazon such as gumroads.com, woocommerce, shopify & paypal.

10. Help out other authors by offering to review their books in exchange for a review.

11. Look into this thing called e-junkie for self-publishers. (If you want to bypass amazon) and make friends with Paypal (I had a bad experience years back and I never looked back so I am not sure I could ever work with Paypal but you might be able to so go for it!)

12. Start an email marketing campaign so that you can connect directly with your readers who are in some cases your customers.

CONCLUSION

To tell you the god's honest truth, this is a lot for me to handle while I am trying to write 100 books. I don't see myself being able to do this without absolutely losing it once and for all. Am definitely gonna lose it, I think. But if you have the energy, focus and moxie and you are trying to market and sell your e-book online, these are some of the things I read you will have to do and it took what? 30 minutes of research? To get all these goodies. Bite in, darling!

_____________________________________

Read my new book about BULLYING which is available on kindle and in paperback

Infidelity, MY NEW BOOK HITS THE SHELVES!

So it has arrived.

My latest book, Infidelity is ready for consumption.

How do I feel? I am relieved. It can be very stressful writing and editing books, I must say. I enjoy writing a lot more than editing. And I hate promoting and marketing because I am not good at it. Indeed, I am sitting here looking at this beautiful book and I have no idea how I am going to drum up interest in it. It is a rather daunting task. But I figure that I can at least start on this platform here. This blog that is read by 2.5 people. Me being the .5.

So the book is available on Amazon Kindle, Amazon Paper Back and Createspace.com. I would recommend buying from Createspace.com today because there could be a delay of a day or so of it being available on Amazon.

Thanks for reading and have a nice day.

Infidelity

So, I was supposed to be working on my Paris memoir but I found myself working on the Infidelity divorce book, which was next in the pipeline. It is an interesting topic and I think I will enjoy working on it but guess what? My fingers are cramping on me. So  I have to stop. If not I could incapacitate myself for months. And I still have 80 books to write. How the heck will I ever find 80 topics to write about? Why in the name of all that is sane did I give myself this 100 book challenge?? My friggin' hand is seizing up already!

Read an excerpt:

Infidelity is one of the key reasons for divorce in the United States and possibly in every other country in the world. However, at this juncture, all states in the United States are now no-fault which means that, while infidelity remains a "grounds" for divorce in some states, parties in a divorce no longer have to prove fault in order to obtain a divorce in any state in the Union – and this applies even if the “fault” is as grave as infidelity or adultery.

For some uncanny reason, when couples cheat this often leads to the implosion of their marriages! What is up with that? This is a worldwide trend.  Historically, infidelity has meant execution. This dates back to biblical times where, under all three of the world’s major religious doctrines - Islam, Christianity and Judaism - adultery  was perceived as so grave a wrong, that the punishment was swift and severe and bloody such as by death by stoning or other inhumane means.

In more modern times, infidelity has still carried quite a bit of stigma and could subject the transgressors – especially women – to extreme consequences. In 1256 for example, infidelity is rumoured to have been the reason that German noblesse Maria Duchess of Bavaria lost her head after her husband had her executed.

Here is the tentative cover. This is my favorite part - creating the book covers. What do you think?

"How to Divorce Part 3" is available on Createspace.com. Now for the memoir and "infidelity."

So book 3 in the trilogy How to Divorce  is now available. It is on createspace.com. But it is also available on amazon.com and in the kindle store (this could take up to 24 hours because it just went live on create space. I will share the links when they are live.)

I am psyched. Now I can give my attention to the next book in the pipeline which is the Paris memoir: PARIS: My First 3 Months I am kinda finding that I am not huge into the memoir. It is bringing back memories I kinda don't want to think about.

I mean, everybody knows I dropped out of Phd school. I am a phd dropout. And the reason ultimately is that I decided that I needed the experience like I needed a hole in my head. But writing the memoir also reminds me of how I came to this decision. And the missteps and the naiveté and the outright sabotage that resulted in this decision to drop out.

Don't get me wrong. I have not had a day of regret. I don't think phds are for everybody and ultimately, if you can't find work when you are done, what the hell is the point of all that torture and torment? But still. I find this memoir a little bit difficult to process emotionally. So we shall see if I finish it or push it to the side as I tend to do with things I find unpalatable. You should know that I am the ultimate escape artist. I like to just escape - that is, tune out. Into my own world.

But, so, yea, book 3 is ready. And now I am working on the memoir. Right behind the memoir is another book called, Infidelity.

So my favorite chapter in How to Divorce Part 3 is "How to Have a Zen Divorce."

The chapter that scares me is "How to Hide Money From Your Spouse." I think I could get in trouble with that chapter. But let's see what happens. I tried to stress the disclaimer that I was not advising anybody to actually do it.

10 Good Books About Divorce on Amazon.com's Bestseller's List

Hi Everyone!

I see I have some pageviews already! Yeah! Thank you for reading. It is encouraging to know that I don't always just talk to myself - which, by the way, is what I do best. And guess what? Not only do I talk to myself, now I have started to answer myself! Do you think it's my age?? Like, am I friggin' old? Is that why? I answer myself! As if I am a child talking to my wise, old mother!!

Maybe I should not have shared that....

So anyways. I just finished a compilation of DIVORCE BOOKS for Divorce Saloon. A list of 10.  I found them on Amazon, on the bestsellers list. If you are looking for good divorce books, maybe you can check them out. Or check out one of mine! Click on one in the right column and go straight to kindle!

Or just link to the list on Divorce Saloon is here.

I used to really love Donald Trump

I used to really love Donald Trump. To wit: Conversations with Oprah Donald Trump & Jesus. And then he ran for president.

Donald Trump

Donald Trump is really giving everybody a run for their money. News this afternoon is that his campaign chairman, Mr Paul Manafort, has quit. Mr Manafort had replaced campaign manager Corey Lewandowski who was fired to make room for Mr Manafort. It is a tangled web but I can't help thinking of the book I wrote late last year called SoYou Think You Can Be President. Mr Trump has shown that when it comes to winning the presidency, nothing at all is simple and inevitable about it. A lot of people think they can be president but very few can actually pull it off. Time will tell which club Mr Trump winds up in.

https://www.amazon.com/So-You-Think-Can-President-ebook/dp/B017RD4C6U/ref=sr_1_6_twi_kin_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1471643047&sr=8-6&keywords=%22marion+td+lewis%22+trump

Editing "How to Divorce Part 3"

It is a new day. I am in the middle of making breakfast. Today I am having a porridge made with peanut powder. So I guess it is a peanut porridge. I never made it before. It is an experiment. We shall see how it turns out. You should know that I am a godawful cook and quite dangerous in the kitchen. If you have time, check out my YouTube channel about cooking. I stopped updating it for a while but one day I will go back to it.

So today, on my agenda after breakfast, I am editing How to Divorce Part 3. I think this is my favorite one in the series. It is a trilogy of 3 books on "how to divorce" and it was supposed to be the "light" one but I think I like it the best. I talk about things like how to have a zen divorce, how to "consciously uncouple" and how to throw a divorce party. There is one chapter which will probably get me into trouble. It is called How To Hide Money From Your Spouse Before A Divorce.

I am not 100 percent sure that that chapter is appropriate but...

After that, I have to do some work on the memoir about my first 3 months in Paris. It's called PARIS: My first 3 Months. And you thought I only write divorce books. Nah. I write about just about everything possible to write about, my friend. Well, almost everything.

After that, I have another trilogy of books in my head - divorce books -  plus there is the book about some of my recipes when I was trying to cook that I think could be fun.

It is a lot of writing, isn't it? What is up with all this writing? I don't know. I just suddenly decided that I want to write a whole bunch of books. Maybe 100. Yes, I said 100. It is a personal experiment. And a lot of them are already written since I have all these blogs going back to the 1990s. I mean, books like The Law School Rules, I am going to do a revised version of that. So I am already well on the way to 100. Don't worry. Something just crystalized in my mind that it is time to pull these projects out and set them into books for folks who would like to read them.

But it is so much work! Don't let anybody tell you that writing is easy. It is painfully difficult. But in th end, when I see the books, it gives me a sense of joy and satisfaction.

So later, dolls. Am heading to my desk to edit How to Divorce Part 3. It will be on Amazon Kindle Store for 99 cents tomorrow in e-book format. And also paperback. Do you think it will be an amazon bestseller?

On Sandra Bland

I usually do not speak about things like police brutality except in private. I have kind of felt like, who is going to listen to anything I have to say about this? And of course, I have had concerns about becoming a target myself. Sandra Bland, for example, used to speak out about police brutality. But when I heard her story and saw her arrest in Texas on YouTube, I broke down and cried. It was in December 2015 when I really stopped to take notice of this case. Around my birthday. Something had happened in the news and I googled her and found the story in full and I could not believe it.

She looked like my friend Julie. From high school. She reminded me of myself. And I cried and cried and cried. And then I thought "what good are your tears? What are you doing to help to change the world in which you live?"

Of course, I still felt that there was nothing I could do and that I have no power and so on. But I sat down anyway and I wrote A Girl Named Sandy. Even after I wrote it, I still felt like it was nothing. But one time, I assigned it to some university students in Paris for an end of term project (Can you believe I was a professor in a university??) and the papers I got back were really astonishing and humbling. And so I started to think maybe the book is not total garbage. Maybe the point I tried to make makes sense to some people.

You be the judge

Divorce, Booklyn, Paris

I have half a day left and I haven't started writing as yet. I have two books in the pipeline to be completed within the next week at the latest. They are 1) How to Divorce Part 3 and Paris: My First 3 Months.

It is funny how I found the latter. I write a lot of things and blogs and books and then I forget all about them as I said in the previous post. Just this morning I found a book I wrote and published on lulu.com called A summer in Brooklyn a Summer in Paris. I wrote this in 2004 and published it in 2008. On lulu.com. I don't think anybody ever ordered a copy cause I never received any royalties from lulu but as I said in the previous post you can read an excerpt of it on Google books here. 

It is incrediblde how this type of stuff happens because very typically, when I arrived in Paris nearly 5 years ago - for the fourth time in my life (so I have been to Paris 4 times) - I started a blog called When Jeannie Went to Paris. I proceeded to make the blog private. And a year into it, I stopped blogging and forgot all about the blog. Couldn't even remember which email and password I used. Then I suddenly remember and boom! I got into the blog this week and I was like, "wow!" This is a book! So I have been working on it a little, editing it, and I hope to have it by next week on Amazon Kindle and in the bookstore too.

A Summer In Brooklyn, a Summer in Paris

Look what I found! See, I told you that I don't only write divorce books. I can't believe how quickly I forgot that I had written this book! I had forgotten all about this little book I wrote in 2004 and I stumbled upon it today when I googled myself. Amazing. And it is so timely now with the 2016 elections where all the candidates, every other word out of the mouths is "Paris" because of the terrorism, etc.

I am a huge Hillary fan and her headquarters are in Brooklyn, in my old backyard. So this is really fun to find. I have no idea about lulu.com at this point as I have never received any royalties from them in all these years. So I don't think this book is selling like hot cakes exactly. But it is out there. And when I read this excerpt on google books, it gave me a tickle.

By the way, the photo is mine. I took it on my old camera. It is my old church. The little courtyard leading from the rectory to the auditorium. Once upon a time, I was the receptionist here. It was my part time job when I was in college.

CHINA: Wang Baoqiang & Ma Rong's Divorce goes viral

A couple in China has seen their divorce go absolutely viral within hours after the husband Wang Baoqiang tweeted out his decision to end the marriage due to his wife's infidelity. He alleged that she cheated with his agent. The man, Mr Boaqiang is an actor from rural China who enjoyed recent success in show biz.  The husband claims that the wife has hidden assets. So already social media has gone on the attack - the lethal and dreaded the court of public opinion - against the wife who has called for her husband to delete the tweet. He is seeking custody of their two children. A hashtag was created of the situation and the hashtag was viewed 5 billion times! (China's population is only about 1 billion). So that should give you some perspective. Will they be able to keep things in perspective themselves?

All of these issues were covered in How to Divorce Parts 1,2, & 3 - a trilogy of How to books written by Marion TD Lewis. Link to Amazon.com in the right column or try this link for the author's full listings.

How to Divorce Part 1,2 & 3

I am putting the finishing touches on part 3 of the Three part series How to Divorce. This one has 12 Chapters and one of them is how to win your divorce in a court of "public opinion." This book is really timely because of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's divorce, which has been playing out in social media and traditional media alike. They were on the cusp of a domestic violence case but on the 11th hour, the parties issued a joint statement today, indicating that they have settled their divorce action.

As I point out in book 3, it is always better to reach a compromise with these things and not have your divorce case play out in the public glare. If you are interested in reading the books, the first two are available on Amazon. Book 3 will be available after August 23, 2016.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Divorce-Part-Marion-Lewis-ebook/dp/B01KFF4W80/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1471384422&sr=8-5&keywords=%22how+to+divorce%22

https://www.amazon.com/How-Divorce-Part-Marion-Lewis-ebook/dp/B01K5SD6IY/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1471384422&sr=8-9&keywords=%22how+to+divorce%22

See below for a quote from the guardian about the statement:

Johnny Depp and Amber Heard have settled their divorce and her domestic abuse case against the Pirates of the Caribbean star, resolving one of Hollywood’s ugliest break-ups on the eve of a court hearing which threatened to expose details of their tumultuous relationship to public glare.
Heard filed legal documents on Tuesday to the superior court of Los Angeles withdrawing her request for a domestic violence restraining order in a deal which included a reported $7m divorce settlement.

                   

Johnny Depp v Amber Heard: abuse accusations split Hollywood and public

The former couple’s ongoing divorce and restraining order proceedings have scandalized Hollywood, splitting celebrities and fans into warring factions

Read more

Both actors issued a joint statement drawing a line under a saga which has appalled, titillated and divided the film industry and fans.
“Our relationship was intensely passionate and at times volatile, but always bound by love,” said the statement. “There was never an intent of physical or emotional harm. Neither party has made false accusations for financial gains.”
The statement said Heard would donate proceeds from the divorce to charity, without specifying how much, and struck a tone of reconciliation. “Amber wishes the best for Johnny in the future.”