Learn or Renew
Your Promotion, Writing,
And Editing Expertise

and

Find Free Content That
Entertains and Educates

This page offers innovative ideas for those who want to improve their book sales and writing careers. It offers free content to editors, producers, webmasters and others seeking clear, concise articles that won't put their readers into nap mode and that will save them time and add variety to their Web sites, blogs, and other projects.

• What if you created a webpage using excerpts from the applauded Frugal Book Promoter and Frugal Editor? 

• Imagine the credibility afforded your web or print-based media with the respected name of the HowToDoItFrugally series attached to it!

• Suppose you put the added power of the name Carolyn Howard-Johnson behind your project.

• Imagine that all this requires merely a byline and tagline, something you would do anyway to give your articles the credibility they deserve. Of course, logos, book cover art, and thumbnail photos are also available at no charge.  It's still all FREE. Just ask.

Now that works!

Just click the titles below that will entice your readers, copy, and publish or contact me for an update. Please use the bylines and taglines included with each article. If you need to edit or shorten the material, please seek the approval of the author. If you don't see here what you need, contact Carolyn Howard-Johnson for something that will. She has other free content and does freelance work as well.

Reminder: Let me know if you use one or more of my articles.
Give me a link.
That way I can give you a little extra promotion. 
It keeps the promotion cycle gong and benefits both of us!

Articles on Fiction and Poetry

• The Honest Answer, an excerpt from the multi award-winning novel This Is the Place. 3,400 words.

Updates available on anything you choose. Just e-mail Carolyn. Most links will need updating.

                    Quotations
            On Marketing, PR, Writing Craft and More

• 45 Quotations from the Author of The Frugal Book Promoter  Pick and choose one or many from this list of quotations. Please use the attribution provided in the file for each of them.  They make great fillers.

Updates available on anything you choose. Just e-mail Carolyn. Most links will need updating.

                           Articles On Promotion

• Cookbooks and E-Books Equal Promotion Success 884 words

• Branding: What Selling Really Is  1,084 Words

• Amazon Is an Author's Promotion Partner  1,266 Words

• TV and Radio: Your Stepping Stones to Credibility  703 Words

• Publish to Promote; Promote to Share 948 Words

• How to Get Harvard's Bookstore to Stock Your Book 849 Words

• What's Good for Proctor and Gamble May Be Good for Writers  888 Words

• 10 Ways to Sell Books on Amazon   818 Words

• The Big Buzz on Social Networking: An Interview with Jennifer Akers

• Book Fair Blues? 12 Ways to Make Book Booths Better 702 Words

• Survive Book Expo: Tips--A Baker's Dozen of Them-- to Avoid BEA Bunions

• Ten Marketing Myths that Can Kill Your Book and Career (And Their Remedies!)

• Two in One Book Marketing: Marketing with Numbers and Six Big No-Nos for Dealing with Editors

Updates available on anything you choose. Just e-mail Carolyn. Quotations on Editing also available.

Articles On Editing

• Why You -- Yes, You Who Aced English -- Need an Editor  1,461 Words

• Let Tom Swift Inform Your Writing - 456 Words

• Seven Easy Ways to Keep Dialogue Sharp - 478 Words

• Using "I" As a Conceit - 498 Words

• Learning To Love Passive Construction

Updates available on anything you choose. Just e-mail Carolyn.

             Articles On Publishing

• Six Things I Learned from Reading an Inflight Magazine - 453 words

Updates available on anything you choose. Just e-mail Carolyn.

Articles on Journaling

• The Joys of Journaling: A Dialogue by Erica Miner and Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Updates available on anything you choose. Just e-mail Carolyn.

Articles On Tolerance

• Please see the tolerance page of this Web site.

• The Romney Question and Why Time Magazine Goofed   829 Words

• Other essays, excepts from books, and poems on this topic are also available.

Updates available on anything you choose. Just e-mail Carolyn.

Articles On Reading

Updates available on anything you choose. Just e-mail Carolyn.

Reviews for Riters ™

Carolyn's reviews of recommended books for authors--books that will help them write better, promote better, even tech better. Carolyn has at least 50 of these reviews available as a series or individually. If you'd like to run  one of these or even run them as a series, e-mail Carolyn. Remember, sometimes oldies are the besties!

• Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies by June Casagrande  396 Words

• Get Published! Get Produced!  by Peter Miller 350 Words

• Bird by Bird  by Anne LaMott  387 Words

• Fear of Writing by Milli Thornton   514 Words

• Outside the Square Fiction Workshop by Cheryl Wright   518 Words

• Writing for Profit: Breaking into Magazines by Cheryl Wright

• Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog by Kitty Burns Florey (On Grammar)

• Roget's Descriptive Wordfinder  542 Words

• Your First Novel by Ann Rittenberg and Laura Whitcomb   407 Words

• Run by Ann Patchett   752 Words

• Rereadings by Anne Fadiman  553 Words

• Bang the Keys by Jill Dearman (Penguin)

• New Vintage Type by Steven Heller and Gail Anderson   531 Words

• Unfolding the Mysteries of Culture, Language and Writing Subtly, Like the Whisper of a Fan--Review of Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan 

• Now You See Him: A Lesson in Craft (the novel reviewed is by Eli Gottlieb)

• Get Noticed...Get Referrals by Jill Lublin

• Righting the Mother Tongue by David Wolman (Spelling)

• Publishing Possibilities by Cheryl Pickett 435 Words

• Describer's Dictionary, The by David Grambs 473 Words

• 101 Slightly Unpredictable Tips for Novelists and Screenwriters by Larry Brooks 642 Words

• Naked, Drunk, and Writing: Shed Your Inhibitions and Craft a Compelling Memoir or Personal Essay by Adair Laira. 591 Words

• It was the best of sentences, it was the worst of sentences by June Casagrande. 563 Words.

Updates available on anything you choose. Just e-mail Carolyn.

Travel Articles

Updates available on anything you choose. Just e-mail Carolyn.

Rants

• "Do We Want to Allow Others to Demean Us?"
  The Oprah Game: Must We Play by Their Rules? Must We Play at All?

• A Rant on Sestina (A Rant in a Poem)

• J. K. Rowling, the LA Times, and the Deadly but Hallowed Profit Conundrum 786 words

• Ranting Around: Hating the Term "Self Promotion"

Updates available on anything you choose. Just e-mail Carolyn.

Buy Links for Carolyn's Books

To subscribe to Carolyn's FREE online newsletter send an e-mail.

Learn more about Carolyn's newsletter and blog.

Read past issues of Carolyn's Newsletter.

Subscribe to
Carolyn Howard-Johnson's Sharing with Writers Newsletter
and get a FREE copy of
Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips for Writers

Find Carolyn on the Web

While You're Browsing...

You will find at least one promotion, writing or tech tip on every page on this site. Sometimes you'll find, two or three! Happy browsing and collecting!

Endorsements

I am waiting on answers to the proposals I sent out for my 4th book, PALMS READ IN LOVE & LIGHT.  I used almost every trick (I mean technique) in your little booklet[The Great First Impression Book Proposal], too. I hope a traditional publisher takes it . . .   ."

 ~  Myrna Lou Goldbaum, palmist /psychic /author

{Carolyn Howard-Johnson is} an incessant promoter who develops and shares new approaches for book promotion."
~ Marilyn Ross, founder Small Publishers N. America and author The Complete Guide to Self Publishing

"In the wake of the Erma Bombeck conference, I'm finding The Frugal Editor every bit as pithy and humane as The Frugal Book Promoter. You really find the heart of a sometimes disheartening business! By all means, keep more of my gremlins at bay with your editing handout!"
~ Christopher Yeager, Raku Publishing

Carolyn's Awards

The New Book Review
Named to
Master's in English.org Online Universities'
101 Essential Sites for Voracious Readers

Writer's Digest 101 Best Websites
for Sharing with Writers blog.

Best Book Award for The Frugal Book Promoter (2004) and The Frugal Editor (2008) and the Second Edition of The Frugal Book Promoter (2011).

Reader Views Literary Award for The Frugal Editor

New Generation Award for Marketing and Finalist for The Frugal Editor

Book Publicists of Southern California's Irwin Award

Military Writers Award of Excellence for
Tracings, A Chapbook of Poetry.

A Retailer's Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotion wins author Military Writers Society of America's Author of the Month award for March, 2010

Gold Medal Award from Military Writers Society of America, 2010. MWSA also gave a nod to She Wore Emerald Then, a chapbook of poetry honoring mothers.

The Frugal Editor Named #! on Top Ten Editing Books list.

Finalist New Generation Book Awards 2012, The Frugal Book Promoter; Finalist 2010 The Frugal Editor;
Winner 2010 Marketing Campaign for the Frugal Editor

The Oxford Award
recognizes the alumna who exemplifies the Delta Gamma precept of service to her community and who, through the years, devotes her talents to improve the quality of life around her.

The Frugal Book Promoter is runner-up in the how-to category for the Los Angeles Book Festival 2012 awards.

Winner Diamond Award for Achievement in the Arts
Glendale California's Arts and Culture Commission and the City of Glendale Library,
2013

And more than a dozen other awards for Carolyn's novel, short story collection and poetry. See the awards page on this site.

Published Works Almanac