University of Wisconsin Admissions Essay Personal Statement

University of Wisconsin Admissions Essay - Personal Statement Example All skills that are necessary for one who ambitions to become a leader and not a follower in the future. These are skills and abilities that I did not realize I had until I became a member of the BBYO and found myself being asked to think about the kind of young leader that I could become. They called upon its members to strive towards becoming a national leader through the grassroots training that they offered. I dove into the challenge with excitement. I organized recruitment events in order to show the positive effect that our organization can have in their lives. All my hard work paid off as I was elected to the post of Regional Vice President for Communication (Northbrook chapter) , then programming (Overall, Illinois Chapter). Having been a ranking member of the BBYO for a number of years, I learned that life is not one person or race. It is about helping people reach their full potential in order to insure a steady flow of successful people in the future. We live in the land of opportunity. Unfortunately, not everyone knows how to get the best out of the possibilities presented to them. I know how to do that and I willing to share what I know with my fellow students. I plan to do this by working with the student government in mounting student mixers and career introduction seminars whenever it is possible. I am currently the youngest staff employee of Special Gifts, a Chicago based theater group that helps children with disabilities see that their handicap is not a hindrance but a gift that makes them special. I am truly saddened that I will be unable to continue working with them because theirs is a Chicago based group. But, I have plans of further spreading the good works of the group by founding a Madison community chapter. I hope, that once I am in a well placed position within the student population of UW, I will be able to find some students who would want to help further the cause of my theater

The Veldt Essay Example for Free

The Veldt Essay In the short story â€Å"The Veldt by Ray Bradbury, everything starts with the purchase of their new family home. This home was not your average home because where other homes flawed this house seemed to have perfected itself. This house had features that would cater to the family such as feed them, sing to them, and even nurture them nothing was to good for their children said George. The greatest feature was the nursery. What this nursery would do, was catch the telepathic emanations of the children’s minds and create it in the room. This house did everything for the family; the children quickly grew more and more fascinated by the house then there parents. Soon enough, the children realized there was no need for their parents. As time progressed the kids started to adapt to being spoiled and pampered by the house. As the story goes, one day the parents walked into their three dimensional nursery and they discovered Africa; no longer was there nursery a lovely childish room, but it was now a dead desert with feeding animals. At first they were surprised at what their kids had been imagining then George said, â€Å"Nothing over there I can see but cleaned bone and vultures dropping for what’s left. † Than Lydia suggested that they give a call to the psychologist because there was not any reason why kids of so little age can be imagining this. So they did just that, and the psychologist advisor agreed with them to close the nursery down, and go on a family vacation. So George locked up the room and started turning off all there other machines that would cater to them one by one. That same night Peter and Wendy snuck into the nursery and as they were there a scream was herd all the way into their parent’s bedrooms; so George and his wife woke up to see what the commotion was about. George decided it was time to turn off everything all the machines so he did but right before he did Wendy and Peter got two minutes to say good bye. Too much time had passed and Lydia and George began to worry; they went in the nursery and it automatically locked them in and the lions ate Peter and his wife. The following day the psychologist came to visit the family and Pater and Wendy just acted as if nothing was wrong. Wendy even offered the psychologist a cup of tea symbolizing that she had no remorse over what had occurred to her parents.

Insomnia Essay -- essays research papers

Insomnia comes in many forms and worries people of all ages, most commonly for just a night or two, but sometimes for weeks, months, and even years. Insomnia has many causes. Insomnia is a symptom, much like fever or stomachache. There three symptoms commonly shown by people who have insomnia: difficulty falling asleep, no problem falling asleep but difficulty staying asleep with many awakenings, and waking up too early. Difficulty sleeping at night may be related with the following daytime symptoms: sleepiness, anxiety, impaired memory, impaired concentration, and irritability.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There are three basic types of insomnia. The first type is called transient insomnia -- lasting for up to several nights and is usually caused by excitement or stress. Adults may sleep poorly before a key meeting at work or after a quarrel with his or her partner. Many people sleep worse than usual for the first night or two away from home, particularly if they have traveled across many time zones. Nighttime strong physical movements, the flu or other brief illnesses may disrupt sleep temporarily.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The second one is situational insomnia. That is two or three weeks of poor sleep and is often developed during ongoing stress at work or at home. Situations such as job delay, divorced, serious illness or death are primary in this type of insomnia. Relief from the situation that provoked disturbed sleep or accommodation to it usually returns a pers...

Hutch Vodafone Takeover

After months of pitched battle, British mobile telecom major Vodafone Monday formally said it is buying a 67-percent stake in India's fourth largest mobile firm Hutch-Essar for $11. 1 billion and targeting a 25-percent market share in the country in five years. The London-headquartered company, that submitted a formal bid to the Hutchison Whampoa group midnight Friday, had earlier offered to pay $19 billion for the entire 100 percent-stake in Hutch-Essar. Vodafone has also agreed to take over a debt worth $2 billion. The remaining 33 percent stake in the mobile phone company is with the Ruias of Essar. Vodafone has offered to buy that stake as well. â€Å"Vodafone announces it has agreed to acquire companies that control a 67-percent interest in Hutch Essar from Hutchison Telecom International Ltd. (HTIL) for a cash consideration of $11. 1 billion,† a Vodafone statement said. For Vodafone, the acquisition will make India their third largest mobile phone market after Germany and the US with over 23 million subscribers and a 16. ercent national market share, industry sources said. â€Å"This announcement is clear evidence of how we are executing our strategy of developing our presence in emerging markets,† said the India-born chief executive of Vodafone Arun Sarin. â€Å"We have concluded this transaction within our stated investment criteria and we are confident it will prove to be an excellent investment for our shareholders. Hutch Essar is an impressive, well run company that will fit well into the Vodafone Group. According to industry experts, the mobile telecom giant, which has considerable expertise in third-generation (3G) mobile telephony segment, will have an edge over others once the new policy is rolled out later this in year or early 2008. Vodafone, which also had 10 percent stake in rival Bharti Airtel, said it will share the infrastructure with the company, based on a pact signed with the Sunil Bharti Mittal group. Infrastructure sharing is expected to reduce the total cost of delivering telecom services, especially in rural areas, enabling both parties to expand network coverage more quickly and to offer more affordable services to a broader base of the Indian population,† the statement said. Vodafone has also offered to offload 5. 6 percent of the said 10-percent holding to the Mittal family for $1. 6 billion. The Mittals, meanwhile, congratulated Vodafone on the deal, which is expected to make competition fiercer in the Indian telecom market. Vodafone's remaining 4.4 percent stake will, however, be retained and the group will act as a financial investor and not have any representation on the Bharti Airtel board, nor have any management rights, the statement added. Other players who had participated in the bidding process were Anil Ambani's Reliance Communications and the London-based Hindujas, both of whom have also congratulated Vodafone for making a successful entry into India's booming telecom market. Vodafone has operations in 25 countries with over 200 million proportionate customers at end of January 2007, as well as 36 partner networks, a company statement said.

Gatsby’s Attraction to Daisy Essay

In the novel ‘The Great Gatsby’, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the main character – Gatsby – is in love with Daisy Buchannan. Moreover, the protagonist’s love for the young woman is the result of the objectifying and romanticizing of the latter. Throughout the novel, Nick shows Gatsby as the epitome of grandeur and the American Dream. Gatsby’s greatness, however, lies in his ability to pursue his dreams and, from them, create realities. This is the very case with Daisy. The main character feels attracted to her because she represents everything he ever wanted: wealth, glory and a high-class status. Without question, Gatsby is driven to desire Daisy because she is â€Å"dressed in white† (pg. 65) and other officers â€Å"demanded the privilege of monopolizing her† (pg. 65). It is important to note how Fitzgerald uses the word monopolizing instead of others that would set a more romantic tone. This is, however, because, in Gatsby’s eyes, Daisy is a trophy or a prize. And, thus, Daisy being such a big reward or achievement for Gatsby, he tries to attract her with exuberant parties. Furthermore, the fact that Daisy is so used to the upper class and ridiculous amounts of money also makes Gatsby find her â€Å"excitingly desirable† (pg. 28). It is not Daisy’s beauty or smile that wakens Gatsby’s heart; it’s the fact that her mansion was a thing â€Å"as casual to her as his tent out at camp to him† (pg. 128). We can see that Fitzgerald is trying to show to the reader why is that all the extravagant qualities Daisy possesses are so attractive to Gatsby; she, like money, represents the American Dream- the illusion of greatness and superiority. It is also important to see the words Fitzgerald uses when Gatsby describes Daisy. The fact that many others also desired the young lady, the main character says, â€Å"increased her value in his eyes† (pg. 128). The word value is, in a way, the summary of how the protagonist sees Mrs. Buchannan. It is not her beauty, her kindness or her personality – which behind Gatsby’s illusion is completely amoral and unethical –that makes Gatsby so interested in her. It’s her value; as if she were an expensive piece of jewelry to buy as a collection or a business to invest in. Nonetheless, it is what attracts Daisy that also attracts Gatsby. Because she’s attracted to â€Å"pomp and circumstance† (pg. 66), it adds to her value. Since he was very young, Gatsby fell in love with wealth and high-class standards, and though he never belonged there, he also desired the supposed ‘greatness’ that came with them. Daisy, in the main character’s eyes, is the representation of these very things. In conclusion, we can see that Gatsby, after creating an unreal version of Daisy, wants her more as an object than as an actual woman. Thus, the protagonist is attracted to her social hierarchy, her wealthy lifestyle and her popularity.

The War in Uganda Essays

The War in Uganda Essays The War in Uganda Essay The War in Uganda Essay The War in Uganda â€Å"We make war that we may live in peace. † This is a quote that the famous Aristotle said but is this always true? The civil war that is currently going on in Uganda is a case that the war being made is not so the people can live in peace, but rather live in a country that is completely divided. The war in Uganda is driving the people of this country to vast extremes and far away from peace. Throughout this war, it has always been the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) against the government which causes more heart breaks and separation. But who is the LRA consisting of? How are the people of Uganda being affected? Can a country like this ever live in a state of peace? Is there anything that we, as Americans, can do? Are you wondering what happen in Uganda that started this ever-lasting war? Well it can be traced back to a woman named Alice Lakwena. (Invisible Children) Lakwena claims that the â€Å"holy spirit† came to her one night and told her to over throw the Ugandan government. After saying such an outrageous thing like this, the Ugandan government exiled her, and this is when things started to take a turn for the worse. A man by the name of Joseph Kony would become Lakwena’s understudy and would now pick up where she had left off, only this time the Ugandan government would not be strong enough to exile him. Kony claims that he was possessed by spirits, the same spirits that had â€Å"talked† to Lakwena soon before this. War would officially be on the horizon. Kony soon became hated by many, even by Lakwena. But if he was Lakwena’s understudy then why would she hate him? This is because the vision that Lakwena had was to over throw the government, not to kill the citizens of Uganda. Kony had officially made his own plan and nothing was going to stop him or get in his way. Imagine one day you and your sister are running around your village, your mom is making dinner in your hut, and your dad has been working all day to support the family. Things seem fine until the LRA come rampaging into your village; they kill your mother and father, rape your sister, and kidnap and force you to be a part of their army. This is what has been going on for almost thirty years, that’s Africa’s longest running war. But who is the LRA and how do they have so much power? The LRA is an army that Kony himself created. Their values were based on those that came from many sources, Christianity, Mysticism, various African faiths, and witchcraft. Kony took it upon himself to do everything in his power to make sure that the Ugandan government would be overruled. (Invisible Children) But wait, a man that was hated by many has an army that has caused a thirty-plus year war? How is this possible? Remember the fact I said about how they â€Å"kidnapped you and made you fight for them† well it turns out the 90% of the LRA are abducted children; this is how Kony supplies his army. This has brought nothing but devastation to Uganda as a whole. What is this doing to the country as a whole? Well the government forced the citizens of Uganda to evacuate their villages and homes and move to displacement camps where they would be safe. (Global Security) Although this was a step in the right direction, the children of Uganda have to walk over 3 miles to shelters just so they do not become yet another number added to the LRA. Another issue that has caused a serious state of depression and desperation is that these camps were, and still are, in horrible conditions where everyone is packed in like sardines. World Vision) How are the people of Uganda being affected? Just imagine your child being abducted and then coming back to your village and being told that he/she will be killed if they don’t kill you. After a while this would take a beating on one’s health and well being. Again one has to ask, can a country that seems to be centralized by war ever have p eace? Peace? Does Uganda even know what this word means anymore? Can and will there ever be peace again? As time goes by, year by year, Uganda is slowly inching closer to total peace. Since 2008, there have been many peace attempts, but full peace has not yet been achieved. The United States is finally taking action and realizing that this war must stop, not just for the sake of humanity but for the sake of the world’s peace. (Global Security) With the help of the United States and support from thousands and thousands of people who are involved in an organization called ‘Invisible Children’ (which does nothing but work with the Ugandan government to advance peace talks and treaties), the peace treaties are becoming more and more realistic. One has to be realistic and think can the LRA and the Ugandan government exist in the same proximity? Considering there have already been so many attempts at peace treaties, I think that sooner or later they will be able to live in harmony together again. Kony is realizing that he is vastly losing support and members of his army. One can clearly see that the war in Uganda can be ended and stopped for good, but it will take time and patients. The citizens of Uganda, excluding those involved in the LRA mean well and want what is best for their country as a whole. We, as Americans, can show our support for this country in need and show them that we will not walk away and act like this is not happening. Just think if you were in their shoes, no family, no clean water, packed in so tightly into a hut, and being forced to live in fear; wouldn’t you want someone to come and help you! This is a picture of a young boy who is in the LRA This is a picture of one of the displacement camps†¦. notice all the small cramped huts! These are members of the LRA planning where they will invade next.

Keep Going - An Interview With Two #1 Amazon Bestsellers

Keep Going - An Interview With Two #1 Amazon Bestsellers "Keep Going" - An Interview with #1 Amazon Bestsellers Mark Edwards and Louise Voss Success doesn’t happen overnight. It is often the result of hard work put in over the years. And Mark Edwards and Louise Voss’ success story tells us as much. They are known for being the first indie authors to ever reach #1 on Amazon.co.uk back in 2011. Now with Amazon Publishing, their latest book is From The Cradle (and the best one, they tell me). Their story begins much sooner, though. They have been through the ups and downs that characterize a writer’s life, but they have been through them together and always determined to keep going.Today, we have the pleasure of interviewing both of them. They share their whole story (not only the success part) and their advice for starting indie authors. They also debunk a metadata-myth, analyze why Amazon Publishing is so powerful and explain how to co-write a book using Dropbox.So sit down with a nice cup of tea/coffee, and hit play. Or alternatively, read through the whole transcript below (courtesy of the Reedsy team). REEDSY: Hi Mark and Louise, I’m really pleased to have you here. You are known for being the first indie authors to have reached the top of the charts on Amazon.co.uk, a few years ago, with two books that you had co-written. But your collaboration started long before that, right Louise?LOUISE: Sure, it’s a good story, though it can make me sound a bit like a stalker. It started years ago, around 1998-99, and Mark was on this TV documentary about â€Å"wannabe writers†. I was in the exact same situation as him: I had an agent but she wasn’t very enthusiastic. We were both getting lots of rejections but they were really positive rejections. So I just sent him a little email via his agent, basically saying â€Å"I really liked your interview†.He wrote back, and we started corresponding via email about books and writing for around 18 months before we finally met in person. And then we thought: rather than just critiquing each other’s stuff, why d on’t we write something together? That’s when we started writing Killing Cupid. We did it all by email, because at that time Mark was in Japan.MARK: Yes, I was in Tokyo, and Louise was in London. We wrote an entire novel without even speaking to each other, literally. This was back in 2001, and Killing Cupid was optioned by the BBC but we didn’t manage to get a publishing deal for it.Then, a few years after, I came back from Japan and we decided to write another one together: Catch Your Death. Back then, however, we didn’t have an agent, we still couldn’t get a publisher, we were really back to square one, so we pretty much gave up at that point, didn’t we?LOUISE: Yes, I think the problem with Killing Cupid was a genre one. When we sent it to publishers, they said â€Å"well, it’s not really enough of a thriller to be a thriller; and it’s a comedy as well, we don’t know what to do with it†¦Ã¢â‚¬  And that’s why we decided to write Catch Your Death, because that was unquestionably a thriller.MARK: Yes, so we both more or less gave up. I came back to the UK, got a good job, and thought: it’s really not worth the pain of trying to find a publishing deal.Then, 2010 when was I first heard about KDP. And I got a Kindle for my 40th birthday. So I said to Louise: why don’t we take our two old novels, spruce them up a bit, self-publish them and see what happens? And she was very reluctant.LOUISE: Yes, I thought â€Å"oh, no, it will be humiliating, we’ll sell 4 copies†¦Ã¢â‚¬ MARK: So we spent a few months rewriting and reworking them, because they were really out of date. There were no mobile phones, social media, etc.We put Killing Cupid out in February 2011, and as Louise predicted we sold around 4 copies on our first day, to people that we knew†¦ But then I became completely obsessed about trying to sell it. I had a full-time job, my girlfriend was pregnant, and she still talks about how I neglected her during that time! And Louise did promotion stuff too.LOUISE: Yes, we had a list of all the bloggers that accepted unpublished books - there weren’t that many of them but we put together this list and divided it up. Mark started at A and I started at Z and we worked our way to the middle, contacting all of them. It was a lot of work.REEDSY: And Mark, you did a very good job on the metadata too, right? I read about it on Joanna Penn’s blog, but maybe you can tell us what in your metadata helped make your book successful?MARK: Yes, we used subtitles. On Killing Cupid, I think it was pretty simple: â€Å"Killing Cupid, a psychological thriller†: nothing fancy, really. But we kept rewriting the blurb (book description). Back then, you used to be able to see what percentage of people who viewed your book had bought it, which was fantastic, you could see your conversion rate from browser to reader. So I kept looking at th e books in the top 10, especially the self-published thrillers and the ones that had the highest conversion rates, and tried to figure out what it was about those books that incited more people to buy them after they looked at them.So I was continually tweaking the description and I think that at one point I got it right, because it suddenly doubled our sales in just an hour. I had made the description shorter, more straightforward about the book while also making it sound more intriguing.We did something much more interesting for the second book, Catch Your Death. We called it: â€Å"Catch Your Death (For fans of Dan Brown Stieg Larsson)†. This quickly became a controversial point, with people starting to talk about it in The Bookseller magazine.But I actually believe, to this day, that it didn’t make any difference to the sales, because I think we put off as many people as we attracted. If you searched for Dan Brown at the time (and I did it quite a few times), our book didn’t come up, not even on page 30. It didn’t make any difference to the search results.What really made a difference, and this is a lesson for all indie authors, is that we were patient and hardworking in building a readership. We hand-sold every copy of Killing Cupid in the first 3-4 months: every single sale was hard work. And as we did that, we built a momentum and started climbing up the charts, which made our book more visible. And because it was good, word-of-mouth really worked in our advantage and more people started to buy it.We released Catch Your Death around 3-4 months after Killing Cupid, as Killing Cupid was climbing into the top 100. And Amazon then sent out an email advertising Catch Your Death to all the people who had previously purchased Killing Cupid.And it was the day that this email went out - even though we only realized this quite a long time afterwards - that more and more readers started buying both books and we shot up into the top 1 0. A couple of days later, Amazon removed the Dan Brown subtitle, and it didn’t make any difference at all.So there was a lot of hype about our metadata at that time, but I really don’t think it made any difference in the end. It was all about slowly building that readership.REEDSY: I think that’s a great lesson indeed for indie authors. But if we go back to the writing process, Louise, how does that technically work? What tools do you use: Google Drive, Dropbox, †¦?LOUISE: Dropbox, we have everything in Dropbox. It works really well for us, you can see the last things people have worked on and when. Though sometimes it happened that we were both working on the same document at the same time, so when we saved it created conflicted copies, which are a nightmare to sort out. But we don’t do that so much now, we’ve got better at it.We also email a lot, and text, when it’s particularly urgent, but we don’t actually talk that much, un less there is a problem, or in the beginning and the end, when there are things to figure out.MARK: For Dropbox, we have a â€Å"master document† - we do it all in Word - and we write separate chapters in separate Word documents, save them into Dropbox for the other person to make comments. The original author then goes back to that chapter to amend it and when we’re both happy with it we add it to the master document!We also have other Word documents and spreadsheets for our chapter plans. I think that, ideally, we’d use Scrivener, because that’s what we both write on for our solo novels, but you can’t really use it for collaborative work, as far as I’ve been able to work out.REEDSY: Now, with the success of Killing Cupid and Catch Your Death, you were prompted to partner with an agent, who got you into traditional publishing. How was that experience?LOUISE: It’s quite ironic, because we spent years trying to get a publishing deal for both books. But we didn’t have an agent at all until we were #1 on Amazon. I was talking with an author friend of mine and he suggested me to contact his agent. I said â€Å"well, he turned us down a few years ago so I don’t think he’ll be interested†. He answered â€Å"oh, it’s different now, you’re #1†. So we contacted his agent and he quickly got us a deal with HarperCollins, which was fantastic! I don’t regret it, really, because it was just so lovely to finally have this public validation through a traditional publishing deal, and the idea to have our books in shops, the advance, etc.I often wonder, with the benefit of hindsight, whether we would do it differently if we had to do it again, and I don’t think we would change much, other than to get more involved in the marketing and publicity of these traditionally published books. We were thinking that the publisher would do most of the marketing and promotion, a nd it didn’t happen. So I think our mistake wasn’t taking the deal, it was not pushing the books as much as we had when we were self-publishing.MARK: Louise literally just took the words out of my mouth. I definitely don’t regret it either, it was â€Å"a dream come true†. Louise had already had a traditional publishing deal in the past, but for me it was something I’d wanted for years.LOUISE: Yes, I guess I was a bit more cynical about it, because I already had had an experience with a publisher who dropped me after not promoting the books - and that was back in the day when you could do little yourself. But I still don’t regret it, we had a lovely editor, who did an excellent editorial work, really improving the books. It’s just that not many people got to see them.MARK: Yes, that was the frustrating thing. What happened is that after the first and second books didn’t do as well as they hoped, the third and fourth ones were pretty much dead in the water.LOUISE: It basically took the exact same trajectory as my first publishing deal: sales got smaller and smaller and the publisher’s interest got smaller and smaller. Also, one thing to take into account is that two of the four books had already been self-published before and picked up by a lot of people. So I think that didn’t help us as much as we thought it would.MARK: That was the problem, really. Catch Your Death and Killing Cupid came out a year after we first self-published them, which means the sequel to Catch Your Death came a year and a half after the first book, and by then, everyone had lost interest. And it wasn’t pushed at all, it wasn’t in any shops, it had no visibility.I actually think that we were a little bit like guinea pigs, because we were the first â€Å"indies† to go through that process over here in the UK. The publishers learned from what happened with us for some of the following indie success stories that they picked up.REEDSY: So you were with a publisher that didn’t do as much as you hoped on the marketing side of things. But now you’re with Amazon, right? Which is almost the opposite.MARK: Yes, but there is a stage in between. In January 2013, we were in a dark place. We’d had a very disappointing 2012 with the two paperbacks, and when the third one came out in January it just disappeared without a trace. Literally without trace, it left nothing.I had gambled by quitting my job to be a full-time writer, and I was in a very difficult financial position, with massive tax and credit card bills, plus my wife and I had another baby on the way. So I really was in a state of constant panic, thinking â€Å"what am I going to do?† I can laugh about it now, but it was terrible at that time. Every now and again I think â€Å"I can’t believe I managed to get myself out of that dark pit that I was in†.I remember Louise and I had this meeti ng with our agent in London and he - now, he would probably deny it - but he had lost a bit of interest in us as well. But we were determined to make it work so we decided we would not give up, and start a new series of books instead.Now, I had this book â€Å"The Magpies† that I had had sitting in my bottom drawer for years, and I’d been tinkering with it, on and off. Louise said: â€Å"why don’t you just do it, just self-publish it?† So I went home that day, read through it, and thought â€Å"actually, this is quite good†. So I self-published The Magpies via my agent (it’s called â€Å"agent-assisted self-publishing†) and it basically completely transformed everything, because The Magpies ended up selling (in its self-published version) 170,000 copies. It simply changed my life, and it’s what led to the deal with Amazon.Amazon Publishing bought the rights for it and for another solo novel from me. And when Louise and I fini shed our new co-written one, it did go out in submission to various publishers, but Amazon pre-empted it and our commissioning editor there read it in a few days. They made an offer, and because I’d had such a great experience with them already, Louise thought: â€Å"why not?†Everything so far with Amazon Publishing has been fantastic. I mean, I’d like to sell more books in the US, but in the UK it couldn’t have gone any better I think.REEDSY: Yes, and we actually interviewed another Amazon-published author, Bob Mayer, a few weeks ago who highlighted the â€Å"marketing reach† of Amazon publishing imprints. What does that mean exactly? What do these imprints do in terms of marketing that makes it worth it signing away royalties to them?MARK: Well, they’ve got the most amazing database in the world. They’ve got anyone who has ever bought anything, including anyone who has ever read a psychological thriller! That’s what sets them apart from all the other publishers. Plus, they’ve got the platform of their website, and they also do a lot of on-device marketing. So if you’ve got a Kindle Fire, you’ll see that whenever you turn it on, an advert will appear on the home screen, and they rotate, but they’re often books.That visibility that you get with Amazon publishing is just fantastic. The restriction of being with them is that you’re pretty much only on the Amazon platform, although they do print books and they are making efforts to get them into the shops. But they’re not on any of the other digital stores, so you’re in kind of a walled garden, like a luxury gated development!When somebody from a big publisher said to us: â€Å"well, wouldn’t you rather be with a traditional publisher and have your books in the shops?†, my answer was that that all sounds great, but when we did have that opportunity, our books were barely in the shops anyway†¦REEDSY: So, do you now still produce some marketing effort yourselves or is it all Amazon?LOUISE: We’ve worked very hard on building up our Facebook page. It’s not like we have tens of thousands of followers, but the ones we do have are so loyal that it’s really helping us get the word of mouth thing going, which is the holy grail of marketing anyway. But we still do work very hard, especially when we do online launches.REEDSY: To finish on an encouraging note for other authors out there: you’ve been through everything, both of you, in a writer’s career; the ups, the downs, so what would be your advice for an author who’d be in a â€Å"dark year† like you had in 2012?MARK: I think it’s certainly nurturing your existing fans and readers. That is what goes through in our Facebook group, where we have really loyal readers as Louise pointed out. They were really really helpful and acting as cheerleaders to keep us going. And then when we did start selling well, they were there and helped spread the word.REEDSY: And Louise, what would be your advice?LOUISE: Keep going!We lost the rest of Louise’s advice due to recording problems, but feel free to ask her (or Mark) anything in the comments below!Sharing is caring, so here are our Twitter handles: @ReedsyHQ, @mredwards and @LouiseVoss1