Laurel A. Rockefeller Books

For weeks I thought so based on browsing dozens of financial websites and listening to some customer service representatives from varying banks in the UK.  That is until I talked to the right person at HSBC UK and learned that anyone with legal permission to live in the UK can open a basic checking and savings account with no or low minimums.  International banking accounts are not necessary at all.  Here are the steps the specialist at HSBC UK told me to follow: Apply for a

Earlier this week I received this wonderful article called “3 Tips to Help You Spend Your Book Marketing Money Better” in my email from Book Marketing Tools.  Great advice, especially for indie authors just starting to get into the business.  To these three tips I want to add one more of my own:  invest in multiple language editions of your books crafted by quality translators. Here is “3 Tips to Help You Spend Your Book Marketing Money Better” in full as presented in the new

This morning I found this article from Inc. about success.  The information is so good I have to share! “1. Successful people refuse to fit in a box. “Thinking outside the box” is a business cliché writ large. But truly successful people do more than that–they live outside the box. They don’t let other people define them, whether those other people are malicious or well-meaning. They don’t listen to the jealous boss who tells them that they’ll never be a leader. Perhaps more

The German edition of Boudicca was beautifully translated by Christina Loew. Thanks to frequent communication and Ms. Loew’s professionalism, the translation process was smooth and easy — exactly what most authors are looking for when joining Babelcube. If you subscribe to this blog you know that in 2016 I took my books deeper into the global market.  After an exasperating fore into the Chinese market via Fiberead, I had high hopes for Babelcube, a platform for translation th

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received as an author was to publish as many books in as many places as possible and to sell on as many websites as possible.  The writing profession is a numbers game.  To win it (meaning making a living as a writer) you need to be where the customers are and sell what they want to read.  You cannot achieve it with a single kindle book sold exclusively on Amazon.  It won’t happen — or perhaps it could but your chances of winning the lo

There has to be a better way.  I think there is.  Instead of sending non-violent offenders to prison, we FINE THEM.  Money talks.  Money motivates. Just think about how many people take care to follow traffic laws for fear of a speeding or parking ticket?  How many people will park in the correct spot because they don’t want the expense of their automobile being towed?  If we levied hefty fines instead of jail time on non-violent crime, we would save taxpayer money while incr

Self-publishing and the digital age has changed that for both self-published and traditional publishers.  Just as cigarette machines have gone by the wayside and Sherlock Holmes uses nicotine patches instead of smoking his pipe in response to smoking regulations in London, the days of in-house marketing and advertising for books by publishers are gone.  Today authors must do most of the work themselves. There are no shortage of marketing firms to delegate to, of course, but a

Indeed, critical reviews help authors by offering substance, feedback, and credibility.  No author with more than five or six reviews has a perfect five star average; someone will always find something imperfect about your work.  This is how it should be.  Your work should receive a mix of reviews. With one exception:  the one star review. If you like a book before you buy it, odds are good you will still like something about the book after you read it.  Yes, there are plenty

Here is another gem from Book Marketing Tools.  I do not agree with everything in this blog post, especially this idea that you can and should try to do all/most of this EVERYDAY.  I find focus is very important to my writing and my productivity; do things ONE at a time or you will burn out trying to be everything at once. Here is that post in full: 5 New Years Resolutions for Authors Happy New Year! A new year causes us to look back at the previous year and see all that we h

Blogging makes a difference!  After reporting on 4th October 2014 regarding Booklinker’s new plan to charge authors a monthly fee to use their links without intrusive advertisements before customers can reach Amazon.com, Booklinker has JUST REVERSED their decision, “Laurel A. Rockefeller, This is just a quick email to let you know that we at BookLinker have reversed our decision to use advertising as a means to fund our service. This means that all BookLinker links are now co

This morning I received an email that was clearly designed to sell me a book or something focusing on what rich people do that poor people do not do.  I have no interest in buying whatever they are selling.  But sprinkled among the standard “buy this” fare, the email did contain some useful information, information I am republishing here. Stripping away the stuff we don’t want, here is the useful things from that email with just ONE “buy my book” link retained as a form of ci

May 11th, 2012 The Olive Garden is one of the best known chain restaurants for Italian food. Certainly the television advertisements make the food look spectacular. Indeed, I have always found the food at Olive Garden quite good. One of the best items on the Olive Garden menu is not a food item at all-but their house wines, Principato. Offered as bianco (white), rosato (blush), and rosso (red), Principato wines are perhaps the best reason to dine at Olive Garden. Principato a

If you are following anything related to The Secret or the Law of Attraction, you have probably heard the mantra of “be specific about what you want.”  When it comes to attracting money in particular, the experts tell you to get very specific, to meditate “I want fifty million dollars by December 2014.” This is great if numbers make sense to you on a subconscious level.  But what if they do not?  What if in saying out a number, you actually block your meditation from moving f

Originally posted January 25, 2012 I love my bird. Like most dedicated aviculturists and pet owners, I care a great deal about helping my birds live long, healthy, and happy lives. A well-balanced diet for most companion birds consists of fresh fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and commercially available pellets. Most people feed pre-mixed diets from pet stores. But as with many cat and dog foods, these pre-mixed diets tend to be filled with low-nutrition fillers that add to t

This was another one of my Yahoo Voices articles where the trolls lingered. Shaming Poverty: One Person’s Stereotypes Leads to Personal Humiliation While Buying Food Myths Concerning Unemployed, Poor Persist Despite Prolonged Great Recession November 3rd, 2013 Saturday October 26th. After working all week at my holiday temp job, I go to my neighborhood Dollar General to buy some milk and a couple frozen dinners for work. Earlier this month I stocked up on groceries, knowing m

More about poverty.  You see a theme going? Less Than Human: Complacency, Poverty, and Human Rights A Look at Conditions Face by and Attitudes Regarding the Poor and Unemployed September 16, 2013 Sunday September 1st was a beautiful day. A friend came over and together we went to an area golf driving range, my first opportunity to leave my home for a reason other than grocery shopping or job interviews in over six months. After a full year of not practicing, my hits were off,

It’s hot — too hot for hot coffee.  This is one of my favorite food posts to Yahoo Voices made on August 6th, 2013. Summer Coffee Experiment: Iced Coffee Without the Coffee Maker Beating the Heat with a Surprising Alternative to Brewed Coffee It’s hot out there! If you are like me, and odds are you are, the idea of drinking hot anything just doesn’t have the same appeal as it does in October. So what is a coffee lover supposed to do?Drink iced of course!But iced coffee still