To Your Dog's Health!

To Your Dog's Health! Canine Nutrition and Recent Trends Within the Pet Food Industry
by Mark Poveromo

Poor Man's Press, February 2010
Paperback, 104 pages, $14.95
ISBN-13: 978-0984301706


Interested in offering your pet meals beyond the pried open can or the bag of dried kibble? Perhaps you have an older pet, or one with a specific need that needs to be addressed through diet (cancer, kidney disease), or you're just looking for a more holistic approach to pet care.


Do you know if your pet's dry food is fried, baked, pressure-cooked, or dehydrated? In To Your Dog's Health, author Mark Poveromo discusses not only the method involved in creating each type and the effect it has on the overall nutrition, but suggests healthy alternatives which lead to healthier, more active lifestyles for your pets.

He offers a variety of nutrition solutions from a raw diet to home cooked (which is great for those with home gardens). There are even recipes to help get you started! Also included is a chapter that lists and describes several of the best processed foods on the market today.


Armed with this slim guide, you have the tools and guidance necessary to choose the best method of care for your pet, ensuring the time you have together is full of happy, healthy days!

''If you are what you eat then so are your canine companions. Unfortunately, we have been incredibly blind sided by the false science handed to us by the pet food industry. As a result, Mans Best Friend has suffered. Mark, in his book, To Your Dog s Health, concisely and in a very clear cut manner, reveals to us the truth about proper canine nutrition. A must read for every person caring for a dog.'' -Martin Goldstein, D.V.M. & host of "Ask Martha's Vet" on Sirius Satellite

To learn more about Mark, watch video segments, or read an article featuring him in Dog Fancy and Pet Business Magazine, please visit here.
--
Interview:
Dog Works Radio

Guest Post:
'Holistic Pet Food and Trends in the Industry' on WayCoolDogs.com

Reviews:
BookHounds: "
I am giving this book to my brother to try out on his new puppy and I am going to switch over my dogs to a more natural diet."

Spatter: "...it's a good book with good information and is a good it's a good jumping off point into the world of alternative health and nutrition for dogs."

Going Like Sixty:
"If you have dogs, you’ve heard that it’s bad to feed them “table food.” Come to find out, if you’re eating right, your dog will be eating better than if you feed them dry kibbles."

Suko's Notebook: "
I enjoyed reading this book, which is a good guide book for dog owners with an interest in optimum canine nutrition."

Libby's Library News: "
Little book with Lot's of info."

Amber Stults:
"This book is a quick read that explains how to make or pick a nutritious food for your dog."

Good Girl Gone Redneck: "
I could tell that Mark truly cares for animals, not just his dogs, but yours and mine, too!"

The Crazy Life of a Bookaholic Mom: "
It is a very interesting book to read especially after all the pet food recalls in recent years. The book was easy to read and understand."

Adventures in Every Day
:
Just like humans, our pets are what they eat, and we owe it to them to make sure we give them the best nutrition possible.

The Bookworm: "
This book has been an eye opener when it comes to my dog's eating habits and the food that I chose to give him."

Reading at the Beach: "Everyone who is owned by a dog needs this book. It's full of helpful information."

Questions and Answers on Life Insurance

***I am out of review copies of this title. Please see below for currently posted reviews/coverage.***

Questions and Answers on Life Insurance
: The Life Insurance Toolbook
by Tony Steuer

Life Insurance Sage Press, August 1, 2010

Paperback, 392 pages, $22.95

ISBN: 978-0984508105
Tony Steuer's Site

Do you have life insurance? Do you know how to make your life insurance work for you? In an uncertain financial world, it is imperative to make intelligent, well-informed decisions concerning your assets.


In Questions and Answers on Life Insurance, Tony Steuer uses an accessible Q&A format which educates and empowers readers with the information necessary to craft the best life insurance policy to benefit their lifestyle, needs, and goals.


Life Insurance is like a parachute, you may only need it once, but when you need it, you really need it. And just as important as your pilot, plane, and training are, your parachute is essential to your well being and needs to be packed correctly. In an emergency situation, Life Insurance will be that necessary element that guides you and your family to safe ground.


Originally pubbed through iUniverse, Questions and Answers on Life Insurance has consistently sold 90-100/month with placement on Amazon alone. Now, with the backing of a house, updated materials and full distribution, Steuer's book is poised to take off as the #1 personal finance reference guide among consumers.

Full Press Release:
Questions and Answers on Life Insurance
is the definitive resource on life insurance and is the only book of it's kind. Tony Steuer's invaluable advice will safeguard you from unpleasant surprises and unnecessary pitfalls when facing the constant barrage of information from competing life insurance companies.


With twenty years of experience in the life insurance business, Anthony Steuer delivers a practical, one-of-a-kind resource to guide you through the basics--and the finer points--of life insurance and helps you choose the policy that is just right for you and your family. Using a simple question-and-answer format, Steuer covers everything you need to know about life insurance, including how to:

* Differentiate between types of policies
* Find and evaluate a policy and company

* Hire a trusted agent

* Understand the practice of underwriting
* Monitor a policy's performance


So complete is the information in the book, that the appendices offer contact information for all state insurance departments, address some medical issues and how they may affect underwriting options and is offers a glossary of 'Key Life Insurance Terms' which helps demystify the language utilized by the industry.


Selecting a policy isn't easy, but Steuer's guide will help any reader make informed, confident decisions and gain the maximum benefit from life insurance companies. The author
has an upcoming article in Men's Health and AARP and is available for additional interviews and guest posts. Please let me know if this is of interest.

Praise for Questions and Answers on Life Insurance
: "This easy-to-use life-insurance guidebook...will help readers make informed decisions about what kind of life insurance to purchase and how to monitor their holdings to avoid any nasty surprises down the road. Read in its entirety, the book provides a deep-immersion course....But it's also helpful in addressing the quandary of the moment, from something as basic as whether or not to buy term or permanent insurance to the material knowledge that can be gleaned from insurance regulatory information reports. Steuer lays out pros and cons, demonstrates how you can use mathematical calculations to arrive at a plan that best suits you, brings needs-analysis into play and tenders an array of quick facts that help put issues into perspective...the information is solid."
~Kirkus Discovery Reviews
~~~
Texas Tech University has adopted Questions & Answers on Life Insurance for their Masters/Doctoral Program in Personal Financial Planning. Professor John Gilliam, Ph.D., CFP®, ChFC, CLU mentions that: "The students love the simple straight forward nature of your writing. It is easily understood for anyone who knows very little or nothing about life insurance. Your book demystifies what some would considers a very difficult topic to understand."

~~~

"Tony's book is my comprehensive life insurance reference. He takes complex topics and breaks them down into plain English. I relied heavily on this book when studying for the CFP exam and continue to use it when I have life insurance questions in my role as a wealth manager." ~Janet Hoffmann, CFA, CFP, Principal - Integral Financial Solutions, LLC
~~~

Tony Steuer is a specially licensed Individual Life and Disability Insurance Analyst, of which there are only about 30 of in the state of California. Prior to commencing his own practice in 1995, Tony was an Assistant Vice President with Acordia-Lloyd, a multi-line insurance brokerage. His responsibilities were as a lead on an endorsed life insurance program with the State Bar of California as well as working with Health Insurance Producers and Property and Casualty Producers to assist in developing life insurance programs for their clients.

Steuer
has contributed to TheNest.com. He has been quoted in Newsday, appeared on the Wall Street Journal Morning Radio Show, was interviewed on The Prudent Money Show, Your Financial Editor Show, the Larry Shannon Show, and for the AARP and SLATE Magazine.

--

Excerpts:
Free Money Finance #1
Free Money Finance #2

Guest Posts:
Growing Money

Reviews:
Forbes: "Steuer does a fantastic job of explaining complex topics in straightforward language."
 
Libby's Library News: "Wow - this book answered questions that I didn't even know I had!"

Bargaineering: "While I’ve never looked at any life insurance books, I can’t imagine there’s one out there better than Questions and Answers on Life Insurance by Tony Steuer."


WiseBread: "A knowledgeable, experienced, and unbiased guide in the realm of life insurance is useful for this task and is precisely what I found in Questions and Answers on Life Insurance..."

Mighty Bargain Hunter: "His complete, thoughtful answer to this one question (How much life insurance do I need?) is worth the price of the book. And there are 133 other questions he answers!"

Monday, June 21, 2010

ROOM Giveaway Winner!

Thank you to all who participated in the ROOM giveaway. I created a list, posted it to Random.org and came up with: Heather of Capricious Reader! Congrats Heather. Please send me an email [onlinepublicist AT gmail DOT com] with your mailing address and I will send this out to you right away.

There are still other ways to win stuff! Post one of the Manifest buttons from my sidebar on your blog and you could win an eHarlequin gift certificate!

Or, submit a question in the Community Interview above and be entered to win the autographed Manifest tote bag. I will also have Manifest posters and more available soon.

And I still have more BEA stuff for you, so keep an eye out...

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

What I've been reading and ROOM giveaway

I will be posting the Artist Arthur community interview post later this week. We are waiting for the Manifest swag to arrive and as soon as it does, I'll get it up!

Until then, I wanted to chat about what I've read lately and host my first post BEA giveaway. Woo-hoo!

I finished Dracula a month or so ago and just loved it. The journal format was perfect for seamlessly offering the variety of perspectives that come about as the story unfolds across several countries. It did get a bit, 'Oh the Lady! Dote, fawn, How is the Lady? Protect the Lady from the evil of the world! Her delicate ears shall not be marred by such evil as the utterance of his name!' and on and on. Sometimes the doting on Mina chapters dragged on a bit, but it was written in 1897, so what can you do?

It does remind me of an SNL skit I remember seeing a long time ago where two actors were dressed up in Renaissance or maybe Elizabethan garb and made a great show of bowing flourishing their hands and bowing and saying, 'Yeeeeeeeees'. Wish I could find that skit. Seeing it would probably help what I'm trying to illustrate here. :-)

But anyway, it was a wonderful book. And I just love that the entire book centers around a character that makes a minimal number of appearances. So intriguing!

I also read ROOM by Emma Donoghue. I tore through it in about a day and a half and it was pretty amazing. The narrator is 5 years old, and while his speech patterns are highly elevated for someone so young, I still really had to think about what he was describing sometimes. It works so well because the author doesn't shy away from giving the reader some of the confusion of an adolescent perspective.

The book ended with me wanting more. There's a bit of an empty part in me from it that feels unsatisfied. Not to be read as a failure on the author's part though. With my life experience, perhaps this is exactly what I was supposed to walk away from this with. That closing emotion will be different for everyone, which is part of what makes this book so wonderful.

And to help give you the opportunity to share your thoughts, I am giving a copy of ROOM away! Along with a Quirk Books tote bag and a cute pink, reading light that was a gift from BBC (I already have a simliar one). Ta-daaa!


Now! To Enter:
You must leave a comment to be entered (you only need to leave your email address if I don't already have it), and if you have a Twitter account, I give you an extra entry if you RT the giveaway. Contest is open internationally.

That's all. I will announce the winner on Monday, June 21. Good Luuuuck!

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Pay for a peek behind the curtain?

I found this article on PW today and wonder what others think about it.

To sum up: A&E is debuting a show on July 11 called The Glades. They have teamed up with B&N and are offering the pilot script as a print and e-book. You can download it here, or receive a hard copy with any BN.com order placed through July, or in store, while supplies last.

It's an interesting concept, offering the text of the first episode to viewers before it premieres, so I headed over to check it out. I was theater major in college and enjoyed reading plays. It's a different reading experience and I was curious how they would present it to a general reader.

I headed over to the B&N site, set up an account (because they made me. I have never ordered from their site before) and got to downloadin! *spinney wheel that makes things happen, spinney wheel that makes things happen...*


Then it asked me for my credit card info. Wha? It will be kept on file and used for future purchases. For a free download. They want my credit card info.

So while I wish A&E and B&N well on their marketing venture together, I'm sorry to say that I will not be participating. But what about you? Would you give them the info they want for the free download? What if they begin charging for these items? Woud you pay? What upcoming shows would you purchase the premiere script for?

With hindsight, I wish I had something like that for LOST, but I also happen to like a lot of shows that get cancelled pretty quickly (I really liked Eastwick), so I don't know if I can trust my judgment. I feel like several folks would have loved a peek at
Pretty Little Liars...

Thursday, June 3, 2010

The Big Post BEA '10 Post

The title is pretty post-tastic, isn't it? Alrighty, I have my photos now, my stories are all lined up and a hefty amount of redacting has been done to protect the guilty. :-) BEA last week was an absolute blast. Long, exhausting, foot achingly amazing!

I arrived on
Monday afternoon and was lucky enough to have dinner with Serena of Savvy Verse & Wit, Anna of Diary of an Eccentric and her daughter, known on her blog as 'The Girl', but whom I now refer to as 'T.G.' It was so much fun and I can't thank them enough for meeting up with me. It's a long train ride from Queens and I know they were hungry!

On Tuesday, I attended several of the seminars at Javits. In the past, I never attended on this day, instead saving my energy for the three days of the on the floor madness of BEA. But since BEA was only two days this year, I decided to try it out. I'm so happy I did!


The Building Online Reader Communities with an Eye on ROI (return on investment) was pretty
awesome. From the picture, you can see moderator Charlotte Abbott (far left), a publishing journalist and digital content strategist, Kelly Leonard to her right, who works in online marketing for Hachette, Neil Strandberg, manager of operations at Tattered Cover (@tatteredcover), and author Richelle Mead (@richellemead). They chatted Facebook, Twitter, building an online presence for authors, and connecting with the book loving audience. You know how much I love that! Attendees were invited to tweet #readcom during the event, and a large screen offered us a live feed of what folks were tweeting. I wasn't able to connect to the internet in the cavern this panel was held in, but it was super helpful to see who was in the room by their tweets. Q&As held via tweet? How sweet it is...

But my absolute favorite panel of the day was titled: 7x20x21. I remember people talking about
how much they liked this one last year and was pretty excited to make it this time around. (Thanks again to Ami Greko @ami_with_an_i and Ryan Chapman @chapmanchapman for hosting!)

Each presenter was given 7 minutes to speak. They were allowed 20 powerpoint slides, with the slides changing every 21 seconds. There is a story behind how the style of this presentation came about, but aside from recalling that it was Asian in influence, I'm sorry to say that I don't remember it. :-/


Jennifer Egan kicked it off by relaying a chapter of her upcoming
book using images created in powerpoint. She shared the she had never used powerpoint before and was curious how it could project her story. It was pretty incredible to see how she illustrated emotion with empty spaces or large blocks of color and conversations with boxes and arrows that conveyed the flow and tone of the speakers. I'm still in awe with how wonderfully she did with this.

Ed Nawotka (@pubperspectives) gave my other favorite presentation. He's challenging us to 'teach literature backwards'. Instead of starting with the classics, begin teaching children about literature through contemporary works so you 'can help the living make a living'. It was hysterical and there was a lot of head bobbing going on as folks agreed with him.


After all that, it was BEA hustle and flow. I was thrilled to finally meet CaribousMom, which was such a treat since her and I have been online friends for several years now! (I stole this image from her post, which the pic is linked to)



I snagged a signed copy of The Passage ARC from Justin Cronin. Many of you already know the panic attacks I get from a chunkster even being in my house. I think I have the attention span of a goldfish, but from what everyone has told me, this one might be worth sticking it out for!



This is Artist Arthur at her Manifest signing on Wednesday. Thank you so much to the bloggers who were able to stop by and sought me out. It was an absolute madhouse in the Harlequin booth and I really appreciate those who took the time. I probably looked like a frightened rabbit trying to stay visible and out of everyone's way at the same time. Did I mention I get a teensy bit claustrophobic?

It was great to speak with her and talk about all the fun Manifest things we have coming up. And her husband was super nice, too.

I also met Adele Griffin (l.) and Lisa Brown (r.) in the Sourcebooks booth. They signed a copy of their book Picture the Dead for me and were such a delight to speak with. Who doesn't love people who wear period costumes for the promotion of their book? As a former theater major, I was in costume heaven! And the book is absolutely gorgeous, with the interior designed to look like a nineteenth-century scrapbook. Can't wait to read it!

BBC on Friday was such an amazing time. I can't thank everyone who pulled it together enough. It was vibrant and chatty, informative and light. I can see that this will soon be a BEA staple event.

In fact, BBC was so great, I stuck around too long chatting. Shocking. I think most folks who met me will agree that I'm not short on conversation! So while Natalie of In Spring It Is the Dawn, accompanied me (thanks for being my partner in the crosstown shuffle!), I made a mad dash to the subway, got to my friend's apartment, stuffed my newly acquired treasures into my suitcase (thanks BBC!) and took a (way too expensive) car service to the airport so I wouldn't miss my flight, only to find it....delayed. Awesome. So I stood around, jittery and sore of foot, looking a little like a lunatic (not enough to pose a threat to anyone, just enough so that people proabably felt sorry for and wanted to medicate me), until the plane finally showed up and ferried me back to Milwaukee. *happy sigh*

I was excited to get back, not just because I missed my
boyfriend and my friends, feared my cat would forget me, knew I had a ton of work to catch up on, but mostly because of this:


The view from the cabin my friends and I rented for Memorial Day weekend. It was the most perfect weather we have ever had for that weekend. Warm; not too warm, breezy; not too breezy. It was stunningly gorgeous for Wisconsin in late May. I stood in the water at the end of that pier with a gluten free beer in my hand, dug my toes in the sand, and forced my feet to forget they ached. In the hammock up on the patio, I napped in between chapters of Tinker and ate grilled meat until I hurt. It. was. beautiful.

I hope your week and weekend were just as lovely. A huge thanks to all of the bloggers I reconnected with as well as those I met for the first time. It was an incredible week and I'm almost ready to start planning the next one! Almost.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Back into the swing of things!

*Big SIGH*

So, BEA 2010 is over and I miss it already! Mobs and masses of book loving folk. What can be better than that?? Well, as it turns out, a cabin on a lake in Wisconsin for Memorial Day weekend was pretty darn awesome, too.

I have a lot of pictures and stories to share with you and will get those posts up soon. The camera and it's USB cord are currently with the boyfriend and I need those images to accurately punctuate my titillating tales. Oooh, I'm sure you're practically vibrating with anticipation!

While I wait on that, I will reinsert myself into the media filled world and spend my time getting caught up on the news (Gary Coleman died??), emails, RSS feeds, and project follow-ups. I have gobs of goodies and fun stuff to give away (I met a Pulitzer Prize winning author! How cool is that?) and can't wait to start hosting those. I think you're going to love what I have for you.

For now, I will hit up the grocery store to get a fresher version of whatever smells funky in the fridge. I also need to find some vegetables to graze on as the Javits Center diet, quickly followed by the grilled meat weekend has left me feeling blah.

I hope you had an amazing Memorial Day weekend!