Informing the Press in This Electronic Age

It's amazing how little time it takes these days to get the word out to the "trade" press about a new eBook. This morning, I wrote the release below, and sent it along with a copy of its cover art and and my bio to the editors of 126 Catholic newspapers:

INSPIRED COMMUNICATIONS PRESS RELEASE

New eBook Details the Extent of Jesus’ Suffering and Death

For Immediate Release:

INNSBROOK, MO — Just before the Church’s solemn celebration of Holy Week, author John O’Neill has published a new eBook that, in several chapters, includes graphic descriptions of the sufferings and death that Jesus of Nazareth endured for the salvation of mankind.

“In Part 3 of the book, I wanted to show the readers what excruciating pain Jesus went through on Holy Thursday and Good Friday to pay back to His Father the infinite debt caused by our sins,” explained O’Neill, the author of A Sign Contradicted: Essays on the Life of Christ.

“This collection of twenty-two essays on the life of Jesus,” he continued, “gives its readers more information, not mentioned in the four gospels so that they might more readily experience, in their readings and reflections on these events, something of what others who were actually there with Jesus saw, heard and felt during each event. To accomplish this, I used information from historical, archeological, medical and theological sources to “flesh out” these narratives, hoping to recapture a sense of being there with Jesus as He ministered to the people in first-century Palestine, accomplishing, through the horrors of His suffering and death, infinite expiation to His Father for our sins”.

“I’ve arranged the essays into four parts. The five essays in the powerful third part trace the horrors inflicted on Jesus during the solemn days of Holy Thursday and Good Friday: His Last Seder; His agony, betrayal and arrest in the garden of Gethsemane; His late-night trial before the Sanhedrin and subsequent beatings by the palace guards; His trial and sentencing by Pilate; His even crueler torture at the hands of Pilate’s Roman guards before carrying His crossbeam to the summit of Golgotha; His extremely cruel crucifixion and excruciating death; and, finally, the hasty interment of His body in a nearby tomb.

Copies for sale at $4.99, and a free preview sample of A Sign Contradicted: Essays on the Life of Christ, can be found at the publishers’ website listed below:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/51424

For more information or for a book review copy:

Contact John O’Neill at johnoneill1021@gmail.com, or by phone at 636-295-0449 or 636-745-7861.

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Promoting eBooks on My Blogs

In September, 2008, I began my first and primary blog,  Catholic Writer's Notebook, as a testing ground for some of the topics I planned to include in my manuscripts for publication. When, in January,2010, I actually published one of my manuscripts as an eBook on amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and smashwords.com, the experience was so exhilarating that I decided to share it with fellow or aspiring eBook authors on the weblog which you now are reading.

Becoming a blogger, like becoming an author, is fraught with challenges. The blogosphere is a very crowded place. Even in my niche of Catholic life and spirituality, the are, at minimum, close to 2,400 active blogs; many of which are sponsored by Catholic dioceses and archdioceses, Catholic newspapers, well-known Catholic authors, Catholic magazines and major publishers or retailers of Catholic books —all with a built-in following. How can some poor schlemiel with nothing but a penchant for writing religious books in the Roman Catholic tradition compete for their attention?

Many of the competitive blogs are developed by pros who know the ins and outs of HTML, traffic-building search engine optimization (SEO), source code validation, Technorati ratings, etc. In order to compete with them, I’ll have to concentrate on learning these things, too, if I want to make my blogs effective selling tools for my eBooks, and vice versa. After all, if I want the Holy Spirit to drive web traffic to my blogs and eBooks, it might be helpful if I gave Him something to work with. (Not that He needs it, but I’m sure that He expects me to do my part.)

Registering for placement in Catholic blog directories (CatholicBlog.com and StBlogsParish.com) is an important first step for spreading the word in my niche. For those who search for Catholic topics on these sites, they’re a great opportunity for my blogs to be seen every time they search for a topic covered on one of my blogs. So, also, is registering to be indexed by the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc.).

Right now, I’m getting back into reading about blogging. I’ve dusted off the covers of such books in my library as Problogger by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett, Getting Noticed on Google by Ben Norman, Blogging for Dummies by Susannah Garner and Shane Birley and Publishing a Blog with Blogger by Elizabeth Castro, concentrating mostly on how to make my blogs better traffic builders to my blogspots and my ebook pages on amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and smashwords.com.

I’ll update you with progress reports as I go along. In the meantime, keep watching on my two sites:

http://catholicwritersnotebook.blogspot.com

http://spreadingtheworddigitally.blogspot.com

Just in Time for Holy Week and Easter Sunday

When I was a first-year student of theology at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., I attended lectures by Fr. Roland E. Murphy, O. Carm., on the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament. Thanks to his vast knowledge of Old Testament history, languages and archeology of that period, — and, most of all, to his enthusiasm about his topic — he made the persons and events of that book come alive for everyone in his class.

In imitation of Fr. Murphy, I’ve mixed, in this collection of essays, references from the gospel narratives with information from historical, archeological, medical and theological sources, to “flesh out” these New Testament narratives, hoping to recapture a sense of being there with Jesus as He ministered to the people of Israel in first-century New Testament times, and accomplished, through the horrors of His suffering and death, infinite expiation to His Father for our sins.

The whole point of this collection of twenty-two essays on the life of Jesus is to give the reader more information, not mentioned in the four gospels so that you might more readily experience, in your readings and reflections on these events, something of what others who were actually there with Jesus saw, heard and felt during each event. I use information from historical, archeological, medical and theological sources to “flesh out” these narratives, hoping to recapture a sense of being there with Jesus as He ministered to the people in first-century Palestine, accomplishing, through the horrors of His suffering and death, infinite expiation to His Father for our sins.

I’ve arranged the essays into four parts. The two essays of the first part depict the period from Jesus’ miraculous conception in His mother’s womb, through the joyful and perilous circumstances of His’ birth, early infancy and pre-adolescent life.

The twelve essays of the second part take us on six jouneys with Jesus though many of the significant events of His three-year public ministry throughout all of Palestine. Each essay strives to add all the more realism to the story by including details not contained in the gospels narratives, but literally were unearthed in later centuries.

The five essays in the powerful third part trace the horrors inflicted on Jesus during the solemn three days of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday: His Last Seder; His agony, betrayal and arrest in the garden of Gethsemane; His late-night trial before the Sanhedrin and subsequent beatings by the palace guards; His trial and sentencing by Pilate; His even crueler torture at the hands of Pilate’s Roman guards before carrying His crossbeam to the summit of Golgotha; His extremely cruel crucifixion and excruciating death; and, finally, the hasty interment of His body in a nearby tomb.

The fourth and final part concludes Jesus’ gospel story with three essays, which give a fuller explanation of the evangelists’ sketchy accounts about His resurrection, His post-resurrection appearances to His disciples, and His ascension to His Father.

Just in time for Holy Week and Easter Sunday, this eBook is on sale on the Smashwords.com website below. Its powerful Part 3, reflects on the events of Holy Thursday and Good Friday in the chapters on Jesus’ last Seder, His betrayal and arrest, His criminal trials, His torture, crucifixion and death, and His hasty burial before the sabbath. Its glorious Part 4 concludes the book with the events of Jesus’ resurrection, His post-resurrection appearances to His disciples and His ascension to His Father forty days later.

You can see a sampling of the book at:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/51424

Getting the Word Out in the Catholic Press

I'm a big believer in the power of the press. That's why the opening salvo in each of my eBook launches is contains a press release to the editors of the major national, archdiocesan and diocesan Catholic newspapers and national Catholic magazines in the United States.


When I announced the publication of my first eBook in January, I sent the press release with a JPEG cover image to 131 Catholic newspaper and national Catholic magazine editors, offering each in the covering e-mail a free 14-day loan of a copy of the ebook for their inspection and review on their computer or eReader. I was gratified by their response.


Virtually all of these publications are available to all Catholic men and women in their diocese in print and online editions, opening a market of millions of prospective readers who are the most likely buyers of my type of eBook.


In those dioceses where I actually lived and worshiped at one one or more of their parish churches, I lead off the announcement by identifying myself as a former parishioner of those specific parish communities. The example of the announcement below is the more generic version sent to those dioceses, in which I had never resided:

INSPIRED COMMUNICATIONS PRESS RELEASE

New eBook Urges Catholics to Help Jesus’ Less Fortunate

For Immediate Release:

INNSBROOK, MO — These times of disastrous economic conditions and events spawned by global geological and climactic changes require more Catholics to do something for those unfortunate ones who suffer most their consequences.

So says John O’Neill, who has published his first eBook, Jesus’ Six Keys to a More Perfect You. In the book, he classifies Jesus’ instructions to His disciples into six keys designed to transform ordinary Catholics into extraordinary people, dedicated to imitating Christ by serving others, especially the poor and suffering, whom Jesus called His “least ones”. The book also suggests practical ways in which the reader can perform these corporal and spiritual works of mercy through various charitable organizations in his or her community.

The electronic book is available on amazon.com (Kindle), Barnes and Noble (Nook) and Smashwords.com, publishers and distributors of eBooks in all formats. “I chose these three publishers for their retailing success,” said Mr. O’Neill, “and for their ability to format and download books onto PC and Mac computers and Kindle, Kobo, Nook and Sony eReaders, as well as onto such mobile devices as Blackberry, iPad, Android, iPod touch and netbook, a valuable aid in spreading Jesus’ teachings to the large market of Millennial and Post-Vatican II generations of Catholics nationwide.”

John, a seminary-educated Catholic layman, with a degree in Thomistic philosophy and a year of post-graduate theological studies at Catholic University of America, continues to write manuscripts which he hopes will become future eBooks in the Catholic religion and spirituality or self-help genres.

Copies for sale at $4.99, and a free preview sample of Jesus’ Six Keys to a More Perfect You, can be found at the publishers’ websites listed below:

http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eBooks/ [Search on title name]

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ebooks/index.asp [Search on title name]

http://www.smashwords.com/books/byauthor [Search on John O’Neill]

For more information or for a book review copy:

Contact John O’Neill at johnoneill1021@gmail.com, or by phone at 636-295-0449 or 636-745-7861.

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