Saturday, March 21, 2020

Pearl Harbor vs. WTC essays

Pearl Harbor vs. WTC essays Chaz Morantz October, 2001 The Effects of Pearl Harbor and the WTC Attack In our history, there have been many conflicts between nations and within nations based upon ethnic and religious background. Entire wars have been fought based upon one race feeling superior to another. But this kind of ethnic persecution and racial conflict is the base factor for why our planet is in such a state of constant conflicts. True world peace will never be achieved until we accept each other for who we are. Two events in recent history seem to stand out when it comes to looking at how people react to different ethnic groups when a conflict arises. The first even was a surprise attack by the Japanese on our naval fleet at Pearl Harbor during World War II. The second is a recent attack on the World Trade Center buildings and the pentagon by Middle-Eastern terrorists who highjacked commercial airliners and then flew them into the targets. These devastating events have brought out harsh feelings towards the ethnic groups that the terrorists and bombers belonged to. It is a judge of our character, as citizens of a powerful nation, how we react to the people in our nation who had nothing to do with these events, but physically resemble the attackers. After Pearl Harbor, the government and people of the US feared that the current Japanese Americans could be spies and would help Japan in further attacks. Our shock and surprise over the destruction that was rendered at Pearl Harbor drove us temporarily to put aside our constitutional morals and national beliefs. In a quick reaction, President Roosevelt signed and executive order to round up all the Japanese-Americans in the US and intern, or relocate, them into detention camps. These camps were had very poor living conditions and no indoor plumbing or central heating. Many Japanese became ill and some even died. When they came to the camps, the Japanese were usually forced t ...

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Face It Writers Make Less Now

Face It Writers Make Less Now If you are in this business full-time, and attempt to keep up with the pace of the current publishing paradigm, you cant help but feel depressed. Writers make less now than a decade ago. And no, it does not appear to be a temporary slump. Writers in Canada make less than in 1998 thestar.com/entertainment/books/2015/05/29/writers-in-canada-make-less-than-in-1998.html Authors incomes collapse to abject levels theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/08/authors-incomes-collapse-alcs-survey We can argue the reasons why, but I see it as two-fold: Treasure in hand 1) Everybody can publish today. 2) Readers have become accustomed to deals, so the average cost of a book has seriously declined. Nobody pays $25 for a hardback anymore. Not when a reader can grab an ebook for $1.99. But writers tend to be their own worst enemy. It feels better to sell 1,000 books for $.99 each than 100 for $9.99. We think were more powerful at that 1,000 number, but what weve failed to see is that weve driven our reputation down to a level thats hard to recover from. Yes, I understand you can have one-day and two-day offers. I understand Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Countdown Deals attract lower priced sales. But with most writers pricing down their material, we all earn less. And with so many writers in the mix, we all sell less. My own publisher talks about how publishers across the board are earning less, which drives them to promote individual authors less, no longer provide print ARCs, and decrease advances. On the freelance front, $1/word was once the professional rate. When FundsforWriters was started, I scolded writers for accepting less than 20 cents/word. Today thats decent pay. Writing mills came into the picture, making new writers think they could gather experience doing click rate writing. Then people started writing internationally, and writers from some countries easily underbid writers in others. One So whats an author to do? 1) Write steadily and often. The prolific writers makes more money no matter the pay. 2) Stand firm for a respectable wage. Turn down bad offers. Set your floor. 3) Dont settle for a lesser publisher. Hold out for a reputable publisher or learn to self-publish and consider making your own success. 4) Be unique in your promotion. Do not use the mass promo offers everyone else uses. 5) Promote daily, a little at a time, but dont sound like the next guy. The slow-but-sure mentality wins this race, and its a darn marathon for sure. But there are sneakers and training programs for those marathons, and they await you. You just have to decide to put them on.