A N E X C L U S I V E M O N T H L Y C O M M U N I Q U É F O R O U R W R I T E R S

INNER CIRCLEthe

INSPIRATION for

ritersW

We’ve been putting together The Inner Circle newsletter for more than two years now, and we are enjoying getting to know you better as a result. Thanks to these few pages every month and the resulting e-mails back and forth, we are getting to know you better as writers and as people. We see pictures of your book signings, read your blogs, and follow your Twitter handles. We give you sneak peaks at what’s coming and answer your questions about everything ranging from story submissions to your contributor book discount. Because of this communication, we feel a lot closer to you and to the Chicken Soup for the Soul community as a whole.

We hope you’ve been receiving the newsletters (called “communiqués” to evade junk filters), which come out the first Friday night of each month. Technology can be glitchy, and managing thousands of contributor e-mail addresses across the country (and the world!) is a difficult job. If you have not been receiving the communiqué on a regular basis, please go to our website to download any issues you’ve missed via this link: http://tinyurl.com/96vbhpz. We want you to stay informed!

I’ve been reading the stories submitted to the Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inspiration for Writers database. It is an excellent reminder not only of how talented our contributors are, but also of how much you love to write for us. Penning inspirational stories about your lives makes you happy, and that is what our readers feel when they pick up a Chicken Soup for the Soul book. So once again, we want to say thank you for all that you do. The work you put into writing your stories and then promoting your books is priceless, and we know that you do it because you care about your stories, your books, and the Chicken Soup for the Soul brand. Thank you for being part of our community, and please keep sending us updates!

Please follow me on Twitter @amynewmark and follow us @chickensoupsoul! We’ll follow you back.

Your publisher, Amy Newmark

~Vivian Greene

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass...

A Note from Your Publisher

it’s about learning to dance in the rain.

N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 2

The Power of Positive Pays Off

We see hundreds of excellent stories that could have benefited from simplification before the author pressed “submit.” One example of this is the use of intensifiers. Words like “very,” “extremely,” “truly,” and “definitely” are overused in many stories we read in our database. This is a problem that can be solved by careful editing and inventive words. Here is an example: It was really dark outside. It was pitch black outside.Which sentence is more interesting? Captivating? We see the word “really” so often that it loses meaning and punch. A simple fix suddenly makes the sentence more compelling, not to mention specific.

Another word we see overused in our stories is “just.” Here is an example of where it can be removed: The store is just around the corner from my house. The store is around the corner from my house.Here, the word “just” doesn’t serve much of a purpose. Try something just for fun. Take one of your old pieces and just delete every place that you see the word “just” and just see what you think!

Seriously, delete the word “really” and “just” every time you see them, and see whether you needed them at all!

Editor’s Tips

Getting a little toointense

Contributor Karen Lewis Jackson of Chatham, New Jersey, recently received some impressive coverage in her hometown from the Chatham Patch. Karen is an inspiring author and mother, and her story, “Just Reward,” in Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Power of Positive showed us both these attributes.

The article, by Laura Silvius, goes into detail about the author and her story, which was about her dyslexic daughter winning an English award after many years of hard work without reward. Every year, Karen’s daughter Tori would watch her classmates win awards at the end of the school year, and every year, Tori would go home empty handed. That is, until she won the Eleanor Shipler English Award.

Karen speaks candidly in the article about how open she and her family are about learning disabilities. She is quoted as saying, “Me talking about it constantly helped us find support groups, helped us find programs, helped me find books, helped me then to be able to help other people.”

To check out the full article, visit: http://chatham.patch.com/articles/ex-pto-prez-published-in-chicken-soup. It’s definitely worth a read to learn more about the inspiring story of Karen and Tori Jackson.

Changing the world one story at a time™

Below, contributor Karen Lewis Jackson with her book. Photo credit: Laura Silvius

&Breast Cancer AwarenessChicken Soup for the Soul

After publishing Chicken Soup for the Soul: Hope & Healing for Your Breast Cancer Journey two months ago, we saw contributors and employees alike using our books to make a difference during October, which is National Breast Cancer

Awareness Month. On the right, two of our newest Chicken Soupers sell books at the Making Strides for Breast Cancer Event on Long Island: Editor Amanda Romaniello (L) and Marketing

Director Joelle Jarvis (R).

Contributor Frieda Dowler sent us these

photos from a “Ladies Night Out” breast cancer

awareness event in Greenwood, Indiana.

Frieda and her team were there representing the

American Cancer Society and are going to continue to sell their books at other

events in her area. Thanks, Frieda!

Below are scenes from contributor Linda Fiorenzano’s book signings for Chicken Soup for the Soul: Hope & Healing for Your Breast Cancer Journey. Some of these events

include book signings at Barrington Books (RI), Ugly Dog Books (MA), a sale to benefit Women and Infants’ Hospital (RI), and the Flames of Hope: A

Celebration of Life event in Rhode Island, one of the largest awareness events in the Northeast. We are so impressed with all of Linda’s efforts!

I got an error message when I tried to submit my story. What should I do?

Technology is wonderful, but every once in a while our website does go down. If you are trying to submit your work to us and you get an error message, then your submission did not go through. Please wait a few hours and try again. If you are still having trouble after waiting, contact the

Webmaster for assistance. A word of advice – some people wait until the deadline to submit a story. Too many people trying to submit their stories or poems to our database at the same time can cause technical problems. It’s much better to submit a day or two before the deadline!

AQ&Ask t h e Webmas t e r

Inside Scoop

Now collecting stories for a brand

new book topic

Did you know that we are making a book with Billy

Graham?

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Billy Graham & Me will go on sale February 12th, 2013. The book, about renowned Evangelical preacher Billy Graham and the people he has influenced throughout the years, is surpassing even our expectations. We’ve managed to accumulate personal stories from all the living presidents, many well-known pastors, country singers, world leaders, and other celebrities. With a foreword by A. Larry Ross,

Billy Graham’s spokesperson and publicist, we’re excited to offer our readers an opportunity to get to know the person who has touched millions of lives and inspired faith and hope around the world. The “real” Billy is the same as the public one, by the way. This special book has already enjoyed a day of fame on the big news screen in Times Square.

We want to give you a heads up on a new book. Because of the popularity of our first Chicken Soup for the Soul: Messages from Heaven (it was and still is a national bestseller), we’re now collecting stories for a second, called Chicken Soup for the Soul: Messages from Heaven: Love Never Dies. If you have a story about receiving a sign or communicating with a loved one after his or her death, we would love to read it. These stories give us shivers.

The database is now open, so go ahead and submit your stories of after-death communication at http://www.chickensoup.com/form.asp?cid=possible_books. The deadline for submissions is March 31st, 2013. We plan to publish the book in October 2013.

FUNFACTS

This newsletter was put together during Hurricane Sandy, with Amy “stuck” in LA for several days, visiting D’ette and Barbara, and the rest of us holed up in NY and CT, most without power.