Logical Expressions Blog

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for a Great 2010 from All of Us Here at Logical Expressions, Inc. Thank you for reading our Publishize newsletter and this blog. Our regular article-filled newsletters will return the week of January 4th. In the meantime, if you get tired of eating and watching televised sports over the next few weeks, here are a couple of goofy videos for your amusement. "Cami Card Outtakes" - from our many holiday card photo sessions (like the one above): http://leiurl.com/?HCyt ...

When the temperature is in the single digits, the mantra on the daily hound walkie is "no dawdling." We are out there marching through the forest in the freezing cold to get something done, not to sniff random things, wander aimlessly, or goof off. When it's freezing, you gotta get the All Furry Team out there and get back inside as quickly as possible. I touch on this type of single-minded focus in this week's article. To write a book, sometimes you just need to get out there and get it done. Enjoy! How to...

This week, I set up our first holiday promotion, well, ever. A friend called it an "an advent calendar of savings" which I thought was a cool description. If you missed the email, check out the SUNsational Winter Solstice Holiday Countdown on this page: http://leiurl.com/?sol Meanwhile, I also completely gutted and redesigned the home page of the Logical Expressions Web site. Dealing with the Cascading Style Sheets involved in the process made me utterly cranky, but all was not lost. My foul humor inspired this week's article, since every time I think of the movie Say Anything...

James has been telling me about this Google group for the last few days. He even had me write down the recipe for the vegan rhubarb bread I made from our first week’s CSA bounty. (The bread is mighty fine, by the way.) Visit the Group Anyway, we’re big supporters of locally grown organic food and are members of the Greentree Naturals CSA here in Sandpoint. Every Wednesday, I head down to the farm and pick up my bag of goodies. When combined with the produce we grow ourselves in our own organic garden, you’re...

Greetings from all of us at SPOC world headquarters ;-) The conference wrapped up with loads of information about how to take your book and build your business, info-products, speaking career--all to make more revenue. If you joined us, you heard some big name gurus of the writing and publishing world giving the "how-to's" for getting your message out there--lucratively.  Here are a few gems of what they shared, plus, in case you missed a call, how you can get...

Greetings from all of us at SPOC world headquarters ;-) The second day of our conference, "Promotion Day," brought more gems and insights. If you joined us, you heard some big name gurus of the writing and publishing world giving the "how-to's" for marketing and promoting your book. Here are a few gems of what they shared, a preview of what's coming today on "Platform Day," plus, in case you missed a call, how you can get the audio downloads, CDs...

Greetings from all of us at SPOC world headquarters ;-) What an amazing first day of our online conference we had! If you joined us, you listened to some big name gurus of the writing and publishing world. Here are a few gems of what they shared, plus, in case you missed a call, how you can get the audio downloads, CDs plus other must-have items for the soon-to-be author. ** Dan Poynter - "Confirming Subjects & Finding Markets" How to research your subject matter and draft your marketing plan ...

SPOC, the Self Publishers Online Conference, takes place this week and Friday, the final day of the conference, ends with a bang with speakers Michael Port, Jill Lublin, Patrick Snow, Melanie Jordan and Donna Kozik. It's free to attend the online conference - all you have to do is register here: http://www.selfpublishersonlineconference.com/ Click the Register button in the upper right-hand side. When you register, you can see that you can choose from several ...

SPOC, the Self Publishers Online Conference, takes place next week and next Thursday May 14 brings another panel of publishing experts to the calls including Shel Horowitz, Brian Jud, Sandra Beckwith, Penny Sansevieri and Carol White & Debi Flora. It's free to attend the online conference-all you have to do is register here:  http://www.selfpublishersonlineconference.com/ Click the Register button in the upper right-hand side. When you register, you can see that you can choose from several options. Attending live is free. If you want more...

Greetings from all of us at SPOC world headquarters ;-) SPOC, the Self-Publishers Online Conference, is a virtual online publishing conference that starts next week. It features presentations by Dan Poynter, Michael Port, Peter Bowerman and other publishing experts. If you haven’t officially registered for the conference, you can here: http://www.selfpublishersonlineconference.com Click the Register button in the upper right-hand side. When you register, you will see that you can choose from several options. Attending live is free. If you want more goodies you can read about the paid options on the Attendees page. After you’ve...

Today, I found out that Hope Clark of Funds for Writers fame selected me for the "Honest Scrap Award." I did a Google search on it and I'm not sure where it started, but the idea is that you share honest bits of information about yourself. The award has two components. You have to first list 10 honest things about yourself (and make them interesting), and second present the award to seven other bloggers. Here are 10 honest things about me: 1. I have a treadle sewing machine and enjoy sewing on it more than...

Some things require a bit of patience... Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for a Great 2009 from All of Us Here at Logical Expressions, Inc. and the National Association of Pet Rescue Professionals Here's hoping you and yours enjoy a wonderful holiday season. See you in 2009 ;-)    ~ Susan Daffron and James Byrd Technorati Tags: daffron,logical expressions,james h. byrd,cami,happy hound,holiday,christmas,antlers

The proof has arrived. I just need to log into Lightning Source and approve it, since the book looks great. All my agonizing and reviewing printouts has paid off. I'm thrilled ;-) Sagittarius, we has arrived... (Extra credit points for anyone who knows what song that is from. Other than James that is.) Technorati Tags: publishize,book,publishing,daffron,logical expressions,self-publishing

Sometimes people are so rude, you sort of don't know what to make of it. Today, someone bought one of our Timesaver Templates. We've sold tons of these over the last several years. Each one is a simple Word template without any graphics. You get a document framework with styles set up, so you can put in your own text. The pages in the shopping cart explain exactly what files you receive. The description even says, "Although the template includes styles and the overall framework, it does not include graphics. You need to provide your own photos and...

I'm back from my journey to Washington, D.C. Along with going to the beach, exhibiting at the Taking Action for Animals conference, and seeing my family, I got to endure the reality of air travel. Here are a few photo highlights from my trip: My sister and I walked from Fenwick Island to Bethany Beach, Delaware (and back), which according to MapQuest is 12.44 miles. These are beach umbrellas at the Sea Colony. We were able to get off the beach via the Colony, but the snotty old bat at the kiosk wouldn't let us back...

If you tried to communicate with me in the last day or so, you might have had a problem. Our hosting company is located in Eastern Washington, which had a huge series of thunderstorms yesterday. Something related to the storm caused our dedicated server to take a dive. When you have as many Web sites as we do, putting them all back online takes some time. Sadly, this is not the first time James has had to rebuild our server after a crash. It's just as unpleasant the second time around. However, once again, we did have backups and...

James has been doing a lot of chipping lately because a lot of trees didn't make it through the winter and I want chips for my garden pathways. The other day, while he was chipping one of the piles of tree branches, he found a litter of four baby snowshoe hares. James has large feet, so it's a miracle he didn't stop (or worse, chip!)the little guys. I was out in the garden and James came over and said, "you have GOT to see this!" Although I have been dealing with a seemingly never-ending fencing project to keep snowshoe...

Sometimes a business is so bad, you need to tell other people, just so that they might avoid the annoyance you have experienced. Septic tanks are something no one wants to have a problem with. A company that used to be called Krane Products and is now FBK Products capitalizes on that fact by selling a product called Septic Helper. Whether it works or not isn't really in question (there's really no way to tell, which certainly makes it an easier product to sell). However, if you ever make the mistake of purchasing anything from this company, they...

I was looking at the weather report this morning. The map shows that we have yet another "Hazardous Weather Outlook." In other words it's probably going to precipitate in some loathsome way today. Like most people in this area, I am weary of this winter that just won't go away. Today is March 30, and in the last week, we've had two rather unpleasant winter storms. One dumped 11-inches of snow and the other about 4. At least we didn't lose our electricity anyway. By the end of March, I really lose my sense of humor about snow....

Today we went to take our dogs out for their daily constitutional and discovered that the snow finally came off our woodshed. It hasn't shed all winter and we were a little worried, particularly since over the last few days, there has been a really long snow curl hanging off the back that refused to break off. Imagine our surprise to discover that all the snow fell off at once in a giant chunk. We were so shocked we just kind of stood there for a minute staring at it. (The dogs started barking , since the giant snow wall...

I read today that the governor declared a state of emergency for the northern counties of Idaho. That would be us. For those who may wonder how much snow is "a lot," here is a glimpse from around our house (click for slightly larger versions). This is the view out our front door (note that we have stairs up to the front of our house): This is the wall of snow, I see out my office window, which is underneath our back deck: This is my nemesis the "tractor garage." I...

As some people know, I have a "hoop house" for my garden. It's the only way I can grow tomatoes with our short growing season. You can see a bit of my garden in the "Vegans Go Hunting" video on the Vegan Success site (or on You Tube). Anyway, I'm not particularly tall, but I can stand in my hoop house in the summer. The hoop is on the left in this summertime picture. I can easily walk inside, since the top bar is about 6 feet high. Here's what it looks like today...

This week, we got our first snow, and the canines are totally and completely thrilled. Watching them bound joyfully through the snow is good for the soul. Another thing that makes you feel good is donating old clothes to charity. This week in the Publishize newsletter and podcast, I ponder cleaning, evaluating, and recycling and how it all relates to marketing. If you'd like to read the article online, please use this link: http://newsletter.logicalexpressions.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=144 Enjoy!Technorati tags: publishize, dogs, daffron

I'm a member of the National Association of Women Writers (or NAWW). The folks over there offer a discount on our IdeaWeaver writing and creativity software as one of their membership benefits. Over time, I've gotten to know the NAWW founder Sheri McConnell through teleseminars and email. Anyway, Sheri has a new learning and coaching program for people who want to move to the "next level" in their business. If you've ever thought "gee I'd like to be a millionaire" this is your chance to learn how ;-) Her new company My Millionaire Friends is launching on January 1, 2008. This...

Out here in the sticks, we can't vote in the city races, but that doesn't mean we don't care. The city elections have an impact on those of us in outlying areas too. This morning I saw the election results and was pleased to note that the candidate I wanted to win actually DID win the mayoral seat for our town. The current (now outgoing) mayor has the distinction of being the only local elected official ever to have sent a "flame" email to me, after I wrote a letter to the editor that he didn't like. Perhaps he did that...

As the author of two books on rescued pets (Happy Hound and Happy Tabby) and a person who spent years volunteering at animal shelters, I think the whole Ellen DeGeneres "poochgate" fiasco is depressing. Her weepy actions on TV may have set back the efforts of other rescuers around the country by portraying them in a bad light. Rescuers are not the "bad guys" here and the fact that the rescue group is getting death threats is sickening. I can see why the Mutts and Moms rescue group have the contract they do. Ellen DeGeneres admitted that she didn't even READ...

In the Publishize Newsletter, I wrote an article that touches on a topic that we seem to discuss a lot. Many people wonder how we managed to move away from "the big city" to the wilds of Idaho. Setting and Achieving Big Goals It all starts with an idea. If the idea is powerful enough and it involves something you want bad enough, you start taking steps to make it happen.Technorati tags: publishize, web business, daffron

On our Pet Tails site, a while ago I wrote an article called: Soothing the Savage Beast (or Not) I mentioned that music sort of sends our cats into spaz mode. Play a little rock and roll and they start zooming all over the place. However, it seems that to cats not all rock and roll is created equal. I have learned that T-Rex seems to promote a particularly spazzy response from the feline team. The song Bang a Gong makes them particuarly odd. Perhaps they have the teeth of the hydra upon them. Whatever it is, they definitely get weird.Technorati tags: cats,...

As I've become involved in publishing, I've read countless statistics about how the number of books being printed rises every year. Partly the number is increasing because of new technology like short-run "print on demand" options, which make it a lot less expensive for people to publish books. The bad news is that according to a recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll, fewer people actually read. Apparently, 1 in 4 adults read NO books last year. One in Four Read No Books Last Year I have wondered for a while if readers are a dying breed. Realistically, my husband and I are some of the...

I love my cats, but this news article came as no surprise to me: Feline Memories Found to Be Fleeting A new study measured how long cats can remember information. The answer is 10 minutes. Case in point: yesterday, my cat Troi was sitting staring at the baseboard that runs along the bottom of our living room wall. Apparently a bug had run under there at some point. She did seem to remember why she was there for a while and was looking quite attentive. Until she started falling asleep that is. I guess it's easy to forget stuff, when you have to...

The other day I mailed out a book the way I've been mailing them for quite some time. I weighed it, put on stamps for the appropriate postage, and put it in an outgoing mail box. However, much to my dismay, our letter carrier refused to pick it up and plastered a little note from the USPS on it. In a move that has received little notice, as of July 30, the post office now won't let you mail anything over 13 ounces just by putting stamps on it. So I drove my book down to the post office. The lady...

US Airways aka Useless has one of the worst reputations in the world of commercial air travel. Unfortunately, I forgot this fact when I purchased my tickets to Portland, Maine. I can tell you that I will never fly US Air again. There's a reason they've been in bankruptcy forever. They have quite possibly the worst customer service I have ever seen anywhere. Last week, I had a flight out of Spokane, changing planes in Seattle and Philadelphia, and ending up in Portland, Maine. I had long layovers, so it seemed like everything should work out without too much trouble. The...

As some people know I have been writing our Logical Tips newsletter for about 6 or 7 years. Recently, I decided that it's time to compile all those tips into books. Of course, technology changes over the years and some tips are now sort of old. So I enlisted some help in testing the tips. She is reading them over first, so I can then go in and update them all to Windows XP and Office 2003. (Note that I'm not going to delve into the land of Windows Vista or Office 2007.) Anyway, today my tip tester said, "I absolutely love...

Today's big accomplishment was ever-so-slowly backing my car into a friend's fence. Automotively speaking, reverse has never been my best direction. However, my spouse James was tremendously understanding. After I told him of my transgression, he went off and bought some wood, and then carted his tools over and fixed the fence for me. I felt pretty stupid, yet neither the owner of the fence or the spouse fixing the fence made me feel bad. James seemed to have a reasonably good time and even made some improvements to the fence. He also reminded me that I didn't get upset when...

I just got back from two days of babysitting a dog boarding kennel. Now I have "dog walker feet." Over the years, I have met quite a few professional dog walkers and they often complain that their feet hurt. That would be me today. Even with shoe inserts, my feet are sore. Walking many dogs 3 or 4 times per day is a lot more walking than you might think. The end result is that I am tired and ready to enjoy the long holiday weekend. I have a lot of gardening to do though. I hope my feet hold out!Technorati...

Although James and I had a radio show for a while, and I was a DJ in college, today I did my first radio call in as a promotion for one of our books. I talked to Steve Dale about his article on "designer dogs" such as cockapoos and labradoodles. The article contends that shelters are a much better (not to mention less expensive) way to get these dog, which after all actually are simply mixed-breed mutts. In the article, he points out that he has a "King Daley Shepherd" named Ethel. I like the idea of giving my shelter/rescue dogs...

This week it has finally felt like spring. When spring arrives so do the flowers and all the things that want to eat your flowers. After witnessing some crocus destruction, I decided it was time to take action. Last year's garden was marred by various critters getting in, around (under?) the fence, so this year I've decided to take steps to keep the wildlife away from my plants. For many years, we've put up a 6-foot chicken wire fence to keep out the deer. But the bottom has been deteriorating. Hence the varmint invasion last summer. So we got some smaller chicken...

Spring is in the air and this week, I celebrated by taking a day off and hitting the road with a friend on a major shopping excursion. As most women will attest, shopping for a swimsuit is one of life's most discouraging experiences. I needed moral support. We were on a mission, so we headed south outta town to the land of many malls and clothing stores. What we found was beyond hideous. I can tell you that apparently, this season's swimsuit color is BROWN. Realistically, I had to go on this shopping trip because the last time I bought a swimsuit...

This week has been monumentally work filled. I spent a whole lot of time staring at HTML. However, the good news is that at long last  the Logical Expressions site is now updated: http://www.logicalexpressions.com We have an entire new line of products and services, so I added a bunch of pages and removed a lot of out of date stuff. In some ways, it's sort of a relief to have actually touched every page on the site again. It's about 270 pages, so updating it is not a trivial task. Plus, with that many pages, it's kind of hard to keep track...

Today's hardware failure is brought to you by the letter K. So there I was trying to write an email and type the word "okay." All was well, until the letter K just wouldn't work for me. Sure the letter K may not seem like much, but you really don't know how much you miss it until it's gone. I'd been avoiding the reality that my keyboard was filthy, but I could avoid it no longer, since I had to write an email to a guy named Ken. I yanked off a few key caps. It appears sharing an office with...

The fact that you can't really open windows in the wintertime can be a real problem. Such as the other night when I was happily spooning out our dinner onto plates. I looked over behind me and noticed that the Gold Dog had "assumed the position" and was committing an act of badness on the kitchen floor. Yes, dinner was somewhat late. In a similar vein, this morning James discovered that the turnips that I had stored in a box in the root room had decomposed and created their own vile compost pile. (Perhaps it should be called the "rot room"...

Okay, so I survived the Follies. Actually it was a huge amount of fun. And it's for charity. The Angels Over Sandpoint do the Follies to raise funds so they can give out scholarships and donations to local charitable organizations. And to prove to people who know me that yes, I really did have the guts to go on stage and make a total and complete fool of myself, here is pictorial proof. I am on the left and Janine is on the right. We were backup singers for the "Queen" (aka Kate, the hostess of the show). The song was derived...

The canines are back in my office after being ostracized for several days. The sleeping has begun. The all-furry team was banished over the last few days because I was sewing a costume for the Follies (http://sandpoint.org/mardigras/), which is tomorrow.   I have very, very tiny bit role as an Egyptian backup singer (except I don't sing). To create my costume, I toddled off to Goodwill and got some fabric, a slip, and a (girl's!) dress that I have very sloppily transformed into somewhat of an Egyptian look. (I'm going to look like Cleopatra's really ugly stepsister or something.) Unfortunately, I'm an...

Count me a fan too! 40 Reasons to Love John Cusack Technorati tags: daffron

I got a number of hilarious responses to this article: No, I will Not Go! about my dog Cami’s ability to get herself tangled up in the forest. One person wrote to me about her Siberian Huskies tangled up with her and their coupler leash in a tree. It’s all too easy to imagine! Technorati tags: daffron, dogs, puppies

Okay, maybe only graphic designers would think this is funny. I did ;-) Learn to Kern (scroll down to see the picture) Technorati tags: daffron

We tried the recipe on her blog for vegan feta and it’s not bad. It probably would have been better had I followed the instructions correctly. Oh well. Bryanna’s Vegan Feast Technorati tags: daffron, vegan

Okay when I wrote this article about the joys of duct tape… North Idaho Repair Tool …I was sort of kidding. But it turns out that Forbes has deemed duct tape one of the most important tools of all time. (And not just in North Idaho. ) World’s Greatest Tool: Duct Tape? The article describes the history of duct tape too, which is kind of interesting. Who knew?! Technorati tags: daffron, sandpoint

In the version of my Thwarting Mister Squirrel article that went out in the Sandpoint Insider ezine, I inadvertently said that Westsoy was the only soy yogurt worth eating. Unfortunately, that was a large brain cramp. I meant Whole Soy. I corrected it in the Web site archive, but apologize to any vegetarian subscribers who wondered what I was talking about ;-) Technorati tags: daffron, vegan