Everyone figures out that there are no barriers of entry, and social media promotion quickly turns into a massive spam machine. There are so many social messages going out daily through various media, that folks are beginning to feel overwhelmed, and they are tuning out and opting out.

This is a sigalert to business managers. They want to get their message out — not get tuned out.

What can we do about this dilemma?

Well, the best answer is: Be careful what you say and how you say it!  Readers often don’t get the message you think they are getting. In their minds, they read what they want to hear, not necessarily what you said. People may take a quick look at whatever message you are trying to get them to read and immediately abandon it, and you, forever. On the other hand, they may be interested, or even intrigued by the subject they perceive in your message.  Notice that word perceive.

Newsletters, for example, offer an opportunity to build a sender-reader relationship with customers, friends, and prospective customers. And we all know that you need to build relationships in order to build readership and to turn prospective customers into customers. Good newsletters are very powerful, whether printed and mailed, or e-mailed.

Sending out ads via email is quite different from sending out newsletters. Unfortunately many business owners/managers fail to realize this. They sign up for an email newsletter campaign, write or supervise the production of one or two ads to send out, and then give up, disappointed that the email newsletter campaign is “not working”. Of course its not working. Nobody wants to be sold anything.

A good newsletter, or a good tweet, or a good Facebook entry, or a good blog entry is quite simply one that provides information of interest to the reader. The most successful newsletters convey lots of information of interest and soft pedal the sales pitch. A good target is a 60/40 mixture or better. The more genuine information vs. advertising, the better the email newsletter campaign performs. Interestingly enough, the information portion need not relate to the advertising message in any way whatsoever. Humor is consistently the best-read section.

It’s easy to see how the Internet has helped to fan the flames of this bold new world of communication. It’s a ME world as well as a WE world. Just about everyone wants to interact and communicate with others. It’s an emotional thing. If they can’t do it face to face, electronic nearness will suffice. They just want to keep in touch.

The new electronic and digital miracle products make it possible and even easy to extend ME to WE. Call it the herding instinct. It’s present in all animal species. Can you think of one single living thing that really wants to be alone all the time? Bears cuddle all winter long, snugly keeping each other warm, bees swarm together, fish swim in schools, birds fly in formations. These days even avid mountain climbers carry a cell phone along, so they will know they are really in touch with others, and not alone in Nature’s universe. Hermits are few and far between, an anomaly of life.

So what does this have to do with reading and writing (my world)? Everything. Mankind first used drawings on cave walls and rocks to get its thoughts across. Even though people could grunt at each other, and eventually talk to other people, they still wanted to communicate to many others what was on their minds. They wanted to interface with strangers so to speak.

Most of the cave and rock paintings show animals, but some reveal man-made mechanical objects, including space ships. I have some colorful rubbings framed and hanging on my wall at home that are images many thousands of years old, taken from rocks in the wilds of western Australia. They show some easily identified animals, but they also show several creatures that look more like thin steel framework bridges standing erect with a human head on top and very long legs and arms. Imaginary? Perhaps, but drawings from all around the world depict people and ships from outer space, clear to all but the most narrow-minded doubting minds. Many of these “people” are wearing space helmets, and some are shown arriving in chariots belching fire.

As civilization slowly progressed, men and women started carving messages in stone in the written word format, not just pictures. Later, priest scribes and others used inks to put thoughts on skin and other substances, to leave behind for others to read. Local tribes developed different languages (both written and verbal) but all wanted other people to know what they were thinking about.

Nothing has changed in substance, only in the details of the media. People want to be in touch with other people and they want others, both now and in posterity, to “read” what’s on their minds.

Scrolls and hand made single-copy volumes changed to printed books after Gutenberg made his movable type contribution to society. Printed books ruled for a long time. Nowadays, however, E-books are rapidly climbing in popularity. Texting is commonplace. It won’t be too long before traditional printed books will fade into near-obscurity. Who knows how long, but the trend is obvious and inevitable.

Already, most authors are now publishing in E-book format. Many are also publishing simultaneously in printed format – hard cover books, paperback books, and pamphlets.
Folks with an E-book reader can now take thousands of books along with them wherever they go, stored in a device about the size of a cell phone. Dozens of different models of E-books are already available. New ones are being announced weekly.

The tides of publishing and communicating are changing rapidly. Its time for all of us to pay attention.

The new issues are thankfully on the Internet as well as printed.

The new Post aims at the audience over 45 years of age. They publish short stories among other interesting material. Maybe the long lost art of short stories and magazine articles will come to life again.  Hope so.  The latest issue reprints a touching short story by J. D. Salinger written in about 1946, about a young man in the army in France. He’s the author you know who hit the really big time with Catcher in the Rye and then retired into seclusion.

Some of the publishing moguls, including the CEO of the largest publisher in the world, Ingram, predict that more people, not less people will read novels and non-fiction now that E-book Readers are beginning to blossom. He predicts that in the future each E-book reader will have a button to push: “Send me a printed copy” so that readers can have the best of both worlds.

Hold your seats, everyone, and buckle your seat belts even tighter. The publishing industry is in the throes of a major change – equivalent in many people’s minds to what happened after Guttenberg did his thing a couple of hundred years ago.

The Model A Ford figures prominently in the book.

More than a hundred different types of silver pieces were offered for sale.

Dinner went from three courses to sometimes ten or more. There was a soup course, a salad course, a fruit course, a cheese course, an antipasto course, a fish course, the main course and a pastry or dessert course.  Each course was to be eaten with different types of silver forks, spoons, and knives. It was forbidden to touch the food with one’s fingers. Even a small dinner party required many dozens of silverware items.

Flatware sets were often accompanied by tea services, hot water pots, chocolate pots, trays and salvers, goblets, demitasse cups and saucers, liqueur cups, bouillon cups, egg cups, sterling plates, napkin rings, water and wine pitchers, coasters, candelabra and even elaborate centerpieces.

The craze with sterling even extended to business.  Sterling page clips, mechanical pencils, letter openers, calling card boxes and cigarette cases became commonplace. In the boudoir, sterling dresser trays, mirrors, hair and suit brushes, pill bottles, manicure sets, shoehorns, perfume bottles, powder bottles, and hair clips were commonplace, even in modest homes.

A number of factors converged to make sterling fall out of favor around the time of World War II. The cost of labor rose  and since sterling pieces were all still mostly hand-made, with only the basics being done by machine, the cost of manufacture soared. Only the wealthy could afford the large number of servants required for fancy dining with ten courses. Changes in life style and aesthetics resulted in people desiring simpler dinnerware that was easier to clean.

Today sterling silver at the dinner table is rare.  Stainless steel prevails, along with plastic.  Times change, don’t they!

In the article, all the rest of the books mentioned were hard cover or paperback.  Mine was the only E-book.  P.S. It’s on sale at 50% discount this week only at Smashwords.

The discount is in honor of Read An Ebook Week.

Have you ever really examined a dollar bill?  Take one out and look at it. The one dollar bill design shown here first came off the government presses in 1957.  It is a note – a Federal Reserve Note signed by the U.S. Treasurer and Secretary of the Treasury.

No Intrinsic Value - Today, however, like the currency of most nations, the dollar is fiat money without intrinsic value.  This means that it has no backing   (the gold standard was abolished in 1972) and would be entirely worthless but for the fact that people have been persuaded to use and accept it as if it had worth.

Not Paper – Although most of us call it paper money, it is not paper.  It is in fact made of a blend of cotton and linen, with tiny  red and blue silk fibers running through it.  It can be washed without falling apart. The formula of the ink is kept secret.

Symbols – The bill is overprinted with symbols and then starched to make it water resistant.  Finally it is  pressed to give it that nice crisp look when it is new.  Of course, after usage, it is no longer crisp.

On the front of the bill, you will see the United States Treasury Seal to the right of George Washington’s picture.  In the center of the seal is a set of scales. Some say this represents a balanced budget.  In the center the image of a carpenter’s square is superimposed.  The Key to the United States Treasury is underneath.

The back side of the dollar bill is replete with symbolism.

The First Continental Congress requested that Benjamin Franklin and a group of men come up with a Seal representing the United States of America.  It took them four years to accomplish this task and another two years to get  it approved. You will see two circles. The circles comprise the front and back of the Great Seal of the United States. The pyramid in the left-hand circle is the object of much speculation.   Its front is lighted, and the western side is dark.  Some say this signifies that the United States was just beginning to develop as a nation, and we had not begun to explore the West.  The pyramid is uncapped, again signifying that we were not even close to being finished.

Inside the capstone is the all-seeing eye, an ancient symbol for divinity. It was Franklin’s belief that one man couldn’t do it alone, but a group of men, with the help of God, could do anything.  Although modern activists have succeeded in removing the phrase In God We Trust from many public places, it remains on the dollar bill, and the Latin above the pyramid,  Annuit Coeptis, means God has favored our undertaking. The Latin below the pyramid, Novus Ordo Seclorum, means a new order has begun. At the base of the pyramid is the Roman Numeral for 1776: MDCCLXXVI.

The Presidential Seal - The right hand circle is on every National Cemetery in the United States, and it is also the centerpiece of most heroes’ monuments.  Slightly modified, it is the Seal of the President of the United States, and it is always visible whenever he speaks.  Yet very few people know what the symbols mean.

The Eagle - The bald eagle was selected as a symbol for victory, for two reasons: First, he is not afraid of a storm; he is strong, and he is smart enough to soar above it. Secondly, he wears no material crown.  We had just broken from the King of England.  Also, notice the shield is unsupported.  This country could now stand on its own.

Congress - At the top of that shield the white bar signifies congress, a unifying factor. We were coming together as one nation. In the eagle’s beak you will read  E Pluribus Unum, meaning one nation from many people. Above the eagle are thirteen stars, representing the thirteen original colonies, and any clouds of misunderstanding rolling away.  Again, we were coming together as one. Notice what the eagle holds in his talons. He holds an olive branch and arrows, denoting peace and war.  This country wants peace, but we will never be afraid to fight to preserve that peace.

13 – Is it an unlucky number or a very significant number on the dollar bill?

You will usually never see a room numbered 13 at any hotel  or motel. No floor is called the 13th floor. But think about this:  13 original colonies, 13 signers of the Declaration of Independence, 13 stripes on our flag, 13 steps on the pyramid, 13 letters in the Latin phrase E Pluribus Unum, 13 stars above the eagle, 13 bars on that shield, 13 leaves on the olive branch, 13 fruits, and if you look closely, 13 arrows.

BUT, remember short stories?

I just finished reading a short story by Mark Twain this afternoon. Very good reading, even though he wrote it about a hundred years ago.

Maybe short stories are making a comeback. Check it out.

Short stories are beginning to appear on the Ebook menus. Download one or two from Amazon or B&Noble and experience for yourself the pleasure of reading an entertaining story.

It’s a good way to take a break.