I am excited to report that we have been able to donate the necessary funds to provide clean drinking water to twenty-two families for a year, thanks to your purchase and promotion of the book In The Image of Man. As we've said often times, all proceeds from purchases of this book are being donated to Living Water International.

This is perhaps the most critical time and need for these donations since we started this endeavor. The outbreak of Ebola in West Africa has greatly increased the need for clean water. In addition to clean water, this outbreak mandates serious attention to education, supplies, and treatment. Providing for these needs without spreading the disease among those who are helping also requires clean water.

"The fight against Ebola demands safe water and the promotion of strong hygiene and sanitation. Government leaders in both Sierra Leone and Liberia know Living Water International as a strong water, sanitation and hygiene partner in their countries. They have asked us to support the effort to combat this virus." - Living Water International

If you are passionate about helping Living Water International fight this serious outbreak, you can head directly to their website and donate. In addition, if you help us spread the good word about the thought provoking book In The Image of Man, all proceeds will go to helping fight this epidemic. While one book won't do much, if we can get this book to take off, the potential to help can grow exponentially. We can't do this without you!

Working together to meet the needs of "the least of these."

Thanks until next time.

Obviously, this saying pertains more to people than it actually does to books. However, in the day and age when your only option for buying a book was to walk into a bookstore and peruse the shelves, what options did a person really have, but to judge a book by its cover. In fact, I may write a post sometime soon about the significance of a book's cover and what it tells the reader about the book. But, that is not the intent of this blog.

Rather, I want to look briefly at how people really do "judge" a book these days. With many of the books being purchased these days coming from electronic shelves filled with millions, rather than hundreds, of books. Is it really practical to look through the covers anyway? While it is certainly possible for a book's cover to cause someone not to buy it, the single most important factor in someone's book buying decision (or any online purchase for that matter) is the reviews and ratings.

I'm sure that everyone of you has looked at the reviews for a book or some other item and said, "wow, most people have liked this so I am willing to take a chance on it, or vice-versa"  I've included a capture of the ratings and reviews summary from Amazon for In The Image of Man. This basically says two things to prospective buyers.

First, those who have read the book enjoyed it. Or perhaps, knew the author and were biased.

Second, not very many people have read the book, or at least liked it well enough to rate and review it.

It is certainly possible that the actual text content of the reviews will help sway someone to try the book anyway. However, this isn't as likely as if a hundred people reviewed it and had positive things to say.

This is why I am running a book giveaway over the next week where someone will win a free signed copy of the newly edited version of In The Image of Man simply by writing a review and dropping me a note so I know about it. Now it might seem odd, to offer a book to someone who has read it, but many people have only read the ebook and could still use a physical copy. Also, as of yet, no one has a signed copy of the new version.

If you've read a book, not just mine, and enjoyed it, let others know. We authors, and prospective readers, need your feedback.

'Til next time!

This was an exciting, and at times exhausting, week for me. If you follow my #WritingExcerpts feed on Twitter, you would have noticed that there were no excerpts posted this week. While it is sometimes true that I simply forget to post an excerpt from my writing for a day, this week no excerpts indeed means no writing. To those of you waiting patiently, or perhaps not so patiently, for the sequel to In The Image of Man, not to worry.

One of my key accomplishments this week was the determination of the series name for In The Image of Man and the following books. As you can probably guess from the blog title, the series name is Unseen Dominion. One of the reasons, I felt it would be important to get a series name is to be able to promote Image as part of a series. This will help assure readers that their time investment getting to know the characters of Arrow Springs in Book One will reap future rewards as well. So, I spent some time this week updating the book descriptions and the book cover (as seen in this image) to reflect In The Image of Man as an Unseen Dominion novel.

The second, and even more necessary, activity this week included significant editing of both the e-book and physical edition of In The Image of Man to clean up many items that you, my great readers, have pointed out. If you've already read the book, fear not, none of the fixes change the storylines of the book. However, given the focus of Hearts of Compassion Publishing on providing "high quality" books while allowing the maximum impact for those in need, I felt it was important to clean up the issues in an effort to help the book match the quality of a professionally edited book. I will be the first to admit that I am learning the crafts of writing, promoting, and yes editing, thus everything won't be perfect the first time around.

As a result of these new edits, the physical book will be unavailable for purchase until later in the week. However, the e-book is already available with all the improvements. If you've already purchased the e-book and would like to receive the new and improved version, you'll need to contact Amazon's support chat and request that they push the new version to you.

Aside from proofing the physical copy for any issues, this week will be back to writing Book Two of Unseen Dominion.

'Til next time!