Hello again. And thank you for being a valued subscriber to E-
Writer!

March was yet another busy month for me. Apart from working on
supplementary material for my new CD course 'Quick Cash
Writing', I wrote a short book on betting systems for another
client, and also started work on another trivia quiz book. Add
to that my usual range of monthly commissions, and you may
understand why again it's been a full month between issues!

By the way, thanks to everyone who's written asking when my new
course is going to come out. It's out of my hands now, but I
expect it to be pretty soon, and certainly in April. I will send
out a special issue of E-Writer as soon as it goes on sale.

I also had an awayday in London just before Easter, to attend a
meeting of Kwickee editors. (For the benefit of new subscribers,
Kwickee is a new and innovative mobile phone publishing company,
for whom I do some freelance editing work.) It's nice to have a
change of scene once in a while, and I was duly impressed by my
first visit to the new Kwickee HQ, which is just off The Strand.
It was a very informative meeting, and as I know quite a few E-
Writer subscribers are involved with Kwickee as editors and/or
contributors, I've included a separate article about it later in
this newsletter.

My article in the last E-Writer about Spybot Search & Destroy
generated a lot of interest. Several people have told me that
they discovered - and deleted - unwanted spyware on their
machines after running Spybot. I was also interested to hear
from subscriber Douglas Talbott, Jr, who works in IT support at
a private women's college, where his department takes care of
around 1,600 computers. Doug made the following observations:

'Your suggestions about Spybot are correct. I'd like to add a
couple of further tips: if your operating system is Windows XP
or ME, then be sure to turn the System Restore feature off
before running Spybot. If not, then the spyware will return as
soon as you reboot the computer. Secondly, spyware is so
perversely pervasive that one program alone cannot remove most
of it. That's why we suggest also running Adaware SE Personal,
another free program found at http://www.lavasoft.com. We
suggest weekly updating and scanning. Don't forget to do the
same with your anti-virus and firewall programs.'

I bow to Doug's greater expertise in this area, and certainly
agree that you need to be vigilant to prevent spyware and adware
from infecting your PC. Regarding his point about the System
Restore feature in Windows XP, I use this operating system
myself, and the Time Sink spyware program did not return after I
deleted it using Spybot. However, it is certainly true that if I
had subsequently had to use System Restore to return the PC to
an earlier point in time, Time Sink would presumably have been
restored also. So my own suggestion, as well as switching off
System Restore before deleting any spyware, would be to create a
new restore point immediately after you have deleted the
spyware. Then, if you need to perform a system restore, you can
return your PC to a point after which the spyware was deleted.

As ever, I've been pleased to hear from a number of E-Writer
subscribers about their successes. One of my 'star pupils', Dr
Suzanne (Suzie) Harris, has been exceptionally busy. Her book
'Writers' Wonderful Web' (PublishAmerica) is now available to
order from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. I'm waiting for my
review copy, and will give my comments about the book in E-
Writer once I have read it.

Suzie has also signed a five-book deal with Kennel Club Books
for their rare dog breed series, and another with WordWright
Books for a title 'Rheumatoid Arthritis: The Alternative Route'.
And, as if all that wasn't enough, she's also writing a book on
behalf of the father of a brain-damaged man documenting his long
battle to get appropriate treatment for his son. The latter is a
'pro bono' project, but Suzie felt strongly that the family's
story needed to be told. You can read more about Suzie and her
publications on her website at http://www.suzanne-harris.com. 

A couple of subscribers have written asking if I will give their
writers' websites a mention. Patrick Merz from Switzerland wrote
to tell me about his site 'The Five Senses', which you can visit
at http://fivesenses.publixis.ch. Anyone is welcome to submit
entries to this website about anything related to the human
senses: sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing. Most of the
entries posted so far are factual, but there is nothing to stop
you posting poems or stories if you wish. Do check it out and,
if you like the site, submit your own 'sensory' observations!

I also heard from Kate (sorry, I don't know her surname) about
her new site at http://www.freelancersintheuk.co.uk. As the name
indicates, this site is aimed at freelances living in the UK.
Kate says presently there's an editorial bias, since that's her
area of expertise, but they are hoping to extend into every
freelance market, including illustrating, catering, photography,
interpreting, alternative therapies, music, and so on. At the
moment it's free to register at the site and add your details to
the database of freelances. If you're UK-based and looking for
more freelance work, I strongly recommend registering now before
everyone hears about this site and they start charging!


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2. Article: Kwickee Update

As I mentioned in my editorial, a couple of weeks ago I attended
a meeting of Kwickee editors in London. For the benefit of new
readers, Kwickee is a new company publishing articles and
fiction which customers can download via their mobile (cell)
phones, PDAs and the Internet. Anyone is welcome to submit
material, and writers receive a proportion of the payment
received every time someone pays for one of their contributions.

I have been a freelance editor for Kwickee almost since its
inception, and have also contributed a number of articles. I've
mentioned Kwickee regularly in E-Writer, so I know that a number
of readers have become involved as associates also. So I thought
you might appreciate some detailed feedback on what I learned at
the meeting.

First of all, there are major developments afoot at Kwickee. I'm
not allowed to reveal everything I was told, but the company has
received a substantial cash injection from a venture capital
company. Among other things this has enabled it to move into its
new offices and take on a number of additional staff. A brand
new version of the Kwickee software is currently being developed
and is due to be rolled out in June. This will coincide with a
major marketing campaign to raise the company's profile and
hopefully start generating much higher levels of sales.

Even now, however, the company is operating and making money.
Here are a few interesting facts I discovered at the London
meeting.

* The company currently has 35 freelance editors, and around
2,000 associates (the name used by Kwickee for people who have
signed up to contribute material on a freelance basis).

* There are around 2,600 Kwickees currently available on the
system.

* Most Kwickees are now priced at 50p (previously they were up
to £1.50). There is no longer a separate Adult category, but any
Kwickees including adult content are priced at £1.

* Kwickees can also be free. Such Kwickees will not make the
authors (or the company) any money, but may be useful as a means
of introducing people to Kwickee or of promoting that author's
work.

* Kwickee are not currently recruiting editors, but if all goes
well they expect to require more in future. Any speculative
applications currently arriving are being placed on a waiting
list. When vacancies arise, applicants will be sent a new
editing test to check their skills.

* The two best-selling categories of Kwickee at the moment are
comedy and food, followed by business-related topics.

* Most of the Kwickees currently being submitted are aimed at
young adults (26 to 39). There is a particular need for Kwickees
aimed at the younger age group (16 to 25). People in this group
are heavy mobile phone users, but as yet there is little
material specifically targeted at them.

Of course, if you are a registered Kwickee associate you should
be receiving newsletters from them, including news and ideas for
Kwickees you might like to submit. If you're not getting these
newsletters but would like to, I suggest sending a request using
the feedback form at http://www.kwickee.com/support.asp.

Although it is still going to be a while before anyone sees a
big return from Kwickee, the prospects for the company appear
bright. For more information, and to register as a contributor,
see the web pages http://www.kwickee.com and
http://www.kwickee.info.

And for the benefit of my non-UK readers, I would like to add:
although Kwickee is UK-based, it has plans for expansion world-
wide once the operation in this country is running profitably.
Even now, anyone from anywhere in the world is welcome to
contribute Kwickees (payments to non-UK residents are made by
Paypal). It's worth bearing in mind that the two top-selling
categories of Kwickee at present are recipes and comedy. These
are both categories that can be submitted by anyone, wherever in
the world they may live.

One last thing that arose at the meeting is that everyone
involved with Kwickee was asked to spread the word about the
company and try downloading Kwickees themselves (even if you
only buy the free ones!). Here's how to do it, therefore...

To start, simply text the word Hi to 83238. Kwickee will then
text you with a link to their mobile wapsite. Select the link
and go online (depending on your mobile this will be a simple
one- or two-step process). Once on the site you can search for
any Kwickee by word, title, code or author. My Kwickee name is
Skywriter, by the way. Here are a few of my Kwickees you might
like to try (all 50p):

How to Get an Idea for a Book - ID 2373
Greek Vegetarian Cookery: The Perfect Briam - ID 4702
Make Money Offering Your Home as a Film/TV/Magazine Location -
ID 2316

You can also download Kwickees to your PC from the Kwickee.com
website, though you will still have to give your mobile phone
number in order to do this, as the cost (if any) will go on your
phone bill.


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3. Market Info - Miscellany

Here are a few more potential markets for you.

Outercast is a new short story magazine. The first issue is due
out June 21, 2005. They say they're looking for short stories,
fictional and non-fictional, from authors all over the world.
The theme of the first issue will be childhood, and the author
of each story published will receive 20 Euros or 25 USD, plus
that issue free. The closing date for issue one is June 1, 2005.
You can send your story as a Word or plain text file, one at a
time, to: submissions-at-outercast.com. For more
information, visit http://www.outercast.com.

The Readers Nook is a website offering e-books and serials for
download. They are currently inviting freelance writers to
submit work for publication. They want e-zine serial stories
(1,000 to 2,000 words per instalment), complete short stories,
and full length e-books, in the following genres: romance,
mystery, suspense/thriller, action/adventure, science fiction,
fantasy, Western, historical, horror, erotica, how-to,
memoirs/diaries, non-fiction and inspirational. Authors receive
50% of all sales revenue, with payments made via PayPal. For
more info, see http://www.thereadersnook.org/writers-guidelines.

Glubeco is hiring new writers for freelance web-content writing
projects. The work typically involves preparing large numbers of
short articles, each one based around a particular keyword. The
articles will be used for websites as ghost-written content.
Currently they are looking for someone to produce 400 short
articles (around 500 words each) on all aspects of credit,
insurance, health care, finance and home business, for a US
readership. Payment is $1,000 for the assignment, plus a $200
completion bonus. For instructions on how to apply, see
http://glube.com/writers/.

SphinxBooks.com is seeking book-length mystery, science fiction,
fantasy and horror manuscripts for ebook publication. Length
should be 80,000 words or more. The royalty rate is 37.5% of
gross (i.e. the cover price) for single-author titles in ebook
format. For more information, visit
http://www.sphinxbooks.com/guidelines.html. 

If you write for children, you might be interested in this next
opportunity. The Children's Book Adventure Series is looking for
innovative writers who can write fantasy as well as adventure
stories. They say: 'Our in-house creative team has put together
some exciting ideas and we need your help developing them. The
age group we are targeting is 5-8 at the picture book level. We
will have ongoing work.' If you are interested, send samples of
your writing and your resume/CV to: ebrooks-at-cntre.com.

Coffee Cramps Magazine is a new, printed entertainment magazine,
published quarterly. They are currently seeking contributions in
a wide range of categories. These include jokes, articles, short
stories, serial stories, flash fiction (stories under 1,000
words), interviews, poetry, photographs, and so on. Payment is
currently modest, typically just a few dollars, but hopefully
rates will improve as the magazine becomes established. The
deadline for the next issue is May 1, 2005, and contributions
should have a summer theme. For full guidelines, see
http://tinyurl.com/6ceon.

Finally, as mentioned in EW 15, UK publishers Croner are still
looking to expand their pool of freelance writers and editors.
They produce information for businesses on topics such as
company law, human resources and health and safety, in a range
of formats, including loose-leafs, newsletters, CDs and online.
They say they would be especially keen to hear from people
available to work in-house at their offices in Kingston-upon-
Thames, those with experience of editing and re-writing for the
web, and those available to work on full-time short contracts.
If you are interested, post your CV to Kate Mitchell, Content
Manager, Wolters Kluwer (UK) Limited, 145 London Road, Kingston-
upon-Thames, Surrey, KT2 6SR, UK.


4. Useful Resource - Google Desktop Search

In the last few months I've been trying out Google's new desktop
search program, I started with the 'Beta' version last December,
and recently upgraded to the latest one.

Google Desktop Search (GDS) is a free program which lets you
search your own PC for any specified text in your emails
(including attachments), Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint
files, chats and Web pages you've viewed recently. The latest
version includes the facility to search your PDF and media files
as well.

There are, of course, various search facilities in Windows and
Microsoft Office, but GDS is much faster and more versatile, and
the search results are more detailed. Unfortunately the current
version only works with Windows XP or later versions of Windows
2000 (SP3 and above), so if you have an older PC it may not be
suitable for you. There also needs to be at least 500MB of free
space on your hard disk.

Assuming your computer is suitable, you can download the program
free of charge from http://desktop.google.com. Click on the
'Agree and Download' button on the right of the screen, then
click on Open or Run (not Save) in the new window that appears.
Google Desktop Search will then be downloaded to your PC. The
file is around 700KB and should only take a minute or two to
download on a standard dial-up connection.

After a few moments, a new page will appear notifying you of a
successful installation. It will also ask you to set some
preferences (for security purposes, I recommend you do NOT
check the box to allow secure sites to be indexed, as in theory
this could mean that someone else using your PC might be able to
obtain information about your visits to secure sites such as
Internet banking).

Next, you will be notified that Google Desktop Search is
preparing an index that will enable you to search through your
own information. This may take an hour or two, depending on how
many files are on your computer, but you can still use your
machine during this time.

Once the index has been prepared, you can search your PC at any
time just by clicking on the Desktop Search icon which appears
in your system tray (the row of icons at the far right of the
taskbar, which is normally at the bottom of the screen). Click
on Search in the pop-up menu which appears and an Internet
Explorer page similar to the normal Google search page will
open, but with the option to search your own computer as well as
the web, newsgroups, images, and so on.

You can search using one or more search terms; and just as when
using Google to conduct a web search, you can put terms in
double inverted commas to ensure that only files including that
exact phrase are displayed. The results are shown in a list,
which can be sorted either by date or by relevance. Once you
have found the file you want, clicking on it will open it in the
appropriate application (Word in the case of Microsoft Word
files, Internet Explorer for stored web pages, and so on).

Google Desktop Search is especially useful if you have large
numbers of files, emails, etc. on your PC, and (like most of
us) are not as good at organising your files into folders as you
ought to be. As long as you can remember a few words from the
file you require, you should be able to find it quickly and
easily. If you're trying to find an email from a client with a
particular reference number in it, for example, you could just
enter the number concerned and GDS should find it almost
instantly.

There are relatively few drawbacks to GDS, but one thing to be
aware of is that other users of your PC will also be able to
search your files, and this applies even if those other users
log in under different identities (in Windows XP, two or more
users can have their own log-ins with personalised desktops,
colour schemes, and so on). If other people use your PC,
therefore, you may need to consider whether you want them to be
able to search through all your files. However, you can use the
Preferences page (also accessible from the pop-up menu) to
exclude some types of file or the content of certain folders
from searches.

Overall, I've found Google Desktop Search a very handy resource.
I don't use it every day, but certainly two or three times a
week. Google obviously hope that having GDS on your machine will
encourage you to use the Google search engine as well. Unlike
the web version GDS does not display any advertising, however,
and Google have stated that they do not have access to any
information about searches conducted on your machine.

Finally, I should mention that there are other free desktop
search applications available as well. Another of which I have
heard good reports is Copernic (http://www.copernic.com), and
it's worth taking a look at their site to see if it offers any
features you might prefer. I haven't tried Copernic myself, and
as I'm happy with GDS, I plan to stick with it.


That's it for this issue. I hope you've enjoyed reading it and
found something that may be useful to you. E-Writer will be back
again in a few weeks' time.

All good wishes,

Nick


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Nick Daws' CD-based course 'Write Any Book In Under 28 Days'
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----------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright Info

Except where specifically stated, material in E-Writer is
protected by copyright of Nick Daws, 2005. Material from the
newsletter may, however, be reproduced in other online or off-
line publications so long as (a) the text (including any URLs
and e-mail addresses) is not altered in any way, and
(b) the souce is acknowledged and a link or text reference is
provided to my website at http://www.nickdaws.co.uk. Notifying
me is not essential but would be appreciated - please use the e-
mail address above or the link on my site. Many thanks!

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