Investigative Insight into a Financial Meltdown

Reviewed by Stuart Nachbar

These days I have to ask myself if book publishers and Wall Street make connected decisions on the release of business profile books. Is it mere coincidence that stories about AIG and Bear Stearns have appeared scant weeks after their failures were fait accompli with the business press?

{mosimage}Investigative journalist and television producer Danny Schechter asked that very same question in a new book: Plunder, Investigating our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal. He explained that only a small press was willing to take on the title because Plunder did not fit the template for traditional business books where, in his own words, story telling trumps analysis. While Schecter has been part of news establishment himself—he produced ABC News’ 20/20 for seven years, part of an extremely long resume of credits—he prides himself on being an independent thinker.

Schechter’s experience shines throughout Plunder. He takes you step-by-step not only through the debt crisis that brought on the most recent federally-backed bailout, but also shows how the regulators and the national business news media were tacit collaborators with Wall Street and the Bush Administration. He does a better job at posing the pointed questions than someone like Michael Moore, who does not have either the education or professional journalistic experience.  Nor does he take sides with the Democratic Party, as Moore does. Schechter holds them equally to blame, though he shows some hope for Barack Obama in this story. He does, however, show materials from academic allies, the CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition as well as the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who calls Schecter a “human rights activist.” And his writing style is less dry than Al Gore’s.

But Plunder is not so much a business profile as it is a populist consumer book, a warning about how the debt crisis and the federal bailout will affect working individuals, as opposed to Wall Street executives. The faults I see with Plunder are that there are too many attributions to other books. (I am one who likes to see more of the author’s opinions); too many repeated digs at offenders on the same point; Schecter’s “back-stepping” on his own credentials (he denies expertise in finance, but he is writing about the subject and challenging expert decisions); and, his referral to himself as “The News Dissector,” which makes appear to be a Jim Cramer wannabee.  Cramer, the host of CNBC’s  Mad Money makes his living screaming aloud about the prospects of stocks, or the lack thereof. Schecter reserves some digs for Creamer’s earlier (and sunnier) predictions before the meltdown, though he avoids the fact that the “Mad Man’s” books have become bestsellers. I’d love to watch these two men in a televised shouting match—Schechter might actually win in a tough fight—but I doubt CNBC would allow it.

Plunder is biased, but it is a worthwhile and easy read for someone who knows little about economics and finance, or does not have the time to get into the nitty gritty of those subjects. I have some schooling in business, and for the most part I agree with Schechter’s analysis conclusions. But I also wonder, with the tone of the writing, if he’s shooting himself in the foot.

Contact Stuart Nachbar at http://www.EducatedQuest.com , a blog on education politics, policy and technology or read about his first book, The Sex Ed Chronicle, a novel on education and politics in 1980 New Jersey, at http://www.SexEdChronicles.com.

This is a story of Alan F. Kay, a man who dared to do. Kay, 82, developed the idea for a shared information exchange for the financial services industry in 1968, well before the Internet and the Bloomsburg news services made it commonplace. His name might be confused with another man; Alan Curtis Kay who conceived the Dynabook, a 1970’s predecessor to today’s laptops, notebook computers and E-books as well as the graphical user interface that we use to work in a Mac or Windows environment. Alan F. Kay is no less inventive, nor his scientific contributions less important. But his contributions to the public interest may be more noteworthy.

{mosimage}In the early 1980’s after, leaving AutEx, a company he had co-founded and led for sixteen years, Kay became one of the national leaders in the nuclear arms freeze movement. While at odds with the Reagan Administration, Kay joined with billionaire Armand Hammer, among others, to found a non-profit institute for U.S.-Soviet relations. His more recent accomplishments are in public interest polling; those had the most interest to me. (Full disclosure: my wife is a programmer for a market research company that conducts public interest polls.)

Kay was trained as a theoretical mathematician, earning a bachelor’s degree from MIT and a doctorate from Harvard. From reading this memoir, Militant Millionaire Peacenik, Memoir of a Serial Entrepreneur, I got the impression that Kay tried to take a rational approach to survey research, at least to the point where questions were carefully designed, as not to be politically biased.

One of his surveys, conducted in 1991 through an entity he created called America Talks Issues (ATI), was quite relevant to today; it was a survey on solutions that could lead to energy independence. This survey asked respondents to consider eighteen proposals for improving the U.S. energy supply. These ranged from expanding fossil fuels to renewable energy sources to conservation measures. Each respondent was asked to determine if each proposal had the potential to improve the economy as well as the environment.

The ATI survey results revealed five “triple winners,” proposals that had more than fifty percent support as positive contributions to out energy supply, as well as the economy and the environment. The most popular proposal was for renewable-energy electric generating systems based on wind, solar, and hydro or water power. The next “triple winners” were fuel-efficient cars, trains and planes, new efficient systems for lighting, for pumping and mechanical processes, and for heating, refrigeration and air conditioning. The fifth was a new fuel—like hydrogen or alcohol—to begin to replace gasoline. And interestingly enough, one of the biggest losers was drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and offshore—nothing close to majority support for a Republican mantra of the 2008 presidential election: Drill Baby Drill.

And I repeat, this survey was taken seventeen years ago. The solutions were available then, but political leadership was not. It is worth reading this book to see the results of the other surveys on such topics as the federal budget deficit, arms sales, and government reform. Kay’s point is that Americans, when surveyed fairly, will accept solutions that are different than the ones that have broad political support. He explains this thought better than academics do, but academics receive more credibility because they have the prestige of their university behind them.     

Alan F. Kay is, by any account, a very successful man and he continues to be a non-partisan advocate for numerous public policy solutions. I could not consider him to be a liberal or conservative as much as a policy wonk. If you have your own wonkish tendencies, then visit www.AlanFKay.com. You’ll learn more from the Web site than you will from the memoir.

Contact Stuart Nachbar at http://www.EducatedQuest.com , a blog on education politics, policy and technology or read about his first book, The Sex Ed Chronicle, a novel on education and politics in 1980 New Jersey, at http://www.SexEdChronicles.com.

By Stuart Nachbar

After finishing this story, I was reminded of a line from All in the Family: people who live in communes are communists (the small c is mine—not Archie Bunker’s). It’s not that people who choose communal living want to overthrow the government; they prefer a society where everyone shares equally in the fun and the work, and no one person prospers more than the others. And everyone must join in to protect the commune when it is attacked by outsiders who don’t understand it or consider the place to be too different to be “acceptable.” Too many wars and vocal sparring matches have been fought over communities who desired to be different and left alone to be different.

{mosimage}SomeplacElse is a communal place in Arizona, founded by Michael Allen, a formerly homeless person who was allowed to win a $200 million lottery. The community is guided by a Biblical verse, First Timothy which says: “Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophetic utterance when the elders laid their hands upon you.” After 12 years, SomeplacElse has garnered incredible wealth, not only money, but in scientific knowledge. But the community has also reached critical mass, employing 12,000 people.

Norm Larson, the main character, is a computer systems engineer who has been down on his luck in the job market for some time. He comes onto a Web site: ConsiderSE.com and is invited to take part in an extremely unique interview process. He not only gets a lift to the interview in a Prius stretch limousine, he gets to interview the company. SomeplacElse guarantees life-long employment and health care, freedom to choose projects, paid relocation, an interest-free loan, and free food and housing. This all comes at a price—a fixed salary of $20,000 a year per family member and a requirement to change tasks every 10 years. Larson not only gets hired on at SomeplacElse, he gets the top job as Advocate—because 253 people in the commune know he’ll always do the right thing!

As Larson settles in as Advocate, Adam Wainwright, car mechanic turned race car builder turned hard-partying multi-millionaire is resting on a huge lead in his campaign to become governor of Arizona. Backed by a conservative political and business cadre, Wainright goes to bat to keep a major defense contractor in the state, even as the state’s department of labor and bureau of land management have found that the company is using undocumented workers to dump toxic chemicals into the ground water. The husband of the director of the bureau of land management works at SomeplacElse, a motivation for Wainwright to call for an investigation into the “Godless hippee commune.”

The major confrontation between the forces of SomeplacElse and Wainwright takes place on Cinco De Mayo, the May 5th Mexican festival holiday. Wainwright stages a rally at the commune gates; he’ll claim that the commune is backed by Chinese money and exploits Mexican laborers and hail “free enterprise and the Christian soldiers who defend it.” However, Wainwright dies the night before the rally: he is later judged in a spiritual sense and found wanting, while Larson’s wife is badly injured trying to get through the rally. Spiritual judging is used to resolve the story, though I wished there had been a real conflict at the gates instead.

Archie Bunker was never proven wrong about communal living, though Adam Wainwright and his loose-moral friends lost in the end of this story. The ingenuity of SomeplacElse by itself makes this read worthwhile if you like utopias in your science fiction—and on that score I learned a lot from the story. I prefer a little more conflict when a utopia is under attack, but then, I’ve been accused of reading too many super hero books.

Contact Stuart Nachbar at http://www.EducatedQuest.com , a blog on education politics, policy and technology or read about his first book, The Sex Ed Chronicle, a novel on education and politics in 1980 New Jersey, at http://www.SexEdChronicles.com.

another exclusive interview with the Virtual Book Review Network 

The Virtual Book Review Network is pleased to interview Candy Harrington, author of 101 Accessible Vacations; Travel ideas for Wheelers and Slow Walkers, which is the first guidebook dedicated exclusively to wheelchair-accessible destinations, lodgings and recreational opportunities. Organized by activity and interest, the chapters help illustrate the wide variety of accessible vacation choices for over 101 cities, lodging options, national parks, tourist attractions and recreational activities around the world.

{mosimage}About the author: Candy Harrington is the editor of Emerging Horizons, and the award-winning author of several accessible travel books who has been covering accessible travel exclusively for 14 years. For more information visit http://www.101AccessibleVacations.com. Candy also blogs regularly on accessible travel issues at http://www.BarrierFreeTravels.com.

LAUREN SMITH: What inspired you to focus on accessible travel?
Candy Harrington: Well, I’ve been a travel writer all of my life, but 14 years ago I decided to change my focus a bit. Looking back, I was tired of writing what I considered “fluff” and I wanted to do something that was more of a challenge. A friend suggested accessible travel. Nobody was doing it at the time so I definitely saw it as a challenge. To be honest, I had to spend a few years just learning the laws and the realities of accessible travel, before I ever wrote a word about it. Shortly thereafter I founded Emerging Horizons, a magazine about accessible travel. And today I write columns for other publications, provide internet content, pen books, host a radio show, and even write features for other magazines — all on the subject of accessible travel. I guess you could say things kind of snowballed (in a good way) for me.

LAUREN SMITH: Can you tell us about a couple of your favorite accessible vacation spots?
Candy Harrington: Well personally, I love Yosemite. I’m a mountain girl and I grew up not far from there, so it’s just a favorite place of mine. It’s changed a lot over the years, and part of those changes include improved accessibility. Just a few years ago they unveiled a great new accessible trail to the base of Yosemite Falls. The trail they had before was a bit dicey for wheelchair-users, but some folks could do it with a lot of assistance. The new trail is beautiful, and not only is it very accessible, but it also blends in with the natural environment. It was designed by the same landscape architect who did the FDR Memorial in Washington DC, and he did a great job.

LAUREN SMITH: How long did it take you to research and write this book?
Candy Harrington: Well I have to say that the research was ongoing — over the past 10 or so years; however I really didn’t come up with a good way to present the information until maybe four years ago. By that time I had to revisit a lot of the places, just to make sure that the information was current. The writing part was easy — it only took about three months — after all the research was finished.

LAUREN SMITH: What are your top tips for people who want an accessible vacation – things to do before they go?
Candy Harrington:
•    Never just book "accessible" or "ADA complaint" accommodations. Access means different things at different properties, so you need to describe the specific access features that you need. For example, in the US an "ADA Compliant" room can contain either a roll-in shower or a tub/shower with grab bars.

•    If you are considering a cruise, remember that most of the shore excursions are not wheelchair-accessible (accessible transportation is limited in many ports) so you’ll either have to plan accessible excursions yourself or work with a travel agent who is well versed in accessible cruises.

•    If you are booking accessible transportation (such as airport transfers or a sightseeing tour) make sure the vehicle is lift- or ramp-equipped if you cannot transfer. Sometimes tour operators think that all wheelchair-users can walk a few steps, so they only provide standard vehicles with wheelchair-storage space for folks that need “accessible” transportation.

•    Don’t’ be afraid to request wheelchair assistance from the airline if you tire easily or can’t do distances. This should be done when you make you reservation. Even if you don’t normally use a wheelchair, it’s a good idea to request this service, as wheelchair-users are usually fast-tracked through security.

•    And finally, reconfirm all accessible arrangements before you leave.

LAUREN SMITH: What improvements have you seen in accessible travel in the past 14 years?
Candy Harrington: Well, there are definitely more choices than there were 14 years ago, and I think that’s due to the fact that people are just getting out and traveling more. There’s more of a demand for accessible services these days, and the hospitality industry is very competitive. Everyone wants those tourism dollars. In the past 14 years I’ve seen just about everything from accessible safari parks and Adirondack lean-tos, to canal boats, tree houses, dude ranches and even a hot air balloon. To be honest, if you have a specific interest, there’s something accessible out there for you.

LAUREN SMITH: Conversely, what improvements still need to take place?
Candy Harrington: Well, I think that accessible transportation (truly accessible transportation) has to become more readily available to folks around the world. That may take some time, but with the aging of the Baby Boomers I think this change will be market driven. In other words if folks want the tourism dollars from this market segment, they will make the changes necessary to accommodate them. Some cities already have accessible taxis, but I’d like to see more. And I think it will happen in time.

LAUREN SMITH: How often do you travel – is it mostly for work or can you (or do you) mix business and pleasure?
Candy Harrington: Right now we are on the road about 30% of the time. I travel with my husband, who is a travel photographer. Although I enjoy my work — I have to as I put in some very long hours — I try to totally separate business from pleasure travel. When I’m working, I’m working, but when we travel for our own vacation I don’t even take a notebook with me. Now granted, if I see something that looks interesting I may come back later and check it out when I’m working, but other than that I don’t do any work while on vacation.

LAUREN SMITH: Are you working on a new book?
Candy Harrington: I’m always working on something, but my next book project will be the third edition of “Barrier Free Travels: A Nuts and Bolts Guide for Wheelers and Slow Walkers”. It’s a very popular title and I try to update it every three or so years.  

LAUREN SMITH: Is there anything we haven’t covered that you would like to include?
Candy Harrington: No, I think you’ve about covered it!

LAUREN SMITH: Thank you for taking the time to be part of this interview!

{mosimage}Denny Griffin: In my book The Battle for Las Vegas – The Law vs. the Mob (Huntington Press, July 2006), I told the story of Chicago Outfit enforcer Tony Spilotro’s Las Vegas reign. This is the era dramatized in the hit 1995 movie Casino, in which actor Joe Pesci plays a character based on Spilotro. That book was told primarily from the side of law enforcement. So when I had the opportunity to meet Frank Cullotta — the last living and available member of Spilotro’s crew — I was enthused about the possibility of getting a look at that same time period from the perspective of the bad guys. Frank had already been thinking about doing a book, making the timing perfect. 

During my initial meeting with Frank, he committed to discussing his life of crime starting with his days as a juvenile thief and tough guy in Chicago, through his time as Tony Spilotro’s lieutenant in Vegas, and his stint in the federal Witness Protection Program. He also agreed to talk about his role as an adviser to Casino, in which he appeared in several scenes as a hit man. Frank promised to talk candidly about the myriad crimes he’d been involved in for which he’d received immunity or the statue of limitations had long since run. They included murder.

Shortly after the meeting I approached Huntington Press with a proposal outlining what Frank’s story would contain and the amount of detail he would provide. As an illustration, the proposal included Frank’s description of the facts behind the so-called M&M murders. They were the basis for one of the most memorable scenes in Casino, the one in which Pesci’s character places a man’s head in a vise and squeezes until the guy’s eyeball pops out. Huntington saw the book’s potential and signed on to the project. 

Lauren Smith: Was it difficult co-authoring a book with a confessed mob killer? 

Denny Griffin: The start of the project was the most difficult for a number of reasons:
 
Frank and I didn’t know each other and had to go through a feeling out process. After spending 20 years in investigations and law enforcement, I had to overcome my inhibitions about entering into a business relationship with a man who – at least for many years – represented everything I had been against. 

Our lack of familiarity with each other caused me to have to grope my way along during our conversations to avoid getting Frank upset and possibly alienating him. Would I ask a wrong question? Would I react to an answer in a way that would offend him? Would he sense through my body language, tone or expression that I found some of his previous conduct repulsive? I guess I could say that at the start I sometimes felt like I was sitting on a powder keg and hoping not to accidentally ignite it. 

Communications were a problem. For security purposes I wasn’t allowed to know Frank’s new identity, location or business. All contact had to go through a middle man – retired FBI agent Dennis Arnoldy. This was cumbersome to say the least, and proved to be unworkable.

In addition to dealing with Frank, my wife was not at all happy with me for getting involved with writing his story. While I was working on Battle a couple of things happened — annoying/threatening phone calls, suspicious persons loitering near our home — that had made her nervous about my writing true crime. Battle wasn’t even back from the printer and here I was tangled up with a hit man. 

Fortunately, these early problems evaporated rather quickly. As Frank and I developed mutual respect and trust things went much smoother. I was given a way to contact him directly – along with a stern warning by Dennis Arnoldy that I was responsible for maintaining the security of that information. I learned that Frank has a code of ethics and there is only one way to deal with him: directly and honestly. If you treat him that way you’ll gain his respect and he’ll respond in kind. He also has a great sense of humor.  As time went on Frank went from being a business associate to being a friend. 

Even my wife has experienced a transformation. The first time Frank came to our place for a meeting, as he came in one door she and our dog went out the other. But now they’re buddies. She looks forward to his calls and visits. 

Lauren Smith: What surprised you most about working with Frank? 

Denny Griffin: His candor and demeanor. Frank gave me more detail than I expected, but he did it with such nonchalance that I had to learn to listen to him very closely so as not to miss anything important. He talked about serious crimes, including killings, with no more emotion that a couple of guys standing around the office water cooler discussing the weather. His attitude reminded me of that line from The Godfather: This is nothing personal. It’s strictly business.

Lauren Smith: What was it like digging into this piece of history? 

Denny Griffin: In a word, fascinating. The mob days in Vegas are a part of Sin City’s history and organized crime history. It was a story that needed to be told. To get the true facts about those days was very exciting for me. Unfortunately, I’ve read other books about that era published as “True Crime” that leave a lot to be desired in the way of accuracy. Some would have been more appropriate as fiction. I hope the factual accounts contained in both Battle and CULLOTTA help to set the record straight.

Lauren Smith: How much research went into writing this book? 

Denny Griffin: I had done a great deal of the necessary research during my two years of writing Battle. And because I had just finished that book everything was still fresh in my mind. Even with that head start, though, it took nearly another year for me to gather all the interviews and documents I needed to finish up. 

I was lucky in that the Operation Family Secrets Trial was scheduled to start in Chicago in May. In that case 14 reputed Chicago Outfit members had been indicted for crimes that included 18 unsolved gangland murders. Two of which were the Spilotro brothers. The trial offered a great opportunity for publicity, so Huntington put the book on fast track to get it in print by June. The first copies arrived in Vegas on June 5, but the official publication date is July 1.

Lauren Smith: What’s next? 

Denny Griffin: I actually have quite a lot going on right now. I’m heavily involved in promoting CULLOTTA. In my spare time I’m trying to finish a fiction called Vegas Vixen that is about half done. Also, last July, The Vegas Mob Tour opened. The Tour is based on The Battle for Las Vegas, and takes passengers to the actual locations where many of the incidents depicted in Casino took place. Frank, Dennis Arnoldy, and I are technical consultants to the Tour. 

I’m also mulling over three appealing true crime projects. I plan to start work on one of them when things settle down. 

{mosimage}Denny Griffin: In my book The Battle for Las Vegas – The Law vs. the Mob (Huntington Press, July 2006), I told the story of Chicago Outfit enforcer Tony Spilotro’s Las Vegas reign. This is the era dramatized in the hit 1995 movie Casino, in which actor Joe Pesci plays a character based on Spilotro. That book was told primarily from the side of law enforcement. So when I had the opportunity to meet Frank Cullotta — the last living and available member of Spilotro’s crew — I was enthused about the possibility of getting a look at that same time period from the perspective of the bad guys. Frank had already been thinking about doing a book, making the timing perfect. 

During my initial meeting with Frank, he committed to discussing his life of crime starting with his days as a juvenile thief and tough guy in Chicago, through his time as Tony Spilotro’s lieutenant in Vegas, and his stint in the federal Witness Protection Program. He also agreed to talk about his role as an adviser to Casino, in which he appeared in several scenes as a hit man. Frank promised to talk candidly about the myriad crimes he’d been involved in for which he’d received immunity or the statue of limitations had long since run. They included murder.

Shortly after the meeting I approached Huntington Press with a proposal outlining what Frank’s story would contain and the amount of detail he would provide. As an illustration, the proposal included Frank’s description of the facts behind the so-called M&M murders. They were the basis for one of the most memorable scenes in Casino, the one in which Pesci’s character places a man’s head in a vise and squeezes until the guy’s eyeball pops out. Huntington saw the book’s potential and signed on to the project.

Lauren Smith: Was it difficult co-authoring a book with a confessed mob killer? 

Denny Griffin: The start of the project was the most difficult for a number of reasons:
 
Frank and I didn’t know each other and had to go through a feeling out process. After spending 20 years in investigations and law enforcement, I had to overcome my inhibitions about entering into a business relationship with a man who – at least for many years – represented everything I had been against. 

Our lack of familiarity with each other caused me to have to grope my way along during our conversations to avoid getting Frank upset and possibly alienating him. Would I ask a wrong question? Would I react to an answer in a way that would offend him? Would he sense through my body language, tone or expression that I found some of his previous conduct repulsive? I guess I could say that at the start I sometimes felt like I was sitting on a powder keg and hoping not to accidentally ignite it. 

Communications were a problem. For security purposes I wasn’t allowed to know Frank’s new identity, location or business. All contact had to go through a middle man – retired FBI agent Dennis Arnoldy. This was cumbersome to say the least, and proved to be unworkable.

In addition to dealing with Frank, my wife was not at all happy with me for getting involved with writing his story. While I was working on Battle a couple of things happened — annoying/threatening phone calls, suspicious persons loitering near our home — that had made her nervous about my writing true crime. Battle wasn’t even back from the printer and here I was tangled up with a hit man. 

Fortunately, these early problems evaporated rather quickly. As Frank and I developed mutual respect and trust things went much smoother. I was given a way to contact him directly – along with a stern warning by Dennis Arnoldy that I was responsible for maintaining the security of that information. I learned that Frank has a code of ethics and there is only one way to deal with him: directly and honestly. If you treat him that way you’ll gain his respect and he’ll respond in kind. He also has a great sense of humor.  As time went on Frank went from being a business associate to being a friend. 

Even my wife has experienced a transformation. The first time Frank came to our place for a meeting, as he came in one door she and our dog went out the other. But now they’re buddies. She looks forward to his calls and visits. 

Lauren Smith: What surprised you most about working with Frank? 

Denny Griffin: His candor and demeanor. Frank gave me more detail than I expected, but he did it with such nonchalance that I had to learn to listen to him very closely so as not to miss anything important. He talked about serious crimes, including killings, with no more emotion that a couple of guys standing around the office water cooler discussing the weather. His attitude reminded me of that line from The Godfather: This is nothing personal. It’s strictly business.

Lauren Smith: What was it like digging into this piece of history? 

Denny Griffin: In a word, fascinating. The mob days in Vegas are a part of Sin City’s history and organized crime history. It was a story that needed to be told. To get the true facts about those days was very exciting for me. Unfortunately, I’ve read other books about that era published as “True Crime” that leave a lot to be desired in the way of accuracy. Some would have been more appropriate as fiction. I hope the factual accounts contained in both Battle and CULLOTTA help to set the record straight.

Lauren Smith: How much research went into writing this book? 

Denny Griffin: I had done a great deal of the necessary research during my two years of writing Battle. And because I had just finished that book everything was still fresh in my mind. Even with that head start, though, it took nearly another year for me to gather all the interviews and documents I needed to finish up. 

I was lucky in that the Operation Family Secrets Trial was scheduled to start in Chicago in May. In that case 14 reputed Chicago Outfit members had been indicted for crimes that included 18 unsolved gangland murders. Two of which were the Spilotro brothers. The trial offered a great opportunity for publicity, so Huntington put the book on fast track to get it in print by June. The first copies arrived in Vegas on June 5, but the official publication date is July 1.

Lauren Smith: What’s next? 

Denny Griffin: I actually have quite a lot going on right now. I’m heavily involved in promoting CULLOTTA. In my spare time I’m trying to finish a fiction called Vegas Vixen that is about half done. Also, last July, The Vegas Mob Tour opened. The Tour is based on The Battle for Las Vegas, and takes passengers to the actual locations where many of the incidents depicted in Casino took place. Frank, Dennis Arnoldy, and I are technical consultants to the Tour. 

I’m also mulling over three appealing true crime projects. I plan to start work on one of them when things settle down. 

{mosimage}

Lauren Smith:    Why did you write this book?

Dr. Letitia Wright:   I became a co-author because it provided me an opportunity to talk to women entrepreneurs about the one thing I see them do that causes failure. Business schools do not really talk about it and time management people act like it's something you can just time manage away. I wanted to share what successful women were really doing. 
 
Lauren Smith:    Why do you think it's important that women get mentoring?

Dr. Letitia Wright:   Mentoring is the fast track to Mastery. A mentor can show you how to do it, hold you accountable and show you the tools that you need. The relationship will cause you to grow faster. More importantly, you do not have to re-invent the wheel.
 
Lauren Smith:    Why don't women get mentored as often as men?

Dr. Letitia Wright:   Women do not ask for mentoring and when they do, they do not really have an idea of what the parameters will be. So they wind up in relationships that become inappropriate or actually cause them a setback

Lauren Smith:    How can someone find a mentor?

Dr. Letitia Wright:   First determine what you are seeking from a mentor.  Then when you meet with that person, you can address your expectations in terms of time and performance. Then look for people who excel in the areas you need to excel in. astly, ask!

Lauren Smith:    What tips can you offer to women hoping to start a business?

Dr. Letitia Wright:   Understand who your market is. I have too many conversations with people who believe their product is for everyone. Unless you are selling air, its not.  Pick a market and work that market, do not take on the entire world.
 
Lauren Smith:    Can you tell us about your work?

Dr. Letitia Wright:   I am the host of the Wright Place TV show, a weekly 30 minute broadcast television show for the woman entrepreneur. My guests talk about what is working now, not stories of success from 20 years ago. I host people like Mark Victor Hansen, Dottie Walters ( when she was alive), Stedman Graham, Robert G. Allen, T. Harv Eker and many others.
 
This summer I am producing and directing a movie called The Power of Mentorship.  t's due out December 6, 2007. My hope is that it will give people everywhere real examples and encouragement to create success in every area of their lives.

Author: Penny Sansevieri

ISBN:  1600370896

Every profession has some semblance of a manual to flip through for reference.  Writers have an array of resources at their disposal from magazines, Internet and books, such as this one from Penny Sansevieri.  From Book to Bookseller is a great resource for anyone who is breaking into the writing profession.

When you have created your work of art, the real work is in promoting and selling your book.  In the wake of self-publishing, this book holds a vast number of ideas an author can use to ensure their masterpiece hits the eyes of appropriate readers.

The information in this non-fiction book comes from an experienced person in her craft.  Penny Sansevieri is a book marketing and media relations specialist who coaches authors on projects, manuscripts and marketing plans.  She has a website you can visit entitled www.amarketingexpert.com that also has a storehouse of information ranging from more books available, suitable publicity and creative blogs, as well as a biweekly newsletter for media tips in the industry.

From Book to Bookseller does not tell you how to write your novel but aids you when your creation of your book has been completed.  Penny Sansevieri knows how a piece of art can be overlooked if the right promotional materials aren’t used.  She shows an author, step-by-step how he or she can make a book into a bestseller.  With proper marketing, writers can get the chance to make their creation outstanding to their target readers.

The book is outlined in sections and in section one; the author gives you a lesson in book marketing.  There are secrets in budgeting and in writing a book that sells, for example launching your book when it coincides with a major world event.  She has sections in marketing strategies, book reviews, book signings and much more.

The author gives innovative ideas for a press kit, the proper way to write a bio, the different types of book reviews and the lingo that goes with the territory.  With information being inundated on the Internet, she gives helpful websites targeted to where you should be visiting instead of wasting your time surfing the net.

If you have created the next bestseller, From Book to Bookseller is a necessary reference book to have in your writing library.  Having Penny Sansevieri guide you through the marketing process will alleviate many of the worries that go into getting your book into the public eye. 

The above review was contributed by: Jennifer Andrew