Haven't Felt Much Like Posting

by Shirley Bahlmann
I'll admit it, I haven't felt much like posting lately. Since Doug Johnston invited me to join this blog in the first place, to blog without him here has almost felt like writing on his tombstone with glow-in-the-dark permanent marker. (Whoa, do they even MAKE those things? I'll take a dozen!)
But I've gotten wind of the idea that Doug may just want us to keep blogging. In this case, perhaps the captain doesn't have to go down with the ship. Maybe he can just be floating alongside in a pair of bright yellow water wings, shouting encouragement up to us less-experienced sailors. So I'm thinking I'll follow Janet's brave and talented lead and begin posting again, to be a voice for Doug's efforts that pulled us all together and got us so many hits that Marcia (wasn't it you, Marcia?) won a FREE BOOK!
And who wouldn't want that?
Oorah, Doug.

My Last Post

The wannabe is done, finished, gone. On Saturday Jeffrey Marsh, acquisitions editor, left Cedar Fort. On Monday morning, they fired Jeremy Beal, one of the graphics designers and then gave me the option of signing a two year non compete contract or they would fire me. I am here writing this from my kitchen. I was fired because I wouldn't sign a contract that would keep me from making money for my family if I ever quit or got fired from Cedar Fort.

Next they told me that this blog, the blog I started and got going, and found the authors, is no longer available to me. That this is Cedar Forts blog. Guess what, it has never been Cedar Forts blog. It has been a blog of Cedar Fort authors, non paid blog. No one gets paid from this blog. So, after I post this message, I will leave this blog. It is a sad day for me, Jeffrey and Jeremy, but it is most sad, because I am leaving the job that I LOVE. I love working with the authors on a daily basis. I loved setting up events, signings, reviews, television and radio spots, and a writers conference.

I will miss this job, more than I have ever missed a job, but I couldn't sign a no compete for a few reasons. The turnover is very high at Cedar Fort and my family would need to eat if I got fired or laid off. My attorney said if they were paying me $100,000 that he would have me sign half of what was written in the contract, but never to sign it as it was. Also, Utah is a right to work state. And lastly, if they believed in me like they said they did, they would not have someone that made $35,000 a year ever sign a no compete clause.

So, adios, goodbye and I will be reading this blog, but not participating. I also have a book coming out in September, and it is not with Cedar Fort.

Best of luck to each of you, and my God bless each of you, the bloggers and the readers of this site.

Thank You

Putting on the 6 7 8 writers conference was one of the hardest things I have ever done, and I am happy to say it is over. I wouldn't have taken on such a task, if I didn't think it would help the writers. From this group, we had myself, Abel and Janet talk. We also brought in the powerful Eloise Owens. She is amazing.
We also had the following people from this group there:
Sidney
Lee Ann
Tracy
JoAnn
Terri
Mary
Kimberly
Shirley (and two of her children) Micheal helped me hand out prizes.

We had 123 people there, and a lot of positive comments.

I love re meeting Sidney and her husband every time we meet. They are so happy.
Lee Ann is great, and we are going to have lunch soon and talk about publicity. Do you know she has nine books with us?
Tracy got a special welcome from the 120 + people there.
JoAnn was the person I saw the most in the audience, because she was always smiling at me. It was great, and I loved her post. (see below) I also want to give her a standing ovation for realizing how much it took to get this all together.
Terri, who was on the front row, like all good students are.
Mary and Kimberly were both great. I am glad I met them, if only for a minute though.

Two people I have to thank most of all, Tawna, my lovely wife, and Jennifer, Cedar Fort's receptionist. They both worked non stop the whole day.
Thanks to to the volunteers from work that came part of the day: Jessica, Jake, and Christy.
Thanks to all of the bloggers that helped me get the word out on this, and to all of you that came.

My daughter looks like

I think my daughter looks so much like the girl on the cover of the blog below, that I had to put the photo up here. Chelsea will graduate from high school next Friday.
The baby is my only granddaughter so far. She is my stepdaughter Tara's baby.

LDS Market vs national market

I read the blog below this one, and I think Christine is like most first time authors and think that because there are millions of members of the church, that her book will end up in most of them. The statistics for book sales may surprise you.
In the national market, the lifetime average sales for a book is 3300. This takes in to consideration the books that sell over a million copies. That is very surprising to a lot of people.
In the LDS market, the average book lifetime will sell 3100.
You have to remember, that lifetime means from the moment it comes out until the moment it is not longer printed. This could be 40 or 50 years.

Speaker Deen Kemsley

Last night, I had the great opportunity to hear Deen Kemsley speak. Deen is the author of Trust In The Lord
He spoke on how he spent three years writing the book. He also explained how he sold 1000 copies of the book to one man when it came out and how the man gave him back all of the books to give to leaders of Christian churches to give away. That is what I call Play It Forward.
If you want to get to know Christ better, you can purchase this national book, by clicking here.

All She Wanted For Mothers Day

My mom has always been a strong woman. She divorced my dad when I was one and worked two jobs and went to school so I would have a better life. She lost my stepfather in 2000 to cancer and soon after she was diagnosed with stage 3 colan cancer. The doctors told her she most likely wouldn't survive. She did, and is still with us. For the last five weeks she has been in a rehab center, trying like mad to get back home. Some days are better than others. Yesterday, I was able to get her out of the rehab center for 3 hours for Mothers Day.
The only thing she wanted to do is to come home so she could see her two poodles. So for three hours, she sat and played with her poodles. She let them drink out of her cup, she fed them, and they slept with her. When it was time to go back, she wanted to go eat. I told her we could go anywhere she wanted. She only wanted Wendy's and we got her Wendy's. When we got there, she told us to go through the drive up. I thought she wanted to go in, so I asked her why she wanted the drive up. She said Leslie, her roommate, wanted a Wendy's salad, so she needed to hurry back and because it was lunch time.
Just like my mom, she ALWAYS has put other people before her. Even when she doesn't know what day it is, or who people are some days, she still looks out for others. And I am blessed to have her as my mother, now and always.

6 7 8 Writers Conference!

6 7 8 Writers Conference!

There will be a writers conference on 6 7 8! (June 7, 2008)

Motivational speaker and author Eloise Owens will headline the writing conference. She is the author of Get Off The Beach and has spoken to close to a million people in her career. I saw her in 2006 at the Utah Press Convention, and when my boss said I could bring in anyone I wanted to, I thought of her first.

The day will go as follows:

10 a.m. till 10:15 a.m. Welcome by Doug Johnston, Publicist, Cedar Fort.

10:15–10:30 Jeffery Marsh, acquisitions editor for Cedar Fort and BYU professor, tells what he wants in manuscripts, book submissions, and so forth.

10:30 to 11:00 Abel Keogh, author of Room For Two, will teach each of you the importance of websites and blogs, even if you don’t have a book yet!

11:00 to 11:30 Janet Kay Jensen, author of Don’t You Marry The Mormon Boys, will teach on publicizing yourself and your books. Janet is very good at self-promotion and will teach each of you how to do the same.

11:30 to 12:15 Doug Johnston, Publicist and former newspaper owner, will show writers what they need to know about being an author from a Publicists point of view.

12:15 t0 1:00 p.m. Lunch

From 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eloise Owens will be the keynote speaker. Ms. Owens will make you think, make you better, and make you money writing. Like I said above, Ms. Owens is great. You will remember her for years to come and be a better author and self-promoter after listening to her.

During the conference, you can sit down with Jeffery Marsh. Bring him your manuscripts, book ideas, or questions. You will be allowed 15 minutes to talk with him about your ideas. Please call 801-489-4084 and tell the receptionist you want to be added for a time slot. There are a limited number of slots, so call today.

The cost for the conference is $25. You will receive Eloise Owen’s book Get Off The Beach and lunch.

The conference will be held at the Cedar Fort building
2373 W 700 S
Spingville, Utah 84663

To sign up, please do the following:
If paying by credit/debit card, call 801-489-4084 and tell them you are signing up for the 6 7 8 conference.

If you are paying by check, please make payment to
Cedar Fort
Attn 6 7 8
2373 W 700 S
Springville, Ut 84663

We are limited to 200 seats, so RSVP as soon as possible.
The conference will be held at the Cedar Fort building, located at 2373 W 700 S, Springville, UT 84663.

NOTE: After you sign up, you can make some money too. For every person that signs up and mentions they heard about it from you, you will get $5 back from us at the conference. They MUST mention you when they sign up for you to get the money.

If you have any questions, you can email me at djohnston@cedarfort.com or you can call me at 801-489-4084.

I look forward to this wonderful day full of learning! You can sign up here.

Best,

Doug Johnston

5000 Hits

Our blog started in Mach of this year, and today we hit our 5000th hit. We could not have done it without each of you.

When will we hit 10,000. I will send a book of any of our bloggers on this site to the person that guesses the closest to the day we will hit 10,000 hits. Just leave a remark to this note. You can only enter once, and you have to do so by May 15, 2008.

So get your calculators out, and guess. And, THANK YOU from each of us on this blog!

The Importance of Writing Down Things to Remember

My step father was in the military so we moved a lot. When I was almost ten we moved to a wonderful place called Zaragoza, Spain. I LOVED it. The base is no longer an American base, but I can tell you where everything on that base was. From the theater to the swimming pool, to the school. I remember everything about that base, but I can not tell you how to get to where we lived off base. I remember what the place looked like, but I can not tell you the address or where it is today.
Next we moved to Madrid Spain, to a military base called Torrejon. We lived about 20 miles off base in base housing, and if you took me there today, I could drive you to the house we lived in. But, here we go again, I can't remember anything about the base. I had a chat with my sister who is four years older than me and she can't remember much about it either. I can't tell you if our school was all in one, like in Zaragoza, or if they were split up by elementary, middle school and high schools. I can't remember the theater, the commissary, the base exchange or anything. I can't figure out why.
What I can figure out is that if I would have keep a journal, or taken good notes, I wouldn't be writing this right now. So, take some notes, and when you take photos, write on the back of them who they are, when you took them and where it was.

I Got Tagged!

Doug Johnston

Alison Palmer and Janet Jensen both tagged me and then someone had to tell me what that meant. I'm supposed to reveal seven facts about myself. So here are seven facts about me:
1. I have 5 children, one married (Two Days Ago) . I have 2 step-daughters and 4 step grandchildren.
2. I lived in Spain for four years, and Mississippi for two. I loved both of them. I would love to go back to both places sometime with my wife.
3. I have bowled 15 strikes in a row and didn’t get a 300. I had five strikes in game 2, followed by 10 strikes in game 3. That game ended with a 288. I worked at a three different bowling centers when I was younger also.
4. I coached high school soccer for two seasons.
5. I carried the Olympic torch.
6. I have eaten dinner with 3 Utah Governors, met personally with four U.S. congressmen, and two U.S. senators. (It helped that I ran a newspaper)
7. I played baseball for 15 years and only hit one home run. I was called out when I did so. I was 12. I lived in Spain and Mr. McGinnis was the umpire. He said I stepped out of the batters box when I hit the home run. I knew him well, and told him after the game, I would never forgive him. I HAVEN”T! I know, I should forgive everyone.

And now I am tagging:

Abel Keogh http://abelkeogh.com/
Terri Ferran http://terriferran.googlepages.com/
Tracy Winegar http://www.tracywinegar.com/
Lee Ann Setzer http://www.leeannsetzer.com/
Carlene Duda http://sneakpeakofcompletelybreakfast.blogspot.com/
Camille Funk http://www.camillefunk.com/
Sidne O'Reilly http://atonofauthorsandawannabe.blogspot.com/

And here's what they're supposed to do:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I Need You, Each of You!

I need each of your help. I have a problem and I started a blog that I will post at least 7 times a week about. I can not do it without your help, so please go to http://75poundsgone.blogspot.com/ and lend me your support. I can do this, but it will take friends, family and strangers to help me keep motivated.
Spread the word to your friends and family to help support me also.
Doug

Really Famous Person Leaves Me Wondering

I am a people watcher. I watch people everywhere I go. I always have. I was in IKEA this weekend, and I was checking out this older couple. They were probably in their 80's. Holding hands and walking the entire store. They were so happy. I watched young couples, store employees and everyone else. This brings me to the reason for this link.
A VERY famous person was there. I will not tell her name, because I don't want to embarrass her. I will tell you this much. She is very famous, mostly in Utah. If you held up her photo there would be 90 out of 100 Utahn's that would know her, and thousands of others around the world. She was walking with three other people. One woman, and two men. One of the men was most likely her husband and the other two were a couple also.
The problem, she was almost naked. There was less material on her top and her bottom than on a dish towel. I promise you that there are a lot of people that would wear more clothing at a beach than she was wearing.
She knew people were staring, and she was proud of it. I watched as people would look at her. Some women hit their husbands, some women shook their heads. I am sure most knew who she was. My wife pointed her out also.
Don't get me wrong, she is amazingly beautiful. BUT, here is the problem. I don't need to see her that way, and no one else does either. The things I know her for, and what and who she represents, would absolutely die if they knew she dressed like that, and I am sure she would lose a lot of people from ever buying a product she sells, sees a movie she is in, or listens to her on the radio, etc.
Like I said, I am not telling who she is, so the last sentence may not be one of the things she is famous for.
So, famous person at IKEA, show some respect for yourself, your husband, and the people you represent and put some clothes on.

I am Really Old Now!

Doug Johnston

I knew someday I would have to face this day. One of my children would be getting married. On Saturday, this will happen. He isn't my oldest child, and he is not the one that I thought would be the first one to tie the knot.
Nick, (I named him while shaving) Johnston. If you don't get that, think about it.
Nick has always been different, in a good sort of way.
I came home from the store when he was 12 and he showed me that he had pierced his ears. He was so proud. I was not. I made him take those ugly things out of his ears. He told me that when he turned 18 he would get them pierced again. He did. And he made them bigger and bigger. But choose my battles.
He spent Saturday remodeling his grandmas house. I invited all five of my children. He is the only one that either didn't ask what was in it for them, or made an excuse of why they couldn't be there. We had fun, and chatted, and bonded.
Even if he is making me old by getting married. And those earrings... I have learned to live with them, and he has learned to live with me as a father.
It is the circle of life.

Kerry Blair

Doug Johnston

Kerry Blair is one of the best people in the world, and I mean that. Kerry announced today that she is having cemo for cancer. She is an amazing author and her newest book is one of the best books I have ever read. Plus she is a great friend to me and everyone that meets her.
Please goto www.sixldswriters.blogspot.com and comment on her newest post and give her some support.

I Will Get In Trouble For This One

Doug Johnston

Something is bugging me. I take that back, a lot of things are bugging me. How many time have you or someone you know say, Thank you for the church. Or how about this one, the church is true.
I can't go a week without someone saying this. Two missionaries stopped me in front of my house the other day and said, "Are you a member of the church" I looked at them, knowing they didn't mean anything by it, and that everyone says it, and I said yes, talked to them for a minute and walked in the house.
There are over 4300 religions in the world. Are we the only one that say, THE CHURCH. Why don't we think o the 4299 other dominations out there, and say are you a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or the Catholic church, or the Lutheran church etc.

Deen Kemsley To Speak

Author Deen Kemsley will speak on Thursday, May 15, 2008 at Cedar Fort from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Deen will discuss his new national book, Trust In The Lord. He will also discuss how he sold 1000 copies before the book was released.
If you are interested in attending please call Cedar Fort at 801 489-4084 and RSVP. There is no charge. Seating is limited to 200.

Authors Dinner

Doug Johnston

I really like authors. I got some heat for saying they were strange in this blog, on a previous post or two. I will take it back. Not ALL authors are weird. Only MOST of them.
Last night was our Author Dinner, and I totally enjoyed it. I met more authors last night than I thought possible.
Sidne and her husband were the cutest couple of the night in my opinion. My wife, Tawna, said that Tracy Winegar and her husband was the cutest married couple and Jesicca, one of our EDITORS and her date were the cutest couple. I told Tawna they were not married, and she told me to tell Jesicca that she should be married to him. Read this Jessica.
I just want to let all of the authors know, that yes, I know who Mahonri Moriancumer is, even if I can't say it.

Who?

Doug Johnston

Most people that read this blog are writers or authors. At least one wannabe is a writer, and not an author.
I wrote a weekly column for 289 weeks in a row. Never missed one. That ended in November when the newspaper was sold.
I have won a lot of awards for that column and I REALLY miss writing that column. Not because of the awards, but because I thought I could help people think.
I had a saying about my column that went like this: I make some people laugh, some cry, but all of them think.
I think as writers, authors and just people in this tangled mixed up world, that we need to ask ourselves one thing? Who are we and who is it that we are trying to reach with our writings?
If you can answer that one, and work at it everyday, you will be successful, both as a writer, author, parent, or friend.

LDStorymakers Sightings!

Doug Johnston

When you get a lot of authors together it is hard to remember all of them that you met, but I am going to mention some of them and why they are so memorable to me.

Of our bloggers, there were 8 bloggers there. Janet Jensen, myself, Lee Ann Setzer, Shirley Bahlmann, Christine Thackeray, Rebecca Talley, Marcia Mickelson, and Terri Ferran. Not bad for one blogging group.

Other authors that I saw that I will mention are Jewell Adams, Kerry Blair, Laralee Evans, James Dashner, Crystal Liechty, Tamra Norton, Rachel Ann Nunes, Alison Palmer, Tristi Pinkston, Candise Salima, Jeff Savage, Deborah Talmage, Jame Theler, Marsha Ward, Robison Wells and Julie Wright.

The blogger that looks most like her photo. Marcia Mickelson. The blogger that looks least like her photo, Alison Palmer. She was one of the nicest and hardest working people at the conference. Janet Jensen and I got the most work done together of any author. She is one hard working author.

Most likely to be a radio host if his writing career ends, Robison Wells. This guy has an amazing radio voice, and did an amazing job this weekend.

My favorite person that I would like to sit down and have lunch with and talk about writings goes to MARSHA WARD... I really loved talking with her a few times!

And for Kerry Blair. She has a great book out, and knows EVERYONE. I had been promising to tell her the story of all stories and we didn't have time. See her blog if you really want to know what I look like...

It was amazing, the conference that is, not my photo.