Activities, State Parks

CSPF Park Champion volunteer day at Mt. San Jacinto – FREE TRAM & CAMPING!

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

The California State Parks Foundation is hosting a Park Champion event this August at the top of Mount San Jacinto.

If you’ve got the time, volunteer to help clear the hiking trails of debris left by the recent rainstorms so we can make the the trails more accessible to all!

The event takes place Saturday, August 3, 8:30am to 1:30pm

FREE TRAMWAY TICKETS AND BACKPACK CAMPING on Fri & Sat.

Kids over 10 welcome with a legal guardian.

The California State Parks Foundation’s Park Champions Program hosts volunteer days in state parks throughout California to help make a difference in how our parks are maintained.  From the website:

CSPF’s Park Champions Program holds volunteer work days in state parks across California. This program was created in response to the unprecedented budget cuts and closures that California State Parks face right now. In partnership with California State Parks, Park Champions provide consistent, sustainable volunteer support in the areas of park maintenance and beautification.

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Warbirds

Disney “Planes” lands at Planes of Fame Air Museum

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

Short Notice!

During the The Planes of Fame Air Museum’s August living history event featuring the Vought F4U Corsair Disney will be in attendance and will hold drawings hourly for VIP family tickets to see the Disney movie “Planes” movie at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood from 9 am to 1 pm.

You’ll also be able to purchase your movie tickets during the event!

Bring the family and check out the airplane that inspired “Skipper” from Planes, and make sure to see Planes when it flies into theaters August 9th!

You can read more about the upcoming event HERE.

You can find out more about this event at the Planes of Fame website HERE.

You can visit Disney’s Planes movie website HERE.

 

Dead Tree Books, eBook, Self Publishing, Writing

So you want to get your book reviewed – Part 1: Amazon’s Top Customer Reviewers

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

Amazon is a pioneer in the customer review arena.  Practically since the beginning, the site has had customers who purchased products and reviewed them.  Over the years, they’ve cultivated their reviewers and refined a continually maintained list of “Top Customer Reviewers.”  The list of top reviewers is updated once a day, and – according to Amazon – “showcase our best contributors at the moment.”

This is a good place to look for reviewers who have a proven track record, and presents you with a one-stop-shop to look at how (and what!) the reviewer reviews, and where their interest lays.

From Amazon:

  • Review helpfulness plays an important part in determining rank. Writing thousands of reviews that customers don’t find helpful won’t move a reviewer up in the standings.
  • The more recently a review is written, the greater its impact on rank. This way, as new customers share their experiences with Amazon’s ever-widening selection of products, they’ll have a chance to be recognized as top reviewers.
  • We ensure that every customer’s vote counts. Stuffing the ballot box won’t affect rank. In fact, such votes won’t even be counted.

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National Parks

The Cathedral Range: Project Yosemite’s Favorite Spots

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

Yosemite Park has put up a new blog post about the Cathedral Range, which is one of Project Yosemite’s favorite spots.

The Cathedral Range is an offshoot of the Sierra Nevada mountain range just south of Tuolumne Meadows inside Yosemite National Park. The granite foundations of the range were sculpted during the Pleistocene by glaciation, while the peaks – which were above the highest glaciation – remained untouched.  The lack of glaciation gives the peaks a “spire-like” appearance.  The range is named after Cathedral Peak, which rises 10,916 feet above sea level.

Project Yosemite is a collaboration by Sheldon Neill and Colin Delehanty, who have “teamed up to film Yosemite National Park like never before.”  Their most EXCELLENT first film “Yosemite HD” is a must see.  Links below.

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Dead Tree Books, eBook, Self Publishing, Writing

Three Top Strategies to Guarantee Book Sales

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

The Savvy Book Marketer has put up a blog post by Kathleen Gage about book promotion strategies.  This is an area where many writers fail, as … well, they’re writers, not marketers.

I’ve heard writers refer to the excellent promotion tools provided by Amazon – like the Select program that allows authors to give their books away for up to 5 days over a 90 day period where the book is exclusively offered by Amazon – as a “gimmick.” These same authors claim that they gave away “hundreds” of books to people and because of that they lost “hundreds” of sales.

These writers don’t know the first thing about marketing, and they need to learn it – and fast.

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