*THIS FUNDRAISER HAS ENDED BUT MANY OF THE AUTHORS ARE STILL MAKING DONATIONS PLUS WE WOULD LOVE FOR YOU TO SUPPOT THESE AUTHORS*

The affiliate marketing industry is known for its fundraising efforts on behalf of the Avon Walk for the Cure, which benefits breast cancer research and support. What better time of year than Valentine’s Day to show your love? This week affiliate marketers are using their book revenue to help raise money for Affiliate Marketers Give Back. Purchase any of the books listed below between February 12 and 18 and the authors will donate their profits to AMGB. Although many of the books focus on business, affiliate marketing, and blogging, you will also find children’s books, photography books, and more.

Join us in helping spread the word about Affiliate Marketers Give Back and this Book Hop for the Boobies. Support us by buying just one book. Don’t have a Kindle? You can still purchase Kindle books and read them on your PC, MAC, iPad, Android Tablets or other devices with free apps from Amazon. The link is on every Kindle book page.

Books About Business:

Internet Marketing From the Real Experts (Shawn Collins, Missy Ward, and The Gang of 88) Collection of affiliate, email, blogging, podcasting, video, search engine, and social network rock stars that break down the how and why of Internet marketing in a clear, easy to understand way.

The only print book in this book fundraiser is: It’s All About the Cookies (Mary Poiley, Missy Ward, and Jen Goode) A mouth-watering collection of recipes and thought-provoking insights affiliate marketers learned on their road to success – an interesting read and a wonderful addition to your own kitchen. There is also an ebook edition here.

Internet Marketing for Business Answers (Jim Kukral) The absolute best way to learn how to grow a successful business is to pay attention to how the experts have done it before you. Internet Marketing for Business Answers, the Small Business Expert Interviews edition puts you into a private one-on-one session with over 16 of the most successful business owners and entrepreneurs on the Web.

No Publisher Needed – Crowdfunding Your Book – How I Raised Over $30k in 30-Days To Pre-Fund My New Book (Jim Kukral) You don’t need an agent or a publisher to make your new book a success. You can use the power of the crowd to pre-fund your book and create your own virtual signing bonus. That’s what I did. I raised over $30k in 30-days for my new book series. Want to know how to do it? That’s what this book is all about.

The Basics of Affiliate Success: Running a Business (Top Secrets of Successful Affiliate Marketing) (Billy Kay) Affiliates always joke that they make money in their bathrobes, and that affiliate marketing is “easy money”! But in reality, it IS… a business. If run it like a business, it can succeed. Billy offers these business tricks and tips to help establish, grow and sustain your affiliate marketing career.

Follow Me: Making Money with Blogging, Facebook Marketing & Twitter for Business (Dave Cupples) Former NSW Young Entrepreneur of the Year, SMX Idol Winner and International Speaker Dave Cupples shares leading Social Media case studies from around the world and the most effective tools and actionable cutting edge tips for businesses to skyrocket new leads and supercharge revenue using Facebook, Twitter and Blogging. Includes Tips & Tools to incentivize Facebook Likes, Twitter Followers & Blog Subscribers, How to spy on competitors and copy their most effective tactics, Tips & Tools to get your content shared by influencers and much more!

Affiliate Marketing: The Complete Guide for Beginners (Affiliate Marketing – Mastering Internet Marketing) (Todd Farmer) This guide is designed to teach you the basics of Affiliate Marketing. I want you to understand how it works, who the players are, and how you fit in.

MyContentPro’s Cheap-Ass Guide to Online Content (Online Content for Marketers) (Todd Farmer) Content for your website or online marketing project is a critical component for success. The goal of this eBook is to help you get the content you need, at the lowest price. Many of the sources and strategies uncovered in this eBook provide content for your websites, 100% Free.

Best Practices for Coupon Sites (Deborah Carney, Vinny O’Hare, Kim Salvino, Amy Ely, and Jeannine Crooks) Do you have a coupon site? Are you getting turned down or your commissions lowered by merchants? Read about how you can improve your site and talk to your affiliate managers more effectively.

Best Practices for Creating Your Affiliate Agreement (Deborah Carney, Vinny O’Hare, Eric Nagel) If you are starting an affiliate program, or running one without an affiliate agreement in addition to the network you may be on’s terms, this is a book for you. Giving merchants a look at the affiliate terms and conditions from all sides, merchant, affiliate manager and affiliate.

Choosing the Scope and Structure of Your Blog (Deborah Carney, Tricia Meyer, Liz Fogg) Take the advice of our expert bloggers on how your blog should be built and whether you should be a general blog or focus on a niche. Find out who owns your content if you are blogging on popular free blog services, and why you can be hurting your SEO as well.

Facebook + Email = Success (Deborah Carney, Vinny O’Hare, Dave Cupples and David Iwanow) This book is a guide on how to make money on Facebook by combining fan pages with email marketing. *This is a transcript of a roundtable discussion between affiliate marketing experts and facebook experts* Three of the four have spoken at the largest conference focused on affiliate marketing in the US, Affiliate Summit. Dave Cupples traveled from Australia to New York City to speak, and has now spoken around the world.

SEO for Blogs (Deborah Carney, Vinny O’Hare, Eric Nagel, Tricia Meyer) This is a transcript of a podcast, we know a lot of people prefer to read and not necessarily listen. Included are 17 pages of SEO basics that even some experienced webmasters may have forgotten. At the end of the book is a resources page with lots of great references for you to implement the tips with.

Children’s & Young Adult Books

W is for Woofer (Leslie Nazarian, Sharon Nazarian) A rhyming picture book with words that all begin with the letter W.

Woofer Works Out (Leslie Nazarian, Sharon Nazarian) Get kids excited to move and exercise with this illustrated rhyming book that showcases activities and sports for every season.

Winnie McGoo’s Museum Adventure (Leslie Nazarian, Sharon Nazarian) A museum can be an exciting place. Just ask Winnie McGoo. Whose adventure in a museum one night isn’t something many people do. From eating pizza with Mona Lisa to swimming on the Isle of Grande Jatte, Winnie’s museum adventure creates an interesting plot.

Block Boy (Alec Ababon) Short story about a boy that is different from the others and is bullied in school.

Animal Kingdom: Jaguar is Reborn (Eric Carney, Deborah Carney) Workaholic Jason Peters is an average sales rep with a suburban house and wife, Jennifer. One day Jason spills coffee in his car and finds a gold coin that changes their lives forever.

Inspirational and Photographs:

Blue Honeycreepers (Deborah Carney, Vinny O’Hare) Photo essay of cute little birds with attitude. Full of facts about this birds as well.

Flowers With Wings (Deborah Carney, Vinny O’Hare) Butterflies identified and combined with inspirational quotes.

Inspirational Quotes for Writers – Coffee Table Book (Deborah Carney) Photographs paired with quotes to inspire writers (and others) to do what you do best.

Poetry and Peonies: Japanese Tree Peonies (Deborah Carney) Tree Peonies photographs illustrate this book of inspirational quotes.

Buddha Beach: Sedona, Arizona (The Southwest Gallery Series) (Deborah Carney, Liz Fogg, Alec Ababon) As I (Deborah Carney) was photographing the tiny (and not so tiny) rock structures I knew they had to be paired with quotes and sayings from Buddha. I hope you will enjoy this journey through Buddha Beach paired with some insightful quotations.

What is Inspiration? (Thoughts on Life) (Alan Loren) – a mini-anthology of poetry drawn from the pages of a writer’s workshop called MWW (My Word Wizard).

Valentine Quotes and Love Poems (Elise Beckett) Valentine’s Day Love quotes and sayings combined with images of romance, sweets and flowers for your sweetheart on valentine’s day. This book of love quotes and poems from Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Shakespeare and others is like whispering sweet nothings into your lovers ear.

Of Roses and Love (Floral Beauty) (Shawn Ingram) Roses are one of the greatest of the floral creations. They are timeless in beauty and forever tied to romance. Of Roses and Love has been created in the format of the old print coffee table photo books combining photographs of roses with quotes and verses related to love.

Lilacs A to E (Lilacs A – Z Series) (Deborah Carney) A series of books that identify full color images of Lilacs. All images are correctly identified from tags that were attached to the bushes at the time they were photographed. Due to the size of the completed books, we have broken Lilacs A to Z into four books, varieties that start with A through E, F through L, M through Q, and R through Z.

An assortment of other books:

Sweet Indulgences (Heather Romiti) Sweet Indulgences offers Classic Dessert and Girl Scout Cookie flavored Smoothies, along with Holiday Favorites. These smoothies are especially helpful if you still want to enjoy your favorite desserts but are trying to cut back on fat and carbohydrates.

Bike – A Short Story (Eric Carney) A powerful story about a fateful night.

Lamps – A Short Story about mothers and daughters(Marie Moorman)

Slay the Demons (Daniel Fogg, Deborah Carney) When a random act of violence forces him to hide a corpse, Brent Fischer finds himself confronted with horrors long forgotten and horrors he longs to forget. In the end he must either face down his demons once and for all or let them chase him off a cliff. Sex, Drugs & Murder

Weirder Than Marshmallows (Daniel Fogg, Deborah Carney) Book of essays to challenge your common sense.

To donate directly to the Missy Ward Avon Walk Team, click on this link and donate to your favorite walker or to the team in general. Thank you in advance for your support!

I can hear you already “I don’t have a Kindle” – well that shouldn’t stop you, Kindle has reading apps for all computers and devices. Click on any Kindle page and there will be a button to download a free kindle app to your computer. All of the Kindle books on my Deborah Carney Author’s page will be free for you to download Christmas day and the day after, except Poetry and Peonies, I had that free already so it only has one day left. (print books not included)

As part of being on Amazon exclusively for 90 days, I get to offer my Kindle books for free to Amazon Prime members for a total of 5 days. I figure a lot of folks will be looking for Kindle content when they open their Kindles that they get as gifts.

There are photo books as well as business books available.

Enjoy, be inspired, let me know how you like them!

Also: Kudos to Leslie Nazarian for designing the book covers!

Our Handmade Gifts wants to give back to the community, and will be doing so with our Support a Cause section. Our first section focuses on Breast Cancer Awareness, and purchases made in this category will have a portion of the selling price donated to various breast cancer organizations.

A group of jewelry designers got together and decided to build a better website, that showcases handmade and custom jewelry that isn’t run of the mill. Our Handmade Gifts is a site where you can find beautiful beaded jewelry, gemstones turned into earrings and necklaces, chainmail (also known as chainmaille) and custom polymer clay combined with canvas and fabric creations. While the site is focused mainly on jewelry at the moment, you will also find things like cell phone charms and wine glass charms, which site creator Deborah Carney didn’t even know existed a year ago.

Our Handmade Gifts includes jewelry created by artisans Deborah Carney, Liz Ababon, Leah Helmrich, Ralph Helmrich and Vinny O’Hare. Formerly involved with Print on Demand companies to sell her photography and art, Carney found the handmade community sites to be too corporate focused and not personalized enough. Investigating some art links posted by other artists on Twitter, Carney discovered that there is a market for “mini prints” or art on pendants. While most artists work with polymer clay and transfers, Carney perfected a technique to print her art and photography on canvas and fuse it to the clay, and create art you can wear.

Father and Daughter team Leah and Ralph Helmrich work with intricate wire and create jewelry using a technique called “chainmail” which is creating chains, earrings, necklaces and bracelets using small wire rings and weaving them to create their pieces. Leah also creates “steampunk” and enjoys working with wire to create other designs that appeal to the younger crowd. Ralph actually creates not only the jewelry pieces, but the components their jewelry is made of. Handmade in the USA with wire and jumprings made in the USA also.

Liz Ababon loves working with wire and beads and all sorts of components to make her jewelry and gift items that appeal to a wide range of people. Vinny O’Hare focuses on earrings created out of the wire jumprings that Ralph makes.

Making scented candles is much easier than you think, and it is an especially wonderful hobby when you can create a scented candle using delicious coffee aromas! This is going to give you the wonderful smells of a rich cup of Joe wafting through your house all day long.

To begin, here are the ingredients that you will need:

* Coffee scented candle oil
* 1 pound candle wax
* A candle wick
* A used and clean milk carton (for the candle mold)
* Candle mold release spray
* A skewer or chopstick
* A cookie sheet
* Aluminum foil
* Two pans to be used as a double boiler

This process is much easier than you think! The first thing that you need to do is trim your milk carton to the desired size you would like your candle to be. Spray the inside of the milk carton with the candle mold release spray. Be sure to do this in a well ventilated area!

Next, poke a hole through the bottom of the milk carton, and then thread the wick through so that it protrudes a half of an inch. Tape down the excess wick that is poking out of the bottom of the milk carton to hold it in place and seal the hole so that there is no dripping. Tie the top of the wick to your skewer or chopstick, and then set the skewer long-ways across the top of the candle mold so that the wick is kept upright and in place.

Use your larger pan to bring water to a boil, and place the smaller pan on top to work as a double boiler. Reduce the heat to medium, and then melt your candle wax in the top pan until it runs clear. From that point, add the coffee scented candle oil until the color of the wax is medium brown.
Finish by covering your cookie sheet with the aluminum foil, and then put the empty candle mold on top of it. Slowly pour the melted wax into the candle mold, and allow that to cool for 10 hours.

When your candle is ready, all you have to do is rip off the old milk carton and throw it away. Trim down your wick to a centimeter, and light up your wonderful creation for delicious Java aromas from your homemade scented candle!

Chuggin McCoffee is a coffee fanatic that has spent the entirety of his career cultivating and studying all of the best uses and brewing styles for optimal coffee and espresso flavor. His specialty site for all coffee needs, supplies, and Commercial Coffee Makers can be found at www.thecoffeebump.com.

From CoolButterflies.com

A video tutorial about how to make butterflies out of decorative paper so you can have your own butterfly art creations. Enjoy!

Video from Paperstudio.com

Famous author and humorist was also an inventor

Samuel L. Clemens, born in Florida, Mo., received patent #121,992 on December 19, 1871 for an Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments.

Clemens, better known as Mark Twain and famous for stories such as Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, also was an inventor and received a total of three patents. While living in Hartford, Conn., Twain, received his first patent for an adjustable strap that could be used to tighten shirts at the waist. This strap attached to the back of a shirt and fastened with buttons to keep it in place and was easy to remove. Twain’s invention was not only used for shirts, but for underpants and women’s corsets as well. His purpose was to do away with suspenders, which he considered uncomfortable. Twain also received patents for a self-pasting scrapbook in 1873, that was very popular and sold over 25,000 copies, and in 1885 for a history trivia game.

Twain also believed strongly in the value of the patent system. In his book, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Hank Morgan, the Connecticut Yankee, said “…the very first official thing I did in my administration-and it was on the very first day of it too-was to start a patent office; for I knew that a country without a patent office and good patent laws was just a crab and couldn’t travel anyway but sideways and backwards.”

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