There’s no better way to enhance your writing career than with the help of a friend! Over the years, I’ve taught at many writer’s conferences around the nation—now, you can get many favorites by digital download! That means there’s no shipping charge—and you can download the teachings instantly in MP3 format to play on your PC, iPod, Zune, or even burn to a CD.

Here’s what’s available:

Proposals with Pizzazz—This is my most requested teaching. If you’ve got a great book idea, don’t let it die in a publisher’s or agent’s slush pile! Instead, get your book noticed by adding a bit of pizzazz to your proposal. Big house editors have touted this award-winning format as their favorite proposal ever.

For years, I’ve sold this in printed book format; it frequently sells out at conferences. Now you can instantly get the ebook to view on your PC in PDF format or print on your printer. And as a bonus, I’m also including a complete audio teaching with it—where I lead you through the proposal page-by-page.

Common Children’s Book Blunders—After reading more than 3000 children’s manuscripts and interviewing editors and many successful children’s writers, I’ve compiled the most common mistakes found in children’s books. Many will surprise you!

This audio workshop covers blunders in both picture books and in novels–from act one to act two and act three.

Avoid these mistakes and get ahead of 99% of the competition.

Secrets, Truths and Myths of the Writing Industry—In this session, I share many of the trade secrets I discovered after more than 10 years of freelance writing, working with editors, attending conferences and more.

We look at tips for the creative process of writing, the business side of publishing and everything in between.

A great compilation of tips that you’ll enjoy listening to time and again!

The Tween Adventure—Writing for middle-graders is rewarding! Discover what this group is interested in, how to reach them and how to stay up-to-date on this powerful, ever-changing demographic.

How to Write Comics and Graphic Novels is very informative if you’ve got a great comic or graphic novel idea, but aren’t sure how to get it on paper in such a way that shares your vision for each and every frame.

This workshop is more about format and technique than story. In it, you’ll learn from my 15+ years of writing comics. I’ve written science fiction adventures, spoof comedies, mysteries and even Westerns. And I’m not an illustrator!

While writing these, I’ve studied many of the popular format techniques which I share in this system. I’ve also come up with my own technique, capitalizing on the industry standards. This technique–also in this workshop–is preferred by almost all my editors and their illustrators.

This audio workshop also includes actual examples of several techniques in PDF format.

Finally, one of the most grueling parts of writing for many of us is not finishing our manuscript, but having to pitch it to an editor or agent! In The Perfect Pitch, I share how to create query letters that follow industry standards and get noticed. Next I cover how to follow-up with a great cover letter.

For those of you who regularly attend writer’s conferences (which I highly recommend), you’ll be pleased to know I also cover how to create an effective and concise one-sheet–as well as how to approach an editor or agent. We’ll talk about what to say, what not to say and what to leave with them.

Of course, if you want my most detailed set of teachings, check out my Children’s Writing Super System!

I’m as giddy as can be.

A few days ago I received an email from American Airlines, notifying me that my AAdvantage miles were about to expire. I shrugged. I haven’t flown American for years (read: I just had three kids in a row). Plus, I had tried cashing out my airline miles before for a free ticket, seat upgrade, hotel discount, etc, but found it VERY frustrating. It seemed every option had so many strings attached that it was never worth it.

Nonetheless, I went to their site to see if there was anything I could do. They suggested I pay them $69 to add 1000 miles to my account and extend the expiration date by a year. Uh-huh. But then I saw a banner ad about Points.com. It teased about being able to cash in your AAdvantage miles for other items, so I checked it out.

To my surprise, my AAdvantage miles could be cashed in for an Amazon.com Gift Certificate. I was thrilled. My wife will testify to the fact that I’ve bought into the Amazon Kindle hype and have wanted to have one ever since the latest generation was released. But at $189 shipped, it was out of our monthly budget…which is why this was a blessing—as an unexpected gift certificate would bring the price down.

So I cashed in my miles and told them I wanted the maximum Amazon.com Gift Certificate I could get.

They sent me $189. Exactly.

My new Amazon Kindle 3G ereader just arrived, thank you American Airlines.

Do you have a Kindle? What’s your favorite thing about it?