Holiday Book Basket

December 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Don’t let this opportunity pass you by!!!
Forget about Food Baskets, Treat Baskets, or even Wine Baskets. This Holiday Season give the gift that will last a lifetime.

Portuguese Heritage Publications of California, PHPC is launching its Holiday Book Basket. A one time special offer good through December 31, 2011, consisting of the following books and CD:

2  Portuguese Shore Whalers of California, wonderfully documented and illustrated stories, of the Portuguese in the whaling industry.
1  Holy Ghost Festas, a CD of all 508 pages of the out of print book for family members to treasure.
1  Capelinhos: A Volcano of Synergies – Azorean Immigration to America, includes the touching stories of friends and neighbors who experienced a dramatic change of life, whether they stayed or immigrated.
1  IV International Conference on the Holy Spirit Festas, beautifully color ilustrated account of the conference which took place last year, for the first time in San Jose, California.

Four hard cover, full color, DeLuxe edition books and one CD, a $150.00 value, now for only $87.00 plus tax. This special offer applies only to orders to be shipped within the continental USA.  For more information on the content of each book and instructions on how to order, please visit: www.PortugueseBooks.Org

If you are paying online with PayPal or your credit card, you can add this special item to your cart with the button below. If you are submitting our online order form to arrange payment by check or money order, there is a field you can use to add this item.

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New York Boy’s Message in a Bottle Reaches Azores

December 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment
An 11-year-old US boy was stunned to get a reply to his message in a bottle from Portugal’s Azores Islands – via the more surefire medium of email.
Curtis Kipple wrote a letter about himself and his hometown in New York state, and put it in a bottle which was dropped into the Atlantic in March. The message was found last week by Ana Ponte, 25, from a fishing village in the island of Terceira, on the Azores archipelago.Message in a bottle
The fifth-grader’s bottle had travelled 2,600 miles (4,190km). “My brother and my father wake up earlier today and went to sea to catch a seafood very common here, and found a bottle with a message from a boy Curtis Kipple,” said Ms Ponte’s email -written in both English and Portuguese – to Curtis’s school.
The bottle was set adrift 10 months ago by a fisherman off North Carolina’s
Outer Banks. Chris Albrecht – Curtis’s teacher at Fred W Hill School in Brockport, New
York state – said the project had really caught the children’s imagination.”Curtis had tears in his eyes when I told him the news,” said Mr Albrecht.
The boy’s bottled message was not the first to be found – another was discovered in Nova Scotia in June – but Curtis’s has travelled the farthest.
Map
Mr Albrecht, who teaches language, arts and science, said it was a useful
exercise for teaching children about geography and how to write formal
letters.
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President Lincoln Seamstress from Madeira?

December 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

We definitely need your help on this one!

It has come to our attention that President Lincoln’s seamstress was an immigrant from the Portuguese island of Madeira. We are engaged in the process of researching whether this  is accurate information or hear say. We could certainly use your help if you possess solid evidence that will confirm such assertion, or know someone who might.File:Porto Santo - vista geral.JPG

If you are able to provide such evidence, PHPC will be pleased to award you a free copy of our popular “Portuguese Shore Whalers of California” publication, in recognition of your effort.

Thank you!

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J. A. Freitas Library – A Precious Nugget of Portuguese History

October 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Are you looking for information on your Portuguese family ancestors who have immigrated to California? Are you interested in researching the history of Portuguese throughout the world? If so, this blog is for you!

Often PHPC website visitors researching family ancestry, or simply curious about the history of the Portuguese in California, will inquire as to where they may be able to find resources to help in their research.

Today we are bringing to you an extremely valuable and helpful resource to those research jocks interested in Portuguese history in general and Portuguese immigration to California in particular.

We are talking about a precious nugget in the vastness of California’s libraries. The J. A Freitas Library was founded in 1964 and it is privately owned by the Supreme Council of the Portuguese Fraternal Society of America (PFSA). The library is located on 1120-24 East 14th. Street, San Leandro, CA 94577 and it is open to the public Monday through Friday 9 AM – 4:30 PM

Today the J.A Freitas Library is home to a book collection consisting of 11,914 works dealing with the Portuguese throughout the world, including many titles documenting the Azorean immigration to California. Library visitors will also find an extremely valuable, and fairly complete, sample of periodicals published by the Portuguese in California, some dating back to the 1800′s.

We hope that you find this information useful in your research efforts.

 

 

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Publishing your Master or PhD Thesis

September 30, 2011 By 2 Comments

The presence of the Portuguese in California, beginning in the mid 1800′s is an integral part of the state’s history.

Portuguese Heritage Publications of California’s primary objective is to capture and document this rich history for future generations.

If you are planning to start, are currently working on, or have already completed your Master’s or PhD thesis project, PHPC may be interested in helping you publish it.

If the subject of your project relates directly or indirectly, to PHPC’s primary objective, as mentioned above, and you need support in publishing your work, our Book Review Committee is interested in talking with you.

For more details, please contact us at: info@portuguesebooks.org

Thank you!

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Portuguese Methodist Church of Oakland

September 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Dear friends,

As you may already know, our team is working hard on our new project “Power of the Spirit,” scheduled to be published early next year .

We are struggling to find information about the Portuguese Methodist Church in Oakland which was under the leadership of Rev. João Vieira, circa 1950-1970.

We would like to include some of the Church’s history in “Power of the Spirit” but have been unable to find someone who has firsthand knowledge of João Vieira’s congregation and its history.

Should you have pertinent information on this subject, or know of someone who does, please let as know as soon as possible at info@portuguesebooks.org

Thank you!

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We’re offering free books for the holiday season!

September 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Give the gift of knowledge!

From October 1 - December 31, all orders over $25.00 will be eligible for a complimentary copy of “The Portuguese Shore Whalers of California.” This is a $35.00 value, for just the $5.00 additional shipping cost!

Get the promotion details

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Free Book: Preparation for American Citizenship

August 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

PAmericaortuguese Heritage Publications of California will make available, free of charge, the book “America” to any organization or individual preparing Portuguese speaking immigrants for their citizenship test.

This hard cover book, in the Portuguese language, not only contains the history of the United States but also a complete translation of many of its most important documents. In addition, it includes a sample of the citizenship test.

“America” is a valuable tool for anyone wishing to acquire her/his American citizenship. PHPC is happy to make the book available to organizations or individuals preparing others for citizenship. To request a book for your organization, please leave a comment on this blog with the organization’s name and shipping address.

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100 Extraordinary Stories of 100 Ordinary People

August 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Still in its embryonic stage, our project planners are exploring the possibility of publishing a book about “100 Extraordinary Stories of 100 Ordinary People” (interim project title).

During this exploratory phase of the project, we are asking the community to share with us life stories they know of Portuguese-Californians who made a difference in people’s lives by their contributions to the community or the exemplary life values by which they lived.

If you would like to help Portuguese Heritage Publications of California to document for posterity such stories, please leave a comment on this blog about your desire to do so, or forward a brief synopsis of the story for review.

Thank you in advance.

PHPC Project Planning Committee

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Self Publishing Made Easy, but Not a Panacea

August 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Today’s blog is about self publishing, it contains excerpts from an article on NY Times, July 29, by Alina Tugend. We hope that potential authors will find it compelling and enlightening.
One of the first things I learned about the self-publishing business was that there was a reason the subject of many self-published books was — yes — how to self-publish, because it’s not easy to understand all the ins and outs.
“As with many things in life, there are often hidden fees,” said Lorraine Shanley, president of Market Partners International, a publishing consulting firm.
And many options. First, you can choose to publish your book as a print edition, e-book or both. With print editions, the most common system now is called “print on demand.” That means you don’t actually have the book printed until someone buys it.
That’s unlike the old days, say 15 years ago, when if you published your own book, you had to commit to buying hundreds or thousands of copies.
The advent of digital printing means it makes economic sense to print one copy at a time, said Kevin Weiss, president and chief executive of Author Solutions, which owns numerous self-publishing companies, including iUniverse, AuthorHouse and Xlibris.
“Before, you had to fill your garage with books and pass them on to all your best friends,” Mr. Weiss said.
There are many reasons potential authors want to publish their own books, Mr. Weiss said. They have an idea or manuscript they have passed around to various agents and publishers with no luck; they may just want to print a few copies of, say, a memoir for family members; they want to use it in their business as a type of calling card; or they actually want to sell a lot of books and make their living as writers.
“You have to know what services you’re buying, who retains the rights, and realize that getting a book published is not the same as getting it marketed,” Ms. Shanley said. “One size doesn’t fit all.”
Then there’s choosing the right company. If you’re technologically comfortable, Lulu.com or CreateSpace may be good options. CreateSpace, for example, doesn’t charge upfront fees, but you’ll pay if you want additional services like copy editing and design layout. And it costs $5 to $10 for the printed proof.
On the other hand, iUniverse and AuthorHouse offer what Mr. Weiss called “assisted self-publishing.” But the price of that assistance can range widely, starting as low as $400 and going as high as $15,000.
For the lower end, you get help in creating a cover and getting a copyright and ISBN number (the numeric book identifier). You’ll also get one paperback copy of your finished book, as well as an e-book distributed on all platforms, including the Kindle and the Nook. The book will also be sold through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
For $15,000, you get content editing and copy editing, indexing, citations and footnoting, and promotions like book trailers, placement in Google searches and other goodies. And you receive 150 paperback and 50 hardback copies of your book.
Like many authors, Susan G. Bell, had mixed experiences publishing her own book. A few years ago, after hearing that a friend had self-published a memoir, sh decided to check out that route.
Following her friends lead, she chose AuthorHouse and bought one of the lower-cost packages. It took about a year from the decision to self-publish to the day she held a copy of the book in her hand.
She spent some time learning the ropes: setting up a Web site, figuring out social media, getting blurbs for the book, arranging for an author photo and finding someone to design the cover.
For the cover design, she chose several she liked from novels she had read and contacted the designer of one of them through the designer’s Web site. To her surprise, she was able to commission one for $2,000.
Ms. Bell is not sorry she went the self-publishing route, but like so many authors (and yes, even those who are traditionally published) she found book promotion much tougher than she thought it would be.
“What I didn’t realize was how difficult it would be to get a review for a self-published book,” she said. “And it’s hard to sell books without reviews.”
Nonetheless, Ms. Bell has sold about 700 books through the first quarter of this year, and that is better than most: industry experts say the average self-published book sells fewer — often far fewer — than 150 copies.
And after all this, can you make money by self-publishing? How much you receive per book varies widely depending on who publishes it and who sells it.
For print books, the royalty can run as little as $1 to $3 a book, although you can get much more if you sell from your own Web site or if you publish it as an e-book.
For e-books that sell for $2.99 to $9.99 on Kindle, for example, authors can earn a 70 percent royalty, and eBooks priced outside that range earn authors a 35 percent royalty, according to Ms. Turner, the Amazon spokeswoman.
Potential authors have to be realistic about what they can expect when self-publishing, Ms. Shanley said. But that should not necessarily deter them from doing it. “With all the caveats, it’s really liberating and a field-leveling advance,” she said. “That might not be the attitude of many publishers, but for consumers it is.”
After all, in the past, Ms. Bell would have just had to tuck her manuscript away in a drawer. “I wanted to cross the finish line,” she said. “I’m holding a book, and I’m proud of it.”
And that’s important. But so is knowing the drawbacks. “Self-publishing is a lot like ‘American Idol,’ ” said Mark Levine, chief operating officer of Hillcrest Media Group and author of “The Fine Print of Self-Publishing” (Bascom Hill Publishing Group, updated 2011). “A lot of people have been told that they have talent, but they really don’t. Everyone has a story to tell, but everyone doesn’t have a story to publish.”
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