{"id":105,"date":"2018-03-05T18:03:13","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T18:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/?p=105"},"modified":"2018-03-05T18:03:13","modified_gmt":"2018-03-05T18:03:13","slug":"the-lure-of-free-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/2018\/03\/05\/the-lure-of-free-stuff\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lure of Free Stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"\"This book\u2014a complimentary advance reader\u2019s copy\u2014arrived in today\u2019s mail. The publisher, Random House, is one of several I follow online, and most of them offer an opportunity to get free<\/em> books. I enter just about all, but this is the first time I\u2019ve received a free<\/em> copy.<\/p>\n

I love getting free<\/em> printed pieces in the mail. This passion started in the fifth grade in a small, rural West Tennessee town when everything was done via the USPS. It started when my teacher, Miss Annie Faye\u2014not to be confused with my sixth grade teacher, Miss Nannie Mae\u2014assigned a report for each student to write. I selected the Natchez Pilgrimage in Natchez, Mississippi.<\/p>\n

But things really revved up when she said we could write for information, free <\/em>information, to help us with our reports. I wrote to the people who produced the Natchez Pilgrimage, an annual tour and celebration of Antebellum homes in that town.<\/p>\n

One day, a thick envelope, bearing a return address of the Natchez Pilgrimage, arrived. In it were beautiful, 4-color brochures and tons of information. I don\u2019t remember what I wrote for my report nor what grade I earned. That\u2019s immaterial.<\/p>\n

The lesson I learned was that I could write just about anywhere and ask for free <\/em>information about their product, event, activity or whatever. And most responded! For the price of a 3-cent stamp, I could go anywhere and see anything I wanted. My father complained about the cost!<\/p>\n

Already a reader of books, I moved on to magazines\u2014everything I knew about being a teenager in training to be a woman, I learned from Seventeen<\/em> magazine. That\u2019s where I saw the fine print in advertisements that said something like, \u201cFor more information, write to\u2026.\u201d I did it. I searched for these offers. When traveling, I picked up brochures at welcome stations and tourist attractions. My knowledge and creativity grew along with my collection of printed pieces.<\/p>\n

In college, I majored in journalism and English.<\/p>\n

My career has been devoted to communications, mostly through the printed word. I\u2019ve written books and promoted others\u2019 books. I\u2019ve written countless words in news articles and feature stories about a wide variety of subjects. Many of these are my entr\u00e9e into areas I\u2019ve known little about, but I enjoy learning about new things. In my last full-time job, I edited a magazine and coordinated the production of printed pieces. I loved it.<\/p>\n

The payoff in my career was similar to opening the envelope from the Natchez Pilgrimage\u2014beautiful printed pieces that communicated information, stories and ideas.<\/p>\n

Now I spend my days writing books and articles. The Internet\u2014today\u2019s 3-cent stamp\u2014allows me to follow publishers, many of which offer free<\/em> readers\u2019 copies of books. I always sign up, but this is the first time I\u2019ve been selected. Thanks, Random House!<\/p>\n

And a lifetime of thanks to Miss Annie Faye.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  This book\u2014a complimentary advance reader\u2019s copy\u2014arrived in today\u2019s mail. The publisher, Random House, is one of several I follow online, and most of them offer an opportunity to get free books. I enter just about all, but this is the first time I\u2019ve received a free copy. I love getting free printed pieces in… Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[34,29,35,33,32,37,9,24],"class_list":["post-105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-agents","tag-biography","tag-books-vietnam","tag-editors","tag-journalists","tag-random-house","tag-memoir","tag-publishing"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107,"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions\/107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}