Confessions Of A Car Salesman

Michael Ackerman is a car salesman that became a sales manager. A normal guy with an abnormal job in the misunderstood subculture that is automotive retailing. His personal odyssey that sent him crashing into the sirens of the car business is a road traveled by many, but few survive. His personal accounts prove once again that life is stranger than fiction, and funnier too. Confessions of a Car Salesman is a satirical look at a dealership from the inside out, and may even help you buy your next vehicle, or at least help you understand what the hell is going on. Set aside your preconceived notions about car sales and find out what really goes on at the dealership, on the lot and behind the scenes. He hopes you like it because it will probably cost him his job. If that sounds like a shameless enticement to buy the book, youare right!

Entrepreneur Stuart Skorman—the founder of Elephant Pharmacy, Hungryminds.com, Reel.com, and Empire Video—grew up in a retailing family in Ohio. He worked every kind of job, from cab driver to professional poker player to CEO. In this entertaining, personal account of his coming-of- age in the business world, Skorman gives an insider’s view of what it takes to start a business from the ground up. Stuart Skorman offers his hard-won lessons in business for any entrepreneur or small businessperson who wants to create a company that has a heart and soul. He reveals what he learned about marketing while working a stint as a rock band manager and bares his soul about his failure during the dot-com bubble. He describes in vivid terms the roller coaster ride of the entrepreneur in good times and bad and explains how to survive in today’s uncertain business environment.

If God wanted April Grace to be kind to her neighbors, He should have made them nicer! Growing up in the country is never easy, but it sure is funny—especially if you happen to have a sister obsessed with being glamorous, a grandma just discovering make-up, hippie friends who never shower, and brand new neighbors from the city who test everyone’s patience. From disastrous dye jobs to forced apologies and elderly date tagalongs, you’ll laugh ‘til you cry as you read the Confessions of April Grace! Here are just a couple of April's thoughts: On her sister, Myra Sue: "How anyone can be that dumb and still be able to eat with a fork is beyond me." On senior citizen lovebirds: "What if they started smooching right at the table in front of God and everybody?" In spite of all the loony characters in her life, April Grace is able to learn from her parents as they share the love of God—to even the craziest of characters!

New York Times Bestseller Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Library Journal "Hilarious…This book charmed my socks off." —Patricia O’Conner, New York Times Book Review Mary Norris has spent more than three decades working in The New Yorker’s renowned copy department, helping to maintain its celebrated high standards. In Between You & Me, she brings her vast experience with grammar and usage, her good cheer and irreverence, and her finely sharpened pencils to help the rest of us in a boisterous language book as full of life as it is of practical advice.

The blogger behind Confessions of a Funeral Director—what Time magazine called a "must read"—reflects on mortality and the powerful lessons death holds for every one of us in this compassionate and thoughtful spiritual memoir that combines the humor and insight of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes with the poignancy and brevity of When Breath Becomes Air. We are a people who deeply fear death. While humans are biologically wired to evade death for as long as possible, we have become too adept at hiding from it, vilifying it, and—when it can be avoided no longer—letting the professionals take over. Sixth-generation funeral director Caleb Wilde understands this reticence and fear. He had planned to get as far away from the family business as possible. He wanted to make a difference in the world, and how could he do that if all the people he worked with were . . . dead? Slowly, he discovered that caring for the deceased and their loved ones was making a difference—in other people’s lives to be sure, but it also seemed to be saving his own. A spirituality of death began to emerge as he observed: The family who lovingly dressed their deceased father for his burial The act of embalming a little girl that offered a gift back to her grieving family The nursing home that honored a woman’s life by standing in procession as her body was taken away The funeral that united a conflicted community Through stories like these, told with equal parts humor and poignancy, Wilde offers an intimate look into the business and a new perspective on living and dying

When I started my literary agency in 1998, my chances of becoming successful were equal to my chances of starring in Sex and The City. I didn't know a single editor, didn't have a single writer, lived 3000 miles away from the heart of the publishing business in New York and was in such dire financial straits that becoming homeless was a real possibility. During sleepless nights I envisioned the headlines: PUBLISHING WORLD STUNNED - WRITERS DEVASTATED. It has been discovered that the Jodie Rhodes Literary Agency, believed to be a legitimate business, actually operates out of a shopping cart and its founder is a bag lady. Of course I never had the slightest intention of becoming an agent, since I hadn't lost my mind, only all my money. To keep from starving, I cleaned people's houses, scrubbing floors and toilets, baked muffins and cookies that I sold at my bridge club, took care of a 93 year old woman with Alzheimer's, became a guinea pig for pharmaceutical research studies and started a writers' workshop. Since I had the unfortunate habit of telling writers just how terrible their writing was, I had a lot of turnover. Then the inspiration struck me. I would claim to be a literary agent and my workshops would be flooded with eager writers! You need to know there is nothing illegal in claiming to be a literary agent because there are no rules or requirements for becoming one except claiming to be one. However, I'm cursed with a fairly strong streak of ethical behavior so I wrote the publishers of Guide To Literary Agents and Literary Market Place that I was a new agent based in La Jolla and gave them basic information about me. I never heard back from them, which was no surprise. But then one day, to my horror, a manuscript arrived in my mail. Guide To Literary Agents had actually listed me. Soon more came. But the writing in those submissions was so unbelievably terrible that it transcended revulsion and left me in a state of awe. I recall, in particular, the following: "Dear Jodie: Enclosed find a query, synopsis and the first three chapters of my completed novel which is at once a gay love story, a plea for handicapped liberation and a sanguine tale of greed, murder and revenge. It is necessary for me to use a pen name because the narrative's explicit depictions of incontinence management and gay sex could arouse the interest of the culture police." Keep in mind that was just the query letter. I am sparing you the chapters. One thing I learned quickly was the more modest the writer, the better the writing and vice versa. Example: "Dear Ms. Rhodes: I have just finished my first novel titled Kabuki in a G-String which, to be both honest and bold, is exceptional." I cannot begin to tell you how excruciatingly awful that novel was. After six months of these submissions, I stared into the mirror and had a long talk with myself. "This is hopeless, isn't it?" "Well, it's only been six months." "But we still haven't found one single writer we could represent." "Look on the bright side. We wouldn't know what to do with one, if we did offer representation. Think of all the embarrassment we've saved ourselves." "I am not amused." "So what do you want to do? Quit?" "I hate to be a quitter." "I know. You've made our life miserable because of that." In 2008, one of my authors forced me into creating a website and Google reported 430,000,000 hits. Btw, this memoir is the story of two very different lives and you've just read about my second life. My first life takes up much of the memoir and its opening chapter below will give you an idea of what to expect. I was a late bloomer, resigned at 15 to being an old maid. If anyone had told me I'd end up with more men in my life than Elizabeth Taylor, I would have assumed they were either so high on drugs that they couldn't see straight or wanted to borrow money from me.

Whose truth is the lie? Stay up all night reading the sensational psychological thriller that has readers obsessed, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Too Late and It Ends With Us. #1 New York Times Bestseller · USA Today Bestseller · Globe and Mail Bestseller · Publishers Weekly Bestseller Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity’s notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn’t expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of the night her family was forever altered. Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents could devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen’s feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife’s words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue loving her.

Set in the San Francisco Bay area in the late 1950s, Humpty Dumpty in Oakland is a tragicomedy of misunderstandings among used car dealers and real-estate salesmen: the small-time, struggling individuals for whom Philip K. Dick always reserved his greatest sympathy. Jim Fergesson, an elderly garage owner with a heart condition, is about to sell up and retire; Al Miller is a somewhat feckless mechanic who sublets part of Jim's lot and finds his livelihood threatened by the decision to sell; Chris Harman is a record company owner who for years has relied on Fergesson to maintain his cars. When Harman hears of Fergesson's impending retirement he tips him off to what he says is a cast-iron business proposition: a development in nearby Marin County with an opening for a garage. Al Miller, though, is convinced that Harman is a crook, out to fleece Fergesson of his life's savings. As much as he resents Fergesson he can't bear to see that happen and - denying to himself all the time what he is doing - he sets out to thwart Harman.