Marketing Tips For Authors - Tony Eldridge

I just returned from a workshop on Marketing For Authors presented by Tony Eldridge. What a lot of useful information! My only complaint of the workshop is that the material was given almost in a survey form, simply because there was so much material and too little time. But it's a big topic.

Tony Eldridge revealed a vast knowledge on the subject and was able to present it in a form that even a newbie at marketing could understand. Check back for more information on Tony as he is soon to release his video/ebook on marketing for authors. I'll keep you updated.

Check out his blog at http://www.marketingtipsforauthors.blogspot.com/. He is also the author of The Samson Effect, an action thriller with a cover endorsement by Clive Cussler.

Old West Cooking Terms

You may think some of these terms are made up, but I remember my mother using many of these terms as she would try to teach us kids to cook. My mother was a wonderful cook who had learned on a woodstove. But she wasn't big on printed recipes until she was older. She just put in a bit of this and a whole heap of that. She knew what she meant.

Here are some terms you would run into while traveling Out West in the 1800’s.


Passle ..........................................1/2 tsp
Pittance .......................................1/3 tsp
Dib ..............................................1/3 tsp
Crumble ......................................1/8 tsp
A Wave At It ............................1/16 tsp
Glob................................................1 tsp
Bit................................................3/4 tsp
Bitty.............................................1/2 tsp
LI’L Bitty....................................1/4 tsp
Lump............................................1 tbsp
Good Lump....................................2 tsp
Heap............................Rounded Cupful
Whole Heap............2 Rounded Cupfuls
Bunch.........................................6 Items

Frontier Pudding

½ Cup stone ground yellow cornmeal

¼ Cup molasses

4 Tbsp sugar

4 Tbsp butter

¼ Tsp cinnamon

¼ Cup chopped apples

1 Egg plus another egg white beaten together

¼ Tsp baking soda

3 Cups milk


Mix all ingredients except milk. Scald half the milk and mix with ingredients.


Cook for 20 minutes in preheated Dutch over at 450 degrees.
Scald remaining milk and stir into other ingredients.
Cook for 3 hours at 300 degrees.Serve hot or cold with cream.

Make Your Own Lip Salve

In the midst of winter, life can become a challenge. Between extreme temperatures and buildings heated too warm and low humidity, our lips become chapped and needing help. What did those hardy frontier folks do?
They made their own chap stick. Below is a recipe, or as they called it, a receipt for Lip Salve from the 1810 book, How To Cook. The remedies and cosmetics found in this book are fun to read about and to try to replicate. Although, I will admit that this recipe is beyond me.

Lip Salve – Take 2 oz. of best white wax, 2 ozs. of ox marrow, that has been well steeped in water for 3 days; melt them in a bath heat, then squeeze in a pound of best musk grapes, through a fine sieve; add a drachma of alkanet. Let them simmer, then beat it with a silver spoon till nearly cold, when you must run it into the boxes.

Mmmm...Ox marrow – I’m not sure where I would get this. And then there’s Alkanet root – a plant that makes a red dye. I wouldn’t need much as a drachma – dram – is only 1/8 of a gram. I think I’ll just stop by the drugstore.