AuthorHouse, formerly known as 1stBooks, is a self-publishing company based in the United States.^[1] AuthorHouse uses print on demand business model and technology.^[2]

History[link]

Originally called 1stBooks, the company was founded in Bloomington, Indiana, USA, in January 1997. Its first e-book appeared in June of that year. In January 1999, it started using print on demand technology to produce paper books. AuthorHouse's website states the company has published 60,000 books by 40,000 authors.^[3] The company opened an office in Milton Keynes, United Kingdom in May 2004. In December 2005, AuthorHouse was 'nominated' by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce for the Small Business of the Year Award.^[4] In October 2006, AuthorHouse won the Silver Award in Business excellence from BKD.^[5]

The California based hedge fund Bertram Capital purchased AuthorHouse in 2007 from Gazelle TechVentures, who had owned AuthorHouse since 2002. Later that year, Bertram established Author Solutions and acquired one of AuthorHouse's competitors^[6] - iUniverse - before relocating iUniverse's operations to Indiana in early 2008.^[7]

Brandewyne lawsuit[link]

In August 2006, a U.S. Court ordered AuthorHouse to pay $240,000 in punitive damage as well as $230,000 in actual damage to romance author Rebecca Brandewyne and her parents for publishing a book by her ex-husband that was 'harmful' and libelous of them. AuthorHouse was also ordered to pay $20,000 each to Ms Brandewyne's parents for the damage. Although the court acknowledged that AuthorHouse employed a business model that placed a degree of responsibility for the content of works upon the authors, in this case they found that AuthorHouse had failed to act when it was informed that the book may include libelous content.^[8]

References[link]

External links[link]

• AuthorHouse - official site

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Harold Robbins (May 21, 1916 – October 14, 1997) was one of the best-selling American authors of all time. During his career, he wrote over 25 best-sellers, selling over 750 million copies in 32 languages.

Born as Harold Rubin in New York City, he later claimed to be a Jewish orphan who had been raised in a Catholic boys home.^{[citation needed]} In reality he was the son of well-educated Russian and Polish immigrants.^[1] He was reared by his pharmacist father and stepmother in Brooklyn. His first wife was his high school sweetheart^[2]

Work[link]

His first book, Never Love a Stranger (1948), caused controversy with its graphic sexuality.

The Dream Merchants (1949) was a novel about the American film industry, from its beginning to the sound era. Again Robbins blended his own experiences, historical facts, melodrama, sex, and action into a fast-moving story.^{[citation needed]}

His 1952 novel, A Stone for Danny Fisher, was adapted into a 1958 motion picture King Creole, which starred Elvis Presley.^[3]

Among his best-known books is The Carpetbaggers -- loosely based on a composite of Howard Hughes, Bill Lear, Harry Cohn, and Louis B. Mayer --^[4] taking the reader from New York to California, from the prosperity of the aeronautical industry to the glamour of Hollywood. Its sequel, The Raiders, was released in 1995.

Posthumous[link]

Since his death, several new books have been published, written by ghostwriters and based on Robbins's own notes and unfinished stories. On several of these final books, Junius Podrug has been credited as co-writer. His often profane style was referred to in the film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, where Kirk cites his work to explain how people in the 20th century talk.

On Fawlty Towers, Basil Fawlty pours scorn onto his wife Sybil's preference for Robbins' work, describing it as "pornographic Muzak" (as well as "Transatlantic tripe").

From the Hodder & Stoughton 2008 edition of The Carpetbaggers: About the author: Robbins was the playboy of his day and a master of publicity. He was a renowned novelist but tales of his own life contain even more fiction than his books. What is known is that with reported worldwide sales of 750m, Harold Robbins sold more books than J.K. Rowling, earned and spent $50m during his lifetime, and was as much a part of the sexual and social revolution as the pill, Playboy and pot. In March 1965, he had three novels on the British paperback bestseller list - Where Love Has Gone at No.1, The Carpetbaggers at No.3 and The Dream Merchants in the sixth spot.

At the height of his success, Robbins had a mansion in Beverly Hills, a home in the south of France and a house in Acapulco. He owned a fleet of fourteen cars, including a white Rolls-Royce and a number of Jensens, an exquisite art collection (Picasso, Chagall, Léger, Bernard Buffet) and two yachts, one moored in Los Angeles, the other in Cannes.

In 1984, he fell while having a seizure caused from a head contusion, in the process of which he shattered his hip.

Since his passing, his books have continued to sell all over the world. His widow, Jann Robbins, has republished 12 of his most famous titles with AuthorHouse Publishing.

Personal life[link]

Robbins was married three times.

He spent a great deal of time on the French Riviera and Monte Carlo until his death on October 14, 1997 from respiratory heart failure at the age of 81 in Palm Springs, California.

He is buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery (Cathedral City) near Palm Springs, California.

Harold Robbins has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6743 Hollywood Boulevard.

Selected bibliography[link]

• Never Love A Stranger, 1948
• The Dream Merchants, 1949
• A Stone for Danny Fisher, 1952
• Never Leave Me, 1953
• 79 Park Avenue, 1955
• Stiletto, 1960
• The Carpetbaggers, 1961
• Where Love Has Gone, 1962
• The Adventurers, 1966; this was adapted for the cinema as The Adventurers in 1970 by Lewis Gilbert
• The Inheritors, 1969
• The Betsy, 1971 (made into a film of the same name in 1978)
• The Pirate, 1974
• The Lonely Lady, 1976
• Dreams Die First, 1977
• Memories of Another Day, 1979
• Goodbye, Janette, 1981
• The Storyteller, 1982
• Spellbinder, 1982
• Descent from Xanadu, 1984
• The Piranhas, 1986
• The Raiders, 1995
• The Stallion, 1996
• Tycoon, 1997
• The Predators, 1998
• The Secret, 2000
• Never Enough, 2001
• Sin City, 2002
• Heat of Passion, 2003
• The Betrayers, (with Junius Podrug) 2004
• Blood Royal, (with Junius Podrug) 2005
• The Devil to Pay, (with Junius Podrug) 2006
• The Looters, (with Junius Podrug) 2007
• The Deceivers, (with Junius Podrug) 2008
• The Shroud, (with Junius Podrug) 2009
• The Curse, (with Junius Podrug) 2011

References[link]

External links[link]

• Harold Robbins at Internet Book List [1]

The Amazing Kreskin^[1] (born January 12, 1935), born George Joseph Kresge, is a mentalist who became popular on North American television in the 1970s. He was inspired to become a mentalist by Lee Falk's famous comic strip Mandrake the Magician,^[2] which features a crime-fighting stage magician.

Early life[link]

George Joseph Kresge was born in Montclair, New Jersey to Polish and Italian parents.

Career[link]

From 1970 to 1975, Kreskin's television series The Amazing World of Kreskin was broadcast throughout Canada on CTV and distributed in syndication in the United States. The series was produced in Ottawa, Ontario at the CJOH-TV studios. An additional set of episodes was produced in 1975, billed as The New Kreskin Show. He appeared on The Tonight Show 61 times from 1970–1980. In the 1980s and 1990s he came to prominence again through several appearances on Late Night with David Letterman. In 2009, he became the first guest to make three appearances on the new Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.^{[citation needed]}

He is still active as a live performer, appears regularly on WPIX in New York City, and appears annually on the Fox News Channel and CNN to give his New Year's Day predictions for the coming year.^[3] One of his best known tricks is finding his cheque for a performance, which he instructs the audience to hide while he is escorted off stage and into seclusion by other members of the audience. While finding the cheque on most occasions, he has failed to find the cheque nine times.^[4]

Though Kreskin makes "predictions," he does not claim to have paranormal or clairvoyant powers, and does not like to be considered a "psychic".^[5] He teaches classes for law enforcement groups, which "focuses on psychological methods such as jogging lost memories through relaxation techniques or detecting lies through body language and voice inflections."^[5]

The 2008 movie The Great Buck Howard is based on the experiences of writer-director Sean McGinly who worked briefly as the road manager for Kreskin.

Criticism[link]

In 2002, Kreskin made a prediction that there would be a mass-UFO sighting over Las Vegas, Nevada on June 6 between the hours of 9:45PM and midnight that would be witnessed by thousands of people. He also stated that if there was no sighting, he would donate $50,000 to a charity. Hundreds of people camped out that evening yet no sighting occurred. On June 8, Kreskin appeared in the opening segment of the Coast-to-Coast AM radio show, hosted by Art Bell, to explain what had happened. Bell read Kreskin's press release over the air to the effect that: "the sighting prediction was a total fabrication in order to prove people's susceptibility to suggestion post-9/11." Kreskin claimed he was concerned that a terrorist, with the skills of a mentalist such as himself, could pull a similar stunt involving something much worse. He stated that the predicted sighting was only an "experiment." When asked about the $50,000 donation he previously promoted, Kreskin claimed there was indeed a sighting that night since he said glowing green orbs were supposedly spotted in the sky just before midnight and reported by witnesses after news camera crews had already left the scene. Because of this one reported sighting, Kreskin said his prediction came true anyway and therefore he didn't have to pay the money he previously announced. This statement offended Art Bell, who opined that this was a merely publicity stunt on Kreskin's part, and officially banned Kreskin from his show.^[6]

As far back as January 1973, a magazine carried an interview with Kreskin in which he alluded to the possibility of this stunt - and to the dangers of the madness of crowds in general:

Kreskin is aware of both the benefits and dangers of hypnotism and claims that given an audience of 200 people, "I'll have them seeing flying saucers. Take the same crowd to Time Square on a hot evening and you can have them screaming "fire"." Hitler, says Kreskin, used hypnotic techniques in his speeches - the torchlight parades and the sombre drum beating being evidence of this. "Using suggestion, I could never make someone do something he didn't want to do. But it's different in a crowd," says Kreskin. "Psychologists don't know why, but somehow the level of morality is lowered and responsibility is lost." "If my name is forgotten in years to come, I can only hope that I have taught people to wonder." ^[7]

Bibliography[link]

• Secrets of the Amazing Kreskin. Prometheus. 1991. ISBN 0-87975-676-4. 
• Kreskin Confidential: The World's Greatest Mentalist Speaks Out. AuthorHouse. 2009. ISBN 978-1-4389-7279-4. 

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Kreskin at the Internet Movie Database
• The Amazing World of Kreskin at the Internet Movie Database
• The New Kreskin Show at the Internet Movie Database
• The Amazing Kreskin on The Hour