Your Questions About Gardening

GardenersCardiff answers:

It depends a lot on the audience (how many people do this craft and would care about your book?) and the publisher. The good news is that for most niche markets (like beading, painting, gardening, etc.) there are smaller publishers who publish books only in that genre, and they are usually more willing to take unpublished authors than some of the larger ones are.

Often, smaller publishers will have a series of related books – a gardening series where one book is on annuals, one on perennials, one on landscaping, one on water gardens, etc. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re not previously published for these, since people are buying them based on the topic and maybe the series recognition. If you have an area of expertise – say, you could add a book on gazebos to the gardening series – contact the publisher to ask about how you could get involved, write/illustrate your book, and see what they say.

If you have a truly unique idea and are good at it, like a book on “101 crafts you can make with glass soda bottles,” you may get a publisher to take your book hoping customers will see it in a store and pick it up out of interest for the topic. Writing the million and oneth book on “how to draw”, though, probably won’t do you much good.

The pay rate varies based on the publisher, sales made, topic, and type of book, so “how much you can make” really isn’t something that’s easy to answer – the quick response is “not enough for it to be your primary income” until you’re famous or you’ve got several books under your belt, though.

GardenersCardiff answers:

It depends upon where you are living. Since you are an Indian, you must be aware how easy it is in India to get cheap help for all your needs. We have one domestic servant for daily help and one for special cleaning etc. Who attends to our needs whenever called – on an average once a week. When I was a student 50 years back, tuitions were unheard of. Taking tuition was below dignity for the student. Nowadays, it is widely prevalent all over the world and internet and sites like YA has made it easier for students to get their HW help. I personally think that it is good only if used with a view to learn the subject. But many are just using it to get their homework done which is detrimental to their mental growth. No one can keep you helping lifetime.

In USA, getting household work done on a routine basis is costly, but one can get help from some companies who send the contracted labor for cleaning the house charging a lumpsum amount. You can also find such workers directly, but from the safety point of view, it is better to get such help from professionals who will ensure that reliable people are used for the job. Most such help in USA is exhorbitantly costly and at times unaffordable and people have to somehow manage with as little help as they can. This is one main reason why I love my county, India. It is so comfortable to live here that is unimaginable for the westerners. Except for the lack of cleanliness, India is the best place in the world to live. I have no vehicle, do not know how to drive any and no medical insurance. Can you imagine of living in USA without knowing how to drive, without owning a vehicle and without paying through your nose for the medical insurance? It is good that President Obama has taken cognizance of the medical needs of the people and is trying to improve the situation to whatever extent he can.

GardenersCardiff answers:

So you had the ‘rosso’ wine…..these are new wines that have been made specifically for Olive Garden in partnership with Cavit Winery in Northern Italy.
This is all part of their ‘new’ advertisements and the wines (3 varieties: rosso, rosato, and bianco) have been developed to be ‘aroma-driven and fruit forward’

Rosso: Medium-bodied, flavors of red berries, cherries and spice.

–You should be able to go to any decent wine shop and state that you’re looking for a ‘medium bodied red wine that is fruit forward’. Was the wine you had sweet at all or even slightly sweet? You could try Apothic Red…it’s affordable, easy to find and a very ‘fruit-forward’….or slightly sweet red wine.

“Red blends’ tend to be a little more fruit forward in my experience. Malbec would be a good one to try out….and Merlot maybe.