The Facts Lab Book of Brazil: 101 amazing facts about Brazil and the Brazilians

Posted on 26 December 2013 by Ergo Guides

by David McMahon
World Cup Edition: published 24 December 2013

Ah, Brazil. Home of the Amazon and a rather good football team. And they grow coffee. And the World Cup is being held there soon.

Most people’s knowledge of Brazil doesn’t go beyond that. Which is a bit pathetic really, considering it’s the world’s fifth biggest country in terms of size and population.

If you’d like to know more about Brazil than what time the matches are on television next June and July, The Facts Lab Book of Brazil: 101 amazing facts about Brazil and the Brazilians is a carnival of information about the country and its people – some of it useful, some of it arcane, all of it entertaining.
Continue reading →

Now wash your hands! How YOU can avoid food poisoning

Posted on 8 September 2013 by Ergo Guides

A practical guide to food safety for professionals, families and travellers

by Kay McMahon
First Edition: published 6 September 2013

Food poisoning is an unpleasant experience, there’s no two ways about it. Even a mild dose can knock you sideways for several days. For those who fall into the particularly vulnerable groups – the very young, the very elderly and people with weakened immune systems – food poisoning can even be a killer. And the number of cases seems to be increasing even in our modern, squeaky-clean environment.

It doesn’t have to be that way, though.
Continue reading →

Snake oil! How ‘Make Money Online’ scams work …and how to avoid them

Posted on 27 July 2013 by Ergo Guides

by Kay McMahon & Theodore Koukouvitis
First Edition: published 14 November 2012

Are YOU Sick Of Being A Wage Slave… While Your Fat Cat Bosses Take It Easy?

Don’t YOU Deserve A Better Life?

You Can Make $$$,000s WHILE YOU SLEEP!!!

If you’ve ever considered trying to make a bit of extra money online, then you’ve probably already encountered the sort of messages above while you’ve been pondering how to do it.

A whole industry has sprung up offering this kind of “Make Money Online” (MMO) proposition. A quick search of the Web will turn up thousands of different websites, all promising to show you how you can make incredible amounts of money online, with very little required from you – little or no expertise, little or no effort, and just a few dollars to unlock the door to limitless wealth.

Sound too good to be true? Continue reading →

The Facts Lab Book of Greece: 101 amazing facts about Greece and the Greeks

Posted on 8 March 2013 by Ergo Guides

by Theodore Koukouvitis
Revised Edition: published 13 March 2014
(This book was originally published on 7 March 2013 as It’s all Greek to them!)

Ever wondered why we say, “It’s all Greek to me!”, or why we’re warned to beware of Greeks bearing gifts? This book will tell you.

The Facts Lab Book of Greece: 101 amazing facts about Greece and the Greeks is Theodore Koukouvitis’s second Ergo Guides book about his ever-intriguing homeland, and in it he’s come up with a cornucopia of facts, reflecting his own wide-ranging interests and the diversity of Greek culture, society and landscape.
Continue reading →

WWWordsmith: Forging a living from online writing

Posted on 14 December 2012 by Ergo Guides

by Kay McMahon & Theodore Koukouvitis
First Edition: published 13 December 2012

Everyone’s supposed to have a book in them, aren’t they? That piece of folk wisdom underlies the dream that many people have of making a living online through writing. WWWordsmith: Forging a living from online writing is here to explain how, if they’re good enough, they can make that dream a reality.

Authors Kay McMahon and Theodore Koukouvitis have teamed up again to write about the ins and outs of making money online from writing. Each of them brings their own particular perspective to bear on the online writing industry. In building his career as a successful freelance writer, Koukouvitis has run the full gamut of job-seeking platforms and has amassed rich experience of the methods required to compete successfully for commissions in a fiercely competitive marketplace. McMahon has been running a business based on websites – for which she’s supplied much of the writing – for well over a decade.

The result is a book that covers all aspects of earning a living online through writing. First, a brief introduction looks at the practical benefits of an online writing career, and sets the scene for the discussion of the two basic ways of making a living online through writing: writing as a job (freelancing), and writing as a business (self-publishing). There follows a look at what makes people willing to pay for writing – the needs that the writer must satisfy in order to succeed.
Continue reading →