Lulu, CreateSpace, Lightning Source.. Oh my!

Posted by - November 5th, 2008

Yeah. So many choices. So many things to do.

I’m still researching and researching on where and who to print my books. Do I want to print locally? Have the books sitting here in my house and deal with all the labels and shipping and packaging? Do I want to use a Print-On-Demand company…but not to publish it. Just to print.

I’ve first scratched off Xlibris, iUniverse, AuthorHouse, etc, because of the upfront fees, and I’ve already put in the money for what they charge for editor, cover design, ISBN, etc. Plus, If I was going to go with some of their packages, I might as well have the book printed locally and ship it out myself, which might equal the same amount as the packages.

I’ve wavered around Lulu, CreateSpace, Lightning Source, and Booksurge(which is Createspace as well, or also just owned by Amazon?). I hear a lot of great things about LuLu, of course, but, again, to sell a book with no upfront fees forces the book’s price very high. Who wants to buy a $25.00 book? And Lightning Source has the Ingram edge, other places to distribute your book to, and CreateSpace only has its store and Amazon.

I’ve also learned that if I wanted to make some updates to the book, for some reason, Lightning Source charges an arm and leg, while CreateSpace is considerably lower. So some people have created the design and book on CreateSpace and moved them to Lightning Source since they use the exact file format on some paper weight/styles. Then there’s the “hassle” of working with Lightning Source as an independent author, yet in the long run, you get back more royalties.

Decisions. Decisions. Decisions.

Thus, it looks like people use multiple places to have their books printed and available.

And, as you can tell, Self Publishing is a lot of out-of-pocket expenses. But, like I said before, I spent $22,000 on wedding and honeymoon with someone I love, so why not spend some bucks on something I love.

When I figure out where I want to go and what I want to do…you’ll be the first to know.

Decisions. Decisions. Decisions.

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My first steps to Self Publishing

Posted by - November 2nd, 2008

Here is a list of the first things I did when starting to Self Publish

Reason
The reason I decided to Self Publish was because I wanted to get more involved with my books, and plus, honestly, I didn’t want to wait on the slush pile. I did the research online on all the cons of self publishing and how it has a certain stigma, but I figure, if I could spend thousands of dollars for a wedding which is ONE DAY, for someone that I love, why can’t I do just as much time and effort on something that I love. It is said not to think about making a profit or being a big time Best Seller, though we all dream of such things. I have come to a decision to at least TRY. So…here I am, and I’m going to try. I’ll put in the effort, do the research, and stumble my way to selling my books. And if I just get a few strangers to buy and actually like it, that would be wonderful to me.

Step 1 – Write the Book
Of course is to write your book. Some people have a problem with this first step, but since I’ve been writing since I was 12 years old, not novels mind you, but writing period. My first novel took a few years, and the 2nd took exactly 1 year. The rest, NaNoWriMo helped me on that. National Novel Writing Month was great! You just write and write. You don’t worry about grammer or spelling or anything mechanical. Just write. This helped me with books 3-5.

Step 2 – Copyright
I’ve sent my books off to the CopyRight Office. Not one at a time, but I lumped them all together on one CD as I completed them, along with my short stories. In this way, I saved money for each of them. When my books are completed in paperback format, I’ll have to research how to send in for copyright then. But I saw you can do it electronically now. When I did them it was still in paper format. CopyRight Office.

Step 3 – ISBN
Since I’m planning to continue writing more books, and I have five (5) already, I went ahead and purchased the block of 10 ISBN numbers from U.S. ISBN Agency. It cost me $275.00. I didn’t buy the barcode since I found out I could get it done for free here. You can buy indiviudal ISBN numbers, however for $125.00. There are some companies who offers ISBN in their packages, but make sure, from what I’ve researched, that you own the ISBN number and not the company.

Step 4 – Editor
I found my Editor on Guru. And I also asked for them for editting samples. There are those who are reluctant to do that because there are people who just try to get free services. But if you explain that you just want 1 sheet editted to make a decision on who you want to edit your book, some will agree to do that for you. I found that it was easy for me to figure out which editor I would like to edit my book with how they editted the sample. I’m in the middle of this stage with editting my first book of The Calling Series: The Made. This is costing me $700.00

Step 5 – Book Cover
I’m in the middle of this step, but I did some research. I found someone to do the art and current after the 1st and 2nd draft, we’re not into coloring now. I also found a Book Cover designer on Guru as well. This is costing me $400.00

Step 6 – Blogging
This is the step I doing now. Heh. Heh. And I’m just started but it’s going to help me stay encourage as I go along.

Step 7 – DBA
Went to the County office and picked up a DBA (“Doing Business As”). In Houston, Texas, I had to look for “Assumed Name” however. I got one for my pen name, seeing that I’m into writing steamy Romance novels; but it’s not for being anonymous. Can’t be if you’re famous. But it will help so that the guys in the suit don’t walk to my office and say, “Uh…your image…” LOL!. I got an Assumed Name for a publishing company as well…just in case I need it. I didn’t add the word “Publishing” so that I can use it for anything I might want to in the future. I’ll just add “A Publishing Company” if that is what I will use it for. I’ll have both names for 10 years and then I’ll have to renew.

Step 8 – Promoting Online
I’m simply gathering information on promoting online and the kosher way of doing this. I don’t want to spam bulletin boards or blogs with “Buy my Book…Please!” LOL! But I’ve learned if you honestly add you input in areas, and have your signature with you website, then you don’t look so selfish.

So that’s where I am so far. I’ll add more as I get to these few steps and tell you the yeahs and nays of my progress. I continue to research other steps at places such as So You Need to Publish Your Book, and watch other authors doing to same as:
Michael R. Hicks (Kreelan Warrior).
Write it! Publish it! Market it!

I actually put in a order for Michael Hick’s book, and if I’ve done that just by researching other authors self publishing, I’m sure other readers and writers (who are also readers) would probably do the same here. And the word would spread.
Until next time….

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Designing a website for us HTML beginners

Posted by - November 2nd, 2008

I wanted to put out there a list of sites that really, really helped me with my website. I’m a beginner HTML person, and I can get around with a few things here and there, but I needed a lot of help. I designed my first website from scratch using Dreamweaver (for FREE html software, try out Kompozer. I downloaded it and it works great!) to get a basic idea of designing one, but it didn’t quite look professional enough. So I bought a $30 template from TheTemplateStore and updated it for my new site and I’m really loving it.

Here’s my old website: http://www.oldsite.zhollis.com
And here’s my new one: http://www.zhollis.com

I mentioned before, for my new website, that I used Adobe Dreamweaver and Adobe Fireworks and Swish, which all together can cost over $1,000. I had a friend who I borrowed from, though you can get a trial version of Swish. However, my old website, I just picked up a basic design at oswd. Also at a template store, not at the one I used but anyone that sells templates, they can provide you with websites with programming that you can update yourself without having to buy stuff like Dreamweaver. You simply look at the templates that use CSS based layouts. But if you can find a Free Template to update, I would go that route.

CSS – Yeah. That was a new one for me too. What is it? Well basically, if you have like hyperlinks on all your different pages and you wanted to update the look of all of them without having to update every…single…page, you would put a “class” next to every hyperlink, and in the css coding, you can change the color, or what happens if someone hovers their mouse over a hyperlink, in the CSS code that styles your hyperlinks…and it updates all of your pages at once! Pretty cool thing, but you have to know CSS to use it.
I go here to find out the basics of CSS – Introduction to CSS

So on to my list of useful tools….

++++++++++++++

Free web tools to help you design your website.
I use Dreamweaver, but if you want to save some money, here are some free software to help you design your page.
NVU
Hot Dog
Coffee Cup

Free photo editor – GIMP
This was great for me to use. Especially for those pictures where you want to cut out an image and have it floating on top of another image, like your personal photo. I wanted the background to be transparent, where the background of the picture doesn’t have to be a specific color like white or black, because this might not blend in very well with the background of your website. What I’ve learned is that .jpg .bmp .gif can’t have transparent backgrounds–but .png can. GIMP help me put these images, like this one on my site.

HTML – The easy way to understand it.
I use this site all the time to help me figure out what a string of commands mean.
Introduction to HTML

Neat Scripts to add to your website.
I didn’t use any of them, but with my first website, without a template, I was trying to figure out how to do those neat DropDown Menus that are on some sites these days and I found the code at this EarthWeb site
The actual code for the drop down is here:

How to Make a “Contact Us” Form
I really needed help on creating my own form, and the basic HTML site, though it helped with some things about forms, didn’t quite help with HOW to get the information from the form to my email box. PHP Tutorial: Writing Your First PHP script: Feedback Form Script, help me SO SO much. It helped me understand how to get it working and the little bitty things that you have to know like the position of certain strings in the “mail” section and how you want it to look in your personal email. When I change my website to a template, I had to redo my form, and I completely forgot how I got it working. I came back here, did my refresher course, and BOOM…done.

Dealing with Bots
Bots are those robots, or automatic programs sent out by people who spam your email, website, “contact us” page and comments areas. So you know those images in a box where you have to type the characters of the image before hitting the submit button for a form, and the image changes each time you use it? Those can help out with thos nasty little bots. I found reCAPTCH on some Author websites and I was like, “Hey, where they get that?” With some research I found it and it’s just something to help out with those party pooper Spammers. It was a bit complicated to install and the directions on the actual site doesn’t help much at all for us basic HTML users, but this site helped me out A LOT and helped me get it up and running. Installing eCAPTCHA with PHP

Photo Slideshow
My first slideshow on my old website, I used a
Slideshow on Homepage with JavaScript. I couldn’t blend in the background though, yet it was very useful. For my new website, I learned Swish.

That’s about it. All the information dumping I could put on here that helped me. Whew! Hope it helps you out with your next web adventure.

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Installing Movable Type on ICDSoft 4

Posted by - November 1st, 2008

Even though I had problems with Movable Type, doesn’t mean that you will.
I modified the instructions a bit below that was provided by ICDSoft, to
make more sense to me; and it might make more sense to you.

You can find screen shots of Movable Type setup here.

http://www.superxm.com/2007/08/movable-type-4-installation-step-by-step-with-screenshots.html

NOTE: I’ve updated this page with newer instruction, since my first instructions were back in 2008. This is most rececent Jan 2011.

+++++++ HERE WE GO ++++++++++++

I hope these more “simpler” instruction might help some with their installation. Follow these steps to install Movable Type:

1. Download the installation from the site of the vendor. Movable Type can be obtained from:

http://movabletype.org/

2. Once you have downloaded the zip file that contains the installation, and uncompress it (unzip it) in

your C; drive, you need to upload the files in it to your disk space/hosting site.

Logon to ICDSoft, go to File Manage and create two folders

under the root directory: 1) mt and 2) mt-static.

For Instant, if your Blog Url is: http://blog.tomjoe.com

Then create the folders under: /home/TOMEJOE/www/blog/

I used CoreFTP to upload my files, but you can use whatever applications with FTP.

A free software suggested was here: http://filezilla-project.org/. But I’m assuming since you already have an account with ICDSoft, you know how to do this part already.

3. Using FTP, upload all of the files in the “MT-5.0-en” folder into the “MT” in ICDSoft folder EXCEPT for

“mt-static”. DO NOT UPLOAD the folder “mt-static” Also remember, you’re only uploading the files, DO NOT

UPLOAD THE FOLDER “MT-5.0-en”, just all of the files in it.

PATH IS: /home/TOMEJOE/www/blog/mt

4. Upload all of the files of under “mt-static” on your C: to ICDSoft folder “mt-static”. Remember, you’re only uploading the files, and not the entire folder. Remember: “mt-static” folder and “mt” folder are both under the root directory.

PATH IS: /home/TOMEJOE/www/blog/mt

PATH IS: /home/TOMEJOE/www/blog/mt-static

5. You need to create a MySQL database for the Movable Type application. From ICDSoft Control Panel, click

“MySQLDatabase”. In the “Create new database” Create the name for the database.

It should look like “tomjoe_blog” or “tomjoe_myblog”

In the “Collation” field, it should be: utf8_general_ci

Click the “Create” button

You will have to create a login/password called a “MySQL User” for this database. There will already be a login created, which is the “master” account. That is a default. You also need to create another MySQL subuser for Movable Type to use to log into your database. You don’t want them to use your master account since that’s the same one you use to access you host/website information.

Under “Create new MySQL user”

EXAMPLE:

Database Name: tomjoe_blog (use pull-down menu to selecte your database name)

MySQLUser: joetom

Password:

Confirm Password

Be sure to grant all privileges to the newly created MySQL subuser, by clicking/check makr all the words in the “Privileges” box. And click the “Add” button. And after you save it, make sure the ID has all of the permissions as listed below in the “MySQl users”.

Select, Create, Create View, Execute SP, Insert, Alter, Show View, Update, Lock, Alter SP, Delete, Drop, Create SP

6. Go back to File Manager and browse to the directory where the extracted files for Movable Type are located. Copy the file “mt-config.cgi-original” to “mt-config.cgi”. NOTE: Make sure to copy so you will have the original just in case you mess up something.

7. Click the file “mt-config.cgi” through the File Manager.

At the line specifying the “CGIPath” you need to enter the URL (web address) to Movable Type under your account. It should look similar to this:

http://example.com/mt/mt-version/ (Another Way: http://tomjoe.com/mt/)

At the line specifying the “StaticWebPath” use the address path for “mt-static”.

It should look like:

http://example.com/mt-version/mt-static (My ways: http://tomjoe.com/mt-static)

NOTE: Below I give an example of how the “mt-config.cgi” file should be configured for your MySQL database settings.

DEFINITIONS

Database: You need to specify the MySQL database you created for your Movable Type application.

DBUser: You need to enter the MySQL username you created at your web hosting Control Panel’s MySQL section for your Movable Type application.

DBPassword: You need to enter the password you assigned to your “MySQL subuser”.

You will also need to add the following line under the rest of the MySQL settings:

DBSocket /tmp/mysql5.sock

After that you need to delete ALL THE the lines in the file, which include the “POSTGRESQL”, “SQLITE” and “BERKELEYDB” database settings.

BELOW IS AN EXAMPLE OF HOW “mt-config.cgi” file should look like

++++++++++++++EXMAPLE+++++++++++++++++++++++

## Movable Type configuration file ##

## ##

## This file defines system-wide settings for Movable Type ##

## In total, there are over a hundred options, but only those ##

## critical for everyone are listed below. ##

## ##

## Information on all others can be found at: ##

## http://www.movabletype.org/documentation/appendices/config-directives/ ##

################################################################

##################### REQUIRED SETTINGS ########################

################################################################

# The CGIPath is the URL to your Movable Type directory

CGIPath http://www.example.com/cgi-bin/mt/

# The StaticWebPath is the URL to your mt-static directory

# Note: Check the installation documentation to find out

# whether this is required for your environment. If it is not,

# simply remove it or comment out the line by prepending a “#”.

StaticWebPath http://www.example.com/mt-static

#================ DATABASE SETTINGS ==================

# REMOVE all sections below that refer to databases

# other than the one you will be using.

#======== REQUIRED SETTINGS ==========

CGIPath /mt

StaticWebPath /mt-static/

StaticFilePath /home/tomjoe/www/mt-static

TemplatePath /home/tomjoe/www/mt/tmpl

#======== DATABASE SETTINGS ==========

##### MYSQL #####

ObjectDriver DBI::mysql

Database tomjoe_blog

DBUser tomjoeblog

DBPassword suzietime1

DBHost localhost

DBSocket /tmp/mysql5.sock

#======== MAIL =======================

MailTransfer sendmail

SendMailPath /usr/lib/sendmail

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

8. Update the permissions of all cgi files (14 files) to be executable.

In the “Permission” column, change them from “664” to “775”

Do this for each and every file.

9. Rename the “mt-check.cgi” to “mt-check-unsafe.cgi”

If You don’t do this step, you will receive the following message below on step 14:

“The MT-Check report is disabled when Movable Type has a valid configuration file (mt-config.cgi)”

NOTE: This will allow you a direct access to the URL (mt-check-unsafe.cgi) for 10 minutes.

Once having confirmed the system information in step 14, don’t forget to rename it back to “mt-check.cgi” though it would be disabled automatically after 10 minutes.

10. In your web browser, type the path

http://blog.tomjoe.com/mt/mt-check-unsafe.cgi

The message “Movable Type System Check Successful” will appear at the bottom of the screen if the server has all the necessary libraries/modules for installing Movable Type.

11. Remember to rename “mt-check-unsafe.cgi” back to “mt-check.cgi”

12. In your web browser, login into Movable Type

http://blog.tomjoe.com/mt/

OR

http://blog.tomjoe.com/mt/mt.cgi

13. Create the administrator account. Click “Continue”.

14. Create the first website. Click “Finish”. Movable Type will then initialize the database with all the configuration options and settings specified. In the “Create Your First Blog” enter basic information about your blog, the name, Blog URL which is what people will type in the browser to get to your blog, and the string that will get to your directory of files.

15. Click “Sign into Movable Type”

16. Sign back into Movable Type, if asked

+++++++++++++++++

Important notice: You should monitor the site of the software vendor for any security updates of your installed application.

+++++++++++++++++

THAT’S IT. YOU’RE DONE WITH THE INSTALLATION. SO GO HAVE FUN MAKING YOUR BLOG SITE

+++++++++++++++++

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Finding a Blog, Website, and other Online Stuff for Self Publishing

Posted by - October 31st, 2008

Soooo…
First I went hunting for a host and dug around the internet. There were tons of people with lists of (what people think were) the best Top 10 web hosting companies…and that list changed with every site I went to. So then I decided to search for any site that had issues or problems. I typed “reviews” after each hosting site that I researched.
Then I came across BestHostingRatings and really liked it! I had already reviewed other sites and this one had comments from people that seemed legit. Plus I had already looked at the one I was most interested in, and it had a lot of comments on it.

I chose ICDSoft, and then got my domain at NameCheap since it offered to place their company information in front of my personal information to keep my address and info private in WhoIs. ICDSoft didn’t offer that, but that’s okay. NameCheap calls it the WhoIsGuard. Though I’m sure there are probably other ways for people to get your information, I figure the more deterrents you have, the better. Everything was completed and done on September 12, 2008.

Soooo
I’m learning html and a bit of css while trying to design a website without paying someone else to do it for me. I was going to use a webdesigner for my webiste (Deana Zhollis) but got pointed to some templates. And I found one for like $30.00 and it was fairly easy to play around with at TheTemplateStore. The other thing is that I have a friend who I could borrow software to help me out with all of the design, otherwise the software to configure a website like this template would have cost me over $1,000 to buy them all. But updating the template was lots of hours and hours of fun. No. Really. I enjoyed figuring out GIMP, Dreamweaver (for FREE html software, try out Nvu. I downloaded it and it works great!–but not with this template site. Just with basic html from scratch, or simple templates), Swish and Adobe Fireworks. Lots of fun. But what I didn’t like, and what was NOT fun, was Movable Type!

I wanted to have a blog, even though I barely write online, but I’ve heard time and again, that it would help generate people to your site.
Which is what I want to do for my self-published book.

So on to researching free blog sites, and I came across Movable Type, which some people really loved. What I didn’t know was that those people who love it so much were Web Designers.

I worked hours and days trying to upload that sucker onto my host site, even with the help of my host IT at ICDSoft, who basically told me (after I tried to fix something they had already fixed out of the kindness of their hearts) that I was on my own and to start over. I don’t blame them. The stupid thing was horrible! A nightmare!
And then…HURRAY!…it was working. So then, to play around with it. The fun part, right? Wrong! You basically need to be a Web Designer (which, like I said before, I didn’t know) just to maneuver around in that thing! I can’t do a simply thing like move my columns around, cause I need to know more css than I do!

So I decided to scratch the Movable Type project and find another software where I can have a blog. I looked into WordPress, but before trying to install a “very easy” program as so many have already suggested, I still didn’t see if it would be as easy as it was designing my website with the template I bought from TheTemplateStore.com for $30 bucks.

On to looking at Blogger. Can I put in on my host site? Yes, they say. I can FTP the page. But they didn’t tell you it had to be a STANDARD TEMPLATE! What if I wanted to add some neat things to my blog site, to make it look pretty and different? Nope. Standard. And If I wanted to tweak the darn thing, I would need to know more of HTML than I do. PLUS I can’t delete my account, but I can put in bogus information in it and decide to never sign on to it again. So there’s another Blogger profile out there, no website, but just sitting on a server.

Sigh…

WhatToDo..WhatToDo..WhatToDo..WhatToDo..???

I went back online and did more research and found out that Word Press has things called “themes.” And then found a youtube presentation on how easy it was to implement one. Will it work? Back to downloading…

This time, downloading wasn’t so bad. It claims 5 minutes to do everything, but it still took some doing…about 15-20 minutes for me. If I hadn’t done the Movable Type, I would have never known how to setup my database. Then on to themes. Did some research and found one that I liked, and played around with it. It wouldn’t work with my widgets and columns, so I guess it wasn’t designed right. On to more templates/skins. Found another one. Not as fun as the first one, but it worked. Now to editting it to fit my needs. Very nice! Just like using the Dreamweaver template. Fun. Easy to figure out. A FUN to figure out, which is most important, and now I have to go along with everyone else who simply enjoyes Word Press!

However, I did read that because it’s popular, it’s subjected to lots of spam and hacks and bad people who just want to spoil the fun. So I went on to finding security stuff for it which told me about .htaccess files. Some of them worked, others just got in the way. Again. I’m not that familiar with web design and stuff, so the few things I was able to add and update, I only can hope they’re deterrents.
So, I’ll just cross my fingers and hope for the best on that.

Back to learning more on Word Press

…And having fun! 🙂

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My First Blog

Posted by - October 29th, 2008

Here I am testing out my first blog. I picked out a theme and on I go…

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