Smashwords…Here I am! And…here I go…to Researching Writing Software

Posted by - March 7th, 2011

I’ve took the time to reformat my books to Smashwords submission process. They require a Microsoft Word format using Bookmarks and Hyperlinks for the Table of Contents. So now I have four (4) versions of my book: 1) HTML format, 2) Kindle format, 3) PDF format and 4) Smashword format.

It’s taken months in between to figure out where I wanted to send my books and if I wanted to do the formatting for them and when to do all of it.

I’m hoping a standard format will come soon, because it’s been a pain to re-format my books to each, individual publisher’s requirements. Maybe the standard might be epub (something I just recently found out about a few weeks ago while researching on the web to find some kind of software that, with a push of a button, it would recreate my books to whatever format the publisher wanted).

ePub

What is ePub? Well, from what I found out, ePub is short for “electronic publication” and it’s a format that allows eReaders like Barnes & Nobles Nook and Sony Reader to read it. A list of devices that support the ePub format is at wikiMobileRead. What it is, is a creation of XML files (mostly XHTML) all zipped up together. It basically makes a file for Every-Single-Chapter of your book. Take a look at a picture of it at addictivetips.

I’ve looked occasionally at MobileRead.com to see what the programmers have to say about all these different “e” stuff, and that’s where I begin to hope for a STANDARD eBOOK FORMAT.

There was one particular forum that someone was asking for a software that produced multi-format ebooks. One person replied stating: “…I have to consult my notes each time I do my conversions, to keep the differences in format conversion processes straight. If I worked in large volumes, I could see it driving me crazy…”

He went on to talking about keeping up with sooo many formats:

“…my biggest concern would be how well this tool could adapt to changing format standards (or how they were used by the end-user) over time. And with multiple formats to be concerned about, any little change in one of a half-dozen formats (or how an e-reader reads them) could require major rewriting of the tool.

A suggestion: Another way to look at this might be from the other end of the conversion process, that is, the reader end. As opposed to a universal SW (software) tool that converts and exports from one standard format (say, XHTML) to multiple formats, maybe there should be a set of clear guidelines for the e-reader of whatever HW/SW type to import and convert 1-2 standard formats to their proprietary format. In other words, rules that dictate how the elements in the original standard format must be read on the end-user’s e-reader, and the e-reader itself does the conversion.

The advantage to this plan is that it does not require the SW tool to adjust every time a new e-reader or doc format comes along, which can be costly and logistically challenging for the standards body, at best. Instead, it is up to the e-reader to conform to the guidelines.

This still allows the consumer the ultimate freedom, that is, to decide which e-reader they want to use based on features. And all that your group needs to be concerned about is the standard format, and the conversion guidelines, and you’re done.“

Yeah, I know, I quoted a lot, but I liked the way he put his thoughts out there on a multi-format ebooks. To create a one-for-all type of software to convert everything would be a nightmare for programmers, thus it’s better if everyone just came to an agreement on ONE FORMAT.

ePub Conversion Software

So, then I research the MobileRead forum for software that would help you create the epub format that… uh…I didn’t have to buy.

I came to this listings:

  • Calibre
  • eCub
  • ePubHub

Calibre seems to be the most popular. Adobe InDesign can do it too. A list of other software on “How can I create ePub files from my books?” is at LexCycle.

And why was I looking at ePub? I mean, I already sent my books over in the other acceptable formats for the publishers. So, I don’t need to do the ePub thing (which I haven’t); but I really just stumbled into it.

WRITING SOFTWARE

Storyist

Well, I was first looking for that darn software that can convert my book to all the types of format requirements that all the different publishers wanted. I ran across Storyist that has now added the conversion export for the Kindle format. And as I researched if I wanted this thing, and decided I did want it since it looked like it had so many neat features to keep all your data for your research and files that I make when writing a book (like character listing, a location listing with a field to type the description for each place and also helps me to keep track of them), I found it that it’s only on the Macintosh computer! Then I saw StoryMill, but that was another Macintosh software.

Scrivener

Then I found Scrivener, which, at first was another Macintosh software, but now it can also be used in Windows sometime in 2011 (the above link has a beta download). However, Scrivener doesn’t have a timeline feature, but it sure does have some neat corkboard stuff (look at a YouTube video of it). More on Scrivener down below…

Liquid Story Binder XE

However, Liquid Story Binder XE looks pretty good too, but it seems to be a lot more complex, and I’ll get so absorbed with all the features, and not get any writing done.

PageFour

Then there’s PageFour which looks to be simple and something very easy to use; the same as

WriteWay

or WWV), but WriteWay has a few more features. What I really didn’t like is that certain parts of the software isn’t available unless you pay for it. There’s a standard version and a professional version. It’s the only writing software I saw do that. And the price was really up there. It is quite similar to …

WriteItNow

WriteItNow, which doesn’t look as nice as WriteWay , but I loved the idea of the relationship chart.

StoryWeaver

I saw StoryWeaver, but the look just wasn’t there for me (you gottah scroll all the way down to get to see the pictures on the website).

Dramatica Pro

Dramatica Pro just had too much other stuff (mostly on characters and such) than story, and it costs WAY too much on how the screenshots looked (Liquid Story Binder XE “looks” more like a $200.00+ software than Dramatica Pro).

NewNovelist

NewNovelist looked very nice and it reads your story back to you or you can talk you story into it (says the webpage). I remember years ago when the speech stuff was introduced and it wasn’t very good, but like I said, that was over a decade ago. Things might have improved today (which it has…more about that later down the way).

Pricing as of Feb 2011

  • PageFour ($34.95)
  • Liquid Story Binder XE ($45.95)
  • Scrivener ($45.00)
  • WriteWay (Standard $24.00/Professional $49.00)
  • WriteItNow ($59.95)
  • StoryWeaver ($29.95)
  • Dramatica Pro ($209.95)
  • NewNovelist ($49.99)


FREE STUFF

You know me, gottah research to see if there was some free stuff that might be equivalent to what’s on the buying market.

I found a freesoftware called Jer’s Novel Writer Screenshots, but again, it’s for Macintosh .

Another free software is called StoryBook, but it doesn’t seem to have the actual “writing” function. It’s mainly to help you organize. I didn’t see a main workspace for writing your novel. It’s a great tool if you want to keep the writing and the characters/outline separate though. More on StoryBook below…

I found RoughDraft, but it’s not being updated anymore.

And then there was yWriter, which looks really good for a free software. The video in YouTube definitely explained a lot for me on this software. And this YouTube Video was hilarious (Evil Prompts!!) and was so true to what I wanted, and also mentioned yWriter. So…. I downloaded it.

More on yWriter

I went in and put every scene of my book Creations that I’m currently working on into yWriter. I currently only have 11 Chapters and about 2-8 scenes in each chapter–that took me several hours. I didn’t quite know what a “scene” was, but I figured anywhere that I put double paragraph space to represent time passage or a change of scenery or anywhere I put ***, that’s where I had a scene. A very NEAT thing about importing an entire MSWord document into yWriter is that if I had put a *** break throughout my entire document, yWriter would break out every scene automatically for me (I didn’t find out about this until AFTER I inputted everything in manually), and it would beak out the Chapters if it had the word “Chapter 1” for instance in it. If I opened a scene and it had “* * *”, I could choose “Split scene on ‘* * *'” option, and there you go. It makes a new scene from the stars. I didn’t know if it worked since it looked like it blanked my entire scene out, but when I closed the Scene window, it had the next scenes already in the list. You do have to retype the descriptions and titles for each scene though. But, when I copied and pasted my book Creations into it, I had to do all of that anyway.

More on Scrivener

After playing around with yWriter, I decided to give Scrivener a try. Heck, it’s free for right now anyway with the beta testing. I figure I would take a look. I installed it and it told me it would expire in a week, where then I have to go and re-download another beta updated software. That’s cool. I just wanted to take a look.

It mention a tutorial that would take 30-45 minutes. I was like, ok, I had the time for that. Hmmm. This is a Beta, so you can’t expect very much in instructions. I mean, there was no pictures. Written instructions can only do so much with describing what you should click and where you should look. I found myself re-reading instructions 5-6 times before I accidentally found out what it was trying to tell me. Needless-to-say, it took me about two hours to get through. And when I wanted do a “show-and-tell” and tell my husband about the software after I finished it, I forgot most of what I went through.

Back to yWriter

Bottom-line, going through Scrivener made me appreciate yWriter even more. I didn’t really need a tutorial for yWriter. I just jumped right in. If I wanted to find out more, I did a search for it later. Doing Scrivener tutorial also told me how the other software programs I mentioned Above would need a learning curve as well, LOTS of learning, especially Dramatica Pro

I had so much fun with yWriter, I decided to download StoryBook. Well, just like I thought, I couldn’t find, anywhere, where I could actually write my story. I thought I had missed something, but I didn’t think I did. If I did, please let me know, because I didn’t find it anywhere.

However, in yWriter, there is a way to write in a full screen (Just Right-Click inside the Scenes area when you have it opened and select “Full screen text editor”). There’s also a way to make a Scene or Chapter unused simply by Right-Click and select “Toggled Used/Unused”. An Icon will display to state what mode it’s in. You can make something else, other than a “Chapter” and change it to “Other”, which would work great to make a Timeline using the scenes. Hmmm..I think I’ll just make another post just about yWriter. But as you can see, I’ve chose yWriter as my tool of choice! It’s easy, I can jump right into it, it’s free (though I loved it so much, I donated), and it’s simple.

WOW! A long posting today, huh. It took me several days to get this all in and looking at stuff. But it was fun.

Until next time!

Gonna go play with my yWriter 🙂 My Bestist Friend

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I like the feel of a paperback. No ebook for me!

Posted by - February 13th, 2011

Yeah right, you’re going to stick just to paperbacks. I use to feel the same way. In fact, I still haven’t read an entire book in digital format (called eBooks). But, isn’t those pdf files the same thing? Haven’t you read manuals and instructions using a free version of Adobe Reader? Yep. Same thing.

I’ve been looking at JA Konrath’s blog site and he has some hilarious ways of putting it when it comes to eBooks versus Print Books. Some people think that the Printed book will always be around, that eBooks will not surpass them. Well… after reading this, I kinda changed my mind. Here’s one of J.A. Konrath’s beliefs.

I want a tangible product.

Me too. I have over five thousand books. I love owning them. I love how they look on the shelf. I love perusing my library.

But I’ll be honest here. I used to have over a thousand cassette tapes. I loved owning them. I loved how they looked on the shelf. I loved perusing my music library.

Then CDs came along, and I repeated the love affair.

Eventually I got my first iPod.

I don’t even own a CD or cassette player anymore.

I still love to own. But now I own digital files. I still love to persuse my music library. Except now I do it on iTunes.

Tangible is only a state of mind…

Basically, we all adapt (resistance is futile!) and we let go of the old and learn the new. But, you know, things are going much too fast for me, or am I just becoming another parent who will need their kids to help them stay in touch with today’s society. I swear I’m getting Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with all of this multitasking, as well as alzheimer’s. I swear I am! One second my mouth is open because I just thought of something else, and the next second I forgot what I was just going to say.

So, am I going to get a Kindle? Probably not. Though I did download Amazon’s free computer software to read Kindle books. For me, I think, a Kindle would only work when I take an airplane flight and that will definitely replace two books and a few magazines, leaving me with more room. However, I just might get a decent size Smartphone, Android, iPhone, Xoom whatchamacallits and download the free Kinder app for my new cell phone and use that. That would be one less charger, battery, screen, equipment thingy that I would have to carry. I mean, currently, I have my work laptop, my work cell phone, my personal cell phone, a laptop bag, and lunch bag to carry with me to and from work Monday thru Friday. I feel like a bag lady! Hit it Erykah Badu!

Bag lady you gone hurt your back
Dragging all them bags like that
I guess nobody ever told you
All you must hold on to
Is you, is you, is you

Heh. Heh.

Sorry, been learning html blockquotes for this post, but I still can’t figure out how to get the darn spacing out between my paragraphs. It has something to do with “blockquote p” but it’s not working. Okay. Whatever.

Oh.

See. Mind wondered off to something else and because of that, it took me 3 hours to write this little post.

Well, back to JA Konrath. Take a look at the blog posts below. I think you’ll find them very convincing and amusing.

Until next time… I’ll continue to sing my bag lady song…

In Defense of Print
You can Pry My Paper Books from My Cold, Dead Fingers
Print is Eternal
How Not to Write a Story

Ohh…That last link I need to write a blog on…

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Movable Type…Again…And Going to Natural Hair 2

Posted by - January 8th, 2011

So, I’m continually figuring out little ways that I can do to market online, without having to spend too much time, since currently I just don’t have the time. As I do my baby steps towards marketing, that will be one last thing I need to do when I do have the time.

One thing I learned on my internet research is to put your Second Skill to work. If you put your Second Skill out there, you can drive more traffic to your First Skill. For example, my First Skill is writing and I do have a Second Skill, which is my job, of programming telephone systems and call centers. If I created another blog and/or website about my knowledge of my Second Skill, then on those web pages I can direct traffic to my First Skill with just a link/click away.

But, I’m not going to use my Second Skill, since I consider that “work”. I decided to open up another blog page about my new project: Transitioning from Relaxed to Natural Hair. Remember back when in 2008 I was looking for a Blog site? Well, I put my adventures on this page: Finding a Blog…. And I noted how much of a difficult time I had with installing Movable Type that I placed my own instruction on the internet on how to install Movable type to maybe help someone else.

So, why am I talking about Movable Type since I had such a hard time with it two years ago? Well, since I already had that blog uploaded on the net, I decided to use that for my blogging for my steps from transitioning from relaxed to natural hair. I mean, it was there and not being used, right? I had forgotten how difficult it was to even manipulate the thing. That blog was pretty plain, and so I had to figure out, ALL OVER AGAIN, steps on how to make it more personable. It took HOURS! And when I finally figured SOMETHING out (after resizing a picture file using Gimp, figuring out html tables and widths, learning where the header and banner and styles and widgets for columns were and what they did), I was only able to add a little picture and a short list links.

Then, MORE HOURS went in to figure out the RSS Feed for Movable Type (remember my I thought I knew blog). Well, I didn’t quite understand Movable Type atom thing (which is basically like rss), thinking some mysterious icon will magically appear on my header for people to click — something that indicated “Hey! This Page has RSS” button. No magically RSS button appeared, and I finally figure out that it was just “formatting” for people who use an actual software, or their webpage, to pull in the RSS on their browser. So I went to my Google Feedburner, made a thingy there. And copied a nice little path to make me a RSS button and link back to Google Feedburner, adding it to my Movable Type Banner Header. Side Note: I still have no idea how the atom thingy works since that is somehow directed back to my own webpage. Sigh.

Then I found out I had to UPGRADE the Movable Type thingy!! YIKES! That took me TWO WHOLE DAYS to figure out and complete. Duh! Naturally, I typed up instructions on how to Upgrade Movable Type as well. And along with that, I updated my instruction on how to install Movable type, because, 1) you basically have to reinstall the entire thing in order to upgrade it and 2) my first instructions were back in 2008 and outdated. Man! Uploading and Downloading files took 20-30 minutes. And I did it THREE TIMES because I didn’t see the BIG RED WARNING sign to NOT COPY MOVABLE TYPE FILES WHEN UPGRADING.

I’m SO GLAD that Word Press upgrades are now just a Click of a Button.

Don’t ask me why I’m making myself suffer through learning all this stuff. I don’t know. I get into something, thinking it won’t be a big deal, and get stuck. Then, since I can’t let it go, I have to figure it out until it gets solved. But hopefully, in the long run, what I learn will benefit someone else. That’s what I love about the internet, because that’s what I did to learn about how to transition from relaxed to natural hair. I gathered all the information together, and put it in a structure that suited me. And now I’m sharing that information on my other blog site. And as for “Marketing” I put a Big Sign up top:

Websites! I Like!

So there you have it. More steps in my Self Publishing Process.

Until next time… and oh yeah! Happy New Year!

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I THOUGHT I knew…. 2

Posted by - December 12th, 2010

Yep. More learning lessons. So I thought I understood RSS, but found out tonight that I didn’t. I just put my regular URL in the buttons, and of course, they didn’t work.

So I went to my favorite friend, Google, and found Tutorial: Create RSS Feeds for your Website. It took me a bit to figure out what the site was saying, but it was fairly easy. Much easier than other sites where I had to do more html programming, which I really don’t want to do. This easy way, I created RSS using Google Feedburner, and it’s much easier.

Finally, I made a RSS feed for my Website (Zhollis) and one for my Blog. Now my blog RSS feed button works. For WordPress and MovableType blogs, RSS is already in the programming. I used the “Auto-Detect RSS” button I learned how to add from Tutorial: Create RSS Feeds for your Website, then clicked the “View original RSS Feed” hyperlink that came up on the new page and copied that URL Address to the field in “Original Feed” for Feedburner.Google.com. I’m glad that the Blog sites automatically has RSS built in, but my own original website that I built with Dreamweaver doesn’t have it. The instructions tell you how to add it to Feedburner, but for each and every change to the website, you have to read the instructions to update the Google Reader for the new content. Since I can’t do the hard stuff for RSS, for my static website that doesn’t change much, this works for me. For those who need to automatically have your website update RSS all the time for you, there’s Feedity.

Whew!

I also made a favicon, thanks to fellow writer’s blog All Fired Up (who also suggest making a email subscription so that people will be notified by email that your blog or website has been updated if they don’t want to, or don’t know how to, use your RSS). Thanks to her site, I’m now in the know that such things are possible. Back to the favicon… It now displays my fangs on the tabs up top by the address. When future people bookmark me, they’ll see my fangs! 🙂

*~* I uploaded my fangs to change to my favicon here: http://www.html-kit.com/favicon/
*~* Downloaded the favicon.ico file to the root of my websites
*~* And type the html path right below the <head> in header.php for Word Press
and right above </head> on my novel website.

What I used in Word Press
<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”<?php bloginfo(‘template_directory’); ?>/favicon.ico” />

What I used for my regular website
<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”/favicon.ico”>
<link rel=”icon” href=”/favicon.ico”>

I kinda like it!

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Where are my buttons?

Posted by - December 4th, 2010

So here I am, trying to show my site to someone at work and BEHOLD, I couldn’t find my Plugin Social Buttons! You know, the stuff where you can know there’s updates on the page and link to Tweeter, Facebook, or news-feed. And that song Buttons from Pussycat Dolls popped in my head. Someone loosened up my buttons!

At first, I just thought it was my company blocking stuff, but then when I checked at home. NO BUTTONS. Back to research. I went to my WordPress plugin’s website, and found out that since Word Press version 2.4.5.0, I now have to add a html line to my footer.php page. And I did that. Buttons Returned!!

I’ve been doing my updates for WordPress, and I don’t even remember when I had 2.4.5.0 or how long ago that was. So I went to find the WordPress versions timeline and the date that they came out, and it looked like that was some time ago. I just added my buttons in April 2010. So I don’t know what I did to loosen up my buttons…uh…loose my buttons. But they’re back now!!

More on Amazon DTP
So yesterday, on my day off, I did some more research on Amazon DTP and Kindle. While I was using the Preview on my book, I noticed that it just wasn’t looking quite right. Then I notice a pull-down where you can go to the Table of Contents and Go To Beginning of the book and Go To Cover. Hmmm. So what’s that?

Found out that Kindle, which I don’t have and have been eying since it came out, you can jump to these three different sections in a eBook. And how do you do that? Well…I had to research that too and put some anchors in my html coding.

So basically, you put these in:
<a name=”TOC”/> for Table of Contents right before your Table of Contents
<a name=”start”/> for Go To Beginning where you want people to go when they first open your book
<a name=”cover”/> for Go To Cover where it will display your beautiful picture/cover of your book
<mbp:pagebreak/> for Page Breaks, which I mentioned in an earlier post

I looked to see if I needed to put the cover (<a name=”cover”/>) in my book or not. I couldn’t find anywhere where people were leaning more to the “to do” or “not to do”, so I left the cover out. I can always insert the picture later on if I want. I read somewhere that I could put the cover at the end of the book.

Then the question came up about my page breaks. Should I put my page breaks in the beginning? I mean, I had them before each chapter, which is what I always hear to do, but what about the copyright section, the title section, the Table of Contents and all that stuff in the beginning? I put page breaks in there too.

And it all looked much nicer.

I also had to research how to heck to put code in my webpage without my page seeing it as a code so I can put here what I did. Well you basically have to use some weird looking stuff for the < and the > to show.
So you use these:

&lt; for < and you use &gt; for >.

Then I had to find out how to display what I just wrote on how to display code on a webpage.
You use the <xmp> in the beginning, then
you use </xmp> at the end of your sentences…uh…line code.

Man! What a day of researching!

Until Next time! I’ll go back to singing my Button song…

I’m telling you to loosen up my buttons babe
But you keep frontin’
Sayin’ what you gon’ do to me
But I ain’t seen nuttin’….

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NaNoWriMo 2010 and Amazon DTP…

Posted by - November 30th, 2010

I’m done! Yep. Finally got updated html files to Amazon’s Digital Text Platform. Of course, I made a few mistakes. Of course. And then I had to figure out how to correct it. Was I suppose to “Unpublish” the book and then put it back with the updated version, or just click on the ‘Edit book details’ in the menu. It was the latter, from what I read up on the Digital Text Platform (DTP) support home page.

So All Done! Yea for me!!

I also, semi-participated in the National Novel Writing Month 2010 (NaNoWriMo). See my Participate Sticker? Hee. Hee.

NaNoWriMo is basically where you write one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month’s time–Entire Month of November.

I only wrote 12,826, and that’s adding to the already existing word count of 23,505 (Making a total of 36,331). Considering my limited amount of time these days, I think I did pretty good! Two members of my Speculative Writer’s group were Municipal Liaisons for Houston one year, and they said to me, “Hey, you don’t have to reach the 50,000…just write.” Oh…Definition of the Municipal Liaisons: “local volunteers who help organize NaNoWriMo groups in their hometowns.” I participated from years 2002 thru 2005, and then I stopped only because I knew I could do it and get it done. It wasn’t so exciting for me anymore. But the past few years I began missing it, and I didn’t participate in it because I just didn’t like the fact that I knew I couldn’t meet my word count; but what my friends said to me stuck in my head these past two years, and so I decided to do it this year. With No strings Attached.

So, yeah, 12,826 doesn’t seem much, but it’s a WHOLE lot than I thought I could do. Plus, I got more done on my book Creations. I just have a few more scenes to do, doing it the NaNoWriMo-Way, and then I’ll go back and fluff it up a bit.

Anyway, I had to put something up for the month of November. As usual, I thought I had posted something and at the last minute, I found out I didn’t. Time. Time. Time. I tell ya…

Until Next … uh… Time.

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Mobipocket…Kindle no more 1

Posted by - October 29th, 2010

So, I got an email from Mobipocket, this month of October 2010, stating that, soon, they are no longer going to provide publishing for distribution in the Kindle Store. And what does this mean? This means I have to go directly to “Amazon’s premier Kindle publishing channel” to the The Digital Text Platform (DTP). This also means more learning curve on my part.

I have to now look at my html settings in MobiPocket and see if DTP supports them. So far, after a few days of looking at what’s supported in DTP, I then had to look to see if the “not so common” html that I first found listed was also supported. For example, page breaks. I learned from Mobipocket to include “” which I did before each chapter (without the quotes “” of course). Fortunately, it is supported in DTP.

Unfortunately, my Mobipocket version had too many other things that just wasn’t cutting it for me, which meant, I had to make my book over from scratch. I had to copy and paste each individual chapter into my Dreamweaver and then go back and find the paragraphs that were in italics that didn’t transfer over. Then there were spaces in between words since what I copied was “justified” instead of “align left” for my paragraphs. Sigh. It was a long day that I did on a vacation day (Daughter in daycare and hubby at work). Fortunately, I only had to do this for The Made. My other two books (Irid and Ruby, Flesh & Heart) were perfect. That’s probably because I had did them from scratch as well instead of having MobiPocket conversion do it for me.

Thinking positively, this was also an opportunity to fix some mistakes that was found in my book The Made. My husband read it off of Kindle using his cellular phone from an app he downloaded (I was so happy that he read my book :). He doesn’t read books). Like my Chapter 27, which, for some reason had the wrong title! Ugh! It Had “Town of Donwick”, which, by the way, is Chapter 14, when it should have been titled “Sick”.

Why so many mistake in The Made? Well, with Irid. and Ruby, Flesh & Heart., I read and re-read and read some more during my maternity leave in it’s printed format. Sitting at home with nothing to do but breastfeed a baby every 90 minutes, I had to do something. So, I looked over my books and got them ready for publishing. I didn’t do this with my first book. And working on two books at a time during my maternity leave didn’t leave me room for my first baby, The Made. The Made is a pretty darn big book and reviewing it over would take some time. But until then, with self publishing, I can edit and upload as I go.

Michael R. Hicks, who I follow along with his self-publishing steps, puts his books in ebook formats first, and then follows it with a paperback version. That’s easier to get all those mistakes out before putting it into a book format. I think I just might do that with my next books.

Until next time 🙂

Oh, and yeah…. Have a Happy Halloween

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Confirmation of being Indie

Posted by - October 23rd, 2010

I wanted to share something that was Really a mess! And you can really Feel this person’s frustration.

A fellow writer had this link on her blog. I actually met her from a comment she posted on my blog. Don’t you just love meeting new people and gaining more ideas and perspective and information when knowledge is shared? Oh..well, getting off track. So…this page is call Alphabet Soup. And my new fellow writer’s blog is here.

So reading the Alphabet Soup reminds me of big corporations where there’s all this bureaucracy and absolutely NOTHING is being done. This is not to say that there are ways to wade through deep, sinking, messy mud and get what you want, but it’s good to be armed and ready if the Publishing House is the direction you want to go.

This information will stay in the back of my mind, because being in a House is my ultimate goal because that’s where the money is. However, doing these first steps on my own will help me build that foundation of what I continually want to do as well. There are those who started businesses on their own before the Big Pockets noticed them and helped move things along in the Big Way. And in every money-making industry, there’s a beginning. And my beginning is here…being an Indie (Independent Author).

Take a look at the mixes and matches Alphabet Soup and let me know what you think.

Until next time 🙂

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I’m now on Borders!! 1

Posted by - September 5th, 2010

I’ve been checking Borders ever so often to see if my books finally made it there and they finally are!

Man, that took some time. I was on Barnes and Nobles in February and now I just looked and I’m on Borders website now. COOL!!

I don’t know what the process is for getting on these sites, only that Lightning Source definitely has a part on it. To really find out, I would have to become more active in how this publishing stuff works, but oh well. At the moment, don’t have the time and things seem to be progressing well as I sit and wait. The forefront of doing of the work I needed to do (which as A LOT of man hours), I think, is gradually being paid off. At least for me. Sometimes you just have to tip the ball to get it rolling. Sometimes you have to give it a huge shove! But for now, I’m sitting on the sidelines and waiting until I have the time to get those hours back into the game.

But to look today and see my books finally one Borders… Priceless! 🙂

Until next time.

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Traveling gets the creative juices going…Especially Las Vegas!

Posted by - August 23rd, 2010

After my vacation trip to California for my High School Reunion and then the drive out to Las Vegas to spend a few more days, it reminded me of how going to new and/or old familiar sites can help out with my visual scenes instead my head.

Especially Las Vegas!

There was so much to see and do. I haven’t been to Vegas in about 7-8 years, and Man there’s so much that had changed! I don’t think the Monorail was around the last time I went (or at least wasn’t available). And then there’s the Wax Museum and the shows (saw Lion King and KA by Cirque du Soleil). Just walking around in a place full of sites can get your mental juices flowing. Mine did.

But of course, as I’ve said before, writing has slowed a bit again due to life and changes. I have had a lot to do at work and when I get home, I just want to sit down and watch a Netflix movie.

Yet today, I had time to finally sit down and write in my blog. I was getting kind of close to the end of the month and would have missed it, but I had a relaxing night and no late scheduled work hours for today. So I’m all in the clear to write something!

So I’m off going to go do just that.

Until next time 🙂

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