Tag: ebooks

My Head’s Aswirl

p32802932-150x150-8136536Writing is really hard for me. I’m undisciplined, lazy, easily distracted, have a bad memory and too many other interests. Now that my novella (it’s not long enough to be a novel) is finished. I’ve already got a publisher, A Cappela Publishing, a beautiful cover and my book is ready to print, but I find that the PR, mostly on the internet, is much harder than writing.

I’ve lost control. The online world is too much with me. All I want to do is go outside,  smell the flowers, walk the woods. But no – I must sit down at the dread computer to the point of backache and hone in on the world of technology. If it wasn’t for my son Ray, his vast knowledge of the internet and his constant help, I’d quit. Check out his 15 year and running, No. 1  U of Florida college sports website gatorcountry.com. So here’s what’s looming:

  • Website – Got my domain freetobloombook.com, but don’t go there yet. My son has just started working on it. It should be up in February.
  • Facebook Page – Okay, I can do this. Step 1 – I name it – FreeToBloom. Wow, it shows up. Step 2 – I try adding the photo of my bloom the way I learned on FB exporter. Doesn’t work. I look up the jpg number, which takes a lot longer, and there it is. Magic. Step 3 – I try to invite all my friends to the site. I click all friends. Nothing. I click send invitations. Nothing. I do this several times. Shit. In frustration I chat help! to my son, and make him administrator on the site. Before he gets back to me I go to FB and a bunch of people like my new page. Huh? How did they get there? Step 4-6 later.
  • Twitter – Can’t even go there yet. Been dragging a Twitter how to book (comforting) back and forth from Florida to Costa Rica and haven’t yet read a page.
  • Amazon – OMG a universe of new information. Beware what categories you place your book in. One could make it a best seller, another relegate it to oblivion.
  • Print books – POD (print on demand) or regular.
  • Ebooks – as print books become obsolete ebooks with all their frills move in. First you need a good formatter, one that knows Kindle, Smashwords, Nook, etc.. formats. I found one, Rob Siders at 52novels.com, through Joe Konrath’s A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing and his website jakonrath.com.
  • Radio interviews – My first was on EZ Rock Radio with Sue on Love and Lipstick
  • Reviews – You need reviews. To get them you must write reviews, TV spots, youtube.
  • If you print – book signings, readings, women’s club meetings.

Yikes. Enough for today.

Free to Bloom – An Adventure in Publishing

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From bud to bloom to fruition

After a long hiatus finishing my first book, Free To Bloom, a series of inter-connected short stories, I return to announce its imminent publishing. (The website is named, but not finished.) It’s a work of fiction, but it all started with real people, places and events that have been molded by memory, changed by time and altered by necessity, like tearing a memoir into confetti then throwing it into the air to let it settle into a totally new pattern. It’s a story of taking risks in life, finding independence, seeking adventure, experiencing sorrow and joy, all mixed up with intimate personal observations. In short, it’s me.

Nope, it’s still not out, but after the writing comes all the nuts and bolts of publishing: public relations, internet exposure, ebook, placement on Amazon, getting reviews, etc… So many books and blogs concern the actual process of creating and writing a book, which one does mostly alone. I thought it might be helpful for others to describe and explain the next steps, especially when there’s no big publishing house doing everything for you, and no advance to help you through quickly accumulating costs.

I do have an editor, Patricka Vaughn and her small publishing house, A Cappela Publishing, Inc. directing me through the process and without her prodding and inspiration Free to Bloom, the book I’ve been thinking about writing through years and years of dabbling with short stories, newsletters, magazine articles, would never have been  ‘free to bloom’, or even more appropriately, free to be born. The birthing of a child is hard enough, but then the real work begins, raising that child to maturity. So keep in touch and I’ll fill you in on all the agony and ecstasy in getting my book to print and ultimately to the readers – hopefully thousands of them.