Three sites helpful to writers
I’ve had a busy few days. Yesterday, I finished revising the Kindle version of the book and was ready to tackle the Kindle upload process. I have been dreading doing this because my past attempts have been so frustrating. In hopes of postponing the travail, I choose to catch up on emails. Yesterday’s inbox contained…
Even with the best intentions, writers may inadvertently create a problem for their readers
I recently changed mobile phone services. My previous service was not very strong where I live and I was getting a lot of dropped calls. I looked around and found a service that is socially conscious and donates a portion of the profits to various “progressive nonprofit groups that work on a range of issues.”…
Enjoy the Labor Day of my youth—free of labor
Today is Labor Day, a day to celebrate the economic and social contributions of workers. As a child, Labor Day was the last holiday of the summer, the last hurrah before returning to school, the last day to wear white shoes. Unfortunately, it has become the second largest sales day with Black Friday taking the…
One year after starting on this journey, I am at a crossroads without a map
Today is the first anniversary of my departure from Sarasota, Florida, for the Camino de Santiago in Spain. I was full of excitement; I was on my way, at last! According to plan, my husband and I spent several days in Barcelona, Spain, visiting the city and adjusting to the jet lag. Barcelona is a…
Women of the Way: Embracing the Camino is wildly successful
This morning I was listening the webinar “Alignment, Attraction, Engagement” by Danny Iny of Firepole Marketing. According to him, most books don’t sell 100 copies. This is across the board—not just eBooks. I was stunned. Last month, the first month that Women of the Way: Embracing the Camino was available, I sold 69 books. Granted,…
Copyrighting book was easy
Today I applied for copyright of Women of the Way: Embracing the Camino. The US Copyright Office Website was very explanatory. I was momentarily confused about whether to submit the book electronically or by mail, and if I needed to send one or two copies. Once I determined that I needed to submit two copies…
Three Ways that writing my first book has changed me.
Writing a nontechnical book was never one of my life’s goals. Whenever people found out that I was a technical writer, they would inevitably ask when I was going to publish my first book. Apparently, in their minds, technical manuals are not “real” books. Though my life is chock-full of unusual experiences, I did not…
Tying up loose ends after finishing Women of the Way
Now that I have finished writing Women of the Way, Embracing the Camino, I have been tying up the loose ends. I worked on the Website adding PayPal and a way to get a signed copy. I spent two days trying to develop a better header and then took a poll only to find out…
Successful launching of Women of the Way: Embracing the Camino
I am thrilled by this first month’s sales. I sold 15 books personally (mostly friends and relatives), 25 on CreateSpace, 28 on Kindle and one autographed book from my website. Amazingly, a third of the online sales were from Europe. For a newly published author, sixty-nine books in the first month is, in my opinion, …
Five things to do when revising a Kindle e-book
Once I had finished my Smashwords e-book, I realized that I needed to make changes to the Kindle version in order to make the reading of Women of the Way: Embracing the Camino as enjoyable on Kindle as on Smashwords. The easiest way to do this, I thought, was to start with the .mobi file…