Indie writing/publishing is analogous to FreeCell
I usually start my day with a game of FreeCell; the challenge helps get my juices flowing . This morning my first moves were critical to winning the game. Luck drew the cards, but with experience and close observation, I easily overcame the odds. It then occurred to me that this game paralleled what was…
Editing books, Twitter headers, and Gravatars
I have just finished revision 3.0 of Women of the Way: Embracing the Camino. The first version was prior to the copy editor’s corrections. I should not have published the book prior to having a professional look at it, but in my rush and naivete (believing that my reviewers would catch the errors), I went…
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.”…
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…
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…
Gettting Women of the Way onto Smashwords was not only easy but the process led to a better reader experience.
After my struggle to get the book into the Kindle format, I was dreading preparing the manuscript for Smashwords. That dread was needless. I used Mark Coker’s The Smashwords Style Guide rev 6.16.12. Because I had created my book using styles, I did not purge my manuscript of hidden Word corruption by using “the nuclear…