Putting my Toe in the Water – Promotion
Promotion: everyone has to do it, especially if you are self-published. Although today, even the large publishers expect authors to promote themselves. After putting together a plan for promoting my book, the hardest part is doing it – pressing the button to send that email or posting a tidbit on Facebook or Twitter. It is easy to promote others, to send a link or tweet about a book written by someone I know and whose book I really like. But putting yourself out there is another thing altogether. I suspect it harkens back to the day when our mothers told us to sit still, don’t be pushy, wait your turn,…
Fear of Formatting
It came as quite a surprise to me to find out my Kindle formatting had some errors. I had checked and rechecked, looked at the Kindle Preview, and it all looked pretty good. But a good friend and early reader told me that there were some words missing, and they seemed to be replaced by comma’s. So, I backed my way from the Kindle to the Previewer to my formatting software and found that all the errors began in Jutoh, the tool I use to convert my Word docs to .mobi format. It seems that all the place names (Boston, New York, etc.) were replaced with a single space. The…
A Publishing Adventure
The world of publishing, especially in the enormously crowded genre of romance, is fraught with pitfalls, frustrations, incredible highs and desperate lows. I began writing in 2004, and spent several years preparing myself and practicing my craft. I joined RWA (to which I still belong, gratefully), joined an online chapter of RWA, took online classes and joined a writing group. For several years I worked diligently in the wee hours of the morning, working out character sketches, storyboards, and draft after draft of stories. I loved the immersion in the story, the fun of working through the plot lines. I fell in love with my heroes and cheered for my…