New Ideas

 Sometimes I feel like this little meerkat. Just sitting alone and thinking about the day, upcoming plans, and as all authors story ideas. Over Christmas I have had so many fun thoughts on projects. Of course the next volumes in a new series that's been playing in my mind for years, but also some new stuff. Maybe a children's series about a grandma and her grand daughter and their adventures together would be fun. Maybe a look at race issues from a white woman's perspective--dangerous I know. Maybe a fantasy children's series based on the fantasy world my grand daughter created (she has said she'd like to write the stories down). So many choices...and yet I find myself nervous to share the ideas with fellow writers.

How many of us fear that someone will take our idea and run with it? I know I do. I've had ideas for other projects stolen by someone I shared it with, so why not a story line? I know several authors who are fearful of putting the idea out there because of idea theft. I find it very sad, but still I don't think I would go into an on-line writing group and put my ideas forward (in detail) out of concern that someone will take it and run with it. Anyone reading this ever feel this way? Do you think it makes me pathetic for having these feelings?

As I'm sitting here writing this short blog, I'm aching to share some details of my ideas with actual people. I'm aching to get feed back and other people's thoughts...because I really do love brain storming and sharing ideas. With Covid, however it's hard to get out and chat with folks. Granted I have a few author friends and non author friends that will listen and discuss, but I always thought it would be fun to sit in a writing group (in person) and just share and be able to see the excitement in other people's eyes as they let their imaginations run. I hope we can get back to that place because I am tired of being that little meerkat, sitting alone pondering plots. I want to run wild and have a bit of fun with fellow "imaginateers". :) 

Hopefully, soon writing groups can meet in person again and things can get back to normal. I'm ready. Anyone else feel this way?

I pray blessings and joy and much imagination to be with everyone!!!

Creative Grandchildren

Here I am, enjoying the pre-Christmas week with my grand daughter Kyleigh. We have made pies, and gone sledding, and played games, but one of her favourite things to do is go to her magical world of A'all. To get to A'all she must go through a portal she drew. The journey involves jogging around the downstairs until she has arrived. ...Since I am the Queen of the Fairies I can magically appear in A'all or the real world at will. 😉 

When Kyleigh arrives in A'all she becomes the Meadow Sprite and sometimes is the Goddess of Animals. Grandpa is usually the Ogre, her daddy is a werewolf, and her uncle Zac has recently joined our group as The Bard. Usually during her visits to A'all she goes on adventures to slay bandits or people stealing the magical animals for zoos or to take to other worlds. She uses a light saber as her weapon of choice and always bring the perpetrators to the Queen (that's me) to pass judgement. Usually it's a hundred years in the dungeon where she prepares butterfly egg stew or on a special occasion powdered tomato soup  made with buttermilk. (She believes those are pretty awful tasting dishes.) haha.

A couple of months ago, in A'all, we created 7 different potions. Dew Drop potion for levitation; Pine Drop potion for sleep; Sun Drops potion for fire (you do not want the sun drop potion used on you); God potion for super aid; Imagination Drop potion for giving spooky visions; Rose Drop potion for calm; and the Happiness potion (which is the only one that is a powder). Using essential oils and food coloring and baking soda for the powder, she imagined a rainbow of colorful elixers to give her power on her quests.

Yes, all in all, A'all is a fun place to be, albeit dangerous from time to time. But the imagination of a child is a wonder to behold. All the wonderful places and scenarios Kyleigh makes up. I know a lot of people don't think children should be allowed "magic" but really how are they supposed to understand or accept the things of science or even God if they are never allowed to let their minds wander to things that could be. I LOVE watching Kyleigh grow, and know that someday she will outgrow A'all (except maybe to write stories about it if she follows her grandma's footsteps) and imagination, but for now, I enjoy all the wonder in her mind and her stories. 💓

Christmas musings

Hi All! Since I finished the series on my publishing journey, I thought I'd take a lighter stance for the holiday season and share some of my Christmas thoughts...after all, I've been told that fans enjoy learning details about their favourite authors, so here goes.

When I grew up I LOVED December. Christmas trees, Christmas carols, the manger scene, A Charlie Brown Christmas on TV and Frosty, and Rudolph, and Santa!!! Thank GOD the elf on the shelf didn't exist back then. I don't like those. ...creepy! 😒 When the tree went up, Dad would put on Bing or Nat and we'd decorate the tree and sing songs. It was wonderful! The anticipation of Santa coming was always exciting...and Christmas eve candle light service was the best (how often do kids get to hold candles?)

My brother was a great "snooper" so by the time I was 6 and he was 8, Mum and Dad would booby trap the hallway so we couldn't "peek" out and see what Santa was doing...although we knew that if we didn't go to sleep Santa wouldn't come, but that didn't stop my bro from getting up and taking a look after midnight. 

Usually around 5 we would go out and check out our Santa gifts...in our house Santa always brought us one gift that was opened and ready to play with...I guess he was thinking of our parents getting to sleep in while we quietly enjoyed our gifts! Finally, after Mum and Dad got up we would go about the business of ripping open all the other presents under the tree...those being from family, not Santa. I knew that he brought lots of presents to some of my other friends, but only the one to us...but we didn't care. haha

Then we'd have a nice Turkey dinner with all the trimmings and Mum always had apple pie and pumpkin pie for dessert. It was a wonderful tradition and I have many great memories of those years.

As an adult, I liked celebrating the Christmas traditions with my kids. My husband and I continued the traditions of Santa bringing one present all ready to play with, and while he isn't a Christian, I always got the boys to Candle light service. It was always nice.

After the boys grew up, however, there was a bad experience with Christmas for me and the idea of decorating or anything just didn't excite me anymore. I was sick of hearing Christmas songs starting in October. Tired of Christmas before Thanksgiving and just...eh, tired of it all. It just seemed pointless. Except of course the Christian element. I always looked forward to the first coming of Jesus and looking for His second coming. God was never boring to me, just the "trappings" of Christmas.

Then...*drumroll please* Kyleigh came into our lives. Kyleigh is my grand daughter, and someone to once again have fun with Christmas. There was turmoil in the family when she was young, and I still had not lost my "funk" of being tired of Christmas, but in the past few years something has changed. This little person, so joyfully loves to sing Christmas carols (albeit WAY out of tune) and loves to decorate and most importantly loves to hear about Jesus! It's funny how God works. He always comes full circle. So now, while I still love Church the best when it comes to Christmas, the joy of the "season" has climbed back into my life! 

I pray for all of you who read this a Merry Christmas and blessed Advent! And if you celebrate Hanukah or Kwanza or nothing at all, I also pray blessings upon you and your family. God is good all the time! And all the time God is Good!!!

The Final Path (so far)

 Well, it's been a long journey but we have finally come to the end, or at least to the present...does a journey really ever end? After my nightmare into the world of hybid-publishing, I finally decided to listen to a local author friend, Jay Foreman, and looked into KDP (formally Create Space) on Amazon. It was relatively easy once I took the tutorials, and best of all free.

As I said in my last post, once I removed all my old books from as many places as possible I began the task of reformatting the interiors of all my books, so they matched, and changing and touching up the covers. Now THAT was a task in and of itself. Thankfully I was able to purchase my completed book files back from Tate, BUT I did not realize that while I was allowed (and expected) to change the barcodes and Tate emblems the PDF was completely set. 

Thankfully I have friends who understand making changes to PDF files and gave me several options for programs to make changes to those files. I downloaded a program that allowed me to make the changes. It was another learning curve for this computer illiterate author. It took several tries (that means weeks)

to move and change the things I wanted. Not to mention that the Tate logo that graced the spine was some kind of mad puzzle of massive squiggly lines that had to be removed one at a time. That took a good few hours to remove all of it.

Because of my many mistakes along the way, I was nervous about uploading. I think I took a week of "should I or shouldn't I" before finally just doing it! The actual upload was easy as could be. It's a process of setting up background information on the book, prices, and exclusivity, but in the end I had a product I was happy with...or was I? hahaha

Thankfully I decided to order proofs and noticed the cover wasn't quite right and there were minor issues inside. But, instead of paying $100 or more to a self/hybrid company, I just went into my files and made the corrections myself. I chose to order author copies after that and they were exactly what I wanted!!!

I haven't made massive sales yet, but I have sold a few books (softcover and ebooks) each month and get a direct deposit exactly when promised. I can check daily sales and also get monthly reports. WAY better than the other companies I worked with. I'm looking into marketing ideas and options. With Covid, obviously book signings are difficult, but I am not giving up! I believe in my novels and totally get that you just need that "one" break to get noticed.

With my next series and a few one off books, I am going to try and get an agent and do the traditional route, but I know that I can always self publish and get the work out the the few fans that I do have. I'm thinking of trying Book Baby to create some hard cover versions of book II and III because I do have quite a few of Book I sitting in my closet...and I have a fan who would like the final book in hard cover. He was lucky enough to get only one of the two hard covers created by Tate.

I hope my journey has inspired someone out there. No matter what, if you believe in your "magnum opus" you can get it out into print. Just keep trying and working. Failure is just a way to learn and move forward. I bet there isn't a writer out there who hasn't made a mistake or gotten rejected many times. I'll have to figure out what my next blogs will be about, as I am going to keep trying to write weekly. If you have any thoughts that you would like me to tackle leave me a message. I'd love to hear.

If you'd like to check out my books or some of my personal story go to my web page at kimsauthorspot or my Amazon author page at kim's author central

Sorry

 Sorry for not posting this week. We had to have our roof replaced and now we have the satellite guys recalibrating the sights. And I'm feeling tired after the Thanksgiving week festivities (my grand daughter spent the week here. :) I will be posting again next Monday. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend.!!! 

 A moment of shameless publicity! Books make a great present so feel free to purchase the series! 😊  Order books 

The Hybrid Nightmare

 Hi all. Thanks for joining me again. The continuing saga of Kim's tempestuous journey through the publishing world...

Finally, I had decided to try the traditional rout or indi-publishing, either way I would be taking control. I bought some books on publishers, agents, and learning opportunities. I wrote a query letter and sent it out. To my surprise I received several replies from agents interested in the story...AND how many copies I had sold. *sigh* It was made very clear to me that while it was a good story, the fact that it had been self published and hadn't sold a ton of copies no one was going to pick me up--at least for my series. I do have hopes for my next project if I choose to go traditionally though. However, the Resistance series was now in my hands alone.

I started doing research into the indi world and was feeling good about doing some workshops, and since I had a loose understanding of type set and how books should look, I was excited to get started. Then the call came from Greenberry Press and hubris took over. Honestly, what do you do when out of the blue you get a call from an "agent" telling you they saw your book out there and really want to work with you? I was flattered, excited, and very dubious. However, mistakenly I listened to the spiel and looked into it.

I was told that it was not the same as vanity press and that it was a hybrid model. (If I'd taken the time to think, I would have worked out that it really was the same.) While I still would pay a price to have them do the publishing work, it was considerably less and I would get 100% of the royalties AND I would get to set the sales price. I thought well, this is different and would save me time...let me think about it. In my gut I KNEW it was a bad idea. I talked to some people about it, and began to question if I should let my "fear" of what happened before stop me from trying something new. I talked myself into going forward, and got both of my books on-line very quickly (after all they were already formatted and ready to go from Tate publishing).

Suddenly (once again) no one answered my calls. I could not get answers to email. My gut started telling my head "see I told you so!!!" Finally, and I don't remember how, I got in touch with the owner of Greenberry Publishing and she told me how half of the group split and were starting another company. Of course the agent I was with was going the other way to Westwood Books Publishing. The owner of Greenberry told me that they were not changing their name and that my books would still be with them. I should have just got out then, but I pressed on.

My agent got in touch with me a few days later to let me know of the change, and I told him that I wanted to stay with Greenberry, so I wouldn't have to make changes. In my head I was screaming, "but what if they publish my book without my permission? They have the copies I sent. What will I do? They're in California." Ugh! Thankfully Westwood Books did not publish my books, but other authors I spoke with from Greenberry had jumped over to the new press and no one seemed to know what was going on. THEN, Greenberry decided to change their name to Authorspress and once again my book went through a change. On Amazon I had copies of my first book being sold second hand...Tate publishing was out of business so those were at least gone...my first and second book were under Greenberry and Authorspress now, and I didn't know how to get paid, or how things would work, so finally I said "ENOUGH". 

I got in touch with now Authorspress and told them I wanted my book taken off their shelves and removed from Amazon. It took a while for them to remove the copies they had printed (without paying me of course), but Amazon was another matter. In very small confusing print in the contract it said that they would remove it from Amazon but it was my job to get other sellers to remove them. Well, since I hadn't sold any copies or received any payment, and the books were print on demand, I figure okay...until I looked up my book on Amazon and saw it in MANY place with many sellers.

Another nightmare of figuring out how a print on demand book, that had not sold any copies could be sold by third parties when the publishing company no longer had permission to sell it was mind blowing. I still honestly don't understand how it all works. Anyway, I had to get in touch with Ingram Spark (a self-publishing company with a global distribution network, that allows self-published authors to publish and distribute print books and and eBooks) personally and have them remove the books from sale. However, they said that the publishing company had to send them a message to remove the books. The publishing company said I had to do it. So after weeks of talking with Ingram Sparks and Authorspress/Greenberry press I finally got all the "print on demand" books taken down. 

I still get exhausted thinking about it all. It took me a good year before I was ready to do any more publishing...which did give me time to finish my third novel and get it beta read and edited. Are you all as exhausted as I am??? Well, next week I will finish my journey with where I am now, which is KDP.

Good writing and peace be with you all!!!.

Lessons Not Learned

 My last post seemed to be a bit confusing as to whether or not I encourage "vanity publishing." I can say I, personally, am not a fan of it, nor would I encourage it, but some people have done very well in that world. As always I say, "do what's best for you." Oh, how I wish I had learned...but as always a journey is full of ups and downs, rights and wrongs, steps forward and steps back...on to Tate Publishing.

After being with Westbow Press for 3 years, I started looking for other opportunities. I had finished book II and was in the process of editing. I was too afraid to go it alone and self-publish, so once again I turned to the internet. I came across Tate Publishing (now bankrupt and gone). Their prices were better than Westbow for what I believed I would be getting, and after talking with the representative it sounded like they would be helping more with the marketing AND after I sold a few thousand copies I'd get my investment back. *Let's all stop here for a moment and laugh; or cry* 

Like all authors, I believed that in the right hands my story would sell oodles of books, so I had no doubt that I would reach the magic number and all would be right in the world. *another pause for laughter*. Moronically, I decided to republish my first book to have all my novels with the same company. Leaving Westbow was easy enough and I began the new path with Tate. It went through another editing process, which surprisingly was very good. Not only did they catch some of the grammatical errors that I had neglected to correct from my first editor, they also found a POV error. I didn't think it was a big deal, but the editor explained how it really needed to be fixed, so after a few back and forths I figured out what she meant. (Again, I was a novice at the time and didn't understand all the intricacies of writing. Tate re-did the chapters and type setting as well as giving me the cover I really wanted and book one was up and available.

As far as marketing went, they did help me coordinate with some local book sellers for shelf space and put me in their catalogue, but as with Westbow the rest fell to me. I had a book launch party that had okay attendance for my small town, and began hitting local events when possible. I made some sales, but was still not getting as much help as I wanted. I had realized that this part of the business would fall on me. They set me up a web-page, and I did my best to get the word out while finishing up book II, which had grown so long I had to split it into another book, giving me a three book series.

I started getting concerned with Tate, when the editing for the second book was basically non existent. They sent me back grammatical corrections but no content reviews. However, much I wanted to believe my book was "just that good", in my heart I was worried that their standards had slipped. However, I had it beta read and unprofessional content edits, so I trusted they wouldn't let a bad product go out and continued the process. It struck me as strange that the interiors of the books didn't match (as one would think a company producing multiple books from a single author would do), but I had a deadline set for publication and wanted to get the book out. All the interior work looked good and the cover was good, so I moved forward. Once I received the hard proof I noticed that the spine did not have the subtitle--on EITHER book! How did I miss that? Since I already had a hundred copies of book one I wasn't going to get it changed, so I had them add a small "book II" at the top of the spine and just keep the title Resistance. 

After receiving all the soft covers I had ordered of book II, I began waiting for the hard covers to arrive. And I waited and waited. I tried contacting Tate and didn't get any responses. After a month of trying to get through I began looking on the internet for comments from other authors. Turns out that Tate publishing was going bankrupt. They put out a statement (not getting in touch personally with their authors) letting people know how to deal with their projects. I did get all my rights and copies of the PDF files of both books, but never received the money back for the hard covers and never received the books themselves. I had two author copies of the hard covers that I'd already received--one I kept and one I sent to someone who had preordered it. *sigh*. Finally, I had learned my lesson and was done with vanity presses. I would finish book III and learn how to independently publish. I went to a conference and bought some books and started on my new journey... Then the phone call came from Greenberry Publishing, a "hybrid-publisher". Can you guess what happens next? Come back next week and I'll let you know if I learned my lessons or not...

Keep the faith! Keep resisting! And never give up.