Getting Published: Notice a Trend

Well, after a few hurdles I got the blogging essay collection uploaded to Kindle Direct (I wanted to try IngramSpark as a comparison but wasn't in the mood at the moment)...

Notice a Trend: 17 Years of Prime Blogging is now for sale!

All because I had award-winning blog articles from the Florida Writers Association's Royal Palm Awards - see the gold sticker! - and needed a print book to put the award stickers.

The hurdles involved as always: 

1) hiring someone to make the book cover. I went to Fiverr again and found cover designer Olinart who suggested a different approach that looked cleaner and fit the theme of the book better.

2) hiring someone to format the book for publication, because in spite of my years of writing and my background in journalism I still can't get the damn margins and book gutters (that space between printed pages where the bindery keeps it all together) figured out to a 6" x 9" alignment. PLUS getting the footnotes squeezed into the PDF was a headache, and this book on blogging - where the links to articles backing up your arguments normally go - won't go anywhere without proper citing.

Formatting to publication for fiction works seems pretty straightforward as a lot of designers offer to do that. Formatting non-fiction was a harder get, so I ended up going to a site called Reedsy where I sent out requests and got one back from Michael Vito T. who got the margins done, spaced pages to make it fit, and tweaked the fonts.

It still costs out of pocket to get these things done, but it's a far better - and more budget-friendly - method than dealing with Print-On-Demand services.

The eBook on Kindle is ready to go. The print paperback will take another three days for market. I'll amend this article when I'm sure the ISBN numbers are set.

Maybe with a fiction book I will attempt to publish via IngramSpark that way and test how that goes.

P.S. Funny Locations is doing well and I hope to find more short story fans! 

Being an Author at Lake Wales Public Library 2024

With it being National Library Week, Lake Wales Public Library asked me to present as a local author, to talk about the writing process and getting self-published.

It was a small turnout, maybe because it was still early - 10:00 AM - and early in the week. Hopefully the other local authors will see bigger attendance.

Got to talk about what I feel are key elements to writing - Time, and Inspiration - and discussed my more popular stories like "...All Others Pay Cash" and "War of the Murder Hornets".

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY, Y'ALL.

Local Author Event at Lake Wales Public Library April 9 2024

Every second week of April is National Library Week, and each public library - city or county system - will have special events to encourage our communities to show up and read out.

Lake Wales Public Library plans on hosting a week-long Local Authors appearances, and I've been invited to present my recent work Funny Locations this coming Tuesday April 9th at 10:00 am.

If you can't see the link to the library calendar, let me post the info:

Date:

April 9, 2024

Time:

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

Location:

Library Lobby

Address:

290 Cypress Garden Lane
Lake Wales, FL 33853

Link:

Sign Up Here!

They would like for you to sign up so they can track the turnout, thank you.

Lake Wales should be getting a decent showing of local authors - several of my fellow members of the Writers 4 All Seasons group were invited, along with some from the Lakeland Writers chapter of FWA - all week long, so please if you're in the area do show up and support your public library and your local authors!

If you're not in the Polk County / Central Florida area, still check out your local library during the week of April 8th through the 13th for your library's activities!

(mutters to self) Now I gotta find that Florida tie I wear for library events...

It's Quiet Man Time 2024 Edition

It's Saint Patrick's Day!

Time to dye the Chicago River green!

Time to eat Bangers And Mash!

What the hell's Bangers and Mash?

Time to figure out where Kate Middleton is doing all her own Photoshopping! Wait, that should go to my political blog...

Time to watch The Quiet Man!!!

 

Ten Years Now with Mal the Krazy Kat

Officially, this weekend is Mal - that black panfurr, that feline of ferociousness, that tailwagger of terror - being ten years old.

It's been that long ago when I rescued mama cat Ocean from the mean streets of that Bartow apartment complex, with the warning that she might be pregnant, and then finding out YES SHE WAS when she started giving birth at the start of the Fourth Quarter Super Bowl between Denver and Seattle.

Ocean gave birth to six kittehs that night, but I held off on naming most of them until I could determine which ones were which and name them to the characters of the TV show Firefly. Until they opened their eyes, and I took them in to the vet to have them checked out. And then I waited to see which of them was the bravest - or craziest - of the lot to where I would name him Mal (two of the tuxedo kittehs were River and Simon, obviously as River was the daughter to Ocean and so the male tuxedo was Simon, the pretty grey female was Inara (almost Kaylee), the remaining male black kitteh was Jayne and the female black kitteh Zoe).

I wanted to keep one kitteh so I could feel okay about one of Ocean's babies growing up well - the animal rescue I took the remaining kittehs would not allow me to share contact info with their future forever home adoptees - and so I kept Mal thinking he would be the friendliest and fearless of the lot. Instead, Mal turned into a scaredy cat around my parents - essentially the only ones who've visited me over the years as my domicile isn't well-meant for hosting a lot of things (sigh) - and well that's how it turned out.

To ANYONE who adopted Inara, Zoe, Jayne, River and/or Simon, I can only hope they are still with us and that they've enjoyed loving homes.

In the meantime, I got stuck with THIS guy.

Happy birthday, Mal!

Ten years old. In hooman years
that means he's getting AARP mailings.

Time for more Royal Palm Submissions 2024 edition

So I'm submitting more work to the annual Florida Writers Association's Royal Palm Literary Awards for 2024.

I've put in four of my blog articles from the other site to see how they fare.

I tried uploading my short story anthology for the Anthology - Prose category, but that submission page didn't provide an "upload file" option. Could be a few bugs in the submission process as they've just opened it today. I'll try tomorrow.

Update: MOTHERF--- I just found out this morning when I logged back in that FWA is limiting the number of total submissions to FOUR now. It was FIVE the last couple of years, and now they've... mutter grumble... I can't remove one of my blog articles now, since I've paid for the submissions and there's no refunds on them.

I will have to remember to submit Funny Locations for NEXT year, and also see about arguing to get the max limit back to FIVE. /rage

Next Up For 2024: Getting Published to IngramSpark

Okay, as you know I've published a book through Amazon Kindle Direct. As a librarian who teaches computer skills classes especially one on self-publishing, I need to understand the process for getting published through the OTHER market through IngramSpark, so my next project is getting my blogging article collection set up through THAT.

So I will be distracted by getting this done over the next month or so, including making an order for a book cover - what should a non-fiction book cover look like? - and then making sure the formatting is done proper (Ingram seems to use different formatting than Amazon).

I will update when I can. In the meantime, PLEASE tell your friends about Funny Locations and get them to buy copies and leave reviews! Danke.