Okay I usually do a poll when I hit 50+ poems in a volume. I always pick 5 options. Pick your favorite for my next volume. I will go with the one that gets the most votes…Due to my surgery I may or may not be longer getting to the new volume…not sure here. either way I will know which one to start next.
I have been doing the publishing stuff since 2010. For my own personal stuff, then I started with Fae Corps in 2019.
I struggle with depression, PTSD, Migraines, and a whole bunch of other health issues. Which is why I don’t do more than I do. Fae Corps does limited books because I don’t have the ability to do anything more.
I use several platforms to publish the books, with a few routines to make the work easier for me to accomplish. And I always leave plenty of time on the deadline so I don’t ever get pressured for time. Hence why we are starting to take the children’s book submissions for the kids week books now.
One of the places that I have used for publishing is draft2digital.com and I will continue to for the ebooks. Their print option however is awful. I stopped using them when we were getting reports of the cover for the books being delivered cockeyed.
Now I do the same place as they did separately. Better quality. The trick for their ebook set up is to prevent them from messing with the layout. So the only way to do that is to provide an epub file… which means I have learned how to make that.
That was in 2020 that I stopped using them for print. I really don’t know what I have been thinking. Someone pointed out that the print was wrong for Through the Sunshine… so I checked. I care about the quality of our books. So I will always check. Yes it is something that I can fix. Something that I should have already done.
Now, I am asking myself. Is the 17 books that I still have to port over a sign of laziness? Or that I have been doing too much? And should I even get upset with myself over the whole thing?
Honestly I think that I am just going to get it done and write it off as a learning experience. If I beat myself up over it, well it will just be longer for me to get it done.
The 17 books are a mix of the early Anthologies for Fae Corps Publishing and some of my poetry volumes. In order to get it fixed I will have to take it off sale on the one place and put it back up on the other two. So I am going to be doing this one book at a time. It should only have each book down for around a week in print only.
I will get each of them updated on their books2read.com links. I plan on posting on fae corps publishing as I have each book updated. This is a ridiculous amount of work and I am probably still going to be dealing with this well into the next year.
So I have been busy working on publishing tasks yesterday, Well that for me included dealing with the dreaded Goodreads Now admittedly I don’t do everything I need to with it, because every time I go there it is the same thing. I can’t claim all of my books on there. Not even the ones all written as me. The reason – My name is too common. I should be able to give the information about the book and claim it…but no. It is based on the name of the author. I am debating doing a rebranding. Adding my grandmother’s maiden name in as my middle name (I tried my middle name to start with…it is even more common.) Still I wonder how much I should rebrand? Should I just start from here? or go back and rebrand from the beginning? There is a lot involved. I just don’t know if Goodreads is worth the effort. I have my amazon author page. I have my books2read reading list. Does anyone other than authors even really use Goodreads?
Though I have to say that I am annoyed by how common my name is. Names have always been a fun thing for me. I wanted to write as Susan Ann Andrews when I was a girl. I really thought it was the prettiest name out there. I chose to write my poetry and my kid’s books under my name because I wanted to love my name again. I wanted it to be mine again. It was part of healing the abuse I had been through. I chose to do the pen name of Serena Mossgraves for my horror and darker stuff so that my kid’s books would not be tainted by those writings. So I am struggling now. Do I really want to rebrand simply because of how common my name is? Or do I stick with who I am? This really feels like I am facing an existential crisis. Do I change my persona for the idea that I am not fitting in? Or am I fitting in too well? Oh crud. I really don’t know what to do here.
Yesterday I was sure that I needed to change the branding. Today, I wake up and find in my email in response to my help request…OK we merged this and this….I look on goodreads…now one of Serena’s books is listed as Patricia. And still not even half of my books are listed as me. I still can’t claim them. Changing my brand will mean I have to go and fight them for the right to the listing all over again. In order to change it I need to go into KDP and D2D and Google Play and Barnes and Noble. Change The Details on each. I need to upload a changed cover for each. Then I need to hope that I have not screwed something up. For one or two books it is not that difficult…but I have a catalogue of around 30+ It is a hugely daunting task. OK… I can change my branding from here on out…but the whole reason I wanted to do it was because of Goodreads not letting me accept my books…if I change my brand it will throw them into a worse fit.
I think I need to think on this. I am going to do nothing about it until after the first of the year at the least. That way I can be sure I am still needing to adjust and I don’t feel like I rushed in for stupid reasons.
Hello Lovelies! Long time since we had tea. My current favorite is Lipton’s Peach Passion Green Tea.
2020 is nearly over, and I know that I am not the only one who is grateful. 2021 is already shaping up to be busy. Fae Corps has several authors lined up that we are going to be publishing. We have 2 anthologies planned (Fae Playgrounds and Fae Shivers). Serena is going to be in Circle City’s Absurd Apocalypse Anthology. And I submitted to two of Indie Blu(e)’s upcoming Anthologies. (I hope I get accepted, their books are always so pretty. )
Song of Shadow released this week. I am still working on Half Mad Meanderings and Heart Drops. I hope to release both in 2021. I am also planning on pulling each of my Poetry Volumes, one at a time, and Revamping and re-releasing them. I don’t know how long it will take to do each volume. I do know I will be releasing Large Print versions of each as well. I have learned so much this year that I can put into practice on my books. I hope it will give you, my readers a fun thing to look at.
This will be as far as I am concerned the final version of each book. Serena’s not going to do that with her books, and I am going to go through the poetry volumes first then deal with the children’s books after. I may try to talk Serena into large print at least.
I am also working on Grandmothers wisdom. Coffee house writers anthology will release next week. Like I said 2021 is shaping up to be a busy year.
Pattimouse 