I noticed that I have been doing better about the blog. I am on a streak of over a hundred days of daily posting. I don’t know if I will be able to keep it going. I’m sitting here telling myself that doing the normal things is good enough and if I miss the weekend, well it’s not a problem.
So are you believing my bs? Pretty sure I have stopped believing it. So, now I am probably going to be trying to figure out at least one more easy post. The book Review will be rotating in and out. The random rants will rotate. The random extras (like book birthdays, offshot announcements and stuff like that ) will be posted as needed.
I have a full plate of stuff to do. why do I do it to myself ? Oh yeah…mental illness and I really want to have people interacting with my blog. hmmm….I might start working on posting children’s activities for Sunday. Family Sunday sounds like a good time. So what should I do with Saturday?
Yesterday I shared a song that takes a traditional Christmas song and adjusted it for pagans.
There’s a lot of people who would be angry about it.
But to me… songs are a different type of poetry – one that I am not very good at. I have written millions of poems and only one song.
I admire music, a lot. It has gotten me through some of the worst things in my life.
And I have a song that I associate with every heartbreak I have suffered.
So, I see somgs such as that the same way I do someone doing a rework of an old poem. As long as the original is attributed – or made obvious….why does it matter if someone has taken a different view?
In more ways than just the overall scope of things.
Families gather because of tradition.
If you google the tradition of Christmas trees you find – The first records of Christmas trees being cut for display comes from the 1820s in Pennsylvania’s German community, although trees may have been a tradition there even earlier.
In my house we get certain gifts every year because it is traditional. A box of Christmas Crunch, a bag of Andes mints, A thing of Sparkling Cider, and some Hot Chocolate.
We stretched out the holiday by letting our daughter open one present a day until Yule in December. (That meant she got 21 presents at least although we really did not do stockings and such.)
We did a lot of homemade gifts. Which focused on time spent together. We still do. Jams, and Jellies are likely to be a favorite this year.
What are your traditions? If you celebrate a different holiday please don’t hesitate to tell me your holiday traditions. I honestly want to know. This is not a place of judgement. This is a time when sharing knowledge makes us all wiser.
This time of year is so niche. First the artists in September/October are all doing all sorts of nifty art challenges. Then in November the writers all start talking about writing challenges. Not a writer and curious about what the challenges mean?
well For Poets there is a P.A.D. Challenge. This is fairly simple and easy to explain. It is a Poem A Day Challenge. The idea is to write at least one poem everyday in November. (I am trying to do 2 or more but that is because I already do a poem daily as one of my daily goals. The idea is to challenge yourself after all.)
The other Major challenge that goes on in November is NANOWRIMO. Which stands for National Novel Writing Month. The Idea is to write 50000 words during the month of November. (preferably all in one manuscript. but some split it up into shorts and other ideas just to get the writing done.) In order to accomplish this you would need to write at minimum, you should be writing 1,667 words a day, or approximately 11,700 words a week. That can be daunting.
I am not doing Nano, but I am trying to boost my daily writing activity. I am hoping to make the habit stick. What challenges do you try to attempt? Are you a Writer or an artist? There is also art challenges throughout the other months of the year. April also generally sees a PAD challenge for National Poetry Month.
I am curious what other challenges people put themselves through. I end up having to explain the PAD challenge and Nano so often I wonder what challenges I may be missing out of ignorance.
Reguardless of the reason why the conversation happened, I was struggling with imposter syndrome. It irritated my boyfriend. So he proceeded to point out that Mark Twain was not a college graduate. I smiled at him and started listing the authors that had a college degree. Unfortunately most of them we not known during their own lifetime. It got me to think…
What will be history’s thoughts on me? Will I be relagated to some dusty shelf for books that no one reads? Or will I be someone’s favorite author?
Life has been hitting hard for me lately. I had to move out of my home, my life is in chaos. It will stabilize but it will take time. So I am looking at my options. I have been considering making my blog a paid one, so I could add a shop to sell some of the cute Jewelry and other crafts I make. I also am thinking about the other benefits…And I realize that I am looking at this with two blogs possible and debating. I can only do one paid right now. I have more readers here then on the Fae Corps Blog, even though I maintain both. I may see about combining them. Making it work that way…But I want to get your opinions. Should I combine the two blogs? Expand and make it bigger and better, hopefully. or should I choose one to go paid with?
I will not be able until the first to do it, so chime in with your opinion. I am also about to ask my partner and our marketing girl. So it is not just a random ask. I am looking at options.
Above you see my two current decks. The way that I do readings is simple. You let me know which you want, I read, you donate to my PayPal what you feel appropriate. The options are 1 card or 3 cards. I read what I see in the cards. You don’t have to ask questions or give me information. It is a fairly simple reading either way.
Now if you want a video chat reading with more of a complex read… I use the Celtic Cross layout. 7 cards. I will send if asked a recording of the reading (Done in Zoom) That is $25 straight up. That one I ask for the money up front as it is a very time consuming affair.
I always am as discreet as you would like. For any reading you receive a picture of the cards and my reading of them. And you always choose the deck.
Cait is a friend and fellow Coffee House Writer. I was tickled when she agreed to let me be part of the blog tour for her new book. I was so disorganized and panicked… Then her very professional email comes in with the entire interview and everything I would need. I was supposed to post this yesterday, but I was crippled by migraine and unable. Please do show her love, and look into her work. The new book is nothing short of amazing. I was in the ARC readership and I preordered the ebook because I enjoyed it so much.
Have you always wanted to be an author? No. I never wrote outside of school, which I hated. I’ve always loved books, I just never thought of writing myself. I started my first fiction story in the fall of 2015, but I didn’t start writing seriously until 2017.
Is writing your full-time profession? No, I’m a freelance editor, and I offer a variety of other author services. I also own and manage Functionally Fictional, work for Coffee House Writers, and am part of the indie staff at YA Books Central.
What are some things you like to do unrelated to books or writing? I love creating pages in my bullet journal, singing along to a huge variety of music when home alone, watching Disney movies… Most of my life revolves around books anymore though.
What are your daily writing habits like? They’re nonexistent for the most part. I have a tendency to write a lot within a couple days, then nothing for a while. I need to work on that actually.
Are you a plotter or pantser? A little bit of both. I write out a vague outline and any ideas I have, then I start writing for a bit before plotting more thoroughly. Once I plot out the chapter-by-chapter outline, I jump around and kind of let the inspiration direct the writing. Things change as I go, but the ending and big plot points stay put usually.
What’s something you could eat every day and not get sick of it? Probably pizza… or peanut butter.
How do you work on more than one book at a time? I say I have a lot of books started, but I’m not actively working on them all at once. Remember, I’m still new to all this. So far, I typically have one fantasy and one contemporary going. The Last Summer is a YA contemporary romance coming out in June, and I’ve been writing it while promoting The Lost Legends. While I’m promoting The Last Summer, I’ll be writing book two in The Nihryst series. I like working one step ahead at all times. I also write based on mood and inspiration. For example, if I get really inspired for a scene in the next fantasy book while I’m technically supposed to be working on the contemporary, I will switch for a day or two.
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go? England and Wales. I’ve been obsessed with British history for as long as I can remember.
What music do you listen to while writing? I have different playlists for different books and moods. For fantasy, I listen to a lot of Ruelle, Florence + the Machine, The Lumineers, and movie/tv show scores. For contemporary romance, it’s a lot more upbeat pop like Taylor Swift, Paramore, Parachute, Jonas Brothers, and Khalid.
Favorites time… Movie: The Wizard of Oz TV Show: Brooklyn Nine-Nine Song: Where We Come Alive by Ruelle Book: City of Bones by Cassandra Clare or A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas Color: Coral Animal: Flamingos
What can we look forward to in the future? I am working on The Last Summer, which is coming out in June if I can get it finished. Book two in The Nihryst series will hopefully be out in the fall, and another contemporary or two will be out in the winter. Book three in The Nihryst series will likely be out next spring. I also have a fae duology in the works that I’m really excited for. I wrote half of the first one like a year and half ago, so I need to get back to it. OH! And I may or may not have a sci-fi retelling series planned… with The Lion King being one of the stories, but with humans and cyborgs…
Cait Marie has been obsessed with books her entire life. The love of writing didn’t hit until 2017. Since then, she has held multiple positions within Coffee House Writers, including C.O.O., Advertising Supervisor, Editor, and Writer. In 2018, she used her passion for reading to create Functionally Fictional. In 2019, she joined the indie staff of YA Books Central as a reviewer and then Indie Assistant Blogger. Cait graduated with honors in 2019 from Southern New Hampshire University with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology, and she is currently enrolled in their Master of Fine Arts program. She lives in Indiana, where she freelance edits and provides a variety of other author services. When she’s not writing or reading, she can usually be found watching Disney movies or Brooklyn Nine-Nine, creating bullet journal spreads, or singing along to various soundtracks and showtunes.
So I have been getting a lot of people asking me to tell them how to do indie publishing of a book. It is actually not as hard as one would think.
First thing is you have to write the book. It is the hard part. Seriously.
Another question in this vein… How many poems equal a book of poetry? To be honest I am not able to give you a set number. I have seen poetry volumes of twelve poems. Most chapbooks tend towards 30. I personally always have 70 poems at least. (There have been a couple of volumes that I put smaller poems in so I added a few to the amount to feel less like I was cheating my readers.)
Most novels have a word count… But even that is flexible. Within reason. The numbers as given by this article are as follows.
Now notice that each genre has a range. That gives you an idea of what you need.
I highly recommend that you have a professional editor look at the manuscript. That way you are sure that it is up to snuff. Some will do a sample edit. The manuscript when sent to an editor should be double spaced and in a basic font. (Most have a preference like times new Roman.)
I personally recommend Kelly @ xterraweb or Deedra Nichole as I have worked with both. Although, please if you are one that offers indie authors services, comment your link.
Ok. You have your book and it is edited, now what. Look into getting you some beta readers. Beta readers are people who read your book and give you constructive feedback. This is not as easy as it sounds. Finding good betas is something that all authors struggle with. Often writing groups on Facebook are a good place to look. Offer a trade of reading.
There are two sites that publish. Both are no upfront cost. If there is an upfront cost, honestly you should look closer at the company. There are some small publishing companies that can do the work for you… But they will take a cut of the payment. If that is the way you want to go, message me. I will steer you in the right direction.
Now, layout. Yuck. I despise layout. There is a program in windows by amazon called Kindle Create. It helps to simplify the process for Amazon. Currently Amazon is the only one that does paperback edition among the sites I am recommending. Though I think that Draft2Digital has a beta version that is working on paperback distribution.
The best format for Amazon is the Mobi. Kindle create helps you to make that. The best for D2d is Docx.
Your document should have a title page, a copyright page, the manuscript, an about the author page. If you are uncertain about how to write any of these let me know. I may make a Friday post about it.
Amazon pays every 60 days. Draft2digital pays when you reach $20.that doesn’t seem like a lot, but it depends on you. How good are you at marketing yourself? You are the sales team.
Now there’s one more thing that you need. A cover. Kdp has a cover creator that you can use for a truly basic cover. You can use Canva to create covers. (Though be careful there, they do have multiple types of licence for their picture files.) Or you can buy a cover. Covers tend to be anywhere from $30 – $250 USD.
You will need for the ebooks a jpg file and for the paperback a pdf. Here is an example. This is the cover I made in Canva for one of my yet to come books.
I am not going into branding in this post. I think that I will leave that for next Friday.
Both of the websites above have newbie friendly directions. However I am willing to answer questions. This is a fairly decent guide on YouTube. Ask other indie authors on social media for advice. Most remember the beginning and are willing to at least suggest places to find the information. Or if nothing else… Google it.
I can probably do a post on marketing, but it is the one area of the indie publishing that I really am not good at.
Whew. I have rambled here. If you have questions ask me in the comments. I will try to answer them.
Ok I really have been trying not to resort to this sort of thing. But I am stumped for what to post. So I am open to your questions. I will answer any questions except for the nasty stuff. Keep out of my pants and I will answer you. (Though the less than specific I may still answer). C’mon hit me with those questions you have.
Pattimouse 