Month: May 2016

Almost There

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The weekly wrap. I have no idea of the subject matter or the frequency I want to apply to the blog posts. I do know that I’m not going to get caught in the same trap from ten years ago of blogging my fingers off. That’s what FB is for. 🙂 So, here’s the weekly wrap relative to my world as a full-time writer. Let’s see if this works out.

On Wednesday, my webpage went live. The universe didn’t end and hiccups with it proved to be minor. Thanks to all who have visited, commented, or signed up for the blog roll.

On Thursday, I reviewed Shelia Rudesill’s literary novel, Transmutare. Good stuff.

On Saturday, I learned about Concentration Music, available on YouTube (and I assume other sources), from writer Bill Bartlett. Check it out if you can’t focus on your writing.

On Sunday, I ran across this interesting flowchart for those (including me) who suffer from writing bad query letters. Writers need ever shrapnel of help to succeed.

On Sunday, I said, “Enough is enough.” All the editing that I can possibly do on “Kill All Cats” is done. Anything more is just pushing words that could possibly create damage elsewhere in the story. And now, here comes the begging. I’m a one-man band when it comes to marketing, and I’m not that good at that instrument. Sure, I have things I’m doing, but the New York Times isn’t likely to give me some space on the review page. So, if you have a lead for where I can display my books, read to protesting cat lovers, or get reviewed, drop me a line. Much appreciated.

And let’s be careful out there. Pencil points are sharp.

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Live

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According to some of my writerly friends, I needed a professional-looking website now that I consider myself a full-time author, especially with “Kill All Cats” coming out in two weeks. OMG! So much to do!!

Welcome to the website.

Enjoy it, look around, and leave a note. Did I miss something you’d like to see? And of course, buy a book. 🙂 I’d be remiss if I didn’t plug myself.

 

Day Nine

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Overwhelming describes the number of things you could build into a webpage versus what you should include while cluttering the site. It again brings to mind the amount of time you want to designate being a semi-expert (amateur who thinks he knows something) to the scope of jobs necessary to be successful in the self-publishing world versus concentrating on what you do best–in my case, I think it’s the writing. But I find these other elements so intriguing that the widget universe and other oddly named web design aspects kept me up to two in the morning last night, throwing today’s game plan out the window, further delaying the web page launch, which is now launch+1. But I do see the beginning of the end for what I want on the webpage, and a webpage that doesn’t dominate my life after it is launched. I’ll leave that to the voices in my head.

 

Day Eight

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Just spent three exhausting hours trying to figure out how to put up a blog roll on the website. While the specific instructions are good enough, what is missing for all the instructions is tying the seven or eight major steps (and each major has two to thirteen minor steps) together to get the end product done. In my case, getting up a blog roll. And now that I look at the results, I wonder what real value it has for me. So, I miss my Monday deadline–yep, there’s always Tuesday.

Day Seven

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It’s killing me that I can’t figure out why links to Amazon, links for my books, won’t show up. Everything else links up–just not Amazon. The call is in to the professionals at WordPress. On the other front, I will be done with absolutely all final edits to “Kill All Cats” by tomorrow, if not tonight. Holding me up for publication: graphics, a few more blurbs, and some additional marketing plans to get done. It’s never done, and that’s okay, but I confess, I am itching to get back to the finish push for “Don’t Fear the Reaper” to get some quality feedback.

Day Six

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Ever so slowly the pieces of the puzzle comes together. However, I see many new and potential goodies to put onto this website so that it informs, entertains, and gets me book sales. Yeah, I want books sales. I admit it. Still not sure why Amazon links are hit-and-miss, but have discovered columns and tables that must be done in HTML. Fortunately, I wrote come HTML-based websites back in the late 1990s when you had to do them from scratch. The effort is messy, but doable.

Day Four

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Ugh! Despite a tutorial I found online, my links still seem to have a mind of their own, especially back to Amazon; however, I think I should be able to go live in my seven day deadline despite the learning curve and all the other chores related to publishing a book: final blue-line edits, marketing, and running the gauntlet of the process of publishing through Smashwords, CreateSpace, and Kindle.

Day Three

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It’s now day three of building this website, and I’m finally getting the hang of most things although a few still elude me. Figuring out what is import to anyone that comes to my site is very important to me. I want it informative, quick to get around, and not full of junk that is not necessary. Now, if I can only figure out the difference between Home and Blog.

Day One

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If you’ve wandered here, thanks for showing up; however, the site is under construction. And since I’m just messing around and learning, you can come back on June 1, laugh, or suffer through all the changes as I pour information into the website. Or, you can just click on a link and by my latest book.