Finally Home revisions completed!

I put the final touches on Finally Home tonight. The manuscript has been sent to Heather for her magic touches and hopefully next weekend I'll be able to upload to Nook, Smashwords, and Kindle so it will be available as a download first. Hopefully the print version will be shortly thereafter. I will order the proof copy on the 7th of November and should have that by the end of the week so that I can sign off and say that Finally Home is published.

Don't forget once it is published, you can request an e-signature/personalized message (kindlegraph) here. You don't have to have a kindle to receive a kindlegraph but you do need a twitter account to log in to kindlegraph and start requesting them. A valid email addy will get the file sent to you as PDF.

For more stories and what's coming, visit my website. See you all in the postings - E :)

kindlegraph and The Proposal

As of this morning, I've had 12 downloads of the Proposal (that is including the sample downloads too) with 7 copies "sold" with the free coupon and no requests for a kindlegraph. I have also sold one copy on amazon's kindle since posting the story Monday. If you would like a free e-signature and personalized message from me, please don't forget to go here and make a request for your kindlegraph. You do not need a kindle to request a kindlegraph, just a valid email addy where the PDF file will be sent. You do need to have a twitter account to sign in and request your kindlegraphs but other than that, everything is free. Look around at the over 2000 authors already there; who knows? you may find an author you have been reading and have wanted a personalized copy of their book. I would love to sign kindlegraphs for all my followers who have downloaded my story. I also will be posting my other stories as soon as I have covers for them. I hope all of you who have downloaded the story have enjoyed it. Please let me know by leaving a comment here or on smashwords or amazon - thanks - E :)

Finally Home is in the final stages of revisions and should definitely be to Heather this weekend for her magic - stay tuned for more on that - see you all in the postings - E :)

The Proposal on Kindle and Smashwords

I have posted my short story, The Proposal, on kindle for the low price of only 99 cents. It will be coming to smashwords soon. Hope you all will stop by and download a copy and enjoy an April Fools Day humorous romance story.

UPDATE (10/24/2011): The Proposal is now up on Smashwords and I'm giving away copies for free - all you need is the coupon code here and you can download the story to any reading device you have - Link to book: The Proposal; Your coupon code is EY62X (not case sensitive). Since putting up late yesterday afternoon, I've had two persons get the download and I thank you both. Hope you all enjoy it.

For your free e-signature and personalized message, please visit my kindlegraph page and make a request. You only need a twitter account to sign up for kindlegraphs and you can request from over 2000 authors right now with more being added daily/weekly.

Three other stories will be added in the coming weeks, all for 99 cents, except I'm sure I'll submit one of them as a freebie for 2 weeks and then will revert it back to 99 cents. I'll probably run a few contests in the upcoming weeks for prizes. Stay tuned - E :)

Sugarfoot Festival/signage/book covers

The Sugarfoot festival, which used to be called the Honey Soppin' Festival, was held this weekend. I decided next year if I do the festival (which I probably will) that I'm going to ask for a spot in the center of the street and I'll set my tent up differently and will hope for more business.

I have a screen tent instead of just a canopy like most vendors/exhibitors do and had closed the back side off which was the sidewalk (I didn't want to have someone come sneaking up behind me when I was in the tent alone). It was cold as Octobers in South Carolina go and windy. I had my tent almost blow over, but thanks to man two spots down from me who happened to have some weights that he connected to my back zipper part which held the tent quite well in place.

Before arriving to my tent this morning, I had to go to the store and pick up a few things, then to the post office and then back to the store because I left my packing tape at home and then to the tent. Hailie had been there almost an hour before I got there. My new banners were at the post office this morning and they look awesome. I did order a stand yesterday so that should be here before my next event. I didn't put the dots/Finally Home banner out because I haven't published the book yet, but did put my new JGDS banner up - albeit without using the foam board I have my other banner on right now. I have a feeling at some point in the future I'm going to have to order another stand so I can have both signs up for all my books and displays.

Here are a few photographs of the table with the two new book covers and Hailie's bows and a few other things. Benjamin is also in one picture as he was arranging some things for me.


These are from Friday's night setup - no sales and very cold, windy evening - I hope that Savannah, which is coming up in about a month, won't be as cold or windy as this weekend.

These are from Saturday's setup and as you can see I added my two new covers I printed out and laminated to put on the table and I shifted things around, actually Hailie shifted things around to put her bows and stuff on the end I had originally put my afghan but it all worked out well and looked good once I finally got to the point of setting up

The Proposal cover

Heather has done it again. The cover for The proposal is right on target - The Proposal is an April Fool's Day marriage proposal with many of practical jokes proposed as well. This is a 3rd place winning story for a contest Armchair Interviews ran a few years ago. So, what do you think? - The perfect cover for the perfect fun story - E :)

Finally Home revisions

Revisions are tedious and time consuming, especially when you need to mull over rewriting complete chapters. I've finally figured out what to do with the two chapters I need to rewrite to get the house back in the spotlight. After completing work and before TV time, there will be a couple of hours of revisions and a final read through so that I can get the story to Heather for her magic. Finally Home should be at least epub'd the beginning of next week but no later than the end of the week; the goal being to have it published in some format before Halloween and then hopefully in print format by the first part of November. I will keep you all posted - thanks for sticking by me and anxiously awaiting new stories. - E :)

Bookmark for Finally Home

After being offline for over 3 days, I got in touch with my wonderful illustrator yesterday (really late last night) and asked her if she could do a bookmark so that I could print out a few for an event next weekend and this is what she came up with - the wording on the back is the back cover blurb for Finally Home. I hope to at least have it epublished this weekend and print published shortly thereafter - at least by the first part of November. Let me know what you think of the bookmark.

Heather does such a wonderful job and she did my bookmark up in under 30 minutes. Then there were a few adjustments to be made (size wise) but when I saw it I knew this was perfect - simple yet says everything it needs to say. As soon as I epub the story, it will be linked on my website so you will know where to find it. Remember if you order any book from online or my website or through amazon, you may go here to request a kindlegraph for an esignature and short, personalized note.

There will be a virtual launch party and of course some prizes and giveaways when the book is print published - so stay tuned for that - E :)

Happenings for October/November

During the next 4 to 6 weeks, there will be a lot occurring for both the JGDS series (see that blog) as well as for my other stories.

I will be participating in a sort of blog tour several times in October and November, hosting authors from the Honey Bee Authors blog as well as have some postings about my upcoming releases there; Geography Awareness week, the Sugarfoot festival (where I hope to announce that Finally Home is in proof copy order status), the SCISA teachers' conference in Columbia, SC; GIS Day in Charlotte, NC; the Savannah Children's book festival in Savannah, GA; and of course the release of four other short stories that had been previously published as ebooks. This is exciting because it means Heather will have four more covers for my stories in that time and I will be getting my name out there more and more.

I am still participating in the Writers on the Move monthly blog postings and this month's article is on revising/revisions (keeping in theme with my almost completed revisions of Finally Home. Check out that article on Wednesday on the Writers on the Move blog. Hopefully you all will gain some insight into the revision process.

Next month's posting will be tied in to Geography Awareness week which is November 13 through the 19.

Revisions are almost completed on Finally Home and I hope to have to Heather this weekend for formatting for both print and ebook. I hope to at least get the story ebook published by the 21st of October and print published shortly after that (at least proof copy ordered by then so that I can release it right before Halloween, since it is set around that time). I am trying to come up with a contest for the release of Finally Home to tie it in to Halloween, but am at a loss right now. I will continue working on a contest and make that announcement as soon as I can. Please just keep checking back to see what is going on with Finally Home and release contest. Spook you all in the postings - E :)

Upstate SC chapter of Sisters in Crime Celebrates 25 years

Sisters in Crime (SinC) is 25 years young this year. The Upstate SC chapter is having a celebration on October 16 with panel discussions, refreshments, book signings, and prizes. For more details, please check out the Upstate SC SinC blog. We would love to see you there. E :)

Banners

Vistaprint is running a freebie ad again (these come in my email about every other day - lol) and I was thinking last night I needed a banner for events now that I have some new/republished stories coming out. This is the design I came up with using their template, but I'm not really sure this is the one I'm going with. I tried keeping it fun and light even though I'm featuring my other stories and not just Finally Home. I'd love to hear from my readers as to what you think of my new banner. I'll be placing the order Friday morning so please comment by Thursday night.

I had originally designed this one but when I went to bed last night, the wheels wouldn't stop turning about adding other stories I'm about to republish so had to come up with the second one. After designing the plain one I'm definitely leaning more towards the dots. Let me know what you think.

(This one is no longer in my portfolio but could easily be added again if you all like this one - but then again, this just has Finally Home and the JGDS series featured on it, so probably not a good idea since I have one specifically for the JGDS series.)

For banners related to the JGDS series, please visit my JGDS blog and vote on your favorite banner. See you all in the postings - E :)

Revisions

Today I promised myself I would sit at my desk sans distractions and just revise until the end of the day. I started late - waking up after 11 AM, showering and doing the distraction things first (email, plurk, et cetera) and then started revising. Of my friends who sent comments back on Finally Home only one was a fully commented return but those comments are expansive. The other two were Chapters 1 & 2 and Chapters 1-3, respectively.

It looks like I am going to have to push back my publication date to November, about Thanksgiving time. These revisions should have been done months ago for me to have a publication date this month, but alas, I've been putting it off. The writing is okay but it needs punching up (needs to be stronger in places, more action, development of the characters a bit).

So are the revisions going like I planned? No. I need someone to read through Chapters 4 through 16 to comment and markup the ms so that I can finish the revisions. Anyone out there who would like to read an almost 200 page manuscript and make comments to help me revise? Drop me an email at eeldering at gmail dot com and let me know if you have time to read and make comments (not just things like changing a word or adding or deleting but things like intense comments - needs some action here, needs to be reworded, that type of thing) so that I can finish the revisions. Thanks to all of you out there who read my blog and who are willing to help. - E :)


UPDATE (Sunday, 10/02/2011): I found a copy of a friend's comments (from when I first thought I'd submit the story and get it published with a traditionally publisher) that I'm going to use for my revisions. I feel this will at least get me to the point of almost having a final draft. Lana is pretty right on with her comments - so going to revise some tonight and hopefully will finish this tomorrow between work that is left in my pool tonight and work that comes in tomorrow afternoon. Hoping by end of week to be announcing that Finally Home is revision completed - lol - see you in the postings - E :)