This and That

Sales were low for ebooks again - no sales across the board, but I did sell two books at the GA COMO event and as posted previously made contact with four distributors who will hopefully get my books in schools. I've received a response from createspace regarding how they can acquire my books and am ready to send the information on. The next month or so maybe I'll see a huge influx in my sales. I did sell 19 bookworms to one of the reps from Rainbow Books (the bikini colored ones which look like the rainbow colors) and then sold 16 or 17 others with two people buying a chance on the red, white and blue afghan. My presentation went okay; I had 2 ladies show up and found out that possibly my books are being talked about in one of the schools in Cobb County Georgia, which needs further investigation tomorrow. I am still in need of young writers writing questions for my Wednesday weekly postings, so teachers send in your students' questions and I'll do my best to answer them. If you are a class or writing club participating in NaNo and would like an author visit, please drop me a line and let me know so I can schedule all the class visits. If you are into zombies or just want some fun stuff for the month of October, stop over on Susanne Drazic's blog and sign up for her email notifications so you know when a new posting is made and leave a comment on her postings to be entered for some zombie related prizes. You never know when the zombies will show up. I wish I had a cover for "Zombies Amuck" and had it up for sale to participate in Susanne's zombie extravaganza but at this point I don't so maybe next year; and by then, she may do ghosts or werewolves or vampires or some other Halloween-y theme. We just have to wait and see. Time to get to work as I have been away from the work since Wednesday morning - see you all in the postings - E :)

GA COMO

The experience was worth it! Here's how the week progessed and what I got out of COMO. First, I was supposed to be helping out in the SELA booth. I arrived Wednesday afternoon and no one was around for me to know what I could use table wise. So, I set up my books and afghans and could have condensed myself down to half a table if needed. I came in Thursday morning bright and early and found I had been condensed to a corner of the three tables where no one could see me. Talk about feeling dejected. So Gordon finally comes over to the table and tells me that they had a cancellation, so he was going to let me move to that booth and have my own booth - YAY! The moving all my stuff was a pain but it was worth it for 2 reasons. I was placed right next to Rainbow Books (A book distributor) and across from State Standards Publishing. Mimi (State Standards) mentioned Follett (another distibutor) with whom they work, so Friday morning I wandered around and happened upon Follett's booth. Talked with them for a few minutes and they referred me to the Mackin booth (another distributor). I went over to talk to them. So that is three distibutors and a couple of booths up from Rainbow Books was a fourth distributor, Davidson Titles. I met the rep there yesterday and after talking to the folks from Rainbow Books now knew I had to work on getting my books in with the distributors. So I'm in contact with createspace about how distributors would go about getting my books to distribute to the schools. Mimi, with them doing state books, was a good contact since I can get her into the homeschool conferences and she can get me places I need to be for my books - like in with all these distributors - lol. I also talked to several other folks and a couple of the ladies are wanting to publish their books so I've lead them to createspace and my experience and both are going to jump on that bandwagon. The last contact I made was just meant to happen I think. I was about to leave after the author reception and had stopped in the restroom and there was a lady in there. We started chatting as we were leaving and I found out she was staying in the hotel right next to the one I was staying in and that she was heading out to dinner but was carless and was going to try to ge a shuttle or taxi to get somewhere to dinner and then to her hotel. I asked her if she would like to join me at the S&S Cafeteria for dinner since our hotels were right next to each other and I was heading that way and didn't really want to eat alone. She said yes, that it sounded good as she hadn't eaten at an S&S in a long time (neither had I but I was just wanting to eat there since it was near the hotel). I asked her if she wanted to follow me to the cafeteria and that's when I found out she was without a car so we rode together and just being a kind soul and offering some company for dinner and a ride to the hotel, she paid for my dinner. I thank you, Ms. Val. The company was excellent and the dinner was delicious. I did sell 2 books and 36 or 37 bookworms and 2 chances on the red, white, and blue afghan but I think the contacts I made were exactly why I needed to be at COMO this week. I hope everything works out with the distributors and that I can be there next year. Just a note, I went to take picutres of my booth set up and all but my camera wouldn't turn on, so I think the battery is dead and I didn't have my charger so couldn't take pictures. Overall a great time and I'm tired so will bid you all a good night. E :)

This and That

The week has flown by but that's because I've been extremely busy with work, since my supervisor was supposed to be off all week and we had to do some of her work. It's all good though. "Train of Clues" (A Mystery Destination story) went on sale Friday both as an ebook and a print book. I haven't put it on smashwords or nook yet as my cover isn't the right size for nook, but it will get there. I did have an ebook sale already - woohooo - made all of 52 cents on that sale - lol. I also have an unreported sale from the week ending 09/22, a copy of "The Tulip Kiss" sold. I'm almost ready for the Georgia COMO event in that I've got all but one afghan completed but I'm not too worried about finishing it since I won't be taking my computer this week and can crochet Wednesday night while I'm chilling. I also need to make up some bookworms in the same color as the afghan and all the crocheting will be behind me. I'll have my tablet with me but that is mostly for taking credit cards and playing games while manning the SELA booth. But hopefully, I'll be so busy that I won't have to play games on the tablet (or read some books I'e recently acquired). I've printed out order forms for the librarians, offering them a 20-25% discount on all orders (some may be just under 20% but all titles are discounted). I've got my tote bag almost packed and ready to go. I'll do laundry tomorrow or Tuesday and pack my suitcase. The car is pretty much packed. Tablet and phone and kindle will be charged and ready to go. So I think I'm pretty close to being prepared. Don't forget that the chances for the red, white and blue afghan are still available through the end of November with the drawing to be held on December 1 and the winner receiving the afghan sometime during the second week of December. If you purchase any book, you get 5 chances for the drawing, so put your orders in now. Books make great gifts. Bookworms make great stocking stuffers and teacher gifts. My Curl Up With A Good Book afghans make excellent winter gifts as well. There are only 8 afghans available - Watercolor, Woodsy, Primary, Aspen, Mirage, Melonberry, Bonbon print, and Marrakesh. If you are wanting an afghan as a gift for someone special, please make sure to order early as I need a three week lead in time to get the yarn and crochet them. No orders will be taken after the end of October, so basically you have one month to place an order. See you all in the postings - have a great week. I may or may not post a WWYWWQ Wednesday but will past next Sunday about the event and everything else that I usually report on. See you all in Macon for the GA COMO - E :)

This and That

Another week gone, no more sales, one more afghan to finish. No writing accomplished this week either. I really need to get back to writing. I just have no mojo left right now. Let's talk about weird dreams. If you know personally, you know I don't sleep well and most nights/mornings will only sleep about 3 or 4 hours - depending on the kind of day I've had, what's stressing me. I'm never rested but sometimes I do dream. Last night I had two kind of off the wall dreams that are a bit bothersome to me. One was about my mother with whom I have very little communication and the other was about me teaching a class of students ranging in age from 6 on up to almost high school who were learning English. I am by no means an English teacher and don't think I have ever been a teacher in any lifetime. I'm wondering if that could be a round about way to get me back to Imogene since most of the students were Asian (kind of like the movie Good Morning, Vietnam ith Robin Williams) and a few Spanish speaking but they were very few. It would make sense that these girls abducted in China would have to go to school to learn to speak and write the local language to fit in, so maybe this was a lead-in to something having to do with my novel. Maybe I'll explore it and see where it leads me. Gearing up for the Georgia COMO event, which is October 3-5. Waiting to hear back on when I need to be there and what all I need to do. I've also had a recurrent dream about this event being a big break and foot in the door type of thing. One can only hope as you never know what will transpire from event to event, but I've not done an event since the middle/end of August so I'm ready to get out there again and really work on book sales. Don't forget that the afghan drawing chances are still available through Thanksgiving with the drawing to be held on December 1 and the winner receiving the afghan sometime during the week of the 7th of December (not looking at my calendar so can't tell you exactly when it will be shipped out). All chances are only $1 each with 5 extra chances for every 25 you purchase. See you all in the postings - E :)

This and That

23 years - that's how long ago I said "I do". Grant it, the last 8 or so years haven't really been like we've been together; just living under the same roof and have hardly said anything to each other, but it's okay. He did leave me a text message this morning saying "happy anniversary" so at least he hasn't forgotten.

On the sales note, nothing happened this week. I'm trying to get Heather to fix "Train of Clues" for the final time (I've been trying for months now to get it fixed and finalized but to no avail), so hopefully I can get it back on the market before the October events, and maybe even put it up as an ebook. I hope she isn't ignoring me because I really would like to get that project out of the way. I have 3 more ebooks I want to publish but need covers for them. Biggest thing is I can't afford to pay someone to do my covers or my illustrations right now. Until I see mega sales from the state series, and I mean like 1000 print-run per state, then I probably won't ever ba able to pay someone for doing the artwork. I hope that I see a big jump in sales at the Georgia COMO event the first week of October. With SELA being there and with me in their booth all day Thursday and most of Friday, I should see some orders coming in (that is 12 states represented in the association - Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia). Me personally, I wouldn't consider Virginia and West Virginia as "southeastern states" but I'll be happy to have each state pick up the states already completed for their collection. If each county in each state would get one copy of the five titles available for their main branch, that would be 1025 copies per title to equal 5125 books. That would be well worth everything. I could continue with the series. But that is wishful/hopeful thinking on my part. It's hard to predict what will happen at any given event.

This week starts the Book-in-a-Week challenge and I've decided to participate but not officially. Their (see my posting from Friday about the BIW and the website to get more information) time starts Monday at 8 AM and ends the following Monday at 8 AM; officially my week will run from 12:01 Sunday AM to 11:59 Saturday night. I've decided to work on Imogene and have decided to make it a 2-month time frame to work on it. My goal is to write 3 pages a day for 20 or 21 pages a week over the course of 10 weeks (starting today, ending November 17, with the goal of having the story almost completed if not fully completed). I think setting goals of number of pages as opposed to number of words per day or week will not feel as frenzied as NaNo, and I'll be writing roughly the same amount of words as expected for NaNo over a longer period of time. This hopefully will let me get Imogene's story developed and written so I can achieve publication goal of next summer or fall. I'll post an update every week here (my "this and that" column) so that you all can see that I am on track or if I'm falling short of meeting my goals and you can all stop by and encourage me or give me a pep talk (I'll need plenty of that to get it done).

Off to work so I can work on my writing - see you all in the postings - E :)

Miracles and Good News

Okay, my miracles are minor compared to some but still in the past 24 hours (more like past 18 hours) I've received an answer to one of my prayers and relief good news to another.

I've been campaigning to sell my book related items via Etsy and my websites to raise funds for a couple of big events coming up. I had asked Ann Eisenstein to join me for the GaCOMO conference coming up the first week of August to help offset the costs of the exhibitor's booth but have not really received a commitment from her, so have been fretting on how to come up with the $350 for the booth cost, which needs to be turned in by September 1. I kept hoping that some afghans or books would sell or large quantities of chances for the afghan drawing, but at almost the middle of August, neither has happened.

Yesterday, we had some terrible storms come through our area and I logged off for a while and then logged back on when I thought the storms had passed only to have to re-log off within a few short minutes secondary to another set of storms coming through as strong as the first one, but not before I was able to read my emails. One of them was from the director of the conference telling me that he was pretty sure he had a solution to my dilemma - they are always needing someone to sit in the SELA (that's the Southeastern Library Association) booth during the conference and if I were willing to help man the booth, I could set up my books at no cost to me. YES! - His last words to me were "think about it" and my reply to him before having to really get off the computer was - I'm there - lol. No thinking necessary. I'll be there whatever hours you need me except during my presentation time - so this was my miracle.



I only have to fret about the biggest book festival coming up but that one shouldn't be as bad since I do get paid on the 22nd of this month and have a small event the Sunday before and I'm hoping that one will be a huge success (lots of afghans and books sales) but I've already been planning so my check should be pretty good and able to cover all the expenses. It wouldn't hurt to see folks purchasing chances for the afghan drawing in batches of 25 (remember the cost per chance now is only $1 each and for every 25 purchased you get 5 free chances - so if you were to purchase 100 chances, you would actually receive 120 for the drawing and this is the afghan I almost don't want to give away but have committed it to being the 2012 afghan). This would just cushion my ability to meet all necessary expenses over the ensuing weeks.

The other bit of good news is that I was fretting about the hotel expenses for the GaCOMO since that conference falls the very first week of October (3-5) and I don't get paid until the 7th but in that case I actually will get paid on the 5th. I called the hotel this morning to inquire about when my credit card would actually be charged - upon check-in or check-out - Erica stated that I wouldn't be charged until check-out which is a relief since I'll be checking out Friday morning and my money will be in my account first thing that Friday morning. So, yay for a little relief on that and now all I have to do is save my check on the 22nd of September to cover gas and food to and from the conference. Things are definitely looking up as far as that one conference is concerned.

I'm having a Miracles and Good News day. What about you - what kind of day are you having? Hope it's full of wonderful miracles and good news - see you all in the postings - E :)