An update on the gofundme campaign - I've had one donation (and it is much appreciated) but need to raise more funds to pay off my illustrator so I can get started with a new illustrator and get my state series back on track and out there. If you can contribute or can recommend someone who can contribute, please stop by here and leave a donation. Every little bit helps get me closer to paying her off.
I've opened my TeachersPayTeachers store for my state stories to start selling in digital format. Once the first illustrator is paid off, I will be getting that series back on track with (hopefully) three republished titles this year and at least the four new ones next year and probably two to four more as well (depending on how quickly my illustrator can get things done and how quickly I can format the stories for publication). So if you have been following the Junior Geography Detective Squad (JGDS), 50-state, mystery, trivia series, please stop by the store and help me build my followers. Also, please help spread the word to all teachers (especially social studies teachers) and homeschoolers that you know who would like to supplement their social studies curriculum with a fun state mystery series. The files include the book specific study guides, all for one low price. You can find my TpT store here and the more followers I have the better as you will receive updates when new items are added to the store.
The last thing is the Decatur Book Festival - the place I got my start when the first state story was first published under a publisher. I've wanted to participate several years since then but haven't been able to afford it. This year I get to participate with two groups so will be represented in two different booths. The Sisters in Crime Atlanta chapter has asked the Palmetto chapter (SC) and the Upstate chapter (SC) as well as the Low Country chapter (SC/GA) and a chapter in Tennessee to participate with them in a booth. I've already filled out my survey and hope to be hearing back from them soon about how they are going to do participation and what not.
I'm also a member of the YA Authors Rendezvous group and one of the members actually lives about 45 minutes from Decatur and we're going to have a YAAR booth as well; of course with the help of the other members so as to keep cost to each of us low. You can check out the group's website here and see what we have to offer. A huge variety from paranormal to children's to everything in between geared for the younger readers.
I know it sounds kind of crazy to be in two booths at the same time but here is the breakdown - The Kelly Watson stories and Imogene will be in the Sisters in Crime booth; the Kelly Watson series, A Moose in the Shower and the state stories published up to that time will be in the YAAR booth. I will also help in both booths as needed but more than likely more in the YAAR booth than the Sisters in Crime booth as I think it will be a bit crowded with all the folks who will be represented from 5 chapters (as well as the national organization being promoted) to be there. I've been ecstatic since finding out about being in Decatur again this year. I've a lot of work ahead of me in the upcoming months so I should sign off now and get some shuteye so that I can start anew tomorrow, working on my crochet projects that need completing as well as some writing projects. See you all in the postings - E :)
Showing posts with label state stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label state stories. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 02, 2016
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Createspace announcement
No, they are not going belly up. No they are not changing names.
I received an email today regarding the Pro Advantage plan on createspace. For those of you who are published with createspace already, you probably received the same announcement. For those of you considering publishing with createspace, some good news for everyone. The Pro Advantage plan has been discontinued, but not to fret you still have the ability to get your books listed in the expanded distribution.
What this means for authors publishing using createspace is what we were paying for books under the pro advantage plan is now the same for every one, which in turn means higher royalties on our sales. The pro advantage allowed us to list our books with Ingrams (bookstores), Baker & Taylor (schools and libraries) and Createspace direct distribution. It would cost us $39 each for the titles we listed with the pro advantage, with a renewal of $5 per year to keep the title active. Now, the expanded distribution is only $25 and from what I'm reading, this is a 1-time payment on each title to get the same distribution as what the pro advantage gave us.
This makes me a happy camper because I have a short book that I just wasn't too thrilled with ordering too many copies at once because it wasn't cost effective and realistically for the cost to print the book and what I'm retailing it for, I wasn't making very much royalty wise. Now that the pro advantage is gone, the book will cost me the same as my state books to print and I can leave it listed through amazon and my createspace store and not have to worry about paying that $39 to have expanded distribution. I won't feel so bad about ordering copies of that book to have on hand now. Doing a happy dance over here for this new announcement - :)
Keep on writing, see you in the postings - E :)
I received an email today regarding the Pro Advantage plan on createspace. For those of you who are published with createspace already, you probably received the same announcement. For those of you considering publishing with createspace, some good news for everyone. The Pro Advantage plan has been discontinued, but not to fret you still have the ability to get your books listed in the expanded distribution.
What this means for authors publishing using createspace is what we were paying for books under the pro advantage plan is now the same for every one, which in turn means higher royalties on our sales. The pro advantage allowed us to list our books with Ingrams (bookstores), Baker & Taylor (schools and libraries) and Createspace direct distribution. It would cost us $39 each for the titles we listed with the pro advantage, with a renewal of $5 per year to keep the title active. Now, the expanded distribution is only $25 and from what I'm reading, this is a 1-time payment on each title to get the same distribution as what the pro advantage gave us.
This makes me a happy camper because I have a short book that I just wasn't too thrilled with ordering too many copies at once because it wasn't cost effective and realistically for the cost to print the book and what I'm retailing it for, I wasn't making very much royalty wise. Now that the pro advantage is gone, the book will cost me the same as my state books to print and I can leave it listed through amazon and my createspace store and not have to worry about paying that $39 to have expanded distribution. I won't feel so bad about ordering copies of that book to have on hand now. Doing a happy dance over here for this new announcement - :)
Keep on writing, see you in the postings - E :)
Friday, April 25, 2008
Life got in the way
I've been slack of late in my postings but I've had a good reason. Work and writing and other things - life in general. Okay - not really a good reason but it should account for something.
Before the middle of March, we were basically told that the one account I had been working on since starting with this company wasn't sending us any work or very little and that were all (I believe there were 70 MTs on that account at one point) were welcome to try other accounts within the company if we wanted to. I have been inquiring since October for other accounts to work on but had been told there wasn't anything available. My line counts dropped by about half; no big deal if you are paid by the hour or salaried, but when you are paid on what your produce, half of normal line counts means your paycheck is closer to one-third of normal (being paid on a tiered payscale, those lines really make a difference - how that worked was for the first 3000 lines I typed, I was paid 6-1/2 cents per line; the next 3000 lines 8-1/2 cents a line and everything over that 9-1/2 cents per line -- so when you are used to doing about 9500 or more lines in a payperiod and you can't even make 6000 lines (sometimes it was hard to even get 5000 lines in)), then without that third tier, your checks look pitiful.
So the middle of March, one of the supervisors came to me (I had been doing some psych stuff for her to help out where I could) and asked if I was still looking for another account to help out on. I jumped on the chance. Well, needless to say, I have been hopping since. My line counts for the first payperiod that I worked on the new account rose tremendously (I came to the hand clinic in the middle of a payperiod). The next payperiod - I was amazed at what my lines looked like. Of course since I got reassigned in a sense to the hand clinic, the old clinic decided to find a bunch of the doctor I do exclusively for me and so I've been splitting my time between the two and doing stat psych jobs as needed.
What this means for me is that my "work schedule" is being shifted so that I am no longer really working my original schedule of Sunday through Thursday with the weekends off for my fun stuff, but that will have to change in the fall. The reason is this - the hand clinic work doesn't get downloaded until late evenings on the days they dictate; I've been assigned two doctors and help out on others as needed (am still learning some of the other doctors but overall, it's going pretty good). So basically, my two doctors dictate on Mondays and Fridays and in order to stay within the 48-hour turnaround time, I have to work Monday nights or all day Tuesday and Wednesday to get those Monday dictations done and I have to work all weekend to get the Friday dictations done. Plus throw in the mix of Dr. Bolding and stat jobs, which means I'm working more. But once things get in a nice routine of what I'm doing on a regular basis, then I should be able to go back to a semi-weekend off schedule (Fridays off for now).
I have started the second state story, finally and hope to finish it up tomorrow and go through the editing this week to have it turned in to the publisher soon. I've been told the first one is ready to be illustrated but the illustrator still has other jobs in front of me and she hasn't been paid for her prior work yet, so she's kind of on strike, which is not a good thing. I have been assured that the first state would be out in August. I have my doubts. But maybe I'll be surprised. I can only hope.
So as you can see, life has gotten in the way of things but everything is working out. See you all in the postings - E :)
Before the middle of March, we were basically told that the one account I had been working on since starting with this company wasn't sending us any work or very little and that were all (I believe there were 70 MTs on that account at one point) were welcome to try other accounts within the company if we wanted to. I have been inquiring since October for other accounts to work on but had been told there wasn't anything available. My line counts dropped by about half; no big deal if you are paid by the hour or salaried, but when you are paid on what your produce, half of normal line counts means your paycheck is closer to one-third of normal (being paid on a tiered payscale, those lines really make a difference - how that worked was for the first 3000 lines I typed, I was paid 6-1/2 cents per line; the next 3000 lines 8-1/2 cents a line and everything over that 9-1/2 cents per line -- so when you are used to doing about 9500 or more lines in a payperiod and you can't even make 6000 lines (sometimes it was hard to even get 5000 lines in)), then without that third tier, your checks look pitiful.
So the middle of March, one of the supervisors came to me (I had been doing some psych stuff for her to help out where I could) and asked if I was still looking for another account to help out on. I jumped on the chance. Well, needless to say, I have been hopping since. My line counts for the first payperiod that I worked on the new account rose tremendously (I came to the hand clinic in the middle of a payperiod). The next payperiod - I was amazed at what my lines looked like. Of course since I got reassigned in a sense to the hand clinic, the old clinic decided to find a bunch of the doctor I do exclusively for me and so I've been splitting my time between the two and doing stat psych jobs as needed.
What this means for me is that my "work schedule" is being shifted so that I am no longer really working my original schedule of Sunday through Thursday with the weekends off for my fun stuff, but that will have to change in the fall. The reason is this - the hand clinic work doesn't get downloaded until late evenings on the days they dictate; I've been assigned two doctors and help out on others as needed (am still learning some of the other doctors but overall, it's going pretty good). So basically, my two doctors dictate on Mondays and Fridays and in order to stay within the 48-hour turnaround time, I have to work Monday nights or all day Tuesday and Wednesday to get those Monday dictations done and I have to work all weekend to get the Friday dictations done. Plus throw in the mix of Dr. Bolding and stat jobs, which means I'm working more. But once things get in a nice routine of what I'm doing on a regular basis, then I should be able to go back to a semi-weekend off schedule (Fridays off for now).
I have started the second state story, finally and hope to finish it up tomorrow and go through the editing this week to have it turned in to the publisher soon. I've been told the first one is ready to be illustrated but the illustrator still has other jobs in front of me and she hasn't been paid for her prior work yet, so she's kind of on strike, which is not a good thing. I have been assured that the first state would be out in August. I have my doubts. But maybe I'll be surprised. I can only hope.
So as you can see, life has gotten in the way of things but everything is working out. See you all in the postings - E :)
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Unofficial good news
I've been holding off posting this but I think I can post now, since I really did need to update my blog and put some good news around. A guy came on the Short Mystery Fiction yahoo forum and posted a link looking for stories, wanting to keep them about 1500 words, and to keep them at a 6th grade reading level or so. They are using the stories to put on the 5-minute mystery site (which will be up soon) and so I emailed him after the posting hit the forums. I told him my story idea of using each state as the mystery and writing a bunch of children's stories. I have all the information gathered and this idea has been brewing for a couple of years now (since Train of Clues won a shared second place on Armchair Interviews' fan mystery contest for Silence of the Loons, which came out at the time of the contest. I had that story edited by a professional editor, asking for advice on how to expand the story out, how to make a series of the stories, et cetera. She gave me some wonderful advice. So I've changed my mind about a dozen times about how to go about coming up with 50 stories that are different yet similar and getting the kids from one place to another without the stories feeling like fill-in the blank type things or cookie cutter stories.
I received an email from Randy saying that his partner, who is either an educational publisher or works for an educational publisher, was very excited about my story ideas. He asked if I would give him my phone number to pass to his partner so he could call me. I completed the first story Wednesday night during the last few hours of NaNo (National Novel Writing Month) and had a few more questions, so I emailed him again and put a little, btw - I haven't heard from your partner yet but I know he's probably busy and all. His partner, Tom, called me Thursday. We were on the phone for over an hour discussing my ideas and so my kind of like Where in the World is Carmen San Diego stories are being looked at a complete "Geography Mystery package" to be put in the schools, kind of as a supplement to the curricula in social studies, ELA and maybe science. Now I have to write the stories. I've written two for the 5-minute mystery site but the second one kind of sucks. I need to work on it and then write the other 20 (starting with about 20 to have on hand and then will go from there) so that we can talk more than just 5-minute mysteries.
So maybe within the next couple of years, these stories will be expanded out and will be in the schools complementing the curricula around the United States. Good news for me and this will keep me quite busy from the way Tom was talking. Let's just hope I can keep up the pace and get them turned around like he wants.
I received an email from Randy saying that his partner, who is either an educational publisher or works for an educational publisher, was very excited about my story ideas. He asked if I would give him my phone number to pass to his partner so he could call me. I completed the first story Wednesday night during the last few hours of NaNo (National Novel Writing Month) and had a few more questions, so I emailed him again and put a little, btw - I haven't heard from your partner yet but I know he's probably busy and all. His partner, Tom, called me Thursday. We were on the phone for over an hour discussing my ideas and so my kind of like Where in the World is Carmen San Diego stories are being looked at a complete "Geography Mystery package" to be put in the schools, kind of as a supplement to the curricula in social studies, ELA and maybe science. Now I have to write the stories. I've written two for the 5-minute mystery site but the second one kind of sucks. I need to work on it and then write the other 20 (starting with about 20 to have on hand and then will go from there) so that we can talk more than just 5-minute mysteries.
So maybe within the next couple of years, these stories will be expanded out and will be in the schools complementing the curricula around the United States. Good news for me and this will keep me quite busy from the way Tom was talking. Let's just hope I can keep up the pace and get them turned around like he wants.
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