WARNING - MCBUB online

Here is a cautionary tale for all you folks who order anything from a company online. DO NOT ORDER ANYTHING FROM MCBUB - I ordered two tablets in November and received them a few days before Christmas. Daughter and I opened the package and started checking out the tablets to see if we could get my Square app to download on the tablet (that was the whole reason for ordering the tablet in the first place, it is android based and should have been compatible with the app). Daughter's tablet turned on and worked well for the most part. Mine did not - showed a green light like it was on but the screen never would come on. I tried charging it and when I had it on the charger, the light was red and then went to blue but still no screen - couldn't see anything but black. After a couple of hours trying to get it to work, I gave up. I was instructed to send it back. (according to their website, you have three days to return a faulty item.) I did get the instructions and shipping address and whatever was needed to send the package back (it only took a day to get the info in email). Package was received on December 20th; return info received on the 21st and printed out return form and address immediately; went to the post office on December 22(payday for me) to send the package. They told me that it should take about 2 or 3 weeks for the company to receive the package, had to send it air mail ($15) and I did not put a signed receipt or insurance or anything on the package (would have cost me a bunch more than I could afford for all that). I filled out the customs form as instructed, wrapped the package in extremely high amounts of bubble wrap and the post office worker liked the package I had received it in originally so we put my bubble wrapped pcakge inside the original bubble wrapped package and sealed it up and put the label on the package. It left my town that afternoon. Grant it a couple of days before the Christmas Holiday, I knew to give it a couple of days to get to its destination of wherever the United States Customs was.

About three weeks after sending the package, I hadn't heard anything so emailed the company trying to find out where my refund was. They informed me they had not received the package in their warehouse at the time. Fine, I waited another week and sent another email. I was informed to track it and find out where it was held up on my end - like it really would be hung up for 3 weeks on my end especially when I was told it had to be returned within 3 days in order to receive my refund.

So, I did track it from the customs form number and it showed that my package went through the usual stops before getting to customs in Jamaica, NY and was sent out on the 28th of December from customs. I sent the information to the company and got an email back saying it still was not in China - now near the end of January (over 3-1/2 weeks from leaving NY) or in their warehouse and had not been checked in their computer system. Of course that email had to sit and wait for a response since it was the Chinese New Year and they take a whole week off for their New Year - literally - the automated response said they closed their offices for a whole week.

So I resent that email the week after just to make sure they had gotten the first email (we are now talking about the very end of January/first part of February). Again, I was told they had not received the package and that as soon as they did I would receive my refund. Every week I've sent an email asking where my refund is. I keep explaining to them that once it leaves the United States customs there is no way to track it on my end. They need to go to their customs workers and find the stupid package. Each week I get the same response - it is not in our warehouse, nor has it been checked into our database or it's still in NY - it is almost 7-1/2 weeks since it actually left NY and made its trek overseas. So where is my $84 refund? - Still not in my account as it should be. Where is my package? no telling.

All I can say is if you are thinking of ordering anything from McBub think twice just in case you have to return it for a refund. I will never order anything from an overseas company again especially now with this headache of waiting for them to receive a returned package and holding up my money. Honestly, I believe it's there but they keep saying it's not so they don't have to refund my money. I've no other course of action but to blacklist the company for poor business dealings.

WARNING - DO NOT ORDER ANYTHING FROM MCBUB ONLINE. If you do, expect poor materials and poor business dealings.

Ebook descriptions and freebies calendar

I've decided to take all my short stories and put them in the KDP select program to see if I can generate some sales for all my stories. I will leave Finally Home available for Nook and through smashwords (available for all ereaders and PCs) but have just put "The Proposal" and "The Tulip Kiss" in the KDP select program. What this means is that I'm going to run some freebie days for each of the stories and see what I can generate interest wise. All these stories have placed in various contests or been selected for anthology inclusion, so I don't understand why the stories really aren't selling at 99 cents.

Remember that when these stories are offered for free on amazon, you don't need an actual kindle to download them; you can download the free kindle app for your phone, tablet, computer, et cetera. This will allow you to download the stories for free during the time they are offered for free or purchase them when they are regular price.

Here's the setup on the stories:

"Bride-and-Seek" was a selected piece in the SC Writers Workshop anthology, the Petigru Review, which was published for the annual conference in 2008. The selection process is blind and not everyone who submitted a piece gets selected. This story was written as a challenge back a few years ago when my friend sent me a "Haunted Realms" Calendar and Covington Manor was one of the featured places (all the haunted places are based in the UK and overseas). The story goes that the Lord of Covington Manor and his new bride had come back to the manor (they got married around Christmastime or on Christmas) and the bride had the wedding party engage in a game of hide-and-seek. She went off to hide and they all looked for her but no one found her. Rumors were said that she ran away. The groom continued his search for her but to no avail and finally gave into his broken heart, dying some months or years later, still searching for her. It is said that some years after his death a servant was cleaning the manor either to put it for sale or spring cleaning or whatever and stumbled upon a locked trunk in the attic. When he opened the trunk, he found the remains of a woman in a wedding dress. This is presumed to be the bride who went missing all those years ago. I've taken that description of what supposedly happened and rewrote the story with the same ending. I'm listing this story as a paranormal romance (love story with a ghostly twist to it) "Bride-and-Seek" is currently 99 cents and is available for kindle download only. It was just offered as a Valentine's Day freebie with a resultant 360 (maybe 361) downloads over the 48-hour period. It will be "free" again in March and April.

"The Tulip Kiss" is a first place winner in Echelon Press's fast and frigid themed contest (January 2007). We were given the theme frigid for January and had to write a short story based on the theme. My award was ebook publication for six months as the first place winner. The cover depicts a winter scene on an icy, back road where tragedy has just struck a young couple. The tulips come in from my husband's family being dutch and at one point, the Elderings were known for their tulips. This is a love story with a ghostly twist. "The Tulip Kiss" is currently 99 cents and will be offered for free the end of February, a couple of days in March and again in May.

"The Proposal" is the second place winner in Armchair Interviews April Fools Day contest. The basis for this story was that we were given a list of eight words and to incorporate several of them into the story and had to write a humorous romance short story. To date, other than the current free downloads on "Bride-and-Seek", "The Proposal" has been one of my bestselling stories. Even during my freebie days for "Bride-and-Seek", I gained 1 or 2 downloads of this story. I also had it on Smashwords and Nook but took it off both those sites and listed exclusively on kindle this week. "The Proposal" is currently 99 cents and will be run for free the end of March/first part of April as I want to see how well a "holiday" themed story does when it is offered for free during said "holiday" (yes, I know that April Fools Day is not a holiday but it's a fun-filled, practical joke day and that's exactly what you will find in "The Proposal").

"Butterfly Halves" (coming soon) will be added to the calendar once it is published. This story is a runner up in Echelon Press's fast and fanciful themed contest (March 2007) and is about two sisters who both want a butterfly necklace but when they fight over the necklace and it breaks, they find themselves in a different dimension in the future in their lives as they have dreamed of them being. This was a bit whimsical and fun to write. Once it is published, it will be listed for 99 cents and I'll determine free days at a later time.

I have two more stories, "Zombies Amuck" (a second place winning story for a local writing group) and "La Cave" (or "The Cellar" - still am undecided whether to list it in the French title or the English title - but will have to decide when Heather tells me yes she will do a cover for it and whichever she chooses for the cover will be what I go with). More on these two stories when it gets closer time to publishing them (if I get them published - lol). They will both sell for 99 cents when they are published.

Here is the calendar of upcoming free days for the stories:

February 29/March 1 - "The Tulip Kiss"
March 21 - "Bride-and-Seek"
March 21/March 22 - "The Tulip Kiss"
March 31/April 2 - "The Proposal"
April 25/April 26 - "Bride-and-Seek"
May 16 - "The Tulip Kiss"


I've only scheduled 3 days for "The Proposal" for now but will play that by ear as to when the next two free days will be scheduled.

I hope you all enjoy my stories and will tell all your friends and promote the free days as much as you can. I appreciate your support and following. Still looking for followers to receive a free ebook version of my YA paranormal mystery, Finally Home. When I reach 150 followers on this blog, you will be contacted with a coupon code for you to download the story. Please pass the word.

Also, the red/white/blue afghan drawing is still opened. The chances are only $1.50 per one chance or you can purchase 10 for $12 (that's a $3 savings over the individual chance). The drawing will be December 1 with the afghan being mailed out around the 7th of December. For more details on the drawing and purchase links, visit either The JGDS website or my main website and check the events pages.

My work in progress, Imogene: Innocense Lost is still that - a work in progress but there are some things in my head about the story. I hope to publish this story sometime at the beginning of 2013. It will be available in print as an ebook (all places - kindle, smashwords and nook). I need to really sit down and work on it so that I will be ready to publish next year. See you all in the postings - E :)

Book Review Friday - Guardian of Eden by Leslie Dubois

I'll continue my review of Leslie's books leading up to her guest appearance on the 27th. Guardian of Eden is very poignant and dramatic to say the least. I emailed Leslie after reading it and all I could say was WOW to her - lol.

Write From the Heart: SPEAK WITH YOUR VOICE

Another good article on voice and style - this should help the WWYWWQ #4 some too - Mrs. E :)

Write From the Heart: SPEAK WITH YOUR VOICE: What distinguishes one's writing from someone else's writing? Voice.  One of the most important things you can give your story is your voice...

Promoting Marilyn Levinson

I just updated two of my out-of-print children's books and put them up on Kindle. RUFUS AND MAGIC RUN AMOK was an International Reading Association-Children's Book Council Children's Choice. Fourth-grader Rufus Breckenridge discovers he has magical powers like the women in his family, but keeps it a secret. Once his mother learns he's an "Empowered One," she'll make him take lessons so he can use his powers to do good deeds. Where's the fun in that? Suddenly Rufus is no longer afraid of Big Douggie. He can perform all sorts of tricks. His powers grow stronger and stronger and get him into more and more trouble. Soon his magic is out of control.

NO BOYS ALLOWED was in print for eighteen years, and has been translated into Swedish and Dutch. Eleven-year-old Cassie Landouer is devastated when her father divorces her mother to marry a young lawyer and moves out of state. She handles her pain by boycotting all the males in her life, including her best friend, Bobby. Then Uncle Harry moves in and she can't very well ignore him. Even worse, he discovers her secret. What's a girl to do?

RUFUS AND MAGIC RUN AMOK is $2.99 on Kindle. You can download it for free on February 16 and 17th. NO BOYS ALLOWED is $3.99 and can be found here. Both will soon be available in paperback.

AUTHOR BIO: Marilyn Levinson is a former Spanish teacher and the author of several books for children and young adults. Her first, AND DON'T BRING JEREMY, was a nominee for six state awards. NO BOYS ALLOWED has sold over 200,000 copies.

More recently, Marilyn has been writing mysteries for adults. Suspense Magazine awarded A MURDERER AMONG US a Best Indie of 2011. The book has been featured on the Five Star Books site these last three months. The sequel, MURDER IN THE AIR, will be out later this month. Her ghost mystery, GIVING UP THE GHOST, is coming out in April with Uncial Press.

Marilyn is a member of The Authors Guild, RWA, The Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime and the Guppies. She co-founded and is President of the Long Island chapter of Sisters in Crime.

Writers On The Move: "The Difference between Style and Voice," by Mayra...

This is an excellent answer to the question I tried to answer from a student in Mr. Hughes' class last week. For the question and my answer see my posting WWYWWQ #4 - and then refer back to this explanation of style and voice to help you figure it out - Thank you, Mayra for showing the difference between the two and help me answer the question correctly - Mrs. E :)


Writers On The Move: "The Difference between Style and Voice," by Mayra...: What is the difference between style and voice? Style is the particular manner of writing individual to an author, the unique way an autho...

Day 1 of "Bride-and-Seek" freebie download

Here are the results of day 1, February 14, for my story "Bride-and-Seek" being free to all kindle users (this includes those who don't have a kindle but do have a kindle app either on an ipad, iphone, or even your computer).

Yesterday was my first freebie day for "Bride-and-Seek". When I got to checking at about 8:15 AM yesterday morning, I had 30 something downloads and was ranked at the bestsellers ranking of #41 in the ghost stories category. Throughout the day, the rankings dropped (good thing) and by 3 PM, I had made it to the #9 bestselling spot in ghost stories. This is really amazing considering I had only had about 135 downloads (USA) since the book went up for free. I hovered at the #9 spot in freebie ghost stories throughout the rest of the evening/night - jumping up to #10 one time and then back to #9 the rest of the time I checked my stats and downloads. At the end of the day, when last checked for me at 11 PM, I was still at #9 bestselling freebie ghost stories but had 237 downloads and picked up 22 from the UK which I didn't really gain those UK downloads until late in the day. So from 3 PM to 11 PM, I picked up roughly 100 downloads but remained at the same spot on the bestsellers top 100 freebie ghost stories list.

This morning, the second day of my freebie promotion, when checked at roughly 8 AM, I had only gained about 30 downloads in the US from the night before up to 272 US downloads, and only 6 UK downloads up to 28, but I also picked up one download from Denmark. This put "Bride-and-Seek" at the #7 bestsellers freebie ghost stories list. And the last check at about 11:15 AM was 277 USA downloads, 37 UK downloads and 1 Denmark downloads, which put back to the #9 spot on the bestsellers list. (the final results will be posted tomorrow night but there will be a short posting at the end of my day tonight to show where I ended up, at least on the east coast time zone when I get to posting it; and my sales and downloads will also be posted in Saturday's posting, This and That).

I'm pleased and disappointed but also have realised that when looking at other's who have reported their kindle downloads during free promotions really have no comparison. One person I know who ran her free days the middle of January posted something like 5,000 downloads but then again, her book is a suspense or mystery or thriller where as mine is a ghostly romance story - way different stories. My other friend who did three days of freebie downloads last week, Faye Tollison, had over 1700 downloads over the course of three days but then again, her book, To Tell The Truth, is a romantic suspense and mine is a ghostly romance story - big difference in genres. I think I'm a little disappointed in the just barely over 300 downloads on my story more than anything but I'm also happy that I'm still in the top 10 (that was my original goal to be there at the end of the two days, not expecting to be there at the end of the first day).

So here is what I'm thinking of doing, even though my story "The Proposal" is doing well on smashwords or has done well on smashwords, I'm thinking of unpublishing it from Nook and smashwords and listing it in the KDP program and run it for free the day before and after and including April 1 - forthree days basically - since it is an April Fools Day story and see how a humorous romance does compared to a ghostly romance.

Do I think the promotion is working? In a way yes, because I did pick up a sale on another story, "The Proposal" in addition to the downloads. Do I think I could have done better, at this point I wish I had done better with the number of downloads, but overall I can't complain as there are folks looking at my books and I'm in the top 10 bestsellers free downloads (at the moment) and that was my ultimate goal. Do I think this program is for everyone? Hard to say right now as I don't have enough experience with the program and I've only seen stats on other stories that aren't even similar to mine, and we all know comparing apples and oranges just doesn't work; other than the similarity that they are both fruits - lol.

If you are thnking of self-pubbing and using the KDP select program to promote your books, I would suggest do it on a trial basis - nothing says you have to sign back up for another 90 days after the original; but if you are doing well enough to take away a good portion of the downloads and the money that is available, then definitely continue in the program. Each author's results will depend on a lot of variances - the type of story they have, the promotion they do, and of course name recognition (I'm still building mine). I think it is helpful being on the top 10 list, if even for a day or two because in the end, it is exposure that we are looking for.

If you have downloaded any of my stories and haven't done so yet, I'd really appreciate it if you did a short review for them. This helps folks in deciding whether or not to spend any money on a story and helps the rankings. I know I won't be in the #1 spot but I can get closer by having reviews. This is very much appreciated by every author. - E :)

WWYWWQ #4

This week, I sought out one of the classes I've worked with on Skype to see if they might have some questions for me to post on my WWYWWQ. Ms. Jurkowski has been very kind to send me a list of class questions. I will post several of the questions at the same time since they are basically the same question but phrased slightly different.

I would like to address one question on its own first, since it was already answered.

K.B. asks - What do you do when you get stuck in the middle of a story?

The simple answer is walk away. The more complicated answer is to do another writing activity that takes you out of the story but still keeps you writing; do some random writing - have someone give you a random word and write a paragraph or page and hope that maybe that will spark something in your story. Sometimes, the only thing you can do is totally scrap the story and start something different. This really happens more often than we authors want to admit. (I've personally started many short stories that I've never finished. At the time I've started the story, I felt it had merit or that it would be a good story, but would get less than a fourth of the way into the story and decide that it wasn't really happening - and this can happen due to lack of facts or evidence to back up your story (if based on a historical event - I started a Civil War story based on something my grandmother "confessed" on her deathbed, but after retelling the story to several people, the conclusion I had to come to was that I couldn't really research it nor could I verify what she said since my grandmother wasn't born until 1898 - yep over 30 years after the end of the Civil War, and what she was telling was something that had been passed on to her from her mother or women related to her who were alive during the Civil War; so basically I have several versions of the story started but haven't really taken them any further. I have a small collection of said stories, so if you really get stuck in the middle of a story and feel that it can't continue, it's okay; you can start a new story and work on that. You might come back to the first story and sometimes you may never come back to it; just save all those started stories because you never know when you may take parts of what you've already written and turn out something totally awesome.)

Now for the really similar questions:

R.P. asks - What do you do when you are writing an new story and you can't get it out of your head onto the paper?

E.N. asks - What do you do if you don't know what story to write?

A.M. asks - How do you get ideas for how to write a book?

K.L. asks - How do you think what to write about?

A.P. asks - What should I write for my next story?

G.V. asks - How do you get your ideas?

T.F. asks - How do you think when you write?

N.M. asks - How do you plan your writing? as does D.J.

As Mrs. Jurkowski pointed out, she felt that all of the students were struggling to come up with ideas for their stories for the Lunchtime Writing Club.

Okay kiddos, here is the simple answer - Ideas for your stories are all around you. Just keep your mind and eyes opened and you will see you have lots of stories to write. I can't tell you what to write about but keep those little notebooks handy and everytime something catches your interest, jot it down and viola, you have an idea for a story. Those little jots are to remind you of possible stories, and remember, they don't always lead to a story. A lot of what happens in our everyday lives really makes good fodder for our stories. We take something simple and turn it into a story, and sometimes we turn several of those small ideas into one story. So don't get discouraged and keep jotting little reminders and keep on writing. If one doesn't turn into a story, something else will -

Thanks for your questions; keep writing and who knows - one of these days, you may make it with your stories - Mrs. E :)

PS - If I've left anyone out with a similar question to the ones above, I apologize and your initials will be added to a future posting. Mrs. E :)

It's here - "Bride-and-Seek" free days

Today starts the free download days for "Bride-and-Seek" (you can pick it p here). You have through the end of day Wednesday to snatch up this book based on the legend of Covington Manor in the UK (newly married couple, come back to the Manor for wedding festivities; she wants to play a game of hide-and-seek; she hides and no one can find her; he dies of a broken heart and years later she is found in a locked trunk in the attic).

"Bride-and-Seek" is a twist - a love story that still ends in the same tragedy but different characters.

While you are checking out the story for free, take a look at my other downloads and see what might interest you. If you like romantic ghost stories, "The Tulip Kiss" is another tragic story of love at its peak with everything taken away in a flash. If you like humorous romance, then "The Proposal" will have you laughing and feeling sorry for Stella on her birthday which is riddled with practical jokes at a time when she thinks her man is being the most serious of all. Finally Home, my YA novel about Kelly trying to figure out why the house across the street is so important to her and her family, is also available. This novel is being compared to Nancy Drew mysteries and that it reminded the reader of the trouble Nancy Drew got into. The paranormal in this story is help from the grave by way of a mirror.

All my other books are available in print (JGDS state mystery series) with Finally Home also being in print.

Still available any of the state stories and everything else except "Bride-and-Seek" as a freebie offer in exchange for a review on any of the stories, as well as your choice of Finally Home or the two short stories "The Tulip Kiss"/"The Proposal" for following and reading this blog when I reach 150 followers.

Within the next month, I should have one more short story going up, "Butterfly Halves", a YA fantasy story which will only be available as a download for 99 cents and I may put that one in the program and offer some free days shortly after it goes up but I will have to play that by ear when I have the cover. Two more short stories are awaiting input from Heather as far as if she wants to take me on for more covers and then there is Imogene: Innocense Lost waiting to be written, so there will be more stories coming out but the state stories really do need to come first and foremost since I'm targeting teachers and librarians and homeschoolers now. Keep watching out for more stories and special deals. See you all in the postings - E :)

Promoting your book: A 10-step marketing plan Part 3

Steps 8 through 10 are featured in today's posting. Reading through these, I already will fail since these require being outside the home job wise, et cetera and having access to places that would possibly carry your book.

8. Business Tie-Ins. The summary of this is that if you have an existing business and your book ties in with the business that you can use your business to sell your books. The other way to do a tie-in is requiring customers to purchase your book when they register for whatever service you offer (the example the book gives is white water rafting and if you offer classes on white water rafting, you could have the book tied in to the course or you could raise the cost of the course and give a copy of book for "free" (that is the hidden fee of the cost of the course)).

For me, this step isn't very doable because I work at home and the business I'm associated with, medical transcription, has nothing to do with my books. I would love for someone like NatGeo Kids to pick up my state books either as a sponsor fund wise (to cover expenses associated with publishing the books) or by ordering several hundred copies (okay thousands would be super great) to place in schools around the United States. I don't see either of these happening. So, yes, if you can tie your book into your business or if you are an instructor, then this would be something to help boost sales.

9. Sell to local bookstores, gift shops, and other local vendors. Easier said than done when you live in a small town.

I did have my books in the local bookstore for a time but after a while with no sales and with me running out of certain titles and having to take them out of the bookstore to sell at whatever event I was doing at the moment, the bookstore owner and I decided it wasn't worth it for me to put books in the store, keep taking them back and replacing them after the fact. So I no longer have my books sitting in a bookstore. Getting to other stores and places that would possibly carry my books is not doable either since I basically don't go to many towns or cities unless I'm doing an event. I also don't feel my state stories have much use in the bookstores since they really were written as a supplement to a social studies curriculum in upper elementary schools. So, this is a fail for me - something that doesn't work for or fit my books or something that I can't really do as part of the marketing plan.

10. Advertising. Recommended to start with on-line advertising, specialized print publications, and book trade catalogs.

This is the most costly of the marketing plan, but then again, no one said everything would be free or inexpensive in the book business. Again, that old adage "you've got to spend money to make money" comes to mind in that I totally agree that advertising has huge advantages. I've been contemplating a FB ad and may do a trial run when I have some funds, but for now most of my money has to go to cover upcoming events - the SCASL conference, the SC Book Festival, the Decatur Book Festival and several others along the way.

Do I think this is the only marketing plan available? Of course not. Do I believe these steps are tried and true methods and results are readily apparent? In a way, yes. Not every step will work for everyone and from my previous postings, you can see that I've been trying several of these steps and haven't seen mega results yet. But that is the name of the game, perseverance. I'll keep trying different methods and see what is working and what isn't. When I hit a decent monthly sales, I'll definitely be doing the happy dance and posting about it. I reposted J.A. Konrath's posting about him doing $100,000 in earnings in a 3-week period of time not too long ago. I would be very happy to see between $1000 and $2500 earnings a month every month. That would be a turn around for me.

So I ask my readers who are authors, what is working for you? What kind of marketing plan do you have and are you staying pretty close to what you laid out? Have you seen a spike in sales from one method or another or have sales been pretty even regardless of which method you use? Leave a comment and let us know what's working for you. - E :)

This and That

It's the end of the week and here we go again - not as dismal as the previous two or three weeks, so let's start with sales:

"Bride-and-Seek" went live Sunday morning and by the end of the day there was 1 borrow (this story is listed exclusively on kindle and prime members can "borrow" books with no return dates) and 1 sale. Monday not much was going on. Tuesday, I was out and about most of the morning and upon returning and checking stats, I found another copy of "Bride-and-Seek" had sold and a copy of "The Proposal" had sold. I'll take 3 sales in a week considering I've had 0 sales for several weeks in a row. I'd really love to see 5 or so sales per title every week but I don't see me reaching that goal this year, but I'm not going to give up hope on achieving that.

Tuesday, February 14th, "Bride-and-Seek" goes up as a free download (this is for everyone who has a kindle or kindle app on any device who can download ebooks from the kindle store) and will run from 12:01 PST the 14th through 11:59 PST the 15th (you have two days to grab up this paranormal romance based on the Covington Manor (UK) legend of a husband who loses his wife to a deadly game of hide-and-seek; he never did find her and died of a broken heart.) I'll do a late night posting each day to show my rankings and bestseller's ranking throughout the week (this will be for all my books so I can see if having one book for free really does drive folks to purchase other titles and I'm hoping to pick up the foreign market for both "Bride-and-Seek" and "The Tulip Kiss" - this being that the Eldering name used to be very big with tulips in Holland and with a title like "The Tulip Kiss" with an Eldering as an author, you'd think I'd have that market already cornered but so far not; I even sent a downloadable version to my father-in-law for him to pass the word to relatives still in Holland and around other places to tell them about it but still nothing there - one of these days hopefully).

I've been keeping track of Faye Tollison's rankings this week (well the latter part of the week) as she had put her book To Tell The Truth as a free download Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week. Surprisingly her rankings did well over the 3 days but her downloads/sales weren't as high as we expected, and it certainly wasn't due to lack of promoting it as free download.

Tuesday night she started 611,000 (some odd numbers there) and when I checked Wednesday morning early - 7:30 AM - she was at the seller's ranking of 3306 with her book being bestseller's ranking of #33 in the romantic suspense category. Her seller's rankings dropped throughout the day from #33 to #26 to #19 to #16 to #15 to #14 (seller's ranking of 250 at close of day). She made it into the top 20. All day Thursday she stayed in the top 20 with a start to her day at #12 bestsellers ranking to a rise to #19 by the end of the day. Friday was even worse with a drop to starting at #17 and going to #29 near the end of the day. Her downloads over the 3 days (and this was reported from her to me) were right at 1750 in all the kindle areas (UK, DE, FR, ES, IT and USA). She is scheduling one of her next free days on March 29th when she appears on Your Carolina with Jack Roper (a local celebrity here in the Carolinas) and hopefully with the appearance of her on TV and promoting her book, among other things - Heather's cover designs, my book (which I'm thankful to her for doing that but really I do a lot of promoting myself so I wish she'd just promote herself) and Sisters in Crime - her downloads will skyrocket. I keep telling her she needs to get some short stories of hers polished and put them up for 99 cents and see how sales will change (like I'm one to talk - lol; I have four stories available as ebooks and haven't really had any sales to speak of since the first of the year) because people really do look for more by an author if they like the one book they try out. No one must really like my books as stated by the sales I've had this year - lol. Maybe when I get Imogene: Innocense Lost people will like that book and start buying books, but that is a ways off.

I also did a price reduction for Finally Home from $12.99 to $11.99 print and from $3.99 to $2.99 ebook. I was thinking of reducing the state stories a bit but don't really see how I can since I still need those in-person sales and usually do discount the price at events.

Stop by Monday for the third part in my series of promoting your books from Bookstand Publishing's booklet I got from free. Am still in need of new questions from students related to writing so teachers, please send any writing questions your students may have to eeldering (at) gmail (dot) com with subject WWYWWQ; in the body, please put the student's initials (like E.E.) from (your name - like Mr Hughes') class asks question? I will respond to you/your class/your student before posting my answer on my blog. Once I have the posting ready to go, I'll send you an emailed copy of the post before it goes up to share with your class so they can see they made it on my blog - thanks everyone for participating in my weekly project of mentoring students to help them become better writers. - see you all in the postings - E :)

Book Review Friday - The Queen Bee of Bridgeton by Leslie Dubois

The next few weeks we will see books by Leslie Dubois who will be my guest on the 27th of this month. All the books I've read so far are written with interracial relationships as the main theme but the storylines are very different. The Queen Bee of Bridgeton is the first in the Dance Dream series.

Product Description
When fifteen-year-old Sonya Garrison is accepted into the prestigious Bridgeton Academy, she soon discovers that rich girls are just as dangerous as the thugs in her home of Venton Heights. Maybe more so. After catching the eye of the star, white basketball player and unwittingly becoming the most popular girl in school, she earns the hatred of the three most ruthless and vindictive girls at Bridgeton. Can she defeat the reigning high school royalty? Or will they succeed in ruining her lifelong dream of becoming a world class dancer?

QUEEN BEE OF BRIDGETON by LESLIE DUBOIS
Review by Elysabeth Eldering

Rating: 4-3/4 stars (I hardly ever give a 5 star rating)

In Queen Bee we find Sonya who wants nothing more than to dance. She gets accepted to a private "white high school" and works at the dance studio to help cover the expenses of her training. She tries not to get involved in the politics of the school and lets her older sister take care of that part. Sonya somehow attracts the attention of the star basketball player who wants to play on foreign teams or pro. Romance blossoms, scams abound and Sonya's dreams are shattered albeit briefly. This book is very well written and takes you on a wild journey through high school dreams and beyond.

I've read several books by Leslie as well as her other persona and I have to say that Leslie/Sybil is an excellent writer. I will continue to recommend her books.

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Product Details
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 360 KB
Publisher: Little Prince Publishing (March 9, 2011)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B004S7A9AM
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
Lending: Enabled

Also available in print and if you get any of Leslie's/Sybil's books, you can request a kindlegraph for them, just go here

AUTHOR BIO: Leslie Dubois lives in Charleston, SC, with her husband and two children and also writes children's books under the name Sybil Nelson.

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What's coming up for Elysabeth's blog: Saturday will be the This and That (sales report and announcement of free days for "Bride-and-Seek" as well as some ranking numbers for Faye Tollison who just had three of her free days for To Tell The Truth)

Monday will be the third part in my 3-part series of promoting your book; Tuesday will be a late update of sales/downloads on stories; Wednesday is supposed to be WWYWWQ but I've not received any questions from students from any of the classes I've worked with, so I will have to find something); Thursday will be two postings - one on what to do with the copies you receive (if you used Bookstand Publishing and had received the 48 copies of books) as well as a promotion of a friend's books; and Friday will be a review of Leslie's book Guardian of Eden.

Friday, Ma America and the JGDS will be traveling to Columbia, SC for the Geofest held at USC-Columia and hope that having the ability to now take credit cards will be a help in her sales. The This and That posting will be very late once Ma America has had a chance to get home and sort through emails and what not from the day being away from her computer. See you all in the postings - E :)

Promoting your book: A 10-step marketing plan Part 2

As previously noted, these steps are from "The Self-Publishing Checklist" book that I received after clicking a link on a website I was visiting a few weeks ago. This book is published by bookstandpublishing and a lot of the information is geared toward using them as your publisher. The promotion of your book should be pretty straight forward and work for any book regardless of who is publishing it. I use createspace to print my books and have been very satisfied with them, especially since I don't have the several hundred dollars requiredto publish through another company. Createspace is free and the expanded distribution package cost has been reduced now, so I'm better off sticking with using createspace until I've completely published all my books.

Part 2: Steps 4 through 7

4. On-line promotion. This is what it says - using online sites to drive traffic to your books.

This is a given for me since I publish using createspace as my printer. I have a "store" or page for each title I publish through createspace and all my books are listed with amazon and B&N, even though createspace is affiliated with amazon. They suggest creating a "listmania" which would list books similar to yours plus your book or creating a "Find Similar Books" list. This may be an area I need to look into, but with my state stories, I'm not really sure there are any books out there that are similar. I'll have to do some searching.

The other suggestions include creating a blog, email, social networking, cross linking, YouTube, all free or fairly inexpensive.

As for the blog, that is a given. You want to keep your blog active but not "in your face" forcing folks to buy. You definitely shouldn't intimidate others into buying your book either. Again, I think this should be done before you are even published simply because you are building up your name and your book and can post anything and everything related to your book, especially if you know you are going to self-publish and use a site like createspace to print the copies up. This is a rather quick process from the time you submit your print-ready files to ordering the proof copy and approving for sale. Barring any errors found on the interior reviewer that need fixing (but nobody is perfect and it seems there will always be catches that createspace's reviewer finds that you don't see), the process is a matter of days to a week from submitting files to being reviewed to ordering proof copy and accepting proof copy as printed and releasing your book. For me, everything is about 3 or so week cycle unless there are many fixes needed secondary to my paydays. I am still using my hard-earned funds from my day job to cover expenses on my books. This is par for the course unless you are already rich when you pursue writing as a career. The old adage "You've got to spend money to make money" is very true in this business. What I like about using createspace is that their print facility is based in South Carolina and I've not once had a reason to pay for expedited shipping. Unless there is a holiday between the time I place an order for one or 15 or however many books I'm ordering, I usually get the books within two days. I've even had orders ship the same day and received the next but two or three days is pretty standard for me to receive them. I also know others who are not in South Carolina and have used createspace and have commented on how quickly they receive their orders.

As far as the other suggestions, the email one is basically creating a newsletter and to always reference your book in your signature (yep, that's a given for me). I used to do my own newsletter and had started a yahoo group for posting the newsletters but let that go due to the fact that I wasn't generating enough interest on the site; fifteen members may be reading my newsletters did not really seem worth the effort. I've been thinking of starting my newsletter again (I would use a site like constantcontact or one of the others but I like the look of my newsletter and am pretty sure I can't use my layout on those sites and I'm not good at creating such things) and posting on my website or on the side bar on my JGDS blog, since I haven't created a newsletter for my other writing stuff yet. This may take a while to show up if I decide to go that route again.

5. Book signings. Another Duh!

Yes, you need to do book signings but getting the right place interested in having you is the tricky part. I've done regular bookstore book signings. I also do book signings at what I call "events" that I participate in as either an exhibitor/vendor or a presenter.

6. Special events. This covers things like Topic Related events and book fairs or conferences.

Have participated in several book fairs along the way starting with my first in Decatur when State of Wilderness was first published in 2008. This book fair led me to homeschool conferences and other events along the way. So check. I'm doing something right but the sales are still not being generated that I really need to see a change in me spending my job earnings on my books to the royalties from the books covering expenses of my books.

7. Speaking engagements. The most coveted part of the marketing plan.

These are harder to come by than this book really lets on. When doing speaking engagements, you need to be paid whether it be an actual honorarium or taking pre-orders and having the place purchase a set amount of books prior to the engagement. Schools used to be the biggest place to get speaking engagements but with all the budget cuts and the terrible economy we live in right now, schools aren't able to bring in guest speakers too often or pay big bucks to have them there. This is also dependent on the area and the schools themselves. Sometimes you can get library engagements but selling your books at a library event is trickier still. If you decide to have a workshop using the facilities at your local library, you will not be able to sell your books. If you are invited to participate in a library-sponsored event, then you can sell your books. Or at least that is how it is here in our counties and several others in close proximity.


In part 3 of the 10-step plan, steps 8 through 10 will be covered and most of these tend to be geared toward specific types of books or require large investments.

Write From the Heart: LINE UP THE TIMELINE

apparently I posted this on the wrong blog but it's not all bad as her overall ranking from yesterday was 611,831 and this morning when I checked it she was down to 3740 and was ranked #33 in the romantic suspense category - this is an interesting article my friend, Faye, wrote concerning keeping up with the timeline in your story for the reader's sake. Stop on over and leave a comment.

Faye's book To Tell The Truth is available on Kindle to download for free today (February 8) through Friday (February 10). If you like a little bit of romance with your suspense, this is the book for you. You can find her book here (and an update is that she went from #33 to #26 since 9 AM this morning in just 3 hours; her sellers rank from 3740 to 1302 - woohooo - she will do well this week).


An aside - "Bride-and-Seek" went up Sunday morning as a kindle only download and is doing okay so far. I'll post the results the end of the week during my This and That posting - E :)

Write From the Heart: LINE UP THE TIMELINE: When writing my book, To Tell the Truth, there was one of many elements I forgot to include. It was the hardest for me to correct, my effort...

WWYWWQ #3

Today's question is a general question from several students.

The question is - How would you write ---? this way or a different way?

The generalized answer is - write it the way you feel sounds right to you. This is your story and your voice. I may write the same sentence or fragments in a different way than you do. This is a subjective topic and I can't guide you on how to write your voice. What I can guide you on is the craft of writing stories - grammar, POV, and other aspects on the writing itself.

When you write, you yourself are part of the writing. Your voice is unique regardless of the story you are writing since theoretically every story you write or have an idea to write has already been written. What makes your story different than all the other stories is your voice. So decisions about how to write something that is distinctly your take are up to the writer.

Stay true to your voice in all that you write and keep on writing. - Mrs. E :)

Promoting your book: A 10-step marketing plan Part !

A few weeks ago I was on a website and there were some ads there. One of them said get this free "Self-publishing checklist" book. I clicked on the link and was taken to Bookstand Publishings's site but decided it can't hurt to request the free book.

Although I have now been self-publishing for almost two years now, it doesn't hurt to make sure I'm really doing all I can to get the most benefit from self-publishing, especially if some new ideas are there to market and promote my books.

A quick preview of the chapter contents made me realize that they advice they are offering seems to be pretty much where I am in my self-publishing endeavor. There is one chapter dedicated strictly to promoting your book, the 10-step marketing plan. So a glance through and I'm trying to figure out where I'm going totally wrong or took the left turn when I should have taken the right turn, because it seems everything suggested here is where I seem to be promotion wise. The problem with some of these suggestions is getting the readers' responses to some of them in order to make sales.

Part 1: Steps 1 through 3 in the marketing plan as outlined in "The Self-Publishing Checklist":

1. Always be selling: In a nutshell, you should be talking your book up, displaying your book and offering free copies in exchange for reviews. Common sense. There are some mini steps suggested in #1 to include creating or getting business cards and/or bookmarks, tell everyone you know that you have a published a book, create excitement (see above statement about giving books out in exchange for reviews), and creating an effective sell sheet. I've done all this except creating sell sheets. I did have sell sheets when I was first published for the first two books in my series which were part of the media kit put together. Not much came from the sell sheets at all.

In January, I offered 100 ebook copies to anyone who would request them from me in exchange for reviews. Did I receive 100 requests for any of the nine titles available at the time? No. I received two requests, one person in England whom I met in an online class and who is familiar with my state stories requested a copy of Finally Home, "The Proposal" and "The Tulip Kiss". I know he is busy and as of this posting, I have not heard back from him regarding reviews on any of the titles. I did have another lady who requested a copy of "The Proposal"; she has posted her review on her blog and amazon, B&N, and Goodreads. She also does reviews for children's books on another blog and so I asked her if she would take a copy of one of my state stories and do a review on it. She agreed to do so. She also informed me that it would take a bit longer to read and review that story since she had a few books in front of me. No problem. At least, as far as I'm aware, she will post a review when she gets a chance.

Maybe I need to go back to the drawing board on coming up with creative ways to "sell" my books since apparently no one wants free ebooks to read in exchange for reviews.

2. Get Book Reviews. The book says that Reviews sells books. Duh!

I can't afford to pay people to post reviews and was hoping by offering free ebook copies of the titles available ("The Proposal" and "The Tulip Kiss" are only available as an ebook, and all the state books are only available in print but I do have PDF files for them that can be used for review copies) that I would gain a handful of reviews. Two, in my opinion, does not equal a handful of reviews and thereby does not sell books. Although looking through the list, it may be a good idea for me to consider sending print copies to several of the review places that are not a fee-based entity.

3. Your website.

In my opinion, this actually should be something created long before your book is published whether you get a "website" from the publisher like bookstandpublishing offers or not. There are several free or low cost sites out there. Yolasite.com is one of them; weebly.com is another. I advise upgrading to the pro side since this will allow you to do more with your website. With weebly.com, by paying the yearly fee (I think I'm paying like $42 and some change a year - or maybe less; I think it works out to about $2.95/month when I renew my upgrade), you can add videos and have more the ability to upload more files on a page. This is a big advantage for me since I've got a whole page dedicated to the accompanying study guides for my books and I'll have 50 when the series is completed. I think before I upgraded to pro I could only upload like 10 files on the page, which would have been 1/5 of my study guides being on the page. Now, I can upload all 50 and not have to decide which few I'll keep up or how to switch them out. I also think with the pro upgrade you get more pages; with the freebie side on weebly.com I think you are limited to only five pages, but if you don't have a lot going on, five pages may be just right for you.

You can create your website and add, take away, change as you progress in your publishing endeavor, but I highly suggest you start a website before you are even published.

I have two websites, both through weebly.com and both have been upgraded. You can find all my non-state related book information here and my JGDS, 50-state series here. I try to make them look as professional as possibly and have included buy now buttons on the book pages as well as the necessary information. I created my JGDS site first and then created my non-JGDS site but didn't really publish it until last year when I started thinking of my other stories that had won contests and could be republished and about the time I finished Finally Home.

Heather, my illustrator uses yolasite.com for her graphic design business. You can check her out here.


Tune in Thursday for part 2 where I'll cover steps 4 through 7, which all seem to be related to in-person or online promotion. See you in the postings - E :)

This and That

Okay not much to report this week - sales = 0 across the board - no sales on Kindle, none on Nook or smashwords - so much for meeting my sales of 15/title/month. I can't even give away free copies so not sure what else to do.

On the bright side, I did get my final cover for "Bride-and-Seek" and have published the story in the KDP select program. What this means is that for the next 90 days, "Bride-and-Seek" will be available only on Kindle and I'll be able to offer it for free five days during that 90 days. I'm hoping this will at least work for getting my name out there. Next weekend will be a report on my KDP select numbers - downloads and sales (hopefully - lol). I will offer "Bride-and-Seek" for free on the 14th and 15th of February which means you can receive the story for $0.00 on those two days. I'm hoping to pick up a large readership in the UK for this story since it is based on one of their ghostly legends (Covington Manor). Anyway - here is the cover - enjoy. I've got one more story in the next month or so to republish and then maybe in April/May I'll publish two short stories that haven't been published before but one is a 2nd place winner. (I'll nudge Heather on covers for those two later this month).

Dropping Followers

I just went through my followers listing and dropped 11 as their information was foreign and if I can't read or follow their blog, no reason to keep them on my list. Sorry but all you folks from Asia aren't doing me any good following me.

Now I need 70 more followers to reach the 150 mark, so come on folks - the free ebooks are still up for grabs. Just follow my blog but please make sure you have a valid blog and that I can contact you to find out which ebook you are interested in - E :)

Sybil Nelson's blog posting/KDP select

If you pop over to Sybil's blog, you'll see another take on the KDP select program.

This program is making headlines and waves in the indie published authors' realms. Just Thursday night we had a panel discussion from members of our local Sisters in Crime chapter on self-publishing and the talk turned to the program.

I agree with Sybil's statement about exclusivity, but my feeling is this right now, I'm not making any sales across the board - Kindle, Nook, Smashwords - so by listing one of my stories at a time exclusively with the program, I'm not losing anything. I have an almost finished cover (I'm tempted to go ahead and go with the cover I have but still feel it needs the one last suggestion I've given Heather) for "Bride-and-Seek" and as soon as I have the next cover (hoping by tonight, and if not, I'll go with the 6th version of the cover) the story will go up in the program and I'm thinking of putting it for free the 14th and 15th of this month - it is a love story, after all. Anyway - I'm hoping that I get a lot of downloads from the UK market since this story is based on one of their haunted places - Lovell Hall, and we all know how much they love and believe in their haunted places.

There are several people that I'm following who have reported on their experience with the program, so as soon as I start seeing results after getting my story up, I'll also do a report (may do a weekly on Saturday report in addition to my This and That posting or may include it on my This and That posting - just have to see how things go. See you all in the postings - E :)

Book Review Friday - Priscilla the Great series by Sybil Nelson

In this review, I'll be reviewing all three books in the Priscilla the Great series - Priscilla the Great (book 1), Priscilla the Great: The Kiss of Life (book 2) and Priscilla the Great: Too Little Too Late (book 3). Sybil is busy going through edits for the Priscilla the Great book 4, so that will be another to add to my growing list of TBR, albeit they are all on my kindle and not stacked up next to the bed.

When I read Priscilla the Great, I was thinking "interesting concept" and then when she talked about her twin brothers I totally was like "whoa, wait a minute is Priscilla the Great the same author of something I read earlier?" I had to search through my finished collection on my kindle to find the other book and sure enough, same author. I read Priscilla the Great unknowingly that I had read something else by this author. I totally enjoyed it and finding out more about Priscilla and what made her "great" was fun.

Each book is a look into how Priscilla, her family and other kids help save the world, one little corner at a time, from an evil doctor who was doing genetic experiments and created these not so much human like "people". Priscilla and her newfound friends go to different parts of the world to battle other mutants and save whatever is in need of saving. It's fun to follow the group, which includes other family members and these young people who were rescued in the first book. Sybil writes with a flare that makes you believe that you are right there with the characters.

Experience the trials and tribulations of a seemingly normal teenager who has spectular adventures. This reader is looking forward to reading the next in the series.

Priscilla the Great books are available everywhere and are available in both print and ebook format. Check out her blog for contests and giveaways galore.


Next week's review will be Leslie Dubois's Ain't No Sunshine, the beginning of the lead up to Leslie's appearance on my blog. Monday will be the beginning of a 3-part marketing plan. WWYWWQ will be an improvised posting since I don't have any questions from students. See you all in the postings - E :)

Motivation and Inspiration

Kim Baccellia over at the YA Authors You've Never Heard Of posted last Sunday (the 22nd) a posting on what is motivating her to write. She posted a video of the song "Unwritten" and then an episode of "Roswell".

I too have been lacking motivational wise to write. I have a ton of stories to complete (okay a few state stories) and am not motivated to get them written. I don't know what is up with that but I really need to get them written, edited and published since I have 44 more to get done over the course of the next 8 years.

Also, sometime the week before reading Kim's posting, daughter and I were chatting and I was reading her a bit of my new novel, Imogene: Innocense Lost and she asked me, "Where do you come up with your characters' names?"... "You have Sarah Beth in this one and Mary Beth in the other one, and Matt, and what's the other girl's name? and Matt's friend - oh yeah Guy" at which point she decided Guy for a name was funny. My answer was that the names kind of come to me when I write a little bit of a story. Somtimes I may have a name in mind and sometimes the names take a while to come up with. I have to do some research through baby name sites and sometimes look up what the meaning of the name is before deciding whether it is the name I need to be using.

Imogene came to me while I was writing the first scene of the story (and this may or may not really show up in the story because I think the story really starts with the next part) and Sarah Beth was the other name that came to me. I wrote the first couple of paragraphs with Sarah Beth being the daughter and Imogene being the mother, but as I wrote a few more sentences, I suddenly changed the names around. Imogene became the daughter. I can't explain what inspired me to do that but it happened. Now I have a very clear picture of who Imogene was and who she has become over the 10 years the story occurs; the story actually will be over a short period of time - a month or less but really starts ten years prior to the actual story that will be told when Imogene goes missing while the family is abroad.

How do we go from the inspiration to the motivation to get the stories written? It really isn't an easy task but if we are serious enough to take on writing stories and want to make this our chosen profession, we must keep at it.

I've had students ask similar questions - what is your inspiration for this? or what motivates you to write? - and I'm sure the answers they are looking for are something on the lines of fame and fortune but that isn't why we become writers. The money would be nice but I only would like to earn enough from my books to support me or to have all my events and book related expenses covered as well as travel funds and enough left over that I can pay my bills.

I'd be happy if someone were to contact me and say, "We really like your books and think you have a wonderful concept here; We'd like to sponsor your state books" and put money down to cover all my expenses with no worries of how events will be paid for, hotels, travel, et cetera; but for now, I will have to keep plugging away, taking my inspirations and going with the flow and keep myself motivated to write whatever it is that needs to be written (and right now it looks like Imogene is begging to be written). No more back burners; now is the time to write (this week will be an especially good one for me as all the hand clinic doctors will be out of the office and what little bit of work we have won't amount to much for any of us).

So if you are an author, what keeps you motivated to write your stories? What inspires you or inspired you in the first place to write your stories? Comments welcome on the topic. E :)

PS - don't forget I'm doing ebook giveaways for followers. When I reach 150 followers on this blog, I'll send you a code to download either Finally Home or both "The Tulip Kiss" and "The Proposal"; just for being a follower. Basically 150 downloads will be given away. I only need 59 more folks to follow the blog to start contacting you all to get your download to you.

Keep on writing and see you all in the postings - E :)

WWYWWQ #2

Today's question comes from M.J. in Mr. Hughes' class.

How do you determine when to make chapters?

The answer is: This is a very subjective thing. Each writer decides where to make one chapter end and another begin.

WritersDigest.com suggests three tips for determining where to place chapters.

1. Focus on your writing first. Don't worry about chapter breaks immediately but if while writing your story you feel you need a break, place a # (this is obviously for typed mss) to make note of a possible break. After you have finished writing the story, do a search for all the # and decide if that really is a chapter break or just a break within the chapter. If it is a chapter break, page break it there and move on to the next one. If it is a short break, put three or four #'s centered on the page so that you know it's still part of the chapter.

In my short story, "Butterfly Halves", I use #'s instead of chapters but I'm also showing you that there are two persons in parallel lives that need to be incorporated. Every time I put one of the #'s, I knew I was switching which girl's life I was talking about.

2. Break when your story requires a shift. When you change place, time, and points of view (we were discussing POV in class when this question came up), it's a good rule of thumb to make a new chapter.

In my story Finally Home, my first chapter is only 2 pages long; it starts in the car with Kelly and her parents traveling to their new place. The second chapter begins with them at the new place and unpacking the car. Since I did a scene change, I started a new chapter.

3. Break chapters in the heart of the action. These are the cliffhangers, make you keep turning the page chapter endings. You can't stop reading because you have to find out what happens.

I'm not sure I have any cliffhanger chapters in any of my stories, but I have a feeling when I get further on Imogene's story, that there will be some chapters like this because I've already had a few thoughts about something happening and leaving it there and moving to the next scene, place or whatever. I've read quite a few stories that use this technique and it's really effective. I've had to read straight through to find out what happens.


Good question, M.J., and thanks for giving me something to blog about. Check back every Wednesday except the fourth Wednesday of the month for another student's question for the WWYWWQ. See you all in the postings - Mrs. E :)

SC Author Connection

What, you may ask, is the SC Author Connection? The SC Author Connection is a group of three South Carolina authors who will participate in several events throughout the year.

Members include Sybil Nelson, whom you will meet later this month and Sarah Renee, whom you will also meet later this month. The third member is Elysabeth Eldering, whom you already know a bit since you follow this blog. I had had contact with Sybil prior to YALL fest, which I wanted to do this past year but couldn't due to finances. We had talked some about the SCASL conference and perhaps sharing an exhibitor booth. At the time, neither of us really knew if we could afford to have an exhibitor booth this year. Sybil was a participant in YALL fest in Charleston this past November and then because of me letting her know about Savannah turned around the next weekend and participated there. After she did YALL fest, Sybil emailed me stating that we could go ahead and be an exhibitor at the SCASL, she had found another author to go in with us.

A few emails with info were exchanged with both Sybil and Sarah as well as Heather Loy, the now exhibitor coordinator and the SC Author Connection was born.

The plans for the year are to participate in the SCASL conference, the SC Book Festival, and hopefully Decatur Book Festival, and probably a couple of other big events where we can share tables. We will get a banner through vistaprint and have something that highlights all of us and our books. Stay tuned to find out more about the SC Author Connection. - E :)

Afghan drawing is now a raffle

I've been steadily working on my red, white and blue crocheted afghan and have half the rows sewn together. I had originally planned to make the afghan for a drawing for the JGDS series only but have decided to do a raffle instead of a book purchase related drawing. Raffle tickets will be $1.50 each or 10 for $12. You can find the raffle buy buttons at both the JGDS website and my other writing website. Pictures will be posted by the end of the week. Drawing will be December 1, which is after my final event as this is a year-long raffle. I need the afghan to show at my events so that folks can purchase tickets in-person as well as online. Good luck to everyone - E :)

Rumer ?

Anyone heard of this young lady? This video was shared on my plurk timeline this morning and I listened to it and responded - interesting, very soulful; then I did a search on her and guess what her first album is called - "Seasons of My Soul" - very appropriate.



Hope you enjoy the video - E :)

This and That - weekly report

It's the end of the month, well almost. Reporting on this week's goals and activities.

If you missed it, I started my introduction to Sybil Nelson with a book review yesterday.

Followers haven't increased even offering free ebooks of Finally Home, "The Tulip Kiss" and "The Proposal" - your choice of the novel or two short stories.

Sales have been zero across the board - no kindle sales, no createspace sales, no smashword sales and no nook sales.

Since it's pretty close to the end of the month, looking back at my goals and what I've met and not, I've not been successful in most items. The one thing I've accomplished is posting more often than previously, although I have neglected my JGDS series a bit. I've tried giving away ebooks for reviews and I've tried to gain more followers by offering my ebooks to anyone who follows the blog when I reach 150; I'm still at 91.

Imogene: Innocense Lost hasn't progressed although it really has been calling to me to get more written. I've wasted my "free" time playing spider solitaire and watching TV, which seems to be par for the course most every weekend. No desire to work, no desire to write, no desire to do much of everything. I hope this slump I'm in will change once the weather warms up.

I'm almost finished putting the granny square afghan together for the drawing associated with my JGDS series, which will be held in December. For details and some pics of the granny squares, you can check out the JGDS blog. I hope to finish it this week so it will be ready for my first event the middle of February.

Monday I'm introducing the SC Author Connection group. Wednesday's weekly young writers writing question is from a student in Mr. Hughes' class. Thursday I'll post on motivation and inspiration, a followup from a posting by Kim on the YA Authors You've Never Heard of blog. Friday will be a review of the Priscilla the Great series (all three will be reviewed under one review. Happy writing and see you all in the postings - E :)

Book Review Friday - Twin Shorts by Sybil Nelson

Twin Shorts is a collection of short tales and preceeds the Priscilla the Great series. This is where we meet Priscilla who will become Priscilla the Great the next time we see her.

Shortly after I received my Kindle, I searched for low cost books or freebies. "Twin Shorts" is one such find that I read in bits. This was read before I realized that the same author of the Priscilla the Great series had written this book.

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION (FROM AMAZON): Hey I’m Priscilla, a.k.a Priscilla the Great. Usually, I like to talk about how my life got a little crazy after I learned about my special powers. Okay, it got a lot crazy. I mean, you try going through middle school with fire shooting out of your fingers. Awkward. But this time, it’s not about me. Twin Shorts is all about my little brothers, Charlie and Chester, a.k.a The Devil Twins.

I would read a few of the short stories when taking a break or while not at my computer and just needing to get away from the screen. The stories in this book are written from Priscilla's perspective about her 5-year-old twin brothers, who, by her account, are out to ruin her life. Each story is written like a homework assignment or an essay recollecting whatever "adventure" occurred at the time. I tended to feel sorry for Priscilla being the only girl in the household and having twin brothers who seemed to get away with everything. I almost wanted to jump in the stories and be mommy and discipline the boys and set them on the right track. Many funny stories watching the twins, Priscilla and their older brother take on every day life.

If you are looking for a quick read and some humor, "Twin Shorts" is for you. The last time I checked, it was still being offered as a freebie on Kindle, so check it out.

PRODUCT DETAILS:
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 94 KB
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B004GNFXWW


AUTHOR'S BIO: Sybil Nelson lives in Charleston, South Carolina with her husband and two children. She is currently earning her Ph.D. in Biostatistics from the Medical University of South Carolina and has completed ten Young Adult novels.

Sybil writes under another name and those books will be reviewed throughout the month of February leading up to her alter ego being a guest on this blog. Next Friday's book review will be on the three Priscilla the Great books available.

Guest Heather Paye

Today, my guest is Heather Paye, author, illustrator and book designer extraordinaire - I'm a little biased because Heather is my illustrator and she does such a wonderful job. Her covers are really striking and I've heard nothing but great things about her covers when I show them to other writers.

Heather, tell us a little bit about yourself, your likes (and no Taco Bell doesn't count since apparently the whole world knows you love Taco Bell), dislikes - who you are.

HP: Well, I'm the author of A Gift from Above, the soon-to-be-released young-adult, fantasy novel Howl, and Cacti, a children's book due to be released March 1st. Besides my writing career, I'm a freelance graphic designer, editor at Joyfully Reviewed, and student. I think it's safe to say I'm a bit of a workaholic. I like music, humans, puppies, dancing, and good causes. I dislike people who aren't open-minded, coffee, malfunctioning computers, and slow internet.


You are a young writer, only 17 soon to be 18. How old were you when you started writing and what is the first piece you wrote that you would have considered publishable in your early writing days?

HP: I was nine years old when I began writing my first novel. I had it in my mind that I was writing this novel to be published, even though I had no idea what the word "published" meant beyond "other people get to read it". When I started writing for publication, I had only ever written two short stories and a handful of lyrics, but I was determined to write something longer, all I had in my mind was an extremely vague idea of a young woman sitting in a cafe talking to a reporter. As I was writing, that expanded into ideas for a nine-novel-series. Currently, the first novel in this series - The Artifact Series - has just been assigned an editor and is being polished for its release.

EE: Now this sounds like an interesting series. I can't wait to read your first one when it is published. Daughter is reading A Gift From Above but she is a slow reader

What's your favorite genre to read? to write?

HP: I'm actually really picky about the genres I read. I've never actually been a big reader. When I was a kid, my sister used to consume any novel she could get her hands on, and I would read a lot just because she was - *chuckles* - but now that I have less time, I've become even more selective. My favorite genre is paranormal romance, with fantasy being a close competitor. I'm much less picky about what genre I write in, but my favorite is paranormal - stories that are absolutely intertwined with our own reality. It's fun to take the base of reality that you know - that girl in boring high school, or that guy locked in his room playing video games. You can actually get your readers to deeply relate to the character, and have them walk into something entirely fictional. To me, that is one of the most enthralling genres, and I love that I can be the one to pull the reader really indepth like that.

EE: I'm similar to that - I've found that writing short stories allows me to write just about any genre, although I'm not into vampires, werewolves, and other things that have taken over lately, but I don't mind a good ghost story as far as paranormal goes. I don't read much sci-fi or fantasy or romance, although I can write a little bit (depends on what the contest calls for).

What are your writing aspirations? aspirations in general?

HP: This is actually something I haven't really put much thought into. Of course we'd all like to be on the New York Times Bestseller list - isn't that every author's goal? To write a bestselling novel? I have several smaller goals I'm working toward right now: first is to be on the Amazon bestseller list and second is to increase my fanbase. It's really all about the readers reading and enjoying my work. Everytime I receive fan mail, it really motivates me to keep doing what I'm doing because I know someone else is reading my work, and my own thoughts have been acknowledged. The more of that, the better.

As far as my general aspirations go, I'm working toward my Associate's Degree in Liberal Arts, so I really want to get that and graduate with honors. Right now, that is what I'm really focusing on and aiming for so that I can move on to even bigger things.

EE: Do you still aspire to work for Disney/Pixar as you had told me when we first got together and you started working for me?

What's a typical day in your life like - do you have a set schedule or do you just play it by ear?

HP: Yes and no. I keep a prioritized list of the tasks I need to complete. My day consists of waking up, getting ready for my day, checking my text messages, emails - and the social networking sites, I read Twitter every morning like a national newspaper, and Facebook like a local newspaper. *chuckles* After that, I'll take a look at my schedule and decide what is due first and I'll work through my list that way. The only exception to this, is if I have school that day, then I'll complete my school work first and then move on to the to-do list. Normally, I'll finish with my school and work around 10pm.

EE: I think it's great that you have a to-do list and try to stick to it and not let anything get in your way. Gotta have set goals when you wear so many hats.

You wear many hats, what are they and which is your favorite? How do you juggle all the goings on in your life?

HP: Oh, no! I have to pick a favorite! I guess we have the author hat, graphic designer hat, editor hat, and student. All of these things are so different and there are things I deeply enjoy with all of them. At the same time, all aren't without their own frustrations at times. I'm going to say the author hat is my favorite. It's literally whatever I want it to be, it's the most flexible job I've ever had, and you can bring it to whatever legnths you want with how ever much effort you put into it. It's like taking your own continuous thought and casting it into the world to share with a bunch of people. How do I juggle it all? Sometimes it's easier and sometimes it's harder, it depends on what time of year it is. Spring is usually the busiest. 90% of what keeps everything in order is my to-do list and my iPod. If I'm supposed to be doing something - or I forget something - my iPod reminds me via my to-do list. That's all there is to it for me really.

Why Taco Bell?

HP: First, Taco Bell has wifi - any restaurant that has wifi is epic in my book. Second, Mexican food is one of my favorites. Third, their website is well-designed. That is what makes Taco Bell awesome.

EE: Many fast food places have wifi now. I've not checked out TB's website, so that may be something to do later. I like Taco Bell more than other Mexican restaurants really, but I'll reserve the awesomeness to you - lol.

If you could live anywhere, where would you live?

HP: When it comes down to it, I think Arizona will always be my place of residence - at least, primary residence. Everything that I need is here, and there's plenty to expand on with Arizona being one of the newest states. There are only two other locations I would consider: Atlanta, Georgia and California.

EE: Atlanta, really? Scary place to live or at least fly out of. I do live close to Atlanta and don't even like driving too close to it. The traffic is horrendous, even skirting the town on the major highways. I guess there are worse places in the United States to live though.

Thank you for hosting me on your blog, Elysabeth!

Thank you for participating, Heather. I really enjoyed getting to know a little more about you. Looking forward to your new series - and of course more awesome covers from you.


HEATHER'S BIO:
H.C.Paye first picked up a pen and started writing when she was about six-years-old. It started with simple lyrics, but then she moved on to short stories, and finally, when she was 10 began writing full-length novels.
Miss Paye is a part of many groups and organizations. When she is not writing, she is an editor at Joyfully Reviewed and a Graphic Designer. During her spare moments, she enjoys entertaining her Twitter followers with her random quips.

Heather can be found here
or on her blog
or her graphic design site

Desperately selling books; my one year marketing plan: by Vici Howard: 10 call to action words to help sell your book

Vici howard has posted some "call to action" words that help boost sales. What say you all? Do they work? Have you used any of these and seen an increase in your sales? What are some you have found that are working for you? I'm open to any and all suggestions since I really would love to see a boost in my sales (my pitiful 3 or 4 sales this month is very depressing).

I've tried giving away free downloads in exchange for reviews to no avail (one requested three of the titles; one requested one title and did a review already and I was offering 100 to anyone who would like to post a review on whichever title they choose or all nine titles); I ran a "Christmas special" on Finally Home half price for the week before Christmas and had 2 or 3 sales on that title and 1 of the other two titles on Kindle; I'm trying to post several times a week on a regular basis; doing book reviews every week on Friday; offering answers to young writers' questions, and have guest bloggers appear. I wonder what it is going to take to see a minimal of 10 or 15 of each title selling each and every month. Anyway - stop by and visit Vici and let her know what's worked for you. E :)

Desperately selling books; my one year marketing plan: by Vici Howard: 10 call to action words to help sell your book: I found it funny that it was easier to write a 90,000 word novel than to come up with a 30 word ad.I'm really interested in this topic becau...

Writers On The Move: Do Writers Need Brands?

As an author, do you brand? Do you have enough work out there to brand? Read Fani's perspective on branding - E :)

Writers On The Move: Do Writers Need Brands?: To brand or not to brand? That is the question. If you are a writer, branding might seem to you like the most disturbing proposition. Afte...

Book Review Friday and Guest schedules

Today should be my first guest post, but since I started acquiring guests to appear on my blog a little late, I decided today would be a listing of what I have lined up for the next few months, as well as the book review Friday schedule.

BOOK REVIEW FRIDAY SCHEDULE:
January 6 - To Tell The Truth by Faye M. Tollison
January 13 - Haunted Destiny: A Midnight Dragonfly (an exclusive short story) by Ellie James
January 20 - Radium Halos by Shelley Stout
January 27 - "Twin Shorts" by Sybil Nelson
February 3 - all three Priscilla the Great stories by Sybil Nelson
February 10 - Queen Bee of Bridgeton by Leslie Dubois
February 17 - Guardian of Eden by Leslie Dubois
February 23 - Ain't No Sunshine by Leslie Dubois
March 2 - two of the three books in the Saderia series by Sarah Renee
March 9 - Murder Half Baked by Kathleen Delaney
March 16 - Dear Killer by Linda Lovely
March 23 - Delicious and Suspicious by Elizabeth Spann Craig

(I have enough books read on the kindle to fill up 9 months so will add to the schedule as I decide when the reviews will be posted)

This takes me through the first quarter of the year; the list of books to be scheduled for review include Still Life With Murder, Murder in Montbleu, A Touch of Gold, Deadly Daggers, Ghost for Rent, The Strange Case of Finley Jayne, Memories of Roberts Road, Murder Half Baked, Unsigned, Live Free or Die, Lye in Wait, From the Graves of Babes, Dead to Write, Kissing Kelli, Celebrities for Breakfast, Code Blue, Splitsville.com, Southern Fried, For Sale: Old Manor House (free ghosts included), A Haunting at Hensley Hall, the Hobbitville Saga stories, "Famous Last Words", "A Very Holly Christmas", "Christmas at the North Pole Compound", "Birds in Paradise", Murder's Not Cool, "Deadly Detects: A Victorian San Francisco Story", "Tea at the Biltmore", The Witch of Agnesi, Her Wiccan, Wiccan Ways, and books that are currently being read will be added to the schedule later in the year. These reviews should take me through the end of the year or pretty close.


I thank all of you for responded to my guest post opportunity email. I'd been posting for several weeks prior to 6th of this month on plurk asking for teachers, librarians and authors to guest but have had no responses. On the 6th, I sent a bcc email to a good many of my author friends asking them to be a guest on my blog. Here is the line up through May:

January 25th - Interview with author/illustrator/graphic designer Heather Paye, who is my illustrator, layout designer and cover designer. She also writes and publishes her own stories as well as putting together some poetry anthologies.

February 27th - Interview with Leslie Dubois, author of Ain't No Sunshine, Guardian of Eden and the dance dreamer series, as well as a couple of other books. (Leslie's alter ego, Sybil Nelson, is the first member of the SC Author Connection, three authors from SC, who will attend several larger book festivals and other events. Elysabeth Eldering is the second member of the group.)

February 29th - Interview with Sarah Renee, author of the Saderia series. (Sarah is the third member of the SC Author Connection who will be making apparances at several larger events throughout the year.)

March 26th - Guest post by Elizabeth Spann Craige/Riley Adams, author of at least three different series, who blogs over on Mystery Writing is Murder.

March 28th - Shelley Stout, author of Radium Halos

April 23rd - Interview with Deanna Klingel

April 25th - Interview with children's author, Rena Jones

May 21st - Guest posting by Carol Baldwin, author of "Teaching the Story"

May 23rd - Interview with author Faye M. Tollison, author of To Tell the Truth and The Bible Murders (coming soon).

June 25th - Guest posting by Jen Wylie, author of the Ever series

June 27th - Interview with Darcie Helle, author of Cutting Edge and other stories

July

August

September 24 - Interview with Mary Lee, author of "Air Force Mom".

September 26 -

October

November (tentatively have Cheryl Malandrinos during her book tour for her new release)

December

As I fill up the schedule, I will add to this listing.

Writers On The Move: Do You Want to Be a Writer?

Some good tips in getting started as a writer; some more interesting tips in the comments - Stop by and leave a comment - E :)


Writers On The Move: Do You Want to Be a Writer?: How does one begin a career in writing? I asked myself that same question. I’ve had an idea for a children’s book for several years, but did...

This and That - end of week report

So here it is the end of the third week of January and sales have been nil across the board, although I do think I had one view this week of one of the books on smashwords. I don't know what else to do to increase sales. You would think with 9 titles available and one almost available (which by the way will only be available for the Kindle when I do get it published) that I would have some sales. I'm trying to put myself out there and advertise my blog postings and my websites. (UPDATE 01/24/2012: When checking through all the kindle sites for the month-to-date reports this afternoon, I found a copy of "The Proposal" sold in the UK on the 21st, which would have been when this posting originally went up. So that makes 1 sale for the week ending 01/21/2012. - nothing to brag about really but a sale is a sale.) -

I went to the food bank Thursday and ended up spending over an hour there talking with one of the ladies whom I've known a long time but have lost contact with and found out she is now homeschooling her daughter and that she belongs to the Homeschooling Association in our county seat. I handed her a pack of bookmarks to pass out the information to the association members and we talked about possibly doing a workshop for the kids or even having me do a 6-week co-op instruction thing. Fingers crossed that something comes of that.

On the state story side, I'm doing my afghan drawing again this year; see my JGDS blog for more info about that. I have completed 54 granny squares for that and will be spending the week putting them together. I'm also working on finishing up daughter's afghan that I started before Christmas so those two projects are going; I'm kind of shifting between them but will probably work more on daughter's now since i still have 8 squares to crochet and then put them together. I may need to get some more yarn to make another row so her lap throw will be 6 squares per row by 5 rows - I'll have to decide when I get the 4th row completed.

When I finish the red/white/blue granny square afghan and I've finished daughter's, then with my left over red/white and blue yarn, I'll finish the round ripple afghan which will be for the drawing next year, and I'll do a varigated red/white/blue Alternating V Shell afghan. I'll be collecting my yarn throughout the year to make that one since it is only available at Hobby Lobby and is rather on the expensive side (at $3.99 per skein, not something I can afford) and I will have to get several skeins every other payday using their 40% off coupon and making several trips to town to get the yarn. I'll also have to pass funds to daughter and every time she goes have her pick up a couple of skeins too. The pattern says roughly 3 pounds of worsted yarn (the skeins are 5 ounces each) so if I've calculated corrected, hopefully I can get by with 8 skeins which is only 40 ounces, which is 1/2 pound shy. I will end it with just 8 skeins.

So that's what's been happening this week. Hopefully I'll start seeing some incline in my sales over the weeks. If anyone has any input as to how to increase my sales, I'm open to suggestions. Leave a comment and tell me something you'd like to see me doing that might help me boost sales - thanks all - E :)

Giveaway - free ebooks

My followers are slowly climbing and I thank you for that. So, to thank you all for following me, when I reach 150 followers on this blog, I'm going to give each of you a free ebook - your choice of either Finally Home or the two short stories "The Proposal" and "The Tulip Kiss". I'll contact you all through your profile so please make sure you have an email available. No need to sign up or leave a comment or anything. Just recommend folks to follow my blog and when the 150th person is showing as following, I'll send out emails asking which you would like to receive - E :)