Since You Asked

CANADA!

Happy Thanksgiving, Canada! I had a really nice time with my family, even though three members aren't even home, thanks to modern technology. My daughter, youngest son and I spent time with my husband who's in Germany via Face Time, my eldest son who's at university in New Brunswick via skype and my middle son who's working on the pipe lines in northern BC via cell phone. Then DD, son#3 and I had a nice non-traditional dinner and watched a Harry Potter movie. Just great to spend a day hanging out with each other. It doesn't happen nearly enough.

Friday was question day. I posted the questions and my answers below. I hope you find them interesting.


1) Now that you've e-published your own work, what was the hardest thing you had to do for it? Uploading? Cover? Formatting? Please share.
 I'd have to say the hardest thing so far has been marketing, or knowing what to do to keep your book selling once the initial launch is over. I'm experimenting with different things, but it's too early to know what's working or not. I'll keep you posted

2) If time travel was real and affordable would you use it to change anything?
I think I'd be afraid of changing the future or tearing a hole in the universe or something (ahem, I just watched a Dr. Who episode where that very thing happened when Rose went back in time to save her dad.) If I could do it with a guarantee that nothing would change for the worse, I'd go back to high school and DO IT DIFFERENTLY. I'd be oh so much wiser (wouldn't we all?) First thing to go would be the boyfriends and broken hearts, and I'd focus on my friendships and my education. I'd also be more relaxed and patient about everything, and just live in the moment.


3)If you had the chance to be one of your characters for a day, who would you pick and why? :)
I'd definitely be Casey from CLOCKWISE though maybe without the time traveling issue. Besides the fact that I'd love to be taller, she resourceful, resilient and determined. She also has good taste in boys.

4) Do you have any time-saving tricks that help you to find more time for writing?
Yes, teach your kids to drive! ha, I know they have to grow up first, but if you can just hang in there until then, you will have lots more "me" time. :)

5) Did you hire an editor? what about a cover artist?
Yes, always hire an editor. Then ask early review readers to flag errors, because somehow they still get missed, no matter how many times it gets read. I strongly recommend some kind of professional artist. I discovered by happy accident that I had an in house artist perfect for my style of book, but I still needed to hire an expert at Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to complete the work. I'd say that, unless you're a pro at AI/Photoshop, you need to hire out. His work on the title and author name made a huge difference in the end result of CLOCKWISE in my opinion.

6)If you could do anything different regarding the publishing process, what would it be?
Well, since my book's only been out a couple weeks, what I say now might change two months from now. One thing I think I would do different is I would format and upload the ms myself. It was the end of June when I decided to indie-pub, and I wanted to have it out by September, just to be part of the energy that accompanies autumn. So, I decided to go with www.bookbaby.com a company that takes cares of formatting and uploading to four major e-readers, plus takes care of the accounting. At the time it seemed like a good idea because my "to do" list felt overwhelming. It just felt good to give that "complicated" task away.

I'm not saying that Bookbaby or a similar service isn't good for some authors, but in hind sight I just don't think it was good for me. The main reason is there are certain things you lose control over, like the option to edit the text after it's been uploaded or the ability to track daily sales results. This last one is especially frustrating if you're actually actively trying to market your book, but can't access data to see if your efforts are working.  The good thing is you can get out and do it on your own later, which I'm working on.



7)What is the best query letter that you have found that works for you? (from FB)

 I do small query/pitch writing workshops on my blog, for free (there's an example of my letter there, plus others). Just click the writing tips tab or Queries under labels. Feel free to send me a query for a free critique.

Thanks to everyone who asked questions. If you have any more, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Cheers!