It's official.... My book has been published...

[lil_Blue_Ford]

For those who may be curious, I did answer Shane's questions via pm.


Now, as far as my book goes....

There is going to be a promotion sale starting on Black Friday (November 29th) and continuing until the end of the day on December 3rd. The first half of the sale the price will be discounted to $0.99, the second half it will be $1.99, so anyone who is interested, here is your chance to get a discount! If I read things right, everyone should be able to purchase at the promotional price but Amazon was not all that clear as to if it will be available for everyone or just Kindle Select members.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Well, ok, I'll share a sample from the book....

My Mask

Oh, the wonderful craftsmanship
Carefully honed to perfection
Then polished till it shines
How neatly it hides the pain

Perfected by years of struggle
Crafted with care so as not to reveal
Reveal the tormented soul within
To anyone around

So carefully cared for each day
Kept held to perfection
It wouldn’t do to let it get damaged
One scratch could ruin the image

Every night alone it gets laid carefully
Carefully next to the bed
Every morning it gets put back on
To hide the haunting true image

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

My book is on sale now, hurry and get it if you want it!

 

[MastuhWaffles]

Cool! Was it hard to get published and put on amazon?

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Cool! Was it hard to get published and put on amazon?

Not exactly hard, more complicated. To get set up to sell through them you have to put in all sorts of tax information and stuff, it's easiest if you can run it through a business (which I did). As far as the book goes, it's easiest to write the book in the format they require to begin with. To try to take something you already wrote and convert it can be a PITA. Then after it is all written and formatted, you have to convert the format again (easier because the second conversion is mostly just changing a setting for saving it and then making sure that everything converted fine). Then you have to enter a ton of information about the book on Amazon and upload it to be converted.... again. Then verify everything and make sure the book uploaded correctly. Then wait until it gets processed and put up for sale.

Adding pictures or anything like that is a whole nother can of worms.

It's a process. Basically you have to do everything a publishing house would do. Or you have to find someone who has a publishing business with Amazon and pay them to get your manuscript put up on there.

 

[straycat]

Well... I had always thought about being published someday...

I just never quite expected it to be a book of poetry. Actually, that was about the last thing I ever expected to publish. But here we are. I hit a period where I wrote a bunch of poetry (still not sure how that happened, lol), and now it has become my first book to be published. Of course, it's in E-book form. For now at least.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FYEU4EY?tag=959media-20

I just got this for us. I too, write poems and music. I have done so for many years. Love that dog!!! Post some of your photos when you get a chance, Bro!!

 

[fyre82]

Good luck man.
I was married to an internationaly published author . . .
She didn't make squat, but that was because the publisher took most of it. Seems really crappy considering she has her books in 12 languages, articles and columns in international publications and still makes next to zero . . .

Rich

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I just got this for us. I too, write poems and music. I have done so for many years. Love that dog!!! Post some of your photos when you get a chance, Bro!!

If you mean you bought a copy, it's not showing up on my end.

I'm sure there are a lot of people better at poetry and music than I am. I just had some inspirations and ran with it.

As far as posting pictures of my dog... it'd be easier if he wasn't so camera-shy. I have a few pics of him but as soon as the camera comes out he starts slinking around and refusing to look at the camera, looks like he was being beat or something, don't really want to post those, lol. He doesn't seem to mind my old 35mm as much though, but I don't use those cameras a lot anymore so it'll be awhile before I can post any of those.

Good luck man.
I was married to an internationaly published author . . .
She didn't make squat, but that was because the publisher took most of it. Seems really crappy considering she has her books in 12 languages, articles and columns in international publications and still makes next to zero . . .

Rich

Yea, I kind of figured early on that writing books will probably not make me a lot of money. From what I understand, very few authors make enough from writing to make a living. Unless you're like Tom Clancy or the author of that "Harry Potter" series ( ), you're not getting rich. But that's ok with me. I have a regular job and I enjoy writing and with the advent of the e-books, it's not a big deal for me to publish my stuff. And despite publishing myself, Amazon takes a pretty fair sized bite out of the profits from a sale. But like I said, if selling books through there gets me some money to use towards my desire to write, then I'll be content. If somehow it took off and I made enough to support my hobbies from the profits, so much the better.

 

[Mark_88]

Keep at it...don't be discouraged by fickle readers because some day you will hit on a formula that works...like all the good writers...I've read a bunch of different authors over the last 20 years or so and some I've gone out of my way to find their books...but I have found that the ones that become successful don't vary much from the style that makes them money...and I'm sure there are not too many that hit that on their first or even umpteenth attempt...but when they do...

I know poetry is a bit different...I wrote a bunch of poems about 30 years ago but tossed them out when I got sober the next day...lol...I think I was trying to write a hit song but didn't generate that one...yet!

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Keep at it...don't be discouraged by fickle readers because some day you will hit on a formula that works...like all the good writers...I've read a bunch of different authors over the last 20 years or so and some I've gone out of my way to find their books...but I have found that the ones that become successful don't vary much from the style that makes them money...and I'm sure there are not too many that hit that on their first or even umpteenth attempt...but when they do...

I know poetry is a bit different...I wrote a bunch of poems about 30 years ago but tossed them out when I got sober the next day...lol...I think I was trying to write a hit song but didn't generate that one...yet!

Not discouraged at all. A little disappointed that my book of poetry hasn't sold much at all, but I know that poetry is not exactly everyone's cup of tea, so I'm not overly surprised. I have doubts that I'll ever publish another poetry book. Not that I'm opposed to the thought, more that it's not what I'm big into writing. It takes inspiration for me to do and I haven't been all that inspired since I left college and sobered up. (Ok, so I'm kidding about the last part of that, never really drank all that much).

My desire is more to write a story or to do something with photography. I have a photography book that I've been working on but I ran into a snag with it. I originally produced it for a college class, but I can't seem to locate some of the photos used in it. I have most of them saved on a disk, but not all. And even those on the disk I'm hesitant to use since I can't find my negatives or prints (and I know at least two of the images I used were done with permission from the person who took them). Since I can't find my prints and I don't remember who I got permission from to use their pictures, it's been sitting. I was hoping to be able to make it to a trail ride or two and try to reproduce some of the pictures so that there would be no accidental use of something that I lacked proper permission to use, but so far I haven't been able to make a trailride.

I have another photography book that I got started on putting together but my scanner decided to crap out on me and I haven't had the spare change to replace it yet. I also have a children's book that I'd like to find someone to illustrate for me. And I have a couple other writings on the back burner kicking around. Some actual writings.

 

[Mark_88]

Good to see you are looking into other publications. I don't really know where the book world is going but I still buy or obtain novels for down time reading...which tends to be more than my up time currently. I thought the digital books would be really popular and not sure what the stats are on sales, but I spend so much time on computers and my digital phone that I find it nice to actually read something printed on paper.

Anyway, I tried to get funding for a book of research I was putting together about 20 years ago because I made a rough copy and published about 25 of them through a Staples or Business Depot for handing out. I quickly realized that to publish a book on any sort of scale beyond that would be cost prohibitive at the time. I approached a potential sponsor and during meeting he told me flat out that even though my idea was basically sound and might sell, the audience I was trying to reach was limited and book sales were not the best way to do it.

He asked me how much I was looking for and out of the blue I said "About a million dollars"...the meeting ended shortly after that...lol...but I learned a valuable lesson from that experience...as I'm sure this is just a stepping stone for you and good to get them out of the way and move on...and up...

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Good to see you are looking into other publications. I don't really know where the book world is going but I still buy or obtain novels for down time reading...which tends to be more than my up time currently. I thought the digital books would be really popular and not sure what the stats are on sales, but I spend so much time on computers and my digital phone that I find it nice to actually read something printed on paper.

Anyway, I tried to get funding for a book of research I was putting together about 20 years ago because I made a rough copy and published about 25 of them through a Staples or Business Depot for handing out. I quickly realized that to publish a book on any sort of scale beyond that would be cost prohibitive at the time. I approached a potential sponsor and during meeting he told me flat out that even though my idea was basically sound and might sell, the audience I was trying to reach was limited and book sales were not the best way to do it.

He asked me how much I was looking for and out of the blue I said "About a million dollars"...the meeting ended shortly after that...lol...but I learned a valuable lesson from that experience...as I'm sure this is just a stepping stone for you and good to get them out of the way and move on...and up...

Unfortunately the way the public schools seem to be teaching things, I'm starting to be convinced that in another decade or two the majority of the books produced that sell good will be the equivalent of children's books. I saw that coming down the pipeline when I was in gradeschool and my school librarian called my parents to complain that I was "constantly reading above my grade level." Like that's a bad thing?

My main interest in e-books was when I got a Kindle. I was afraid that I would tire quickly of reading a digital book on an electronic device, but I found it actually easier to use that to read a book than to hold some of them. Because I got one of the E-Ink devices, it reads like a brand new book - clean bold text on a crisp white page. And no fighting to keep the book held open without damaging the spine like a paperback. Don't get me wrong, I still love print books, I have somewhere around 500 of them. But the kindle is nice, especially because I can read a sample of a book that might interest me from my bed and a lot of books are relatively cheap. Plus all the old out-of-print classics are available for free.

And I can publish myself. No need to try to find someone to sponsor me and fight with a publishing house. My manuscript can be sent out there to sink or swim on it's own. It doesn't cost me anything other than my time to publish there.

And yes, I tried at one time to print copies of a text and distribute it on my own to find that it got expensive quickly.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Well....

My book of poetry is still languishing out there.

But...

I just spent a ton of time the past couple rainy/cold days we had to get a ton of pictures scanned and resized for my one photography book, a collection of black & white pictures that I took, developed and printed all by hand. (Seriously, I didn't even have an auto focus camera, just an aging collection of Canon AE-1 cameras.) There are a few more things I need to do to finish putting the book together, but I hope to have it published in the next week, so stand by because I'll probably put it on a sale promo right out of the gate. And it does feature a few pictures I took while on TRS trailrides, including JohnnyO doing doughnuts in a brand new (at the time) Sporttrac.

 

[JoshT]

So rumors have started getting back to me that many people who know me to some degree or other are refusing to believe that I actually published a book of poetry.

Just now seeing this thread, but that is pretty much what I thought when I first opened the thread. Figured it was a joke then then I clicked the link and saw that you were serious. Good on you man, doing something you enjoy. Whether you really make anything off it or not is irrelevant, as long as you enjoy doing it. Unfortunately I'm not into poetry of any sort, can probably blame that on school cramming it down my throat over the years.

And it does feature a few pictures I took while on TRS trailrides, including JohnnyO doing doughnuts in a brand new (at the time) Sporttrac.

This book on the other hand... Might just have to check it out when you get finished. Keep us posted.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Just now seeing this thread, but that is pretty much what I thought when I first opened the thread. Figured it was a joke then then I clicked the link and saw that you were serious. Good on you man, doing something you enjoy. Whether you really make anything off it or not is irrelevant, as long as you enjoy doing it. Unfortunately I'm not into poetry of any sort, can probably blame that on school cramming it down my throat over the years.



This book on the other hand... Might just have to check it out when you get finished. Keep us posted.

I have to admit that I'm no big poetry buff either. I couldn't write a poem to save my life for years. Hit a point when I just had in inspiration one day and jotted it down. A lot of the poetry in my book is a bit dark, I didn't plan it that way, but it's how it came out. And I hear you on school cramming it down your throat, schools seem to push Poe really hard and I don't care for Poe at all. Rather morbid fellow if you ask me. About the only well-known poet that I don't mind is Robert Frost. But out of the roughly 700 books I have, there is precisely one poetry book and that is a book of Frost. Well, that and the poetry book I did.

Still messing with the photography book, I'm almost ready to try converting it and putting it on my Kindle to see how it shows up, but I'm trying to decide if I should caption the photos or not. It could be detracting from admiring the photo but at the same time it would help explain a lot of them.