Veiled in Shadows Kindle Edition discounted + Words not on Wednesday

First up, following the advice of Christy Pinheiro, I have cut the price of my Kindle Edition of Veiled in Shadows, it’s now $2.99. By the way Christy has also added a review of the book on Amazon. Christine from Inwardly Digesting has posted a review on Good Reads.
Christy has two helpful blogs about self publishing, while Christine runs a lovely blog about writing and life in her patch of northern England.
Thank you both!

I’m going to have to stop calling this regular post ‘Words on Wednesday’ because once again it isn’t Wednesday.
Maybe ‘Tales on Thursday’?

I have been planning to post something more from my family history, but I just haven’t had time to think about writing something down. I am writing on the train every day, but I am jealously guarding that time for my WIP.

Once again I have posted a chapter of Veiled in Shadows (click the tab for Chapter 7 above). For those of you reading along as I post here you will find that Ebi has been making enquiries about what has happened to Katharina.

Another habit I am indulging in is to post a taste from my WIP. Last week I posted a strong passage about Stepan and Ksenia, I have been working on their part of the story all week, but while I know where they are going I’m not happy about posting any of that tonight.

The bit I am posting tonight was originally a piece I had as a provisional prologue. But it won’t fulfil that function now, I think it will make it into the final version but I will have to redraft it.

By the way those few of you who have read Veiled in Shadows may recognise this scene, only from a different perspective.
How’s that for a tease? You really are going to have to buy Veiled in Shadows aren’t you?

Now I have finished the sales pitch for tonight.

I give you David in Veiled in Shadows, my WIP:


Loved Ones: Poland - October 1940
David Schiller
‘David, that engine is smaller than the one you are going on.’
I squatted down next to my little brother Benjamin, anything to divert my attention from Mama's grief, ‘Are you sure?’
His five year old face creased with concentration, ‘Yes, silly,’ he pointed, ‘Yours is longer and it has more wheels.’
Despite my efforts Mama was not to be avoided, ‘David, you make sure you write to us every week, and be careful of those communists.’
Papa intervened, ‘David will write when he can.’
There was an uncomfortable moment, the guard's whistle blew.
Papa wrapped his arms around me and held me tight, releasing me he took my hand and shook it. I was surprised, Papa had never shaken my hand before.
He tried to smile but I could see he was close to tears. ‘Take care of yourself, none of us will be happy until you come home.’
I gave Mama a kiss and a hug. Then I hugged my sister Jena before climbing onto the train. The engine's whistle blew and the train lurched before slowly moving along the platform. ‘David!’
It was Jena, at fifteen she was only three years younger than me. Yet, with her blonde plaits bouncing on her shoulders, as she ran alongside the train, she looked much younger. She came to the end of the platform and stopped her eyes streaming with tears as she shouted after me, ‘David, don't forget me.’
I leant out shouting back to her, ‘How could I ever forget my only sister? I'll write, and I'll be back before you know it.’
I waved until I could no longer see her.
I pulled my head in and sat back, ‘First time away from home?’
The question came from an old lady sitting opposite. I nodded, ‘I am going to Moscow.’

Generosity All Round.

Well I am endlessly amazed by the generosity of this bloggy community.

As you know I have just recently had the pleasure of announcing the availability of my new novel Veiled in Shadows (incidentally I have a giveaway running at the moment for which a copy is one of the choices of prize). It is in relation to this that I am talking of our “little” community’s generosity.

First when I asked for reviewers I had people stepping straight forwards to offer reviews. This is very far from the potential experience for an independent first timer like me. It would have been all too easy for my request to have been greeted by deafening silence.

Then Christy Pinheiro sent me a copy of her new book The Official Indie Book Reviewer List.
As a self published author Christy has put a lot of thought and effort into developing a resource to help self publishers get their work reviewed. She has had a list of reviewers available for some time on her website. Recently though, Christy has put even more effort into turning her list into an e-book which gives more details on each of the reviewers.

If you are interested Christy has the e-version for sale at 99 cents. I am hoping to get at least another half dozen reviews from Christy’s list so I think it is a great resource for people looking for reviews, check out her website.

Then when I got home tonight I found a Royal Mail package from the UK.
The return address was Kathleen Jones’ and inside a copy of her beautiful new biography Katherine Mansfield: The Story Teller.
For those of you who don’t know Mansfield is considered to be one of the leading short story writers of the early 20th Century. She had an unconventional life before dying tragically young of tuberculosis.

Kathleen initially asked for a copy of Veiled in Shadows to review. Then almost immediately she emailed me back to say she would buy her own copy to save me some cost. In the meantime I had already ordered a copy to go directly from The Book Depository. Kathleen’s response was to say that she would send me a copy of her book as a thankyou.
To say I am impressed is to understate the matter. A beautiful hardback by a feted British biographer in exchange for my paperback.

And Kathleen has made a lovely note in the frontispiece. Somehow I think I got the better end of the deal.
Thank you Kathleen.

I can’t even do Kathleen the favour of saying go out and buy a copy. Due to the downturn in publishing Kathleen’s UK publisher have pulled out. At the moment Katherine Mansfield seems to be available only in New Zealand. It’s not on Amazon, while the Book Depository have a page it lists as “out of stock”.

Fortunately, it looks like The Edinburgh University Press may shortly bring out a UK edition.

In the mean time I highly recommend Kathleen’s blog it’s one of my favourites.

Finally, I promised more of about my odd youth. It will post more soon, I promise.

More progress?

Another very long day today.

We are short staffed which always causes problems.

Plus we are renovating (at work), we have been training staff, and interviewing for new team members.

So bottom line long days!

Hopefully, things will be more back to normal next week.

Thankfully, I have some time off over the weekend, which is good because we have visitors. My sister-in-law, her husband and children are down from Queensland.

I want to thank all of you who congratulated me about my news in my last post.

Christy Pinheiro of The Publishing Maven also reminded me of needing to get going with my first steps towards marketing. Namely, a website and (she suggests) a blog dedicated to promoting the book).

I am not quite ready to begin a new blog, but I have begun thinking about a website. In fact I have begun mocking up a design for a web page (this is just a jpeg nothing "works").What do you think?
This is by no means finalised rather it could be seen as a “rough draft.”

The image is dderived from the photo I am using on my cover.
For my final version of a landing page I will no doubt have a welcome of some kind. In the mean time I have used the blurb from my back cover.

If you click on the web mock up it should be large enough to read. What do you think of this as a draft blurb?

I have really struggled with this piece of text, I think it is kind of catchy. But I feel it makes the novel sound like a romance. It has some elements of romance, but romance is a minor aspect of what is really an historical thriller.

Finally, I have applied for a Cataloguing-in-Publication (CiP) number from the National Library of Australia (NLA) which I need to put on my copyright page.
Under Oz Law, I will have to provide copies to the State Library of Victoria and the NLA.

Well Here I Go.

I have finally decided to stop procrastinating.

Procrastinate me? I’d be ambivalent about procrastinating except I just can’t make up my mind.

I have been tossing up for some time the question of “to self-publish or not to self-publish” well I’ve finally made a decision. I think.

No, seriously, I have been leaning towards the self-publishing side of things for some time now and I am pretty much ready to take the leap.

Except of course the whole thing is not very like a leap. It is more like planning for an expedition than jumping off anything.

So what do I need to do before I go for it?

Here is my list so far:
Work out which POD service to use. Christy Pinheiro uses CreateSpace, her partner in crime Nick Russell uses LightningSource. There are of course others as well (Like Lulu).

Revise the layout of the Manuscript so it is suitable for publishing. In terms of editing I am pretty much happy that the MS is ready to go, thanks to the efforts of a couple of others.

Format said manuscript so it looks like a professional book.

Register a business name. Then I can be a “publisher”.

Register a domain name.

Register with a Web hosting company.

Commission or self-design a web site.

Decide on a marketing strategy for myself and the book. I promise I WILL NOT start spamming people to promote the book when I get to that stage.

Pay for a commercial licence for the art I have used for my cover. (I have a non commercial licence which allows me to reuse the image on the web etc).

While on the cover I need to rewrite the blurb (I HATE trying to condense 100,000+ words into a couple of paragraphs).

Hmm, this list seems to get longer all the time, I am sure there is a heap more but I’ll start with this lot.

So what do you think? Have I missed anything glaringly obvious (so far at least). Any suggestions? To be honest this is a bit scary and I would appreciate any comments.

Now a random photo. This timber slab shack is the remains of a pioneer farm in The Australian Alps at Namadgi National Park.

Self Publishing: a Review.

A while ago I mentioned I received a copy of The Step-by-Step Guide to Self-Publishing for Profit! by Christy Pinheiro of The Publishing Maven

This book has raised all sorts of issues for me. I am more than sick of the grind of trying to get my work published using the “traditional” method. I have wondered about self publishing before. I have also put a modicum of effort into researching the possibility of self publishing through Lulu and BookSurge. I have even looked at Lightning Source

Christy’s book injects Amazon’s CreateSpace into the mix. The cost per copy with Create Space seems much more reasonable than Lulu. Also you gain the benefit of automatic listing with Amazon.

With self publishing marketing seems to be pretty much up to an author’s ability to push themselves. But then again it seems that most “orthodox” publishers seem to leave most of the marketing up to authors these days.

I’ve had my manuscript copyedited a couple of times. I’ve also produced an OK cover for the fun of it.

So in theory I could put it all together as a self published book in a fairly short period of time. Marketing would remain my biggest problem.
Damn it would be nice if it was all easy!

Anyway I have put up a review of Christy’s book on Amazon and include it below:

Title: The Step-By-Step Guide to Self-Publishing For Profit!
Author: C. Pinheiro (co-authored with Nick Russell)
ISBN: 978-0982266007
Publisher: Pineapple Publications

Christy Pinheiro and her co-author Nick Russell have produced a very handy guide to beginning a self publishing business. As the title suggests, the book outlines a series of steps to establish a profitable publishing business. The book works as a practical guide for beginners in the industry.

The book can be roughly broken into three sections, each covering a different aspect of self publishing. The first few chapters cover the basics such as: avoiding vanity publishers; the rudiments of establishing a business; and preparing the best possible manuscript by using services like copy editors. The next section deals with: the specifics of publishing using Amazon’s CreateSpace; it also briefly looks at other services such as Lulu.com. Nick Russell apparently uses Ingram’s Lighting Source for the majority of his own business. The third section deals with marketing a self published book and developing an income using the internet. Potentially the most valuable section of the book, it looks at various strategies. A myriad of examples are given including: using Amazon’s features; seeking book reviews; promotion using blogging; establishing a promotional website; and generating income using Google’s AdWords and Amazon’s affiliate program.

From a personal perspective, I found Christy’s book informative and helpful. This book has restimulated my interest in exploring self publishing, despite the fact that Christy specifically suggests self publishing works best for non-fiction. The only section of the book that had no direct relevance to me (as an Aussie) was some technical material on registering a business in the US and record keeping for US tax purposes.

Finally as this book produced by POD, a brief word about the book’s physical characteristics is worthwhile. I was impressed by the overall quality of the book. The paper is of good quality. The printing is excellent throughout with no technical errors or problems such as bleed. The cover is full colour and printed to a standard equivalent to any retail book. The only slight quibble I would voice is that the cardstock used in the cover would benefit from being a slightly heavier weight.

P.S.
Christy has just posted that BookSurge and CreateSpace have been merged by Amazon.

And finally.
A male King Parrot I snapped him up near Badger Creek a few weeks ago. A lot of Australian parrots are fairly easy to photograph, they seem to be curious about what you are doing.

This guy was so relaxed about my presence he took some time out to preen before flying off.