writerly ways

Sometimes the universe tosses you a bone. I routinely pick up the monthly newsletter, Bookpage ( check it out) but I rarely read the opening column because it's usually nothing but noobie authors who've done no research at all asking questions that could easily be found just about anywhere. But this time I had it in hand when I went back to the laundromat (remember my library and laundromat share a parking lot and I spend time in the former while my clothes are in the latter) and my clothes weren't quite dry so I read it out of boredom.

Good thing since it had some actually useful information in building an author's platform. You can literally drive yourself nuts doing this. Most of us know by now you need an author's blog (and I highly suggest keeping this separate from your personal blog), a twitter and a facebook at a bare min. You could do more with tumblr, linkedin, etc etc. We know we should at least have a bare bones website. At this point without this information, you might not even get your book looked at. Sad but true. Publishers won't do it for you and if you're going to Lulu/CreateSpace etc self publishing route it's all on you to get yourself out there.

But this is just the beginning. WHat more can you be doing to sell your book? This BookPage had some information about the author's platform, including a reminder that Facebook, if nothing else, allows you to create an 'official page' for your brand/book/business. I'm managed to get the attention of a publisher on twitter already (too bad it's with my erotica persona, something quirk doesn't carry). But I've already talked all about this before so what's new that I'm dedicating another week to it?

A few more links to help you sell. It looks like just getting the newsletters for most of them is free. Once you have a book out there and want to use more of their services, it'll cost but that's not too surprising. I'll put them all up here for us and you can peruse at your leisure.

Goodreads this is pretty much free. I have one for Jana and it automatically populates your profile with your books.

RedRoom It does have a lot of big name author's on it. I didn't think 250$ a year to promote the book was all that bad.

Filed By Author I think this one excited me the most. I think i liked the various marketing things it helped with that seemed like the 'now' things that people like (like those book trailers)

Book Tour Sort of self explanatory.


yearly word count -

7892 / 125000 words. 6% done!

weight off week 4

Wow a month already? That time of the week again. How are we all doing with the weight loss? Gaining? Losing? Maintaining? Me, I’m still making my 2 pound a week progress so that’s good. I’d like it to be more but so long as I’m not going the other way I’m happy.

Check out last week’s post here . Ishte added a recipe and ELD offered up something from Dr. Oz. Good stuff.

You know by now I like to cook. Here’s another healthy side dish for us.

( Roasted Fennel, Chick Pea, Peppers & Grapes )

( exercise )

ETA - glad i picked the exercises that I can not do myself until I have my shoulder fixed

where'd my weekend go?

i have no idea but as depressing as it was, maybe that's a good thing. At least i got a test for tomorrow done. But let's not dwell on the shit that's bogging down my life.

Kanda is ultra lovable. He's doing stuff he's not done since Soul came inside. He's in my lap constantly. He's attached to my leg again by that invisible rope. I can't tell if a) he's terrified he's going to be the one leaving next or b) thrilled that bastard is gone and going to show me how much he loves me for ditching the furball.

I've completed a week of my 21 day meditation challenge. The disappointing thing about it I was right about why you can't download them this time. In the summer you could download all the meditations. This time you can't. I figured they're going to sell them. Sure enough there's a 30$ cd for the summer ones. You know, as if Deepka Chopra needs another cent.

ANyhow, yesterday's meditation was very nice and different. Usually if I see anything with my eyes closed it's deep purples or the network effect (ie. light thru my eye lids) this time I could see my own eye, complete with eyelashes. Then I saw bright yellow lava lamp like lights. I've never seen canary yellow before. Then came an eye with a pupil that was another eye. Today's meditation was monkey mind, worry and migraine ridden. sigh.

( Day 110, prince and the pea )