My Kickstarter project is live! Visit here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/523666041/book-launch-how-to-win-friends-and-influence-magic
And here is an interesting article on Kickstarter http://www.forbes.com/sites/suwcharmananderson/2012/03/28/where-do-kickstarter-supporters-come-from/
Were you wondering about that word at the top of my page?
Amputeddy is a creation of Jean Boelter and myself from way back in 1988. I made a bear for her with a left-leg amputation like hers. Yes, my aunt Jean lost her leg to a tumor when she was just five years old. The idea took off as she showed her bear to her other amputee friends. We devised the name together and then she began looking in to manufacturing the bears. At first they were all hand-sewn by family members.
In 2005 I co-wrote three books with my dear aunt Jean. These were designed to go with the bears and be another, less expensive way to help children with amputations come to terms with their new challenges, and also help children to relate to adults in their lives with amputations. These bears and the books have really made a big difference in people’s lives.
Aunt Jean passed away in 2010 from cancer. She is missed very much by many people. I dedicated my first book to her, and modeled a character after her in my next book.
I’m reprinting the Amputeddy books (now that I know how to do that)! It is a slow process, since the original files seem to have been lost. I am scanning them in one page at a time and learning how to format a picture book on CreateSpace and in ebook form.
I have a CreateSpace link, though it isn’t yet active, and some more information here: https://katepolicani.com/amputeddy-books/
How does an author choose what stories to devote their energy and time to finish? Most of us have many ideas floating around based on what interests us from the world around us. But how do you choose what to work on next?
Here is how it works for me. I made a pretty picture!
The books that I’ve devised an outline for, in my head or in writing, get chosen and filtered through the Think Tank for the order I choose them. Things that have progressed naturally to near-completion also get chosen this way. Some subjects that “write themselves” are stories I have intense feelings for, or things that are really relevant to me at the time. These ideas erupt out on their own and I find time to write them because I HAVE TO! These get published too and sometimes without choice from the Think Tank. The Lustre was one of those “feeling” stories.
A story doesn’t get written because it is in the Box of Shame, which means I’ve overdone it for myself and dislike the story because it is Abodid (this is a very appropriate baby word for “hateful” coined by my son Corbin the Philosopher at age 18 months). The rest of the unfinished rabble exist in the idea cloud, which means they have at least a few sentences to remind me of the concept. These could be one of the four completion categories some day if they eat their Wheaties.
Ross Gale has this interesting take on the books writers choose to write: http://rcgale.com/2012/04/18/writing-what-you-ought-to/
I thought a lot about my next upcoming book, How to Win Friends and Influence Magicians, and what I was going to do about publishing. It was long enough to be accepted by publishers, so should I go Traditional? I was feeling pretty bummed about my lack of success with my indie sales, and wondering what to do about it. Also, we are dipping into our personal finances to pay for editing, etc. but I’m not paying that back.
Pros for Traditional Publishing:
Cons for Traditional Publishing:
So after talking to my hubby, we decided to keep self-publishing for now. Money speaks loudly but not more than time and convenience.
I was feeling really moody about the decision still until I read an article by another self-published author who said that she wasn’t really getting steady sales until 2 or 3 years after she started. That opened my eyes a bit. I have been “published” for only 6 months! I’ve been blogging for only a year, and really my whole platform is only a year old. I don’t need to be fretting about low sales yet. So I’m not going to.
How to Win Friends and Influence Magicians will be published by me this summer!
The Lustre audiobook is in production! The illustrious and multi-talented Chris Barker (my dad) surprised me a few weeks ago by presenting me with his recording of the first two chapters! It works great because The Lustre is written from a male perspective. The final chapter, in the perspective of a 5-year-old boy, has been the subject of a lot of jokes between us. We both agreed that he would sound too much like Elmo if he just changed the pitch of his voice, so we may have a voice-acting debut by my youngest boy.
The Disenchanted Pet is in a woman’s voice. So is my upcoming book (this summer) How to Win Friends and Influence Magicians. I have no gender bias here, but it does sound strange to have a man’s voice reading a woman’s words.
O.K. I’ll get to the point: I’m looking for a female voice to read the audiobooks.
Here are my qualifications:
If anybody is looking to have an audiobook recorded by a male voice, I would be willing to bet that good ol’ Dad would be open to negotiations. He really seems to love doing audiobooks and his reading is wonderful. (I am biased though. His reading brings me back to the comfort of lying in bed falling asleep to his reading Madeline L’Engle or Beverly Cleary books and the like.)
I decided to enroll The Disenchanted Pet in Kindle Select! I’ve had no sales to hurt for a while, so I just clicked the “enroll” button a few minutes ago. Soon all the Amazon Prime folks should be saving a dollar reading my stuff! Right?
I tried something new and risked a little bit of money. I read Molly Greene’s article here http://www.molly-greene.com/how-to-sell-100-books-a-day/ and liked the first step in the 100 books a day story. (Hint: it was the cheapest)
So I went here: http://www.99-cent-network.com/www.99-cent-Network.com/Home.html and signed up at the link on the bottom. It says “Authors Join the 99cent Network”. There is a special on now but it is not as cheap as the interviewee Terri Long paid, but that was a while ago, I guess.
Maybe you shouldn’t click right over there and sign up yet. Maybe you should see how I do. EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!
It took a bit because Smashwords ran out of free ISBNs and their paid ones were $9. They even discouraged customers from buying them! What’s that about? Anyway, KOBO has it now in case you were waiting!
http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/The-Lustre/book-FEdFfWDUKEGxACLq_dTYnw/page1.html
Check out the latest review of my new book, The Lustre. http://awesomeindies.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/review-the-lustre-by-awesome-indie-author-kate-policani/
Also here (same review): http://tahlianewland.com/2012/03/21/review-the-lustre-by-kate-policani/#comment-2231
I hate to brag (no I don’t) but it’s on Awesome Indies! Awesome Indies is a rockin’ site that lists independent authors that produce work of professional quality. I know! It’s a tremendous honor to be included!
My first video trailer was made with photos and no video clips. You can find the steps I used here: https://katepolicani.com/2011/10/24/making-a-trailer/
This time I wanted to use mostly video clips rather than a series of still pictures. Once I had the right clips, filmed by myself and my dad with our cameras, it was almost the same as using pictures! Here is how I did it:
To show you how you can get different effects with the same clips using the video and music controls, here is my trailer spoof:
I’m rushing to get the trailer done for The Lustre before the Launch Party. I procrastinated quite fabulously and I also waited on some people who weren’t completely stoked about helping. Communication was garbled…
Anyway, it looks like I’m going to get it done! I lowered my expectations and pestered my poor Dad and now I have 2 clips yet to film. Yes, I’m using video instead of photos and I have to say, it is just as easy to put it together as it was to do the trailer for The Disenchanted Pet. See how I did that here. I will definitely post instructions on how it is different with video. Spoiler: It’s not that much more complicated.
I had a lot of fun burning paper on the deck to make ashes. At the end of winter, I didn’t think they’d be very hard to find, but they were. Who knew? My secret ingredient for supplementing the volume of ash was baking soda. Powdered sugar wasn’t as satisfying, I think. It also did not poof up into the air when I vacuumed it off the rug with my Hoover Wind Tunnel, but that is because it is HEPA filtered. We’ll see if I can wash the ashes out of the shirt. No, I’m not going to tell you what I needed ashes for. You’ll have to wait for the trailer and/or read the book. (My pre-reviewers will have some idea about what it is for!)
Before I ever started to turn my extensive collection of writing into actual books, I was reading books on Wattpad. Wattpad is a free book site specifically for electronic devices. It is in a simple enough format for phones.
So I’ve been thinking for a long time about putting up a free Wattpad short story. It’s called “The Silver Collar” and you can find it here: http://www.wattpad.com/3660393-the-silver-collar-part-1/intro
This is only the first part. It’s a common practice to put things up as you go on Wattpad, so I’m doing it that way. You should check out Wattpad if you like to read on electronic devices!
None of the proofs are in the pudding. That would make them all sticky! One week till launch and here they are!
Wait! What is that? That first book isn’t yours!
Why yes, that is one of my guest books and one of the prizes you could win during my Virtual Book Launch! In fact, you could win one of these four copies! Just don’t get too excited. I don’t want anyone having health issues because of elevated blood pressure.
Take a deep breath and relax for just one more week, OK?
(Yes I get really silly when I get a new proof delivered!)
Be like Lorenzo: patronize an artist like me!
Kate Policani 