It is evening, and the day is quieting down. The dogs are asleep, the dishwasher humming and the pellet stove roaring away while my husband reads my daughter a dinosaur story and a Bible story before bed.
I haven’t been blogging much, I guess because I haven’t had much to talk about. Or so I thought. It seems I have some decisions to make.
I have four poetry books and one nonfiction book that are published and I was thinking of putting them on Smashwords. I took them off to try KDP Select but my sales bottomed out the last few months. KDP Select was a bust so I am going to go back to Smashwords. I have covers already and now I just need to make sure the manuscripts are update with relevant biographical information and then upload the stories.
Now something I don’t think I have mentioned before is that these books, are published under my maiden name of Janis I. Monroe. Anything I publish from now on will be under my married name and will look like this J.I. Soucie. I should have made a formal blog post when I switched my blog name. Sorry about that.
Next after updating the inside of the manuscript, I have to really think of the book descriptions. I am learning how to write better descriptions and really get smart about this kind of thing. I will be using the book the Indie Author Guide: Self-Publishing Strategies Anyone Can Use by April L. Hamilton, and I have read a blog post by Catherine Ryan Howard titled The 11 Ingredients to a Sizzling Book Description http://catherineryanhoward.com/2012/10/05/the-11-ingredients-of-a-sizzling-book-description/
I am at the point of admitting to myself I don’t know as much about being and Indie Author as I thought. I think there comes a point where we all have that realization or one that is similar. I have been doing more reading up on details and learning more about the craft of writing, editing, etc. I was getting ahead of myself and I am learning to slow down and take things one step at a time and to realize that it takes TIME!!! Any quality work requires effort and a great amount of time. I obviously didn’t realize this before and just wanted to write and things out there quick. Did it work? ..uh…no. I have the same five books published now as I did last year and the year before that. It is time for a change, folks, and I guess this is one Mom’s journey to becoming a better writer, editor, book cover designer, and publisher. May God guide my every thought and effort to make this happen.
I am off to get ready to sing my daughter some bedtime songs. Good night all!
