I hate everyone.
Here’s a link to a Dallas Houston (not enough coffee) live feed:
We have failed our children.
Another School Shooting: Thoughts and PrayersPost + Comments (266)
TaMara has been a Balloon Juice writer since 2015.
by TaMara| 266 Comments
This post is in: Assholes
I hate everyone.
Here’s a link to a Dallas Houston (not enough coffee) live feed:
We have failed our children.
Another School Shooting: Thoughts and PrayersPost + Comments (266)
by TaMara| 141 Comments
This post is in: Authors In Our Midst, Writing Group
Reading – Mathis Miles Williams
I follow WereBear on Facebook and the other day she posted a note that she was now doing consulting and I thought it would be a good time to ask her to revisit her path to publishing, website and now cat consulting for our Writers Chatting posts.
From WereBear:
Reverend Jim, foundation blog kitty. His rescue started it all!
More on my adventures in self-publishing. This is a vital next step in my plan to extend the reach of my cat advice website, WayofCats.com (click here) which started with a book. Which no one wanted to publish. And here we are: don’t need a publisher!
The last time I used Kindle for a book this amazing angle was still new and not yet fully developed. The conventional wisdom at the time was to create novella length PDFs and see how it went. So I wrote a concise cat care/problem solving manual (since some of the worst cat problems are care problems) and racked up some nice reviews and it sold for a while.
Now, eBooks on a site like Amazon are THE ballgame. The younger a person is, the more they expect a book to be available electronically. Amazon has added new wrinkles to its platform to acknowledge this adjusted reality. This led me to some hoop-jumping as I prepared my new book for Pre Sale. Pre Sale lets even a self-published author put the book up to accumulate sales before it is available for purchase or accepts reviews.
Somebody like Stephen King has months long pre-sale periods, because fans will buy it anyway. Someone like me gets two months, and it seems most people are thrilled… but waiting But this is a fine sales tool, because it lets an author promote the work and allows people to purchase it ahead of its release. This really was nice for me, as I wanted to give it one more polish — every writer knows how that goes.
Just don’t indulge too much, folks: there’s penalties for yanking the Pre Sale. It makes Amazon pouty and your ability to do so in future goes on probation. However, this tactic has made me #1 in Cat Training, and I get a little flag on my book page. So there is that.
The book, The Way of Cats, (available here) is the first in a series, and that’s where the new Amazon thing got strict. I had thought I was going to make the Cat 911 manual part of a series, back when I put it on the site. But now all that has been superseded, and the upshot of it all was, I took it off Amazon. Don’t want to confuse potential readers, who now expect actual books when they, yanno, buy books. Important because a series is a very important tool for both fiction and non-fiction. A mystery reader loves getting back to the next adventures of a favorite detective, (which also means we find the body sooner.)
While this works better for some genres than others (romance would not work unless it was a bit niche) a continuing character is usually a winning addition to our fiction ambitions. In fact, my next book will be the first in a cozy mystery series (so-called because they take place in a contained subculture with an amateur sleuth, downplayed sex and violence elements, and lots of psychological intrigue) so the subject is top of my mind lately.
Kindle Series are now difficult to shift on the fly, so be sure you have some thought put into this kind of commitment before getting everything set up in Amazon’s publisher panel. There’s a variety of ways to upload, but Amazon also has decided their default will be the complete document in Word’s latest format. But don’t panic if you are not a Word fan, since Google Docs, Apple Pages, and my beloved Scrivener are word processors who can export into a DOCX file. (The X stands for the Office Open XML standard, so many programs have embraced it.)
The very good news is that it is easy to format things the way you want them, even photographs and charts, and have it look good once it gets Kindled. Then, use that same file and format it to be a traditional book through the Amazon CreateSpace, an on-demand publishing platform that lets people order your book in paperback, too. An author gets a bulk discount for batches of these, perfect for those fun signing parties at the local bookstore… provided you have one these days.
Thanks folks, and remember that I am also available for Cat Consultations (click here) via Facetime, Google Hangouts, or telephone. I’ll be hanging out in the comments if you have any questions about taking this wild and whacky journey.
Thank you, Pam! Okay, back to our writing chat. How are things going for you? Where are you at these days? What’s got you stuck? And what’s going well? Email me if you have something in the pipeline you want to talk about.
Hit the comments and be kind.
Authors In Our Midst/Writers Chatting Chapter 14Post + Comments (141)
by TaMara| 81 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
First up: Werebear has written up something for a Writer Group Post, so we’ll have one of those tomorrow. Same chat time, same chat place (12:30/11:30/10:30/9:30).
To continue our lazy Saturday theme:
Even though she’s almost 70 lbs, she’s still a puppy and still falls asleep whenever she runs out of gas, wherever that might be. I think she was barking out the window moments before this:
And here are some pretty flowers…this was a few weeks ago, they’ve really popped since. The iris and poppies are just about ready to bloom next.
I’m off to plant peppers (to join the tomatoes) and mow the lawn. What are you up to?
Open thread.
ETA: I had to front page this from Raven:
I’m still laughing.
by TaMara| 36 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Oh, my gosh. JeffreyW posted this treat this morning over at my place and I absolutely had to share:
Hmm..uh huh…mmm. Yes, well…I’m afraid I have some bad news…I can confirm, based on your skull structure, that you are…a DOG!Don’t take it so hard! We can get through this…together.
Open thread.
by TaMara| 152 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, Republican Venality, Assholes
This bill is anti-worker trash. Republicans would rather pay to throw teachers in jail than pay them to teach. #copolitics https://t.co/WXxhIUEyFO
— Colorado Senate Dems (@COSenDem) April 23, 2018
Rep. Paul Lundeen (R) and state Sen. Bob Gardner (R) introduced a bill to throw striking teachers in jail. Let that sink in.
Despite a booming economy, Colorado’s school funding lags well below national average
DENVER – As hundreds of educators from across the state plan to walkout Monday to fight for increased school funding and teacher pay at the state capitol, data shows that despite Colorado’s booming economy, our public schools are still struggling.
Colorado’s economy is red hot. The unemployment rate is just 3 percent. New skyscrapers and apartments are going up everywhere as more and more people throw cash at downtown bars and restaurants, but no one invited Colorado’s public schools to the party.
The National Education Association’s (NEA) annual report found Colorado ranks 46th in the country for teacher pay, with an average annual salary of $46,155; seven-thousand below the national average. Wyoming teachers, which ranks 16th for teacher pay, earned an average annual salary of $58,140.
I suspect this will not age well come election time…
Open thread
by TaMara| 92 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
I found this little guy walking in the rain not far from my house yesterday. Weighed all of 3-4 lbs, wet. No tags, no chip, no idea where he came from, I let him sleep in my car (wrapped in a blanket sitting atop a puppy pad) all day while we searched for his owners. I thought it was less stressful than a crate and/or bringing him anywhere near my pups. It was warm enough that I wasn’t worried about him.
I let the Humane Society know I had him, put notices on the local message boards, drove around the neighborhood. Around 5 pm the HS called and asked me to bring him in for intake and I agreed. I’d felt like I ran out of options and he really couldn’t stay with me overnight, but told them to call me if no one claimed him.
He was a little grumpy old man – my guess part terrier, part Chihuahua – but sweet as could be.
Around midnight last night got a message from the neighborhood message board about a missing dog. It was him. They were successfully reunited this morning.
Happy ending. I on the other hand got absolutely NOTHING done yesterday.
Open thread
Saturday Afternoon Open Thread: Lost In The RainPost + Comments (92)
by TaMara| 82 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
I may have to vote today, so Maile’s outfit is prepped. I made sure she has a jacket so she doesn’t violate the Senate floor dress code (which requires blazers). I’m not sure what the policy is on duckling onesies, but I think we’re ready pic.twitter.com/SsNHEuSVnY
— Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) April 19, 2018
I heartily approve. Senator Duckworth is an inspiration every day.
Open thread.
Afternoon Open Thread: The Duckies Are AlrightPost + Comments (82)