Broken Voices is at #25 in Amazon Kindle Store, ranking under the category of disabilities. It is ranked at #71 in the category of self-esteem. The book is actually on the front page of the website. I would have to say with this great news.....February is going out with a blast. Ella Rose has made it to the Best Seller list again. I am a proud and happy author.
This just happened! It was bought to my attention that one of my books has made it to the top 100 list of Amazon. "Broken Voices" is still doing its thing in the rankings, which means people are still purchasing the book.
Broken Voices is at #25 in Amazon Kindle Store, ranking under the category of disabilities. It is ranked at #71 in the category of self-esteem. The book is actually on the front page of the website. I would have to say with this great news.....February is going out with a blast. Ella Rose has made it to the Best Seller list again. I am a proud and happy author.
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Well, February started out as a blank page, but as it progressed for me, the pages began to fill up. As we all know, we are fast approaching the last days of February, as a matter of fact, this month has one more day to go before it is out of here. I am so looking forward to March and the coming of spring. Warm weather is coming folks! I can't wait to see green grass, pretty flowers and no more naked trees.
I also can't wait for my husband to finish his housing project, which includes painting the back of the house and other outside chores. He has enough projects lined up to keep him busy for the spring and summer months. He is enjoying his retirement. No siree, he is not sitting around twiddling his fingers with boredom. Just the past weekend, he put in a new bathroom vanity and a Martha Stewart Light fixture. I am loving the look of my bathroom now and yesterday, I had him hang some pictures in the living room behind the couch. In other words, the key to a happy retirement is staying busy. I must remember that when it is my turn. Oh, wait a minute, what am I saying...I'll never retire from what I do, not unless I go blind and my fingers fall off. which will put a halt to being creative, although I would try to find some way to remain inspiring. Okay, that's a morbid thought, so I'm kicking that image to the curb. Back to February, this month has been very productive for me, as far as my line of work. A new book, "The Race is On!" is out and circulating. I created my first newsletter, "Shades of Inspiration," and it made its debut celebrating Black History Month. I even manage to work on the 2nd issue for March. I beat my deadline for getting it completed. For February, I managed to write a few articles for my freelance writing with Quality Gal. Speaking of writing, I've even started working on a new picture book idea. The draft is being set up in my handy inspirational yellow tablet. By the way, that's what I call my yellow tablets, "Tablets of Inspiration." I only have a few pages written. Since this is going to be another self-publishing adventure, I had tolook for illustrations to go with the storyline. This kind of search is very time consuming, but worth all the trouble when you find what you need. Where do I find royal images? You can find a lot of images at places such as Big Stock, Wiki Commons and Photo Bucket to name a few. You just have to do a Google search to find them all. Although February is the shortest month, as I look back on it, it was the busiest for me in what I do. I even managed to do a blog hop and an author interview that went live on Newlinepress.com and Catherineburr.com. This was a two day event that was very successful, thanks to my mentor and publisher friend...Catherine Burr who initiated it. By the way, in the March issue of "Shades of Inspiration," this remarkable lady has the spotlight on her, all because she inspires me. Last but not least, February has been a busy month for Twitting, blogging, updating, promoting and hanging out on such places as Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Google Plus, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Amazon Author Central and Good Reads as I connect with people near and far. I even did a book review for a new LinkedIn connection last night. February has left me feeling quite ready for anew month, now I wait to get my groove on for March. Whatever it brings....I'm going to handle it! I will deliver. That's positive thinking talking out loud. By now, everyone knows that I am addicted to cyberspace. All my doings take place in the cyber zone and I love it! But you know, some times I get so annoyed with it. For instance, today I was suppose to attend a webinar. Now doesn't that sound a bit like something from "The Jetsons"? However, the time zone thing just gets me. Now I receive an email stating that the web meeting begins at 4 and it lasts for an hour. So what do I do, schedule my day around that time event. 4:00 rolls around and I am ready to go. Everybody be quiet, because I am attending a meeting! Well, 4:15 then 4:30 and it hasn't started yet. You see, I keep forgetting about the difference in the time zones. Their 4:00 is not my 4:00. Since I do not know what area the webinar is coming from, I don't know what time I should tune in to the program from where I sit at my desk. They could be talking about 8:00 tonight if they are 4 hours behind me. The thing is...I just don't know. I checked at 5 and still.....it hasn't started. Needless to say, I am annoyed...so what do I do? That's a no brainer......I canceled at 5:30. So yeah, I am not happy with cyberspace tonight and it might not even be it's fault. But hey, gotta blame somebody and it sure isn't going to be me, even if I am sounding a tad bit impatient with the entire thing. Let me tell you, I had my pen and tablet ready to take notes because I love learning new things. Oh well, there will be others, not crying over spilled milk. Maybe next time, I will be in tune with the time zone. Let me know if you are 2, 3, or 4 hours behind me, because my time zone is not your time zone....I'm just saying. This is one little pet peeve that I have about being in cyberspace.Maybe the Webinar should have taken place on Facebook or Twitter so that we all could be in sync at the same time. Another thought, Is this their first Webinar and they are ironing out the wrinkles? Again, just saying......... I'm done and I ain't gonna complain no more!
FYI: AN AUTHOR'S WEBSITE IS THE FOUNDATION OF NOT ONLY A MARKETING STRATEGY, BUT A WINDOW WITH A VIEW THAT GIVES AN EXPRESSION OF WHO THE WRITER IS, SHOWCASING WHAT THEY ARE ALL ABOUT. ADD A BLOG TO THE SITE AND YOU GET A PERSONAL REFLECTION INTO THE HEART, SOUL AND SPIRIT OF THE WRITER/AUTHOR. MAKE SURE YOUR AUTHOR WEBSITE IS INFORMATIVE, ENTERTAINING, INSPIRATIONAL AND YOUR CONTENT IS COLORFUL, MEANING YOUR THEMES SHOULD DISPLAY A RANGE OF TOPICS THAT READERS WILL FIND RESOURCEFUL, MEANINGFUL AND USEFUL, TOPICS THAT THEY CAN RELATE TO AND BENEFIT FROM. IN OTHER WORDS, YOUR AUTHOR WEBSITE DOESN'T NECESSARILY HAVE TO BE ALL ABOUT YOUR BOOKS; AFTER ALL, YOU ARE TRYING TO REACH A TARGETED AUDIENCE OF READERS. DRAW THEM IN AND KEEP THEM COMING BACK. Look what you can do on those rainy day weekends. Spring vacation is coming soon too, keep the kids busy with this little picture book idea. See what happens when you don't give up? I was having a hard time trying to figure out how to add this video to my blog. This was just too good to let go down the drain because I couldn't get it embedded. Patience and determination is the keyword to success. Yeah, I did it, this is what I wanted you to see. It's an interesting video. I think your kids will enjoy trying this, so will my grand kids. Hey, this looks like something I would even try since I am working on a picture book idea. It's fun discovering new things.
I was just sitting here thinking about organization. Sometimes, we forget just how important that word is in our busy lives. Our daily lives is cluttered with everything we can imagine as we go about trying to fit everything into a 24 hour period. Actually, it is less than that, because sometime within that time frame we are sleeping, or trying to.
How organized are you, is everything running smoothly? I look at my writing desk or my computer area, which doesn't really look like that photo, but close enough. To look at the mess of papers, yellow tablets, my coffee mug and books, it looks like a cluttered mess, all in a shambles one might say; but, I know what's there, even if it isn't organized. My tablets are full of unorganized tid bits of information that I jotted down when the thoughts and ideas hit me. I sort them out when I need them. There's even phone numbers written down and phone messages among the pages of information that I use when my creative juices are flowing. This mainly happens when I am rudely interrupted by a ringing telephone, or someone is calling my name. But all in all, I get it all sorted out because I know the heart of it, even if someone else looks at and and says..."What the heck? How can you work in that?" Well, it's like this, the organization is in my mind, that's a safe place for it to be as I see it. I just use the clutter on my desk as stepping stones to unleash what is in my mind. Have you ever put something away and forgot where you put it because you were being organized? My tablets are my file cabinets where I keep information before everything is transferred and ready to be typed and saved. Well, as long as my desk looks like it needs some attention, it shows that I am busy, a writer at work. When the desk is clean, nice, neat and orderly....then it's for show. It says that I have nothing going on, or that I'm not working on anything. But we all know that's not true, for I am always working on something and that's the reason my desk looks the way it does. No mess=No work. No work= no inspiration, finished. But I am always being inspired. Hey, something inspired me to write this and I am not even sitting at my desk; I am at my kitchen table. This just happened to be where the inspiration followed me and my writing tablet, and Shaboom! This is what come of that sudden inspiration. I am going to have to transfer this thought to my blog later, because right now, my computer is in use by my granddaughter, doing her homework amidst my mess. She doesn't mind and neither do I; sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do in the name of education, so I let her borrow my space. Oh crap, she just took over one of my empty writing tablets that was waiting for me to fill its pages with tid-bits of information, ideas and inspiration, which has nothing to do with an organized desk. As I see it, my writing life is running smoothly. By Qin Zhi Lau (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons
Okay, it has been a couple of days since I've updated my blog. It may look like I'm being neglectful, but that's not the case. I have been busy working on a picture book for the young folks. This means I've been writing and searching "the commons" for images to use in the book. Creating a picture books is different from creating and writing a standard book. I have to have at least 32 pages of content and images that go on at least have of those pages. With a picture book, this means that half the page will be filled with some kind of image. Anyway, I am working on fitting that all in with writing content. I will get it all figured out, for I want my next book to be a picture book and not a 6X9. I also been doing a lot of reading and getting a lot of useful resources sent to me from my writer/publisher friend....Catherine Burr. My goodness, did you know you could turn your blog into a book? Me either. That surprised me and it got the wheels in my head to spinning.I think this is something I would like to try. It does sounds so interesting. Imagine the possibilities with that one. A writer can go crazy with ideas! While getting my reading on, I also found information on how to write a blog, which I thought was useful. I think I should post all this information for you to read and keep for yourself. All I can say is that the information is valuable, especially if you are a blogger and you want success with it. Now all I have to do is figure out how to include that information in this post....just bear with me. I also been working on the newsletter for March. It is getting all worked out. I think I will be ahead of schedule when I get it finished. I love beating deadlines. As you can see, I've been staying up with my writing, getting it on, even if I am not publishing any books at the moment. Speaking of books, I just had to order a bunch of my books because I was running low. I am happy to say that "Wohali" will be at my house on Friday. The other Characters that I ordered will be here in a week or so. These are my babies...did I say that before, somewhere? Oh, this is a tad bit off subject, but I am going to throw a couple questions out to you, because I don't have the answers, but maybe you do. Where can you buy a converter box for a TV if you don't want to put cable on it? This TV sits in the bedroom. Remember when they did away with analog TV and the government sent out coupons for converter boxes? My son is telling me that they don't make them anymore, and that I am going to have to purchase a flat screen that already has the converter box built in. (I don't want to believe that) After all, I don't need a new TV, I need a converter box. Why in the world would they stop making converter boxes. My son was saying I could get a splitter and attach a line from my cable TV in the living room to the bedroom....that is too much cord and I don't like the sound of that. I don't know what happened to the converter box I had, it just went completely out. Now I watch TV on my Tablet. Talk about a small screen in the bedroom. But, I am not complaining, I can still watch my favorite shows like Burns and Allen, Benson, Sanford and Son, Leave It To Beaver, Momma's House, and Carol Burnett. So, if you have the answers to my questions, please respond with your answers. Besides, someone else may be looking for these same answers if they are facing this dilemma. As promised........Below you will find the website that leads to information pertaining to blogs and book blogs. FYI: http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/7-tips-for-turning-your-blog-into-a-book (How to Blog a book) http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/the-12-dos-and-donts-of-writing-a-blog (How to Write a Blog) newlinepress.com/2013/02/live-c…
01:02 PM - 16 Feb 13 Well today's Blog hop turned out pretty well, I am happy to say, a better experience than yesterday. Although there were some computer glitches on both sides of the board. But, we worked through them and kept going, all the while with a smile on our faces. Stop by and see part two of the interview, featuring little ole me. newlinepress.com/2013/02/live-c… 01:02 PM - 16 Feb 13 Wow, I just finished doing my first blog hop event just moments ago. It got started at noon and it is now ten minutes before 2. However, I was up at 7:30 this morning preparing for it, because I thought it was going to start at 9. That time frame was for California, which means there was a time lapse. So, I went ahead and did my hair, put my clothes on and even dabbed some lip gloss to my lips and put a pair of earrings on so I can sit in front of my computer with my glasses on.
I was getting a tad bit irritated because of interruptions from my hubby, who couldn't find a particular pair of jeans to wear, and my 9 year old granddaughter jabbering away in the background, making me lose my concentration as I kept one eye on her and one eye on the computer. I did not realize that there was no school today, so that threw me for a loop because that was not in my Friday plans; and yes, I found what my hubby was looking for. Now I am all set to go and I am looking at my computer, waiting to begin. Crap, I was on the wrong page of the website. But, I finally ended up where I was suppose to be. My host and dear friend, Catherine Burr was on target. Questions were coming in, only at first, I didn't see the questions. I thought I was the only one there. Am I suppose to start the session? I didn't know. Being a newbie at blog hopping, I didn't know what to expect or how everything was going to unfold since it was LIVE. I am sitting here so mad at myself, because I think I flubbed it up; all of Catherine's hard work and preparations for the event. There were some good questions coming in, but when answering them, it looked like I was intoxicated because some of my answers weren't put with the questions, which was my fault, the answers were at the bottom of the page, looking like stand alone paragraphs. All I could say was MERCY ME!!!!!. I SURE DID FLUB THIS ONE UP! Thank goodness the interview was pre-written and already posted, because I would hate to think I flubbed that one up too. When I went back and looked at the live page to see how I did, it looked like I had skipped over questions because there was a blank space where my answers should have been. However, the answers were at the bottom of the page, like I said before. Woe is me for making such a big mistake; however, for to error is human.....at least that's what they say. Okay, I am not going to dwell on it, for tomorrow I get a second chance to do it right in part two @ www.newlinepress.com I am happy to say that I will be strutting my stuff and hanging out with my author/publisher friend Catherine Burr in cyberspace on Feb 15th and the 16th. She is posting an interview that she had with me, and we will be opened for a question and answer session, just in case anyone is inspired to talk to this author from Washington DC. We will be discussing my publishing adventure and my books. By now, you already know that I have 9 books out. So, there will be a lot to chat about when you stop by for a visit.
I am looking forward to seeing you there and perhaps gaining more friends and more people liking what I do. This is a neat way of spreading your wings and flying high as a writer/author. So, come on and meet Gracie and perhaps some other characters that are in my books. Oh, I almost forgot.......Come and meet me too.....children's author: Winona Rasheed |