Shades of Inspiration Okay, I was having trouble trying to get this newsletter posted. I tell you, I am so not techie. But I didn't give up on the task. I know some of you do not like the idea of having to click on links, so I was trying to make it easier by posting the actual newsletter. With that said, I hope you enjoy the 2nd issue of "Shades of Inspiration."
Well, glitches always happen when you don't know what the heck you are doing. After looking at the uploaded file, I found that the document was screwed up in its transfer. So I had to delete the whole thing. The only thing that remained as it should is the PDF file that you have to download if you want to read the newsletter. I am sitting here with a frown on my face, because I can't remember how or what I did when I posted the debut of the first newsletter. Bear with me people while I try to figure this out. I want you to be able to read the newsletter from my blog as it is. I mean it is posted on the "I Got News" page of my website without a problem. But when it comes to putting it on the blog.....it's a different story. This is driving me nuts, for I have other things that need to be done. Woe is me.
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. 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 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) 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 Gracie is here!! This is my new baby everyone, my new published book and it's all about Gracie in this story book. Don't you love the cover?
Can't you just imagine this little girl's inquisitive nature? You should read about her through the pages of this book to find out how she thinks and what she does when the adults in her family talk weird. Gracie is full of wonder and dreams and she is also full of questions.One question in particular has her on the run to find the answers. I can't tell you anymore than that about this book. But it is a good read for young people and the older generation too.....after all adults were once children, so you can probably relate to the theme behind this story too. I am proud of this book, because I did it my way! Right now you can purchase this book from Createspace e-book store. The paperback version will be on Amazon.com and Amazon Europe by the end of next week. You know I will be making that announcement when it happens. Wow, a new book for January 2013, I am starting the year out on the good foot. I've been at my computer all day, except for the times I've been in the kitchen preparing meals. Though I love writing, a girl still has to eat and since I am the cook around here...it's up to me to fix it!
I am working on tweaking this website of mine, after doing some research, I found out that some of the information that I am displaying is not necessary because it is showing a lot of repetition. As a writer, I should know that repetition is boring! So I am fixing that. Another thing that I've been working is self-publishing a book. This process is still in the beginning stages. How long is this going to take? I really don't know. However, I am hoping that I have excellent results like I did with my three first published books. I am working with a different company, so maybe it will even be better. So, lets keep our fingers crossed together. Well, in keeping with the title of this blog, I am going to make this short and sweet and bring this little chat to an end. So "that's all folks." Oh wow! I just had to tell you this before retiring for the night. Technology can sometimes be mind boggling, almost drive you crazy as you try to understand and work with it. But tonight, I found out from my good friend, Catherine Burr who happens to be the CEO of her own publishing business and a writer herself that I can now add my John Henry or sign my books that have been published. Now that is pretty darn exciting because people are always telling me that they wish I could sign the books that they have bought. It seemed the only way for me to do that is if the buyer send the book to me, I sign it and send it back. That's the Paul Revere kind of way. You know, like delivering the mail on horseback. But with today's advance technology a new way of signing books have been discovered and implemented, and little ole me jumped on the band wagon. I am so glad that Catherine Burr shared this information, not only with me, but to others who read her blogs. I tell you....she is a gem!
http://www.authorgraph.com/widgets/author/winonarasheed So, the next time you want me to sign one of my books for you, I can do it! http://www.authorgraph.com/authors/winonarasheed (This is my author page, just click on a book that you have purchased and send me a request to sign it. It is that simple. It's complete in minutes) I tried it out and it works perfect. Of course you will receive a file, but the file will have my signature on it. Now that is just cyberrific. Yeah, I know....I just made that word up. I tell you, being an author is making me feel like a celebrity everyday; so very cool. So tell me, how do you like this announcement? It is hot off the press....front page news I would say. Here I sit at my desk and I am thinking about my books.
I just did a search of the top ten online stores for books and guess what, mine are there. All this time I was thinking that they were on Amazon and Barnes and Nobles only. Boy was I ever surprised. I mean, when it comes to talking about books for kids and as an author being a part of the world of published books in stores, I am thrilled. We are talking bookstores such as Borders, Abe Books, Buy.com, and Powell's, Books A Million and I-Bookstore to name a few. My books are there! I even bookmarked the spot where I went and saw a few of my book titles in India and other places in the United Kingdom. Can you imagine that?! I tell you, I see all of this with my own eyes and it makes me wonder; how do authors keep track of all this? How do they keep track of their sales when their books are here and there and everywhere and with different bookstores. Something else I think about is the fact that some of the places I explored, I found out that some of the titles are selling as new books and you could get them at a cheaper price as used books. Yes, I am saying a couple of my books are selling as used. I am not understanding that at all. Did someone buy the book and return the copy to the store? As the author, do I get credit for the used book being sold again? What the heck, why would anyone return a book? Did they just borrow it, like from a library? Oh, the ins and outs of the publishing world is complicated, but I am not complaining because at least my books are out there and I am not just hanging on to manuscripts waiting for my big break. My time is now, so I am going to see this through so I can understand the entire process and not just the part of me being an author. You might be asking yourself why bother? Well, it's like this.....I love what I do. I write what I love and I love what I write. I'm a short-story writer by choice, because it takes too long to write a novel. |