Mood:  chatty

Okay, here's something that I have been struggling with for a few months.

Ever since I got into ebook publishing, I have been looking at old manuscripts that never got published. 

A few of them have pictures.

One I just published "Christmas Witch" was a children's story so it HAD to have pictures. 

Well, putting pictures in ebook format is not as easy as just putting text into ebook format.

When publishing to HTML, no one bothers to tell you in a footnote that any images in the document will only be referenced in the document, not actually IN the document.

So, everytime I would load the HTML file into the Kindle Previewer, I would get the camera icon with the exclamation point where the picture was supposed to be.  The pictures were not loading.

There was in fact someone mentioning zip files on the Kindle community, but I wasn't sure how to do that.

So, I talked to some people at work. One of them mentioned that I should put it in PDF form. And he explained further to me about the limitations of putting it in HTML.

However, HTML was what the Kindle took, so....

I took a look at the files again.

Word did save the file to HTML as I wanted it to do, but it also made a folder of images for the document in the same spot I saved it to. I just didn't see it right away. So, after playing with it for a while, I decided to the do the zip thing.

I right-clicked on the icon for my html file and it gave me the option to add that file to a zip file. So, I did.

Then I did the same for the folder with the images.  I right-clicked on the image folder and added that to the same zip file, making sure it was named the same as the zip file I saved the html to.

Then I loaded it into the Kindle previewer. 

It worked!

So, that was my funness for the weekend.  Anyway, Christmas Witch is on library lending as well as available for sale for $2.99 on Amazon.

Posted by heymolo at 5:52 PM EST

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Mood:  happy

So, in this entry, I'm going to talk about my brother, Mark Steger. 

 He just celebrated his birthday and is Park City, Utah at the Sundance Festival.  He is in the movie, "The Pact," which was a short file in the Festival last year.

 My brother has been in a few things, mostly as a creature or bad guy. He was one of the infected in "I am Legend" and an alien in "Men in Black II". He also does graphics and set design and has been on both sides of the camera.

Anyway, Mark is also starting this interactive comic book type site on the internet.  It's at

www.gearboxcomic.com

Check it out!

Posted by heymolo at 5:37 PM EST

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Mood:  a-ok

No, I don't have any fancy publicity going on for my book, but what I do have going on is Advertising on the Goodreads.com site.  I went ahead and spent *gasp* thirty dollars for advertising. Everytime someone clicks my ad, I have to pay *gasp* ten cents. Yeah, I know the suggestion was fifty cents (it's the default), but I thought I couldn't afford that. Besides, my ebook is only 99cents with 35-40 cent royalty so I thought I could afford ten cents a click. 

So far I have had several thousand views of my ebook (at least that is what the counter says) but I have only gotten ten clicks.  Which I suppose isn't bad - hey, I'm not complaining.  But I was hoping that I would have a few more than that by now.

 Well, it has been about a month, so I guess I can't complain.  Talk to ya later.

Posted by heymolo at 9:37 PM EST

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Mood:  a-ok

Well, Comics Forge announced the Winners of the Horror Happy Hour/Comics Forge about a month ago, and now Horror Happy Hour announced it on theirs: http://horrorhappyhour.com/?p=11785

I'm happy I came in second, but I was hoping a review would be posted for my book by now. By someone.

I'm also waiting for a another reviewer to post a review for my book, but I still haven't gotten any review for A Paranormal Menagerie : (

I have even given it away to several people, but I think they just put it in their ebook queue and haven't gotten around to reading it yet.  I'm crossing my fingers, hoping I get a review by the end of this month.

Posted by heymolo at 9:16 PM EDT

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Mood:  celebratory

Happy, happy, happy!!!!!

I just found out "A Paranormal Menagerie" won second place in a writing contest.  Here's the link:

http://comicsforge.com/2011/08/and-the-winners-of-the-horror-happy-hour-comics-forge-contest-are/

Now, I'm just waiting for them to tell me that there has been a terrible mistake and that I didn't win at all.  I would be really bummed then :(  But right now, I'm very happy, happy, happy.  I feel like I could jog around the whole block! (If only I was in better shape.)

 And they will even post a review for my book somewhere - woohoo!  Getting a review is like pulling teeth - I tell you. 

 Now second place is pretty awesome since this was a national contest (one website on each coast sponsored it) but I have to think: If I were Pearl Forrester, what would I do?

Well, first off, I would try to do in the first place winner, Vincent Giles author of "Demon of Dog Hollow," and therefore, win by default. But as I pointed out in previous blogs, I'm not that extroverted.  Also, just to be on the safe side, if I were Pearl Forrester, I would do away with T. J. McKeough, author of "The Green Jewel," the third prize winner, keeping my place secure. But that would be if I were Pearl Forrester. 

Only if I were Pearl Forrester;)

 Anyway, congrats to Vincent Giles and TJ. McKeough, and to me (Yea!). This is completely AWESOME!

Posted by heymolo at 9:42 PM EDT

Updated: Saturday, 3 September 2011 3:19 PM EDT

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Mood:  chatty

If anyone has been reading my blog or any of my comments, you probably know I looooove Ghost Stories.  I have found some EXCELLENT sites with some great Ghost/Horror stories.

Horror Masters is a website that is loaded with horror stories - many I have never even heard of. Some of the editing isn't great in these, but you can pretty much figure out what they are trying to convey.

 Short Scary Stories is another site that has some great stories. 

I have included links to these sites on my web page.

Some of my favorite writers: Arthur Conan Doyle, E.F. Benson, Ambrose Bierce, just to name a few.  One of my favorites is M.R. James, who consistently writes very creepy stories. 

Posted by heymolo at 10:16 PM EDT

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Mood:  celebratory

So I went ahead and did the CreateSpace thing with my ebook "A Paranormal Menagerie". It is now published and should be on the Amazon website in a a week or two. For some reason, this makes me very excited.  Maybe because I actually have a physical copy of the book. Yeah!  But it is kinda cool to have actual proof I am published.  So, beside my "Which Way to the Manor?" book, I also have a collection of short stories in paperback.  

I hope I sell a few!

I told my sister about the price of the book and she said that she had seen paperbacks at the airport for $10.75 - $11.00, so apparently, that price is in the ballpark.  I guess I'm basing my paperback book price on some very old books.

Posted by heymolo at 10:42 PM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 6 July 2011 10:59 PM EDT

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Mood:  happy

So after much contemplation, I've decided to do a paperback of my ebook.  It's not that I have anything against ebooks - they are cool! It's just that I don't know many people who have them, and I think it would be good to have a paperback version of my book for proof that I am published somewhere, somehow....

Now, if I were Pearl Forrester, I would probably get on all sorts of talk shows to talk about my book;however, I am no where near that extroverted.  I'm not even sure what I would say. "Please, buy my book."?

But anyway, I just feel more official with a paperbook (hard evidence) and I hope it looks good. I expect the proof tomorrow or the next day.

It didn't really take too long to put it together. I used CreateSpace to publish it, since I did my ebook orginally to Amazon Kindle, I thought I would use Amazon again.

It's nice with the template, I can compare the size to already published books laying around the house. I just happened to find a "Goosebumps" book and used those dimensions.  So you just put your document into the Word format tweak it, then export/import to PDF.

The cost for the proof was about $5 plus shipping and handling.  What I didn't expect was how pricey I was going to have to make the book cost just to see some royalties.  Even with the $39 pro plan, I will only see a 7-cent royalty when it is sold to "expanded distribution channels" with a $10.75 price tag. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do that, but I figure I can afford $40 and it's only $5 for each additional year.  Also, it will get my book placed in more places.  But $10.75 for a paperback, geez, you'd think it was gold-plated!

It was a 282 page paperback, so maybe that does have some considerable heft to the size, but I was trying to price it at $9.99.  I thought that was pricey enough, just under $10. However, if I did that, I wouldn't make any royalty on the thing, and I think I would owe money on it! (If it goes negative on the royalty calculator, that's what I'm assuming.)

So anyway, yes, I went ahead and jumped in and went the paper route with my book. 

Posted by heymolo at 10:09 PM EDT

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Mood:  a-ok

Well, I'm trying to be a bit more bold about my pushing my ebooks.  I've posted on a few Facebook pages (that aren't mine). And started a discussion on Amazon and Barnes and Noble promoting my work and allowing others to promote there's as well.  I am trying to get my name out there more, by responding to blogs and messages I'm interested in.  My sales numbers have been in the single digits, I hope to change that but it may take some time.  I am trying.

My sister has an ebay account where she is trying to sell used baby clothes, and she is not getting any takers.  So I think it may have to do with the economy as well as not being known as an established author.

Posted by heymolo at 3:19 PM EDT

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Mood:  lazy

Only gave a way one ebook this week - I don't seem to be having too much success with this.  I'm not sure how else to market it.  I've added it to another site on Facebook, but I don't particularly like Facebook.  Maybe I'm just old, but I'm not big on socializing via the computer.

My nephew was watching South Park the other night and the episode was called "you have 0 friends".  I related quite a bit to the character that didn't want a Facebook account. I really didn't want one either, but it was mentioned on an ebook marketing blog that it is good to have it.  So I started one, but I mostly get advertisements from music and tv shows I said that I liked.  I would like to advertise my ebook on Facebook, but that costs money, so that's not likely to happen.

 Maybe I just don't know how to use Facebook that well. Oh, well, I guess I should try to do some more marketing on my ebook.

Posted by heymolo at 8:45 PM EDT

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