Download Journey to Self Publishing!

Announcing 2 Comments »

Things continue to move forward here, but the number of ideas and projects I want to do always seems to outpace the time in which to do them! My new CD, Journey to Self Publishing – 12 steps to successfully publish your book, should soon be available through Amazon. However, I’ve also decided to make it available as a downloadble mp3 package for those who don’t care about having the pretty CD packaging and want to save a few dollars on shipping. Not to mention that the cost of the downloadble file package is already reduced from the regular price of the CD anyway! Same great content…less cost to you. 🙂


Journey to Self Publishing | mp3 downloadable version | $15

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Also, for any of you who may be interested, you can earn an affiliate commission if you become a PayLoadz affiliate and refer others to this product. In fact, you can earn $5 commission for every product sold through your affiliate link!

But I’m a Writer…Not a Speaker!

Publicizing, Speaking No Comments »

One of the things I never anticipated, but have come to realize more and more as I continue to market my book, is that authors are also expected to be speakers. There is a certain comfort and security as a writer in knowing that you can delete things that don’t make sense, reword sentences for precision, add illustrations that come to you later, etc. All of that is non-existent in the world of speaking! You have to be able to think quickly, formulate cohesive thoughts and present them with clarity, articulate with precision, and more. These things do not come naturally for me, but I am having to learn them on the fly!

So far this year I’ve had an average of one speaking engagement per month. The opportunities are varied, but each one has been a learning and growing experience. From presenting a workshop to a group of university students, to speaking for an on-line conference, to being a featured speaker at a women’s retreat, to sharing with a MOPS group, to participating in radio interviews. Above all, these experiences have been a real-life education in learning to trust God and depend upon Him for the words to speak. I recently came across this statement by author, poet, and hymn-writer Frances Ridley Havergal that applies to both writing and speaking:

“Writing is praying with me, for I never seem to write even a verse by myself, and feel like a little child writing; you know a child would look up at every sentence and say, ‘And what shall I say next?’ That is just what I do; I ask that every line He would give me, not merely thoughts and power, but also every word, even the very rhymes.”

I pray that this will be the attitude of my heart, not only now when I still feel nervous and inexperienced as a speaker, but even as I develop greater skill in this area in the years ahead (Lord-willing!). Here are links to a couple of the speaking engagements I’ve had this year:

This is from the on-line homeschool conference that I spoke at in February: Everything Your Child Needs to Know…and How to Teach it to Them (right click and select “Save As” to download the file; left click to open the file and listen via the internet).

This one’s hot off the press (or whatever the radio equivalent is!): An interview hosted by Kevin Swanson on Generations Radio. Posted on July 19, 2010.

If you listen to either of the above and have any constructive criticism you’d be willing to share, I would love to take any suggestions that would help me improve in this area! Feel free to e-mail me or leave it in the comments section.

Send Your Own Newsletter with Constant Contact

Publicizing No Comments »

If you’ve listened to my Journey to Self Publishing CD, you know that one of the early steps I recommend is to “Announce Your Book to the World!” About a year before my book was released, I started sending out a monthly newsletter letting my family and friends know that I was writing a book and keeping them updated on my progress. This proved to be an invaluable source of motivation and encouragement as I pressed on with the often times overwhelming task of getting Pajama School written and published.

As my contact list has grown, I’ve run into more glitches with the free e-mail newsletter program I was using. After considerable thinking and some research, I finally decided to take the plunge and try using Constant Contact – a service used by many organizations for list management, e-mail marketing, and more. I’ve only been using it for several weeks, but I already love it! I think it will help me do a much better job of staying organized and keeping in touch with people about new products and special promotions. Plus, after each mailing you get helpful reports and statistics to keep track of how many people open the e-mail, how many and which links are clicked, who opts out, etc. I know there are other similar services out there, but so far I’m really happy with Constant Contact!

And, of course, if you’d like to be added to my mailing list to be the first to know about our latest products and promotions, just sign up using the form below! 🙂

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Great Newsletter for Self-Publishers

Networking, Reading/Researching No Comments »

Sometime in the last couple years when I was heavily into researching and learning about all things publishing-related, I signed up for the free Publishing Basics Newsletter put out by Ron Pramschufer. I’ve been so swamped this spring that I’ve just been deleting it when it arrives in my inbox at the beginning of each month, but today I took a few minutes to peruse the July issue and realized what a treasure trove of tips and ideas it is!

If you’re looking for some good, solid information from other authors and publishers who have been down the publishing road, you’ll want to subscribe to this newsletter. In my initial perusal, this quote in Carolyn Madison’s article, Is It Possible to Over Edit? caught my attention:

Oscar Wilde expressed a similar view: “I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.”

I can so relate! Maybe that’s why I’m such a slow writer… 🙂

Obviously, as with any publication that is comprised of content from a wide variety of individuals, you will have to take some things and leave others. With that in mind, though, you’re sure to find a good dose of information (like this article, Why the Obsession to “Protect” Your Writing is Misguided by Fred Gleeck) and inspiration (like this article, How long did it take you to find a publisher? by Charles Noland) in each issue!

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