Helping others through One Stop Publisher

This has been a really great day. I can't really pinpoint why. Do you ever have those days? I feel as if I made a lot of connects and was asked to do a blog interview surrounding my collection of faith-based short stories, Becoming... I said yes, of course! I realized too that there are a lot of people out there just like me with the dream of a hold-in-your-hand book. That realization made me even more glad that I began my One Stop Publisher company. I've occasionally had second thoughts about it. I'd love to be able to do nothing but write. However, that's not really reasonable PLUS part of my dream has always been to help others with their dream.

I think the day I helped an 8 year old girl publish her first book I knew I'd continue. We still have some revisions before she "goes public" with it but, she has a proof in hand, and is so proud. I remember the day I held my first book with my name on the cover in my hands. Talk about Cloud 9 (or would that be Cloud 8, Dina?!). It hasn't been a huge seller, though I have sold 2 this week. But, it opened the door and it was practically painless. It gave me the confidence I needed to continue. I'm not so sure a room full of rejection letters would do that. Plus, I still have options. I maintain all rights to my work and can pursue other avenues at any time.

So, does that mean I will continue on the self-publishing path? I don't know. For now, it's working for me and I'm meeting a lot of others who have had success as well. Some of us are teaming up to help others through my One Stop Publisher and links to their sites. It's exciting! I also set my own hours and can change my mind about my projects!!! That is even more exciting and I have exercised that right several times (if you look at my What's She Up To page of my author website, you will see that I recently had a change of heart). And with that, I'm going to change directions and take myself to bed. It's 1:30ish a.m. and I'll be sitting at a tennis tournament all day tomorrow....between running kids to school and other activities. At least it's supposed to be warm-ish--I think.

So, I think I'll leave you with a couple of links:
The Shelf Life of Linda Boulanger on FaceBook
One Stop Publisher on FaceBook
Coffee's Hot -- great networking site
If you get bored....check out the blogs I follow and do some reading. There are some really talented writers there with fun and interesting and insightful things to say. (You can get there from my profile, I believe).

How many stories do you work on at a time?

I often scratch my head when I see the pile of books on my daughter's bedside table, not because it's messy but because she will read 4 and 5 books at a time! That just doesn't make sense to me although I am finding more and more people who partake in the activity of multiple-book-at-a-time reading. As I pondered how she does it, I heard that little voice inside asking me one of those questions in that tone that I know is going to make me say "duh" to myself. The voice simply said "what about you writing more than one story at a time?" Well, of course I had to counter that my multiple story writing is somehow different. Not exactly able to pinpoint how it is different, I decided to drop the whole questioning of the multiple book reading issue. Instead I began to focus on why/how I often work on more than one story at a time.

We all know I am working on my novel A Marriage of Necessity, which is somewhat the focus of this blog...or the process and thoughts that go along with writing a book anyway. But, you may not know that I do additional writing at the same time. I write this blog for one thing. I do website content writing. I have to answer the never ending stream of emails that come in every day and that is writing as far as I'm concerned. I often answer a simple email with the return of an email the length of a small book. Although I have not taken the challenge in a few weeks, I almost always enter the weekly writing challenge on FaithWriters.com which requires a work of 750 words or less in response to a simple prompt. Their prompt for this week is "shhh" which I have not yet decided if I will do.

I'm also working on additional books of short stories. I have my Love With A Twist Of Lime that was to be a trilogy of stories (actually, it started out as all short stories and has continued to evolve). The "story" with the same name as the book title (handwritten :( at the moment, of course) ended up being too long for a short and then was to be the anchor of the trilogy. The other two that were to go with it then ended up being too long; one being A Marriage of Necessity! I let my stories tell themselves. I CAN force them into a certain word count but I prefer not to. So, I continued to write these twisty lovey limey stories (as co-writer Pat likes to call them) but they will mostly be hosted in a book titled Echoed Heartbeats: when you feel his heart beat next to yours. I've already designed the cover for that one even! I'm excited about those stories because they are love stories and we all know that's right up my alley. The difference is they all have a twist or something unexpected thrown in. They've been fun to write and I'm pretty sure that comes through. Sometime I'll have to post a couple here on the blog to give you a feel of what they will be like.

So now back to multistory writing....I REALLY want to get finished with A Marriage of Necessity. Thankfully, as a self-publisher, I have the luxury of changing my timelines though one must be careful about not following through with self-mandated goals....another blog entry idea, perhaps? I will say I have actually written the ending of Marriage and am now writing to that ending from where I left off when the ending demanded to be written. I'm anxious in a good way for everyone to read it. Considering the fact that this story was to be part of the Twisty Lovey Limey stories, the ending is unexpected but good. I love happy ever after. Is that too much to give away? I hope not! Scroll down and read my profile. It says, in part, "Her stories almost always have a happy-ever-after ending and leave you feeling satisfied that the characters have had or are walking into a life of complete fulfillment." A Marriage of Necessity will be no different. I don't like sad....or sad endings, I should say. There are certainly sad parts in many of my stories. And I am constantly reminded by my husband that I did, in fact, have the dog die in my first children's book. BUT Sadie has a wonderful life and the book concentrates on the good aspects of her life as well as educating on the benefits of rescue organizations. Her death is also depicted as a wonderful reunion with her friend Sami as she crosses the Rainbow Bridge to meet her. (How Sadie Learned to SMILE).


Tangents....that seems to be the way my day is going. BACK to multi-story writing! I was NOT going to multi-story write while working on Marriage. I told myself I would buckle down and work on nothing else (hence the reason I have ignored FaithWriters and other challenges as of late). Last week, however.....you guessed it....another story began knocking. I tried, I REALLY tried to ignore it. It won and over the weekend I began writing on it. Good news.....I was having a bit of a block on Marriage. That was part of the reason I decided to give in to this new story. Guess what? The block went away and what is pouring forth is, in my opinion, better than what it would have been. Sometimes creativity frees one up for greater creativity. Bottling myself in and mandating a one-story regimen simply wasn't working....for me. Writers come in all different shapes and sizes and genres and styles. You may not be able to work on more than one or, like me, you may find that limiting yourself clogs your brain instead of focusing it.


How many books do you read at a time? How many stories do you write at a time? How does this affect your work? I'd love to read your side.....

Creating A Book Cover

You know the old cliche about not judging a book by it's cover. Well that was obviously not written by the person who came up with "you never get a second chance to make a first impression." That's exactly what a book cover has to do; make an impression that will either make the reader pick it up or, at the very least, take a second look.

I love cover creation. Not bragging or saying I've made the best (yet :) but, I truly do enjoy it. For several years I created customized specialty greeting cards through my Awesome Messages company so I have a bit of graphics design experience. Again not wanting to toot my own horn but the cards were really awesome! I painstakingly designed around each and every photo that was sent to me....very time consuming and not overly profitable. Still, I enjoyed it and it showed through in my work. I actually still do cards on a request basis. In fact, my friend Bridgette - nominated for teacher of the year at Madison Middle School here in Bartlesville, OK and well deserving of the title - emailed last night and said she needs new cards. "We" usually design around photos of her three awesome dogs. She gives me free rein and gets back cards that are uniquely hers.

Anyway, the card creation has helped me greatly in book cover designing. While Pat did a wonderful job of creating the cover for our Time Out On A Roller Coaster book, I have designed the covers for the rest of my books as well as all the books published through my TreasureLine Books Publishing company; a part of http://www.onestoppublisher.com/. I use an old graphics program, the same one I used for my cards, called PictureIt. Some of you may know it. It's an old Microsoft program that I have no idea why they did away with except that PhotoShop came on the scene. I have PhotoShop too but have yet to learn to use it much. Not exactly true. I use it as a pdf converter! Kind of expensive for that but we do what we must, right?! :) I'll learn to use it...eventually.

It's no secret that I self-publish using Amazon.com's CreateSpace. I have no complaints thus far about using CreateSpace. They're reasonably priced, quick, give a direct line into the Amazon.com sales channels and they have templates and modules to help you along the way. They'll even do it all for you....for a hefty price, but if you're a do-it-yourselfer or can find someone like me who can and is willing to help you or hire out at an affordable price to do it for you, then you can be on your way to a hold-in-your-hand book in a snap. It's exciting to hold that first book in your hand though I have to say, just like children, you don't love the ones that come after any less. You'll find yourself looking it over, caressing the cover as you proudly display it before friends.....

Ah yes, back to the all-important cover..... I don't want to discuss what makes a cover stand out as much as I do the actual creation of a book cover. What makes a person take a second glance is most likely personal preference. I might look at a book and love the cover and it do nothing for you. All authors would love to have their books catch the eye of everyone that walks by. Most likely, that's not going to happen. I spend a lot of time going to websites and looking at covers trying to determine what I like; what would make me pick it up if I could. My friend, author Melinda Richarz Lyons, recently published a young readers fiction novel through my TreasureLine Publishing (then AM Publishing) titled Murder at the Oaklands Mansion. I created a couple of different covers for her, fell in love with a wrap around cover I did and she chose a different one! That's okay. Ultimately, the author is the main marketer of his/her own book and has to be comfortable with it. You can see both of those covers on the Cover Creations page of my One Stop Publisher website. She chose the basic layout. I loved the blended cover at the bottom.

CreateSpace allows you to download a template for the cover. You can create your own from scratch as well and they will give you the dimensions. Don't get confused here, the template also allows you to completely create your own design. It merely provides you with guidelines such as where the front and back cover meet the spine, bleed area, etc. They also offer free cover designs but I found them extremely limiting and frustrating. If you've used them and liked them, I'd love to know!

CreateSpace allows for users to download their cover templates in a couple of different formats. I use the png because that is what my graphics program accepts and I am comfortable with it. Once you download, the designing begins. My latest book release is a collection of faith-based short stories exploring pivotal times and journeys in our lives called Becoming... (now available on my website at reduced Birthday savings until February 9th, btw!). The cover for Becoming... is a simple pink rose against a brown rock background. Simple is an understatement because that cover has 19 levels! That means there are 19 pieces that make up the cover of that book and each one has to be placed and worked in.

The cover of my first children's book titled How Sadie Learned To SMILE, illustrated by friend and awesome artist Christina Janzen, has 18 levels. I consider it a Basic Cover as opposed to the more intricate Blended covers though, as you can see, it still has lots of pieces. The cover for A Marriage of Necessity has 12 levels. I'll try to post some of those covers though you won't be able to see all the levels, just the finished products.

I'm sure there are a lot of different ways to create a book cover and I KNOW there are tons of businesses out there willing to create them for you (most charge an arm and a leg that you may or may not make up through the sales of your book). Most importantly though, it all boils down to creating or having a cover created that you'll be proud to hold up before people and say "this is my baby" and that you are comfortable with. That goes for all covers because books truly are judged by their covers though it's good to remember all eyes won't look at that cover exactly the same.

Now let's see if I can get some of those cover samples on here....the front covers, at least.

To Self-Publish Or Not....

The decision to self-publish did not come without extreme thought and research. As an author, I believe one immediately thinks of big named publisher backing. However, as I began to research I learned that new authors have about a 5% chance of finding an agent and a 1% chance that agent will even sell their book. Even soliciting publishers like Tate Publishing, an Oklahoma based Christian operation that just happened to have an ad on my blog as I was writing this, make it clear that they only accept about 3 percent of all manuscripts received. Granted, their reasoning is valid in their desire to provide their authors with a quality product, hence not taking on more than they can handle. Still, it can be dashing to know you will undoubtedly be met with rejection after rejection.

Now, I was the kid who desired beautiful pictures and set out with my crayons to produce such only to get impatient and scribble to get it finished. Fortunately they turned out quite artsy, but I never learned patience! That being said, I chose to self-publish. I did not, however, choose to be out a lot of money upfront. I was amazed at how much many of the self-publishing companies wanted to charge! Yikes!!! Again, my research led me to a solution in Amazon.com's CreateSpace Print On Demand publishing. For me, it was/is perfect.

I've now published 3 books of my own through them, have published 3 books for other authors using their service, and have 2 books for others in the proof process, as well as 6 in the formatting process. Using CreateSpace also offered immediate access to Amazon.com's sales channel. It seemed like a win-win to me and I've been extremely pleased.

Although I've opted for the ProPlan with each book ($39.00 which allows the author to keep a larger share of the royalties from the book), I have been able to get my proofs for under $10.00 each and that includes the shipping. Then I decide how many books to order or whether I want to offer them via the internet only and have no out of pocket cost at all.

Once I took the plunge with the first book, thanks to the gentle promptings of my wonderful writing partner Patrick Sipperly, I realized this was the way for me. I also realized there were others in my same shoes that may or may not have the desire to tackle the formatting, cover design, and other aspects of self-publishing. CreateSpace offers a service to those individuals that runs, on special, over $750.00 leading me to create my own publishing company to offer the same services at a noticeably reduced cost. I don't mind steering interested authors who desire to do it themselves in the right direction (www.WritersShelfLife@gmail.com) or I can help with my TreasureLine Publishing and services offered at www.OneStopPublisher.com.

I love what I do and feel so blessed to be living my dream. Part of that dream is helping others with the same dream so I hope you'll write to me and let me know if I can help or visit my One Stop Publisher if you have an interest.