Raven's View

No - not my third grandchild, that's in a few weeks. The print copy of my first book arrived in the mail! Yay. Was fun to vist my favourite haunts and show off to my friends. They all wanted to buy a copy - too bad the rest don't arrive until next week. I'll have to track all those eager customers down again then. 

Next steps - more ebook formats, and a book launch.

I've been fiddling with the formatting for several days for my book on Kindle. Not 100% satisfied yet, but sometimes you just have to let it go. Hit the 'save and publish' this afternoon and waiting now for it to go live. Still lots of promo work to do on this, as well as getting it formatted for Smashwords ebook distribution. Oh - and NaNoWriMo in a few days. 

One of my groups, Ottawa Independant Writers, had an interesting speaker a few days ago - an agent, working for P.S.Literary Agency. Carley Watters had some good points on what an agent can do and how to find one - apparently there still are some out there. My publisher, Deux Voiliers Publishing, focuses on new authors, so my/our plan is that - once this first book gets out there - I use the experience and street cred to approach a more traditional publisher for the sequel. 

Oh - and my (physical) pain in the neck is pretty well gone now - exercise and drugs.

Status:

I have two actually. The first is physical, from sleeping the 'wrong way' I suspect. Anti-inflammatory drugs and neck exercises are in my plan for that. The second is book related. It turns out there are lots of little details involved in getting published. My publisher has taken care of the majority of these, but there still are a number of tiny steps involved in getting my book online, and publicizing it. Getting up on Goodreads and then making sure it links to the correct Mike Young's profile - turns out there are seven other ones in there. Sorting out details of a book launch. Re-formatting the text into a HTML file for loading into the Kindle site. And so on - all a bit of a pain, but necessary, and hopefully easier for my next book.

Yay me! Finally got my first novel, Kirk's Landing, published. I wrote it during NaNoWriMo 2010, then it basically sat in a drawer, until I met a publisher at a small press fair two years later, Ian Shaw of Deux Voiliers Publishing.  He looks for new authors that he can help through the process of getting that first book out there. Ian saw enough potential in mine to get me editing early in 2013, so after a mere eight months and seven editing passes later, here it is. It's on Amazon.com as a paperback first, but next are other Amazon sites, then Kindle and Kobo. Formatting for an ebook is up to me - not that difficult but a lot of guides to follow. I'm planning on a book launch in December at a local pub, so will be sure to order a big box of books before then.

In other news, it's been reading, TV series, book club, and grandkids time. Have to refocus on NaNoWriMo now, as I will need a completed outline in ten days.