AN INDIE AUTHOR’S JOURNEYU

AN INDIE AUTHOR’S JOURNEY: A Holly Jolly Christmas

Donna L

 

church

 

I’m delving into the world of indie publishing. Some authors go the quicker route and use a source like Kindle Direct to immediately get their books out there.

There’s nothing wrong going that route but I’ve decided to take a different path.

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I love everything about Christmas. The decorations, the food, the hunt for the perfect gift of the special loved ones in my life, and of course…for me…the story of the Nativity. Growing up in a small town in the swamps of Louisiana, we had real trees, strings of popcorn and cranberries, and a musical church which played “Away In The Manger” while the church doors opened up to display a lighted Mary and baby Jesus. I loved singing Christmas carols and would wind up that church every night and sing along.

I remember one Christmas I was sick with strep throat and my mother forbade me to do any singing. I waited patiently until she was out of the room, and then I snuck over to the church, wound up the music box, and whispered the words to the song that carried me through every holiday season until I left my childhood home.

When my mother died, the church came to me and every Christmas it sits in my living room to welcome in ta new Advent season. The doors don’t automatically open anymore and there is no light shining on the family inside, but the music box still plays. I would love to find someone to repair the treasure but I also fear letting it out of my sight. So I will wind it up and slowly open the doors myself…and softly sing that glorious hymn of my childhood…

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! MAY THE REASON FOR THE SEASON FILL YOUR HEART WITH JOY AND WONDER THIS HOLIDAY SEASON.

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***WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT!***
***WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT!***

I’m happy to announce the winner of week ten of my TWELVE WEEKS OF LUNADAR free giveaway! Amy Spisak has won the beach themed tea light holder. Thanks for signing up to be part of my Lunadar Street Team! Congratulations! Look for my email on how to get your prize…

***DON’T FORGET! It’s week eleven of THE TWELVE WEEKS OF LUNADAR giveaway and this week you get a chance to win the $10 Barnes & Noble gift card shown above! Just click on the pile of presents to the right of this post and choose how you would like to enter the FREE giveaway. Winners will be announced every Monday in my INDIE AUTHOR’S JOURNEY post!
 
***Also, both ebook and paperback versions of LUNADAR: Homeward Bound are on sale through the holidays! You can grab the ebook copy for just $1.99 and the paperback for $12.49 through Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, Nook, Books A Million or dozens of other online retailers. Books make great Christmas gifts!
LUNADAR cover jpg
Ruler by day, a reluctant pirate by night, 18-year-old Princess Ariana fights for her subjects in the waterfall city of LUNADAR. In a kingdom surrounded by fairies and mermaids, and ravaged by deadly Drundles, only a chosen few are trusted to guard her daughter, Candra, as the secret heir to the throne.

But it only takes one ill-fated meeting for Ariana to suddenly be plunged into an escalating web of secrets found in her father’s journal, a deadly kidnapping, and an ever-weakening resolve to turn her back on the call of the merman’s song.

With Ariana’s world falling apart and the future of LUNADAR at stake, how will she bring her father’s murderer to justice and fulfill a deathbed promise to protect Lunadar’s legacy?

donna

International best selling, award-winning author, Donna L Martin, has been writing since she was eight years old. She is a 4th Degree Black Belt in TaeKwonDo by day and a ‘ninja’ writer of children’s picture books, chapter books, young adult novels and inspirational essays by night. Donna is a BOOK NOOK REVIEWS host providing the latest book reviews on all genres of children’s books, and the host of WRITERLY WISDOM, a resource series for writers. Donna is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators and Children’s Book Insider. She is a lover of dark chocolate, going to the beach and adding to her growing book collection. Donna’s latest book, LUNADAR: Homeward Bound (a YA fantasy), is now available in ebook and print form from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, and other online retailers.

AN INDIE AUTHOR’S JOURNEY: Cracked, But Not Broken

Donna L

 

broken.jpg

 

I’m delving into the world of indie publishing. Some authors go the quicker route and use a source like CreateSpace or Kindle Direct to immediately get their books out there.
There’s nothing wrong going that route, but I’ve decided to take a different path.

First of all, I need to apologize for the fact my Monday post is dragging in on the coattails of my Tuesday post. I have so many plates spinning in the air right now I should have joined the circus.

Adding to all the spinning plates is the fact I sent a formatted file to be converted to an ePub and Mobi file but as soon as I hit the send button, I watched as my file shifted just slightly…but just enough for me to realize the formatting will be off by a line or two.

I call the company, hoping they could kick the file back to me so I could make the corrections and resend.

No such luck.

I’m told, sure they can fix the file…FOR $50 PER HOUR PER LINE! What that boils down to is the formatted file slid out of line on page one, line two, which in turn kicked each and every line after that initial line down a notch out of sync…for the next 382 pages. And they can fix it for about $4000. Definitely NOT within this poor gal’s budget. Then they sent me the ebook file I now can not use.

So I shopped around and came across an ebook software program called Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com/). It’s free to download but has a learning curve. I’m running out of time so I’m scrambling to try and learn this program. Cross your fingers and wish me luck!

If anyone out there knows of a free software program who can convert my formatted manuscript into an ePub and MOBI format for ebooks, please let me know in the comments. I’ve got about ten days to hit my deadline and trying not to panic. Right now my indie journey is slightly cracked, but not broken…lol…

 

 

 

donna

 

International best selling, award winning author, Donna L Martin, has been writing since she was eight years old. She is a 4th Degree Black Belt in TaeKwonDo by day and a ‘ninja’ writer of children’s picture books, chapter books, young adult novels and inspirational essays by night. Donna is a BOOK NOOK REVIEWS host providing the latest book reviews on all genres of children’s books, and the host of WRITERLY WISDOM, a resource series for writers. Donna is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators and Children’s Book Insider. She is a lover of dark chocolate, going to the beach and adding to her growing book collection. Donna’s latest book, LUNADAR: Homeward Bound (a YA fantasy) is scheduled to be released in ebook edition by June 2018 from Story Catcher Publishing, with the print edition hopefully coming out late fall 2018.