Books Don't Play Nice

As we discussed in the previous post, we learned how to track, trap and tag your book with the ISBN system.  But setting your tome free in the wild with no genre preference or the wrong genre preference can be death to your new found book.  Finding the right play field for your novel is important.  Some books will immediately attack your book upon being the wrong genre, so watch out and make sure your book makes friends quickly.  

Worse, if you can't find the books genre, it will be ostracized and you will be forced to bring it home where it will lay like broccoli to be used as a coaster on your living room table.  Just like it's brethren, the paperback.

How to tell the genre of your book is to read it.  What POV does it have?  Does it sound male or female?  Does the book fly or make strange whirling sounds?  If so, it could go well in the Sci-Fi genre.  

Does it mewl and hump your leg?  It could be the romance genre.  

If your book tries to tell you what to do with your life, place it in the non-fiction self-help section.  It should do well there.  
 
  

How To Track A Book

Be very, very quiet.  Books are very skiddish.  That's why we have to trap them in kindles.  

Their tame bretheren, the paperback, have learned that if they just sit there, they might not be caught, opened and devoured.

But what we do is a noble cause!  We trap, tag, and release these books into the wild.  Our tagging system is called the ISBN or "International Standard Book Number" and can track any book that's been tagged from any book store or any book retailer in the WORLD!  

The first system started use in 1966 by an ingenious book enthusiast, WH Smith.  His colossal undertaking exploded the book population as books were able to be found by their natural predator--THE READER.   

A new system adopted the old and became internationally know and improved upon in 1970.  

I suggest after trapping, binding, wrapping a wild, unpublished book, you go here: GET YOUR ISBN!  Retain your tracking number and then set it free in the pastures of Amazon, B&N and Apple.  From there you can watch your untamed book frolic and play with other books.  

Next up...why you should keep wild books in separate genres.   

    

  

Publishing Made Real

Do I need a business license to Publish Books on Amazon?

If you are a true Self-Published Author, and not someone who is doing Vanity or POD, the answer is, YES.

 

Check out this article: (Thank you Momma)

http://www.squidoo.com/do-you-need-a-business-license-to-self-publish-a-book 

So...(drum roll please)

 

TROLL RIVER PUBLICATIONS is born!

 

Woot! You need a business licesnse even for ebooks on Amazon. You might even need a sales tax license.  

 

But, I'm only selling on Amazon?  Do I need a sales tax license?  

(To Be Continued!)  

Self Publishing Podcast

In the spirit of sharing and collaboration, I highly recommend "The Self Publishing Podcast with Johnny, Sean, & Dave".

DW, my dearest, suggested this podcast to me.  Now, I'm no podcast listener, but I'm an audible listener, so a podcast seem to be the cross over drug.  

I love it!  Podcasting is my new sliced bread and this particular podcast is my peanut butter!  

If you know anything about me, I love peanut butter.  I have "Ode To The Peanut Butter" somewhere in my journals.  I explain why peanut butter should be two words and how without PB I would starve.  

So now that you understand what this podcast means to me, you should go listen!  

Now, because I was no podcast listener, I asked my hun, how do I listen?  Oh crap--I'm not going to do the he said she said thing--here's the convo:

"You should listen to this podcast."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Who recommended it?"

"Alex Haddox."

"The personal defense guy?"

"Yeah!  He wrote a book and recommends these guys."

"I don't know how to listen."

"Go to BeyondPod.  Do it on your phone cause you'll listen to it on your phone the most."

"Oh, okay."  I hand my phone to DW.

He punches in beyondpod on my internet connection on my phone.  

"I can listen to it on my computer?"

"Yeah."

"But I want to listen to it on my phone."

"That's what I'm doing."

"Oh.  Okay."

DW hands me my phone.  "Look up self publishing in the search."

Type, type, type.

"Oh!  They have 28 episodies!"  (No that's not a typo, that's a stephonism.)

*giggles*

--"...Welcome to the self publishing podcast where you can publish your book without agents, publishers or other gatekeepers of the traditional publishing world..."

 

 

Mercury Retrograde Moment

Mercury goes retrograde several times a year.  Usually for a few weeks.  

The closer the planet is to my sun sign, the more Mercury Retrograde Moments I have.  

A MRM (Mercury Retrograde Moment) is when you can't communicate or when your computer gives you the finger.  Things like, not being able to open your browser.  That's the double whammy because it involves technology AND communication.   

Mercury loves technology--it's the computer God. The messenger planet revolves most its focus on technology, I believe, because its our main source of communication.  But when that first planet from sun goes "backwards" it seems everything goes haywire!


Think of it this way.  Mercury is the IT guy of the solar system.  When he's happy, communication runs smooth.  When he's frazzled, everything electronic goes wrong.  Even your own communication skills sour.  

For instance, I've been working on a software program for 9 months now that I know how to work around.  For the past week, it's been like a brain fart.  It's like I forgot how to open MS Word.  It's that ridiculous. 

So if Mercury is the IT guy, imagine a really busy nerd on vacation trying to get things done via Skype.  You wouldn't want to work on vacation so don't bust his balls.  Relax.  He goes on several vacations a year, but they're short.  He'll be back.  

What you can do is back-up your hard-drive and command patience when trying to communicate to others.  This will be the time phone conversations will be jumbled and scatter brained drive thru attendants will give you a sprite instead of a coke.  

If you're not experiencing this, it's probably because you're dense, you have the patience of a planet, or Mercury is not in your sign.  

Here's a great site that tells you if we're in retrograde:

http://www.ismercuryinretrograde.com/

Also, Susan Miller has a great explanation of what to expect during Mercury retrograde here:

http://www.astrologyzone.com/forecasts/mercury.html

So my advice is: Don't travel.  Stow away the phone.  Back up the computer.  Have no expectations of getting your drive thru order correct.  And, pray to Mercury when your hard drive fails--just not during retrograde. 

   

Small Business Conventions...Is It Worth Going?

I had the honor of being able to go to the Small Business Expo in Los Angles, CA November 8th, 2012.  

Booths galore!  Big business contenders were there such as:

Yelp!                          New York Life

Verizon                     Wells Fargo

GoDaddy                   Staples

Vonage                       Intuit

But there were businesses there that I hadn't even thought possible.  Entrepreneurship galore!  People like the GoogFather, who helps your SEO.  WebcommercialPro, who help you make a commercial for YouTube.  Wow!  People putting it out there and being successful.  Inspiring!

Our sales guys talked to everybody.  People came to us wanting to know what we did and how we could help them.  I did not have the corporate competition vibe.  These were people providing a service and making contacts.  Yes, we made connections.  Yes, we are out there to sell our product.  Yes, these conventions are totally a marketing reach-out.  But what I got the most out of it was the vibe.  

People were very excited about our services.  I got to meet people I never would have known about much less get to market to.  This got me enthusiastic about business.  

We hear so much about how big businesses are doing bad things that you get the feeling that every business is bad.  Except ProspectDB--those guys are cool! (Shameless plug)

But, I didn't get the seedy I just want to sell you shit vibe.  It was energizing to see so many people walking around, coming up to the booth and asking--"What do you sell?  What can you do for me?"  Awesome!  Potential client.  It seemed to be about making contact and looking at options up close.  

Or maybe they were drawn by the candy and pretty ladies!  Yeah, actually that was it!

How A Holiday "Creeps" Up On You

I don't understand it.  It's like the same bat-time on the same bat-channel every year!  

But people seem not to notice the fall or the spring or life passing by.  Oh look, the grim reaper just walked in asking a co-worker out to lunch. 

Anyway, I image a holiday doing something like the following:

Thanksgiving crept it's little turkey toes up to the desk. 
 
Stephanie looked down the hall to the front. 
 
She hadn't seen Thanksgiving slide past the door and hall-crawled to Stephanie's cubical.
 
Tap, Tap, Tap.  Stephanie focused on her work.
 
He chibbled to the cockerels of his heart.  That was close!  
 
Bling--"You've got mail!" Chimed the computer.
 
"Oh my God!"  Stephanie jumped out of her chair.  "It's Turkey Day this week!"
 
At that very moment Thanksgiving leaped from out of the desk and chirped, "Gobble, gobble, gobble!"

OMG people!  Yes it's Thanksgiving!

No Turning Back Now!

So... 

...my website went up.  

Holy shit.  

And the commitment issues side of me says WTF are you doing?  

Organized Stephanie says, you can do it we can make this.  It's possible.  
 
A bunch of back and forth (I should call my blog conversations with myself) and we've committed.  Yes, we as in both stephonavich and Stephanie.  They happen to be the same person but one is a goon with an enthusiastic outlook that has a PhD in orginization and the other is a lunatic artist that needs focus and direction.  The artist side doesn't mind if you call her stephonabitch.    

stephonavich is freaking out.  Stephanie is calmly setting dates, making notes, and kicking ass.  stephonavich is ramming notes in a folder for future stories.  Stephanie is check marking her google docs marketing plan.  stephonavich is thinking of new stories to give the public in a flurry of ideas she thinks has to go out tomorrow.  Stephanie makes a list of all those ideas in google docs.  

One day, I will have a post call Conversations with myself.  

But while my lovely comrades (I mean lovely--as in wonderful--that's not sarcasm) are frantically getting out 50,000 words (which, let's face it, those stories may never see the light of day after this month), I've made a commitment to advance my dreams.  November may be the take a rest from writing month.  The anti NaNoWriMo.  (National Novel Writing Month)

If you are interested, my website is www.stephaniemckibben.com  

I think if it were stephonavich's she'd let it rot.  Good thing it has Stephanie's name on it.