From July 1st through July 31st you will be able to purchase my e-book for 25% Off Of The Usual Price through Smashwords*. It’s a great time for summer treats in the northern hemisphere and winter treats in the southern hemisphere. So as we take another spin around the solar system on this island we call Earth, LET’S GET BAKING!
*As I understand this includes the Smashwords affiliates.
You will of course remember my friend, Tom Trimbath — the gent who helped coach me through getting my first recipe book published on Amazon. Tom is a great guy and we have continued to talk about various creative ideas to produce together. One of these is a collaborative writing project, another is to present a series of self-publishing workshops, and we’ve talked about starting a podcast!
A podcast — that’s neat! What’s the plan, Don?
Whidbey Island – We are here!
Our plan so far is to keep things fairly open — we want to talk about all-things-writing as it relates to Whidbey Island. Self-publishing, marketing, writing groups on Whidbey, local authors, visiting authors, you name it. I have portable recording gear, so one of our ideas too is to produce our podcast recordings at different locations on Whidbey including local business who would be interested in hosting us and in turn receive a plug on our show.
COOL! When can I tune-in?
My book available on Amazon, Smashwords, and …. EVERYWHERE!
Last month Tom and I set a goal — to record 1-2 podcast episodes by the end of June. As summer has switched on, this has been a bit of a juggle — and if you look at the calendar … yeah … time is drawing near. We are currently working to schedule our first recording tomorrow morning OR during next week. With launching our show we also have the recordings from the how-to self-publish workshops we have presented — so we should have a decent collection to start with out of the gate.
AS Most Of You KnowI have been working on my next book — and it is close to DONE! The work has been going well and I am excited to debut it — but what is it?!? Get ready, it’s a mouthful… UPDATE
SAMS Post 1889 — that’s me on the left, #94
While it looks to include some modern-traditional Scottish & Irish recipes, the book will in-part serve as a FUNdraiser for my Scottish American Military Society veterans Post. The main feature of this text is military & patriotic Scottish & American bagpipe tunes & their histories. The News about this — the UPDATE — I finished writing the tune histories Sunday night! This is a major chunk of work on this project and the accomplishment feels GREAT 🙂
I sent these histories to one of my Post-mates yesterday who is formerly a copy editor. He’ll go over my work while I keep my nose to the grindstone retouching the notation, finishing the writing in the beginning of the book, and starting to write the sales paragraphs for the back of the book. Suffice it to say — there is still some work to go, however with this latest development I Am OPTIMISTIC that this book will be completed and that I will have copies-in-hand by or before my target end-of-June release date. 😀 UPDATE
& Updates On A Few Other Things…
While I’m EXCITED to get the Post Piper book released, completing that project paves the way for me to return to re-doing my mini freE-book. My plan is for this project is to first go up on Smashwords with the possibility of following as a book &/or short recipe book on Amazon. A few weeks ago I did a second publication of my e-book on Smashwords — previously only available on Amazon. The cool thing with Smashwords is that they push your e-book to all the other e-book platforms — B&N, Kobo, Overdrive — EVERYONE! Go check it out — my e-book is currently lower-priced on Smashwords right now than it is on Amazon … or at least it was the last I checked 😉 UPDATE
If you’re not already familiar, let me tell you a little about the world of self-publishing. I’m still learning about this myself, so my details might be a little fuzzy, but here goes … PUBLISH
Over the weekend I uploaded my e-book to Smashwords.com. When your manuscript is formatted correctly — that is when it meets the particulars of Smashwords — they then push your e-book product out to roughly twenty other companies**. While I uploaded my e-book to Smashwords Sunday, 24-hours later I received noticed I’ve officially published wide!PUBLISH
(** also known as getting accepted into the Smashwords Premium Catalog)
Another great thing about having my e-book go out to these other e-reader entities is libraries. Many libraries get their e-books from companies other than Amazon. My understanding is that most draw their e-books from — chiefly — OverDrive and Kobo. If they don’t have it already, please contact your local library and ask them to purchase a copy of my book (in addition to Amazon it should also be with Ingram) and a copy of my e-book. PUBLISH
I’m glad to be with Amazon.com, and I’m glad to be widening my net so people who enjoy other e-reader devices can access my recipes. Just think, if I get as many sales per month with these twenty other companies as I do with Amazon right now . . . well . . . I won’t be living rich, but it would be a nice little chunk of change to bring in. PUBLISH
Lately I have been busily working on a number of book projects. A few of these have bumped into obstacles, and a few of these have had some exciting break-throughs!
Here’s the latest…
Bagpipe Sheet Music & Tune History Book
As many of you know I am producing a bagpipe sheet music book. This will serve as a fundraiser item for a veteran’s organization I am a member of along with being the music collection for our small pipe band. The project features military and patriotic Highland bagpipe sheet music and the history behind the tunes. The work is going well and I am optimistic about publishing this June.
2 New Things About This Book…
Scotch Eggs — YUM!
To increase the page count I am planning to include some Scottish and Irish recipes. While I’m already familiar with a few of these, others have required some experimenting. Getting to try new things in the kitchen has been a culinary joy for me! As for the book … the inclusion of Celtic recipes is great because it furthers the cultural education element of the organization!
Bill Millin landing on Sword Beach during the WWII D-Day invasion — armed only with a set of Highland bagpipes
One section of this book draws on the music played Bill Millin during the WWII D-Day Invasion. Private Millin played a unique role in D-Day history; I am writing both further his story and to express the significance of this section in the book. Over the past few days I have connected with his son and grandson online. Both gentlemen are accomplished bagpipers and they are generously willing to check the accuracy of my writing*. As a Highland bagpiper it is an absolute honor to be writing about the famous D-Day piper — getting to connect with his son and grandson makes it just that much more real.
(*the facts — not the grammar, spelling, etc)
My Recipe E-Book on Smashwords & Etc
I’ve been working to get my e-book — already published on Amazon — additionally published on Smashwords. Smashwords is interesting in-that they will publish an author’s e-book not only on their site but on that of other e-book companies — Barns & Nobel, Kobo, etc.
For this to take place, Smashwords is quite particular as to how an e-manuscript is formatted. Frankly, I prefer to learn how to do things and do them myself, however right now I have Way Too Much To Do … so I’m looking for the services offered by one of the folks on Fiverr. My preference at this time is to move this project along and do-so at a price my little baking-biz can afford.
A few nights ago I looked at the Smashword instructions anyway. I quickly sorted out how to re-format the pictures in my e-book. That alone shrunk the size of my manuscript file down to half of the Smashword’s maximum! I’m checking with a number of Fiverr folks and waiting for them to get back to me about taking this on. With all the font characteristics in a recipe book, they tend to take more work than novels … so fingers-crossed that I’ll gain their support.
THE ADDITIONAL GOOD NEWS ABOUT THIS IS …
Once I have my manuscript back from whomever re-formats it for me I should be able to post that on Smashwords — obviously — and also copy that MSWord doc and re-work it into the free little recipe e-book I nearly had completed and published lately. So, while I’ve had to restart this little free e-book project having already completed it …
… Things Are Moving Right Along!
Gotta go ~ Keep an eye here along with my Facebook and Twitter profiles for announcements ~ Don
I am pleased to announce that I just enrolled my “Make Your Own Darn Good Cookies” e-book in the 11th annual Smashwords July 2019 SALE!
When the time is right go to my Smashwords ordering page or use the widget below. If you prefer to work from a paper recipe book, there is also a great deal at Amazon.com.
