Last Sunday my latest book — The Patriotic Piper, Vol. I — LAUNCHED!!! This newly published book is definitely different than many others you’ve seen — of that I am certain…
Here’s the short list of what’s in the first The Patriotic Piper …
20 traditional Scottish American military and patriotic bagpipe compositions, arranged into 8 performance numbers
15 delicious Scottish and Irish recipes
Numerous history and trivia writings accompanying the tunes and recipes
The Patriotic Piper is a fundraiser for the Scottish American Military Society Post #1889. Not only am I a member, I also serve as an officer leading our small but stout Pipe & Drum corps. This is the official music collection of the Post. The monies raised by this book will assist Post 1889 with their projects. S.A.M.S. is a national organization and is a Congressionally Chartered Veterans Service Organization, which is dedicated to the preservation of the contributions of the Scots to the American Military and Society.
Back Cover
Since its publishing Amazon has rated both the book and e-book as being a “#1 New Release in Military Marches“. These two versions of the book have held this position for several days during this past week.
Among the early people to comment, several said that they liked my concept of accompanying the music notation with the history of the tunes. Some even said that this was a deciding factor in their book purchase. Numerous people have said that they are excited about my inclusion of traditional Scottish and Irish recipes as the second half of the book. Certainly, there’s something for everyone in The Patriotic Piper, Vol. 01.
The Patriotic Piper is Available Now on Amazon Print Edition — Published 22Nov2020 E-Book — Published 05Nov2020
As you know I am working on two new books right now. One of these is a bagpipe sheet music book — which has taken priority since I am aiming to release around June/July 2019. Following that I have a new cookie recipe book, and with some luck it might get published this fall. Between the two, the recipe book includes a number of cookies I have dreamed up … some of these recipes do not yet exist. experiment
TIME FOR AN EXPERIMENT!
One of these recipes — and I’m not giving out much details until it’s perfected — is at least to say caffeinated shortbread with a cool name. I’m excited about this idea!
During a recent phone call with a close friend I shared the details and this fellow replied “Those sound so good I’d take two batches NOW!” My schedule is a bit of a juggling act right now however I want to bake the first experimental batch this week if I can.
There’s a handy thing about my shortbread recipe (which you can find in my book/e-book now available on Amazon.com) … The recipe calls for a pound of butter, 4 cups of flour, and 1 cup of sugar, which means I am able to make this as small as a quarter batch. That’s great for this experiment because I can try one idea, tweak it, and then try again without blowing through whole batches at a time.
Yes, I can say that — which probably means the coffee has kicked in ….
Sundry things to chatter about today…
As you’ve heard my first recipe book is out in both paper & e-book formAND that I am not one to take a break — yes, I’m already working on 2 future books! As with any time two or more projects are running concurrently, sometimes one project takes a lead over the other. Of these two books, one is a recipe book and the other is a Highland bagpipe sheet music book. Since publishing “Make Your Own Darn Good Cookies” on Amazon I have mostly worked on the future recipe book — and I’m Thrilled about its developments! During the past week I’ve realized that the sheet music book is rather close to being done along with having a higher priority. There is some ‘heavy lifting’ to do on this project and everything is ready for it to happen — SO — I’m pressing forth on this as time allows. This is also good because…
Tomorrow I’m meeting with Tom Trimbath — my friend and self-publishing coach — first time in 2019! Getting to work with Tom is great — he’s a wonderful soul full of mirth and insight. I’m looking to talk with him about this sheet music book (since it’s a rather different project) along with our interests in presenting our books and how-to-self-publish topic at various locations in 2019. I hope he’s ready for tomorrow as I’ve already drawn up a list of things to ask and talk with him about!
Last and Certainly Not Least…
Over the past few days I’ve gotten to chat online with my friend, Donna. This is the very-same Donna in Scotland who you will read about in the Acknowledgments section of Make Your Own Darn Good Cookies. As it turns out she’s had my book for a number of days and didn’t know that she was on my Thank You list — she had spent all this time going through my recipes and stories. When it comes to websites and web-marketing, Donna is as smart as a whip*! She took a quick look yesterday here at WhidbeyIslandBaking.com and noticed a few improvements that could be made. Donna went further to say that she could do a review of my site along with giving me a slew of web-marketing tips. While I have learned a good bit of marketing from being a professional musician, I believe that one can always learn more — and quite frankly, I know rather little when it comes to online-marketing. SO… I’m excited to be working with Donna over the coming days and weeks to both improve this site and my web-marketing skills — and, as in my book, once again I ought to say Thanks Donna!
(*She’s also one heck of a photographer!)
Geoff Castle’s 2013 Celtic Xmas Concert in Anacortes, WA – photo courtesy of Chris Terrell
Lately I focused some of my time on studying how to build oneself in the business of self-publishing books — in other words, marketing.
When it comes to gaining attention, my knowledge-base was born out of the music industry — promoting bands, representing albums, and selling my services as a solo Highland bagpiper for people’s life events ranging from weddings to retirement parties and of course funerals. I applied this DIY gumption and (albeit subtly) my rock ‘n’ roll marketing approach to period of my business when I was producing baked goods, and I have been continuing this into this new endeavour of writing and self-publishing recipe books.
E-Readers
Thanks Aleta!
As you will recall from my 07Nov2017 blog post, an online friend — Aleta — generously offered to send one of her earlier e-readers to me. She wanted to support my plan to turn my first recipe book into an e-reader edition, and it helps to have a device to view your work as you are converting your book file into an e-reader file. As I have been learning about the conversion process I have also started learning about other authors publishing and marketing their e-books. Much to this voracious reader’s joy I have also learned about free e-books! Among these I have found books and articles on marketing. This morning I read a marketing article that enhanced both thoughts and plans I already had…
How to Turn your Book into 18 STREAMS of Income
by Kary Oberbrunner
Kary Oberbrunner … we haven’t met.
Go-getters, movers and shakers, creative people, and artist have at least two things in common — we all have great ideas to work from and we all make mistakes. When we learn from our mistakes or learn about mistakes to avoid and-how we all grow!
Kary Oberbrunner’s article “How to Turn your Book into 18 STREAMS of Income” points out marketing mistakes for writers to avoid (like thinking of books as business cards) along with options and opportunities that they may have not realized. Some of what Mr. Oberbrunner presents in his article I am already familiar with and is parallel to my direction — other elements have shown me new ideas or ways to think differently about things I already know.
His main focus in this article is for writers to turn their books into an income stream. One morsel — section 2 on ebooks, suggesting why most (every?) author should turn their printed book into an e-book — particularly resounded with my plans and I had an AH-HA! moment. The gist of the writing was …
“Ebooks are as close as your smartphone. You can read an ebook while standing on a subway, sitting in a doctor’s office, or waiting in line at the grocery store.”
Relative to my recipe book everything before ‘grocery store’ made sense once I read ‘grocery store‘.
Recipe Books — JOY JOY JOY!
Folks haul their phones everywhere, and often folks with e-readers haul them everywhere, too. They might have 100+ books on their e-reader but they don’t haul 100 books everywhere. Most of the books I have put on my phone duplicate to my e-reader and vice versa.
While I have queried and found that most people prefer to NOT cook or bake working from recipes on an e-screen, it could still be beneficial to have your recipes — or preferably My Recipes (<– I am not above shameless self promotion) — on your phone or e-reader. Folks don’t haul all their recipe books to work where they think about what they are going to make for dinner, and then haul those books to the grocery store where they double check ingredients they are going to buy.
The big AH-HA! I had was…
I had already planned to convert my book to an e-book, but now I am thinking — PLEASE put my recipe book on your electronic device. If you don’t want to work in the kitchen from an electronic screen, I understand — to each their own — but bring it with you when you shop, or when you are going to be thinking about what you’re going to make for your friends or family. Or what you might make for the hottie in the accounting department at work whom you just landed a date with!
Does it make sense for me to convert my recipe book to an e-book?
Last Sunday my latest book — The Patriotic Piper, Vol. I — LAUNCHED!!! This newly published book is definitely different than many others you’ve seen — of that I am certain…
As you know 
Sundry things to chatter about today…
