Project Reissue--Part Three

When it came to buying a cover for my e-books, I didn’t want to spend a lot of money. While I would have loved to have original designs done by cover artists, it simply wasn’t in my budget. I thought about trying to learn how to do cover designs myself, perhaps using photos I had taken, but that would be time-consuming, and I already felt I was putting a lot of time into this project.

Fortunately, I was turned on to a website called Fiver.com. It’s a crazy, amazing concept where people advertise what service they will provide for five dollars. Need a resume? They will write one. Need a book promotion? They’ll tweet news about your book for X amount of days. Need a book cover? They will design one using covers from the public domain. Of course the catch is another book could possibly have the same cover as yours, but I figured it was a chance worth taking.  Other costs can be added to the basic five dollars, such as a higher resolution, that’s another five, delivery within a shorter time, another five, and if you want to give the designer a tip (totally optional). You can also order a print cover, if you are planning on using CreateSpace. I ended up spending $20 on the first cover and was delighted with the design. I have been able to keep the same person for all five covers, and each time I’ve been very satisfied with the product. It’s a fairly easy way to order a book cover, if you are on a tight budget.

So this was the cover for the first e-book, and I have to admit, he is pretty cute. I thought it tied in well with the title of the book, too.

http://tinyurl.com/mvnxkqa

Project Reissue--Part Two

 

          When it came to the technical part of getting my stories ready to publish again, I’ll admit I was challenged. Over the years of switching from typewriters to computers, I’d learned what I needed to in order to prepare a manuscript for submission, and to do the edits that may have followed. But learning how to get one ready for digital publication was a new ballgame. I knew other writers who were accomplishing it themselves. Certainly, I could do it, too. But I still hung back.

          I had been talking about this project of mine for sometime while I was doing the rewriting (which by the way meant typing all the stories I intended to e-publish into Word documents, as the only way they had been saved previously was either on old floppy disks or typewritten manuscripts). My family had heard all about it, and they were probably tired of listening to my angst over not being sure I could handle the technical part of it, a typical case of my making something harder than it actually is.

          It was my son-in-law who offered to help me put the stories up on Amazon. As a librarian, he wanted to offer a workshop at his library for patrons who might be interested in self-publishing e-books. In exchange for letting him use my book of short stories as an example of how to do it, he would do the actual formatting of my book and make sure it was ready to upload. It was totally a win-win proposition, and it spurred me on to get the first stories rewritten and ready to publish again.

          I chose five stories for the first e-book and decided to give it the title An Uncommon Prince, which had been my original title for one of the stories when I’d first written it. The theme for this book was that the heroes were all a little out of the ordinary but still were heroes in their walks of life.

          Next time I’ll talk about finding a cover for An Uncommon Prince.

 

Project Reissue

     Three and a half years ago, I decided to take on the project of re-issuing my short stories that had once appeared in a magazine, Woman's World. Since I held the rights to the stories, I had always thought about putting them together in an anthology, but few to no publishers were interested in that sort of thing, especially stories that had already been published. Then along came the advent of e-books and the explosion of self-publishing. Once looked down upon as the last resort of desperate writers, self-publishing suddenly became just another route to having a writing career. Since it had been so many years since the stories were in the magazine, I thought they might find a new audience if they were updated for today's readers.

     At the Romantic Times conference that year, I attended a number of workshops on self-publishing and tried to learn more about how to go about it. I received a lot of advice, some that proved helpful, some that just didn't apply to what I wanted to accomplish, but it was all informative and helped me believe I could really do this.

      I decided not to put all the stories into one anthology but to publish them three to five per e-book. The next step was to decide which stories I would include in each book. Fortunately, I had saved copies of the magazine, so it was easy to spread them all out and figure out what common themes might tie them together. I also had a few stories that my editor at Woman’s World had liked and would have accepted but that had not passed final muster with the editor-in-chief who had the final word at that time. I still believed in those stories and their worth and decided to include them.

     Once I chose the stories that would appear in the first e-book, I set out to re-write them and bring them up to date. It proved quite a task and by far took up the most time. Since I wanted the stories to be contemporary, I had to pay attention to little details such as what sort of car a character drove and how people communicated, as the stories were all written before cell phones became so common. But in the rewriting, I did find that stories about people falling in love really do hold up well, as matters of the heart don’t change all that much. It was fun visiting with the characters I had created so many years before, and in some cases expanding on them when not constricted by the word length requirements of the magazine. Even though it did take some time, the rewriting became the most enjoyable part of the project.

     Next week I’ll talk about the technical part of my Project Reissue.   

 

Legacy of Love, from Autumn's Gold

 

The first thing Lauren noticed when she opened her eyes was the pair of crystal-blue ones staring at her. They were surrounded by a furry face, and the nose that nudged her hand was cold and wet. The husky lay her muzzle on the sofa and whined softly.

“Okay, Juno, stand aside. Let’s give the lady something warm to drink.”
The man who crouched down beside Lauren was big and his face stern, but she sensed a kindness in his voice that quelled her sudden fear. He eased another pillow behind her and held a mug to her lips. Gratefully she sipped the tea. She still felt chilled, but at least her toes weren’t numb anymore.

“How do you feel?” he asked when the tea was gone.

Her hand went instinctively to her stomach. The baby was quiet. Was her daughter sleeping? Lauren gave a gentle prod and received a comforting kick in return.

“Okay, I think.” She managed a wry grin that turned into a grimace when the baby gave a luxuriant stretch.

“What is it?” Lauren’s rescuer looked alarmed. “You’re not…”

“No,” she quickly assured him. “I’ve another month to go, and first babies are usually late.”    She didn’t think he believed her. He studied her face for a moment and then went back to the cabin’s small kitchen.

“I’ve got some soup here if you feel up to it.”

“Sounds great.” Lauren had to admit now that she had warmed up she felt starved. “I can come to the table.” In a second he was back at her side. “I’m really all right,” she said, but she let him help her up.

“Hmmph,” was all he said.

The food soon had warmth and strength flowing back through her veins.

“Thank you so much.” She pushed the empty bowl away and finished another cup of tea. She stared down at her hands clasped about the mug. “I guess I’m really lucky you found me…us.”

“It’s really none of my business, but may I ask what you were doing out in such a snowstorm?”

“It wasn’t snowing when I started out,” she defended herself.

“Which means you’d been driving for a while. Excuse me for wondering, but where is your husband? Or…significant other? Why did he let you out in your…condition?”

“Simple. I haven’t one, or the other.” She tried to sound nonchalant, but the words were hard to say and fell like lead snowflakes.

Matthew didn’t say anything but went about clearing the table.

“You’d better rest some more,” he finally advised.

Lauren crept back to the sofa and watched the man who had pulled her from the snowy ditch. Now that she had a moment to study him, he looked vaguely familiar, though she certainly didn’t know why. It appeared he lived alone, except for the dog.

When he finished the dishes, he came back to stand beside the sofa. “Is there someone you want to call, let them know you’re all right?”

Lauren concentrated on petting the husky. “No, there’s no one.” The truth was still painful, but Lauren knew she must come to grips with it, and she must be strong, for the baby’s sake. Her grandfather would have expected it of her.

“You’re sure?” Matthew narrowed his gaze on her. “There’s obviously been a man in your life and if it’s a lover’s spat that drove you out into the storm it wasn’t very smart.”

The eyes she turned up to him were the soft color of moss, warm but secretive and hiding a terrible hurt. “I’m sure,” she whispered.

The words struck some deep part of Matthew, the part that could still feel sympathy for another’s pain. He believed her, and her very aloneness made him remember what it was like to have no one on your side.

 

Coming soon on Amazon Kindle.

Bus Ride to Love, from Autumn's Gold

When the bus stopped to change drivers again, it was late afternoon. Ellen’s headache had subsided to a dull echo. Too bad the music hadn’t.

She roused herself just enough to peer out the bus window. The snow was now falling faster, flakes the size of silver-dollar pancakes. Having grown up here in the northern Midwest, Ellen remembered how quickly this kind of snow could accumulate.

She stretched her cramped legs and debated making a trek into the bus station. They were scheduled to stop for supper, but right now she could sure use something hot to drink. She had very nearly decided to escape inside, if just to get away from the loud music for a few moments, when he stepped inside the bus. Ellen’s first thought was that Paul Bunyan had tromped down out of the north woods to look for Babe the Blue Ox. Then she noticed the gray jacket with the bus-line emblem on the shoulder and realized this was their new driver.

He stood at the front of the bus, surveying them all with a gaze of pure steel. Burly wasn’t the word to describe him. More like massive. His chest was wide and the sleeves of the jacket strained over bulging biceps. Musclemen didn’t usually do much for Ellen, but she had the feeling this fellow came by his brawn quite honestly. He’d probably never seen the inside of a workout gym or health club in his life.

With cool gray eyes, he swept over the rows of passengers and settled at last on the three orange-haired rockers. Ellen saw his jaw clamp down hard.

“My name is Douglas Maddock,” he finally spoke, his voice a deceptively soft sound that could be heard even above the music. “I’ll be your driver for the next eight hours, possibly longer if this weather keeps up. I’m telling you right now, I don’t believe in pushing it in a storm. I’ll go as fast as I think it’s safe to go and not a bit faster. If you’re late to your destination, at least I’ll have done my best to get you there alive.”

His gaze traveled again, and for a few seconds it rested on Ellen where she had scrunched down in her seat. A tentative smile threatened the corners of his stern mouth, especially when he noticed her proximity to Derry’s Deviates.

 Bracing his big hands on his hips, he glared at them.

“Now,” he gave them his full attention. “I don’t know what in the hell has been going on in this bus since it left Chicago, but you better know that I won’t put up with it. This means if you must play music, it will be played at a tolerable level. And I’m talking about tolerable to the rest of us. The first person who violates this will be put out of the bus, and I don’t care if it’s in the middle of the North Dakota prairie.”

 

 

Stop by for tomorrow's excerpt from Legacy of Love.



Autumn's Gold: an excerpt from Patchwork Autumn

     This is an excerpt from my fourth e-book collection of short stories that will soon be available on Kindle. In Patchwork Autumn, Marty Cutter is raising her young niece on Shadow Mountain, Montana. When Jenny becomes sick, Marty rushes her to the clinic in town...where she meets Dr. Patrick Brady, a man with sparkling Irish blue eyes and a knack for doling out a healthy dose of encouragement to a doubtful Marty. But when he asks her to make a special quilt for him, she has to wonder, who will he give it to?

"To Marty’s relief, the snow went north the way it sometimes did in early autumn. But after another sleepless night waiting for Jenny’s fever to break, she felt ready to drop. When the fever finally did leave, the child fell into a deep sleep. Wrapped in a quilt, Marty curled into her cricket rocker and dozed off. In the late afternoon someone knocked at the door. To her surprise, Dr. Brady waited on the cabin’s front porch, the collar of his flannel-lined denim jacket turned up against the wind that whistled through the lodge pole pines.

Marty quickly pulled open the door and let him in.

“Dr. Brady, are you lost?”

He shook off the cold and set down his black medical bag.

“Isn’t this Shadow Mountain?”

“Yes, of course, but why are you here?” Was Jenny’s illness more serious than he’d let on?

 He saw her frown. “Not to worry. Just making some home visits. It’s something I worked out with the county when I started at the clinic. I know there are other folks up here that might have a problem getting into town.”

He glanced around the cabin, his perusal taking in the simple but cozy surroundings. His gaze rested on the piles of colorful quilt squares piled next to Marty’s sewing machine, then drifted to the sofa where Jenny slept snugly wrapped in the pink and turquoise quilt Marty had made when she’d first brought her niece home with her.

“How is she doing today? Did the fever break this morning?”

Marty set aside the quilt from around her shoulders and went to Jenny’s side. The doctor followed.

“Yes. How did you know?”

“It’s just the way this particular bug has been working on kids.” He felt the child’s forehead, then took out his stethoscope, warming the diaphragm before listening to her breathing through it. Jenny never stirred, and it was a relief to see her resting so much easier than the past few days.

“Lungs sound clear. She’s sleeping well. I’d say Jenny is on the mend. She’ll probably wake up famished. You’re an excellent guardian, Ms. Cutter.”

He turned and gave her that charming smile. The effect sent a zing shooting along Marty’s backbone and her knees went weak. For a moment she wavered, and then the doctor took her by the arm and led her to the rocker, pushing her gently to sit.

“Okay, open up.” He flicked on his flashlight and peered down her throat, touched a light hand to her forehead. “Are you feeling ill? No nonsense now.”

“It’s only that I haven’t slept well since Jenny’s been sick. Seriously, I’m all right, just tired.”

“Then it’s time you had a break. Doctor’s orders. Just tell me where you keep your coffee. I could use a good strong cup myself.” He shrugged off his jacket and hung it by the door.

“Sorry.” Marty said. “I don’t drink it. All I have is hot chocolate and herbal tea.”

He took the news with admirable stoicism. “Well, guess that will just have to do. I’ll make the best of it.”

He put up the tea kettle. Marty admitted to herself that it felt good to sit here and let someone else make the tea. She watched Dr. Brady move about the alcove of a kitchen. He was tall and lean, with a rangy look to him. Crinkle lines etched the corners of his eyes. Definitely a man who spent a good deal of time outdoors."

From Autumn's Gold: A Patchwork Autumn

Tomorrow, look for an excerpt from October Spell.