Book Baby? KindleDirect? Promotion?

Now that our congress has cut off the unemployment benefits I fear I might have to return to the cube farm.

Panic sets in.

I remember the cube cage and how grey and ugly it could be. Day after day dragging my ass to work, that sinking feeling in my heart as the car drew closer and closer. Bracing myself mentally to enter that moldy old building and then sinking into a cube and feeling the creativity cells in my brain shrink back in horror. I fear the cube. New Jersey has one of the highest unemployment rates in the county. Even getting back in  a cube might be hard to do. Retail? Yuk! Truthfully, I've never had a job I loved. Only ones i could stand more than others.

So I've got some stuff ready for Constant Content, will be sending again to the Trues (although their payments are slow, its like an account for the future), and I've signed up for Demand Studios again. Also looking at random freelance jobs. It's a little scary but now I have to see if I'm more afraid of the cube, or putting myself out there to freelance.

I'm also ready to open up an Etsy account. I never really felt my art was anything more than therapy, but in searching Etsy for abstract paintings....I figured what the hell. I'm better than some but no where near others. Maybe I can land in the middle.  I'll have that shop opened in January. Its doubtful it will return any great amount but between that and the Cafe Press T-shirt shop, I might get gas money.

Now that classes are over I have to decide where to go and what to do. Another class? Finish the half finished degree in English? Maybe switch it to Creative Writing... its almost the same thing, right?  If I sign up for day classes am I going to have to drop them if I get a job?

An email from Book Baby popped into my email box and after looking over the site I wonder if I'd sell more books by using them? I still have to research the facts there, but it might be a possibility if it will sell more books. Anyone use Book Baby???  Use any other book promotion businesses?

The times they are a changin'......

Check out pre://do.o.mai.n for a great new read!

Need a good read?

Check out Christopher's Godsoe's new book:

pre://do.o.mai.n

Twenty-two year old Miles Torvalds doesn't need to cure cancer to save his mother's life, he just needs to find a way to steal one and a half million dollars to pay for it.

In 2037, cancer isn't an automatic death sentence if you can come up with the cash, but what is certain is that Miles will spend the rest of his life in prison if he's caught.

A chance encounter with an old flame introduces him to an enigmatic man named Atlas, and he just may be the answer to Miles' prayers. Out of options, Miles accepts his offer of assistance, and Atlas promptly delivers a powerful tool-DJINN, an artificial intelligence crafted by the hacker collective Anonymous before the turn of the millennium.

To a sexually frustrated loner like Miles, the fact that they designed her as a flirtatious twenty-something only complicates matters. Together they will weave their way through the augmented reality darknet while eluding Tobin Maldovan, a former Black Ops operative and the FBI's newest agent in the war on cyber crime, to save his mother.

Miles will learn that in a future where appearances are often misleading, trusting yourself is the only hope you have.

Happy reading!

Writing Jobs and Nokbok?

In searching the web for writing jobs I found Nokbok, a site where people put their books/stories and take a 60% cut each time someone reads their work. Pretty good cut but how much will they sell for? And in this world of Kindle and Nook how many will pay for this? Are the books downloadable? Or read online?
Not sure how I feel about this. . . I need to research more. Could be a possibility.
How is this different from Amazon?
Would it be a good place to put those shorter stories that I'm not sure will fly on Amazon?

Then there's Amazon's KDP. I've been on it and I've been off it. I don't sell a lot of books anyway so I'm no judge of the program. Do you KDP? Was it worth it?

I see a lot of freelance jobs floating around and hesitate right now due to unemployment. New Jersey has weird unemployment rules and its real easy to lose it. If I apply for a freelance job getting paid is always the hard part. I've done some of it and have seen #$%*&% people punk out on payment. Like in painting works of art the money is great one day and not so good the next. Its hard to count on it. Is it worth chancing losing unemployment for? I mean, there are bills to be paid and NJ has some of the highest unemployment in the country. Scary high right now.

I'm pushing through the nano and part two of Blood Aversionsnow named Blood Conflicts. The nano isn't exciting me yet so I guess I need to let something shocking happen. Murder, mayhem, angels and demons.....here they come.

See you in the pages...

Life Unexpected

Still trying to Nano and keep up with other writing. Attempting to find a place to sell my artwork and thinking about an Esty shop for that stuff. (Anyone have any luck with Esty?) And then there's life stuff that totally sends my brain into the nowhere-zone. A place where the thought processes are stalled and creativity won't flow.
:(
My brother passed away two weeks ago. Although he had been sick for awhile, we thought he was moving toward recovery and then bam! A downhill spiral and he's gone. Just like that, sudden but not really so sudden. Just unexpected.

Some people channel their hurt and pain into their art and writing and produce great stuff. I think Poe did this in his poetry. His pain is musical in Annabel Lee and we feel the sorrow in his soul. I'm having trouble doing that. I think it's some strange magical gift that you can push your pain out in your art. Me? I hide in pain.

. I think it's something I have to let work itself out. I write best in happiness. I paint in frustration.

Pushing though Nano is hard, but is it worth it? Will something good come of it?

I think the soul knows when it's going to leave. I believe its planned out before we come and can be changed at any time. I mean, we are our souls after all, right? Did this soul come, do what needed to be done and then by some other-worldly knowledge know it was time to move on?

My Nano is based on a writer who wrote a book about a curse. When a man shows up at her door asking for her help because he's a victim of the curse she's frightened. The curse was just something she made up so she knows she can't help this man. Is he really a victim of a curse or just some crazy fan?

Oh great spirit of the Nano....where are you when I need you?

What do you do when you can't write?

Nano November Challenge

Everyone loves a good challenge! Especially at that time of year when the holidays are approaching and life is getting busier. I mean what's a little more stress in a stressful season?

So what do I do???

Accept the challenge, of course!  I'm taking a fiction writing course in hopes of improving my skills and the professor issued the challenge. Instead of turning in whatever the assignment of the week is, we can turn in a few pages of our Nano. Sounded like a good deal to me.

To make it even more fun I'm going to take the Hero's Journey the prof gave us and outline the story right there on the papers.

I've heard that Faulkner sometimes outlined his work on the walls of his home. I so want to do that! To see all your notes all over the walls would be inspiring. Of course, my dh doesn't understand these needs. He's patient enough with the mural of Diamond Head and parrots I painted on the wall in the spare room and that tiger I painted on the wall in one of the bedrooms. I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't push my luck.

So? Are you Nano-ing? Have you ever? If so, how did it go? Great American novel or another 500 page paperweight for the edge of your desk?







Unfinished...do not judge. Perhaps I needs a Nano for painting...

Can't Stop Painting...

Old Chairs blooms again!

Old Table now strutting it's stuff!

Old kid chairs Out of this world

Old bar stool Roars to life!

Chance Video Final

Writing Time...where did you go????

My writing has slacked way off and I'm sad to say I let other priorities get in the way. I'm unemployed at the moment and the books and short story I have up on Amazon aren't generating enough to buy me a new pair of Cowboy boots. So when I heard about an artist consortium starting one town over I took my paint brushes and went over to say hey.
This place, Artfully Repurposed, is all about artists taking old worn out stuff and recreating it into useful household items or works of art. One of the best things; I get to paint of on stuff. Something I always loved to do. Chairs, rocks, feathers, boxes, old benches, if its not moving, I'll paint pictures on it. The way this place works is they sell, artists get a cut.
Yeah, i can do this and maybe make some bucks. It would take time to get this new store up and running and draw customers in, I figure there's some potential here.
So I was dividing my time between writing and painting. Then the Art shop decided it was going to do a show and therein lied my dilemma. Write or paint like crazy to get more of my stuff entered in the show?

These are just a few thing I painted. The show was fun and after all the work I sold an owl rock. Disappointed?
Eh. Not really. I've sold enough of my artwork to know its a hot & cold business. In the art world you're either rolling in it or scraping by. Its the reason I ended up with a boring, mind draining, office job.

Now I need to get back to writing. Schedule writing time in like I did before. My only problem....the paint brushes are in there on my bench...calling to me...

Plotting a Great Story

\

They say every great story follows the same plot line. When I see a new movie there's something inside me that makes me compare it to the basic Star Wars Synopsis. I've seen this done with The Wizard of Oz, Back to the Future and other really popular movies. 

Too bad I don't consider this when writing my own books. I always see it after the fact. Then I'm too tired of the story (writing and rewriting, editing and reediting) that I just move on. Usually I have more than one book going at a time and that's my worst habit. 

Today I painted rocks all day. Tomorrow I shall write! 

(I do have that vampire to torture. It's time for her call to adventure. )

Paperback Worth $30...??? What is this?

In checking my numbers on Amazon, I look at my book, Soul Mates and find a used paperback for sale for $30. Really? I list the paperback for $5.39 and there haven't been a lot of sales. So where did anyone get 3 used paperbacks to sell for the ridicules amount of $30. I smell a scam and wonder if I should report this to Amazon?

Anyone ever seen this before?  What's going on here?