back to basics

Hello to all!

Okay, we've left the path on a couple of occasions recently. And this is not a problem. After all, if you want to involve people in your blog, then you have to share bits and pieces completely out of the box from time to time. this makes them feel you are real and not a machine spitting out facts and figures all the time. :)

But ALWAYS come back to your original topic soon. Don't keep wandering off on your own tangent, especially if you plan to make some money from your blog. Do that, sure, but keep the main idea in mind. Even better, try to link it to your personal happenings or events.

Right, so back to starting a blog. Or doing some writing. Maybe even publishing(gasp! shock!) something that may make you some money.

Let me deviate a little( yeah, again!). I've been looking for some ebooks that can help people who have a book or a long article ready to publish, but are terrified to approach Amazon and the Kindle. Well, there are other places that you can try. I looked at one yesterday and I don't mind the look of it at all. Have any of you heard of or looked at something called Smashwords.com?

If you haven't, then I strongly suggest you take a  look at it. It is not so complicated as the kindle to start with, and another thing that interests me is you can publish something that has lower words than the Kindle likes. I saw one one there that only had 880 words. 880 words? Do you honestly say that some people paid for THAT? No, I did not. It was free. But it was there. That's what I am trying to say.

The reason I point out this point is that a dear mentor of mine always said you do not have to have a set amount of words to ePublish. Say what you want to say as concisely and interestingly as possible, tidy it up, add an introduction(not too long) or a table of contents(always a good idea) and a conclusion and that is it. Of course you need to have enough to ensure that people who are thinking of reading the eBook/ article can download/ read a snippet without grabbing a heap of your TOC or your dedications( actually, another point my mentor makes is: Put all but your TOC at the back of your book, so they do not annoy people who are interested in your information. Dedications, author bio, any of that can go there, instead of perhaps boring the life out of your readers. Even put your request for reviews there. Having put that at the back when your reader has just finished the book, they may be inclined to give you a review then and there, instead of maybe bookmarking it and forgetting totally.

I digress, helpfully, I hope. Back to Smashwords.com. There are 3 books by Mark Coker the founder, that you can download for free that explain about Smashwords and what it can do for you. Yes, I said FREE. I've been greedy and downloaded all 3 of them, in order to read them in sequence. so far, what I have read has been good and very helpful. I've been probably like a lot of you and bought and downloaded a pile of How-To books about getting my books on Kindle. Guess what? I've decided I'll get a very nice young man to edit and publish my book for me after all! It may not be cheaper, but at least I will not have to face that paralysing fear that has grabbed me every time I look at my Kindle account :).

Of course, you may be more courageous than I am, or probably ever am going to be. But I do urge you to just take a quick look at Smashwords.com. It really is worth it, and I said a while ago that I was not going to recommend something that I hadn't read/reviewed/tried. :)