E-Book Availability

CHANGE IS A'COMIN'!

I'm in the process of releasing my books in other e-formats besides for Kindle. If you obtain books through Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, or Scribd, you should see my stories releasing with those vendors over the next several months.

New releases will be Amazon-only for the first 3-6 months and then put out on other vendors after that period of time.

Currently available on other vendors (click on the title to go to a page with links to various sites):

Contemporary
Promises (long novel - prequel #1 to the Donovan Legacy series)
Beyond Hope (novella - prequel #2 to the Donovan Legacy series)
The Blind Date (short-short story - prequel to In God's Time)
In God's Time (long novel)
Truth (long novel - Donovan Legacy series book #1)

Fantasy
Curse of the Talmara (long novel)
Shadows (short novel - Otherworlder book 1 - available for pre-order now, releases Oct. 24th)

Non-Fiction
Patchwork Baby Blanket (crochet pattern)

MORE COMING SOON

Memes and More Memes - Part 2

Last week, I shared the memes I recently created for Promises.  This week, they're for Beyond Hope, a novella that takes place 21 years after Promises.

A Story of Hope, Forgiveness and Restored Faith in God.

Terry is beyond hope. Or so she believes.

Disabled by an injury and dismissed by the medical profession, she has become a burden to her family. Or so she thinks.

Her husband carries responsibilities that once were hers. Her grown sons no longer need her. Her 13-year-old daughter walks in shoes she shouldn't need to. All Terry can do is pray it will finally end, but God doesn't seem to be listening.

Then she receives an unexpected answer to prayer....

Photo by the author

Photo by "beglib" of morguefile.com

Photo by the author

Next week, I'll share the memes for Truth, the story of Wes and Terry's daughter, Missy.

I SO Wanted to Scream...

Yep. Just like that. I SO understand.
Photo courtesy of slowpoke on morguefile.com

But I restrained myself. Barely. Doesn't mean I wasn't doing a lot of grumbling, not to mention outright declaring MS Word an idiot though.  *G*

Took me nearly 24 hours of working, re-working and re-working yet again, but I finally got "Beyond Hope" properly formatted so it uploaded to Smashwords and worked properly. So, as of Wednesday, December 5th, "Beyond Hope" is now available in all e-book formats as well as paperback.

What took so long, you might ask?

Well, I'll tell you.

Smashwords has a very long, very detailed document ("Style Guide" I believe is what they call it) that explains all the things you need to do to make sure the document format for your book is correct for uploading so it converts to the various e-book formats properly. The step that ended up trying to hang me was the "Normal" versus other paragraph formats.

Smashwords warns that if the "Normal" paragraph style is different from what you overwrite it with (such as highlighting text and changing it to TNR-13), the hidden "Normal" settings may rear their ugly little heads when the file is converted for e-book purposes.

Ain't it the truth!

I was at a loss to understand why I had text popping back and forth between Times New Roman and Arial fonts, as well as appearing in different sizes. I checked everything I could think of, but nada. I finally gave up and went to bed that night.

I woke up the next morning with the answer. Sort of. I tried reformatting the entire document in case I'd missed something before. (Which incidentally is how I started this whole fiasco anyway, so I couldn't have missed anything. But you never know.) Tried uploading again and checked the format of the EPUB file. Doh! Still not fixed. In fact, not a single thing had changed. Argh!

Just as I was ready to give up and call in more knowledgeable reinforcements, it hit me. Of course! Check the base format of the "Normal" paragraph style. Ha ha! Got you!

Unbeknownst to me, and Lord alone knows when or how it happened, the "Normal" paragraph style had gotten changed in my version of MS Word. It was no longer Times New Roman, 12 point. It had shifted to Arial, 12 point.

I fixed that then highlighted the affected text in chapter 1 and selected "Normal" style. Viola! Once I knew for sure chapter 1 was fixed, I fixed the remaining chapters scene by scene (so I didn't have to redo the formats for chapter headings and scene breaks). Now, I was coasting.

Uploaded the new file and checked the EPUB. Doh! Then the entire text of chapter 1 was a smaller font than the entire rest of the book!  How in the world did that happen? I have no clue. So I highlighted the text of chapter 1, hit "Normal" again, and prayed it worked.

And it did! Yes! So, "Beyond Hope" is now available online in ALL e-book formats. Woohoo! (UPDATE 02/06/2015 - e-books for Beyond Hope has been removed from Smashwords and Barnes & Noble. It is currently only available for Kindle.)

Amazing what happens when those hidden things are revealed.

And you know what? It occurred to me there's a spiritual lesson in that. How often do we have "hidden things" in our lives that don't appear in one context (such as a paperback novel) but are revealed in a HUGE way in another (such as an EPUB file)? We try to deal with the outward signs (like those wonky font and text size changes) without actually getting to the root of the problem (like the base format of the "Normal" paragraph style). Until we deal with the root cause of the problem, we end up getting annoyed and frustrated like I did. I've been there, and I'm not just talking about writing.

Hm. God really can use anything to teach us, can't He?

So what kind of frustrations have you faced lately that God has used to teach you something? It could be something new or something He just revealed in a different light. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Trials (and Errors) of Self-Publication

I've just completed the process of self-publishing a fiction novella, and I'm currently working on the last leg of the same journey with a non-fiction book. I've learned two important things.

First, it's way easier than you probably expect as long as you keep one thing in mind. NOTHING goes into a self-pub book unless you put it there. That nifty paragraph in the front of books that declares it a work of fiction so any similarity to real people and such is not intended? And that paragraph telling people they can't utilize any part of that work without your written permission? Neither are there unless you put them there. And page numbers? Don't forget to number those pages before you upload the document. The companies don't do it for you. Trust me. I found out the hard way. he he

So ASSUME NOTHING. Don't assume they'll fill in any information. Chances are good they won't. If you want anything to show up in your book, whether it's a dedication, acknowledgements or those legal statements on the copyright page, put them in there yourself. That includes that lovely copyright info, BTW.

Second, it takes time to complete the process from start to finish. Be patient. I'm not talking about the writing and editing itself. Lord knows that takes LOTS of time. I'm referring to the actual publication process. Once the editing is done and your project is uploaded, you'll have a "review" to wait for. Then you'll be told your proof is ready to evaluate. Do yourself a favor, buy a hard copy of the PROOF and look at it closely. I was horrified by the number of simple things I missed perusing the document countless times on a computer screen. Others had missed those same things, too, so I didn't feel too bad. Thankfully, I bought a proof. Whew! Errors found. Corrections made. After uploading the corrected file, it was back to waiting for the review process again.

From start (uploading the first copy) to finish (approving the proof for distribution) took about 2 weeks (the proof copy took about a week to arrive in the mail), and that was for the paperback book.  We won't even discuss the Kindle version I submitted for review but forgot to tell them the author's name. Doh!

And don't forget to laugh at oversights like forgetting to put your name on your work or neglecting to number the pages of your project because you erroneously assume they'll do that for you. We all need a good laugh, and if we can't laugh at our flubs, we're probably taking ourselves way too seriously. It's not worth the stress. It'll come together eventually.

Oh, and if you're interested in what I just did, it's available through Amazon and Create Space, soon to be available elsewhere. Beyond Hope by Dawn M. Turner. Check it out!

Terry is beyond hope. Or so she believes. Disabled by an injury and dismissed by the medical profession, she has become a burden to her family. Or so she thinks. Her husband carries responsibilities that once were hers. Her grown sons no longer need her. Her 13-year-old daughter walks in shoes she shouldn't need to. All Terry can do is pray it will finally end, but God doesn't seem to be listening.

Then she receives an unexpected answer to prayer....