Serendipitious Finds

Sometimes you get little signs in life.  Mine was that I found a little book that includes "The Language of Flower" on Thursday at a Hastings bookstore.  It was only 50 cents. The book is A Bouquet of Flowers by Barbara Milo Ohrbach.  I've been working on Flower Language Compilation for fun and for research for my Secret Project, but I haven't worked on it for a week or so.  This was a sign to take it up again.  I have a few more public domain works I want to add to my Excel file before I am satisfied with my list.  I'll try to work on those this week.




Besides that bit of serendipity in book form, I also found The Indie Author Guide by April Hamilton.  (Not for 50 cents, but for $10.)  I've only just started looking through it, but it looks like it will be especially helpful when I do POD.

I love it when God sends good finds like this my way.  There were lots of other books I got there, including mostly 50 cent books, but these were the two finds I was most tickled with, but I'm sure the others will be unexpected sources of entertainment, research, or fiction fodder, too.

By the way, if you are interested in these books, please click on the links above if at all possible.  I'm an Amazon Affiliate and I get a little when people buy from my links.  Thanks!

You-Can-Do List

I love serendipity, God's little nudges in my life.  This one came about as I was looking for something to post about today, Wednesday, and I was coming up blank.  Then, I thought of Dan Miller and I remembered how inspirational his books where.  Not only is his work uplifting, it actually inspires me.  In fact, after reading his No More Mondays book I had some out of the box thinking in regards to marketing in the like, back when I wanted to be a freelance nonfiction writer.  But I couldn't find my notes. 

So, I went online to his blog, to see if he had anything that might prompt me there.  And I found this post on excuses.  It worked like a shot of optimism, but still, no go on the post.  Back to the book.

I was flipping through it, looking for an index, and found in the back a recommendation list.  On this was a book whose name sounded familiar.  Lo and behold, in my 61 Mile Yard Sale Finds pile, I found it, The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz, Ph.D.

Flipping through Thinking Big, I found a cute chapter entitled "Vaccinate Yourself Against Excusitis, the Failure Disease."  And as I began to take notes on it, I discovered I suffered from it.  Pretty badly.  Then I read this:

"Had I been drilled a little more in why a small business can succeed, I'd be better off in every way today." (Schwartz 35)

This is me to a tee.  I'm a born-again optimist, but it is a struggle to get out of the swamp of negativity I surround myself in.  But that passage really struck home.  Why?

Because I rephrased it as:

Focus on why something can succeed, not why something can't.

Then I thought to myself, I know why I can't succeed as a self-published writer, but what about the reasons why I can?

And when I first asked that, I drew a blank.  It was so easy to come up with reasons why it wouldn't work, not so easy to come up reasons why it can work.  Like the book says, I'm using my intelligence in the wrong way. 

So, I asked myself again, and I came up with a tentative list.  It's a start, but sometimes that is all you need.

So, what about you?  What are the reasons why you can self-publish?

Cites:  Schwartz, David J. The Magic of Thinking Big. 1959. New York: Fireside, 1987. Print.

Dean Wesley Smith's Creative Self-Publishing Experiment: Book Cards

Dean Wesley Smith has a neat concept for those doing self-published ebooks--a book card.  This book card includes a cover, back cover blurb, snippet, and a gift-card like piece inside (which includes a download code).  He mentioned the idea earlier on his blog, but I think this is the first time he actually did it, and he posted results too.  I find the whole concept innovative and well worth watching to see how it develops, because I really think creativity like this is going to be important to success of self-published ebooks, and maybe even ebooks in general.

Update: The One Who Sees

Due to unfortunate circumstances, The One Who Sees will not be published with Drollerie Press.  Yesterday, I had to email them about cancelling the contract I have with them.  I believe in signs, the novelette wasn't going to be ready to publish by its two year anniversary of acceptance/contract signing, and so I think God was telling me to move on.  I'm going to give it a week, and if I don't hear back, I'll try another contact at the publishers.  But I hope to make this my first self-published work.  In fact, I would like to try an experiment and post it for free on my blog while I work on getting it uploaded, and then leave it up for a while in celebration of my first successful upload.  My goal date?  My birthday, Sept 25.  Keep your fingers crossed.

A Bigger Challenge

Someone once said, "Preach the Gospel at all times; when necessary, use words."    Another person said, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."  What do these two quotes, by St. Francis of Assisi ¹  and Mahatma Ghandi, respectively, have to do with writing?  Well, they speak to me of an important lesson:  to learn or teach something, it's best to first do the darn thing yourself, and then show it.  In my case, if I want to be a self-published author, it is best to actually do it.  Learn--and share--by doing.

Another inspiration came from Kim Lavine's Mommy Millionaire book.  She started her own business, became a success, and wrote down in exacting and engaging detail what happened to her and what she learned.  I have never quite seen a book like hers before, and though it is not about a writing-related business, I cannot recommend this book enough.

Because of her inspiration, and the quotes above, I decided to do the same for  . . .  da da dum . . . The Great Writing Experiment:  Self-Publishing an Ebook (for Better or Worse).  The very idea excites me--and scares the dickens out of me.  But why should that stop me if I really wanna do it?  Besides I think turning it into a blogged project is the very kick in the shorts (hate pants) that I need to get moving.

So today, I started the Project.  Tomorrow?  Hopefully, I don't chicken out ;-)  But we'll see what's what then.




=========
Footnotes:

¹ Some people say that St. Francis didn't in fact say this or do this.  But at this point, I care more about the quote and its meaning than who said what.

(This blog post took me 35 minutes to create, from conception to posting)