I finally began the process on the weekend to obtain my ITIN for use for self-publishing in order to avoid tax withholding.

Step #1
I sent a message to Smashwords to request a letter indicating my intention to self-publish.  i already received a confirmatory email indicating this letter will be sent to me in the mail.

Step #2
I headed down to my local passport Canada office yesterday, in order to apply for a certified copy of my passport, which will need to be sent to the IRS, along with the above letter, for the ITIN application.

For $45, I can get up to 3 copies.  I did choose to ask for three, just in case something is incorrect with my application when I finally send it in.  It will take two weeks to get the certified copies, and I am unsure how long it will take to get the letter from Smashwords.  But I am finally on my way to getting my ITIN!  Step #3 will be the last one – filling out the W-7 and sending everything to the IRS. I will update again at this point.

Well, it has apparently taken me a full month to get around to fixing my Smashwords errors, as listed on my Smashwords dashboard.  Finally, today I got the message that my book is in the Smashwords Premium Catalog!  It was a simple fix, but the past month has been very busy with family commitments, and unfortunately it took me a lot longer to fix the manuscript than I’d been hoping.

In my case, it was simply getting rid of all the information in the footer, which just happened to be page numbers.  I mean, of course an e-book doesn’t need page numbers.  Why didn’t I think of that sooner?!  Lol.

So….YES!  My book, Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch, is now available on Amazon, and Smashwords and KOBO and iTunes and Barnes and Noble…Pretty much everywhere!  So if you haven’t picked up your copy yet, do so now.  Here is a link to the new listing on Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/543362

There is a big announcement coming up this week regarding the second Black Depths Novel, called Broken Tide.  Check back in a couple of days to find out what it is…

Finally up on Smashwords!  Come back for updates soon!

Today I thought I’d talk about something I’m sure ever writer does: living your characters.  At least, I really hope all (or at least most) writer’s do this and I’m not – well – a little bit crazy.

I bought these boots a few months ago:

I wanted them for three years.  They are beautiful white Mukluks by Manitobah and they are so warm and cozy.  But part of the reason I wanted them was because of a certain character.  Her name’s Elloxa and she wears white fur and she lives in an epic fantasy world that I created.

It took me three years to be able to afford her boots, but I found gorgeous white mittens a number of years ago, which make me feel like this character every time I put them on.  Wearing white winter fashions isn’t the only thing I do to live my characters.  In Elloxa’s case, I think about her journey, and perhaps even pretend I’m on whenever I’m forced to go out in the freezing cold.  When I curl up in bed at night, sometimes I pretend I’m her, going to sleep in a cave, ice cat by my side.

In the case of Nessa, the main Character in my book, Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch, I’ve been known to hang out in the mall like I was 16 again, talk to the ocean in my head, and try to heat water with the power of my will (it has not worked yet).

I think it all just shows how much these characters are me, are a part of me, and live within me – at least until I get them on the page.

Which characters do you love to live, whether they’re yours, or someone else’s?

This is kind of a rant, so if you’re not in the mood, click “Next Blog” at the top of this page…

On the radio the other day, as I was driving my son to daycare, there was a song.  Not surprising since it was the radio.  It was early, I wasn’t really listening, but then, like nails on a blackboard, some lyrics struck out at me. 

Cheap perfume.

Is it just me? Am I an idiot?  Because I don’t feel there is one smell for cheap perfume.  I have no idea what this would smell like.  Also, I’m pretty sure I’ve smelt cheap perfumes that smell pretty darn good.  And make me sneeze less than the expensive ones.  So is this a good thing or a bad thing?

This is – for sure – the exact kind of writing all my books and courses and mentors have taught me to avoid.  So it just bugs me.

At least I didn’t read it in a book, because that think would have been dropped off at the book exchange bin immediately!  (And only because I would never burn a book!)

End Rant.

Well, the weekend has come and gone.  On Friday, the posting for my self-published novel Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch went up on GoodKindles.  At the top of the posting I included that I would be doing a Free Book promotion on Decemeber 6th and 7th, expecting this to generate more give aways than usual.  But as you can see from the chart below, this was not the case.  The first green spike shows the amount of give-aways from earlier in the month, when I did the promotion unassociated with any postings.  The second green spikes are the days advertised on GoodKindles.

In conclusion, it appears that GoodKindles didn’t do much to increase the success of a Kindle Free Book promotion and/or the effectiveness of Free Book promotions decrease the more often you do them. 

What I’m taking from this is that it’s no longer worth it for me to sell only on Kindle Select.  I’ve been exclusive now since the end of April 2014.  I think it’s time to branch out in the self-publishing world and try SmashWords.  First, though, I’ll have to wait for my Kindle Select time to expire.

Here’s a link to the post on GoodKindles for Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch:

http://www.goodkindles.net/2014/12/tales-of-redheaded-sea-witch-young.html

In connection with the posting, I’m doing a free ebook promotion with Kindle December 6th and 7th! Get your copy free while you can.

Happy Weekend All!

So I figured out what I did wrong with GoodKindles:  Unlike kBoards,  GoodKindles requires you to send your own right up of your book, and they request that it be different than the blurb already on Amazon.  Since I didn’t send that in with my payment, they were waiting on me.  Guess I should finishing reading the instructions….

This reminds me of an exercise we did in my grade four class.  The teacher handed out a surprise test.  Kids moaned, complained, tried to get out of it.  I took the paper, looked at the top, did a question, and then my eyes drifted back to the top.  It read:  Instructions:  1.  Read all instructions first.  2.  Use only pencil.  3.  Print all your answers.  4.  You do not have to do this test.

Yep.

Remember: instructions are important.  Especially in Self-Publishing marketing, apparently.

But, the good news is, the blurb for Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch should be up on GoodKindles tomorrow.  This is an except from the confirmation email I finally received:

     Hello,

     thank you very much. We have received your book submission. 
     It will be approved and will appear on Goodkindles in about 

Day 30 is here and I pulled in just over the line at 50,065 words!

See my fabulous bragging banner:

And just in case you haven’t had enough celebrating:

Today is the second day of my current kindle free book promotion.  Kindle markets the “free book promotion” as an excellent marketing tool for self-publishers.  But does it work?

This is my third round of “Free Book Promoting”, which means that I’ve been selling exclusively through Amazon Kindle, and have opted to be part of the Kindle Select program.  Every 90 days, you are allow up to 5 days of either free book promotion or Kindle countdown deals, or a combination thereof.  So far, I’ve chosen the free book promotion route mainly because I’m selling my book fairly cheaply already (currently listed for $2.99).  What I’ve seen, is quite a few downloads of the free book on day one, and less downloads as the promotion goes on.  After the promotion, I’ve seen a few extra sales (one to three), and maybe one or two borrows on the Kindle Select platform.

What this means:
This could mean a few things, the first being that my book just isn’t that popular, which well, let’s be honest, seems to be the case.  Though if you’ve read it and loved it, please share!
Or that the platform only works if you are doing intense marketing of your own, outside of the Kindle platform, such as blog posts, twitter posts, Facebook ads,  book reviews, etc.  Which mainly, I am not.

Most of what I’ve experienced with self-punishing is that there are few tools there to “help” market, but it still comes down to how much work the author is willing to do, and how much money you’re willing to shell out.

Speaking of which, I still haven’t heard anything from GoodKindles, to whom I paid $20 for a listing on their website.  I think it’s about time I checked into that…