Deborah Woehr

“Every step I take brings me closer to the realization of my dreams.” Judi Moreno, author of You Are More Than Enough Dream Journal

As 2006 came to a close, I set one goal for myself: to finish that book. While I didn’t write that goal down, I kept it planted firmly inside my head until I bought the ISBN and hit “approve” for that book. About a month or so ago, I began giving some serious thoughts about my achievements for this year. I decided to write down a To-Do list of the things I wanted to achieve this year, knowing that this list would change before 2007 ended. Here’s my original list.

1. Master Photoshop and InDesign
2. Master copywriting
3. Build a strong portfolio
4. Experiment with screenplays
5. Experiment with Revolution programming
6. Start a new book??

Not bad for a rough draft, but I thought it needed some fine tuning and a realistic mindset. While I would love to accomplish everything on this list, I have to take in consideration that I have a full-time job and a family to take care of. I asked myself what are the most important goals I want to achieve this year.

1. Sell at least 50 copies of Prosperity via friends, family, the virtual blog tour, etc. Deadline: December 2008
2. Gain a strong working knowledge of Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, and Corel Painter X by June 30.
3. Build a strong portfolio, containing illustrations, book cover designs, and book interior designs by June 30.
4. Build a solid outline for my new book (which I started writing) by April 30.
5. Practice writing web copy, each day for one hour, starting January 1.
6. Practice writing focused, high-quality articles, each day for one hour, starting January 1.

Compared to the rough, this list is more organized. Setting deadlines for myself also helps me because I tend to either procrastinate or veer off in another direction, should something catch my eye. Each of these steps was set to help me reach my ultimate goal: to become a full-time freelance writer/designer.

I’ve spent the last week drooling over the latest upgrade, agonizing over the price and whether or not I should buy it, and doing some research. This research involved reading review articles on sites such as MacWorld and various blogs. Most importantly, I wanted to find out how CS3 measured up to endusers. Some had horrific experiences with the installation (many were PC users) while others commented on the faster speed of Photoshop.

I downloaded the trial version of Dreamweaver, which is included in the Premium upgrade and came away both impressed and overwhelmed. Fortunately, Adobe offers some great video tutorials that covers all of the CS3 programs. After watching the video tutorials for InDesign CS3, I definitely want to upgrade from my CS version. Creating things like indexes and a Table of Contents were a pain in CS, but are a snap in CS3. I love the new layout of the interface and the fact that I can import and export files from InDesign to Photoshop to Illustrator with a simple keyboard command. This is a huge upgrade from what I was using and one that I hope will produce stellar results for my books.

As for Dreamweaver, again I found it very overwhelming. I’d love to design static webpages for my husband’s site (which I have to start all over because he let the domain expire) and my home page. I’d love to design themes for my blogs that are compatible with every browser. But I have to be realistic with my goals and skills. Crunching out web code is not appealing. So, I guess I’ve made my decision.

Last weekend, I found myself immersed in editing, rewriting and writing. I edited almost two chapters for Prosperity. The writing “groove” followed me into the week, onto other projects, such as the Lulu blog. I’ll be posting on that site once or twice a week. I had planned to post another article last night, when problems with The Writers Buzz sprang up.

The short version of this story is that I can no longer post book excerpts or much of anything. I’m not sure what happened and am working on getting this problem resolved. I tried upgrading from 2.0 to 2.1.3, which turned out to be a disaster because the MySQL database wouldn’t accept my backup. The same thing happened with WBA, and you all know what happened to that.

I’m not going to let The Writers Buzz die, but I’m giving serious thought into switching to a new CMS. Knowing the headaches I’ve faced with other programs, I’m going to think long and hard about this before I make my final decision.

Update: The problem turned out to be the code written in the mod_security that tripped everything up. My host fixed the code, and now I can post again.

My mind and fingers have been itching to start editing that manuscript since I typed “The End” on Sunday. Last night felt like a mild version of nicotine withdrawals. I know of at least two scenes that I need to revamp or get rid of entirely. It seems that I take a perverse pleasure in the editing process.

At any rate, I wasn’t expecting my manuscript to arrive from Lulu until after Christmas. But I guess they decided to expedite it. I decided to publish my draft in the coil-bound format for two reasons:

1. To see what my cover would look like.
2. To check out the quality of the spiral bound because I’m thinking of using this format for how-to books. More on that next year.

Before I converted the file to the PDF, I added two pages at the end of each chapter to give myself some space for comments/revision notes. That didn’t work out because I’d completely forgotten about the page formatting. I have blank pages at the end of some chapters and none at others. Oh, well.

The cover turned out nicely, except for the smudges. Marti Lawrence had warned me about this, so I wasn’t surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised. Lulu has implemented a new UV coating which is supposed to help make the covers last longer. The downside is that you have to wear gloves in order to handle the book.

Customers who order the book inside North America will have to deal with this problem, while International customers get their books printed from Lightning Source, which still uses the old cover process.

I’ve decided that I’m not going to obsess over this, at least right now. Hopefully, Lulu will improve this situation by the time I’m ready to publish this book next year. In the meantime, I need to worry about polishing it to the best of my ability before I start shopping around for an editor.

This novel is by no means finished, but I’ve finally completed what I consider to be the final draft. Now all I have to do is polish the darned thing before submitting it to a professional editor. If there was anything I learned from compiling and editing the anthology is that I will never catch every mistake in this manuscript.

For now, I’m going to set this tome aside for what I call a “breather period.” Then I’ll start tackling the editing process in February.

In the meantime, I need to write up a synopsis (ick!) and a marketing plan. I’ve decided to self-publish Prosperity simply because there isn’t a huge market for ghost stories. Am I being a realist or a defeatist? I’m not sure.

All I’m sure of is that my goals have changed since I first started writing this novel back in 1997. I no longer obsess over getting traditionally published or making the bestseller list. Those things don’t matter to me anymore. I just want my stories to be read and enjoyed.

Not only did I reach my 90K goal yesterday, but I came to the most critical part of Prosperity at around 8pm last night. I was on such a roll yesterday that I wanted to continue until I typed “The End.”

Both kids were gone, but the hubby was home and wanting my company. It’s rare that we have an evening alone together. By this point, I’d spent 12 hours at the computer and the wordflow was beginning to suffer. So I gave in.

Today, I’m not going to get much done because I have a CubScout function to go to in an hour. So that pretty much shoots down getting anything significant done today. My next goal is to push myself this week and get this manuscript finished by the weekend.

I was telling my husband last night that I want to be done with this novel. I have some other projects that are sitting in the sidelines until this one is finished. More about that later.

Trying to target an audience for the anthology proved to be difficult due to the multiple genres in this collection. If I had to do it all over again, I would have narrowed the anthology’s focus to fiction or nonfiction. Then I would have narrowed that down to a specific genre.

That said, I’ve narrowed the anthology’s marketing field to two possible audiences: writers who haven’t started a blog and are looking to promote their books online, and the public/private education system. I’m finding that I still have to tell people what a blog is because, despite all the media attention blogs have received over the past two years.

The challenge I face is educating the general public what a blog is and how they will benefit from reading blogs about their favorite subjects. I’ve chosen two possible markets for the anthology.

1. English teachers and their students, ranging from junior high age on up to college. I’ve read several posts from writers who have said how blogging has improved their writing and research skills. I’m going to approach my oldest son’s english teacher to see if she would be interested in having me come to class for a presentation.

2. Writers. I’m looking for writers who may or may not have heard of blogging. Although I’ve found many net-savvy writers in my surfing travels, I’m still reading about how many writers don’t have a website, much less a blog. I plan on reaching this audience through writer’s magazines via informative articles about blogging and (possibly) blogger profiles in different writing genres.

When I first signed up for a Lulu account last year, the price for an individual ISBN was around $35.00. At the time (if I remember correctly), you had to submit your book to the online retailers. They’ve since done away with that and charge you $100 for their Global Distribution service, where Lulu assigns an ISBN for your book and distributes the books to every major online retailer.

The screen below shows what stage your project is in. Check out the ISBN column. The “mock book” is now ready for the Global Distribution service. Click on that and follow their directions. Lulu requires that you buy another proof to make sure everything was formatted correctly before you approve your book for the ISBN number. If you don’t, and you find mistakes, they will charge you a hefty fee to make the corrections.

Once your second proof arrives, check it out again. You’ll need to add the ISBN number to the copyright page, which means that you’ll have to reassign the ISBN number. See How do I make changes before approving my book? Then they’ll prompt you to order a third proof.

I tried to get around this but they wouldn’t let me. If the only change you needed to make was entering your ISBN number on the copyright page, then go ahead and approve the ISBN number after you order the proof. After you do that, you’ll be taken to Global Distribution: Approve Book page, where you’ll be given these links:

* Distribution FAQ
* How do I update my book’s listing with online retailers?
* How do I upload my book cover to online retailers?
* How do I make changes after approving my book?

Open a new window and click on your Projects tab. Your ISBN number should be displayed next to your book’s listing. Another option Lulu has is the Google Book Search. Enable that, if you want. Then you’re done. It takes approximately 6 weeks for the distribution service to kick in and around 8 weeks for your book to get listed on Google.

That about wraps it up for this tutorial. Best wishes for your book’s success!

Once you click the publish button, you’ll be taken to a new window that gives you the option to market your book (using Lulu’s free and paid resources), view and/or customize your book’s preview, and buy a copy of your book. I suggest you buy a copy of your book before you make it available to the public.

Once it arrives, check the quality of the cover as well as the pages. Now is a great time to check for any typos that you may have missed. If everything looks good, you’re ready to assign an ISBN to your book.

The pricing screen automatically calculates how much your book will cost and how much of a cut Lulu will receive, based on the royalty amount you enter. With the “mock” novel, I experimented with the royalty, entering $5.00. That shot the book’s price up to $21.95. Here is a more realistic figure:

Print cost: $12.43
Download (ebook): $1.25
Your Royalty: $1.00

Pricing your book is the most trickiest aspect of self-publishing. You have to know what your audience is willing to pay. I’ve bought POD books in the past and wouldn’t pay more than $16.00 for a 6×9 paperback novel. I checked out the price on a book that was published by Del Rey. Their pricing was $13.95 for this book size.

Before you click “Complete Publish,” make sure your pricing is set at a reasonable rate and you have your license set (see the bottom of the pricing screen).