#IWSGbloghop Controversial Topics in Your Writing?

 

Hello and Welcome to the Focused on Story Blog 
AND the Insecure Writers Support Group Blog Hop

Always on the first Wednesday of the month.

#IWSGbloghop

Happy IWSG Blog Hop Day and Happy Springtime!

What is the Insecure Writer's Support Group?

Founded by author Alex J. Cavanaugh, the Insecure Writer’s Support Group offers support for writers and authors alike. It provides an online database, articles and tips, a monthly blog posting, a Facebook and Instagram group, Twitter, and a monthly newsletter. To find out more, click this link:  Insecure Writer’s Support Group

The purpose of the group is 

* to share and encourage. 

* Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. 

* Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. 

*It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds! 

You're invited to become a member of this supportive group. Click here to sign-up and join.

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April 7 question - Are you a risk-taker when writing? Do you try something radically different in style/POV/etc. or add controversial topics to your work?

I don't do anything "radically" different in my mysteries, but I do like to set the locations (funeral home) and characters (the daughter of a funeral director)in peculiar places. LOL. 

When I wrote my memoir, I touched on the debate between working

Arranging a Dream: A Memoir

moms vs stay-at-home moms. How does this affect a child? How does juggling a job and a home affect the mother?  In the 70s, the discussion could get pretty heated. Nowadays, lots of moms work from home.  

I also mentioned in the 70s, AT&T had to hire minority and female workers to meet a quota set by the government in order to win contracts. My husband, a white male, decided to quit working at the company because he saw no future for him. That was the situation that spurred us on to pursue our dream of becoming entrepreneurs by owning and operating a greenhouse. The flower shop was not a dream but came with the business. 50 years later we are still trying to figure out how to achieve equality and diversity.

I look forward to reading your comments below and answers in your blogs.

Click here to visit the participants in today's blog hop.

Thank you for stopping in today!

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WRITING UPDATES:

Last month I asked for some book titles for the update on my MG non-fiction book for girls, Girls Succeed! I appreciate everyone who suggested a title.

Click here for last month's blog post. 

When I asked for advice on whether I should create a new book with a new title, the Draft2Digital rep suggested I upload the new file to my existing page rather than make it a new book. They don't do second editions. So I uploaded yesterday after working out a few quirks with the ms. 

So, I did not change the name of the book. Do you think I should add a note in my book description about the updates and new content?

Have you published second editions for your books or published an "older" book under a new title? 

Please leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thank you!!

Here's the new book cover. 

Girls Succeed! Stories Behind the Careers of Successful Women
by J.Q. Rose
Pre-order and Book Launch Special Price--99 cents!!
Click here to pre-order from your favorite online bookseller. 
The official release day is April 14!!

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Do you know Smashwords is having a HALF-PRICE SALE THIS MONTH?

J.Q.'s Mysteries on Sale at Smashwords

My publisher has put the books from BWL Publishing on sale for half price. You can pick up my mysteries AND my new release, Arranging a Dream, for $1.49!! 

Click here to grab some wonderful reads while sitting on the beach or in the AC this summer!!!

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The Rose Courier

Stay in touch with updates from JQ--packed with articles, freebies and photos in the Rose Courier!

Click here to sign-up for delivery once a month.

Format an eBook for Publishing by J.Q. Rose, #Authortoolboxbloghop

#AuthorToolboxBlogHop

Hello and welcome to the Focused on Story Blog and to the Author Toolbox Blog Hop #AuthorToolboxBlogHop which meets every third Wednesday of the month to share resources and tips for authors. Thanks to Raimey Gallant for hosting this venture. 

Please join us to learn more about the craft of writing and to meet bloggers who are dedicated to helping each other become the best writers possible. Click here for the list of participants. Take a break and visit them. 

I will be away from the office this week so I can't visit hop participants, but I'll catch up when I can. 

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Format an eBook by J.Q. Rose

Format an eBook by J.Q. Rose
#Authortoolboxbloghop

Indie Publishing--If you want to publish your ebook to amazon, Kindle Create is a tool provided by amazon to build your eBook. I haven't used it, but I plan to with my next book! Click here for information on Kindle Create.

Smashwords offers the FREE Smashwords Style Guide to create, format and publish an ebook. Click here to get this helpful guide.

I have used Draft 2 Digital for my latest indie-published eBooks. Just download your ms file to the site and D2D does all the formatting for you. They're very helpful. I had a glitch with my Table of Contents and they explained what I had done and fixed the headings for me, so all I had to do was to download the file they sent me. What a relief! In 2011 when I downloaded a file to Smashwords, I spent hours and hours and days and days working on a TOC. Thank you, D2D! Click here for information about self-publishing with support from D2D.

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Traditional Publishing--Procedures for book publishing have changed so much since eBooks have come into our lives. Formatting the manuscript can be different for each publisher. The best advice is to read the guidelines from the publisher you plan to submit to and format EXACTLY how the publisher wants the ms. Your ms may not even get a look if it is not formatted according to their instructions.

If you would like templates for formatting your manuscripts, click here to download templates from the William Shunn site. This also provides a rounded word count. I haven't used them, but they are well-known in the industry.

Please leave a comment below letting us know about your experience in formatting and suggestions for other possible places for distribution of your books. Thanks!

Thanks for stopping by. 
Now hop on over to more bloggers to discover nuggets of information 
you can use in writing, publishing and marketing.
 Click here for the list of participants.

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About J.Q. Rose

Whether the story is fiction or non-fiction, J.Q. Rose is “focused on story.”  

Author J.Q. Rose

She offers readers chills, giggles and quirky characters woven within the pages of her mystery books. Her published mysteries are Deadly Undertaking, Terror on Sunshine Boulevard and Dangerous Sanctuary released by Books We Love Publishing. 

Using her storytelling skills, she provides entertainment and information in articles featured in books, magazines, newspapers, and online magazines. With her non-fiction book for girls, Girls Succeed! Stories Behind the Careers of Successful Women, she returned to her first love, writing about real people. 

Click here to visit and like the J.Q. Rose Facebook page.
Thank you!

Indie Publishing with Draft2Digital, Girls Succeed 99 cent Promotion

Hello and welcome to the Focused on Story Blog!

Girls Succeed! by J.Q. Rose
To inspire girls

Today I am sharing my story on distributing my ebook, Girls Succeed! Stories Behind the Careers of Successful Women, to readers.

I decided to offer my non-fiction book for Middle Grade girls to a wider audience, so I took it out of the exclusive amazon program KDP Select. I kept the book available at amazon, but uploaded it to a new-to-me distributor, Draft to Digital, also known as D2D. 

Now Girls Succeed! is available in many other online retailers including Apple, Nook, Kobo, Scribd, Indigo, and more. I also like having a Universal Link that allows a reader to click on it and see ALL the places where my ebook is available and not just as a Kindle format. Click here to see what I mean about the universal link.

When the e-book first came out in 2012, I placed it at amazon and Smashwords. I had a "hen" of a time getting SW to accept it because the formatting for the Table of Contents was incorrect. I spent hours and hours of time trying to get it right. I followed Mark Coker's guide book to the tee, I thought, and still had to do the ToC over and over. Finally it was accepted with no guidance from SW.

Later I took it out of SW and did the exclusive amazon plan because of the great opportunities for promotion. When I determined I may be missing many readers by having the amazon only association, I again uploaded my updated manuscript to SW. I received the bad news it wasn't accepted. When I checked the evaluation, there was a bunch of gibberish as to what was wrong. It was way over my head and I could only think about how much time and energy I had spent trying to fix it the first time.

I turned to D2D to see if I could get the ms accepted there. Then the dreaded message came back from D2D--"Apple has rejected Girls Succeed! Stories Behind the Careers of Successful Women." I felt like throwing up my hands and saying "fuhgetaboutit." But along with the message D2D who formats your manuscript for free, added this 

"Incomplete/Inaccurate iBooks-Generated Table of Contents

- Please provide a complete, accurate listing of all chapters or sections in the iBooks-generated table of contents.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Questions? They actually wanted me to ask questions? So I sent the listing of the chapters. Crystal from D2D answered me with this information about the ToC format.

Hello,

The reason it's rejected is that when you convert your book with our conversion tool, in order to create a proper ToC within the epub file (which is required by Apple) it has to read the one in your file. I see that you have your own linked Table of Contents (ToC) in the file. However, when you linked the file you did not link the entire list. Our conversion tool will look for the phrase or word Table of Contents or Contents.  Once it sees this it will consider every link after to be part of the ToC.  Once the conversion tool sees unlinked text it sees the list as being done and assumes that the rest is not related to the ToC in the file. 

In order to fix this you simply need to link the entire line for each entry instead of only a partial line or remove the unlinked text altogether. 

After a few more messages between Crystal and me, I sent her what I wanted the ToC to look like, not just Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, but to include the woman's name and her career in the title of the chapter about her. Crystal offered to format it for me. I asked what the charge would be and she said no charge. I would've hugged her if I could have!! 

Big hugs for Crystal of Draft 2 Digital

What a relief to have her do it for me. And she did! then sent the complete ms with the new formatting for the ToC to me so I could upload the corrected ebook file. Now when the reader clicks on the Universal Link, they can order a copy from Apple too!

So I must say, D2D's customer service is top rated in my estimation. And I want to add, all these messages flying back and forth between Crystal and me were done in just a few days. Crystal promptly responded with the solution each time.

If you are an indie publisher, what distributor do you use? Are you exclusively in amazon to use their promotions? Aren't I full of questions? Now you know how Crystal must've felt. LOL. 

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If you have the time or the curiosity, you're invited to pop on over to the Girls Succeed Blog. Click here to visit.

99 Cent Book promotion

With my new opportunities to offer the Girls Succeed book to a wider audience, I ran a 99 cent promotion Sept 28-October 9. Originally the ebook including a reader's guide sold for $3.99. I'll report on the success or non-success of that experience once I get all my info together.

BTW--the ebook is available now at $2.99 and you can take a look at it and even purchase it to inspire a girl in your life here. Or if you would consider leaving a review, I would be happy to send you the PDF copy of the book FREE!

Thank you for stopping by.