More Updates

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Ruth Ann Nordin

1.  Still working on Her Heart’s Desire before I go back to The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife.

Since I’m doubling up on books I’m getting ready for publication, it’s taking me longer to get back to writing.  I’ve done no new writing in almost a month because I have been focusing strictly on rewriting and editing.  Yes, it does drain me of my energy, even though I have an editor and proofreaders to help me out.  I can’t rush this stage because I want the books to be as polished up as they can be.

I might put aside the editing for tonight when I take my kids to the park so I can do some actual writing.  Writing helps to relax my mind, if that makes sense.  I’m feeling restless from not doing any writing.  So if I take a break from all the editing, maybe I can come back to everything tomorrow feeling refreshed.  We’ll see.  🙂

2.  Got the idea for the next giveaway!

Thanks to Kesia Sanez who mentioned that I could have you guys vote on whether Dave and Mary are guilty when I take them to court for pain and suffering.  😀  I think I’ll go through a “trial” which will be presided by Rick Johnson since he’s a judge (and how fitting since I’m about to release Her Heart’s Desire where he’s the hero).  So over the next couple weeks, I’ll be running through a court hearing with witnesses (other characters) as I sue Dave and Mary for needless pain and suffering (and for tarnishing my good name since I did not kidnap Dave).  😉  It should be a lot of fun.

After everyone gives their sides, it’ll be up to you to decide if Dave and Mary are guilty or innocent of the charges being brought against them.  When you cast your vote, I’ll put you into the giveaway. 

3.  I’ve been getting complaints about the story blog.

I don’t know how many of you know about the 500 words a day blog I set up where people can read one of my copyright protected stories.  Due to having my stories stolen twice in under a year, I can’t do any first drafts.  All first drafts have to be written offline to protect those stories. 

Based on feedback I’ve gotten, I now realize that the idea I had for the story blog was a bad idea.  I will make an announcement on that blog that I will get rid of it.  There’s no sense in spending time doing something that isn’t working.

4. Speaking of stuff that isn’t working, at the end of this month, Bargain Books for Your Nook will have to go as well unless someone wants to take it over.

Rose Gordon and I plan to make an announcement on the blog either at the end of this month or early next month.  Since it launched in late December, we’ve been getting less and less hits on it.  Now we’re lucky to get 25 people taking a look at it.  That’s a far jump from the 200 we used to get.  So obviously, the blog isn’t working.  I don’t know if someone else can take it over and make it work or what, but I have a hard time finding books to put up on that blog due to authors pulling out of B&N to join Amazon Select’s program.  Also, some authors complain it’s not doing them any good to be on the blog because they aren’t getting the boost in sales they were hoping for from being featured.  So yeah, it’s not working.  If someone would be interested in taking it over, Rose and I can hand over the blog to them.  Maybe someone can make it work, but obviously, we can’t. 

5.  This probably should have been higher on the list, but I just remembered it.  I just read a site update on Smashwords that notified me (and everyone else) that they are having problems with uploading to B&N and Kobo. 

I have a lot of B&N readers.  I have more B&N readers than Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Sony, Diesel, etc readers.  It sounds like there has been a two-month delay in getting books to B&N, if I understand the site update right.  I can’t imagine asking my B&N readers to wait two months after I publish a book to be able to read it.  That’s why I won’t join Amazon’s KDP Select (because Amazon would require me to wait three months before putting my books elsewhere). 

So I will try my hand once again at uploading directly to B&N.  I was wondering if there is anyone with a Nook who would be willing to read my book to notify me of any formatting issues in it.  I would gift the book to you so you don’t have to buy it.  I do have a Nook and will go through the book myself, but I won’t be reading the book so I might miss something.  Last time, I ran into a crazy page break issue in the middle of a chapter.  I really want my formatting to be clean for you guys so the book is easy to read.  I’m going to pay someone to format the book for me as a precautionary measure, but I still worry an error will slip by, you know?

So I will take the first offer I get on someone who’s willing to read my next book on their Nook to check out the formatting.  😀

About Ruth Ann Nordin

Ruth Ann Nordin mainly writes historical western romances and Regencies. From time to time, she branches out to other genres, but her first love is historical romance. She lives in Omaha, Nebraska with her husband and a couple of children. To find out more about her books, go to https://ruthannnordinsbooks.wordpress.com/.
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10 Responses to More Updates

  1. Melanie Nilles says:
    May 12, 2012 at 4:17 pm

    Try Atlantis Word Processor. You can “Save Special” -> “Save as an Ebook” and it will save as an epub file that you can upload to B&N preformatted. It works MUCH better than trusting B&N’s formatting system.

    • Ruth Ann Nordin says:
      May 12, 2012 at 8:54 pm

      When you use that program, does it open your Word document in it? I don’t want it to automatically open to that word processor when using Word.

      We need to chat sometime. It’s been crazy here with getting adjusted to having Tony back, but I think we’re finally getting into a routine. I didn’t realize how much I had things organized when it was just me and the kids. He comes back and it’s chaos.

  2. Judy DV says:
    May 12, 2012 at 4:21 pm

    Ruth, I have found a few places on Facebook that keep updating cheap or free NOOK books. Here is one. I think the others maybe do NOOK and Kindle but don’t know the names off hand.
    Nook Love: https://www.facebook.com/NkLov

  3. Lauralynn Elliott says:
    May 13, 2012 at 7:06 pm

    I think doing a little writing instead of editing might relieve some stress. Sounds like a good idea to me.

    The trial is a great idea. I think it will be a lot of fun. I’ve got a giveaway idea I want to work on while I’m on vacation. It involves books and goodies. I LOVE giving stuff away. I don’t know why…I guess it’s just in my nature. LOL

    You know, I usually don’t read stories that are serialized on a blog. I don’t like to wait, so I want the story all at once. I usually don’t even read series unless at least two books are out…except in the case where I know authors publish fairly quickly. If the story blog isn’t working for you now, I think it’s good to get one more thing off your plate.

    I hate that about Bargain Books for Your Nook. But, again, if it isn’t working for you, then it’s taking time away from your writing. It was a neat idea, and I don’t understand why it did so well before and now it isn’t. It’s like book sales…so hard to figure out!

    I always upload directly through B & N. It’s mostly because I can track daily sales instead of having to wait. I always just upload the Word document. I don’t know why you had that page break issue. I actually had an issue where the font sizes were different when I uploaded Vampires’ Curse to Smashwords. Who knows when it comes to formatting? It can be frustrating.

    • Ruth Ann Nordin says:
      May 16, 2012 at 9:14 pm

      I’m still going at a snail’s pace on the editing. I think it’s worse than usual because I’m editing two books instead of one. One drains me. Two wipe me out. I’ve had to take days off from it this whole month to nap all day while the kids are in school so I can get some energy back. People who think getting a book ready for publication is easy have no idea how grueling the editing process is. Writing it is the easy part. LOL

      I like doing giveaways, too. What I might do with the upcoming one is offering paperbacks for the first place winner and coupons at Smashwords and gifting ebooks for the second and third place winners.

      I’m the same way you are. I don’t like serialized stories or to begin a series unless it’s either complete or the author publishes books on a regular basis. When I say “series”, I mean books that can’t be read as stand alones. I don’t mind if a book can be read as a stand alone because then the story is complete. But when the book ends with a cliffhanger (as seems to happen in a lot of the YA trilogies and fantasies I’ve read), I wait for the whole thing to be complete before buying the first one. My problem is that I’ll lose interest in the series if I can’t find out what happens next. Then I’ll forget what happened in the book or end up not caring what happens next. If I were to do a cliffhanger type of series, I would publish them at the same time so they’re complete. I learned my lesson from Return of the Aliens when I divided those up into novellas originally.

      With Bargain Books for Your Nook, our biggest hits were coming from authors who wanted to be featured. While I didn’t mind that, a good portion of authors who submitted their books later pulled their books out of B&N in favor of Select, so when Rose went to check to verify the price and cover were the same as the post, she found the book was no longer there and had to scramble to find a new book to fill in that slot. As soon as we stopped accepting submissions because of this (and some authors who complained that being on our blog was a huge waste of their time because they didn’t see a boost in sales), we lost a huge portion of our views. All I can say is that there are a lot of authors out there who expect other people to promote for them while they do nothing to help things along. I almost posted about the experience on SPAL, but I just know I’ll end up upsetting some of the authors reading that blog so I didn’t. It was a real learning experience in how unprofessional a good number of authors can be.

      Formatting is a pain. I just reuploaded a revised version of a book with the exact same formatting I used before at Smashwords, and while I got approved for premium distribution before, I got denied this time and had to use the Notepad method to work my way past the issue. My problem is that I don’t understand the Style Guide, and I’ve been through it three times. Something isn’t connecting in my mind when I read through it, and other people have such an easy time with it. So something’s wrong with me. LOL 😀

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