'All should be well, all should be well, and all manner of thing should be well.' Julian of Norwich. 

Having been  away from this blog due to my husband's illness, I return, and although the blog is still visible, the dashboard and profile have disappeared. So if you would be kind enough to make a brief comment at the bottom of this post, it might just help. Some of you might remember that not too long again, when Google took over Blogger, I was among those who lost all the photographs from a blog of many years standing. I should hate to have to begin all over again. Thank you, much love, Carole.

Those friends who have kindly commented on my blog may know that I am my husband's official carer, I have to undertake the running of our home, the gardening, and now must move to be nearer to the hospital. At present it is a 60 mile round trip, not much fun in the snow. 

Therefore, over the next months, I shall be preparing to transfer husband, myself and all our possessions back to the town of Shrewsbury. I won't be  able to complete my next book, River Dark, as planned, it will have to wait until the new year. So I've restored this blog, given up the battle with the book for a while, shall concentrate upon finding a new home and the relating of my humorous trials and tribulations to anyone who might be listening :0)

When I started out writing, I never thought that I would ever self-publish. It wasn’t really about
the traditional reasons for me. (You know, all the usual myths about self-publishing, like how
people buy into the publisher’s brand, or how self-published books have lower quality etc.)

To me, it was always about the money. See, I live in a place where one US Dollar equals thirteen
units of my country’s currency. Which means that the usual rates for a good freelance editor to
edit one of my books equal three months’ salaries to me.

So when I started out, the cost of self-publishing something up to standard was prohibitive. In
my mind, I had to find a publisher who’d help to defray the costs.

But then I got a publisher, and things went spectacularly wrong. The whole experience made me take a long and hard look at royalties and what they really are, and today, I’m sharing how I think about it.

When signing with a publishing house, we agree to trade in a portion of the value (or net price)
of our books in return for services for which we would otherwise have had to pay upfront.
The thing is that these days, those services just aren’t what they used to be. Don’t get me wrong,
I loved working with my former editor and I’d possibly jump at a chance to do so again. But.
I’m someone whose critiques have been credited by multiple writers to be the thing that landed
them publishing deals. And I have a good eye for people who make me good critique partners.
So why, if I have every confidence in my skills as editor for other people, would I not be
confident enough to edit my own work? Especially when I’ve been able to put together an
awesome team of people to help me find my own errors, all in return for me helping them in the
same way.

What else does a publishing house offer?

The cover?

I take pictures and edit them myself. I knew what I would be going for in the cover. After
investing in Photoshop, it wasn’t all that hard to get what I wanted. You’d laugh if I told you the
total cost. Most of it was actually measured in time and effort.

Formatting?

This was actually the one I was scared of, but I got an awesome how-to self-publish guide that
was gold when it came to tips pointing me in the right direction. (Like where to get cover
templates and how to format a paperback so it looks nice.)
E-book formatting turned out to be laughably easy, after another self-publishing friend told me
where to get the right how-to guide.

This leaves…

Marketing.

Which anyone who isn’t Lee Child or JK Rowling knows to be laughable in any publishing deal anyway.

We’re expected to do all our own marketing. (Never mind that it doesn’t really seem to work all
that well all the time, but that’s a subject for another story.) So what’s the difference between
doing my marketing for my book with a publisher and doing the same marketing for the book I
self-published?

You’ve got it.

There is no difference.

Of course, money isn’t the only thing that made me strike out on the self-publishing path. Far
from it, but it’d probably take a small book for me to explain them all. But out of the many
reasons I have, the (tiny) value of services rendered to me in return for a substantial portion of
income derived from my book (and MY hard work), is the big one.

Anyone thinking about self-publishing? What’s the big deciding factor for you when it 
comes to self-publishing or not?

It is that time of the month to take stock of  ones writing progress, or the lack of it via Alex's I.W.S.G and this made me think of the main problem of writer's block.

I know much has been written on this subject, however, and in the Summer 2015 issue of the Mslexia, a magazine for women who write, (the magazine is worth its weight in gold), there is a brief and very helpful article by novelist Jenny Alexander, called Moving Images, on removing writer's block and it works for me every time.  

To put this briefly,  it relates to Jung and his images. Jenny writes that there is a connection between the block and your personal life. Jenny says you must think about your work in progress, relax, sink into an inner world and ask for an image. Go with the first image that comes into your head. 

My image was a velvet box. I asked the image what it wanted, how it felt. The immediate reply was that it wanted to be found, to be safe. 

I had lost this velvet box that contained a necklace, and the problem of loss was brought forcibly to my attention. After much thought, I realised that this represented a much deeper loss in my life. I needed to come to terms with this, I wanted to feel safe. Once I was aware of what was causing the block, I was able to write.

Hope this heatwave is not too much for you. At the moment we are warmer in the south of England than the Mediterranean.  Almost as fierce a the present heat in Atlanta, but without the air conditioning. Reminds me of my years in Africa working in the bank, had no air conditioning in those days, either.

After having deciding to post to a  page on on my website, instead of on this blog, (to prevent posting twice, haven't yet learned how to send items to both sites, the Wordpress  was set up and coded by my Grandson and my coding is at kindergarten level), I suddenly remembered that I am involved in a blog tour, helping to advertise a book, and therefore need Blogspot to give maximum exposure to the event...

Thank you so much for your support. I am so busy with writing my childlren's  books that I have decided to use the blog - I'm calling it A Writer's Diary - on my website, where I hope you will visit me from time to time. 

With love, Carole.

Good heavens, another Friday here and time for Lexa's Celebrating the Small Things!

Hoping that you have something good to celebrate. 

This week, another Shropshire primary school is about to use my children's book, Candle Dark next term to accompany their environmental study work. Very pleased.

When I visit your blog, I shall be posting as

where you can kindly leave a comment as before. But this has its difficulties.It might be better for me to have the post appear on both sites....

Unfortunately, when I post with the web address above, there is no photograph beside my name, but I'm trying to discover how to make this happen. No luck so far. If anyone has any knowledge of how to do this, I'd be very grateful to have advice on this and other problems, such as linking my blog to my website. Still working on this.

I should like to add followers to my website too, maybe my grandson James Brinkler will be able to help me with this.

I'd love you to visit my new site and leave a note, so that I can see who has found it. Many, many thanks, but I know how busy you are.

On the title bar at the top of the website you will find the word Diary, rather than Blog. I think it sounds nicer. And I copied the title from the book Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary, a book for writers that is well worth returning to, time and time again. 

That time of the month again,  although now we have help in the house, and the garden, from the wonderful Age UK people, life is easier and I can concentrate on finishing River Dark at long last. So improvement all round! So feeling a little more secure.  
 
Another first, my husband used his mobility scooter, not the one that goes into the boot of the car and is very flimsy, but the new one that is very substantial for road work. Rather like a small car, but without the roof, flashing indicators, mirrors, reversing lights, great fun.

He managed to reach town, a mile and an half away, and drive round the open air market in our medieval town. The vehicle even has a small boot... now what can I send him out to purchase for me whilst I have extra writing time!

Tried to set up a blog page on my website, but don't have access to the coding, so shall have to wait until my Grandson comes to my rescue. In the meantime, back to Blogger! And I shall add my week's reflections, seems an appropriate time. 

To celebrate the small things, and not so small, a very big thank you to those of your who kindly accepted my invitation and have added yourselves to the list of people willing to receive my very brief monthly newsletter. Just use the signup form in the right hand column. 

This month's letter will have a free paperback offer for those who sign up for the list and are already kind enough to be there already. As I have five, signed, paperback copies of Candle Dark, my historical fiction children's book, for anyone on the list. If you are interested, pop along to my website and you'll find the information about the book there.  Then just go to the Contact Page on the website, add your details, and write Candle Dark on the comment form.

Shall have a 'lucky dip' at the end of June and the names of those receiving copies to be added to the July newsletter.  

Hello again,

Hoping all is well with you. At the moment I am finding the care of my husband, updating my blog, running a house, gardening, writing my books more and more demanding. So for a while I shall just be updating my website, vital if I want to let people know about my book progress,  and shall see how it goes. It would be lovely if you could visit my website from time to time. And it would be great if you could sign up for my 'newsletter'. It is once a month, barely half a page, and with an unsubscribe button, too. And of course, my website has a contact page. I must add one that is more user friendly. Maybe see you there. Kind regards, take care, Carole.

Good heavens, a week has gone by and it's time to review what has happened and celebrate the small things... 

...well, the summerhouse is up, and as people have said it looks like a doll's house, and I am a writer of children's books, then that is a very apt name

...my husband has purchased a larger and more comfortable mobility scooter so that he has more freedom 

...and I am looking forward to the first evening in my doll's house/office to write and invite my husband to join me for a glass of wine... the wooden candle holder is already in place... 

Hoping you have had a successful and happy week.

It's Alex J. Cavanaugh's time again, a time to review what has happened in the last month and share. For too long, I have written very little of my sequel, River Dark. I told myself that it was because my husband is constantly ill, that I hated sequels, that the book wasn't any good. 

So I resorted to N.L.P., listening on the iPod every night for a week or so and have programmed myself to return to work. With a re-wired brain -good old N.L.P. - I now find that every morning, the task of recommencing the sequel is no longer a chore, and that I now have a more than positive attitude to the book. However, the wonderful reviews I received from you, concerning my poetry book Kaleidoscope, also encouraged me to keep going. So thank you all.