How to use this Page

I've said it before and I'll say it again, writing is the easy part of the business of writing. Unless you're working with an editor and have a deadline, you write at your own pace...and there really isn't any stress. You either know where you're heading with your story, if you're working from an outline, or your story unfolds as you write like a rose bud blossoming.

As for the other side of the business of writing, the promotion, marketing, and networking...this is the stressful and time consuming part.

As an example, yesterday I realized, thanks to my wonderful writing coach, Suzanne Lieurance, that I needed to get on the ball with my autoresponder and free gifts. Thank goodness for Suzanne! So, I spent the day working on my DKV Writing 4 U site. I deleted an old freebie and added a new one. I edited the free offer for subscribing also. And, then I went to my autoresponder company, iContact, and edited my Welcome Messages to include a link to the freebies.

You would think this shouldn't be so time consuming or stressful, but I couldn't figure out how to exclude the freebie pages from my sidebar links. The reason this is important is because if the pages were visible on the sidebar or header area, anyone who stopped by the site could go to the page and download the freebie I have specifically for those readers who subscribe to the site.

Well, I went to Blue Host and asked if the information I needed was at their end or WordPress's end. I was told it was probably with WordPress. Then I went to the WordPress information site and spent at least an hour trying to find the info I needed. FINALLY, I found a response to a question similar to mine. How easy the solution was...after I found it. All I had to do was download a plugin that easily allows the exclusion of specific pages from the sidebar and header area. Ah, ha!

Then, today, I knew I had to revise an e-book I have available on Lulu. I wanted to add my own cover to the book rather than use the standard and dull cover that Lulu provides. I tried to create a jpg from a word doc page. Now, I have Adobe Photoshop Elements, which is a pretty handed tool, but I just couldn't get the word doc to save as a jpg in the size I needed, so I tried to create my own cover in Photoshop.

Okay, now I'm rambling...the bottom line is I wasted hours and hours again and I still couldn't get what I wanted, so I'm using Lulu's cover. I did include my own covers as the first page of the interior though!

And, NO, I didn't get any writing done yesterday or today! AGGGHHHHHHH

You can check out my e-books at lulu:

The Self-Publisher's Guide, 2nd Edition

Writing, Publishing, and Marketing - You Can Do It! 2nd Edition

Until next time,

Karen Cioffi
http://dkvwriting4u.com
http://nothingventurednothinggained.org
http://daysendlullaby.blogspot.com
Follow Karen at: http://twitter.com/KarenCV