Ruth Nestvold's Blog, page 50

Holiday Greetings from Kindle Board authors by KeithDraws

I shared this already on Facebook but forgot to do so on my blog. Enjoy!

Ebook trials and tribulations: Fixing the Kindle Paperwhite bug

Recently, I had a “rash” of returns, 3 for Yseult and 5 for Shadow of Stone within a couple of days. I try not to let that kind of thing get to me too much, but then on one of my regular visits to the Kindle Boards, I noticed a topic entitled “Returns” and read it. One of the authors there suggested that an increase in returns might have something to do with the “Kindle Paperwhite bug” — which I had never heard of before. The post conveniently linked to another topic discussing the bug in det...

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and another free ebook!

For Christmas, I’m giving away my novel Shadow of Stone. It was featured today on Michael Gallagher’s “Free Kindle Books and Tips” and it’s getting off to a pretty good start. If you miss it today, it will also be free tomorrow.

The holiday giveaways continue tomorrow with my short story collection Dragon Time, which will be free Dec. 26-27.

I got something of a Christmas present myself yesterday, a new review of Yseult on Amazon. It was extremely detailed and well-founded, went into the Arth...

Another Round of Words: Fast draft fail and a new project

This past week, I gave up on the fast draft course I was taking. But since the course instructor was mostly absent, it wasn’t much of a loss, other than the thirty-five dollars I paid for it. I’d been hoping for some regular tips and encouragement on increasing writing speed and outwitting the editor; instead, we were all on our own, posting our daily page counts and wondering where the instructor was.

But everything is a learning experience, and I’m hoping I can try some fast draft writing o...

First sales on Kobo and B&N; and some more free books

As of yesterday, my first books are now live on Kobo:

Yseult: A Tale of Love in the Age of King Arthur on Kobo

Never Ever After: Three Short Stories on Kobo

And, amazingly enough, I have already made my first sales on both Kobo and B&N. A whopping one book each, but hey — Never Ever After has only sold about a dozen copies total in the last few months on Amazon. Ever since I got the review stating that the writing was like that of a middle-schooler, the sales of that little collection have drie...

Finally branching out: Kobo and Pubit

This week, I finally got a big item off my to-do list: I set up accounts for myself on Kobo’s Writing Life and Barnes and Noble’s Pubit platforms and uploaded my first two books on each site. But while B&N had my books available in less than a day, much like Amazon, my books on Kobo are still “publishing.” Oh well.

The good news is, it was easy enough to sign up, redo the books without the Amazon links, and upload, but as with all things, it just takes time. These are systems I haven’t used b...

Books on Fire!

As I mentioned briefly a couple of days back, I’m participating in a new group promo, Books on Fire, a contest giving away a Kindle Fire and lots of ebooks.

The Books on Fire contest, which runs through the end of December, is giving away a new Kindle Fire HD loaded with 13 books of science fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction. Sponsored by authors Judson Roberts, Luc Reid, William Hertling, Annie Bellet, Del Law, and me, Ruth Nestvold, Books on Fire can be found on the Web at www.kindle...

Mea Culpa (maybe): Freebie flub-up with The Future, Imperfect

I have a confession to make: I (maybe) screwed up. I thought I had a freebie for my dystopian short story collection, The Future, Imperfect, scheduled for today, but when I checked my sales numbers, the book had not been downloaded a single time. Went to Amazon, saw it wasn’t free. Went to KDP bookshelf, and sure enough, there was no promotion for Dec. 3-5 listed for the book. I am 99% sure that I entered the promotion for the book on my bookshelf several weeks back when I also entered the mo...

The challenge of becoming visible as an indie — and an interview

As anyone knows who’s stuck their toes in the self-publishing waters, one of the biggest challenges facing indie authors is getting noticed. So that beautiful tree you cultivated fell with a satisfying crash? But if no one is there to hear it … you get the idea.

It’s the same thing when you throw your brilliant work of staggering genius out into the pond of all the other newly-minted indie authors — and the pond is so full, it doesn’t make a ripple, since there’s no water left.

When I first p...

Experimenting with Fast Draft — and another free ebook

Since my progress this month during Nanowrimo has been less than stellar, when I heard that Candace Havens was doing her Fast Draft and Revision Hell course again (this time entitled “The Book in a Month Club”), I jumped at the chance. I’ve read about this course on other folks’ blogs before, and I’ve really wanted to give it a shot, but it seemed that every time it was offered, I had conflicts. I have conflicts this time too, but I decided to go for it anyway.

The basic idea is to send the i...