Kate Copeseeley's Blog, page 19

Does Anyone like Free Books?

I got a book in the mail today, that I got from a contest on a blog. Very exciting. To me, there is nothing better than getting to read a whole book, FOR FREE!!!

This is why I love libraries.

This is also why I am giving you a passport to read my book for free. I love sharing.
My only request is that you leave me a review. If you like it, if you don't, that's okay.
Here is the link:
GoogleBooks

Absent...

...with good reason.

Upon arriving home from the gym last Thursday I was greeted with the news that my husband's father was in the hospital after suffering a cardiac arrest.

There is nothing in life that throws a magnifying glass on your own problems quite like almost losing a loved one. It sounds trite, and it is, but it is also human.

We take things for granted until we are almost faced with losing them. I'm so grateful for my husband's sake and for my own that my father-in-law seems to slowly be making a recovery.

Selling Out...

In Six Keys my protagonist has a conversation with her mother about selling out. Basically, the point is, if you take money for your craft -your gift- you are a sell-out. You have given your soul for cold hard cash. My point isn't as harsh in the book, but sometimes I feel like that about my own writing.

Up until now, I've kept all my glorious words to myself, with the exception of a very few friends and family that I've been brave enough to show my stories to.

I've been writing quite a long time, actually. I think I started reading in kindergarten, but I started reading the REAL books in 2nd grade. Like anyone who discovers the glory and power of imagination combined with the written word, my world opened up and I felt like I could go anywhere I read about. I was one of those character: Nancy Drew, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anne Shirley, Alanna of Trebond, Josephine March, or Elnora Comstock.

And thus began my desire to create my own worlds for readers to get lost in.

My first stories were sad little affairs of 2 or 3 pages. I've saved them all. And laugh continuously over them.
When I was in high school, I wrote the first third of an adult romance. I still don't know what I was thinking. It was full of drama and utterly ridiculous, but I loved the characters. I smile even now, when I think about them.

Right after that, I decided that Science Fiction was the way to go and I wrote about 23 chapters in that, before I gave up completely. Rhiannon was, I think, a misdirected Anne McCaffrey character who fell out of the pages of Crystal Singer or something. She was tall, gorgeous and sassy.

In the next phase of my writing career, I wrote nothing but poetry and short stories. The short stories were part of a creative writing course I took. That was probably one of the best decisions of my life. I learned so much about self-editing and finding my "voice".

Then all was silent. I was rushing through a double major in Computer Science and Applied Computer Graphics. I was busy, busy, busy -too busy to write or breathe. But there was an idea, a small inkling of something I wanted to try out.

And for five years, that small inkling was a sketch here, a brainstorm there... one chapter then another.

I got married. I had a baby. I got a job with an independent game studio, coding my brains out.

One day, the book was done, I had done my edits and my rewrites and there it was. A work of genius? Ha! But MY story, all MINE.

Back to the question at hand...
Am I a sell-out?

No, I am a writer.

Surprise! I'm overloaded.

I think it shocked my family when I wrote a book. I mean, how many authors do you know? I didn't tell anyone until it was written, not even my parents. And when I got myself a beautiful proof complete with a professionally designed cover, they were even more surprised. I had written a book, and there it was, in physical form. The proof was incontrovertible.

Since then, the main question has been, "How did you write a book?" It's a fair question, since I had a son and an almost full time job during the period in question. Let me tell you how.

Writing this book took: 5 years, 4 rewrites, 7 different .mobi Kindle conversions, 3 uploads to online bookstores, 4 author profiles on various websites, 2 ad campaigns, 1 facebook page, and a partridge in a pear tree.

At this point in time, I know I'm supposed to care about my book and my readers, but I'm so tired. Self-publishing, and self-marketing is quite the task.

"You need a blog"
"You need to join Author's Den"
"You need to join Booksie"
"You need to put your book in Listmania on Amazon"
"You need to make sure you've got plenty of tags on your book"
"You need to have an ebook"
"You need to have a physical book"

Need, need, need... the advice is endless. Really, all I need is for someone to read my book and like it.