Trudy Myers's Blog, page 20
August 20, 2021
Giveaway Winners
The winners include Kerri of TN, Kelley of TX, Brittany of NY, Brenna of OH, Melissa of MO, Emma of KS, Tatiana of FL, Kathy of VA, Leslie of IL, and Shannon of ID. Congratulations to all of you. These books should be mailed tomorrow, or if something terrible goes wrong with my plans, Monday at the latest.
I really hope you all enjoy this book, and I want to thank everyone for signing up for my giveaway!
August 16, 2021
Hank's Widow
Wanda grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, but when her husband was killed in a winter traffic accident, she realized she couldn't afford their apartment on her own. So she moved to the tiny village of Belgrade, Nebraska, her husband's home town. Talk about culture shock! And it didn't help when she found 3 cousins of her dead husband, who all looked just like him!
August 10, 2021
Hank's Widow
When Wanda married Hank, she didn't know there were 3 more (cousins) back home that looked just like him. After Hank's death, she moved to his hometown, looking for a quiet place to write. It wasn't long before she met all 3 of those cousins. Will one of them manage to claim her heart?
August 7, 2021
The Joys of Learning
I research all sorts of science subjects in my spare time, not just to write a blog about what I've discovered, but because I enjoy learning new things. I love learning new tidbits of information that I can categorize and file in the proper drawer in my mind.
There's another aspect of my life where I find myself learning new things fairly regularly. It's the publishing portion of my life. Even though I belong to a number of groups where people talk about different aspects of publishing, every so often I find myself stuck, figuratively banging my head against a brick wall as I try to do something that looks so easy when others talk about it.
I think the first time this happened to me when I was just starting, and I was formatting short stories to be converted into e-books. It seemed like no matter how carefully I formatted the manuscript, I kept getting all sorts of error messages when I sent that first effort through the conversion software. That was where I learned the adage, "Read the guidelines, stupid." Yes, the owner of the software had a 100+ page book that he made available to users for free, and I had read the first 5 or 6 pages and figured that was enough.
It wasn't.
So I backed up a bit and read the entire book, taking special note of how to correct formatting problems. Turns out that formatting problems like I'd been having were possibly caused by file corruption created when the file has been through many, many forms of formatting. But there WAS a fix!
It sounded easy; take out all the formatting and start with a clean slate, format-wise. And getting rid of all that potentially-corrupted formatting was really easy to do, so I did it. Now for the down-side. Everything in my manuscript was now Times New Roman, 12 pt font, in body paragraphs. Now I had to go through the entire manuscript and put formatting back in: Chapter Headings and font size, centered; Title page things; back matter stuff... And once I had done that, I had to READ the manuscript and re-format anything that needed to be italicized, bolded, underlined. It was, all in all, a 4 or 5 day project, during which I got virtually nothing else done. But it works.
To this day, I cringe every time I decide I need to remove all the formatting and start over. But I do it, in order to get a good conversion to the various e-book formats. As my parents used to say, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well.
Recently, I ran across a quick and simple method for inserting a Table of Contents. I took notes and tried it on my latest book. Something went wrong; every single paragraph of the manuscript was listed as a chapter in my Table of Contents. I tried 4 or 5 times, deleting the results after every attempt, before I gave up and did it the old way, which works for print books, but not so well for e-books.
So I backed up and re-read that style manual, looking for a better way to insert a ToC into my e-books. And I found the answer in those guidelines. Once again I had to delete all my evidently-corrupted formatting and set it up again. But 5 days later, when I followed the guidelines to insert a ToC, it worked! If I still had some flexibility in my shoulders, I would pat myself on the back! Who said an old dog can't learn new tricks?
Like I said earlier, I love learning new stuff.
Hank's Widow
She wanted a quiet place to pursue her writing career. He wanted her. Will her grief keep him from claiming her heart?
August 1, 2021
Hank's Widow Giveaway
In a way, Wanda has been spoiled during her marriage. Hank had a well-paying job, and she was able to quit her waitress job to concentrate on writing full time.
But when Hank was caught in a winter storm traffic accident and was suddenly gone, Wanda had to face the fact that she would need to find a job to support herself... her writing hadn't taken off that well in the last 5 years.
Then she finds a deed to a house in Hank's old hometown in Nebraska. He had owned the house free and clear. It seemed like a sign. So she moved to tiny Belgrade, where she could live rent free.
Things aren't as easy as that.
July 27, 2021
Hank's Widow
July 24, 2021
Boxed Set
If you win a paperback copy of Hank's Widow from our giveaway, it will come with instructions for getting a free copy of The Game from Smashwords.com. Smashwords has a number of different e-book formats, including some that can be read on your computer.
Our giveaway is going strong now, so don't forget to sign up for a chance to win a copy!
July 20, 2021
Hank's Widow
It is now possible to sign up for our give-away, where we will be giving away 10 autographed paper copies. That opened up today as well, and in glancing at the stats for it, we already have over 300 people having signed up! Thank you all for your support.
Hubby and I went out to lunch to celebrate this milestone, it having been some time since one of my books has been published. We went to one of our favorite restaurants, and as usual, the food was copious and delicious! Since we are both dieting, it's a good thing we don't celebrate in this manner too often!
But a writer's work is never done, as evidenced by the number of irons I currently have in the fire. I am formatting Hank's Widow and its prequel into a Boxed Set, which should be available in a few days. Plus editing/rewriting my next romance, plus editing my husband's next book, plus... Well, if I try to list all the irons, I'll get too tired to work on any of those projects!
Remember, if you get a copy of Hank's Widow, and decide you want to read the prequel, The Game, just contact me at MoonPhazePub@hotmail.com, and I'll tell you how to get a free copy of The Game.
July 18, 2021
Hank's Widow update
My beta readers for Hank's Widow wanted to know what happened to the 4 Cousins at some point in the past that shattered their brother-like relationship. So I wrote a short story about what happened, with the intention of 'bundling' the romance novel and the short story together. I've never done that before, and I am busy trying to get them set up as a Boxed Set, but it will take me a couple days yet to get that done. But rest assurred that if something happens, and you get a copy of Hank's Widow, but don't get a copy of The Game, you can contact me at MoonPhazePub@hotmail.com. I will be happy to send you instruction for getting a free copy of The Game so you can understand the 4 Cousins a little better.
