Today's guest Carol Newman Cronin explains why E-Publishing is the E-asy Part

By the time you read this blog, I (Christine) will be several miles into the next leg of my voyage from Port Canaveral to Charleston.  So, it is with great pleasure that I welcome back today's guest writer on the water, Carol Newman Cronin,  Olympic sailor, author, contributing writer and editor for several boating publications.  Her most recent novel is Game of Sails: an Olympic Love Story. Read to the end of Carol's post to learn how to get a free ebook coupon.


E-Publishing is the E-asy Part

One year after my second book Cape Cod Surprise was published by a small press, it was time to push Game of Sails: an Olympic Love Story out of the nest.


This is the story that just wouldn't let go. Since I first got to know the two main characters back in 1994, it has demanded to be written and then begged to be finished. It grew fussy when I set it aside to publish two books in the Oliver series. And then last winter, it insisted that with just a little more tweaking, it would be ready for its world debut—which must, must, MUST take place before the 2012 Olympics. It didn't care if it sat between two gilded hardback covers or existed as pure pixels, but it wanted to be out in the world—not sitting on my hard disk.


And since I've been letting this story push me around for almost seventeen years, I took the time and energy I'd been devoting to an agent search and instead educated myself about ebook publishing. I quickly discovered Smashwords,  a free publishing service that offers an easy-to-follow style guide and great technical support.


I also rediscovered the self-confidence of controlling my own publishing destiny.


Using my graphic design skills, I created my own cover—though it took two tries to get it right. The hardest thing about formatting the text was working exclusively in Word, which has never been my favorite program. I also had to stop myself from getting too fancy. No drop caps, no big chapter numbers. Just a story.


Within a week of my final decision to e-publish, I had uploaded a book that was available in all the common ereader formats. Best of all, before I'd even shared the news with anyone, two downloads were reported.


Now just a few weeks later, after only a few Facebook posts and one group email, 35 copies have already been downloaded from various sites. Last Friday I heard from two different people: "Your book kept me up reading last night!" One competitor even accused me of maliciously timing the release to make it easier to win the weekend regatta—my best compliment to date. And a non-sailing friend posted the following in an Amazon review: "Casey and Spencer are so believable I half expect to run into them at the grocery store."


But now that Game of Sails has finally left the nest, how do I teach it to fly?


I know the hard work has just begun. But how perfectly wonderful to share my story with readers, and then almost instantly find out that they enjoyed it enough to lose sleep over it.


Have an idea about how to market Game of Sails, or a prediction of where it will take me next? Share your thoughts, and I'll send the best 3 commenters a coupon for a free download.


Carol Newman Cronin has sailed and written fiction since she was a child. In 2004, she crowned a lifetime of competitive achievement by winning two races for the USA at the Olympics. A member of the elite US Sailing Team from 2001–2007, she has won numerous national and international sailing championships. Since retiring from Olympic sailing, Carol has focused on writing and graphic design from her home office in Jamestown, RI. She and her husband spend as many hours as possible on the water. Follow her blog, Where Books Meet Boats.


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Published on July 21, 2011 21:01
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