Reading A Good Book = Going on a Vacation?

I love reading novels for many reasons, but the main reason is due to the fact that I can live vicariously through the lives of the characters.

Reading a good book is an escape from the banality of daily chores like cooking, doing laundry, and washing the dishes.

What constitutes a good book?

A good book is one that can captivate me from the get-go, one I don’t want to put down, for which I will sacrifice sleep to enjoy.

Yes, reading a book is like going on a wonderful (and inexpensive!) vacation.

Even though I’m not world-travelled, I’ve been to more places than you can think of. Yes, they are all in my imagination!

Reading books is much cheaper than spending hundreds or thousands of dollars in an effort to visit a foreign place. (Besides, I think that’s why they made Google Earth…) 😉

If a book is good enough, it will transport me to where I want to be, even if I’m sitting in front of a turned-off TV.

Words transcend places, for me. Do they do the same for you?

Share in the comments!

And don’t forget that I am available to help you edit and/or publish YOUR book or e-book!

Self-Publishing is A LOT of WORK! (and I need a hug!)

Now that I’m an official, self-published author, I am waffling on my views of self-publishing.

I don’t think it sucks, but I don’t think it’s awesome, either. What I do think is that it’s a lot of work!

Seriously.

All I’ve been doing lately (with the exception of my two-day camping trip last weekend) is working, working, working.

And learning.

What I’ve Been Doing and Learning

In addition to the boatload of things I did already when I first released Risky Issues, I’ve been learning about formatting for CreateSpace. I’ve decided that I want my book to be available as a print edition, too! But because I’m a Canadian author, I have to submit my book to the Library and Archives Canada.

Apparently it’s against the law if I don’t!

They call it Legal Deposit. So if you are a Canadian who is an aspiring author, I’d suggest that you remember this important fact!

I actually ended up writing a whole post about this LAW. Read it on my author site, Laying It Out There.

I’ve been doing a ton of other things too. Read More

Whitefish Waters + Freelancing Tips

2 trees and dock with lake and nice sky

This post is for all you freelancers (or freelance wannabes) out there!

This past weekend, I enjoyed the freelance lifestyle by actually taking a couple of days to be away from my computer to go camping with a few friends at Whitefish Lake, which is only about an hour by car from the city in which I live. I don’t go camping very often, but I sure like it when I do!

With all the excitement of getting my ebook out there, monitoring and responding to some of the reviews, being interviewed, setting up my new author site, and doing a ton of other things, I really, REALLY needed a break.

It was nice to hang out with friends, have a few drinks (I RARELY drink alcohol), shoot the sh** by the fire, read by the lake, commune with nature (including a ton of spiders, mosquitoes, and dragonflies), and listen to the water lapping against the shoreline. Talk about peaceful!

I walked down to the lake to test the temperature of the water, and had to grab my phone to take a video of the moon with the melodic waters in the background. The video’s not much to look at, but it’s relaxing!

 

FYI, the white “dot” in the video is the moon!

Most of you who live in warm climates cannot truly appreciate the beauty I felt this past weekend. I live in a climate where it is winter for the majority of the year. It’s really only nice in June, July, and August, and swimming outdoors usually only happens in those months. The local outdoor pools are only open in the latter two months, too. 🙁

Enjoying the freelance lifestyle is one of the perks of being a freelancer. 🙂

Learning from others is another. 😉

Let’s Learn From Sophie and Francesca, shall we?

Sophie Lizard, from Be a Freelance Blogger, has started a new thing on her blog: Bloggers of Interest, where she interviews freelancers and gets them to share their best freelancing tips.

In her latest interview, she speaks to Francesca Nicasio, from Be a Freelance Writer, who shares excellent – and I mean excellent – freelancing tips!

Francesca is someone with whom I connected early on in my blogging days. She allowed me to guest post for her on her Credible Copywriting site, with the article Investing In Yourself: Why Surfing the Web is Necessary. I’ll admit that this was my very first guest post, and I was a fairly newbie blogger at the time. But obviously she saw something in me (the fact that I’m a darn good writer, perhaps?) and gave me the opportunity to publish my article on her site.

A year later, she paid me $50 for writing Two Simple Things You Can Do to Kick-start your Writing Success, which reveals how I use affirmations to help me be a positive person. (I list most of the ones I use, too. Feel free to steal them! Ralph Quintero, founder of Happy Someone, has given us all permission to use them!) 🙂

But back to Ms. Lizard. . .

This is her third interview so far. Sophie has also spoken with writers Jeff Goins and Tom Ewer.

Here is her interview with Jeff.

Here is her interview with Tom.

And here is her interview with Francesca! Enjoy!

 

 

Did you find any of her tips useful? Which ones?

Don’t forget to share your thoughts in the comment section! 

“RISKY ISSUES” IS OUT!!! (+ I have a new site!)

 

Ebook Cover - Risky Issues by Lorraine Reguly

Yes, that’s right – my ebook, Risky Issues, is finally out!

I’m jumping with joy over here! (Okay, I’m not, literally, but I AM pretty excited!)

During the past two weeks, I’ve been busy. As it turns out, there is A LOT I hadn’t considered doing, but did.

Let’s back up a moment, shall we?

First things first…

I tried to format my book for Amazon, but ran into problems. Most of you know already that I’m a self-proclaimed non-techie, so this shouldn’t surprise you too much!

But I AM resourceful.

So what I did was this: I went on Facebook and jumped onto a group for indie authors (to which I have belonged for a while) and simply asked for a recommendation to an inexpensive formatter. After several conversations, I ultimately got help from Rich Meyer.

Who the heck is Rich Meyer?

Rich Meyer offers services at a relatively cheap rate and does a great job.

He rambles on his blog, too. 😉 But amongst all the book reviews is a golden post about formatting for free.

So, yeah, Rich is a great guy.

And yes, yes, he’s an author, too. Check out his Amazon author page! It gives you some information about him and also lists the books he’s written.

Uploading Problems

I originally uploaded my ebook to Amazon with the ISBN I was given. (Because I live in Canada, I get ISBNs for free. I just had to apply for it.) But then, I noticed that there was a minor issue when I previewed my ebook. There was no space between two words, but there should’ve been. So I had to correct it and then upload a new file. But then, in the same sentence, a space was deleted again. I know that these issues were caused as a result of the formatting, as my Word document was perfectly edited. So, I uploaded it again, after fixing the problem.

However, because the two files were technically “different,” my ISBN would not be accepted by Amazon. So I emailed the person from CISS (the Canadian ISBN Service), who explained to me that “every time there is a change in format or a change in edition, a new ISBN must be assigned.”

Great. More work. And all because one file contained “thework” and the other, “the work.”

I took a deep breath, and requested a new ISBN. Because I was originally assigned a “block” (a set of sequential ISBNs that are assigned to a publisher or self-publisher), this was easy to obtain.

(FYI, ISBN blocks come in different sizes. They can contain either 10, 100, 1000, 10 000, 100 000 numbers. All ISBNs found in the block start by the publisher prefix and are followed by other numbers to identify a publication and validate the ISBN. A publisher prefix identifies the publisher and the country of the publisher, and my prefix showed that I am a Canadian publisher and that I was assigned a block of 10 ISBNs.)

Because I was changing my ISBN, I decided to add a P. S. to the Special Note From The Author section of my ebook. I added my special poem, which I wrote when I was fifteen. (I would have added it to the table of contents, but I didn’t know how to format it properly!) I then uploaded my new file to Amazon with the new ISBN.

Adding Books to Goodreads

Once all that was complete, I added my book to Goodreads. Again, I had some problems with this. (Big surprise… I am a non-techie, remember?)

I ended up speaking with someone from Goodreads who explained that once books are added to their database, they cannot be removed. Apparently there are strict rules for this, too. So my book is listed twice instead of once. But really, I’m assured, it’s not a big deal. I will know for next time, though, to make sure everything is perfect and to only do it once.

Sigh.Ebook Cover - Risky Issues by Lorraine Reguly

Secondly, the things authors need to do…

Then the real work began. By “real” I mean “time-consuming” and “tedious” but necessary.

What did I do?

What a pain in the butt this all was! But kinda fun, too. 😉 However, I’m grateful they are all done.

I was interviewed, too…

It seems like things happen really fast sometimes. Shortly after Risky Issues went live, my good friend and indie author Melissa Bowersock sent me an email asking me some questions, which she turned into a blog post: Author Interview: Lorraine Reguly on Reaching a Milestone.

I’d recommend reading it if you want to pick up some tips. 😉

Then there was the birth of a new site… free of charge!

During the past year, many people told to me to snatch up a website with my name as the domain. Their urgency was unnecessary, in my opinion, as I’m the only Lorraine Reguly in this world. (Yes, it’s true!)

But now that I’m an officially published author, I figured it was about time to set up an author website.

So I did.

In fact, about 16 days ago, I purchased my domain name. With my hosting plan with Abivia, I’m allowed to have four other websites free of charge!

I also purchased a premium theme, which I had a few problems with, but which I eventually ironed out.

I installed plugins – including a new one I just found out about (and which I also installed on this site, which has worked wonders!) called Anti-Spam. This plugin is free and I highly recommend it!

My new author site is called Lorraine Reguly: Laying It Out There. I even set up a place where people can subscribe to my Author Newsletter!

Commenting on the new site is not yet available

While I was setting up my new site, I disabled the ability for people to leave comments. So far, I have published three posts, all visible from the home page.

The posts are:

They are all very short posts, so I’d encourage you to give them a read.

What’s Next?

Next I have to get my book up on Smashwords. Then I have to begin marketing it.

I’m going to be asking others to help, too, so if you are a blogger and want to help me with this, please let me know via email. You can interview me, simply feature my book on your site, whatever… I’m open to anything, and appreciate all the help I can get. 🙂

And if you want to buy Risky Issues and/or leave me a review of it, you can do that, too!

Regardless of what you choose to do, could you please share this post on your social networks? I’d love it if you did!

Thank you, and see you soon!

 

 

50 000 Emails? On Canada Day?

frustrated man

Ever try to take a vacation from your computer – but couldn’t for fear of your email piling up?

Ever get so many email notifications that you wanted to pull your hair out – but didn’t? (Sorry, baldies, I mean no offense.)

Vacation Emails

I think that most email programs allow you to alert others that you are going on vacation. I know that in gmail, all you have to do is

  • go to your settings (the “gear” icon) and then
  • go to your vacation responder setup to create your message and set your settings, shown in the image below:

 

vacation email setup instructions

 

Tons of Emails + NO TIME = Frustration!

If getting excessive amounts of emails or email notifications is your problem (as it was mine for a long time as a newbie blogger), then you need to learn how to hit the “unsubscribe” link – or at the very least, adjust your settings on every site you belong to.

I just wrote a guest post on this very issue, complete with screenshots and instructions on how to find your “settings” on many different sites.

I’m not going to re-hash it all here for two reasons. One, it’s Canada Day (akin to the USA’s 4th of July) and I am taking the day off!

Two, I seriously am stressed out and tired right now. (I’ve been trying to do 50 000 things this week, including dealing with “old” emails – which I am filing into their appropriate folders and/or deleting.) I’m frustrated because I’ve been trying to do this for weeks. Each day I make a little progress, but I still feel like the numbers are not decreasing fast enough!

However, progress is progress, and I’ve cut down the amount of emails I get by following the steps outlined in How to Cope With Massive Amounts of Email Notifications.

FYI, as Greg’s monthly contributor, I was paid to write this post. 🙂 So you know it’s darn good. 😉

And because I’m going to respond to all of the comments left on said post, I’ll simply send you over there right now to show you how you can cut back on your 50 000 emails before you get 50 000 more.

I’ll even join you in the gripe session at the end. 🙂

 

[red-button url=”http://www.dearblogger.org/change-email-settings” text=”Read the post on Dear Blogger  “]

 

Happy Canada Day!

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Photo credit: imagerymajestic from FreeDigitalPhotos.net