Self Publishing Mom's Poems

I am venturing into the world of Create Space for the third time.  I have collected Mom's poems and have typed up a document for publication via Create Space.  It would have been nice had I done this while she was living.  I have jumped all the hoops except the cover and that requires a conversion of JPEG into PDF.  That is a real pain. I am using two different photos of Mom, one front and one back.  The front cover is her with a banjo when she was fifteen.  By the way, I found her braids which she had cut and saved them all these years.  I'm happy to have found them.  The back cover when she was 33 with Pepper.  I wanted to share those photos and invite anyone's comments.  I may not find both photos.

Sorry the one of Mom and Pepper is small and I've not enlarged it yet.  The large one was taken in 1928 and the small one on November 1946.  I don't anticipate a market for this short book but I wanted to get them in published form.  The six by nine format contains 57 pages.  Some of my poems to Mom are also included.

Motorcycle Woman saga

I am attempting to gain back my rights to my short story Motorcycle Woman as it cannot be found on the Red Rose Publishing site.  I have had my lawyer write a letter to the publisher and hope I can regain rights to my story.  It was published several years ago, one of my first accepted stories.  It has two reviews from professional review sites and I would like a chance to make it available to other avenues.  Miss Mae gave me four stars in a private review as well.
Other writing woes include rejection of my Vanishing Shed novel by Avon Impulse.  The notification came long after their predicted response time.  Also, my A Reason for Rescue has been out for a long time to another publisher, also well beyond their predicted response time.
On a brighter note I have received another five star review from Regina Andrews on my Bible character The Shunammite Woman.  I hope someone reads my sporadic blog posts.  More later, hopefully not much later.

Winners for Champ/Chump contest

I am happy to announce the winners for the previous post about identifying the photo of a champ and the photo of the chump, both of me of course.  See the champ photo here.  I had a third photo where obviously I wasn't going to make it over the bar but I'll spare you that one.  Showing for this ID contest were four people: Linore, Gail, Laurie and Linda Moffitt.  I decided to mail all four wonderful ladies a copy of my In Remembrance of Me book, a religious nonfiction book.

I have recently jumped into the Facebook world and am a novice certainly.

Champ or Chump? Answer for a chance to win In Remembrance of Me

This is a giveaway of my short print book In Remembrance of Me.  My pole vaulting friend, Jack, made a comment while we were in high school.  That was my senior year 60 years ago.  Jack was in one class behind me.  I still laugh about his comment after all these years.  Jack is still living but is in poor health.  He would say about these two photos that I looked like a champ in one and a chump in the other.  To enter the giveaway of my print book you merely identify which photo I look like a champ and the other I look like a chump.  These photos were taken by my roommate in the fall of 1960 at Purdue.  No, I wasn't on Purdue's track team.  This is during a track meet between residence halls.  I tied for first place with three other guys.  The height was ten feet.  Comment between September 7 and September 21.  Yes it took me nine semesters to graduate which took me to January 1961.  The previous post tells of the book.

Lack of posting will change soon

Just a brief note on my lack of posting.  I have no excuse.  I will soon compose a post that will involve a giveaway of my religious self published book In Remembrance of Me.  It is a print version and I've not been pushing it through advertising but I think it is time for me to do so.  I've been selling some to friends and have given away many copies to members of our congregation.  The cover I came up with myself, both front and back.  Actually, I got the front cover from the internet and snapped a photo of a passage for the back cover.

HIgher Mission needs support

My first science fiction novel is in ebook form only.  It released in October 2013 from Champagne Books. Her is the blurb.  Widower Joe Cramer's higher mission is to continue funding medical procedures for his ill daughter, Cindy, who is in a hospital on Mars.  Paired with Mona Watson on dangerous jobs in the solar system, eh doesn't know he is being groomed for a different mission.  Cindy is just beginning to respond to treatments when Cramer is shanghaied for the first trip to a star.  At sub light speeds will he ever see his daughter again?
I will add a statement that someone else put in about this story.  Here it is.  To complicate things, Cramer is falling in love with Mona.  By the way, besides this being science fiction it is also a sweet romance.
It is available via Champagne Books, Burst Books Imprint.  See http://burstbooks.ca/

Interview great with Linda Weaver Clarke

Quite a number of commenters appeared during my interview on Linda Weaver Clarke's website and I gave away one digital copy and one print copy of The Shunammite Woman.  Joy Dent received the print copy and Regina Andrews received the digital copy.  I also sent Linda a digital copy as she was great in running the interview and comments.  She will have me again on her website in July 11-18 for my science fiction novel The Silver Dart.  There will be a giveaway involved at the conclusion of that interview too.  I'll see if I can paste in the covers of both stories mentioned above.

The Shunammite Woman now up on Amazon

Finally, with help from my son, Eric, who put the cover in proper format, The Shunammite Woman is finally up at Amazon, Create Space and other places.  You can either click on my link in my signature or go to Amazon and type in my name and then search through my books/short stories for this wonderful lady from the Old Testament.  As I said it is partly fiction and partly nonfiction.  The image above is the front and back covers laid out flat.  I welcome any comments.  Linda Weaver Clarke may invite me to her website for an interview as she has indicated she would when I touch base with her.

The Shunammite Woman proofing

My son constructed the front and back covers of my short story The Shunammite Woman.  I didn't have much of a clue as to how to start that and I wasn't going to pay big bucks for a program such as AdobeInDesign which would be required to import the two photos into CreateSpace's required format for a print ready cover.  The two photos came from istockphoto.com which I purchased.  I have ordered a proof copy by mail rather than trying to proof it on screen.  So sometime in early March this title will be available both in print and Kindle.  It only numbers 19,000 words which includes a poem by a preacher friend who gave me verbal permission to use it.  His poem is entitled Just Like That Shunammite.
See the attached cover and I invite any comments on that.  I don't know the price yet but my proof print copy cost me six bucks including shipping. I hope I get a price break when I order a bunch of copies for myself.

Self Publishing woes

I have started the process via Createspace to self-publish The Shunammite Woman.  I had very little trouble when I used Createspace to publish my first manuscript with them entitled In Remembrance of Me.  Unfortunately, the procedure for creating the front and back cover has changed.  It is now much more difficult for me at least to construct the cover.  The JPEG photos must be converted to PDF files.  I was able to do that with a free download of Soda which I was able to make the conversion.  To take those PDF files of the front and back cover over to a template for the covers is quite difficult.  It appears I will have to purchase software to get that done.  I've checked for literally hours to find a way without success.
I have attached what I hope will eventually be the back cover of the new publication.  It was purchased from istockphoto.com for the view of Mt. Carmel on the Mediterranean Sea.  Of course this actual photo is actually on the coastline of California.
I hope some interest will be shown for my next post which will have the photo I selected for the Shunammite woman.

The Shunammite Woman

I have gone through the 19,000 word story about the Old Testament character, The Shunammite Woman and since I never heard from the publisher I submitted it to I'm pursuing self-publishing it via Create Space at Amazon.  I have an ISBN number already and am trying to decide which woman photo to use from istockphoto.com.  It is now a matter of making that decision and also for the back cover.  I have several photos of eastern women and am leaning toward one in particular.
I awarded the free copies of A Change of Heart, digital versions to Linore Burkard, Regina Andrews and Diane Craver.  I mailed a print copy to Miss Mae.  I have received constructive remarks from one of the winners and hope to have reviews from two of the other winners.
No word yet from Avon on my submitted novel The Vanishing Shed.

My Recent writings and submissions

I have been terribly negligent in posting and must make amends.  I have not heard from my religious character short story submission, The Shunammite Woman.  This is a disappointment in that I submitted it to a publisher who put out my science fiction novel, print version of The Silver Dart.  The Shunammite Woman story is fiction, except when she meets the prophet, Elisha and King Joram, those portions remaining accurate according to the Bible references in 2 Kings 4 and 2 Kings 8 concerning this wonderful Old Testament woman.  I also remain as true as my research has allowed in the towns, countries and lay of the land.  I may self-publish this story via Create Space so that it will be in print form.  Since it is only 18,000 words long I'd predict a price of four or five dollars, which is about what my religious book In Remembrance of Me cost.
I submitted my older novel, The Vanishing Shed, to Avon Books and am anxiously awaiting word on that.  This is the novel I received a personal comment hand-written by a reputable agent on her form rejection.  I should hear something on that sometime next month.
I have finished editing an older novel, A Reason for Rescue, but have not submitted it yet.  I had received several rejections on these two novels some years back.  I still believe in these novels and have polished them as best I can.
I am thinking of doing an Amazon giveaway on my romance novel, A Change of Heart.  If anyone out there is interested in me doing that let me know.  I've not had any comments forever on my blog.  The way this works is I purchase my own book from Amazon, offer it as a giveaway to my groups and then Amazon ships the book directly to the winner.  I am willing to do that just to get a little visibility for this novel, my first published novel.  I will probably email my romance author's group I am in and see what they say too.