Helping Debut Author help Aspiring Authors

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Deena Rae Schoenfeldt has been a friend to authors for many years.  She has helped many an author format their eBooks with her own brand of magic. In her debut book, Navigating the World of E-Book Publishing, she tells about her beginnings and the things she has learned along the way. 

She gives sage advice which can be appropriate not only for the aspiring author - set to take the writing world by storm - but also for those of us who have published before.  

Please don't skip the introduction - that's where you'll get to know a little about her and how she came to write this book. As an added bonus you'll get to see some of her magic in action. 



Here's more about Deena in her own words. 

E-BookBuilders is my online alias. I was born and raised in Texas — home of bluebonnets, boots, beef and big hair — into a family that was in the printing and publishing industries. My father was a computer programmer for major newspapers when the equipment took up whole rooms and my mother has been a publisher for almost 30 years — trying, unsuccessfully, to bring me into the family business. I have been told I am a second-generation genetically perfected super-nerd.

http://www.e-bookbuilders.com/

I was happily living my life, having three genetically perfected super-nerds myself, but then through a series of events (unfortunate and fortunate), I officially joined The Book Connection — my mother’s publishing and packaging company — as the Digital Director, to create the e-publishing division in 2011. My computer skills, willingness to help authors, love of literature, no-nonsense attitude and quick wit has helped shepherd many authors through the maze of digital publishing.
Through my work with E-BookBuilders, I have been able to meet authors and writers from all over the world and in every genre imaginable. My wit, obscure sense of humor, awareness of the absurd, and a love of literature all which led to the creation of Bluebonnets, Bagpipes and Books, the NSFW publishing discussion podcast I produce and host with Janet Wrenn and Peter Burnett. My no-nonsense attitude makes for some hilarious discussions and plenty of “Oh my God, did she really just say that?” moments. Sometimes it is as if there is no filter between my brain and mouth. But if I like you I try to be nice – sometimes. I also have a safe-for-everyone author interview show, B3‘s Bookworm. You can find me most hours of everyday attached to my computer either researching, tweeting on the 6 accounts I maintain, posting on my different Facebook timelines and pages, coding e-books for my fabulous friends/clients or with my nose buried in my Kindle reading.

By the way, I was privy to a version of this book prior to it being finalized.  I'm looking forward to seeing how it all came together. 

If you are wondering what happened to that podcast with Deena Rae in December, well let's just say we are going to try for third time's the charm. 

Hope y'all are having a great one!

Lynn Hallbrooks

co-author to David McKoy

co-owner of Call Sign Wrecking Crew, LLC

Connections and Timing

The other night, I got on to Facebook to share a limited time offer with a friend.  That moment I took to help one friend gave me an opportunity to help and support other author friends, including Josh Cook. For those that don't know, Josh helps run the Free Book Dude website.  This site sponsors many GiveAways and this month our books are among them. It is simple to enter to win book packages, just log into Facebook and follow Josh's gameplan:  a Rafflecopter giveaway Rafflecopter - Giveaway :) www.rafflecopter.com

"Bestsellers"

Lynn Hallbrooks
co-owner of Call Sign Wrecking Crew LLC with David McKoy
co-author of Call Sign: Wrecking Crew series with David McKoy
author of Many Is the Dream 

You can find our books available for sale on any of our websites: 

http://www.callsignwreckingcrew.com

http://cswcwingsofeagles.homestead.com/

http://lynnhallbrooks.homestead.com/

Latest Lessons I've learned

First lesson be sure to mention your co-author at every opportunity especially when doing your social media profiles. They tend to get quite testy. It doesn't matter that the blasted thing wouldn't let me say I'm a co-author or co-owner in the drop down menu.  Hey, I was still learning the ropes when I did LinkedIn... it never registered that they changed and that the profiles could be edited.  Kind of busy doing other things here. Issue now resolved.  David hasn't learned much about computers but he is learning how to work his phone. 

For those that don't know, David and computers do not get along.  He feels they are only good for target practice - C4 on them can't hurt either. On the other hand his spouse has a computer.  Now the plan when I was down in Houston doing the book signing, was for me to borrow his wife's computer... no joy. The Internet stopped working - or maybe it was Mr. Murphy doing his best to get in the way.  It slowed me down but did not stop me.  A FedEx Kinko's store was not far away and that's how I accessed the Internet but really quickly -they are pretty proud of their per minute usage rates. Office Depot was a big help with the stand-up poster for the book signing too.  The real kick to the rear-end was trying to do a Podcast with Deena Rae.  We had it set-up for the Wednesday before Thanksgiving via Talk Shoe since I wasn't sure about doing Skype on someone else's computer... not that I actually had access to Skype there as it turns out.  We dialed the number - input the required information.  No Deena for over a half hour.  Turns out Talk Shoe failed to tell her we were even there. 
So we rescheduled the Podcast for 18 December 2013. I got Skype on my computer. I found a microphone. The plan was to put David on speakerphone. "Best laid plans of Mice and Men..." - Deena couldn't hear him at all. I could barely hear him. So I did my best to relay questions. The problem is/was I'm not Deb nor am I, Larry (Call Sign Wrecking Crew characters). I had my hands full with hearing Deena's questions and answering them. My tongue kept getting twisted. To top it off, my speakers were making everything tinny and she was getting reverberation on her end.  Deena assures me that she will work on the sound side of things. The podcast will be posted on Bluebonnets, Bagpipes & Books  in the near future, so be looking out for it or you can just 'follow' via email.  Deena has also been working on a book for aspiring authors, so be watching for my future posts on that as well. 

CSWC Wings of Eagles

As many of you know, we published book 2, Call Sign: Wrecking Crew (Wings of Eagles) in late September. We sold some books at our book signings.  Some were given as gifts.  All were autographed... so imagine my surprise when I discovered our books being sold as used on Amazon.  I couldn't and still can't see anyone who purchased books directly from us selling them used. Only one online print book purchase was registering. I knew who purchased that one.  So I queried Amazon. They basically referred me back to Create Space who assured me that no pirating was going on.  After talking to members of my inner circle it was decided that this might just be a marketing ploy.  They act like an outlet mall. Apparently some people don't pay attention to the retail price... they just presume if it is used it is marked at a lower price.  Buyer beware on that. I've also been assured that books sold through any of the Amazon Marketplace vendors should result in royalties for us.  I certainly hope so because they just don't know how the "Wrecking Crew" rolls. The results are not pretty. 

My advice to everyone reading this - monitor the books being sold and their prices. Find out what the list price is... then go from there. Used does not necessarily mean cheaper. Authors monitor your Create Space channels for royalty payments. 

Lynn Hallbrooks
co-author to David McKoy
co-owners of Call Sign Wrecking Crew, LLC

http://www.callsignwreckingcrew.com

http://cswcwingsofeagles.homestead.com/

http://lynnhallbrooks.homestead.com/