New Short Story on Wattpad Soon

Here's the big announcement.

As you can see in the heading.  I will shortly be posting a short story, set in the Tales of a Sea-Witch World, on Wattpad!  I'm hoping to have it up by the end of next week, so if you're a Tales fan, keep your eyes here, or on Wattpad, to read the latest Tales adventure.  The story won't have Nessa in it, but it will star another redheaded sea-witch, and will feature a new character who will play a major roll in the upcoming sequel, Broken Tide.

Getting an ITIN in Canada - Steps 1 and 2

I finally began the process on the weekend to obtain my ITIN for use for self-publishing in order to avoid tax withholding.

Step #1
I sent a message to Smashwords to request a letter indicating my intention to self-publish.  i already received a confirmatory email indicating this letter will be sent to me in the mail.

Step #2
I headed down to my local passport Canada office yesterday, in order to apply for a certified copy of my passport, which will need to be sent to the IRS, along with the above letter, for the ITIN application.

The application for apply for certified passport copies can be found here on the Government of Canada website.  

For $45, I can get up to 3 copies.  I did choose to ask for three, just in case something is incorrect with my application when I finally send it in.  It will take two weeks to get the certified copies, and I am unsure how long it will take to get the letter from Smashwords.  But I am finally on my way to getting my ITIN!  Step #3 will be the last one - filling out the W-7 and sending everything to the IRS. I will update again at this point.

Smashwords Error Notices

Well, it has apparently taken me a full month to get around to fixing my Smashwords errors, as listed on my Smashwords dashboard.  Finally, today I got the message that my book is in the Smashwords Premium Catalog!  It was a simple fix, but the past month has been very busy with family commitments, and unfortunately it took me a lot longer to fix the manuscript than I'd been hoping.

In my case, it was simply getting rid of all the information in the footer, which just happened to be page numbers.  I mean, of course an e-book doesn't need page numbers.  Why didn't I think of that sooner?!  Lol.

So....YES!  My book, Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch, is now available on Amazon, and Smashwords and KOBO and iTunes and Barnes and Noble...Pretty much everywhere!  So if you haven't picked up your copy yet, do so now.  Here is a link to the new listing on Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/543362

There is a big announcement coming up this week regarding the second Black Depths Novel, called Broken Tide.  Check back in a couple of days to find out what it is...

Smashing Good Times

Finally up on Smashwords!  Come back for updates soon!

Living Your Characters

Today I thought I'd talk about something I'm sure ever writer does: living your characters.  At least, I really hope all (or at least most) writer's do this and I'm not - well - a little bit crazy.

I bought these boots a few months ago:

I wanted them for three years.  They are beautiful white Mukluks by Manitobah and they are so warm and cozy.  But part of the reason I wanted them was because of a certain character.  Her name's Elloxa and she wears white fur and she lives in an epic fantasy world that I created.

It took me three years to be able to afford her boots, but I found gorgeous white mittens a number of years ago, which make me feel like this character every time I put them on.  Wearing white winter fashions isn't the only thing I do to live my characters.  In Elloxa's case, I think about her journey, and perhaps even pretend I'm on whenever I'm forced to go out in the freezing cold.  When I curl up in bed at night, sometimes I pretend I'm her, going to sleep in a cave, ice cat by my side.

In the case of Nessa, the main Character in my book, Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch, I've been known to hang out in the mall like I was 16 again, talk to the ocean in my head, and try to heat water with the power of my will (it has not worked yet).

I think it all just shows how much these characters are me, are a part of me, and live within me - at least until I get them on the page.

Which characters do you love to live, whether they're yours, or someone else's?

Language Pet Peeves

This is kind of a rant, so if you're not in the mood, click "Next Blog" at the top of this page...


On the radio the other day, as I was driving my son to daycare, there was a song.  Not surprising since it was the radio.  It was early, I wasn't really listening, but then, like nails on a blackboard, some lyrics struck out at me. 

Cheap perfume.

Is it just me? Am I an idiot?  Because I don't feel there is one smell for cheap perfume.  I have no idea what this would smell like.  Also, I'm pretty sure I've smelt cheap perfumes that smell pretty darn good.  And make me sneeze less than the expensive ones.  So is this a good thing or a bad thing?

This is - for sure - the exact kind of writing all my books and courses and mentors have taught me to avoid.  So it just bugs me.

At least I didn't read it in a book, because that think would have been dropped off at the book exchange bin immediately!  (And only because I would never burn a book!)

End Rant.

GoodKindles Post and Sales Summary

Well, the weekend has come and gone.  On Friday, the posting for my self-published novel Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch went up on GoodKindles.  At the top of the posting I included that I would be doing a Free Book promotion on Decemeber 6th and 7th, expecting this to generate more give aways than usual.  But as you can see from the chart below, this was not the case.  The first green spike shows the amount of give-aways from earlier in the month, when I did the promotion unassociated with any postings.  The second green spikes are the days advertised on GoodKindles.

In conclusion, it appears that GoodKindles didn't do much to increase the success of a Kindle Free Book promotion and/or the effectiveness of Free Book promotions decrease the more often you do them. 

What I'm taking from this is that it's no longer worth it for me to sell only on Kindle Select.  I've been exclusive now since the end of April 2014.  I think it's time to branch out in the self-publishing world and try SmashWords.  First, though, I'll have to wait for my Kindle Select time to expire.