Several years ago, someone in an Internet group challenged herself to read 50 books. That idea caught on with other people in her group. Soon, the 50 Book Challenge became known far beyond this little Internet community, into the wider world of ordinary readers, including me.
I read a lot, and I read fast. 50 books in a year is nothing for me. For the last 3 years I've challenged myself to read 150, which I have yet to do. Still, I keep going. This year I'll make it.
In addition to my own challenge, I'm also taking part in the New Bedford library's 50 Book Challenge, which was my idea. It got amazing publicity, showing up in newspapers and TV stations all across the country, and on websites from as far away as China. Well over 300 people have signed up for it. In spite of TV and DVD's, in spite of computers, reading is holding its own.
So where am I today, Feb. 21? I'm at 28 for the 50 Book Challenge, which started in December, and 25 in my own challenge. I've had a few books I didn't finish, but there have also been a lot I really liked. I'll probably have the 50 read during April, and I'm well on track to meet the 150 total. Did I mention that I'm having fun?
It's not too late for people to read 50 books this year. I'll bet a lot of you read more than that, anyway. If you want to do it in an organized manner, and you live in SouthCoast Massachusetts, why not join the New Bedford library's challenge? Check it out at the library's website, at http://www.newbedford-ma.gov/Library/ Once you read 50 books you get a prize, and we're planning various get-togethers and author appearances.
So, what are you doing reading this blog? Go pick up a book! I'm going to.
Monday, February 21, 2011
The Bad Old Days
I liked my old computer. I really did. I liked Windows XP, the full-sized keyboard, and floppy disks. I didn't like it when it got that virus that almost crashed the hard drive. Fortunately my computer repairman managed to fix it, and even find some extra space on the drive. By then I'd decided, though, to buy a new machine, a cute little laptop. The desktop was almost 4 years old, ancient in computer years, and the drive was almost full. It was time.
I didn't really like the laptop at first. I didn't like Windows 7. It's vastly different from the various Windows systems I've used in the past. I've been computer literate for 30 years. I've worked on IBM and Univac mainframes, and my first PC had to be booted up every day with a 5 1/4 inch floppy. I'm used to change in the computer world. But I was also used to things being done a certain way, and working with files in a certain way. The keyboard feels different. The screen looks different. And I sure as hell don't like the touch pad. Frankly, I missed my old machine. Only the facts that my office is in a renovated front porch, which isn't too well insulated, and that it's been freaking cold, kept me from using it much. About all I did was get my data out to switch to the laptop.
A little over a month has passed, and I love the laptop. It's the best purchase I've made lately, even better than the iPhone. I've gotten used to Windows 7, and the purchase of a mouse makes life infinitely easier. Plus it's portable. I can sit in my room, nice and warm, and do my work. I've converted my files from Wordstar, a word processing program that was cutting edge in the 80's, and I've been having fun getting them ready for epublication. The only problem is that it's not hooked up to a printer yet, and I need hard copies of my manuscripts. That meant returning to the old machine.
It took forever to boot up. The monitor screen is gorgeous, but it was cluttered with all these icons. Copying files from old floppies to the machine meant opening screens and minimizing them, again and again. So did copying from the machine to the thumb drive. Plus, it was just so cold in the office. OK, I told myself. This is a lot better than typing a manuscript on an electric typewriter and then bringing the pages to a copy shop, as I once did. A click here, a click there, and the files were copied in no time. Still, compared to the file handling in Windows 7, it was clunky.
Then there was the printing. I remember now why I always allowed a full day for printing a manuscript for submission. It takes time to print a 300 plus page book. Plus something was always going wrong. The paper would get jammed, or, more than once, I'd run out of ink. Today I shut the printer off for a moment, and now it won't turn back on. Aargh! What a pain. It was wonderful when I was able to send the books in by email.
Last week I sent a manuscript electronically to an electronic publisher, and voila! Instant book. I searched for images on stock photo sites, and, what do you know? I had a book cover. I'm playing with 3D software to create "people" for future book covers. OK, I could probably have done this with the old machine, but somehow this new little computer, with its amazing capabilites, has me trying new things, and loving it. I've come a long way, baby.
30 years ago I learned computer processing on a "mini computer", mini in the sense that it filled a small classroom, not a huge computer room. I don't know what it had for memory, or how large its disk drive was. I do know that it used a text editor, not word processing, and that it had no graphics. The screen was green, with white printing. Today I have a machine that's not even 2 inches thick, and is many times more powerful. Someday I'll probably be enthusing over a different computer, and wondering how I ever survived with my old one. Not yet, though. These are the good old days, folks, and I'm enjoying every minute.
I didn't really like the laptop at first. I didn't like Windows 7. It's vastly different from the various Windows systems I've used in the past. I've been computer literate for 30 years. I've worked on IBM and Univac mainframes, and my first PC had to be booted up every day with a 5 1/4 inch floppy. I'm used to change in the computer world. But I was also used to things being done a certain way, and working with files in a certain way. The keyboard feels different. The screen looks different. And I sure as hell don't like the touch pad. Frankly, I missed my old machine. Only the facts that my office is in a renovated front porch, which isn't too well insulated, and that it's been freaking cold, kept me from using it much. About all I did was get my data out to switch to the laptop.
A little over a month has passed, and I love the laptop. It's the best purchase I've made lately, even better than the iPhone. I've gotten used to Windows 7, and the purchase of a mouse makes life infinitely easier. Plus it's portable. I can sit in my room, nice and warm, and do my work. I've converted my files from Wordstar, a word processing program that was cutting edge in the 80's, and I've been having fun getting them ready for epublication. The only problem is that it's not hooked up to a printer yet, and I need hard copies of my manuscripts. That meant returning to the old machine.
It took forever to boot up. The monitor screen is gorgeous, but it was cluttered with all these icons. Copying files from old floppies to the machine meant opening screens and minimizing them, again and again. So did copying from the machine to the thumb drive. Plus, it was just so cold in the office. OK, I told myself. This is a lot better than typing a manuscript on an electric typewriter and then bringing the pages to a copy shop, as I once did. A click here, a click there, and the files were copied in no time. Still, compared to the file handling in Windows 7, it was clunky.
Then there was the printing. I remember now why I always allowed a full day for printing a manuscript for submission. It takes time to print a 300 plus page book. Plus something was always going wrong. The paper would get jammed, or, more than once, I'd run out of ink. Today I shut the printer off for a moment, and now it won't turn back on. Aargh! What a pain. It was wonderful when I was able to send the books in by email.
Last week I sent a manuscript electronically to an electronic publisher, and voila! Instant book. I searched for images on stock photo sites, and, what do you know? I had a book cover. I'm playing with 3D software to create "people" for future book covers. OK, I could probably have done this with the old machine, but somehow this new little computer, with its amazing capabilites, has me trying new things, and loving it. I've come a long way, baby.
30 years ago I learned computer processing on a "mini computer", mini in the sense that it filled a small classroom, not a huge computer room. I don't know what it had for memory, or how large its disk drive was. I do know that it used a text editor, not word processing, and that it had no graphics. The screen was green, with white printing. Today I have a machine that's not even 2 inches thick, and is many times more powerful. Someday I'll probably be enthusing over a different computer, and wondering how I ever survived with my old one. Not yet, though. These are the good old days, folks, and I'm enjoying every minute.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Synchronicity
Sometimes seemingly unrelated events come together in surprising ways, so that what happens next almost seems inevitable. It's called synchronicity. The first time I heard the word, I had just gotten the contract for my knitting mysteries. A friend of a friend was going to go to a wool festival in Connecticut, where her friend was having a booth. I'd never heard of such a thing, but a few weeks later I found myself in a damp, drafty barn somewhere in the country, in a heavy downpour. From that experience came the setting for the second knitting book, Knit Fast, Die Young, as well as an idea for what would have been the third book. Had I not met this friend of a friend at just the right time, none of those things would have happened. Synchronicity, indeed.
When I stopped writing 3 years ago, I never intended to stay away from it forever. I did, and still do, intend to stay away from traditional publishing. I planned to publish ebooks someday. Well, someday unexpectedly came last week. A patron at the library showed me an article about people self-publishing their books. That got me thinking. Then a co-worker, who owns a Nook, told me a little bit more about ebooks, and, before you know it, I was researching the topic myself. The upshot is that this past weekend I published an ebook. It's a reissue of one of my old Regency short stories, "Gifts of the Heart." I'm still surprised at how events came together, and how quickly they affected my life. I'm publishing again. Yay!
This is an interesting time in the publishing industry. Ebooks have been around awhile. In fact, one of my mysteries, Death on the Cliff Walk, has been available for quite a few years. It took the development of such devices as the Kindle and the iPad to make them really popular, though. At Amazon ebooks are outselling print books, and that trend is going to continue. Someone's got to supply those books. That's where the self-publishing revolution comes in. While books by established authors are going for $12.00, self-published authors have the luxury of setting their own prices, often at $2.99 or less. Those prices haven't been seen in the book world for many, many years.
At those prices, it wouldn't seem that authors could make much money, but a few have. due to high royalty rates - as high as 70% in some cases. One young woman made over half a million last year with her books; another author, whose books are also in print, made about $50K in January alone. I don't know if I'll ever hit those lofty heights, but if I sell enough books at .99, with a 30% royalty rate, I should do OK. We'll see. What do I have to lose? "Gifts of the Heart" was published in an anthology almost 20 years ago. I love having it in print again. Best of all, I've already been paid for writing it. Anything else is just icing on the cake.
Synchronicity. It's led to a new adventure for me. In the future I'm going to be reissuing the works over which I have control. 1 down, 20 to go!
Buy my book, please? Gifts of the Heart is available for the Kindle at Amazon, under my penname of Mary Kingsley; at Smashwords.com, in all other formats, under Mary Kruger; and soon for other ereaders such as Apple's ibookshelf and Barnes and Noble's Nook. It's only .99. I guarantee you, it'll be the best .99 you've ever spent.
When I stopped writing 3 years ago, I never intended to stay away from it forever. I did, and still do, intend to stay away from traditional publishing. I planned to publish ebooks someday. Well, someday unexpectedly came last week. A patron at the library showed me an article about people self-publishing their books. That got me thinking. Then a co-worker, who owns a Nook, told me a little bit more about ebooks, and, before you know it, I was researching the topic myself. The upshot is that this past weekend I published an ebook. It's a reissue of one of my old Regency short stories, "Gifts of the Heart." I'm still surprised at how events came together, and how quickly they affected my life. I'm publishing again. Yay!
This is an interesting time in the publishing industry. Ebooks have been around awhile. In fact, one of my mysteries, Death on the Cliff Walk, has been available for quite a few years. It took the development of such devices as the Kindle and the iPad to make them really popular, though. At Amazon ebooks are outselling print books, and that trend is going to continue. Someone's got to supply those books. That's where the self-publishing revolution comes in. While books by established authors are going for $12.00, self-published authors have the luxury of setting their own prices, often at $2.99 or less. Those prices haven't been seen in the book world for many, many years.
At those prices, it wouldn't seem that authors could make much money, but a few have. due to high royalty rates - as high as 70% in some cases. One young woman made over half a million last year with her books; another author, whose books are also in print, made about $50K in January alone. I don't know if I'll ever hit those lofty heights, but if I sell enough books at .99, with a 30% royalty rate, I should do OK. We'll see. What do I have to lose? "Gifts of the Heart" was published in an anthology almost 20 years ago. I love having it in print again. Best of all, I've already been paid for writing it. Anything else is just icing on the cake.
Synchronicity. It's led to a new adventure for me. In the future I'm going to be reissuing the works over which I have control. 1 down, 20 to go!
Buy my book, please? Gifts of the Heart is available for the Kindle at Amazon, under my penname of Mary Kingsley; at Smashwords.com, in all other formats, under Mary Kruger; and soon for other ereaders such as Apple's ibookshelf and Barnes and Noble's Nook. It's only .99. I guarantee you, it'll be the best .99 you've ever spent.
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