Kimberly A. Cook

Military Romance Author

Writing Biz

Got Pets? Have A Current Computer Back Up?

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by Kimberly A. Cook             (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Sunday I walked into my home office to pay some bills and found Spec Ops Cat had gifted me with a hairball – on my finished taxes on the desk. Not a tragedy, my CPA filed my returns electronically two weeks ago so this was the paper copy, but point taken. The open laptop right next to it survived unscathed. One never knows when a hairball or computer crash might happen.

Spec Ops Cat helping out in the office - as a paperweight.
Spec Ops Cat helping out in the office – as a paperweight.

Having “worked for the government” I am paranoid about multiple backups. The rule of three backups with one being off-site is never far from my mind. I don’t even erase my photo memory cards after they are on my computer, I keep them as archives.

I use Carbonite online to backup my computer automatically and I put everything on thumb drives too, plus I have an external hard drive which backs up my computer. No, I’m not using the Cloud yet, but I’ve toyed with Dropbox, but I want my files with me so we shall see about the whole Cloud concept.

My paranoia goes back to my Army logistics training I think – if you don’t have it with you, you don’t have it – that applies to food, fuel, toilet paper and digital photos and documents. A burned CD copy of my book is in my fire safe and still riding around in my car.

Adding photos and videos into the backup equation besides my writing documents increases the memory needs. My first computer used 5 1/4 inch disks and had no hard drive. Now we are all overwhelmed with trying to preserve our digital memories and work to avoid a catastrophic digital disaster. Maybe using some old school ways of burying some DVDs or thumb drives in the backyard might be cool again.

With taxes over for this year, it’s a good time to consider keeping our writing, photos, videos, legal and financial documents safe. Protect yourself and your writing – backup now. Who knows what our pets are plotting for the rest of the year!

Is Boutique Book Printing The Future Of Publishing?

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by Kimberly A. Cook           (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

A few years ago I found out about the Espresso Book Machine. This fabulous piece of equipment prints a book in front of your eyes. What they’ve done is taken the print on demand machines kept in the warehouses which spit out books ordered online and made them into retail destination machines.

This is great for so many reasons. If you want to print one book, you can do it. If you are on vacation in Melbourne, Australia and you need a copy of your book, you can go to the one there and have it produced for you. Most of these machines are in university bookstores or independent bookstores, but they are spreading across the globe.

They can publish your book and put it in their program, but that is not the same as being with Ingram or a major distributor. But in these times of fiscal issues for all authors, I’ve been seriously considering using this as a way to have paperback books when I need them and focus on having my future ebooks in multiple formats.

Author Bob Mayer said he was seeing his fiction work sell 99 percent in ebooks and non-fiction 50 percent ebook and 50 percent paperback. There will always be a need and room for the paper books, but I want to cut my expenses. With locations around the world, it also makes any author available internationally without having to ship!

Our mega book store in Portland, Powell’s Books, put in an Espresso Book Machine last year. I chatted on the phone recently with the representative. Excellent customer service and I could actually go down and visit with them in person and then watch my first edition non-fiction book print if I wanted. How cool is that?

Check out the company at www.ondemandbooks.com and check out Powell’s page about it at www.powells.com/bookmachine/

Could this be the future of print on demand book publishing?

Are Writers The True Crown Jewels Of Content?

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by Kimberly A. Cook               (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

A peculiar thing seems to happen when I buy or like something; the item gets discontinued, cancelled or the new model is released a week later. This happens with everything from nail polish to tv series and Mystic Mint cookies.

Crown jewels at the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey during my 1983 visit.
Crown jewels at the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey during my 1983 visit.

So imagine my chagrin at Sunday’s article in the New York Times about Barnes and Noble turning their focus from making Nook hardware to providing digital content – aka books and writing. I recently purchased the Nook tablet, right before the new HD ones came out, to add to my first generation Nook.

While my office closet looks like a graveyard for tech gadgets and I just found out I need to drown my old Blackberry phone in salt water for a week and then drill it to make sure no one ever gets my data – one quote in the article gave me hope. At the end the person states that content distribution is one of Barnes & Nobles strengths and content is their crown jewel.

Guess who the real crown jewels are? Us writers and authors! Because without us, there are no stories and no content. Felt like buying myself a new tiara. (I have a plastic one from Party City, but I think real jewels are needed for it to be an official crown jewel.)

While all these big companies fight over who is coming out on top in the ereader/cell phone/tablets wars and AT&T wants to charge us for making our future cars rolling wifi hot spots, when it comes to true software – writers rule. Without our imagination and brain software there is no content for these mega companies to dispense or we can sell it our own selves with the advent of Indie publishing.

It’s always a good business decision to take stock, sit back and realize while the big conglomerates fight over hardware production, we can go about our empire building by using our very own imagination brain software to write our tales and entertain and educate our readers. We are the crown jewels!

Read the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/business/media/barnes-noble-weighs-its-nook-losses.html?_r=0

How Much Social Media Does A Writer Need?

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by Kimberly A. Cook            (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

It depends on the writer. Now before you throw banana peels at the computer, pause for a moment. Think. Do textbook writers need blogs? Do technical book authors need blogs? Does anybody really need social media or blogs? Depends on your writing goals.

I resisted writing a blog forever. Being the type of person I am, if everyone is doing something, I head in the opposite direction; less crowded and I’m quirky. My writing web site went online in 1997, so I embraced the whole Internet medium, but I try to evaluate if each potential time suck away from writing helps my marketing bottom line first.

Spec Ops Cat leaves social media and web duties to his staff. Naps are his top priority.
Spec Ops Cat leaves social media and web duties to his staff. Naps are his top priority.

Twitter was my first love, since the challenge of telling a story in 140 characters lit up my journalist brain. When I figured a blog would be good to promote my book(s) and it felt like my own newspaper, getting training became important. Bought Kristen Lamb’s book, “Are You There Blog? It’s Me, Writer,” and then enrolled and lurked in her online class. She has great common sense advice and instructions on how to manage the blog beast. She emphasizes  making a schedule that works for your life and then stick to it like super glue put on with duct tape. Be consistent. (See Lamb’s blog link under Writing Biz on the right)

Facebook is not my friend. For the last two years I volunteered to manage a fan page for a non-profit, growing from 800 to 3,600 followers. FB and I don’t see eye to eye and some of the new changes creep me out. I do not need to know the status of anyone’s farm animals, I can barely keep up with my backyard patio herb pots. My personal/business FB is on hold, referring folks to my blog.

At a recent writer conference one attendee complained Twitter is turning into a link zone. I’m part of that problem/opportunity. Before the blog I posted three times a week on Twitter, all on Friday. I know there are things like Tweetdeck, but that seems like cheating to me.  My Tuesday and Friday blog postings are scheduled ahead of time, but I don’t get too far ahead in case the world goes crazy and I need to chat about it. My blog feeds to Twitter twice a week. Period. Nobody needs to hear from me more than that right now, people have lives or should get one!

My one big takeaway from all this? If you’re on social media or blogging and not working on your writing projects, then STOP IT. WRITE FIRST. If blogging is your writing project, go forth and blog. But maybe unplugging altogether until you get a first book draft done is what needs to happen.

You don’t need to “build a marketing platform” and “get followers” if your book is two years from being finished. FOCUS!

Feel free to work on your writing and ignore social media, I give you permission. Trust me, social media will be there when you get back and then you can watch even more of those fabulous cat movies. How much social media do you think a writer needs?

So You Want To Know How To Get Published?

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by Kimberly A. Cook           (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

It might be easier to explain how to build an Ark. From scratch. But since a friend asked for a writer friend, let me give this a shot. A long time ago in a galaxy far away before the Internet, traditional publishing lived in New York City and writers tried to get agents who then submitted their work to publishing companies who decided who would get published.

Then along came the Internet in the mid-1980s and web pages and writers were called content providers. (Always hated that title.) A new product called ebooks came into being in the early 2000s and soon a group of rebels (authors and writers) realized they could overcome the Death Star of New York publishing houses and authorpreneurs/publishers were born in the great Indie publishing skirmishes which continue today.

Are you a cookie, cupcake or pie writer?
Are you a cookie, cupcake or pie writer?

So one decision you need to make about getting published is whether you want to be with the traditionals or join the rebels. But wait! Before you make that decision first you need to figure out what kind of author or writer you want to be for the long haul. This is crucial. I wrote a blog post about this very topic in November 2011, so please read it here.     https://kimberlyacook.com/2011/11/01/which-dessert-would-you-choose/

To summarize the post, decide if you are a one book cookie, a two book cupcake or a career pie. Before you publish any book, please decide if this is a career, a hobby or a one time event. It makes a big difference on how you spend your time and book money.

If you want to go the traditional route, research is in order. Check out www.writersdigest.com and check the listings for agents and publishing houses and the genres they accept in the annual Writers Market, both online and in hard copy. If you want to publish a gift book or children’s book, research those markets. There is a real difference between wearing your writer/art cap and your business/marketing helmet. We have to be able to do both jobs when it comes to the world of publishing.

If you decide to go Print On Demand, self publishing or ebook only, read the blogs I list under Writizing Biz for some great advice and folks to follow. There are pirates and scallywags out there who will take a ton of your money and not deliver the finished product you hoped for, so be diligent in your research and ask advice from others. To thine own book and career path be true.

Don’t be a writer unicorn who gets left off the ark by playing silly games. Strap on your business gear and get ready to enter the publishing wars; power to writers and readers!

Are You A Writer Carrot?

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by Kimberly A. Cook         (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

The first full week of this year left me with a mashup of experiences. While this is not unusual for any week, how they all intertwined into a theme surprised me, so I’m combining them here.

On New Year’s Eve I was dashing from the garage to the back of the house and saw a flash of orange in farmer bunny’s cement wheelbarrow. “What is that?” There are not really any colors in the backyard right now besides the cold green herbs and the crazed red blooming Christmas Camilla, much to the delight of the hummingbirds.

The fabulous golf ball carrots from farmer bunny's wheelbarrow.
The fabulous golf ball carrots from farmer bunny’s wheelbarrow.

Turns out I forgot to harvest the mini-carrots I planted in bunny’s planter. They kept growing. Since the first good freeze was coming that night, I quickly grabbed the small shovel, mucked them into a plastic lettuce tin and brought them inside for clean up. Harvesting on New Year’s Eve, a nice surprise.

Next I picked up one of Elizabeth Berg’s books I had in the read pile and started in on “The Pull Of The Moon.” Great book. It explores the challenges of women turning 50 and how dealing with change affects us. Two pages near the end of the book really touched me, particularly one sentence: “but the meat of the thing was this; you accept change in your life or you might as well be dead.” Blunt and true.

Then a vendor from my day job referred a writer to me who wanted to know about publishing. Since I try to keep my day and writing jobs separate, once again the worlds crashed together. I sent him a few quick tips by email about indie publishing and our Willamette Writers group. He responded that he wanted to submit his work for someone to publish. Ah. Huge topic to try to explain today’s traditional vs. indie publishing business models. But it reminded me I’ve learned a lot on this publishing adventure, including to watch our for pirates and scallywags.

So I will post a blog next week about starting from the beginning for new writers and recycle one of my previous blog posts about figuring out what type a career you want before you choose indie or traditional publishing. Will try to give a “Reader’s Digest” condensed version as opposed to the “War and Peace” tomb this could require.

So how does all this mashup together? I’m a writer carrot. At the age of 10 I knew I was a writer and I wrote. My writing journeyed through youth romance fiction, poetry, high school journalism, plays, newspaper journalist and photojournalist, public relations writer, romance fiction, magazine writer, screenplays, web writer, non-fiction author, online media manager, videographer and back to romance fiction. Still writing, still changing, still learning.

The lesson in every New Year we might miss is if we look back and forward, we figure out as writers we’re lifelong learners who keep growing where we’re planted regardless of technology or life changes. That gives me a great deal of comfort as I try to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. However, I can say, “I’m proud to be a writer carrot.” Grow on!