Kimberly A. Cook

Military Romance Author

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Remembering Our Heroic Military Animal Warriors

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by Kimberly A. Cook                (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Monday is Memorial Day to honor and remember all who have given their lives defending our nation. Along with the brave women and men who have given the ultimate sacrifice during war and peace, during and after service, we also honor the heroic military animals who stand beside our warriors and pay the price of freedom.

This Monday remember the sacrifices of all our warriors and veterans. Military animals and especially military dogs have shown their love and duty by giving their lives to protect their country and fellow troops.

Remember; Freedom isn’t Free.

(You have to watch this video on YouTube, but here is the link)

http://youtu.be/gSa5KZtb5To

 

 

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?

How Can We Organize Ourselves And Our Writing For 2013?

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by Kimberly A. Cook         (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Today we say hello to 2013 and start with clean calendars to plan our writing goals. My friend Carol and I say every year,  “This year we’re going to get organized!” We’ve been saying and doing that for more than 25 years and we’re still not done. It’s a process.

Spec Ops Cat does his part to get the office paperwork ready for 2013.
Spec Ops Cat does his part to get the office paperwork ready for 2013.

This past holiday season I took some time to think outside the box and the basket. (See Spec Ops Cat at left) With four manuscripts in various stages from final editing to first draft, I wanted to figure out a way to combine my business needs with my writing time.

It dawned on me I can finish all four manuscripts first and THEN publish them when I choose. Just because I finish a book doesn’t mean I have to rush it out the door to publication. Getting the four books completed first will also help me to budget my finances this year. Duh!

We get so used to striving and straining in a certain direction, we forget to consider if we’re on the right road in the first place; or the correct writing project or the right location. Downtime and thinking time are required parts of being a writer. I’ve set some simple but big goals this year and I’m looking forward to hitting them. It’s also reducing my stress level.

Two of my goals are to spend more time on my photography and having fun. I’ve started having fun by adding this “Authors Are My Rock Stars” calendar to my office. Yeah! http://www.amazon.com/2013-Authors-Rock-Stars-calendar/dp/1402270992/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357006123&sr=8-1&keywords=authors+are+my+rock+stars (And maybe in 2013 I’ll figure out how to shorten and rename these links on WordPress!)

To refill my photography cup, I decided to get a subscription to “Outdoor Photographer” this year. Stumbled upon photographer Ian Plant’s blog and his fabulous top twelve photos of 2012. These are gorgeous. http://www.outdoorphotographer.com/blog/ian-plant/2012/12/twelve-significant-photographs-a-year-2012.html

Make a small change and explore a new area of interest or one you’ve neglected for years. A new calendar or even one magazine can send you off on a new journey in 2013. Maybe being a little more unorganized is what we need to do this year and let our muses wander. Who knows what fun we can have by taking a mosey into the new year instead of trying to speed through life.

Happy New Year everybody! Keep writing!

Happy Holidays To Our Troops Around The World

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by Kimberly A. Cook          (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

This Friday we head into the holiday weekend and my thoughts and prayers are with our military troops around the world keeping us safe. When we’re away from our families in the military, we make the best of it, but there is a special little place in our heart that wishes we were with our loved ones.

For all our troops around the world, here is a favorite video to let you know we care about you and to thank you for your service. We appreciate the sacrifice and hardships you and your families deal with on a daily basis and especially during the holidays. We wish you all return home safe and sound very soon.

Always on duty, we know the men and women at NORAD are getting ready to clear the airspace for Santa and his reindeer. Thanks again for yet another job well done!

Think You’ve Got A Crazy Writing Niche?

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by Kimberly A. Cook            (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Spent several days at home recently when my head was declared a hazmat area by my doctor. Antibiotics were prescribed. I camped in the LaZBoy with the Hallmark Channel and Spec Ops Cat. Needing a diversion after 36 modern movies I slipped in the “White Christmas” DVD, my all time favorite holiday movie.

The clothes in the movie make me drool. My favorite is the dress worn by Rosemary Clooney when she sings her solo. Designed by Edith Head, this drop dead gorgeous gown is built for us women with curves. Those were the days!

After the movie I decided to see what I could find out about the gown on my trusty Nook Tablet. (Google “Rosemary Clooney black gown” and see what happens yourself) Pay dirt! Not only did I find pictures, I discovered a cottage industry around the clothes in the movie. One blog post followed a seamstress trying to make it from scratch http://sewing.patternreview.com/SewingDiscussions/topic/48642

Then I found the Rosemary Clooney Museum in Augusta, Kentucky! Who knew? www.rosemaryclooney.org Not only do they have costumes from many of her movies, but a reproduction of the red Christmas gown. The museum recently bought the sparkly blue dress from the movie’s sisters number off eBay; from a vintage store who didn’t know what they had. Boggles the mind. The museum has the largest collection of “White Christmas” movie memorabilia in the world and George Clooney items are at there too. Must book a trip!

This goes to show you, any topic can be a niche. I’m beginning to think the niches are getting their own niches these days. So if you love a quirky topic like 1950s dress designs, there might be an app for that, but there sure are blogs. Or start your own! My military niche is rather large but I can pick and choose my quirky topics so it gives me total freedom.

It also means I can find a military connection to almost any topic on the planet. “White Christmas” is a case in point. It’s a grand story about Army buddies, falling in love and honoring those who have served. Priceless.

Keeping Pearl Harbor Memories and Sacrifices Alive

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by Kimberly A. Cook             (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

The first war story I recorded for a 1976 school project belonged to John Watson, my brother-in-law’s great-uncle. He worked as a shipyard worker in Pearl Harbor for the U.S. Navy. He was laying in bed on his first day off in thirteen weeks. He and his roommate, Lonnie, heard a lot of firing. They thought it might be practice firing, but it didn’t sound right. They turned on the radio.

The Battleship Missouri Memorial watches over the USS Arizona Memorial on election day, Nov. 6. Copyright 2012 Kimberly A. Cook
The Battleship Missouri Memorial watches over the USS Arizona Memorial on election day, Nov. 6. Copyright 2012 Kimberly A. Cook

“All workmen return to Pearl Harbor immediately, Japs are firing on us,” came across the radio waves. The two men made it to Pearl Harbor thirty minutes later and went through the main gate just as the second wave of Japanese fighters were coming over. “I don’t think they ever caught up with me though,” Johnny joked.

An electrician, Johnny got “juice” on the heavy cruiser San Francisco so she could fire her guns. Her anti-aircraft “one point pom poms” were on the dock so the rigger swung them aboard and they welded them to the deck. She was firing in 20  minutes. “By manual, manual firing them,” he said.

“I’ll admit there were no stops on them and she practically cut one stack off following them planes around. We were firing right towards Honolulu. I had a lot up in the valley I was ready to build a new house on and a 16-inch shell took that lot off the hillside; we found fragments of it,” he said.

“They were firing at anything going away, coming or anything else with anything that would fire. Like I told ya, we fired 16-inch guns at airplanes.”

Last year on the 70th Anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association voted to disband their corporate association on Dec. 31, 2011. The travel is challenging for those in their late 80s and early 90s. The memories are still strong and painful. The challenge for the National Park Service now is how to transition their mission to keep the memories and the sacrifice alive and relevant to future generations.

Education and stories are the key for me. Uncle Johnny’s story became my first official war story to record. That one encounter started me on a lifelong journey as a writer, veteran and military storyteller.  For those of us left behind, we must now step up and tell the stories to new generations for those who have gone before. This Friday, December 7th, remember Uncle Johnny and all the men, women, children and civilians we lost on that day in Honolulu and since.

Freedom isn’t free.