Some things I've said, and things I've read.

Here’s what’s been going on!

At the Editor’s Desk

This week, I’ve been working on one thing, and one thing only! Well, okay, no…two things. Plus the blog, and my day job, and family stuff, and a new secret project, and some guest posts….

Fine! This week I worked on lots of things, but I’m only going to talk about a few of them.

The Girl Who Stayed the Same (Working Title)

My serial novel got rolling on a new chapter this week, and it’s starting to feel a little less schizophrenic.

Here are my new scenes:

• Chapter 2: Chasing the Light — Part 1, 2

The e-Book Challenge and Unstressed Syllables present
How to Build an e-Book by Aaron Pogue

This one’s the big one, of course. I spent the whole week putting finishing touches on my e-Book. I did tons of research so I could add a Further Reading link list to the ends of some of the chapters.

That took longer than I’d anticipated, because so many of the articles I found were so relevant to the topic (which is to say, building an e-Book), that I discovered I really needed to read them. And then, of course, I found more things I needed to do!

I got some fantastic feedback from some of my reviewers, worked out some promotion deals with some of the others, and tried to bug them all as little as possible. I wasn’t terribly successful at that last bit.

Julie V. got me some downright amazing photos for the e-Book, which are probably enough all by themselves to justify the cost of the book. But perhaps I get ahead of myself….

Oh! And then I had to get the site ready. Writing an e-Book is only part of the process (and, for me anyway, the easiest part). I had to create a general page for products and sales, I had to put together a sales letter for the book itself, and I needed to develop some handy graphics to push the product.

I enjoy the graphical work. It’s not my strong suit, but it’s a lot of fun. I learned a lot, too, this time around — especially in the making of the virtual cover art for the book.

Speaking of which! That image is totally faked.

In case you’re not completely clear on this, I’m only selling an e-Book. There’s no physical product for sale.

I’ll probably look into doing some Print-on-Demand stuff for some of my products in the future, but there was no way for me to get anything like that lined up for this one.

I also figured out how to do coupon codes, which is pretty cool. As I mentioned last night, if any of you want to get the special Loyal Reader Discount, you can use the code UNSTRESSED to get 40% off your purchase price, this weekend only.

I’m not trying to sell you, though. That comes Tuesday. Ahem. But check out my sales page if you haven’t seen it yet. Unstressed Syllables is all grown up now!

On Unstressed Syllables

Unstressed Syllables is still primarily about free writing advice, though, and I’ve put out some good stuff this week, if I do say so myself.

Monday’s Technical Writing exercise provided a handy formatting worksheet to help you figure out how to apply Paragraph Styles in your word processor of choice.

Tuesday’s Technical Writing article talked Karl Marx, free time with sheep, and macroeconomics (as Kelly Diels would have said it). In fact, it was all about why you should start a professional blog, and it got a surprising amount of attention. In fact, that article pulled in double our average viewers. They stuck around, too! Hello, stickers!

On Wednesday, Courtney talked about making time to write — she poked a bit of fun at herself, but she reminded us all to take our writing seriously.

Thursday’s Creative Writing article picked up where Tuesday’s left off, with a focus on how to build a platform (or, why writers need blogs). Wouldn’t you know it, that one drew some interest, too! Hello, new writer friends! We’re glad to have you.

Friday’s Creative Writing exercise asked you to go ahead and get started on your professional blog, with nothing less than an About the Author page.

Of course, then I followed up with a rare and spontaneous departure from my normal schedule. I alerted you to the pending launch of my e-Book. Have you forgotten about that already? Shame on you! At least check out the Press Release and then tell me how cool I am.

Across the Web

I ran into several things of interest this week…but I was too busy to write any of them down. Shame on me! I can probably track some of them down to add to next week’s, though.

And that’s the Week in Words.

Photo credit Julie V. Photography.