I am amazed at all of the authors asking the information about donating signed books to the Authors Supporting Our Troops event, as well as non-authors wanting to donate money to help with the massive shipping costs. You can find out everything you need to know Here.

With the goal of 3,000 author-signed books shipped in 2015, the only part of the equation I’m a little worried about is actual soldiers to send books to. 

This is where you hopefully come in and help…

Are you a family member of someone in the military (any branch) or friends with someone who is currently overseas in a remote area? We’d love to make contact with you and send over a couple of boxes of books so they can share them with their unit. I’m not interested in a company that does this or a random person, i want to actually…

Sometimes wonder what would be said or remembered.

Since I mentioned that my sales seem related to my Twitter activity, I’ve been asked several times to write about my experience with Twitter, so here goes. I cannot claim to have studied Twitter and admittedly my Twitter knowledge can still be hit and miss, but these are my anecdotal views.

My main message upfront: It can be hard work but I found it very worthwhile and an important marketing tool.

Reluctantly, I joined twitter about 18 months ago and had humble beginnings. Like an enthusiastic lapdog, I immediately followed everyone who was remotely book related and soon the number of people I was following was 2000. However, Twitter has an in-built barrier and you need to have 1800 people following you before you can follow your 2001st, 2002nd etc. Twitter account.

Thanks to some friendly help from an author in the know, I learned that justunfollow.com (free software)…

There’s so much truth to this adorable little quote/image! We DO create what we think of. If we think of ourselves as brilliant, loving, courageous, talented beings, that’s what we become. Each thought matters. Each word.

So how about it? Bring beauty into your life by choosing to see it, starting from within.

If not now, when?

When I first decided to self-publish my books I had no intention of doing every little thing myself. I planned on paying for editing and formatting, and buying my cover designs. I had a rude awakening when I discovered that living in Zimbabwe, as I was at the time, meant that I had no access to PayPal, who sanction that country, and from what I could see back then, that was the only way to pay.

I had page numbers, headers and footers, indents and lots of other fancy bits and pieces in my original manuscript and no clue as to what formatting even meant. Seeing other writer’s beautiful covers all over, my heart sank because I knew that I could never create such things. It was the most frustrating feeling in the world until I discovered a few free resources that meant I could do it all myself. None…

Don Quixote in the Library by Adolf Schrödter, 1834