Category: Uncategorized

Thank heavens for the internet. When I started this process of being a writer, I relied on magazines as a source of information. Anyone still subscribe to Writer’s Digest? Or Coda? (now Poets & Writers)

That was back in my poetry writing days, and they were a lifeline. Inspiring articles, success stories of other writers, lists of potential markets. All things I would have never found  on my own.

Then I started writing books and everything changed. The list of literary magazines I haunted on a regular basis held no value anymore. I needed a list of agents and instructions on the proper way to type up a manuscript. At least that’s what I thought.

Then I signed up for my first writer’s newsgroup through Yahoo. I thought I might get some tips on writing as well as information on how to submit a query. What I got was so much more.

I’d vaguely been aware of ebooks, but hadn’t seen one. I still made my weekly or so trips to the library to get my reading materials. The first few electronic books I downloaded were enjoyable reading, but I missed the feel of paper in my hands. (And still do!)

When the first discussions of indie publishing came to my attention, I followed them with curiosity. Then interest. I could publish my books without an agent or a publisher? I didn’t have to
change my stories to fit someone else’s boring standards?

Eventually I discovered other writers on Facebook. And on-line critique groups. And sites where you can check your work for spelling and grammatical errors. And free blogging sites (Like this one! Thanks, blogger!) And so on and so on.

So thanks, internet, you’ve been a great help.

*****

Here’s a few links a starting author might be interesting in.

prowritingaid.com/Free-Editing-Software.aspx

https://www.grammarly.com

http://www.critiquecircle.com/default.asp

Now let’s go find out what everyone is using!

“October 9, 2017 – My favorite business resources.
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
WordPress:



Custom Blog:

An InLinkz Link-up

get the InLinkz code
“
InLinkz | view linkup

Thank heavens for the internet. When I started this process of being a writer, I relied on magazines as a source of information. Anyone still subscribe to Writer’s Digest? Or Coda? (now Poets & Writers)

That was back in my poetry writing days, and they were a lifeline. Inspiring articles, success stories of other writers, lists of potential markets. All things I would have never found  on my own.

Then I started writing books and everything changed. The list of literary magazines I haunted on a regular basis held no value anymore. I needed a list of agents and instructions on the proper way to type up a manuscript. At least that’s what I thought.

Then I signed up for my first writer’s newsgroup through Yahoo. I thought I might get some tips on writing as well as information on how to submit a query. What I got was so much more.

I’d vaguely been aware of ebooks, but hadn’t seen one. I still made my weekly or so trips to the library to get my reading materials. The first few electronic books I downloaded were enjoyable reading, but I missed the feel of paper in my hands. (And still do!)

When the first discussions of indie publishing came to my attention, I followed them with curiosity. Then interest. I could publish my books without an agent or a publisher? I didn’t have to
change my stories to fit someone else’s boring standards?

Eventually I discovered other writers on Facebook. And on-line critique groups. And sites where you can check your work for spelling and grammatical errors. And free blogging sites (Like this one! Thanks, blogger!) And so on and so on.

So thanks, internet, you’ve been a great help.

*****

Here’s a few links a starting author might be interesting in.


prowritingaid.com/Free-Editing-Software.aspx

https://www.grammarly.com

http://www.critiquecircle.com/default.asp

Now let’s go find out what everyone is using!

“October 9, 2017 – My favorite business resources.
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
Wordpress:

Custom Blog:

An InLinkz Link-up

get the InLinkz code
“
InLinkz | view linkup

I suppose some people wouldn’t consider my favorite charity as a charity at all. They consider it more of a club, but it couldn’t exist without contributions from lots of people.

I grew up wearing brown and then green with this organization. As a teen, I spent summers as both a volunteer and a paid employee working for this group. I was lucky enough to be able to move on to being an adult volunteer first and a paid employee later.

It was with this group that I learned my love of nature. The trees, the hills, the sun and the rain. I learned how to build fires and how to put them out. I hiked trails and helped build them where none existed.
.

I learned self-reliance and child care and how to manage money. Through this organization, I got to  explore cities and places where I’d never traveled before.I got to have relationships with adults that weren’t my parents and be more of an adult myself. And yes, I sold cookies.

It was on a camping trip with this group that I first decided I wanted to grow my hair long. One of the adults on the trip-another girl’s grandmother- always wore her hair in a braid that was wrapped into a bun. Very old fashioned. But one morning she took it down to comb it out and it was the longest, most beautiful silver hair I’d every seen. I’ll have hair like that some day.

So here’s to the Girl Scouts. Still my favorite charity. I know they’ve been having some tough times lately, but I hope they stick around for years to come.

Now let’s go find out what charities the other authors like.

October 2, 2017 – Talk about your favorite charity and why it’s your favorite?
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
WordPress:



Custom Blog:

An InLinkz Link-up

get the InLinkz code

I suppose some people wouldn’t consider my favorite charity as a charity at all. They consider it more of a club, but it couldn’t exist without contributions from lots of people.

I grew up wearing brown and then green with this organization. As a teen, I spent summers as both a volunteer and a paid employee working for this group. I was lucky enough to be able to move on to being an adult volunteer first and a paid employee later.

It was with this group that I learned my love of nature. The trees, the hills, the sun and the rain. I learned how to build fires and how to put them out. I hiked trails and helped build them where none existed.
.

I learned self-reliance and child care and how to manage money. Through this organization, I got to  explore cities and places where I’d never traveled before.I got to have relationships with adults that weren’t my parents and be more of an adult myself. And yes, I sold cookies.

It was on a camping trip with this group that I first decided I wanted to grow my hair long. One of the adults on the trip-another girl’s grandmother- always wore her hair in a braid that was wrapped into a bun. Very old fashioned. But one morning she took it down to comb it out and it was the longest, most beautiful silver hair I’d every seen. I’ll have hair like that some day.

So here’s to the Girl Scouts. Still my favorite charity. I know they’ve been having some tough times lately, but I hope they stick around for years to come.

Now let’s go find out what charities the other authors like.

October 2, 2017 – Talk about your favorite charity and why it’s your favorite?
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
Wordpress:

Custom Blog:

An InLinkz Link-up

get the InLinkz code

I don’t claim to be the most business-savvy author you’ll ever meet. In fact, I’m still learning. But the toughest lesson I’ve learned is that it takes money to make money.

For the most part (and there are rare exceptions) writing a good book isn’t enough to make you successful. There are lots of good books out there, and it’s tough to get noticed in the crowd. You can try all the free sites in the world and sell a few books, but that won’t support your writing habit.

Then there are other places that charge varying degrees of money to publicize your book for you. Usually the price of their advertising matches the size of their audience. The bigger the number of their followers, the more money you have you spend to get listed with them. But there’s a reason that authors buy promotions with those sites—they sell books!

I’m not going to give you a comprehensive list of sites that will publicize your books. A quick search on the internet will give you that information. Two moderately priced ones I had good luck with are E-Reader News Today and Robin Reads. Each costs around $50 to promote a book in the mystery genre.

There are also services that will send out tweets to their followers and others that will post to groups on Facebook for you. Some offer to promote your book across a wide range of social media. What you do depends on how you want to reach your target audience.

So if I had to start over, I’d make sure I had a “bank” to use for paid promotion services. I know it may seem unnecessary after sinking money into editing, formatting and a professional cover, but it’s worth it.

And that’s my 2¢ worth. Now I’m off to learn from my fellow authors!

September 25, 2017 – Tell us your biggest business lesson learned. If you were to start your writing career all over again, what would you do differently?
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
WordPress:



Custom Blog:

An InLinkz Link-up

get the InLinkz code

I don’t claim to be the most business-savvy author you’ll ever meet. In fact, I’m still learning. But the toughest lesson I’ve learned is that it takes money to make money.

For the most part (and there are rare exceptions) writing a good book isn’t enough to make you successful. There are lots of good books out there, and it’s tough to get noticed in the crowd. You can try all the free sites in the world and sell a few books, but that won’t support your writing habit.

Then there are other places that charge varying degrees of money to publicize your book for you. Usually the price of their advertising matches the size of their audience. The bigger the number of their followers, the more money you have you spend to get listed with them. But there’s a reason that authors buy promotions with those sites—they sell books!

I’m not going to give you a comprehensive list of sites that will publicize your books. A quick search on the internet will give you that information. Two moderately priced ones I had good luck with are E-Reader News Today and Robin Reads. Each costs around $50 to promote a book in the mystery genre.

There are also services that will send out tweets to their followers and others that will post to groups on Facebook for you. Some offer to promote your book across a wide range of social media. What you do depends on how you want to reach your target audience.

So if I had to start over, I’d make sure I had a “bank” to use for paid promotion services. I know it may seem unnecessary after sinking money into editing, formatting and a professional cover, but it’s worth it.

And that’s my 2¢ worth. Now I’m off to learn from my fellow authors!

September 25, 2017 – Tell us your biggest business lesson learned. If you were to start your writing career all over again, what would you do differently?
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
Wordpress:

Custom Blog:

An InLinkz Link-up

get the InLinkz code

I’m tickled to help out a friend with her cover reveal today.It’s her next book in the Enforcer series.

Ryleigh, take it away!

Reveal Date: 9/19/2017
Blurb:
She was too broken and I couldn’t save her.

I’ve survived multiple deployments to places that just hearing the name makes people cringe. I think nothing of attempting to save lives when they have the most impossible injuries, all while sustaining my own wounds. I’m a medic, a healer, a helper, a fixer. I must do this to conceal my dark, scarred, broken soul. I loved her beyond reason even though I knew I could never have her.

Now I’m dragging myself back to the light, the land of the living with the help of my friends.I need to find her. The one who will be my rock. My heart. But to find her, I have one more battle to fight.

This one will be the most difficult yet.

Links:
https://twitter.com/ryleigh_rhodes
https://www.facebook.com/RhodesRyleighAuthor/
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35431235-j

Photographer: Kruse Images and Photography – https://www.facebook.com/KIPmodelsandboudoir/
Cover Artist: Rebel Edit and Design – https://www.facebook.com/rebeleditdesign/

Hashtags:
#AuthorRyleighRhodes #EnforcerSeries

I’m tickled to help out a friend with her cover reveal today.It’s her next book in the Enforcer series.

Ryleigh, take it away!

Reveal Date: 9/19/2017
Blurb:
She was too broken and I couldn’t save her.

I’ve survived multiple deployments to places that just hearing the name makes people cringe. I think nothing of attempting to save lives when they have the most impossible injuries, all while sustaining my own wounds. I’m a medic, a healer, a helper, a fixer. I must do this to conceal my dark, scarred, broken soul. I loved her beyond reason even though I knew I could never have her.

Now I’m dragging myself back to the light, the land of the living with the help of my friends.I need to find her. The one who will be my rock. My heart. But to find her, I have one more battle to fight.

This one will be the most difficult yet.

Links:
https://twitter.com/ryleigh_rhodes
https://www.facebook.com/RhodesRyleighAuthor/
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35431235-j

Photographer: Kruse Images and Photography – https://www.facebook.com/KIPmodelsandboudoir/
Cover Artist: Rebel Edit and Design – https://www.facebook.com/rebeleditdesign/

Hashtags:
#AuthorRyleighRhodes #EnforcerSeries

First, let’s get one thing straight. The difference between a recession and a depression.

A recession is an economic downturn characterized by an uptick in unemployment. They normally at least 6 months. A depression is more severe and may last years. There have been 8 recessions since 1960, according to The National Bureau of Economic Research. Bet you didn’t know that! I didn’t.

So surviving a recession isn’t so hard, especially if you are lucky enough to keep your job. Here’s a few things you can do beforehand to get ready for one:

Keep your debt as low as possible. I get it, that new gadget is really hard to resist . But do you need it? Is it worth buying now and paying interest for several years? Interest is low right now, but it might not be in several years.

Stash some cash. Forget what the experts say about saving enough to cover several months of your expenses, that’s unrealistic for many of us. But save something. Every bit helps.

Remember the old saying—waste not, want not? I had a friend who used to throw away things that were old but not broke. (She’s not a friend anymore.) She didn’t want to be bothered with storing them (which I understood) or donating them (which I didn’t understand.) We as a society are too quick to discard things. I’m a strong proponent of recycling and believe that might save us some problems down the road.

But what to do if another recession hits? First off, don’t worry about maintaining your current lifestyle. That may be a losing proposition. Instead, figure out a new lifestyle that is sustainable Can you live on unemployment and food stamps? (in the US)

Grow your own food. Well, not all of it, but start with fresh vegetables and spices. Even if you live in an apartment, there are some you can grow on a windowsill. Eat out less and cook more.

Live simpler. How many pairs of shoes do you need? Same goes for everything else you buy. How many TV channels can you watch at once? In fact, turn off the TV and read a book (and save electricity at the same time.) You can borrow them from the public library for free.

Learn how to fix the things you already have. Sew on a button or change the hem yourself instead of taking that outfit somewhere else to be fixed. By the way, bartering is a way to get goods and services without spending money and it works. What are you good at that you can use as a bargaining chip?

Like to travel? Take day trips instead of week long trips. You’ll still need to buy gas but you’ll save the cost of a hotel room.Or, go primitive camping. See nature from the ground up.

How wold you adapt to a recession? Tell me in the comments. In the meantime, let’s hop over and see what the other authors have to say.

September 18, 2017 – The Great Recession. We have probably all heard of if not lived through a recession. If a recession occurred today, what would you do to sustain your lifestyle? What changes would you make?
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
WordPress:



Custom Blog:

An InLinkz Link-up

get the InLinkz code

First, let’s get one thing straight. The difference between a recession and a depression.

A recession is an economic downturn characterized by an uptick in unemployment. They normally at least 6 months. A depression is more severe and may last years. There have been 8 recessions since 1960, according to The National Bureau of Economic Research. Bet you didn’t know that! I didn’t.

So surviving a recession isn’t so hard, especially if you are lucky enough to keep your job. Here’s a few things you can do beforehand to get ready for one:

Keep your debt as low as possible. I get it, that new gadget is really hard to resist . But do you need it? Is it worth buying now and paying interest for several years? Interest is low right now, but it might not be in several years.

Stash some cash. Forget what the experts say about saving enough to cover several months of your expenses, that’s unrealistic for many of us. But save something. Every bit helps.

Remember the old saying—waste not, want not? I had a friend who used to throw away things that were old but not broke. (She’s not a friend anymore.) She didn’t want to be bothered with storing them (which I understood) or donating them (which I didn’t understand.) We as a society are too quick to discard things. I’m a strong proponent of recycling and believe that might save us some problems down the road.

But what to do if another recession hits? First off, don’t worry about maintaining your current lifestyle. That may be a losing proposition. Instead, figure out a new lifestyle that is sustainable Can you live on unemployment and food stamps? (in the US)

Grow your own food. Well, not all of it, but start with fresh vegetables and spices. Even if you live in an apartment, there are some you can grow on a windowsill. Eat out less and cook more.

Live simpler. How many pairs of shoes do you need? Same goes for everything else you buy. How many TV channels can you watch at once? In fact, turn off the TV and read a book (and save electricity at the same time.) You can borrow them from the public library for free.

Learn how to fix the things you already have. Sew on a button or change the hem yourself instead of taking that outfit somewhere else to be fixed. By the way, bartering is a way to get goods and services without spending money and it works. What are you good at that you can use as a bargaining chip?

Like to travel? Take day trips instead of week long trips. You’ll still need to buy gas but you’ll save the cost of a hotel room.Or, go primitive camping. See nature from the ground up.

How wold you adapt to a recession? Tell me in the comments. In the meantime, let’s hop over and see what the other authors have to say.

September 18, 2017 – The Great Recession. We have probably all heard of if not lived through a recession. If a recession occurred today, what would you do to sustain your lifestyle? What changes would you make?
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
Wordpress:

Custom Blog:

An InLinkz Link-up

get the InLinkz code