99 Word Processors

And every one’s a bitch.  ::sigh::

So here’s the skinny – I’ve been cranking out books and ebooks this year.  I’ve been using OpenOffice as my business suite for several years now.  I love it – I really do!  Anything I output directly from any of the programs works great.  I’m no wiz on any of the progs – I use the word processor the most – but everything I do seems to work great, as long as I keep it in-house.

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MTAB2

I attended the March To A Bestseller 2 event held on Friday on Facebook.  What a mind blowing experience!  It was put on by the two gents who run the Sell More Books Show podcast, Jim and Bryan.  I’ve been dipping my toes into the indie author world, but this was like swimming in the Caribbean!  It was warm, inviting, and I felt welcomed and relaxed.

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Target And Reuse Your Content

I have clients in several industries.  I know – I should concentrate on just one.  But I just can’t.  It’s a personality flaw.

That said, I create documents and books for my clients, or clients I want to attract.  I do that across industries.  If I had to write content for each industry, I’d never get any other work done.

I have a rule I use with the karate students I teach.  “Mr. Gardner’s first rule of karate: cheat whenever possible.”  By this, I mean use the things and people that are around you to get yourself right.  The same thing goes for content.  If you create it once, modify it and use it again.

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Book Publishing Schedule Set For 2015

I’ve been working on the layout for my next book, Profitable Web Hosting.  In addition, I’ve firmed up dates through the end of 2015 for books and ebooks that I’m working on.  I have a couple dates where I’m planning on publishing something, although I’m not yet sure what they’ll be.

Here’s the latest list with the dates:

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Write For The Walmart Crowd: 3 Tips

I’m working with a highly educated mental health professional.  Right now I’m editing the manuscript for her first nonfiction ebook.  She spends a lot of hours each week writing, so you’d think there wasn’t a lot to be changed.  How wrong you’d be!

So that we’re clear, there’s nothing wrong with her words, her grammar or her punctuation.  It’s just that normally her reports are meant for other professionals like herself, and members of the court, the schools systems, etc.  This book is targeted toward parents.  Most parents are, at best, casual readers.  50 Shades of Gray, sports stories in the paper, instructions on how to put together a bunk bed – you get the idea.  The verbiage, sentence structure and chapter length in this woman’s book is, frankly, far above the head of the casual reader.

If you, like my client, are writing a book for mass readership, there are three very important tips you need to keep in mind.

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A New Beginning

Wow, that sounds dramatic.

Hopefully it isn’t as catastrophic as it appears to be.  I finished a draft of my book Profitable Web Hosting last week, three full weeks before the due date.  I’ve got the next one outlined on 3×5 cards (yes, really!).  But they fell on the floor and got messed up.  What’s a guy to do?

Well, I have had a free program for a while that allows you to input bits and pieces of text and rearrange them into something more coherent.  But I just didn’t like the damned thing!  So I went looking for another one.

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