What is an ISBN?

What is an ISBN?

by Nancy Jackson January 19, 2022

...When you publish your own books, you can and should purchase them yourself. You may choose to publish through a second party where they offer to provide you with a free ISBN. Once I learned that it will point directly back to that entity, I decided I wanted to buy my own ISBN numbers...

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Holding Your Book In Your Hand

Holding Your Book In Your Hand

by Nancy Jackson January 12, 2022

   Now uploading to their site is not for the faint of heart, but it has improved since I uploaded my first novel and their customer service is great! It was worth it. 

I knew I wanted to see my novels in hardcover form with a dust jacket, something my graphic artist may never forgive me for. But, she rose to the challenge and tweaked and tweaked until it fit their specs perfectly...

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Out To The World

Out To The World

by Nancy Jackson January 05, 2022

...I went to a writers conference the first year I was writing. I had written The Blood but not yet published. At that conference there was an Oklahoma company there that I was thrilled about. It makes publishing so much easier. I had a healthy dose of skepticism, but after much research my concerns were quickly dissolved...

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Make Your Books Beautiful

Make Your Books Beautiful

by Nancy Jackson December 29, 2021

...You can export all types of books at once. You can do multiple eBook formats and print as well or you have the option to do only one type of format.

With a print book it is fixed and static. With an ebook, it will be fluid and can be manipulated by the viewer to see fonts larger or smaller as needed.

Having Vellum detect the chapters is really a help because rather that give a static page number it creates a link to that chapter that doesn’t change.  Awesome since the page number is fluid...

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You Need a Writing Team

You Need a Writing Team

by Nancy Jackson December 22, 2021

...It is important to not rush any step of this process. Take your time with rewrites and using a grammar program. Then when you get it to a live person, either a free team or a professional editor, it will be much easier for them to do their job. 

You can’t have too many people read and mark your manuscript. My process is to let one person read it, then make those corrections. Then I give it to another persona and so on. One of the last people I let read and review the manuscripts is a woman who was and English professor at a university for many years.

Don't rush this process. I promise you will...

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Everyone Needs A Fixer

Everyone Needs A Fixer

by Nancy Jackson December 15, 2021

...Using ProWriting Aid has made me a better writer. I ignored many suggestions the program made in my first novel. I thought I knew better. 

But, the more books I wrote, the more I paid attention to the suggestions. I didn’t always make the changes the way it suggested, but would change something to make it a better sentence or paragraph. Sometimes when writing fiction you want it to be different for a reason, but not too often...

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What Exactly is Scapple?

What Exactly is Scapple?

by Nancy Jackson December 08, 2021

I recommend this for everyone! 

  1. Keeping notes...
  2. Keeping recipes...
  3. Keeping a business organized...

...The trouble with the notebook was that I would quickly run out of room and have to start a new sheet. Then I was flipping back and forth from page to page looking for an idea or whose son or daughter that person was.

With Scapple I can move them around and link them like a family tree. I can even put character notes by each one.

If I want to add pictures or copy and paste from an internet search, I can do that to all while keeping them on one page....

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The Writing Program I Love!

The Writing Program I Love!

by Nancy Jackson December 01, 2021

...As you can see in my example above of a screenshot of my book The Water. I had maps and definitions, etc. to refer to as needed. Notice on the left hand side is my list of chapters and the sections in each chapter. I can go from one to the other simply by clicking on it.

There is so much more that I have not even used. It has so many more features that I would love to explore and plan to soon. It is truly a Ferrari in a Pinto world...

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Creating a Publishing Company

Creating a Publishing Company

by Nancy Jackson November 24, 2021

...At some point while writing the second book, I realized that if I was going to continue to self-publish I needed to create my own publishing company. So, I did...

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My Writing Origins - pt 2

My Writing Origins - pt 2

by Nancy Jackson November 17, 2021

...Now, writing that first novel is not my favorite writing experience. I had an agenda and I get trying to force the story to fit the agenda. It was a mess. It was stiff and disjointed.

Once done, I knew I did not like the first half. So of course I set out praying about it. God’s words from year ago came back to me, “Just tell the story.”

At that point I asked for divine guidance to help me edit the mess I had created in the first half of the book...

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My Writing Origins - pt 1

My Writing Origins - pt 1

by Nancy Jackson November 08, 2021

... When I was thirteen years old in the seventh grade I had a literature class. One day our teacher held up a picture of a lady looking forlornly off into the distance. 

Our instructions were to write a story from that picture. She gave us guidelines for length, and scope, etc. It was to be a short story, not just a page or two. 

Immediately when I looked at that picture I knew it was the end of my story. I began to write feverishly. I had the story and I worked to just get it out of my head and onto the paper... 

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