Dec 30, 2014

Thank you so much Maureen.

It seems that no matter how many books I have in print I always sell about 300 copies annually, which I suppose makes me the habanero pepper on the literary buffet table. I feel really fortunate to have this web site and be able to publish print books through Create Space.

Really, most of the non fiction titles are not expected to sell. But printing out manuscripts is 10 times [yes, 10 times] more expensive than publishing through Create Space and buying a copy wholesale, and, unlike a binder, the book will fit in my book bag!

Really Maureen, one day you should turn your LivingInMyVan blog into a book.

Dec 31, 2014

Since you are an intelligent woman living in a van in what amounts to a nice looking sewage containment habitat, and your posts can be viewed by every killer on the planet if they wish, you have left out many details that would make the stories more readable.

My suggestion, is that you use your posts as your lead in and conclusion to each chapter and then put the details you left out in the middle. In this way it would read like a newspaper story. This depends on how you have already written the piece. In some cases you will just have to expand a sentence to a paragraph to get in the detail. Identify you different post 'styles' and come up with a formula for fleshing each one out into a more detailed narrative. You can use alias' for those appearing in your stories.

I would start by copying and pasting your first year's posts into a word document set at 6" by 9", making sure the titles are highlighted as headings, using the reference tab to build a table of contents using these headings, and then go through a chapter at a time and flesh it out as if you were leaving a journal for your daughter in case she might end up in this situation. When you are done with year one if the manuscript exceeds 120 pages, stop there and publish it.

Good luck