Things that are Important

Has it really been ten days since I posted here? On several days I had good intentions, and ideas in mind. But they came to me at a moment when I couldn’t post, and when I did post they didn’t come to me.

But much has happened in the interim. Mostly good things. Here’s a summary.

  • The print edition of Doctor Luke’s Assistant is officially published. And the listing on Amazon is consolidated, with the e- and print editions showing on the same page and on the summary listing.
  • My third grandbaby, Elise Marie Schneberger, was born on May 10, weighing in at 8 lbs. 8 oz. Today I head west to spend the weekend with her, and with other members of the family. This is my first granddaughter.
  • Found the missing pictures from our China trip in 1983. I wanted some of these for the cover of China Tour. Plus, who wants to lose photos of such a momentous event? I knew they had to be in the house somewhere and had spent a couple of hours looking. As typical of when you look for something packed away, I was looking for the wrong kind of box. I finally began going through the shelves in the storage room in the basement, marking all boxes on the shelves, and found then in about a half hour of looking. Found a good one to use for the main illustration, which I may add to this post.
  • Completed round two of edits of China Tour, and began round 3 (the final round), which is really just proofreading. Or maybe I should say if all I find is proofreading type changes it will be the last round. If I find any substantive changes needed, then I’ll need another round of edits.
  • My launch team is giving me reports on the book. I’ve heard from 5 out of 12 who have read it completely, and from several others who are some way into it. So far everyone likes it enough to stay on the team. Even my wife read it and said it was good, that she couldn’t guess ahead to what was going to happen.
  • The cover designer has begun production. It’s a somewhat simple cover (said the man who can’t do that kind of work at all) using photos from our China trip. I’m not quite sure when it will be done, but it seems likely before I actually finish all edits for the book.
  • The title will be changing, probably to Lotus Sunday or perhaps Operation Lotus Sunday. One other possibility I’m mulling over is Saving Dragonfly.
  • Yesterday I sold the first paperback copy of Doctor Luke’s Assistant. That earns me $1.17 in royalty, because I kept the price low. It sure feels good to sell one. That’s also my first sale of anything in May.

So there you have the news from Bentonville/Bella Vista, Arkansas. If I had to guess I’d say Lotus Sunday will launch around June 1st. I’ll keep you all posted.


Progress on Two Books

After a week long hiatus, I’m back. Actually it was a little more than a week. What have I been doing to further my writing career, you ask? A few things. I put out three or four calls for launch team members for China Tour. Twelve people responded. I e-mailed them the book, and outlined


To Justify or Not

One website/blog I monitor with some degree of regularity is Joel Friedlander’s The Book Designer. Joel is very big on taking great care in the interior design of a book. He encourages people to use a high-end program, such as InDesign, to create the interior. He does acknowledge, however, that the standard Microsoft Word is


Print cover for “Doctor Luke’s Assistant”

I’ve been working with a cover designer to take the e-book cover for Doctor Luke’s Assistant and create a print book cover for it. It’s a considerably more complicated process and file. But tonight it’s done, but still subject to any final editing and tweaking thought needed. I’m posting it here to see if my


Virtual Book Launch Team

The time has come to begin generating pre-publication buzz for my newest book. As I’ve reported on these pages before, it’s my latest novel, “China Tour”. Here’s what I put on my Facebook author page, and on a Facebook writer page I’m a member of. I’ll slowly be adding it other places. I finished the


The Amazon Love-Hate Affair

I’m wondering if my writing website has been hacked. I can’t login to the admin page. Lately I’ve been getting a lot of spam comments, somehow getting past the captcha code, and have been deleting them all. I’ll see when I get home tonight and try logging in with a different browser. For now I’ll


A Conan Doyle about to break-through

This past Sunday, the weather being pleasant and our getting home from church with fair promptness, I fixed a cottage cheese and lunchmeat lunch and took it to the sun porch to read. Or maybe this is more of a Florida room, except it’s elevated—an appendage to the house fitted with some expensive heating units


Change of Writing Plans for the next Two Weeks

I had a meeting to go to this morning at the City of Bentonville Planning Office. As expected it lasted about 45 minutes. The City library is pretty close, and since my colleagues and I took separate vehicles (because they both had other meetings to go to afterwards), I went to the library. A library


March 2013 Sales

March was just as dismal as February in terms of sales. I don’t know that I officially posted February’s sales. I sold two whole books in February. In March I again sold two books. That actually made March more dismal than February, since it had three more days in it. That gives me 13 sales


Not Enough Time for the Books

Lately I’ve fallen into a little better routine, at least as far as my reading is concerned. I have a small book in the pick-up that I read a little in at traffic lights, or just before I get out to go somewhere. Or it’s there when I head into the doctor’s office, like yesterday.