A Gift of Thought

A Gift of Thought is free today on Amazon (and for the next couple of days, too). That's because I'm at GeekGirlCon in Seattle. I'd create a link, but I'm on my iPad and typing is too hard, plus I haven't had any coffee yet, so the chance that the link would go sadly awry is high. But it's been fascinating. I've never been to a convention before, rather than a conference, and maybe this falls somewhere in between. But there are loads of people in costumes wandering around amidst discussions of misogyny and gender and online space and community. I've always thought web design conferences were an improvement over code conferences and this is definitely the step up from that. I'm a little nervous that my presentation is too practical, not philosophical, but c'est la vie, it's way too late to worry about that now. Pam says I need to go slower so people have time to write down the links, so I'm still trying to figure out how to do that. I might have to cut something. Anyway, time to find some caffeine -- but download Thought if you haven't and tell your friends, if they're the type to enjoy quirky ghost stories!

And it's up. . .

A Gift of Thought on Amazon

I suspect I'm going to be writing and rewriting that blurb. I had to firmly remind myself last night not to let perfection be the enemy of the good enough. It's not perfect, but then nothing ever is.

Wishing for a marketing department

Book's done, proofed, ready to go -- all I need to do now is write a blurb that works. It is unbelievably hard. I think I'm going to be tweaking this blurb for the next three months. Should it start with Dillon? The book does. Or Sylvie, the way my current blurb has? Including both of them in the blurb without  spoilers has so far been completely beyond me. As I yearn for a marketing department, I have to remind myself that back when I did work with a marketing department, I almost always preferred to write the sales copy myself. And in this case, I'm definitely best qualified to do the job. I'm tempted to send out emails to all the people who've already read it, though, and say, 'Um, what's the book about?' just to see what they say.

...And I think I just published it. Wow, Amazon has made it easy. No more Mobipocket creator, meta data, building a table of contents -- you upload the Word doc, they turn it into a book for you. Not that I've seen the book yet. It's still publishing. But by tomorrow morning, I bet it'll be up there.

We used to hit a big gong to celebrate sending a book to the printer. Everyone in the company stood up in their cubicles and cheered the triumphant team that had just achieved a little miracle. Somehow hitting Save just doesn't have the same oomph. I think I'll go set off some fireworks.