Saturday 19 April 2014

A new companion site to this blog

With the imminent release of my second book to be published on Amazon, I have decided to set-up a new static web-site to  promote any and all of my boooks which are currently in the pipeline.

The second published book (of 32 pages) will be live on the Amazon site this week.






In the book I share my experiences over the last 25 years as an amateur artist who has been helping to run a local art group. The past 5 years I have been the treasurer and now act as membership secretary and take the chair at group meetings. Although I do have support in many areas, I am working hard for the continuation of the group. I hope that this book might help thoseartists who for one reason or another cannot find a suitable group in their own location.

The web-site will be part of my promotional activities to drum up potential sales for my books, and although I will continue to post new books on this blog, I do not want to swamp my readers with continued reference/links to these publications.

For your reference the site is called "Poetry By John", not terribly original but all I could think of in a rush. Must have had an off-day, LOL

Sunday 6 April 2014

My First Volume Of Poetry, Now Available On Amazon

I have just published the first volume of my poetry, it is now available on Amazon - or at least as quickly as their system processing will allow.





I was really pleased with the proof copy of this book (32 pages) which I received over the weekend, a real "feel-good" feeling to hold the book in my hands. But I actually wrote the book some time ago and decided there were some changes which I had to make to the text that I had not really noticed on the screen. A learning point for myself there - always print and check major documents.

There are 16 poems, some short, some longer and all have short notes included which describe why and often how I wrote that particular piece. I hope this will prove of interest to readers.

Anyway, I did the editing and received the "OK to print" signal from CreateSpace. I pressed the button and am now waiting for it to appear on the site. (now available)

CreateSpace is owned by Amazon and takes you through the process for publication one step at a time. It is very easy but do be careful about images. CreateSpace says it requires images to be 300ppi. But what they really should be saying is that the images should be of a certain size. I believe it is the size in pixels whixh determines whether or not it will print. I had the same issues with Zazzle.

Anyway there it is, a paperback version of the book. I have also opened my Amazon author's page.

It just remains for me to go through the same process with my other two completed poetry books and complete the fourth. I also have two non-fiction, tutorial books available. One of these has also been through the CreateSpace process and is waiting for the proof copy to be reviewed.

It feels good to be an author at last, rather than just a writer.