Five things make a post, July 3rd edition

[rolanni]

1. Looked outside to see what the heck the birds were all in a tizzy about. Saw what looked to be a panda-face in the tree directly outside of my window. Called Steve, by which point the panda had morphed into Quiet — or Louder — one of the next-door-neighbor’s two identical grey Maine Coons, going birding. Steve and I mocked him through the screen, and he climbed back down, to play kitty-hides-in-the-grass at the base. We mocked him some more, and he left, doubtless to find a less-public tree.

2. Somebody took our mailbox off its post. So not funny. At least it’s in one piece, though Steve had to screw it back on to the pole.

3. Designed and ordered Moocards for WorldCon and beyond! Man, we do a lot of stuff.

4. Took an after-breakfast walk this morning — our new habit. It was only 72F/22C, but the 95% humidity made it feel like a morning at the ocean.

5. Registered the short story domain name and started building a site. Again forgot how to manage the damned menus in WordPress, so things will progress when I remember.

Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.

Comments

July 3

[kalilama.livejournal.com]

Moocards...?

Re: July 3

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

http://us.moo.com/

[attilathepbnun.livejournal.com]

Ooo! Business cards! So that's where they come from *nods*

[estara.livejournal.com]

Moocards have GREAT quality photo reproduction - I really like them although they're not the usual business card size.

Is there a reason why the short stories can't be a subdomain of Pinbeam books? I may have overlooked a post where you explained that, sorry.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Moocards are quite handsome -- we underuse them, since we just put words on both sides, but still -- nice cards.

Is there a reason why the short stories can't be a subdomain of Pinbeam books?

Because of the Theory of Cross-pollination. This Theory states that, if you have more than one website, each feeding a specific interest (ebooks, author info, short fiction to go), then the folks who are interested in each specific topic self-select. Then! Through links and other clever strategies, they can be sent to (cross-pollinated) to the other sites which may in fact interest them, but which they never thought of looking for.

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

Our plans are still forming, but if we post a short story (or a novella in pieces or all at once) on an ebook site I think some folks would immediately expect us to be selling that story as an ebook, right now. See above the cross pollination -- at the moment that's not how we're expecting to do things.

[estara.livejournal.com]

Ah! So it's more a reading site instead of a selling short story site... - that makes sense to me. Yes, if it was a subdomain of Pinbeam Books I would expect to be able to buy the short stories.

[estara.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I would think an author site that has subparts for various aspects of the work would do as well - people can go there and then look for the genre/ length etc. that interested them in the first place. My best example for that are the Andrews (http://www.ilona-andrews.com/). They have freebies, ebooks, novel descriptions and excerpts and their blog clearly separated by navigation. And because they publish under one name people get there no matter what.

My major worry would be the time you need to spend to keep all those sites fresh and updated...

Then again, you've had your various LJs and official sites and korval.com and srm-publishers for decades, I expect, so what do I know, heh.

e-books

[(Anonymous)]

While I love my e-reader, please, don't get so caught up in the technicalities of putting things on the sites that you don't write the stories!
That would be disastrous.

Joan C

Re: e-books

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Erm.

Writing the stories is the point; but there is some set-up involved. Almost done now; and set up would've gone faster if I actually knew what I was doing. DIY Author does it herself...

[brock-tn.livejournal.com]

Sympathize with your mailbox problems. The last time something similar happened to us, they took the post, too. Found it later that day, a mile west of the homestead, leaning up against a guard rail and looking lonely and unloved but otherwise intact.

Mailbox post is now embedded in 300 lb of concrete. Also obtained a "vandal resistant" mailbox that has so far shrugged off attacks with baseball bats and sections of steel pipe. Evidently mailbox abuse is a spring rite of passage for rural youth.