Ludington Visiting Writers Poetry Reading

Last night I went to the Ludington Visiting Writers poetry reading. Four local poets read selections from poetry booklets (chapbooks) which have also been published under the umbrella of Ludington Visiting Writers.

From left to right they are Betsy Rosenow, Jim Stewart, Jeanie Mortensen, and Vondalee Knoll.

There were actually more people there than I expected. Each poet read for about ten minutes, and there were light refreshments. The booklets were for sale. Jim's book is "Our Lady of the Morels," and the three other poets are featured in a book named "Three True Voices."

If I am going to try to do this writing thing, I need to be spending time with writers, so this is part of my program!

Possible Inclusion in "Unsent Letters"

I received this email this morning: "Thank you for your submission to Unsent Letters! I realize your submission is now a year old, but the project was put on hold and we are now working through submissions again. Your letter has been selected to move past the first round of evaluation and is set to be considered for an offer."

This would be very cool! This project exists as a blog, but the best entries are being published as a book. My letter is not on the blog, but if you want to see what it's all about go to Unsent Letters.

Writers can always use bits of good news!

Tonight I'm going to a poetry reading of the local writer's group.

Adventure Loop Guide

Today was another beautiful day! I went hunting for one missing piece of information for the Adventure Loop. I needed to check out a canoe-in campsite. But I was pretty sure that I knew how to get to it on foot, but hadn't had a chance to find out if my suspicion was correct. It was, and now I've seen the site without needing to rent a canoe.

I have added a description of the site to the guidebook.

End of the Line with Partners Distributing

I have to say that my experiences with distributors hasn't been very good. North Country Cache has been listed with two of them. However, I got a certified letter from Partners today that it is "in our best interest to terminate our agreement with your company." I have to say that the feeling is mutual. Here's the story.

Ever since I've been peddling NCC around to bookstores, I am often asked what distributors I work with, and if the store was in the upper Midwest they usually asked about Partners. I kept dragging my feet, because it was just one more pile of paperwork, and I appreciated the independent stores that would deal with me directly.

Finally, summer of 2009, I got things going with Partners. They took four cases of books! I was pretty psyched about that.

Well, in November of 2010, a big box of books came back to me that had been returned to them from bookstores. They were all too damaged for me to sell. I called and complained.

Just a couple of weeks ago another 1 1/2 cases came back. Thankfully, one case was unopened, ever, so those are fine. The rest are, again, too damaged for me to sell.

I called and had a long conversation with their service rep. She said that they have to take returns from stores, and admitted that stores aren't careful with the books. The current status of my books was that they have about one case still out in stores, and one more on hand. So far, I've received $152, and she estimated that I have another $88 coming. This is not very much money for all of that shuffling around of heavy books. (read shipping costs).

So... should I have kept a low profile, and not complained? Would that have kept me under the radar so that I'd still be listed in their distribution? Who knows. I do know that having over 1/4 of the stock returned too damaged to sell is too high of a rate for me to live with.

I was also not happy with their monthly reports, which were impossible to understand, so I never really knew if they were selling books or not.

Perhaps it's for the best. North Country Cache sells best at programs I give and through personal contacts, anyway.

NCC reached a nice milestone for a self-published books in 2010. I have now sold over 1000 copies!

Review of All My Books Software

One of the types of writing I do is content for Shared Reviews. They accept product reviews and also articles of almost any type. I've been writing for them for over two years, and am happier with them than any other online content site. I've got enough content, and high enough rank, that I'm making over $50 a month there.

Today, I added a review of software that will help you catalog your home library. It would also work for any small organization that wanted to track a small library of materials.

You can see my review at Use All My Books to Catalog a Home Library with Ease

Use this link to be a writer for Shared Reviews

Book Sales

Got another order from Amazon today for ONE book. It's really annoying that they will only order one at a time. Here's how Amazon breaks down for me- it's terrible for small distributors.

Per year listing fee costs me $29.95

They require me to sell them the books at a 55% discount, so each book sale gets me $11.23

I have to pay the shipping, which for media mail is currently $2.77, not counting mailing materials, time, gas to go to the P.O. etc.

Each book cost me $5.20 to print (Don't even think about costs to research, write, produce, pick up, etc- I'll never get that back). So 11.23-2.77= $8.46 income per book - $5.20= $3.26. But with that listing fee, that chews up the income from 9.4 books. So I don't even break even until I sell 10 books in a year. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to Amazon orders, but it's about 6 books a year. So... I lose money to list books on Amazon

But... it's a credibility thing.

News from Dead Mule Swamp

Today, I wrote chapter 7 of my mystery in progress, News from Dead Mule Swamp. It was a short one, and I'm hopeful of completing one more before the next meeting of the "West Side Gang," the local writers' group where we share our recent efforts. I thought the next meeting was this coming Tuesday, but I actually have one more week, so there's good hope for chapter 8.

Here's a teaser- the closing sentences of chapter 7:

In the distance I could hear the faint shrill of a siren. It rose in pitch and volume, and began to drown out the morning sounds of a sleepy swamp. I only hoped that Kyle had reached Sherri’s house ahead of that piercing wail.

Have I piqued your interest?