Me in front of the Ghost Buster car at Comic Con 2010

I am very fortunate in my life. I am healthy. I have a family who adores me, and who I adore right back. I have a good job, and I also have the means to replace a thing. I have to remember that an iPad is thing, a tool, and that’s all it is. It is a tool that I use for writing. That’s it. Yes, it does makes my life easier when I have it, but when was gone the world didn’t end.

Going back to my earlier point, I have a pretty good life. I am not bragging, it is just a fact. So I must remember it’s a minor roadblock, when a tool is lost. I might moan and complain and get mad, but I must always remember, I’m a fortunate person, and I do have it better than so many others do in these time.

So finally, I am slow sometimes, and I need to be remember that people, doing right by other, making the world a little bit better place, and my health are much more important than a thing, an iPad.

Luckily, I have my work backed up on the Cloud so it is still all there. It was my fault that it got stolen because I brought to school. Usually, I bring it to coffee shop and write in the mornings before school, but not on Friday for some reason I brought inside to my office, and within few hours it was gone.

I know better, but that’s the way life is sometimes. Hopefully, back to writing tonight.

Hopefully I’ll finish the first draft in the next few weeks.

My Life:

Busy, but I really enjoy my job as my school’s athletic director, and I have hired myself as the volleyball coach. A sport I had never coached before, but it’s a job I don’t want to give up.

I want to keep updating regularly so please keep checking back.

NO SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS

If we like your first three chapters, we will want to see the rest your book. That may take a month or so for us to read. After that, we make an offer or reject it. If after two months, we haven’t emailed you, email us back.

CONTRACTS

We pay 70% net on all forms. No advance. It’s that simple, and we’ll let the author leave the contract with us at anytime.

FORMATS AND EMAIL

Email subs only. Times New Roman 12 pt or something similiar. Double space. Use Italics. RTF files preferred. Contact information in the file, including phone number and email. Be sure your book is clean, edited and professional. Have your book vetted by a critique group. Make sure it is of a quality you’d be proud to see in print. Novels must be more than 60K words.

Email us at: cksanderson@gmail.com

On EBAY:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110759530551

I have a busy life. I have a wonderful wife, Sherry, who I’ve been married to for 18 years. I’m a teacher and an athletic director that makes for very long days. I’m a marathon runner, and on Saturday I will be running the Seattle Marathon (26.2 miles), and if I am not busy enough I have hired myself as my school’s high school’s girls’ volleyball team (I’ve never coached volleyball before). I am busy person. I’m not crying or whining I’m stating a fact, and amongst all of this I’ve decided to start a small indy publishing company. What I’m trying to be is honest in this post, and let those who read it see the journey what I’m doing to get my latest venture going.

So far I have posted other authors articles and experiences, but now it’s time for me to tell you my experiences as so far.

I’ve registered with the State of Colorado my company as Charles Anderson Books for a twenty-five dollar fee. Its official now and I already had the site name. What came first the chicken or egg, and this time it was the chicken. Let me explain, there’re so many Charles Anderson’s out there so I choose the URL a few years ago. Before I used it to highlight me as an author, but along the way Charles Anderson Books germinated in my brain. I had chosen the name, and it had laid its figurative egg. I hope that makes sense, but that’s the way it goes in the world of ideas and thoughts.

Now my thoughts have to get back to my trip to Seattle and the marathon. Marathons are difficult races and I have things to do before I depart…

Robin Sullivan knows what she is talking about when it comes to publishing. As the founder of Ridan Publishing she has her finger on its pulse.

The Role of the Author in New Publishing
The two “big” things at BEA this year (well besides all the announcements about Amazon’s move to publishing and the two big bombs of Larry Kirshbaum being brought in and Barry Eisler signing with their Thomas and Mercer line.) were
Discoverability
Author Platform
I’ll talk more about the first in a future post but I wanted to talk a bit today about Author Platform. Let’s start at the beginning..what actually is it? I did a quick Google search and found this.
The author platform is how you are currently reaching an audience of book-buying people, or how you plan to do so. It is your influence, your ability to sell to your market.
If you are self-publishing then the need to create and build a platform is obvious, after all you are a one man/woman business and you are responsible for everything from start to end. For those that are either pursuing or have a publisher don’t think you’re off the hook.

I hear the following all the time from writers:
I don’t want to market my book…I want to write. I’m not good at sales and it makes me uncomfortable

Marketing is the responsibility of my publisher. That’s why I didn’t self-publish
Let’s dispel some myths. First off ALL authors, regardless of how they are published need to help get the word out about themselves and their writing. Publisher’s marketing plans are not about getting readers – it’s focused on wooing corporate buyers and acquisition librarians to get your books into brick and mortar venues. They work on getting your book “available” so it can be discovered. Yes, they’ll send out ARC’s and maybe setup signings, but once again that is more about working on “influencers” they aren’t equipped for selling one-on-one to individual consumers. (More on this in a future post).
For those pursuing a publisher, a platform is a huge bargaining chip. There are some agents that look at platform first, and others who won’t consider an author without one. When an intern at Ridan Publishing brought Nathan Lowell to my attention, I went out to podiobooks.com and saw he had an extensive platform of followers. As a businesswoman I was immediately interested. After I listened to the podcast of his Quarter Share there was no question I wanted to sign him.
Historically, publishing contracts are very weighted toward the publisher. I’ve been shocked by some of the clauses that friends of mine have signed. When confronted, they all say the same thing, “It was the best I could get, they held all the cards.” If you have a platform you have power that can be leveraged to swing the pendulum to a more author friendly partnership.

In today’s publishing environment, writing a good book is not enough. We live in a digital age and readers love, and expect, to connect with authors. This is a good thing. You want “stark raving fans” (More on this in another post). It is now a requirement of the profession and if you are not willing to participate then you’re chance of success will take a substantial hit. It’s like being a salesman that sells high priced products not being interested in playing golf or having drinks with clients. Can he sell without doing this? Probably? Is it expected that he’ll do these things? Yes. Will others that do wine and time the client sell better? On average they will.
I’ll talk more in future posts about how you go about building your platform but here are some teasers to get you started.
Everyone starts from a platform of none. It takes time to build, it won’t happen overnight so don’t be discouraged if you have none now.

Don’t think of building a platform as selling. Think of it as making connections and helping others. It’s about being a member of a community.

Successful platforms are built on reciprocality—Give and you shall receive. The more generous you are toward others, the more people will gravitate to you.

Platform building is like laundry. If you do it a little at the time you’ll be less likely to be overwhelmed.
That’s it for today. I need to get back to editing. But I’m trying to keep the posts frequent as it seems as though you guys are getting something out of them.

by Robin Sullivan posted on her blog Write to Publish