Computer crazies

Once upon a time, when I wanted to read a news article online on one of the many news websites, I clicked on the link and read the article. Now, instead of an article, I'm frequently faced with a Bing page that lets me read what I already knew and requires me to click on five or so other links to read what I clicked on the first link to find out. On each of those links, I find more links to articles rather than the answer to the question. And on each page (mind you I've gone through at least 3 clicks just to get a piece of what I wanted to know) I have to wait for all the pop ups, pop downs, slide overs, and video ads to completely load before I can read what I came for. Takes at least 4 minutes a page, and I can read the article when I finally get at it in less than a minute.

I hate this. I'm going to stop reading news online and resubscribe to the newspaper. I can read it front to back in less time than following all the links to read about 4 articles online. This is silly.

Becoming an indie author

The digital age is revolutionizing publishing. The e-book market is growing quickly, and the print publishing system has stagnated. Trying to get a book published traditonally is virtually impossible. 999 books are rejected for every book published. Were all these books badly written? No. Many just weren't what the publisher wanted at that moment. But when an author has to write a different style/length/content synopsis for every publisher queried, and publishers will reject a book because they didn't like your font, and even when they publish a book are very likely to let it languish on the shelves of bookstores for a whole month before it goes out of print.

Enter indie publishing. After a lot of searching and research, I've decided on Smashwords. (Google it.) You have to do your own formatting, but once you do, your e-book is available through just about every single e-book vendor there is. They even give you a list of low-cost, experienced e-book cover artists.

I've chosen a cover artist and sent payment. She has a waiting list, but looking at her highly professional website and her portfolio, and her incredibly good price, the short wait will be more than worth it.

Look for Blood and Moonlight, a paranormal romance, available online everywhere in February 2012. To be followed by many more. And for a preview, to to www.wattpad.com/MarlaShin.