I was proud of Karma House, but had known very little about how to promote it. I needed help, but didn't know how to ask for it. I only joined Facebook a year later because my new publisher, Whiskey Creek Press, strongly recommended all of their authors have a Facebook page to help promote their work. I discovered Smashwords.com through a Facebook friend, and I found a home for The Last Girl. Publishing a book is always a gamble but I felt I had nothing to lose. I had to figure out the formatting used at Smashwords, and reformat my manuscript, along with designing my own book covers to save money. Upon publication, it was slow going at first, but when I offered the book for free, I had sixty downloads in one day. By this time, my depression had started to lift. I added my short story collection, Time Immortal, to my Smashwords list along with a short story, A Foreign Body. The response has been good, over five hundred downloads combined. Good exposure, if not big bucks. But who becomes a writer just for the money? If it was all about money, I'd take a second job, which I might have to do, anyway, considering my debt. My advice to writers? Don't pay self-publishing fees using a credit card, unless you have a manuscript made out of gold. I can imagine Suze Orman giving me a big DUH; I'm no alchemist, or a competent witch, only a writer who is learning by trial and error. There is a story from my mother's side of the family. Supposedly, one of my female ancestors owned some property on Wall Street. She sold this real estate to finance a move out west. The story goes, she was killed by Indians before she reached her destination. No one seems to recall her name, but the tale gets recycled often. I like to imagine that maybe she survived, met a handsome Indian brave who made her his wife, and they lived a life of adventure. Maybe she was abducted by aliens, became a time traveler. When the imagination heats up, the mind becomes a compass. I'm sure the settlers used both out there, on the wagon train:)
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