Rewards of travel

If you ever need a reason to shock yourself because things are too samey samey and you feel stuck in life, throw yourself into a travel experience. Dealing with getting from A to B to C to D and all that that entails will quickly absorb your attention, leaving the mundane and boring or whatever else you're trying to escape from to fester on its own for a while. Once you're on the road, you can relax and enjoy everything in the experience that dips, tickles and touches your senses - and watch the real you unfolding right before your very eyes.

Maybe you thought you were cool, calm and collected in the office - I know I certainly did. It was only when I missed the first of three flights to get me home after a trip to Tanzania and Zanzibar that my real temperament came racing to the surface. Panic set in and with panic came anger and frustration. My father had recently passed away. A day after the funeral I was flying to Africa for the first time and while the trip had been an experience of a lifetime, now, at the end all I wanted to do was get home and start my grieving - but I'd missed my charter off of Zanzibar Island. When I eventually boarded the final flight from Nairobi, I wept silently for a good portion of the journey. Luckily I didn't have anyone sitting next to me, otherwise I would've drowned them with my tears.

Now fast forward three years and I've just flown from Lalibela to Gondar in Ethiopia. I'm at Arrivals and there's no sign of my guide or driver. They didn't fly with me, they drove and I'm wondering if something happened. I'm also acutely aware we have a packed schedule ahead of us. Everybody leaves and I'm the last one in the hall. I surprise myself by taking a pew to figure out a plan. One of the porters comes over and we get chatting. He asks me what I'm waiting for and I tell him the situation. He asks around on my behalf and one of the other porters makes a phone call for me. The next I'm hearing, my driver and guide are just doing a spot of shopping for me in Gondar town and they'll be along shortly. Apologies for the delay.

I didn't panic. I didn't get angry. And it all worked out well in the end. So now, I make sure to keep my head.

And that's just one of the many things I've learned...

Whatever travel teaches you - seeing how the other half lives and putting your life in perspective, finding out that meeting new people isn't half as scary as you thought, experiencing new cultures is actually rather refreshing and fascinating, the wonderful sense of freedom is second to none, the stereotypes are rarely ever correct, you had better (or worse) instincts than you realised, or you never knew you could find such a peace within yourself - whatever it is, hang on to it because that's what you'll remember the most when you recount the stories over and over again.

What travel means to me

I'm going to be blogging a short series on Travel leading up to the launch of my free e-guide Safe Travels and my Travelling Dreams collection.

I think an apt way to start is to tell you what travel means to me and how it’s changed my life.

I think a world without travel would be like a world without people. There would be nothing to challenge you, inspire you or open your mind to. It’s really difficult to not be just another tourist when you’re visiting somewhere new and want to tick off those all important sites and excursions, but the way I’ve found to do it is simply to mingle. Get out there and talk to the locals, sample the food and explore your surroundings.

My confidence has soared since I started travelling regularly and I love the way it’s brought the world to my doorstep. I have friends everywhere now and my network continues to grow.

I recommend travel to anyone - and especially if you're stuck in a rut. Once bitten by the bug, you'll be smitten with the bug!

Projects progress

1st of May today and my Goodreads challenge is still going well. I'm about to finish the 4th book of 12 and start the 5th...

Also on target is project "Back Catalogue". This week saw the release of my poetry anthology - The Workings Of My Mind and my freelancing guide - Getting Ready to Freelance and Write.

Next up, I'm shifting my focus to Travel with a free e-guide all about travelling safely, especially with regards to protecting your identity and documents. I'm also launching my Travelling Dreams collection. More to follow on these exciting projects...

So it's a thumbs up from me. I'm learning something new about publishing everyday and sharing my own knowledge through my various rotating blog series tweets. 

eBook project

Just shy of three years ago when I was starting out in publishing, I blogged this:

I find it funny that people are incredulous when I say I could self publish an eBook on Amazon for 99p and still make the same profit (25 to 50 pence) as my current £12.99 offering (Little Child) on Amazon. This is the absolute truth, no word of a lie. The one thing you can guarantee in this game is that different publishing models all result in a very similar profit margin, but the real gain for us as writers and authors is when we hit a worldwide audience simultaneously with minimal effort. The more people you "hit" with your book, the better chance you have of raising your literary profile to dizzying heights. Remember what I said in an earlier post - it's not just about the book anymore, YOU have to be a brand as well. I thought about this for a long time today and I came to the following conclusion: the internet is an amazing resource with no limits, but to utilise it properly the only thing stopping you, is you. Anybody who has a remote interest in writing can self publish some kind of book, but if you know your market and your price points and you've done your research, the potential to reach as many people as possible is right there waiting for you. I'm going to experiment with my theory and come back to you on this. Don't forget, I'm still learning too. I'm a marketeer in the making!

And it's taken a while, but I'm finally there! My 99p eBook is now available on Amazon. The marketing is still a work in progress and I'll be exploring that side of things once I've built my back catalogue. There will also be a paperback version of Getting Ready to Freelance and Write available on Createspace over the coming weeks.

I have to say it's thrilling to see my book on Amazon and it's even more of a thrill to know that I did it all myself from conception right through to launch. I started small so each chapter is only one or two pages in length and there's only about 50 pages in total. I was glad of this during the editing and formatting stages - all of which I did myself (isn't it great to see the message from Amazon "0 spelling mistakes were found in the text") - and at this point in the process, after reviewing my formatting for about the 20th time, I was also thinking that writing in a series and putting out episodes rather than going full throttle with a whole book was something I would like to try because it would break it down into manageable chunks.

Of course, you can pay someone to edit and format, but I needed to try it for myself. In my humble opinion, the size of your project determines to a certain extent how much money you should spend. The only part of the process I wanted to pay for (due to budget constraints) was the artwork - eBook cover, Createspace cover and Facebook timeline banner. I wanted my designer in the US to source and purchase the stock photo and have that creative control. All of this cost me a total of 40 dollars and I found him on Fiverr.com and I've used the artwork over and over on my different social media sites. I was itching to try this site and really enjoyed the experience, but as usual I tried to run before I could walk, so make sure if you're getting people involved in your project, that you have everything you think you might need ready to go. There's a little bit of forward thinking required and also anticipating, which only comes with experience after being through the process once. For example, have all of your text clear in your mind so when your designer needs it, you can shoot it straight across. Also, my big thing was I hadn't yet loaded up my manuscript to either Amazon or Createspace so I didn't know sizes for the cover artwork. Big fail! Luckily because Drew was specifically creating a Kindle eBook cover, one size fits all. The cover for Createspace was a little more tricky although you can start the process of creating a book with them and in the early stages you determine the book's sizing. I did take a guess on the number of pages - I wouldn't advise that. Try to be as accurate as you can. I think I've got lucky again and hit it spot on, but don't rely on luck!!

I would recommend you give yourself a couple of hours for loading up a short eBook (approx 50 pages) onto either of these sites because you can go off on different tangents at each stage of the process. For example, I didn't purchase an ISBN but used the one Createspace generated. This is down to personal preference, but before I made my decision, I read all the information about it. This is time you need to factor in so you can make the best choices for you and your project.

Once you've loaded up your text, edited and formatted until you're happy, the next step is Rights, Royalty and Pricing. The only snag I hit here was forgetting to factor in the 3% VAT Amazon adds for European countries, so when I looked at my eBook price the next day on UK Amazon, it said £1.04 rather than my desired 99p. The base price I should have loaded was 96p. It was easy enough to amend.

The final stage is to hit Publish and it takes about twelve hours for your eBook to appear on all of the Amazon sites in the countries mentioned in the Pricing section. If you spot any mistakes or there are things you need to update, you can make your changes and re-publish as many times as you like.

Your book sits on your virtual bookshelf within your Amazon account and you can Unpublish at any time as well. All of your Royalty reports will appear in this section. 

 

Out Now! Getting Ready to Freelance and Write

Poetry anthology creation

This is a poetry collection which is very special to me because each poem highlights a defining moment in my life where the event changed me as a person.

Not only did I want to do the words justice and commemorate the events behind those words, I also wanted to make this anthology a show piece for my website.

Of course, this work is very personal to me so may not appeal to a wide audience and the hardback edition and imagewrap edition featured on Blurb are expensive. Cheaper versions will be available from Amazon and Createspace over the coming weeks, both in eBook format and paperback respectively. 

That being said, I am thrilled with this creation and enjoyed the building process with Blurb. Having held the final product (I ordered the hardback with dust jacket) which now sits proudly on a shelf in my office, I can say it's a high quality work and I can't fault the design or materials used.

You can sell with or without mark up on Blurb and they are now offering the option to sell through Amazon as well. However, Amazon will add 15% to your Blurb price which possibly then makes your book unsaleable. What I shall be doing is, re-create the eBook on Amazon's Kindle and the paperback on Createspace to then be able to lower the price substantially. This is more work, but it was always my intention to sell primarily through Amazon. 

Out Now! The Workings Of My Mind

The Workings Of My Mind by Piara Strainge | Make Your Own Book