“Stories lessen the distance between us”

Posted on January 31, 2016 by moonbridgebooks

That’s what our church’s youth leader said this morning during his testimony about his time as a Marine in Iraq and how we can learn that others that seem so different are so much alike. During January we were learning about Christianity and Islam—half brothers who don’t understand each other so well. Jess’s statement is a great inspiration for telling stories—and for writing and reading memoir. I have an online friend serving in the south of Africa now, in the Peace Corps, and her friends in the US are horrified at her stories yet feel compassion for the people she is living among. Their culture and their lives in poverty are so different than ours, yet they smile and they love and need love like everyone does. Now we want to send them care packages.

Jess’s statement is also an inspiration for writing family stories. He also said that “we are a continuation of our mothers’ stories.” Not that father’s aren’t important, but our mothers carried us for nine months and gave birth to us, and then raised us. Arguably and for various reasons, mothers can be much closer to their children. Who our mothers were and who they became affect us deeply, forming us. For adoptees, the loss of their birth mother is deeply affecting, and their adoption parents have their backgrounds and experiences to shape lives. Our parents weren’t born parents, they have back stories. What we like or don’t like about them is mostly created from those back stories. Don’t you want to know what those stories are?

Grandma's Hands

Cherry Blossoms Twilight

 

Posted in adoption, capturing memories, inspiration, relationship | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Lightning Source and Ingram Spark cost increase

Posted on January 11, 2016 by moonbridgebooks

Those who have published with Lightning Source or Ingram Spark should have received an email notifying of cost increase in printing and in handling fee as of February 8. We can change the prices of our books, though, to adjust for this increase. If the price shows on the back cover (perhaps in the bar code?), for a limited time there’s no need to upload a new cover and pay that $40 cost—hurray! This is a good time to re-evaluate the list prices and discount percentages of our books.

Instead of raising the list price of Cherry Blossoms in Twilight to make up for the increased Lightning Source cost, I took advantage of this freebie moment (its price is in the bar code) to finally lower the list price from $12.95 to $9.95. This book, after all, is about ten years old. But, I also lowered the discount rate for book buyers from standard 55% to only 40%. My compensation per sale will be only 9 cents less. Most of my sales these days are for e-books through Kindle Direct, with some print copies sold mainly through Amazon (not book stores), so the 40% discount should not be an issue. What remains to be seen is whether Amazon will now notice this book is through LSI and not their CreateSpace and punish me by showing Cherry Blossoms is not in stock. That’s another reason I resisted changing the price for years. I decided not to change anything for my latest publication, Battlefield Doc: Memoir of a Korean War Combat Medic (Nov 2015).

IMAG1093

Lightning Source and Ingram Spark have publisher compensation calculators on their websites, so you can fiddle with your book list price and discount percentage to see what makes sense for you before submitting a change. For now, the calculators will figure compensation for both current pricing and the new pricing, so you can see the difference. These companies process pricing structure changes once a month with the following upcoming cut-off dates:

January 26 – for February start
February 22 – for March start

After February 22, if your book price is showing on the back cover or in the bar code, you will have to pay, as usual, to upload a new cover to make pricing changes. It can be the same cover, just with new price, or choose to have no price showing in the bar code.

See my website Resource page for more information about using Lightning Source/Ingram Spark.

Posted in publishing, Uncategorized | Tagged | 3 Comments

Grannie Annie kids tell WWII family stories

Posted on December 22, 2015 by moonbridgebooks

GrannieAnnie2The heirloom silver spoon that stopped a bullet, a kind woman who saved the enemy and found a husband, hiding from Germans in North Carolina, a beach full of oranges—these are some of the stories found in Echoes From World War II, the latest in The Grannie Annie Family Story Celebration of books. Each year, Connie McIntyre and Fran Hamilton collect stories from around the world written by kids that capture moments in the time of their parents and grandparents’ lives. History, culture, laughter, tragedy, and inspiration are in the pages of these stories told in the honest, unaffected voices of the young. I’ve enjoyed a few of the Grannie Annie books, but this one is my favorite so far.

The stories in Echoes From World War II were featured in earlier Grannie Annie volumes, but Connie and Fran pulled them together as a special edition to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of The Grannie Annie. WWII has been a common theme since most of the kids’ grandparents or great-grandparents have lived through it. The stories tell of challenges and danger, lives saved and lost, lives re-gathered to go forward into a brave new future, and all from different perspectives and different countries. This is a learning experience for adults as well as kids. I think every classroom library should have an anthology or two of The Grannie Annie to encourage and empower the kids to write, but especially this one because it also teaches history. History is easy to remember when it is a story told on such a personal level. Stories make an impression.

Deadline for the round of stories for the next anthology of The Grannie Annie is February 1, 2016. Any interesting story, no special theme. Kids in grades 4-8 or homeschooled or international kids ages 9-14 can submit stories and even illustrations. Teachers can submit for their students. There is no cost! The story has to have happened before the child was born. See The Grannie Annie website for more information. During this holiday season when families gather together, think about asking the grandparents, great aunts and uncles, or elder friends to tell a few stories—real ones, not fairy tales. Maybe YOU will be the one telling stories. Let the family bonds strengthen!

Happy holidays!

Echoes From World War II is available for pre-order on The Grannie Annie website or through Amazon.

Posted in book talk, capturing memories, family gathering, history, holiday, honoring veterans, multicultural, relationship, storytelling, war stories, WWII | 2 Comments