Mashup: Ebooks, Writing-Publishing Resources, Harlem and the 2012 IPPY Awards

Posted on May 7, 2012 by moonbridgebooks

I knew what I was going to blog about for today, but forgot what it was. But, I have some news to tell anyway. First of all, I’m proud to say I finally turned Cherry Blossoms in Twilight into an ebook. It actually wasn’t too hard, but then I know MS Word pretty well. Cherry Blossoms is in the special Amazon Kindle Select program, which means people with Kindles who are Amazon Prime members (free, immediate shipping and special discount pricing) can “borrow” the Cherry ebook free, I think for a month.

After 90 days in this Select program I can offer the ebook free to anyone with any e-reader, or even none, for several days of my choosing. I will note the days here and on my social media accounts. The advantage to me of doing that is to hopefully gain more readers who might leave reviews. Hopefully decent reviews. If anyone wants to be nice to an author with a lesser known book, leave a pleasant online review on Amazon or B&N. No fake 5-star reviews because you’re a nice person, but real, probably 3-4-star reviews. I’ve seen where authors get bitten hard by a nasty review written by someone who was fooled by all the 5-star reviews by friends. Ouch!

The only problem with the Cherry ebook is that it is listed totally separate from the print book, so you have to search for it specially in the Kindle store. Undoubtedly this is due to the way the print book got into Amazon (not through Amazon) and not sure I can get that fixed. Here’s a link to the Cherry Blossoms in Twilight ebook. (Nook people, I’ve heard you can download Calibre for free or use another free mobi to e-pub converter to turn a Kindle e-book into a Nook ebook, but don’t ask me how.)

This brings me to a second bit of news. In case you haven’t noticed, there is a Resource page on this website with memoir-help links and explanatory articles relating to publishing. With so many people out there wondering what to do with their writing, I thought I’d share my knowledge and maybe save somebody some money and pain. Feel free to ask me questions via the Contact page here. There is also a good Facebook group led by Sonia Marsh called Gutsy Indie Publishers if you need help and support.

Next, I want to announce that my friend Terry Baker Mulligan, whose memoir, Sugar Hill: Where the Sun Rises Over Harlem, I profiled earlier here, won a gold Independent Publishers Book Award (IPPY) for her book in the multicultural nonfiction adult category. I am so proud of her, and think her historically colorful memoir deserves that gold. This is Terry’s debut book that took her about 35 years to finally finish. Don’t give up people, even Cherry Blossoms took 10 years to complete, and I did a second edition 2 years later. It’s never too late to be an author!

Posted in book talk, Cherry Blossoms in Twilight, publishing | 1 Comment

Meadows filled with childhood memories

Posted on April 30, 2012 by moonbridgebooks

I often think how nice it’d be if I had kept a journal as a child. Sadly I don’t remember much detail of my childhood anymore, and it never occurred to me then to keep a journal. My own kids have some journals they’ve started and stopped;  they’re not that into it. Someday they’ll have a good time looking back on what they did write, though, and probably laugh a lot.

It’s easy for me to think my childhood was nothing special as nothing much memorable happened. But in my older age, now I want to remember those slow, idyllic times, partly because I see so few kids these days have that. In the “old days” many moms stayed home, and kids didn’t have all those activities so we stayed home and played outside a lot – all day in the summer. I think what I loved most was the meadow, as fellow blogger-writer Kristin Nador recently reminded me with her photos.

We lived next door to a meadow – adjoining undeveloped lots whose owners let them grow wild. They were full of floating white caps of Queen Anne’s lace, short waving foxtails, and yellow buttercups. In the warm summer sun, both white and red clover released intoxicating perfumes that attracted slow, fuzzy bumblebees and preoccupied humming honeybees with pollen-packed legs. A collection of butterflies skipped from bloom to bloom. It was heaven to a little girl.

Neighborhood kids tread a path through this meadow, and I loved to follow it to get to my friend’s house a few streets over. The wildness came waist high and hid singing grasshoppers that I stalked. My dad made an insect cage of wood and mesh – way before they were popular – where I kept crickets and delicate pale green grasshoppers that made so much noise in the house my mother complained. I caught swallowtails and hairstreaks, question marks and red admirals in a long-handled butterfly net my mother made.

Where have all the meadows gone? There are houses there now. The cornfields around the old neighborhood have been replaced with other subdivisions. The area farm fields one-by-one become McMansion neighborhoods. Where did all these people come from? And will their kids ever play in meadows?

Take a look at Kristin Nador’s post, Write Anywhere #36: In a field, and jot down a few memories of your own.

Posted in memories | 3 Comments

The memoir in the attic: Canton Elegy

Posted on April 23, 2012 by moonbridgebooks

Wouldn’t that be a dream to find an old memoir hidden in a trunk in the attic? To turn the yellowed pages of time and find an amazing story of a great-grandfather’s or grandmother’s everyday life long ago when times were tougher and the world was changing so rapidly? Well it does happen.

The latest I’ve heard of is Canton Elegy, the title so far. London writer Howard Webster married a Chinese-American girl and was shown the pages of her grandfather’s memoir the family had put away for 50-some years, not knowing what to do with it. Webster found the story beautiful, moving, and harrowing, documenting in English-second-language the journey of Stephen Jin-Nom Lee from poverty to being a colonel in the Canton military, through war and revolution. Agent Susan Mears says, “Effectively it’s a male version of Jung Chang’s Wild Swans but much more of an engaging read.”

How nice we live in a time when publishing has never been easier. In Webster’s case, the memoir, which he edited and presented to Mears, was attractive to a trade publisher, but if it wasn’t he could have gone with a small press or indie-published it himself.

My mother wishes she hadn’t lost her diary in a firestorm during WWII, and what a dream that would have been to have her read it to me. But, at least she remembered a lot and we’ve now got her Cherry Blossoms in Twilight memoir published. Stories like the Lee family’s do happen frequently, but usually it’s a diary or journal that’s found. Makes you wish everybody kept one.

WWI illustrated diary found
Old diary reveals Japanese and Jews in WWII
400-year-old diary of witch hunts
What to do with an old diary you find

Posted in history, journal | 3 Comments