Smashwords

I have today signed up with Smashwords.

This is a self publishing platform that allows someone to publish e-books, and then set the price that they wish to sell their book at. That price also has to be what the author thinks the market can accept. Prices of books range anywhere from Free to $9.99.

This is what Wikipedia has to say about Smashwords.

I have an idea for a non-fiction book I can write - especially since there have been quite a number of changes in the last few years.

I will let you know what happens - once I have found my writing style. It will probably be chatty like my blogs. That seems to be the ONLY way I know how to write.

But for now, it's a start - finding a place where one can sell one's own e-books.

Travelling Thru Life

I found a new blog this week - written by a travel agent in Tennessee - called Travelling thru Life.

Well it's not actually a new blog. Elaine started writing it back in 2010 after she discovered she was a Scanner - like me. She mentions the book Refuse to Choose.

Elaine also mentions a Scanner Daybook - which is means of writing down all the things you are interested in, and if you make a note of them, you can always come back to them later.

Kind of like Leonardo's Notebooks. And if you know me, you will know that I LOVE Leonardo's Notebooks. He is my Scanner role model. I even wrote a great Squidoo lens about Leonard's notebooks.

Anyway, that's why I love Squidoo so much. I can use it as my Daybook. I get to write a ton of stuff about whatever I am interested in, and when I am done with that subject, I am done.

If Amanda Hocking can do it...

...Then so can I.

Amanda Hocking, from Minnesota, is a best Selling Indie Writer who made Millions by Self Publishing Online.

Amanda had always had the desire and the urge to write. In 2010, she had 12 unpublished novels sitting on her computer. She had sent them all to publishers and was getting rejection slip after rejection slip.

Then she read a notice about the Muppets coming to Chicago, and she decided that she really had to get there to see the Muppets. Chicago of course, being the nearest large city to her home in Minnesota. And she needed to find enough gas and hotel money to get there.

Amanda decided that it would not do any harm if she tried to publish a book online. If noone read them, well she would not be any worse off. So in April 2010, she published her first book on Amazon Kindle and was pleasantly surprised when she sold some books. She has now published 9 of her books on Kindle - it helps to have lots of writing material already available - to meet her readers demand.

Amanda has now sold over a million Kindle books online and has recently signed a contract with a (hard copy) publisher.

 IF she can do it, then so can we, I mean so can I.

 The only difference is that Amanda writes fiction. I don't - at least not yet....

World of Amanda Hocking  - official website

Amanda Hocking's Blog - official blog

I am a Scanner who Writes

I am a Scanner.

I also want to be a writer.
No wait - I am a writer. I write pages and pages of stuff.

I just don't get paid for my writing - yet. But this blog is going to document my writing and my hopes of being able to get paid for my writing.

Now, What is a Scanner you ask?

 A Scanner personality is someone who knows a little about a lot of things.
The opposite is a Diver who specialises in 1 or 2 specific areas.

I discovered that I was a Scanner while reading I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was by Barbara Sher. This book was an eye opener. It referred to the Scanner type personality.

Barbara later wrote a book about the Scanner type personality called Refuse to Choose. So I got that book out of the library and sure enough I fit the classic Scanner type of personality. The most recent book by Barbara Sher I have read - is called Wishcraft - which is what has inspired this blog.

I finally knew why I have always had trouble settling down to just one career. In the last 30 years since I left High School, I have never been able to settle down in one job and stay happy in that job. Always, after a few years, I would get bored and I knew it was time for me to move on and find something else to do.

At the time I made this new discovery about myself, I was not working. There is a major recession on and jobs are hard to find - especially for someone with a spotty resume like I have. Anyway, I finally gave myself permission to relax about rushing out to find a job. I did find a new outlet for my writing though. That outlet is a platform called Squidoo.

On Squidoo, you can write about anything you like. You can even sell things too. Squidoo is mostly used as an Affiliate Sales platform. Each page you create is called a lens. I made 50 lenses in the first 2 months. In 2 years I have made over 200 lenses.

That is over 200 pages of writing. Most of my writing is about travel, books or history. But I do cover many other topics as well. Everyone on Squidoo gets paid a small amount of money based on the number of ad clicks.  I dont get a lot of money - so far it is less than $20 per month. But then my pages are informational and not just sales product pages.

I get satisfaction and rewards from Squidoo when my pages are recognised by others as having  excellent writing, and so I get a Purple Star. That is my reward for my writing. At this time of writing, I have 16 Purple Stars.

More recently Google have been tightening up their rules for which pages get indexed in their search engine, and thus we writers must also do the same. Google are now severely punishing those pages that have duplicate content.

This means that writing for a niche will become so much harder because you have to completely re-write any articles you want to re-use. I have always had trouble writing for a niche. I get bored of the topic rather fast.

Anyway, I have found some online sources for how to make money as an online writer. I am going to try them out and see what happens, and find out if I truely can make money as a writer.

Wish me luck!!!