The Supermarket Guy

Sometimes in a time frame, I will get that stuck in the mud syndrome. Where it seems anything I do, anything I try, feels like nothing to begin with. Is it a depression. I hope not, and I do not think of it that way. It feels like being immobile, unable to put an action into movement. Sometimes people cause us to be this way. Telling us we can't, we dare not, we should not, attempt a certain course in the direction of our lives... In my case, I feel that I have exhausted all the avenues to trying to get a certain awareness and knowledge out there about my books. I heard of what works and what does not. Radio ads, Newspaper ads probably does not work for most writers. Even interviews, for some, do not work all that well. I tried to join some blogging sites where books are discussed, but was eventually turned down for some reason or other. Probably because I am not in the traditional realm of the book world. And, for me, that is fine. But, I do believe someday the self publi...

2nd pass has been returned to me, for Part 3. This is the last chance to make corrections. Alterations, but of course with a cost to me. Once again, a 25 dollar charge to open it up, and a 2 dollar charge for each correction. In the first pass, I had to pay to get a few errors fixed up. This second pass I will re check, reread, to verify if most of everything is alright. Then I expect my cover, website, should be done within due time accordingly. I have not been on here that much, as things are pretty much winding down. I really had not much to talk about, as the book business has been relatively slow for this cat. My contest has approximately 400 contestants, as compared to 13000 for Dan Browns Inferno. Wow. What a difference! On the same site, and even with his contest of being of a lesser duration than mine. I am pleased at my results, even though I am still average in the book contest rankings. This Part 3 did do much better than Part 2 and Part 1 combined, although Part 1...

The other day at work, a few fine gentlemen asked me how the book business was going. I honestly told them that a Part 4 was more than likely not in the works.That up to this point, Part 3 has been ringing up business in the giveaway contest that I had placed it in, but not as much as other books in the same realm and in the least amount of time.  Another guy said he would like to have a copy of Part 3. This obviously tells me a few things, early on in the onset. First, that several books were getting higher views than mine within a months time. Do not get me wrong, there are several books below mine in contest attendance. Which is the number I am gauging. Dan Browns new release, Inferno, has approximately 10000 or more sign ups to win his book. Mine at this time was approximately 350 sign ups. Of course,  he is a big name in the book world. That is to be expected. But I was hoping for to reach at least a thousand in sign ups. There is nothing spectacular happening with t...

Gave a free copy of a book to a long lost friend the other day. He said he liked it allot so far, and was impressed by the whole process of self publishing. This was Part 1, which I consider to be probably the best comedy novel that I personally produced. Part 2 and Part 3 do have their strong parts, but I find Part 3 more humorous in the middle than the others. Part 2 was a bit all over the place, somewhat like Part 1. So far, the critics loved Part 1 the best over Part 2. While Part 2 still got a good rating, it did not get as high as a rating as Part 1. It will be interesting to see how Part 3 does... I will be awaiting the results. Part 3 did get a 5 on 5 star rating just on its first launch to the giveaway, without even being released yet! This person has great taste! Well, not much new in the book realm of things. Located below is my giveaway, and if you look way down there is an actual giveaway on this blog, which ends on the end of August... Here is the link to the Goo...

Read this great article from the Guardian on self publishing. A lady who was in the traditional book system, was eventually let go due to no sales. She did very well by going the non traditional route, which proves she is a great writer who deserves to have her stuff open to the public. Good for her. At the bottom of the link, there is a spot where you can send them your favorite self publishing author who has gone unnoticed. Maybe, you could mention me... Thanks.. I truly appreciate it, especially if you have read my book. Here is the link: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/06/self-publishing-showcase-linda-gillard Thanks, and till next time....

The second proof is soon to be done. This is what look like once printed off in the book. If all corrections from the first proof has been done well, this should be a fairly speedy process. I should receive this second proof in a matter of a week or more. I am surprised that I had not received the cover work yet. The book cover, I thought, usually did not take this long to get approved. It will come, but I just do not know when. Last night, I sent in the files as a bitmap. Or bmg, not sure what you call it, but the errors did not go through. I had to use microsoft paint to change the bmg into jpeg, which was an easier format to send through the mail. Less memory storage per slide per error.  It eventually went through. Just this alone probably cost me 10 hours in the production scheme of things. Especially when they people at the publishing house are busy as it is, and they forget to e mail me back that they had not received the file. All day I felt something was up. I tri...

Subtract one error from below, from the start, as it appeared ok in the end. The other 8 errors found eventually turned into 6 errors. When I went to print off one page, the window pane actually turned into windowpane in a straight printout. It looked warped on the screen, and that was all. Another is where I had a character asking a question to a person that I thought was the wrong person to ask it to. It appeared in the dialogue that it was alright there, that the main character was actually asking this person to verify something from something said beforehand. Scratch another error. The other six were things like was discussed below. 'The' for a 'they',  'it' for an 'I',  things that boggled me on how it got past my readings. There were 3 errors that seemingly got past the editor as well. Now I am awaiting the response from the publisher, to see if they got the scans and that everything is ok. I highlighted the words that were not exposed to be...

The first proof is in. I have found 9 errors in the text. Things that spell check would never find, as the words are words, unfortunately just the wrong words to go there. A "the" where a "they" should be, a 'steam' where a "stream" should be. I will have to go through the old copy I sent in, to see if they were my errors or errors done by the publisher. I am assuming I had done a few, and they had done a few also. I will recheck tomorrow. So to reopen for correction, it will cost 25 bucks and 2 bucks per correction. It has to be corrected. I have to fax the pages with the errors on, and probably send them in. I think that is the way it was done with Part 2 and so on. I even find with where they corrected, it is underlined in red on the old copy, so it makes it somewhat easy to figure out if it was me or they that went wrong. In one area, it looks as if windowpanes is one word which is correct, but it looks as if the window and the pan...

No news on the book front so far. Only good news is that I have 132 people saying they will read my Part 3 on Goodreads. This was up from only 10 or so for Part 1 and with 80 or so for Part 2. Now Part 3 is on the back pages as this giveaway is old, and the hits are getting less and less over time. It will only rebound once the giveaway is nearly over, which will appear on a front page of the site later on. Problem is, that many of these people have 100s, or at least a thousand books ahead of mine for reading. They will get to my book in a few years. It takes a long time, to get some reviews. I may work on part 4 of "The Supermarket Guy" in the next few weeks, but it all depends on how much work is involved in going through Part 3, checking for errors again and what not in the first proof. If sales do not occur for Part 3,  I will have to maybe get into a different business of sorts. The self publishing business is harsh, and only a few books of the many break out and ...

Part three is approximately 308 pages long. This is more writing than I have ever done before. Part 1 was 200 pages, and Part 2 was nearly 232 pages long. The lead off is a little more serious in nature, but then it gets back to the humor part of it all. There was a reason for the seriousness at the first, and it was to bring the element of religion into the humor part of the book. It was something that I pondered about in taking an angle as such, but in the end it does work out to what if religion or someones beliefs could go the wrong way, then what would happen, kind of scenario. Also, you will see some duplication in matters. 2 things happen several times in the book. This was purposely done, as to create these links in the book from one area to the other. The main character does swear "He will never again" do this or that, but at certain segments of the book, does he stick to his guns? I do believe the book does compliment Part 2 very well, and takes off much se...

Happy August 15 th to all Acadiens throughout the world. Whether in Louisiana, Quebec, Atlantic Canada, or beyond! Today there will be some great events in the area, parades, and music at night. In Caraquet, the festival lasts around 2 weeks and is a great showcase of Acadian art, food, and music! I might just go out there and buy a poutine today! Or maybe just go for a chicken bouillon. Have a great afternoon and have a cold one for Acadia day!

"The Supermarket Guy" is now advertised at a low low price from Amazon! at 7.93, how can you go wrong? Click on the link below and buy it at this fabulous low price! Remember, it will not last for long! http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1457502178/ref=tmm_other_meta_binding_new_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=new&sr=8-1&qid=1376313839

Here it is. The contest to win a book from Part 1 or Part 2, you select the one you would like to win. The contest will run for nearly a month total, finishing on the 31 st of August 2013,  at 10 pm. A total of 5 books will be given out. Winners will be chosen as to whoever answers the best to the questions and guesses below. You can be from anywhere in the world! To win, just answer the following questions. 1. What is the cartoon that I drew on this blog site? The name of the series. 2. What did I babble about in my very first blog writing? 3. I need you to guess my number from 1 to 10, and my favorite color. Contestants must leave their answers on the comment section of this blog, if you wish to enter the contest. Do not forget to leave me your mailing address through the comments section. Or you can message me through the Goodreads book site. Only first name/ or pen name/ (Whichever you desire) and location in the country you live will be posted for winning information. In the ...

Part 3 is rated at 304 pages long. It come back for the last chance to check for errors, and if the format is ok.  The format looks alright to me, but reading it will take me awhile again. I have not much time to blog today, as I need to read this and get er done. This was a surprise, as I thought the book was 280 max pages... Be back later, till next time... *Update-  this was just the proof sent, and only 30 pages or so. I was wondering as I read it, why they sent only a few pages... So more work left for later on. The interior looks fine, and I was quite satisfied with that. Now awaiting the first pass...

The Amazon price for my Part 1 has been dropped to 8.42 $ on Amazon.com! This is a great price, but may go up at any time! Get your second, third, or 100th copy of this book right now! Give them to your enemies! Till next time...

We had some nice weather in the last little while, here in Northern NB. The forecast was for much rain, but we got it here and there and in between the rays of sun. Not bad at all, for the last little while. Unfortunately I was at work, and on my time off it was raining. I usually get it wrong when planning for my time off. The book process has slowed down. I am used to that too. I never got word back yet on the progress of the cover or main body work. But after this step, it should go by pretty fast. The release time is fast approaching. It is amazing how things go through your head about the whole thing, again and again. I wonder even about just releasing it. I still could have added things, I still could have changed things. Maybe I went too far, and that I should have stopped at Part 2. Could this book be a flop to the series, and actually take it down? Maybe I went too serious in some parts of the novel, and maybe I did not go into enough detail in some other areas. My wr...

Well, I learned a few more things about the Google social network site yesterday. First, when you are on your main page, you click on communities. From there, you can do a search for groups or clubs. When joining communities, you can start a post or share a post. When clicking on a members page or doing a search for one, you can just comment on that post of that member. Now I realize why I could not post what I desired, or start up one, in certain areas. It was because I was not in the communities for books, or what not. Also, I was receiving a huge amount of mail from these communities. I did not realize, that you could shut this down just by clicking on "Notifications off or on" selection on the top left corner of the communities page. I turned them off, as there were too many e mails coming through just after a few hours of time. So, you learn as you go. Maybe Google software designers are listening to my posts, and timing me... Just to see how slow this bugger is c...

Google friends is getting to be more user friendly for me today. I am actually posting into some forums, and the forums are actually quite active and interesting to boot. I just discovered the swing around window. You click on a post with a picture, for instance, that someone has shared, and you can click on the upper right hand corner to swing the post around to see the details of the sharing or comments. The only thing I did not like, was the volume of e mail I was getting from some of these book sites. Just too much, as I tried to change the settings in my main e mail system, it seemed not to do any good. So, I had to use a mute function on the persons wall, to stop receiving mass e mails. Definitely Google has a great picturesque, or great view of a chat or social network engine. Its pictures are large, it uses two lanes of traffic ( you can adjust this), your homepage can have a huge picture across the top. You can link a business page to your webpage. I am trying to get ...

http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/59575-the-supermarket-guy-iii-supermarket-dominium I know you cannot resist the temptation to laugh and laugh until your sides split and you soak your pants! "The Supermarket Guy III: Supermarket Dominium" Giveaway is on now at Goodreads! Join up, or forever regret the chance at trying to get a piece of signed history! Or, you can try to win on this blog. Just go down a few blogs until you hit the contest, right on this blog for Part 1 or Part 2. How could anyone ever decide on which one to take?  Maybe this is too hard... Till next time..

Using Google so far has been a good experience, but I still find it difficult to use. But, I am still new to all its new intricacies and what not. I love their web page designs, and formats. It does have a certain appeal to it. Yet, I am surprised on when doing searches for who is on in my local area, how few people are using this service. It appears Facebook truly is the number one social conversing network. So, I added a few book clubs, some with a few thousand members. I did not see a whole lot of activity on these Google friend sites. The thing that bothered me was how hard it seemed to post something you wanted to post up into other highly popular sites. You have to become a member in some sites. That is fine, for private sites (much the same as Facebook for clubs). Then, even for ones you follow, like Oprah and what not, it appears you have to post under someones post. Just put down what you think about it. Maybe I am just not used to, or do not know how to post on anoth...