Make Your Offer

Take a look at this ebook selling site in the UK and see if it is a fit for you as an Independent author. We need all the venues we can find to sell our books and ebooks and get exposure. I spent all last week getting my ebooks in order and downloading them to the site. On Make Your Offer, customers can dicker over the price of your book with you and settle on a lower price or you can use fixed price option. I've never been able to bargain with anyone on the price of anything so I'm better off with the fixed price on my books. There are many low priced books well worth the money on this site. No need to ask for a lowered price on most of them when you think about all the long hours, slaving over the computer went into these ebooks. I kept my books prices the same as I have them on other sites. My books sell at that price even in the UK on one other site. I'm a big believer in word of mouth. Once someone reads one of my books and passes the information along that the book or ebook was worth buying my sales increase. I like the fact that there is a friendly feel about Make Your Offer site. I was sent a welcoming email message when I entered two of my books. I liked that but feared I might not be so welcomed when I suggested I could downloaded fifteen more right away. I was wrong. Any amount is welcome so now seventeen of my ebooks are for sale. This site has groups to join, discussion groups to explore and other members to befriend like social sites except with this site many of the people you talk to are authors. I've already found I have a lot in common with some of the authors. They have discussed with me that they write wholesome books, because they believe there is a growing market for the clean and not so violent stories. I like that there are authors in this group that shared with me their passion for writing stories they believe in. I've said many times I like to write books with a story line similar to books I like to read. My books are wholesome with a mixture of serious at times and make you laugh out loud at other times. I started out to write one Amish story about Nurse Hal and wound up continuing in a series, because readers liked the characters so well, they didn't want to say good bye with one book. The same with my mystery series. Readers that are looking for a story with humor in it keep coming back for another book about Gracie Evans. The readers tell me my books are a break from the more serious problems that are always facing us. What I found with continuing with the same characters is that the books are easier to write now that I feel like I know the fictional people I'm writing about. So if you are an Indie author check out the site. Downloading is free, fast and easy. Just sit back and wait for the royalty to start coming in. Enjoy the company of others sharing the site. If you are a book buyer looking for a bargain try shopping at Make Your Offer. Discover the talented authors and their works.

A Road Trip To Centerville, Iowa

A week ago last Friday was cool, sunny and spring like - the perfect day to go for a day long outing. My husband and I picked up my aunt in Belle Plaine, Iowa and went on a two hour drive south of us to Centerville, Iowa to visit another aunt. We haven't made that trip nearly often enough in the last few years. Two hours passes fast when we're talking all the way. My husband has a running game with my aunt about who sees the first deer and turkeys along the road. He usually spots one first but my aunt is good at seeing them, too. We arrived in Centerville mid morning in time to try out an individual cup coffee pot my aunt received for Christmas. You're probably familiar with the kind. You insert a small container under a lid and coffee spews into your cup. That was my first experience with this invention. I must admit I like my old percolator better. There's no waiting. We have the coffee pot on a timer. By the time we get out of bed, twelve cups has perked. For lunch my aunt treated us at Manhattan Steak House with a cousin and her husband. It's an all you can eat buffet restaurant on the edge of the Centerville golf course. A large variety of good food to select from and for dessert soft serve ice cream with a variety of toppings, cakes and cookies. As much as I love the choices for the meal, I always save room for dessert. After lunch, we went for a drive south of Bloomfield on highway 63 to an Amish grocery store we've taken my aunts to for years. Times are changing for the Amish, but just a little slower than they do for the rest of us. The grocery store used to be in an old house moved to the spot and surrounded by a large house, a large barn and a harness shop. Across the road and up the hill is an Amish school. In all the rooms, I took note of the aged wallpaper and electric wiring hanging from the ceiling where a light bulb had been and wondered what kind of stories past families had to tell. On the main room wall behind the counter was a sign. No stealing allowed. God might not notice, but a Yoder will. Around the tables filled with groceries, young Amish woman might be pushing a much smaller size grocery cart with a toddler in it and then there was the rest of us. I'm always looking on the shelves to see what merchandise is different from where I usually shop. We call the large bags bulk shopping, but most Amish families are large. They need to buy in bulk. About seven years ago, we drove to the spot we expected to find the old house grocery store and right on by. The farm buildings were there but not the store so we thought we missed it. When we reached the Missouri line we knew we had traveled too far. We turned around and on the way back found the grocery store had been moved on the opposite side of the road from the farm buildings. Now the store is a large, tin building, usually used on farms to store machinery, with a cement floor. To the side of the store is a LP gas tank to run a generator. We knew we had the right place because of the grocery store sign. So here we were again after a few years absence. Inside are rows of items, many in bulk, and bins along the wall holding fruits and vegetables. Coolers were at the end of the bins. Looking at the woman in Amish dress behind the counter using an electric cash register let us know we for sure had the right place. When we were leaving, it must have been time for a change in shifts. A buggy drove up. A young woman and small boy came in the back door, leaving a young girl in the buggy. The clerk climbed in beside her and took the reins. As they rolled away, I thought what a perfect spot for a grocery store that serves people who still drive buggies. Traffic is brisk so customers might be just passing through or local farmers like the couple shopping while we were there, but for those that still use horses this store is a safer place to shop. A new building, a LP tank and generator to furnish electricity for the cash register and coolers is an improvement for sure, but no matter how many times we visit I don't expect to see the clerk using one of those new fangled one cup at a time coffee pots behind the counter very soon. We continued on our country drive back to Centerville and passed one farm where there was a gathering of children playing in the yard and women coming out of the house to leave. Put my mind to wondering if they had a quilting bee or what other project were they working on together. The children amuse themselves by playing outdoors. Some were gathered around a black pony. One girl hopped on the pony, ready to take her ride. Smaller children were playing in a large sandpile under a shade tree. No couch potatoes in that group. It's fun to hear my books get around further than I do. One of my cousins, Gene Foust, has a niece in a Cedar Rapids, Iowa Half Price book store. Recently she said she remembered seeing my name on books in her store. Gene is the very talented family artist. Look for his paintings online at Fine Art America. In this picture a cousin, Heather Graham, sent me she shows me she's reading one of my books on a relaxing day at the beach in Stump Pass State Park near Englewood, Florida. Amazon has made an improvement for indie authors and opened up a way to print books overseas. All I had to do was sign up and my books can now be bought easier in other countries. No custom fees and this means quicker shipping for the customers. Must work because I'm selling more books in the United Kingdom. For everyone in this country you can find my paperback books on Amazon, Smashwords and in my online bookstore at www.booksbyfaybookstore.weebly.com If you are looking for ebooks look in the Kindle store, Nook store or Smashwords. You can always catch up with my blog posts on my Amazon author page, Facebook, blogger or alerts on Twitter. My author site is at www.writersownwords.com/booksbyfay complete with descriptions of my contemporary Nurse Hal Among The Amish series and my historical mystery series Amazing Gracie Mysteries plus other genres I've written, book events and my blog.So buy one of my books and read it in an interesting place like Heather did. Send me a picture and I'll post it on my blog.

I Write Like - SUPRISE

I've heard the expression that every author finds his or her own voice after they've written for awhile. I've never been sure what my voice is though I've hoped it might become one that make readers think of me when they read a book I didn't write. I suspect it would be hard for any author to liken his own work to another. So if I had to choose an author that I write similar to I wouldn't know how to do it. That's why it was fun to try out a site G.H. Monroe told me about on Facebook in his Writers Depot section. The site is called I Write Like. There is a free test analyzer that tells the author which famous author their work is most like. I've come to the conclusion after several tries that the analyzer picks more by subject matter than writing style. Sounded like fun to try. I submitted a dramatic chapter of my latest Nurse Hal Among The Amish book - As Is Her Name So Is Redbird. In this chapter, a young Amish girl is accidentally shot while she is driving a buggy. The horse finds the way home, but the girl dies. I clicked the button, and the answer was J.D. Salinger. His only book was a hit with teenagers in the 1950s as I remember, but not well received by those that didn't care for foul language and promiscuous behavior. The choice of this author was not well received by me. I want my books to be known for the wholesome material in them which is totally the opposite of Catcher In The Rye. Thinking I should give the test another try, hoping for a result I'd like better, I picked a humorous chapter in the same book. Nurse Hal is asked by an Amish farmer to deliver lambs. His reasoning is the vet is too far away to get to his farm to save the lambs. This is an emergency. However, he misleads Nurse Hal, and she thinks she's going to be assisting the farmer's wife in a home birthing. Too late, she sees who Nancy is and feels she can't refuse helping the farmer. Which author did the test pick this time? David Foster Wallace best known for his book Infinite Jest. I'm not familiar with this author so I looked him up. The subject matters in his book didn't appear to be humorous such as drug addition. The subjects he wrote about I don't have the expertise to write. By now I'm thinking maybe there is another form of my work that might give me a better analysis answer. After all I've written several different genres. I put in the first chapter of my latest historical book - Tread Lightly Sibby. This introduction to the Ozark characters as the Civil War is ending begins with Sibby, a mother for the fourth time, rebelling against staying in bed much to the midwife's irate warnings. The story starts with a blizzard which Sibby's husband is out in. She is worried about his safety. Now the test picked an author that I was very happy with. Margaret Mitchell the author of Gone With The Wind. This was her only book and has been popular throughout the ages. It is my favorite. No matter how scheming and dishonest spoiled Scarlet O'Hara became I always rooted for her. She had large strikes against her - a woman in a man's world and the Civil War. She prevailed by telling herself hopefully there was always tomorrow. Scarlet made me believe her life would improve beyond that last page. Now I'm thinking it wasn't my writing but the fact that my book has a southern setting in the same era that triggered the test result. Maybe I should have quit now that I had a test result I liked, but I decided to continue. So I picked chapter four in my historical book Tread Lightly Sibby. Sibby's husband is commandeered to lead two deputy sheriffs and two horse thieves through a forest. He's with the deputies when they decide to scare the thieves and wind up hanging them. Brice goes home, resigned to keeping quiet. When the bodies are found dangling from trees, the fingers point at Brice, and he's found guilty of murder. The test result was an unlikely one according to me, but maybe not. That would be for the readers to decided I guess. It was Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice In Wonderland. I hadn't meant for that chapter to sound like fantasy. My take on the submission was scary and violent in very real, rough vigilante and lawless days after the Civil War. So now I wanted to see what answer another genre I've written might bring me. I picked chapter one and two from my historical mystery series Amazing Gracie Mysteries - Locked Rock, Iowa's Hatchet Murders. The chapters introduce the characters and their hesitation to like the newcomer to the retirement home they live in. My series is meant to be mystery stories with humor and set in the Midwest at the start of the 20th century. Now this time I was happy with the test pick - Mark Twain. Again one of my favorite authors. I loved his Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn books as a kid. We were both from Missouri and though we grew up in different times I can identify with Twain. My fictional town in Iowa and my characters might have triggered a likeness to Hannibal, Missouri in Twain's books. Okay now I'm expecting a different answer for chapters ten through eleven of the same book if the test answers are always going to change. The newcomer, from New York, thinks the best way to get an answer for a murder is to go to a seance and ask for the victim to come forward and tell the ladies who the killer is. It leads to a nervous situation for the elderly Locked Rock residents, unfamiliar with a seance. The seer is so good at her job she brings forth many dead people they remember before the victim appears. Who am I like this time? Again Mark Twain. It was then I remembered he wrote a ghost story about being stuck in a New York hotel with a ghost. I can see how my seance seemed like that. So now I decided to try a western - Small Feet's Many Moon Journey. I chose chapter two and three. As with most husbands on a trip, Stringbean Hooper gets lost when he takes his wife on a horseback vacation from their Montana ranch to California. They stray onto an Indian reservation and are captured in the middle of a Ghost Dance celebration. A friend who happens to be the white widow of an Indian brave dresses Stringbean and Theo like Indians in hopes of sneaking them out during the dance. Theo finds herself next to a young brave who thinks she'd make him a suitable squaw and that almost ends all hope of them escaping. Test result - Mark Twain. By then I was more than satisfied with writing my historical books like Mark Twain, but I wondered what would be the answer for my nonfiction book about my father's life when he had Alzheimer's disease - Hello Alzheimer's Good Bye Dad. I submitted chapter one which introduces my family and our learning about Alzheimer's. Result of test - again David Foster Wallace. Maybe because the serious subject matter was in tune with David Foster Wallace's book. Alzheimer's is a widely discussed fatal disease with no cure. I decided I should try again for an author pick for this book that I might like better. I submitted chapter 27 and 28 about my parents coping to live with Dad's failing health. He tries to plow with a push plow down their long garden rows and uproots beets and carrots. Both vegetables he dislikes. My mother was angry. She asked me to get him out of the garden before he did more damage. I defended this as an accident because of his failing eyesight and poor coordination. Mom declared Dad plowed up the two vegetables he didn't want her to feed him. Results for this one really surprised me - Stephenie Meyer - author of the Twilight series. I'm not fond of vampires so I haven't read her works. She must bring her characters to life as real people by the way teenagers go for the books and movies. Perhaps in that respect, we might be similar, but like I said I haven't read her work. This isn't the end of the testing for me. I'm pretty sure most authors improve as they work at writing. So when I finish each new book I'm going to submit a portion to see who I'm like next. Since the test works for blog posts I submitted this post. The author I'm most like now is H.P. Lovecraft. He wrote horror, fantasy and science fiction and died at a young age in 1937. I'll bet if he could submit to the I Write Like test the answer for him would not be me but Edgar Allen Poe. Hopefully, I bypass some of the authors I just mentioned with some of my next submissions. Though I haven't a favorite author choice for my next tests, I'd just like to be pleasantly surprised.