Can Blogger Become My Home Web Page?

You're welcome to drop by and watch as I experiment with the new Blogger. My curiosity is about whether I can make it into a useful web page. And whether I should. Very simply put, I like blogging and working with Blogger, but websites are a big baffle for me.

Recently my son set up a modified Word Press blog template as my website so I could make my own changes. I think it was a good idea, but it hasn't been as easy to do as I wanted, and some things just didn't work well for me. I wanted my design, my way, but it's just a bit off. Things won't go where I want them. I can see it is possible, but I'd have to know enough code to take an existing template and modify it, and I don't.

Then when Blogger popped up with this new Template Designer and about 30 new templates, I was right in the middle of putting together a blog site for another author. I had to learn how to work it right then and there.

I can see this is a much simpler system. But can I turn it into a reasonable website that I can operate? That's what my experiment is all about. I'm taking one blog, with one page, and expanding it to maybe ten pages, some of which will actually be secondary blogs. In layers. like a website.

I have lots of questions still.

Should I make my blog my central home? I know people don't do that, but maybe I should. I get a lot more traffic on my blog than I do my website. But that's been my fault because I have been so much better at keeping up the blog.

Maybe I should make my website a static page, like a portal page, and just lead with links to various pages on my blog?

Right now I'm trying to work around the limitation Blogger has of making the "Extra Pages" static. That is, they can't keep a running update like a blog can. Some, I would like that way, so I'm setting them up to link directly to another blog. But it seems a little clumsy. How can I reduce it by one step?

Lots more to come. Check out my tabs at the top of the home page. Lots are "under construction", so I've made notes there on what I plan to do.

Please feel welcome to comment or make suggestions. You probably have to comment on the home page- so far at least. Or if you have questions, ask them. Maybe I've already found the answers.

Castelldefels: A Wonderful Little Spanish Town Faces Tragedy

It's not what you'd call a pretty little town, and probably not one where very many wealthy people live. Dry and flat, the gravelly soil makes me think this land must once have been the beach, many eons past. People often have tiny backyard gardens behind walls, where they grow tomatoes that look like they could use a little more water. The sidewalks are often narrow and cracked, or not there at all. Its castle is that building up on the hill in the center of the photo below. From a distance, it looks rather nondescript.

I came across this wonderful watercolor of the castle, though, and thought you might like to see it. It's by Nancy Laberge Muren, who has graciously given me permission to post it here. She also spent time in Castelldefels, and remembers it fondly. And now that I see prints of this wonderful watercolor are available at only $24.50, I know I must have one.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/45067575/castle-art-spain-travel

I didn't know at first why we decided to stay in this little town. There was just something about it that drew me. But not too long before we went, my brother reminded me he had lived there, and I'd written him a number of letters, before he moved on to Mallorca, and later, Madrid. So perhaps my affinity began there.

Castelldefels is a good 20 miles from Barcelona and perhaps 10 miles southwest of the airport. And we were told the castle for which the town is named is too run down for tourists. I would have gone anyway, but the hotel owner told us we would be disappointed and to go see the castle in Barcelona. That we did, and yes, it was wonderful. But now, I really wish we'd seen the little castle too, run down or not. As my brother said, "Well, all castles are run down." Let's face it, castles by definition are old, so why shouldn't they be?

The beach at Castelldefels is terrific, we were told, but we never got to it, for four days is not enough to do such laid-back things. I had hoped we could go down to Tarragona where a ruined Roman amphitheater faces the sea. But the train connections are too poor and would have taken up most of a day, first in to Barcelona, then wait, then back south, just to get there. So for our four days there, we confined ourselves to hiking the mile to the train station, and then riding the train into Barcelona. It was a stark, bare train, meaning to do its job well. And that, it did, very inexpensively.

We loved Barcelona. But there are so many things about Castelldefels that linger in our hearts and echo in our minds. The people we met, from the people at the hotel to the friendly older couple we met on the train, were always kind, helpful and pleasant, and patient even with my clumsy Spanish and lack of knowledge of local customs.

I will never forget that couple on the train. Although the husband gave up, his wife was so worried that we would get off at the right place. And their Catalonian accent created a stumbling block for me that I couldn't seem to surpass. Finally as they were getting off at their stop, she said, "Sants. Sants." At first, I wondered what saints could have to do with it. A church? "Recuerda Usted," she said. "Sants." So I repeated "Sants," and nodded. She left the train sighing and shaking her head, but with a smile. Sants was the short name for the station in Barcelona. Immediately when I saw the sign, I was sure, and no matter what my hubby said about it being wrong, we got off, right in the middle of Barcelona, just where we wanted to be.

On our last night, a fierce storm hit just as we were getting off the train. Taxis had lined up on the opposite side of the tracks, beyond the station, but all the locals knew where they were and got to them first. We stood in the pouring rain, which seemed oddly warm for late September, and soon we were rewarded by a returning cab. Again, a very pleasant man, who like the others wondered why we would stay in this backwater town instead of Barcelona. I said, because we loved it, and he smiled. Then he rushed quickly away in the rain, for, no doubt, the rain makes his business good.

And I remember another cabbie who took us from the hotel to the dock in Barcelona for our cruise. He had pleasant Spanish music playing softly, and I absently began to pick up the melodies and hum along. He was so thrilled that I knew "their" music that I couldn't bear to tell him I'd always had a talent for picking up tunes quickly. I just told him the truth: the music was just so beautiful. And besides, with my limited Spanish, that was about all I could say.

Today there's been a tragic accident at one of the two stations in Castelldefells. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100624/ap_on_re_eu/eu_spain_train_fatalities

It's not the one where we got on and off, but both stations are similar. When you get off the train, you walk along the platform until you reach a staircase that leads to an underpass, to walk beneath the tracks. There's also a walkway above the tracks. Not all of the trains stop. High speed express trains roaring up from southern cities barrel through Castelldefels at speeds that frightened me. And they come along very frequently. I remember thinking how someone could so easily fell in front of a train, and I backed away to be sure that someone wasn't me.

No, there was no way I would have crossed those tracks. Yet today thirty people who had come from Barcelona to celebrate the solstice (known there as Noche de San Juan) and to party on the beach, did exactly that. And that bullet of a train came roaring through, completely unable to stop when the people on the tracks were spotted. Not until the remains of the victims were studied did the authorities realize there were 13 instead of 12 who died.

Perhaps people don't realize how fast 87 miles per hour is. Some said the doors to the underpass were closed so they had no choice. Yet I'm pretty sure there are no doors. The stairs to the underpass are maybe 8 to 10 feet wide, and the underpass is maybe 20 feet wide. Sometimes it was very crowded. But it's open all the way. Maybe the doors are hidden- somehow? But I don't think so.

Perhaps the crowd was so great that it seemed like the passage was closed. Perhaps everyone was so drunk, they couldn't think. Or afraid of getting trampled in a crowd? Who can tell? Most of the victims were very young, immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America. Had they been from rural areas and were not accustomed to fast trains? How can we know?

After our time there, though, I feel an affinity for the people of Castelldefels. And of course I feel sad for the families of the victims. But most of all I feel sad for the people of Castelldefels who are dealing with the tragedy. I know they are helping, in whatever ways they can.

One Year Ago

In Memoriam

Nedā Āġā Soltān
January 23, 1982 – June 20, 2009

I am not Iranian, nor Muslim. I am female, and I do know
The right to vote is precious.

If WATERLOO Had Gone the Other Way

The Battle of Waterloo was won by the Allies- Britain, Prussia, Russia, Austria and other smaller countries like Belgium- against Napoleon's Grand Armee 195 years ago today. It was a defining moment in history, yet from so long in the past, it's hard today to see how it changed the world- or how things might have been if the French had won. It's just really hard for people in today's world to grasp the battle, what led up to it, just how long Europe had been engaged in this enormous struggle, and why in the world Britain had to get involved at all.

I'm not going to get into all of that- history is easy to find all over the internet if you're curious about it. And if you really want resources, just ask me and I'll give them to you. But I will tell you what Britain's stake was and how their loss would have made everything different. This is just my opinion of what would have happened, and of course nobody really knows. And a lot of people disagree, but here's how I see it.

Throughout the entirety of Napoleon's hold on the Continent, Britain remained the thorn in Napoleon's side. Britain held supremacy on the seas, and Britain controlled a large part of the world- or at least controlled most of the trade. Napoleon might control all of Europe, but the world eluded him as long as Britain lay outside his grasp. He had made attempts at Britain and in 1805 it had looked like he might succeed. He had massed a huge flotilla of flat-bottomed boats to ferry his massed army of over 200,000 across the English Channel. Then suddenly he abandoned the entire project and dashed off across the Continent to answer a newer threat. The truth was, his flotilla had little chance of success and his craft were not suited for a Channel crossing.

And before this, there had been Trafalgar, when the British soundly defeated the French and Spanish fleets. Late in 1806, Napoleon issued the Continental System to counter the British Embargo and to try to isolate Britain from all European trade. Although effective, Britain still had the rest of the world for trade, and France did not.

So Napoleon had to conquer Britain or his Empire was doomed. But in 1815, he was cornered. He had recently escaped Elba and swept through France, gathering supporters in an amazing blitz. The frightened Allies once more prepared for battle, knowing it would take all of them jointly cooperating to keep what they had regained and finally defeat the Corsican Monster. At Waterloo, Mt. St. Jean to be more exact, Wellington was still without most of his Allies when Napoleon attacked. Blucher's Prussians were close but still dangerously separated, and the Austrians and Russians too far away yet to make it in time. But the ferocity of the fighting British Allies kept the day going until the amazing old man, Blucher, finally managed to battle his way to the field of contest, catching the French off guard from their right, and trapped in the pincers. The day was done, and Napoleon fleeing back toward Paris.

What if Blucher had not succeeded in his fierce flurry to reach Wellington? Napoleon was very good at catching his enemy divided, and he had done this once more, so it could have succeeded. What if Wellington had made a few more errors, in site, perhaps (no, he would never have made THAT mistake- he was a genius in picking battle sites). Or what if his troops in the little chateau of Hougoumont had failed in their desperate daylong battle to hold Wellington's right? It would have all been over, and French flags would have flown on the ridge at Mt. St. Jean.

Austria, Russia, Prussia would not have mattered. They would have crumbled as they always had in the past. Although Wellington had wisely made his retreat plan along with his battle plan, the French would have followed them across the Channel in every ship that could be commandeered, and with a good part of the British Army still at sea trying to get to Belgium, the defense of Britain would have been meager. Pitchforks and cudgels just don't do much against muskets and cannons.

When France captured Britain, they would get with it all the navy, the merchant vessels, the trade routes, the colonies- literally the wealth of the world uncontested. Whether they could have held it is another question, since everything they had held had been a precarious balance all along. But the new United States of America wouldn't have contested. All the Spanish and Portuguese world was not strong enough.

In short, France would have become the great world empire, instead of Britain. Not only would we all speak French, but we would be operating under the Napoleonic Code of Law. The French Revolution had in truth been dead in France from the beginning of Napoleon's Empire. Independence as we have known it would have been different, if not dead. And in Napoleon's Empire, people who disagreed or failed to live up to his demands didn't last long. His demands were not always rational, and always any failure had to have its scapegoat. Not to say that doesn't happen now to at least some degree, but it was a way of life in France's domain then.

How much we would have evolved from that, it's hard to say. Modern France is not an example for this because it is based as much on Napoleon's defeat as his successes. But it's pretty clear our world today would be far different. Nor can we even be sure whether we'd like it or not.

So tell me, what's your take on it?

Now for my Bookmarks...

Now that I've got a cover for LADY WICKED, my coming-soon release from The Wild Rose Press, I just had to do a bookmark. A little re-positioning, fine-tuning, and some blurbs and addresses. And a new design on the backside. Add a subtle color gradient for spice. (Oh yeah, I put a dress on her. Just because I could.)

For those of you who have a thing for RT cover models, and you know Jimmy Thomas, you may recognize him in the embrace silhouette. He's got some fabulous photos I'd love to use on covers, and they're not all that expensive- and pretty cheap for the e-book or bookmark size- $5. For the full size, $15. Not bad. Yes, I can get images at Fotolia, Dreamstime and iStock for only a few dollars, and that's where the ones on the cover of LADY WICKED came from. But they're not Jimmy Thomas! Go check his site out at http://www.romancenovelcovers.com/index.htm

Now off to VistaPrint for cheap printing. Yes, I'm cheap. I know that. I think there's some kind of elitist trailer trash blood in me because I take great pride in either doing the work myself or getting it done cheap, yet well. VistaPrint has its drawbacks but if you learn to work with them, free is a great price. I design bookmarks to fit as a pair on the standard post card. Then I use my very precise Fiskars trimmer to cut them. 100 post cards are free if you wait for the sales, and that gives me 200 bookmarks.

The above designs show the front and back. When I have them printed, I put two to a card- fronts on one side and backs on the other. The tricky part is getting the center perfect on both sides, and making sure there is a bleed area (extra color that doesn't have anything vital like type on it). Not all of VP's printing materials come out in quite the right colors, but their post cards have never failed me. The back side isn't glossy, but I like it in color anyway. That's usually an extra $9.99, but this time was $7.49. Uploading two photos usually costs $5 each but is 50% off right now, and sometimes is free.

I HAVE A COVER!

At last! My cover for LADY WICKED! The wonderful artist is Tina Lynn, who I was so pleased allowed me a lot of input into the design, even to picking the background and cover hero and heroine. This can never be perfect, of course, especially for historicals, because artists these days are limited to what royalty-free photos they can purchase and alter to fit. Adding costume details is something very few artists are willing or able to do, which is probably why you see so many semi-nude people on ebook historical covers. And the lipstick? Sorry, no self-respecting model these days would be willing to be photographed without it. I've painted out eye shadow before, but lipstick is just a nightmare to even try.

I don't have a pub date yet but that will be coming soon, and I hope will be before the end of the year.

So did you ever wonder what goes into a cover design? Well, I'll show you a few of the elements. I don't happen to have purchased but one of these in this photo, though, so I'll show you a different couple, who we couldn't use for other contractual reasons (but the photo is royalty-free and paid for, so don't worry).

In this cover design, the man and woman came from different photos, and had to be matched together, the woman flipped horizontally so they both were lit from the same side. She had on a very modern gorgeous red low cut strapless, which of course had to go. His lighting was much too bright for hers, so he had to be darkened. And shadows had to be added all around. Her photo was much like this one of the couple, so dark it was hard to tell her hair from the background. Of course, all that background in the portrait photos had to be removed, carefully so the poor heroine's hair didn't go with it.

I had fallen in love with this stone staircase a long time before, even though it is probably from a cathedral on the European Continent. I love the light, airy look, the subtle colors. But that wouldn't work for a dark medieval hall. You would never find such intricate and elegant stonework in the fairly simple, pragmatic medieval hall in my book- I know that. But by hiding a lot of the architectural detail but keeping the curved stairs leading to that mysterious door, it incorporates the same spirit as the bell tower in my story. In darkening, it lost the subtle coloring I love, so we added this radial gradient color glaze. It's not opaque, as it is here, and can be faded out, erased in places, or extra darkening shadows in others as needed. Tina is more conservative than I am-- I am just plain flagrant when it comes to color. She kept just the hint of color.

The fonts make up an entirely new layer. I don't have Tina's work on this, but I'm showing you a sample in a similar font with a simpler but similar effect. She and I don't have the same font adjusting software. I put it against a mottled green background so you can see how the shadowing gives it dimension.

So when you finally have all these elements just the way you want them, the layers are all merged into one design. You always keep a copy of the separate layers, though, because chances are excellent that when it's all assembled, suddenly something will pop out at you and say, "Lookee here! Glaring ERROR!" No, I don't think I ever did any cover that I didn't have to back up and fix something.

So, you just thought covers were just painted? Not anymore! These are just the basics. There are eyes to be painted green, sometimes hair to be changed. There could be a sword to add, perhaps a swath of tartan- but not this time. Making a book cover is an intriguing art.

Kindle and the New Self-EPublishing

Most successful authors have previously published works for which the publishing rights have reverted to the author. They'd like to see their books re-printed, but finding a traditional publisher to pick them up is pretty difficult. Re-printing a paper book is an expensive proposition for a book with a limited market.

Enter Kindle.

Kindle is widely regarded as the most significant forward-moving force. Probably true. But I think it's not so much Kindle as it is the Kindle Bookstore, which arguably holds more ebooks than any other source on the internet. People buy Kindles because of the enormous inventory of titles. And the reason for this is that Kindle opened itself up to the Independent Publisher. Essentially, this means ANYBODY.

This is the perfect opportunity for re-issues. The investment is tiny, and the author receives 35% royalties. Sales aren't huge, but they are growing, and supposedly Amazon will be hiking the royalties to independent publishers to 70% beginning this month. I'm not sure of the details, but since Kindle is the biggest market for ebooks, this would be nice. Many authors feel they can afford to set a more attractive price since they don't have to share with a publisher or agent.

WHAT YOU NEED TO PUBLISH A KINDLE BOOK:
Where: on Amazon.com, Kindle Store>In Sidebar, Publish on Kindle> On top line under Kindle Books, Small publishers and Authors... Digital Text Platform, DTP link>Sign In by following directions.

I suggest reading through FAQs and other information before starting. Some of it won't make sense at first, but when you reach that point in your process, you'll have an idea where to look for your answer.

Here's a list of the information you'll need to assemble for uploading your ebook. I suggest you get it all together before you start and save yourself a lot of back-tracking.

CHECKLIST:

#1 Enter Product Details
ISBN: You don't actually need an ISBN for your own Kindle upload. But if you already have one, or are planning on other ebook releases, get one. Don't use the same ISBN for print and electronic books.
Title:
Description: 4000 characters max
Publisher: That's you
Language:
Pub Date: I suggest about 5-7 days from current date. They may get faster in the future
Categories: e.g. Historical Romance
Authors:
search key words: look for as many appropriate words as you can think of
Product Image: min 1200 pix on smallest side I used 300 dpi, 6x9"
Edition Number: (optional)
Series Title: (optional)
Series Volume: (optional)

#2 Confirm Content Rights
Worldwide or Individual Territories
You'll later be asked to confirm or verify this. I sent the email letter granting release of rights.

#3 Upload & Preview Book
formats: Word, HTML, PRC, PDF (poor)
Preview- not easy if you don't know HTML but go through the whole thing anyway. Sometimes it looks fuzzy- I'm not sure if it would be fuzzy in the finished book. I did it over just in case it would improve and it did. You could be surprised at the things that show up in the preview, or don't show up. If all else fails, cancel (trash can) and start over. Before you do, though, make sure you have copies of all the info you put into the blanks and boxes.

#4 Enter Suggested Retail Price
I decided to price low. I can always raise it later.

wait 48-72 Hours while it's being reviewed.
You might not see your product description right away- up to a week.
Be sure to read the Amazon DTP Quick Start Guide, under Getting Started Guide

SETTING UP YOUR BOOK FOR EASY READING:

You can publish your book on Kindle in just about any layout you want. You don't even have to check for spelling errors. But if you don't want to irritate your readers, it's a good idea to make sure you understand what works well for reading on the Kindle.

Your book might already be in proper book layout for a print book. But this isn't necessarily the best layout for an ereader, especially Kindle. Kindle has no page numbers because the content is so adjustable. Depending on font size and other adjustments, the number of words per line, number of lines on the screen, and therefore the number of pages changes. So you want your content to flow easily for the reader.

The first thing you want to do is remove all headers, footers and page numbers. They take up screen space and irritate the reader, who just wants to get on with your story. And besides, remember, Kindle books have no pages, so headers, footers and page numbers mean nothing.

I suggest eliminating all page breaks between chapters. And since it's an irritation for readers to keep thumbing down through blank page after blank page, which is what you get if you have a lot of lines left before the beginning of the next chapter, substitute about 5 or 6 line returns for the page break. It won't seem like enough for you, the author. But those same 5-8 or so lines can take up a lot of space on the ereader. Do 2,3,4, or whatever you choose, but I suggest doing just enough to make it clear there's a new chapter coming up. I want the first lines of the new chapter to show on the same screen as the last words of the previous chapter.

Because I use Word Perfect, I've found it best to use the Reveal Codes feature to strip out all those little codes that don't seem to be there-until I change font, format or programs. But in Word, you can often get rid of such codes by highlighting the entire manuscript, then putting in the formatting that you want all through the manuscript. For instance, you might have some oddball font codes you think are gone, but will pop up sometimes if you do a backspace in the wrong place, or other such nonsense. Select and choose ALL. Then change the font to the one you want consistently, such as Times New Roman.

It's quite possible to scan a print book if you don't have an electronic copy. Most scanners have OCR (Optical Character Recognition) ability now and can convert to text document. But they're ‟sloppy", meaning they don't always get it right- ‟cl" often becomes ‟d", for example. The best way to do this is to take the book apart and scan each page flat so you don't get a ditch or gutter distortion. I haven't tried this, but I hear it's a bit of a pain. Still, better than re-typing!

If you work from a manuscript, you probably double-spaced, and used a five-space wide paragraph indent. Not good for e-reading. Select All and change to single spacing. Set your tab at .200" or .300". You'll even like the look better yourself.

Some people don't center chapter headings, but I prefer them. And I close down the spaces between scenes, separating them only with ***. Keep remembering, ereader screens are small.

WHAT ABOUT COVERS?
A good cover is very helpful for selling ebooks, although I rate it less important than a reduced price and known author name. You probably can't use a cover from a previous edition unless it's your own creation. Even then I'd suggest you use a different cover to separate yourself and your book from the previous edition under other publishers.

Covers can be simple or elaborate. You can pay an artist- we cover artists tend to work very cheap, but not all do. You can do it yourself, too. If you're not artistic, you can buy royalty-free photos from a number of sites online, and add your own lettering. You will need some sot of program to manage your graphic tasks. Often simple programs are shareware. Photoshop Elements is pretty good for basic work. You can have your 6 year-old kid color with crayons if you want. It's your book. You do want something that gets attention and makes a reader want to buy.

(I do cover art, in case you're interested. I can do simple for around $20-25 or complex, up to around $150. Sorry but I don't have time for anything more complex.)

Don't use copyrighted material without permission! Use your own photos or maybe a friend's but even with the friend, ask him to sign a release giving you permission to use it. If you buy art or photos from royalty-free sites, check the usage agreement. They are all a bit different.

Upload a good quality cover. This means a high resolution. If you swipe photos off the internet, chances are good they aren't good quality. So it's not even in your best interest to take them.

Who edits your book? Nobody but you, unless you arrange for it yourself. You are solely responsible for the quality of your book, so be patient with yourself and the process. Turn out a product you'd be happy to buy.

Now you're pleased with your accomplishment and the book is available on Kindle. Sales start trickling in. And new questions start trickling into your mind. How can I promote? How can I increase sales? And the newly intriguing question:

Is there more to this than just Kindle?

Sure, there is. But that's for another post. Coming up:
Smashwords Makes a Splash.
EPromo
And other things E.