Update

I learned two more functions here on the Weebly.com website. I failed to initially find the Advanced Page Settings and the ability to add Categories to my blog posts.

So, I have updated BBB's pages and posts with metadata and categories. Let's see if I can find BBB or Ria in an internet search.

More updates to come.

While it was wise to spend time researching marketing tactics and making a plan, it has been exhausting.

I mean blogging, tweeting, participating in forums, 

The best advice I have found, so far, is find out where your audience goes and go there. But, how do I really know who my audience is? I mean I wrote an adult science-fiction/romance that doesn't have much science-fiction or romance, so maybe it's just fiction.

So far, I figure my audience maybe blue-collar, baby boomers, sometimes called the Third Age. Then, there's probably a few from the science-fiction crowd and maybe some of the romance group. Of course, for the eCookbook, it's for non-cooks and frugal cooks.

Where do they go? I have no idea. When I look at where I go -- I don't meet a lot of Baby Boomers, it's often 30 & 40-somethings.

Everything is so self-designed. My twitter is more like a telegraph of one-liners from news organizations or journalists.

My head is so buried in the quest for knowledge, I am no fun. Fun is where people go.

Just trying to interpret stats from four websites is time-consuming. Currently, the stats don't say much because of low traffic and sales. But, it is still interesting to see that people do like the free eCookbook.

One thing I have learned from all this is that I may be more of a publisher than an author, so to speak. During this process, I have found two people whose expertise would make great books, so we plan on working on an eBook project to see where they go.

But, marketing will be key with that venture, too.

An internet search using Ria Stone or Gina's Dream does not find this website. So, I am making a page with metadata to see if I can improve the search results.

Ria Stone
Gina's Dream
Recipes from the Kitchen of a Frugal Non-Cook
Boomer Lit
Baby Boomer
Blue Collar
Science Fiction
Romance
Frugal
Cookbook
Cookbook for non-cooks

Whew, what a trip! After getting the idea for creating a free cookbook from Ted Summerfield's The Backward Approach to EBook Success, I attempted to resurrect an old cookbook I had started. It was a challenge and a huge education in ebook formatting.

Note, I am not a cook, so not only did I face the task of researching, writing, and formatting the cookbook, I also had to select and re-test my own recipes, not as easy it sounds since I had not used many of the recipes in the last two years and my kitchen appliances were different.

The whole experience has almost disappeared in a fog of terminology, multiple software programs and publishing platforms as well countless revisions and versions.

All I remember is gathering up my old cookbook and some articles on menu development I had written for non-cooks and creating the first draft of Recipes from the Kitchen of a Frugal Non-Cook. That draft went through many revisions as I wrote personal insights into cooking from a non-cook perspective and added, subtracted and revised recipes.

Because this was going to be a free cookbook, I included a page here and there about Gina's Dream with a cover image and links to the book and website.

At first, I thought I would create an .epub and submit it to SW, that was why I was working in iWork Pages not MSWord because Pages offered an epub conversion.

Meanwhile, a fellow writer "beta read" the cookbook and offered several helpful suggestions which I incorporated and created a new version.

But, when I submited the .epub to SW, it was rejected for: lack of a TOC, tabs, and links to other book retailers.

It was the tabs error that threw me. I had chosen the .epub format in order to preserve the "format." Long story short:

• Converted the Pages document to a Word .doc
  
• Learned belatedly into the process that my Pages "Times New Roman" had converted to "Times"  in Word, had to reformat styles;
  
• Created an NCX TOC that needed a few corrections including removing hidden bookmarks;
  
• Changed the tabs to "fixed spaces" which solved my problem because the tabs in question were important to create ingredient lists;
  
• Removed all other tabs and reformatted the text;
  
• Removed all links to other book retailers;
  
• Highlighted words that had lost italic and bold typefaces and reformatted;
  
• Renamed images with names without spaces; and 
  
• Finally, something I should have done from the start -- I verified the formatting using the Styles toolbox that included showing Styles Guides and Direct Formatting Guides
  

Somewhere in this mix, Styles and I were bumping heads, I was trying too many changes and Styles was doing unexpected things like changing alignment. In the end, there was one problem I could not solve but had not existed in all the past revisions, now my Kindle (mobi) version had block indents.

During the revision process, I was downloading various eBook epub readers like Calibre, Adobe Document Edition, AZARDI and more trying to preview my final product before I resubmitted it again to SW. While the eCookbook looked nice not sure the final product resembled what I saw in those epub readers. Not sure about this part yet.

Then there was my eBook cover. This was a free book; so I stubbornly refused to purchase the services of a professional graphic artist to make an eBook cover. Come heck or high water, I was going to make a nice cover myself. I tried various software manipulation packages like: photoscape, GiMP and others but in the end I found an article by Michael Canfield, How to Create a Quick EBook Cover Using Pages that allowed me to create a nice eBook cover. In addition, I am thankful to Wikipedia for offering great public domain artwork. I created an eBook cover I liked and SW liked. Do not ask me why this cover worked and all my others did not, I have no idea. Also, I did provide attribution on my copyright page for the source of the artwork.

Ok, a little breather. I did try one more time to fix the problems with the SW book by making one more resubmission but no change, so I have accept to the final product as is.

So, now, you can find my FREE eCookbook, Recipes from the Kitchen of a Frugal Non-Cook on Smashwords.

While I enjoyed re-testing some of my recipes, the downside is I gained 10 pounds ;=>

Enjoy!

I have been busy learning about all kinds of things like social media, networking, blogging, and more.

One mistake I made when I started Gina's Dream is I did not calculate or pre-prepare for all the social media and blog setup needed for marketing, so I am trying to get on top it all for my next novel.

Tweeting takes time. Networking is still a fog because there are so many ways to approach it. In essence, you need to find websites and events where your target audience might go.

In the meantime, I have been working on Recipes from the Kitchen of a Frugal Non-Cook (RKFNC), a cookbook, and that, too, has been an adventure. I probably gained 10 pounds in the process while I retested some of my recipes. But, this cookbook gig got me acquainted with cookbook publishing. Many authors publish free cookbooks for their readership. RKFNC will be free, too.

One thing I do while I write is play music collections to keep me in the mood of the story. I make a collection for each novel. But, I did not make a collection for writing a cookbook, I just played my Saturday songs which include upbeat songs from the 60s - 80s.

I find even as I research or I work on my novel, I have to take a writing break and write something different like a book or movie review just to keep the juices flowing.