I find a lot of customer service functions provide a poor response.

Weebly's response to my query about my website stats was not accurate nor did it provide any information I did not already have. Plus, there was a time lag in getting the reply.

I have now asked about why I can not find my website in an internet search. It's not like I don't know how to use the search function or metadata. But, not a hint that I have a website on Weebly. It is published. I can find it if I use the exact URL but when someone is looking for something, they never have the exact URL. The purpose of the search is to find the exact URL.

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!

Once I decided to finish my novel and self-publish it, I joined several writers groups which I recommend to others but you need to find the writers group that works for you.

After I published my eBook on Smashwords, I looked for websites and forums that talked about epublishing and marketing. One site I joined was the Smashwords Forum (Independent Forum for SW authors etc.). 

On the SWforum, you can find other SW authors who may have questions/answers or resources to assist a author in various stages of their writing.

I meet one SWForum user, Sally Ember, Ed.D. who was having problems formatting her eBook, This Changes Everything. I tried to help but had no success. Later, Dr. Ember found her answer and shared it with me. Along the way, we got acquainted. I was surprised to find that our enovels shared similar themes. Compared to my novelette, This Changes Everything is an opus with several books in the series, where Dr. Ember generously elaborates on many themes.

You can find Dr. Ember at:

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/SallyEmber
Website: http://www.sallyember.com
Twitter: sallyemberedd
Facebook: Facebook profile
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/sally-ember-ed-d/1/282/894
Wattpad: sallyember
Blog: http://www.sallyember.com/blog

Dr. Ember is a delightful person, full of energy and ideas. I do recommend her book because it is a delightful mix of fiction, fantasy, stream-of-consciousness, and humor. She is the Alice Walker of the Spanner generation.