Skyway Books – Short Stories – Poems – Books

Welcome back to the weekly Skywaybooks.com blog. I was very close to not writing one this week. I literally had no subject in mind when I woke up Tuesday morning and decided I would perhaps take a break. Then I remembered how disappointed my loyal readers would be and I thought that I couldn’t disappoint all two of you. So I decided I could write about something that is off the publishing beaten path for once.

I would like to talk about the season we are in now. Yes we are in fall. Although for us here in Ontario for the Canadian Thanksgiving, we were blessed with such a beautiful day that it seemed more like July than the second week of a typical October. The sun was shining, not a cloud in the sky and a very pleasant 23 degrees Celsius. That’s 73 for all you American folk.

I truly believe that fall is my favourite season. There is that nip in the air. The sky seems to be bluer and the leaves are a show in themselves with all of their vibrant hues. I can distinctly remember flying in from Las Vegas one year and as we were landing in Toronto, the plane broke through the low clouds at about two thousand feet. Although it was an overcast, dreary day for those of you on the ground, from above it was just beautiful. Colour. I actually saw green grass and oranges and yellows and reds… oh my. Now c’mon you knew that was coming. For anyone who has been to Las Vegas, they can attest to the fact that is so lacking in colour. There are the dirt front lawns and the rock gardens and the mountains and the scenery is so blah. It was refreshing to be home, even though I was just visiting on this trip and to see nature at it’s finest.

As a kid growing up here, I can remember that fall meant the leaves were falling and piles of them were soon made to jump in to. It was chilly, but not enough to be uncomfortable or to need boots and seven layers of clothing.

I wrote a poem called “The Change of Season”. Feel free to check it out on this website under the poems link. Although never intended to be written that way, it does have a Robert Frost quality to it.

On Sunday October 26^th, myself and several family members will be participating in the annual Casino Niagara Marathon in one race or another. I will try to remember and reflect on why I love fall when I am running into a 40km cross wind and a wind chill of 3 degrees Celsius biting a my face. In a way wishing I could just get this over with and on the other hand missing it when it is.

Until next time, have a great day and happy reading to everyone!

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Welcome back to the Skywaybooks.com blog. In previous blogs I talked about writing books and touched briefly on marketing your newly published work. I would like to dive in a little deeper about the options you have when it comes to advertising your finished product.

Getting your book on an online website book store such as Amazon or Borders is a must. The internet and its ability to be seen all over the world, gives authors today a huge advantage over authors and publishers as little as twenty years ago. When books were first published, writers would peddle their works to general stores hoping somebody might buy a copy or two. Back then they had vanity publishing and traditional publishing of course. With vanity publishing, you were forced to buy fifty or a hundred copies of your own book and it was up to you to sell them. Vanity houses unfortunately still exist today and the costs can be rather excessive.

Many people confuse vanity publishing with self publishing and the now popular POD or Print On Demand publishing. With POD, you are not forced to buy fifty copies of your own book. You can, but you don’t have to buy any if you don’t want to. Books are only printed when a sale is made.

Personalized bookmarks are an excellent marketing tool. I started with a hundred and have already gone through them. I tuck them into every book I sell on my own or send to a reviewer. Letterhead with your book title and mailing address on top is a good tool. Use the letterhead when mailing out books to reviewers or when soliciting the local book stores to see if they’d be willing to carry your book in their inventory. As for your address, rent a PO Box at the local post office if possible. The rent is cheap and it looks more professional than your home address when conducting correspondence about your literary work. Marketing vehicles for publishing are only limited to your own creativity. You can have pencils, pens, coffee mugs or shirts printed with your book title. This of course all depends on what type of book you have written and the audience you are trying to attract.

With a lot of persistence and a little luck, you can market or advertise your book and gives your sagging sales a boost!

That’s it for this week. Have a great day and happy reading to everyone!

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Welcome back Skywaybooks.com members and visitors. I recently wrapped up my series on writing books and last week I talked about writing poetry. Today, as you probably guessed from the title of this blog, let’s talk about writing the short story.

What is it about writing a short story that delights some writers with glee and sends others running for the hills? The short story is a very challenging craft to master. I think because it is usually limited to a certain number of words to qualify. If it’s too short, than it’s nothing more than a few paragraphs that don’t have enough time to tell the tale. Make it too long and you’ve just written a chapter of an incomplete book. Be sure to check out my story titled “Next Stop Nowhere” on the home page of the Skywaybooks.com website. An interesting fact about this short story that I am betting nobody knows. It was originally called “Next Stop Home.” I used that title when I submitted it to a short story contest for a local paper in Colorado Springs, CO when I was living there. When I entered it into a local contest here in the Toronto area, I revamped the ending and changed the title hoping a facelift would suddenly make it a contender. Unfortunately it didn’t place in either contest. Some people have no taste.

Not that I am bitter or anything. What I remember about the Colorado contest in particular was the story needed to have certain parameters aside from a set amount of words, to be a genuine, qualified entrant. There had to be a train, a mountain and a Christmas theme. I can remember reading the winning entrant when it was published in the local paper. In the first paragraph the main character disembarked a train, had a tearful reunion with her long lost dog and then they walked to her house perched on the side of a mountain on Christmas Day. Hmmmmmm….. There was more to this story, pretty much filler, but you get the point. You can just imagine my disappointment when I read that this was indeed the winning entrant. Granted my submission was no Hemmingway, but I did have the main character spend more than one sentence on the train.

Now you are probably saying, “What is your point besides using your blog to whine about a contest you didn’t win four years ago?” My point is just because you over exceed the rules of a short story contest, doesn’t guarantee you to be a winner. In fact by just meeting the minimums can score you a top prize as I illustrated above. I still enter contests and you should too. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t win just keep trying and don’t whine about it four years later when you don’t win. I know I personally would be more mature than that.

Until next time have a great day and happy reading to everyone!

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