sallyhanan’s blog

A writer’s blog

You can buy Joy in a Box November 24, 2009

Filed under: Writing — sallyhanan @ 12:40 am
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I am delighted to announce that
My collection of flash fiction, Joy in a Box, is now available in print. This is the perfect book to give as a gift to someone who likes to read stories that are short and sweet, because each story only takes two to three minutes to read. Put it in the downstairs restroom, beside the coffeemaker, or on the coffee table.

The sun pulled the daylight down with it, the silky nuances of dusk wrapping themselves around the strange couple, and Penny’s thoughts hovered in their folds. (Note Attached)

Genres
I’ve added as many genres as possible in the book in order to appeal to all tastes, and the stories are even clean enough for teenagers to read. Many of the stories have won placement positions in writing challenges, and others have caused readers to think, ponder, believe, imagine, reflect, feel, consider, suppose, assume, sense . . . (thesaurus, anyone?).

On went the motor of the walking machine; flip flap went the fat on the insides of Dorothy’s thighs. Dust flew abundantly in all directions. (Absolutely Fabulous!)


Reviews
“Her poignant crystal clarity of truth and honest point of view gather together in the smallest set of words for each short story. The antagonist—generally a normal aspect of any written story—isn’t entirely concrete, malleable, even visible. We’re not talking about a villain dressed in black here, or a mean old lady out to skin 101 dalmations for their fur to make coats. The conflict is something inside rather than outside. The plot is more based on thought than on action. The story moves more on the concept of memories than on events, sort of like . . . Haiku.” ~ Pierre Dominique Roustan, author of The Cain Letters

“It takes a special talent to write a complete story in a few words. Sally Hanan has that talent, and most of her stories have an interesting twist ending.” ~ Lena Nelson Dooley, award-winning author of Wild West Christmas, Christmas Love at Lake Tahoe, and Love Finds You in Golden, New Mexico

“A well-written and thought-provoking book of inspiring stories. Each story was so different. This book is about more than JOY; it stands for HOPE!” ~ Fran Lewis, author of My Name is Bertha, Bertha Speaks Out, and Bertha Fights Back


Where to buy this work of genius :)
You can buy Joy in a Box for $11.99, with shippping by UPS, here. I haven’t got it available on other online stores yet, as I need to come up with $99 to cover the ISBN and channel distribution costs. Yes, that’s what it costs.

She smiled—one of those fizzy drink kind of smiles that pops tiny bubbles of air to the lips over seconds of time. Then she went back to reading. (In The Orange-Sherbet Light)

 

 

Every piece of writing needs to be clear and precise. With microscope in hand, Inksnatcher’s writing and editing service will hone any work until it glitters in the light of a 1,000 watt bulb.

sallylogo3 INKSNATCHER.COM                                                                                                                                      

 

 

 

 

Publish your e-book with Smashwords November 16, 2009

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Smashwords is a great idea Mark Coker thought up. Why not set up a site on which writers can upload their e-books for free and then sell them to the public? Mark’s beta site went public on May 6, 2008. Since then, the company has added support services, tagging, coupon generators, publishers’ pages, a marketing guide, writing contests, affiliate marketing, and distribution agreements with Barnes & Noble and Sony.

“Over one billion of the world’s roughly 6.5 billion inhabitants subsist on less than $1 a day. Paper books are simply too expensive for most of the world.” ~ Mark Coker, Smashwords

Here are some of the pros and cons of publishing an e-book with Smashwords:

PROS
—The moment your book is ready and formatted (according to the Smashwords formatting guide), you can upload your Word file and let the world read it.
—Smashwords converts the Word file into many optional reading formats to make your book compatible with most of the book-reading devices available these days. Formats available: HTML, JavaScript, Kindle, Epub, PDF, RTF, LRF, Palm doc, plain text download, plain text Web view,
—You retain all rights to your book.
—You get to decide how much of the book you want readers to preview.
—Smashwords continues to negotiate with various online retail outlets to ensure the best possible distribution potential for your book.
—Smashwords only takes a 15% fee and you get to keep the rest (and you can change the price as often as you want to).
—Writers from all over the world can publish their books with Smashwords.


“By moving books into the digital realm, we can start to change the economics of book publishing, while at the same time making great independent books available to people of all economic backgrounds from around the world.” ~ Mark Coker, Smashwords
                                                                 

CONS
—You tend to post it too quickly, before you are positive there are no formatting mistakes or before you give it the final read through.
—Most writers practically give their books away so it’s still hard to make a decent profit.
—You cannot post other people’s reviews of your book, only the reviewers can. It’s already a blessing to have someone read and review your book, so it feels even greedier to ask them to then go to the site to post the review again.
                                                                 

I began the process of uploading my flash fiction collection, Joy in a Box, a few months back, thinking it would lessen the pain of not having the printed version for a while. It’s great to have a place where readers can preview the first three stories, and, because of Smashwords’ free coupon generator, it has been extremely useful to be able to link reviewers to it.
                                                                                                                                  

 

 

Every piece of writing needs to be clear and precise. With microscope in hand, Inksnatcher’s writing and editing service will hone any work until it glitters in the light of a 1,000 watt bulb.

sallylogo3 INKSNATCHER.COM                                                                                                                                      

 

 

 

 

Review of Joy in a Box July 25, 2009

Filed under: Writing — sallyhanan @ 12:23 am
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Recent review of Joy in a Box

I liked the old 50′s feel that it has, kind of like reading James Joyce or Steinbeck. Very nice job.

Rie McGaha . . . fantasy that keeps you up
http://www.riemcgaha.com

 

 

Every piece of writing needs to be clear and precise. With microscope in hand, Inksnatcher’s writing and editing service will hone any work until it glitters in the light of a 1,000 watt bulb.

sallylogo3 INKSNATCHER.COM                                                                                                                                      

 

 

 

 

 
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