I recently found the George Carlin bit featured in Leaning. I hope you like it as much as I do!

Smashwords, an e-book distributor is quick! I did have to format myself, but I clicked "publish" and here it was, within minutes! The best part is it will now be available in all formats, you may read it on your Ipad, Nook, Kindle, or any e-reader. I haven't had time to check all the formatting so if you find glitches, please let me know! Here's the link to Smashwords.

It's been nearly one year since I decided to publish my novel.
As I wrote my first novel, Leaning, my family tolerated my new "hobby". I always considered myself a writer, but I never wrote regularly, at least not after I graduated from college. I wrote pieces, snippets, and parts of "something".
When Jen, Jas, and I (see the My Team page or the My Story page for details) began our coaching group, I experienced a moment of truth.
Jas guided us through some imagery and through that exercise I discovered I wanted to write a novel. I was afraid to say it out loud before. I was afraid of failing, I suppose. It's easier to ignore the thing you want the most when it is also the one thing that frightens you the most. Ignoring it is easier than confronting it, working for it, and possibly failing in the most personal sense. Because failing when you pursue a dream may be the worst possible failure. Everyone dreams but most do not act on those dreams. It's too difficult to consider how to live your life afterwards, knowing you didn't succeed in your dream.
After that coaching meeting, I began to write. I wrote mostly in the evenings after homework, dinner, and dishes. During the evening parade of showers and television for the family. One year later, I held the first rough draft of Leaning. Nine months later I uploaded the final (nearly final--is anything ever?) version.
After I published Lea last summer, my teenage son thought I was finished. He actually yelled at me when I told him I was already working on the second novel. He quietly refused to read it. He started it once, he said.
I should mention here that I work full time. My husband works even more. We live out of town and lead full lives, like most folks these days. On top of that, I now write. I think my son felt I was unavailable to him at times and he didn't like it. Truthfully, he's right. I have a website now. I'm on facebook and twitter. I blog. I go to book signings and attend book club meetings, when I'm asked. I check stats, sales, and reviews. My workload expanded exponentially as soon as I chose to publish.
In December, Kole finally read Leaning. He read it faster than he's ever read a novel--he's not a fiction kid, he prefers history, sports, and "real" stuff. He read it and he enjoyed it.
My daughter felt differently. She's a few years younger than her brother but a voracious reader. She couldn't understand why I wouldn't allow her to read my book. She actually wanted to read it and I wouldn't let her. Then the kids in her junior high began to read the novel. Can you imagine? She was VERY unhappy with me and I admit it, I finally caved. I can provide a list of great reasons but the truth is, it just wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that kids her age read the book and she couldn't.
I instigated some very frank conversations before she read it. We talked about fiction; the real versus the unreal. We discussed sex, rape, and violence. Then we talked about it some more.
Now, one year later, it's all different. Emma checks my website and follows my blog. Kole looks at stats with me and offers to beat up the bad reviewers on Amazon. The kids joked over spring break that I can't make any promises for characters in the future until I know who makes it out of the second book alive. "She keeps killing them off!"
And, again, they are right. The plot of my second novel evolves almost as quickly as my life these days.

When I set up my blog, it took a while to find a groove. I couldn't figure out what to write about and what readers might find interesting.
After much consideration and a number of different ideas, it occurred to me what I want to read when I log into a writer's website is their actual writing or something creative. My first decision was to post my own first novel, chapter by chapter, for free. I developed this idea as part of my readership building plan and it worked! My daily blog visits and website visits have more than doubled since I made that decision. In addition, I've sold more than 24,000 eBooks of Leaning since January 1, 2012. While most of those sales occurred during free promotions, I've hit number 1 a few times on Amazon and I'm building for my future novels. As of right now there will be at least three books in the Montana series.
I only have a few weeks left to post free chapters of Leaning so I am planning for future blogs. My hope was to post the first few chapters of Bound for free, but I'm not ready--at least not yet.
Which led me to a big decision. I want to help other self published authors gain badly needed publicity so I'm putting out the call for submissions. I'm looking for self published work to post on my blog. I will add links to Amazon or anywhere the book is available and I will promote it on Facebook and Twitter during the week it is posted here on my blog. I'd like one chapter at a time but may consider up to three of the same novel. I will consider all genre's except Erotica.
If you think this may be for you, I am accepting submission inquiries until Saturday, May 19, 2012. All you have to do is contact me with your email address and I will send you the submission requirements--no fees are accepted or included at this time.
I can't wait to read the submissions!

I have good news and bad news. The good news is there will definitely be three novels in the Montana series. Unfortunately, this revelation may push back the publishing date for Bound.
I originally thought Bound would be out by the end of summer. Were I writing one novel, I would still be on target. It turns out, I've been writing two! While this is great news, it does put me back in regard to telling the story and developing the plot and characters for Bound.
I have no deadline for completion, currently. I'd love to finish Bound and have it out by early fall, so that's my goal. I will definitely post updates as they occur and I will also post snippets of Bound as the release date draws near .

This is a warning to those of you who read my chapters on my blog; they are coming down! I will remove all but the most recent two chapters as of Sunday, April 8, 2012. If you haven't caught up, you better get cracking!
On a side note, if you have a favorite chapter you would like me to keep up, send me an email or post a comment.
Have a wonderful week!

_It's been one month since my first Amazon promo. From January 10, 2012 to January 12, 2012, Leaning flew to the top of the free kindle list for Literary Fiction and settled in at #3 in Romance. By the end of the next day it was the #2 on the Literary Fiction best sellers list and the thumbnail for Literary Fiction on the Kindle Books page of Amazon.com where it remained for the remainder of that day and the whole next day. The reviews for the novel have doubled, and while there are some scathing reviews online, its rating remains a 4 star out of five average. Interestingly enough, one or two of my new readers felt strongly enough to comment directly on the most derogatory reviews.
Many positives emerged from this process but perhaps the two most important things are the following:
    1) You can actually find Leaning on Amazon without keying in the title and author directly.
    2) This free promo didn't create much actual revenue, but I now have a readership, one that will hopefully grow.
It's funny how quickly the status quo changes. I only sold a handful of kindle books prior to January 10th. Since then, I've sold over 19,000. While most of those were for free, I now have a new, somewhat unrealistic expectation. For one week, every time I checked my stats, they nearly doubled. At the peak they were doubling hourly. During the first three weeks of January, my website visits doubled and some days even tripled.
Things began to slow and sales from the next week were half the sales of the last week. One month later, my daily sales are steady but not doubling each day. Now I'm down to a new norm but I wanted to see the doubling continue. I wanted the next big, best seller. I even want a publisher because if I gained a publisher, they could promote the first book and I could write the se, that's the dream anyway.
So I find myself conflicted. I've "sold" more books than I ever thought I would but now I want more, I'm just unsure what path to follow to find it. I'd like to be happy with this new success. What the heck is wrong with me?