Willow’s Friends Surprise Her : A Book of Shadow Puppets

These are the links to the paperback version of Willow Travels the World.

Available on Amazon.

Available on CreateSpace.

Available on Barnes & Noble.

The story focuses on the character Willow as she travels the world, making new friends along the way. It has a simple story with intermediate level vocabulary and multiple short sentences per story page perfect for the budding reader ready for the next challenge. This book contains photographs of shadow puppet animals and a photograph of how my daughter made each of them with her hands so the reader can try to make them on their own.

It only took me months.

Willow’s Friends Surprise Her is up on Create Space!  It will slowly filter into other stores from there.  I will share links in the next few days.

Willow Book Three is almost live!

 

The next book in the Bree’s shadow puppet series is one step closer to going live.  I am waiting to here back from Create Space.  I haven’t decided if I’m going to offer it as an ebook or not yet.  So far we have only been selling paperback versions.  It was a lot of extra work turning it into an ebook.  I will share the links as soon as it goes live.

 

I gave up –

Bump in Progress had me beat.

I tried and tried to fix the toc .epub error.  I even added a table of contents.  At one point I added the phrase attempt ’50ish’ to the end of my .doc file.  Frustration finally won out and I abandoned it.  It was still on Smashwords, still on Amazon (with new cover), still on CreateSpace but it just wasn’t in the Premium Catalogue anymore.  I could live with that.

At the beginning of the month they sent me a courtesy email reminding me that the abandoned book did not have Premium status.  Again I decided I could live with it and disregarded the email.  To finish my story I have to go sideways a bit.  I have written a book under another name and it is with my dear beloved beta reader.  While my book is waiting her hectic life to slow down so she can read it I decided to work on my styles and toc.

A chapter in the Smashwords guide I fool-heartly didn’t read.  Even against their repeated expressed advice not to skip any parts.  I didn’t have a table of contents!  Why did I need to read it?  Well after reading it and making a toc for my adult book I dove into fixing my bump in progress.  Using information obtained in the seemingly unneeded chapter of the guide.

I am pleased to share that the book sailed through it’s .file checks.  And while it churned at the place in cyber space where they process books at Smashwords I tweaked soft returns, regular returns, pt spaces and the such to eliminate weird blank pages.  Finally arriving at a version I was pleased with.  (It even sailed through .mobi file checks which it never did before.  This always hung me up and I would just uncheck the box for .mobi conversion.)  This is the current version of the Willow Series with the now white cover!  Onto purple!

Bump in progress

Per suggestion as I mentioned a few days ago I changed the cover of the second Willow book, Willow Travels the World.  I thought this would be no big deal, change the cover, submit and go about my merry way.  Well for some reason this simple change has now got the book flagged for having an ePub error, ‘calibre_toc_2’, there is more to it but that’s not the important part.  Oddly enough it always had that ePub error, actually both books do when I ran them through the ePub check.  So I am confused as to why suddenly it halts our re-inclusion with the new cover into the Premium Program with Smashwords.  I don’t know anything about ePub or it’s errors but ‘toc’ I have noticed usually means table of contents, I don’t even have one.  So, I have no idea how to fix an error on something I don’t even have.  What I gather it’s a malfunctioning link and since I have no ‘toc’ links I went ahead and checked all my hyper links to my social media and they all are working correctly.  I resubmitted it as an ePub file so wish me luck.  My next move will be just to resubmit the previous version that got expectance and hope it sneaks through like it did before.  At least the book is still available in the other cover on Smashwords distribution sites like iBooks, Kobo and Nook.  The new cover is available on Kindle but not in paperback yet, it’s in the works with CreateSpace for distribution on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc..  Already submitted, approved and checked.

Exciting News!

Willow Visits Her Friends is now available through Smashwords!  I am hoping this opens up a lot more distributors for Brianna’s books.  Also Willow Travels the World is now available on Amazon in paperback!

I must admit with every step forward I make in this endeavor to help Brianna make a book, now two, I am realizing how much work goes into your book after you write it, if you publish on your own.  Even using services like CreateSpace and Smashwords.  Terms of Agreements sometimes take all afternoon to read, then there is the reformatting from your print version to an eBook compilable file and then the waiting to find out if it was approved to go live after all the time and energy you have all ready invested.  I have a new found respect for the process.

Willow 2 is Live!

Willow Travels the World is live and available for purchase on Kindle and in paperback on CreateSpace!  Amazon and Barnes & Noble availability for paperback will follow in a few days.

I couldn’t be more proud of this accomplishment my girl is sharing with me.

Passing on Apple

for now

I think for now until I have a better understanding of the publishing process and Apple’s requirements for placing eBooks on thier site I am going to wait.  I went ahead and got both books, yes I said both books, all set up into an apple template just in case I change my mind.  I gladly will take suggestion on this matter from any familiar with using Apple for eBooks.

Back to the “both books” part, I have submitted the next book in the Shadow Puppet series, Willow Travels the World, to both Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and CreateSpace.  Currently I am just waiting on an email from both telling me they are live!  The next step for the Shadow Puppets series is Nook.  I hope, since Google isn’t taking anyone new at this time.

Here’s the paperback cover of Willow Travels the World.

Live on Kindle

This is the link to my daughter Brianna’s book Willow Visits Her Friends on Kindle.  She made all the shadow puppets herself and I came up with the story, approved by her of course and I took the photographs of her awesome shadow puppets.  I am still working on the iBooks version so keep your fingers crossed that it works out.

http://www.amazon.com/Willow-Visits-Her-Friends-Puppets-ebook/dp/B00YT5QTN4/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_img_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1JP94HABDGWF9KSHN69W

This is the link to the paperback version of the Willow Visits Her Friends. http://www.amazon.com/Willow-Visits-Her-Friends-Puppets/dp/1512376884/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1432682601&sr=8-1&keywords=9781512376883

This is the link to CreateSpace where it is also available in paperback. https://www.createspace.com/5522330

This is Barnes and Nobles link to the paperback. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/willow-visits-her-friends-april-parker/1122021894?ean=9781512376883

Available Now! Willow Visits Her Friends

Willow Visits Her Friends: A Book of Shadow Puppets

Available now on CreateSpace for purchase!