FREE EBOOK "BROKEN BUTTERFLY"

It's been almost a year since I published Broken Butterfly and a lot has happened since then.

My publishing company closed, leaving Broken Butterfly homeless. Don't be sad.

A sister company was willing to take on all Crossbooks clients. Westbow Press. Through the next few months, I went through the stages of having them take on my book, they read it, made sure it met their standards, and it was finally in the last stages after taking four months.

Because I was a finalist in a contest with Crossbooks, I had a really nice package. Now, I was told in the beginning of this entire process, that everything would be similar in my package. But, I found out days before my book was going to go live

these were the only things I would receive ...

·         They would publish Broken Butterfly on the Westbow Press website.

·         10 ebook tabs (free ebooks I could give away to whoever I wanted to)

·         Their branding. I guess that was a big deal. It just wasn't that important to me.

That was it.

Not the book sellers return program (and I was so close to getting my book into the Lifeway store) And my number one question to them was this.

Would I keep the book sellers return program?

The reply I received ...

Yes, you will receive a similar package to the one you had with Crossbooks.

They weren't even going to list my book on Amazon or Barnes and Nobles. And it's only by chance I found this out. I had asked an Amazon marketing question. I'm so glad I asked that question.  And you can just imagine my shock when she said, "Why are you surprised?"

I wouldn't consider myself a rude person, like ever. But this was one of those moments, I really wanted to be rude. I laughed-out-loud and said, "Thank you." And hung up.

My daughter looked at me and laughed. I guess I wasn't mean enough. Her attitude is a little worse than mine. Where did she get that from? We really need to work on that!

Now I'm not faulting them in any way other than they should've been straightforward with me in the beginning. I wouldn't have wasted four months of my time or theirs.

So, I decided to publish it myself. It was ready. It had already been published. I sold over 200 personal copies already. Not including my previous online sales. I just needed to get it back up on Amazon.

So I did.

Ya'll. I received my first check from Amazon.

I was shocked!!!

The check was for only 16 days and included ebook sales only. My check from Amazon was 27% more than my only check I received with Crossbooks that included ebook, paperback, and hardcopy sales for 4 months combined. This is because they received most of the profit. The checks were from online sales only. This does not include my personal paperback sales!!

I wonder, did I make the right decision?

I think so.

When I published on Amazon, I chose the KDP select program. I wanted to run a promotion to give my ebook away for free for a certain amount of time.

IN celebration of my one year anniversary ... I'm running a promotion the next 2 weekends. It starts today, Thursday, December 4th and will run through Sunday, December 6th. And then another one will run, Friday, December 11th-12th. You can download the kindle version for FREE on any of these days.

I also chose to allow those who purchase a copy of Broken Butterfly to loan it out. Why would I do that? I want people to read my book. I hope they will love it and want to read more of my books when I get them published.

I didn't know it at the time, but I get paid when people read my books. I found this out when I received my check. So, I am giving a blessing, and receiving one in return. :)

If you enjoyed Broken Butterfly you can really help me by doing a few very simple things.

a)   Download a free copy of Broken Butterfly on any of the free promotion days. This will push it closer to the free bestseller list where it will get more views.

b)   Tell ALL of your reader friends about this promotion, so they can download a copy too. :)

c)   Read the pages of the free copy.

d)   Leave a review for me on Amazon!! EVERY SINGLE REVIEW IS IMPORTANT!!! THANK YOU SOOOO VERY MUCH IF YOU ALREADY HAVE!!!!!

You may think your review isn't important ... but it is. It's so very important. Every review bumps me closer to the bestseller list. ... Plus, the more good reviews a book has, the more likely a new reader is to give it a chance. It is always a factor for me when I choose a book.

It doesn't have to be anything fancy. It doesn't have to be long. Short and sweet is fine with me. Just please, if you've read Broken Butterfly and you loved it, do this to help me get more copies into the hands of new readers. And thank you so much in advance. And let me know if you leave one, so I can thank you personally!!

I'm so blessed to have thirty-two 5 star***** reviews today and one 4 star**** review. That is a huge blessing.

You can find me on Goodreads and Barnes & Nobles too!

I'm working hard with my editor on Chasing Paradise. I will be looking for reviews ahead of time before this one is published!!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Cindy

Goals You CAN Achieve

I've been thinking about Goal Setting and how it could change the success of many aspects of our life. 

But where do you start?

Where do you WANT to see yourself tomorrow, in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years?

The biggest challenge in setting goals is Fear Of Failure. What if it doesn't work? What if I'm still in the same place I am today 5 years from now? And the biggest one I face .... What will people think of me if I fail?

But the better questions we should ask ourselves is ... What can it hurt to try? What if we do succeed?

I've always considered myself a positive thinker, but positive thinking is not going to get me the results I'm looking for.

When it comes to stepping out of my comfort zone and really seeing myself something other than what I am today, it scares the life out of me. Do I want to succeed? Yes! Am I scared I'll fail? Absolutely!

The first thing we have to do is seek God's will for our lives. Without Him as the center, things will be disastrous, even if you do succeed.

With goal setting, it's better to start with small reasonable goals that are possible to achieve. Our large goals should seem unattainable at first.

Write them down. Every day. You may think this is a waste of time, but it's not. Goals don't just give us something to aim for, it gives us something to become. When you become what you desire, you will have what you desire.

I know what I want. I can visualize it.

And that's the very thing that will help us succeed. Visualization is something we use self consciously. Anything we can clearly picture in our mind, we can accomplish. Visualize yourself reaching your goal whatever it may be and you're half way to success.

Today, I'm making a decision to push this fear of failure to the back corners of my mind and throwing caution to the wind. I'm going to go after this thing with all I've got.

The worst thing that could happen if I try ...

I can't think of anything any worse that what I'm doing now. Which is very little to almost nothing. Do they mean the same thing? Yes. So why am I going to sit back and waste time dreaming about something I want so badly, when I can put all my effort into it and start seeing positive results.

Will it be easy?

Probably not. But neither was writing a book and I did that. But I couldn't have done it without the help of my heavenly Father.

Hearing my readers tell me how much they loved the story "Broken Butterfly", how they couldn't put it down, how they can't wait to read another one ... Is a huge success.  :)

So why in the world would I want to stop there?

I'm not. And to get this started, I'm going to share three of my short term goals.

It's difficult to get dinner prepared after working all day, homeschooling, picking one child up from practice and dropping another one off at dance. But I love sitting around the table with my family and having dinner together. And I love to cook, y'all. I got that from my mama!! :)

Goal for Tomorrow for my family: To cook dinner

I'm editing my next book (that needs a lot of work) to (pre)prepare for my editor and to "submit to an agent". "long term goal"

Goal for Tomorrow for my writing: Spend at least 30 minutes editing

And one more for the month of April and May: To post on my blog at least once a week :) 

 I'm going to write these down every day and keep adding to the list.

Will you join me on this ride to success? I can't wait to share our stories of victory with each other.

I'd love to hear your short term goals?

Thank you for stopping by,

Cindy


Get your copy of Broken Butterfly here:

http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Butterfly-Cindy-Patterson/dp/1462755739/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1428881810&sr=8-1&keywords=broken+butterfly