Publish your book at little, or zero cost?

This is what The Frugal Author says you can achieve, in this book of the same name.

He has written this book as an aid for independent authors in pursuit of economical, prudent self-publication.

The Frugal Author produces his own eBooks, paperbacks and high-quality hardcover publications with very little if any, financial outlay.

This book is full of the distilled results, the acquired knowledge and personal practice of being a successful indie author who dislikes paying out more than is absolutely necessary.

In this book, he explains how he achieves that, along with insights into indie publishing and sharing his ideas of how you too can implement the same type of methods for your own books.

The Frugal Author is NOT a ‘how to’ book. It is NOT a step by step guide or tuitional publication. The Frugal Author simply shares methodology, ideas and principles which you can adopt fully or partially, implement in part or whole over time and adjust to suit your own working practices.

You may well ask what credibility The Frugal Author has? and you are right to do so.

To date, he has published 19 books, ranging from children’s stories and poetry to psychological suspense. From Tales of Crime & Violence through to true accounts of Life in the Warzone. Pulp-fiction comic book yarns are written alongside romantic stories and non-fictional military social history.

The Frugal Author is a true multi-genre author. He is also a multi-format author having eBooks, Paperbacks and Hardcover publications.

Two of his books are recognised and authenticated Amazon bestsellers.

 

He is a well-known and respected member of the global Indie Author and Writers community and a founding member of APC, Authors professional Co-operative, Founder of Electric Eclectic books and chief editor of CQI Magazine.

He is acknowledged for the help and advice he shares and the initiatives he employs to help all writers succeed, irrelevant of their experience.

Now, he is sharing some of his ideology and methodology with you in this book, The Frugal Author.

Download yourself a copy today, start saving money and start heading into profit… NOW.

 

Wherever you are in the world,

you can get your copy of

The Frugal Author right HERE.

 

Stop whinging, get off your arse and DO something about it

It is some time since I wrote a ‘Rambling’ Rambling on this blog.

Partly, this is because of the large number of commitments I have undertaken recently. Commitments which have left little time to indulge myself in creating an informative and entertaining Ramble.

Which I hope this post shall be, (at least if you read on from this point.) Although this post may seem to ‘go around the houses’ to reach its point, bear with me. It will be worth it in the end… Honest 😊

During the absence of such Ramblings, I have posted a few pertinent, factual and I hope helpful articles about internet security, publicised ‘The List – CQI Magazine’s must-read books for 2018‘, and posted about the launch of Electric Eclectic books,  a new way to find great authors and amazing books.

My last Rambling style post was a bit of a rant, but one which shares the truth about how ineffective giving away free books is and how doing so is damaging all indie author’s prospects.

This post sort of follows suit regarding ranting… maybe I am becoming a ‘Grumpy old man’ or maybe I am already one?

The basic theme here is “Stop whinging, get off your arse and DO something about it.” In fact, I think I’ll use that phrase as the title of this post.

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First, the ‘whining and whinging’, the consistent, droll, mind-numbing drivel I am hearing from too many indie authors recently.

“My sales are bad.”

“Facebook doesn’t help anymore.”

“Things are getting worse.”

“People don’t even want my free book.”

“Nobody leaves reviews.”

“Adverts are so expensive and don’t reach enough people.”

And so forth. All one must do is read the comments and posts in various social media groups and pages to find a torrent of such remarks.

Now, I may or may not agree with all the above. Okay, the first three are stupid statements, the last three have some if little, merit.

But this wave of despondency seems to be sweeping the internet at present and gathering momentum as it does.

Fuelled, no doubt, by the rumours about CreateSpace, Amazon and Goodreads along with the recent and forthcoming changes and alterations to Facebook.

 

Don’t ask me for details, go read Gisela Hausmann’s books on the subject, she is far better informed than I.  Read more Here

Now, nobody said writing a book would be easy. Nobody told me marketing and selling would be a cinch.

IT’S NOT.

It takes commitment, persistence, patience and determination… and lots of it. I said lots of it, that’s much, much more than you are considering or believing right now. So, treble the difficulty factor and then multiply that by the power of 9² and you could be approaching reality.

Calculate the exact opposite for difficulty and obstacles. The resultant sum should reflect the starting point of your journey into the realms of authorship.

Bilbo Baggins exploits were a simple walk in the park, in comparison of what you shall have to endure.

That is why we love being indie authors.

However, (for those who may not be familiar with my Ramblings I love the ‘However’s’.)

So, to continue.

However, I cannot take this downhearted view as one expressed solely by the Indie community, or for that matter, one voiced on social media alone.

I think this mood or at least the pessimistic and depressed expression of disappointment and negativity concerning the present and, more so, the cynical distrust of the future is something which is sweeping our society.

This attitude has now reached such proportions everybody has to have ‘a condition’, be it a simple skin complaint, a dietary need or speech impediment, let alone a major physical or mental syndrome.

As an alternative, or as an added factor, one must also be a survivor… of sexual or mental abuse, a victim of crime, a recovering drug user or alcoholic with latent effects of reoccurring PTSD… and so forth.

Nowadays everyone must have an underlying ‘Backstory’ to be accepted as part of our modern society, however truthful or however factitious that may be.

Personally, I blame Simon Cowell and the XFactor… which traumatic experience I have survived, by the way.

I am an exexfactorbackstorysurvivalist, in tentative remission.

NOW… don’t get me wrong. I am not speaking of genuine suffers from such disorders, I am speaking of the media hype and their insatiable appetite to present all who become ensnared in their tentacles as some form of miracle entity. A god or goddess-like warrior who has fought off the evils life has thrown at them.

Such influence affects us and our children’s perception of ‘normality’ in the most ambiguous ways. It is this seeking of constant sensationalism which clouds many of the authors and writer’s minds when they complain about how difficult it is to sell their books.

Instead of ‘doing something‘ to alter the situation it is far easier for many to shout “I am a Victim” and “Facebook is abusing my rights” and such like.

This is where, if you are still with me, I refer you back to the title of this post. “Stop whinging, get off your arse and DO something about it.”

I shall finish with one simple and short example-

I recently launched an initiative for indie authors called Electric Eclectic. I doubt very much if you have not seen at least one blog, post, comment or advertisement concerning such.

Electric Eclectic allows indie authors a way of using, or recycling, short stories to market and sell their prime titles. This is a form of promotion which actually earns the author money while working as a silent salesman on their behalf.

I have offered, both on major social media sites and by personal email invitation, the opportunity for a limited number of other authors to join us.

The take-up has been dismal, even though our own authors have seen sale generated via Electric Eclectic already and indications of ongoing success.

YET, I have seen some of those who know about this opportunity continue to whinge and whine about sales, the cost of promotion and the ‘state of the market’ while ignoring the offer from Electric Eclectic and other genuine initiatives.

My suspicions are these people enjoy the attention their complaining creates and, I wonder if, they like to ride the current media bandwagon of portraying themselves as victims, casualties and wounded sufferers of circumstance?

Thank you for reading this Rambling. Paul.

To find out more, or to request becoming an Electric Eclectic author, visit the website HERE and use the contact page to message Electric Eclectic.

Passwords: Have you been pwned?

If you want to make your world a safer place?

Start with your passwords.

From logging in to our social media accounts to buying new shoes, we wouldn’t be able to get much done without first logging into an account with a password. The problem is, as more and more of our everyday lives have gone online, particularly as authors and writers, when we need a wide range of internet sites and platforms to market and promote our books.

Chances are you have needed to create more passwords than ever, which can cause problems. After all, who uses a different password for each and every site? Perhaps not many of us, if we’re being honest.

Indeed, according to new research from Kaspersky Lab, people tend to fall into one of two camps: those who use passwords that are complex but difficult to remember and those who create passwords that are easy to remember but easy to crack.

Password dilemma

Complex but forgettable

Those of us who create complex but difficult to remember passwords may have more secure accounts, but sadly they also have a tendency to forget these passwords. After all, it’s a lot easier to remember password123 than to remember Pa$$W0rdTh3G14nT123.

And a fair number of people surveyed understood the need for complex passwords, with 63% selecting online banking accounts, 42% payment applications including e-wallets, and 41% online shopping as types of accounts that need the most secure passwords.

However, 51% of people admitted to storing their passwords insecurely, and a staggering 23% said they store them on a notepad.

Short, handy, easy to crack

According to the research, a disheartening 10% of people surveyed admitted to using the same password for every account they own — a practice that increases the very real risk of account compromise. Reuse one password for all accounts and you ensure that if one account is compromised, they all are. You can check to see which accounts of yours could be compromised here.

On top of that, the research showed that 17% of those surveyed had faced the threat of account compromise, or actually had an account compromised, in the past 12 months.

The third way

One solution can fix both problems: a password manager such as Kaspersky Password Manager. Using a password manager might sound like something only geeks would do, but actually, it’s surprisingly easy to use. You create one complex password (we’re all capable of remembering one difficult password!), and it protects all of the other passwords. The password manager stores and fills in passwords for all of your online accounts, and everything is secured using encryption so that nobody can snoop.

Final tips

1. However, if you’re looking for some quick tips, resident tech expert David Emm suggests the following:
2. Make every password at least 15 characters long — the longer the better.
3. Don’t make passwords guessable. There’s a good chance that personal details such as your date of birth, place of birth, partner’s name, and so forth can be found online — for example, on your Facebook wall.
4. Don’t use real words. They are open to “dictionary attacks,” someone using a program to quickly try a huge list of possible words until they find one that matches your password.
5. Combine letters (including uppercase letters), numbers, and symbols.
6. Don’t “recycle” passwords — say, david1,” “david2,” “david3,” etc.
7. Use a different password for each account to prevent all of your accounts becoming vulnerable.
8. If you suspect your password has been compromised, change it immediately.

Stay safe out there.

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Sometimes, just sometimes, a book comes along which tends to re-define certain aspects of expectation.

This new release from Paul White, DARK WORDS, is a book which contains several short stories, poetry and some written works which defy classification, they are… prose, articles, essays for want of interpretation.
Each written piece is deep, meaningful and emotive. Paul explores avenues, dark avenues of the human psyche where many dare not venture.Hurt, fear, pain, self-harm, love, hate, loathing, love lost, depression, loneliness, anger, suicide, anxiety, all these and more are considered within the pages of DARK WORDS.

In Paul’s own words… 

“Dark days come to us all at some time in our lives.Heartbreak, grief, fear, loss, pain and anxiety collide and conspire, individually and collectively to bring us down.We feel the battles rage within ourselves; they fight and scream in a tortured anguish of emotional turmoil.Solace is often found alone, in dimly lit rooms, with mellow songs playing over and again.Reading DARK WORDS, sharing the pain within these tales help us dry our own tears, to drive away the clouds of uncertainty and crush the demons which haunt our souls.To accept and acknowledge the blackest days of our lives often reveals the pathway from the shadow maze of obscure reflection, into the sunlight of possible future.Dark days come to us all, at some time in our lives. They are not the place for us to dwell for too long.They are not our home.”

DARK WORDS is one of those books you should, you need, to have on your bookshelf. One of those books everybody should read, at least once in their lifetime.
Get your copy today, now,  http://amzn.to/2E79PI

Don’t worry if you live Stateside, Dark Words is available on Amazon.com too HERE

 

 

Dark Words

Dark, deep, emotional… My new book… 

http://amzn.to/2DQjmR0 

We all have dark times in our lives; times when the clouds of uncertainty gather about us, when the shadows in our minds slam shut the doorway of hope.

These are times when the future looks bleak, when tomorrow is nothing more than a harbinger of anguish and our past lives a wasteland of futile labour.

Sitting in darkened rooms, listening to sad songs and reading dark words lends a little comfort to our souls as we contemplate the tattered remains of our world.

This book shares those days, the long cold nights of loneliness and apprehensive dread of what bleakness awaits us when the sun rises.

Like you, I have visited this world of soulless existence. It is where part of me shall always remain, huddled in the gloom, in corners of the deepest recesses of my mind.

Paul White

Grab your copy today

http://amzn.to/2DQjmR0

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Looking for more books? Why not check out CQI Magazine’s ‘Must Reads‘ for 2018

With The LIST