Indie Author Land is a great web site that highlights independently published  authors and their books.  Check out my interview here. http://www.indieauthorland.com/archives/5359

Page to Page Promo has just posted an author interview about both of my novels, Stars Shine After Dark, and On Higher Ground.  You can see the interview here. mcundy.wordpress.com
 alicenscott.com 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/596948707038168/

It's the same interview on both blogs.  I found their questions to be quite interesting, and I hope you enjoy my answers.  Be sure and push the social media buttons, and give their sites a little more traffic.

I'm trying to put together a cover for my next novel.  I made the cover for Day Camp in Hawaii using Paint, a basic photo editing tool that comes on most computers in the Accessories folder.  It's a beginner's program for cropping, adding words, or touching up the color here and there.
This was only my second attempt.  The reason it wasn't used on the published paperback is because Create Space crops the image by about half an inch on all four sides.  The words on the bottom of the page were cut off because they are too close to the edges.
Lesson learned.
This time, I made sure to give myself lots of room, but after three attempts, I just wasn't satisfied with the results.  The blurb is superimposed on a tree, and the leaves make the words hard to read.  I tried using the airbrush to darken the sun spots and new shoots, but it looked amateurish at best.  (take a look below.)  So I posted a cry for help on Facebook.
My daughter sent me this link http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pixelbasedwin/tp/freephotoedw.htm

to a site that reviews the free photo editing programs available on the
internet.  She suggested Paint.Net because it is very similar to
Paint.
Well, it's not.
Paint actually works!
If you don't know how to do something with Paint, you can click on Help and find the answer.  This program's help button takes you to Ask AOL, which lists the
help programs for every other editor out there except the one you're looking
for.  The forums are not sorted by category, there's no beginner's guide to
get you started, no search by subject like you get in Word, and the tutorials
are only accessed by the people who wrote them.
So, this project may take a little longer than I planned.  The first step is to keep looking
for a good photo editing program, and hope I don't use up all my memory before I
find one that a grandma can use.  If you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments section below.

Today is my birthday.  I've gotten several greetings on Facebook, but there are a few other things you can do to celebrate an author's birthday, or any other occasion.  It only takes a few seconds of your time, no money, and it will be greatly appreciated.

Cheap birthday gifts to give an author:
 
Write a review on Amazon for her books, if you've read them.  It doesn't have to be a great essay, just a few sentences will do.  Be honest.  Even bad reviews help, because once a book has 20 reviews it will start to be indexed in the site's search engine.

Click the yes button on "was this review helpful?" on another review on Amazon.  Your response will help the book get more attention from the site's search engine, and will also encourage the reviewer to keep reviewing books.

Click "like" and "share" on an author's post that her book is featured on a blog or online
article.  For example, this one  http://thebasementlevelfive.blogspot.com/2013/07/blogger-book-fair-paula-hrbacek.html

Click the tweet, G+ or like buttons on the blog article.

Doing any of these things is better than just saying "happy birthday".  It's actually making the birthday happy.

Self published authors need to be on the lookout for inexpensive opportunities to promote their books.  One opportunity is to swap blog posts with another blogger who has a site about books or book reviews.. Swapping posts means that both authors get a chance to promote their books on another site.  I post about your book, and you post about mine.
To participate in this opportunity, it is important for the author to have a story that is already written and ready to go.  The story should read like a feature or author interview, not an ad.  That means that all opinions should be put in direct quotes and attributed to someone.  Instead of saying "this book will change your life" like an ad would say, a feature story would attribute it as someone's opinion--"This book changed my life," said Joe Smith.
The story should contain all the information the reader needs to know before making a purchase; what the book is about, the author's motivation or reason for writing it, the author's qualifications or past publications, the average star rating on Amazon or Good Reads, quotes from reviews, and the purchase info of price, binding, ISBN number and where to buy it.  The story can also include the author's social media sites such as a web site, Facebook page or Twitter address.  If the story is ready to go, most bloggers will edit it to suite their style, and appreciate the ease of posting the article.
The author then finds bloggers that are willing to swap stories.  One place is on Linked In, in the Book Promotion group.  Triberr, a service for bloggers who want to expand their reach on Twitter, also has a discussion group for bloggers who are seeking guest posts.
It's a simple "you rub my back, and I'll rub yours" trade.  It's best to find bloggers in the same subject or genre as your book, because that is where your customers are.  An author who blogs about science fiction is not the best place to promote a romance title, but a blog about relationships and dating would have readers who are interested in falling in love.

I'm on a discussion for indie authors on Linked In, and one of the points brought up is the cost of proofreading.  Several of the authors chose to ask friends to proofread their books, only to find out upon publication that not all of the mistakes had been caught.  Another author sent a copy of his book for review.  I noted in my review that there were three or four typos per chapter.  Again, he was chagrinned because he thought he had caught them all.
If you are looking for a really good proofreader, but you can't afford to pay a professional, another alternative is to contact your local service center for autism.  People who have Asperger's Syndrome, a high functioning form of autism, make the best proofreaders.  I know, because my brother has Asperger's.  He's in the top one percent of IQ scores, but his social skills are retarded, and he tends to be a loner.
In a recent article published for parents of autistic children, a psychologist noted that proofreading is one of the best jobs for someone with Asperger's.  These people think like a computer; on/off, up/down, right/wrong.  That's why most people find them to be frustrating, and why they can program computers without a single swear word coming from their lips.
One of the characters on the TV show The Big Bang Theory has Asperger's.  He's very smart, but frustrating because he is totally logical, and doesn't respect peoples' feelings.
But, if you want proofreading done to the letter of the law, this is just the sort of person you need.  Forget about asking your friends, your child's English teacher--if you want it done right, ask a nerd.

Now I know how an editor or agent feels when they tell you to read the guidelines.  I publish a newspaper column about book reviews in The Examiner.  I thought it would be a good thing to do if I tried to include indie authors in the column.  A self published book needs to be advertised, and self-published authors don't have as many opportunities for advertising as the big publishers do.
I placed a discussion on Linked In telling them about my column.  I said I review mild or sweet romance, mystery or suspense, that are in keeping with Christian/Catholic values, and nonfiction books on parenting or art.  Those are the guidelines.
I recieved what I assume is making editors and agents cringe all over the world.
1.  A sweet historical romance novel about a Protestant who falls in love with a Catholic. (Horray! Exactly what I wanted!!)
2. A contemporary erotic romance about a professor who sleeps with his students.
(I can't encourage people to break the law.  I turned it down.)
3. A contemporary romance about a Muslim who marries his cousin.
(I asked for Christian.)
4. A book of poetry about religion, drawn from all sorts of religions, including non-Christian ones, written by someone who is not ordained, and does not have a recommendation by someone who is.
(It's called an imprimpture.  If you're not trained, you need one.  And even if it has a common theme, you can't call a poetry collection a novel.)
5. A thriller novel, set in Alaska, that has airplane fights.
(That's my husband's kind of book.  I asked if he'd review it for me, but hey, he's a chemist.  I'm expecting something along the lines of "As per your request, the parameters for the plot are among acceptable ranges."  Stay tuned.)
6. A Young Adult novel about a vampire.
(Well, Halloween is coming up.  The author has a lot of credentials, and it is about family values.)
Guidelines are there for a reason.  The results I had reminds me of my birthday in Junior High.  My mother asked me what I wanted for a gift, and I asked for some '45 records.  Instead of buying new ones, she went up into the attic and brought down a case of Benny Goodman, Perry Como, and other big bands.  
"I asked for '45's," I said, "but this isn't what I wanted.  I was hoping for The Monkees or The Cowsills."
"Maybe next time you'll be more specific," she said.