Woman on the Dock

If you read and enjoyed my first published e-book earlier this year, then maybe (hopefully) you've been wondering when my next one would be published. Actually, as the days ticked away, becoming weeks and then months, I started to wonder myself. The manuscript was polished. The cover was chosen. The CEO of MoonPhaze Publishing was someone I'd known most of my life; we could share anything and work through any problems, so what was the problem?

Tommee is a lot like me. She knows she's capable, but starting a new endeavor can make her ... nervous. In all her life, she never really thought of herself as a potential entrepreneur. "I'm not even sure how to spell it, let alone be one!" she told me.

We had worked together to get that first e-book published. There is an entire book giving instructions on preparing your manuscript to upload to smashwords, and even though Tommee is just as good with Word as I am, it happened that she read the instructions out loud, step by step, and I did them. If I remember correctly, it took us nearly two full days to read, interpret, and do. We assured each other that next time would be easier, because the steps would be more familiar.

In the meantime, however, I took on a temp job that took up my days, and Tommee just kept ... procrastinating. The steps wouldn't be that familiar to her; she had done the reading. So in that funny little half-week before Thanksgiving, we spent the evenings together, preparing the manuscript. This time I read, and she did the formatting. By the end of Wednesday, we were ready to attach the cover, but then we decided it needed a little tweaking. Too bad, we thought. We would have liked for the e-book to be available on Thanksgiving. But we sent a message to the cover artist and put the computer file away.

After the remains of the turkey and other holiday dishes were put away on Thursday, I was very surprised to hear that the cover was back! We got together, attached the new and improved cover, took a deep breath and hit the button to upload to smashwords. It wouldn't go! What a let-down. We tried several times that evening, in between checking the trouble-shooting suggestions, but it got late, and I had to work the next day, so we put it away. Again.

What all this rambling has been leading up to is (drum roll, please) my second e-book is published!

The title is Woman on the Dock. It is another Atlan short story, and the cost is $.99, the minimum we could price it. You do get to read the first 30% for free to decide if you want to pay for it. I hope you like it.

And if you like this one, there's still more Atlan stories coming! Tommee has decided the next will be out no later than July 1, 2012. Hopefully, with the experience of doing the formatting of this one, and a deadline in mind, she won't procrastinate so much. Well, here's hoping!