Small Town Whining
And if I can’t brag here, then what?
It tells me nothing in terms of actual sales, but this is from the Kindle Store’s Cleaning, Caretaking and Relocating section. Which has 800 books.
Currently it’s 58 in Home & Garden which has over 20k.
So I’m not complaining.
And a random shot from the other day:
Two things I want to share.
1) I was listed on Problogger.net as one of 40 Bloggers to Watch in 2011
This made my week. Last Wednesday, I had escaped for a little while to stuff my face with fajitas while reading a book. That’s exactly what I was doing when my phone began to buzz and wouldn’t stop. It was a nice way to cap off an hour alone.
2) This was a nice write up by Srini Rao at The Skool of Life: The 5 Year Perspective
Currently I’m buried in tables, trying to get speaker names and bios sorted out for the Blissdom Conference next week. I’m just glad the new host seems to be working well.
I’m also working on two presentations. Throw in a deadline with the oldest’s virtual charter school and I’m near tears. Send coffee and babysitters, if you can.
I should probably shower, too, since I have to go out in public tonight.
It always feels a little odd to start a post without 
Heather says:. It’s total muscle memory. I open a post and my fingers start typing.
For the past few months I’ve been helping out the Blissdom Crew with the website. There hasn’t been anything crazy hard, but I’m actually quite proud of the layout for these two pages: Blissdom Conference Schedule and Blissdom Wisdom Workshops. Sure tables are old school, but sometimes they are the only real option for visually organizing the information. Megan is the speaker coordinator, she selected the speakers, figured out the schedule, and wrote the copy. I’m just happy with the final result.
I’ll be presenting at two Wisdom Workshops and naturally they are back to back, because I am some sort of pressure junkie. At first I could just get by with the pressure of one presentation, now there must be new and exciting twists in addition to the whole get up and talk in front of others pressure.
I’ll be presenting with Rachel Matthews of A Southern Fairytale, for the Food Niche workshop. If you’re heading to Blissdom and you write about food, you need to find and glom on to Rachel and me, we’re supposed to herd you into some sort of cohesive tribe by the end of the event. We’ll have a blast. We’re there to answer questions and help make you feel welcome. It’ll be fun.
I’m also joining Molly Thornberg of Digital Mom Blog on the Ultimate Toolkit presentation. I’m stoked as this is right up my alley. I love the tools that make online life easier.
I’ll be heading up to Nashville, probably with Kelby Carr and Margo Millure, if our schedules all coordinate. Hopefully Margo won’t kick my seat the entire 9 hour drive, but you never know when you take on a virtual stranger.
The Opryland is a lovely hotel; it’s lush and beautiful, and balmy. The perfect humidity, but if you look closely, you may be reminded of the compounds in Oryx and Crake. After all, there are no bugs and it never storms.
I’m stoked and it’s over a month away.
Tim and I finally were married within the Catholic Church.
Many thanks to Father Ed for the pictures.
And tomorrow?
There’s turkey.
Tomorrow I’ll be creating an email list for those who want to be notified of the book launch. My editor was kind enough to shoot over a jpg of the cover. I thought some of you might be interested.
Eek!
I have to share.
Home Ec has had over 1 million unique visits according to Google Analytics. 
Sure it’s been bumpy, but the general trend looks good to me. I’m hanging on.
4 chapters to go.
Today is day 14 post op and everything is back to normal.
Crazy, but normal.
I’ll start back to the gym on Monday with walking and light weights and re-start the Couch to 5k program the next week.
The past eight days have been amazing. Last Friday I had the incredible experience of flying to New Orleans, courtesy of Zatarains and Weber Shandwick. I had the most amazing time attending Jazz Fest and getting to experience some amazing New Orleans restaurants.
You can see the photos from my trip over on my Flickr stream, but here are a few anyhow. I know the white balance is off on the last, but you get the gist.
We had such an amazing time and I wish I could focus enough to give the experience the write up it deserves.
Tuesday I flew to NYC and back. I got to see the Gramercy Park Hotel, which if memory serves (and it probably doesn’t) was the setting for at least one story in Stephen King’s Everything’s Eventual. While waiting for the meeting I amused myself by working on the basic plumbing chapter of the book in their incredibly posh lobby. There’s something wonderfully ironic about sitting on a velvet couch, in front of a giant fireplace and Boterro painting and writing about plunging a toilet.
Maybe I’m just weird.
I also kicked myself repeatedly for not bringing my camera.
Is it silly to be proud of myself for learning how to hail a taxi? It’s never been a part of my world. Next time, I’ll try out the subway. I know, I’m sheltered.
I concluded my week of wonder by having my tonsils yanked out yesterday. It’s all about balance.
I’m hoping tomorrow I can back off the medicine enough to get back on track with the book. I’m more than halfway done and as soon as I can knock out these last few chapters on basic home repair I can start on my favorite topic, food.
I’ve admired Peter Shankman for a long time and sharing the quote here is slightly out of context, but I had to share anyhow.
I think too many people go out there and try to [...] build a blog as a way to a book deal and that doesn’t work. It’s like playing basketball in the street and hoping to get picked up by the NBA.
BlogcastFM Peter Shankman Interview ~12:20 mark
In October I was struggling, trying to figure out what I was going to do, whether or not I was even going to keep the site going. I thought it was a scam at first and I know the book won’t be a best seller. I have very realistic sales expectations; it’ll be friends, family, their friends and family, and a few other, wonderful people. The big deal is the ride and I love it; I’m enjoying every minute.
Well, the minutes I’m not scared to death.
A month ago I was contacted by an editor at a traditional publisher. She wanted to know if I would be interested in having a conversation about turning Home-Ec 101 into a book.
Immediately I turned to Google and Facebook, looking to see if it was a legit company.
Yes.
I returned the email and a few days later we had a conversation that outlined the whole process. The biggest hurdle is the pitch. She sent me a sample proposal and from that I began piecing together one for Home-Ec 101. After stressing about it and pestering people into giving their opinions, I finally turned it in -before the deadline, thank you very much.
Since then, it’s been a waiting game. Well, until yesterday that is. Around 1pm I got an email from the editor saying they really liked the idea and that it seems marketable. In fact, they wanted to hear it pitched in a larger size. (The original specs were for a paperback, slightly taller than your average novel, but not as thick (about 240 pgs ). Apparently they want to see it priced out in a larger book, I don’t know if that has anything to do with the number of words, adding content, or if it’s to allow for more whitespace. I’ll negotiate my contract when the final size & cost of production are figured out.
Regardless, I’m beyond excited, if nothing else, this is flattering and validating. I plug away at HE101 hoping I’m not wasting my time. Insecure much? Always.
Publishing projects take a while, so it will be some time before I make the big announcement on Home-Ec 101. It’s not a secret, but I’m going to try to not make a big deal out of it until closer to the release.
I’m still on cloud nine.
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