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Showing posts from December, 2012

Holiday Gifts

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My favorite thing about the Holidays is finding that "perfect gift" for the people in my life.  I love the feeling of having paid attention to the wants and desires of my friends and family, and finding the thing they might not even remember they admired or commented on.  It's my own version of a treasure hunt; seeking gifts all year to give during the Holidays. But this year, I was surprised with the most unexpected gifts - things I never even thought about needing or wanting.  The kind of gifts some people don't even realize they're giving.  The gifts of words. First, it was my friends and family who gave me words of encouragement as I wrote and re-wrote  Marking Time.   And as they read the various drafts, their words were complimentary, constructive, critical, and always supportive.  Then I published Marking Time  and the gifters-of-words expanded out to people who heard my book was out, who didn't even know I'd been writing one, who wondered wh

Kindle Personal Documents and how to format a Word Document for Kindle

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As anyone with a kindle, or kindle app on a phone or iPad knows, it becomes second nature to read books, magazines, or articles with a finger-swipe to turn the page.   I still love paper books and always will, but I justified my iPad with the convenience of having dozens of books with me whenever I travel, and that was before I’d gone trolling through amazon for cheap kindle books to buy and read.   There have been some really excellent discoveries among the kindle daily deals (usually $1.99) and books under $3.99 categories (including Marking Time ) that I never would have stumbled on if it weren’t for the price. As I was writing Marking Time I went through several drafts and burned through several readers (thank you Valerie, Mom, Angela, Tania, Alexandra, Yaniv, Sara, Linda, Laura, Dad and Ed)!!!   And though I did print some galleys, my most effective tool was the kindle documents feature.   I inserted whatever cover design I was currently favoring at the front of the manus