The helpful Createspace Community, Twitter, among other things

Dear Reader,

How are you?

I've been continuing with my summer's "books made into movies" movie viewing trend that started with Julie & Julie, and I saw The Time Traveler's Wife with members of my book club. (Actually, the trend started with Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, a couple of weeks earlier.)

We cried. But we didn't sob. Or run out of tissues. Or have runny mascara. To be honest, we teared up more during the previews of The Lovely Bones and something else with Sandra Bullock and a foster child who changes her life.

Regardless, though, how cool would it be to have your novel turned into a major motion picture? I remember that the movie rights were bought by Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston's production company -- and I guess Brad Pitt got it in the divorce because he was listed as a producer or something in the credits.

Besides going to the movies, never fear -- I've been continuing my seemingly never-ending preparations to publish my first two books with Good Manners Kids Stuff Press. Sometimes it's just baby steps, but they are steps nonetheless.

I wrote and posted blogs on two of my other blog sites: Good Manners Mom Blog and Good Sport Bad Sport Blog. These posts/blogs support my main website Good Manners Kids Stuff and are also -- I hope -- going to be hugely instrumental in building excitement and networking for Good Manners Kids Stuff Press.

I then went onto the Createspace Discussion Boards, where I've been learning so much recently. The members are incredibly generous with their advice, and they're very talented, too! I don't think I could have found a better place for my launch.

From formatting help to setting up an estore to reviewing books to marketing suggestions to royalty questions to shipping and handling -- all the help and guidance I need can be found right there.

Later today I came across an article, "Five Industry Success Stories that Inspire," mentioning Laura Duksta, self-published author of "I love you more."

(I ran upstairs to route through my daughters books to see if we had it. We did.)

I logged onto her site to read more about her and the Children's Author Academy she runs to share the secrets of her self publishing success.

Unfortunately, I am working with a budget of, oh, about $0 -- so I won't be signing up for her next teleconference series.

Switching gears, right now the show Shark Tank is on ABC as I write this, and people are coming in to pitch their ideas. One was a woman with a book to help children alleviate their stress. She got a deal for an investment of $250,000 by giving up 50%of her ownership. It made my wheels spin wildly -- should I go on the show?

That lasted just a moment. Now I'm back to reality.

You know what? As I look back over what I've shared here with you, I think I actually have moved things ahead, even if they weren't the actual books.

I can't wait to have some real progress to report to you. Hang in there -- it'll get exciting soon!

In the meantime, I'm reading "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies." Too funny. (I just finished "Mr. Darcy, Vampire." Maybe I should be including some vampires or zombies in my books.

I'll think about it.

Leslie

P.S. I forgot to say I've also been twittering. And, coming up with 140 characters is just about as hard as coming up these blog posts!
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