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~ Because demented people need love, too.

The Perks of Being an Artist

Tag Archives: self publish

Author Offering 2

30 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by emilypageart in blog, book, gratitude, karma, kindness, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Author Offering, blogging, Emily Page Art, Emily Page author, find new authors, Fractured Memories, inspiration, marketing, self publish, self-publishing, writers

As I dive into the world of promoting my own book, I’m discovering tons of other authors who are in the midst of the same insanity. Like with my art, the writing was the easy part. The promotion? That’s definitely the hard part. In an effort to help other writers who could use a little bump in sales, I’m going to start periodically sharing links to their blogs (so you can get a feel for their writing) as well as a link to their books in case you’re interested in supporting an indie author.

Here’s a wrap-up of the ones I’ve found recently:

April Munday’s blog https://aprilmunday.wordpress.com/ and book The Heart That Lies

Phil Taylor’s blog https://thephilfactor.com/ and books https://www.amazon.com/Phil-Taylor/e/B00AC8PM8A/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1

Shelley Wilson’s blog http://www.shelleywilsonauthor.co.uk/ and book How I Changed My Life In a Year

Colleen Chesebro’s blog https://colleenchesebro.com/ and book The Heart Stone Chronicles: The Swamp Fairy

******************************************************************************************

Thanks so much for reading my ridiculous thoughts! If you’d like to see my ridiculous thoughts translated into art, visit my website, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Know a caregiver, or someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone who knows someone else who’s a caregiver? Or heck, do you know a person? Well, you should tell them about my book, Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Part memoir and part coffee table art book, I recount my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious journey through my father’s dementia. Available to purchase here (this is my favorite way if you live in the U.S.), here or here if you’d rather get the eBook than a print copy, and here (especially if you want a hard cover copy).

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Author Offerings

05 Sunday Mar 2017

Posted by emilypageart in blog, book, culture, DIY, karma, kindness, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

blogging, find new authors, inspiration, marketing, self publish, self-publishing, Sunday Authors Offering, writers

As I dive into the world of promoting my own book, I’m discovering tons of other authors who are in the midst of the same insanity. Like with my art, the writing was the easy part. The promotion? That’s definitely the hard part. In an effort to help other writers who could use a little bump in sales, I’m going to start periodically sharing links to their blogs (so you can get a feel for their writing) as well as a link to their books in case you’re interested in supporting an indie author.

Here’s a wrap-up of the ones I’ve found this week:

SC Skillman’s blog https://scskillman.com/ and book Perilous Path: A Writer’s Journey

Cendrine Marrouat’s blog https://positivityhut.wordpress.com/ She’s got several titles available on Amazon here

Allie Potts’ blog https://alliepottswrites.com/ and books An Uncertain Faith and Fair and Foul

Claire Wong’s blog https://clairewongwriting.wordpress.com/ and book The Runaway

Lori Holden’s blog http://lavenderluz.com/ and book The Open Hearted Way To Open Adoption

Hugh Roberts’ blog https://hughsviewsandnews.com/ and book Glimpses

***********************************************************************

Thanks so much for reading my ridiculous thoughts! If you’d like to see my ridiculous thoughts translated into art, visit my website, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Know a caregiver, or someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone who knows someone else who’s a caregiver? Or heck, do you know a person? Well, you should tell them about my book, Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Part memoir and part coffee table art book, I recount my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious journey through my father’s dementia. Available to purchase here (this is my favorite way if you live in the U.S.), here or here if you’d rather get the eBook than a print copy, and here (especially if you want a hard cover copy).

 

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Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too

02 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by emilypageart in book, family, Fractured Memories, gratitude, humor, Uncategorized

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Alzheimer's, art, book, book about caregiving, book about dementia, caregiver, caregiving, caretaker, dementia, family, FLD, Fractured Memories, frontal lobe dementia, frontotemporal dementia, FTD, humor, marketing, publish my book, self publish, self-publishing

Bear with me (or bare with me, if you’re feeling frisky) for a moment. I realized I should really do a post that doesn’t include me bragging about all the mistakes I’ve made thus far in the self-publishing process and just do a post about the book itself. So here’s the skinny:

I wrote a book.

Now here’s the fatty:

It’s called Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Basically, in 2009, my dad was diagnosed at the age of 65 with frontotemporal dementia, a form of dementia that strikes early and progresses more quickly than Alzheimer’s, and for which there is no treatment to slow the progression of the disease. Via art and on this blog, I began documenting my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious experiences.

As a professional artist, I’ve often turned to art as a self-prescribed therapy to help deal with life’s trials. This battle was no different. I utilized the elephant as a symbol for dementia (because an elephant never forgets), and incorporated sheet music into the paintings because my dad had been a musician. Eventually, I created 40 paintings that are included in the book. I began blogging about the range of issues that arose daily as the disease progressed, documenting everything from my own fear of getting dementia, to my dad’s transition to diapers (and the various places he opted to drop his drawers and just “go”), to combatting his compulsions like the need to “clean” the cars with steel wool, to an exploration of how he might have gotten the disease, to finding the right dementia care facility, to the best ways to make him giggle. I approached the disease from the fresh viewpoint of a younger caregiver.

As my readership here grew, so did the suggestions from you awesome people that I turn the blog into a book. After hearing too many horror stories about traditional publishing contracts, I decided to self-publish. I ran a fundraising campaign for my book and presold over 500 copies in less than a month.

My dad was my best friend. He embraced the ridiculous, looked for the good in people, and mentored and helped people whenever he could. Following his diagnosis, when people asked how he was doing, he’d answer, ‘Not bad for a demented guy.’ He looked for the light hiding amidst the pain. He chose to be very open about what he was going through in the hopes that it would help other people cope with their own diagnosis or a loved one’s diagnosis. Writing this book seemed a fitting way to honor that legacy.

I tried not to shy away from the ugly, raw emotion of life with dementia, but I also looked for the laughter where it could be found. Rest assured, you will love my father as much as I do when the book is done, and perhaps gain some insight about how to cope with your own loved one’s dementia or how to support a caregiver.

So now that you’re all frothing at the mouth in sweet, sweet, demented anticipation, here’s where you can get it:

  1. Buy a paperback copy directly from me at http://shop.emilypageart.com/. When you buy it from me, you save a couple bucks and I make more on each book. Win win. And if you tell me you’ve ordered and tell me a terrible joke on any of my posts on the blog after you’ve placed your order, I’ll sign your copy with a terrible joke in return. Win win terrible win.
  2. Buy a hardcover or paperback copy off of Amazon here.
  3. Buy an eBook here or here.

And when you’ve had a chance to read it, and if you like it, please consider leaving a good review on GoodReads or Amazon or the stall door at Starbucks (only on a piece of paper taped to the door, please don’t vandalize). And then make sure your local caregiver and/or dementia support groups know about it. If you read it and don’t like it, please lie.

Hearts and snugglehugs,

Emily

book-cover-1

Floating Elephant says, “Buymebuymebuymebuyme!”

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A Story About Publishing a Story

28 Tuesday Feb 2017

Posted by emilypageart in book, dementia, Fractured Memories, Uncategorized, writing

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

author Emily Page, Blurb, Blurb.com, book, book campaign, BookFuel, BookFuel.com, Emily Page Art, Fractured Memories, Nick Page, publish my book, publishing mistakes, Publishizer, Publishizer.com, Raleigh artist, Raleigh author, self publish, self-publishing

This is a story about writing and publishing a story. The first thing you should know is that it miiiiight have been a mistake to self-publish, but then again, it might not. I will say that I regret a couple things, and in hopes that I can save other authors some heartache, I’m going to share the mistakes I’ve made (so far, because let’s be honest, I’m going to make more of them).

Thing one that I regret: I opted to run a crowdfunding campaign through Publishizer instead of through Indiegogo or Kickstarter. I went into it not realizing that Publishizer would take a way bigger cut of the money I raised than those other sites do. I also thought that they would be hooking me up with legitimate publishers. Not the case. They just pitch your idea mostly to vanity publishers, who don’t really need to be pitched. Vanity publishers just want to get paid to publish your book. So not really helpful there, and certainly not worth an extra 20% of the money I raised. There were a couple of actual publishers that approached me, and perhaps I should have considered them more, but I’d heard some horror stories of authors making no money because of poorly managed book launches. And I’d done so well with pre-orders, I decided it was worth my time and effort to promote my own work and not rely on someone else. We’ll see how that works out soon.

Thing two that I regret: the publisher I chose. After speaking to several, I went with BookFuel. Bad idea. Right from the start things started to go wrong. They wouldn’t lay out the book the way I had envisioned. Every step took infinitely longer than it should have. I’d complete a step and send it off to my account manager, then wait a few weeks. I’d finally reach out to check on the status and each and every time it would have magically “just come back” from whatever department it had been in. What a coincidence. Every. Single. Time. And the kicker was that, when I received my sample copies (which were both really low quality), they had changed the formatting from the approved manuscript and eliminated the strike-throughs I’d included. So sentences that should have read something like, “He had raised me not to cry, though I was a giant ball of weepiness considerably less skilled at suppressing my tears,” now read, “He had raised me not to cry, though I was a giant ball of weepiness considerably less skilled at suppressing my tears.” When I alerted them to it, they wanted to charge me to fix it. And the blasted thing is still available on Amazon, even though I’ve asked them to take it down.

So yeah, not happy with BookFuel. I’m still in the process of negotiating with them to terminate our agreement, and hopefully that will be resolved soon. But it’s been an expensive lesson.

All of that being said, I found another company to print my book, and so far am pretty happy with them. With Blurb, I’ve had total control over the layout, the print quality is higher, and it costs me less per book when I buy in bulk. The only down side is that the print-on-demand books (i.e., through Amazon), are more expensive than they would have been through BookFuel so I earn less money when people purchase that way.

So now, without further ado, I’m pleased to announce that the book is finally available for purchase!! There are several ways you can buy:

  1. You can buy the paperback directly from me here. This is my most favoritestest way, because I make the most money on each book and you’ll save a few dollars.
  2. You can buy the hardcover and paperback versions on Amazon here. If you want a hardcover, this is currently your only option. Please note that the first version with the formatting errors is likely still going to show, so to get the right one, you’ll be looking for the one that offers the hardcover for $39.95 and the softcover for $29.95.
  3. You can buy the eBook here and here.

Once you’ve had a chance to read it, and if you liked it, pleeeeeease consider leaving a review on Amazon or GoodReads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34408526-fractured-memories?from_search=true)or your own blog/social media. And then tell everyone you know!

book-cover-1

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Emily Page

Emily Page

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You can view my artwork on Facebook or on my website at http://www.emilypageart.com

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