Promoting Your Ebook...Small Steps Does matter

I've promoted my novel Preaching To The Crieurs for a few weeks prior to releasing through Amazon's KDP FREE PROMOTIONS. 

Amazon KDP allows you to register your ebook EXCLUSIVELY with them for 90 days. During the 90 day period you have an option to promote your kindle book for  five free days.

The process is a bit intimidating. I've sent countless facebook posts announcing the free promotion and multiple emails sent to registered contacts about the free deal. 
I consider myself a true skeptic so if I got 1download from my free ebook promotion I'd consider it a huge success. 

Who am I really?

I've been writing in my journal for the past two decades and now I've taken writing onto a new level..big deal right?

Apparently it's a big one. Once I checked the AMAZON report 2 hours after the promotion began my book had been downloaded 100 times. 

Is 100 downloads cause for excitement?

Remember earlier when I mentioned I would be grateful for one lonely download...well I lied...100 downloads is way better.

Staying up all night sending tweets, scheduling hootsuites, and countless text messages to friend and family members to spread the word about Preaching To The Crieurs paid off! 

You've got to crawl before you walk. While I'm crawling I'll take pride in every milestone and I'm enjoying them too. Choosing to enjoy the small ones will undoubtedly prevent huge disappointments.

Now, if only I could get just 1 review....

T.D. Giddens 

Love Book Trailers

I found a book trailer on youtube recently that I absolutely fell in love with. So I got the idea to create a trailer to my novel Preaching To The Crieurs. 

I was dead set... get a trailer and get it now. 

The only problem? Where would I find a graphics/video genius. I write, not design things. 

After about an hour of doodling on the internet I decided to pay a visit to FIVERr.

Fiverr in my opinion is one of the greatest idea besides the idea to slice bread. 

Okay, so I skimmed through the hundreds of video offers and found the one just right for me.

Amongus, the seller, had over ten orders in queue and a high rank of satisfied customers.

Placed an order....which is fairly simple...and in less than five days I received a pretty neat trailer. 

I was so moved by my trailer I tipped!

You be the judge.

Here's the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOUvyvn0KWY

Kissing Enemies

Ever had a bad break-up? Not with a former lover with a best friend? 

A friend you've hung with practically every day.

They know all your secrets. 

Your intimate secrets.. and of course you knew theirs. 

You'd visit, chat by phone daily..never skip a friendship beat until one day for some strange reason or another the friendship goes sour.
You can't quite put your finger on why now the sight of the friend makes you turn your nose up like your friendship history smells as bad as bad breathe.

One of my fictional character in my novel Preaching To The CRIEURS, Pharah struggles with this exact phenomenon. 

It's not easy..but It's safe to refer the former friend as an enemy with benefits.

Huh? Benefits?

Well of course!

Every heart palpitations driven by the sight of your newly found enemy has sent you unwittedly into shambles. Who has time for that? It's exhausting. 

The energy released good or bad is time wasted and in this case unnecessarily. 

Why minus years of your life span to take on thirty second of pity?

For who again? Pride? Bitterness? 

Oh really? 

Let me recap..that former friend who'd you've once shared good times is no longer your friend, I got that. 

But your investment in the time it takes to plot against whether or not you'll roll your eyes today or send the middle finger tomorrow unfortunately creates a newly defined relationship. 

A strange relationship. 

The time spent feeling angry, bitter and busted would be better served servicing your former friend...by kissing your enemy. 

T.D. Giddens

A True Day Off...

I don't know about you but every once in a while I enjoy a day off from work..

Yeah...You know the stay- cation type of day off when you lazy around the house because the kids are in school and your husband is at work. The quiet time. Just you and your house.

You'll get eight great hours of do whatever the heck you want and have no guilt about ignoring the mountain of laundry set aside in the hallway instead of the laundry room because "it can wait until the designated scheduled laundry day...that's on Saturday by the way.

You'll even ignore writing out checks.. Oops no... Paying bills online because that too can wait.. until pay day. 

When a day off however, is presented when your kid school abruptly closes (because of fears of a fantasy snow storm) that glorious day off isn't as exciting.

A true day off you know has to be a day without noise..kids.. 

Ungrateful kids whose job on your day off is to remind you how "awesome" school closures are and how an extra day off would be even better. 

A true day off doesn't include making breakfast for anyone. 

Quite frankly a day off shouldn't include babysitting your own kid! 

You do what you must.  Offer up the most solid excuse to your suspicious spouse how he's more deserving of staying home with the kids. Drop the guilt trip adding... quality time is necessary between young boys and their fathers. 

You do what you must to convince your other half that his expertise...whatever the expertise....is necessary. 

You practice this ritual on your kid day off whether it's to save your sanity or not. 

Do this however, until you're afforded a true day off...when you have the house all to yourself. 

T.D. Giddens

Too cold

It's about twenty degrees in Philadephia, Pennsylvania. Do you hate the cold as much as me?

I can't help to wonder how much longer I can handle wearing gloves, double layering and the annoying nose drip from winter weathers bullying.  

Brrrrr!!!!

Can't wait for summer. By then I'll complain about how the humidity frizzed my hair, sweated my forehead and sucked air out from me. 

There's no in between!

But until then, you and I can continue snuggling with the ones we love to make the misery of being cold memorable.