Books

Kindle in 30 Challenge

Published on by David Christensen

A month or so ago, my sister, Connie Walker (connieawalker.com), and I decided to take the week beginning June 20, 2016 and spend it learning how to market our books. We had, months ago, purchased a course called Publishing Profit System, which offered some special help in what it termed, Kindle Training.

Then we both got so busy that we didn’t even take the course. Connie continued  writing books and I put my book-writing on hold and focused on piano: theory, technique, performance, and composition. No more books written, but helped composed the music for three piano books. See SHEET MUSIC.

Well, I have written eight books, five of which are in print, as you no doubt know from the BOOKS page of my website. But with all the focus on piano, I grossly neglected marketing the books I had already written.

This Kindle in 30 Challenge is a bonus which was recently added to the original course, and it is dynamite. It is a program designed by Kristen Joy, The Book Ninja, and assists an author through the process of writing, publishing, and marketing a Kindle book in 30 days.

As Connie and I got into the information, we each decided to pick a new book to write and to complete the process for it from writing through marketing. We felt it would be much more meaningful to roll up our sleeves and get down and dirty. That way, we will find producing each future book much easier – in fact learning and mastering this process just might help us write more books than we might ever have done otherwise, had we waited to discover all the steps to publishing and marketing on our own.

So, I am going to write The Mystery of the Windblown Feather, publish it on Kindle, and do some super marketing – all by the end of July.

Note that The Mystery of the Windblown Feather is the fourth book in the series: The Millerville Mysteries. The projects following this mystery will be the next three in the series. I’d love to have them all done by the end of 2016. That would mean a total of seven books done in this series alone. Not bad.

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Writing & Music: A Tug of War

Published on by David Christensen

I suppose it is appropriate that I make the first post, for my newly constructed website, about one of my life’s most interesting conflicts. Do I put my time into writing books or composing music? (And if I had the time I would also be torn toward illustrating several of my tentative books.)

I composed my first pieces of music in 1968. They were simple. I suppose today they would be classified as early beginning. In 1975 I had my first idea for a book. As far as it ever being written, let alone put into print, well that would have been considered a pipe dream.

I didn’t even know how to play the piano in 1968, let alone how to assemble an intelligent melody and arrangement. And by 1975, although I had written a few research papers, the one short story I had written was a far cry from a book.

Once I had begun to write music, I wrote a lot of it. I picked up a little theory here and some correct techniques there. I had my first serious piano lessons in 1970, but they lasted just 6 months at which time I was transferred to another navy base. From that time on, almost like clockwork, once a decade I managed to find a new piano teacher, obtained a year’s worth of lessons, and then something came up and I waited nine years for a new one to come along.

In the late 1980’s I took a correspondence course in writing for children. Then that 1975 book-idea I mentioned three paragraphs above, became a reality as did a second and a third book. The three were published in 2008, 2009, and 2010 respectively.

Then piano became a serious thing. My nephew, Bill Walker, and I began the process of creating an online course (Pianos5th) to assist aspiring piano composers. Bill developed the lessons and as he did so, we ourselves took each one. Eighty-four lessons later, between the two of us, we had written enough music to justify seeking out the putting of them into print.

And finally, the piano thing for me became even more serious. I began taking piano lessons the way I had dreamed of having them for years. I found a teacher who would teach me to play the piano while using my own compositions for the development of theory, technique, and proficiency. In fact, had my 6th lesson just this morning. And best of all, my dream teacher is my Pianos5th partner, my nephew, Bill Walker. He is teaching me via Facebook’s Face-to-Face.

And what about my books. I have three which are completely written. They are each in one or another stage of editing. Then I have three books which are partially written. I will need to illustrate one of these.

Please feel free to follow me as I press my way through this fun and exciting dilemma.

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