An Open Book

Photo by Henry Diltz

Welcome Readers!

There is nothing I have found more exciting as seeing a desire or dream happen and happen bigger than you ever imagined.

When you spend years doing something and then find this incredible way to put it out into the world, for me it is tremendously excited. I hope that all of you will get excited too. Things are changing in the publishing world and while I believe there will always be paper books I think that podcasting and audio as well as PFD and other electronic forms are just going to become more and more popular.

I have struggled with many aspects of putting this book out there, The Mark of a Druid, into print and podcast; having said that, it has been fun to take this first journey into publishing in several different venues at the same time. The journey is not over by a long shot. When Ethers Descend is in progress and I am so excited about having time to write on a grander scale.

Marketing is one of my biggest challenges. So please bare with me through this weekend when the formal release happens. I will be twittering about the numbers on February 1, 2009 throughout the day. We Arlene Radasky and I will be telling our friends on all of our social networking sites. It will be this one day that we are asking you to help us rise in the Amazon.com rankings by purchasing our books and/or rating, commenting, reviewing The Fox and The Mark of a Druid.

Our interview with www.horroraddict.net went live last night. It is very funny and the bloopers are classic. Gary and Ruth from the www.celticmythpodshow.com have placed a written interview in their blog. www.Podiobooks.com have posted an author news blog about the rush called the Celtic Bums Rush.

Learn more about upcoming web event at The Buzz http://www.themarkofadruid.com/mod/?page_id=376

Remember to enter The Mark of a Druid 2009 Contest #2 in the 2009 Contest Series at http://www.themarkofadruid.com. This week’s winner will be announced in just a few hours in the weekly blog! Win a free singed copy of The Mark of a Druid and other very cool Celtic stuff this week it is a Sterling Silver Celtic Cross. The Next Winner to be announced 2/01/2009 During the Rush!

This weeks recommendation. Do you like horror? Then you should check out Dark Matters By Michele Roger She is so spooky!

Keep Writing, I know I will!

Rhonda R. Carpenter

Photo by Henry Diltz

Welcome Readers!

I love the era we live in as I write this blog I am listening to Mathew Wayne Selznick perform a live virtual concert from his home on usteam.tv. Amazing stuff is happening out there and I encourage you all to join in the fun. I mean really how cool is that! I must say though, it is hard to hold your bic in the air and type at the same time. The concert rocked. Thank you Mathew Wayne Selznick hope you do it again soon.

So numbers, I have been sort of watching numbers since I started podcasting The Mark of a Druid and since the book became available on Amazon, I have watched the numbers in comparison to what I am doing to promote the novel in all its forms online. And while it is totally cool to be in the charts on podiobooks and I expect to be back there when the book is out in its entirety. So as of today here is were the numbers stand or lay as the case may be. What I love is that people are listening and reading and commenting so thank you all!

Subscribers through Podiobooks.com 295 folks are listening on Podiobooks.com

Itunes counts their downloads singularly so there is no way to know exactly how many subscribers there are but so far 13,873 files have been downloaded of 25 available episodes from the Itunes format.

The hosting company that shows the numbers says to date total downloads from the first episode to now is 18,604. Love it!

4015 of those are from www.themarkofadruid.com

Juice and Zoon are neck and neck with 335 each. Then there are several small numbers from other locations on the web.

Now lets look at amazon.com. These are ranking numbers and the lower you get the better. That a means if you have a number 1 book that is as good as it gets. The category that The Mark of a Druid falls under is General Fiction/Fantasy. Huge category, which means lots of competition and I will be the first to admit that I am just learning about all of this ranking and numbering stuff. But I do understand that the lower your number the more frequently a book will come up in the search criteria for Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

There is a beta site http://www.titlez.com/welcome.aspx that shows sales rankings Their best raking so far has been 116,187 The worst 957,793 Not bad. Today The Mark of a Druid is Ranked 1,360,834. Here is where you guys come in. Amazon’s ranking today#852,705 in Books. Each time you leave a comment, rate the or buy the book, the ranking changes. On February 1, 2009 I hope to see this ranking drop under the hundred thousand mark. So please Join in the fun and watch the numbers with me.

Remember to enter The Mark of a Druid 2009 Contest #2 in the 2009 Contest Series at http://www.themarkofadruid.com. The winner will be announced in next Sundays blog. You must play to win but there is no purchase required. Contest #2 is a Sterling Silver Celtic Cross. The Next Winner to be announced 2/01/2009 on the formal release date of The Mark of a Druid in print form.

On February 1, 2009 Arlene Radasky and I are formally releasing our two Celtic novels. Please go to  Valentines Sweet Idea for your sweetheart. Help us be seen on Amazon.com.

Keep Writing, I know I will!

Rhonda R. Carpenter

Photo by Henry Diltz

Welcome Readers!

I want to shout out a huge thank you to a number of folks who are going out of their way to leave reviews, rate and leave comments for The Mark of a Druid. Then I am going to do the same thing for a number of folks who are out there playing our duel release promos and other promos in support of Arlene Radasky’s The Fox and Rhonda R Carpenters’ The Mark of a Druid.

Podiobooks: Thank you, Rennie, JaneInPA, Barry, Theresa, Ren&Merlin, Emerian, Rowan, Arlene, Miss Amie; You are all very kind and it truly a joy to have comments good or bad so that I can gage how I am doing in the endeavor and it really helps other people decide to listen.

Itunes: Thank you, Audrey67, Tabitha, Winerebel; I know Itunes doesn’t make it easy to leave a review so I wanted to be sure you knew I do appreciate you reviews and am so please you are loving the book. One of you said that you couldn’t wait and went and bought a copy, Thank you and if you email me your address I will be happy to send you a free signed bookplate so your copy is autographed.

Amazon: A.R., Devoted Reader, P.B., Rowan, Dr. Sally Witt; You thoughts and comments a truly appreciated and on Amazon mean more than just a comment they help this book move up in the rankings so that it comes up on searches in its area more frequently. So Thank you!

And a huge thank you to all the podcasters out there that are playing the push promo and helping us spread the word. JDAZE podcast, Edwardgtalbot.com, Celticmythpodshow.com, Michele Rogers, Horroraddicts.net, The Dr. Sally Witt Show, Jeremy James. Thank you for all you do!

Learn more about upcoming web event at The Buzz http://www.themarkofadruid.com/mod/?page_id=376

Yesterday Arlene Radasky and I did a very fun interview with Dr. Sally Witt on Blog Talk Radio. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Dr-Sally-Psychic-Healer/2009/01/17/Two-Celtic-Time-Travel-Themed-Authors-Psychic-Rhonda-Carpenter-open-for-Readings This interview is two fold and available in the achieves of her show. The first hour Arlene and I talk about how we met and why we are releasing our books together in time for Valentines Day. You can hear each of us read from the books and it is a fun hour, the second hour was an open reading hour with myself and Dr. SallyWitt! Very fun!

Today Arlene and I had a recorded interview with Emerian Rich of http://www.horroaddicts.net and http://www.emzbox.com. I had so much fun doing this interview too. Emz is a h00t. I love her show and I am soaking up her tips on how to more scary! I believe Episode #016 will air on 1/29/09 where the co-authored horror short that Arlene Radasky and I wrote, Walk-In will be played for your listening pleasure.

In Honor of Emerian Rich I am featuring her this week.

http://www.horroraddicts.net/

Tune in and listen to what is happening in the Horror Addicts world of books, movies, music, events and podcasting.

Emerian Rich

This is a face you just want to sew buttons on? Hold Still!

There you go. Now you belong forever! All messing around aside, I love her show and I am enjoying her pod novel Nights Knights By Emerian Rich and you can get that free here http://podiobooks.com/title/nights-knights  

Remember to enter The Mark of a Druid 2009 Contest #2 in the 2009 Contest Series at http://www.themarkofadruid.com. This week’s winner will be announced in just a few hours in the weekly blog! Win a free singed copy of The Mark of a Druid and other very cool Celtic stuff this week it is a Sterling Silver Celtic Cross. The Next Winner to be announced 2/01/2009.

I actually got time with all the marketing going on to write some on the next book in The Mark of a Druid series, When Ethers Descend.

Keep Writing, I know I will!

Rhonda R. Carpenter

Photo by Henry Diltz

Welcome Readers!

This has been a very interesting busy week here in what I call the Vortex.

It has been challenging with all of the things happening on the marketing front, Podcasting front and personal front to get any new writing done. I ask myself this week why aren’t you writing. This story is screaming in your head and you need to get it out.

I discovered to my shock and horror that the answer was, “I don’t have time.” Immediately my personal coaching brain said, “Liar! Yes you do. You must make time in what ever way you can with your schedule. Stop with the excuses and just do it.”

The internal struggle was on. You know that fight that goes off in your brain about where to put something you want to do when things are really busy. My fight went something like this. “Take something off your plate so you can put this on. There isn’t anything I can take off. Get a platter! No, no, no, you will get sick if you take on anymore. You are running on 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night and you know if you don’t get at least 6 to 8 your migraines are worse. Think outside the box, Rhonda.”

That was the key! I simply hadn’t thought of the option I had in front of me. I didn’t need to write it or type it to get it out of my head. I needed to be able to save it. Right? So out comes the micro recorder and I so could have done this on my computer if I had been in the office, but I wasn’t going to be. I had to be out for several days this week. The time in my car is pretty much downtime. I don’t talk on a cell and drive. I usually listen to books or music on the road. I was caught up on the books I committed to reviewing so this was a prefect way to still get the story out of my head and saved. Sure, I would have to type it later but that is easy to do and there is ALWAYS editing to do.

Problem solved. I reordered that part of the story and will type it up in a few days. See I get up every morning and want to write. It is a joy to bang out a story and play and develop the characters and plot lines. And just because I am marketing for the formal release of The Mark of a Druid and the 2009 Contest Series doesn’t mean I should stop the creative process of writing forward.

I guess you could apply this to anything you want to do. Maybe you answer isn’t’ a micro recorder, but if you think outside of the box and don’t place limits on what the answer might be it will come to you.

So what stops you from writing? Put yourself in check. Stop letting your excuses win. If you love to write like I do—then it is time to write in whatever way you can. Let me share this secret with you. No one is going to write it for you. It is your story, your idea, maybe even your dream. Don’t give up on it. Don’t procrastinate. Don’t let it keep rattling around in your head. You will feel better if you get it out and by doing so you are creating a stronger desire to go for the dream.

Announcements

Remember to enter The Mark of a Druid 2009 Contest series at http://www.themarkofadruid.com under last weeks blog you will find the questions for Contest #1 and the Contest 2009 page has all the rules. Win a free singed copy of The Mark of a Druid. The first Winner to be announced 1/18/2009.

Write to you next week!

Rhonda R. Carpenter

Photo by Henry Diltz

As cookie madness descends on the house I find the need for Christmas music in is order. The tree will be on early and the oven running for 3 days, almost straight. The gals will bake and talk. We’ll share coffee with Baileys and test run each batch, while the guys will watch football and sit on their a$$es. Snow will fall and the house will smell great. So I say to you all, gather them close, enjoy your differences and hug them when ever they allow it. We are here for such a finite time in this incarnation, cherish the day!

Now cookie sheets and muffin tins, Now loaf pans and cooling rakes. On flour! On sugar! On icing and sprinkles! With a dash of this an a little of that, sweets will be made and assembled in packs, for delivery next week by hand and by mail. Now Bake away Bake away, Bake away, All!

As a gift here is our favorite Chocolate chip cookie recipe~

Chocolate Chippers
½ cup shorting
½ cup granulated Sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 6-oz package semi sweet chocolate pieces
½ broken nut (optional I don’t put in nuts)

Cream shorting, sugars, egg and vanilla till light and fluffy. Sift together dry ingredients; stir into creamed mixture; blend well/ Add chips and nuts .
Drop from teaspoon 2 inches apart on a greased cookie sheet.
Bake in a moderate oven 375 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from cookie sheet after about 2 minutes cook on racks if they last that long! LOL. Makes 3 dozen.
And for Arlene congrats on your books release on Amazon!
Scottish Shortbread! YUM!
• 2 cups butter
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Cream butter and brown sugar. Add 3 to 3 3/4 cups flour. Mix well. Sprinkle board with the remaining flour. Knead for 5 minutes, adding enough flour to make a soft dough. Roll to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut into 3×1 inch strips. Prick with fork and place on ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 325 degrees F (165 degrees C) for 20 to 25 minutes.
Merry Christmas folks and have a great next week!
Back next week with all three blogs and another new episode of The Mark of a Druid. And watch Twitter for cookie updates this weekend!
Rhonda Carpenter

Beautiful cobalt blue hand made glass ware. This is a great idea Laurie! Your work is lovely and eye catching. You ask folks to blog about it and I decided to pick one piece that I really liked. I found that really hard to do. This is the piece I really like although I could own your whole collection this one called to me as different in an extraordinary kind of way.

Lovely!

Good luck on the contest. This is a great idea! Join the contest here http://cobalt-world.com/

Rhonda

Where to you social network? 9 places I am checking out.

Photo by Henry Diltz

Welcome Readers!

So what do you think of when you think Horror? Usually not my thing, but I have of late. been enjoying a pod cast called Horror Addicts produced by Emerian Rich. I thought this week I would ask the readers what scares you? Emerian has challenged me to write a horror short for her new season of www.horroraddicts.net. Which I believe kicked off this weekend! This show is not for children! If you like horror, vampires, zombies, listening to horror addicts can keep you up to date on new and old films and information of what is happening in the Horror community.

Social networking is becoming great fun and I am enjoying meeting all of these new people from all over the world. Were do I go? Well I am checking out many sites to see if they call to me. Here is what I have found.

Tagged… Sucks! I swear I did not get one follower of my over 200 followers that was more than interested in poking me with a silly or provocative message. I closed the tagged account. Yuck. I am married and happily and have been for 20 years so I am not online or networking to get a date.

Twitter… Digging Twitter.com I don’t profess to know how or why it works, but I am having fun and meeting people and not once has anyone hit on me. YES!!!! I am seeing things on the web I would never have seen if not for whom I am following and who is following me. I have actually sold books and built listeners for the podcast which totally rocks and it has been a great way to meet others who are doing interesting and fun things on the web to promote their books or music or art and even there creations and work. I do want to say that is not just about your work but Twitter is about “What are you doing right now in 140 characters.” If you are interested in social networking Twitter is one of my favorites. http://twitter.com/rhondacarpenter

Myspace… Well I have a myspace page but I find the format hard to use and a tad frustrating. Granted, because of that I have not spent a ton of time developing contacts there. http://www.myspace.com/rhondarcarpenter

Facebook… Well I started out apprehensive about face book. I have since changed my mind. I don’t use any of the give a person a flower or grow your garden widgets basically because I just don’t have time. I field about 3 to 400 emails a days and these emails and actions seem a waste of my time. But I did just recently build a The Mark of a Druid book group to see if it would be an easy way to contact my fans and readers about what is going on. I like the ease of facebook and we will see how far it goes! http://www.facebook.com/rhondarcarpenter#/profile.php?id=748048511&ref=name Sign up for the group to get updates.

Yahoo360… I have been on yahoo of years and find that it is a constant and reliable place to post a blog or update what is happening but they seem to be falling behind the times in what is happening in social networking.

Linkedin… I built a professional deatailed profile from linkedin but I find it hard to use. This week I plan on learn the ins and outs of linked in. I still have not figured out how to tell people how to find me on facebook. But my username is Rhondarcarpenter. And I come up under hypnosis and www.lifefirst.com.

Plurk… is also on the list to learn in the next few weeks.

Tailcast.com Which I totally love! It is a great young community that focuses on your creations. Check it out! http://www.tailcast.com/member-rhonda-r-carpenter-409.html My son is showing his artwork there too.

Dig… Hmmm singed up and did nothing with it yet. So add that to the list of things to learn too.

Selfgrowth.com… this is really a professional site and while I think it is a great and informative site. I plan on writing some technical information for the site as soon as The Mark of a Druid is complete as an audio book.

I have received several requests to join many scocial networking sites. So this week I will have a look at some of them again but I have to say it is hard to follow and keep up with too many sites at once.

How do you use the net? What do you find helpful and where are you hanging out? Let me know I am always interested in new and fun social networking sites and fun things to do on the web.

Thanks again for all the support and keep the comments coming I am grateful to have them.

Seasons Greetings!

Keep Writing! I Know I Will!

Rhonda R. Carpenter

Special Announcement

Photo by Henry Diltz

Welcome Readers!

1. Never ever tell your computer person that you may be interested in doing some quality video in the near future, because inevitably that will lead to a new this or a better that for your computer. Not that upgrading is a bad thing. Just don’t do it in the middle of a podcast.

2. Never change up your equipment in the middle of the podcast. If your settings are good then stick with it. And if you must do #1 above… Write your setting down!

3. Never loose that editing groove. I’ve found while podcasting The Mark of a Druid that I do much better cranking out a couple of episodes a week. But with the holidays and work demands it is not always easy to do. And because #1 and #2 above happened… I found I had a hard time finding my groove-thing with the editing.

4. Never assume that since the microphone hasn’t changed that it will sound the same after an upgrade. I ran headlong without doing one darn sound check and recorded 4 chapters only to have a hideous buzz that I could not get out… And because #1, #2, #3 above happened… I lost two full nights of recording and it was all my fault.

5. Never give up. Listen, if I can do this podcasting thing and do it from my office and turn out good quality listening, have fun in the process, learn as much as I can every day—then you can do it too.

Bonus #6 On the never do this when you are podcasting list is: Never tell your audience that you will be on time and then be late. Have a reserve. Don’t give away everything all at once unless you can release the whole book in one shot. And yes, I have heard of that being done from a few authors on podiobooks.com. The idea of a serialized podcasted novel is to let the listener listen at their conveyance either as it comes out or to wait and listen when the entire book has been released. But as a listener here and I listen a lot. I tend to get discouraged when a book is rolling along and I am ready for my weekly fix only to find the author didn’t upload it. Now I know life happens. Heck it happens to us all, but if there is a reserve then the reader doesn’t feel that sense of being forgotten.

In short never ask for more until you are ready and then you will not have to hassle the change until you are ready. That being said I love the new system and the sound is wonderful.

Last announcement! Thanks Gary and Ruth of Celtic Myth Podshow for playing the promo and all your kind words about the book in Episode 18. Love your show!
You can hear it too at http://celticmythpodshow.com/ Subscribe by RSS, Zune, iTunes or listen on their site!

Keep Writing! I Know I Will!

Rhonda R. Carpenter

Photo by Henry Diltz

Welcome Readers!

What an interesting week, and I mean that in the most sarcastic of ways. My computer went bye bye after installing an upgraded video card. Which made me seriously grateful for several things.

1. My husband is a genius when it come to PC’s. (thank you honey!)
2. I always back up my system off the computers to a server once a month sometime more if I am writing something new. As you would have it that was the case and I had just backed up. So no lost data! Soooo Grateful.
3. I am ahead in the recorded and ready episodes for The Mark of a Druid podcast. Again so grateful.
4. After having some new trouble with my injured right neck, arm, shoulder, arm and hand… a cortisone shot, while it hurt like heck, really helped, just in time for the new system to be up, loaded, and running. Grateful!
5. Which all gave me a really big head start on the holiday decorating! Yes, that is right, the tree is up and the house beautiful. I love the holiday season. Grateful to be here this year.
6. While doing cooking prep for this coming Thanks Giving Feast, I caught up on my listening of my new favorite podcast www.celticmythpodshow.com If you are interested in Celtic lore and myths then you will not want to miss this pod cast. The voices are wonderful it would be great to listen to it with the kids most of the episodes are kid friendly and the ones that aren’t are clearly marks. So I am grateful to Gary and Ruth for their extraordinary efforts to bring us the old tales and some glimpses of newer ones too. This pod cast will become a family tradition of listening for my family. My husband is listening on his commute on disk and two of my sons are listening as well. Grateful to Gary and Ruth for doing the Celtic Myths Pod Show.

This week is all about getting the rough draft of a new horror story for the next season of http://www.horroraddicts.net/ done, so I can go into edit along with recording new episodes of The Mark of a Druid www.themarkofadruid.com, for more info. Wednesday family arrives (I here there may be snow!) for the celebration of giving thanks. This tiny touch of a vacation will not stop or slow the releases of the podcast.

This week in promotion: I am also working on press releases and booking one book signing well be scheduled if all goes right and maybe a newspaper article put on the books to go with that signing. I will be twittering and updating some of the new social networks I have joined this week. I am meeting some of the most interesting spirits! Again Grateful!

Now, where am I going to put those 2000 words for Truth Slithers… Here space.. This will likely happen on Friday.

Thanks gain for all the support and keep the comments coming I am grateful to have them.

Happy Thanks Giving!

Keep Writing! I Know I Will!

Rhonda R. Carpenter