I normally am an inveterate book keeper and re-reader.  Books are like friends and I enjoy reading an old favorite from time to time.  Or, I’ll re-read a book because I really enjoyed the language, or appreciate how the author structured the book.  I also read every night to help me relax enough so that I can drift off to sleep and for that process, reading a new book is not always helpful because I will always want to turn the next page to find out what happens, where with a previously read book I know what happens, so my mind can relax.  So, for me the concept of reading a book and passing it on to someone else is a little foreign, but I know several people who do that very thing.  They enjoy reading, but don’t keep any of the books to re-read.  If they enjoy a book, they’ll recommend it to a friend and pass it along.

These thoughts were passing through my head as I was looking at my copy of Stealing Wishes by Shannon Yarbrough, who has said on more than one occasion that the saddest thing for a book is to be unread.  I had read and reviewed the book and was considering sending it on to some friends who might enjoy it as much as I did.  (Sorry Shannon, I still haven’t won the battle with sending it on.)  At this point, I had the thought that it would be really fun to be able to track a book as it is passed from reader to reader.  It would be interesting to see all of the places that the book has been and wonder about the people who had read it. 

When I was young, not quite back to the point of dinosaurs, but definitely before the age of email, I used to get chain letters sent to me.  It captured my imagination to wonder about the people who had received the letter before me and wonder about who it would go to in the future.  Of course, any chain letter sent to me with the instructions to copy it out by hand 10 times and send it on were doomed to die by sudden death because while I loved to think about the possibilities, I never actually sent one on.  I am glad to say that none of the dire predictions for breaking the chain ever came true.  So, then the thought about having a book chain came to mind, without the peskiness of having to copy it out 10 times before sending it on. 

At that point, the floodgates opened and ideas kept coming.  I’d put together a website so that people could register that they had the book and where they were.  Ooh – it would be neat to have a map to put markers on so that each location would be highlighted.  The markers should be color coded so that each book line could be tracked, because why stop with just one book.  Which one would go the farthest?  Which would be read by more people?  I could put a page to track all of the locations, so that everyone coming to the site could learn about the places, and post their own comments.  What if someone didn’t have anyone to pass it on to?  I could create a page so that people could register to receive one of the copies if that happened.

It took me awhile to catch up with all of the ideas the kept pouring forth, plus, I had to create the book in a hard bound edition, re-design the cover to meet the new specifications and wait for the books to start shipping.  The production time frame for hard bound books is much longer than for paperbacks, so the waiting has been absolute torture for me.  I continue to think of ideas for the site, but want to hold back and wait to see what happens organically.

You are welcome to stop by and see the website and drop me a comment on it.  Where in the World is Misfit McCabe? 

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LK Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit: 
Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.

The post Where in the World is Misfit McCabe? appeared first on Be the Cat.

How did this come about?  Well, as you know I submitted by book, Misfit McCabe for review and Shannon Yarbrough, Lulu Book Review owner and author of Stealing Wishes, gave it a very nice review.  Through that process, Shannon and I had several communications back and forth, both to do with the review itself plus winning the marketing book give away that the Lulu Book Review sponsored.  Shannon gave me a copy of Stealing Wishes along with the marketing book, so I wrote and posted a review here, as well as on Amazon.com and Lulu.com of Stealing Wishes, which prompted more correspondence back and forth.

I admire what Mr. Yarbrough has set out to do and has accomplished with the Lulu Book Review because I feel it is important to encourage my fellow authors and to help promote self-publishing as another means to getting your work published, while retaining control of your work.  Publishing is changing and there is definitely a place for the self-published within the publishing world.  So during the course of our correspondence, I offered to assist in writing some of the reviews for the Lulu Book Review and Mr. Yarbrough graciously accepted.  I think it will be an arrangement that will work out for both of us because I will have the opportunity to read and critique other work, which ultimately will serve to help me improve my own work, and the Lulu Book Review will benefit from having an additional “voice” for the reviews.

And so, I am now a part time book reviewer, in addition to all of the other projects I am working on.  So, stop on by the Lulu Book Review to check out the reviews, and if you are a fellow self-published author through Lulu, ask for a review.  I’d love to see your work.

The post Reviewing the Lulu Way appeared first on Be the Cat.

My main concern was with the forum as I could switch the hosting of the blog back to blogger until I had a chance to work with the blog. But the forum had to be completely dismantled before I could begin the upgrade to the hosting site, so I wanted to get that back up and running as quickly as possible.

So far, I like working with WordPress for the blog, but still need to do some quick studying as far as all of the bells and whistles that it has.  But, as usual, I won’t be able to leave well enough alone and will have to see what I can do as far as changing the templates to suit my personality.  At least I can now relax just a bit and focus on some other things so that I continue to move forward with my goals.

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LK Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.

The post Forum and Blog resurrected appeared first on Be the Cat.