Skepticism and leeriness are two things that go through readers' mind when you…

1. … boldly announce that you'll put out [[[ insert some ungodly number ]]] of books per day (or week, or month, or year)
2. … proclaim that you don't have the money or resources to get good betas, crit partners, and/or editor(s)
3. … declare that you're too good to have to waste time with things like editors, CPs, etc.
4. … publish books with homemade covers
5. … publish books with one too many errors
6. … excuse errors in your titles by saying how other publishers/authors also have errors in theirs
7. … whine about how horrible your readers are because they aren't writing glowing reviews and creating word-of-mouth for you
8. … whine about bad reviews and/or attack reviewers/readers

Readers & reviewers — Want to add more to the list? Feel free.

As you know, I'm not a big fan of agency pricing, library e-lending program restrictions, geo restrictions, DRM and so on. Late last month, I wrote a guest opinion for Dear Author on what the (seemingly) ideal reader is to the Big Six, and it's finally up on Dear Author.

And I'm blogging about three qualities authors need to self-publish effectively on Babbling about Books and More.

Check them out and feel free to share your thoughts!

There are auctions for autographed books, critiques and other awesome items to help raise money for the victims of the devastating earthquake and tsunamis in Japan.

Please go to http://authorsforjapan.wordpress.com/ to view items and bid.

Also Michelle Read and Carrie Ryan are auctioning their books (autographed of course) on eBay. According to the description, “100% of the proceeds go to either Save the Children or the American Red Cross, both of which are doing work in Japan to help disaster victims. (They also help other tsunami-affected regions)”

You can view their auction listings here.

FYI — Michelle and Carrie's auction is open to U.S. residents only.

I recently did my first freelance job converting a Word doc into .prc, .epub, .lit, .html and .pdf for the lovely Dana Mentink. She's an inspirational romance writer, and I think you'll love the story if you enjoy inspirational romance novels.

You can request a free sample / excerpt from Amazon. Check it out!

P.S. My How to Format Your Manuscript for Kindle and Nook has been updated with a brand new section on how to format for All Romance eBooks. Please re-download it if you bought a copy already so you can have the latest information. For those of you who haven't bought it yet, you can get a copy from Smashwords. (Note: You must have some knowledge of HTML and CSS. Also you must have a Windows system to run the freeware needed to create the .prc format for Kindle. Sorry, but I haven't found anything that works for MacIntoshes. If anyone knows of a good program that you can use to create .prc on Macs, please let me know.)

And if anyone out there just doesn't want to fool with the conversion at all (even using the manual), send me an email and I'll let you know my rates for such work.

I'm sure many of you have seen the coverage of Fukushima nuclear power plant explosion. Again, Hero Material and I live far away from Fukushima, and our area remains unaffected.

Please send good vibes, prayers, etc. to the people in Fukushima and everyone else affected. Thank you!

Hello everyone,

I really should've thought to update my blog, but totally spaced out yesterday.

Hero Material and I are safe. As of Saturday March 12th 12:30 p.m., my area remains unaffected — no aftershocks or tsunamis. We have power, running water and Internet service, though the mobile network is spotty. We feel very grateful and lucky, and yet feel saddened by what's happening to others who are less fortunate.

If you have loved ones in Japan and have not been able to get in touch with them yet, please do not panic. Many areas are without power, and many people cannot make or receive calls easily even within Japan. I think international calls are even more difficult to make at this point.

If you're in the path of the tsunamis, please stay safe.