I'm discussing the nervousness I felt at creating a cover with non-white characters, given the controversies over white-washed covers, etc. on Money Bear Reviews today. Please come check it out!

I'm discussing the thorny problem called distribution, esp. DRM and geo restrictions, on Pearl's World of Romance today. Please come check it out!

I'm discussing the advantages and disadvantages of having a publisher versus doing it all on your own on Love Romance Passion today. Please come check it out!

I'm discussing the emotional impact walking away (from an offer) can have on writers on Kait Nolan's blog today. Please come check it out!

I'm discussing the importance of reading contracts carefully and why I ended up declining a publisher's offer to publish Carnal Secrets on Zoe Winters' blog today. Please come check it out!

I've been getting lots of inquiries about how I convert my manuscripts to Kindle or Nook recently. So yesterday, I put up a step-by-step guide for formatting your manuscript on Kindle and Nook entitled (appropriately enough) How to Format Your Manuscript for Kindle and Nook on Smashwords. It's an expanded version of my blog post on the same topic. Since I wrote that post, I've done three more conversions and learned a lot from each experience. I wanted to share lessons learned, tips, etc. to make it as easy as possible for people to follow along and create an ebook that has a cover, table of contents and so on. (I don't like ebooks that come without a cover, though in some cases it can't be helped.)

The guide assumes that you have some basic knowledge of HTML, such as tags for paragraphs, headings and italics. But you don't need to code from scratch since the guide contains lots of snippets of code that you can easily copy and paste. (It's all done for you!) This should prevent any odd errors due to typos, etc. In addition, my understanding is that Smashwords allows buyers to download updated versions for free, provided that the author replaces the old file with the new one. I wanted everyone to be able to access the latest version easily, should I make any changes. (I'm pretty sure I will as I discover new features, shortcuts, etc.)

P.S. You need a MS Windows computer to use the guide. One of the freeware programs needed to do the formatting isn't available on Mac. Sorry, Mac users! If and when I find a suitable Mac freeware, I'll definitely update the guide and let you know.