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The short answer is (and yes, this is an appropriate bird-related pun), when it came to matching the lighting in Iray and 3Delight, I just had to wing it! I just set up lights in the same general areas and rendered it both ways. The 3Delight brought some stronger, flatter colors that I used to bring out details on the zombie and in the background. I also may have used it on their bodies, but to a lesser degreee. I used a variety of layer modes in Photoshop, including Screen and Pin Light, as well as masks to show and hide particular areas of the layer. Additionally, the yellow in her hair is a colored layer of yellow that I drew and set the layer mode to Multiply. Her hair was just too washed out in the various renders, so I pumped it up.
My goal was to create something bright that will print well (this magazine is distributed as both a PDF and as a print copy created at FedEx/Kinkos -- yeah, it's a pretty low-tech affair). Color copies tend to go dark, so I pumped this up a bit and am hoping it comes out the way I intend.
Okay - first - when you get ready to publish, I'll help you with the layout and formatting. I do all of that in Adobe InDesign and have basic templates set up so now it's fast and easy.
Amazon is specific that the regular font is flexible to be changed by the consumer. Only Chapter Titles and Drop Caps can be locked. I've got all of that set up too because I create an Epub in InDesign then tweak it in Dreamweaver (an epub is just a glorified website). I then check everything in the download version of Kindle Previewer and actually upload the Epub for Amazon to convert then double check everything online again.
First off, Createspace is an Amazon company and they only publish PRINT. If you want to take that print book to ebook they transfer you over to KDP. I started publishing Ebooks through Amazon's KDP then created the print book in Createspace. Amazon's exclusivity contract applies ONLY to electronic media - not print. Go KDP first then go Createspace. Amazon puts everything together on the website for you.
With the Createspace do it yourself option - you have to upload a formatted PDF file of your book. Something you DON'T want to do when publishing an ebook. You want to upload an epub or Word Doc to Amazon's KDP. That's why I'm doing the formatting thing when I expand my business to a full blown publishing group next year. I've got all of that stuff set up so I don't have to reinvent the wheel.
Whatever you do DON'T PAY CREATESPACE to create your book - that price is highway robbery. Even if you decide to pay someone to format your book there are folks out there who are very reasonable in pricing. You're going to have to do two different formats one for ebook and one for print. Ebook is the easiest (at least for me) so I do that first - plus it's faster to get to market and you'll make far more sales with your ebook than your print book.
Amazon is 65% of the ebook market right now - so love 'em or hate 'em, as an indie author, they're you're bread and butter. The decision to go exclusive is for each title NOT the author. Kindle Select is now called Kindle Unlimited and its a decision that shouldn't be made lightly. As an author and someone with degrees in accounting and business management, I chafe against exclusiveness as it hinders competition which is needed to keep a freemarket healthy. But I also have bills to pay and a family to feed. If you DON'T go exclusive that affects your ranking the Amazon search engines. You get ranked lower than someone who is enrolled in KDP. The enrollment term is only 90 days and you can pull your book out and go elsewhere after that. If you want to exapand your venue such as Barnes & Noble and iBooks (you have to have a MAC to publish to iBooks, can't do it from a Windows PC) your best bet is to publish through Smashwords. I have a couple of titles not exclusive with Amazon that I've published through Smashwords but while I might get a couple hundred here and there, the lion's share is Amazon and KDP Unlimited.
What I'm going to tell you is to present fact not blowing my own horn here - I just published a box set with three other authors in my Historical Romance genre. Two are top ranking sellers like me, one author is an unknown. We released the box set on Aug.1 for $0.99 and enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. Amazon pays net 60 so we had to wait for payment. The author who organized everything is the "publisher". Amazon pays her the lump sum then she transfers the money to us. Net 60 means we had our payment for Aug sales at the end of Oct. and the money transfered to me for that first month was almost $2,000. That's my share of the cut that was split four ways. So do the math here - that box set of four books grossed almost $8k it's first month at $0.99 - at that price we only make 35% royalty! at $2.99 or higher, we make 70%.
When you have your manuscript ready to go I can put you in touch with my freelance editor. Her prices are exceptionally reasonable and she is awesome at what she does. Even if you decide not to go with her, we can find you a freelance editor who will be good but not break the bank.
Not all of my titles have made a profit here - but this isn't a sprint. Just because certain books don't make back the money I put into them (now a lot less since I'm doing my own covers) in the first month doesn't mean they won't be profitable. As long as they are available for sale, eventually they will make a profit. In the meantime, the books I've released such as Demon Laird and Shadowed Hawk, have made profits in their first 30 days - in fact they've made enough profit to cover the others who haven't yet.
The best advice I can give you is to get your manuscript as perfect as you can get it, find a good freelance editor, then tear it apart and put it back together. Then find someone to help you format your book. I'm happy to help anyone here and I won't charge a dime for the first book because everyone needs to learn the ropes here. But that's why I'm expanding to Phoenix Fire Publishing Group next year. Eventually I want to have a full blown small press publishing company that will accept authors, get their work edited, get it formatted, get a cover and get it marketed and not charge for that but take a cut of royalty like this business is supposed to do.
After you get your manuscript polished and formatted for ebook, you publish to KDP and enroll in Kindle Unlimited. The way to get to the top of the charts is push that book like you wouldn't believe for the first 30 days. In the meantime you need to get going on a second book to be released in the next 3 months. Keep your releases going every 3-6 months, keeps your work ranked in Amazon's search engines, it keeps your name in front of the reader's faces. Some books will do better than others, and you definitely need to designate one as your loss-lead.
A Time to Live was my loss-lead for contemporary and By Another Name was the same for Historical. The idea behind a loss lead is that you know you will never make a profit on it. It's the freebie, the one that you lose money on to get that book in the hands of readers come hell or highwater. So when I published to KDP in Dec. 2012, I marketed the hell out of those loss leads. When I published Mist Warrior in January 2013, it hit the best seller list and kept going, earning over $5k in it's first month. The funny thing - that same month my "loss leads" turned a hell of a profit. lol!
KDP is your bread and butter like I said, Createspace is great for print books as long as you don't pay for anything. But you won't make the sales for print like you do for ebooks, print just helps those readers who love that print book and to enter contests like what I'm doing. lol! In order to give away your loss leads on Amazon you have to enroll in Kindle Select/Unlimited, but another good idea is to have yet another book ready to rock that can be your loss lead for places such as Smashwords. Sometimes it's hit and miss deciding which book to enroll in Select and which one to take to multiple venues, but if it doesn't work one way, try another. Like I said, Select is only 90 days and you can unenroll it.
So I hope I answered all of your questions. If I didn't let me know and I'll give it another run. lol!
Cheers,
Kath
PS I forgot about the 5000 fonts thing. That you need to read the license - it should mention ebooks specifically not just commercial and leave it at that. If it doesn't, ask them, and if you do buy anything, make sure you get a license that is specific to ebooks and print.
Hi Cris! I've seen that book cover! Awesome to know you did that! hehe! Small world I guess. I can't wait to see what you do with it in DAZ. You will post in progress pics won't ya?
Cheers,
Kath
Awesome Mitch - you're one of the few I've found who actually changes up the layer blending modes. I'm a huge proponent of it but it seems like very few do it.
So no magic bullet with the lighting eh? lol! I'm going to try the mixed rendering one of these days - when I get time - yeah, right, lol!
In the meantime I went hog wild with my entry and customizing the mats. Whew!
Cheers,
Kath
kathrynloch: That was VERY informative. Thank you so much for sharing that detailed information with us.
Although I've had a top-selling book out for a decade, my work is in the game industry (and I don't mean video games -- I mean pen & paper with dice and miniatures), which is a very different audience. There is a lot of overlap (people who game also read books, and vice-versa), but the stores and pricing models are very different. The technology focus is very different, too. PDF is king in that field, as we publish a lot of tables, figures and illustrations to demonstrate play concepts.
When my schedule finlly settles down next year and I can focus on my fiction again, I'll re-read this and ask some more detailed questions.
kathrynloch Heh. There's no "magic bullet" that I've found... yet.
I agree with you, though, that blending modes are VASTLY underused by many artists. I think they intimidate new users.
I'd say the two most useful blending modes are Multiply and Overlay (with Screen a close third). The main trick with them is to use them judiciously with layer transparency (say, 50% multiply) and layer masks (manually fade out parts of the image you don't want to affect). In the cover I uploaded, I tweaked the zombie coloring a lot because I wanted to make sure he was visible in the green area, so I duplicated a separate layer and set the opacity to about 50%, then set the blending mode to Overlay so some colors would brighten. I then created a layer mask and (if I recall correctly), removed his feet from that layer because they were getting too bight. I probably did some other tweaking on him, but that's most of it.
Used judiciously, blending layers can completely affect the highlights and shadows of a scene, bringing out detail you never knew you had.
Side note: You really neeed to check out HowReRoll's livestream on Twitch.tv. They brought the D&D pen and paper to the live stream with Roll 20 and using it as a venue to tell a great story. We have some people in the audience who used to work at TSR in their glory days, and the DM is originally from the UK he's owned gaming stores and attended DM workshops held by TSR. I've been an RPG gaming geek since AD&D second edition. My Deities & Demigods books had the Michael Moorecock mythos along with some others that had to be removed due to copyright issues.
Anyway, I digress sorry! One of the major reasons why I tackled learning InDesign on my own (not for the faint of heart) was because it can produce both epub and pdf. Amazon's kindle formatting is simply a proprietary form of an epub. Epub has two recognized formats. The older format 2.0 which is reflowable and which ebook retailers like Amazon want us to use because it allows the text to do exactly that - reflow when customers like @knittingmommy change the font to their own taste on their Kindle. But to us layout designers it can be the bane of our existence because it takes our layout and throws it out the window for the most part. Yet for a fiction novel which is all text - this is the standard format. But what about stuff like what you've got? Stuff with tables and figures and graphics. Well, it's Epub 3.0, and fixed layout to the rescue!
Fixed layout allows you to take those PDF tables and figures and maintain your layout in the epub. It's what allows people to now publish children's picture books, graphic novels, and player manuals for RPG's and maintain the consistency of format on KDP and any other ebook retailer. It does not allow the consumer to change the text because of the table layout. But it also allows accessibility for those who are vision impared - tables and accessibility usually don't go together in html coding. Epub 3.0 and fixed layout solves that as well.
So if I was to format your stuff, I'd go Epub 3.0 and fixed layout in InDesign and for knittingmommy, I'd go Epub 2.0 and reflowable. Make sense? So when you're ready to do that, we'll open that can o'worms. lol!
Oh - transparancy - that reminds me - do you know about this the transparency blending feature in Photoshop? Here - it's easier to capture some screen shots to demonstrate.
Okay so I'm working on Lathan's eyebrows - they went way too big even though I followed the original mat. I've gotta fix that. You can see on the layer panel that I've got the top layer at 58% opacity and Lighter Color blending mode. Now if I right click and open the layer blending options you see this on the first screen. Check out the sliders down at the bottom. Now the layer under it is darker and set at 100% opacity and Darker Color blending mode. Here's what happens when I move that bottom slider on the dark side to the right.
My highlight up and disappeared. But while hovering my mouse over that little arrow slider, holding down the alt key and clicking the arrow, I split the slider and can fine tune. So let me slide that arrow back and start over with it split. Notice my highlight layer has a much softer transition. Now if I were to keep sliding the half of the arrow all the way to the right it would disappear all together like it did before, but this allows fine control of the transition.
So I go through and try changing these with each layer.
Notice too that I don't always change the same slider for every layer. I experiment with all of them first. The last layer I leave as is at 100% opacity and Multiply since it's my foundation layer. So here's the final version. Not a huge diffence from the original, just some subtle transitions.
Just like I experiment with various layer blending modes now, so do I experiment with these sliders to get nice and soft, very realistic, transitions. For me discovering these was a total accident so I don't know how many folks have actually played with them and if they've discovered what they can do.
I'm also customizing a new brush for eyebrows - I might have some folks test it out for me because I'm having to do two different ones to get the correct angles for left and right hair growth as well as have folks who are left handed test it to see if I need to change the angle of the brush for southpaws. hehe!
Thanks for the info. I tested epub 3 format a while back. It's okay, but it doesn't really address the issue that most ereaders are too small to adequately present the material that the gamer needs to see at a single time. A large ipad or tablet can work, but it the reader goes down to even an 8-inch reader, problems ensue. Some of the content could be reflowed okay, but big portions of the combat material would not work at smaller sizes. That's why, despite a few experiments here and there, PDF is still king in the game biz.
Additionally, there are market conditions to consider that are very different in the gaming world. The fact is, many game stores are reluctant to carry games that are published as ebooks, simply because people glance at the book in the store and then go buy it for less online and print out a few pages of it off their home printer. Our book is in numerous bookstores in the US, Canada and the UK. It's been in print for 10 years, has had 19 printings and still sells at a brisk pace. Not bad for a book that's self-distributed in the US (we have distributors overseas, but in the US it's just not worth it to give a 60% markdown when I can pocket that money for me and my partners; we sell direct to game stores with a 50% mark-off, and often split shipping costs with them on large orders).
Game stores move outside the distribution channels that handle mass market fiction and comic books (Diamond, who carries mostly comics, handles the really big, mass market games like D&D, Warhammer, and licensed properties like Walking Dead). Amazon is actually a second- or third-ranked player in the POD and ebook game market. In gaming, drivethrurpg.com is the big dog. And, depending on who you talk to, Lulu.com might be the second biggest. DrivethruRPG definitely focuses on PDFs.
And then there's the piracy aspect. I've actually lurked in forums where people were asking if my game book was available as a PDF so they could yank out the pertinent gameplay rules and then release it for free online as a "new" product. Others just flat out asked if they could get a copy of the PDF from someone. Since our book has never been released as a PDF, someone would have to scan 180 pages (possibly OCR it), and then make the changes. Way too much work for those lazy pirates.
All that being said, I'll actually be using DrivethruRPG next year for a game supplement -- it includes material that is currently online for free – the book is just offering a collected version with nicer printing for those who want it. This book is a collection of adventures (like the old D&D game modules) that will remain on our website for free, so I’m not concerned about piracy for this book. It will also let me test the waters regarding PDF distribution.
If I learn anything interesting, I'll post the info here.
kathrynloch What version of Photoshop are you using? I'm pretty sure that's not an option in CS 5.5 (the version I run at home).
And thanks for the SUPER cool tutorial/example.
Oh dear - yeah not 5.5. I'm running CC 2015 which is the membership thing. They have one for photographers which is Photoshop and Lightroom and a couple of other things for $10 a month. At least on CC I get every update as soon as it comes out - which is wonderful when you're waiting for a fix. lol!
Oh also on the Epub thing - in that case consider also Interactive PDF which is the fun of epub with the benefits of pdf. lol!
I would need the entire Adobe suite, and I'd rather just use the old versions I already paid for ages ago than worry about new features that I might not use. So, for now, cheapness rulez! I'm gonna save my money for content (although, probably not Michael 7 any time soon -- until they expand his wardrobe to include Western wear and other historical stuff, I just don't see him fitting into my work flow any time soon).
The PDF of my next book will have bookmarks and active links, but that's about it. There's really not much else I'm interested in adding, and I think DriveThruRPG has limitations on the types of PDFs you can sell through their site.
First, Wow, that is quite an offer and I appreciate it. I will definitely take you up on it.
It had been awhile since I started doing research for this way back when I was in the first few months of writing. My memory was a little spotty on a couple of things and it appears I got it backward on the Createspace thing. I had planned to do more in depth research once I was closer to having a completed manuscript.
Sounds like a great plan. I'm working on the 'get it as perfect as I can' part. At the rate I'm going, my first manuscript should be ready for an editor shortly after the first of the year barring any unseen plot changes or continuity issues which might indicate unexpected rewrites. I'm actually working concurrently on two novels in two different genres and I'm not actually sure which will be finished first. At most, they might only be a few months apart. I like the idea of paying with royalties instead of up front fees. Especially, considering the amount of prepublishing costs go into editing and covers before you even get to the publishing part.
First, I can't even imagine releasing every 3-6 months at this stage of my writing. It boggles my mind to even think of writing that quickly. That being said, I do have lots of story ideas rambling around in my head that I write down in my writer's notebook. I do have a ton of ideas for possible sequels for one of the books I'm currently writing. I have found things filtering in as I write the book that cause me to stop and write things down for future books. I'm actually amazed that I will be writing dialogue and suddenly my characters are talking about things I hadn't even thought of and suddenly I have plot points that I need to figure out that would be perfect for a series. There are times I actually work for days on a scene in my head trying to figure out how I'm going to write it and when I sit down something totaly different pops out as the characters interact and, while better than what I had thought I had worked out, I have no idea where those ideas even came from. However, I can't even imagine completely writing those subsequent novels every 6 months even though I have quite a bit of the plots all worked out for three other books. I know there are very prolific writers out there as I read a lot of them, but, at this stage, I'm can't see myself being one of them. Although, I do find that I get better at my writing and more prolific as I continue to write everyday. So, who knows, I might find myself there one day.
I haven't even really researched marketing yet. I have only done a minimal amount so far. I do have a few marketing ideas, but nothing concrete yet. And, the few ideas that I have for one of my as yet unwritten novels, has never, to my knowledge, even been done for a book so my ideas might end up being a total flop.
You have given me a lot of great information and I think you more than answered my questions. If I think of anything more, I will ask. You have given a lot of great info and I'll have to reread some parts again. I had no idea when I started reading this thread just how helpful it would be writing as well as cover design. I'm very glad you are willing to share your knowledge to those of us who are just starting out. I don't expect to get those kinds of numbers for any of my books. I like to go in with low expectations. That way I'm pleasantly surprised. I would be extremely happy if I just broke even with any upfront costs I incurred getting my novels to print. Right now, I just know that I have to finish my current novels or I might explode. I'm finding it much easier to focus on my writing now that the kids are older and don't need constant supervision. While I have plenty of teen angst in my complicated life, I'm still finding time to write each day. The words seem to go from me to the page much easier than they have in previous years when I had to concentrate on my boys more than myself or my writing. While I lament the fact that my babies are growing up, I do occasionally find reasons to be thankful that they have gotten older. Being able to focus on my writing goals is certainly one of them. I will let you know as soon as I have either of my manuscripts ready for an editor and then we will see about your freelance editor. Since I have no experience with editors, I'm more than happy to take your advice and referals for those professionals with whom you have worked. Thank you for giving me much more information than I expected when I asked my question. I appreciate your honesty and willingness to share your experiences.
I would have to look because I didn't read the license that closely. At the time, I wasn't aware that there might be a difference in use between commercial and ebook status. It is something I will keep in mind.
Wow, nice cover, Chris.
Chris: That is a very cool cover, and even cooloer to see it blown up so much in a store window. I would definitely be stoked if that were my work! Well done!
Thanks, everyone! :)
Good to know about the fonts! And once I get a bit more comfortable with Daz I will probably give it a go.
"A Time to Live was my loss-lead for contemporary and By Another Name was the same for Historical. The idea behind a loss lead is that you know you will never make a profit on it. It's the freebie, the one that you lose money on to get that book in the hands of readers come hell or highwater. So when I published to KDP in Dec. 2012, I marketed the hell out of those loss leads. When I published Mist Warrior in January 2013, it hit the best seller list and kept going, earning over $5k in it's first month. The funny thing - that same month my "loss leads" turned a hell of a profit. lol!"
As a prolific reader let me just tell you how effective this is to get a new author in front of people like me. I can read a paperback (old school paperback) in about an hour and a half to two hours if its under 500 pages. Which means I read a LOT of books. It gets really expensive really quickly. So I get a lot of free books on Amazon. But, if I like the free one, I always look for more from that author and usually buy more once you have my attention. And if you have my attention and I really like your books and you are just starting out, I will help promote your books on facebook as well lol. As long as there is a link to your FB page in the ebook and I can find you.
One question @Sonja11 if you haven't already done so, have you ever thought about becoming an online book reviewer or a beta reader? There are review sites screaming for reviewers if you don't want to start your own. While paid reviews are frowned upon most indies and small presses give free books in exchange for an honest review.
As for FB - yes I have a page but I can't stand FB. (Long story) so I hardly ever log on. I am more of a Twitter person and of course live stream.
There's been an ongoing debate on if free books are worth it to the author because so many that are offered free are picked up then any DRM is cracked and they are pirated in a matter of days. A Time To Live was pirated almost immediately and almost all of my novels soon followed. But there are many readers who have been burned reading low quality indie books. If a free book will allow that reader to give one of mine a chance, I'll jump at it because most readers are like you, once finding an author they like through a free book they will purchase the rest.
@knittingmommy - you're very welcome for the information. Because folks shared information with me all those years ago I was able to learn about the industry and I learned my craft, writing, writing and more writing. Lot's of hard work, blood, sweat, and tears. That was long before ebooks so I never imagined the knowledge would pay off like this - but I'm not complaining either!
Still it saddens me to see readers burned by poor quality books refuse to read any and all after that, just like it saddens me to see writers, not realizing all that is involved with the craft, publish their work before it is ready then get discouraged because they're getting bad reviews or whatever.
Like any other profession or industry both situations are perfectly avoidable when knowledge is shared and folks are willing to learn. That's why I'm more than happy to help.
I would absolutely review books. for free. Especially if they are willing to give me a copy. I have been reviewing some books for a friend of mine who is starting to self publish ebooks. I read a LOT lol
"There's been an ongoing debate on if free books are worth it to the author because so many that are offered free are picked up then any DRM is cracked and they are pirated in a matter of days. A Time To Live was pirated almost immediately and almost all of my novels soon followed. But there are many readers who have been burned reading low quality indie books. If a free book will allow that reader to give one of mine a chance, I'll jump at it because most readers are like you, once finding an author they like through a free book they will purchase the rest."
I would never knowingly purchase a pirated book. And if I find an author I like who is accessable (facebook mostly for me but I also tell family and friends. Facebook for me is more for me to sell my handmade beads and to display my art than it is to socialize). I will absolutely promote that author like crazy because while I have a day job that helps maintain our household, my husband is self employed and I have my own small business and I know how vital word of mouth can be. And I am usually willing to give a new author, two or three chances as far as books go because, hey, most people improve as they go. If they have good ideas and a good story line and its just not quite written well, I assume they will improve. And yes, once I like someone I will buy their books and I might even buy a t shirt.
Hi everyone. Just thought I would pop in and say good-bye and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I'm taking off tomorrow morning for the holiday with DH and the boys and won't be back until after the 1st. I don't know what the internet will be like so I doubt I will be getting on the forums while I'm gone. I do plan to take my laptop and copies of all my files so that I can get some writing done while I'm gone. With any luck I'll get a few more chapters done on one of my books. It might actually be good to take a break from DAZ stuff for a week. Everyone stay safe and eat lots of turkey.
Enjoy your families.
Have a safe and fun trip!
Have a good holiday! Hope you can get some writing in.
Cheers,
Kath
Night guys, I'm going offline to finish packing and go to bed. DH wants to get out of here early in the morning. Kath, we are heading to Garrison, TX about 2 1/2 hours north/northeast of Houston. Not sure where that puts you distance wise from there. If I get a chance while I'm gone, I'll pop in to say hi. I hope to get some writing in, too. It has been going very well lately and I would like to keep the momentum going.
I know it will be hard on you for the holiday, Kath, but try to have a little fun and remember any happy times with your dad. The happy memories help.
Hugs,
Cathy
Kath, I have lost both my parents, my Dad in 99 and my Mom in 2003. My heart aches for you and I am so sorry you are going through this. If there is anything at all that I can do let me know. I don't live close enought to physically help as I am in Ohio but I'm usually online off and on all day. Might take me an hour or two to respond if I'm at work but I will be around.
Thanks Cathy! I sent you a PM with the specifics. If you're coming from Florida then you have no choice but to pass through our little town in Texas as you travel along I-10, so hopefully we can grab a cup of coffee at Waffle House or something. Thank you again for your sympathies, I really appreciate it. Typical me, I'm full steam ahead organizing stuff - it won't hit me until later, right now I've got things to do and stuff to organize. I always do that when the crap hits the fan, get it done and then worry about it when we're on the other side.
Thank you again as well, Sonja - you're still confusing me here with the user name change - lol! Thank goodness you left your name in your signature otherwise I'd be really confused. Like I was saying, I'll probably be just fine for this but it will be next week that will be the tough one. I'm a hold it together type of gal while there's stuff to be done, it's next week when I don't have stuff to do that will be tough.
Was it Cathy who was saying they discovered her father was a closet packrat and loved QVC? My dad was kinda like that when he was still working for the sheriff's department. He was always pulling overtime so had cash on hand and would buy stuff like that. He got me this 'focusing crystal' for Christmas once. I was like what is it? It looks like a diamond but is about the size of both fists put together. It's too big to be a paperweight. Turns out its used in the old wooden sailing ships. It fits into a spot on the wooden deck, flat on top so you don't trip over it, but catches the light and the shape below deck helps focus and light the area below deck. Okay that's cool and different but dad - it's an oversized paperweight - and freaking heavy! If you drop it on your toe - definite broken toe.
But since he retired, things were getting a bit tight. In fact, I just found out he canceled his life insurance - so now all funeral expenses are coming out of my pocket. I don't have any brothers or sisters to share the load. I was not happy about that. But we're both members of the same credit union and I just remembered that they have automatic life insurance for members. You can pay for more but the basic $2k is free. So I'm going to talk to them today and see about opening a memorial fund that people can donate to maybe.
Anyway, when the stress gets too crazy, I'm going to try working on my book covers to decompress. Too much stress going right now to write. So we'll see how it goes.
Thank you again!
Cheers,
Kath
Hey Kathryn,
Got your PM and answered back. I'm heading out the door in about half an hour so I have to finish up packing little stuff. I'll let you know if we'll be able to meet. Left you my cell, but forgot to give you my email. I'll text it to you once I have you in my contact list on the road.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Cathy
Sorry for the confusion with the name. I figured I better do it now before I have been here too long. I did put my name in the signature line as I prefer people to use Sonja instead of my user Id name. Its more personal lol.
I did the same thing, was good while dealing with details, not so much after.
Well, now I'm hopping mad. The bank's insurance is accidental death only. I was so disgusted I completely forgot about asking for the memorial account. I can't do anything with his stuff until I get an official death certificate, I can't get that until I pay the funeral home $3,000. grrrr! To top it all off, Dad's place is next door to mine but I can't see his back door from the house. When I came back from the bank, I happened to glance at the back as I went by - someone has been trying to break in. Looks like I might have my son spend a night or two over there (he's nineteen). I figure it's kids trying to get the TV or computer - those are the only things of value over there and they're both so old they're not worth anything. I just need his computer for when I do get the certs because he has all of his account info for different things on there.
Oh boy this is just fun - NOT!