Crowdfunder to help a long-time board member

[skannie]

One of our veteran board members, Eileen, has hit a difficult patch in her life, with serious health and accommodation problems. So we've set up this small crowd-funding campaign to help her.

http://gogetfunding.com/project/help-a- ... move-house

[Tituba]

Do you have Barbara's approval on this?

[skannie]

Yes of course I do!!

[BarbaraSher]

She does indeed, dear Kate.

[Tituba]

Just checking

[Elaine Glimme]

Hey ho,

This is Molly the Border Collie posting in my human's absence. She is, as usual, playing solitaire. I erased all the games from her computer, but she has discovered spider solitaire on the AARP website, and, well, it's like the alcoholic finding where you hid the whiskey bottle.

But I digress.

The Molly Chronicles is in it's final review. Even Elaine cannot mess it up. I would like to donate it to Eileen's website. It seems appropriate. Eileen wrote a poem for me, which I have included, and many friends from HO and from the Boards have helped with the book. Some of their work appears in the book as well. The final okay should happen next week.

I cannot give Eileen an encouraging lick on the nose as she lives too far away. I hope you can use The Molly Chronicles. It's my way and Elaine's way of saying "thank you."

p.s. I meant no disparagement to my human. I love her to pieces, but she does have a way making computers go crazy.

[BarbaraSher]

Molly, I knew Border Collies were the smartest dogs (probably the smartest animals totally, including humans) on our planet, but I wasn't aware they were also the kindest. Are you saying that we can offer your beautifully written (by you, of course) unfortunate, solitaire-addicted caretaker's published ebook as a gift on the fundraising website for good Eileen? Before I get over excited about this, I want to be sure I understand.

[Elaine Glimme]

Yes, yes, yes.

Molly and I want to offer copies of The Molly Chronicles as thank-you gifts for people who donate to Eileen's crowdfunding.

We'll donate as many books as you want. I don't know how to do this, but I assume that Skannie or someone else will tell me what to do.

I also want to donate paperbacks. I'm making the paperback now. I can't start the e-book until the paperback gets the final okay. The kindle e-book will be easy. E-books for Nook, i-pad, etc., might take a bit longer. CreateSpace used to supply to Kindle only. I'm not sure that it's true anymore, but I think it is.

I didn't want to say anything earlier, because everything kept going wrong, and I wasn't sure how soon the book would be available, but I feel confident enough now to offer it.

By the way, it started out as a practice goal - just a funky, goofy project to do because it gave me pleasure. And it was fun because I didn't stress over it. Somewhere along the way, it became serious, and I do care, and it was a fun thing to do even with all the hassle at the end.

[Elaine Glimme]

p.s. Concerning donating The Molly Chronicles for Eileen's crowdfunding site, yes, I realize that I'll be donating the cost of the book each time someone gets one. That's okay. Fortunately, writing was never about the money, for me anyway.

[BarbaraSher]

No, no you don't offer the paperback as a gift, you offer the eBook. You may offer the paperbacks down the road someday, if you 'remainder' them. But I don't guess they do that much anymore.

eBooks are the best! And people reading them will help you too! That's the kind of gift we like best!

[BarbaraSher]

It's not only about the cost of the book - it's about wrapping and stamping and carrying to the post office. There might be a lot of people who want to read a book written by a dog! I've always thought that sentence was funny: "Let no good deed go unpunished," but not in reality. Just as a funny, ironic thought.

[Elaine Glimme]

Well, okay.

But with print-on-demand I'd just have to pay for the shipping, order the book on line from CreateSpace, and give them the address where I want the book to go. I wouldn't have to physically handle the book. With print-on-demand the books aren't printed until someone asks for them. I can order a few extra books to carry in the trunk of my car, but I don't have to worry about a garage full of books and no one to read them. So no remainders.

[BarbaraSher]

Oh yeah! I forgot. I was promoting print on demand in 2006, amazing people (as I was amazed) with this new fantastic way to get hard copies of your own book without having to store 10,000 copies in your garage while you ate cat food to pay for them.

Back then, publishing was free.

But buying copies (which you have to do) isn't cheap as I recall (even if you don't have to mail them). They are ever-so-retail. Nope, I still vote for eBooks.

[Elaine Glimme]

Okay, e-book it is. I just got the hard copy proofs, approved them, and ordered twenty copies for myself. So moving right along.... I started working on the Kindle book, chose the option of transferring the paperback to electronic. The computer said it couldn't accept the file. Kept looking for a file that it would accept. The computer said it couldn't accept any file. The computer said the file was uploading. The computer said it's working on the file. I wonder which file it was that the computer accepted. I also wonder if the file will appear with the header and footer that the paperback book has. I would think that Kindle would automatically take those out but ????? I'm going to just wait until Kindle does it's thing and then see what it looks like. I also wonder if they will publish for the electronic readers besides Kindle. I think they will, but I'm not sure.

That's great that Eileen is in her house. I'm excited. You're right it's a win, win, win situation. The third "win" is for the Hanging Out-ers who helped me who get mentioned in the book.

[BarbaraSher]

Aw, that's really nice, Elaine, to mention Hanging Out people who backed you. They're going to be very happy when they hear what you've done.

Fingers crossed on that 'done - undone' series of messages you got on your computer. It's the tech-thing that techies don't realize puts most of us into a state of despair, fear and self-loathing, which is why so few of us have to courage to move ahead as you did. But I think it's easier when you have someone to complain to! And so far, most of us (all of us?) like it when you complain just fine.