NEW POST: News and Such

As you regular readers know, last summer I decided to take a much needed vacation.  I properly announced that the vacation would last from June 1 to September 1 and that I would repost previous articles to remind us all of things we might wish to do to become better prepared with our food and medicine.  I’d also be checking in and replying to comments, but I wasn’t planning to do any writing.

That was the plan.

Life did not follow the plan.

Thing is, I still wanted to write.  I just didn’t want the pressure of committing to post every day.  And ultimately, that made zero difference.  Because by the end of summer, I had about 60 articles queued up.  That storage served me well until the end of May, when I was sweating bullets as the end of the month approached, but only little bullets, so it was ok.

I was hoping this summer would follow the same pattern.

And it has not.  I have just one article written to post when school resumes again in September.  That thought is starting to become scary.

So what have I been doing all summer?  Trying to spread the preparedness message, very unsuccessfully I might add. 

I also attended a four-day writing retreat at Richard Paul Evans’ ranch.  You might recall he wrote The Christmas Box about 30 years ago.  And there I learned that I’ve been doing this whole publishing and marketing thing all wrong. 

I hate finding out I’ve been doing something all wrong, but the results speak for themselves.  So I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this blog.  I love this blog.  I love what I learn, and I love sharing it with you. 

The marketing and publishing gurus say I should put this behind a paywall, or at the very least demand your email addresses so I can pester you with ads.  Maybe I should.  But I can’t.  I hate it when other sites do that.  Many people preparing for challenges that lie ahead are rather private and prefer not to share personal contact information.  I don’t want any of you to ever feel like you have to. 

However, I do have to keep trying to somehow market these books.  And I need help.  One thing that I’m supposed to be doing is requesting help from my readers.  The first job—it’s a big one—is I need a few beta readers.  I had never even heard of a beta reader before.  Basically, it’s someone who reads an early draft of a book.  It is NOT a proofreader or copy editor.  The beta reader only comments on parts of the book that bore or confuse him, or make him laugh or cry.  I send out a few chapters at a time, and they should be read and returned within 3 weeks.  And we keep doing this until I’m done. 

And now, you’re wondering what the next book is. 

I have been working on it for a few months.

It’s the 2^nd edition of Bring Your Own Bandages.  The first edition contained articles from the first 18 months of the blog.  It’s now been 5 years since the first edition was published.  That’s a lot more articles. I anticipate it will be at least 3x the number of words. 

What do the beta readers get out of this?  Not much.  Acknowledgement in the book, a copy of the book when it’s published, and a gift card (or selection of books, if you wish).  Yeah, not much. 

I definitely do not want to clog up the blog with stuff like this.  And some people cannot easily make comments here.  So I have decided to sell my soul to the devil Facebook.  Well, I will be actively posting on my FB page, something I am loathe to do, but I guess not as much as I would hate making detestable changes to the blog.

So check me out on FB if you want to help out as a beta reader or if you simply want to keep up with my exploits outside of blog writing. 

Thanks for reading this far.  Hope your Independence Day is memorable—in a good way.

Oh, just in case you're wondering, my name is Jennifer Rader.  There's no picture of me yet, but there is an image of the Armageddon Pharmacy cover to help you pic the right person.