Pat Ritter. Books

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At this point in my writing career road blocks started to form. I'd reached my goal of writing and self-publishing also tried marketing which was not only expensive but time consuming.

Daily I journeyed throughout the local region speaking with local book stores hoping they would either purchase my book 'Confessions of an alcoholic'. Some wanted the book on consignment and a small number purchased the books to sell in their stores. It was frustrating and not successful. Instead of selling the book at $20.00 each, which was a huge amount to pay, the stores owners wanted to buy them at $9.00 each. Each book cost $6.00 each to be printed.

This was a different way to market the book.

I used the internet as far as I could in those times, sending out newletters and brochures. After reviewing my future as a writer and self-publisher, I looked at improving my writing by attending various courses. I joined three writing associations and read articles each time their magazines were received.

A turning point came when I attended the first Writefest conducted by Bundaberg Writers Group. This was an opportunity to meet other writers and see what the industry was doing. To my surprise after meeting the Executive Officer of Queensland Writers Centre, he introduced me as an expert on self-publishing. At the time I never considered myself to be an expert.

I spoke to the audience to explain how I'd written and self-published 'Confessions of an alcoholic'. This was met with much excitement. Then I dropped the clanger, how do I market the book?

Tomorrow I'll share with you my next step in the venture of being an author.

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One goal I needed to reach was to improve my writing. I checked most of the successful writers and read what they'd achieved. It appeared I was on the right track and according to these well known writers they too had difficulty grasping the right track to know where to go. Most suggested to write short stories and to never give up your dream.

Another turning point was attending a writing course facilitated by Rose Allan named 'Writing From The Heart'. Rose is one of those people who are special. Her ability to raise one's awareness and think on the right side of the brain is special. I left her course bubbling with self-confidence and assurance to further my career.

For the remainder of the year I wrote short story and entered each in competitions. This was a test of my ability to tighten my writing. Short stories do that for you, there's no woffling on. To read these short stories and holiday books I've written and published go

Wait until tomorrow and I'll share with you my next adventure with my writing career.



Saturday 17th March 2007 we headed off on our holiday not knowing exactly where we were going and for how long we would be away. Before leaving home we thought the drought had bitten badly but during our trip we were to learn that our paddcks were lush and green compared to some of the areas we

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Thank you for liking my writing. I appreciate your input.

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Along the journey there are always hic-cups of some type to encounter. We would like our road to success to be smoothe but unfortunately at times bumps in the road turn into gullies. For a couple of years I wrote a life story of an elderly man who'd done so many adventures in his life, I wanted to share them with the world.

You may have read in the post of 'Hollywood' John McMullen's Story. Near to the final climb to the top of the mountain John wanted to pull out of the whole thing. I wanted to finish it. Well, you wouldn't believe it I'd spent two years of my life writing a manuscript with this elderly person and after the second draft he too decided to pull out and not continue. I was deversated and hurt. There was nothing I could do but to accept his wishes.

Did this teach me a lesson. You bet your life it did! Never again will I write an autobiogaphy on another person. Someone else can do it. Both people, John and the elderly person, were very excited whilst I was writing their story, however, like I mentioned before I needed to plunge my hand into their soul and extract the good with the bad.

These two experiences were so similar to one another I decided to write my own memoir to test myself if this would happen to me.

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I decided to write my own memoir. Before commencing this journey, for days stories wondered through my mind resulting in me sketching a life-line on a sheet of A4 paper.

Instead of commencing 'once upon a time', I started from the present and worked backwards. My journey of life went from sign post to sign post. Each time my life changed I made a short summary of the event and asked myself 'why' did my life suddenly change at this point.

Another interesting event to happen regularly was the different people I met along the way. Would you believe a friend I met when I was five, we continue to this day to be best friends. At fifteen I met another friend and he also remains my best friend. How did these things happen, I often wondered.

Both my parents were born in Cunnamulla, a south-western town in Queensland. I was born in Brisbane yet when I was twenty-one I travelled to Cunnamulla and worked on a sheep and cattle property where my grandfather was employed as a shearing contractor many years before. His name burned into the wood at the shearing shed.

A little over twelve months later I returned to Cunnamulla as a police officer and there met my wife who was born in Cunnamulla. We were married for thirty-one years before she lost her fight with cancer. After a couple of years we were transferred and a decade later returned to Cunnamulla in the role as a detective.

Was it a co-incidence or was my life mapped out for me. Did I have a Dream Angel to guide me through life. There were many incidents once I joined the dots on the sheet of paper to signify the journey I took.

After I studied the map of my life, jotting short entries at various signposts along the way I decided to write my memoirs.

Wait until tomorrow and I'll share with you how my memoirs were published into a book named 'Dream Angel'.

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Writing a book is like going on an adventure of the unknown. The first paragraph is the most important paragraph in the book. If you haven't hooked the reader in the first paragraph - it's a lonely trip from thereon. In the memoir I needed to hook the reader immediately.

Since the age of four years old I wanted to be a policeman. From the time I could remember, many times instinct took over my mind when I was confronted with a problem. Like for instance, one evening a friend told me about an incident and I knew he wasn't telling me the truth. A ping went off in the back of my mind to show there was a hole in his story. Something didn't jell.

Obviously at the time I never realised I knew what an instinct was but as life went on I realised there was something there to stop me from going the extra foot to get into trouble. I always imagined I had a sixth sense.

Anyway, back to the first paragraph of the memoir. I wanted the reader to be aghast when they read the first paragraph so they would read on. In a memoir it is fact and not fiction. I commenced the first paragraph with a confrontation with my father. I remember as if it was yesterday, seeing him sitting on the lounge, when I asked him if I could join the police force as a police cadet, the whites of his eyes almost buldged from their sockets. I honestly thought he was having an heart attack. He denied my request. This was when I was fifteen years old.

After opening the first paragraph with a 'why' I continued on with the story returning to where our family commenced at Cunnamulla. A short history of their lives at Cunnamulla. Both my parents were born in Cunnamulla at the same hospital only six months apart. Both families were close friends of one another.

Tomorrow I'll explain the journey to write my memoir.

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Writing ones life story became a journey of understanding me. I mentioned before I posted small signs each time something changed in my life on the A4 sheet of paper. As my journey unfolded I discovered many truths about myself.

Many questions were asked as to why I did this at a particular time, plus how I befriended a certain person and remained friends forever. Also with having a sixth sense (as I named it) I steered away from trouble and issues I had no control over.

An important issue I discovered was not at anytime did I not want to publish my memoirs to have the public read them. At times I was proud of the life I lived and apart from my alcoholism I think everything else turned out pretty good.

Writefest was about to start and I attended the conference at Bundaberg. It was 2009 and up to this time I hadn't had much success with self-publishing of my books, particularly the marketing and sales.

The President of the Bundaberg Writers Group spoke with me about self-publishing and suggested I look toward publishing my books as ebooks. I didn't have any idea what she was talking about. A new website had commenced named http://www.smashwords.com and she suggested I research to find out how to publish my books as ebooks.

Wait until tomorrow to read about the most important turning point in my career as an author.


Smashwords - Ebooks from independent authors and publishers
http://www.smashwords.com
Discover over 70,000 multi-format ebooks, readable on any e-reading device. Sample before you buy. Over 12,000 free books...

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This was a turning point in my writing career. For the past decade I wanted to self-publish and sell my books to the world. This was the opportunity I was waiting for. Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords established this website to help authors such as myself to write, publish and sell their books across the globe.

It's a simple process. If you're interested go to Smashwords website mentioned below and look for the free book published by Mark Coker. If I can do it there's no reason why you can't do it. This gave me an opportunity to sell my books across the world.

At first I gave them away free but after a couple of days noticed fourteen books had been downloaded. I placed a price of .99 cents on each one. After a few months of monitoring the sales I noticed 'Confessions of an alcoholic' was selling 30 to 1 of the other books so I increased the price of the book to $1.99c.

Anyway, I was away on my journey to reach my goal I'd set myself almost a decade before. Now I not only wrote and published the book but I was in control of the price and sales. It's interesting to view the spreadsheet to see books have been sold in Canada; USA; Great Britain and Australia.

Tomorrow I'll share with you how I published my memoirs.

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Writing a book may sound easy however writing is not - all of the book. There is the storyline to consider plus editing. Over the time I've been writing it has taken a long time to find my voice in my stories.

When I write I want the reader to walk beside me in my journey. I've tried various editors and each time I discovered each of them changed my voice. I suppose it all goes back to the time I was told 'you write the way you speak'. I'm not condemning editors for they also pointed out my choice of words and other important issues concerning the book at the time. I wanted to do it my way.

Not only had I to consider the grammar and spelling but the most important part was the cover and back cover of the book. Using Microsoft Publisher I designed my own front and back covers. I know the moral of the story is 'you can't tell a book by it's cover', but in ebooks the cover is the most important part.

Customers select their book by a click of the finger. With ebooks the customer has an opportunity to read up to 20% of the book before deciding to purchase it. Therefore the cover needs to stand out and the first pages of the book interesting to the customer.

Let me know what you think of 'Dream Angel' - the book I wrote about my memoirs after designing the cover and publishing the book:

Tomorrow I'll continue my writing career.


Dream Angel, an Ebook by Pat Ritter
http://www.smashwords.com
Have you wondered why different events happen to you in your life as if the event was meant to happen? This book is about my life and how different events forced me to travel in a certain direction. It's facinating when analysing each event, after it happened, how did it happen. In many ways I w...

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After I published my books as ebooks I felt like Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz springing down the yellow brick road. I was so excited my books were being purchased and read by people on the other side of the globe.

At first it must have been an illusion because I thought with advertising my books on the website Smashwords customers would fly to the books like bees to honey. I must have been in a dream to think I needed have to do any further work to promote my writing.

Unfortunately without hard work you don't achieve your goals. First I established a profile page to advertise my books. See link: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/pat48.

This profile page gave the customer an idea of who I was and how many books I'd written and published.

Tomorrow I'll share with you how I started to build a platform to spread -the-word about my writing.
Smashwords - About Pat Ritter, author of 'The Drover', 'Writing Group Stories', 'Parents STOP Be Aw
http://www.smashwords.com
This is the biography page for Pat Ritter. Hi Everyone, Let me introduce myself. My name is Pat Ritter. Since 1988 I have been writing and publishing books and until recently through Writing Queensland have decided to publish my books as e-books on this and other websites. Writing and self-publis...