So, I finally did it. While preparing for my Oct. 1st reading at Paragraphe Bookstore in downtown Montreal, my husband videotaped my practice run in our home (in fact, I’ll embarrass him now and tell you all that he even set up a little candlelight café in our living room the night before, so he and our daughter could be the first to hear me read, in a café-like setting. Made my night).
I’d like to share my reading with those readers who weren’t able to attend and asked to see it. So, here’s Part I of what will be a four or five-part post (in 3 minute segments). I’ll post Part II today (Three poems from Leap), and save the other parts for another day. Someone did videotape the actual reading at Paragraphe Bookstore, too. I’ll share that on vimeo once I receive that clip.
Number FIVE! I thought my dream of hitting the top 10 in poetry in the iBookstore by Spring 2012 was a pipe dream. But I did set it as a goal a couple weeks ago, when I realized how well both my poetry ebooks were selling on Lulu.com I thought, okay, now to top the charts of the iBookstore!
Today, Leap is #5 in Top Poetry Paid Books in the Canadian iBookstore! It is also being featured in the What’s Hot section of the Canadian and US iBookstores. Where the Butterflies Go is trailing behind at #141 (I published this an a ebook a little later than ‘Leap’) but I’m thrilled it’s on the list at all.
Ebooks don’t make a lot of money. Hell, poetry doesn’t make a lot of money! So I have always felt the thing to do with proceeds from these two collections is to donate half to making a small difference in the world. Since 2008, we’ve been able to help four children go to school for a year, and provided part of the teachers’ salaries too. We’ve contributed a little to the grand expense of building desks for a small school in India, and this past Christmas, we donated pencils to an entire school.
I’m donating to Unicef again today (enough to give pencils to an entire school) as a way of thanking all of you for reading, buying and sharing my poetry links; for helping more people discover my work, and for helping me achieve my charity donation goals.
Thank you. I couldn’t have done any of this without you loyal readers.
Life is short. Keep on laughing. Keep on loving. Never stop leaping.
All my best,
Heather
PS Watch for ‘The Groovy Granny’ as an ebook on Lulu.com and in the iBookstore soon, and my new collection of poetry and photographs by Spring 2012.
#5! Top Paid Poetry Books - iBookstore August 24, 2011 Heather Grace Stewart with the epub 'Leap' for the iPad
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I just want to thank everyone for buying, sharing, and creating buzz around my two poetry ebooks, Leap and Where the Butterflies Go –today they rank #1 and #4 on Lulu.com in the Top 100 Bestselling Poetry Ebooks this week! They’re also doing well on Lulu.com’s all-time best-selling ebooks list, and selling very well in the iBookstore.
I’m enjoying summer, and am busy working on my next poetry collection (a full colour photographed poetry collection for the iBooktore!), ‘Carry On Dancing,’ and creating an ebook version of ‘The Groovy Granny.’
Thanks so much for reading and sharing news about my work.
Cheers,
Heather
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My poet pal Kellie Elmore had a question about my ebook ‘Leap’ which I thought I should answer for you all:
“Congratulations Heather! Is it available for Kobo? I’d love to read Leap!”
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Thanks Kellie!
The answer is YES!
There are so many readers out there, I decided to go with the epub file for my ebooks, which is more universal than the mobi file (Kindle files). Kobo reads both epub files and PDF files, and if you go to Lulu.com in the ebooks section, you can download both these versions of Leap.
Epub doesn’t read on the Kindle but look at all the others it works on:
If you go to Lulu.com ebooks (here’s my ebook Leap: http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/leap/16247447?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/1 ) it has free software right on the page where you can buy my book and you download the free software Adobe Digital Designs. This lets you read Leap as an ebook on your Mac or PC in an ereader format and on many many mobile ereaders -bascially, whichever ones can read epubs or PDF files.
If you eventually get an ipad, which has Kobo and Kindle for ipad as well as the ibookstore, you can find it and read it on the ipad in Books, in itunes. I love my ipad because it has all three readers on it and I just switch back and forth to different readers on the ipad depending on the book I want to read.
I haven’t given up on getting both Where the Butterflies Go and Leap on the Kindle, but I just wanted to make them available almost everywhere else first. I went with the ipad and iphone first for ‘Leap’ because it’s a colour device and I wanted my photos to be presented as nicely as they are in the print edition. I also loved the innovative side of it all. Lulu has told me they are looking into making my books available for the Kindle…in time. Slow and steady wins the race.
Edit: Shortly after I wrote this blog post today, ‘Where the Butterflies Go’ became available on the ibookstore, priced at just $4.99 too! It’s going to be available as an epub on Lulu too -hang tight if you want this version for Mac or PC and other ereaders -it will be available shortly. If you do buy ‘Where the Butterflies Go’ for the ipad please do write me a review and give me a star rating – every bit helps. Thanks!
Heather Grace Stewart 