A Growing Experience

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A Growing Experience

by Tawnya Bulger
(Beach, North Dakota)

Katrina: Growing Wings

Published through Tate Publishing for a fee that will be returned once sales hit their desired number.

Tate Publishing has done the printing, illustrating, website design and helped me in a whole host of ways. "Katrina: Growing Wings" has been made into an audio book and has other merchandise as well.

I wrote a children's story 4 years ago. I was struggling with being "just" a stay-at-home mother of two small children; 4 months and 20 months.

I contacted Tate Publishing and sent them a copy of my manuscript and they loved it. I received a contract shortly thereafter; and started paying them some installments. A series of events gave us the rest of the money we needed in a matter of months and "Katrina" was born!

Tate has assigned me an illustrator, website designer and marketer/publicist. I have recently gotten advice from Lauraine Snelling about getting my book out there to be reviewed by different people and companies, so that is the route I am now taking.

Visit Tawnya at Tate.

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A Growing Experience

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Oct 19, 2010
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A Growing Experience
by: Andrea Lozano

Hi Tawnya,

I read about you and your work in "A growing Experience" and even went into your website. It was a fun experience and I'm very impressed with the things you have done and are setting out to do. Your story gives me hope that some day I will accomplish my own dreams and aspirations. I am just starting on my journey as a "published book author".

Thank you for writing about your experience for people like me to read.

I wish you continued luck and success.

Sincerely,
Andrea Mary Paez Lozano

Manuscripts in Progress:

"Betty Mouse Makes a Home"-about a young mouse who leaves her parents' home to make a home for herself with a few mishaps, and

"The Boy Messenger"- a story about my uncle who became a courier for the American and Philippine Underground Movement in WWII Philippines at the tender age of 7.

Wish me luck. I have big aspirations and thank you again.

Oct 07, 2010
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The Tate experience
by: Steve B. (webmaster)

Tawnya, thanks for your contribution. For those who don't know, Tate Publishing is a Christian company that tries to edge around being called a self publishing company. But, as Tawnya explained, she pays an upfront fee.

Tawnya, I had a thought for you, and for anyone else with a webpage/site provided by their publisher.

Frankly, these sites can be a nice little storefront, but they tend to only receive the traffic YOU drive to them.

That's better than nothing, so long as the site looks good. But it's not like the site draws in people who don't know about you or your book.

So here's an idea that could potentially drive a little "stranger traffic" your way...

As you write the text for your site, make a point of describing the book with a phrase (or two or three). For instance, The Cat in the Hat might be described as:

- A picture book about latchkey kids
- A rhyming story about a feline home invader
- A children's book about being home alone

Here's the point...

The search engines will find your site when someone's looking for your site. In other words, they will help people who know you (or know of you) to find you.

But what you really want is for people who don't know you, who are looking for a particular kind of book, to find you. And that's why you should use phrases that describe your book on the site. Once in awhile someone might be looking for just that kind of book, and if you've described yourself that way, the search engines can find you!

Remember, the engines don't read. They only recognize words. So you have to give them the kind of keyword phrases people search with. If the Dr. Seuss site doesn't use the word "latchkey," the person who searches for a picture book about latchkey kids won't be led to the Seuss site, even though it's the perfect book.

When you put content up on the web, always keep the search engines in mind!

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