Tag: help

Black History Book Street Team

Photo by fauxels on Pexel

As I prepare to return my manuscript to my editor for a final comb-through, I am also ready to assemble a street team of beta readers and advanced reviewers.

Having not written a history book before (that’s not fiction), I had no idea it would be this much work. However, I am eager to share everything I have learned with you.

If you are familiar with the Black History Fun Fact Friday series, this book is that series in book form, only much more polished and with more information.

Beyond that series, what inspired the book?

We are particularly familiar with the names of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston. These outstanding leaders had a lasting impression on Black Americans’ history.

But two questions stick out:

  1. How much do we really know about them?

Did you know MLK was born Michael, not Martin??

  1. What are some names and histories of other leading Black people and events we are unfamiliar with?

Did you know a Black man, Lewis Howard Latimer helped Thomas Edison with the light bulb and Alexander Graham Bell with the telephone? These inventions could not exist in their present capacity without Lewis!

You can expect to read this kind of information in 200 pages of mind-blowing Black Historical Facts your history teacher left out.

I am looking for:

  • Black / African American readers passionate about Black history
  • Readers of any ethnicity who love Black history
  • History buffs in general
  • Readers willing to leave an Amazon review after reading the book
  • Readers willing to post about the book on the social media platform of their choice. (I do not dictate how you do this. You can publish it to your feed or story. I am grateful either way.)

Note: While I appreciate editorial feedback, you do not have to be an editor to beta read. Before publication, this book is receiving professional editing and proofreading.

Perks:

  • You get a free ecopy of the book before it comes out.
  • You get free shipping on the paperback when it comes out. (You will get a private access code to input for your free shipping when the time comes.)
  • You get a special mention on my social media (@yecheilyah) in the form of a professional graphic I’ll use to promote early reviews.

What to Do Now

Copies will start to go out when the final version of the manuscript is ready. If you signed up, keep an eye on your email to stay posted.

You must inform me of your interest via email (yecheilyah@yecheilyahysrayl.com) to receive further information on how to help, including the ARC terms and an advanced book copy.

Who’s in??

Yecheilyah’s 6th Annual Poetry Contest 2023

https://www.yecheilyahsannualpoetrycontest.org/

Year Six Baby!!

I cannot believe we’ve been doing this for six years. If it weren’t for Covid, it would be year seven!

We are excited to gear up for year six of the contest. But we need your help to make this year a success.

I am looking for the following:

Sponsors: No books please. Contribution must either be a service our poets can benefit from or a financial investment toward the cash prize. There are four cash prizes worth between $25 and $100 up for grabs. You can donate whatever you like to put toward it, or you can donate toward one of the tiers (for example, first place is $100).

Judges: The last seven poems will be judged by additional authors, poets, editors, or literary experts who will also help select the top four winners. This is the perfect opportunity for those who are versed in poetry.

Poems will be judged in the following categories:

  • POWER
  • BEAUTY
  • EDUCATION / MESSAGE
  • ENTERTAINMENT
  • GRAMMATICAL / TECHNICAL
  • RHYME
  • ORIGINALITY
  • OVERALL IMPACT

Social Media Marketers/Promoters: Bloggers, businesses, and professionals willing to use their platform to help promote the contest from the start of the submissions until close.

If you are on board to help with year six, please email the following to yecheilyah@yecheilyahysrayl.com as soon as possible.

  • Your name/title as you want it to appear online
  • A professional photo/headshot
  • Your company logo (if available)
  • Social media handle
  • The area you are applying to help with. Sponsor, Judge, or SM Promo

If you know someone who could help, do feel free to share this post with them!

No Whining Wednesday – The Way You Carry It

NWW(1)

Welcome back to another episode of No Whining Wednesday! Today, you cannot whine, criticize, or complain.

If you are new to this blog or new to this segment please visit the NWW page here for past episodes.

Today’s inspiring word comes from a powerful word from Lena Horne:

When you think about physically carrying something, you know that how you carry it makes a big difference. The proper way to lift heavy items is to bend your hips and knees to squat down, keep them close to your body, and straighten your legs to lift. If you do this wrong, you could hurt your back. It is also recommended never to lift a heavy object above shoulder level and avoid turning or twisting your body while lifting or holding a heavy object.

“Lift with your legs, not with your back.” That old saying is true for a reason: “The muscles in the legs and buttocks are bigger and more power­ful than the tiny back muscles,” notes Clare Safran-Norton, clinical supervisor of rehabilitation services at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital.”

-https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/boost-your-ability-to-lift-and-carry-heavy-loads

You also have to determine what it is you are lifting. Is it a box with liquid in it? Is it fragile? Can you even carry it by yourself? And even if you have people to help you, is it better to use a vehicle or crane or something to help carry it?

swaziland-girl-south-africa

Raise your hand if you’ve ever tried to balance something on your head like the women in Africa?

The women carry large loads on their heads. Although it looks strenuous, “a study found that African women can carry up to 20% of their body weight on their heads without increasing their rate of energy consumption.” (LA Times)

“In Ghana, women glide through Accra’s central market with such improbable burdens on their heads as a cage full of live chickens, a card table piled with glassware, a 100-pair-high stack of blue jeans. In southern Sudan, Dinka women walk for miles with only a ring of palm fronds padding their shaved skulls from the weight of 80-pound clay pots brimming with sorghum beer. Here in Nairobi, girls skip home from school, holding hands with each other, bundles of books on their heads.”

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-12-07-mn-1243-story.html

Now, let’s remove the physical aspect of carrying large loads and think of it mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Because no one can see the heaviness we carry, we sometimes overestimate the importance of asking for help or putting the burden down (letting go). Sometimes, we might even need to break a situation down into parts we can manage.

A quick story.

Detergent in the storage closet of my basement

I am always doing laundry. I don’t know what it is, but clothes seem to come out of nowhere. Mind you, there are only two people in this house. Because I wash a lot, I purchase detergent in bulk. It comes in these giant buckets (see image) from a black-owned general store in Marietta, Georgia. This place is better than the dollar tree. Anytime I need something in bulk, I go there first, from paper plates to detergent, and it’s very affordable.

The smaller containers we use

Because the buckets are so heavy, we pour the detergent into the smaller containers we have left over. I don’t usually do this because even to pour it into the containers requires lifting the bucket, so this is hubby’s job. Until one day, I tried to be a superwoman…

Chile, it was a mess. I ended up wasting detergent everywhere. I got the job done, but it would have been so much easier to ask for help. All I had to do was walk upstairs and ask the man to pour more detergent, but I wanted to do it myself.

Ya’ll see where I’m going with this, right? Of course, you do.

Another quick story

Several months ago we got a new TV for the basement. The thing was huge and could not fit into the car. Ya’ll, people were literally laughing at us trying to figure out how to make it work in that Walmart parking lot. We turned it every which way, took it out of the box, everything. What in the world were we thinking of getting a TV that big without a truck? A mess. Thankfully, a friend of my husband’s walked up, and guess what he was driving? A truck.

Sometimes what we are carrying is not the problem; it’s how we carry it that breaks us down. Occasionally, we don’t have to carry it at all.

“Bag lady you goin’ hurt yo back
Draggin all them bags like that
I guess nobody ever told you
All you must hold on to
Is you, is you, is you.” – Erykah Badu

Helping Indie Authors Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

I’ve been spending my social distance-time staying at home as much as possible, reading books, writing books, catching up on some scriptures, enjoying time with my family and binging my favorite TV shows. Earlier last week I got an email from someone whose email I don’t remember subscribing to, but, it mentioned the point that Self-Publishers are small businesses too.

And I concur.

Small businesses are taking a big hit amid the COVID-19 crisis and I thought I’d share a way we can help Self-Publishers in this time of uncertainty.

Buy the author’s book directly from them if you can.

If the author has a website, purchase a paperback or digital version of the book from the author’s website. If you are an author and you don’t have a website or you’re not selling through your website, Joanna Penn’s article here goes into detail on how to set up a store.

Something to keep in mind:

Amazon pays authors royalties for print and ebook sales. A royalty is a percentage of a sale. An ebook going for $2.99 at 70% according to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing will make the author $2.09. This means the author will have to sell at least 10 ebooks to make $20 and still have to wait a month to see that.

“If you publish through traditional publishing, royalties can take many months to arrive. You can’t control the schedule of payment and you don’t get any details of the customers.

If you publish independently through online publishers like Amazon, Kobo, Apple, Google, and other distributors, you will get your money sooner — but it will still be 30-60 days later and once again, you don’t get any details of the customers.”

Authors who sell direct can buy author copies of their books in bulk at a discount, sell those books from their website and fulfill the order themselves. The author also gets to see who their customers are which helps them to build a stronger relationship with them.

I wouldn’t be keeping it authentic if I didn’t also mention authors will have to account for shipping, state tax, and whatever website fees are associated with their platform of choice. The benefit, however, to selling direct is that the author doesn’t have to wait 30-60 days to get paid.

If the author got ten print book sales at $20 through their author website, they’ve already made $200 and $200 in the age of COVID-19 can be very helpful to families. Consider that most Indie Authors with day and night jobs are either working from home or not working at all. People are being fired, furloughed, and layed off left and right. Besides this, if we are being honest, some Indie Authors don’t even see $200 in royalty checks from Amazon from their Self-Published books.

Of course, there are pros and cons to everything. The major pros have already been stated, you are helping a small business to keep going at a time when money is scarce for everyone. The cons for authors include:

  • Not having the sale go toward your Amazon sales or ranking.

 

  • You must have the right to sell through your website first. You can’t, for example, sell your digital book anywhere outside of Amazon while enrolled in the KDP Select program and if you are signed with a publisher (includes Indie Publishers) you might be restricted from selling your print book through your own website depending on the details of your contract. You will have to check this and see.

“Many authors are so obsessed with chart rankings on Amazon that they forget the point is to reach readers who love our books — and for many of us, make a living with our writing. Selling direct enables readers to support us and money to arrive in our bank accounts quickly — but you will not see a spike in your Amazon rankings. So what do you really want?” – Joanna Penn

Here are ways to help Indies Amid the COVID_19 Pandemic:

  • Buy Directly From the Author (from their Website) If You Can.
  • Those ebook sales do add up. If you can’t afford the print book, buy the digital book.
  • Be sure to leave a review on Amazon so the author can attract more readers and get more sales.

Read Joanna Penn’s entire article “How To Sell Your Books Directly To Readers And Get Paid Immediately” here.

Book 2 is on the way! Get started on Book One.

Order a Signed Paperback* Here

Get it in ebook here.

*Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, stay-at-home, and shelter in place policies I am shipping books in shifts so I don’t have to keep going out. If you want to be included in this week’s shipment, be sure to place your print book order today so you don’t miss it! Paperbacks are signed and includes my author seal.

Want more Indie Author Tips? I’ve written over 50 articles sharing my tips, process, and publishing journey as an Indie Author. You can find them on this page. Enjoy!

Ask and Receive. Don’t Ask and Don’t.

Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.”

I’ve recently stepped out to complete a goal that was awkward for me. I am embarking on a journey that required me to ask. Asking. It sounds simple enough but in truth requires humility and courage. You risk potential ridicule. You risk being made fun of. You risk assumption, presumption and all the other ‘sumptions. “What does this person really want from me?” They’ll likely ask themselves. “Do they wish to use me?” Asking is not easy and you risk feeling awkward, uncomfortable and probably the most frightening of all, you risk feeling needed. Ah, there it is, the humility. For everyone needs someone in some capacity, some day. I remember a woman once told me, she said, “No one really works for themselves.” Interesting. How so? The woman said, “The beauty salon shop owner may own the shop, but she still needs the electric company, the distribution warehouses, the janitor, the employees, and even the customers. She works for herself and yet, she is dependent on everyone around her to make sure that shop stays open.” Wow, I thought. I never thought about it like that.

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Asking will make you feel needy, awkward, and uncomfortable. However, asking also opens the door for new opportunities, new experiences, and growth. Like my husband always say, “The worst case scenario is that they’ll say no.” He’s right because no is actually not so bad. Even though they said no, you got something back in return. You got an answer. A definite answer you can work with. Ask and receive. Don’t ask and don’t.