Giving Back

“Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.” –H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

“Happiness … consists in giving, and in serving others.” –Henry Drummond

“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.” –Lao Tzu

As many of you who’ve been following for a while know, I’m getting my first novel, The Space Between Time ready for publication. (Thanks to all you new followers. I’m happy to welcome you to my blog.) The process of revising and editing my book has taken much longer than I thought it would. There is an upside to that, however. I’ve had time to grow my contacts via social media, some of those include fellow authors. This is the exciting part, because some of those authors have been kind enough to help me improve my work, or have offered to help me promote my book once it’s published.

One such person is Nicholaa Spencer. I don’t remember how we found each other. It was probably through WordPress. She has a blog and website which she uses to review the work of up-and-coming authors. Recently she proposed a blog tour to exchange promotion services. Those of us participating review and promote her book on our blogs and she would do the same for our work on her blog.

I was happy to agree to participate. Her book, Marrying A Wannabe Nun, is available in ebook format. The links are below.

The thing that I’ve enjoyed about my association with Nicholaa is that she’s open to suggestions about her own work, and she’s enthusiastic about helping others promote their books as well. She wants to give back to her fellow writers. That’s so important. None of us becomes a success by ourselves. We have to have help.

As I write this, I’m reading NIcholaa’s book and sending comments back. I love that about the ebook format, you can make improvements and resubmit the manuscript without having to pull old editions.

Two years ago my husband and I published a children’s book, Scottosaurus The Little Dinosaur, that I’d written and my husband illustrated as a gift for our oldest nephew. We published it through CreateSpace, which is a print-on-demand publisher, and later, when the technology advanced enough to be able to publish pictures, we published an ebook version on Smashwords. When we were getting the ebook version ready for publication, we realized the book needed some revisions. The corrections were so easy to make for both publishers, because there weren’t a pile of books waiting to be sold.

But back to Nicholaa’s book. Her story is about a wealthy U.S. businessman who, for reasons you’ll have to read the book to find out, sends his young daughter to Rome to live with her uncle who just happens to be a Priest. That situation in itself could make an interesting book, but Nicholaa has added a twist. Marcus calls his daughter Alynna, who was ready to become a nun, back to New York to marry her off into the Rothschild family so he can save his business. In this day and age, we might think that’s a bit old fashioned, but it’s the kind of situation that makes for an interesting romance novel.

Isn’t that the way life is for most of us anyway? Life presents us with twists and turns that surprise us and with which we must cope.

I’m happy to have connected with Nicholaa. She’s a writer, book reviewer, editor, and blogger. Her favorite authors are some of mine as well: Dan Brown, Ken Follett, Jude Deveraux, J.K. Rowling, and Julie Garwood. She recently went back to university to further her education in Information Technology, while continuing her writing career. She currently lives in The Philippines.

If you want to connect with her you can find her at any of the networks below.

Twitter: @NichSpencer
Facebook: Nicholaa Spencer
Website: nicholaaspencer.wordpress.com
Goodreads: Nicholaa Spencer

And if you want to read A Wanna Be Nun it’s available at Amazon, Smashwords and Barnes and Noble.

I encourage you to find small ways to give back to the people you love and/or work with not only this holiday season, but in the year to come. Gifts come in all kinds of packages, not necessarily with wrapping paper and bows attached. I hope your holidays are rich with the gifts of the heart.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2014