Guess what?

I’m moving–sort of. It appears–at the moment–that we are buying a new house. I’m a little wishy-washy in the telling, because the whole real estate thing is fraught with peril and missteps, like an Indian Jones movie. But the plan, with a little divine intervention, is to move. The whole family is very excited. We giggle a lot when the five of us are together. It’s a little bit like waiting for Christmas. Lots of fun anticipation.

We are staying local–so all you people who are subjected to me on a daily basis–don’t get too excited and start cheering. You’re still stuck with me. Ha! In fact, I may be even closer to you than I was before. You might want to invest in new shades, a fence or maybe even a guard dog. Or we can hang out–whatever. Just so you know, I probably wouldn’t even have announced this yet, but part of this process involves selling my own house. So, it’s going to be pretty obvious, awfully soon. And honestly, you might have been a little freaked out, seeing me do so much cleaning and organizing. Probably figured the zombies had eaten my brain or something LOL! But YAY! No zombies. I’m just making my house neater and cleaner for someone else, than I ever got around to doing for myself. I’ve always subscribed to the idea that I’ll do X,Y and Z first and get around to that other stuff later. (For those of you not sure, this is called procrastination.)  But procrastination isn’t always bad, because no one ever dies and says, “Wish I’d staged my house better instead of writing a novel.” Yeah–that never happens–but staging and organizing is a necessary evil for me to get to the next house I will neglect for my writing. And because of that, like a diligent watcher of HGTV, I’m working hard to share all the best loved parts of my home in their very best light.

In order to do this, I have rented a remote storage unit. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. I can store stuff where I don’t need to look at it and give the appearance of complete (almost complete) organization without having to give away anything I haven’t used in 10 years that I will need in no less than seven days from the time I would have disposed of it. (Sorry–that just felt like it had to be a breath-sucking, run-on sentence.) And just to bring a little bit of writing into this post, this storage thing sounds just like cutting and pasting during revision. It’s all still there!!!!  (Like how I did that?)

And, dear hubby, if you’re reading this post like you claim you do–I will get rid of lots of stuff. I really will. *raises hand but crosses fingers*  I promise. But this process is so stressful for an artsy, distractible, adorable procrastinator like me. So the first thing to go may be the clutter makers, I mean the kids. Just kidding. Unless the 10yo doesn’t get a grip on his fish tank–then both of them go in the storage unit with Cheerios and fish food.

So how am I doing so far? I don’t have a before pic, but this room may have also had some broken wicker furniture, snow shovels, muddy soccer gear, 462 pairs of shoes, a christmas tree stand, some broken umbrellas, an arsenal of Nerf guns, two folding tables, snow boots, cob webs and occasionally two cats sitting in the sun. And that was on a good day.

Now I have a great space to sit and write and help me to procrastinate more LOL! What would you put in your remote storage unit? No judgement! Spill the beans.

Tags: buying home, HGTV, Kimberly Sabatini, KimSabatini, moving.remote storage unit, selling home, staging home

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I’ve been busy working on the tail end of my OPPOSITE OF GRAVITY revisions all day, so I thought I’d do a little Wordless Wednesday–but with some words–because that’s how I roll. LOL! Thought you might be interested in seeing the original picture where the TOUCHING THE SURFACE cover started. I found this on iStock Photo, looking for a photo to use as a cover holder for Goodreads and in an unusual turn of events, it also inspired the creatives at Simon Pulse. Any thoughts?

Tags: Kimberly Sabatini, KimSabatini, The Opposite of Gravity, Touching the Surface

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Today I’d like to give you a sneak peak into the not-so-glamourous side of a soon to be published, debut author. I know that some days it seems like it’s all “cover reveals” and “fabulous blurbs” but there are tons of little things in the publishing world that are the equivalent of doing those endless loads of laundry or scrubbing the toilet. Right now I’m pretty obsessed with sending postcards out to as many Independent Booksellers as I possibly can. It is lots of fun seeing all the cool names for the Indie Bookstores. It makes me want to go visit each and every one of them, but that’s impossible so the best I can do is reach out to them and hope that they like TOUCHING THE SURFACE and that they can see my enthusiasm for trying to help this book be a success.

The first thing you need to do when sending out postcards…is to get postcards. I had mine made by the very talented Jeff Fielder. After that it’s time to compile the list of bookstores you want to contact. I was very fortunate to win a pre-compiled list from Saundra Mitchell in a charity auction. I thank my lucky stars EVERY NIGHT! Even with everything already researched, it took me over two hours just to attach the pre-printed labels. *head thunk* We are talking about 760 bookstores here. *head thunk again*

Once your labels are on, you need to HANDWRITE a message on EACH postcard. Let the hand cramps commence. The most I’ve been able to do in one sitting is around the fifty card mark. But I also think it’s worth it. I want those booksellers to know how hard I’m willing to work and how important personal connections are to me. Every time I get a little free time I jot off a couple cards or if I’m lucky, sometimes I  have an hour or two where I go for it and write as many as I can. I’ve sent out over three hundred cards so far YAY!!!!

But unfortunately, I’ve got this many left to go…

Yeah…that’s like 400+ postcards left to go. And don’t forget that some labels get cut off accidentally so I have those in a pile to fix when I’m done. And the hardest part of all…when they come back RETURN TO SENDER. Those go in another pile to see if I can find the bookstore on line and resend. So far out of the 300+ I’ve sent–I’ve gotten back 28 but I expect a few more soon because I just recently sent out my last batch.

And don’t forget the stamps. Postcard stamps are cheaper than regular stamps but every 100 stamps costs $32.

And of course–the truly hard part is not really knowing if the all the effort is worth it. I’m hoping it is, but for all I know, all my hard work could end up being a coaster under someone’s drink. But then again…they’re book lovers!!!! Besides, I’ve got to believe that a purple Sharpie pen is a magic wand in disguise.

What do you think is the most un-glamourous side of being a writer? Any fabulous tips to share about the not-so-glamourous tasks a writer must tackle? Do you like doing something that you think most people hate? Any questions on postcards or preparing for a book launch? I’ll do my best to answer them.

But for now, off to write more postcards…

Tags: Jeff Allen Fielder, Kimberly Sabatini, KimSabatini, Marketing, Postcards, Simon and Schuster, Simon Pulse, Touching the Surface

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