Yesterday, on our way home from a vacation in Hualien, Floyd and I drove through beautiful Taroko National Park. Known as the Grand Canyon of Taiwan, Taroko Gorge is one of the top vacation spots in Taiwan.
We had been there before when my parents came to visit a couple years ago (you can see pictures of that in my other blog post here), but we didn’t really get to go hiking at that time, because there had been an earthquake a few days before and almost all the trails were closed off due to landslides.
We didn’t have as much time on this trip, but we did park the car and walk around a little in an area that had been inaccessible the last time. It was nice to see some scenery we hadn’t seen before, even though it was mostly just from the side of the road.
This area is called Swallow Grotto because of the many swallows that make their homes in the holes in the rock. You can read an explanation of how the holes were formed in the sign below.
The day was overcast and the lighting wasn’t the best, so unfortunately a lot of my pictures didn’t turn out all that great. The gorge was a lot more impressive in real life, but hopefully you can at least get an idea of how beautiful Taroko is!
It would have been fun to actually hike along one of the trails, but we were short on time and we would have had to buy a permit to do so anyway. So we contented ourselves with walking along next to the road. There were sharp drop-offs just to our left, with sheer cliffs stretching down to the canyon floor hundreds of feet below.
Warning signs were everywhere. The national park service wasn’t leaving anything to chance! We didn’t have safety helmets, which we would have had to borrow in another part of the national park (most of the tourists we saw did), but fortunately there weren’t any rockfalls while we were in the area. 🙂
It’s hard to get a clear idea of the scale just by looking at a picture, but some of those boulders in the river bed are the size of buildings!
In many places, the road passed through tunnels, often narrowing down to one lane to squeeze through. This made our journey home much more exciting! Many of the tunnels were too long or curved to see the other end when we went in. We just had to pray there would be no cars coming from the other direction before we made it through!
Sometimes a roof had been built over the road (as you can see on the left) to protect it from rockfalls, which are extremely common in this earthquake-prone destination for typhoons.
The drive home to Taichung took about six hours, and much of the way we were surrounded by beautiful scenery like this. Some of those mountain curves did get a little scary when the thick fog rolled in (especially when oncoming vehicles didn’t always keep to their side of the road), but God answered our prayers for safety and we made it back without incident.
We even saw two monkeys, one crossing the road ahead of us in the gorge, one sitting by the side of the road further on, though unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to take any pictures of them.
The gorge-ous drive was a fitting end to a fun Hualien vacation!
Yesterday Floyd and I and our friends Mark and Michelle enjoyed a trip to a theme park not far from their home in
Hualien on Taiwan’s east coast.
The entrance fee was just 890 NT (less than $30). It was definitely worth it, even though
Farglory Ocean Park is the kind of place you can do thoroughly in about six hours.
It’s literally right by the ocean, and though it’s not a water park (i.e. no waterslides), the whole place has an ocean/watery theme.
It’s built on a hill, but there are escalators and elevators all over – not to mention the cable cars – so it’s easy to get around.
There were some great views from the cable car that we rode from the bottom to the top of the park (and back… several times…).
There were some fun-looking little rides in the children’s section of the park. Farglory is very family friendly!
I loved that there were no lines to speak of anywhere in the park! It was a Monday, and hardly anyone was there.
Floyd described the bumper boats as “a little cheesy”, but we had fun on them anyway.
There aren’t a lot of rides, but the ones they have are pretty good.
The log ride (above) was our favorite. The log boats even went down one of the drops backward!
Can you tell it rained part of the time? Fortunately, Farglory Ocean Park has roofs over a lot of sections, and many of the attractions are indoors (which also helped in the morning when it was warm and very sunny). It’s the kind of place where you can have fun no matter the weather.
Rides aren’t the only attraction at Farglory. They have a very nice little aquarium with an interesting variety of sea creatures.
Um… what kind of lobster did you say that was?
We enjoyed seeing some of the unusual creatures. I don’t know if blue lobsters are really that rare, but it was our first encounter with one.
Lionfish always look exciting.
The shows, along with the aquarium, really made the park experience. (The rides, though fun, were too few to be worth the entry fee on their own.) We enjoyed the sea lion show first.
It was fun to watch the sea lions play volleyball and basketball!
Tell me that cute sea lion (below) doesn’t remind you of a bird in this position!
After watching the sea lions, we attended a dolphin show.
Their jumping skills were quite impressive!
My favorite show involved Russian dancers with some amazing skills and gorgeous costumes. Unfortunately, photography wasn’t allowed in that one, but if you ever go to Farglory, make sure you don’t miss it!
Altogether we had a great day and made some fun memories. If you’re looking for interesting activities for the whole family in Hualien, I highly recommend Farglory Ocean Park!
On our way to visit friends in Hualien, Floyd and I stopped by a place I’ve been wanting to see for years:
Yehliu.
We saw most of the sights featured above on our little self-guided tour of the geopark peninsula.
The results of erosion in this area are fascinating!
In fact, the rocks at Yehliu are considered one of Taiwan’s “Eight Scenic Wonders”.
It was a Saturday, and the area was swarming with tourists.
Undeterred by the incessant drizzle, we strolled the wood-paved paths of the geopark along with everyone else.
We probably would have gotten some better pictures if the sky had been blue and I hadn’t had to be so careful to shield the camera under my umbrella, but it was beautiful there.
We had fun hiking around the little peninsula and taking pictures of the view.
I wonder if this was caused by erosion or an earthquake?
Many of the rocks had names. Here Floyd is posing by the Dragon Head.
There were lots of these sand dollars embedded in the rock underfoot. It wasn’t as slippery as it looked.
This rock is called “Pineapple Bun”. I think “Tortoise Shell” might be more fitting!
From the right angle, this rock is supposed to resemble the head of a queen. I always thought it was supposed to be Nefertiti, but I just looked it up and two different websites said Queen Elizabeth. Hmm. In any case, her Majesty was interesting to see, but I don’t think she quite lived up to all the hype. And she sure looks a lot smaller in real life than in the postcards! (As you can see, the weather did terrible things to my hair. I guess being a stone woman has its advantages.)
Afterwards, we looked around for somewhere to eat a late lunch. There was a whole row of little restaurants, but while we were pondering our options, a lady came out of one of them and practically dragged us in. “English menu, English menu.” That decided us!
Don’t like seafood? You’re outta luck here!
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/
Taiwan is truly a tea lover’s paradise. There are tea shops on practically every corner, and I would estimate there are between twenty and thirty of them within walking distance of our home. Each one is a little different: though they carry many of the same beverages, each tea shop mixes the ingredients according to their own recipes, and many offer specialties not easily to be found elsewhere.
There are several tea shops I frequent more than others, for various reasons. (Perhaps I’ll feature some of them in a future blog post.) But my current favorite is called Georg Peck.
http://id.openrice.com/
Besides various types of green, milk, and black tea, they offer fancy coffees and fruit smoothies. However, I have to confess that I’m really not a fan of some of the drinks I’ve tried there. The other day I had their pearl milk tea and didn’t much care for the flavor. Their ji cha (kumquat green tea) is okay, but I realized later that they just make it with citron tea (a marmalade-like goop) stirred into warm water (or maybe into green tea?) Not bad, but I can do the same thing at home cheaper. I also don’t recommend their sesame milk tea (pictured below). I thought the flavor sounded interesting, but it turns out it’s made from crushed black sesame seeds stirred into milk tea, and it settles to the bottom in a sludgy layer unless you constantly stir it (much like the ji cha in that regard, actually).
However, I do like Georg Peck’s smoothies, even though the smoothie category on the menu is rather scarily called “Mouthfeel Slush” (yes, there’s an English menu posted on the wall). The mango smoothie is my favorite so far. They’re very refreshing on a hot day, and much healthier than many smoothies you’d buy in the States, since they’re made with crushed ice and not ice cream. (Georg Peck does offer ice cream in some of their teas, float-style, though I have yet to try those. As we get closer to summer I’m sure I will.)
I also like their hazelnut milk tea and caramel milk tea (yum!). The passion fruit green tea is okay… nothing to write home about. I haven’t tried many of their coffee drinks yet, but the iced caramel macchiato is, in my opinion (and granted I’m not a coffee connoisseur) just as good as Starbucks’, at less than half the price. Ooh, and the warm ginger milk tea is to die for on a cold afternoon!
But you’re probably wondering what the big deal is. Aren’t there tea shops that carry more drinks I like and fewer that I dislike?
Maybe. But my favorite thing about Georg Peck isn’t the drinks.
A couple of months ago I started taking my laptop to Starbucks to work on my next book away from the distractions of home. But after I had used up my gift card, I decided I was too cheap to keep paying Starbucks prices, and it didn‘t seem right to sit there and write without buying anything. So I looked for other options and discovered a new tea shop in the neighborhood that had a couple of little tables and chairs out front (an uncommon sight around here; most tea shops are just designed for customers to walk up, order their teas at the counter, and leave).
I got someone to teach me how to say, “Is it okay if I sit at this table and work on my computer?” in Chinese, and successfully recited my line to the shop owner (who I later found out speaks excellent English). She assured me it was fine, and ever since then I’ve parked myself in front of Georg Peck for three or four hours straight at least once a week, spending quality time with my characters in Alasia and Malorn.
I’ve gotten to know the tea shop employees, who are always happy to see me. Most of them are at least conversational in English, and sometimes we chat a little. I found out that their names are Lydia (the boss; at the front in the picture below), Ingrid, Penny, Nina, and House. Yes, House.
One of the first times I was there, the weather turned cold, and I was wearing short sleeves. Lydia walked out to where I was shivering at my little table and handed me her own jacket! I gratefully put it on, and it helped me last another hour or two. When I was finally ready to leave, I tried to hand it back, but she told me to wear it home and just “bring it back next time”.
When I returned the jacket the next day, I brought her a tiny jar of my homemade jam to thank her. Later, as I was typing away and sipping the tea I had bought, Lydia came out to bring me a free donut! (I don’t think they actually sell donuts there, so I’m not sure where it came from.) A couple of times the ladies have given me a second tea for free after I’ve finished my first one. Last week I brought them a plate of homemade gluten-free chocolate cake (I was trying out a new recipe and figured they might like it since it contained beans, a very common ingredient in Taiwanese desserts). They reciprocated by giving me a bag of candy on my next visit! I guess it’s my turn to bring them something next time. Hmm, I’ll have to think what.
So, that’s why I like Georg Peck. Not for the drinks as much as for the people. It’s fun going somewhere where people know me and are glad to see me, and I love that we actually know each other’s names now. In spite of the distractions inherent in working on a public sidewalk, I find that I can still concentrate on my writing better there than at home.
Have you ever been to Georg Peck? I found out it’s an international chain, but for you Morrisonians, the closest one is just past the afternoon market, right next door to what I call the Black Spot (also known as Tea Shop) and catty corner from QQ’s. If you’ve been there, I’d love to hear in the comments what your favorite drink is. If you haven’t yet, you should try it!
This week I had the opportunity to read and review an eBook by author
Staci Stallings, who I recently had the pleasure of meeting on a Christian Writers’ forum on Facebook. Her book
Keys to Creating a Successful Book Marketing Strategy is a resource I was excited to get my hands on, and now I’m eager to start implementing her advice. Below her picture and brief biography is the review I wrote for the book on Amazon (I gave it four stars).
A stay-at-home mom with a husband, three kids and a writing addiction on the side, Staci Stallings has numerous titles for readers to choose from. Not content to stay in one genre and write it to death, Staci’s stories run the gamut from young adult to adult, from motivational and inspirational to full-out Christian and back again. Every title is a new adventure! That’s what keeps Staci writing and you reading.
My Review:
Keys to Creating a Successful Book Marketing Strategy is a great little book for writers, especially (but not only) new indie writers who are looking for ways to actually make money on the books they’ve worked so hard to publish. The chapters are short and easy to get through quickly, but they’re packed with useful information, much of which you could sit down and apply right away.
As I read, I kept highlighting details that I want to be able to refer back to and make sure I’m doing right. It wasn’t so much that the information consisted of totally new concepts (although some of it was new to me). Much of it is common sense, at least in retrospect. It was more just that everything Stallings said clicked into place in a way that made me understand what I probably should have known all along. I kept thinking, “Yes – that’s me! She’s describing my mistakes exactly!” 🙂 And thanks to her, now I know how to start fixing them.
Stallings not only explains what to do, she hands out many of the tools necessary to do it. For example, one useful feature in the book is a list of dozens of sites where authors can get their books reviewed online (which I can hardly wait to start looking into)! That alone would probably make it worth the purchase price.
“If content is king, then skills are queen,” Stallings says. I feel like the royal couple is now ready to at least begin their joint reign in my writing and marketing!
I didn’t give the book five stars because I did find a few typos, and now and then I thought things could have been phrased/presented a little more clearly (hey, I’m a teacher, I can’t help but notice these things!). Occasionally the author sounded uncertain about her own information, saying things like, “I believe there is a way to…” In the section about packaging your content, I would have liked a bit more info about specific sites and what to do with them. For example, it mentioned “alternative sites like Squidoo and Redditt” and “YouTube, etc.” but didn’t really say how writers can make use of them. I know this book is intended as a brief overview of book marketing and can’t talk about everything, but I would have liked just a little more.
Overall, Keys to Creating a Successful Book Marketing Strategy is well written and a very useful resource. I love that it not only gives information and advice but also directs readers to helpful sites and other resources. I whole-heartedly recommend this book as a worthwhile investment for writers.
Every year after my fifth grade class reads the novel Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson, I have them do a project in which they create their own imaginary worlds. They design a map and a flag, a national animal and plant, write up the history of their world, etc. It’s always fun to see the unique ideas they each come up with, but one of my favorite sections to grade is the one where they must create a list of laws to be followed (and consequences for breaking them). It gives some interesting insights into their priorities and how their minds work! Here are some of my favorite laws from this year’s projects. In a few cases I’ve edited them for grammar and clarity. In some cases, the odd phrasing was part of what made them amusing, so I’ve left it in!
All citizens need to own a soccer ball (if they cannot afford one, it will be provided). Consequence for breaking this law: must watch soccer on TV for 24 hours straight.
No tearing other people down. Consequence: write “no tearing other people down” 5,003 times.
No cars, airplanes, buses, subways, motorcycles, scooters, trucks, or any transportation, except for boats.
No speeding. (This was from a world inhabited by turtles.)
Do not steal other turtles’ shells or you will be branded with a “T” on your shell and sent to Turtle Prison.
You are not allowed to try to take over the world.
You are not allowed to try to kill someone or everyone on this planet.
You can’t eat machine. Consequence: you will be burned.
Exercise 30 minutes a day. Consequence: have to exercise 2 hours a day.
Eat 30% of meat, 30% of vegetable, 30% of water, and 20% of rice each day, stay healthy. Consequence: will eat and drink 2 times more each day. (In my defense as this student’s teacher, we don’t actually learn percentages in fifth grade!)
Adults must go to work 4 hours a day. Consequence: must go to work 60 hours a day (with breaks for only 5 minutes).
Freedom of speech. Consequence: will be stoned to death.
All people must obey (student’s name); if not they will be sent to execution with no trial.
Never eat vegetable. Consequence: jail for 14 hours.
Read a book every day. Consequence: jail for 12 hours.
Eat 3 pounds of sugar every day. Consequence: pay $800.
Do not do inappropriate stuff. Consequence: will be put behind bars.
No loud music.
Don’t pee on statues.
Do not murder extincted animal because they are rare and special.
Summer vacation should be a vacation. No summer schools! Parents will get punished.
No getting married until you’re at least 26. Consequence: will be divorced by government.
Men cook.
If you kill a person without a reason, you will be thrown down a mountain that is 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles long.
If you steal anything, you will be thrown into the boiling volcano.
I realized I never got around to blogging about this project last year, so I’ll go ahead and include some laws from my previous class as well:
No one should have more than 8 weapons.
You can’t park your pebirimal (flying creature) anywhere.
No citizen is allowed to be a doctor without permission. If you do, you’d have to go back to college to study for the doctor degree.
No one is allowed to use electricity for bad things; if you do, you might die of electricity shock.
No adultery or else you’ll get thrown into prison for life and get executed.
No usury allowed. If you build one you will have to go to jail for 5 months to 1 year and have to pay $8,000 to $12,000.
No collecting taxes.
Don’t spit gum on the ground, or you will have to go through all the trash cans at the park and take out people’s chewed gum.
Every man at the age of 16 must be in the army or else they will get sentenced to death.
Everyone has to go to school by the age of 5 or they will have to work as an apprentice till they are 15 years old.
No swearing, or you will be put in an Anger Management Center for two months not leaving that place.
No being unkind. If you be unkind for no reason at all, you will not be able to do anything fun inside and outside your house.
Kids are not allowed to go outside when they are 0-7 years old because they are too young to go out and play.
You are not allowed to marry until you are 23. If you marry younger than 23 you will have to give your husband or your wife away from you and marry another person when you get to 23.
You cannot kidnap anyone unless it is the government doing so with a warrant.
You can’t call a pickle a pickle if it does not bounce, or you will have 1 hour of community service.
Bears cannot be con artists.
Do not build over 2 factories in one family or per person, because the air would get polluted.
Never spy on your own country. Whoever breaks this law will be execute it.
Do not pick flowers; they are dangerously poisonous unless self-bred.
Trust no one; no one is trustworthy.
Do not make loud noises, or else the animals will come and eat you.
Every boy must go out of the village and live in the wilderness for twenty moons after the boy’s fourteenth birthday, so that he can be called a grown man. If broken, that boy will not have another chance till he is eighteen.
Do not cause trouble among the people. Punishment: 5 year imprisonment or death.
Do not steal, do not lie, do not murder. Penalty: no breakfast for the next day.
Do not harm lions. Consequence: you’ll be hurt by lions.
You must marry before 26 years old. Consequence: you will go to jail until you get somebody to marry you.
Students must go to the school after 13 years old; they can have free time till 13. Consequence: parents will have to go to school if they let their children go to school before 13 years old.
Everyone must eat candy 2 times a week. If you don’t, you will be whipped.
You are not allowed to harm the national animals and plants. If you do, you will work with animals for 1 year.
Want to read more unusual laws? Click on the links below to read my posts about students’ imaginary world projects from other years:
2016
2015
2014
2011
2009
2008
2007
Soni is a friend from India who I “met” (online) through my mom. A fellow writer, she has recently published a children’s book featuring beautiful Indian-style art to go with each phrase of the Lord’s prayer (you can take a look at her book and buy it here if you like). Soni and I arranged to do guest posts on each other’s blogs; hers is below, and you can read mine on her blog at http://jaajaabor.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/guest-post-annie-douglas-lima//. Make sure you read or scroll all the way to the bottom, because both of us are holding giveaways! You can win an actual, physical copy of a piece of Soni’s art or a copy of my eBook In the Enemy’s Service!
-Annie
Ever since I started my blog, I have found virtual community and met people that would not have been possible otherwise – I find it amazing. Annie’s mother Cathy introduced us when I wrote to tell her about my self-published children’s book. It is called “Teach us to pray” is an illustrated book for young kids to teach them about the Lord’s Prayer. My illustrative style has been influenced by many folk arts of Indiaand to know how you can win a print please stay with me till the end of the post.
I have often likened immigration from the east to west to getting married and moving from your family to your husband’s family. As a woman that analogy makes sense to me, it may not make as much sense to you so let me explain.
Typically in India, when a woman gets married, she moves into a joint family with her in-laws and she is supposed to adhere and adjust to existing unwritten rules of the household. Even in nuclear families, the relationship with the mother-in-law is significant and often is subject to comparison with the mother. For all purposes she may have taken on her new identity but there is a part of her heart that belongs with her own parents and family. Same is the case with coming to live in a new country.
When I made my big move from Indiato Canada, I did not know what to expect. I had to go through a learning process which included new mannerisms, new cultural references etc.
No matter how much you read about a country in books or travel as a tourist, you get the real authentic flavour of a place only when you have lived there for an extended period of time. Over the course of time I have discovered newer things about Canadaand my expectations have become more grounded in reality. For example the winter in Canada- It was during my second winter in Canada that I really begun to understand the passion behind skiing or ice hockey or for that matter the craziness in summer to soak it all in. After five years in Canada, I can say that I feel as much Canadian as I feel Indian.
I moved to Canadain the year that the hugely successful movie “Slum dog Millionaire” was released. So naturally, people were interested in finding out more about India and the movie became an ice-breaker in many instances. Even till date when I meet new people, Indiabecomes an instant topic of conversation.
India is a secular country with 28 states and 7 union-territories, and 14 official languages. Indiais such a big country that it is not possible to summarize it in a 5-minute social talk or even in a single blog post but I am glad to engage in a conversation. For today I thought I would take a few minutes to talk about the most common topics I have been asked about India.
Fooooood!
Food is the most talked about subject especially when you are gathering at events. I have often found extreme reactions to Indian food- they either love it or stay away from it, there is no middle ground. It is true that our curries are often too spicy, our deserts too sweet and our portions too big. It is also true that it what is considered as Indian cuisine is not one style of cooking at all , it is a culmination of different regional cuisines and somehow the most popular ones got associated with Indian food. The most common curries you would find in any Indian restaurant in North America are spiced-down versions to the mughlai and Punjabi style of cooking in addition to some south-Indian favourites like Dosas, idlis, sambar etc. The actual Indian cooking is much diverse than that. Also what is served in restaurants is a feast fit for a big occasion but it is not how we normally eat at home. To get an authentic taste of Indian cooking, I always recommend eating at home with friends.
When asked for restaurant recommendations, I have to often apologise because when we go out to eat, we go out to try some new cuisines other than what I can make at home!
Yoga
This style of physical and mental discipline may have originated in India but I will be honest; I never practised it except in school where it was a part of our physical education training. I would posit that yoga was almost declining from the daily life in India – limited only to spiritual retreats and ashrams (thanks to the dedicated ones who continued on with it )- before it became popular in the west. Yoga has become such a huge thing in the west- much different from the yoga of my younger days.
Thanks to my friends who are into yoga, I now know about a few yoga retreats in North- India and some ayurvedic healing resorts in south of India- Something I would never have found out on my own (ironic , I know !).
Bollywood
Mainly referring to the Hindi film industry, Bollywood movies are characterised by their song and dance routines, a larger than life canvas and melodramatic performances. Hindi movies are flag bearers of traditions and language in one way. As an immigrant, watching Hindi movies is akin to creating a small oasis of Indiaaround me. I have met many second generation Canadian-Indian who feel connected to Indiaby the way of the movies.
Ever since dance shows like ‘so you think you can dance’ included Bollywood as a dance style in their roster Hindi movie songs have become better known internationally. Credit is also due to Hollywoodand international movie makers for shining the spotlight on India. As I mentioned earlier, in 2008 it was the movie “slum dog Millionaire” and in 2012 it was “life of Pi” that became a starting point of lot of conversations.
Clothes
Indian clothing and fabrics have recently become fashionable. Thanks again to Hindi Movies and many Indian actors making appearances on red-carpets all over the world. Women’s wear like saris and kurtis are well known and have been worn by the likes of Oprah and Madonna. Some say there are as many ways of wearing a sari as there are regions in India.
Whenever I turn-up in church or a social gathering in an Indian ensemble, I am always complimented about the bright colours and rich embroideries or weaves. Even some of our simple designs are quite elaborate and you have to see some heavily embroidered and richly textured dresses to believe how much can be done on a piece of fabric. If you are interested please look up Banarasi, Kantha, kanjeevaram weaves on the net. Add to that all sorts of jewellery styles like kundan, temple jewellery from south etc. and you would never be short of things to talk about.
Arranged Marriages/Traditions
Oh this is a big one! Every time someone asks me how I met my husband; they are almost dumbfounded that I met him only once before marriage or that our marriage was approved and blessed by our parents and pastors of both our churches. Wedding are a family affair in Indiaand are big on traditions. From finding a suitable match to making all the arrangements, the family is involved in all the aspects. The most popular version seen on the media is the north Indian Hindu marriage but there are lot of regional variations in traditions with in the Hindu belief system and there are local traditions associated with different religious groups as well. It is no wonder then that an immigrant from Indiais naturally inclined to look for local traditions and culture of the new place.
I always find it interesting to hear from people what they know or like to know about my culture and where I am from. It makes me feel welcomed and accepted. When people talk to me about life in Canada they make me feel like a part of this country. I am excited to be a part of this inter-cultural dialogue that is constantly shaping and diversifying the social environment in Canada.
Leave a comment to get a chance to win a 5X7 print of the original madhubani- inspired artwork shown below.
-Soni
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Having gone through the process of turning a Word document into something that will look good on the screen of a Kindle (and a growing number of other devices) several times now, I know how frustrating it can be. A big part of the problem is that, although there’s a lot of information about the process out there, much of it is outdated, disjointed, contradictory, overly technical, incomplete, or just plain confusing.
In my quest to publish my young adult novels and my students’ poetry anthologies (click on the cover pictures in the right sidebar to see the books in question), I struggled to forge a path through all the different sets of instructions I found online. In the end, I decided to take what I had learned the hard way and put together a step-by-step list, including what I consider the clearest and most useful advice from others on how to do each step. I hope this list will be helpful to others out there!
1.) Save your manuscript as a Microsoft Word document. (You can use other word processing programs, but I’m not familiar with how the “Kindlizing” process works with them. Parts of these instructions are specific to Word.)
2.) Put whatever “front matter” you want at the beginning of your document before chapter 1. This usually includes a title page, copyright information, dedication, acknowledgments, and the table of contents (which you’ll learn how to make in step 4). Each of those should be on a separate page. Check the books on your shelf at home to see the order in which other authors have placed those items. Here are some great suggestions about front matter.
Click here for suggestions on what to put on the copyright page.
3.) Format your document properly. Tabs and other features of a normal Word document often cause strange formatting errors with Kindle; these have to be removed. Jill Williamson has a useful series of short videos that show exactly how to do this:
Note: Jill recommends saving your document as a webpage, filtered, right at the beginning. I recommend doing that only after you’ve completely finished formatting your Word document, because I think things are easier to work with in the Word format. You really don’t need to have a webpage, filtered, until it tells you to create one in step 9.
Note #2: If you want to use any special formatting such as pressing the “enter” key more than once in a row (I know, that doesn’t sound very special, but trust me), then you will need to do a whole different set of formatting in addition to what’s described above. See instructions at the bottom of this post.*
4.) If you want to insert images (pictures, graphs, etc.), follow the instructions here. (Scroll down to the long comment by Man2010 where he has included detailed instructions and screen shots.) Note that images need to be jpegs, smaller than 500 pixels wide and 700 high.
5.) Create a table of contents. Don’t forget to include your copyright information, dedication, etc. as well as the titles of each chapter. (Even if your chapters don’t have titles, it’s helpful for Kindle readers to be able to skip easily from chapter to chapter, and it makes your ebook look more professional, so you should still make a table of contents with the chapter numbers.) Put it near the beginning of your document on a page of its own. There are several ways to make a table of contents, but what I think is the simplest (and, as far as I know, the only method if you have more than 9 chapters), is explained here.
Another Important Tip: When you place your bookmark before the title of each chapter, don’t place it immediately in front of the first word. Place it on a separate line above the chapter title. Otherwise, even if you have the title centered on your Word document, it may end up left-justified on a Kindle screen.
6.) Create your book cover in a separate document. I recommend paying someone a flat fee to do the cover art for you, unless you’re artistic enough to do it well yourself. (I approached a talented high school artist at the school where I teach and offered to pay him a reasonable sum to come up with a cover for me. I was quite pleased with the results.) Here’s an article listing useful resources if you’d like to create your own; it also has a list of cover artists you can hire.
7.) Go to https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin and sign in or create an account. Some people recommend keeping this separate from your regular Amazon account if you already have one. You may also want to create a new email address to use just for issues relating to publishing your book; for example, [email protected]. While you’re at it, some recommend opening a new bank account just for this, such as one that offers free checking with a low minimum balance. That way it will be easy to keep track of your earnings, and if you ever decide to pay for advertising or other book-related expenses, you can do it all from the same place.
8.) Once you’ve created/logged into your KDP account, click on “Add a new title”. Then fill out the info in the “Kindle eBook Details” tab. “Description” means a professionally-written back-cover blurb (not just a casual explanation of what the book is about). You should take the time to write a really good one, as this will have a big impact on whether potential customers choose to buy your book. I’ve compiled some useful advice about blurb-writing here on my blog.For the “Publishing Rights” part, if this is a book you’ve written, you hold the rights.Before you choose any “Keywords”, I recommend first reading this article about how to pick good ones.Be as specific as you can about your book’s “Categories”. The more specific you are, the easier it will be for potential customers to find it. If your book is for children or youth, I recommend filling in the optional age and grade range info – again, it will make it easier for people to find what they’re looking for. This article talks about choosing good categories for Amazon.Before you decide if you’ll release your book now or later (under “Preorder”), you may want to consider how you plan to market your new release. It won’t sell itself, unfortunately! For example, you may want to connect with other authors and readers on social media. Facebook author groups can be a great place to get tips from others about what promotional strategies have worked for them, and even in arranging a blog tour to advertise your new book. Setting up a book for preorder can be helpful in this case, since Amazon will provide you with a preorder link that you can use in any posts you create.Go on to the “Kindle eBook Content” tab.When you get to “Digital Rights Management”, experts recommend not enabling it. Yes, there’s a greater chance that people may obtain your book illegally, but DRM also hinders readers who have purchased it from reading it on multiple devices, and thus may discourage them from buying it in the first place. Most writers agree that it’s worth it not to enable DRM. (This article explains more about that.)
9.) If your manuscript is all ready, follow the instructions here to upload your book (if you’re using a PC). Scroll down to Man2010’s comment, where he says, “TESTING YOUR EBOOK”. I recommend also previewing the book on your Kindle for PC, as well as on actual Kindles of the different types, along with any other devices you have or can borrow that have the Kindle app. (The formatting may not always look exactly the way it does on KDP’s previewer, and you want to know ahead of time what customers will actually see and if anything looks wrong.)If you’re using a Mac, click here for the instructions on how to upload your document to the KDP site. You just need to read the first part that says, “Creating a Zip File for Images and an HTML Book File”. However, it says to save your Word document as a webpage, filtered. Macs don’t actually offer that option, so just save it as a webpage.In the “ISBN” section, bear in mind that you don’t need one to publish a Kindle book. This article might help you decide if you want to buy one.When you have uploaded your cover and completed everything else on that page, go to the “Kindle eBook Pricing” tab.Choose whether to enroll your book in KDP Select. If you choose to do this, you are promising that for the next 90 days, you will not make your book available in digital format anywhere online except Amazon. This article lays out some pros and cons of “going exclusive
” with Amazon.In the “Territories” section, you automatically hold worldwide rights to your book unless you’ve ever specifically sold or given those rights away. For “Royalty and Pricing”, here’s an article with some thoughts about pricing your ebook.In “Matchbook”, your book is only eligible for Kindle MatchBook if you also have it for sale in paperback format. You can choose to make the ebook available for a discount (or even for free) to those who have bought the paperback from Amazon.
10.) If anything in the above process doesn’t work right for you, or if your formatting seems to be messed up in any way, I recommend visiting the KDP support forum, where people have posted hundreds of different questions and answers. (“Ask the Community” is the most useful place to look.) Chances are, someone else will have had the exact same problem, and others experienced with publishing to Kindle have probably already replied with suggestions that will help you too. If you can’t find the right solution to your problem, just login or register, choose one of the topics under “forum/category”, and then “post new thread” (at the top), where it will let you type in a question of your own. I suggest you select the option to have it email you when anyone replies. People tend to be pretty quick about answering on there.
11.) When you’re done with everything else, click on “publish your kindle ebook” at the bottom. The information and your manuscript will all be sent to Amazon, and your book should appear for sale to the general public on their website within 12 hours.
12.) Make sure you also click on “(your name)’s account” at the top right of the screen and check that you have entered the right bank account info and all the rest.
13.) Go celebrate! After all that, you’ve earned it!
*Instructions for Special Formatting:
If you press “enter” twice in a row (like to show that time has elapsed in your story or to leave a blank line between verses of a poem or after a title), the text might look the way you want on a Kindle, but not necessarily on the Kindle application for other devices that some of your potential readers may use. Don’t ask me why the formatting works differently, but it does! Here’s how to make it look good across the board:
1.) Highlight one line or section of your document you want to change to a new format, such as a chapter title. Then click to open the “styles” menu at the top of your screen in Microsoft Word. It will show you which one of a list of styles your highlighted text currently uses.
2.) Click on the little arrow just to the right of the name of that style, and then click “modify”. A window will open up to allow you to modify the style however you like.
3.) Give your new style a name, such as “Chapter Title”. Then select the features you want it to have; for example you may want it centered and bold. Click on the “format” button at the bottom left, and then click on “paragraph”. This will open another window where you can adjust the spacing. If you want a little space after the title of a chapter before the first paragraph starts, change the “spacing after” to 24 pt. (Assuming you’ve been using size 12 font, this is the equivalent of leaving one blank line after the title. If you’d like it to have a little more or less space than that, try a larger or smaller number until you’re satisfied with how it looks.)
4.) Click “ok” and then “ok” again. The chapter title that you highlighted in your document should now change to the way you want it. Go to the next chapter title, open the “styles” menu, and you should see the name of the new style you created. This time, all you have to do is click on it, and the new chapter title will change to the format you created. Fix the rest of your chapter titles in the same way.
5.) You can create as many new styles as you want in this way. Anywhere that you want to press “enter” more than once or use special formatting like centering, underlining, font size changes, etc., you should use a style. Unfortunately, it still may or may not look exactly the way you want on Kindle for PC, but your styles should transfer over beautifully to any other device.
Many thanks to those whose websites, blogs, and good advice I borrowed from to create this list! I hope their input is as helpful to others as it has been to me.
Want to publish your book in paperback as well? Click here to read my blog post on preparing your manuscript for paperback publication through KDP Print.
If you discover any broken links, outdated information, etc. in the above list, I’d appreciate your letting me know so I can keep this information as current and useful as possible. Thanks!
Now that a new year has begun, I’ve decided to recap some my favorite memories of 2012. Here goes:
April 14
I was asked to be a guest speaker for an English class at Tunghai University here in Taichung. They had been reading my book, Prince of Alasia, so I came as a visiting author. It was really fun to interact with the students and watch the readers’ theaters they had prepared based on some of the chapters. I felt like a celebrity autographing their books at the end!
May 20
My second book, In the Enemy’s Service (sequel to Prince of Alasia), was finally published in Kindle format, and later in paperback. I love the cover art by Jack Lin.
June 12-15
Floyd and I took a brief vacation to Penghu, an archipelago just off the coast of Taiwan. Our boarders Natasha and Isabel (who had lived with us for the last year) and their parents own a bed and breakfast there, and we were able to stay with them and reconnect with “our” girls. They showed us around and we had a great time together!
June 28-29
My grandparents, Frank and Carolyn Jordan, brought the extended family to Solvang for a night to celebrate their 60th anniversary. Since Floyd and I were spending the summer in California, we were able to be there too. We watched the musical Little Women, enjoyed some tasty meals together, and had fun walking around and seeing the sights.
September 14
Floyd and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. In honor of our first decade together, we decided to have some professional “couple pictures” taken. (Missy Sparrow did a great job – check out her photography at http://melissasparrowphotography.blogspot.tw/.)
November 21-25
I had the opportunity to attend a teachers’ conference in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where I presented a workshop about self-publishing. I really enjoyed the experience and hope to do it again sometime. After the conference, I had time for a brief tour involving such unforgettable memories as riding an elephant and petting tigers!
Watch a short video of my tiger encounter
December 14-30
With just a couple of days’ notice, my sister Julie was able to fly to Taiwan for a visit! Adding to our full house, my brother Jimmy, sister-in-law Erin, and adorable 14-month-old niece Sienna (who previously we’d only met over Skype) arrived a few days later. (Their visit had been in the works for months, so Julie was the only surprise.) Floyd and I had a blast celebrating Christmas with them and showing them a little of our life in Taiwan.
Thank you, Lord, for so many blessings in 2012! I can’t wait to see what 2013 will hold!
I had some free time on my last afternoon in Thailand, so I signed up for a half-day tour package that gave me some lifelong memories.
First our tour group went to Mae Sa Elephant Camp, a little ways outside of Chiang Mai.
There we got to watch elephants doing interesting activities. Click on the links below to watch some short videos I took of the elephants:
elephant throwing darts
elephant playing basketball
Above you can see the pictures that were painted that day – yes, I can vouch for the fact that this artwork really was created entirely by elephants!
Also at Mae Sa, I enjoyed my first-ever elephant ride (no, I never did that in Kenya!).
As much as I enjoyed my experience with the elephants, the next stop on the tour was even better. Click on the link to read my blog post about Tiger Kingdom! Or, skip ahead to the third stop on the tour and read about the beautiful Orchid Nursery. Did you miss my first blog post with glimpses of Chiang Mai? Take a look at A Trip to Thailand.
