On Conversations: #author NJS Kaye

Please join me in welcoming author, NJS Kaye aka Nicola Simpson Khullar to Conversations today! Nicola is here to talk about "Writing and Publishing a Book in 90 Days". She also has a new release, Items May Have Shifted: How to Travel With Your Baby or Toddler. So be sure and check out the cover and blurb below! PLUS, she's offering a copy of her new book (Kindle or paperback version, winner's choice) to one lucky commenter! And don't forget to check out her bio too and get to know Nicola.

Lisa ~
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ITEMS MAY HAVE SHIFTED:
How to Travel With Your Baby or Toddler
by NJS Kaye

Do you know why babies really cry on planes?


Or what sends the most traveling tots to the hospital?

Do you know how to get twins to sleep in a tiny hotel room?

Believe it or not, infants used to be stowed in the overhead compartment on airplanes. There is a better way, and it involves duct tape.

It is easy to travel with babies, toddlers, even twins, without losing your mind or your moxie! Combining tested guerrilla tactics with scholarly research, Items May Have Shifted: How to Travel With Your Baby or Toddler offers guidance on everything from altitude sickness to zoological hazards for the under 5 set.

This book will help you:

 
• Develop goodwill on an airplane with a crying baby
• Master the B STUPID packing list
• Get a picky toddler to eat mystery food
• Unpack your emotional baggage
• Childproof a hotel room with no equipment
• Decide when to whine and when to wine

Chapters include: Packing and Hacking, Flying, Accommodation, Eating on the Go, Health and Safety, and more. Items May Have Shifted: How to Travel With Your Baby or Toddler also offers links to additional resources for readers.

How is this book different from other “travel with baby” guides?


• MacGyver approach to common sense (you would be surprised what you can do with a shoelace, duct tape, pipe cleaners, and a sock)
• Doing the maximum with the minimum supplies
• Supported by scholarly research, including medical journals

So don't rip up your passport! Tear around the world instead!

"Full of useful tactics to employ in nearly every situation a family may encounter while traveling. Kaye's sharp sense of humor makes the material both educational and entertaining. The guide stands out for its brevity and its thoroughness, as Kaye covers nearly every conceivable topic, from efficient packing to health and safety in foreign lands. Following her advice will result in a more comfortable travel experience for parents, children, and fellow travelers alike." ~Self-Publishing Review



Writing and Publishing a Book in 90 Days

I'm not new to writing, but I'm new to this self-publishing game. Really new. A few people have asked me how Items May Have Shifted: How To Travel With Your Baby And Toddler came about, so I sat down and recalled the process onto the keyboard.

If you are interested in the kamikaze approach to writing and publishing, here is the timeline for this book.
 

2012: Make a few half-assed blog postings on Tumblr. Get some positive feedback and people suggest I put it into a book. Then twin boys hit Terrible Twos, and project gets abandoned (what a shocker).

MARCH 2015: Decide to pick it up again now that children are sentient beings with rational brains (sort of). Work on a proposal and get in touch with my agent from long days ago. Agent retiring, new agent search fruitless. Bah.

JANUARY 2016: Get together with a close friend who is a fabulous author in multiple genres and have good conversation about writing and the new world of self/indie publishing. It occurs to me that self-publishing might actually be the best venue for this project, and I decide to give it a shot.

FEBRUARY 2016: Join self-publish Yahoo group and start doing research. Get a handful of ebooks on self-publishing and start Googling away, and start actually researching and writing the book.

MARCH 2016: Get busy. In addition to researching and writing, I realize that my ideal launch date is in less than three months. Holycrap.

•   Create email accounts for the book and my penname
•   Build website for the book (and purchase additional domain extensions)
•   Build a website for my penname
•   Take advantage of a great deal on Vellum to help me with formatting
•   Join Twitter (something I said I would never do) and set up Facebook pages
•   Research ebook design, branding, positioning, launch and promo strategies, try to get my head
around all the moving parts!

APRIL 2016: Still researching and writing the book! Travel days: 11!

•   Apply for ISBN numbers.
•   Open accounts with vendors.
•   Research metrics and create spreadsheet of the top 100 bloggers and meta sites in the book’s target categories.
•   E-mail bloggers asking if they’d be interested in giving me their honest opinion on the book,and offering myself for guest blogs, Q&As, or whatever might provide benefit to their audiences.
•   Add to spreadsheet:book review sites, other targeted media and contact some. Keeping records of when emails are sent and replies received.
•   Build list of resources and links to add to book’s website.
•   Already doing impromptu promo! Talk to airline personnel I know about chatting up the book to passengers, talk to passengers on various flights I’m on, talk to people at baby stores who are looking for travel gear, etc. Hand out book’s website address like Halloween candy in a rich neighborhood.

•   Start working on laptop in car while boys are in junior kindergarten.
•   Inspired by all this activity, decide to dust off old romance manuscripts and plan out editing and publication schedule for them and new short stories (which I’m calling“quickies”).
◦   Decide on romance pen name, get email address
◦   Build romance pen name website
◦   Start outlining and writing some shorts, drafting cover ideas and branding!

MAY 2016: Yep, still writing! Boys start little league, and I consider taking one of their bats to my head. Travel days: 15!

•   So inspired! Plan more non-fiction books and start putting together schedule for next year of juggling writing, production, and promotion of long and short non-fiction books,and long and short romances.

•   Create master spreadsheet of writing and self-publishing activity, scheduling, sales(hopefully!), budgets.
•   Create a spreadsheet detailing the "costs" so far of self-publishing. So far the most significant cost is to my family. Boo.
•   Explore Trello and KindleSpy
•   Play with Vellum to upload and tweak drafts of travel book and a romance novel (looks purty)
•   Discover Canva! Create cover for first full-length romance release, then decide to use Canva to redo travel book cover. Also make sell sheet and promo posters.
•   Head shot finally done (totally procrastinated on that one). My assistant forces me to wear useless fake eyelashes. Most of my shots are of me smirking in preparation for killing her later.
•   Seriously? I want to soft launch in a few weeks? I’m not FINISHED WRITING IT YET! Holy crap.Frustrated that writing is getting in the way of all this business planning.
•   Tweak websites,attempt to ramp up social media (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest).
•   Obsessively analyze all comparable titles, their categories, release dates, reviews, and sales.Realize that I must be crazy for trying to do this since there’s already stuff out there, but convince myself that my book is different—at least that’s what my press release and cover copy says.

•   DH still not entirely sure WTF I’m doing all the time. Kids acting up because my writing books about parenting is getting in the way of actually parenting.
•   Mothertrucker, I should really finish WRITING THE BOOK!
•   Agh. More family crisis travel less than a week before Europe.
•   Send ARCs to interested reviewers for hopefully positive editorial reviews.
•   Prepare material for Amazon author page. I sound way cooler than I really am.
•   Create promotional flyers/posters and sell sheets for buyers and distributors (will look for pigs in the sky in August).
•   Design and create cover for print on demand paperback, format interior for Createspace until my eyes are crossed.
•   Damn it, why did I do edits in Vellum? Now I have to figure out what to change in Word as well and I can’t back-convert it! Argh!
•   May 23-June 2: In Europe. Promised kids I would not work until after they are in bed. Most nights I am asleep before they are. While away, wrangle with Createspace and do stealth promo by leaving dozens of promotional business cards for the book in family/baby changing rooms in major international airports.

JUNE 2016: No rest for the wicked. Travel days: 8.




NJS Kaye is a smart ass. And she’s okay with that. A former professor and journalist, she has published groundbreaking research on such diverse topics as the porn business, globalization in the media, and insurance policies in antebellum slavery.

Professionally, she has worked with movie stars, Ivy League brainiacs, and the United Nations. Now she avoids stepping on Lego and has a slight addiction to her power tools and creating elaborate birthday cakes. She has lived in Philadelphia, Paris, Oxford, Toronto, and Vancouver, but calls Edmonton, Canada home with her husband and 5 year-old twin boys.

When she’s not writing, she runs a medical consulting company and serves on the board of an independent cinema. She also publishes romance as Nikky Kaye (but keep it quiet please; remember she has to protect her reputation as a smart ass).


Connect with NJS Kaye:
Website: www.njskaye.com
Twitter: @itemsmayshift

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