@Danielle Marietta and ALL (April 21) I don't know about bots, but I'm sure seeing a lot of "commercials" for services that cost a lot of $$--WAY beyond Self Publishing. Hardly the exchange of info among self-publishers who've been there. Advertising one's self-published book is fine--we should all support one another--but other "services" seems to have a taint of services from vanity presses.🤑 JMHO.

@Danielle Marietta @Stacy Arnold Helping each other succeed is what it's all about.🤗

@Danielle Marietta I've tried to join the Saturday morning Chat before, but today Success! I found the link on the Calendar. Now if I can figure out how to get my microphone to communicate with you--I tried to say something several times, but it didn't go through. Ah, well, I'm a writer, not an electronics technician! Maybe next time...😋😁

@Jack Slater Most writers have websites, but selling from your website is an added layer of complication! Two big drawbacks to selling from your own website that I see are a) you have to be really good at customer relations including answering all inquiries, questions, and nastygrams without losing your cool, and b) handling all the inevitable returns and refunds graciously. There's also the shipping issue. This is a lot of hassle. As @Stephen King said, most writers send inquiries to Amazon. If you're asking this because you want to maximize your royalties per book, I think that's why we all are here. Your royalty with traditional publishing is usually 10%-15% of the selling price--less if you're a new author without a proven sales record (after all, those big publishers are in business to make money😁); your print run will be quite a bit smaller if you're a new author--maybe 3000 books IF you show promise (tiny compared to mega-authors). With trad publishing, the author wears only one hat--that of Author, whereas the publishing house has a cadre of employees to wear all the other hats. But publishing houses (even the smaller ones) relieve the author of all* the nitty-gritty tasks associated with what should happen after the author types "The End"--publishing the book. *"All" depends on whether you're an established author (read: makes a lot of money for the publisher) or a newbie; it can include professional editing, book and cover design, marketing, and so forth. On the other hand, self-publishing with Amazon KDP can get you royalties of 35%-70%, depending on selling price and depending on how you specify the book is made: e-book, paperback, hardback, and/or audio. As self-publisher, you wear all the hats at one time or another. After you type "The End," you have to contract for professional editing (and this is necessary no matter how good you may think you are as a writer--similar to the lawyer who represents himself in court, the client has a fool for an attorney), book design (romance books have a different design and feel from, say, mysteries or self-help books or cookbooks), your cover design (a professional designer understands typography, appropriate imagery, layout, color psychology, and so on), how to position a book in the marketplace, brick-and-mortar storefront bookstore sales (some will handle self-published books, but some won't), library sales (most self-published books don't find their way to libraries), printing and assembling the book, storing the unsold books (how big is your living room, garage, or spare bedroom?), handling book returns (oh yes--there will be returns!), advertising--not just to the public but also to the book trade. and probably other things I've forgotten (such as your acquiring editor shepherding your book through the plethora of meetings within the publishing house before the powers-that-be give the green light to putting the book on the publishing schedule).

@Stephen King Thank you for the "Thumbs up!" I appreciate your reading my comment.☺️

@Elara Stroud Welcome! I hope you find this group to be supportive and educational!

@Jeannette Mccurdy I'm a devotee of Swain's book and methods, and I follow his instructions to the letter, strongly urge you to get and internalize this book. Another good one for keeping your writing on track is Scene and Sequel, by Swain's grad student Jack Bickham. Also read the entire oeuvre of Robert McKee, although unless you're a fast reader, his Story is about 2 inches thick BUT essential in concept. Christopher Vogler is another must read, as is @Stephen King's On Writing. There are others but too many to list--my writing library occupies 18 board-feet.😋

@Cal Newport It depends--sometimes getting that month's column into the hands of my editor is too rushed for much introspection. Other columns are more or less linked,such as "Apocalypse Now!," the column about our fire (BTW, I've figured out how to attach a photo, so the fire picture will be below as a JPG). I wrote other columns about evacuating with pets, what to take, making sure you know pet-friendly sheltering places (not as important when the evacuation is only a couple of days vs. weeks or more); copies of medical prescriptions, cash and credit cards, and a few snacks and water for your trip. When you get away from the danger zone, you can always buy such necessities as food and clothing. The sad reality is that fewer than 50% of pets left behind are ever reunited with their owners, so I urge people always to take their pets along in an evacuation. On of my good friends lost her three horses during the fire pictured below. On a somewhat happier note, at a dog show in Texas. we were parked next to another RV; upon chatting with the owners, we found out they were from Estes Park, Colorado, and they had fled from the dam breakage that caused the Big Thompson River to become a raging torrent, destroying everything in its path including their home, which would take 2-3 years to rebuild after the cleanup of the debris; in the meantime, they had each other, their dogs, and their RV (a 40-footer that was quite comfortable for extended stays)--their plan was to spend the next 2-3 years traveling the USA for dog shows until they could return to Estes Park.

@Dan O'Riordan That's why I write, too--in part. But the main part is to record the some of the giant mass of ideas that tumble all over themselves in my brain.☺️