Reflections of katlupe: My Homesteading Journey

Showing posts with label My Homesteading Journey. Show all posts

Monday, January 16, 2012

Why I Wrote My Own eBook

In front of my house in winter!

I wrote my eBook, My Homesteading Journey, back in 2007, and started selling it on my website. At that time, I was selling it for $14.99 and had pretty decent sales. Then they kind of slowed down and I lowered the price to $7.99. Most of the people who purchase it are people interested in being homesteaders. Not urban homesteaders, as that is a whole other ball game. People who may be planning on moving outside of the city they are in right now. Or people who have done that and are trying to figure out what to do first.

On CD

In the fall, I put it up for sale on eBay. Selling it in a CD disc format according to eBay rules. I sold a few there also. I never did as good with it until I put it in the Kindle store on Amazon. It sells good there and I have some good feedback. That makes me feel good, especially if the people who buy it are wanting to change their life and become self-reliant. I have been selling it for $0.99 now. So it is very affordable for people without a lot resources.

Growing Your Food Is A Must!

Selling it to other homesteaders was easy. Now on Amazon other people are buying it. People who worry about whether my sentences are structured according to the grammar rules. I don't need someone buying it to grade it. This is my life and the way I do things. That is all. Not a work of literature or a book that will be on the NY Times bestseller list. I wrote it for real people who are searching for a way of life that frees them from people like that.

Having a cup of coffee with me!

If our life changed from the way it is right now, to something much different. I'd be willing to bet a lot of people would be wishing they were living this way. I feel though, that some of those people are trying to put eBooks and especially self-published authors down. So they are posting bad reviews of authors on Amazon. My book is written exactly how my blog is written.....from my heart, like you are sitting at my table with me! Hope that is good enough.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Kindle Edition Of My Homesteading Journey

Thoughts of a simpler life?

Recently I have added my eBooks to the Kindle store on Amazon. This means they had to be formatted for the kindle. I managed to do it and so far, no complaints. I am hoping it works out, as I like selling there. My book, My Homesteading Journey, of course, is written for "modern homesteaders" in mind. It is my story or journey of how my husband and I came to live here and this lifestyle.

My Homesteading Journey

As anyone who knows me or that is a member of the Homesteading Today forum, I have told many times before, that I did not live this lifestyle before. Growing up we always lived in the country except for the brief time that we lived in Flagler Beach, FL, where we were a mile from the beach. Other than that, we never lived in the city limits. But my parents both worked at jobs and were not into a self-sufficient lifestyle, even though both of them were raised that way.

Our three horses!

Some topics in my book may be of interest to anyone wanting to learn how to become self-reliant in this crazy world. I don't have all the answers. But these are the things that have worked for us. As you know, we don't raise animals for food. We may get a flock of chickens in the future, but that would be the extent of raising animals.

Gardening For Food!

This is a list of some of the topics I have written about in this book:

Homesteading In The Forest
How My Solar Energy System Works
Heating And Cooling Your Home
Heating With Wood
Transportation
How We Got To This Point In Our Lives
Buying Your Homestead
1. Finding The Perfect Realtor
2. Making Your Offer
Foraging For Wild Foods
The Pantry & Root Cellar
Building The Barn

Fencing

Cutting Your Electricity Costs

The Water System

Refrigeration

Buying A Wood Cook stove

Cooking On A Wood Cook Stove

katlupe's Favorite Recipes

The Gardens

Composting

Decorating Your Homestead

To Prepare For Self Sufficiency In Times Of Emergencies

If you purchase my book for your kindle and have any questions about homesteading or any of the topics, please feel free to contact me here. I am planning another more detailed homesteading how to book that will be not so personal. More instructional. Your questions will give me a better scope on what is needed for anyone starting out. And if you purchase my book, I want to give you a big Thank You, right now! I really do appreciate it!!!

Sunday, October 02, 2011

Making Your Own eBook

Today I sold a copy of my eBook, My Homesteading Journey, on eBay. This was a test for me when I first put it up there. I wanted to see if anyone would buy it. I sold a copy of it, and a few of my Breads And More Cookbook eBooks. Haven't sold much since. It sells more on my website, Larry Gene Music.

One of the beauties of selling an eBook is that it sells over and over. Once you write it, edit it, upload it to your website, you can sell it forever. My husband designed the covers for the books. He used his graphic program in his computer. Nothing fancy. It sells even if you are not at home, and even if you don't check your computer daily. Once the buyer has paid for it, they receive a download link in their account. That's it. The link will be a zip file that they will have to unzip to view it on their computer.

Selling it on eBay is a bit different. I can sell it that way on eBay. But as a downloadable product only, it wouldn't be able to be listed under the book category. Just under the "Everything Else" category. To be able to sell the Breads & More Cookbook in the cookbook category, and My Homesteading Journey in the nonfiction category, they had to be a physical product. A product to be sent through the mail.

I had to put them on a disc to be viewed on a computer in a document software program. I had used Open Office to write my books, which is an "open source" writing software program. What is "open source" software? Why, FREE, of course! We have used all open source software for our websites as well. Once I had it all edited I converted it to a PDF file in Adobe. Most people have that on their computers and if not, they can get it free.

But wait! That's not all. If you are selling it as a digital product, you have to zip the file using a compression software program like WinZip or CoffeeCup. Then you upload that file to your FTP program, like CoreFTP Lite, which is the one I use. Then list it on your website. That is all there is to it. Once it sold, I saw how easy it was. My buyers would purchase and automatically get the link to download it. Occasionally the link didn't work correctly, and I had to send them the link in their email. But it works that way too.

It is a little different selling it as a physical product. I had to copy the book from Open Office and burn it on a cd disc. My husband made a label with our label maker. Some sellers don't include a nice label, but we thought it made the disc look more professional. I send it First Class mail in a bubble mailer, with the cd in a paper sleeve.

It was fun creating a book to sell and doing it myself, instead of paying someone else to do it for me. Puts more profit in my pocket. But it also made it my own design. I am working on some others now every chance I get. It is not as hard as you think, and especially if you are already writing a blog. Good luck with writing one of your own!

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Updated Version Of My Homesteading Journey!

From Living Here...........

In 2007, I wrote my eBook, My Homesteading Journey and sold it on our website, Larry Gene Music. I am still selling it on there. But I have updated it, took out all the pictures because they took too long for people to download and view on their computers. So it is now completed and ready to be bought by you.

To living on an off-the-grid homestead..............

In this book I tell how I started living the homesteading lifestyle. And a little bit about what brought us to this point. I also cover some other topics, such as:

How to find your country property
Wild medicinal plants that grow around us
Buying and cooking with a wood cook stove
Heating and cooling your home
My small, but affordable solar system
The water system
Refrigeration
The Pantry and Root Cellar
Some of my favorite recipes
How to cut your electric costs
Fencing
Building the barn

I can't tell you how to do it...........just how I did it. It is different for everyone. But I can encourage you be self-sufficient and provide for yourself and your family. This book is the first in a series of books I am working on. I didn't put the gardening part in this one. That will be a whole other book on its own.

This book comes to you in a zip file and will need to be unzipped. You can read it on your computer using Adobe as it is in PDF form. It is not available in print form. You are welcome to print it out from your computer. It contains 43 pages. And no photos except the cover one. I have set it up with a special price for the new updated version.

My Homesteading Journey

Monday, July 23, 2007

Ex-Husband Jealous Of My New Book!!!!!! Ha!

My book, My Homesteading Journey has caused some bad feelings in my family. Not exactly, my family.....but my ex-husband wanted my son to bring his copy over so he could read it. Course, he was too cheap to buy a copy! To tell the truth, I did not want to write anything about my previous life anyway. Many of my homesteading friends wanted me to tell that part as it would help someone who was living that "cushy" life who wanted to be set free. So I did. To me, it was an unimportant area of my life. A sad time in my life as my ex-husband was very controlling and not the nicest person. Oh yeah, maybe to the world but not to his own family.

My book covers my complete solar system, All my components. How it is set up. How we have lived for over 8 years with no electric bill. How to watch the meter to be careful of the loads you put on the small system we have. Another area of my book was cooking on wood cook stove. How to buy a used one and what to check on it before purchasing one. How to start the fire in it, how to keep it going, how to cook on one, how to clean it. Nothing that would have been of interest to my ex-husband and his wife who live a life that is the exact opposite of me!

Like cooking on a wood heating stove. How I heat my water on it for washing dishes or taking baths. Or how to cut the firewood we need to keep our stoves running through out the year. I also gave tips on how to cut down on your electric bill. But I don't think they would have paid much attention to that either. They are not the frugal couple! So if I decide to write a story of my life, he will be in big trouble as then I will really tell all those gory details! For now, my life is about homesteading, being self-sufficient & growing my own food. I made no mistakes in those areas of my book.

As an update to this post: My ex-husband died in 2010 under arrest by federal agents for using a Ponti scheme to steal his clients' (and friends) money and pensions that he invested for them. Investments they had with him for years. He took it all to enable a life that was all for show. To keep his wife in the style she wanted for show too. I am not sure of all the details, but the FBI did come to my home and question me for hours. The only good thing to come out of his life and my marriage to him, was that he adopted my son so when he died, my son being a disable adult child was entitled to his Social Security benefit which is a good income for my son.

Updated 2019

Thursday, April 12, 2007

My Homesteading Journey by katlupe

I have such good news for everyone! Everyone has been after me for so long to write a book about my homesteading life that I have finally done it. And finished it! It is listed on my own website at this time for sale. I will be listing it on some other sites also. But it will ONLY be listed and sold by me. It is not a book for resale, personal use only.

I have put my heart and soul in this book. It explains how my husband and I came from living in the busy city of St. Petersburg, Florida working at Home Shopping Network to living out in the middle of the state forest in upstate New York. How we bought a hunting camp and turned it into our own paradise - our little homestead, Peaceful Forest.

Once I started working on it, I found I had so much to say. Homesteading is my life. It is what defines me and makes me complete. So many people do not understand why anyone would want to live this way. They do not understand the feeling you get when you look at a pantry full of food that you have grown and canned, yourself. What a feeling it is!

Yet, my homesteading lifestyle is not old fashioned in any sense of the word. I live more high tech than most people as I explain in my book. I earn my living on my laptop computer, which is powered by my small affordable solar system, that anyone could set up.

Our road in July.

I try to show you, that if you just try, you can achieve this lifestyle too. Even if you live in a city or anywhere in between. Not everyone will want to live in the middle of the state forest! I am certainly glad of that fact!!!! In other countries, they live simpler, than us Americans. We are very wasteful and living the homesteading lifestyle is the way to overcome this bad habit.

So if you think you want to homestead, or are just thinking of doing it, please grab a copy of my book, My Homesteading Journey. It is an eBook, so as soon as you purchase it, you will be able to download it, and read it immediately. No waiting for it to come in the mail! Wonderful thing about living in this high tech age!!!!

Remember it is a eBook which means that it is NOT available in paper form. It sells on my site for $14.99 and there are no shipping charges, of course. It will come in an zipped file and you will need to unzip it. Then it is a PDF file that you will need Adobe to read it on your computer.

I am in the process of updating this book and you will be able to purchase it right here on this page as soon as I am finished. I have taken out all the photos as they make it slower to download, especially for dial-up buyers. Most of my photos are all available anyway on this blog so you have probably already seen them all anyway. You can still purchase it on my site. But after it is updated it will be available here and paid through PayPal.

Thank you for being a visitor or regular reader of my blog. I appreciate every single person who passes through my site, and hope I can assist you in some way of becoming more self-sufficient or better prepared in this world we live in. Blessings and my prayers to all of you!

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