Path Publishing

Some writers have an idea for a book, but they haven’t thought through production and marketing. The creative process can be made quicker if a writer can put on paper specific ideas about what they want to do.

Please read this article from my latest book, “Tips for Writers from a Book Publisher,” and see if it helps you plan your next project. When a man and woman want to have a child, they make plans for the baby. Your creative project is your child in a sense, and its way in the world will be made easier if you have thought about your objectives and what the world has to offer.

If you would like to help me in some way to promote “Tips for Writers from a Book Publisher” to the world, and receive a free ebook copy of the title, go to the landing page at PathPublishing.com and tell us how you can help. Place your comments in the box that can also be used for leaving book ideas. Please include your e-mail address.

Make a Simple Business Plan

From a lecture I heard years ago that was presented by a small business development center expert, here are my topic headlines with a few notes, which I have since adapted to book publishing.

Product: what do you have to sell?

Profit: how much do you need and how do you intend on getting it?

Spend a modest time doing cost analysis, like what expenses are you going to have in producing a product and what does each book cost? If you are now beginning, I recommend Kindle Direct Publishing through Amazon.com. You will be able to purchase only a few copies at a time and will save a great deal of money in cover creation once you learn their system.

What is your market size? I know, this is almost impossible to answer. And if you cannot answer it, don’t worry about it. Just do something.

But you might spend at least a few minutes determining who your customer really is—what do they look like and what do they purchase? In other words, who is your typical reader?
Where is your reader? Is he or she in your community, on the Internet, or someplace else?

How often does your reader purchase books? And what kinds of books? Paperbacks, ebooks, hardbacks, or something else?

What can you do, within your budget, to try to reach this reader?

What are your goals? Are they reasonable? With more than 200,000 books published in this country every year, you are going up against considerable competition. But I don’t want to discourage you. Just do your best.

Whatever you do, don’t go in debt doing this, certainly not credit card debt. Live modestly, always within your means, love your craft, and enjoy your life.

A few minutes or hours of serious planning, and perhaps discussion with your mate, can give you a better idea of where you are going and what you want to do. And if you are religious, and I certainly hope you are, please pray about this. The Holy Spirit will give you insights, revelations, and a personal peace that you cannot get anywhere else.

From…

Tips to Writers from a Book Publisher: Making Book Publishing a Fun Adventure

By John Schmidt

Paperback available at Amazon.com for $9.99, 143 pages.

John Schmidt is the author of twenty-six works. To find out more about him and the titles, please visit…

His Author Central page at Amazon.com:
https://amazon.com/author/schmidtjohn

Facebook John Schmidt: https://www.facebook.com/john.schmidt.716195

His website is PathPublishing.com.

Facebook Path Publishing: https://www.facebook.com/PathPublishing1993

E-mail him at [email protected].

Path Publishing http://www.pathpublishing.com/ Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Matthew 5:16

Hope in a New Way—Poems for All Times, latest book by
John Schmidt from Path Publishing…

Poems of encouragement and life-purpose in order to help us get through our busy lives.

Excerpts from the introduction…

I created this book of special poems, hoping to help encourage people who are as busy as I am. The work is also a declaration of spiritual purpose, in that I allowed, in each poem, hope-filled guidance from my own Spirit, or the Holy Spirit.

God knows what our life plans are to be, if we will cooperate. Life can be a puzzle, but many mysteries can be revealed.

This is, above all, a book of love. Since I cannot meet all my readers in person, I can only allow my Spirit to communicate to their Spirits and minds and emotions in this way: a small book of words, which I hope will encourage each one to have hope rejuvenated, even hope beyond all which has been imagined before, hope in a new way.

Paperback is only $5.99 at Amazon.com/books, 86 pages
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1891774778/ref=rdr_ext_tmb
ISBN-13: 978-1-891774-77-5 / ISBN-10: 1-891774-77-8

Sample poems…

Mercy caught my thought—
is life worth living?—brought me
hope in a bucket

(Poetic form: Haiku, Asian
poem about Nature)

As I Lay Down

I lay down by the side of my God.
He said, “Let me show you what I made recently.”

He touched my head and I could see from
His eyes and point of view.

An array of galaxies, in sparkling variety
of colors, moved as if they were leaves
on a pond blown by the wind, much faster
than I had ever seen them move before.

“See them as I do,” He said,
“as if children playing in a park.”

“What would it be like,” I thought,
“to be made up of stars, and have
galaxies as my best friends?”

“But you already are and do,”
He thought, answering me where
I could hear. “For as you go about your day, you
mix with human-galaxies, who are
formed by the unions of atoms,
who are but small stars.”

I smiled at the thought, that my family
and friends were also eternal creatures
of space.

He thought again: “Never again view
your life or your times as of
little consequence, for infinity and
all of life reside in your breath,
as they do in Mine.”

The Open Box

Going through my closet, looking
for old tax records, I found a box.
After sixty years of life, I paused.

What I have most to show for my time on
earth are these poems, some on yellowed paper,
photos of my two sons in different states,
a wedding ring, and a religious tract.

Is that enough?

Where are the things that rose before me
each day like giants, demanding attention
more than any of these?

The giants are no more, at least not
to the degree that they were.
Like the giants the Israelites slaughtered
before they took over the Promised Land,
God wanted them dead.

Mine were friendly giants, and they were
I suppose all part of my life plan—
yet still I wish I had lived more for
remembrances in my box.

If we do not live to create memories,
we lose them to non-eternal sensations.

Amazon.com: Books

Path Publishing is celebrating the release of Dawn of Memory—Selected Poems to Encourage, Delight, and Explore Our Lives, by Tony Dickensheets.

Here you will find poems that encourage self-revelation through people, travel, careful analysis, and spiritual awareness. From the poet… “I hope that my poems encourage readers to reflect on their lives and the people and things that are truly important to them.” From the publisher about these poems… “There is a beauty in their simplicity, subtle truths in personal and scenic descriptions. I leave the reader to find truths on their own, and in each reader’s personal way.” Here is one note the publisher sent the author early in their correspondence concerning this work… “You are a young man, but you have traveled more than ten people I know. I think readers would greatly appreciate that, could identify with wisdom gained from wide travel, always with Jesus besides you.”

Two samples from Dawn of Memory, are below. Here is its sales page… https://www.amazon.com/dp/1891774689?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860

At What Cost?!

At the dawn of a new millennium
our country is at a crossroads of epic proportions.
On the one hand, we have achieved
our Manifest Destiny—in the physical, scientific,
and economic spheres.
On the other hand, we have bastardized our culture,
allowed our morals to slide to late-Roman levels,
and corrupted our political system to the point
where the words “Republic” and “Democracy”
are both laughable and ludicrous when applied
to our current system.
Like Shakespearean tragedies and Nero
fiddling while Rome burnt, our great society
continues to slumber into the 21stcentury.
Our post-industrial, hyper-capitalism has made
us wealthy beyond what we dreamed possible,
but we paid with a piece of our souls.
Mostly gone are family dinners, neighborhood
block parties, the innocence of children past the age of five,
and a feeling of what it truly means to be an American.
So we commute to our fancy stained-glass office buildings,
eat out in the most exclusive restaurants, and pat
ourselves on the back for our economic success;
we complacently and arrogantly ignore
the oncoming peril—
and all the while, the fiddler plays on.

A Special Place

Every once in a while, when the walls
seemingly close in more than usual
I head to the woods
and allow the cool breeze of Nature
to clear my mind of all that clutters it:
emails, deadlines, relationships, depression—
in other words, life itself.
The breeze whispers to me to relax,
to enjoy the calmness of Nature
as it washes over me like a warm shower
at the end of a long, grueling day.
I walk down to the creek and sit watching
the squirrels savor a mid-morning snack;
the many birds perched overhead
provide the background music,
the brightly colored autumn leaves
acting as the artwork.
Sitting here I feel light and unencumbered
and realize that all is still right in the world—
if only one takes the time to find
their own special place.

Dawn of Memory: Selected Poems to Encourage, Delight, and Explore Our Lives Here you will find poems that encourage self-revelation through people, travel, careful analysis, and spiritual awareness. From the poet…“I hope that my poems encourage readers to reflect on their lives and the people and things that are truly important to them.” From the publisher about these...