Guest Blogger: A Homeschooled Child Who Lived It!

On February 6th I will have a guest blogger coming to give us all some insight into homeschooling that we as parents might not have. I know I struggle with what Coral will think of me when she gets her GED and goes off to live her life away from me. Come join me to welcome author Kelly D. Smith, as she gives us some insight into the life of a homeschooled child.

Kelly D. Smith is a paranormal/fantasy/urban fantasy and contemporary romance author. Born in the GTA [Greater Toronto Area] Kelly moved to the woods of Quebec when she was 14 years old but currently lives in Saskatchewan. A gypsy at heart, she has lived in 7 homes in 7 years and loves traveling, which you can often see in her writing. Being homeschooled her entire life Kelly was able to dedicate her time to reading and writing. When she turned 18 she attained her GED and has never looked back with regret. Currently Kelly lives in a small farm house with her dogs. Kelly always welcomes comments or questions from her readers and can be found on Twitter & Facebook.

Self-Publishing the Slamdunk Way

Recently, I self-published to Amazon. By recently, I mean I published on December 16, 2014. It was a bit of a rash decision. Naturally. I've had a steep learning curve since I unthinkingly decided to put my book out there.

First of all, I have to say, I WIN at Twitter. Seriously. It took me about three days to figure it out and get it going. My account has been snow-balling since. I get retweeted, favorited, and followed in these bursts of notifications to my phone that sometimes take all my battery power and leave me stranded without a phone. Not a bad problem to have, but it is a full-time job keeping up with my twitterverse.

Second, did you know there was a way to have your own author page on Amazon? I didn't until today. Three weeks into self-publishing and I only just learned this. This is what I'm talking about when I say a steep learning curve.

I made a Facebook fan page and it was an uphill battle to get it to be what I wanted it to be. But I figured it out when I set out to like some other indie authors' fan pages with my author profile. I put step by step instructions on Goodreads for my new friends there.

Speaking of which, Goodreads. Did. Not. Know. It. Existed. Until I published. I went searching for places to promote and found Goodreads.com. It has become my refuge from the self-promoting and advertising around the web. I am part of the Read Romance, Write Romance group (among others), and those authors and readers have helped me so much just by being a fun group I can talk with about my book, their books, publishing, social media obstacles, and nothing at all. I've fallen in love with that group. I don't think I would be writing this blog post without them.

I am still learning, jumping into this self-publishing business with both feet and finding myself learning more today about social media than I have in the last decade. It's the Slamdunk way: fake it til you make it!