Hi! My name is Christy Dorrity and I am a writer. I write about what I love, Irish dancing, cooking and stories for young adults. You will find a little bit of all of it here. Enjoy your stay!

Family, reading, writing, cooking, and Irish dancing make me happy. You will find a little of everything here.


I am a freelance writer and author. My articles have appeared in Feis America Magazine and DiddlyiMag. I write for my local newspaper, The Syracuse Islander, and I recently had an article accepted for the children's Friend Magazine. I accept requests for book reviews. Feel free to email me. 


My first book, The 2011 Book Blogger's Cookbook is now available on Amazon. It's a labor of love that combines tasty reads and adventurous treats. Enjoy!

iBooks for Authors makes ebook publishing easy

Are you guys seeing what I am seeing? Today Apple announced a new app for anyone who wants to create an ebook called iBooks for Authors.  It is available in the app store right now for free.  You must have a Mac running OS X 10.7 Lion in order to use it.

I downloaded the app this morning and it is amazing!  User friendly for newbies and those who are pros, this app lets you import media, make slideshows, imbed charts and tables, place 3D images and more.  It has templates to get you started and from there your imagination is the limit. The program allows for an interactive glossary.

Last night my husband and I were discussing my latest WIP, a non-fiction book on Irish dancing.  We both agreed that instead of self publishing it on Amazon like we did The 2011 Book Blogger's Cookbook, that I should draft a proposal and send it out to publishers.  After seeing what iBooks for Authors offers, I am rethinking my publishing route.  My book is full of Irish dance terminology and multimedia, such as dance demos.

What do you think of this program?  Are you planning to use it?

Is your book on KDP select?

This month has been an interesting one as far as my self-published cookbook is concerned.

I started out the month with a trickle of sales that has been typical now that my book has been out for more than 6 months.  Then I decided to enroll my book in Amazon's new KDP select program.  KDP select is a service that allows Amazon Prime members to borrow one book at a time for a month for free.  

It's certainly about time!  It's so easy to transfer the digital files that I figured it was only a matter of time before someone came up with a lending library.

So, anyways, authors can enroll their ebooks in the program with the promise that they won't publish their book elsewhere for 90 days.  As an incentive, Amazon offers 5 promotional days for the author's book. You can read more about the program here.

Sounds good to me, especially since I haven't gotten around to publishing on other sites such as B&N or the Apple store.  So I set my book to run for free for two days early in December. I couldn't believe how many people began buying my book. I literally reached thousands of sales in those two days.  

I set two more of my promotional days for December 27 and 28th to catch all of the people who received Kindles for Christmas. My sales skyrocketed again and my rankings on Amazon shot sky high. With the new lending program I am seeing a steady flow of people borrow my books (Note: authors are promised a cut of the lending, although it will be interesting to see what that actually turns out to be. Basically all authors will split an allotted amount dedicated to the lending service monthly).
Update: Each book loaned in December of 2011 earned $1.70. That's almost as much as I make when someone purchases the book. 

There are many skeptics out there that say I have to take a loss on those freebies, but I am not paying Amazon to promote my book and you could argue that thousands of people now know about my book who didn't before. And since The 2011 Book Blogger's Cookbook is part of a series, I am hoping a few of those people will purchase volume 2 in 2012.  

So what is happening with my book now that I am off the promotion? In two days my sales are ten times what they were before my book was free. Word of mouth and getting the book in front of people is key. Even though my sales rankings initially fell further than they were before the promotion, my statistics are way higher now. I am thinking it's due to the cross promotions such as the "customers who bought this also bought:" banner.

What do you think about Amazon's KDP program? Will you promote your book with it?  Will you join Amazon Prime to borrow books?

Now you can read The 2011 Book Blogger's Cookbook for free! If you have been thinking about purchasing this fun and unique cookbook, now's your chance to take a peek and see if you like it.

Not only that, but between December 15th and December 17th you can download the cookbook for free for your viewing pleasure forever!

Click here to download it to your Kindle now!

A few more bookish items for your consideration:

Nightingale by David Farland is now out as an app for the iPad. I've had a chance to preview this enhanced ebook and it is fabulous! The comic style art, soundtrack and internal links combine to make an experience like none I've yet to see. You can also purchase it through Amazon here.

Upcoming releases, reviews and giveaways, featuring Nightingale by David Farland

Nightingale by David Farland

There are some exciting books coming out in the next few months.

Kersten Hamilton has Tyger Tyger coming out in paperback and the sequel, In the Forests of the Night releases this month. I loved Tyger Tyger and included it in The 2011 Book Blogger's Cookbook review here.  Look for my review of In the Forests of the Night soon.

I'm so excited to tell you about a riveting book that is coming out in print and through the Apple App store as an enhanced ebook. I had a chance to read Nightingale by David Farland and I highly recommend it.


Nightingale will be released on October 15th. I'll be posting a review, an exclusive interview with the author and a giveaway. Stay tuned because you are not going to want to miss this one! If you are a book blogger and would like a chance to read Nightingale, send me an email.

Josi Kilpack has a cozy mystery coming out for Fall titled Pumpkin Roll.  It's a fun read and the cover is scrumptious, just ask my puppy.  He chewed on the signed ARC that Josi sent to me--ARGGG!  Watch for a review coming this month.  Josi has some great giveaways going on at her blog.

Other fun books coming out:
Silence by Becca Fitzpatrick (the third in the Hush, Hush series)
The Death Cure by James Dashner (Maze Runner #3)
Carrier of the Mark by Leigh Fallon (review here)
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Steivfater

Book signing, Amber Argyle author of Witch Song

Amber Argyle, author of Witch Song and Christy Dorrity

On Saturday I ran over to Barnes and Noble in Layton and met Amber Argyle, author of Witch Song. I had a chance earlier this month to review an ARC of the book and do an interview for an article that ran in the Syracuse Islander. 

Amber is way fun and I feel like I already know her. I think all of us bookish people are that way. I love it when authors are excited and energetic about their books and looking toward the future in publishing, like Amber is.  

We had a nice chat and she signed my ARC and gave me a book mark. I gave her a copy of the newspaper article about her. 

I told Amber what I've been telling those who ask about my fiction WIP lately, that I'm putting it aside while I work on a non-fiction book proposal.  It just about kills me to talk about it and I die a little each time.  But it just feels like my ideas need to sit for awhile as I hone my writing skills in other ways. I think it's the right thing to do, but my greatest goal is to be a full time fiction writer. 

My biggest pet peeve is when published authors tell me that the first novel I write will be crap. I think I have a pretty great idea for a story and I don't want it to be crap. I think that's why I want to wait a bit and write crappy other things first. 

What do you think? Any advice for me? Have any of you felt this way?