This is an excerpt from ‘The Shape-Shifters,’ a paranormal fantasy. Never say ‘abnormal’ fantasy. The book is available in a number of fine bookstores, and has a couple of very nice reviews.
Editing an excerpt in a new style.
Janet managed to get her dad and the kids in the truck, all properly bundled up against the cold, with the kids clutching a few small presents for Grandma and Grandpa Herbert.
She eased down the snow-covered street, greasy from being churned up and half-melted by traffic. There were literally dozens of cars parked along the curb as everyone was attending to the roles of guest and visitors, hosts and hostesses. Many of the neighbouring homes were lit up, and people could be seen coming and going in a self-conscious manner, mostly strangers but for this once-yearly ritual.
“How’s the truck running?” asked her dad, predictably enough.
You could almost set your watch by it.
“Um, it’s hard to start sometimes,” she said. “I think it needs a new battery.”
“Why don’t you get it fixed, and I’ll pay for it,” suggested her father.
Janet gulped in thanks and said she’d try to get it done after Christmas, but before New Year’s.
Experimenting with style.
A rational goal for 2012 is to bring up our game a notch and elevate the prose style to international, professional standards. This is the sort of level where acquisitions editors don’t just chuck the manuscript after three lines without actually reading the story. Readers browsing the online bookstore don't click 'close' and move on. The best place to experiment with style is in the short story market, because we can re-write old stories that were rejected and try them somewhere else.
This is a valid test, because over the last six months, I’ve had a uniform 100 % rejection rate, and that can’t be entirely blamed on the economy and increased competition, or an influx of submissions from people who wouldn’t normally submit, but are presently unemployed. Also, some of them stories have been rejected multiple times. We have some data, in other worsd. If I don't experiment and change the style, the only real difference is that I have been submitting entirely to professional markets, which are a hard sell at the best of times. The idea is, if I start to place stories again, stories for money, then maybe it was the style they were written in that stopped them from being picked up before.
So let’s edit the piece above in the light of new knowledge, and some soul-searching, which I would prefer not to do. It goes with the territory, though.
Janet managed to get her dad and the kids in the truck, all properly bundled up against the cold. The kids clutched a few small presents for Grandma and Grandpa Herbert.
She eased down the snow-covered street, greasy from being churned up and half-melted by traffic. There were dozens of cars parked along the curb as everyone was attending to the roles of guest and visitors, hosts and hostesses. The neighbouring homes were all lit up, and people were coming and going in a self-conscious manner, mostly strangers but for this once-yearly ritual.
“How’s the truck running?”
Her dad’s question was predictable enough. You could almost set your watch by it.
“Um, it’s hard to start sometimes. I think it needs a new battery.”
“Why don’t you get it fixed, and I’ll pay for it?”
Janet gulped in thanks. “I’ll try to get it done after Christmas, but before New Year’s.”
Notes: we’ve removed the word ‘literally,’ which some editors hate, and done a few things with the dialogue. We’ve changed a few words and taken some out. In this piece we’ve gone for the ruthless suppression of dialogue tags and adverbs, which is arguably the most prevalent modern style among professional writers and editors. Nothing has been added to the piece, only rearranged or taken away.
Study the competition in your market.
The nice thing about having an Amazon account is that you can download all sorts of free e-books and see where other people are at in their writing. Some of them will impress as very competent. Those are the ones to compete with. If we work hard, learn the craft, and set out to compete with the best, instead of just being content to be ‘better than some other guy,’ we will make out just fine.
The trouble with Facebook is that while you can develop a stream of sources and information, by looking for and clicking on all writers or all editors and publishers, you indicate a ‘preference’ for certain types of people. Facebook’s algorithms will then present you with an ever-increasing ratio of the exact same kind of person. Somehow the readers get lost in all of this.
Reading is a relationship.
Reading is an intimate form of relationship. Relationships require honest effort. It is by establishing a relationship with readers that a writer can be more successful in expanding the circle of people who read their books. When I read posts by people who are also interested in writing, it makes me ask questions about my own work. It has definitely been a phase in my own development.
But...
Who is the reader? The reader is a person who really doesn’t know a darned thing about writing, who doesn’t much care if the story follows some arbitrary or academic rules of composition. They may never try to write a story, or a book. They don’t care. They are looking for a good read, not a blog post on grammar and punctuation. We’re not out to impress the reader with our knowledge or our ability to study and improve. All we want to do is to improve our skills, and tell a better story. We must tell it as well as we can. The more we understand our tools, the better will be our story-construction. Ultimately, the writer and all their tools should just evaporate and disappear from the page. This leaves only the characters and their challenges, surrounded by their environment, speaking their minds clearly and engaging in actions that are easily followed by the average reader.
Listening to other writers all the time will drive you crazy. Listening to the readers, figuring out exactly what they need, is far more important.
As for adverbs, dialogue tags, statement attributions, there are schools of thought and each has its advantages and limitations. They must, because they are tools.
Everything else is just style. To arrive at a style is the result of accident or choice. As for getting more readers, it just takes time, and some well-written books and stories. Going for the most modern, up-to-date literary style for the magazine market, where space is at a premium and where they are perhaps more avant-garde stylistically, is an experiment that is certainly worth trying. I always check and sometimes re-write short stories before submitting them anyways, so this is just one more little thing to look out for. And now it's in the tool-box.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Rational Goal-Setting: 2012
Having completed my eighth novel, (of which two remain unpublished,) and having more or less mastered the Lulu and Createspace print-on-demand process, it's a good time to set some rational goals for 2012.
One light, one not so light.
1.) I definitely need another book-length fiction project. In keeping with my one light/next one real serious habit, this one should be a much more serious project than 'On the Nature of the Gods.' According to respectable sources, a series should have new books come out at regular intervals. So this might be the next Maintenon book, and yet there are considerations.
For one thing, I want to do some kind of high fantasy, swords and sorcerers, inspired by none other than 'Conan the Barbarian,' written by Robert E. Howard. In order to avoid the opprobrium of fanfic, this one had better be deadly serious indeed. Some form of originality is also, ah, definitely called for.
I also want to do an 'Alistair Maclean-type book,' of the sort of international suspense-thriller-intrigue with plenty of action, perhaps something like 'The Way to Dusty Death,' or 'Caravan to Vaccares.' Those were some pretty cool books, and of course none other than Clint Eastwood played in 'Where Eagles Dare.'
A more serious story would probably take me six or seven months again, like the 'Redemption' book.
Write more short stories.
2.) Write more short stories. This is important, as a sale is a sale, it brings in money and it gets the name out there even if it's a giveaway. Since I'm not actually working on a book now, which tends to absorb my focus, there is no time like the present. Nice thing about short stories, they are quicker to re-write, add to, or flesh out than a book. They can really grow into something--a 1,400-word story, 'The Four Horsemen' grew into 'On the Nature of the Gods,' which came in at about 67,000 words as a novel.
In my opinion, nothing teaches you more about the art of storytelling than the short story. The quicker you write them, the more you can submit. Sooner or later someone will criticize them, but of course constant rejection forces us to look deeper into the story, the characters, and how we wrote them--and how they might be improved. That's important, because these criticisms are few and far between. If you understand how busy you can be as a writer, imagine juggling a few hundred submissions, a thousand e-mails, etc, a month. So the guy that tells you something about your story is precious indeed.
If nothing else, it teaches persistence and its rewards, and we learn to deal with rejection.
Learn to chat.
3.) Learn to chat. Get some interviews. Get some more reviews. All of this takes, time, patience and effort, but it's not like I have anything better to do. I'v commented on a couple of Kindle threads, and tried to start a discussion, but it's early days there yet. Honestly, I should try to comment on someone's blog once or twice a week, if that's the best I can do, so be it...
Create more products.
4.) Go back through the list and make all e-books available as print-on-demand paperbacks. So far, the interior file for 'The Shape-Shifters' is ready, but the cover needs to be re-done as the text is vertical, on the left side, too close to the trim edge, and the artwork isn't suitable for header-type text. That won't take long to solve. In terms of putting cash into the project, it's like one a month and that's it. But all of those will be out by the end of the year. Many readers still prefer paper and ink, or haven't converted to e-readers. If I do go to a convention, or talk to a group of any sort, it's something to hold in the hand. I can pass it around for people to have a look at, even if it's just one proof copy. Basically it's another product, one which only takes a few hours to produce if you have any sort of a backlist. I could also re-size those titles and put them out on any free platform as PODs, which widens the distribution network.
Other than that, we shall proceed according to the plan and the exigencies of the moment.
One light, one not so light.
1.) I definitely need another book-length fiction project. In keeping with my one light/next one real serious habit, this one should be a much more serious project than 'On the Nature of the Gods.' According to respectable sources, a series should have new books come out at regular intervals. So this might be the next Maintenon book, and yet there are considerations.
For one thing, I want to do some kind of high fantasy, swords and sorcerers, inspired by none other than 'Conan the Barbarian,' written by Robert E. Howard. In order to avoid the opprobrium of fanfic, this one had better be deadly serious indeed. Some form of originality is also, ah, definitely called for.
I also want to do an 'Alistair Maclean-type book,' of the sort of international suspense-thriller-intrigue with plenty of action, perhaps something like 'The Way to Dusty Death,' or 'Caravan to Vaccares.' Those were some pretty cool books, and of course none other than Clint Eastwood played in 'Where Eagles Dare.'
A more serious story would probably take me six or seven months again, like the 'Redemption' book.
Write more short stories.
2.) Write more short stories. This is important, as a sale is a sale, it brings in money and it gets the name out there even if it's a giveaway. Since I'm not actually working on a book now, which tends to absorb my focus, there is no time like the present. Nice thing about short stories, they are quicker to re-write, add to, or flesh out than a book. They can really grow into something--a 1,400-word story, 'The Four Horsemen' grew into 'On the Nature of the Gods,' which came in at about 67,000 words as a novel.
In my opinion, nothing teaches you more about the art of storytelling than the short story. The quicker you write them, the more you can submit. Sooner or later someone will criticize them, but of course constant rejection forces us to look deeper into the story, the characters, and how we wrote them--and how they might be improved. That's important, because these criticisms are few and far between. If you understand how busy you can be as a writer, imagine juggling a few hundred submissions, a thousand e-mails, etc, a month. So the guy that tells you something about your story is precious indeed.
If nothing else, it teaches persistence and its rewards, and we learn to deal with rejection.
Learn to chat.
3.) Learn to chat. Get some interviews. Get some more reviews. All of this takes, time, patience and effort, but it's not like I have anything better to do. I'v commented on a couple of Kindle threads, and tried to start a discussion, but it's early days there yet. Honestly, I should try to comment on someone's blog once or twice a week, if that's the best I can do, so be it...
Create more products.
4.) Go back through the list and make all e-books available as print-on-demand paperbacks. So far, the interior file for 'The Shape-Shifters' is ready, but the cover needs to be re-done as the text is vertical, on the left side, too close to the trim edge, and the artwork isn't suitable for header-type text. That won't take long to solve. In terms of putting cash into the project, it's like one a month and that's it. But all of those will be out by the end of the year. Many readers still prefer paper and ink, or haven't converted to e-readers. If I do go to a convention, or talk to a group of any sort, it's something to hold in the hand. I can pass it around for people to have a look at, even if it's just one proof copy. Basically it's another product, one which only takes a few hours to produce if you have any sort of a backlist. I could also re-size those titles and put them out on any free platform as PODs, which widens the distribution network.
Other than that, we shall proceed according to the plan and the exigencies of the moment.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Formatting a 5 x 8" POD paperback on Createspace.
Today I formatted a basic 5 x 8” print-on-demand paperback to be published via Createspace and Amazon. This one is of my newest book, ‘On the Nature of the Gods.’ That's available from Smashwords, Amazon, and within a couple of weeks it will be in Kobo, iTunes, Barnes & Noble, Sony, etc.
Apparently ‘novel’ is like an adjective or something, and that’s why I call it a ‘book,’ which is a noun. (A novel concept.)
In previous blog posts, I talked about making a 6 x 9” trade paperback through Createspace. That process took a week or two, although I had previously done a 4 x 7” book on Lulu. By the time you go through it and learn the process, enter all the information, and design the cover, it can take up to a month with Createspace’s internal review, (mostly the format,) processing, and then postal delivery. (Previously, I also wrote about the 4 x 7” POD of ‘The Case of the Curious Killers.’)
This is extremely simple formatting which can be done in about two hours, once you know what you actually want. In stark contrast, when doing 'The Case of the Curious Killers,' I struggled with OpenOffice, with the mirrored page numbers, and different headers left and right, and in fact my 4 x 7" 'Core Values' POD never went to press due to an unfixable glitch.
Why a 5 x 8” print-on-demand?
The book, ‘Redemption: an Inspector Gilles Maintenon mystery,’ seems a bit big and a bit thin as a 6 x 9” product. It’s only 216 pages in that size. It’s less than half an inch thick. Since I’m the one who has to do the work, and I’m the one searing my brand on it, there’s no sense in doing a product that I’m not keen on.
The basic process is exactly the same. Now, assuming the correct number of blank pages front and back, so that the title page hits on a right-hander, just as the first page of the text should, and the author bio at the back does the same, this thing is ready to go. It has a simple header, identical on every page in the text-section, and simple page numbers, the ‘tilde’ type from Microsoft Word. These are centred, not the most esthetically-pleasing, but quick and simple to do. Instead of going down eleven 12-point spaces for each new chapter like I did last time, this one has six 12-point spaces. Nice, clean, saves paper…and it’s quick.
My page numbers are ten-point, and headers are eight or nine. I’m using Cambria, a shapely font with nice, sexy serifs. The actual text is Times New Roman, 12-point. A technical note, when editing headers in Word, you can adjust them for height. My header is 0.3” from the top, and my footer is 0.2” from the bottom…whatever that actually means; and my margins are set at 0.8 top, inside 0.75, gutter at 0”, bottom at 0.3 and outside 0.4. My camera download cable is capooched, but I’ll borrow one and update this post with photos at some point. But it looks fine on screen. The gutter at 0” sounds odd, but I checked this against the file for ‘Redemption,’ and that one was also set at 0”. Your inside margin must be wide enough not to have the edge of the text stuck in the glue of the binding, capiche? It has to look nice. That’s all that matters. Honestly, take a steel scientific ruler and measure somebody’s paperback in the appropriate size. And if I do mess up, it’s only ten or twelve bucks for a proof copy, right?
Investment of Time in a Simple Paperback.
At two or three hours for each file, this puts things into a little better perspective doesn’t it? It sure beats ‘a week or two,’ which was a hit to the old motivation. No one wants to spend two weeks messing with a file—that’s why I sort of put it off until now, a rainy day, and with my most recent book all finished.
Also, the fact that I nailed the ‘Redemption’ POD on the first upload, with the proof copy in my hands, is encouraging.
The basic premise is simple, ‘pay attention or pay through the nose.’ Why? Because to pay for a proof copy, and then when you finally get it, to see that it’s mucked up, and then fix the file, re-upload it, wait for processing, order another proof, wait ten days or so for it to show up in the mailbox again, and only then find another little error is bad policy. It could have been avoided.
It’s costly, time-consuming, frustrating, and unprofessional. So, am I going to upload my file and smash together a cover and go nuts like that? It’s only ten or twelve bucks, right?
Nope. I’m going to nail this little bleeper on the first pass too. That means waiting and taking another look at it tomorrow, and if I was really smart, I’d wait at least two or three days, taking my time and checking every little thing about ten times.
As for the cover, I plan on re-reading the Createspace directions, so that the image is the right size before I really get into it. I will be using the ‘Spruce’ template again, as it looks fine and I liked the result on ‘Redemption.’
Making the Cover.
What I do there is take the original image, re-crop it, and then put new text on it, making danged sure to keep the edges of all text back at least ½” from the edges. That’s it. Drag and drop from that point.
Another brief note; in (or on,) the ‘Redemption’ back cover, I went dead simple with nothing but a text blurb. The next one might have an author pic and a bio, but if it looks too crowded then I’ll just ditch it.
In keeping with the theme of the Shalako Publishing imprint, we’ll most likely use black as the background colour, and that will be fine, considering the marketing image we’ll be using, which is the same as the e-book version. This book has a new ISBN number, as you can’t use the same one for different formats, etc.
Publication Date.
The book will be out by the end of April, in my opinion. As for pricing, I will set it for $2.00 clear profit per copy and we’ll see what that does, as we can always fiddle with it. ‘Redemption’ only brings $1.95 per sale, but that and the 6 x 9” size is how we got it down to $8.99 retail plus S & H in the first place. When using Collections Canada's CISS, (ISBN system,) there's a place where you set the publication date. When I know for sure the number of pages, and when it comes live on the sales platform, I will go back there and make sure all the data is accurate and then set that from 'forthcoming' to 'live,' and we're all done.
Incidentally, the files from Createspace can be used to create the exact same product on Lulu. More platforms means more sales opportunities, and of course you could take your files to a local printer as Pdf's and Jpeg's and print up a million copies if that's what you want to do.
Addendum: a quick check on Lulu reveals they don't have a 5 x 8 option. What this means is that you could select one of a number of sizes, then simply re-size your pages, (all sections,) keeping the margins, headers and footers where they are. 'Save as,' under a new file name. This preserves the original 5 x 8" file.
Apparently ‘novel’ is like an adjective or something, and that’s why I call it a ‘book,’ which is a noun. (A novel concept.)
In previous blog posts, I talked about making a 6 x 9” trade paperback through Createspace. That process took a week or two, although I had previously done a 4 x 7” book on Lulu. By the time you go through it and learn the process, enter all the information, and design the cover, it can take up to a month with Createspace’s internal review, (mostly the format,) processing, and then postal delivery. (Previously, I also wrote about the 4 x 7” POD of ‘The Case of the Curious Killers.’)
This is extremely simple formatting which can be done in about two hours, once you know what you actually want. In stark contrast, when doing 'The Case of the Curious Killers,' I struggled with OpenOffice, with the mirrored page numbers, and different headers left and right, and in fact my 4 x 7" 'Core Values' POD never went to press due to an unfixable glitch.
Why a 5 x 8” print-on-demand?
The book, ‘Redemption: an Inspector Gilles Maintenon mystery,’ seems a bit big and a bit thin as a 6 x 9” product. It’s only 216 pages in that size. It’s less than half an inch thick. Since I’m the one who has to do the work, and I’m the one searing my brand on it, there’s no sense in doing a product that I’m not keen on.
The basic process is exactly the same. Now, assuming the correct number of blank pages front and back, so that the title page hits on a right-hander, just as the first page of the text should, and the author bio at the back does the same, this thing is ready to go. It has a simple header, identical on every page in the text-section, and simple page numbers, the ‘tilde’ type from Microsoft Word. These are centred, not the most esthetically-pleasing, but quick and simple to do. Instead of going down eleven 12-point spaces for each new chapter like I did last time, this one has six 12-point spaces. Nice, clean, saves paper…and it’s quick.
My page numbers are ten-point, and headers are eight or nine. I’m using Cambria, a shapely font with nice, sexy serifs. The actual text is Times New Roman, 12-point. A technical note, when editing headers in Word, you can adjust them for height. My header is 0.3” from the top, and my footer is 0.2” from the bottom…whatever that actually means; and my margins are set at 0.8 top, inside 0.75, gutter at 0”, bottom at 0.3 and outside 0.4. My camera download cable is capooched, but I’ll borrow one and update this post with photos at some point. But it looks fine on screen. The gutter at 0” sounds odd, but I checked this against the file for ‘Redemption,’ and that one was also set at 0”. Your inside margin must be wide enough not to have the edge of the text stuck in the glue of the binding, capiche? It has to look nice. That’s all that matters. Honestly, take a steel scientific ruler and measure somebody’s paperback in the appropriate size. And if I do mess up, it’s only ten or twelve bucks for a proof copy, right?
Investment of Time in a Simple Paperback.
At two or three hours for each file, this puts things into a little better perspective doesn’t it? It sure beats ‘a week or two,’ which was a hit to the old motivation. No one wants to spend two weeks messing with a file—that’s why I sort of put it off until now, a rainy day, and with my most recent book all finished.
Also, the fact that I nailed the ‘Redemption’ POD on the first upload, with the proof copy in my hands, is encouraging.
The basic premise is simple, ‘pay attention or pay through the nose.’ Why? Because to pay for a proof copy, and then when you finally get it, to see that it’s mucked up, and then fix the file, re-upload it, wait for processing, order another proof, wait ten days or so for it to show up in the mailbox again, and only then find another little error is bad policy. It could have been avoided.
It’s costly, time-consuming, frustrating, and unprofessional. So, am I going to upload my file and smash together a cover and go nuts like that? It’s only ten or twelve bucks, right?
Nope. I’m going to nail this little bleeper on the first pass too. That means waiting and taking another look at it tomorrow, and if I was really smart, I’d wait at least two or three days, taking my time and checking every little thing about ten times.
As for the cover, I plan on re-reading the Createspace directions, so that the image is the right size before I really get into it. I will be using the ‘Spruce’ template again, as it looks fine and I liked the result on ‘Redemption.’
Making the Cover.
What I do there is take the original image, re-crop it, and then put new text on it, making danged sure to keep the edges of all text back at least ½” from the edges. That’s it. Drag and drop from that point.
Another brief note; in (or on,) the ‘Redemption’ back cover, I went dead simple with nothing but a text blurb. The next one might have an author pic and a bio, but if it looks too crowded then I’ll just ditch it.
In keeping with the theme of the Shalako Publishing imprint, we’ll most likely use black as the background colour, and that will be fine, considering the marketing image we’ll be using, which is the same as the e-book version. This book has a new ISBN number, as you can’t use the same one for different formats, etc.
Publication Date.
The book will be out by the end of April, in my opinion. As for pricing, I will set it for $2.00 clear profit per copy and we’ll see what that does, as we can always fiddle with it. ‘Redemption’ only brings $1.95 per sale, but that and the 6 x 9” size is how we got it down to $8.99 retail plus S & H in the first place. When using Collections Canada's CISS, (ISBN system,) there's a place where you set the publication date. When I know for sure the number of pages, and when it comes live on the sales platform, I will go back there and make sure all the data is accurate and then set that from 'forthcoming' to 'live,' and we're all done.
Incidentally, the files from Createspace can be used to create the exact same product on Lulu. More platforms means more sales opportunities, and of course you could take your files to a local printer as Pdf's and Jpeg's and print up a million copies if that's what you want to do.
Addendum: a quick check on Lulu reveals they don't have a 5 x 8 option. What this means is that you could select one of a number of sizes, then simply re-size your pages, (all sections,) keeping the margins, headers and footers where they are. 'Save as,' under a new file name. This preserves the original 5 x 8" file.
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