c2012 (S)
Feedback is essential to any creative process. Over the course of the last two or three years, I have made about 670 short story submissions. Less than three percent have been placed, and probably less than one percent paid any money. That is a kind of feedback.
On Blogger, there are stats. You can see how many page hits a given story might receive. If one story gets a lot of page hits, and another story, of different subject matter, gets a few, then obviously the savvy writer will write more stories on the more popular subject matter.
On my Smashwords dashboard, there is a 'stats' button. It takes me to a separate page. If I put out a link on Twitter, and an hour later see that I have received 'x' page-hits, then all I have to do is put out ten links to achieve ten times 'x' page hits, and after a while, I can figure out exactly how many page-hits it takes to sell a book. This can be compared to how many page hits I get without any promotion at all.
The difference is pretty obvious.
Now, if I put out a link for Smashwords and get fifty page hits, then it's a pretty good bet that if I put out a link leading to a product on Amazon, or Barnes & Noble, or Kobo, or Sony, then I will get the same number of pages hits, approximately. At this point the relative market share of the retailer comes into play, and this skews the numers, but feedback is still essential. In purely physical terms, try doing anything without feedback. Try walking without eyes and a sense of balance, and no feeling in your feet.
For many short story rejections, all the editor says is, "Not quite what we are looking for."
That's too bad, as I had this one story with a real bad error of fact in it. No one told me! And of course I kept on submitting it around. It was only later that I discovered the error. Mentally reviewing just how many places I submitted the story, I sure wish someone had told me about that.
A little bit of feedback would save everyone a bit of time in the long run, put it down to 'species altruism' or whatever. That's because one editor's effort might benefit another editor's publication in the short term. However, in the long term, it would come back to the editor's benefit, as I would be less likely to submit a bad story, over and over again.
I'm always glad to receive feedback or criticism, as in the long run I am better off! That's called, 'enlightened self-interest,' and I never take it too personal.
I just figure the editor was having a bad day, and my story wasn't helping any.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
The Perfect Product
c2012 (S)
The e-book is the perfect product. Under the previous paradigm, at least ten percent of all production was wasted at an enormous cost in labour, raw materials, environmental degradation, shipping, fuel, storage, insurance, and other liabilities.
Other liabilities might include benefits for employees, or the cost of rezoning in order to locate an industrial plant and administration.
The e-book eliminates all of that, by a factor of well over ninety-nine percent.
It does not require paper, it does not require ink, or a printing press or trucks going down the road.
Online retail operations require far fewer employees, and they can be centralized rather than dispersed, subject to countless local pressures and multiple independent retailer agreements.
The only thing required to produce an e-book is knowledge, some talent of a creative nature, and time. It takes a relatively simple computer, and an internet connection
Where else could I have found a business where I could invest the fruits of my labour, that is to say e-books, at $0.99 each and give them away, at no cost to myself, thereby building up a clientele?
How would I have learned the shameless art of self-promotion, a shy guy like me with nothing to sell?
That's why I give so many books away for free. Each one represents about a dollar in promotion, or advertising, or however we choose to describe it.
The experience is priceless. You can't bottle it and sell it or I would.
It's a paper transaction, where I give up a dollar to get a customer! Yet I still have positive cash flow, when normally, four out of five businesses fail within the first two years due to lack of sufficient capitalization. Of the survivors, most of them bleed money for the first two years before ever turning a profit.
So why then, would I polish up a manuscript and submit it to a major publisher?
Why not? It's not like I haven't learned a lot about writing and the business. It's not like I haven't heard the criticisms or sensed the jealousy.
But more than anything, it represents a bigger game--one that's more exciting and so much more challenging.
I don't believe in miracles, and I never rely on luck.
We'll see how it goes.
The e-book is the perfect product. Under the previous paradigm, at least ten percent of all production was wasted at an enormous cost in labour, raw materials, environmental degradation, shipping, fuel, storage, insurance, and other liabilities.
Other liabilities might include benefits for employees, or the cost of rezoning in order to locate an industrial plant and administration.
The e-book eliminates all of that, by a factor of well over ninety-nine percent.
It does not require paper, it does not require ink, or a printing press or trucks going down the road.
Online retail operations require far fewer employees, and they can be centralized rather than dispersed, subject to countless local pressures and multiple independent retailer agreements.
The only thing required to produce an e-book is knowledge, some talent of a creative nature, and time. It takes a relatively simple computer, and an internet connection
Where else could I have found a business where I could invest the fruits of my labour, that is to say e-books, at $0.99 each and give them away, at no cost to myself, thereby building up a clientele?
How would I have learned the shameless art of self-promotion, a shy guy like me with nothing to sell?
That's why I give so many books away for free. Each one represents about a dollar in promotion, or advertising, or however we choose to describe it.
The experience is priceless. You can't bottle it and sell it or I would.
It's a paper transaction, where I give up a dollar to get a customer! Yet I still have positive cash flow, when normally, four out of five businesses fail within the first two years due to lack of sufficient capitalization. Of the survivors, most of them bleed money for the first two years before ever turning a profit.
So why then, would I polish up a manuscript and submit it to a major publisher?
Why not? It's not like I haven't learned a lot about writing and the business. It's not like I haven't heard the criticisms or sensed the jealousy.
But more than anything, it represents a bigger game--one that's more exciting and so much more challenging.
I don't believe in miracles, and I never rely on luck.
We'll see how it goes.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Manuscript and Submission Preparation.
Photo by Louis. .75 U.S. stamp required on SASE. Other forms visible are for exemption from U.S. withoholding tax of 30 % as well as reporting to the ODSP, (Canada.)
c2012 (S)
So far I've spent two weeks preparing a novel-length manuscript submission. It invloved copy editing/rewriting the book from end to end twice, as well as formatting it in the SFWA's 'Standard Manuscript Format.' Note that short story and novel formats differ chiefly in that a short story doesn't require a cover page.
This morning I copied and pasted the first three chapters into a fresh document, and went through it converting to U.S. style.
This involves removing the letter 'u' from a lot of words like neighbour, labour, honour, vigour, etc. It also requires changing 'metre' to 'meter,' and 'kilometre' becomes 'kilometer.'
This requires attention to detail and careful reading rather than any great technical knowledge.
Now I need a big fat envelope to take about fifty pages, and I need a good cover letter. They probably require a longer synopsis. My two-page synopsis is okay, but it might get longer. The letter will have all the contact data, word count, title, the usual thing. My submission letters aren't exactly chatty--the KISS principle applies when in doubt. Next thing is to print it out, make up the SASE, and write a cover letter. I'll probably do that tomorrow.
I've set myself a deadline for actually mailing the thing. That way I can move on to the next challenge. Also, I searched around and found some U.S. stamps so that they can send me a rejection slip. You can't use Canadian stamps in a U.S. post office. Lucky for me, I'm fairly well organized. I might just jot down a little checklist so I don't forget anything, and of course the whole thing will cost eight or ten bucks for postage. Then we wait.
***
My new mystery novel, 'Redemption: an Inspector Gilles Maintenon mystery,' actually has two different marketing images. That's because, according to Smashwords, 'Some retailers are cracking down on even illustrative nudity.'
What this means is that you get one image on Amazon, and another image in domestic U.S. booksellers. It's all the same to me. I don't have any objections to illustrative nudity, and both covers look good.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Novel Manuscript Preparation.
c2011 (S)
I've been working over 'Horse-Catcher' before submitting it again.
Here are some perspectives on 'standard manuscript format,' including SFWA members Vonda M. McIntyre and William Shunn.
For one thing, it reminded me to have a cover page.
In the past, I was using three asterisks for scene breaks, and that differs from the norm, which is to use a number sign '#' indented to match paragraph indentation.
One of the things I noticed about Mr. Shunn's format is that he seems to be using the 'define paragraph' function where I normally just use five space-bar hits for indentation. I would never use a half-inch indent as he does, bearing in mind it is a manuscript and not an actual book. His way may be correct.
Going through the book it looked like I would end up with about seventy-five chapters. This is far too many chapters for a book of this length. Tedious as it is, far better to reorganize the material before submission. Twenty-five or thirty chapters is plenty.
There is also one short chapter that is nothing but exposition. Luckily, it's the only one. This chapter might get deleted, or more likely redistributed throughout the story. Even then, much of it is expendable if the same material is covered elsewhere or brought to light by events rather than some invisiable narrator.
Other than that, I've spent four or five days rewriting and editing, and I stand as much chance as the next unknown author of landing the big publishing contract.
With a crowded marketplace and plenty of wannabe authors attending convention after convention, building personal relationships, or attending panels and asking questions, this writer needs whatever edge he can get.
I've been working over 'Horse-Catcher' before submitting it again.
Here are some perspectives on 'standard manuscript format,' including SFWA members Vonda M. McIntyre and William Shunn.
For one thing, it reminded me to have a cover page.
In the past, I was using three asterisks for scene breaks, and that differs from the norm, which is to use a number sign '#' indented to match paragraph indentation.
One of the things I noticed about Mr. Shunn's format is that he seems to be using the 'define paragraph' function where I normally just use five space-bar hits for indentation. I would never use a half-inch indent as he does, bearing in mind it is a manuscript and not an actual book. His way may be correct.
Going through the book it looked like I would end up with about seventy-five chapters. This is far too many chapters for a book of this length. Tedious as it is, far better to reorganize the material before submission. Twenty-five or thirty chapters is plenty.
There is also one short chapter that is nothing but exposition. Luckily, it's the only one. This chapter might get deleted, or more likely redistributed throughout the story. Even then, much of it is expendable if the same material is covered elsewhere or brought to light by events rather than some invisiable narrator.
Other than that, I've spent four or five days rewriting and editing, and I stand as much chance as the next unknown author of landing the big publishing contract.
With a crowded marketplace and plenty of wannabe authors attending convention after convention, building personal relationships, or attending panels and asking questions, this writer needs whatever edge he can get.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Kobo not recognized by PC.
My twelve year-old nephew got a Kobo for Christmas and his uncle Louis was all excited. The device comes with access to a free library numbering in the millions.
It's a nice-looking device and I had no trouble setting the date and time.
How to set up a Kobo e-reader is here.
The boy's father lost patience even with this, but he is avowedly computer-illiterate and not interested in getting involved with them. Even he was happy to buy the device for the nephster.
The Kobo was not recognized by my brother's laptop, which is connected by wireless to the internet.
I took the thing home to my place, and hooked it up to my desktop Windows PC, which is connected to the internet via cable. The machine was not recognized by the PC, and I got appropriate warning boxes popping up on my desktop.
It's too bad, really, as I would have liked to see my nephew reading Alexandre Dumas, Robert Louis Stephenson, and Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and a host of other classic authors.
As it is, I think they're going to take it back and try out a cheap touch-screen pad-type device.
During the course of my own amateur attempts at trouble-shooting, I downlaoded Kobo's free application, 'Kobo for Desktop.' What I was planning to do was to click and drag free e-books and load them onto an SD card, which the Kobo is equipped for.
That might have worked, but does not solve the real problem of going online and downloading books, free or otherwise, to the Kobo.
The free Gutenberg Adobe Digital Editions read fine on my desktop. My own product, also free, 'The Stud Farm,' doesn't seem to have any page-turning carets or buttons or any other form of icon. I can look at the cover, the middle of the book, and that's about it. The exact same Kobo file download reads beautifully in Mobipocket Reader, which I also have on my desktop. This is the way I normally test read Epub versions of the books I upload to Smashwords. It's all part of quality control.
I can't say for sure if the problem lies with my own eight year-old PC, or the Kobo app. I have sent an e-mail inquiry. If the problem persists, or if I can't fix the problem, then I will shut off the distribution channel for Diesel and Kobo until it is fixed. Because the Kobo has a button to turn pages, I am sort of assuming the product works in the actual reader.
Without a working Kobo to test with, that is an assumption, and I hate assumptions.
First you might try this: How to synchronize Kobo with Kobo Desktop.
Or download this free Pdf;
http://download.kobobooks.com/learnmore/kobo2_pdf/Kobo_ereader2_QSGuide-EN.pdf
Here is an e-mail response from Kobo regarding my desktop app
:
Hi Louis,
Thank you for contacting Kobo Customer Care with your concern.
We are sorry to hear that you are experiencing technical difficulties with your eBook.
Please delete the book from your library and reinstall it back to your device.
Then go to your list of purchased books and BOOKMARK the eBook it will then appear in your I'M READING PAGE you can then sync it to your desktop library and then to eReader.
We do apologize for any inconvenience.
Sincerely,
The Kobo Team
As a service to others in a similar boat, here is where you can ask a Kobo technician.
It's a nice-looking device and I had no trouble setting the date and time.
How to set up a Kobo e-reader is here.
The boy's father lost patience even with this, but he is avowedly computer-illiterate and not interested in getting involved with them. Even he was happy to buy the device for the nephster.
The Kobo was not recognized by my brother's laptop, which is connected by wireless to the internet.
I took the thing home to my place, and hooked it up to my desktop Windows PC, which is connected to the internet via cable. The machine was not recognized by the PC, and I got appropriate warning boxes popping up on my desktop.
It's too bad, really, as I would have liked to see my nephew reading Alexandre Dumas, Robert Louis Stephenson, and Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and a host of other classic authors.
As it is, I think they're going to take it back and try out a cheap touch-screen pad-type device.
During the course of my own amateur attempts at trouble-shooting, I downlaoded Kobo's free application, 'Kobo for Desktop.' What I was planning to do was to click and drag free e-books and load them onto an SD card, which the Kobo is equipped for.
That might have worked, but does not solve the real problem of going online and downloading books, free or otherwise, to the Kobo.
The free Gutenberg Adobe Digital Editions read fine on my desktop. My own product, also free, 'The Stud Farm,' doesn't seem to have any page-turning carets or buttons or any other form of icon. I can look at the cover, the middle of the book, and that's about it. The exact same Kobo file download reads beautifully in Mobipocket Reader, which I also have on my desktop. This is the way I normally test read Epub versions of the books I upload to Smashwords. It's all part of quality control.
I can't say for sure if the problem lies with my own eight year-old PC, or the Kobo app. I have sent an e-mail inquiry. If the problem persists, or if I can't fix the problem, then I will shut off the distribution channel for Diesel and Kobo until it is fixed. Because the Kobo has a button to turn pages, I am sort of assuming the product works in the actual reader.
Without a working Kobo to test with, that is an assumption, and I hate assumptions.
First you might try this: How to synchronize Kobo with Kobo Desktop.
Or download this free Pdf;
http://download.kobobooks.com/learnmore/kobo2_pdf/Kobo_ereader2_QSGuide-EN.pdf
Here is an e-mail response from Kobo regarding my desktop app
:
Hi Louis,
Thank you for contacting Kobo Customer Care with your concern.
We are sorry to hear that you are experiencing technical difficulties with your eBook.
Please delete the book from your library and reinstall it back to your device.
Then go to your list of purchased books and BOOKMARK the eBook it will then appear in your I'M READING PAGE you can then sync it to your desktop library and then to eReader.
We do apologize for any inconvenience.
Sincerely,
The Kobo Team
As a service to others in a similar boat, here is where you can ask a Kobo technician.
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