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.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Social Marketing 101
I had to modify my plan for the social marketing of e-books.
A few weeks ago, I received notice that my free Kijiji online ads, posted in major cities across Canada, were not in compliance with Kijiji terms, and so they were deleted. Sooner or later, that was bound to happen, and there are no hard feelings here.
However, those ads clearly drove a number of page-views and some sales of e-books. A quick look at the Toronto Kijiji site, under the ‘Books’ category will show how popular these ads are. There can be twelve or fourteen thousand ads in there on a given day. Kijiji is Canada’s most successful free classified ad site by far. It gets the traffic.
How then, was I to continue to sell e-books, and now, my print on demand paperbacks? Certainly Facebook and Twitter do help with exposure and sales. Having a product for free on Amazon and other sites does bring free exposure, and assuming it’s a good book, this drives subsequent sales down the road.
But to take out those ads, when I have products to market, and more coming soon, had me worried. In the first week or ten days of March, sales were very slow, and it’s pretty easy to get discouraged. On the bright side, I’m not banned, and I can still use my local ad site.
And, I kind of figured out a plan.
The Plan.
To continue to provide a kind of journalistic tweet style, one which covers a distinct beat, and which evolves over time. It also gets better the longer I go on. Figuring out who the audience is helps to figure out what to tweet. I plan on building up the numbers on Twitter, Facebook, and other social sites. I already belong to a number of those.
On Facebook, the goal is to make more use of groups that I belong to. In the past, I neglected this. But I have already had a couple of people from groups say that they bought one of my titles. The conclusion is obvious: more group interactions. Commenting on high-traffic websites and discussion sites is a good strategy, assuming it is kept relevant and relatively polite. More on this another day. However, I only do this sporadically, where I am following my own interests, rather than just trying to comment in the New York Times or something like that. The fact is, I only read the NYT occasionally, and I can’t comment on each and every story. I try to think about whether it’s really valid or is it really just comment spam, designed to drive views of my blog or something. I’m not dependent on revenue from my blog, so this really isn’t a big part of my day, or my plan. There is no quick fix for low blog traffic, it takes time and relevant, useful content that finds an audience.
In terms of blogging, I try to keep on message, and not to get too political, or engage in too many rants. I see it as a kind of teaching tool. Remembering how badly I wanted someone to teach me how to write, I figure there must be others out there like me. It’s best to keep the blog a valid resource for people looking for ideas, tips and techniques in writing, editing, publishing, and selling books and stories. I’m not really an expert in any of those things, so it is learn as we go around here.
Another thing is to submit a few short stories, and to write a few more, and of course to figure out the next book-length project. Some new poems are a good idea. You give them away for free, true enough. You also get a link back to your blog or your website, or even one that leads back to good old Amazon…
I’ve never done a mass e-mailing, and so far I have no plans to do one. I’ve only attended three small conventions, right in my home town. I have never held a book in my hand and introduced myself as an author at any event. I have never spoken to a big-time editor, agent, or publisher at such an event. All these are traditional methods of selling books, and I’ve never done any of them!
If I find a free search-engine submitter, I would of course use that to get a few hits on the blog. As for some other changes made, so far I’m writing the blog now to be a little more search-engine friendly, and paying more attention to titles and tags, first sentence key words and things like that. The plan here is to keep on learning. I’m also paying more attention to the content.
Why would I do all this?
On the Smashwords Blog, there is an interview, ‘Ruth Ann Nordin Shares the Secrets of her Success,’ and she said something very interesting. She said that she had interacted with groups on Facebook and in discussions on Amazon. This eventually led to some interesting numbers which she has provided in the story.
I’ve only had a few reviews and maybe two interviews. That’s not much to build on.
Bear in mind that this writer has never exchanged blog posts, nor had a guest blogger, which is another popular technique for getting readers. I’ve never had a signing at a bookstore, or toured for promotional purposes. I’ve never ordered a box of books and tried to get them in a local bookstore. At this stage of the game, (keeping costs low,) we are limited to the potential of the internet—which theoretically, should be ‘unlimited.’ That’s because it keeps on growing and developing.
In my opinion all social marketing and all promotion and advertising, works on the simple repetition of effective techniques. And, it also has a cumulative effect over time. I published my first two books in October 2010. If you published one yesterday, and I published one a year and a half ago, and assuming I’ve sold a few books, listen carefully: ‘Of course my book is higher up the rankings than yours,’ it’s had longer to get there. The only way your book could be higher is if you sold a lot of books since yesterday.
I kid you not.
Once you have sold a book, the algorithms can’t take it away from you. Sell another, and you have doubled your sales—a mathematical construct to be sure. We don’t have that product presentation algorithm, which substitutes for a shelf in a brick and mortar store, all nice and clearly laid out for us. We can figure out a few of its variables. And, if we can figure them out, we can manipulate them.
Okay, on the left side we have a bunch of variables, and then an equal sign, (=) and on the right side we have a result. The left side has to add up to the right side when all operations are solved, right? It’s an equation, and the result is sales, measured by sales rankings. Comprene vous?
What is a product presentation algorithm and how does it work?
When someone looks at a book on Amazon or other site, they will be presented with a display that says, 'People who bought this book also bought...(insert title here.)' Amazon also uses algorithms to make personalized recommendations to people who arrive at the main page or are just browsing, based on past purchase history, and whatever they were just looking at, and 'likes,' etc. We want to be presented by Amazon to customers as often as possible to maximize our chances of selling a book.
Sales are measured over time, (‘T.’) It’s an equation. Different price categories means different customers, and maybe different weight in the product presentation. There is a reassuring human element to all of this, as a good cover and a good product description, a good preview, will win out over inferior products, given an informed buyer and sufficient time. Time is also an important variable in our theoretical equation. That’s an obvious inference. Another aspect of the human element is the number of titles you have. I have nine titles to sell, while another author might have just published their first book. I have nine times the chance of selling one book, if we eliminate all other considerations. Someone said the algorithm measures ‘velocity.’ I think it measures an acceleration, which is different, but if you sell ten books, the ranking will go up so far and stop. In that sense, it has to be measured against a base-line. While total sales is a variable, Amazon measures sales hourly, and each month is a new 'sheet,' with total sales carried over in one baseline variable. That way it can rise and fall over time, and in fact you can see a graphic representation of something analagous to this on your Smashwords dashboard under ‘page-views.’ You can see that total page views can only go up, while daily page views rise and fall.
The ranking and product presentation algorithm measures something which looks very much like a lateral acceleration, i.e. g-force, but the curve is also exponential. That means it gets steeper on the way up, and a lot steeper the further you go. At the top, the incline is near the vertical. (It measures a lot of things in order for it all to work.)
The most weight is given to the most important variable. If you sell a book, that’s the most important variable. It drives the book up in the sales rankings. It really is just that simple. Now, extrapolating from Facebook to Amazon, a logical deduction would be (drum roll please,) to interact more on Amazon.
Amazon has plenty of discussions, threads, etc. And this is also another area that I admit I was neglecting. You can’t participate, write reviews, or comment on threads until you have bought a book from Amazon. Seriously, it’s worth buying one $0.99 e-book from almost anyone to do these things.
It’s like my dear old daddy used to say, ‘There is more than one way to skin a cat.”
I don’t mean to be a soul-less monster, but we should be doing everything that we can to drive up book sales, one book at a time, but also just trying to drive up page-hits, trying to raise the number of reviews, and the number of people clicking ‘like’ and sharing the link with their friends, trying to increase the number of mentions and RT’s on Twitter, picking up new blog followers, and getting ourselves interviewed. I mean everything.
Anyhow, there is plenty of room for exploration, experimentation, and much fun will be had by all.
Results.
So far, in March I made more money, not less, than when I had ads up in ten cities across Canada. Part of this is the fact that I raised prices on book-length titles which means you can actually sell fewer books and make more money. That's because $0.99 books have a 35% royalty, but a $2.99 book has a 70% royalty. This is assuming that you can move them at all. One of the reasons why I give away so many books is because I like to see those numbers going up, up, up...
Conclusions:
Ads are useful, and I still maintain the ones I have. They are not essential. As for successful social marketing, there is so much to learn, it will keep me busy for quite some time. That’s good, because I like being busy, and I like selling books too.
Incidentally, my new e-book, ‘On the Nature of the Gods,’ will be out soon, and in the meantime, you’re certainly welcome to take a copy of ‘Redemption: an Inspector Gilles Maintenon mystery,’ from Amazon. Please click 'like; if you go there, and we are always looking for reviews. If you found this article interesting and relevant, please feel free to share it with your friends. Thank you!
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
The Process of Manuscript Editing
The process of manuscript editing is a fairly simple one. It just takes time and patience. There are a few simple techniques and a few things to keep in mind.
Spell Checking and Grammar
I always run spell check and grammar check when editing, and I write in a Word document. Things spelled wrong are underlined in red, and bad grammar in green. That is only turned off when the book is ready to publish. Certain sentences in the final product may still be in 'bad grammar.' But if that happens, it happens for a reason. A conscious decision was made, due to artistic considerations, perhaps using contractions, or slang in dialogue for example. When I come across a word that the computer doesn't seem to know how to spell properly, and I'm almost but not quite sure I'm right, I Google it and look for it to pop up. In editing my recently-completed book, 'On the Nature of the Gods,' I found that in Canada, it's correct to spell 'sulphur' as you see it here. In the U.S., you could spell it sulfur or even sulfer and get away with it. Which one I choose depends on a decision-making process, not simple ignorance or carelessness.
I wrote that book to the end, that is to say I finished the plot. It came out at 60,500 words more or less. That book, after three major edits/rewrites, made it up to about 67,000 words. It grew because of added details, clarification, and all of this in spite of the fact that I probably eliminated 300-400 words that really didn't need to be there.
The trouble with making up names, using foreign words and colloquiallisms, is that the computer sometimes says it's spelled wrong when in fact it is right. Each and every one of those, has to be visually checked, one by one, and this is a separate scanning process where I don't actually read line-by-line. It involves scrolling down, endlessly down, and stopping at each and every thing still underlined in red.
The editing also includes the front and end matter. I want the proper disclaimer, the proper ISBN, and stuff like that to be right, 'on the first upload,' for someone could buy a book within minutes of publication. I don't have a whole lot of trouble with its versus it's, or there/they're/their, but if you do, the computer might not catch those, so have an eye. Sometimes the computer doesn't know a word is missing from a sentence. It's a lot of reading, over and over again, to pick off as many errors as possible.
Formatting and design.
When formatting, I turn on the pilcrows, and make sure the spaces are the same. I use single spaces, 12-point, although chapter titles are in 14-point. I don't want a 14-point space to creep in and throw off the depth of my chapter headings, right? This involves a couple or more run-throughs, again not necessarily reading the book, but if I saw something wrong I might fix it on the way by. The pilcrows are only turned off and on when checking formatting, to edit with them on is a pain.
In terms of design, the e-book can be dead simple. One thing, always include a link to your website. My books have one at the front and at the back after a short bio. Other than that, the right edge is ragged, not justified, and the chapter titles are centred...etc.
Proofreading.
Proofreading is important, and if you can get someone else to read it, that would be wonderful. Make sure they are good spellers, and hopefully they are the kind of person who is not a procrastinator. Explain that this is not a review or book-report.
Tell them, 'Just look for typos,' and, 'mention anything you didn't really understand clearly.' Never rely on another person to do your work for you. I don't care who they are, you would still have to read the thing yourself before publishing it.
No one else can take responsibility, nor should they. This is your baby. Never forget that.
The first time I published, I must have rewrote twelve or fifteen times for my first two books. At this point, a year and a half later, my copy is a lot cleaner first time out, and so much less has to be cut from the story. It doesn't take so long anymore. There is a temptation to publish the thing as quickly as possible and to start making some money. Every independent author feels this way. There are no shortcuts to a job well done, and that's exactly what my old man used to say--so you know it's real.
'On the Nature of the Gods' took about two and a half months to write, maybe three weeks to edit, and it will be published on or about March 31.
Spell Checking and Grammar
I always run spell check and grammar check when editing, and I write in a Word document. Things spelled wrong are underlined in red, and bad grammar in green. That is only turned off when the book is ready to publish. Certain sentences in the final product may still be in 'bad grammar.' But if that happens, it happens for a reason. A conscious decision was made, due to artistic considerations, perhaps using contractions, or slang in dialogue for example. When I come across a word that the computer doesn't seem to know how to spell properly, and I'm almost but not quite sure I'm right, I Google it and look for it to pop up. In editing my recently-completed book, 'On the Nature of the Gods,' I found that in Canada, it's correct to spell 'sulphur' as you see it here. In the U.S., you could spell it sulfur or even sulfer and get away with it. Which one I choose depends on a decision-making process, not simple ignorance or carelessness.
I wrote that book to the end, that is to say I finished the plot. It came out at 60,500 words more or less. That book, after three major edits/rewrites, made it up to about 67,000 words. It grew because of added details, clarification, and all of this in spite of the fact that I probably eliminated 300-400 words that really didn't need to be there.
The trouble with making up names, using foreign words and colloquiallisms, is that the computer sometimes says it's spelled wrong when in fact it is right. Each and every one of those, has to be visually checked, one by one, and this is a separate scanning process where I don't actually read line-by-line. It involves scrolling down, endlessly down, and stopping at each and every thing still underlined in red.
The editing also includes the front and end matter. I want the proper disclaimer, the proper ISBN, and stuff like that to be right, 'on the first upload,' for someone could buy a book within minutes of publication. I don't have a whole lot of trouble with its versus it's, or there/they're/their, but if you do, the computer might not catch those, so have an eye. Sometimes the computer doesn't know a word is missing from a sentence. It's a lot of reading, over and over again, to pick off as many errors as possible.
Formatting and design.
When formatting, I turn on the pilcrows, and make sure the spaces are the same. I use single spaces, 12-point, although chapter titles are in 14-point. I don't want a 14-point space to creep in and throw off the depth of my chapter headings, right? This involves a couple or more run-throughs, again not necessarily reading the book, but if I saw something wrong I might fix it on the way by. The pilcrows are only turned off and on when checking formatting, to edit with them on is a pain.
In terms of design, the e-book can be dead simple. One thing, always include a link to your website. My books have one at the front and at the back after a short bio. Other than that, the right edge is ragged, not justified, and the chapter titles are centred...etc.
Proofreading.
Proofreading is important, and if you can get someone else to read it, that would be wonderful. Make sure they are good spellers, and hopefully they are the kind of person who is not a procrastinator. Explain that this is not a review or book-report.
Tell them, 'Just look for typos,' and, 'mention anything you didn't really understand clearly.' Never rely on another person to do your work for you. I don't care who they are, you would still have to read the thing yourself before publishing it.
No one else can take responsibility, nor should they. This is your baby. Never forget that.
The first time I published, I must have rewrote twelve or fifteen times for my first two books. At this point, a year and a half later, my copy is a lot cleaner first time out, and so much less has to be cut from the story. It doesn't take so long anymore. There is a temptation to publish the thing as quickly as possible and to start making some money. Every independent author feels this way. There are no shortcuts to a job well done, and that's exactly what my old man used to say--so you know it's real.
'On the Nature of the Gods' took about two and a half months to write, maybe three weeks to edit, and it will be published on or about March 31.
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