Friday, November 9, 2012

Terran Shift Anthology, Vol 1 is now available

Last year, Jamie and his brother Paul decided to put together an anthology ebook of stories set exclusively in their Terran Shift universe. This is the result -- seven stories from five authors (including three GPS members), spanning from the high-tech cyberpunk dystopia of the Bio-Tech Era to the Sol-Bect War Era.


The Berkutchi Trial by Alan Belanger
An American spy in Kazahkstan accidentally breaks local law and must win a berkutchi trial to get out alive.

Things Taken by Cynthia Ravinski
Only when you've put everything you have into obtaining your hopes and dreams do you find what you've really been after.

Handbook For A Better Society by Jamie Alan Belanger
A misguided man bases his utopia on a satirical novel.

The Unders by Timothy Lynch
The Landers and Unders are at war. The Landers just don't know it yet.

Moroned by Paul J Belanger
Fortune favors the prepared. As for the unprepared, well...

Moon Sweepers by Alan Belanger
Youth on a moon base learn the dangers of regolith mining.

The Sol-Bect Setup by Paul J Belanger
In a missing chapter from The Sol-Bect War, Part 2, Peter McCabe visits the past to lay the groundwork for his future.


This ebook is currently available in the Amazon Kindle Store

I put together a comprehensive sample that includes a short excerpt from each story. Read the sample.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Scribings, Vol 2: Lost Civilizations now on Libboo

Our second anthology is now available on Libboo! https://www.libboo.com/read/scribings/jamiebelanger

What is Libboo?

In their own words:
Libboo is a publishing startup, with partners and supporters ranging from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to the National Literacy Trust and the BBC. Libboo aims to help authors (whether they have a traditional publishing deal or have self-published) increase their chance of success by pairing their books with the correct "buzzers". A buzzer is someone who has influence in their personal community and who, most importantly, is passionate about sharing the books they love. Libboo believes that a key part of making an author successful is to pair them with others who will share their work and help expose it to a wider audience.
If you love reading and this is the first time you’ve heard of Libboo, please check out their site.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Scribings Vol 2 now in Diesel and iTunes stores

Scribings, Vol 2: Lost Civilizations is now available in the Diesel and iTunes stores.

If you've been waiting for it to be available at Diesel, Click here to get it.

Or Click here to buy it at the iTunes store

If you're waiting for the ebook to be available at other stores like Barnes and Noble or Kobo, it should be there within the next few weeks.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Llano Del Rio - Ghost Town

Lost Civilizations where you least expect them (not just in our book!).



Civilizations seem to disappear overnight, or over generations
This one struggled a mere three years. Remains can still be found just north of Los Angeles, USA.


If you're interested by lost civilizations check out our latest book
Scribings Vol. 2: Lost Civilizations

Friday, June 29, 2012

Scribings Vol 2 Is Here!

What better way to celebrate anthologies than to...

The Greater Portland Scribists present:


Journey into lands long lost with the Greater Portland Scribists. Delve into an Egyptian pyramid in a peculiar location. See what a Viking boy does when handed the executioner’s ax. Find out why sometimes it’s too late to learn from your mistakes. Watch a bookbinder as he achieves his dreams. See a civilization vanish through the eyes of a young girl.

Scribings Vol 2: Lost Civilizations features eight exciting stories that will take you on a trip through time and space and even through the fabric of reality itself. Scribings Vol 2 features stories from trusted veterans Richard Veysey, Cynthia Ravinski, and Jamie Alan Belanger, as well as stories from new members Christopher L. Weston and Timothy Lynch.


For information on how to buy a copy in any ereader format, please see:

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Diagnosis Anthology

By W.D. Prescott

As a writer, I find anthologies invaluable. The reader in me finds them essential. But if you were to go to any publisher, you would find they tend to be hesitant with them. I know because I have an idea for an anthology and went around trying to get a feel for who could be interested and what I, as the editor, would need to do on my end. Let me tell you, if you thought being a writer was a tough job, look into being an anthology editor. Writing will seem like a cakewalk.

But why is there this near aversion to tomes devoted to diversity in literature? It's not just on the publisher's end, either. Writers and readers are giving up on anthologies just as e-books and self-publishing now allow better access to a wider breath of collections to choose. Let’s look at how an anthology comes together to find out.

Step 1 - The Idea: This is the real "make it or break it" part of the genesis. If you don't have a good idea, a gripping idea, it can be hard not only to sell it to readers, but to a publisher to publish it and writers to write the stories. If you look at those that sell well--relative to other anthologies--they are usually Year's Best of [insert genre(s)]. They work because the idea is simple and profitable: Take only the best of a genre for the last year and compile it all and sell them. This works for a publisher because there is little risk involved. All these stories have been published before. They tend to have a high concentration of well-known authors that can sell the book to their fan base. And they don't have to think of an idea for a sequel, they just wait for the next year's batch of tales. It's great for readers because, as it was mentioned, these are the most current stories that are considered the best by well-known editors in the business. A plethora of well-known authors haunt the pages, giving anyone new to the genre a place to start and find their way into it.

Any other kind of anthology becomes risky for a publisher because it involves stories that haven't been tested. They can't assume money will be made with any of those stories. If they can't make money, why make the book? But these are also where a lot of the innovation in a genre comes from. From sub-genre and niche sampler anthologies to character type anthologies to situational anthologies, these are we readers can delve into the creative chaos of any genre. When the submission call went out for Tainted: Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, the guidelines were simple: read one of 5 classic stories and write your own inspired by one of them. Inspired is a broad word for a writer. Is it a rewrite of the story? A continuation? A new story based on an element of the original? The answer was yes. Each author did what they wanted--I opted for the continuation--and eight stories were created through their experimentation and imagination. This not just a hallmark of anthologies, but the short form itself. The novel is great, but you are devoted to the ideas of that novel for hundreds of pages. Anthologies let you go through a whirlwind of permutations of one idea and the ideas spawned form them in the same time.

Step 2 - The Writers: Once the idea for the anthology is set, the hard part comes. Much of the reason that publishers are hesitant to publish anthologies is that writers are hesitant to write for them. The reason being is simple: What happens if the story is not accepted into the anthology? The quick answer is "send it into a magazine." If the story is exceptional, that might work. But the truth is that many of the anthologies have such a defining theme, it makes it hard to find magazine whose style will mesh with the theme of the story. Not only that, but a good editor will know of the most recent submission calls and will be looking for the rejects to be fill there inboxes. And just so it’s known, editors are not fond of anthology rejects. So, why would a writer want to spend the time on a story that may not get accepted and then have a harder time finding a home after rejection when they can write a novel or a short story specifically for a magazine during that time?

For a writer, new or established, it is something to promote. You hit a bump in your newest novel progress? Not sure how to start the sequel of the series? Things like this can stall the momentum of a writer and it can be hard to gain back anything lost--like readers--if it takes too long to publish something new. A short story in an anthology helps out in that you will have a new book to push as you recover on any lost time on your current project. And readers are more willing to pick up a book than a magazine--just look at how many magazine markets rise in fall in a 5 year period. For new writers, anthologies are a great way to start making a name for yourself. When it comes to publishing that first book with a press, small or large, having publishing credits on that query letter helps. Also, new writers really get the most out of it if there are well-known authors included, because they will have a fan base that will help sell the book and spreading the news about the anthology.

Step 3 - Selling the Anthology: You got the idea, you found writers that wrote great stories based on that idea, now how do you get it in the hands of readers? The better-known authors will help, but they don't get the same numbers of fans to buy anthologies as they do their books. Readers today are brought up on novels. The only time they are regularly exposed to short fiction is in school, and we all remember home much we enjoyed reading in school. And even those that get the anthology because one or more authors they like are in it, they may only read those stories, maybe a few of the others "just to see." And you can't blame them. The way they are sold to them is that the anthology itself is the product, not the stories inside.

Think of it in food terms. Would you ever go to the store and buy a bag of Doritos that have all the flavors combined in it? That is how anthologies are sold to people. Very rarely are you told anything about the stories in the anthology, just the theme of the collection and the authors inside. That's not how novels are sold. Anywhere you look: on the cover, author's website, promotional material, you have an idea of what's in those covers, just like you know what's in a box of cereal. An anthology should do the same thing. They have to sell like those variety packs of cereal you always wanted as a kid. You may only want 3 or 4 of them, but you still will eat the whole pack and enjoy them. Anthologies need to take the spotlight off the whole and focus each story inside. They have to be those little boxes of cereal that tempt the reader to wanting the whole thing. They will try it if they know what they are getting rather than betting on a mystery.

Anthologies have a place--a needed place--in literature. But it is going to take some reevaluations of the way we perceive anthologies for them to gain the place they deserve, from everyone in the circle of literary consumption and imagination.


W. D. Prescott is a good ol’ New Hampshire boy currently living in the swirling doom of New Jersey. He’s always been a little different. Loving writing and music equally, he dropped out of high school and pursued a B.A. in Creative Writing and Musical Theory and Composition at Bard College at Simon’s Rock. He went on to Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction Program for his M.A. and is returning to complete an M.F.A. He’s been published in Tainted: Tales of Terror and the Supernatural. Between that publication and now, he’s removed two organs from his body and replaced one. As he recovered, he started two projects from his bed: Eldritch Thoughts and The Non-Horror Reader Survey. Currently, he is the television columnist for InveterateMediaJunkie.com.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Short Stories: The Red-Headed Stepchild of the Publishing World

By Angel Leigh McCoy

“Anthologies don’t sell well.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that.

"Publishers are reluctant to publish anthologies.” I’ve heard that one quite often as well.

The fact of the matter is that short story anthologies remain primarily in the domain of the indy publisher. Few major publishers want to hassle with splitting royalties among a dozen or more authors, not to mention all the other hassles that come along with dealing with multiple authors (mailing their copies to them alone can be time-intensive and expensive).

Editors like Ellen Datlow, doing her “Year’s Best” and other genre anthologies (which are anthologies of brilliant work) has managed to attract larger publishers at times, but not always.

What this means is that anthologies must be the love-child of a passionate editor or editors. These editors are often writers as well, and they sympathize with the challenge that short story writers face in today’s publishing environment: these writers don’t have many options for getting their stories out there!

“What about magazines?” you ask. Well, the competition is fierce to get into any kind of magazine or e-zine when it only has between two and ten slots per month or per quarter. You not only have to be a good writer, but your story has to hit the editor square on the forehead for it to be chosen. Often, it has to hit the reader, then the editor, then the editor’s partners square on all their foreheads.

What all this does is it reduces the amount of money that writers can make with their short stories. As a result, short stories are often seen as fitting only in the practice arena, or the public relations arena, or the I-had-a-quirky-idea-and-just-had-to-get-it-on-paper arena. Most writers turn their careers toward writing novels, which is where the money is.

It’s a downward spiral. Indy publishers can’t pay as much as the big publishers, can’t promote as big, and often don’t have the same distribution opportunities. So, short story writers get paid less.

However, I believe short stories are on the rise again. As people’s lives get busier and busier, a short story is often just the right size to fit into a busy schedule. Now, we just have to figure out how to get writers paid more so they will find time to write those amazing stories they have inside them.

With our Deep Cuts anthology, we’re hoping we’ve found a way around that. We’re not the first anthology to use Kickstarter for funding, but we are—to my knowledge—the first to use it to supplement funding on a project that is already paying what are considered “professional rates.”

If you’re not familiar with Kickstarter, let me give you the brief run-down. People post their artistic projects there and ask for a few bucks from folks to fund it. In exchange, the folks get goodies (usually a pre-order plus other awesome things). The more you pledge, the more you get. And you don’t have to pay anything if the Kickstarter project doesn’t hit its goal. Thus, it’s democracy in action. If enough people want the project to take off, then it will. If not, then it won’t, and no one pays a dime. Many people giving a little bit each adds up, and soon, at no great burden to anyone, the artistic project is a go! And theoretically, the world’s a better place for it.

Using Kickstarter to help fund anthologies is a great way to shift the balance, to get more money into the short story stream, and to work toward making it a more respected and financially viable art form. It’s revolutionary, and I fully expect to see more and more anthology projects using crowd-funding.

By pledging, you’re pre-ordering your copy of the book, plus purchasing various other goodies, in advance of the publication. You’re taking the role of a patron of the arts as well, putting your money to help starving writers and artists who just need a little different cash flow to see their dreams come to life.

We are currently accepting submissions of horror stories for our Deep Cuts anthology (submission guidelines). We’re paying 5c/word plus royalties, but then we’re also doing our Kickstarter, and hoping that people will pledge to pre-order a copy of the book so that we can pay our writers more for their hard work.


Please do submit a short story to Deep Cuts: http://deepcuts.submishmash.com/submit/

And, please, check out and pledge to our Kickstarter here.



Angel Leigh McCoy (SFWA & HWA member) writes horror, dark fantasy, and doompunk. Her fiction has appeared in numerous media, and in 2011, her novelette “Charlie Darwin, or the Trine of 1809″ was released by Nevermet Press. She also had stories appear in Strange Aeons, Necrotic Tissue, Beast Within 2, Fear of the Dark, and Growing Dread: Biopunk Visions, among others.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

The Sorry State of the Anthology Market

(Reposted from 4/17/12 for Anthology Celebration)


An•THOL•o•gy--noun, English. A collection of selected literary pieces or passages or works of art or music. (Merriam Webster)

Do you have a shelf for them? A section for them?
No?
Well they aren’t just for English class, you know!

This is why we love them:
• Sample many authors for the price of one book
• You are bound to like at least one story in the collection
• Read many stories about your favorite topics/subjects
• In a one-author anthology, find many doses of your favorite authors talent
• One book, with many quick, one-sit reads-perfect for the busy person
• Short stories: Complete meaningful story in one compact telling
• You can support many authors at the same time by buying one book :)
• A lot of new talent is discovered in anthologies featuring big names
• Year’s Best compilations contain the cream of the annual crop in one genre

Anthologies, single and multiple author, do seem to be a dying breed. Yet, they are a magnificent creature in the menagerie of the bookshelf (virtual or no).

Last year thousands of Anthologies were published. A quick search on Amazon showed that few had a full 5 star rating, and most had fewer than 20 reviews (A book needs to have 25 reviews on Amazon to begin getting pushed automatically.). Sad times in book land.

Most of anthologies were romance/erotica and horror collections. I am led to believe that these genres simply have an audience for anthologies. So these readers get it, why only them? I don’t think that these are the only readers who will like anthologies. Many readers don’t give anthologies a chance, and are missing out.

Here’s an example. The actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt edited an anthology last year. At the time of writing this, fewer than 83 people “like” it on Amazon and there were 27 reviews. It’s only available in hardcover though... The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories: Volume 1. Even so, this anthology is not doing so well compared to other books “written” by celebrities about their own lives.

So, go check out an anthology already.

Here are the GPS picks if you need some suggestions:

Cindy’s Recommendations
Way of the Wizard ed. John Joseph Adams
Tales before Tolkien ed. Douglas A. Anderson
The Fairy Reel eds. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

Scribings Vol. 1 Wait, how’d that get in there? Ooops. Oh well...

Jamie’s Recommendations
The Ultimate Cyberpunk ed. Pat Cadigan
And all six books in the Dragonlance Tales series

Chris’ Recommendations

If you still can’t find something you like, you can search Wikipedia for your favorite author and see what anthologies he/she is published in. You may get to read a story you never knew existed, and possibly discover new authors at the same time.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

An Anthology Celebration

A celebration? For anthologies? you say. Come on, even anthologies need a little love and support!

Anthologies are an odd thing in the publishing world. They aren't like a book, they aren't like a magazine.

New authors strive to be included in them, popular authors are begged to submit work for them, crazy people choose to edit them. Sales figures show that few copies of these odd collections are sold. Readers claim that they don't like/buy them.

So why do they keep coming out?

Maybe some of the posts we will feature coming up will help us think on this. 

Friday, June 1, 2012

Fireteam Zulu - Jamie's second novel

Today, Jamie released his second novel, Fireteam Zulu. Set in the Terran Shift universe, this genre-blending novel will introduce you to a group of ex-marines who are the people's last line of defense in the final frontier.

The year is 2254. Humanity has expanded into our solar system - colonizing the moon, Mars, Phobos, Deimos, and several asteroids. We have space stations and secret military bases. But we've spread too far, too fast, and the military cannot adequately police the solar system. Many hopeful colonists are preyed upon by pirates who take what they can with little opposition.

Fireteam Zulu is a group of ex-marines who band together to help those people, hunting down pirates wherever they can find them. Then one day they discover that they are being hunted.

Fireteam Zulu is available now at Smashwords and CreateSpace. Other stores will have the book soon.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Lost Civilizations Harder To Find Than First Imagined

Despite their valiant efforts, the Greater Portland Scribists will not deliver their Scribings on Lost Civilizations by their self-imposed May 31st deadline.

"You can't really blame them," comments Professer Stephanie Targuson of the Ancient History department at New Liverpool University. "It was an ambitious deadline from the start. Investigating an Egyptian pyramid in the Gobi Desert could take months on its own. But to throw in the Vikings, a labyrinth, some fictional civilizations that had to be pulled from the minds of madmen, and Atlantis? It was pure madness."

Some experts disagree with Professor Targuson. "We could have conquered all of these civilizations in half the time it's taken these people," Belsur Di Rex reported in an interview earlier today. "The AvanCadre would have completed this task early. We are extremely efficient."

Dappil, thankfully, could not be reached in time for comment.

The Greater Portland Scribists assure us that their collection will be released by the end of June.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Introducing Christopher L. Weston

Christopher L. Weston is an artist with a bachelor of fine arts degree in writing, literature, and publishing. He has traveled in the US and Europe and worked in a variety of occupations. He maintains a self-imposed isolation to minimize adverse effects he may have on society or its members. If you feel you may have come in contact with him please seek immediate medical attention.


Chris joined us in January, and even before he attended his first meeting he was already contributing by giving feedback on our stories. His enthusiasm for GPS hasn't waned since. He has submitted a thrilling story of a conquered civilization for Scribings, Vol 2: Lost Civilizations.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Introducing Timothy Lynch

Timothy Lynch is the newest member of Greater Portland Scribists and a Reference Librarian at The University of Southern Maine. He Graduated with a BA in English Literature from St. Bonaventure University and an MA in Library and Information Science from Simmons College. He enjoys reading, writing and walking around Back Cove in Portland. At least once a month he can also be found swimming mythical rivers and hiking the endless trails of dreams.

Cindy and Jamie first met Tim through another local writing group called Rocketship Unicorn. Tim's first published fiction will be his story Jon the Bookman in Scribings, Vol 2: Lost Civilizations.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The Sorry State of the Anthology Market

An•THOL•o•gy--noun, English. A collection of selected literary pieces or passages or works of art or music. (Merriam Webster)

Do you have a shelf for them? A section for them?
No?
Well they aren’t just for English class, you know!

This is why we love them:
• Sample many authors for the price of one book
• You are bound to like at least one story in the collection
• Read many stories about your favorite topics/subjects
• In a one-author anthology, find many doses of your favorite authors talent
• One book, with many quick, one-sit reads-perfect for the busy person
• Short stories: Complete meaningful story in one compact telling
• You can support many authors at the same time by buying one book :)
• A lot of new talent emerges in anthologies featuring other big names
• Year’s Best compilations contain the cream of the annual crop in one genre

Anthologies, single and multiple author, do seem to be a dying breed. Yet, they are a magnificent creature in the menagerie of the bookshelf (virtual or no).

Last year thousands of Anthologies were published. A quick search on Amazon showed that few had a full 5 star rating, and most had fewer than 20 reviews (A book needs to have 25 reviews on Amazon to begin getting pushed automatically.). Sad times in book land.

Most of anthologies were romance/erotica and horror collections. I am led to believe that these genres simply have an audience for anthologies. So these readers get it, why only them? I don’t think that these are the only readers who will like anthologies. Many readers don’t give anthologies a chance, and are missing out.

Here’s an example. The actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt edited an anthology last year. At the time of writing this, fewer than 83 people “like” it on Amazon and there were 27 reviews. It’s only available in hardcover though... The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories: Volume 1. Even so, this anthology is not doing so well compared to other books “written” by celebrities about their own lives.

So, go check out an anthology already.

Here are the GPS picks if you need some suggestions:

Cindy’s Recommendations
Way of the Wizard ed. John Joseph Adams
Tales before Tolkien ed. Douglas A. Anderson
The Fairy Reel eds. Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling

Scribings Vol. 1 Wait, how’d that get in there? Ooops. Oh well...

Jamie’s Recommendations
The Ultimate Cyberpunk ed. Pat Cadigan
And all six books in the Dragonlance Tales series

Chris’ Recommendations

Women of Wonder: The Contemporary Years, Science Fiction by Women from the 1970s to the 1990s Edited by Pamela Sargent


If you still can’t find something you like, you can search Wikipedia for your favorite author and see what anthologies he/she is published in. You may get to read a story you never knew existed, and possibly discover new authors at the same time.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Be it Known!

Grit City EmotoSingle Lingering in the Woods is now available
from GPS Author Cynthia Ravinski
Check out the store at Cafe Press.

In the untamed wilds of ancient Finland, Chrigle is a young new shaman with a demanding chieftain. He is charged to provide safety over his tribe’s hunters and has much to prove. With only his Spirit Guide to consult, Chrigle must protect the hunters from the ravages of the forest and lead his chieftain and tribe across unfamiliar land, which brims with unknown dangers.

His burden grows as a witch with her own motives plies him with a curse and an aggrieved demon seeks his demise. Using spiritual powers, Chrigle must find a way to protect his people, save a tortured soul, and survive the onslaught of a demonic attack, but the price of righteousness may be too high.

In this EmotoSingle fantasy of Finnish lore, what begins as a journey for Chrigle to win his place among the tribe quickly turns into a test of will and sacrifice. Can a Chrigle save the soul of a demon’s spawn in order to protect his tribe and save himself from exile?

Advance Praise for Lingering in the Woods:

In a world of dark, Finnish-inflected magic, Ravinski conjures up a story of persistent evil and of grim duties. Some of those duties are evaded while others are bravely met, but either way, the consequences endure. And the story, too, has a way of staying with you after you’ve finished it.

–Rudi Dornemann Book Reviewer and Author

I found this story to be a great one. Filled with action and surprises it’s the perfect book to spend an evening with. It also had a moral to the story if you will. Be strong and face your fears. I think the writer captured the scene in perfect detail and made me want to keep turning pages to the end. I believe you will be as excited by this one as I am and be waiting for more books like this from the author.

I gave this one 5 out of 5 books because the detail placed you in the story so easily.

–Have you Heard Book Review


What’s an Emotobook?

The term emotobook was conceived by Grit City Publications founder, Ron Gavalik, in 2011 to label Grit City Publications’ first exclusive tablet fiction medium, which heightens emotional awareness in stories with the use of abstract art.

Grit City Emotobooks are all fast-paced, imagery-heavy short stories or serial novels. But they are much more than that. Emotobooks have a unique style and structure, unlike any other entertainment form. Abstract, emotionally provocative illustrations are tied into each story to depict what characters feel during peak moments of tension. These expressionistic elements provide both a cerebral and visual stimulation, which enhance the impact of the experience. This is what really makes the EmotoBook a revolutionary form of modern fiction.

GCP designed EmotoSerials and EmotoSingles to deliver their vision of fast, exhilarating story experiences in 30 to 60 minutes.

Emotobooks are sold through major retailers, such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple iBooks. You can find those links in the Catalog of Titles. With these sources, just about any device with internet access will allow you to take part in the experience. Our fans are known to experience emotobooks on smartphones, iPods, and tablet devices. Some fans have also been known to read Emotobooks on their Laptop or desktop computers by using ereader applications. You can choose the free Kindle for Mac and Kindle for PC. Barnes & Noble offers the free Nook for Mac or PC.

Visit the author's book page for additional information on where to buy and sneak peeks at abstract artwork by Loran Skinkis.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Smashwords Read An Ebook Week


Check out the Read An Ebook Week promotion at Smashwords.com. From March 4th through the 10th you can purchase any Lost Luggage Studios book, including Scribings Vol 1, through Smashwords at 50% off!


View our catalog at Smashwords


And just enter code REW50 during checkout.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Publishing in the 21st century

We live in an exciting time when information can be shared in a vast number of ways. Cassettes have become CDs and DVDs, and even books can be purchased in a digital form. With these advances in technology come questions as to the future of media publication. Tools like Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, and others have become popular ways for small time authors, musicians, film makers, and more to reach audiences without traditional advertising. Recently, many artists have found success by bucking the traditional system and using the internet and networking in order to promote their work without the need to rely upon the big name publishing houses, record labels, and film companies.

E-readers and services like iTunes are allowing up-and-coming artists to publish their work without having to rely on the traditional methods. Many, however, inevitably find that they can only reach a very small number of people this way, usually only their friends and a few others who happen to incidentally discover them. This is why some artists have turned to new methods of self-promotion that can expose their work to the world.

Since it's creation, the internet has constantly strived to find new ways of connecting people and sharing information and media. In early 2005, a group of three men with a history in computer science found that they were having difficulty sharing a video over the internet. In order to solve their problem, they created a website that came to be called YouTube. Over the course of 7 years, their site has grown to become the primary method of video sharing online. While a common use of the site recently has been the sharing of copyrighted media, many users enjoy sharing videos of themselves performing. Some users, such as Scott Monaghan (aka Mr. Pitiful) Bo Burnham, and Justin Bieber, have achieved varying levels of fame and success after posting videos on the site. All three would likely have remained complete unknowns without the power of the internet. With the latter example, I'll let you decide if that's for better or worse.

The success of these artists following public debuts on YouTube demonstrates that a talented individual can be successful without needing to go through traditional channels. Yet talent alone doesn't make someone famous. Without networking, these people might have forever been doomed to obscurity. Fortunately for them, another site was developed a year before YouTube: Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg's site, originally envisioned as a way for students on his college campus to communicate, has since grown to have over 845 million active users. Facebook revolutionized the sharing of information by allowing users to add friends, and then, with the click of a button, spam them all with whatever information they happened to find worth posting. If a user uploads a video to YouTube, then shares it with all of his or her friends on Facebook, and then 3 of their friends share it, and three of each of their friends share it, and so on and so forth, suddenly one person's video is being seen by thousands of people all around the world.

Facebook, therefore, could be considered the most powerful advertising tool on the planet. After all, we all learn to ignore those little ad banners on pages because we know they're trying to sell us something that we probably don't want or need. When our friends are telling us to check something out, though, it's something entirely different. We know our friends. We pay attention to them. We know their tastes, so we can have a pretty good feeling whether or not we want to watch something that they've shared. With the right network of friends, it's not hard for a video, blog, or website to spread like wildfire, going viral almost overnight.

Videos aren't the only thing that can be shared using social networking, however. Writers and artists are finding that they are also able to boost their renown and sales through use of sites like Facebook and Twitter. Sites catering specifically to artists and writers, such as DeviantArt, have greatly increased in popularity over the past few years. These sites give users the ability to share their work with others and receive critiques and ratings from the site's community. While the sites themselves may not bring income to the up-and-coming artists, they allow them to promote their work, which, over time, may increase their sales. Artists may use sites like DeviantArt to take requests for paid commissions, or to sell prints of their work. Writers may post samples of their work in order to encourage those who read them to purchase their newest book.

Sometimes, sites like Facebook, YouTube, and DeviantArt are not enough to really bring success (and money) to the self-made artist. These days most serious career artists have a website that they can call their own. Here, they can collect whatever information they want to share with the world together in one place. Not only that, but with the help of services like Amazon's Associates program, or Google's AdSense service, the artist may get a small or even large income from their site.

Some web-comic artists, such as XKCD's Randall Monroe, are able to make a living through their work alone. These artists always have their own websites and make money through some combination of website ad revenue, donations, and sales of related merchandise, such as prints and clothing. I'm not sure if other writers have done this, but I have recently begun using the web-comic formula in publishing one of my own works, Faceless War. I began posting the novel about a month ago in small segments, each intended to be roughly the length of a printed page. I have found that publishing in this manner encourages me to write daily and allows me to share my work while keeping it alive. If I find a grammatical or spelling error, or decide to rewrite a sentence or even entire paragraph, I'm able to quickly alter my book's text at any time.

After a month of being online, my site has received 402 views, an average of 14 a day. Some days I'll celebrate having over 40 page views in one day. Others I'll be dismayed to discover that I had no views. Google estimates my earnings from ad revenue to be $2.42. That's a little more than half a cent for each view. A little math suggests that for me to even begin thinking of living off of ad revenue from my site, I'd have to have around ten thousand views every day.

Finding success as an artist is never easy. Those who choose to go with the big name publishers will likely face months if not years of sending out manuscripts only to have them rejected. Those who choose to self-publish must promote their work in order to have any chance of getting seen or heard. It's a long road no matter how you choose to travel it, who you are, or how much talent you have. However, despite the many different ways we choose to make it as artists in this world, we all have one thing in common: we have to create, even if no one is watching or listening. Because if we have reached even one person, we have succeeded.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

I've Found it! My Free PDF Editor!

I’ve finally found it! Free PDF editing software. Not the same high-powered editing as Adobe Acrobat, but PDF XChange Viewer had all I needed.

I like to be able to use PDFs for writing workshops, and I know a lot of folks who pretty much exclusively use it. (As you may know, I’m a heavy MS Word user.) But it’s nice to convert a document into something “unchangeable” and then be able to mark it up in a way that doesn't alter the original content. It makes it easier to protect your work when put out on the great big Interwebs. But I’m a bit squeamish about paying full price for Acrobat, or anything for that matter.

A few months ago I spent a couple hours online looking up free PDF software. But all I could find for free was PDF CREATORS. The next best thing I found for free was a software that let you highlight ONLY in PDFs. This didn’t do me very much good because my requirements were to be able to add my comments to the document. I couldn’t find any editing software for less than $100. Which is slightly better than acrobat.

Finding nothing, I satisfied my immediate need with a free trial of Foxit. Used it once, then it expired. Now I’m looking at another project that will require PDF editing, so I spent a lazy Sunday morning with a cup of tea repeating my research exercise. And I found it, the PDF XChange Viewer. When the description said free, and editing in the same line, I’ve fallen into that trap before, but proceeded to the website to see exactly what they offered for free.

And all of it was, in fact, free and you can really edit. You can highlight and add comments, throw down a handful of useful rubber stamp messages, rotate, add and delete pages, and finally it gets along with Word!

So go for it, guys, send me your PDFs.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Scribings, Volume 2

When we first started working on Scribings, Vol 1, we named it "Volume 1" knowing that we wanted to motivate ourselves to make additional volumes. Well, here we are, almost a year later and we're already hard at work on Volume 2.

This year's collection of stories will be written with the theme "Lost Civilizations," and will include stories about vikings, ancient Egypt, and more. We already have three of our authors working on stories. Our current target for releasing Volume 2 is May, 2012. Stay tuned for more information!

And I got excited one night and put together an early bit of cover concept art. Click it to see the full version.

Update: replaced concept art with our final cover art

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Amazon CreateSpace Discontinues Pro Plan

My brother Paul and I have been indie-publishing our novels through Amazon's CreateSpace service for over a year now. We wanted physical copies of our books to give to friends and family, and to have on our shelves. It's one of those things that is just nice to see. For every book we published, we purchased their Pro Plan for $39. Doing so lowered the printing costs, which meant three things for us:
  1. Copies we bought for ourselves were less expensive
  2. Copies other people purchased gave us a higher royalty, and
  3. (probably most important) We could have a lower list price.

Without the Pro Plan, I would have had to have listed my first novel, Pariah, for at least $12 a copy. With the Pro Plan, I can sell it for $8 per copy. And I get a higher royalty than the $12 copy would have given me.

All things considered, we didn't like having to pay $39 up front for each book we published, but we felt like we were getting a good value. We got to order copies for ourselves at a lower price point, and then we'd only have to sell a few more to break even.

The staff at CreateSpace sent an email today notifying me that the Pro Plan has been discontinued. They decided to give everyone the lower costs and higher royalties.

Thank you for your recent purchase of Pro Plan. As a member with Pro Plan, we're emailing to let you know that Pro Plan is being discontinued as of January 18, 2012. We're now offering industry-leading royalties, low costs on copies of your books and improved distribution options to all our members, free of charge.

I have very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it's great that they decided to do this. I don't have to purchase the Pro Plan for every title I publish from now on. And I still get the benefits of it, so it lowers the cost of indie-publishing paperbacks through their service. This is great news. I don't dispute that at all.

Here's where my problem lies:

On September 16, 2011, we purchased the Pro Plan for The Sol-Bect War, Part 1. This was four months ago. Therefore, I only received one third of the service I paid for. I should get a $26 refund. I really doubt they'll do anything. And in a way, I'm sort of okay with it. After all, it was four months ago. I'm over it.

On January 8, 2012, we purchased the Pro Plan for The Sol-Bect War, Part 2. This was ten days ago. Obviously, the people at CreateSpace must have known they were going to discontinue the Pro Plan. There must have been meetings. And yet there was no indication at all that anything was going to change. They accepted the $39 payment and never said a thing. And then I get this email. Naturally, I expect a full refund. Their email, however, had another plan:

Since you purchased Pro Plan within the last 30 days, we're giving you 5 free copies of your book for each title you enrolled. Be sure to use your unique offer code(s) when placing your member order(s) so you can get 5 copies free.*

Um... okay.. wait a minute, there's an asterisk. Scroll to the bottom of the email and they add:

*Your offer code(s) are unique and are valid on member orders only for one time use on any of your books through January 18, 2013 at midnight PT. With this offer, you will have to pay the costs associated with having these complimentary copies of your book shipped to you. Void if transferred and where prohibited by law. Any other use constitutes fraud. We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to terminate or modify this promotion at any time.


Wow. So I get five copies of the book, roughly a $25 value, but I have to pay shipping for them? They took $39 and ten days later they offer me $25 in compensation. I've sent a message to their support and I'm hoping that they just refund the money.