Greater Portland Scribists

I've Found it! My Free PDF Editor!

2012-02-08T00:00:00.000-05:00

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.

Scribings, Volume 2

2012-01-21T12:36:00.003-05:00

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.

Also, if you are (or know) a writer in the Portland, Maine area who might be interested in joining this anthology, please send us an email at scribists @ gmail.com

Amazon CreateSpace Discontinues Pro Plan

2012-01-18T23:22:00.003-05:00

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:

Copies we bought for ourselves were less expensive
Copies other people purchased gave us a higher royalty, and
(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.

On My First eReader

2011-12-26T21:47:00.007-05:00

So about two, almost three months ago I ordered an ereader. I’d been wanting one, but I’m too cheap to blow a hundred bucks on the most boring of all models, and definitly not more on the more high falutin' models or devices. I like toys with all kinds of features to play with. So when my boyfriend found the Pandigital Novel on sale for half off at Newegg, I sprang for it.

The PDN is a gimped down android tablet--limited to serve as an ereader with a few perks and not a full tablet. I got the 7-inch white model, and I’ve been nothing but happy with it even though it doesn’t connect to the android market. But you can still install any apps you can get an APK for--I find the easiest way is to email them to myself. It runs Android OS 2.0, has 1Gig onboard memory with an SD card slot, a headphone jack and a USB port. It’s network is wireless, with no 3G. Email, facebook and a file navigator come preloaded, and oh yeah, as does the kindle software (B&N software is available on other models.)

So the technicals out of the way, I want to talk more about how, I the resolute book lover feels about reading books on a “device.”

I actually haven’t been able to use the thing much since I’ve gotten it, sadly. I have this here stack of to-read paper books that I actually want to read. However, I made an excuse to do some reading on it--I had to see what it was like. So, I read through the first four episodes of the Grit City emotobook serial novel; issues 1-5 are out now, and I cannot wait to read the fifth!

A lifetime of reading books has ingrained into me certain reading habits, and apparently, they haven’t changed with picking up an ereader. The only difference in reading on a device, as far as I noticed was the page turning. The screen did not bother my eyes, it wasn’t huge and ungainly to hold (like hardcovers tend to be).

I sat on the couch reading, completely glued to the story, waiting, waiting to see what would happen next...the page turning was quick and letting my eyes flick to the top of the next page with ease. And when I knew I had to put the “book” down to go run an errand, I started patting the cushion beside me, then my lap, then the arm of the chair... and when I reached the end of the paragraph I grinned because I did not need the bookmark I was searching for.

It looks like reading is reading, words through the eyes into the brain. Books are nice, but all you need is text. My disclaimer is that the text needs to be a legible easy-to-read font with proper formatting.

Amazon KDP Select

2011-12-08T14:30:00.003-05:00

I just got an interesting email. I'll quote some of it below:

Hello from KDP!

We're excited to introduce KDP Select - a new option dedicated to KDP authors and publishers worldwide, featuring a fund of $500,000 in December 2011 and at least $6 million in total for 2012! KDP Select gives you a new way to earn royalties, reach a broader audience, and use a new set of promotional tools.

Here's how KDP Select works:

When you make any of your titles exclusive to the Kindle Store for at least 90 days, those with US rights will automatically be included in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library and can earn a share of a monthly fund. The monthly fund for December 2011 is $500,000 and will total at least $6 million in 2012. If you haven't checked it out already, the Kindle Owners' Lending Library is a collection of books that eligible US Amazon Prime members can borrow for free once a month with no due dates.

You'll also now have access to a new set of promotional tools, starting with the option to promote your KDP Select-enrolled titles for FREE for up to 5 days every 90 days.

How your share of the monthly fund is calculated:

Your share of the monthly fund is based on your enrolled titles' share of the total number of borrows across all participating KDP titles in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. For example, if total borrows of all participating KDP titles are 100,000 in December and your book was borrowed 1,500 times, you will earn $7,500 in additional royalties from KDP Select in December. Enrolled titles will remain available for sale to any customer in the Kindle Store and you will continue to earn your regular royalties on those sales.

What this means to you:

KDP Select gives you access to a whole new source of royalties and readers- you not only benefit from a new way of making money, but you also get the chance to reach even more readers by getting your book in front of a growing number of US Amazon Prime customers: readers and future fans of your books that you may have not had a chance to reach before! Additionally, the ability to offer your book for free will help expand your worldwide reader base.

So, basically, Amazon is now offering a pool of money for authors who are willing to participate in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. This means your book will be available for free to anyone who subscribes to Amazon Prime. In return for adding your book to this library, you will get a portion of the money pool depending on how many times your book is downloaded. The caveat is that your book has to be an Amazon Kindle exclusive for at least 90 days.

This is a very interesting move on Amazon's part. They are basically trying to buy exclusive titles. I'm usually a skeptic when it comes to things like this, but I am still thinking of putting my next book into this program. Honestly, while I do like Smashwords, I get more sales from the Kindle Store. And it's not a permanent agreement, so I can always publish it with Smashwords later.

My question is just how much money could be earned in exchange for doing this? My expectation is that a few authors will do very well, and then the lending library will be flooded with titles, and the available money will be spread so thin that it will no longer be worth enrolling books in the program. Or someone will file an antitrust suit, because, in all seriousness, this move is a potential threat to every other ebook retailer out there. And yet, in the short term, I think it's worth trying if you have a book that is ready to be published.

Scribings Now on Sony Reader

2011-10-23T15:02:00.003-04:00

Scribings is now availible at the Sony Bookstore!

'bout time! We released at all venues from Smashwords at the same time, on June 17th, it showed up on B&N a only a few weeks ago as well.

I don't know what's with this wait time. Anyone know?

Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself

2011-10-19T00:00:00.002-04:00

I’m one of those people who likes to make lists to keep track of things I want to do, things I want to get, books I should read etc... (and sometimes I even just add things to lists so I can cross them off). So, I had this list of books that have really great action scenes, because my action scenes need a lot of work, and completely forgot about it, like I usually do. But I recently I found and reviewed it and a funny thing happened. Coincidence? Fate’s sarcastic ways? Who knows? The book I just finished reading, Joe Abercrombie’s THE BLADE ITSELF, was on there.

Here I was just about ready to write a mostly unsavory review for it, but then all of a sudden, I realized that yeah, I had some issues with the book, but the action scenes were not on that list. That’s what I can learn from Joe Abercrombie.

The book starts with an action scene, which are usually good hooks. I can see why Abercrombie would do this as it is one of his strengths and is known as an effective kick off. In the first lines of the book we have:

Logen plunged through the trees, bare feet slipping and sliding on the wet earth, the slush, the wet pine needles, breath rasping in his chest, blood thumping in his head. He stumbled and sprawled onto his side, nearly cut his chest open with his own axe, lay there panting, peering through the shadowy forest.

The Dogman had been with him until a moment before, he was sure, but there wasn’t any sign of him now. As for the others, there was no telling. Some leader, getting split up from his boys like that. He should’ve been trying to get back, but the Shanka were all around. He could feel them moving between the trees, his nose was full of the smell of them. Sounded as if there was some shouting somewhere on his left, fighting maybe. Logen crept slowly to his feet, trying to stay quiet. A twig snapped and he whipped round.

There was a spear coming at him. A cruel-looking spear, coming at him fast with a Shanka on the other end of it.

What a way to kick off a story. I got sucked right into this. What is going to happen to this dude?

Good action verbs: Plunged, slipped, stumbled
Imagery: wet pine needles
What’s going on in the body: blood thumping, air rasping
Risk/loss: stumbling almost kills himself,
Uncertainty: doesn’t know where his friends are, doesn’t know where his enemies are

Every step of the way is in very close POV. Things happen as a person would see them unfold.

I wonder if Abercrombie spent hours coming up with that one, had to revise it twenty times, or if it just fell out of his fingers into the keyboard.

Especially with Logen, all the action scenes painted him kind of a clumsy old washout who really wouldn’t survive without a lot of help or the similar ineptitude of his fellow men. This makes him feel more human by our standards, and helps us relate to him. But we also wonder how the hell he got his badass reputation. All the characters, too, when put in tight situations were very worried and not sure of what to do next. This is very human and relatable. No one knows the future or can be 100% sure of the result of their actions. Surprise is a frequent result of the action=reaction equation, at least for this girl.

So that was the beginning. Let’s quickly look at a fencing match in the middle.

“Begin!”

They closed quickly this time, and exchanged a cut or two.

Jezal could hardly believe how slowly his opponent was moving, it was as if his swords weighed a ton each. Broya fished around in the air with his long steel, trying to use his reach to pin Jezal down. He had barely used his short steel yet, let alone coordinated the two. Worse still, he was starting to look out of breath, and they’d barely been fencing two minutes.

Hmm ok, not too much action in this one at first glance…but it creates a sense of suspense, and we know that it is fencing, so that’s action right? I think that’s another of his tricks. He gets so down to the detail, using them to make readers see the concerns and holding off on the actual action, which is what makes the story move forward (ya know, people actually doing things). I also really like the description “fished around in the air with his long steel.” It’s a good action verb and imagery all in one.

And bear with me. One more action scene from the end. And this one really kicks ass! (spoiler haters be warned)

The talk was done. Stone-Splitter came at him with axe in one hand and mace in the other, great heavy weapons, though he used them quick enough. The mace swung across, smashed a great hole through the glass in one of the windows. The axe came down, split one timber of the table in half, made the plates jump in the air, the candlesticks topple. The Bloody-Nine twitched away, frog hopping, waiting for his time.

The mace missed his shoulder by an inch as he rolled across the table, cracked one of the big flat stones on the floor, split it down the middle, chips flying through the air. Stone-Splitter roared, swinging his weapons, smashing a chair in half, knocking a chunk of stone out of the fireplace, chopping a great gash in the wall. His axe stuck fast in the wood for a moment and the Bloody-Nine’s sword flashed over, broke the haft into splintered halves, leaving the Stone-Splitter with a broken stick in his paw. He flung it away and hefted the mace, came on even harder, swinging it round with furious bellows.

The biggest thing here? SHOWING. The strength of the enemy-risk. The effects of weapons on things other than people-risk and tension. Weapons breaking, building destruction-this is intense! “a broken stick in his paw,” the imagery again. Step by step unfolding of the mortal dance.

However, here, as it is the end of the book, it is less holding back and examining the details and more the full tilt ahead desperation of the time to win or die. It is just as rough and intense if not more so than at the beginning. Abercrombie’s energy does not flag. I think he wrote this entire book just so he could write this fight scene (I did not include all of it, and it does get better).

Aside from the action, I did learn a couple more things from this book. The way he handled his six main POVs (heh, you think this is an epic fantasy?) is rather interesting. All but one of them were usually in the same place at the same time. They were all overlapping witnesses to the same events, sometimes simultaneously, or from different times with different insights. It allows build up of tension and suspense as well as a sense of intrigue and gives the story a feel of space in a small setting. I like this, but haven’t seen it a lot in my reading and wish I could see it more than the usual display of all the different POV characters in a different part of the world as the story goes.

And then, there was always that POV thread out in the world letting us know what was on the horizon for the main clutch of characters.

This book is representative of a new voice who doesn’t follow all the rules, but at the same time you can tell this was his first work, or an early work, as it has an “unpolished” feel along with, or maybe because of, the newness. (But who am I to say anything about this?) It also works for the book’s noir, gritty feel.

I noticed a problem with hissing speakers. This word showed up numerous times as a speech tag, and not when any words ended in “s.”

There were a lot of exclamation points, but for some reason they didn’t bother me. Point for Abercrombie there.

The enemy-out-of-sight, the Shanka, are never really described very well, other than having the nickname “flatheads.” And as Abercrombie obviously has good imagery skills, I don’t know why he didn’t do this.

There was also a major reveal about a main character in the last twenty-or-so pages (totally done on purpose and I’m not sure I like it-maybe it just needed to be done more artfully) and the whole book was a set up for...the next one. Usually in epic fantasy, the first book in a trilogy resolves at least one semi-major plot arc. Nope, not here...“sorry, go buy the next book...” Good thing Borders is in its last weeks. Organization like this may be what makes me feel that this book is unpolished, or written by an inexperienced writer.

But in the end, the story is there and I cared about the characters, and of course, the action is full tilt all the way through.

Now how about you go and see if what I discovered above helps you improve your action scenes. I know it’s going to help mine.

Scribings is now available!

Remember that Survey we did back when?

2011-10-15T11:29:00.003-04:00

Back in May we ran a survey about ereaders and shared the results in three installments.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

I am now working to put them all together on one page (up there at the top) for your viewing convenience. We hope it helps you find your ebook reader!

Big News: GPS has Kindled!

2011-10-05T00:00:00.003-04:00

Scribings, Vol. 1 is now available on Amazon in the Kindle Store!

Click the book cover to check out our page!

There are four ways you can help us:

(1) Click on the "Like" button just below the title.
(2) Scroll to the bottom and click on the tags.
(3) vote "helpful" on a good review.
(4) If you read the book, post a review!

Much appreciation for anything you do!

How to host a guest blog series--Lessons Learned

2011-09-14T00:00:00.000-04:00

Over the last month, I ran a guest blog series called Letting Someone Else do the Talking. This is the first time GPS has involved guest bloggers here so we learned a few key things about hosting. Read on to see the three most important things I learned.

Network Network Network
Ask people if they want to do this, seriously, anyone relevant you can think of... you’ll be surprised by the results you get. People will be flattered you asked THEM to be a part of your series. I was shocked about that.

Organize!
If you want to do a series as opposed to an ongoing random assortment, get all entries in your hands before you start posting. This lets you do two things. You can present the series in the best order and also gives you plenty of time to get them all nice and formatted track down pictures etc... It also lets you plan how long you can run the series and coordinate the timing with all associated parties for the most effective publicity.

For instance, if someone has a book release coming up you want to know about it so you can have your post go live around the release date.

Nag Nag Nag
Remember how flattered those people were? How willing and excited they were to participate, add their content to your series? Well, maybe they didn’t quite plan on the actual work. So give them plenty of lead time, and a solid deadline and nag them. It can be fun!

NOTE: It might also help to not ask for submissions just before or during a major Con. I started soliciting for my series without a serious plan. This was the week before Renovation, the 2011 World Science Fiction Convention. So a lot of people I asked were busy making preperations or traveling or participating at the con. Not good timing to get content from busy writers. Sorry about that guys...

Other than those three things it’s all about getting off Facebook and taking the time to do it.

And that's a Wrap!

2011-09-09T00:00:00.003-04:00

Yesterday's post concluded our month-long guest blog series "Letting Someone Else do the Talking."

First off, GPS gives a Tremendous Thanks to everyone who participated!

You can view all the entries posted in this series, just click here. Drop a comment below if you learned something new about epublishing. And next week, I'll post what I learned about running a guest blog series.

Letting Heather Albano do the Talking

2011-09-08T00:00:00.007-04:00

Taking The Crazy Option
In September, I will be releasing my first novel in e-book form--a time-travel adventure about a girl, a pocket watch, Frankenstein’s monster, the Battle of Waterloo, and giant clockwork robots taking over London. (If this sounds intriguing to you, you should come on over to my website and put your name down, and I’ll e-mail you as soon as TIMEPIECE is on e-shelves.)

Why have I chosen to electronically self-publish rather than follow the traditional model of seeking an agent and publisher? There are a few interconnected reasons.

1. I have an MBA, and I know a disruptive technology when I see one. The e-book reader has opened up opportunities that may remain open for the long term or may shortly close; either way, the time to take advantage of said opportunities is now.

2. I have some professional contacts in the publishing industry, so I have an idea of the timeframe inherent in following the traditional model… and it’s not a quick timeframe, and the time to try electronic self-publishing is now.

3. I used to be in marketing, so I know something about brand management and loss leaders and how to manage an advertising campaign. Before that, I was in software, so I also know how to handle HTML editing.

4. I have historically been about as risk-adverse as it is possible to be, which means I tend to let opportunities amble past me while I calculate and recalculate the cost-benefit analysis. I never did start a podcast, for instance, despite researching every possible angle on the things. I need to make a different mistake this time--plunge in, take the crazy option, course-correct in real time, and learn something from it.

I don’t necessarily agree with the “e-books are going to replace traditional books in five years’ time” view--I think that’s one of the things that could happen, sure, but I think the horizon is farther out than that, and even if the five-year prediction is true, it does not follow that electronic self-publishing is going to likewise replace traditional publishing. That a) confuses the technology and the industry surrounding it, and b) implies the editorial and marketing functions provided by a publishing house are without value, which is manifestly untrue. Editors make books better. Professional marketing gets books in front of larger audiences. Of course these functions have value.

So while electronic self-publishing might replace traditional publishing in a new-world-order, no-barriers-between-writers-and-readers, publishing-houses-will-join-telegraph-operators sort of way, I’m not sure that’s where I’d put my money. That publishing houses will someday (soon) produce more electronic than paper products? Yes. That the publishing industry as such will disappear? Less likely. After all, blogs and podcasts and indie films and indie bands have been around for a while, and they haven’t replaced editorial columns, the traditional publishing model, Hollywood, or major labels.

What blogging and podcasting have done is provide additional platforms that people early in their creative careers can use to differentiate themselves. Some people are hitting the jackpot doing this, making millions on their own and/or being approached by representatives of the traditional model. Others are never approached by said representatives, but they never need to be; they quietly make respectable amounts of money doing everything themselves in what we might call the “small business” model. Still another model is that of the loss leader—those people whose podcast, blog, downloadable app, or self-published e-book did not make them rich, but whose download rates and/or follower numbers gave them additional street cred when they shopped their subsequent project to the representatives of the traditional industry.

Any of these three models would work fine for me. My goal is to spend my time writing things and selling them to people who want to read them, ideally making a living wage in the process. I’m agnostic as to distribution mechanism.

And a new distribution mechanism has presented itself, and the time to try it out is right now. If it turns out to be a true disruptive technology, changing the structure of the industry from the foundation up and relegating the output of traditional publishers to the same dustbin as Western Union’s highest quality telegram, those who get in on the game early stand to reap the greatest profits. If electronic self-publishing turns out instead to be the fad some people predict, that’s an even greater argument for trying it now. I’ve got this steampunky book, you see. Right now. If I try the traditional route and the traditional route doesn’t accept it for publication—by the time I can definitively say that the attempt has failed, i.e. by the time it’s garnered half a dozen or a dozen rejections, three years or more could have passed, and it would be foolish to wait that long. Electronic self-publishing has a greater likelihood of being a good decision now than three years from now. If I wait until then, I risk a decrease in demand for steampunk-flavored products, and perhaps also a decrease in demand for self-published e-books, and I get to wonder about the e-path not taken.

Whereas if I go the e-pub route in September, the possible outcomes are 1) jackpot model, 2) small business model, 3) loss leader model, 4) it doesn’t do well enough to even be a loss leader, in which case, oh well, I tried--and I’ll know what happened when I took the crazy option, and I will have learned something from taking it.

Heather Albano is a writer of speculative fiction, historical fiction, and roleplaying games. She is a graduate of Wesleyan University and the 2009 Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop.

Her short fiction has appeared or will soon appear in Electric Velocipede, Aoife’s Kiss, Spectra Magazine, Midnight Times, and the More Scary Kisses anthology from Ticonderoga Publications. Her first novel, TIMEPIECE, will be available in electronic format in September 2011. Additionally, she works as a game designer for Choice of Games, producer of award-winning text-based multiple choice games for the iPhone/iPad, Android, Kindle, Palm, and web.

Letting Deirdre Saoirse Moen do the Talking

2011-09-06T00:00:00.024-04:00

Thoughts on Self-Publishing by Deirdre Saoirse Moen

The brave, new world of self-publishing your work electronically has given a lot of writers hope they'd lost after hearing tales of editors, agents, slush piles, and long publishing lags. But is it false hope?

There's no question that it's a rush to click send on your book and have it appear in the store within a few days. It's also a rush to be in some trendy coffee shop and have a friend of you show you that she did, indeed, buy your book. I remember the first time I did that with an author, back in 2005, as a relatively early e-book adopter. As the author, this first happened to me in August.

Question is: how many people who don't know you from Adam (or Eve) will be buying your e-books?

Let's look at some of the common scenarios leading to becoming self-published:

Re-Publishing Your Backlist

You have works for which you've either still got the rights to re-publish or you've gotten the rights reverted, and you're going to re-publish works that are out of print or were in print in overseas markets. A number of established authors are doing this; one of the best I've seen is the co-op Book View Caf'e. Obviously, this is relatively easy money if you're in a position to take advantage of it, but the process of getting to this point is long and arduous.

I recently re-published my short story, "A Sword Called Rhonda," in an e-book of the same name. To give you an idea of how long the process can be: I wrote the first draft of the story in summer, 1997 when I attended the Odyssey writers' workshop. It was overwhelmingly disliked, with 17 of 20 people in a row giving it negative feedback. Ouch!

When I got to Clarion in 2002, I re-wrote the piece from scratch, keeping only the main character Karma, the sword, a few concepts, and the first three paragraphs. I axed a major character, the entire plot (which was, as you might guess from the title, based on the odd plot of the film A Fish Called Wanda), I changed the setting from Southern California to Northern, and I struck the ending, which was the primary thing people hadn't liked before.

While it was more favorably received, it still had issues. Leslie What worked with me on developing the piece, and I learned a lot from her. Still, I trunked the story when I got back home because I was in the middle of writing a novel and needed some time to unpack what I'd learned at Clarion.

In 2003, I heard that Esther Friesner was looking for stories for Turn the Other Chick, so I pulled out all the Clarion critiques, really worked on the piece, and sent the story through the local critique group. I made some more changes, then sent it out. A few months later, a check arrived along with a contract. Baen published it in hardcover in 2004, then in mass market paper in 2006. I re-sold the short to This Is My Funniest 2, edited by Mike Resnick, published by BenBella in 2007. Submitted twice, bought twice.

A few months ago, I noticed that Chick wasn't listed in stock anywhere, so that's when I thought I'd look into e-publishing Rhonda. I found a cover artist, did the markup myself, and submitted it to iBooks, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.

In this era, it's likely that any new work will be available in some e-book format, so it's not something you need to do yourself until your work goes out of print.

Publishing New Work as an Established Author

Authors who've published some titles via traditional means forge out and release one or more new titles via self-publishing. An example would be Shelley Adina's book Lady of Devices. Shelley's a well-published novelist, but this book is in a different genre, so she self-published the book.

Publishing New Work as a Never-Traditionally-Published Author

Of the recent boom of authors publishing through Kindle Direct Publishing, Smashwords, PubIt (Barnes and Noble's Nook self-publishing venture), iBooks, etc., most of the authors have never been traditionally published. Unfortunately, many of the works that have been published this way would never have been published traditionally for quality reasons. Let's assume that that isn't one of your issues, and that your prose is crisp and clean.

Let's also assume you're able to find a cover that works for you rather than against you, and that you're able to get an ISBN for the sales outlets that require it.

Given that, what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of self-publishing your work?

Advantages

Quicker route to publication. This has both a plus and a minus to it: though your work will be available more quickly, you will also develop as a writer during the traditional long submission process, so it's entirely possible that, by the time the novel reaches the right desk, you may be able to edit it into a stronger book.

A bigger share of the pie. No question about it, royalty rates on self-publishing are higher.

More control.

Ability to address niche markets (e.g., anthropomorphic fiction, paranormal erotic comedy, steampunk murder mystery, regional sf/f) that may not be large enough for a publisher to be interested. Back when I started, the Catfantastic series was very popular, but other markets would say, "no cat stories." Although Catfantastic stopped after several volumes, there was still a market for new cat-related sf/f fiction -- just not big enough for publishers to be interested, apparently.

You can write (and publish) what you want.

Disadvantages

Left out of major recognition venues of most kinds. You'll find it more difficult to get speaking engagements, major awards, and other perks you may care about.

The pie is smaller for nearly all self-published writers. Sure, there are the exceptions who sold a million books, but they are exceptions.

More decisions rest on your shoulders. If you are not a decisive person, this may be paralyzing to you.

Need for a wider range of skills. Even if you don't do your own copy editing, artwork, cover design or book style, you'll need to make decisions about how these are done and what your budget is for getting them done.

You don't have as much information about the market as an established publisher does. In some cases, this may work to your advantage, though.

While sales of e-books are increasing, they are still a minority of the market. In 2010, e-book sales from major publishers accounted for 6.4% of the market. I've been told that number has doubled in the first six months of 2011, but I don't have a reference I can link to for that. That's still 1/8 of the overall book market, though.

Publishers bring distribution; in the e-book world, they also bring recognition and trust. Because I know anyone can upload to Smashwords, I don't trust manuscripts from Smashwords as much as I trust books from Tor. I'm more likely to pay $11.99 for a major publisher's e-book (in fact, I just did, for Charles Stross's Halting State) than I am for a Smashwords book that costs $2.99. Without an excerpt, there's a 0% chance I'll buy the Smashwords book.

What Skills Do You Need?

To paraphrase Jaym Gates, in a talk about marketing and promotion, "You learned to write. You can do this."

These days, getting a book into good e-publishing shape is easier than ever. I've never made a Kindle file from scratch, but here's the elements of an EPUB file: it's a set of XHTML files (one per chapter is common), a cover image, any CSS and Javascript, as well as some XML manifest documents, all in a specific order in a ZIP file. It's technical but not especially difficult if you've managed to wrap your head around HTML already. That said, I would recommend using existing tools if you don't already feel comfortable in XHTML and XML, especially as distinct from HTML.

Threepress Consulting has two excellent articles: the first discusses using Apple's Pages for generating an EPUB file and the second is about using Scrivener. I tried Pages layouts, but I'm not particularly familiar with creating new layouts within Pages and I felt a bit constrained with the templates I had, so I used Scrivener to generate my EPUB file and my Kindle file. I was able to use the same EPUB file for both Apple's iBooks and Barnes & Nobles's PubIt.

Beyond that, you need the ability to upload those files using your web browser of choice. You also need the ability to fill out all the numerous little boxes for each of your potential markets. Compared to the EPUB file, this part is easy-peasy.

After that, it'll take a few days (or, in the case of Smashwords Premium, possibly a few weeks) to go live, then you get to check back obsessively for sales numbers like the rest of us.

How Many Sales to Expect?

This is the big question, isn't it? Unless you've got a substantial following already, the biggest issue is going to be getting sales. I have had a web presence since 1998, and began blogging in 2002 (though my blog archives only go back to 2004). I have been active in some corner of the net since early 1994. I volunteer at conventions, everything from regional to Worldcon, and have been doing so for ten years. In other words, my presence is as known as it can be for a writer who's published so little fiction under her own name.

So far, I've been self-published for six weeks. My total sales? 16 copies of my story: 4 on iBooks, 9 on Amazon, and 3 on Barnes & Noble. As I haven't signed up with Smashwords, I haven't yet penetrated other markets. So far, my royalties total $7.15, which is enough for a Peet's mug and a cup of coffee to go in it. An interesting point, though: as iBooks pays the highest of the three royalty rates, 39% of my royalties are from iBooks even though only 25% of my sales are; 44% of my royalties are from Amazon, but 56% of my sales are from there. Some people think these sales numbers are good; I disagree, but I also realize Rhonda is a niche story that has sold through to much of its potential audience through hardcover, book club, and paperback sales.

Absolute Write's forums have a number of people self-reporting sales, some less successful than I, many more successful than I. That's the point, really: there's no predicting sales, except that people who have multiple titles get more repeat sales.

Obviously, there's the promotional basics: mentioning it on your web site and facebook page, adding an e-mail signature that includes your book's information, and linking to your web site in your online profiles.

Conclusion

Only you know what your career goals are, and therefore only you know how self-publishing fits in that overall scheme. For me, I'm still seeking traditional publication for new work, though I may make the occasional related piece available solely through self-publishing.

Deirdre Saoirse Moen helps make the web safe for mere mortals. Her most recent short story publication, "A Sword Called Rhonda," appears in the Turn the Other Chick anthology from Baen and the This Is My Funniest 2 anthology from BenBella. Her other hobby is photography, where she's thus far managed to resist the lure of SLRs in favor of rangefinders (some vintage) and mirrorless cameras. She lives in Menlo Park with her husband, their cat-who-is-not-a-kitty, and a large plush crab.

Newsflash

2011-09-03T19:57:00.002-04:00

Forbes is paying attention to ebooks!! Well, as far as some of the top sellers are concerned... and that's like saying "Hey ebooks are selling now."

Letting Rob Hunter do the Talking

2011-09-01T00:00:00.006-04:00

On Self-publishing

Typically the afterlife of a published tale—we are talking literary ephemera here, the books, the magazines, the websites and e-zines over which you, the author, have no control—consists of gathering dust until the writer’s heirs and assigns shred it for packing nick-knacks and other writerly impedimenta. Not quite the half-life of linoleum. And what of the loves, lives, hopes and aspirations of its citizens? Must they float forever in a shimmering noösphere playing whist and watching the flights of eidolons? Boring.

Self-publishing takes either a lot of money or a lot of work. You’re a writer, right? You are in this for love. If it was the money you’d be an investment banker or a plumber. You daydream of that big Hollywood agent calling you up and asking if you’d like to option off your book for a film. How does he know there is a book? Oops. Barring the cash to hire someone else to format your book, record your readings, convert your words into acceptable audio files, this means it’s time to roll up the sleeves.

Formatting a book. This is one of those things that you thought happened Someplace Out There where the Keebler elves cluster about a polished tree stump as they gaze awestruck at your manuscript. Your book. Book, ahh, the sound of it. You've taken your book through many drafts, re-edited, reworked, recast, shortened, lengthened, and found that by the time you were halfway through your book—in my case a 480 page opus—that you had forgotten where you were at. At which time you hit Enter and leave the friendly elves to enter the Forest of Frustration. Here we ask ourselves, “Why am I doing this?” Hopefully to get your work into as many hands as possible. Writers want readers. Lulu.com offers free templates. There will be a learning curve, but you can format it yourself.

There is so much (free) help on the Internet, and free applications as well, that what you will get from virtual self-publishing can become an excuse for putting off your writing. Remember—anything you do is writing, particularly re-writing and editing. That said, let’s get under the hood.

1.) Self-publishing, the first step-The Website.
You can, with a semester at your local Community College and a stack of books, build your own website—a piece of virtual real estate where folks can find you—with only a text editor (Notepad, Notepad++) as I was taught at the University of Maine at Machias. I eventually chickened out and sprung for Expressions Web, a Windows application. If you are a Mac person, there is a plethora of excellent WYSIWYG media out there for both PCs and Macs.

2.) Self-publishing the second step—Podcasting.
Why record? You don’t like the sound of your voice anyway, and studio time is prohibitively expensive. You can do it at home with a mid-line desktop (dual Pentium 4 plus and a USB sound card with a couple of gigs memory and Audacity, a free program). I regularly record stories (at the local radio station, later at home as I saved up the $800.00 for a condenser microphone and an external USB sound card.) as they became available and copyright reverted back to me. The stories and MP3 downloads are distributed for free here, under a Creative Commons license. I started my uploading career with a trip to Feedburner, now owned by Google. Feedburner is free and will do your conversions into the conflicting technologies that clog the Internet.

3.) Self-publishing the third step—e-Books.
One of the most time-honored practices of the author promoting his or her work is the public reading. This is fine if you have a publisher with an ever-eager crew of public-relations folk out there beating the trees and coercing a few church groups, literary reading circles, and independent booksellers to free up a Wednesday evening for you. This is necessarily local; there is no drawing account, but you may want to save your expense vouchers. (And going local is a warm, wonderful human experience—see Big Hollywood Agent above) Going national? Go virtual (see Big Hollywood Agent again).

Here are some free or cheap names to remember—Calibre, Mobipocket Creator, Reader Works Publisher (for Microsoft Reader, of the 3500 eBook downloads from my website only 0.9%, but it sure makes a pretty file), and if you don’t have Adobe, Open Office makes a dandy .pdf for free. For wrangling those finished audio files, check Chapter and Verse.

Here's something to look up—just write it down and Google it sometime: M4b. That’s M4b. Don’t worry, be happy. This is the same audio format albeit with some DRM exclusionary bells and whistles that Amazon uses at audible.com. Just don't worry about it; it's something you will want to look into later. iTunes can convert your files for you too—and right on your desktop computer.

4.) Self-publishing the fourth step—Unscrewing the unscrewtable.
How will people know how to find me? I don't even know how to find them. Good question and, once again, if you were to Google “Podcast Directory” you should get hundreds if not thousands of listings. Many “podcast directories” act as link farms and they all point to you. How do they get your address? Well, use your imagination. Yep, cannibalism from other directories, and with it inordinate exposure for you and your offerings.

To test the proof of my next statement you will have to look at the statistics for your own website. My website is unimaginatively hosted by GoDaddy.com and cost me about $42 a year the last time I looked in 2010. And I get a lot of extras with it—that is “extras” for a smalltime operator, not recommended for the United States Government, General Motors or Amazon.com—like a stats engine that lists MP3 files.

5.) Self-publishing the fifth step—Running the numbers.
What will you see in those statistics and why look? Glad you asked. Here are mine as of August 2011:
MP3 downloads 326,547
HTML (the actual web pages) 221,077
XML (extensible markup language) 170,712
PDF (or Adobe/Mobipocket-friendly portable document format) 2,168
PRC files (the Kindle-friendly versions of my three books) 1,547
And LIT (Microsoft Reader) 328

The first list item is MP3 downloads and let’s note, over 100,000 more than the next lowest which is HTML, the actual webpages. Conclusion: people are not reading as much as they're listening.

How did this happen since the links of the audio files are embedded in the HTML pages? Referrals from podcast directories.

At this point I should remind you to put a wee advertisement at the end and beginning of each story or each chapter that you upload to tell people how to find the print version on your website. Without this the link may put you at number one with a bullet in the Billboard top 100 but will not send many people to your books. My first uploads were to Podcast Alley, Podcast Directory, iTunes and DMOZ and an audio file collection to the Internet Archive. And, of course FeedBurner as recommended by Jim Kelly. If this Sci-Fi writer is using any promotional tool, it’s worth investigating.

Next XML. XML is extensible markup language and the table of contents pages for your upload and/or content sites more about this? Google for this one—it’s tricky. In my case the XML file tells iTunes how (and what) to display of my stuff.

Here we’ll skip a line and go to the PRC files. Not to be afraid. These will be the Kindle/Mobi friendly eBooks.

The PDFs are the most popular of my downloads. I’ve got three books formatted for PDFs. I recently sent up the Kindle-friendly PRC links and am watching these play catch-up. There is one additional format—ePub, the dream of an (almost) universally readable eBook that I haven’t mentioned. I’m still learning; check back.

NOTE: If you Kindle-friendly format at home as I do, the Amazon Store will not display your book and the end user has some finagling to do on their desktop computer, i.e. drag-and-drop. Not to difficult.

You—we—want readers (see paragraph 3). Barring money by the wheelbarrow load (see Big Hollywood Agent again), this will have to suffice. Or is this all just an ego trip, maybe a few copies to send out to friends at Christmas? Answer—yes, it is an ego trip; what’s wrong with that? Get real. And don’t forget to call Mom, she’ll want one, too.

Find Rob's books here. (The covers are fun to click on!)

With the onset of late middle age Rob Hunter is the sole support of a 1999 Ford Escort and the despair of his young wife. He does dishes, mows the lawn and keeps their Downeast Maine cottage spotless by moving as little as possible. In a former life, he was a newspaper copy boy, railroad telegraph operator, recording engineer and film editor. He spent the 70s and 80s as a Top-40 disc jockey.

Rob's wife, Bonnie, is the secretary at a nearby rural elementary school. She is a gifted quilter who beguiled her new husband with the kaleidoscope of patchwork geometry.

The nearest town to the Hunters that anybody is likely to have ever heard of--because of Stephen King’s The Langoliers--is Bangor, Maine where there are real parking meters and a traffic light. They drive down every six months or so to watch the light change and see the trains come in.

Newsflash

2011-08-31T09:30:00.000-04:00

I've really been wondering about this. Authors selling print rights ONLY to publishers and keeping the erights

Letting Lori Pollard-Johnson do the Talking

2011-08-30T00:00:00.005-04:00

Publishing has changed.

Twenty years ago, when I first began writing professionally (i.e. making money from my words), publishing was a long, tortuous, but straight route. You honed your craft, networked at conferences, critiqued your manuscripts (and others), and then set about finding a publisher. It was not necessary to find an agent first; most editors looked at manuscripts (or rather their assistant read with an eye toward what the editor wanted). And when I say “looked,” I mean they wanted hard copies. Submitting was expensive, but so long as you provided an SASE, you usually got a response, sometimes with feedback. The feedback let you know you were getting closer to having a publishable manuscript. Self-publishing was usually done under a pseudonym, had little to no editing, artwork or copyediting done, and lacked any real way to earn sales; the print houses who published these folks were anointed “vanity presses,” to indicate that anyone doing this must be a closet narcissist. I steered clear from the title and the costs involved.

That evolved into an industry that required agents for all but children’s books about ten years ago. Agents, and the few editors who still looked at manuscripts (and the field for children’s was narrowing), still required hard copies with SASEs, and often complained about the enormous slush piles accumulating in their offices and mailrooms. Many could be heard at conferences saying, “I’ll never take email submissions.” (Wow, has that ever changed.) Those of us who were solicited were given codes to write on the envelopes and told that would get our manuscripts past the mail clerk. I sold my first book during this era. Self-publishing had picked up speed, and several presses were advertising in The Writer and Writer’s Digest; it was up to savvy writers to decide which one was worthwhile. I advised all of my creative writing students to avoid self-publishing. I told them they wouldn’t make any money, it doesn’t count as a publishing “credit,” and if by chance they ever got an interested agent or editor, they’d ruined their opportunity to sale by pre-publishing it.

In the past five years, ereaders have been on the rise, and writers with lots of experience (and sales), writers with midlist credits, and writers with no publishing history have begun to self-publish. We call this Indie Publishing, a nod to movie-making lingo. Some indie authors have had remarkable success: Amanda Hocking and John Locke were previously unpublished authors; JA Konrath and Barry Eisler were wildly successful previously. Other writers, as well as their publishing houses, began to take note. Now, a well-known author with a $9.99 paperback would be earning in the range of $ .60 per book sold (unless they had negotiated a truly amazing contract) and waiting for it to be passed through the hands of the retailer, publisher, agent; those of us with Kindle titles were earning $2.05 for a book we priced at $2.99, and getting the money within two months. I sold my second book at this time and made (and make, as both of my traditionally published books are available) $ .36 each.

See the problem?

It’s called the free market economy, and it applies to book sales, too. Ereaders like Kindle and Nook have accomplished the age-old axiom: Give the customer a better product in a faster method and for fewer dollars. Define “better” any way you want, but one look at a Wal-mart will tell you that too many people, an array of items priced cheaper and received quicker, is better.

As a result of these ebook successes, more and more people are self-publishing, and well-known authors are demanding higher percentages for their electronic works; some have even declined publishing contracts for the greener pastures of easy, fast sales via the internet. There is the good, the bad and the downright fugly; but there have always been those books out there. The difference is, we, the readers, can download a sample, delete it if we don’t like it, and purchase it for the price of a latte (I know, tired reference point, but valid). Most importantly, we can do it from anywhere in the world--the beaches of Bimini or under a bevy of blankets in bed. These factors, along with the economy have, sadly, closed down Borders, et al, changed the publishing industry forever, and for some of us who chose to indie publish, boosted our income substantially.

See the future?

Regardless of how any one reader feels about the feel of a paperback in their hands or their favorite bookstore, ereaders are most likely here to stay. It makes good economic sense, especially when electronic bestsellers are also discounted. And it makes “green” sense, too. Libraries have begun to loan books electronically and even remove them three weeks later so their patrons never have to start their car. It’s a confusing and exciting time for publishing. There will be good that comes of all this, as well as some disappointment. But that exists with all societal twists and turns.

And that’s why I chose to upload my third, and soon my fourth, books. Call it what you will, but indie publishing for many (not all) of us has expanded our readership, spurred our creativity with new methods of actually selling what we write, and made some money to finance our kids’ educations, our lack of work, or our dream vacations.

I'm a writer and teacher from South Prairie, Washington. I have three published novels, The Truth Test (kids), Recipe for a Rebel (kids), and Toxic Torte (adults)availible on Amazon and on Smashwords,and a slew of fiction and nonfiction publishing credits in national, regional and local publications. Check me out on facebook!

Letting Dana Marton do the Talking

2011-08-25T00:00:00.008-04:00

From Traditional Publishing to ePub. (a.k.a. The Road the Rivendell and Back)

I think one of the misconceptions of digital self-publishing is that it’s something first time authors do who can’t get published with the major traditional publishing houses. But what I see more and more is that first time authors often completely forgo submissions and pick digital self-publishing as their first choice. There are many advantages, as well as disadvantages to this choice, which I won’t detail since there are literally hundreds of discussions going on online about this topic. There is a whole other segment of digital self-publishing adventurers, as well: multi-published authors who have achieved a degree of success with a major publisher. They are tempted to digital self-publishing by all the freedom it offers. I’m one of them.

I’m a fairly prolific author. In the average year, I publish 4 romantic suspense novels with Harlequin Intrigue. I’ve published over two dozen books with them now, and those books are sold in over a dozen languages all over the world. One of those books earned me a RITA Award nomination. Another won me the Daphne du Maurier Award of Excellence. I love my publisher, love the support and marketing they provide, love the editorial input. But as a creative person, I have all sorts of book ideas flying around in my head all the time. They don’t all fit my publisher’s requirements.

Writers know this: the stories we don’t write don’t simply go away. The characters and scenes circle around in our heads, bugging us, wanting to be born. However, once you’ve become successful writing certain types of books, everybody expects more of the same from you.

There are many gatekeepers between your story and the reader: the agent, the editor, the senior editor, the marketing department at the publisher, the booksellers, etc. You come up with a perfectly good story, and any one of those people can decide that it’s not marketable, or timely, or trendy enough, doesn’t have enough hooks, or is too different from what your readers expect from you. And there your book stops, without ever reaching the reader.

One of the beauties of self-publishing is the direct line of communication between author and reader. The current economy does not make publishers want to experiment, throw money at books that might or might not sell. Publishers like to go for the sure bet. But as authors, we want to push the limits, want to try new things. Self-publishing makes that possible. I can write something and within a month see whether there’s a market for a story like that, whether readers will accept a story like that from me.

So I recently dipped a very eager and hopeful toe in. I’m writing a romantic suspense novella trilogy (GUARDIAN AGENT, AVENGING AGENT, WARRIOR AGENT) that’s a little darker and edgier than my usual books. So far, the response has been tremendous. The first two novellas that are out so far are climbing the Kindle charts and are #20 and #27 on the Kindle bestselling Romantic Suspense list.

Once I have all three up, I might ask my agent to shop around the print rights. So here we are, having come full circle. I’m also thinking about bringing out my little darlings: an epic fantasy, a dark historical fantasy, and other stories that are different than traditional publishing expects from me. I might just give readers a chance to decide for themselves.

There are many uncertainties in the marketplace right now, but I still think that this is possibly the best time to be a writer. New doors are opening. Ebook sales are growing each month. Readers are open to new things. I think if we write with them in mind, we’ll be okay.

The truth is that my path to publication was nothing but unglamorous. I wrote for 13 years and completed 4 books (as well as having others in various stages of completion) before I finally received a call from a Harlequin editor. I was beginning to wonder if I was being tenacious or just too dense to know when to quit. But it all worked out at the end! I love, love, love writing and would spend all day in front of the computer if I could just break my family of the habit of wanting to eat and wear clean clothes. What’s up with that? But I must get up from the desk now and then, if only because my Internet connection goes down or my ancient PC overheats. Then I do enjoy cooking, knitting, hunting for treasures at the flea market, our Beagle--Peanut the Destroyer--and gardening.

I’d love it if you picked up one of my books and emailed me to tell me what you thought of it. I’ve been known to name characters after readers.

Letting Marc Vun Kannon do the Talking

2011-08-23T00:00:00.012-04:00

Ebooks and Authors

When I first started as an author, I was very reluctant to have anything to do with ebooks. The reason was simple: I was equally reluctant to do what is known in the trade as ‘marketing’, sending out press releases, advertising, doing all sorts of things to get your name and the name of your product in front of people who might buy it, without any real connection between what you do and whatever results might come.

At least that’s what it was then. It may sound strange to hear, from a philosophy major, computer programmer, and fantasy novelist, but I don’t do well with abstractions. Activity without a direct connection to outcome was just too abstract for me to even know how to begin to do it. So ebook versions of my stories were allowed by me to languish, in favor of physical books, which I could sell to people who were standing right in front of me. I created a bookstore business to do it, and I’m pretty good at it.

Along came blogging and tweeting, and my publisher (Echelon Press) began nudging me to become more active in those arenas. Still I was reluctant. To whom am I talking? Would I just be writing down random sentences to throw into the air? I had the accounts but rarely used them.

Then something strange happened. I have studied foreign languages (German and Chinese, if you must know) and the phenomenon of thinking in another language was familiar to me. I found myself suddenly thinking in Blog, so to speak. I just wrote a post one day, rather quickly. Then the next day I wrote another. And then another. I posted every day for weeks. That was actually rather silly, since it pushed those early posts out of the way before they had a fair chance to be read by anyone, but what did I know then? Drafts were abstractions. I wrote and I published. Then I tweeted about my posts and found people tweeting back.

As a result I’m becoming more comfortable with ebooks. It helps that I have a number of short stories that are only available in ebook form, so I have to learn how to promote them. One has done especially well, which I credit to the title, STEAMPUNK SANTA. I have another Christmas story, BITE DEEP, which is about vampires at Christmas and hasn’t sold nearly as well. Take away from this: titles matter, if only to draw attention to covers. Like titles, taglines and loglines--single sentences that capture aspects of the story--are very important, also with links prominently positioned. Links are very important, they are the closest I can come to putting my book into your hands.

There’s the rub. In a bookstore, the reader can just stand there and see all sorts of covers, which draw attention to titles he hasn’t seen before. The bookstore guy (that’s me) can point him in the right direction if he’s looking for a particular type of book. Ebooks need to be much more actively searched out by readers, although the use of coupons and coupon codes gives us booksellers something tangible to present. The place that makes it easiest for readers to find ebooks is the place that will sell the most. The title that is easiest to find, or which the reader has the greatest desire to find, is the title that will sell.

Like many writers, I started when a story came along and decided that I should write it. Don't ask me why. Others followed, until now I'm afraid to go out of the house without a recorder or notebook in my hand. But I show them, I refuse to write the same story twice!

He blogs as authorguy.

Can you find me in Grit City today?

2011-08-21T12:00:00.001-04:00

Today, I'm blogging at The Gritty Blog, Grit City Serial's blog, about why I decided to publish an ebook.

Letting Ron Gavalik do the Talking

2011-08-18T00:00:00.008-04:00

Grit City Emotobooks Revolutionize Fictional Storytelling

As a writer it’s always been a goal of mine to bridge the gap between the cerebral gratifications of well-plotted writing and the visual stimulation of illustrative art or film. Like a mad scientist with crazy hair and a battered lab coat, I experimented with various styles, structures, and word painting exercises. Nothing seemed to achieve my goal.

Then it came to me. I had a mini-epiphany. Insert abstract, emotionally representative illustrations during peak moments of tension. By delivering a visual of what the character feels and experiences, the reader becomes more intensely immersed in the story.

The term emotobook is simply a portmanteau word I conjured, as a fun and memorable label for this new medium of fiction.

Unlike comic books that use direct illustrations as the primary storytelling device, Grit City emotobooks are written mystery noirs, with an urban fantasy twist. The four of five illustrations in each thirty-page installment merely lend a visual experience to the internal emotional processes of the characters.

It’s lots of fun.

Grit City is continuing story, published each month to Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other eBook retailers. In each installment the reader is exposed to a dark and calamitous world, where the nefarious rule.

Our main character is Dillon Galway, an idealistic freelance journalist in his mid-twenties, who barely scrapes out a living reporting on corruption for the metro newspaper and his own blog.

Dillon embodies a double meaning of the term grit. He is a gritty individual, who drinks and lives meagerly. But he also possesses grit. Courage and strength of character are his dominant personality traits.

I’ve constructed a world where Dillon shares a symbiotic relationship with the city. Its failures have lowered him, yet he remains hopeful for the restoration of peace and opportunity. Occasionally, he relies on the sexy and sultry Alyssa Stephano (gun for hire) to help when situations require her nickel-plated Colt .45 revolvers.

Grit City was an ideal place to live at one time. We all know of towns that have fallen over the years. The murder of Dillon’s Father and the rise of the Syndicate started Dillon’s downward spiral. All meaningful power in business, politics, and law enforcement were funneled into the hands of this wealthy organization.

But in the shadows of the back alleys, whispers stir in the underground of an unnamed force. Something or someone that’s determined to upset the status quo. When Dillon is tipped about horrifying activities he’s propelled into a perilous investigation that may lead to dire consequences.

As the series progresses he’s faced with unfathomed challenges, but also gains abilities most consider impossible.

The creation of Grit City is a collaborative process. Leah Keilman is our partnered illustrator. It’s her keen insight into expressionism and years of experience that breathes life into the emotobook illustrations. Nikki Hopeman is our proofing editor. Her eye for detail ensures the story installments I write are held to the highest possible level of storytelling. Kunta is our web and electronic media guru, who likes to eat…a lot. We just feed him pizza and let him work his magic. Without this team my vision of emotobooks never would have existed.

With that said, we’ve all dedicated our lives to this pursuit. We’re thankful such a broad audience is heralding the story. It seems our tagline on the website is true.

Read one installment and you’ll be hooked until the gritty end.

Ron Gavalik has dedicated his life to the written word. He’s practiced a long and successful career in fiction writing, journalism, and technical documentation. His short fiction has appeared in several magazines and online venues. His news articles have informed thousands of readers throughout the United States.

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, he spends much of his free time in the outdoors of Southwestern Pennsylvania fishing, hiking, and riding his trail bike.

Ron conceived the new medium of emotobooks in 2010 while earning his M.A. in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. Grit City is the maiden serialized emotobook, and is receiving accolades among a diverse base of readers throughout the US, UK, and Germany.

Ron can be reached through his website at RonGavalik.com.

Letting Jason Jack Miller do the Talking

2011-08-16T00:00:00.002-04:00

5 Rules for Indie Publishing (Updated)

In a month I'll reach the one year anniversary of making my decision to ePublish. This is a momentous milestone for many reasons, the largest is that it commemorates a resolution to step away from publishing as I knew it. Twelve years writing, three novels, a Masters degree, a hundred writing conventions, conferences and workshops, five hundred queries.

I was not an amateur. A hack. A wannabe.

I'm an Authors Guild member who received a four figure advance from a major travel publisher. I'd written for newspapers, magazines, travel journals, literary journals. I'd won writing contests and had received awards for my writing.

I'd spent a thousand hours writing and rewriting queries, synopses and drafts on my three novels, one of which was scrutinized extensively by mentors and peers in Seton Hill University's Writing Popular Fiction Program. I'd travelled hundreds of miles and paid hundreds of dollars to pitch to a single agent at a writing conference.

The decision to ePublish did not come easy. My wife and I thought long and hard about why we wanted to go this route, and even took the OCD course of creating five rules we had to agree to before we'd even consider it.

Here's the list, the reason we felt the rule was important and what has changed since last September:

1. Know why you're publishing independently

Why the rule?

We knew that ePublishing couldn't be pursued as a last resort. We believed that before we could take the plunge, ePublishing had to be our FIRST choice. We knew if we weren't going to treat our book the way a publisher--who'd spend thousands of dollars to print, market and distribute--was going to treat it, then independent publishing probably wasn't going to work for us. We had to believe we knew what was best for our book.

What has changed?

Nothing. The process has been amazing. Since releasing my book in March I have worked with the amazing folks at Hatch Show Print in Nashville, Tennessee to create a fantastic cover, and I loved every second of it. I have interacted with readers, people I did not know until they mentioned they'd read my book. I loved every second of it. Is ePublishing still my first choice? 100% yes.

2. Know risk to gain ratio

Why the rule?

Before taking the plunge we had the fortunate experience of knowing exactly what a publisher was going to do for us, and what we'd be doing ourselves. The publisher-supplied publicist did little more than send .jpegs to a few newspapers.We knew that even small presses made promises they couldn't keep about marketing and distribution.

You also have to know how finances are going to break down for you. Many writers are tight-lipped about sales, and for good reason. So finding reliable information about what a new small press or mid-list writer earns will be difficult, if not impossible. Most are lucky to sell-out their advances, and fewer still ever see a royalty check.

What has changed?

Nothing. The reward has outweighed the risk a thousand times already. That may sound trite, but in a few short months I've had experiences that are beyond description or monetization.

3. Know what you're compromising

Why the rule?

When we devised these rules legitimacy was a huge deal for us. We worried about what other writers--specifically our peers from Seton Hill--would say about our choice to jump ship. I had a huge list of Big Six-published books in my arsenal, books from people like Snooki, Nicole Richie, Lauren Conrad, that I could whip out whenever Big Six publication as a path to true legitimacy was mentioned.

But we knew all this before we ePublished.

What has changed?

Everything. Readers legitimize you, not editors, agents, publishers or your peers.

4. Know that you are the company

Why the rule?

This rule let us make a list of all of the things we'd be doing ourselves, almost a checklist to let us know if we had the stomach for it. Editing, publicity, formatting, art, author photos and on and on.

What has changed?

I think we're going to need a bigger boat.

I've never worked so hard for anything, and I have never in thirty-seven years been so proud of an accomplishment.

5. Know if you have the time and energy

Why the rule?

We have jobs, lives, and friends. Stuff we didn't want writing to interfere with.

What has changed?

Writing is my life. Which was always what I wanted, why else would I drop $40,000 on a degree? For a hobby? This pursuit has moved writing from the backburner to the hotplate.

And I learned to love coffee.

These rules were written pre-Borders collapse, and I think they've stood up pretty well. Something else that's stood the test of eleven months' time--the conclusion to my original post, presented here unaltered:

I don't know if independent publishing is for the faint of heart. But seeing that I'd have the freedom to write what I want, instead of writing what I hope an agent would want, is a very liberating experience. And if it bombs it bombs. I change my name and write something else. Or not. I can do whatever I want.

As the writer I should've always had that power--not marketing department or CFOs. Sometime I get the impression that a lot of editors and agents and publishers put writers at the bottom of a very tall ladder. I think independent publishing puts writers at the top.

And look, I wrote this whole post barely mentioning the way the publishing industry has eaten itself into a very awkward and ugly corner. Let the agents have Snooki. I think the readers are smart enough to follow the writing.

Jason Jack Miller is a writer, photographer and musician who has been hassled by cops in Canada, Mexico and the Czech Republic. An outdoor travel guide he co-authored with his wife in 2006 jumpstarted his freelancing career; his work has since appeared in newspapers, magazines, literary journals, online, and as part of a travel guide app for mobile phones. He received a Master’s in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill where he is adjunct creative writing faculty and he is an Authors Guild member. He's been a whitewater raft guide, played guitar in a garage band and served as a concierge at a five star resort hotel in Florida. When he isn't writing he's on his mountain bike or looking for his next favorite guitar. He is currently writing and recording the soundtrack to his novel, The Devil and Preston Black. Find him posting regularly on his own blog.

Letting Someone Else do the Talking

2011-08-15T00:00:00.004-04:00

I’ve been doing some thinking (run and hide!) about our blog content. WE’VE been doing a lot of blogging about ebooks over the last year. This past year has seen many changes in the realm of epublishing. Many people have jumped on board and met with success, or faced big challenges to achieve their dreams. I thought it might be about time we let some of them do the talking, or typing as the case may be. So, I reached out to the writing community and got a great responses.

Starting next week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, some new writers will be making an appearance on the GPS blog. They'll be sharing their unique experiences and perspectives on publishing their ebooks.

See you tomorrow!

RIP Borders

2011-07-20T20:54:00.002-04:00

Borders to begin liquidation as soon as this Friday, July 22.

Sad that it's finally happened. Ebooks have made their mark.

Interview with William H. Horner of Fantasist Enterprises

2011-07-20T00:01:00.003-04:00

We have a special guest today!

In our first Anthology Editor Interview, William H. Horner, Publisher and Editor in Chief, will share some of his experiences in publishing anthologies at Fantasist Enterprises. What is a Fantasist you ask?

Fan • ta • sist [fan-tuh-sist] noun: 1. A person who writes or composes fantasies or fantasias in music, poetry, or the like 2. One that creates a fantasy.

We are dedicated to reawakening the sense of wonder that our modern society can so easily suppress and disregard. We want our readers to recapture the wide-eyed glee they had as children, thinking that old trees contained spirits and clouds hid floating castles. We want them to study the shadows, trying to catch that strange movement they thought they saw, and experience visions that linger on the edges of their waking minds.

We are dedicated to high-quality books that are impeccably edited. If you are a writer, we want to work with you to create the best possible version of your story that you can write. Our passion is storytelling, and we believe in exploring that passion with our authors. We will strive to help young authors to hone their craft, and we will push grizzled veterans of the publishing industry to go just a little farther.

We are dedicated to fantastic art, and will do our best to fill our books with works of breathtaking beauty.

So let the words and images take you. Sweet dreams, and fantastical visions!

Let’s see what Will has to say:

GPS: Why did you start Fantasist Enterprises?

WHH: For a lot of reasons.
I love good stories that transport the reader, that awaken the sense of wonder inside, and I love great artwork, so I decided that I wanted to work with both while I developed my own writing. However, the idea of working for big publishing in NYC wasn’t appealing. I wanted to have more freedom to pick and choose projects, and I just didn’t want to deal with the city! I’ve always had that entrepreneurial spirit so I figured “why not?”

Since then, I’ve discovered a knack for editing, something that I really enjoy. Helping authors hone their craft is a passion of mine. On the other hand, publishing, editing, and teaching have nearly consumed my writing life (and originally I had hoped those things could support my writing), but I’m trying to get back to it.

GPS: You’ve edited many anthologies since starting Fantasist Enterprises. Which is your favorite?

WHH: That’s like asking a parent to name his or her favorite child! I’m fond of different ones for different reasons. BASH DOWN THE DOOR AND SLICE OPEN THE BADGUY was simply a ton of fun to work on. MODERN MAGIC will always be close to my heart—there’s just something, well, magical about it.

GPS: How do you arrange an anthology?

WHH: They take shape as I’m finalizing the lineup. I can’t say that I have a specific technique. Based on the stories they contain, anthologies take on particular personalities. It’s all about figuring out the rhythm and flow of the thematic and stylistic threads that pull them together. Honestly, once you figure out the opening and closing stories, the rest sort of fall into place.

GPS: Which was your most difficult Anthology to put together?

WHH: They each come with their own sets of challenges. The first couple were difficult simply because I was just starting out. How little I knew then—but I always try to learn from each project so that the next one is even better.

One of the anthologies that is currently in our pipeline, PAPER BLOSSOMS, SHARPENED STEEL, presented me with the difficult issue of rejecting several really wonderful stories simply because there wasn’t enough room for them all. The ones I had to say “no” to just didn’t quite fit the personality the book was taking on.

GPS: How long does it take to produce an anthology from concept to complete?

WHH: It varies depending on issues of available time and money. In Business 101 you learn that you can pick two of the following three attributes: fast, cheap, and high quality. I’m a stickler for quality and always strive to make the current book I am working on the best that I’ve put out. Since money has always been tight, you can figure out which two qualities I lean towards.

In my vision of a perfect world, it would take around 17 or 18 months from the initial call for submissions to publication. I can break that down:

I like 6-month open calls since it allows people time to work up new material or to tweak something they had previously completed. As submissions come in I attempt to read them as quickly as possible and send out rejections right away, or at least in staged batches. Ones that have potential go into ranked piles until the end of the submission period at which point I make final acceptance decisions.

After the acceptances are handled (keeping in mind a two-month window for dealing with contracts), I prefer to have six to eight months to do editing work and art direction before sending out advanced review galleys. At that point the book should be three months away from publication.

Pretty much everything is done in house, though I have no employees—just a handful of dedicated volunteers. No in-house artists, though. They are all freelancers.

GPS: Why anthologies?

WHH: I’ve always loved short stories, and I believe that it is a powerful medium that deserves a renewed readership.

From a business standpoint, in the early years I thought that having several excited authors would be better for promotion than one—but in practice there are very few authors who will get behind an anthology for the long haul and continue to promote it or carry copies with them to sell at conventions. That’s totally understandable, though: they simply don’t have as much invested in an anthology as they would in their own novels.

GPS: What is the worst project-gone-wrong situation you’ve had?

WHH: I’m still attempting to dig out from that one. A few years back I was paying advances at pro rates, which for anthologies means large advances for a small press. And I attempted to launch a comic book line.

At the time, it looked as if things were really picking up, so it seemed to be good timing to start up some new ventures. Then the economy tanked and my personal finances took a hit. So basically, I ran out of money before we could get enough issues of the comics in the can to move forward, and my debt piled up.

That has had a serious chain reaction on our publication schedule, so we’ve been facing painful delays. At this point, we’re working our way back up. We have our eyes set on completing the backlog of material that we need to publish, as well as on moving in some new directions—but we’re going forward at a more sustainable pace. I learned my lesson about overreaching.

GPS: Are your books available in electronic format?

WHH: Not yet: I’ve been in a wait-and-see mode. I’ve wanted to see what other people do with the technology so that I could learn from their successes and failures. Plus, the visual presentation is an important part of our books and I wanted to make sure that the technology was ready. It seems that a lot of publishers just slap text into an e-pub without really thinking through the plusses and minuses of the format. We want to be better than that.

Lawrence C. Connolly’s VOICES will be our first electronic book (released along with the trade paperback). I’d like to get our backlist available, but that’s going to take time to secure the rights—there’s no way I’m going to just assume that it’s OK and utilize rights that I was not granted.

GPS: What are your up and coming projects?

WHH: I mentioned Lawrence C. Connolly’s VOICES, which is a collection of his horror stories from the past 30 years. It will contain essays that discuss the writing of the stories as well as Connolly’s inspirations—and some phenomenal artwork by World-Fantasy-award-nominated artist Jason Zerrillo.

We’re also in the middle of a major re-branding initiative, the first phase of which involves a ground-up reconstruction of our website. Be sure to check the FE site in a couple of weeks for that. We have three anthologies for which stories have been accepted: FANTASTICAL VISIONS V (a non-themed fantasy anthology), BLOOD & DEVOTION II: MORE TALES OF EPIC FANTASY, and PAPER BLOSSOMS, SHARPENED STEEL: TALES OF FAR-EASTERN FANTASY.

Finally, we’re also in the planning stages for our online magazine, SpecFic.net.

GPS: Anything else you’d like to share?

WHH: It’s something you do because you love it. I wouldn’t recommend it as something to do since it seems like an easy business—because it’s not! I’ve heard it said that you’ve got to be a little crazy to be a publisher, and I think that’s true.

Thanks for your time!

William holds a BA in English and an MA in Writing Popular Fiction. A student of both mythology and story, he believes that powerful and engaging tales can be told in any medium that is available to the teller, but that the decision of medium intrinsically alters the telling of the story. As he delved into publishing, William discovered a passion for design, and has studied it ever since.

William enjoys working with authors, artists, and designers in all genres and media. A desire for discourse with creative individuals fuels his desire to be a freelance editor and designer.

A student of Tai Chi Chuan and Haidong Gumdo, a Korean sword art that is relatively new in the United States, William strives to maintain a balance between physical, spiritual, and mental disciplines in order to excel at all of them. His other interests include history and archeology. Eras and cultures of particular interest include World War II, Roman and Medieval Europe and Britain, as well as Egyptian and Mayan / Aztec cultures.

William has been known to enjoy singing karaoke on occasion. He is also the founder and director of The First Writes, a writing group based in Wilmington, DE.

The Hour of the Dragon by Robert E. Howard

2011-07-13T00:01:00.008-04:00

The Hour of the Dragon by Robert E. Howard

It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book this old. And this book has been on my to-read list for a long time. A mentor in my MA program suggested I read some Robert E. Howard and so I got this book but I never quite got to it.

The Hour of the Dragon is Howard’s only novel-length story--the mass market paperback wasn’t even 300 pages. It was featured in installments in Weird Tales starting in 1935. Magic and betrayal, wizards, death and quests what’s not to love about this original sword and sorcery story?

While Howard had great stories to tell, I found myself cringing at the usage and style. Exclamation points everywhere, ill-placed Middle English, impossible names (yet not as impossible as his contemporary and friend H. P. Lovecraft). Every time I cringed, I had to remind myself how long ago this was written. Have tastes in prose changed so much? Or was that just the result of the cheaply produced pulps of the era?

Despite all that, delicious vocabulary crept among the purple prose on which 90’s Sword and Sorcery was built. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to look up a word while reading, and I think it’s a shame that I don’t have to do so more often. Maybe I’m just not reading the right stuff?

What about Conan himself? The character that people could not get enough of in his heyday? I can certainly see the draw to him. He was the strapping giant that no one could beat, he fought on the side of good and didn’t back down from confrontation. Despite being a little sexist by my own 21st century standards, he had respectable morals and philosophies. He also was intelligent. He had a mind for politics, even though he obviously hated them, and could strategize a battle--and Howard could write it well enough to draw out the suspense (this is probably the key to his success).

As I mentioned before, Howard created the original Conan character during the Great Depression. And now, the new movie for Conan the Barbarian is coming out, during this new depression we’re living through. Coincidence? What do you think?

Review cross posted at Wandering Around the Words

Survey results part 4

2011-07-06T00:01:00.001-04:00

It's apparent by the results that word of mouth is a HUGE factor in deciding what books to buy. Having a good browsing experience to find new stuff becomes important in such cases, since once you find the book, you are likely to want to find similar stuff.

Favorite feature of the ereaders? Portability across the board. Having a library at your fingertips, handy for when you want to have a few books available while you are traveling, and don't want to carry around bulky books in your carry on.

In contrast, the least favorite features were the cost of the ebooks, the lack of a backlight on the Kindle, and not being able to take the iPad in the sun. Another problem mentioned was the fact that ebook readers are much easier to break than paperbacks.

It's interesting to see that once an ereader has been purchased, people tend to stick with its built-in book store. It is hard to get anything other then Kindle books on a Kindle, and it has such a huge selection it makes sense to buy from them. The iPad can swing both ways. Well, more than that. Every reading format is supported. With programs like Calibre, it makes it easier to buy any format, then convert to the format of your choice. I also like when a company's like Smashwords and O'Reilly offer the book in multiple formats. So you are free to grab the version of your choice.

So that about summarizes things up. Our thanks to the many that participated.

The Paper Book is Fighting Back...

2011-06-29T12:42:00.003-04:00

The new flipback format is trying to play on readers nostaligia for paper books, but trying to compete by reading sideways so it looks more like an ebook reader.

...and, um, I don't think this one is going to win...

At the best it's a throwback to the pulps of the 1950's people who want books are buying them for their longevity, or they are buying electronic. I don't know how they are going to get a Stephen King book in one of these "portable" volumes.

It's only sold 1 million copies in the past 2 years, and with the electronic "revolution" only getting stronger, I don't think this reaction to the decline of paper books is going to compete.

Many Genres, One Craft: Lessons in Writing Popular Fiction

2011-06-22T00:01:00.002-04:00

I knew Many Genres, One Craft: Lessons in Writing Popular Fiction would be a treasure before I opened it. Hearing it described as a "writers workshop in a bottle" had piqued my interest. Now that I’ve gone through it, I can confirm it’s true. Any writer, beginner or otherwise will find benefit from reading this book. Usually structured around one theme, craft element or one particular way to write; how-to books can be limited on how much they can help you.

Before I go any further, I should probably share that I am an alumna of Seton Hill’s Writing Popular Fiction program. I know about half of the contributing authors, either by studying writing under them or with them. And I can only say how much I absolutely respect their skill and knowledge of writing. That done, let’s move on...

Many Genres one Craft is broken into sections discussing “Craft,” which encompasses everything from Style to Character, Plot and Setting. The section for “Genre” discusses genre itself as well as the contemporary classifications we are all familiar with, including romance and women’s fiction, sci-fi and fantasy, horror and suspense, children’s and they even have an alternative section. Most other how-to books don’t discuss anything beyond those topics, but Many Genres one Craft continues with a section about “The Writer’s Life.” It’s true, if it was easy everyone would do it...and this section discusses how to deal with the self-inflicted curse and joy of being a writer. Probably the most useful section of the book for me was the section on “Promoting.”

Within all the sections, from idea generation to promotion of a published work is the wisdom of those who’ve “been there, done that” and are still publishing because they adapt to change, or newly publishing because they know what they are doing. Many of these contributors fondly reminisce on old times, when publishing was kind to writers. But, as Arnzen says in the intro, “Writing is a tough business and it's only grown colder as the trade has evolved.” And that’s why we need books like this.

As you read you feel like the contributors are there talking with you. They are not saying “I’m a great writer I know how it should be done,” they are saying “I’ve been writing, and I discovered this.” These writers are not telling you absolutes, they are pushing you to develop your own judgment. As a writer, your strongest tool will be your own judgment: of your own work, and of what you read.

If you read all these essays closely, you may find that some of the advice contradicts other pieces. This doesn’t mean one of them is wrong. One tidbit of hard-won industry knowledge may cancel out another bit of wisdom gleaned off an insider’s insight. But that doesn’t mean one is right and one is wrong. Both pieces of conflicting knowledge are important because they both happened. That’s the way it is.

No one book can tell you everything you need to know to get published. But Many Genres, One Craft might be close.

Dropbox left open for four hours

2011-06-21T11:47:00.000-04:00

From MacWorld.com, "Online storage service Dropbox accidentally turned off password authentication for its 25 million users for four hours on Monday" They assert that less then 1% of their users were active at the time. Dropbox is a great utility for storing and sharing files remotely. You have a local copy of the file, and it is pushed to the cloud. Any other devices connected to that account, gets the file from the cloud automatically. Even with the privacy issue that was accressed, I use the service all the time. However, if you are storing sensitive files, it is always a good idea to ensure they are encrypted, no matter where they are stored.

Survey Results--Part 3

2011-06-21T00:01:00.003-04:00

Today I want to show the last two pie charts, because they are so pretty to look at ... Umm, wait. Because they are a great way to show results. We'll save the textual results for part 4, where for instance, you will see what the most and least favorite features are.

Now, let's have some more pie!

For the most part, it seems pretty easy to load up the reader. Seems the companies have done their job.

This one surprised me. When iBooks first came out, highlighting was a feature that was missing. However it was available on the Kindle reader for iPad. It took one or two updates to get that feature into iBooks. It's a feature I just can't do with out. But I guess it depends on the type of book you are reading. For a fiction novel, it doesn't make so much sense, but for a technical book, it makes all the sense in the world. 47% like the annotations, but 61% use it for recreational reading. So perhaps people like to highlight their favorite passages from their fiction books as I like to highlight important parts of a technical book.

Survey Results--Part 2

2011-06-20T13:00:00.000-04:00

Purchasing ebooks

ebook Readers

Look for the rest of the resulsts coming soon!

Survey Winners and Results--Part 1

2011-06-17T12:00:00.006-04:00

Results are in! Congratulations to the winners, you have been notified via email.

And now onto the Survey Results. We'll be releasing them in installments over the next few days.

Introductions

It would seem that most of you are between 31 and 40:

Even split between brainiacs and the average Joe:

ebooks

People still like to buy dead trees. They really are pretty aren't they? Nothing like showing off your fav books. The folks at Apple know this, as the presentation of your ebook collection is a book shelf. Perfect.

Most people are building their collection as they go. Makes sense. But I sure do love filling up my cyber shelves :)

Not many have replaced their books with ebooks. I wonder if it would have made a difference if you were able to upgrade the print to ebook? Most of my technical books were O'Reilly, and they have an excellent replacement plan. If you have the print, you can get the ebook for a huge discount.

Stay tuned for more results on Monday!

For Immediate Release!

2011-06-17T00:01:00.006-04:00

Portland Writing Group Indie-Publishes eBook Anthology

Portland, ME June 17, 2011 It’s all about the technology. Literature has finally entered the Indie Revolution thanks to ebooks, and the Greater Portland Scribists aren’t hesitating to join. GPS has produced Scribings to get their bearings on the technologies that are bringing ebooks to the world. As new authors, they are experimenting with this low-cost, high-yield mode of publication to reach out directly to their audience. Find Scribings on Smashwords.com, and many other ebookstores, beginning June 17th 2011. Look for cards with discount codes circulating the Portland area!

Scribings is a fabulous compilation of speculative tales by four Maine authors. The collection consists of eleven pieces of short fiction, including one piece of flash fiction from each author. These stories exhibit a range of styles and genres from fantasy to science fiction and beyond. Watch young gods learn their place, see what the afterlife is like, meet Dappil, taste the sweetness of revenge, feel the fires of judgment and more.

Over the last year GPS has been blogging about the development of ebook popularity and how epublishing is affecting the publishing industry. Also on their blog are reviews of writing software, book reviews and occasionally a free story.

Greater Portland Scribists is a group of speculative fiction writers from the greater Portland, Maine area. They coined the term “scribists” to pay homage to the scribes of yore, monks who spent hours bent over manuscript pages, writing for as long as they had light to do so. GPS members are Jamie Alan Belanger; Cynthia Ravinski, MA; Lee Patterson and Richard Veysey.

Contact Info:
Greater Portland Scribists
scribists@gmail.com
http://scribists.blogspot.com
facebook.com/GreaterPortlandScribists

Begining of the Week Update

2011-06-13T13:11:00.008-04:00

It's June 13th, so that means 5 days until:

Scribings, Vol 1 launches (see our cover? istn't it georgous?)

Results for "From the Pulps to Pixles: an ereader Survey" are posted

The winner of the survey is notified

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Click here to take our survey.

One winner will receive a $20 gift card to the ebook store of their choice and a free copy of our ebook. Five other free ebooks will be given away.

Book Release Update

2011-06-09T20:44:00.001-04:00

Just thought I'd pop in here and announce that we have a registered ISBN number!

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Click here to take our survey.

One winner will receive a $20 gift card to the ebook store of their choice and a free copy of our ebook. Five other free ebooks will be given away.

The Arc of Story

2011-06-08T21:16:00.004-04:00

I used to be a panster. But I'm not anymore. I needed more structure to be productive enough to get all the work done that I want to get done. Yes, I’m an organizing freak, a slave to my left brain. But, I tried outlining and that didn't work. I wrote exactly what I should, and my work SUCKED.... So I do not outline.

In my struggles with trying to trick myself into getting organized without outlining, I found something that did work. An old enemy had come back to offer help: the story arc.

When I took my first creative writing class, for the first time in my life I started talking to a lot of the other people about writing. I didn’t know the jargon, outside of grammar and maybe plot. So when someone started talking about having trouble with a story because they couldn’t figure out the arc, I had no idea what he was talking about and thought he was being a writing snob and using a fancy word for the plot. Workshop after workshop I heard this word, “I really like the arc of your story,” etc…. And I was feeling left out. What was this ubiquitous arc?

Jump ahead a few years. “Cynthia, you need to have the synopsis for your novel done next month. Cynthia you need to finish your novel and … yes, it needs to have an ending or it won’t pass…”

This was my situation: I refused to work off an outline, so I never wrote one. I had my synopsis but the ending I put down had nothing to do with my story anymore. But I needed something to point me in the right direction. I looked at the beginning, I looked at the middle...yes, there was a “shape there” I could feel it. But I needed to extend the shape. Then it clicked. It all fell into place. So simple. Why hadn’t I seen this before?

The arc is, in a word, progress. It keeps the story from getting boring, from going in a straight line. You can think of it like a learning curve. At first you know nothing, but the more you learn the easier and faster you pick up this new thing until you know so much you can’t learn as much because there is less to know. You might say, “This resembles the shape of a story, rising action, climax, falling action and denouement.” Bingo. That’s exactly what it is.

The thing is, I had seen this before. The arc I’d just come to terms with was easily recognizable in poetry. When I’d studied poetry with Wes McNair, he said a poem always has a turn. In class, we read some poems and found all the turns in them. I was hooked. My favorite poems are short lined with lots of enjambment. The turns in poems were always easy to find, for me (but not in a story, shrug). It always had something to do with the feel of shifting.

Here’s an example from Sandra Kasturi’s The Animal Bridegroom. Try to find the turn.*

The Burning Woman

Listen!
You can hear her pale voice
from within the conflagration.
It always speaks truth.
It always lies.
She crackles like marrow-bone
when she walks.
Her eyes and mouth open
and burn like magnesium.
She is a contrary Gorgon;
everything she looks at
is forced into frenzied life.
If you are very lucky
and can run after her
until she catches you,
you can put her in a canning jar
to hold in the air:
a blaze of fireflies
to light the darkness.

I vastly expanded the shape of poetry that I loved so much to fit my novel. I finished it and moved onto revisions. By the time I got to the end, cutting passages, moving them around, heightening the action to give it meaning, I had a properly structured story, more importantly, I felt like I had control of it.

Now, when I go to write a story, I need to have the arc in mind or I meander around and go nowhere, or I go everywhere except where I should. To keep organized, I use arcs to keep not only my plot on track, but also my characters.

Writing is a craft. Like any craft its practitioners will improve and get better results with practice and the use of tools. This one magical tool has helped me resolve one of my biggest weaknesses.

So, do you outline, write by the seat of your pants or, like me, something in the middle?

*The turn occurs on line 13. See how it’s just after the middle of the poem? And then it moves on to the real kicker at the end—just like a story.

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10 Days left to take our eReader Survey

2011-06-05T14:12:00.002-04:00

Own an eBook Reader? Click below to take our survey.

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Digital Piracy Survey Finds Interesting Results

2011-06-05T01:27:00.002-04:00

Digital piracy. It's an illicit activity undertaken by college students in their dorm rooms or by teenagers in their parents' basements, right? Wrong, according to a recent survey by the British law firm Wiggin. Or wrong when it comes to e-book digital piracy at least.

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Review: The Story of Stuff

2011-06-02T10:51:00.002-04:00

I just read The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard. We normally only review fiction as well as books on the craft of writing. But I read a lot of non-fiction as research for my Terran Shift universe, especially books I expect will help refine my vision of the future. The Story of Stuff is, by far, the most important book I've read in a long time. It's also the most depressing.

Tons o' Stuff

The Story of Stuff is about all the Stuff we have in our society: cell phones, iPads, computers, books, toys, t-shirts, shower curtains, and all the other things we buy. The book charts the progress of that Stuff from ore extraction to product creation to garbage dumps. Many pages discuss the over-consuming society we live in (assuming you are in a first-world country like me) and how our current unsustainable lifestyle is destroying the planet, our communities, and ourselves.

The Story of Stuff paints a sad picture of today's world. Eliminating hunger and malnutrition in the world would have cost $19 billion in 2003. In that same year, people in Europe and the United States spent $17 billion on pet food. Also in that year, people spent $14 billion on cruises, while a mere $10 billion would have given every person on the planet a year's worth of clean water.

Our Toxic Earth

That "new plastic shower curtain" smell my brother and I both admit to liking is actually toxic cancer-inducing chemicals out-gassing. Ditto for that enticing "new car smell." The abundance of chemicals we dump into the environment as we create our Stuff is staggering. The mixture of chemicals we invite into our homes (from those shower curtains to infant toys and beyond) is disgusting. Ms. Leonard's story about the toxic ash being dumped on a Haitian beach was shocking. Our media doesn't tell us stories like this. We're too insulated from reality. I can't possibly reprint all the facts from The Story of Stuff here, but almost every page contained at least one despair-inducing fact, including this gem:

Toxic chemicals have been found in breast milk. These are chemicals linked to several neurological disorders and development problems. And, oddly enough, breast milk is still safer and better for your baby than the alternatives. How did this happen? The average woman in the US uses a dozen personal care products a day, containing 168 chemical ingredients, most of which are not actually regulated and many of which have been linked to cancer, reproductive problems, and disruption of hormones. And those chemicals pass from your body to your baby's.

Engineered to Fail

I've complained loudly, on several occasions, about products I purchased that were obviously engineered to fail - like that old DVD player with a 90-day warranty that stopped working on Day 91. Things like that are planned as part of the Stuff cycle - to force us to be good little consumers and buy replacements. Ever notice how all your fancy gadgets cannot be easily repaired? You can't even replace the battery in your iPod without minor surgery. "Upgrading" now means throwing the old one into the garbage can and buying a new one. Prices have been pushed so low that it's always cheaper to buy replacements than to have anything repaired. When my $250 printer runs out of toner, it will cost me $350 to replace the toner cartridges, and that's if I can even find someone to sell them to me. All planned as part of our consumerist culture.

Going Green

All these stories are linked if you follow the path of The Story of Stuff. This book is important. You need to read this book. It's eye-opening, often depressing, and simply outrageous. This book pissed me off (but in a good way). The saddest thing of all is that I know, as Ms. Leonard knows, that a few lifestyle changes I make to be "greener" won't matter much in the grand scheme. In fact, I think many of the solutions presented in the book are doomed to fail. Not for lack of intention, but simply because people are very attached to their Stuff and to their lifestyles. Many of the solutions come across as hippie lifestyle changes from the 60s. Granted, I believe these kinds of approaches are needed, and many of them coincide with my desire to live in a much smaller community, but I don't see the majority of people in the United States agreeing to them. We've had too many years of not trusting each other, not talking to our neighbors, just existing in our personal cocoons. I certainly don't see the corporations that benefit from this Stuff cycle relinquishing their control, or their money. While reading this book, I kept thinking of Tool's song Aenima: "The only way to fix it is to flush it all away."

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe if everyone who reads this review reads this book, watches the movie version, and talks about it... then maybe we can have a chance to save this planet (and ourselves!). Give it a shot. Turn off the TV, go to your local library or bookstore, and grab a copy of The Story of Stuff today.

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Organize your writing in Scrivener

2011-05-31T13:20:00.000-04:00

I found a tidy little summary about keeping yourself organized with Scrivener over on MacWorld.com. It talks about reorganizing your work, "Files in the Binder can be chapters, sections, scenes, beats, or whatever you want. This is one of the important aspects of Scrivener, one which helps free you from the fetters of linear composition." And probably one of the most powerful features, the "Scrivenings" view mode. It lets you combine and edit multiple documents as if it were one big document. Among other things.

We Have a Cover Mockup!

2011-05-29T22:48:00.003-04:00

I just uploaded a new cover mock up on our Facebook Page. Go on over and let us know what you think!

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Yes, I Write

2011-05-26T11:39:00.001-04:00

I had a quick trip to Massachusets this weekend, which means a lot of driving for one day. So I didn’t want to do much when I got home. And it’s been a while since I’ve cleared my to-read list on my Google Reader, so I went back in to see how bad my “unreads” had gotten. Let me tell you, it was pretty bad.

But one of Nathan Bransford’s headlines caught me, and I actually read the whole thing. It was a guest blog asking the question “Do you tell people you write?”

This is actually something I’ve heard many other writers and authors talk about, with mixed answers. Everyone has their own reasons about the response they give.

I’ve heard a lot of romance and fantasy/sci-fi/horror writers give the excuse that they don’t want their fellow church goers to know about it because they’ll think it’s a weird hobby (there are quite a few who don’t keep mum too, mind you). I’ve heard others say it makes them look like underachievers or something like that, because it’s not a “useful” profession, and that’s why they keep it quiet.

Me, I certainly tell people I’m a writer—when it’s appropriate. That means when I meet new people in social situations; not, let’s say, at work in idle conversation before a meeting at my office job. But I will say that most of the people I work with, who know me, know I am a writer and cannot wait to buy my books.

I think the biggest reason I don’t hide my writing is that I like to see the surprise in people’s faces (yes it’s usually there). No, I don’t subscribe to the normal desk or retail job scene. And, I even like to see the slight censure in other people’s faces before they ask, “and how’s that working for you?” I’m kind of an ass that way, I guess. I love a challenge and ;) I love to be contrary. In this way I think I’m opposite many of the folks who keep mum.

I can get away with this because I am a very hardworking and driven person. No one could accuse me of being lazy or too unmotivated to make my way in the real world. I also have a unique reason for being this way (yes I’m making an excuse for myself). I have two degrees in writing (a BFA in creative writing and an MA in Popular Fiction from respected schools). I consider that back-up enough for any scoffing I might get from the unsuspecting non-writer. I can make writing a novel sound as technical as dissecting a fugu. I can talk about the origins of my genre, and others; and the importance of various literary figures throughout the ages. And as the other Scribists can attest, I can take anyone to task on grammar and style applications.

Aside from my personal preferences, spilling the beans that I’m a writer should, by all logic, help my sales. If people know my name, I think that would motivate them to buy my book. I mean, if I know an author personally I sure as hell go buy their books. But seeing as I don’t yet have a book on sale, most of the time I get new email addresses to add to my “newsletter list.” It shows that people really are interested.

Because I don’t mind some funny looks, there are so few instances when telling people I’m a writer could have negative consequences. And it’s pretty easy to figure them out. So I say, why not open my mouth when I want to?

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Today in epublishing

2011-05-23T21:25:00.003-04:00

Author/Writer Michael Levin blames the demise of the book on the book makers themselves, the New York Publishing Model.

The traditional New York publishing business model — publish a ton of books, fail to market most of them, and hope that somebody buys something — worked well when publishers had a hammerlock on the distribution and marketing of books. Publishers http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifessentially faced no competition and enjoyed complete control of what books people could publish and sell.

today

2011-05-23T21:25:00.001-04:00

Today in ePublishing

2011-05-20T11:56:00.001-04:00

Amazon e-books Outsell Print

Ebook sales are on the rise! Some facts on ebooks from Amazon.

Good news for us Scribists :)

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Scrivener review

2011-05-18T04:00:00.002-04:00

Scrivener is a text editor by Literature & Latte, geared towards writers and has quite an impressive number of features, but remains extremely easy to get started and continue to be very useful. It is a Mac only program at the moment, but there is a Windows version in the works.

The features I will focus on is the editing, document notes, outlining, exporting/printing. I won't be talking about how you can use it for scriptwriting, look at statistics and targets or its full screen modes. Frankly I never used those features, and in all honesty, I didn't much like the full screen views.

What I liked, actually loved, was that you could sit down and be writing your story within seconds of starting the program for the first time. I have used other programs that force you into a certain structure and wizards to create your world, characters, chapters, etc, etc, add nauseum. Not so with Scrivener. You start the program, choose a template or just a blank project, give it a filename, and Bob's your uncle. You are writing your next bestselling novel within seconds.

At the left side of the program is your binder. Think of it as a mini file system that consists of one or more documents (your story sections) and folders, which can contain additional sections or folders. It really helps keep things organized, but doesn't force a structure on you. Note that when you create a new project, it will create an untitled document for you. Automatic, easy to use.

On the right side is your Inspector, which can be used to keep notes on your current document.

It the middle is the actual document, where you can do all the regular stuff like change the font, add tables, and images. No matter how many features a program has, if the core purpose of the program isn’t any good, the whole experience goes out the window. Editing the document in this case, is top notch. It gives you a word and character count, lets you zoom the text in and out with a single keystroke (a huge feature for me). You can select your font face and size, spacing, tab settings. Much like you would a word processor. I didn't find working with tables to be much fun. They work seamlessly for the most part in MS Word, but in Scrivener, they were hard to work with.

So it's easy to get started, but what about keeping yourself going? Can Scrivener help you stay organized? I would have to answer yes, very much so.

Some writers can just sit down and use MS Word to type out their 100,000 word novel. Not me, I like to break things up. Scrivener will let you organize the story to whatever grain you like. If you want to break it into chapters, you can do that; then if you decide to break it down further, into scenes, you can do that to. In fact, you can even write out large pieces of your story, and when it gets too big to wrap your head around, with a single keystroke, you can break it into separate documents.

If you are the type of writer that prefers to use a bunch of index cards to outline your story before writing the meat of it, the corkboard view mode is your answer. It is a layout of index cards, each card had the title and synopsis you have written on it. You can arrange the events however you like by dragging the cards around. Your story will be organized under the covers. In other words, each section is tied to the index card.

The other fantastic feature I would like to touch on is the outliner mode. When your story grows to a very large size, you need to be able to keep track of what stage each of the scenes or chapters are at. The outliner will show all your documents in single row format. It will also show the synopsis if you have typed one. You can assign each row a status like, "To do", "First Draft", "Revised Draft", "Final Draft", "Done". You can also change those defaults to whatever you like.

Exporting is one of Scriveners strongest points. You can export in a number of formats including Word .doc and .docx, .pdf, .rtf, .txt, .html, epub (iPad), mobi (Kindle) and a host of others. You can have export change the font to something other then what you were editing in. You can have it change underlined text to italics or vice versa. You can assign a title page or generate a table of contents. It's just so flexible, letting you edit one way, and if you choose, make the final copy conform to a particular publishers manuscript format. For example, I like to type my story using double space courier font. I also like to underline for things that will output as italicized. The reason for that is it is easier to read and proof as I am writing the story. When I export to a final format, like PDF or epub, I want to use a nice looking font, and I want anything underlined to be converted to italics. Export does this for you, and much more.

All in all, a fantastic program. Great for both the beginner and experienced writers.

Pros:

You are up and writing right away.
No messing with clunky wizards, no forced structure.
Very easy to create your own structure.
Easy to outline and manage the state of your sections/chapters/scenes.

Cons:

Autosave saves to your current document, which is an unsafe operation. It should save to a temporary file, and only save to the main file when you save manually.
MS Word .doc export is really just an RTF file renamed. You need to pay attention when making edits/comments and re-saving the word file. I had a friend loose his changes, but might have been an Open Office oddity. Using MS Word to edit and save seemed to work fine.
With such a wealth of options, it can be a little complex.
Once I upgraded to version 2.0, my 5000 word story with a few notes attached to it started freezing up the program for several seconds at a time. This worries me since once I get to a story that is 100,000 words, and lots more notes, will it kill the performance of the app?
You have to click each section you want to export, no keyboard shortcut. I'm a heavy keyboarder, and avoid the mouse whenever possible. Better on the wrists/hands/elbows.

Maria V. Snyder's Glass Series

2011-05-11T12:49:00.002-04:00

I’ve just finished reading all of Maria V. Snyder’s Glass series. This includes, Storm Glass, Sea Glass and Spy Glass. Simply put, they are wonderful. I couldn’t put them down. That is part of the reason I’m reviewing the series and not each book. The other part of that reason is that each book picks right up where the previous left off, so it’s almost like one really long book.

In Storm Glass, we follow Opal, who we met toward the end of the Study books, through her last year at the Keep, that is at magic school. Except she’s an odd student with odd abilities and her education didn’t go smoothly, especially her last year. We hardly see her at school though. There is tons of action, tons of on-the-spot decision making, and characters that are easy to relate to. Opal is not the super hero that waltzes in and just saves everyone. She suffers, she sacrifices and she gets very upset by the things that happen to her. She also has to deal with the consequences of being a young person in an adult society.

The only unsatisfying thing for me about Storm Glass is the ending. (Mild Spoiler Alert) While the build up and action were great, it died for me after. Opal goes in, does her thing and just passes out. The others deal with the clean up, and I feel like I missed out on something, like she missed out on it. Sure it’s not important to her story, but by not seeing the payoff I almost feel like it didn’t happen.

Sea Glass sees Opal returning to school, only to have her story turned against her. Everything that happens to Opal always gets turned around on her. Her decisions are always questioned. But she is resolute to set things right. She gets closer to that in this book as she gets older and more experienced with the “joys” of the real world. Old enemies turn up, with more at stake and different agendas. Conflict twists around Opal and her abilities and reputation, constantly getting her into trouble. But she’s able to put smarts to use and depend on her trusted friends. This book did not let me down at all.

Spy Glass gives us a new Opal. She’s had so much happen to her in the first two books. This one shows how she recovers from the events up to now. She has a more hardened exterior, more smarts and knows a lot more about her enemies. But this still doesn’t make it easy for her. Her personal life is in a shambles and she’s working through the last few issues from all her previous exploits. But the way she tackles them now is the good result of all her previous trouble. I almost feel like a proud parent watching the ways she’s grown. (But I’m not a parent, and any parent in their right mind would never put their children through these things.)

Another thing I can laud about the book is introduction of “really cool stuff.” She shows us the processes of glassmaking as only someone who’s done it can, and not too many people have. She talks about diamonds and other gemstones (my other passion) with authority. This book is not the first time people have blackmarketed diamonds to fund a war. So bonus points for working in modern issues. Snyder has done her homework. And some things, like all the spy work, I really wonder how she describes it so well? Has she done some of that, or is that just the skill of her writing at hand?

This entry is cross posted at Wandering Around the Words.

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From The Pulps to Pixles: An eBook Survey

2011-05-04T10:00:00.000-04:00

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iA Writer review

2011-04-06T00:01:00.000-04:00

iA Writer is a text editor for the iPad that boasts distraction free writing. After using it for a week, I find that it isn't so much the distraction free writing that makes this program well suited for writers, it's the helpful additions to a plain text editor.

My feelings on writing fiction on the iPad are mixed. While the iPad provides one of the most portable devices with a built in keyboard, it does fall short on one key point. Yes, it's the keyboard. But not for the reason you might think. The virtual keyboard actually works really well. I find my fingers fly just as effortlessly over the virtual keyboard as they do over the keys of my laptop. I do make a lot more mistakes, but the autocorrect fixes most of them as I type. So what _is_ wrong with the keyboard if, not the typing?

Navigation. On the virtual keyboard, you dont have any arrows. You also don't have a home, end, page up or page down keys. Why is this a problem? Well take for instance the word "dont" above. I noticed the typo a sentence after I typed it. To fix it, I would normally have to stop what I was doing, press and hold my finger on the screen at the location I need to insert the apostrophe, slide it around till I find the right location, then hope the position doesn't change when I lift my finger up. All too often it takes several seconds to make a correction that should only take a fraction of that time. Talk about a distraction!

Enter iA Writer. It has arrows so you can navigate around your text. This I believe is the single most important feature iA Writer has to offer. It places the arrows, and a few other common punctuation marks on a bar just above the regular keyboard. It looks like it should have been there the whole time! There are left/right and word left/right arrows (like holding Control-Left/right). This feature alone, makes it worth the purchase if you plan to actually do some heavy writing (and not pull your hair out while typing.)

Strange as it may seem, they also like to promote the font they use. If you are going to be staring at text for long periods of time, it has to be clear, easy to read, and nice to look at. They used a font called Nitti Light, which accomplishes the task wonderfully. It is a beautiful font. It isn’t quite as sharp in portrait mode however, but still is easy on the eyes.

The last feature worth mentioning is called FocusMode. Your mileage may very, but I didn't find it particularly useful. The feature gets rid of the toolbar and grays out all text except for the three lines closest to what you are working on, forcing you to focus and providing a distraction free environment. Yeah right. If you are easily distracted, graying out a few lines of text is not going to get the creative juices flowing again. I do like the concept, but it also turns off auto correction, and the red mis-spelling highlighting. Two features I find I can't live without, especially on a virtual keyboard were my typing error rate is so much higher. For example, normally the iPad will replace a lower case "i" with an uppercase one when you mean to say "I". In focus mode it no longer does that. Maybe that mode would be more useful to someone using an external keyboard. But when I use the iPad, I usually only use the virtual keyboard.

Although there are a lot of features that are missing, I like the app and would recommend it to other writers. A few items I hope get addressed in the near future would include:

1. Toss out the word arrow sound fx. When I turn off the keyboard clicking sound, I don't want to listen to swiping sounds when you use those keys.

2. Up and down arrows would be very helpful. Maybe even home and end.

3. iA Writer saves plain text files, but uses UTF16 encoding. That file encoding is not widely recognized by other text editor apps, either on the iPad, Mac or PC. This makes it difficult when trying to integrate with other programs. In this case, Scrivener 2.0. Note that if the file was created by another program, and you edit it in iA Writer, it will re-save it with the correct encoding.

4. Dropbox integration really needs to support directories. For me to use Scrivener synching I had to use a symlink and point my Writer directory to my Draft folder that Scrivener exports to. It would actually have been helpful for Scrivener not to force the export to the Draft folder as well.

Having Folder support would also allow me to work on more then one story at a time, as well as use it as a general text editor, which I can't really do when I am syncing with Scrivener.

Pros:

- Additional virtual keys available all the time, allowing you to navigate your text using left/right arrow keys.

- Very good font choice.

Cons:

-No directory support for drop box, making it hard to use the app for more then one project at a time.

-Files are not sorted alphabetically, so you can't even using a number naming scheme to make chapters appear in the correct order.

-Keyboard sounds when you have turned key clicks off.

-UTF16 encoding isn't very well supported by other programs.

Changes, Changes

2011-03-30T00:01:00.000-04:00

Hello, your local epublishing adherent here. Have you heard all the buz from the publishing world this week? About Amanda Hocking and Barry Eisler? Everyone is talking about them, all over the place like here, here, here and here . I give them credit, it’s big news. But they are just the latest buzzwords, and the best examples of why anyone should publish whichever way is right for them.

All the talk about these guys has refreshed the equation wars between self epublishing and traditional publishing. Specifically everyone starts putting up long strings of equations about the money an author actually makes selling books in each method. Something I am really really tired of seeing repeatedly over the last couple of years now. All the ebook enthusiasts point to the same argument-defending pieces, all the traditionalists point to the “everything else” about why self epublishing is not the best thing to do. And it hasn’t changed over the last couple of years. Alright the only thing that changes is the examples when popular pricing models change, but they essentially say the same thing… That is, IF YOU CAN SELL A LOT OF BOOKS YOU WILL MAKE A LOT OF MONEY.

Hocking, a young self-made author has a huge fan base and has worked her fingers to the bone self publishing. Why was signing a contract with St. Martin’s the “right” choice for her? Because instead of her hiring the staff she needed to stay on top of her game, they paid her a 2 million dollar advance to do all the ground work for her, in her own words, “so she can be a writer.”

I’m happy to see that a young writer in this position has chosen to go with traditional publishing--to go with having a professional edit her work, and help her become the best writer she can be. I’m saying this not knowing how much she has invested in independent copy editors with her previous books. But I’m also saying this knowing that authors like Ann Rice thought they could do without editing and now publically expose some really shoddy prose.

Eisler has come a long way as a professional author, polishing his writing through years of working with editors and also has a huge fan base from previous success with publishing houses. He’s already doing the marketing and just wants to sell books for himself, and continue to have his publishers publish his other books. Wouldn’t I love to be in his position, without the huge mountain of marketing work I have waiting for me.

In the end, these two represent the polar opposite ends of the current publishing atmosphere. And show the best parts of it all. Looking at them you do not hear the story of the low sellers or even the midlisters, like Kiana Davenport, who may be the next biggest success story.

If you are lucky enough to land a good publishing contract, you will likely reach a larger audience than with self publishing. If you choose to go with self publication, you will make more per cover and maybe even push more copies but it will only spread as far as one person can push. In the short of it all, in order to become a successful writer, you need to market, market, market and network, network, network. Regardless of who has the rights, regardless of which side of the equation you are on, it will catch up with you eventually. Be smart, be aware of your options and don’t be afraid of change!

How much should you sell your ebook for?

2011-03-23T00:01:00.001-04:00

As we scribists get closer to production time on our ebook anthology experiment, questions like this are plaguing us.

Unlike the big publishing houses, and physical-copy self publishers, we don't have to pay for the substantial existence of something: paper and warehousing/distribution. So we know we don't have to charge the $9.99 or so that you are still seeing out there. This item has been left out off most of the pro epub articles I've read lately.

We were thinking a little more like these guys. Another blog using J. A. Konrath as an ebook reference-his name is popping up everywhere-even here.

The message from the technium is clear. With the tipping point upon us, more and more people are going to sell ebooks at dirt cheap prices. I've seen some people cite the strategy to "sell" their ebooks free for about a month on the kindle store to make it on the top 100 list and then start charging for it once it has the visibility.

Many have pointed out that selling ebooks for dirt cheap isn't much better than contracting with a major publisher (keep in mind there wasn't nearly as much overhead) as far as royalties are concerned. But that's where sales and marketing strategies come in. The more we can sell a book for, the less this will matter. So lets say we charge a bit more for a book, but have a sale every once in a while. It still gives people a chance to get excited about a dirt cheap book, but lets us sell at a higher price the rest of the time. You all know you love it when you see a sale! I know I do.

But there are other reasons than padding sales strategies not to sell at dirt cheap. Even Amanda Hocking, who's sales have been outstanding, charges more than 99 cents.

First of all, it won't pay rent...

The other reasons are innumerable, but one technicality is that certain ebook outlets have limited price formats. The apple store, for instance requires ebook prices to end in .99. so you can either sell for $1.99, .99 or free. Not too many options there.

While there has been a lot of evidence supporting the "the cheaper the better" platform, I don't think it will be the wisest move for us. But we'll keep you posted about our pricing when we make that decision.

Link: A Dialog Between Authors Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath

2011-03-22T06:24:00.002-04:00

I just stumbled upon this post and it's a very interesting read. They talk about pretty much every aspect of today's publishing world - from self-publishing, to ebook pricing, to why Barry Eisler just turned down a $500,000 contract with a major publisher. Rather long post (even longer than what I usually post), but worth reading.

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/03/ebooks-and-self-publishing-dialog.html

Celtx for Writing Novels

2011-03-16T06:56:00.003-04:00

A few years ago I found an open source script writing program called Celtx. My brother and I wrote a screenplay using it, and I've used it to write the audio/visual scripts that later became the promo and tutorial movies for my games. There are several very cool features in Celtx like a built-in database for keeping track of character details, an index card view that makes reordering scenes easy, and an easy PDF export. I've always thought this program was almost perfect for novels. It just needed a little more attention.

Well, it just got that attention in the new version 2.9 that was released on February 8, 2011.

Up to now, I've been using almost ancient tools to write my stories (ancient in computer terms, not ancient as in 'abacus'). First I have the actual novel, written in OpenOffice.Org's Writer. Next I have a sort of ad hoc database, stored in a multi-page spreadsheet in OpenOffice.Org's Calc -- one sheet for a chapter list and summary, one for character details, and a third for keeping track of revision history. Finally, I had a simple text file for storing notes on future ideas that hadn't found their way into the novel yet.

I've always wanted a program just for writing - one program to rule them all, if you will. Celtx gave me that for writing screenplays, but fell short for writing novels. Now they have specific novel support, and things are much better. I spent some time over the past few days copying my unedited second novel into Celtx to see how it works.

The "Master Catalog" is still there, allowing me to easily keep track of information about my characters, locations, and anything else I can dream up. This works as well as it ever did, although some of the fields they provide just don't apply to me yet (I don't spend much time thinking about parking on Mars but I imagine it's better than at my current apartment). Having access to a place that lets me store more information than a spreadsheet and in a much more readable format is a boon. It even lets you import pictures, so if you have a favorite actor you envision as your character or some concept art you can add those to your character card for future reference.

Next is the "Novel" component. This is a simple text editor with some custom header areas. This is not as robust as Writer or Word, but it is more useful than notepad because of the way it's tied in. Fill in a chapter header and you instantly have an entry added to the Chapter List on the left side of the screen. This does two things very well: lets you easily add chapter entries and allows for easy reordering. The index card view works even better in that regard, since it gives you a nicer view of your chapters and lets you drag and drop them to change the order.

This is not to say the software is perfect, but it has come a long way toward being my one-stop shop for novel writing. What I feel is missing from Celtx is this:

Word Count -- I keep track just to see where I'm at and what sort of progress I'm making. You can select text and right-click on it to see the word count. Effective, but hidden. I'd prefer to see the word count in the chapter list and have an overall total displayed somewhere as well.
Scenes -- Having each chapter be an item in a list and an index card is great, but each chapter is not one scene. I usually have several scenes in a chapter and would love to have an interface to let me move those around and insert new scenes more easily.
Export -- I want two methods of exporting. First, a fully formatted novel ready to send off to CreateSpace for printing (using my own custom template, if possible). Second, a fully formatted novel in DOC format ready for me to send to Smashwords.

Celtx has worked well for the few projects I've created with it. This novel writing component is a huge step toward making me want to use the program full time. It's missing a few things, but considering that this is the first official version to support novel writing at all, it's an exceptional effort. It's even motivated me enough to look into writing add-ons to get the additional functionality I want.

A Very Good Example of Why eBooks Can be Your Friend

2011-03-02T00:01:00.000-05:00

So I have this novel I wrote a while back. It still needs to be revised some (ok, a lot), before it is ready for the greater book-buying public.

I wrote the book, ok a high fantasy novel, as my Master's thesis, and then sat on it for two years. My writing has grown a lot and it's been tugging at the back of my mind a lot, so I guess I should ya know, get it taken care of so I can publish it. A book unsubmitted is a book that is not making me money.

That is one reason.

I could pitch it to an agent, wait for a publisher to buy it, wait two years to get it on the shelves.... Or I could just epub it.

That is my second reason for being so motivated lately.

eBooks are taking off in the current publishing market. And people like Amanda Hocking are proof that this is the way to do it. Go ahead and click on the link. Her story is amazing, and I envy her for it. "As of Tuesday, January 04, 2011 at 9 PM, I've sold over 185,000 books since April 15, 2010". This is just an example, if all goes well, of what I can do once I get my novel, and its sequels, finished and up on the net.

As much as I have wanted to "get published," it just doesn't make sense anymore.

Today in epublishing

2011-02-26T17:07:00.002-05:00

Agent Kristin Nelson thinks that in the battle of ebook vs. print, the tipping point is finally here.

And publisher Harper Collins is further restricting ebook distribution for libraries. Essentially, a library can only loan an ebook 26 times before they have to "renew" their license. Can you see the greed. That's not what libraries are for.

Wizardry and Wild Romance

2011-02-16T00:00:00.004-05:00

I always love finding a good critical book about fantasy. I love reading fantasy and I love reading about it. I love hearing what authors and established critics have to say about the genre and its craft. That said, how could I not read Michael Moorcock’s WIZARDRY AND WILD ROMANCE: A STUDY OF EPIC FANTASY? I really had to read this. And I did.

Originally released in 1977, Monkeybrain Books re-released an updated version in 2004. This book did not go on about the forgotten greats of the genre, it commented on the best Epic Fantasy of then and now. It focused on what makes them great, and noted that the things that make books and authors great changes over time. This is a true study of Epic Fantasy.

Moorcock begins explicitly with a warning in his foreword. He is only writing these collected essays from his own opinion and observations of currently available romantic epic fantasy, he is discussing it and not defining it. He was wise to do so. I always get a little leery when anyone, even experts, start spouting about what they think is great without explaining themselves. As much as I want to take their well-learned word for diamonds, sometimes I only see dust.

Moorcock’s discussion is separated into six different categories: origins, landscape, heroes/heroines, humor, children’s books and genre deviations. Perhaps these are the most important craft elements of epic fantasy? In each section, Moorcock highlights the authors and books that represent the best work in each.

Despite being discussed in separate essays, his opinion is the same throughout. He asks for more. More attention to the landscape of a story, more attention to the characters, more consideration of humor. He lauds the authors who do it well, frequently the same people across the categories. And what is more, he provides excerpts! I wish more critical work about fantasy would do this. Moorcock says something is great and then says look at it for yourself so you can see how he formed his opinion of it. Nothing explains the quality of the words better than the words themselves.

While he mostly focuses on the strongest examples of the literature, he frequently reminds that there are hoards of imitators out there, looking to get rich from an easy, formulaic story and diluting the good reads. These are the authors who pay little or no attention to the above categories. He occasionally provides excerpts of these as well, for contrast.

By the end of the book, Moorcock has shown a timeline of the life of the genre within this book. Beginning as riffs on the gothic novels and chivalric romances, squalling through Sword and Sorcery, finding a firm foothold on the Tolkienian other-world stories, and coming into maturity within the walls of urban settings. At each point, Moorcock describes the genre’s historic connection to humanity, be it reactionary to a war or a specific artistic movement.

Where will epic fantasy go after the city? Out to space? Or even further back, to the dinosaurs? One thing is for sure, literary forms frequently change, but good craft will always hold a book together.

this review is cross posted at Wandering around the Words

Today in epublishing

2011-02-12T16:06:00.002-05:00

Is Borders finally going to cave?

The Wall Street Journal reports they are preparing to file Chapter 11.

Doesn't Anybody Edit Anymore?

2011-02-09T06:40:00.002-05:00

I've heard arguments against self-publishing that the quality of the books will suffer if there is no editorial process. I can't speak for everyone who has self-published, but I know that my stories go through extensive editing. I don't have an English degree, and I'm not employed as an editor, but that doesn't mean my books have not been through an editorial process. I spent countless hours reading and re-reading Pariah and I'm very happy with the final product. I'm sure it's not 100% perfect, grammatically speaking, but I have confidence that I have produced a quality book that is easy to read.

On the other hand, you have the major publishing houses. I just finished reading the second book in the Dragonlance War of Souls trilogy. These are books by established authors with many titles under their belts, and published by Wizards of the Coast.

As much as I like the story and the world, I'm finding this series to be very hard to read. It's not the vocabulary (even though I look up at least a dozen words per book), it's the grammar and the spelling. The state of these books is absolutely atrocious. I wouldn't have published it as-is through my company. These books need some serious work. And the further I get into the books, the worse the errors get -- missing words, extra words, repeated phrases, incorrect punctuation and capitalization. I'm actually getting a headache from trying to decipher the prose. Usually I'm an avid reader, but I can't read more than a chapter or two of this at a time.

And the faults don't stop with grammar and spelling. There are problems with the usage of incorrect proper names. Near the end of the first book, the leader of the evil army makes a speech:

"I do," Mina replied, serious and earnest. "I did not come here to make war upon the Qualinesti people. I came to save them."
Source: Dragons of a Fallen Sun, page 606

There's a fundamental problem with this speech -- she's not in Qualinesti. She's in Silvanesti. She's on the other side of the continent with a completely different group of elves. Now if I, on my first time reading through, can catch plot errors like this, then I would imagine any competent editor would also find it immediately.

I just discussed this with my brother Paul and he, having just finished the latest Wheel of Time book, chimed in with his experiences. Different publisher (Tor), same result.

After some reflection, I think I understand. Editors cost money, and quite frankly the publishers knew that people like us would buy the books anyway. So why bother paying someone to fix the grammar and spelling? Just rush the book to the shelf and maximize profits. Word's spell check feature is not a viable substitute for paying someone to actually proofread the finished novel. And that is where I think the problem lies - not with laziness, but with money. Having something properly edited costs money, and right now the whole publishing industry is in a rather shaky position. A lot of these publishing houses can't afford to pay for someone to clean up the grammar and spelling. So they just shovel the book out the door, hoping that nobody notices or cares. And in today's world, that's probably a safe bet (I can't even tell you the last time I read a news article that was free of technical errors).

The really sad part of this is that it reflects poorly on the authors of these books. I hate to think that this blog post will make people think that books by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman are not worth reading, because they are excellent authors. I've been enjoying their stories for more than twenty years now. But their publisher really needs to hire some copy editors.

If anything, these revelations have led me to an interesting thought. Another bonus bullet point for the ebook revolution: I can edit the ebooks I've purchased, so that the next time I read them I can actually concentrate on the story and enjoy my leisure time.

Today in Epublishing

2011-02-07T13:39:00.002-05:00

ireadreview recently had some interestingthings to say about ebook pricing, and some enlightening statistics.

Today in Epublishing

2011-02-04T09:35:00.002-05:00

How Apple Saved Barnes & Noble. Probably.

Happy blackout anniversary! Where were you when the lights went out? We're sending out a series of alerts this week and next that look at the state of e-books, authorship and publishing to mark the one-year anniversary of the Great Blackout, when Amazon attempted to protect its near complete dominance of the rapidly growing e-book market through a stunning, punitive act against a publisher that dared to challenge its terms. (To see our account of this showdown as it happened -- posted last Groundhog Day -- go to "The Right Battle at the Right Time.")

One Piece of Flash

2011-01-26T00:01:00.001-05:00

I wrote this flash as an action scene exercise and really like how it turned out. This story feels like the beginning of a much bigger story, but I'd have to learn a lot more about boats and the speech of medieval sailors. And I'm not sure if it's worth it.... Read on!

The Last Mate
By Cynthia Ravinski

Hidden in the sea grass on the edge of the cliff, Sadj viewed the three-masted Prevail, the ship that sailed itself. Her decks still empty. The taste of victory came to his tongue. Finally, it would be his. Only that ship could take him to the straights of Dairegga. No crew of a normal ship would sail those waters.

Below, the rowboat still waited, roped to the dock on the rocky beach--right where the crew had left it three days ago.

A dark, terribly familiar man ran out of the woods, crossed the beach and began pulling at the mooring ropes.

Sadj rose and dove forward, somersaulting down to the beach. That man couldn’t make it back to the Prevail.

Landing in the sand, he scrambled for even footing.

“Captain, wait,” he shouted across the beach, waving.

The dark man looked up and pulled his knife.

He must have seen the rest of the crew. Sadj sprinted toward the dock, the sand dragged at this boots.

The knife freed the rowboat in one slice. The Captain of the Prevail stepped aboard. He splashed the oars into the water. The boat slowly drifted away.

Gaining the dock, Sadj leapt. The rasping of metal rang over the sloshing of water.

Sadj landed, rocking the boat. He caught his balance, then focused on his opponent. The Captain had drawn a short cutlass, but hesitated.

When he lunged, Sadj sprang to the other side of the bench, landing with his foot braced on the bow.

Keeping his balance despite the swaying, the Captian said, “As your captain, I demand an explanation of your actions.”

“You know why. You’ve always stood in my way. No longer!” Sadj drew his main-gauche and, staying low, sliced for the Captain’s thigh.

The Captain parried, but a thin red line colored his breeches.

Their golden eyes met, the Captain’s questioning. Sadj clenched his fingers around his hilt and rammed the guard into the Captain’s face. He fell against the side, crimson ran over his nose and mouth. Sadj followed his opponent down and knelt on his chest.

Dazed, the Captain fumbled at Sadj’s solid weight and felt for his sword although he still held it.

The main-gauche slipped easily through the Captain’s ribs and into his heart. He convulsed. Sadj freed his blade and rolled the corpse into the sea. Under the red-streaked morning sky, he shuddered at the stains trailing in the water. Is this what victory feels like?

He sat between the oar locks and rowed toward the Prevail. Tonight, Sadj would board his ship. Tomorrow, he’d retrieve the men he’d signed at Frosbien, men who couldn’t sail but had other skills, and he’d be Captain Sadjamar.

The Prevail’s magic didn’t end at sailing itself, she also chose her own crew--unless her crew died and another boarded her before she could find new men. He'd learned this three days ago from his brother, the last captain.

The End

GPS Update

2011-01-23T14:42:00.001-05:00

Apologies for the long post-silence on the blog, we’ve all been really busy! But I just spent some time updating the blog a little. If you scroll down and look to the right you’ll see that there is a newsreel gadget tracking real-time epublishing and ebook news so there will always be something new to look at here. But keep watching for our posts, we’re still reading the news and will share the highlights of the most exciting tidbits we find.

As I said before, we’ve been busy. GPS is gearing up for the summer epublication of our ebook. The stories have been chosen and are scheduled for a final round of workshopping over the next few months. There are even some plans for putting in some free material... But next, cover art will have to be chosen and a layout picked…any ideas?

Low-Residency MFA Resource--Now availible

2011-01-13T13:01:00.001-05:00

Shortly after I graduated from Seton Hill University with my MA in writing, I responded to a help a reporter query from Lori A. May who was writing a book about low-residency MFA programs.

I told her how awesome the SHU program was and shared my many wonderful experiences. A few other Alumni and faculty responded as well.

The Low-Residencey MFA Handbook is now availible! If you are looking into going for an MFA in writing, go read it (especially the parts about SHU)!

this entry is cross posted at Wandering Around the Words

Tog vs Dino

2011-01-04T21:09:00.001-05:00

Feel the need to visit the past? Crave the fun you had with the old school 80's style video games? Check out my first iPhone app, Tog vs Dino. A real blast from the past! Now available in the app store. I hope you enjoy my first iPhone app! Okay, so this isn't quite book related, but I was bursting at the seams!

Today in epublishing

2011-01-04T12:51:00.002-05:00

2010 ebook price analysis from ireaderreview.com

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-22T15:06:00.002-05:00

We're all off this week but we wanted to wish you Happy Holidays!

Today in epublishing

2010-12-21T12:39:00.000-05:00

E-books accounted for 5% of publisher Hachette's sales in Q4 this year, according to a letter sent to authors by CEO Tim Hely Hutchinson.

A Reading Experience

2010-12-15T07:59:00.002-05:00

This is going to be more of a description of my reading experience with Greer Gilman’s Moonwise. The basic story is simple, but experiencing the text is utterly magical. This is why fantasy is my chosen genre. Reading it transports you, the prose effects a wonder that strikes at my heart. And this book did that so well that I am going to talk more about that than anything else. If you want a book review go find one at Amazon. If you want to find out what it’s like to read Greer Gilman, read on.

Moonwise is Greer Gilman’s first book, originally published in 1991. It won the Crawford award in 1992, and was nominated for the Tiptree and Mythopoeic awards. It was released in hardcover by Prime books in 2005 and reissued by Wildside books in 2006.

I know she wrote this book over the course of 10 years on a typewriter with no outline, and no plan for it. For this, the work was well edited (though I did find a few line errors). I know going back through this much text and making sure everything is in the right place is difficult to say the least, and the business-savvy side of me screams of inefficiency, but I only have the most respect for a mind that can successfully wrangle with that.

I’d heard so many great things about Gilman, and I’d seen her participate in various panels at Readercon and Boskone. She is a brilliant folklorist and wildly creative woman. But after hearing her read, or more accurately perform (from another of her stories), I just had to read her books. But it was hard to find through my normal channels (used). So I was thrilled when I found it at Readercon last July and was able to have it signed.

So, with great anticipation I finally picked it up, appropriately, in September (the story takes place in fall and winter). But it’s December now. Yes, it took me a long time to read. The prose was just as dense and challenging as the literature I studied in college. I took my time with it, savoring the lines, references and double meanings like I savored those of Dickens. Even though I read it cover to cover and followed the arc of the story, I can’t help but think I’ve missed a lot of...something in the writing.

Suffice it to say, I wasn’t instantly in love with the book. It had a slow, kind of boring start with a few dead ends and little hope of clews. And I didn’t expect the story to be what Farah Mendlesohn describes in her book, Rhetorics of Fantasy, as a “portal quest” story, in which the characters go through a portal from the normal world to another. Moonwise started in contemporary times with two girls, Sylvie and Ariane, who see the same world I see.

I prefer my fantasy untouched by the modern world. I usually don’t like contemporary fantasy stories as much because the main characters are my filter to the world, and I’d rather see it through the eyes of a native than someone like me.

Yet, I can hardly say Sylvie and Ariane are like me. Although they are denizens of the 20th century, if I met one of them in person, I might describe them as otherworldly. They were a promise of what was to come: enchantment, folkloric references and skillful world creation. These things charmed me and kept me examining page after page.

After the story got going, Gilman always keeps the suspense and tension up. One way she did this was by making the world never comfortable. I’d pity the characters and wonder at their survival. They were always freezing and wet and sleeping on rocks, or even when they found a welcoming home, it was bad news and holding out the suspense and dread of what is to come.

I’ve finished this story once, but I know I’ll come back to it and go find her other books. With its wonder, it has wakened sleepy and tired spots in my brain that I had forgotten, it has opened up new parts of my brain, and it has filled them with possibilities--nature abhors a vacuum.

This blog entry is cross posted at Wandering Around the Words.

Calibre

2010-12-08T08:35:00.002-05:00

I heard about the Calibre ebook management software before and decided this would be a good time to examine it. My main reason for reviewing this now is that I want a simple, easy to use piece of software to manage ebooks (mostly free ones I downloaded from Project Gutenberg). But now it's not just about managing my collection on Windows, Linux, and Mac, but also on my brother's Samsung NF210 netbook.

I feel compelled to start this review with a caveat -- I primarily use Linux. Even though Calibre is an open source, cross-platform program, things on Linux are inevitably going to work and look differently than on Windows. The Windows version of this program looks a lot different (and nicer) on Cindy's netbook. My experiences with this program are far different than hers because it appears the Linux version of Calibre is not very well maintained (at least not in Fedora or Ubuntu repos).

Features and Metadata

If nothing else, I figured this would be a good program to manage metadata about my book collection. Simply put, this program has a lot of features. What I like the most is that it supports every ebook format that I know of -- I can add PDF files, epub files, mobi files, and even CBZ (comic book) files all in the same database, and have all my metadata stored in one place.

For those new to this concept, "metadata" is all the information about the media. In the case of books, this means author, subject, title, ISBN, cover art, publisher, etc. Once you've indexed all that information, you can do fancy things like searching for author name - and not only get books that person wrote, but books they collaborated on as well. You can search for all titles in your collection from the same publisher, or all books in a series (very helpful when you have a series by multiple authors).

Once all of your books have been added to your Calibre collection, the default library view they present to you is a spreadsheet list. This interface is adequate, but I think some sort of panel view would be a better, more intuitive choice (I'm thinking about the faux bookshelf look in the iBook app).

Many of the fields are what you would expect: Title, Author, Publisher, and Series (so you can easily find all those Harry Potter books). Other fields on this spreadsheet view are just strange. The size of the ebook on disk is useless because many users don't have a clue what this means, and even if they do, Word Count would be a better metric to reflect the novel's length (since page count doesn't apply to most ebooks). Date - is this the publication date or the date I added it to the database? Because it actually appears to be the date of the file on disk (maybe... it might be another date, it's not very clear).

Another odd choice is the "rating" field that all media managers inevitably include. I've seen this in the XBMC / Plex / Boxee world as well, where they pull the average user rating from IMDB. In this case, I assume it's trying to pull the value from some book rating site. I'm as confused about this as I am in my movie collection software (XBMC). I mean, the file is in my collection because I like it. Why should I care if the average rating is a 10 or a 2? I bought it because I like it and I couldn't care less if the rest of the world hates it.

One choice that felt strange at first was "Tags" -- this appears to be where they store the genre information. I think this terminology is something that is growing on me. I never did like having to pigeon-hole things into preset genres. Being able to create and add my own tags to books feels like it will be a much better solution in the long run.

Calibre has a feature that allows you to build your database on one computer and then have that computer act as a server for others. Using this feature supposedly lets you access your ebooks from anywhere in the world. But there's a caveat - the computer with your collection has to be on all the time, and has to have Calibre running. I personally have a few computers that are on all the time anyway, so it's not a big deal for me. But most people don't leave their computers on 24/7, especially when they are going away on a trip.

There are a few other features in this program that I won't use, but that's not to say they are bad. This program supports a lot of e-reader devices and can apparently handle batch conversions to each format they need. So if you downloaded a hundred epub ebooks from Project Gutenberg and needed to convert them to mobi for your Kindle, this program can do it. Having built-in support for syncing books to your device is a very cool feature, and they support quite a few devices. But I don't have an e-reader device, so I can't really review how well this sync works.

Calibre also provides a feature for automatically pulling news from the Internet, compiling an ebook out of the articles, and syncing that to your device of choice.

The Reading Experience

All the library and metadata organizing features in the world won't save an ebook reader with a poor reading interface. The first book I tried to read was an epub file, which is the format everyone is trying to standardize on. This program just does not render them properly. Reading text is impossible when lines overlap each other. Clicking the preferences button on the sidebar results in a crash (but one that thankfully does not kill the whole program). So much for that. I know the file is fine because FBReader displays it without any issues. Mobi (Kindle format) files work fine. Some files (like PDF format) open with external programs, so those all worked as well.

One button click puts you into full screen mode, which is especially nice on smaller screens (like netbooks). Re-opening a book you started to read automatically forwards you to the last place you were. This is a nice feature, but would be even nicer if it worked. The problem is that the program does not remember the size and location of the reader window it opens. So while it does scroll to the place you left off, the actual line placement is wrong because you end up having to move and resize the window.

The Netbook Reading Experience

I'll re-state my caveat: I was using the Linux version.

The actual reading experience on the netbook is similar to the desktop, but smaller. I really don't foresee any problems with reading ebooks on this device. Text is clear and you can adjust the font size as needed (assuming the properties options work when you install it - they worked on my netbook but not on my desktop).

My biggest gripe so far with this program has been with some of the choices in the library screen. And that same library view is the deal-killing problem on the netbook's screen. You have the file list in the center, a sidebar with information about the currently selected file on the right, and another sidebar on the left for showing the tree of sorting options (for doing things like filtering by author or genre tag). And that doesn't leave much room in the center for that file list. In fact, I got so frustrated just trying to see what was there that I didn't have the patience to add any files to my collection on the netbook. I previewed the default "how to use Calibre" ebook that the program ships with and then I quit.

Having a netbook spin of this program that is made for smaller screens would be a very good move. As it is now, every screen has icons that are so huge on the little screen that every button toolbar spills over into a popup section. And because they don't have a traditional text title bar (File, View, etc), this becomes a major issue when trying to navigate the program on a small screen.

Problems

My original draft of this article was quite scathing. There were a lot of things about this program that I didn't like and I spent way too much time focused on them. I'll try to discuss those issues here without going into too much depth on them.

I personally don't like how this program copies books I add to the library into another folder on my hard drive. I've already established an organization system for my ebooks and would rather just have a program that links to the files without trying to reorganize them. In addition to that, adding an option to store those links and the metadata in a real SQL server would be a huge plus in my book. Most users won't care about either of these issues though. Not everyone has eight machines to synchronize and share files with.

But one thing every user should care about is that this program is set up to handle multiple formats of each book -- so you can download an epub, convert it for use on your Kindle or Nook, and keep all versions in your library. This is another feature that would be nice if it worked. I have four copies of my brother's book, Purgatory Beckons - PDF, epub, mobi, and Palm PDB format. Instead of grouping them all under one entry, Calibre imported four different entries, one for each format. And there does not appear to be a way to merge them into one entry, even though it did correctly scrape the title and author name for each entry. That means I have to delete all but one and then manually add the other formats to the remaining entry. This is a minor annoyance if it happens once, but anyone who has a huge collection of books in multiple formats should be aware that the import process may generate more work for you.

I had another problem adding files to my library -- Calibre attempts to automatically pull metadata information from the Internet. Normally, this is seen as a great time-saving feature. The problem with pulling metadata information from the Internet is that, regardless of the media you are getting information on, the quality of the metadata is inconsistent. Random people from all over the world build the databases you are pulling info from. So you get all sorts of interesting choices - like Albert Camus' novel "The Stranger" being listed as an "Adventure". Getting info on Bram Stoker's "Dracula" sets the title of the novel to "Dracula by Stoker 345" and the author to "Dracula". In short, the problem is that the metadata servers are being populated with bogus, misformatted information. Don't even get me started on the plot summaries - they often consist of major spoilers sprinkled with sentence structure that requires a decoder ring.

The metadata editor in Calibre is not bad, but it's missing one important feature: it does not display the filename of the book you are updating. This is a huge problem when Calibre grabs the wrong metadata. How are you supposed to know what a file labeled as "Title" by "Unknown" is? How are you supposed to figure out what went wrong and what files are missing from your database? You have to actually open the book to see what it is, which can take a while when you have a lot that are wrong. Just adding one tooltip or the filename somewhere in this dialog would make this experience a lot better.

In Summary

The fact that Calibre is not even at a 1.0 version is promising. As happens with most open source software, this program has faults. But in time most (and hopefully all) of those faults will be fixed. If you don't have a program you already use to manage your ebook collection, download this and try it out. If you have an actual e-reading device, then this program could make managing and syncing your collection a lot easier. This is a program to keep an eye on as it brings new meaning to the term cross-platform -- with support for multiple operating systems as well as multiple ebook readers.

Calibre is free software, so if it sounds interesting you can get a copy at http://calibre-ebook.com/

Today in epublishing

2010-12-06T13:43:00.000-05:00

The new Google eBookstore is now open for business in the US. Google is touting the "open" nature of its e-books by making them accessible to the widest array of popular e-reader devices, including the iPad, Nook, and Sony Reader.

Jeb's Lament

2010-12-01T06:54:00.002-05:00

This is a piece of flash fiction I wrote a while ago. Hope you enjoy it. :)

Jeb's Lament

Okay, I admit, it's been a while since I've been in a fist fight. I've been in fights, sure, but most people around here use weapons. This was plain, bare-fisted mayhem. Been a few years since someone picked a fight with me. So you can imagine my surprise at being knocked to my knees with the first hit, a quick jab thrown mid-conversation. I don't see myself as a glass jaw fighter but this guy's sucker punch sure as hell made me feel like one. I used to be able to hold my own in a fight. I'm not used to losing arguments. But there I was, kneeling on the wooden planks of the dock, watching the blood from my busted lip pool beneath me.

"C'mon!" said a voice from above me. "I'm not through with you yet."

Ah condescension, that I'm used to. Nobody considers I might be a better fighter than I appear to be. Like this guy, Jeb, at least twice my size and obviously trying to prove he's a tough guy. He stepped forward, moving a little too close. I inhaled, letting saltwater air fill my lungs, invigorating me. I tensed, and in one smooth motion I rose to my feet and drove my fist into his chin. I heard something crack, who knows what - his jaw, my fist, his teeth. Probably all three, considering the throbbing pain in my clenched fist.

One of his drunken friends laughed. "You asked fer that Jeb. Hoo-rah whatta hit!"

Jeb stumbled back and shook his head. "Motherf..." he slurred, then fiddled with his jaw. "Frak."

I edged closer, forcing him to stumble back another step. And there it was, the sun shining in his eyes from above the cliffs behind me. He squinted and I took advantage of the opening. I spun around, building momentum, and drove my foot into his chest with an authoritative thud. Sound of wood shuddering from the impact of his backside ceased his friends' laughter.

Silence.

Even the ocean seemed to pause for a moment, crystalline waves poised like serpents ready to strike at the sand.

Jeb clutched his chest like he was trying to reorganize his lungs. His friends stared, mouths agape. Every beat of my heart pounded in my chest, sending needles of pain to my lip.

Then the sharp tinny sound of a bell rang out from the ship coming in. I needed the dock cleared.

"So," I said. "You gonna move that boat now?"

Jeb grumbled something incoherent, so what was I supposed to do?

I kicked his head, knocking him out, and turned to his friends. "Move that boat, then get this jerk out of here."

They glanced at each other, then nodded in unison. "Yes ma'am."

Pariah

2010-11-26T06:33:00.003-05:00

I just self-published my first novel this week. I used Amazon's CreateSpace for the print version and Smashwords for the ebook. There's a sample you can read at Smashwords and some teaser text available from my site at http://www.LostLuggageStudios.com/books/Pariah.php

Writing Fears

2010-11-17T22:01:00.001-05:00

Former literary agent Nathan Bransford recently posted a question to writers on his blog: “What is your greatest fear as a writer?”

I’m going to be blunt here. My greatest fear as a writer is never getting published, or more specifically never selling a story or a book.

These can be very different things these days. I could sell the rights of a short story to a magazine or anthology for a decent, professional rate. A book, I’d sell the rights to a publisher for an advance I could live off of for a couple of months. Or I could post the story on my blog and put a tip jar through paypal on it. The book I could sell as an ebook, copy by copy, on Amazon.

I recognize the difference between selling the thing itself and the rights for someone else to publish it. They certainly aren’t the same thing to me.

A few years ago I created a business plan for my writing career and it’s always involved something like: write something, revise it and sell the rights to it. I’ve invested a lot of time and money into writing. That’s how I want my career to go on a regular basis.

It’s not totally about the income. To me, not selling my work means I’ve failed as a writer. Simply having friends and family read a story isn’t enough for me. They are practically in the same sphere of influences I’m in myself. If someone pays to read a story, that means they wanted to and it means something to them. If an agent or editor buys rights to a story it means they know it will mean something to a lot of other people and they are willing to sell it to them for me.

Selling and buying are actions…and actions speak louder than the honey coated words of those close to you. I need to see these actions to know if I've succeeded.

Today in epublishing

2010-11-09T13:41:00.003-05:00

We tend to be pretty pro ebook around here. But there are always two sides to things that should be considered.

Here is an interseting interpretation from a publisher on an article from the economist.

This article sheds some light on what I think are the biggest struggles in the ebook world right now.

Today in epublishing

2010-11-08T08:51:00.003-05:00

The appeal of epublishing captures another author.

Libroid, the book of the future, is availible on iPads.

National News Break amalgamates ereader news--check frequently to stay up to date.

Ebooks and Me

2010-11-03T20:50:00.002-04:00

Advancing technology is spurring on the electronic everything revolution. My office is going paper-lite, we are developing electronic methods for just about all our needs. We have common network folders, desktop sharing software, LCD projectors in every conference room, dual monitor setups at most workstations. I can see anything I need to on my computer. So, I really notice when I go to click on the print button. And every time, I stop to think, do I need this in my hands? There are times when I say yes, like when I need to write on it or proofread it. But how will I make that distinction with novels in the coming future?

A few things come instantly to mind:
• How much do I like the author--is it signed?
• How much shelf space do I have?
• Was there a really good sale?

My first reaction to ebooks, a few years ago, was distaste. I didn’t like them because they aren’t my beloved paper pieces of art. These newfangled things were kinda hard to find. Amazon was just about the only place to get them and barely anyone had their novels produced electronically. And those readers were way too much for me to even think about buying. I was in grad school, by the way. Ebooks were for gadget geeks and technophiles. But, oh, how times change. There are so many more shades of gray in this image now.

My opinion of books has changed though, as I’m sure it has for many people. When I think of books, I think of two separate things. A stack of bound paper that either smells like printer ink or “used book store.” I can put a paperback in my coat pocket, or slip a hardcover in my bag or display the spine on my shelf. And they are also a new industry for text in various file formats with all kinds of metadata. To me e-books aren’t so much “books” as a concept. Yet in the end you get the same thing out of either style of published material. You read the words and react emotionally and intellectually to them. That’s pretty much what we’re reading for to begin with.

So you get the same thing out of both formats…

The prices of ereaders are dropping and Amazon and other companies are making it ever so much easier to get your hands on and read ebooks. You don’t even need an ebook reader anymore; you can read any ebook file between your computer, smart phone or PDA.

And technology isn’t an issue when it comes to jumping on the ebook bandwagon…

I confess, I have not yet read an ebook, but I know it will happen soon. I’ve been tipped off on some good open source software called Calibre. I’ve been playing with it and checking out its features a little in my spare time (I’ll post about it when I feel I’ve put it through its paces). Thanks to Baen’s Free Library and Project Gutenberg, I have a few e-books sitting on my hard drive. So when I’m done with my next few reading commitments I’m going to give the ereader a try.

Will I ever buy another bound book after that?

Books may soon be like antiques--those nice bits of furniture in your parent’s houses. Because in your house, all you have is your stack of electronic devices and self-assembled, particle board furniture from Walmart or Target. Well, I lust after those antique furniture pieces, but I don’t buy them. They are a luxury item. Same goes for books. I’ve always been more of a library-goer than book-buyer. So I don’t do my share to support the production of paper books. But I think that a nice spine on my shelf will always have a special place in my heart--even if I store most of my new $2 or $3 dollar books on my terabyte hard drive.

Today in epublishing

2010-10-26T14:13:00.001-04:00

"Nielson BookScan is hoping to track ebook sales by the end of 2010 and that they are working diligently on this goal, though they do not have a confirmed date so this is still speculative information."

World Building, Part 4: Living Worlds

2010-10-20T12:05:00.001-04:00

In part 1 of my World Building series, I talked about constructing a fantasy world from the Top-Down, starting with a million-mile view and zooming down to the continents, the countries, the cultures, economies, and so on.

In part 2, I talked about constructing a science fiction universe from the Bottom-Up, starting with people and their stories, then hanging a framework on top of that to support the plot.

In part 3, I discussed a hybrid approach that lets me switch from an idea like Martian colonies (Bottom-Up) to planning out the locations and people living there (Top-Down) as needed.

Once you've created a framework for your world, what comes next? Here are a few things to consider to help you get a start on the finer details of your world:

History - This was always a boring subject in school, wasn't it? That's because most teachers focus on memorization of names and dates. When you think about the people who were there and why they were doing what they were doing, history becomes a fascinating look into what motivates people. Whether you are creating a fantasy world, a science fiction universe, or an alternate Earth, you should think about the history of that world and how it affects the stories you are creating.

Language - Maybe you want to start with an ancient race's alphabet and plan out how the discovery of that affects the people in your world. Starting with an interesting language idea and developing a mystery around it could certainly be the seed for a few plot lines.

Politics - Whether it's a fascist faction in the future or a group of fanatic supporters of a deposed king, creating tension in your world can be accomplished with a number of political ideas.

Races - Creating monsters or races that are unique to your world is a great way to separate your creation from others. How those new races interact with the others can be a great source of tension.

Religion - This is another point that works in fantasy as well as science fiction. Create a deity and a religious group that follows it. Before you even finish drafting those ideas, you should have thought of at least one other group that would be in conflict with them.

I'm sure there are lots of other ways to approach world design. One thread weaved throughout all of these ideas is conflict. Most of our history is about conflict - conflict over ideas, territory, religions, people, and property. Think about the people living in your world and what conflicts they would have with each other, and build on that. Even Utopian stories are really about the conflicts going on under the surface of the society. I don't really want to read 400 pages of people being happy and having everything they want handed to them.

There's no way anyone could craft a world as diverse and detailed as our own Earth, and there's no way I could walk you through the entire process of creating a world in four blog posts. But I hope this series gave you some things to think about as you set out on creating your own fantasy or science fiction world.

Agents: An Oblique Angle into Ebook Reality

2010-10-06T00:01:00.001-04:00

J. A. Konrath and David Farland have both said you don’t really need an agent--both are wise and experienced authors with many, many books sold and many hard-won connections in the industry. I bet they’d say something like “if I knew then what I know now, I would have done it differently.” Or maybe not, times are very different now than they were when each author sold his first book. Times are much different now than they were a year ago.

In my bio I state that I am currently looking for an agent. This is true. I want an agent for the high fantasy novel I wrote. When I was working toward my MA in writing, I was taught that after you finish your novel, you go and get yourself an agent. It is the agent who sells your book to the publisher. The agent will get you the best deal; negotiate the best advance and royalty rates. Their role doesn’t end there. For a mere 15%, they are with you for the long haul. They will advise you on your career, guide your steady advance from new author to midlist and hopefully to bestseller. They have their finger on the pulse of the publishing industry. They know who’s who and have regular meetings with editors who trust their judgment on which new books to buy.

Yes, agents are a career guide for their clients, but if an author publishes ebooks there is no reason to have an agent. Therefore, the author doesn’t have that advisor. Authors who publish ebooks will have to be business savvy as well as tech savvy, or turn to their fellow authors for guidance.

With traditional publishing agents are necessary. Most publishers won’t accept unsolicited manuscripts--they don’t want the slush. So you send it to an agent who has tons of contacts with publishers. The agent gets the slush. That unmoving pile of manuscripts that may or may not contain the next best seller that will make them rich.

A few years ago I worked at a very small poetry publishing house, Alice James Books. Back then, they ran two poetry competitions a year and had about a thousand manuscripts come in for them. I had the pleasure of opening the submissions and filing them for judging. And I even took a glance at some of it. Some of it was horrid. A very small amount was amazing. There was a lot in the middle. But a thousand manuscripts are not much compared to what some agents and smaller publishers get.

I know that a lot of decent stuff gets passed because the one person who is reading it doesn’t like it, or they are so tired of scanning all the crap that came under their nose that by the end of the day nothing looks good to them. That is how I envision a full-time slush-reader’s day, and from the perspective of someone searching for an agent, it scares me.

However, if publishing goes the way of ebooks, and books are self published by the author, there will be no slush-filtering agents and editors. The Internet will be full of slush-piles-come-ebooks. And readers everywhere will get the pleasure of reading it, or only reading the first page and passing on it, like the agency and publisher slush readers. Word of mouth, via the many social networking options available, will be critical for weeding the good from the bad.

However, people won’t be too upset if they paid $2 for something moderately entertaining, and they might tell their friends about it too. Two bucks is cheap for entertainment (think movie ticket costs here), and you didn’t even have to burn any gas to get there. But even with the low cost, an author won’t make any money if their book is bad.

With e-books, a publisher’s reputation (and bank account) isn’t hanging on the book’s sales, only the author’s. In my opinion, having an ebook out there that doesn’t sell would be worse than getting a rejection letter. I like the way agent Nathan Bransford says it, "the rejection letter of the future will be silence." At least when you get a rejection letter, it’s cut and dried, black or white. You’re in! Or this sucks! Once the ebook is “published” it’s done, that’s it. There’s no opportunity to make it better before the book-buying public sees it.

What worries me the most is that agents and publishers will likely soon establish a standard digital royalty rate. If they have, I haven’t heard about it. Then, even if I publish a book traditionally, I won’t be able to keep my erights for that story. Guess I better get going…

NewsFlash: New Epub Platform from B&N

2010-10-05T14:24:00.001-04:00

"Barnes & Noble just launched PubIt!, a new platform that lets individuals upload their opuses, sell them as real, honest-to-goodness ebooks in B&N's eBookstore, and keep a decent chunk of the profit."

Newflash: Kids like ebooks, Kindle for the Web

2010-09-29T03:55:00.001-04:00

A couple interesting articles. In study, Children Cite Appeal of Digital Reading talks about a study that Scholastic, publisher of the Harry Potter books. It goes on to say that kids seem to embrace the ereader technology, while some parents remain concerned that the devices will be distracting as they play, watch video and send text messages.

In a news release yesterday, Amazon launches the Kindle for the Web, in beta form. Its way to share a sample of a book on your web site, and receive a referral fee if the book is purchased after following the link from your web site.

World Building, Part 3: Hybrid Design

2010-09-22T08:00:00.000-04:00

aka You Did It Your Way, I Did It Sideways

(You can thank Johnny Yune for that quote)

In part 2, I talked about constructing a science fiction universe from the Bottom-Up, starting with people and their stories, then hanging a framework on top of that to support the plot.

Both methods have advantages and drawbacks, and depending on what you are trying to create you may be perfectly fine with one or the other. I created a fantasy world using a purely Top-Down design, but I ran into problems when trying to create a science fiction universe with a purely Bottom-Up design.

What I learned from these two lessons is that, sometimes, the best solution is both solutions.

Such is the case when creating an entire universe for stories to take place in. I often find myself in the Bottom-Up Terran Shift universe employing a Top-Down mentality to design individual worlds.

Suppose you have your main character land on a new planet and you have nothing planned in advance for it. The problem is that by moving your mindset to this new world, stretching out from your home base (Earth, in my case), you have essentially just shifted from Bottom-Up (your universe) to Top-Down (looking at the new planet). It's easy to look at a planet like Mars and say "by 2250 we'll have three million colonists living on Mars." But how are they living? Where? What are they doing there and what were their motivations? You could solve this by staying with a Bottom-Up design, shifting your mindset to Mars at the time the first humans walk on its surface, and building the story of the world from there. But that may take quite a while to develop.

In my case, I decided we will expand to bases on Mars, and then I switched to Top-Down mode. I developed the military and civilian social structures on the planet and began planning out the individual bases. I pulled out NASA maps and figured out logical placements for colonies. I read books like Zubrin's The Case For Mars for ideas on how terraforming would be done and what would be needed to make it happen. Once I had enough structure in place for my story ideas, I switched back to Bottom-Up mode and figured out the next plot points to work on.

Such is the way with many things in life - the hybrid of two good systems can often be more powerful and intuitive than either individual system on its own. So far I have found no drawbacks with this hybrid method, and am inclined to believe that switching between these two design methodologies as needed is the best way to create worlds. Your results may vary, but hopefully this series has given you some things to think about and a new way to approach the design of your world.

So you've started building your world or universe... what else is needed?

In part 4 of this series, I'll discuss some ideas for bringing your world to life.

Scribists Now At Meetup.com

2010-09-19T15:33:00.002-04:00

Lee created a page for us at Meetup.com to handle scheduling our meetings. We're also hoping it will help us find other budding authors in the greater Portland, Maine area who are interested in joining us. If you are a writer, and live near us, and are interested in joining an active writing and workshopping group, check us out.

Publishing Houses on the Cusp of the Digital Age

2010-09-15T00:00:00.001-04:00

Billions of dollars go in and out of the publishing industry each year. Money earned on titles, fees paid to printers, artists and hundreds of employee salaries. John Scalzi recognizes that with every book he publishes, he, and every other author with a current manuscript, gives at least ten people a job that year (or would it be two years as that is how long it can take to get a book to the shelf?).

But we can’t all be John Scalzi. Let’s say Del Rey buys my book. I may not get a marketing agent or a copy editor. But I will have an editor (who may not edit me at all), a cover artist, an interior designer and printer at the least. This all adds up to a large overhead per company, per year--best sellers and all the rest.

Everyone can see that ebooks are quickly becoming more popular, while fewer physical books are selling. Publishers are being forced to make decisions on a new product they are less familiar with. But I can see why the folks running the business may be uncomfortable with change. Publishers have to make decisions now for a book that will hit the shelves in two years. It is impossible to know exactly what is going to happen to the publishing atmosphere ahead of time. So any decision they make now, while uninformed, is risky--that is riskier than usual as they never know if a book will sell well to begin with. With shrinking profits, they have less room to take those risks.

But the question is, do ebooks cost a publisher less to make? And therefore will they make more of a profit off them? I think the answer is yes. Current reading trends are showing that ebooks are certainly worth their time. For a buck or two, people are grabbing them just for the hell of it, like candy in the dollar store.

Dorchester seems to be catching on to this. But perhaps, their decision is a little extreme. They recently announced that they are going electronic. Epublishing advocates everywhere rejoiced, I’m sure. The digital format is finally being recognized! However there is more to it. According to an agent from Nelson, Dorchester has recently had financial troubles. And according to the Publishers Lunch Blog, their staff has been shrinking too. This doesn’t bode well for them, and really makes me wonder about their decision to abandon physical books.

Publishers are losing control over the market. They are hesitating to give authors a reasonable percentage of ebook sales royalties. Apple and Amazon are banking on selling both reading devices and self-published books. Tech savvy authors know that ebooks are worthwhile. They aren’t even selling the e-rights of their books and are making 70% or 80% profits off their work, never including a publisher or an agent. However, their books won’t see print, or grace the shelves of your living room bookcase.

Standing between self-publishing authors of ebooks and physical books is a huge mountain of tradition, but there is a method behind that madness. Physical books require more money and space and shipping to produce. Publishers take on all responsibility for that. I think that the huge overhead makes publishers drive up e-book prices to keep their business as a whole in the black. The aren’t selling the pile of pages with a pretty cover, they are selling the hard work of all involved in addition to the entertainment value of the words.

But the self publishing authors of ebooks who charge a buck or two for their book are seeing plenty of profits. What scares me the most is the worst case scenario: Pysical books disappearing forever, driving all the publishing houses out of business, leaving the world at the mercy of self-published books only. It would be hard to find the stuff you like amid the uncontrolled flooding of stories. I’d rather have over control than none in publishing. Author Catherynne Valente saw a similar dark vision of the future.

So far, I’ve made my observations as a writer looking at the business. However, there are many readers, consumers, who are driving the decisions of publishing houses. In the end, it really is all about the readers. Many put their TRUST in publishers to find the good books, the good names of authors who will give them the satisfaction they are looking for. Some won’t even look at a book that didn’t come from a publisher, as reflected in this blog post. The bookstore customers wouldn’t buy a paperback with a glossy cover because they thought that meant it was a self published book. They didn’t read the cover blurbs or even check out the spine for a publisher’s logo. This stigma is the biggest danger for someone considering self-publication, but fortunately, this stigma is showing signs of fading.

The book has been one of the least-changed products since it emerged in the 15th century. The Gutenberg Bible doesn’t look too much different from any hardcover book on the shelf today. Perhaps that is why some are so eager to change while others are so hesitant. But it comes down to the fact that if you want your book to be on a shelf, and make a living with it, you need a publisher. If you can put your own book into digital format, then go for the profits.

World Building, Part 2: Bottom-Up Construction

2010-09-07T13:35:00.002-04:00

My science fiction universe, Terran Shift, was simply too large to start at the top. The universe, after all, is quite a large place. Even limiting my current work to just our solar system gives me dozens of planetary bodies to design and populate. Expanding into other solar systems increases the workload exponentially. So when designing this universe I felt it was more logical to use a Bottom-Up design method.

I started with a handful of ideas, a few pivotal moments in our near future that give a good indication of where we as a species are going. Next I filled out the near future - a timeline for the next 500 years. Then I plotted how and when we would expand into the solar system and beyond. When designing from the Bottom-Up, you have to begin with your characters and the stories that change their lives, then move out from there to design their surroundings, countries, factions, planets, and so on. You end up molding your universe around the characters you created, essentially creating a network of supporting cultures and people to allow your plot to play out.

This method has some benefits. It's especially good for designing a science fiction universe that has a large scope. Even for a fantasy world, this method allows you to detach your thought process from the world itself and concentrate on the people and their stories. Perhaps you want to construct a fantasy world rich with political intrigue and characters. Designing the landscape of that world is not nearly as important as the people in it -- once you know the people and their motivations, you can tailor the landscape for the needs of the story. This method lets you create any plot you want and then construct the elements it requires to function as you get around to them. If nothing else, that means you can get into the story faster and worry about building the world around it later.

And that is one of the biggest drawbacks. I often find myself making references to things in one story and then contradicting it in another, both in the same universe. I'm talking about big glaring errors as well as subtle ones. For example, I have a story that starts on Mars, and the first draft took place about fifty years too early. The problem was that I didn't have anything definitive planned on Mars at that point -- just a few bullet points on my timeline, nothing more. I had to flesh out the world design for our colonies on Mars in order to see the best way to fix the errors I had made.

Solving problems like this could be done by switching perspective to Mars and designing that new world with the same Bottom-Up mentality. Or, you can adopt a hybrid approach...

In part 3, I'll discuss a hybrid of the Top-Down and Bottom-Up construction methods.

Experiences Upgrading to Ebooks

2010-09-01T05:00:00.006-04:00

I purchased my iPad in hopes of replacing all my technical print books with ebook versions so I could carry them around with me between home and work. I hated leaving a book behind, since I might need it at the other location--which happened just the other day; I needed my Programing Perl book, and there it was on my iPad. I also was tired of having so many books in my bookcase, since I was moving a lot. Twice in one year, both on very hot days. 'Nuff said.

So what have my results been? I'd have to say very good. I have been able to replace 5 of the 8 books I wanted to replace. There were a few others that would have been nice to replace, but since they were so old anyway, it wasn't a big deal. The ones I have replaced are Programming Perl (ePub), Java Swing (PDF), Programming Game AI by Example (Kindle), Open GL Super Bible (Kindle), Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X (Kindle).

I'm really glad O'Reilly is one of my favorite publishers. They have by far the best ebook policy. You won't find their ebooks on Amazon. Instead they offer them for sale on their own site. This is a great thing since I am able to purchase the book and read it as PDF, Kindle or my preferred format, ePub. All formats are DRM free, and not watermarked. They have great prices and great deals. I was able to purchase 6 new ebooks from them for $65 with their buy 3 get 3 free deal (exclusive membership offer for ebooks). They will also sell you upgrades from print versions of books you own for $5. You can't beat that. $65 is only about $10 more then I would pay for a single book, and I got 6 of them! I have found other publishers doing similar, but with mixed results. One publisher only offered PDF watermarked ebooks. Others were only available on Amazon as Kindle ebooks.

While O'Reilly offers Kindle versions, it should be noted that I have not been able to transfer those DRM free Kindle books (like the ones from O'Reilly) onto my iPad. If you had a Kindle device, you could just transfer it via Amazon's paid transfer service, or when you hook it up via usb. It appears that if you want them on your Kindle app, you will have to purchase the ebook from Amazon. So for the iPad, choose ePub or PDF.

For novels, I'll admit only had a couple Stephen King books since I tossed all the others. I had made my mind up to only get ePub novels, but now I am starting to lean towards Kindle. The selection is so much bigger; I recently purchased Dean Koontz Phantoms from Amazon which is not yet available on the iBookstore, while some other Koontz titles are. And with the recent fall in price of the Kindle device, it isn't out of the realm of possibility that I would get one for the wife. So let's see. $140 (cost of a Kindle) is about the price of a nice book case. A bookcase can hold about 100, maybe 200 if you pack them in. A Kindle will hold up to 3,500 books. That means the Kindle will replace 17 bookcases! I'd have to say it is much cheaper in the long run to buy a Kindle. See how that works? With the right mindset, you can justify just about any technical gadget.

After using both the Kindle app and the iBooks app, on both the iPad and iPhone, I prefer the iBooks app. For technical books, I like being able to use more then one-highlight color. For example, I use yellow as my main highlight color to highlight important things I will refer to often. Blue is for minor highlights, like the important parts of a series of steps describing how to modify some source code, or editing a photograph. Finally, pink is used to mark errata, corrections to the book since it was published. I also like that the entire screen is used to show your bookmarks and highlights on the iPad. The Kindle app sticks you with this tiny window at the bottom of the screen. The iPhone Kindle app is a little better in that it uses the entire screen. For novels, while I prefer iBooks, I think I will be switching to Kindle ebooks because of the selection, and since I am thinking of getting a Kindle reader.

When it comes to reading PDF ebooks and documents, I turn to iAnnotate PDF. While it isn't as pretty as using iBooks, it is much more functional. I can highlight text, add bookmarks, add comments, and even draw on the document. It has become my favorite way to mark up other people’s stories. I can email an annotation summary along with the marked up document, or save the document back to Dropbox when I am ready to share the comments I made.

Over all, I prefer using one reader for everything, but I'm okay with switching between them. As time goes on, I hope we will end up with a standard format so I can use just one reader. But until then, I have my 3 favorites.

NewsFlash

2010-08-30T16:06:00.002-04:00

Random House and Wylie Reach Agreement

From Publisher's Weekly: "The news that Random House had "won" its showdown with The Wylie Agency, over the inclusion of titles by its authors in Wylie's backlist digital publishing business Odyssey Editions, spread through publishing circles quickly on Tuesday, after Random House and Wylie released a joint statement. The statement said that Random House will now be the exclusive e-book publisher of its 13 titles originally part of Odyssey Editions and that, as a result of the agreement, Random House will lift its ban on doing business with the agency."

I had a feeling that Wylie's action was to get the proverbial ball rolling on a decion about this topic. And now it looks like nothing was really resolved. I'm anxiously awaiting financial information about this agreement. In the meantime, Daily Finance has some intersting insight on this.

NewsFlash

2010-08-30T06:17:00.004-04:00

This morning I stumbled across a blog post by Mark Coker of Smashwords featuring a podcast of author David Robinson talking about ebook publishing. He has a lot of very interesting observations, like this one:

...it's not so much rejection that bruises the soul of a writer, it's the chronic condition of being ignored.

Check it out here: Author David Robinson Essay on Virtues of Indie Ebook Publishing

The e-pub Industry-Part 1

2010-08-25T00:00:00.001-04:00

If I had to describe how I see the publishing industry right now, I would call it a “seesaw.”

We can see very plainly the fear that people have of change also applies in business. The actions of publishing houses and agents since the e-book are clearly reactions to what they see as a threat to paper publishing. Practically every week I hear about another independent bookstore closing, one less venue to sell paper books. Many people are reacting to things like this simultaneously in different ways--some good, some scary.

In December, Random House decided they would take action by insisting it had the e-pub rights to the books it published. Many agents jumped on this and fought for their clients to maintain their e-pub rights.

In 2001 a federal court ruled that authors did not grant e-book rights to the publisher according to their original contracts. This seems to be holding up to this day. If you want your e-pub rights, and don’t explicitly grant them, you can have them. But this could get harder and harder. On the other side of that argument, I’ve heard that there are authors who don’t want their e-rights because they wouldn’t know what to do with them.

The Wylie Agency has recently started a new publishing line, Odyssey Editions, to e-publish its clients’ backlists--taking the publisher out of e-publishing and maximizing their clients’ profits. The publishers are trying to claim their e-pub rights to these backlist titles. We’ll have to wait and see what happens…

All this activity speaks loudly of big money in e-books. Those directly affected by it, the publishers of paper books, are trying to protect their future interests of staying in business. But we really have to ask if our electronic rights are any of their business. If we can help it, shouldn’t we writers hold onto our very profitable e-rights, as it seems to be in our best interest for making a living?

Traditional publishing houses are not paying the same royalties that an author could get from e-publishing independently. J. A. Konrath and the Authors Guild both break down the numbers.

As an unpublished writer working hard toward a career as a full time writer, the current publishing situation is daunting. I have an unpublished fantasy novel (still in revision) that I’m not quite sure what I will do with. It is impossible for me to make the best career move according to what I see going on, as I don’t know when I will publish it. And my decision will depend on the state of the industry when I do sell it (selling it could mean to a publisher or by myself). I have three different scenarios in my mind.

1
If I sold it in the next month or so, I would hold onto my e-pub rights and put in the time to launch it in electronic format myself, while, theoretically reaping the benefits of an advance and having copies on shelves in bookstores. I would get the most profit from my work. But, who knows for how much longer that will be possible. The scales could tip tomorrow for all we know.

2
If I market my book around but don’t sell it for another two years, none of this might actually matter. I could sell it and enter into a currently nonexistent standardized paper and e-book agreement where I won’t get a choice in the matter. However, this might not be the best scenario. What if paper books go completely “out of fashion” and no one buys the hard copies and the publisher still gets to keep most of the profit from the e-book sales? This type of agreement would lead to a growing independent book sales industry.

3
I could e-pub my book, no advance, and do the hard work of self promotion and make full proceeds off sales. But, working full time, would I have enough time and resources to do that much self promotion? I once heard about a new author, I cannot remember his name, who got an advance in the six-figure range. He immediately quit his day job and planned a massive self-promotion campaign. His explanation was that if he ever wanted to earn back his advance and see royalties he needed to sell a ton of books. I’m thinking I don’t have that kind of time or money. So this is not for me right now.

I’ll have to keep a close eye on the industry to make sure I get the best agreements I can for my work. I can see actively publishing authors having vastly different contracts from title to title depending on the current conditions. Maybe this is prime time for multiple book deals? Either way, the change won’t be over until the legal departments of publishers and agencies, and maybe even federal courts establish new standards. But who knows how long their deliberation will take and how it will affect e-publishing rights, traditional publishing houses, the role of the agent and most importantly the author. In the meantime, books are being sold every day under different circumstances.

NewsFlash

2010-08-23T19:00:00.000-04:00

eBook Advertisements

Here's an interesting read. This is one thing I haven't ever imagined I'd see in a book. So I never even thought of it regarding e-books. Advertisers think of everything.

"Growing e-book sales and the opportunity for targeted advertising mean space in e-books is ripe for corporate messages. Add rapidly falling e-reader prices and the planned Google e-book store and the pressure is on for publishers and retailers to increase revenue from digital books."

If that is the future of e-books I can't imagine reading too many of them. After all, I'm the kind of person who stopped watching TV because I was sick of the commercials.

Amazon's e-book Sales...and some Considerations

"Amazon has told Pocket-lint that it expects Kindle e-book sales to eclipse paperback sales by the end of 2011, and to eclipse combined hardback and paperback sales shortly after that in the US."

But here is an article with a more conservative point of view about what Amazon is saying.

All in all the e-book is winning the price war over the paper book, maybe just not quite as fast as Amazon would like to think.

NewsFlash: Google Counts World's Books

2010-08-21T23:54:00.004-04:00

Google Books has counted all books existent in the world as of Thursday August 5th. And the number is 129,864,880.

Read more about what they counted and why? Think about it... how many different editions of Hamlet did you have to read in high school? They were each counted separately.

NewsFlash: Future of the Book

2010-08-21T06:41:00.005-04:00

An article was posted yesterday on NPR called Books Have Many Futures, which talks about the current state of ebooks as well as where print books could be heading. Very interesting read.

The MIT futurist Nicholas Negroponte told the Techonomy Conference in early August that the physical, paper-based book is dying rapidly and will soon be replaced as the dominant form. "It’s happening," Negroponte said. "It's not happening in 10 years. It's happening in five years."

NewsFlash: A Journalist/Author's take on self pub

2010-08-18T08:18:00.005-04:00

Self-publishing is hot trend in book world reports evidence that self published authors are starting to shake the stigma.

World Building, Part 1: Top-Down Construction

2010-08-18T06:03:00.002-04:00

Any author working in a science fiction or fantasy world has to confront the topic of world building at some point. I'm sure many authors don't even think about the process and just dive into it. But there are authors, like Tolkien, who will spend years crafting elaborate, breathing worlds with expansive histories and peoples. Some of these visionaries go on to create incredibly fine details. You could actually study the Elvish language from Middle Earth, for instance. Or the Klingon language from Star Trek.

But where do you even start developing a world that rich?

Building worlds is a daunting task for anyone to undertake. I am a writer and I have a passion for creating video games. Creating worlds is a subject I've spent more than two decades exploring. The process started for mostly financial reasons. I played Dungeons and Dragons a lot and couldn't afford to purchase the manuals for every TSR world that interested me. So I created my own world.

I will begin this discussion with a look at a Top-Down design.

I started my fantasy world, Palamar, with a friend when I was about ten years old. I drew a map for the solar system to explain how the planets and moons were set up. Then I created the world map, drawing each continent in turn, marking cities and forests as I got to them. What I was doing was creating an entire fantasy universe from a million-mile view down to the people living in it. Once I had a good idea of the layout of the land and the people who lived in it, then I was able to create my characters and the stories and adventures they would live through.

This method has some benefits. You never have to wonder what's over the next horizon. You've already created the map and defined the boundaries of the civilizations that live there. Once you have boundaries and cultures, it's pretty easy to see where tensions between them could erupt. Place a big open field between two civilizations and you've just created a place for a battlefield (ancient, future, or modern, take your pick). The history often ends up being obvious once you've created the landscape.

There are drawbacks to this method. Every time I have an interesting idea for something I want to add to my world, I have to make changes to the world map to accommodate those ideas. Before I started using computers on a daily basis, that meant re-drawing the world map by hand. This method is also finite - it's really not practical for designing more than a single world. But for a fantasy realm, this method works nicely.

But this is only one method for creating a world...
I will discuss a Bottom-Up method in part 2.

NewsFlash: Dorchester drops mmpb for e-book/POD

2010-08-14T02:10:00.003-04:00

Huge news last week in publishing! Dorchester Drops Mass Market Publishing for E-Book/POD Model. I'm going to have to hit the net and do some reading up on this. But my friend wrote up and interesting post about it and related thoughts at the Phylactery of Nightmares and Dreams.

What time is our torture session?

2010-08-11T05:00:00.017-04:00

Let's have a little fun from the not too distant past. This is a flash fiction story that I worked on for a little competition I had with a writer friend. Maybe she will post her original entry some time. What I found interesting about flash fiction wasn't that the stories where short, but that it let us write, edit, and critique several stories in a short time. It was a great workshopping tool. Want to focus on dialog? Make a flash story that consisted of mostly talk. Want to work on fight scenes? Make a flash that consisted mostly of action. I think one mistake I made was focusing on scenes. I started writing scenes instead of a story consisting of a beginning, middle and end.

So please, enjoy my very first ever flash fiction story.

#
I know what evil lurks in the minds of ... no no. That just sounds like the start of a corny old radio show. How then shall I start this, "Once upon a time?" Somehow I don’t think so. That would, after all, suggest an ending like, "They lived happily ever after." Don’t make me sick.

I want to tell you a story about real evil. Evil so tangible that you could reach out and touch it, like a mist that envelopes you and seeps into your mind.

Let me then, tell a story about a close friend. The queen of her realm. Her subjects pander to her every whim. But imagine if you will, those subjects decide to rise up and wield a mighty mechanical weapon, built for the sole purpose of rending chunks from your person.

First they feed her tasty treats, oh yes, very tasty indeed. Her senses dull and she finds herself in a wonderful euphoric state where her mind drifts atop fluffy clouds and she flitters around with little bunnies.

Then a buzzing sound, distant at first.

The bunnies. No longer carelessly frolicking are all looking at her. The once innocent pink-rimmed eyes turned cloudy and red. Fangs bared.

The first bite she doesn’t feel, a clean slice through her fur. Then the chewing begins. Again and again teeth bite into her and rip clump after clump of fur out.

An eternity. Then the buzzing stops, her bonds released, and one of her subjects say, “Okay kitty, you can go now. All your mats out!” She gets scratched behind her ear and offered another kitty treat.

What a Workshop is all About

2010-08-04T00:00:00.003-04:00

Now that we’ve launched the site and have our legs under us we will be running full steam ahead working on the content of the e-book we will be publishing next summer. This means a lot of writing for us…writing and more importantly workshopping--because we know there’s room for improvement in our story-telling craft.

I’ve been workshopping stories, poetry and non-fiction in and outside of school for almost ten years. All I have to say about my experiences with them is that they are great, in so many ways--even the bad ones. Now let me explain why…

On the simplest level, a workshop occurs when a group of people get together to read your work and give you feedback on it or you read another writer’s work and give them feedback--sometimes both at the same time. A serious writer’s workshop is not a social hour, a word-play date, or bitch session. It is time to work on craft, on words--something that you love.

There are different kinds of workshops: professionally run retreat workshops such as Viable Paradise, Taos, Clarion and Odyssey, one-shot Con workshops, online workshops, class workshops offered through schools, and many others. Each have their own strengths. But I’m going to focus on the regularly meeting group style as that is what we scribists will be doing.

Let’s say you’ve written a story and you just want to send it out. You want it to get into some editor’s hands so they will instantly send you an email asking to buy the story’s first publication rights. You think it’s that good.

Then why, a few days later, did you get a form rejection?

Because you are blind to what your work really looks like word for word--yes even if you put it aside for a week, or a month to forget about it. No matter what, you won’t be able to find all your grammar and spelling mistakes, or all your confusing sentences that you with all your idiosyncrasies will not notice as abnormal expression of English, or whatever language you write in.

You might have a great story, but the first time it comes out, it might not take the same shape that you see in your head. A good workshop can point out your foibles to you much quicker than you can find them.

So, confident you wrote the best story you could, and unable to find anything else in there to fix (you’re not letting your workshop fellows do work for you that you know you need to do first), you bring your awesome story to a workshop.

Now you are in the box, the silent state of the writer being workshopped, ready to write down everything you can because you are open to their constructive criticism.

Each group member quickly runs through their points about your story, maybe elaborating on one or two so as not to take all the time for themselves. You hear lauds on the parts of the story that showcase your strengths, but then… Wait…What are they talking about? That’s not what I wrote. They didn’t read it right. But you keep silent. You might find this difficult but it is important for the writer of the work in question to not pollute the critiquing atmosphere. They read it as they saw it. As a wise professor of mine once said, “You are in the box in workshop because you can’t sit behind every reader and say, ‘No, this is what that means.’” And so you listen carefully and write down what they said; ideally it was constructive criticism about the various parts of a story: plot, characters, style, pace etc. They are critiquing your work, not you. They probably know very little about you and can only know about the story. So don’t take anything personally.

Everyone’s said their bit, and now it’s your turn to talk. First, say thank you, because someone took the time out of their busy week to read your story. Then ask for any clarification on comments you didn’t understand. If no one commented on something you were wondering about, ask what they think--someone will be happy to tell you.

The reason for all this? They want the same help from you. They are in the same position you are, they want to improve their work to professional standards and beyond--this will take more than workshopping, but it’s a great place to start.

The best part about receiving criticism is that you get to make the final call on which pieces of advice you take. Of course, even if you disagree with a comment, you must give it due consideration. In the end, you are the only one with the vision of the story in your head and you can decide what’s best for it.

Perhaps the most important part of going to a workshop, at least in my opinion, is the motivation that comes from it. Language comes to life in workshop sessions. People are discussing words and phrases and paragraphs and their right to be on the page. Then someone brings home feedback and thinks about edits and plot snags and character depth. Beyond that though, they have someone else’s story in hand to critique for next time. The cycle never stops, it keeps you going and it keeps you improving your own work.

Now we aren’t always so lucky to find a great workshop where the other writers are generous or constructive in criticism. There are always those workshops where you won’t mesh well with the other participants. That’s fine, you’ll always have readers who will react that way, and it can be good to hear things you don’t like. But if the group really isn’t working for you (no one is trying to publish, anyone can show up whenever etc…), get packing and find a new one, or put a new one together yourself.

Reading other people’s work will help you realize what your own strengths and weaknesses are. Listening to other people critique the same work you critiqued will help you sharpen your own reading skills. As Donne said in the early days of the Renaissance, “No man is an island.” Writers need readers and writers need other writers--so get workshopping!

NewsFlash: iPad Kindle app now has search

2010-07-30T00:31:00.002-04:00

After much wait, Version 2.2 of the Kindle app for iPad is available. Search, my favorite, is now available in the iPad version. It's been in the iPhone version a while now. Also included in the update is a dictionary with over 250,000 words. Simply highlight a word, and the definition appears at the bottom of the screen. You are then able to see the full definition of the word or look up the word in google or wikipedia. I found it annoying however that once I returned to the Kindle app after using google to lookup a highlighted word, it didn't return me to the correct location in the book.

NewsFlash: Third generation Kindle available for pre-order

2010-07-29T07:12:00.002-04:00

Amazon announced their third generation kindles at a price point even I am taking notice of. They have the 6" 3G Wireless at $189 and Wi-Fi only at $139. Features include 15% ligher, one month battery life, E-Eink screen has 50% better contrast, double the storage.