Getting Out There

In just over a month you, dear reader, will be able to buy a fresh copy of Starfall from the usual outlets. A paper and ink copy will be, I imagine, something of a rarity as the cost for dropping a paperback of this epic is pretty high. The e-book will be more reasonably charged at whatever you feel like giving me for it.

I have done something with Starfall that I have never done before. I sent copies out to reviewers. I haven't done this in the past because it hasn't been totally obvious who would be interested in reviewing my output. In the case of the three Chicago Shadows books they were super odd, police procedural? Horror? I still don't even really know.

Before that you'd have to go back in time over a decade to 2005 to my self-publishing debut, when I was new to Lulu and kindles were not a thing. So I would have had to buy and mail out individual copies of the books to get them reviewed. Back in those days I was vehemently anti e-book because Amazon hadn't made them so ridiculously easy to procure and acceptable to read.

I began writing Starfall in 2006, and it has been a source of long lament that the book I wrote for my wife has not seen the light of day for as long as we have been together (almost). When I think about it, though, what better time to put the book out than a time when I can email reviewers .epubs and .mobis, a time when digital collaboration has never been easier.

I got a couple of suggestions from a writing colleague and, once I had digested that list, I had the appetite to google for myself. I didn't have to google long before I found this immensely useful list of contacts. I worked through that too.

I do recall that back in the mists of time a writer would have to seek out obscure almanacs to get lists like that. Unsurprisingly the internet has changed the game. Good job too. Most authors are authors on the side, we don't have time to seek out, transcribe, and file any more. Much aside from anything else we have to maintain a public profile, however measly, and some of us have to typeset and publish our own books.

Not that it's all plain sailing. The problem with easy access to a resource (such as a reviewer) is probably often abused. I didn't just bang out fifty identical emails with e-books attached and spam the entire bunch of reviewers, no, not at all. I asked each one that I submitted to whether they had the time and capacity for another needy book baby.

Also, I didn't automatically submit to a reviewer just because they exist. In each case I tried to seek out a review policy to see if I failed the reviewer's requirements, which I did on occasion. I also didn't try to contact people who were not easily contactable. If I didn't know how rude a lot of authors are about getting their work out there I'd wonder how reviewers with no obvious inbox got books to review. Obviously, they may also not do reviews via request.

As I wandered through this gallery of web pages, seeking out the method for getting in touch with the reviewers, I realised that we have come to an age when you should really take some control in the matter of how people access you, or at least the public you. Anyone who visits this blog has some access, but then anyone who visits any blog has some access to the person who runs the blog. I don't really think that's enough any more.

I really do love to collaborate on things, podcasts, story collections, guest posts, anything I have time for I will do at this moment. So I set up the You're Invited! page to let people know that I was open for business. Now I know that people have a way to get in touch with me if they do want me to be on a podcast, or to write a story, or anything else.

It's early days so no one's asked yet, but I have a little bit of confidence in the fact that I haven't missed opportunities now. That's what all this accessibility stuff comes down to, opportunities are rare, and you shouldn't be passing them over. If people find it utterly impossible to work out how to get in touch then that's what will happen, on the other hand you want to control the flow. Otherwise you will miss some things and those people who are really determined will just find some other communications channel, appropriate or not.

Smashwords Interview

Smashwords have a feature where the site will interview you, in a broad, author-y kind of way. I went through the process.

You can view the interview here.

Weird Things About Being A Digital Author

The cover of  The Elias Anomaly. You could read it
on Wattpad if you wanted. But you'd be the first.

It has often been my contention that I was an artisanal author before I knew what that was. Not for me the hassle of sending stuff off and waiting for the rubber stamp of mid-list approval. Not for me the irritation of people actually reading what I write or caring about it. No. I write for me. I know I am a good writer. I live in the hope that one day someone else will agree with me. If it doesn't happen, well, the world's loss frankly.

Nevertheless it's no good writing things in this day and age and letting them fester on a hard drive. To show intent of actually publishing something one should "get out there" and "build a fanbase". One should, at least, make the attempt, I feel, anyway.

With this in mind I have put a few things up on Wattpad like my spiffing Kafka meets cyberpunk meets Douglas Adams affair The Elias Anomaly. Now complete and available through this perfectly wonderful online e-book delivery system.

At some point soon I shall make paper and electronic (e.g. Kindle) editions available also. This brings us to the point of the weird things mentioned in the post title.

Writing with this method, in these channels, changes the business of writing after a certain point. If you are writing something fresh, i.e. drafting out, then nothing has changed there. Likely it never will. You bang out the words, you get through the material. You write. No problem.

After that it gets tricky.

For a short while (Just over a century?) it has been accepted that authors may not edit their own work. Many reasons are given for this but chief among them appears to be that editors like to eat. Now, in an ideal world where every book was to be given the respect it deserves this would be a no-brainer. If I could be assured that everything I wrote would make enough money to pay for my time and the time of an editor and a cover designer then I would happily pay for these things.

This, however, is not the case. This leaves an author with few choices. One is to admit that writing is a hobby that they like to spend money on. Pay the cover designer, pay the editor, eat the losses. That's cool if you want to do it. No problem with that as an approach.

The other is to find workarounds. This is my approach. I realise I am not a great artist and I am a mediocre cover designer. But hell, mediocre professional cover designers get paid. If I'm doing what they're doing for free I'm a winner, right? Additionally tools like Hemingway help me do a serviceable job of editing. I've read some very poorly edited small press stuff recently, not that I am one of those editing pedants.

The age of meticulous editing on everything we read is over. As the means of production come down in cost and the available stories expand to every conceivable taste it is inevitable that some things you read will have less than perfect editing. My stuff has typos in it, for sure. I have to admit this. I have done the best that I could and I can't do more.

However, I've read stuff recently where there are malapropisms, blatantly wrong uses of words, words added that don't exist AND typos. These things were edited by third parties. It turns out all those copy editors with high and mighty arrogance about how undervalued they were had a point all along. Being a super-editor takes some chops.

I am a good editor, not a great one. Compared to this other stuff I've read that purports to exist in a semi-legitimate state my stuff is golden. Sad but true.

So I am a one man band. This I have become used to.

The really odd thing is that I have evolved working practices to optimise the flow of work going out and they introduce bizarre tasks at weird times.

For example, the best way to edit alone is to go a chapter at a time. The best way to ensure that you are concentrating to your very hardest on that one chapter is to bang it out via Wattpad as part of a serialization. So you take the chapter, Hemingway it and then "publish" it for the delectation and delight of young adults writing mopey, awkwardly eroticised post-apocalyptic steampunk fantasy. No, really, I've just described 95% of what's on Wattpad. Check it out if you don't believe me.

The only problem with this process is that in order to make it look nice on Wattpad you must design a "cover". You don't have to but if you don't take it seriously who else will? No one. So you must have that cover ready before you're even ready to re-edit for public consumption. That's weird.

What's even weirder is that if you have, oh, I don't know, some kind of Patreon thing going on then you might want to promote what you're doing in that medium. Before you can though you really ought to have some sort of video.

I know, mental. You've written a first draft, then you have to design a cover and bang out a video before you're even ready to drip feed your work onto the web. In addition the commercial version of the work won't even be ready until after the thing's already been serialised onto your digital platforms.

In addition you've just graduated from cover designer to short film-maker in your efforts to go it alone.

Never mind weird, being a serious independent author is just a hell of a lot of work. Oh well, off to my editing software I go. Time for me to produce some actual content. 

Safe Prediction For 2014

It's not really safe, not at all, but that's the nature of predictions. All I have to offer beyond the fact that to me this one seems kind of obvious is that all the other things I've deemed kind of obvious in the past have come to fruition. The only problem is that I never made a big thing out of my predictions, and sometimes they have odd wrinkles. For example, in 2005 I was banging on about the inevitability of Self-Publishing becoming a "thing", I just didn't see the Kindle Event Horizon where everyone started reading e-books on their devices.

Anyway this is my prediction for this year:

Wattpad will go supernova. It's already pretty big within itself and a few people outside the Wattpad-osphere have noticed the phenomenon. By the end of 2015 to "Wattpad it" as in "to put a work onto Wattpad" will be a verb and Wattpad will be a name with the same status as Facebook and Google.

You read it here first.

IMPORTANT CAVEAT: I have yet to find a single readable thing on Wattpad but the kids seem to dig it. I live in hope of finding something I like on there but it's pretty difficult at this stage to know where to start.

People who talk about Wattpad seem to all be on Wattpad and talk about it on Wattpad. Therefore there are no meta-Wattpad watchers or commentators as yet. This is the only part of the mega-phenom recipe that is missing at present.

The basis for my conclusion is that if all a phenomenon is missing is a meta-discourse then, well, it's right at the tipping point of becoming some kind of cultural staple, surely.

You read it here, well, not quite first, but more specific second.

Do It Now, Not Later (I Am A Dandelion)

I have to get used to blogging on the run. That's what the title's all about. That and wanting the title to sound like a track listing from a 70s prog rock opus. :)

I just thought I'd drop off a link to some advice for self publishers from Neil Gaiman via Forbes.

Nice article, if the prospect of reading the whole thing is still tl, so you are tempted to, er, nr, here's a precis:

1. Be nice: As it says
2. Readers discover authors they love, they don’t buy them: Linked to Guy Kawasaki's 'Cover The Earth'. People find stuff they like and then they spend money, it is never the other way round. Same for music, same for anything really. I have one CD I bought on sight with no other info. I have over 500 CDs. All the rest came from music conversations, music sharing, memories, emotional attachment. If you're not out there people cannot become emotionally attached to stuff you do. So get people engaged with your stuff, then ask for money.
3. What is valuable is what is unique: Short version make your product, or versions of your product, special somehow. Innovate.
4. Make yourself heard: As it says.
5. Be lucky, be a dandelion, try stuff: Disclosure time, the thing I have learned about Chicago Shadows is that, presently, it is hard for me to get the books out there particularly with respect to item 4. I wouldn't class the current volumes as a failure but my current projects are easier to get out in front of the world, so they are going to take priority.

Short post because, as you can see, I've gone all 21st Century. Here's a screencast of my first upload to Smashwords. The production values may not be too shiny but hopefully anyone considering self-publishing but nervous of the technology will find that this gives them a good idea of what to expect.

Enjoy!

Incidentally, at one point you will see that Smashwords asks for an ISBN, which I don't have. Apparently Smashwords will give you an ISBN free but they become the publisher of the book at that point. I am considering whether this is my best move. I'm not keen on ISBNs and how they affect the tax status of your book-shaped objects/data but apparently two of the major platforms won't accept e-books with no ISBN. Meanies.

Short But Difficult

I've had a couple of requests for me to read short stories recently. This has always been something of a thorny topic for me when it comes to commercial endeavour. In fact, even when I did my time in writer's circles back in the day writing shorts was never really my thing. I always tended to submit chapters of longer works, the contexts of my larger story worlds could never comfortably cram into a single short.

I also have found reading shorts by others to be a tricky business. The best short fiction is ephemeral, leaving you wanting more; at least the worst tends to be fairly inconsequential. Short fiction has always struck me as a tool for a writer to get a quick insight into problems with their style, pacing etc. I have to say, looking back on my own experiences with peer criticism it helped me develop a thick skin, but did it make me a better writer? Only in the sense that I had a thicker skin.

A professional guide can tell you what is 'commercial' according to accepted publisher's wisdom and what is not. If there is some glaring inconsistency in your short that can be picked up.

I have never been upbraided for my overuse of the words 'had been', which is odd because I lean on them far too heavily. Nobody has ever suggested that I change ands into follow on sub clauses either e.g. 'Milo picked up the pen and rose to take it to Niles' should become: 'Milo picked up the pen as he rose, intending to take it over to Niles.' Although the second is slightly longer, it flows better.

I learned these things on my own, without writer's circles.

So the short story has never been a favoured form in my eyes. Less so when you intend to charge people money for it. There was a song out last year, you know the one, about sharing a dollar with someone and them sharing their story in return.

Well, if the story is performed, acted out, forms a short performance piece you might get value for money. If it's delivered to your e-reader, well formatted and packed with dynamic, shapely prose, you almost inevitably won't.

Here's the issue. If I received the best short story I had ever read (An unpublished short work called 'Movies and Kids' written by an author called Nicholas Antosca) was sold to me for a dollar that might seem like a good deal. Except the short story is approx 5k words in length. So I'd have to spend 10 dollars to get the equivalent of a bare minimum Nano entry in word length. Most novels are between 70 and 100k these days (although I predict the return of the 50k special in days to come) the indie author will typically charge me between 1 and 6 dollars for 70-100k, a trad author will retail between 7 to 12 dollars for the same amount.

Now, hold on, I hear you cry. Quantity does not equal quality.

No, not always. But in this case it kinda does. Genre reading has one basic requirement: entertainment. If I could by a genre novel to keep me entertained for 1-3 weeks for 3 dollars why would I buy an equally entertaining (if also aesthetically beautiful) short that I will only be entertained by for about an hour for one third of the cost?

Answer: I wouldn't. No one sane would.

That leaves us with an awkward problem. I cannot, in good conscience, endorse a work of short fiction offered for sale at any cost greater than, possibly 20c. I believe this price bracket is not currently available on the e-publishing platforms. Let me know if I am wrong.

So, until micropayments become a reality, however they manifest, I find my self in the position of having to eschew requests to review short fiction pieces because I cannot recommend that people spend money on them over bulkier works that represent better value for money.

This is because I am a genre-reviewing heathen. A more literary reviewer may be appalled by my mercenary aesthetic sense, and rightly so.

So, this is by way of a blanket apology to short story writers looking for review here. I am afraid that I cannot help you out because I currently can't find your work, as it stands, to be economically viable.

Note: Short story collections are a different matter... particularly pulp shorts etc. Serial segments on a value spiral are also acceptable (e.g. part 1: free, parts 2/3: a dollar apiece, parts 4/5: two dollars apiece, omnibus edition: four dollars).

Get back to me when I can pick up a single short for a few pence. Then we can do a like-for-like comparison with larger works.

Blurry Lines

Just dropped by to update the work in progress sidebar. While I'm here I would like to make an observation. 2013 has started with a massive blurring of the lines when it comes to the difference between traditional and indie authors.

The chief place this is true is in quality. Back in 2006-ish there were very few self-pubbed books I read which could stand toe to toe with the stuff you might pick up in a bookstore. Since December I have read one book published by Momentum, a digital only imprint offering indie-comparable download prices, and one complete Indie offering and I would say that, although Dark City Blue had the edge IMO it was a close run thing.

I'm currently reading Devil's Hand by M.E.Patterson and it's really good (that's the short review of circa 25% of the book). So of the last three self-pubbed books I've read (the other being APE) I would recommend all of them for one reason or another and none of them look weak next to the more traditional offering. In addition the traditional offering looks more indie and I'm imagining the author of that feels like an indie author at the moment as this is his debut electronic-first offering.

The landscape of fiction publishing is definitely starting to flatten into what it will become. It will be a bumpy ride for certain.

Selecting A Self-Published Book

I am pretty impressed with Guy Kawasaki's new book APE: How To Publish A Book,  I reviewed it at the beginning of December. I'm also impressed with Mr Kawasaki's unending energy in taking the APE message out into the world. Now it's time for me to be similarly impressed with his short presentation published in the Huffington Post advising readers on how to discriminate when picking an indie pleasure for their e-reader of choice.

I would, however, take issue with a couple of points that he raised. I'm talking from the point of view of a genre author, Mr Kawasaki from that of a non-fiction writer but there's a good deal of crossover. Many of my quibbles are to do with the different ways that fiction and non-fiction are sold.

On a technical note (so more the Huffington Post's fault than Guy's) I'm also not too pleased with the slide show having no option to read it as a short article. To mitigate the technical issue and add my thoughts here's a quick summary of the key points of the presentation:

1. Cover

Guy says: "While it is inaccurate to say that every book with a crappy cover is not worth reading and every book with a nice cover is worth reading, the cover is [your] first data point." 

The Monkey says: I have to say, I'd pretty much agree with this. I'd add that a cover needs to be appropriate more than anything.

Whacking a great piece of richly detailed art on a fantasy or historical may well be the way to go but thrillers and horror books are often more impressionistic. If someone hasn't even looked at covers of books within the genre they're writing then how seriously are they taking themselves as a commercial writer?

In my opinion, in the world of the indies there is a bar, and currently there are points for effort. If it's clear that the cover has been lovingly handcrafted in an attempt to engage, or generically designed enough to fit with all other similar titles, then I'd tend to give it a thumbs up.

2. Blurbs

Guy says: "An excessive amount of blurbs is a sign of poor quality."

The Monkey says: I have never really paid much attention to blurbs in fiction whatsoever. I think this is more of a non-fiction point. Non-fiction requires a definite authority to say; "This guy knows what he's talking about".

Fiction is far more a matter of taste. I have read loads of Neil Gaiman, I don't believe I have ever bought anything endorsed by Neil Gaiman, or, if I have, never because it was endorsed by Neil Gaiman.

3. Name of publisher

Guy says: "If an author cannot come up with a more clever name for his company than his last name, how imaginative and intriguing could his novel be?"

The Monkey says: There's another point here. The fact is that in order to get your book out into the world you have to take yourself seriously as a writer. To learn to be a thing one must first imitate the thing we want to be.

There are good authors who don't "pretend" to have a publishing house and that's not an indicator that they're a bad writer. It is however, an indication that they don't take the business of marketing at all seriously and, by association, they may not view delivering the product to the customer seriously either.

A book that has a lacklustre cover and loads into your e-reader at page one, chapter one, no title, no TOC may be fine, but it does say that the author had more fun writing than they particularly care about whether you will have reading.

4. Front matter

Guy says: "It’s not crucial that [the front matter conforms to the Chicago Manual of Style] but at least you can determine if the author cared enough to find out what the front matter of a book should contain."

The Monkey says: This just refines the point about how seriously you can tell the author takes themselves as an author. In order to have published a "real book" I want my work to resemble a "real book" to the extent that the casual observer cannot tell why my book is "not real".

Also showing an awareness of copyright notices shows you take the business side of what you're doing seriously, dedications are a nice touch, thinking about the structure of your book is about taking care of your reader. I don't go the whole hog but I do put in a copyright notice, disclaimer and ensure that anything I feel I should say before the main action begins is said in good part. In other words, I do believe a self-publisher should make this effort.

5. Copyediting

Guy says: "Read the first few pages of the book and if you see more than three spelling mistakes or instances of poor grammar, take the book out of your online shopping cart and save yourself a few bucks."

The Monkey says: To this day I still question what "good grammar" really is. In journalistic and non-fiction pieces sticking to the absolute letter of the orthodox grammatical law is essential. In fiction the question is, rather, "does it flow?" Do you understand the story? Do you care? The odd fragment sentence is sometimes allowed for style reasons. Your mileage will vary.

Spelling errors come in two flavours, bad spelling e.g. "I am loosing my mind" and typos e.g. "I am losing my mnid". Either should be rare but typos and even the odd complex homophonic (bear/bare, hear/here) substitution do creep into the best of books.

Mr Kawasaki's three alarm limit seems fair to me. The Amazon default preview is 10% of the book, if the book is hard to understand and poorly proofed to the degree that you check yourself three times in 10% of the volume you will potentially encounter 30 head scratchers in the course of the whole book, which is pretty excessive.

6. Fonts

Guy says: "As in cover design, the use of Times, Arial, and Helvetica is a bad sign."

The Monkey says: This is a reference to fonts used throughout the interior of the book. I would tend to disagree with this when it comes to genre fiction. In fiction books the use of Times New Roman is to encourage readers to find the actual text as invisible as possible.

I did read something once that stated serif fonts, such as Times were easier to read printed, where as sans serif fonts, such as Arial were easier to read on a screen. We've entered a time when what counts as "a screen" is somewhat harder to define, so this is no longer a hard and fast rule. What I would tend to say is that those artifacts that are used as books tend to benefit from serif text, those intended to be read off a vertical, non-portable screen, such as a monitor, from sans serif.

If a fiction book's text looks pretty boring that's probably a good thing, if it looks weird, crazy or if you're noticing the fonts while you're supposed to be wrapped up in the story that's probably a bad sign. In addition the peppering of a random crew of unusual fonts in a non-fiction book shows a cluelessness in typographic skills that should be a red flag.

So not what I would describe as a hard and fast rule.

7: Website

Guy says: "If you’re browsing online, take a quick look at the author’s website because a website is a window into her soul."

The Monkey says: This is a strange one, because it's just as true of a published author or any other person asking you to become digitally involved with them.

If someone's Facebook profile looks like a Facebook profile, their Twitter bio looks like a Twitter bio and their website looks like the kind of place you'd like to hang out then you know that the person is communicating effectively no matter how they're trying to engage with you. If you get the creeps looking at a public artifact someone left behind with the full intention of having random people look at it then that person probably isn't your type of person... so, a no brainer really.

Self Publishing - State of Play

Let's start 2013 with a list of five thoughts I have running round my head regarding the general market environment for indie authors in the upcoming year:

1. I am finding the zeitgeist in my "Self Publishing" news stream has avoided the redundant "the bubble has burst" phase. This is probably because there was no real bubble in self publishing to speak of. The zeitgeist has now turned to "don't bother self publishing unless you're a masochist because it's a waste of time and nobody cares". Also "marketing is hard".

2. Marketing is hard.

3. The populace of the Western world really has too much expectation of their ambitions toward authorship. More than was even suspected prior to the advent of the electronic book.

4. The average quality of work bounced out of slush piles must be higher than slush pile readers report OR far more good writers were discouraged by the existence of the slush pile and hoopla surrounding them than was ever suspected.

5. You need far fewer avid fans to get by than you used to (due to higher royalty returns) BUT finding your fans is a hellish business.

BONUS THOUGHT: The Kilimanjaro-like peak of "building a platform" for the nascent indie author seems daunting. Tackling the long climb to "niche market base camp" appears a foolhardy endeavour. In fact, I believe, digital media just makes this forbidding, awe-inspiring mountain visible, and it is - de facto - more challenging to climb an invisible mountain than a visible one.

Take heart everyone and have a cracking 2013 won't you. (Now where are my crampons?)

Review: APE: How to Publish a Book

The Book: APE: How To Publish A Book by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch

Price: £6.42

Review Category: Bought after it popped up in my newsfeed.

The Blurb: In 2011 the publisher of one of my books, Enchantment, could not fill an order for 500 ebook copies of the book. Because of this experience, I self-published my next book, What the Plus!, and learned first-hand that self-publishing is a complex, confusing, and idiosyncratic process. As Steve Jobs said, "There must be a better way."

With Shawn Welch, a tech wizard, I wrote APE to help people take control of their writing careers. APE's thesis is powerful yet simple: filling the roles of Author, Publisher and Entrepreneur yields results that rival traditional publishing. We call this "artisanal publishing"--that is, when writers who love their craft control the publishing process and produce high-quality books.

APE is 300 pages of step-by-step, tactical advice and practical inspiration. If you want a hype-filled, get-rich-quick book, you should look elsewhere. On the other hand, if you want a comprehensive and realistic guide to self-publishing, APE is the answer.

Preview Available: Amazon's usual "Look Inside" deal.

Would I buy this (again)? : Absolutely

The Product: A fine example of artisanal publishing ;)

The Nitty Gritty: I bought Kawasaki and Welch's "How To" guide because I needed some advice about how to upgrade my woeful marketing skills. The book has definitely helped me and, for no extra cost, has shown me everything a "How To" guide ought to be.

After labouring over being an author and a publisher with novels and role-playing games I have evolved my own approach to the titular A (Author) and P (Publisher). So being given tips on "How To" by the authors lead me into situations where I felt vindicated and situations where I point blank disagreed with the advice given.

The book is formatted to within an inch of its life with a swish font, nice use of drop caps, stylish bullet lists. This book has had time and attention lavished upon it in terms of making it a product.

The prescription for doing this is that it will drive people nuts if you don't. This is because the display will go wappy on certain devices and you will know nothing about it as you only previewed it on your e-reader and the e-reader of a close personal friend. People will view your completed tome on all manner of inappropriate devices and you need to make sure that you have as much control as possible over the way it will display.

I permitted myself a smirk as I read this advice off the screen of my Galaxy Ace, which rendered all the wise words of quoted sources in thin columns about five characters wide. The fact is that fancy formatting is always going to break something somewhere, so I have always adopted a formatting lite approach to my books. I commit the sin (according to APE) of marking dialogue with "dumb" quotes because in some places "smart" quotes render as little diamonds with query marks embedded in them or hollow rectangles of character doom.

My approach to the smoothest possible read is to make the typography as unfussy as possible while still rendering it readable. Indented paragraphs, font sizes, italics, and ASCII characters only need apply. This is possibly because I write fiction and to me the words are the medium in which the story is contained. If people are reading Chicago Shadows thinking: Hey, I like the way he's starting each section with a weighty drop cap! then, dear reader, I have invoked the wrath of the fail whale.

If I was writing a text book maybe I would need some advanced typographical-fu. I know that in the case of the RPGs I wrestled long and hard with LibreOffice and its PDF exporter. So, the advice to publishers is largely dictated by the needs of the text being published. In other words: sometimes it's different strokes for different folks.

In addition the overview of being an author runs you through the process of deciding whether you should even write a book that did cause my eyebrows to raise. After all, if you didn't even know that you definitely should write a book then why would you pick up a guide telling you how to publish one? Circular, indeed.

I have to confess that I didn't read the Author section in any great depth. It is too late for me. Maybe this volume will help to save a few but I have my corner of Hell pre-booked and warming nicely.

Where APE came into its own for me was in the 'E' section, which stands for Entrepreneur. Essentially I have spent a long time learning to write a book and a long time learning to publish a book but I have, to date, spent no time learning how to market a book.

I am 100% positive that a marketing expert would tell me I didn't necessarily "need" to follow all of Kawasaki and Welch's advice in the Entrepreneur section, much as I would advise authors and publishers that they didn't need some of the advice in the other sections. But the point is I don't have a handy marketing expert to advise me and having a concrete list of things to do is already a great comfort.

Don't get me wrong, the authors have managed to break the bad news to me that the release of Chicago Shadows 1-3 has been handled "wrong". I have missed out several things I "should" have done prior to release. What is comforting is the fact that I now know this stuff even if I didn't before I released my heart-pounding gritty cop thriller trilogy. Following up on the tips that I can in APE means I am one step closer to being able to tell people about my books properly in future.

So, if you know all this stuff and are reading APE to feel vindicated you may find that you're not always in agreement with Kawasaki and Welch. If, on the other hand, you are clueless about any of it then APE will give you a good solid wedge of practical advice that will support you through the production of your own self-published marvel. That is all anyone can really ask of a solid "How To" guide.

All Worth It?

This morning I have awoken to find that one person that I almost certainly don't know (bought through .com so US or India surely) has bought a copy of The Silent Majority.

Was it worth it? In this world where literally thousands of competing media vie for every available second of every human being's attention, you betcha.

I appreciate the fact that friends and family put up with me doing what I do. I know it's a pain. My wife listens to me read things to her (a stamp of quality she honestly wouldn't bother if they were rubbish) my beta readers provide me with insights and everyone else gives me support and recognition.

In a very real way when someone random buys a copy of one of the books, any of the books, it validates all their effort in tolerating the odd habits of a man who moans about not having enough time to fiddle about with Neverwinter Nights because he's too busy writing a book.

So I guess we all thank you anonymous purchasers of people's novels because otherwise we would all have been wasting our time. One of us slightly more than the rest is all.

Getting There

Okay, so volumes 2 and 3 are now visible in the United States. Volume 1 will be visible... er... any time now. Apparently the books take a little while to become visible in other countries. Being UK-centric, of course, I am really only concerned about the visibility in .co.uk

Links to be posted here, in case you want to buy a copy, as soon as they are available.

I never imagined that "direct" publishing would take, er, days. That's really not so direct now, is it? Still, it's more direct than the "regular" publishing industry. Keep it tuned, look for new pages.

Today's The Day...

I'm wondering if I mentioned that I was enrolling the Chicago Shadows trilogy in KDP Select.

I probably didn't.

At some point in the past I railed against Amazon attempting to monopolise self-publishing with its Select programme. I still think it's a bit iffy, but not as iffy as I first thought.

1) In 90 days the trilogy will be de-enrolled from KDP select and released to other channels. For this flexibility Amazon get my exclusivity until spring.

2) All the numbers say that the greatest number of sales come through Amazon so as a starving artist I really have no choice.

Now to go and make a "Books" page.

Pile 'em High, Sell 'em Cheap

So, it's all over bar the shouting... and the production of some back matter. Taliesin is well under way. Three Chicago shadows novels are waiting their debut, nervously shifting in the wings. I'm still waiting for a beta reader to shout up that the introduction of the roller-skating flamingo two thirds of the way through number three is a genre-bending innovation too far. Even though there is no roller-skating flamingo two-thirds of the way into volume three.

Oh no. Maybe a beta reader is going to shout up that there aren't enough roller-skating avians across the trilogy. That's a schoolboy error: the failure to properly consider the inclusion of long-limbed pink birds with a penchant for recreating sequences from Starlight Express.

I'm just blathering, due to the fact that a show-stopper from a beta is about the only thing that will halt the e-publication of the first three shadow books next week.

In other news Galleycat is asking how much self-publishing should cost. The estimates given of circa $0-$500 are about right in my opinion. They describe two very different scenarios.

Your $0 self-publisher, like yours truly, is going to spend, literally, years learning to be not just a writer but also a typographer, web site designer, editor and cover designer. They will make their own style and stick to it, they will find a way of doing things that works for them and, fingers crossed, works for their fans.

The $500 deluxe self-publisher writes books, gets them up to a standard and then farms out the cover design, editing and other refinements to third parties. That's certainly a valid way to go. The basic answer is that the less you want to be responsible for, the more it's going to cost you.

Like I said, I think that's fair.

Back Matter

Just a quick note of my final and utter completion (bar beta based show stoppers) of the first three books in the Chicago Shadows series. A typographical swoop over vols 2 and 3, the assembly of some front and back matter and the posting of the e-books to Amazon and we're all set for the launch.

I remember reading the words of a literary agent back in 2005/2006 whose one piece of solid advice was: polish, polish, polish. I believed the words back then but with the reservation that going over and over the same Office Suite Document/Text File/Hard copy over and over again would be a route to navel-gazing OCD insanity.

The true answer to this problem, aside from spending money on assistance, is to ensure that you continually change your perspective on the material prior to publication. This is the reason for me to compose in a text editor, edit in Manuscript and read the thing aloud from an e-book before giving it the rubber stamp. Final typographical flourishes take place in the final ODT file. Every fresh pass is a different look at the same material, every polish reveals mistakes that had hidden behind the previous format.

It is not enough to just comb through and through. It won't help, it will just make you blind. You have to find your own way to change your relationship to the finished article.

Also, as my beta readers have testified, my editing in Manuscript became better the more I edited. Editing has become a new skill set, a different type of writing, and I am pleased to have discovered it because it is its own type of creative process.

Not long now, exciting times.

Postcard From Nano

It's November madness, as usual.

I've got really into Taliesin, I was concerned that if it wasn't a pastiche of a cop show the words might not come so easily but 22 days in and the finish line has been crossed. I would dearly love to plug on to the end but I have three books to publish, another to edit and, oh, check the sidebar.

So the remainder of the month must be spent marking up, fixing and finalising CS1. Then it's time for an early December release and time off over Christmas. Time off that will include a bit more blogging. Promise.

Nano and Covers

Well, time sometimes just gets away from you, doesn't it?

I'm a little annoyed at myself for not being able to completely finish Chicago Shadows 2 to get it out to beta readers. On the up side for them I will probably manage to finish both 2 and 3 together so those that are going to plough on will get a double helping.

Now that I can consider the beta of CS1 dead and buried I can reveal something to my beta readers that they did not know. They were all part of a small experiment upon the effectiveness of my "Manuscript" software. It is not super-scientific but, of my seven readers, four were given a version of the file that had been through the extra editing layer of Manuscript. Three were given a file made from the manuscript before it had undergone the process.

I have received feedback from three out of the seven beta readers. All three had been given the manuscript that had been reworked using my software (the other person with the "genuine" beta manuscript thought I had written a game manual and apologised that he didn't know much about English so would probably not read it... I did try to explain that if it needed proofing I would have gone a different route but hey ho). None of the people who were given the "alpha" manuscript actually finished it at all. A couple said they were having some problems sitting down to it, time being what it is.

I can't say for certain but I do think that the difference in manuscript appears to have had an effect. I would definitely identify several things about the alpha manuscript that needed fixing, not least a profusion of things having "been" something else, "seeming" as if something being "just" something or being "like" something. In 55,000 words these four words occurred somewhere in the region of 200/250 times each in the alpha. None of them occurred more than 100 by the time I'd finished.

I do believe that sometimes a reader can't put their finger on why they're not getting into a book, they believe it's something they would like to read but they just can't seem to get their head round it. It is entirely possible that having repetitive use of tenses and concepts could well contribute to that feeling. I know that the text that came out post-Manuscript was more dynamic and purposeful. The feedback numbers would appear to bear that out.

Thankfully not all the feedback I received has been glowing praise (although it scored above average on all the scored questions), the chief bugbear is that even given the "Manuscript" spit and polish the manuscripts still need an extra pass purely for proofing. The other thing is that, over my time with my new editing program I have become a better editor. Now I can see all manner of grammar snafus that I couldn't see before. So vol 1 is back on the block for one final tread through, which is slow and painful going but all part of the process.

Nobody said self-publishing would be easy. In fact everyone says it is hard. Harder still if you have become determined to do everything yourself.

CS2 and 3 have had the benefit of a trip through Manuscript, then I read the finished article aloud to Sue and bookmarked in my e-reader any part where I spotted some heinous error. Then I did a final review until I have produced the beta. I know they're a lot cleaner than the supposed beta of Silent Majority that I put out there. Hopefully the proofing score on my next spreadsheet will be a bit higher.

I had better go and get on with Nano now but, to leave on a positive I have managed to design covers for the CS books which I shall now reveal in anticipation of their release, er, sometime before Christmas... Here they are, hope they do the job for which they were designed i.e. I hope you all now want to read them:

Morning Off

Well, day off but this afternoon I must do chores. As you can see from the left bar the first volume of Chicago Shadows is in beta. Three of my seven lovely beta readers have received their copies. I am expecting to get the other four out by tea time tomorrow. Right now, however, I'm going to play computer games and possibly eat some toast. (Not necessarily in that order, now, where's the Marmite?)

Getting Things Done

The last couple of days have been particularly productive. CS1: The Silent Majority has come out of editing and is awaiting my typographical and artistic skills to put together a beta package for my ever-so-kind beta readers.

I was expecting to take a break from editing to iron out a few bugs and add a couple of features in Manuscript. In the end this work took me a total of about an hour and ten minutes, so CS2: Pleasant Rest has been loaded up and is now under the microscope. This also means that Manuscript is ready for alpha testing with my faithful alpha tester AKA my mum.

I wrote the first draft of CS1 in 2010 during the annual nano bunfight. The first draft of CS2 came this year. I've completed a lot of writing in the meanwhile. Some of it is invisible in a fiction sense because it was RP manuals but all of it counts. I'm exactly as bad with my over use of the qualifier "just" when in full flow but otherwise the shape of the language in CS2 is way ahead of CS1.

That's not at all to say that I'm ploughing through at high speed, there are still many gotchas to be identified and corrected. However, I am not finding the same repetitive rhythm that I was shocked to discover in CS1. It could also be the difference between punting out something for Nano and being allowed to get through at my own rate. Even so, I've managed circa 130,000 words of fiction this year so far. Not a bad amount with a day job vying for my attention.

I'm off to indulge my new C&C Alliances habit, cook a spaghetti bolognese, eat it with the Mrs and hopefully unwind. Hopefully I'll be able to link through to my latest BTS article soon, watch this space.