Hey there! Want to see a couple of really rough attempts at covers for the next book? Zip on over to my LJ and check it out!
http://joncwriter.livejournal.com/905858.html
These are just a few rough ideas I had, and they may or may not be the final covers, but there’s definitely a bit of a theme going. 🙂
I’ve been seeing a few articles here and there lately, both old and new, about the business of self-publishing. They’ll come from both sides of the conversation. Some say the field has never been more robust and user-friendly, so it’s worth checking out; others will admit that it’s a viable avenue, but hint that you’re probably better off building up patience and going pro. [I usually avoid the oh god don’t do it, you’ll shoot yourself in the foot and will NEVER BE A LEGITIMATE WRITER EVER articles. In fact I usually avoid any article that hints that Everything Is Ruined Forever.]
I’ll admit, it’s not for the weak, and it’s not for the Day Tripper either. You’ve got to dedicate time, space, and money to it. You’re doing most of the work yourself, or at least farming it out to freelancers, and that doesn’t come free. You’re essentially producing, funding and recording your own album, in musical terms.
But that’s not to say that the non-writing part of it is like pulling teeth, especially if you’re going it completely alone like I am. It’s career knowledge, and it will definitely come in handy down the road, even if you end up going pro and signing with a publisher and/or an agent.
Formatting can be a tricky bastard, both for e-books and physical books. Both have their own idiosyncrasies that need to be ironed out and tamed before they should be sent out into the wild. Editing is just as tricky; there’s a reason writers joke about reading their own work using their Editor Brain rather than their Writer Brain. The cover may not be tricky to put together, but you certainly need to have an artist’s eye (and again, not the Writer Brain looking at it). In essence, you’re looking at the same object from multiple and often conflicting angles.
As I’ve said here before, I haven’t been doing all the work on the Bridgetown Trilogy on my own because I don’t trust outsiders toying with my work (or worse, that I think I can do it so much better than the pros). I’ve been doing it because I want to. I want to learn how to do it, and how to do it right. Okay, I admit, there’s a streak of selfishness there, that I enjoy being self-taught rather than shown how to do it, because that’s how I understand it more fully and completely. But the point remains: it can be done, if you’re willing to dedicate the time and faith to it.
After all, that’s the whole trick to writing, isn’t it?
YES! The galley edit for A Division of Souls is finally DONE. Which means all I need to do is do one final reformat and cleanup, upload the new file, and the print version will be available at CreateSpace for all to ogle at and buy.
In the meantime, Things I’ve Learned Via Self-Publishing So Far:
–Preparing the e-book is a hell of a lot easier than the print version. E-book formatting entails fewer fiddly bits. Create and upload cover, create a hyperlinked table of contents, fix any typos and errors, basically do what the Smashwords site suggests. Boom, done.
–Formatting the print version, on the other hand, entails the following: create a wraparound cover, write the back cover summary, delete the table of contents, right justification of the main novel, order a proof copy for galley editing, fix the kerning errors that come from right justification, fix orphan paragraph screwiness, make informed decision about the font and line spacing (Garamond 12 with 1.15 line spacing works just dandy), etc etc etc.
–On the plus side, do the e-book first: that way you’ve already got most of the heavy work done, leaving you with just the reformatting, cover creation and galley editing.
–Selling yourself on various platforms really does boil down to trying to get on that impulse-buy table, and keeping yourself visible. Sales are currently dead for ADoS all around at the moment, but that’s mainly because I’ve been avoiding the sales part of things while working on the galley edit (and the TPoM e-book edit). But when I was briefly featured on NoiseTrade Books, I got a good couple hundred downloads, and that ain’t bad at all.
–I still really don’t like sales, but it’s a necessary evil. It’s gotta be done, so I’ll do it. Even if I hate it.
–The galley edit goes a lot quicker if, y’know, you actually work on it.
–Related, if you’ve got an extremely full plate already and it’s the December holiday season, it’s kind of understandable if it falls by the wayside. As long as you pick it up again.
–I really like the quick turnaround time between creation and release. I mean really like it. It makes the nonconformist rebel in me all giddy. Granted, I need to keep in mind that that’s no excuse for releasing a steaming bowl of crap. We will sell no wine before it’s time, in other words.
–I just seriously aged myself there with that last sentence. I’m turning 45 in a few weeks, so I suppose it can’t be helped.
2015 was definitely a banner year for me. One of my best writing years in a long time.
I trunked a majority of dead story ideas and created a number of new ones to work on in the future. That was a big move for me; finally letting go of stories that no longer sang to me, and making the decision not to revive them. That’s always a tough move for a writer, but it has to be done to clean house, so to speak, to make way for newer and more robust ideas. By retiring many of these stories, I’ve given myself more room to focus on the new Mendaihu Universe story, as well as others not in that universe.
I was more consistent with my other creative endeavors that aren’t exactly for public consumption (yet): writing daily journal entries, photography, poetry, artwork, and playing guitar. Are these ever going to be shared elsewhere? Who knows…I’m not aiming to be a semipro poet, artist, photographer or musician for the moment, as these are personal and not professional projects. Things I do purely for selfish enjoyment. I’m able to push myself and get better at them without having an expected plateau to hit.
I hit one of my highest goals of seeing the trilogy out in the wild by self-releasing A Division of Souls as an e-book (and soon to be available as a trade paperback). I was also included in Uniquely North Quabbin, a collection of essays about the area of Massachusetts where I grew up. The trilogy was an extremely long term project for me (spanning over a decade, technically over two), so releasing it has very much given me a sense of closure. I can finally move on to new projects, both within the MU and elsewhere.
So what does 2016 hold for me?
On the professional end of things, I’ve already made the choice to have at least three books to be self-released next year: the second and third book of the trilogy, The Persistence of Memories and The Balance of Light; and my memoir/music book Walk in Silence. I’ve been working on all three since October, just after I released A Division of Souls, so I’m still on schedule to see these come to fruition. TPoM should arrive early next year, WiS sometime late spring or early summer, and TBoL by autumn.
After that, my writing calendar will be disturbingly, frighteningly clear for the first time in ages.
Which means that I should look for another project to focus on. If I’ve learned anything from the trilogy project, it’s that I now understand the level of dedication and focus I should give to my writing. Whatever project comes next will be given that same amount of dedication and focus.
Do I have ideas? Yes I do! There’s the new Mendaihu Universe novel that’s currently on pause while I get its related novels out. This one probably won’t see the public eye until 2017. Then there’s the musical family idea (aka The Lidwells Story) that’s also on the backburner. That one’s a compact standalone, and a very rough draft has already been written via my daily words earlier this year, so this one could very well be another quick turnaround.
But other than that? It’s wide open. I’m as curious as you are about what I’ll write next.
Speaking of daily words, I’m hoping to return to writing them via the 750 Words website in the new year, especially now that I’ll have more time for them. This is where many of my recent ideas have arrived on the scene, so I think I’d be remiss in passing it up. The key is to not be stressed out about it. The point is not to ensure I write 750 or more words on a daily basis, but to exercise my imagination and have fun with it.
I haven’t updated my whiteboard schedule yet, but I usually end up doing that on January 1, so you’ll see that post tomorrow. Oh! And speaking of updates…I plan to have a much tighter and more frequent schedule here at Welcome to Bridgetown as well as Walk in Silence. Maybe one or two posts a week for starters, but I’d like to expand on that later on. I’d like to expand on the subjects I write about as well. As much as I love talking about college radio or how I write, I’d like to investigate different avenues related to writing and music. Different genres, different processes, that sort of thing.
Other than that, I’m going to revel in the fact that the road looks much clearer than it has in years. I want 2016 to be the Year of New Things. I’m really looking forward to where it takes me.
My cellphone battery went on the fritz the other day, so for the first time in I’m not sure how long, I haven’t had my cell with me when going out somewhere. No looking up my book shopping list that I have saved to Dropbox, no checking Twitter while we wait for our food at restaurants, no checking in to Swarm, no reading what few news sites I still actually read with any regularity. I’ve had to make do with analog diversions such as the local paper or whatever’s playing on the big screen above the tables. Or, y’know, talking to people.
I was able to enjoy yesterday’s errands without distraction or needing to get somewhere or find something specific. I spent an hour or so at Green Apple Books (I had a few items to pick up that we’d ordered), did a bit of shopping close by, and stopped at Café La Flore for lunch. My only entertainment while eating was a writing magazine I’d picked up.
I’ll be honest, I already knew that I’m online way too much. Working from home, I have my work laptop at one end of my desk, and at the other end of it is my home PC, where I’ll distract myself with some online radio station, my Twitter feed, my email, YouTube, or whatever else might be going on. I’ve already made a conscious effort to lessen my dependency on social media and newsfeeds, especially when I sense that I’m about to be irritated or annoyed at something currently trending. Again, it’s the white noise — it tires me out, and I don’t feel like adding to it anymore. So I’ll close whatever tabs I have open, save the radio station (or my music player), and do something offline. I’ve also made it a point to use my work breaks for longhand writing, which forces me to cut screen time as well.
Yesterday’s errand-running up Clement Street was definitely a nice diversion, especially since it forced me to think of other ways to distract myself other than via my cellphone. And more to the point, it was a reminder that being online really is a bit of an addiction, at least for me. The good thing is that I’m aware of it, that it cuts into my personal time and my writing time, and that I’ve been doing things to combat it. I make time for things, because I know that in reality, most of the things I want to do don’t take that long at all. A bit of guitar noodling? Working on my art? Writing in my journal? Writing a poem? Surely I can afford to take an hour or so out of my day to dedicate to those projects. Lately, I’ve been noticing just how true that is, once distraction has been taken away.
And without a cellphone (which, let’s be honest, I use mainly to go online, and not to call anyone), I’m finding myself with more time on my hands, connecting to the world in a different way. It’s slower and there’s less novelty to it, but that’s just fine. I get to enjoy the Zen-like quality of people-watching and letting my thoughts percolate for a bit. I get to listen to the world a little more closely. Overhearing interesting snippets of conversations and pondering what the context may be. Noticing habits, personal tics, cultural quirks. Thinking about why people do what they do. Letting it all enter my memory without having to take pictures of it. Everything that goes into character development and world building.
Am I going to keep this up, once I finally get my replacement battery? Who knows. But for now I’m just going to continue with this acoustic living for a bit longer. I’ve really come to enjoy it.
Hiya!
Thanks for your patience…I’ve been all kinds of busy doing too many things as of late, but thankfully a handful of said things have been writing related! To wit:
The line edit of The Persistence of Memories is about halfway done. This one’s taking a bit longer than expected, but I hope to get this one out sometime early in the new year. It’s a bit longer than ADoS, but it’s actually shorter than it once was thanks to some heavy editing.
The cover for The Persistence of Memories is still in debate phase. So many cover ideas, but none are gelling just yet! The three books have a color theme: ADoS was to indicate late evening, thus the city glow. TPoM is to have a much darker cover, signifying past-midnight; The Balance of Light is to be brighter than the other two, signifying morning. I’ll have a few outtakes for you in the new year once I have more of a solid idea!
The physical book for A Division of Souls should be ready by January. This one’s been tough, as I had to wait for A. to finish reading and suggest any edits, plus there’s a lot of weird formatting bits that I had to work my way through. Thankfully I’ve figured them out, so at this point it’s a matter of doing the edits and uploading to KDP. As an aside, the new (non-format) edits will also make their way to the e-book as well for consistency.
Longhand work on Walk in Silence continues apace, a few pages at a time. Okay, this one has morphed so many times since its inception quite some years ago, but I’ve finally got it anchored. This version is most likely the latest and last version. It’s not exactly the nonfic book about 80s college radio that I’d originally envisioned (that may be a future book), but that music is still the main backbone. It’s now become a memoir of sorts.
The new (still as yet untitled) Mendaihu Universe story got a reread recently. It’s got some really good ideas, but it’s still very spotty. Once I’m caught up with all my other projects, this one gets shotgun.
So yeah…all this on top of the usual fourth quarter Day Job silliness and other personal events going on. It’s slow going, but I’m getting there! 🙂
Oof! Between the end of Q4 sneaking up on me at the Day Job, and giving myself some insane writing deadlines over the next few months, I don’t have too much time to spare for any blog posts of quality. And I’d rather not post something half-assed here (I mean, aside from the occasional silly fly-by post like this one to let you know I’m still here and functioning) if I can help it. Sorry about that.
Thanks for your patience, I hope to be a little more on track soon! 🙂
One aspect of writing and publishing (self, professional or otherwise) that doesn’t always get talked about is the subject of editions. To tell the truth, it’s kind of a boring subject, not to mention it’s one that the writer and publisher doesn’t always want to talk about, for various reasons. With professional publishing, the idea of a second edition is sometimes seen as a distant hope; the publishing house only goes into multiple editions once it’s seen that the book is a big seller, and that the original run of however-many copies has been accounted for. This happens with much less frequency than one expects; this is also why writers are often super-paranoid about possible errors before it has its first print.
With the self-published writer, especially for one like myself that’s just starting out, one might not want to tell one and all, “Hey, I have a new edition of my book/e-book available!”, for the reason that it could be read as “hey, I just uploaded the latest version of my book, which doesn’t have bad formatting and other embarrassing mistakes!” It’s better just upload the new version and just keep it on the QT, and hope no one noticed.
But new editions of your self-published e-book don’t necessarily have to be a bad, embarrassing thing. Well — for the first edition of the physical book you should at least make sure that the formatting is tight and there’s no weird errors, but that’s another post entirely. [This is the main reasons A Division of Souls is still e-book only at this time. I’m about to start in with the Big Galley Fix starting today, so hopefully within the next few weeks it will finally be available at Amazon.] But future uploaded versions of your already-released book doesn’t always have to be a bad thing.
Upon finishing her reading of the ADoS galley, my wife stated that I have to go on a strict diet of NO ELLIPSES. I will totally cop to using that punctuation WAY too much (that, em dashes, and italics), to the point that I’ve trained myself to cut them nearly 99% of the time in future editing projects. The Persistence of Memories doesn’t have nearly as many as ADoS did, but I’ve managed to quash nearly all of them. Most of them are hiding in dialogue, where I want the client to…well…you know…kind of avoid having to reveal something they need to reveal, but it can also slow down the flow considerably. I’ve learned to use when and where necessary, and only then.
She also mentioned that, since it contains a large cast, some of which are mentioned early on but not mentioned again for some time. I’d been on the fence on this one, to tell the truth. Luckily, among all the notes and outtakes for the Mendaihu Universe is a solid dramatis personae that I can add before the main text.
The next edition of ADoS will contain a few formatting errors I missed (such as the Case of the Curiously Vanishing Pilcrow), some minor edits, a dramatis personae, as well as the deletion of a number of said ellipses. The cover will remain the same for the e-book, but still want to toy around with the spine for the physical book, as I’m still not happy with it.
Will this lessen the worth of the book? In terms of self-publishing: not entirely. The mistake made here is the belief that once you have the book out there, for good or ill, it’s out in publish and any mistakes will be points off your credibility. I made peace with that some time ago; I still find glaring formatting and editing errors in professionally published books, which just goes to prove we’re never dead-on perfect the first time out. While it’s great to want your best work out there, focus on the story and the execution mostly, and do your best with the editing and formatting. We readers will forgive you if your character’s name is spelled Rbfrit instead of Robert in exactly one place on page 276. It happens.
Again with the music parallel: you’re re-releasing your album because it’s been remastered, not because you hated your vocals on a few tracks and chose to completely rerecord them. You’re reuploading the album because Jimmy hit a bum bass note on Track 8 and a quick ProTools edit made it go away. In short, you’ve already uploaded some of your best work to date; you’re just making it even better this time out. [And believe you me, there are some fans out there who will buy the ‘remastered’ version — and I’m talking books now, not music. If they enjoy the story that much, they’ll have your back.]
So yes — don’t be afraid if you see a minor error in your self-published book. Go right ahead and make those fixes and reupload the file to whatever platform you’re using. It’s totally up to you if you want to make it publicly known that it’s a new edition, but don’t fear it. Use it to your advantage.
One of my biggest worries when it comes to the Mendaihu Universe novels, to be honest, is that it would be taken as a ‘religious’ novel, or that it would be mistaken for a soapbox for my own ideas on spirituality. Granted, the novels have a heavy amount of spirituality, belief and faith involved in the world building, so it might happen yet.
Thankfully my worries have been misplaced so far.
The whole idea of using spirituality in the MU is not to preach or to proselytize, but to imagine a reality in which a belief system, its tenets, miracles, and everything else is not only real, but a natural part of society. Like the use of spiritual chakra energy as a source of power and strength in anime like Dragonball Z or Naruto, the enlightened people of the MU use their spirit energy for many useful things: innerspeak (clairaudience), physical sensing (clairsentience), reality seeing (claircognizance), and so on. More to the point, these abilities are part and parcel of Meraladian life — innerspeak is the ‘silent half’ of the Anjshé language, where the intent is projected psychically while the words are spoken, for instance. All these abilities are from ‘within’ — that is, their souls. It’s a part of their life organically as well as spiritually.
That’s not to say that I’m ignoring zealotry and bigotry, of course. There are characters from ADoS forward who use cultural bigotry, even if their reasoning for it is an innocent (to them) ‘you wouldn’t understand’. The new as-yet-unnamed MU novel reveals a new generation of believers of the One of All Sacred who think of themselves as a special enlightened class personally chosen by their deity — something Denni Johnson would have been horrified to see. There are those who are committed to their version of their belief, regardless as to whether it conforms to reality.
I will admit that the terrorism that we’ve witnessed in the past twenty years or so (including the past few days) has been a bit of an influence in this universe as well. The Mendaihu and Shenaihu both contain extremists in their ranks (the kiralla and the nuhm’ndah, respectively), and both have their physical embodiments of such extremism. But as with everything in this universe, nothing is ever black and white, good and evil, and the MU is no different. There are gray areas, where the best of intentions lead to bad conclusions, and vice versa. This is precisely why the Bridgetown Trilogy is not about good triumphing over evil, but about doing the right thing, despite overwhelming outside influence. And this is also why I chose to paint both sides as fallible. Both sides have had blood on their hands at some point in their histories. Neither is without sin.
I’ll also admit I’ve been thinking about this since Friday, after the events that took place in Paris. Understandably I was shocked by the terrorism that unfolded, but I was also equally as shocked by the white noise that followed in social media — the blaming of an entire religion (or all religion, for that matter), the puerile political taunting, the ‘how can you feel bad when [x] is happening elsewhere’ shaming, and the reactive surface emotions of revenge and vilification. That white noise, thankfully, has receded somewhat over the weekend. As they say, cooler heads prevail. I also saw a beautiful outpouring of compassion and love coming from the same channels, and those are the voices that have remained as the others have begun to die away.
And this, by far, was the hardest part of writing the Bridgetown Trilogy: trying to make the events of the novels a global spiritual and religious event, and not something that only the main characters are feeling. I felt that it needed much more than just the population reacting like they were in a Michael Bay film, running away from explosions in glorious slo-mo. I wanted a more realistic reaction: This is really happening. I’m angry/sad/terrified, but I’m not helpless. I will either stay and fight (accept the personal awakening) or take flight and protect those I love (refuse a personal awakening). The trick was to passively show these nameless background people reacting, even if it was in just a sentence or two. The reader sees this three times in the first few chapters of ADoS: via clairaudience when Nehalé performs the Awakening ritual and senses everyone’s reaction; offscreen, with Nick and Sheila mentioning the number of witnesses they’ve spoken with just after the ritual; and onscreen, when Poe passes a car on the highway on the way to the Crest and notices how eager its occupants are to get out of town. I pepper these throughout the three books; just a mention or two to remind the reader that the rest of the world is out there, and they’ve been affected as well.
As a writer of fiction, I’m not going to claim my way is the best way to see reality, nor am I trying to push a message. I’m merely telling a story and unfolding it the best and truest way I know how. I can only hope that what the reader gets out of it is entertainment, and maybe something to think about as well.
So! It’s been two months and change since I released A Division of Souls, and it’s been quite an interesting road so far. The movement of ADoS has been fascinating. I’ll be adjusting the price again pretty soon, and looking for more avenues in which to advertise or share it. We shall see. On the plus side, my decision to make it available at NoiseTrade Books has come up trumps! It’s leveled off a bit, but I’m still getting maybe one or two downloads daily. Go me!
Meanwhile, I’m about a third of the way through this final edit and it’s taking a little bit longer than expected, but I’m getting there. Most of the fixes have been in deleting a lot of extraneous words and revising a few others. No major issues…yet! (knock wood) I’m still aiming for early 2016 for the release of this one. I shall of course keep you all updated!
So! In the meantime, I’ve decided to let you take a peek at the first chapter of The Persistence of Memories while you wait, hiding just below the jump. It takes place just a few days after the finale of ADoS. I hope you like it!
And again…thank you all for checking out the book. Y’all are still awesome! [And a special shout-out to those from my hometown who may have seen my pasty face in the local paper a few days ago. Hi there to you too! And thanks for the well-wishes!]
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Welcome to Bridgetown 