The Future and the Past Are Here

Back in 2006, I had a vague idea for a second urban fantasy series. This was before the Kindle had debuted and self-publishing became a practical vocation. At this point in time, I'd only completed three novels, and I was working on Zombie Wedding.

But the idea just wouldn't go away. So I started dabbling. Next thing I knew, I was 40K words into the first book. So I showed the first couple of chapters to a friend.

She pooh-poohed the concept. Said it would never sell. And in all fairness, she was right. It would never have sold to trad publishing.

But she was one of those well-meaning friends. She was trying to help me. She wasn't trying to hurt my feelings. According to her, I needed to write something more marketable, i.e. what she was writing.

Unfortunately, when it comes to art, those kind of friends can do the most damage. I put the story away, and didn't touch it for fourteen years.

Not until I was reorganizing my writing folders last year into what had been published and what hadn't. There were several short stories that have since been published. But that second urban fantasy series was still tucked in the old ideas folder.

I started to read the half-written first novel. And damn, it was pretty freaking good. But it would need some very specific art, not just any old stock photos.

And a month later, I stumbled across an artist who'd be able to pull off the vision in my head. She was already booked solid for the rest of the year. So I begged. A lot. And she finally agreed to do the project, but she couldn't fit me into her schedule for at least a year.

I slapped down my deposit to show I was serious. And she scheduled the first book for this month.

She delivered the ebook cover for the first book this morning. I'm not ready to show it yet. Mainly, because I've got a whole nother series to deliver first. But the artwork tickles me to my toes.

I used to tack covers photos to the bulletin board over my desk. But the new office comes with a multitude of windows. Either I need a stepladder to tack the images over the window or tape them to the window itself. 

It doesn't matter though. I'm looking forward to diving back into this world!

Lessons Learned - Why You Need Links in Your E-Book

A few weeks ago, I picked up Tatooine Ghost as a Kindle Daily Deal. I used to inhale Star Wars novels like cocaine before GK was born. So needless to say, this novel was one of many released during the 21st century that I haven't read.

Honestly, I can say this is one of the better conversions I've seen of a novel that was originally in hardcover. I only noticed one typo. So kudos to Random House for one small grace. Plus, there was a short story starring Chewie, his wife and son. *grin*

But there were some other things that really annoyed me, and this comes under the list of "if you're indie, you probably shouldn't do this":

1) Over half of the file were samples for other Star Wars books. Seriously only 48% of the damn file was the actually novel. One or two samples I could have dealt with, but I lost count of the number of single chapters from separate novels. I felt cheated, even though I know I really wasn't.

2) There were no links to ANY of the e-books that were sampled, much less links to the zillion other Star Wars novels mentioned after the end of Tatooine Ghost. In fact, one of the sample chapters I read involved Leia, Mara and Jaina. I would have downloaded it right then if there was a 'Buy Now' link. But there wasn't.

And I've already forgotten the title of the story.

And I'm in the middle of NaNo, so I probably won't remember to look up the story in December.

See how Random House just lost a sale?

***
I understand if you're going through a distributor, direct links can be a major no-no. But if you're uploading your books directly to Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, etc., you have no reason not to have the links for those particular stores for all of your books. (And you should ALWAYS have a "Additional Books by" section at the end of your e-book!)

For those of you using a central distributor and you can't add specific buy links to your e-book files, make sure you have a link to your website where you have...wait for it...buy links to all the online stores that carry your books!

This is a simple little solution to not lose a sale.

Have I always done this? No. I'm going through my early releases and rectifying this little problem. It means a separate file and conversion for each store, and it's a bit of a pain, but I know the end result will be soooo worth it!

Lessons Learned - Amazon Alert!

No, Jeff Bezos is not raising Amazon's KDP rates.

However, something funky did happen while I was uploading m alter-ego's latest tome over the weekend. I got the "Your Book Is Live" e-mail from Amazon Saturday night, but when I clicked on the page, I got an odd message:

"This book is not available in the United States."

I panicked, double-checked the rights (yep, I clicked on "World"), had DH access the page, and then panicked some more.

DH, trying to be helpful, said, "Have you checked the FAQ?"

His reasonable suggestion pricked a hole in my panic balloon. I stomped downstairs. After an hour of poking around Amazon's website, I found the answer on the Kindle Boards.

Apparently, something occasionally gets out of synch on Amazon's behind the scenes processing. The page isn't fully constructed before the automatic "Live" notification is e-mailed.

Needless to say, the page was active and I'd already made a sale when I got up this morning. All this within the forty-eight hours Amazon says to give them for the item page to go live.

*sigh* I hate that I sounded like one of those people who run around screaming, "Amazon will rape us and eat our babies."

Lessons Learned Part 8 - Refusing to Learn

Currently reading - Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris (HC)

Over the last couple of months, I've run into an interesting phenomenon.  People want to indie publish (I'm talking about some great stories seeing the light of day, which is terrific), but they don't want to take the time to learn HOW.

There's an old saying:  Give a man a fish, he eats one meal. Teach a man to fish, he eats for life.

I don't mind helping folks and getting paid for my time, but I'm also not going to screw people over.  There's LOTS of little fly-by-night operations who'd LOVE to take you and your wallet for a ride.

Which is why I truly believe you need to LEARN and UNDERSTAND some basics like cover art and formatting so you'll know if you're being screwed over.

I'm not against sub-contracting work if it cuts into your writing time.  I have a cover artist who does a hell of better job than me for a reasonable price. But know what the fuck you're actually purchasing.  Learn what needs to be done so you can ask the right questions of your sub-contractor.

Both your wallet and the person who has to clean up the mess later will thank you.

Lessons Learned Part 7 - Double-check Your Shit

Currently (Re)Reading - Gotcha! by Christie Craig (E-book)

A lot of published folk I know are putting out their backlists.  The problem for a lot of them is that they don't have a digital copy.  So they're having to scan their old typewritten manuscripts or paperback copies, and in a lot of cases, they need new artwork because of licensing issues concerning the original covers.  What I'm about to say applies to both new authors and old:

(1)  There's no such thing as a perfect OCR program (at least not yet).

(a) For those who aren't computer geeks, OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition.  Most OCR scanners 'read' each line of text and tries to translate the shapes it 'sees' into a corresponding alphanumeric character in a word processing program.  If the OCR is missing some 'training', it may translate 'K'ehleyr the Klingon' into 'Cpl. Klinger'.

ALWAYS proof-read your text after a scan!  In fact, have a couple of people put eyeballs to the novel.  Then you won't be mocked on various blogs where the bloggers get a thrill out of trashing anyone self-publishing.

(b) Depending on the OCR program, the file may go through a couple of conversions before it gets to your preferred word processing format.  This means you could have invisible formatting characters totally fucking up your file.  I know this sounds like extra work, but I highly recommend using Smashwords founder Mark Coker's nuclear option to make sure you have a clean file.  Yes, it's a pain in the ass to reset indents and re-italicize words, but it beats smacking your head against the wall trying to fix formatting errors on your e-book.

(2) Don't assume public domain art is actually in the public domain.

Sorry to bust your fuzzy bubbles, but people lie on the internet.  ALWAYS double-check rights to a particular piece of art.  An acquaintance got a cease and desist letter from the owner of a particular painting after she used a JPG from a public domain site.  Even better, pay the couple of dollars to license photos or art from a reputable company.  It'll save your ass.

Anybody else have a double-check suggestion?