And this time it’s serious
So, Sarah how is the workshop going? Well… Wonderful and terrible and everywhere in between.
The terrible part comes from my normal relationship with software. Try it, screw it up, try it again, scream, cry, throw fits. Repeat. Somewhere along the line master it and go “oh, this is easy.” I did put a “book” (actually a short story) up on both smashwords and Amazon and, OMG, it’s ugly. I know that my friend Amanda Green WILL read me the riot act about the mess it is. I know, I know, Amanda, but this is how I learn. After I master it, I’ll go back and clean it up. I am starting to understand why you do so much work on these things, though. We’ll talk about it. And eh. It’s probably better than most small presses are kicking up. And if anyone at the workshop with me reads this: I’m really not Diva Bitch From Hell. It’s just how I react to software when I’m learning it. It’s like… Ms. Hide comes out, because I’m so frustrated and don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Normally I’m only HALF Diva Bitch From Hell.
The most enlightening bit was about covers. I THOUGHT I’d mastered that. OMG. I had NO clue. Never mind. Eventually I’ll discuss that, but meanwhile let me say if you’re going to go indie, take Dean W. Smith’s Think Like A Publisher workshop.
The wonderful part is where Dean Wesley Smith has actually convinced me, particularly given my back list, that I can actually make a living from Indie publishing. This doesn’t mean I’m going to completely abandon traditional publishing. I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again, just for the sake of making sure everyone gets this: I’m not abandoning Baen. I could no more do that than I could disown my family. I will work for Toni as long as she wishes me to. There are debts that can’t be paid, and the one I owe Baen for picking me up when no one else would is one of those – without them I wouldn’t be a writer today. This is a debt beyond money, beyond time and beyond qualification. It will never be paid. (Okay, so I come from an honor culture. Live with it.)
Again there is at least one other house, Prime Books (not Prime Crime, which is an imprint of Berkley) which I’ve just started working with. So far I have no complaints about them, and unless they make the process of working with them painful, I’ll probably continue working with them. (They’re doing the vampire musketeers under Sarah Marques – warning for those who are my regular readers, this is strong, strong stuff quite different from the rest of my work. It involves odd sex and… well, just odd. If it’s not the sort of thing you mind, though, you might find it’s my best work. The first book Sword And Blood is scheduled for – I think – next Spring.) There is one other house I wouldn’t mind working for, though I haven’t got around to sending them the proposal yet.
The operative word here is “wouldn’t mind” – I am however becoming convinced that I don’t need traditional publishing to survive (not if I can make this work and as I said, I’m beginning to believe I can.) And that is a completely different ball of wax from what I’ve been doing and going through. I will, eventually, explain all or at least most of the differences, but for now, I’ll say that the most important is mental – and I’ve only started undertaking it.
Okay, first of all, because publishers lived for the “big book”, the one that would “break out” they’ve got into my head and conditioned me to think that way too. They got into my head pre-production, which I’d sort of understood, but not really.
I mean, I’d understood the “you don’t want to write this, it will never sell” bit. All of us have gone through it. But apparently I also have a stop that says “you can’t write this it’s not ‘big’ enough.” Based on this, I’ve shelved a bunch of “sheer fun” space opera ideas. I’ve also shelved a bunch of characters as “objectionable and borderline reprehensible.” Oh, not to me. Not to the readers (I think) but to the publishing gatekeepers.
Now, it’s not so much a matter of popcorn kittens. I mean, you know those, right? Kris linked them. All the kittens (ideas) jumping and you can’t finish anything. This is worse… These are long buried ideas resurfacing, whole novels, novelletes, novellas and short stories. Entire universes and galaxies are springing back from the turf of “thou shalt not” where I had buried them.
I have to finish the three books between hands, the three books I “owe” trad publishing. Because after that I need to budget half my time for self and NRP. Because…
They came from the subconscious. They’re alive. And this time, they want my typing fingers!
According To Hoyt 
Why did I think of “Monsters from the Id”? [Wink]
I wonder if it would be a “good thing” or not if these “monsters” could directly link to your computer? [Very Big Puzzled Smile]
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First, as a member in long-standing of the Bleeding Edge, please allow me to ratify the break-it-to-learn it method. I find it is the fastest route to competence — albeit NOT mastery — in any given subject. You need two traits to make it work — the willingness to look ridiculous, and the ability to learn from failure. Otherwise, it’s a cake-walk. I think.
Not saying there’s no down side, mind…
Second, though why it should matter coming from me, but to serve as an example pour les autres, I have been struggling with the “not big enough” monster for a decade. I think I’m winning, but I do find myself doing my impression of the cinamatiste in the TV commercial who, on seeing the sailing ship-of-the-line explode in HD glory, does a little exploding himself, yelling, “BIGGER!”
But you provide reinforcement to me, for which my thanks. I will finish this first book. Then the next one. If I can keep telling myself that, I might even get the entire series done and be able to move on.
M
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Jon Acuff says that obscurity is a feature, b/c one can screw up and nobody notices except those few friends dragooned into looking her prose. Then after one is an overnight success, she will have worked out all the rookie mistakes in obscurity.
But YOU are not not obscure!
ERGO my suggestion: Line up your closest friends and family and ask them to read the obscure author–Ayahs Torah. Put all your stuff out thru Smashwords using this nom de plume. After your closest friends and family get done beating up your goofs, submit corrected files under your own name.
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I feel your pain. But once it all clicks and you start thinking about what you can do, including covers and interior design, it is so much fun! Best workshop ever for understanding where publishing is right now and how this is a pretty terrific time to be a writer. Though I live in a perpetual state of popcorn kittens now.
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It’s very interesting reading about your projected future in indie publishing, Sarah. I’ll keep following them.
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I know it seems almost impossible I’m considering options and looking before I leap, but the thing to remember here is that I’m still not just under contract, but massively under contract. And there’s only so much haste I can make with that, and until I do get out from under, the indie stuff will crawl, but as soon as I can I mean to try. So… this is forcing me to try before I jump.
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I am wondering how long until the Indie Pub and E-book trends alter the reality of books. I would think the novel might recede as dominant artform of the writing world and shorter forms return on strength (perhaps bringing “magazines” back, as well, in digital realm.) We might even see the return of serialized tale-telling. Whatever. Letting the amount of words required for telling the tale determine the length can only be an improvement over making the # of words required for a novel decide what ideas are brought to fruition.
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That is one of the things we were talking about at least as an option. When I started writing, my natural length seemed to be about 60k words — which makes sense, since I grew up reading the classics of SF which are about that length. I was trained to bring it to about 120k words over several years. I don’t know how to write that short now, but I expect I could learn. I have, twice, written 20k word stories, too. Like, Darkship Thieves, in its very first incarnation started with the hospital scene. I then pushed/pulled it to about 80k and then to 120k. But you can totally see (can’t you?) a novel ending witth the wedding/trip to Earth, and another picking up with her getting burned. Which would make them about 60k novels. Not profitable for trad publishing (cost of printing) but fine for me to put out. In fact — NOT with Thena — but watch for two future history novellas/short novels sometime early next year. Probably will end up around 50k each.
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Amazon has already changed cover design. They used to be rather complicated. Now they are reduced to large title and a single thematic design that can be seen a mile away. Why? I think it’s because those designs are easier to read once the image is shrunk down to thumbnail size.
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While happy to hear you will be writing more by doing the Indy publishing (there is no such thing as too much, or even enough when it comes to stories by authors of your quality) but I am also happy to hear you are going to continue to use traditional publishing also. Call me old-fashioned, but while I do read e-books I prefer dead tree versions when they are available. I load e-books on my blackberry to take with me traveling, and will check out new authors that I am not sure if I will like in e-book format (Baen’s free library is great for this and is probably one of the more major of many reasons why Baen is still thriving) but if I have a choice, when at home I will always read a book in dead-tree format.
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My novels and collections will also have a dead tree edition, even though indie.
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I’m very happy to hear you are going to continue to support the timber industry ;)
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“Try it, screw it up, try it again, scream, cry, throw fits. Repeat.”
I _so_ understand this, Sarah.
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Again, the e-reader plug-ins for InDesign by Adobe work the best IMO.
Once you start using it, it’s easy, and nothing else translates to Kindle well, unless you know a boatload of html and want to code the whole novel which is just…tedious in the extreme.
The cost seems prohibitive, but it only seems that way until you spend a lot of time messing around with other methods.
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Sarah, looked at a sample of the story and, well, it is ugly ;-p
Actually, you need to quit writing in Courrier New and go to either Times New Roman or Georgia or a similar font. Also, Smashwords can do some very, er, interesting things with conversion. So be sure to check the entire story. I’ve seen them switch to all caps mid-way through a title without reason.
Other than that, it sounds like a great seminar. Looking forward to hearing what Dean’s had to say. And, btw, software is your friend. If you are nice to it and tell it you love it, and you don’t throw fits and cuss it, it will do what you want it to. (runs away, laughing)
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Oh, sure, Amanada, it does what _you_ tell it to do. Some of us seem to have problems, with it. Or it with us. Or some basic incompatability.
Garamond looks good on Kindle, IMO. And everyone desgining covers needs to hunt down something (word has one for imbedded pictures) to show you a grayscale version of your picture.
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Computers (and Computer Programs) always do what they are told to do. The problem often is that what they are told to do isn’t what the user wants the Computer/Program to do.
As a one time computer programmer, I’ve been amazed at what computers did with “simple” commands. [Grin]
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Pam, well, I will admit to keeping a very heavy hammer next to my desk just in case the computer gets, er, testy.
As for images and grayscale, GIMP is a good open source image editing program and Photoscape is another, although it is much more limited in what it can do than GIMP.
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Amanda it was times new roman. WEIRD.
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I suspect it got some of the corel code still embedded. I know how to get rid of it but not on the time they gave us…
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Paul, I swear there are programmers out there who take joy in seeing what strange and frustrating things they can make simple commands do. Of course, the fact that the folks who write the manuals have never used the program doesn’t help.
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Well Amanda, sometimes Programmers are surprised by what Computers do with our code.
It is true that some Programmers write “cool code” without thinking about the users or about the people who have to mantain that code.
As for Manuals, besides the problem you mentioned, some manual writers think about all the “cool things” you can do with the program without thinking about the 90% stuff that the users *need* to know about the program.
That’s what I like about the “dummy guides” (or the idiot guides). Those guides talk about the stuff that most people need to know.
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It sounds like there’s a business opportunity here.
I need to brush up on my InDesign skills and start offering book design for kindle conversion at reasonable prices.
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All I’m gonna say is (1) Yay! Go for it! and (2) I hope my input was part of your decisionmaking process.
Regards,
Ric
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I’m disappointed how limited the Kindle really is in book design.
You can get around that by rasterizing your unique funky font chapter headings and inserting them as graphics. That’s what I’m doing, but still, the graphics have to be centered and inline and it’s less than inspiring.
I’m working on some workarounds and cheats. Will share them here. I suspect a lot of kludges will be invented, much like the single pixel invisible gif and tables of the early days of the internet before CSS came along.
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I think we are going to see some killer stuff in the next few years what with the freedom that writers now have to do what they want to do. Because there is a market out there for just about anything, and these markets have been starving.
Wayne
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Yes. The freedom of expression is the loveliest thing about this. There’s also the newfound fellowship of writers. I REALLY must do a post on that. I was reading about Romania yesterday and I realized how we’ve lived kind of like that.
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