Now that She Who Comes Forth is fully launched, it’s your last chance to buy the ebook at the special pre-launch price. By next week, you’ll have to part with another dollar or so.
I’m also making price changes to two of the books in the Herbert West Series. So if you’ve been meaning to acquire The Friendship of Mortals, make haste.
On the other hand, if you’re curious about its sequel, Islands of the Gulf Volume 1, The Journey, make a note to check it out next week.
The first of these 2 books is one I cited in my recent post on formatting your book for print publication. It’s really helpful, so here’s your chance to acquire it for free!
I should probably stretch these promotions out but…meh, let’s have some fun. 🙂
Okay, from October 23 to 24 [2 days], the ebook version of How to Print Your Novel with Kindle Direct Publishing and How to Print Non-Fiction with Kindle Direct Publishing will be free on Amazon:
The difference between the two books is that the How to…Novel is pitched at absolute beginners while the How to Non-Fiction is for self-publishers who have to deal with lots of graphics. Oh and the How to Non-Fiction has a new Index of Links at the very back. You can find it by looking at the bottom of the Table of Contents.
If you’re just interested in the KDP side of the equation, both books cover the same information. This includes three appendices that contain information specifically for Aussie authors.
Both how-to books are in colour and fixed layout:
Although you can…
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Okay, authors are advised not to do this — design your own cover images, especially for the printed versions of your books. But I did it. Maybe it was the allure of the forbidden. Or maybe it was inevitable, because this whole writing and publishing adventure started with me telling myself, “Think of it as an exercise, not a commitment. Try it and see what happens.”
When I published my first ebooks, almost a decade ago, my home made cover images were indeed lame. After a couple of years I commissioned excellent professionally designed images, which still grace the four books of my Herbert West Series. They were not inexpensive. (“Good, fast, cheap — pick two!”)
A couple of years ago, I started using Canva, just to see whether it was as easy as some said. After some experimentation, I designed cover images for the four short spinoff stories from my main series, published in 2016. Since I intended to make them perma-free, it didn’t make any sense to pay for cover images, and I was happy with the results, although compared to the professional designs, their amateur origin is evident.
By the time my latest novel, She Who Comes Forth, was ready to come forth, I had designed more than half a dozen images for it. Fooling around with Canva is fun, and was a great way to do something related to my (then) work in progress when I didn’t feel like actually writing. After I finalized my final design, part of me could hardly wait to start on the challenge of incorporating it into a cover for the print version of the novel. This was while I was still waffling about publishing in print at all, and a bit apprehensive at the prospect of formatting the Word doc for POD.
So here we are, a couple of months later, and the print version of SWCF exists. I have ten copies right here, nine of which are still in the box with the Amazon smile. And all in all, I’m pleased with it. (I still have all my hair, too.)
The print book may be purchased at your preferred Amazon outlet. This one, for example. The ebook version of She Who Comes Forth will be available on November 7th, and may be pre-ordered now at a special price.
For those who might be foolhardy bold enough to attempt a similar project, here are a few things I learned that others may find helpful. One thing I’ve noticed about documentation, instructions and “help” pages — sometimes they omit tiny but crucial details. I don’t pretend to be an expert, and many of you may know all that stuff already, or have no desire to get into this type of project, so this is for the rest of you. FYI on DYI.
Word Document Formatting:
Amazon KDP provides a pretty good basic formatting guide. And you can usually find good help pages on the internet for most Word issues. This one, for example, tells you how to set up different headers and footers on odd and even pages.
Here are a few of my own personal tips:
First, find a trad-pubbed (or for that matter, indie-pubbed) book you like the looks of and use it as a model for interior design, preliminary pages, presence/absence of headers and page numbers, etc. Then all you have to do is figure out how to get those effects in your Word document.
Second, make sure your text is perfect (or as close as you can get) before you start formatting. Adding or deleting more than a character or two can mess things up once you’ve inserted Section Breaks, Headers, and Footers.
Third, add your preliminary pages (half-title, title page, epigraph and or dedication pages) and any “extras,” such as the moon glyphs I added to every one of the chapter titles. (They actually represent the moon phases in Luxor, Egypt in 1962 as the story progresses.) Decide on the trim size for your book (6×9 inches, for example), specify the paper size and set the margins. KDP’s “Build Your Book” guide has instructions for these steps, and even little videos you can view as many times as you need to.
Now for the ultimate challenge — Section Breaks, Headers, and Footers. Use the magic of “Save As” before you start, so you have a pristine copy of your document up to that point. If things go wrong, you can scrap the mess and start again without having to go through the process of adding the preliminary pages, setting margins, etc.
Really, once you’ve set up the headers and footers for Chapter 1 (or Prologue, if you have one), it’s a matter of selecting the right type of Section Break between chapters and breaking the link with the Header in the previous section when you want to do something different, like omitting the odd page header from the first page of the new chapter. (See why this can involve hair-tearing and profuse cursing?)
Actually, it seemed to me that the latest version of Word makes the process easier than previous versions. Or maybe it was just because I’d struggled through all this stuff before. Whatever the reason, I found I could rely on a specific sequence of checks and choices as I paged through the document, like a little mental flow chart. It was encouraging to be able to reproduce the desired pattern reliably as I went along.
The title page. I used Canva to create the picture in the middle (a separate little project). Then I inserted it into my Word doc.
Again, do NOT fiddle with anything that affects the space taken up by your text after you insert your Section Breaks, Headers, and Footers. That would be trim size, margins, font size, line spacing, adding or deleting more than a tiny amount of text. Get all that stuff finalized before you start on Section Breaks. If you really need to make any of those changes, return to your “before Section Breaks” document and make the changes there. Once you’re done, Save As, and start over. (Trust me, “Save As” is your friend.)
Finally, before you upload your document to KDP, save a copy in PDF form. That will show you exactly what your printed pages will look like. If there are problems (usually with headers and/or footers), you’ll spot them immediately and can return to your Word doc to fix them. Once everything looks good, you can actually upload your final, perfect PDF to KDP.
For a really thorough how-to guide on the entire print publishing process, I recommend How to Print Your Novel with Kindle Direct Publishing: a step-by-step guide for absolute beginners, by ACFlory. It takes you through the formatting process in detail, with screenshots. This ebook is available on Amazon.
Cover Design:
Anyone who’s comfortable with Canva (and designing images) can create a credible print book cover. You probably wouldn’t want to make this your first experience of Canva (unless you’re a really quick study). Experiment first, getting used to layering images, using transparency, adding text, and moving stuff around. Create some ebook cover images. If you don’t actually have an ebook that needs a cover image, make some for books you mean to write. (The exercise might inspire you.) Once you know you can construct attractive images with the degree of complexity you need, you’re ready to tackle a print book cover.
Before starting, you need an interior book file that’s complete, perfectly formatted, and ready to upload, so you know how many pages your book will have. That determines the width of the spine. Once you know that and have selected a trim size, download a print cover template from Amazon KDP. Go to Canva and start a new project, with customized dimensions exactly right for your cover. I found these instructions by Katherine Roberts very helpful, especially the calculations to set the custom size for your Canva project.
One of the cool things about Canva is that you can upload your own images to use in your designs. This is also where you upload your print cover template from KDP. By incorporating it into your design (temporarily), you can make sure to adhere to KDP’s specs for bleed and barcode placement.
If you use free images from a site like Pixabay for your cover design, remember to download the highest resolution versions. Images that don’t meet Amazon KDP’s fabled 300 dpi standard may cause your cover to be rejected. (This didn’t happen to me, I’m happy to say).
Select a background, and then layer the cover template over it. (My background is that textured ochre colour on the spine.) Then proceed as usual, adding whatever elements you need for your front and back covers. Set the transparency so you can see the cover template and its all-important red border lines. For my cover, the spine was the only place where the cover template was the topmost layer (well, just below the spine text). This was important, because after I was finished adding all the elements, including text, and was certain nothing important was on or outside the red lines, I easily deleted the template. Don’t forget to do that, and do NOT move any text or important image elements once the template is gone. You can change filters, transparency, or colours, but don’t change fonts at this point, because that might change the size of text areas. When you’re done, download the image as a printable PDF, and upload both it and your text PDF to Amazon KDP. And rejoice.
An excellent piece of advice to authors publishing a new book is to add information about it to the back matter of all their existing books.
Easy, right?
Well, it depends…
The back matter is found — well, at the back. Meaning the end of the document. Unless you zoom directly there (Ctrl + End) with your eyes closed, add the description of the new book, save and exit the document, you’ll inevitably notice things. Things like typos, problems with quotation marks, not enough white space, and other details you just wouldn’t find acceptable if you were formatting that document today.
You do a couple of small fixes. Then some larger fixes. Next thing you know, you’re doing a seat-of-the-pants unplanned re-edit and/or reformatting.
I don’t recommend this approach, unless you enjoy chaos.
I’ve just revisited 16 — yes, that’s right, sixteen — Word documents to add info about my latest book to the back matter of my eight published books. The oldest doc was created in 2010, the newest in 2016, using two different computers and different versions of Word. There is a Smashwords document and an Amazon document for each book. The docs are nearly but not quite identical. (In my experience, a Word doc correctly formatted using the Smashwords Style Guide will have no problem being processed by Amazon).
In formatting my latest book (She Who Comes Forth — still on pre-order at a special price, by the way), I rediscovered the magic of creating my own Styles in Word, including a handy one called “No indent,” to be applied to paragraphs whose first line should not be indented — the first paragraph in a new chapter or section, for example. This adds a “professional” touch to the text, and Lord knows we self-published indies need to look professional.
As with so many other features of Word, you have to be careful with Styles. My advice — before you do anything, uncheck the “Automatically update” box in the Modify Style window. It’s disconcerting when you discover that a little tweak in one spot has unintended effects all over the document.
So far, only one of my 16 documents has had problems on upload. It got through the two automated checks on Smashwords’ infamous “Meatgrinder,” but the subsequent detailed review revealed blocks of 14-point text among the intended 12-point. Not pretty.
Fortunately, it didn’t take me long to figure out that my newly-created “No indent” style was at fault. Its definition said Times New Roman 12-point, but I suspect that when I created that style, my cursor was sitting on the one and only instance of 14-point text in the entire document. Every paragraph to which I applied this style ended up as 14-point once it was turned into an Epub. This didn’t show up until I downloaded the Epub and viewed it in Adobe Digital Editions, as the good people at Smashwords advised me to do asap. Because this document had been around since 2010 and jumped the hoops several times over the years, I assumed it was clean. But of course the new style was an add-on.
So here’s my advice, for those who are looking at revisiting the base documents for their ebooks…
Well, I think I’m just about finished with ebook formatting for now. My next challenge — should I decide to take it on — is formatting She Who Comes Forth for print publication. This time I will use KDP, since CreateSpace is no more, but first I have to wrestle a Word document into a proto-book, that will eventually be turned into an actual physical thing. I’ve done it four times already, but not for a couple of years — long enough to forget important details. I anticipate weeks of frustration, distraction, and going around muttering things like “recto,” “verso,” “odd page,” “even page,” “section break,” “keep with next,” various four-letter words, and AAAAARGH!
Where the !@#$ did THAT come from?
Images courtesy of Pixabay
The ebook version of my soon-to-be released novel She Who Comes Forth, is available at a special pre-order price of $2.99 from now until the release date, November 7th, 2018.
This is the work in progress I’ve been blogging about for the past year or two. Finally, it exists as something more than a pile of paper and a bunch of Word docs.
The novel is a standalone sequel to the Herbert West Series. Readers who enjoy a combination of realistic adventure and supernatural elements in an exotic setting — Luxor, Egypt and the Theban Necropolis — may wish to have a look.
October 1962. The developing nuclear missile crisis in Cuba is of no concern to Francesca “France” Leighton. Recently turned 21, France travels from her home in Providence to a job at an archaeological dig in Luxor, Egypt. She takes with her two legacies—an emerald ring from the grandfather she never knew, and an antique cello from his friend, a man she loved like a grandfather.
The dig disappoints. France is relegated to sorting chunks of stone, the dig’s director makes unwanted advances; rivalries and mistrust are everywhere. And it’s too darn hot! Tasked with playing her cello at a gathering of archaeologists, France meets the enigmatic and fascinating nuclear physicist Adam Dexter. She’s smitten, especially when he promises to show her the secrets of Egypt, including a hitherto undiscovered tomb.
After a risky balloon cruise ends in a crash landing, France is forced to leave the dig. Despite warnings against solo explorations on the west bank, she finds herself with Adam Dexter in an eerie house near the Theban Necropolis. Adam’s promises are alluring, but he is both more and less than he seems and his motivations are disturbing. Fleeing his house, France makes a horrifying discovery.
Through an image of Osiris, France discovers the true reason for her presence in the Theban Necropolis. As the world teeters on the brink of nuclear war, she must call upon resources both within and beyond herself to meet the perils that await her in the world of the dead beneath the Western Peak.
Featured image courtesy of Pixabay.
The early decades of the twenty-first century saw a great flowering of the literary arts, due in large part to the advent of self-publishing on the Internet. The writers called themselves Indie Authors. Many of them were members of the so-called Baby Boom generation, born between the end of the Second World War and the nineteen-sixties. With a high degree of literacy and egos inflated by the conviction that they were the first humans to experience anything worthwhile, many of them used their retirement years to write. Literary agents and publishers were overwhelmed by a flood of submissions from these eager wannabees. Mail rooms overflowed with manuscript boxes, fat brown envelopes and SASEs. Rejections issued forth, provoking incredulous disappointment. Technology came to the rescue, providing online publishing platforms that allowed the indies to elbow the weary gatekeepers aside and publish. Millions of ebooks and POD print books issued forth. Savvy entrepreneurs stepped up to provide services to the indies. Blogs multiplied and online literary salons proliferated.
Every now and then, I wonder what future scholars of literature might say about us indie author/publishers. The mainstream of traditional publishing gets lots of attention, but over the past decade, vast numbers of writers have been quietly publishing, blogging, debating, opining, reviewing, interviewing, and ultimately creating a Thing.
Will anyone, in the future, study, write about, and analyze our Thing? What will they call us? The Early 21st Century Indies? The Tsunami of Crap? Boomers Unbound?
Really, though, think about it: we create, we connect, we write and publish. We’re serious and sincere. Aside from the fact that most of this activity is carried on via the internet, there isn’t much difference between the current phenom and the literary movements of history. Salons, pamphlets, feuilletons, little magazines, and literary societies all have their online equivalents. This blog on which I’m holding forth right now continues the tradition of writers and thinkers using whatever means are at hand to share their thoughts.
Who knows what posterity will make of us? We may represent only the very beginning of a larger phenomenon. Or we may be a brief spark that vanishes into the current of history. Will our works be curated and preserved, or will their survival depend on pure accident amid some global catastrophe? To us, right now, it really doesn’t matter. The true value of the indie author movement to us indie authors is the connections we’ve made with one another by creating and sharing our works and ideas.
Let’s keep on creating our Thing, whatever it is!
Book & Brains image created with Canva
Hammer and anvil image courtesy of Pixabay
The Indie Author Manifesto by Mark Coker at Smashwords
I will publish the ebook version of my next novel, until now referred to as “the work in progress,” in November. I’m not sure when in November, but definitely in that month.
The book, now titled She Who Comes Forth, will be available for pre-order early in October.
September and October will be busy months for me, but right now, while the garden bakes in midsummer heat, I’m doing the following:
Hot air balloon image courtesy of Pixabay
In the past, novels had titles for each chapter, sort of like this: Chapter the XXIIIrd, in which Lady Jane drops her handkerchief in the garden and bumps into the wrong person while looking for it.
Not any more. In books — and ebooks — of the present day I generally see Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc. Or simply 1, 2, 3. Sometimes it’s Roman numerals, (I, II, III) or spelled out numbers (One, Two, Three), but that’s about it.
Maybe it’s time to revisit chapter titles.
Books for children have never abandoned chapter titles, and with good reason. They help a reader navigate the book if he or she needs to go back and check something already read in a previous chapter. And chapter titles are a sort of sneak preview, tantalizing without revealing too much.
Having read and published a number of ebooks in the past several years, I’ve realized that looking back for something you’ve already read isn’t easy. Sure, you can search words, but if you want to find a particular scene without a distinctive keyword, you pretty much have to try page numbers at random. That’s harder on the eyes than flipping pages in a printed book. I’ve added linked tables of contents to my ebooks, but that nice list of numbered chapters helps the reader only if they happen to remember that the scene they’re trying to find was in Chapter 5 or whatever.
Chapter titles, being memorable and mnemonic, make it easier to find one’s way around a book. Even short or cryptic titles (The Summons, An Encounter, Danger!) are better landmarks for the reader than numbers alone.
Then there’s that sneak preview aspect. Writers labour over their brief book descriptions to make them enticing without revealing too much. Chapter titles can be a whimsical supplement to the book description. Because they appear in the first few pages, chapter titles are seen by potential readers in ebook samples and previews.
My work in progress, She Who Comes Forth, frequently makes reference to The Egyptian Book of the Dead by E.A. Wallis Budge. It’s not surprising that its sixteen chapter titles were inspired by those in Budge’s work, such as “The Chapter of the Pillow” or “The Chapter of Not Dying a Second Time.”
Here are my chapter titles for She Who Comes Forth
1 The Chapter of Experiencing Departure and Disappointment
2 The Chapter of Experiencing Insult and Injury
3 The Chapter of Entering the Tomb of a King
4 The Chapter of Undertaking a Difficult Task
5 The Chapter of Meeting One Who Is Beautiful
6 The Chapter of Intoxication, of Tardiness and Triumph
7 The Chapter of Eating and Drinking in a Place of Mystery
8 The Chapter of Rising into Air and Falling to Earth
9 The Chapter of Experiencing Unpleasantness and Being Driven Out
10 The Chapter of Making a Crossing to the West
11 The Chapter of Seeking the Right-Handed One
12 The Chapter of a Passage in Darkness
13 The Chapter of the Red Dress and the Sharp Blade
14 The Chapter of the Heart and the Egg
15 The Chapter of Speaking the Truth and Hiding It
16 The Chapter of Going Forth
I had to be in the right frame of mind to make these up — not too serious. The idea is to hint, rather than specify.
After the heavy work of writing and rewriting, making up chapter titles is a way to celebrate and ornament your creation. I recommend it!
Yesterday was the July new moon, which is as good an excuse as any to offer The Herbert West Series Complete ebook box set at reduced prices until the first quarter moon appears.
July 13th through 19th
Amazon USA only
All four volumes at $1.99 to $5.99. Regular price is $7.99. Early birds get the best deals.
Moon image from Pixabay
Those who haven’t seen this yet — author and blogger Don Massenzio is now offering editing and formatting services to indie authors.
I launched my author blog about three years ago and have watched it grow beyond anything I’d hoped. I’ve met many great people as I’ve made some friendships and have helped some authors along the way.
As luck would have it, I lost my day job about two months ago and I’m still in search of regular employment to keep the lights on and put food on the table.
The silver lining that emerged from this is that I’m embarking on a new venture. During the past year, I have edited books for a few select authors as kind of a pilot and test launch of a set of services that I hoped to turn into a business. My extra ‘free time’ and my need to generate some income, I’m launching a book editing/formatting service formally as a separate WordPress site.
For authors that take advantage of these services, I’m…
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Suggestions for days out in Belgium
Gardening IS for everyone.
Capturing the world at hand, the appealing and the appalling, in pictures and in words
Restoring a 17th century home in Ipswich, Massachusetts (on a shoestring).
Immersive Tales for the Curious Traveler
the passions of a science fiction writer
How you see life depends on how you look at things
A Personal Journey through the wild Moors and Mountains of Northern England, Scotland and Wales, in Search of Myths and Legends
On Politics, Entertainment and Culture
Celebrating art, culture, and life in Western Canada
Worlds of Fiction
Writing Magic, Myth and Mystery
Jean M. Cogdell, Author-Writing something worth reading, one word at a time in easy to swallow bite size portions.
The opinions expressed are those of the author. You go get your own opinions.
Smidgens
writing #MR and #FTA fairy tales with a steampunk and mythpunk twist
ecological gardening
The writerly musings of Connie J. Jasperson, author, blogger and medieval renaissance woman.
Blog magazine for lovers of health, food, books, music, humour and life in general
musings on life, love, people, why we're here and where we're going
fiction/essays/poetry
Chantelle Atkins, Author
Author
Mainly non-fiction book reviews. Science, nature, memoirs, history etc. Also fiction
An Arts-Filled, Tasty And Sometimes-Loopy Jaunt Through Life
News and views to inform or amuse
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My Own Paradise: Life on Seven and a Half Acres
Philosophy and Theology
Khemetic research & Sky Religion
Professional Wildlife, Landscape and Seascape Photography
Fantasy Author, Blogger, and Staunch Supporter of the Oxford Comma
Writing Advice from a YA Author Fueled by Chocolate and Green Tea
A journal of my travels in Egypt
WWI as seen in the letters of Sgt GC Roberts MM of the 1/5th Welsh Regiment
Speculative Ideas: Reviews, Essays &c on Speculative Fiction
The everyday adventures of the staff & students of Old College
Ripping the piss since 1888
learning, growing, and learning more -- life on the Olympic Peninsula
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On the Massachusetts North Shore
Echoes of Life, Love and Laughter
Book Humour. A Sideways Perspective on the Bonkers Business of Books
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words, glorious words...
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