Category Archives: Publishing

Publishing, Writing, Method

The Audio Book Process

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Last night I posted both of my published books, Induction and Transformation, on ACX (Audiobook Creation Exchange) to get the ball rolling for an audio book format. Late last night in fact. It was suggested by the forms I filled out that I include marketing information as well as info about the books. In the end I just included a brief summary of where the books are available for sale. I’m such a new writer, and not J.K. Rowling, that there’s little point in trying to brag about sales, followers, or popularity. Apparently that was good enough because there are already auditions for both books. This is a very promising start to a process that is completely new to me. Here’s hoping things continue going this smoothly.

The breakdown of the process is this (just for ACX of course):

  • Decide to put a book/story/etc up to be produced in audio format
  • Fill out the title info including info about the work, reader voice preferences, etc
  • Decide on royalty format
  • Submit the info and open your work to auditions
  • Review auditions
  • Accept preferred audition.
  • Producer will create a 15 minute initial sample of your work
  • Approve or Disapprove the sample (Disapproval requires submitting change requests)
  • Producer finishes audio version of your work by agreed upon date
  • Final approval of work (with any necessary changes)
  • Audio version goes on sale (with ACX it sells on Audible, iTunes, and Amazon)

 

It’s a pretty straightforward process, and unlike most software licenses I sat down and ready every bit of fine print before agreeing to the terms. My favorite parts of the terms were that the Author or owner of rights to the work retain those rights and that the standard contract term is just 7 years. Both of those are very important to me after reading about all of the horror stories of authors who signed away their rights to traditional publishing companies for life. All in all I am incredibly excited to be doing this and exploring yet another avenue for getting my work out into the world. It just goes to show that with these new tools and sites anyone can make their dream of publishing come true.

 

If you like these and other posts, feel free to check out my other work:

Fiction on Tumblr: http://fuzzynerdcorner.tumblr.com/

Fiction on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fuzzynerd?ty=a (Some activity requires Patron Status.)

Live Writing, Editing, and other videos: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFZHBRlGb3-RFEr2BXQPi-Q

If you’d like to help a budding author you can also support me on Patreon:

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Life, Patreon, Publishing, Writing, Imagination, Inspiration, Method, Career, General

New Book Published!

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Super excited to finally have my second book, Transformation, published and on sale!  It was a long time coming but it finally came together. This time was definitely easier as far as the actual publishing process goes. Just a few minor issues with things I’d managed to forget between my first book and this one. As usual the Smashwords edition is giving me the most problems but I’ll have time today to sit down and fix them.

Once that is done I can focus exclusively on Avatars & Identity and getting it done. I have a couple of people reading it as I go along and so far it’s my most exciting story yet. I find that funny since it’s the book I’ve struggled with the most. Not to mention the majority of it was written very quickly in the first half of November 2014. It’s been nice taking a break from Stephen’s story to try something different. Lately though I’ve been missing the old gang so I’m also looking forward to getting back to them and finishing off my first trilogy.

On the school front I’m looking into the various writing opportunities available here. I’ve discovered we have an excellent fellowship program for graduates, though I don’t hold out much hope of getting a slot. There are apparently well over 600 applicants for the 6 spots each year. Still won’t hurt to try. I’m also talking with the English department about putting together some kind of information packet or workshop on self-publishing since that is a very new and valid option for budding authors (or even long time authors for that matter).

All in all it’s been very busy but very productive and I’m feeling much better about my situation in general. No idea yet if this whole writing full-time thing will pan out but I’m making progress building up my body of work. I’m also discovering that I enjoy writing poetry a whole lot more these days than I did waaaaay back in high school so that is yet another avenue I will be exploring.

Onward and upward!

 

 

If you like these and other posts, feel free to check out my other work:

Fiction on Tumblr: http://fuzzynerdcorner.tumblr.com/

Fiction on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fuzzynerd?ty=a (Some activity requires Patron Status.)

If you’d like to help a budding author you can also support me on Patreon:

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General, Life, Publishing, Writing, Live Writing, Method, Uncategorized

The Novel Continues

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Another week of class just about done with another two live writing sessions complete. Finished up chapter 15 of my NaNoWriMo 2014 novel Avatars & Identity today. The past three days have seen more writing on my part on the book than I’ve managed to do in the last month. I’ve muddled past another difficult story section and I only have a few major plot points left to hit. I’m not holding myself to the 50k word target for NaNoWriMo for this story though. It will be how ever long it ends up being.

The physical proofs for Transformation came in today. I’ll finish reviewing tomorrow, a last check to make sure everything is good before approving the book to go live. Very excited to finally have the second book done!

Publishing, Writing, Inspiration, Career, General, Life

A Long and Terrifying Silence

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

It’s been over a month since my last post here. It’s been only a little less time since I put any serious time into writing. And yet I think about it every day, multiple times a day. I’m not exactly sure why I stopped writing. I know part of it was being tired. I was tired of the daily posts, status updates, and whatnot. I live with a strange dichotomy within myself in that part of me desperately wants and needs to express myself either through my writing or some other creative means, and an almost equal part of me wants to keep my thoughts and feelings to myself. This is something I have always struggled with. At least I think so. It certainly feels that way.

I’ve got just over 30k words for my NaNo novel. And I’m just kind of stuck. Not because I don’t know what happens next. I do. I’ve been thinking about that a whole lot during this extended break. I’m not sure why I haven’t sat down to keep going then. I know I really don’t like the current scene. It feels off for some reason. I’m tempted to skip ahead and write another part then eventually fill in the missing stuff. Thing is I’ve written both of my full length novels sequentially. I’m not sure how jumping around will turn out for me. But maybe it’s time to give it a shot.

 

Regardless, this kind of lull in my writing has been pretty scary. I question myself daily whether or not I really have the drive and ability to make this my living. There’s no question it’s going to be a long, slow road to even moderate success. Still, this is the hardest I’ve ever been hit by the doubt demons. Here’s hoping I can power through.

Publishing, Reading, Writing, Method

Re-reading (Re-watching, Re-playing, etc.)

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

I’ve only spoken to a couple of friends and acquaintances about re-reading books but the majority have said that they don’t re-read books. The exception seems to be when they’ve stopped reading a series and feel the need to refresh their memory. I’ve always that was strange because I love re-reading books. My favorite is when it’s been long enough (many years usually) that I don’t remember what happens anymore. Or I’ve forgotten some of the bigger plot points. It makes the book an even newer experience. Even if I do remember a book well that won’t stop me from re-reading and re-enjoying it. 🙂

I think one of the reasons I do enjoy re-reading so much is because though the book doesn’t change, my perspective does. As a teenager I had a voracious appetite for book and read a whole bunch. I started on Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time epic when I was 12 or so and there were only a couple of books in the series. Admittedly they were a tough read for a kid my age but I muddled through and really loved the books. Other favorite authors of my youth are David Eddings, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Mercedes Lackey. I’ve added plenty of other favorite authors but sometimes I just want to read something I loved reading previously. And the amazing thing is that I get something new out of them every time. Every time I re-read one of those books I’m at a different point in my life with different things influencing how I read and process the books.

Probably the biggest differences looking back are my shift into real maturity (something I’ve only managed to just barely snag in the past decade) and now that I’m writing for a living. As an adult my tastes have changed somewhat and I find I have no patience for situations and things that I may have sympathized with as a teenager. (A big example here would be angst. Having been through my fair share I don’t have a lot of patience for it.) And now as an author I find myself with a split view of everything I read: one as the laid-back reader I’ve always been and one as an author examining word choices, formatting, publishing quirks, etc. It makes for an engaging experience even when I’ve read the book many times before.

Anywho, just some food for thought.

Publishing, Writing, Imagination, Inspiration, Method

Going With Your Gut a.k.a. The Secret to Writing

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

In Short:

To sum it up in case you don’t feel like reading through all of this the secret boils down to one thing: find what works for you. It’s that simple. Which isn’t simple at all because it will likely take a lot of trial and error. I’ve been at it for over a year now and I’m still learning what the best practices are for me. So have patience and keep trying different things until you find a combo that works. Now, on with the show!

In the Beginning:

When I first decided to really make a go at being a writer I spent a whole lot of time doing research on how other writers did their thing. I was looking for a secret or a trick. I wanted to believe there was such a thing. I was pretty disappointed when most authors who shared their processes all said the same thing: there is no trick. No secret. Once I realized that I decided to instead concentrate on the specifics of other writers’ methods and try them out for myself.

Where to Write:

I’d seen plenty of people typing away in coffee shops, restaurants, etc., so I tried those out. They were usually too noisy. I could maybe get ten good minutes of writing before something broke my concentration, and this was while listening to my own music through my ear buds. I tried a library; the seats sucked and people were surprisingly talkative in the quiet section. So the library was a bust. I tried to think of other places I could go but each one was either too public and noisy or didn’t have anywhere to really sit down and type. In the end I wrote my first book sitting on my bed in the tiny room I was renting. It wasn’t ideal because all of my video games, books, and such were right there ready to distract me from my task. I could also only stand sitting on my bed for about a half hour before my legs and butt started going numb. I managed though.

I’ve come to realize that I can write almost anywhere, but my concentration and writing quality will suffer in places with too much noise or distraction. I’ve done writing on planes, in the hospital, at the mechanic, you name it. The real trick when it comes to figuring out where to write is finding a place that is comfortable enough to sit for thirty to sixty minutes and also be able to concentrate for that long. So not really a trick at all. Disappointing I know but still the truth.

How to Write:

This is a biggie and probably more complicated than finding the right spot. The trick to becoming a writer, and this is based on my experience and opinion, is to stick with it long enough to learn how you write best. You can do all of the research, read about every author under the sun and how they do their thing and none of it will help you unless you try all of those methods out. You can buy fancy programs that help you storyboard your ideas, organize your characters, build family trees, and come up with more background than you can shake a stick at. That still won’t get your book or story done. And that’s really the secret. Much like Po learned in Kung Fu Panda, there is no secret ingredient. There’s just you. The writer. You have to sit down and face that blank page or empty document. I was terrified when I realized this. No one could help me write the story in my head. I had all the responsibility for putting my thoughts and ideas down in words. Super scary. Still, there is hope.

There’s another side to this coin, just like there’s two sides to every story. (At least two sides anyway.) So sure, the buck stops with you and nothing will happen unless you do something about it. The flip side is, there’s no wrong way to do it! Probably the most glorious thing about being a writer is the freedom. Good, bad, or ugly, who cares?! You can write whatever you want, however you want to write it. Have some crazy idea to write an erotic thriller about space unicorns who have come to harvest our ear wax? Go for it! (Actually, that sounds pretty hilarious. I might have to play with that one… Ahem, yes well you get the idea.)

When I was a kid I spent hours drawing pictures with my friends and my sister. We would draw whatever came to mind and tell a story about the picture at the same time. We lived in our imagination. Before I started writing I really thought that my creativity was gone. Nothing more than a childhood memory. I was wrong though. I wasn’t gone, it was just rusty and stiff from disuse. I’d let life and adult responsibility crush my imagination for so long that it was a great effort to let it free. It’s still not as easy as I’d like it to be but every time I sit down and write it gets a little easier. So keep at it. Don’t worry about how good your writing is. It will get better and easier the more you practice. Patience and persistence pays off in spades in this line of work.

Keep on Learning (and Reading):

My only other bit of advice is to keep learning about writing and publishing. Self-publishing is definitely a great route to go if getting the attention of traditional publishers is too intimidating or fruitless. A lot of big-name authors are actually going that route because of the full creative freedom and much, much better royalties. Dean Wesley Smith has a metric butt-ton of info on self-publishing and I highly recommend checking his site out (www.deanwesleysmith.com). Also read. Read whatever you want to. Re-read books you loved and see how the experience is from the perspective of a writer. I’m re-reading the entire Anite Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton and I’m noticing a whole lot about her writing style. Not to mention the formatting choices for the book itself. I think it’s important to immerse yourself in books and the writing culture as much as you can. At least as much as your favorite hobby. Writing takes serious effort but it is also seriously rewarding. Anyway, those are just a few of my thoughts on it. Good night and good luck!

 

National Novel Writing Month is just around the corner! Sign up now and get inspired to write: www.nanowrimo.org

 

Unemployment, Writing, Changes, Inspiration, Career, Crowdfunding, General, Life, Patreon, Publishing

So. Much. Change.

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

It’s been a little bit since my last post but I haven’t been idle. Where to begin?

 

The Home Front:

Probably the best news is that my sister has started her chemo treatments and so far that is going well. I know the whole experience has been pretty awful for her but I also know we’re all feeling a little better about the whole situation. The tumor in her neck is already noticeably smaller just three treatments in. Definitely a good sign. We’re not out of the woods yet but the horrible sense of loss and depression have receded. I will be joining her on her next treatment so I’ll get a chance to see firsthand how it is.

As far as the school stuff goes I did manage to get all of the required items to the school just under the wire. I didn’t really think that was going to happen since I was waiting for one transcript that took three months the last time I ordered it. I ordered the new one as soon as we finished moving to Madison but that left less than two months. Surprisingly though it arrived just in time and now I await the school’s decision. I’ll probably be coming in as a junior so that will be nice. I might have one or two lame general requirements left but that’ll be it. I should be able to concentrate on my English – Creative Writing major. I’m actually really excited to have the chance to go back to college full-time. I never thought I’d have another chance when I dropped out back in ’99. I’ll definitely be one of the oldest students in my classes but I don’t mind that. It’ll be fun watching all of the kids run around doing their thing. Here’s hoping I get in next semester.

This Year So Far:

In other news I’ve invested a great deal of time and effort into my writing career over the past month. The print edition of Induction was finalized and is available on Amazon. This is crazy exciting for me. Despite growing up with a just-blossoming Internet I guess I still have a pretty strong connection to the physical world. So when I held a physical proof version of my first book, for the first time, it felt more special and real than when I published the e-book version back in February. I know at times I’m disappointed with my progress so far. I definitely had high hopes and set a very high bar for myself last year. I wanted to have this first trilogy done by December 2014 as well as at least 5 short stories, published individually and as a collection. For a long time it looked like that wasn’t going to happen. Between moving twice, applying to one college and getting in, then having to apply to another as well as the rough time my family and I have all been going through it’s been a crazy busy year. Actually, now that I think about it I guess the progress I have made so far is decent. Plus National Novel Writing Month will be here in just a couple of weeks. Topic change!

NaNoWriMo (Huh?):

National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo (nanowrimo.org) is a yearly contest, sort of, to get people to write a 50k word novel in just one month. Specifically, in November. So people who participate have 30 days to finish the novel. Anyone who manages to finish within the 30 day period wins. It’s free to participate and there are a bunch of groups around the country, and probably in other countries, participating. I found out about it last year but I was already writing my first book and working a day job full-time. I wasn’t about to try a second novel when I wasn’t even sure I could finish the one I was working on. This year is different though. I am currently unemployed and writing full-time. College doesn’t start (as long as I’m accepted) until January and I will hopefully have a little income coming in from my writing in the near future. Enough to get by and still eat at any rate. Hopefully. Maybe.

Anyway, the point is I have the time and strong desire to participate this year. I’ve already signed up and am looking at getting with my local group here in Madison. They already have some tentative events planned and I’m very psyched to get the chance to meet other writers. I know writing is a solitary profession in many ways but just in my short time doing that I have already realized that my writing and my experience writing is better when I can share it with other people. That’s been limited to friends and family so far which means I’m very eager to talk and work with other writers to get their perspectives on writing, the writing life, and life in general.

As for what I will be writing next month, that is still undecided. I was hoping to get some feedback from my Patrons via Patreon regarding which of the ideas I’ve had so far they’d like to see, but that requires having Patrons. (More in the next section.) At this point I’ve got four ideas, two related to my Shrouded world, two not. The third book of the trilogy is out as a possibility because it won’t fit within any reasonable distance of 50k words. Both of the first books ran almost 100k and I’ve got plenty more story to cover. There is another Shrouded World book that’s been on the back burner for almost a year now and that definitely has possibilities. We shall see.

Patreon:

So Patreon is a thing now. I first stumbled across it when I was going through some artwork on an unrelated site. They mentioned I could support them through something called Patreon. I was curious at the time but had other things going on and forgot about it for a couple of weeks. Once I came back to it though I discovered that Patreon is basically ongoing crowd-funding for artists. The amounts pledged, either per month or per fixed unit of work completed, are much smaller than what you see on Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Most start at $1. Looking through the site I found some artists I already followed on YouTube. (Peter Hollins comes to mind immediately. Amazing a cappella music videos.) I loved the idea right then and there. Have someone creating something you love and enjoy? Give a buck a month or whatever and help them pay their bills and eat so they can focus on creating! I’m learning first-hand just how hard it is to concentrate on creating when you’re worried about paying for rent and food. So I decided to join in as well and started my own Patreon page.

It’s been up for less than a week and I don’t have any Patrons yet but I’m hopeful this will be the answer for transitioning from regular 9 to 5 jobs to writing full-time. I will say this though: I am far more motivated every day to keep writing, publishing, reading, researching, and learning. My main passions in life so far have been book and gaming. Now writing has usurped both of those as number one. Not something I could have predicted but it’s something I’m enjoying immensely. Whether or not I’m successful I am definitely enjoying the ride.

 

(EDIT)

So I spazzed out and completely forgot to include links for all of the stuff I’ve been working on. Here they are in no particular order:

Patreon (Seriously, this site is awesome. If I had the money there’s a bunch of artists I would already be supporting.): http://www.patreon.com

My Patreon Page: http://www.patreon.com/fuzzynerd

My new Tumblr blog where I post my free work: http://fuzzynerdcorner.tumblr.com/

I am now also on Twitter: http://twitter.com/FuzzyNerdCorner

National Novel Writing Month Site: http://nanowrimo.org

General, Life, Publishing, Writing

When Bad News Strikes

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

I’ve been out of the game for some time now but I’m finally getting back into the swing of things. I know I don’t have many readers but for those who were wondering my long silence was due to finding out my sister has cancer. It was more than a bit of a shock to us all especially considering just how fast it developed. We have all been dealing with the fallout from that diagnosis for the past month or so. The silver lining here is that it could have been much worse and they caught it early enough the doctors are talking about fully curing her, not just remission.

The funny thing about news like this is how it alters how you think of things. This was the first time someone close to me was diagnosed with something as serious as cancer. My family has its fair share of ailments but cancer really wasn’t one of them. I suppose that made me feel like we’d dodged the bullet. After all we grew up just a block away from a park that harbored a dangerous carcinogen just under the surface but we seemed to be fine. Not to much now. Still, things are not nearly as bad as they could be and we are very hopeful at this point that she will make a fully recovery.

As for my writing the whole cancer thing definitely derailed that for a time. This week was the first time I managed to concentrate enough to finalize the formatting for Induction. As of today the print proofs have shipped and I am very excited to hold my first book in my hands. In a case of interesting timing I finished my second book on the same day I found out about my sister. I haven’t done much with that beyond a quick first edit but I do have it out for a more thorough round of editing and I hope to get it back shortly. Funny enough thanks to all of these delays I was able to include a sample of book 2 in the print and updated digital copies of book 1.

In other news I am working on my application to attend the university here. I am very eager to have access to their Creative Writing curriculum. The community here in town is also very artist, and writer, friendly. All in all college this time around should be a much more rewarding experience.

Career, General, Life, Publishing, Writing, Method

Fun with (Re) Editing

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Managed to finish up the formatting for POD with Induction. It was looking damn sexy. I’d always thought the font used in most print fiction was Times New Roman but it turns out to be Garamond. At least that’s what the templates I’ve received from various sites use and it looks very nice indeed. Had some fun (not really) setting up my Table of Contents in Word. The best part of that is that it’s tied to the chapter headings so even if future edits cause page numbers to change I can just update the TOC and it will automatically fix the numbers. This was my first time setting that up but it was pretty easy. Much like computer programming it takes more work up front but the end result is greatly increased efficiency and accuracy. Things I’ve always appreciated.

So I’m done right? Ready to upload the file and get on with the printing process! Woot! I did one last quick look over the whole thing and realized something was missing. A lot of somethings. It turns out that at some point my Google Docs master copy of the book lost ALL of its italics formatting. This is a huge deal for the book since I used italics to denote thoughts for the main character and a few others. Just re-reading the prologue was confusing because the thoughts are written like dialog but are placed within the paragraphs at the exact point the character is thinking them. Without the italics formatting they are horribly out of place and confusing. The worst part is this is the version currently on sale in electronic format. Yikes! So my main focus now is to re-apply all of the missing formatting in the print version and then make a copy to re-format back to ebook. Le sigh.

I looked at the revision history hoping to find a recent copy with the italics but nope, it’s been this way for months and I just didn’t notice. That’ll teach me to have just one master copy. I’ll check some of the downloaded ones before I get too far with the re-formatting to make sure I don’t have a local backup, but I’m not holding my breath. Ah well. Live and learn.

In the meantime I’m taking a break from the editing spree to slap on the last two coats of whiteboard paint on my office wall. Super excited about that. The first two coats are already on and it looks very promising. Once these last two are done it’s a three day wait for the stuff to cure. Then I get to see if the time and money I’ve put into this was even worth it. This paint has very mixed reviews after all. Here’s hoping!

General, Life, Love, Publishing, Writing, Changes, Imagination, Method

Back from the Break

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

The move is done though we’re not quite done unpacking everything at this point. I have to say that moving an apartment full of four people’s things with just of those people is not a whole lot of fun. I did some counting and discovered that this was something like my 17th move in 14 years. Yikes. I have to say I’m getting pretty sick of it too. I guess that’s what I get for volunteering for the service but I’ve definitely learned my lesson. Never again volunteer yourself! 😉  Anywho, on top of the move we had a road trip to the east coast for a family visit as well as a stop by some friends to say hey and pick up the last of my things. (There were three crates or so I couldn’t fit in my car when I left the coast.)

Now that all of that is done though I’m diving back into the second Shroud novel and I must say I am super happy to be writing again. I don’t know if other writers experience this, but every time I stop writing for a week or more I have this fear that I’m never going to write again. Pretty irrational really but there it is. The worst part about this fear though is it makes me feel really intimidated by my plans for what I want to write and accomplish with said writing. Silly really since I don’t have to magically write ten books in the next ten days or anything. I haven’t managed to write as much as I wanted to in the first year but I’ll definitely have the second book done and published before my first year of writing is done. That’s not bad at all for a noob.

Oh, I’m also really excited about having a room to myself to do my writing in. It’s playing the role of temporary storage until we finish unpacking but I have some awesome plans for it. I picked up a white-board paint kit to turn two of the walls into a giant white board. I’ll be using part of the space as a calendar so I can set and track my writing and publishing deadlines. The rest will be scratch/idea space. I may be a super computer geek but even the larger screens of today just don’t hack it for presenting and working with a whole lot of ideas at once.

Just about done with my writing for today and I actually surprised myself by a sudden turn in the story I had no idea was coming. Two of my main characters were just having a small alone moment together and my plan was for one of them to bring up an uncomfortable subject. Instead they just started making out. I was all, “Whut? That’s not what I meant to happen.” Still, it’s an amazing experience to be writing something, letting the flow come, when BAM! Surprise, your story is going somewhere else. I’m happy with this sudden change though. It’s high time these two got things out in the open.