Epub the emotional journey

If you follow me on twitter or even on facebook, you may have seen some of the articles I've posted the last couple months, mainly having to do with publishing and writing. I read a string of articles in close succession earlier this month that in so many words, in different ways, said that - yeah epublishing is a big deal right now, but really bookstores and paperbooks are still the majority of the market and if you want to be respected you need to go the traditional route and find an agent, who finds a publisher, who edits your book etc.

I always believed this and held very firmly to this mantra until the last year. Something has broken loose the last couple years in ebooks and I started to wonder - what if I just did it? I was a journalist, freelance writer, graphic designer in previous jobs. The skills to create a book are not out of reach. In fact, I worked with a publisher and actually produced 3 books myself. This is a process I can do. So, like a crack of light under a door in a dark room this idea started seeping into me. I read lots of things that seemed to say this is the future.

Then I stumbled on the articles with my old point of view -- you're only a real author if NY says you are (in so many words). So earlier this month in a fit of panic I sent letters to agents. I think I sent out 4 or 5 via email and I haven't heard anything back. It would be too soon in most cases, but I think they all said something like, "If we don't respond, we're not interested."

But I learned something about myself doing that. As I started working my way through the queries and the requirements, all those old feelings came back. The scary ones I try to bury. They'll never respond, you're not good enough, it'll never work for you, etc. etc. The evil editorial voice in the head.

I contrasted this with how I felt when I "published" my short story myself to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords. The story had been published by a webzine so I already had some sense that it was legit, but be that as it may, I was eccstatic to see the work of my hands, the creation of my mind, and my husband's brillant cover posted out there for all the world to see. I know I'm not going to get rich from it and I know that it's a long way from the respect and bestsellerdom of NYC but it felt good. I felt proud as opposed to the sense of begging and shame I felt from my query letters to agents.

So for now, I walk the epub journey with a clear conscious. I know the respect I long for isn't there but for now I am content. And don't let anybody kid you, there's not an epub out there who wouldn't sign a contract for six figures or more if it was offered by the NYC big dogs!

To post a book by Denise

I spent a good deal of the last couple months researching and reading about posting ebooks. I read a lot of pros, cons, and instructions. Some of the instructions were a year or two old on the internet and didn't really serve a purpose anymore. I decided to stick to new ones. I downloaded the Smashwords Style guide which is a long book-like document and read a few bits of it. This is a case where everyone seems to have a different idea and you eventually have to pick one and try it.

Ultimately, someone on a forum was testing a video that they put on youtube of how to format your book. It's only a 5 minute video, so I invested the time. It's from an author CJ Lyons: How to Format your Ebook Video. 

I found the video easy to follow and clear. It was helpful to see what she meant on screen in Word rather than just read it. Normally I'm a read it and do it person because that is often faster for me. I thought it was helpful and a doable process that did not take hours. Of course this is a short story. I'd have to spend more time eliminating some formatting in my novel (coming soon!) but it does not seem out of reach. I have been a graphic designer in a former life so maybe this stuff is easier for me, but personally I'd recommend trying to do it yourself before you hire someone.

Another tip that was very helpful was to have certain things prepared and ready before you go to upload. I got this tip from John Kremer at this helpful blog. ebook-publishing guide
This was the list I found helpful but he's got lots of other information there too and other links.
Book (preferably in.doc format) – See detailed formatting guidelines below.
Cover picture (in JPG format, max 1200 pixels high)
Short book description (400 characters max)
Proper book description (up to about 2,500 characters)
About the Author summary
Book categories (i.e. Young Adult, Fantasy, etc.)
Decision on selling price of book

Barnes and Noble's Pub It gets the prize for the easiest and most pain free upload-my-book (short story) process. Amazon is a close second but slightly more cumbersome at their kdp website that was hard to find.Find it here. Smashwords I almost skipped because they are a much smaller share of the market (Kobo, Sony, Indies) but they do epub for ibook which meant I needed it if I wanted to see my finished story on my ipad, so I got on board. It was the most cumbersome, the most fussy not liking my formatting etc. They do however have a way to do a coupon so you can give away the book.

I did not see immediately any way to have a free book on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It must be there and I will investigate further.

I downloaded my book from Smashwords since the ipad is the only reader I've got. Looks really good -- except for 2 sentences that seem to be in a different font (and they weren't) -- and it appears to be bold face throughout which it also was not. So a little more investigating to be done, but overall a good look I'm pleased with for a start. Waiting on a friend with a Nook and a Kindle to tell me how they look there and then I will take another look at the formatting.

Honesty in writing

In writing circles you hear a lot about honesty in your writing. It's something that perplexes me and yet in another way I understand it. I'm not sure I've acheived it in all I write yet.

I know they mean sincerity and not forcing things into the story that don't belong just because you want to talk about them subtly. The story needs to be real and hang together in its own storyline skin. I know what they mean and I know when I read something that doesn't follow this rule.

In fiction, however, you're always making it up. I haven't killed anyone (yet) but I make up stories where people get killed. In fact, the tradition I was raised in makes it hard for me -- being true to my own self -- to even put a swear word in a bad guy's mouth. But the bad guy would say the word. It's just that I wouldn't.

I also cry out to God at the slightest hint of challenge or distress. If I was "honest" literally all my characters would do this too. Instead, I must listen to the character and the story and be true to that story as it germinates in my brain. It's hard not to redirect based on something I can hear my mom saying, or my friends saying.

I'm reading a rather fresh tongue in cheek travelogue. I know at times the author has added to the story and yet it is truly in his own voice. I can feel that. It inspires me to try my hand at some bits of honest nonfiction. Okay, if I'm really honest, it would be sarcastic nonfiction.

Perceptions of Time part 2

This is part two of a blog I did earlier about my perception of time and how I struggle with feeling like I'm wasting it or that things/tasks will "take too long." Even now, I am at my day job office without my computer so I'm redeeming the time by blogging on my ipad.

So I surprised myself yesterday. I put on music and did some chores. I did dishes, swept floor in kitchen and hall. It was only 3 songs. So figure an average song is around 3 minutes. In 9 minutes, I did much more than I would have thought would occur in that amount of time.

On the other hand, I tried to quickly go through my email. It took me 5.5 songs to deal with email, not actually do it but disband it to the "to do" "to read" and then a few things I could dispatch instantly. More time than dishes and sweeping and feels maybe like less done.

I did a seminar on writing once and I did an exercise with the class. Something I stole from a class I had been in previously. You take a theme and write on it for 3 minutes and then count the words. You'd be amazed how much of a rough draft you can do and how many words appear on paper. It's so much about just sticking to it or squeeking out some time here and there.

I've been having trouble getting back into a couple writing projects because I feel I'll be interrupted or it's not enough time. It's true that when you've been away from a project for a while it takes a bit longer to find your grove again, but maybe I need to use the small bits of time despite the fact they feel insufficient. I need to write anyway whatever the time frame, but that doesn't come easily to me.

Evolution of a blog

This blog was started originally when I moved to Spain between a few friends and myself to keep in touch and I'm grateful to you who have hung with me on this.

The evolution of which I speak now is that I am creating the pieces of a writing career if I do in fact decide to launch myself in self publishing. Even if I decide ultimately to search out an agent and a traditional publisher having a writers blog, writers page on facebook, a twitter account, and other marketing/contact elements is still essential. So for this I am migrating this blog to be attached to my author page on facebook: "Denise M Hartman."

I will then migrate my day job blog to my personal facebook page. So depending on which part of my life you are interested in, you can choose accordingly.

This blog will feature writing things or perhaps random life things. The day job blog will focus on the video production/religious aspects of that side of my life. So there we have it. The evolution as it now stands.

My first ebook

I have read my first entire book on a reader. It was a light read that only took a couple days and I wanted to put down my reflections on such a momentous moment for me. Things were different and some I liked and some I did not.

I borrowed the book from BookLending.com. That was a very positive experience - after some initial stumbling and not being sure how my book would be delivered to my ipad. Still not sure how, but it was there with almost no fussing. And I'm psyched about still being able to get free books from time to time.

I read on my kindle app for the ipad. It worked well and I had no problems. I noticed an occasional glitch that would eliminate a space between words, but then I notice typos in real books so as we say in Spanish de igual.

I missed the front cover of the book lying around the house when I read a book. I couldn't remember the author's name or the exact title and I couldn't just flip it over to see that. It's like a little of the personality of the thing is missing, but this of course doesn't effect the read or the content. You can click out of the book and see the cover.

I had some reservations about reading in bed. I hate reading magazines in bed; they're so unwieldy and it's hard to see the page when lying down. The ipad actually performed better than I expected or should I say the cover did. The cover acts as a stand so I could balance it on my (ahem) mid section or the mattress.

The angle at which I normally read (not in bed) made one portion of the screen dimmer than the rest, but by no means illegible. I read outside for a bit with a concern that the glare would make it hard but I was in the shade and it didn't bother me. I could see myself reflected in the screen while I read but I forgot about it after a while. That might bother some people though. I guess the dedicated book readers are non-reflective and I can see how that would be nice.

I was trying to flip back through and reference something earlier in the book. Never ever has a paper book given me a spinning wheel signal when I am flipping pages too fast, but I found what I was after.

I miss page numbers and seeing how far along I am in a book. I did discover that there's a way to see how far along percentage-wise and a location number but it is not a page number. I wanted to make some notes for myself and normally I would put down for myself what page number I'm referring to, but a location number seems less tangible or less accessible somehow.

My husband had to help me figure out how to lock my screen. The sensor that flips between horizontal and vertical would get excited and hop around when I was shifting around in my chair and that was quite annoying. Real books don't jump upside down when you're reading them. Once it was locked in place it ceased to be a problem.

I will be doing it again as I am far from bookstores and as we've seen there are going to be fewer bookstores even in the USA to browse. I'm importing a bunch of books too but a limited supply to be sure. I'm already grateful for my ipad as I may run out of paper reading material before my boxes arrive.

A new idea creeping up on me.

I have even in this blog explained the differences between self publishing and traditional publishing and been a proponent of going the traditional way. It garners more respect, especially in publishing, writer circles. Recently from some of the writer ezines, I've seen some articles that are challenging the way I think.

I am beginning to soften my own perspective on self publishing. Two authors I've read of recently are making good money on their books by self publishing ebooks. I think one of them offered print on demand books for a higher cost. Both of these articles featured people who are making so much money on their own that the publishing industry couldn't afford to get a contract with them. They did ebooks and started out with small sales and built up over a few years.

In traditional publishing, authors generally make a very small amount per book. Often under a dollar of the price of paperback actually pays the royalties. Suddenly with self publishing the author can make $3-7 dollars a book or more. It seems fair in this American land of free enterprise that the person who actually wrote the words would make more from them than others.

I have worked in desktop publishing and even laid out a few books for one of my jobs. I feel I do have the technical skill to figure out how to format and design books for epublishing. But my argument against self published books, is also against myself. The books often read as though they need to be edited -- because they DO need to be edited. I don't want to put out a book that reads that way.

So I saw a company that is helping authors who want to do this themselves by letting them chose different items of help from a menu. Just need formatting? $X price. Just need editing, $X price. It's a one time service rather than a percentage of your book for eternity. It's a great idea in this time of evolution in the publishing world.

I'm beginning to consider doing it myself. I will need to pay an editor and I'm not sure if I've got enough of my writing money left. I also am uncertain about my ability to promote myself sufficiently that it would be a successful endeavor. Keeping in mind I still have my day job that has to be sustained. A botched self publishing book would be a kiss of death with the New York publishing houses. They would stay far, far away after that and I don't want to ruin my chances, but it's such a different day. It's worth considering the risk.

Perceptions of time part 1

I have recognized that I and many of my fellow Norte Americanos are obsessed with the idea of wasting time. Particularly in the US, I think we think about this. Me personally, I have started noticing how many things I view as potentially wasting my time. One that feels huge to me is when you have to load software or some random extra computer things. This feels like a huge interruption to what I'm trying to get done. Sometimes what I'm trying to "get done" isn't particularly important, but ask me to upload something on the way to viewing your kid's funny video and you've lost me.

Other things I put aside and don't do instantly because it will "take too long." Now I don't have a magic number for what too long is and I'm often surprised those things can be done more quickly than I realize. A good example of this is when I set the microwave to warm something for 2 minutes. Often  I stand and stare absently out the window for this 2 minutes. While there is nothing wrong with a quiet moment or two of speculation or meditation, occasionally when I'm there with the two minutes ticking on the micro - I'll do a few things around the kitchen. Recently, I washed my two travel mugs by hand and put them away. They lived on the counter for days because I "didn't have time" to clean them. Or maybe I just didn't feel like it, but that's a different blog.

My own perfectionist nature and my own sense of time and it being "wasted" or "stolen" is a challenge I've only recently recognized in my life. I've toyed iwth the idea of timing things. I'm not sure whether to take one day and time every single thing I do (which seems like it would be a pain and waste a lot of time in that one day) or do I take a few weeks and time every kind of event that occurs in a day. This may be something I revisit on and off this year. I feel like if I did this I could prove to myself that a lot of things don't take that long and some of the procrastination isn't really helping.

I read a business organizational book a couple years ago and it recommended when trying to get a desk or email under control, do everything that will only take 2 minutes or less on the spot, right then. Other things that need more attention need to go on an action, call, or project list for an appropriate time. I've tried to do this, but I often start say, responding to an email, and then discover I need to dig into some old emails or find a contact list from a conference, and the envisioned 2 minutes turns into 10 or 15. Or at least that's how it feels. If I timed it, I wonder, would that be true? Or possible is it worse than I imagine? Did it take 30 minutes? So was I wasting my time? Was it important enough to get that much time? (That's probably another blog and another self help book.)

If you were going to time events in your life, which ones would you be most interested to know how much time they took? I think my ipod has a timer, so I thought about using this and documenting a day or  a series of days. Though I sort of imagine "wasting" a lot of time that day putzing around trying to get the timer thing to work. huh.

2 lighter mysteries

I've been doing a lot of travel lately which leads to lots of reading time for me and so I'm struggling this year to keep up with my own commitment to review the books I read. And in an ironic twist, on my last plane ride I was the only one for rows with a real book, therefore, I needed a real light and mine was broken. Everyone else had their personal glow-y readers.


http://www.amazon.com/Grace-Under-Pressure-Manor-Mysteries/dp/0425235211
Grace Under Pressure by Julie Hyzy
 The idea here is a young art historian who has been hired as a assistant curator for a mansion spread from her home town. Grace is in her probationary period of the job when the curator is killed and the pressure mounts. The mansion's owner lives upstairs, the staff is suspicious of grace, and her inherited home is falling apart. She needs to figure out who the bad guy is before she ends up losing her job or herself. I liked Grace and cheered for her along the way.

http://www.haileylind.com/brush-with-death.php
Brush with Death, an art lovers mystery, by Hailey Lind
Hailey Lind actually is a pseudonym for two ladies that write this series. One is an artist, the other a historian, so they make for a variety of information in the story. It's an easy read and they had some hilarious dialogue lines now and then. The mystery is set in California in the Oakland/San Francisco area and this one in a particular graveyard. There were some good hooks of using the graveyard as a specific place. How does this tie to art you might ask? The faux finisher Annie, the protagonist, was repairing a antique ceiling in a columbarium - a sort of mausoleum building but huge. I enjoyed this and didn't have the murderer figured out like I thought I did. This is not the first in the series, but the first one I ran into.

A million miles in a thousand years

By Donald Miller

So I read this book at the recommendation of a friend who is challenging me to go to a new level this year. It's a challenge to discover dreams and understand your desires anew. Well, haven't gone as deep with the entire challenge yet but she recommended reading 3 books with the challenge. This is the first one. I may be one of say 15 people in north America who did not read Blue Like Jazz by the same author. I had no aversion; it just wasn't ever laying around when I was between books. So I have nothing to compare this too.

This personal memoir with a self depreciating tone is entertaining but in this book he's exploring life from the perspective of a screenplay. Don bit by bit decides to add a deeper level of living and adventure to his life because of the exploration of story and what makes a good story. I don't know if this makes sense, but he really develops his own life experiences along with exploring what makes a good screenplay.

I enjoyed this on two levels. As a person who needs to write screenplays and who writes fiction stories, I loved the advice about writing and that Don was looking at it from a fresh perspective since he had not considered this writer advice previously.

The other level was a self exploration of what makes a good life which gives the book an almost self help feel. I don't know if it only did that for me because of the combo of things I'm interested in. I also felt an affirmation of the missionary calling I've been operating under the last eight years. It was good timing for me to have encouragement in my writing and my work life.

It was a fairly light and easy read too that didn't feel imposing. I can recommend it.