Christopher D. Schmitz's Blog, page 19

State of Writing

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I didn’t blog my Monday reports these last couple opportunities. I’ve been a bit swamped with things, including back to back comic cons.

Two weeks ago I had a huge class (like 60 folks) take my indie publishing course (From Idea to Paperback). I was a bit overwhelmed! Usually, whenever I offer one for free there are only a couple who attend, so thank you!

This last week I had a few setbacks. I was doing some recording for one of my two audiobooks in progress and a computer error crashed my software… and I discovered that it had not been autosaving, so I lost a huge amount of work. I’ll begin again this week and my goal is complete the recordings for the next Dekker’s Dozen book this week.

What Happens to My Indie Book When I Die?

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I was working recently with an elderly writer who asked a question I’ve often wondered about. “What happens to my book when I die?” I suppose that’s what prompted me to finally look into the subject. It’s an item that is covered in most publishing contracts… but what about Createspace… the biggest self-publishing outlet? Surely they have experienced this situation.

First things first, an author ought to stipulate rights to his or her intellectual property in a will. It is preferable to do this step before death. Hopefully that joke points to the fact that I am not a lawyer and this post should not be taken as legal advice, but should rather point you in the right direction. Every situation is different; get a lawyer, people.

I shot this question up the chain at Createspace customer service. (FYI, unlike other parts of Amazon, since Createspace focuses on the creators rather than the customer/retail side of business, customer support is typically very responsive and easy to work with.) Here was their response to “What are the proper steps to take for my family/executor of my will when I die?”

In the event of your passing, your estate or heir can open a CreateSpace account with a new payment address or bank account, and we can help them publish your book and sell it through the new account. For security purposes, we will need a copy of the death certificate and legal documentation indicating they own the rights to the account.

It wasn’t quite as detail laden as I’d hoped, so I asked if there is a specific department that heirs should contact. I also should note that logging into/using someone else’s Createspace account is a TOS violation, so it’s good to do everything by the book at this point. Here was their response to what steps to take:

Your next of kin will not be required to log in to your Member Account.

The required documentation can either be faxed to us at (206) 922-5928 or an email can be sent with a picture of the documents attached to info@createspace.com.

They will need to include all current information that is on the new account (first and last name, email address, phone number, etc.).

That does confirm that, for any movement to happen with the files, Createspace will need someplace to move them to. You will need a new Createspace account owned and operated by the new rights holder. You may need to consult a lawyer on how to best proceed, especially if the rights are left to multiple people (those folks may need to form an LLC or company, etc.) Armed with that knowledge, if you only sell a few books annually but want them to remain available to the market after your death, it may be easier to leave the rights to one individual who you trust to make this happen.

I did have one final question for the friendly folks at customer service: What happens if nobody claims those rights?

Please know your book will remain as it is (all the information under your name) on Amazon through CreateSpace if no one claims the rights to the files.

I found that too murky of a response and asked for some clarification…in my mind, I immeidatley saw the potential for a company to keep the profitable books and ideas of deceased authors upon their shelves and, by playing the long game, become the largest recipient of publishing royalties on the planet… like, Lex Luthor meets Jeff Bezos. I did get a response, though, not that it means Bezos is not a top tier super villain:

In the unfortunate even of your death, your book will continue to remain available and royalties will be credited to your CreateSpace account for every sale.

As you have already set-up your royalty payment profile (Check/Bank account details), your royalties will be paid at the end of each month. Payments will be made either via Check to the address or Direct Deposit to the bank you have provided in the payment profile.

Once your next of kin claims your account, royalties will be transferred to his/her account and paid to the kin.

Probably best that you leave at least a notarized letter for your family with all of your info and ensure that you grant all rights to someone (or a group) in order to make a clear chain of ownership for your rights. The best thing to do, if this has any significance to you at all, is to consult your attorney when you make or revise a will. Your book is part of your legacy—preserve it!

Review: A Dead God Awakes

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I got a copy of John White’s fantasy tale, A Dead God Awakes. It’s not really like other fantasy stories. White doesn’t let the normal fantastic archetypes rule his story, and that can be a good thing.

The world building is seamless and immediately you sense the foreignness of it all, but White is able to keep from info-dumping and engages in the narrative while dropping hints about the larger world he has constructed. His writing is good (I noticed a nod to his editor in the front matter for an editor who helped trim the purple prose… White’s writing style echoes of my own, and I know it’s something I’ve battle in the past as well, but its kept to a minimum,) and it has just enough of a flowery ring to make it poetic at times, but not so much as to make it unreadable.

Don’t let this book fool you. There are many seemingly overt nods to classical fantasy tropes (like the names and some of the hierarchy of the world) that make you want to assume epic or high fantasy—everything about this seems to bend your mind towards Sword and Sorcery iconography, and yet it is not. There are many intangibles. It somehow harkens back to my old gaming days when things like Ravenloft were popular, but there is no great comparison. It is somehow so much more.

A Dead God Awakes might be my sleeper pick for fantasy books this year. I don’t think it will get the attention that it deserves, but this book is certainly a phenomenal pick for lovers of dark, original fantasy.

I got a free copy in exchange for a review on Inside the Inkwell Blog.

You can check it out by clicking here!

Interesting Data about Book Buyers’ Habits

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Like all major online services, Bookbub has gathered a lot of useful data from their targeted users.

Also, like most online companies, their data largely points to them, but a lot of the other info is very useful to everyone across the board. I suggest taking a look at their infographics to get an idea on buying habits of consumers.

 

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Review: The Sign of the Sibyl

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I recently picked up Philipp Metzger’s first installment in the Kings of Men series. The book is something of a “portal fantasy” which I’ve read quite a bit of lately. It starts off immediately with worldbuilding that intrigues me: a quest for Atlantis that follows an archaeologist character. It’s not quite Indiana Jones, but I wanted to be an archaeologist when I was a kid (and I think many of us secretly did.) While the story doesn’t stay in that mode for long (it turns into something of an adventure tale within the first few chapters,) the book has set the hook and the stage for Henry Thorpe who befriends Cora and her family as they navigate the ancient intrigues.

Metzger’s writing is good, and he must have done quite a bit of research for this book. It’s not a dry tome filled with facts, however, and there is a real story happening between the characters. Sign of the Sibyl is more historical adventure than historical fiction. Definitely fantasy fiction; definitely fun.

I got a free copy in exchange for a review on Inside the Inkwell Blog.

You can check it out by clicking here!

The Importance of Whitespace

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Whitespace (also called negative space, since it isn’t always necessarily white,) is that stuff between the words… all of that empty nothingness. But it’s more than a gap or wasted paper. There is a psychology behind it and a good reason not to cram every word you can muster into the margins… the chief reason being: it tires your brain out, stresses the eyes, and makes readers put down a would-be page turner.

Famous author G. K Chesterton wrote, “The modern world… pile[s] one thing on top of another, without caring if each thing was crushed in turn.  People forgot that the human soul can enjoy a thing most when there is time to think about it and be thankful for it.  And by crowding things together they lost the sense of surprise; and surprise is the secret of joy.” He might not have been explicitly talking about the psychology of words on paper, but his words really do apply.

Visually speaking, white space provides relief and gives intelligent organization to elements on a page. Think of white space as being in-between characters, between lines, between everything, it’s all white space. The negative space helps separate text elements from each other and helps our brain digest those pieces. Effective use of white space means that you don’t crowd content unless you have an intentional reason (and it had better be good enough to potentially sacrifice quality over). Your goal as a writer (or editor or typesetter, and all of those duties are on the shoulder of Indie authors,) is to enhance readability.

Designer Alvalyn Lundgren notes, “Psychologically, we require white space for comfort’s sake. It helps us understand what we see because it separates information… Without the appropriate use of white space, one thing flows into another with no relief, ideas merge, and the message becomes confusing. When that happens, communication ceases…” This is a concept that has not always been the same and older books tried to cram as many words onto a page as possible. Those older books are, by their nature, more difficult to read. They also didn’t have the same technologies we had today such as word processing. I have actually been inside an old print shop and had the privilege of running the physical typesetting for a day. Having that experience has shown me how/why they did it that way! It was a lot of physical, mechanical labor, and adding design elements like whitespace was not a high priority.

Lundgren likens it to a house. “Think of it in this way: If there was a room in your home where every inch of space was taken up by a piece of furniture, you would be unable to navigate through or use the room. Empty space between furniture is required for the room to be useful. This same concept applies in communication.”

At the few most recent literary conferences I attended agents emphasized the importance of the right balance between narrative and dialogue. The reasoning was because of something they dubbed “information fatigue.” They brought up the psychology of it: that our mind needs those little pauses between the sentences. It helps develop a flow and cadence… without it, it’s like the mental equivalent of exercising without being given a chance to breathe… like being blasted with a hose of nonstop water while you’re trying to catch a breath.

The thing is… we can shut the water off. That’s when readers put the book down.

That’s never our goal, as authors: to make our book difficult enough to read that our audience avoids it entirely. Think about the level of information overload. It is constant. Cell phones ring. Apps send us alerts. Television commercials shift audio volume. All in an attempt to jolt you into seeing their information instead of yours.

I consulted on a book for an older gentleman and he insisted that his book be formatted a certain way that eliminated almost every scrap of whitespace. He wasn’t particularly interested about the psychology behind it. As Indie authors, that is totally up to us! However, we need our information to be as easy to read as possible, so pay attention to where industry norms have gone. Those major publishing houses have sunk billions of dollars into research over the decades. Use that knowledge to your advantage!

As they note about white space over at Writing Sideways, “there’s a delicate balance between too little and too much… If there is too much white space, then the piece looks unprofessional. If there is too little white space, then the reader has a hard time keeping their place.”

Review: Traditions of their Fathers

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Traditions of their Fathers, book 1 in the Sieger Chronicles, is one part dystopia, one part mystery, one part thriller, Cory Ellsworth’s characters have to flee their home as government agents try to destroy it. During that flight, Ben Sieger learns all about the true nature of the world: that corrupt governments have tampered with the water and are controlling the populace, and that the one in charge, their much beloved political, leader might be the Devil himself.

Ellsworth’s characters are believable and it reads well for a YA. There is a great unfolding element of mystery as Ben and his friends go on a high-stakes journey of self-discovery in an all-too possible American nightmare of power-mad military and government corruption.

The writing is tight and care is taken not to info dump; the narrative unfolds as the Ben discovers the truth about the corrupt system and felt reminiscent of the middle Hunger Games books (as Katniss finally realizes the level of systemic rot in the oligarchy and determines to do something about it.) That all gives it a brilliant setup for future installments.

Traditions of their Fathers is a clean read and remains interesting for most age groups. I’d recommend it for any jr high student or beyond. I got a free copy in exchange for a review at Inside the Inkwell Blog. You can check it out by click this link.

State of Writing

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Swamped. But still going! Life is like that.

I’ve been hard at work on some project management items that are related to writing, but aren’t quite the thing I like. I’ve been putting together a writing course for authors that I intend to teach at some upcoming events (and will be available for private bookings. I’m planning to push this through the early months of 2019 when conventions and other bookings are in decline.)

Alongside the class materials I have developed a 24 page workbook to accompany the Indie Author’s Bible. The workbook is filled with formulas, templates, and interactive sheets to help writers plan for success and launch books with their best foot forward. More on that soon, but for now, you can check out some info at: http://www.authorchristopherdschmitz.com/speak (the writing course will feature an exclusive handout to the workbook giving a few extra pages as a premium handout).

I have also been in the studio to keep these audiobooks rolling. The Kakos Realm 1 just completed with a separate narrator who is producing the first trilogy. I’ve been working on a few others. Grandma Ethel’s Donuts and Hollowpoints is available on ebook, now, and I recently completed the audio. One Star is also available and the narration is being recorded and due by October (both have gorgeous covers, go check them out!) I’m also about a quarter of the way through recording Wolves of the Tesseract 2.

Lots going on. I have also begun gathering notes for my next Dekker’s Dozen installment. Weeds of Eden will begin recording this week (a great way to refresh myself and exactly where I was going with the story arcs) and then I’ll start outlining the next novella!

My Publishing Story Pt.2

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Last week I shared with you about the first half of my publishing journey. that was mostly my inspiration and initial years, before I began in earnest. From here on out is the half of the story when I began to look at it more as a business and try to do things with a more professional nature. I would say that, previously, I was a writer. From here on out, I am an author.

You will probably be able to relate to much of my story and the pursuit of a writing career. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section or contact me privately.

It seemed like the fire had gone out in me after a few years and some really dark times in my life. I barely dabbled in fiction anymore and only wrote a few essays through the years. Then I started postgrad studies and didn’t do much with it. My studies were geared largely towards getting some credentials so that I felt qualified to write a nonfiction book called Why Your Pastor Left. I’d seen and been subjected to abuses while doing youth work in churches in the upper Midwest… worse, I was not alone and all of my peers had seen and experienced similar things. I gathered research for it through my studies and, master’s degree in hand, wrote it in about 3 days (though it took me years and many revisions to be happy with it.)

WYPL was a burden of passion. I queried and did everything I could to get it published. One literary agent in told me that he felt “this book absolutely needs to exist; you put your finger on a huge issue that no one is talking about, and that is absolutely courageous… but I am not brave enough to attach myself to it.” After dealing more and more with scams and sharks I had begun to learn more about the Print on Demand technology since many folks in my now-closed writers’ group had been early supporters of Lulu. I decided that if I could find the perfect cover art for WYPL I would pursue that. I found the art and learned how far Createspace had come. After much research and watching Youtube videos, I landed there.

I also started writing short fiction again and the fire immediately rekindled and I began writing again and had learned to outline, which took my abilities to the next step, in my opinion. I also began blogging and attending writing conventions and zealously decided this was something worth doing, so I ought to do it well. After speaking with Chuck Sambuchino (speaker/author of Writer’s Market) after one conference, he recommended writing about writing, since my previous blog had simply not taken off after a few years.

In following his advice, I had to learn everything about the Indie industry in order to report on it. The best way to learn something is to teach it, which is why teachers often have students give reports. It makes it stick.

After learning most of the ins and outs I published several ebooks and had another book picked up by a traditional press. I kept blogging and learning and heavily rewrote The Kakos Realm, splitting it into two superior books and finished the third book in the series, along with several others. Some of my best manuscripts remain unpublished and under consideration by literary agents.

I also formed a small publisher for my own books, one that I may consider publishing other authors under. Treeshaker Books exists under the premise that the person who cares most for their book is the author of that book and will work harder than anyone else to make the book sell (it’s all in it’s infancy at the moment, but give it a follow/like over at Facebook). Through TSB, I have also done consulting work and even hired myself out to give advice on self-publishing; I’ve also done all of the work myself to prepare the files and get the book onto the market for some clients. I also published the Indie Author’s Bible, which shows new authors all of the things I’ve learned and gives step by step instructions on how to publish DIY style.

I am also available for official consultation on books, and will often chat about things/give advice without anything official… i.e. I often give advice and guidance that other people charge cash for. I say that we’re all in this together. As Indies, we are responsible for rescuing literature from the Big Five publishers… though I say that, I know it’s also a business and I’m totally willing to sell out when Harper Collins or any of the others come calling.

Review: Secrets of Peace

[image error]When I came across Secrets of Peace by T.A. Hernandez I immediately thought, this book cover is gorgeous. We all judge books by their cover, and this one hooked me right away. I’ve had people stop at my table at book festivals for the same reason: gorgeous book covers.

It’s a good thing that Hernandez also has fun ideas for the fiction she puts between her covers. (According to her bio, we’ve got much in common as far as writing inspirations go, so it’s no wonder I clicked with this book right away.)

The new world Zira lives in isn’t quite the dark dystopia of Orwell’s mind, nor does it seem as jaded as Bladerunner, but it’s not good, either…at least not when you understand the impact of their PEACE PROJECT. It gave me a very Black Widow meets Panem vibe. It’s a mix that works and produces characters that are believable.

Hernandez’s writing is tight and the story is well paced (with a great hook in the beginning that begs the reader to continue turning pages.)

I got a free copy in exchange for a review on Inside the Inkwell Blog.

You can check it out by clicking here!