Christopher D. Schmitz's Blog, page 26

Steps to Take If Indie Publishing a Previously Published Title

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Last week I talked about answers to the question, “what happens when my publishing contract expires?” I’m going to assume you chose the option to republish your work as an Indie title and will use Createspace or Kindle in order to accomplish that. (By the way, self-publishing as an Indie should not cost you a dime provided you have the necessary items. Any company who tells you otherwise is a scam. I have a step by step book that can guide you in the process, more on that below… or just Follow and go deep into my blog articles for the same basic content.)

You will need a few things in order to move your book into the Indiesphere:

A new ISBN
Cover artwork
Enough time to match previous formatting
A platform to relaunch
Createspace or Kindle Account
Contact Customer Service to link books

Firstly, ISBNs usually need to change. Here is a message I got from Createspace:

“You are welcome to republish the book with CreateSpace once your contract ends with the other publisher.

You can use the ISBN if you purchased it independently. If the ISBN was provided by the publisher then it will most likely belong to that publisher and will be unusable on our platform… [if you] need a new one, we can provide you with a new ISBN for free. The book would then have different ISBN’s but we could link the Amazon detail pages provided that you do not change the content, title name or the author.”

Secondly, if your publisher provided the cover artwork then you will need to change it, unless they give you a rights release that gives you permission to reuse it in future sales. Remember, there is an artist out there who sold/created it to a specific person for a specific edition. Reusing it without permission violates their creative rights just like if someone stole the content of the book and published it under a different name. There are many places and ways to get new cover art—don’t settle for anything of lesser quality than you originally had in place.

Next, if your publisher formatted the book a certain way (and it conformed to market expectations) then you might consider matching formatting styles on the manuscript that you upload to your new publisher. This is a perfect time to tweak and change things and repair additional errors that your readers may have spotted since the first release. You may experiment with font sizes and line spacing, but aim for market standards. They are in place for a reason. You can find more about this in older articles on this blog or in my book, The Indie Author’s Bible).

Do you have a platform? Even knowing that you are not losing your old customer reviews, etc. this is a perfect opportunity for a renewed publicity push. Consider this a major announcement to your readers. Schedule blog tours, press releases, email blasts, social media campaigns, or whatever else is in your toolkit (if your toolkit is small, make attempts to grow it immediately!)

Obviously you will need an account with a publisher such as Kindle or Createspace (others include Ingramspark, Bookbaby, Lulu, Kobo, Xlibris, Smashwords, and many others.) Regardless, you will also want to be on Amazon as they account for +60% of all books sold and Createspace/KDP automatically pushes books to Amazon as they are owned by them.

Once the book is published you can contact Amazon customer support and have them link the titles together so you can retain reviews. Remember, everything takes time so plan well in advance!

Review: War World

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I feel like I learned nothing from Rod Spence’s War World… and in the best kind of way. It was fun, loaded with everything that I like about genre fiction books, and had over the top action.

War World felt to me like a page out of my Jr High library. Specifically, it reminded me of those choose your own adventure books from the late 80s and early 90s. Each CYOA had crazy themes (usually skewing SF/F) and outlandish storylines that somehow worked in the context of that paperback. War World felt like Spence threw some of my favorites into a blender and tapped the button a few times… Dr. Who is another example of these kinds of genre mash-ups (especially Peter Capaldi’s run) and the card game Smash Up is another example of this kind of genre blender.

The tropes are familiar enough to let you envision where the action is headed right away (though it does start off a little more passive than I’d care for, but that corrects itself after the first chapter and a half.)

War World is a sci-fi, but it’s neither hard SF nor space opera… it’s also not straight-up general SF (because it feels like so much more than that so it wouldn’t fit that mold.) I felt the characters were more “everyman” teens, and that is okay in this context.

One thing I especially loved was the format and layout. It really reinforced that feeling of fun I mentioned above. This book reminds me of when I could read whatever fit my quirky moods as a jr high book addict in my school library (back before common core began jettisoning fiction that was creative for sheer creativity’s sake.) If you’re looking for a book that is more like roller coaster rather than a jogging track, this could be a good buy.

I got my copy in exchange for a free review over at Inside the Inkwell blog.

You can get a copy of War World by clicking here.

State of Writing

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I’ll admit that I struggled to get words on paper the last couple weeks. My motivation was kinda down in the dumps between funerals, life stuff, and snowstorm after snowstorm. And then I was on a roll. I had my two chapters by Monday evening. And then another on Tuesday. And another on Wednesday. It may have been that I got to an action heavy part… or maybe because I figured I ought to deal with some of the business kinda things for being an author and this was a better distraction. Whatever it was I couldn’t stop writing, and I’d fall asleep dreaming about the story and/or writing.

Suffice it to say, I hit my marks last week. I’m on track to finish the main story within the next five weeks.  This week I’m hoping for my requisite two chapters plus a few other odds and ends… maybe sketch a short story or two or begin working on layouts for an anthology or planning a book release. I’m practically ready with TKR3 and with the Kakos Realm 3 book omnibus, but want to be strategic with its release (as well as with the release of Wolves of the Tesseract 2… I’m just waiting on a couple final touches for that book.)

The Highly Unlikely Way I Acquired a Literary Agent by David Oppegaard @DavidOppegaard

I met David Oppegaard at the MN Writers Workshop where he shared a super interesting story about how he landed his literary agent several years back. I thought it would be a good, encouraging piece to share for those who feel like giving up. He’s a pretty cool guy with stuff to say, plus Stan Lee endorsed one of his books.

Okay, I always begin this story with a cautionary note-this is indeed how I came to acquire my literary agent, and it’s an interesting story, but nobody should ever take this as direct advice on how to go about acquiring an agent of their own. This story is more of a publishing curio than anything directly instructional.

So. Back around 2003, I started sending out query letters—they were mostly still letters back then, not website forms or emails—to a slew of literary agents, seeking representation for a novel called Knocking Over the Fishbowl. I did some research, wrote a short but sweet query letter, and sent out forty queries in one massive mailing barrage. Then I sat back and watched the “no thank you” form letters roll in, one after the other, until (I thought) I’d gotten all forty of them back.

But then…I received an email one day via my Hotmail account. It was from an agent named Jonathan Lyons at Curtis Brown, Ltd., in New York City. I’d sent a query letter to his predecessor, apparently, who was no longer with Curtis Brown, but Jonathan had read it and was actually interested in reading a sample of the novel (yes, I’d been picked off a query letter slush pile, amazing piece of good luck #1 in this story). Overjoyed, I quickly sent of a three chapter sample to Jonathan.

A few months later, Jonathan contacted me again and said he wanted to read the whole novel. So I sent him the novel, all a-tingle with expectation as I worked at my day job and went to grad school at night. A few additional months later, Jonathan wrote to say he really liked the book, but wasn’t totally in love with it, and couldn’t represent a work he wasn’t totally passionate about. Crushed, I said thank you for your consideration and soldiered on, querying a new batch of agents.

Cut to the following summer, where I attended a week-long writing workshop through my MFA program and received some very helpful editing notes on Fishbowl from the program’s director, Mary Rockcastle, who read my book as a personal side favor (amazing piece of good luck #2). I took her notes to heart and rewrote the novel entirely, improving it a good deal.

Eventually I got close to signing with a different agent, who pulled out at the last second for reasons I didn’t understand. Crushed anew, I thought back to Jonathan at Curtis Brown and how kind his notes on the book had been. Still a naïve publishing newbie, and more than a little desperate, I wrote him a new email stating that I’d rewritten Fishbowl with help from professional writers and asked if he’d be willing to read it again. Jonathan, to my amazement, said yes.

Let that sink in a moment.

A busy literary agent agreed to reread a novel he’d already turned down (amazing piece of good luck #3). This is not the kind of event that happens every day, if ever. This is the sort of luck you want on your side if you’re out walking in a lightning storm, or headed to the casino.

And, on top of this stunning luck, Jonathan loved the rewrite (!) and agreed to take me on as a client. That was back in 2004 and we’ve worked together ever since, even though Fishbowl never sold (our first sale wasn’t until my fifth novel, The Suicide Collectors, which itself made the rounds of some fifty some editors over the course of a year before finally selling to St. Martin’s Press).

Like I said earlier, this story is more of a curio than advice I’d give to anyone seeking representation in 2018. Jonathan’s generosity toward me really was beyond any reasonable expectation. If there’s any tangible takeaways from my story, I’d point out that I remained professional throughout our prolonged email conversation, kept writing and rewriting while I waited for the various replies, and showed a little gumption. You really never do know what will happen if you keep putting yourself out there, again and again.

Will I Lose my Reviews If I Self Publish After Getting my Rights Back?

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The contract for one of my traditionally published books is coming due in a little over two months. This is a scenario that comes up often but we rarely think about… what happens when my publishing contract expires? As a strategist (according to my personality profile) it makes sense that I’d want to be prepared for what comes next.

Authors typically have four choices in this scenario.

Unpublish the book and let it go out of print. This is a terrible option, unless the book was awful and you want to forget it ever happened and leave the writing world behind.
Renew your contract with the publisher. This assumes you would like that option and also that they’d want to keep your book active. That is not always the case for a variety of different reasons. If you choose this option, you may or may not be able to renegotiate for a better deal (or they may ask for concessions as well.)
Switch to a new publisher. It never hurts to shop around, I suppose. A new publishing house might be what you need for increased success or market presence. This may sound easy, but if your book did not have a strong performance or if you haven’t done anything to grow your platform and improve your books appeal since launching with the previous publisher it may be hard any that are willing to republish.
Self/Indie Publish. This is the option I want to talk about today. Basically, you are following the regular Indie path with the book at this point.

Since my book has a decent number of positive reviews and a pretty good rank I would hate to lose that all. Reviews are absolutely necessary to moving a book and discovery by readers. In fact, I’ve worked my rear off and invested cash money in advertising, giveaways, and author events just so I could my book out there and garner those reviews so that it will help snowball future sales and reviews. It would be heart-wrenching to lose all of that.

I contacted customer service at Createspace to ask about the process. They assured me that after creating the new title in their system as a self-published author, he or she can contact them and make a request to link the previous version with the new one.

“[We can] link the Amazon detail pages provided that you do not change the content, title name or the author. When we link the Amazon detail pages those reviews would then be displayed for the book published with us meaning you don’t have to lose the old reviews.”

That’s great news and makes option #4 pretty appealing to anyone who wants to keep their book alive and available (even if you are going dark for an extended period of time—it at least keeps the title available to the public.) It also means that your publisher cannot hold your reviews hostage, meaning they can’t threaten you with the insinuation that you will lose all your hard-earned reviews if you don’t choose to continue publishing with them; this may be a tactic of the more shady/scammy publishers (and there are many out there,) whose model is meant to profit from the author rather than the sale of books in distribution… for them, author retention is key since they primarily make money from the writers and fewer writes=fewer sources of revenue. One other thing it helps is for when writers discover their publisher went out of business. This does happen from time to time and usually means option #3 is virtually impossible unless they granted some sort of legal release to the authors. With the publisher defunct, you can still self-publish the title and link the old and new version to retain your market presence and customer base.

Follow this blog and check out next week’s article where I’ll talk about other aspects of shifting a book from a publishing house to an Indie title.

Review: The Wizards of Central Park West

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Arjay Lewis’s new urban fantasy hits all the marks for the genre.

Lewis’s story of wizards disguised as homeless people of New York centers mostly around Central Park which may be hiding more secrets than anyone in the real world understands.  Police detective Eddie Berman is working a murder case and winds up with a staff made of magical wood tracing back to Eden.

Of course, suddenly becoming a wizard isn’t all unicorns and fairy dust. Not in any world ever written by Lewis, who typically delves hellish depths for inspiration and this book is no different. The world building is great and seamless and the book blends the mystery with the magic; readers tag along as Berman tries to unravel the mystery of the “great evil” that threatens the wizards, central park, and the world at large.

One part Harry Dresden, one part Fantastic Beasts, a heavy dose of Dr. Strange, and all fun. It evoked similar feelings that had when watching Bright on Netflix, which I thought was a great approach to the urban fantasy genre (although more overt in its world blending).

I’d give this one a solid consideration if you’re looking for a good Springtime read. I got a free copy in exchange for an honest review at my Inside the Inkwell blog. You can get a copy by clicking here.

State of Writing

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I did it… all caught up from last week. So far, Hoods of the Red Order is at about 18,000 words with 8 completed chapters after 4 weeks of writing.

Those numbers feel slow for me. Then again, I’m intentionally writing at this pace (plus i know that I tend to speed up in the last quarter of a book.) I should be about half done after next week, shooting for 40,000 words on each rough draft which will probably expand up to 50k during revisions and addition of a prologue and epilogue that ties into one larger story that intertwines with the final book. Work has also felt busy with lots of new stuff going on, plus we’ve been hammered with 4 blizzards in the last several weeks and I’ve had lots of funerals recently, so if it would stop snowing and if people would stop dieing, that’d be swell.

Two more chapters for the upcoming week would make me happy. I think I might slow down my pace for the year, too… I could do 5-6 books this year, but I’ve had so many great short fiction ideas, I might take some time to work on a few of those in between this massive story arc.

Important Questions to Answer Before Pubishing

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A while back I published an article the 13 Point Roadmap to Becoming an Indie which is not necessarily the perfect place to begin. The first question writers ask should be “do I want to go the traditional route (major publishing house requiring agented submissions,) or will I entertain/or only pursue an Indie route?” If the answer if the latter, then the 13 point roadmap is the path once you’re ready to begin the journey. The former is a completely different pit of misery (dilly dilly,) and much has been written about it (in a nutshell, you need an agent in order to query publishers and those agents have their own submissions process. Be prepared to hear “no” and get countless form rejections. Lord of the Flies was rejected 20 times and Gone With the Wind was almost twice that… and the traditional publishing world has only gotten more difficult to break into in the 75+years since those.)

Something that many writers overlook, and I discuss a lot in my book The Indie Author’s Bible, are some of those difficult internal questions (which are the things I love talking about at panels/Q&As, etc.)  I talk about them in the context of knowing whether you want to be a writer or an author. I don’t feel they are necessarily always synonyms. Know your writing goals: ask the tough questions before you pick your publishing path, and even then, revisit the questions regularly along the way. Are you writing to be read by other people (author) or are only producing a book for your own pleasure(writer)?

Either response is fine, and the knee-jerk response is to always say “I’m an author!” Suspending the notion that writing is also an art and therefore subject to artistic whims, writers must always consider their audience. An author’s audience is different than a writer’s. If your pleasure in producing a book is your highest goal then you are a writer… and you might not realize it—we often lie to ourselves about what our goals are. Authors’ primary concern is the reaction of the readers; they are not satisfied until their book is ready for the market.

These are the difficult questions that authors will ask before the book has begun the publishing process:

How will you get quality editing?

Too many people cur this corner and release books that are not professional and don’t meet industry standards. This gives all independent authors a bad rap. Plan on hiring an editor. Yes, even traditionally published books have 1-3 grammar/spelling errors per book… 1-3 per chapter are simply not allowed and most self-published, self-edited books are somewhere more like 1-3+ per page.


Are you willing to subject your work to the cruelty of reviewers in a critique group?

If your book is going to be at its absolute best you must give early readers permission to point out its weaknesses. Criticism is painful—but usually true. Separate the book from your identity and help it be at its absolute best getting honest feedback. Better to get it early than have reviewers roast you on your Amazon listing’s rating section.


Are you qualified to do the art and formatting?

Your cover is the first thing you get to say about your book. Get feedback on this, just like you would on the writing. If it isn’t at its absolute best (both appealing to the audience and also professional) it will result in people refusing to open your book (people do judge a book by the cover. It’s easier to change your cover than to change all people everywhere.) The formatting must also be good. Font size, margins, and line spacing are important. Do your research as you put this together.


You wrote ‘the end’ but did you do enough revisions?

Maybe you edited the snot out of it and even hired a line editor to spot errors you missed. That is different than revision. Sometimes it’s not grammar, spelling, and punctuation that hold a book back: sometimes it’s the pacing, character voicing, story elements and order of events… as you self-edit the story the first few times (I always shoot for at least three passes before I look to line-edit) these things will become apparent. They may also seem obvious to beta readers and critique readers.


Have you thought about the book from the objective point of view of a reader?

You need someone detached from the text. Authors, especially who have just completed a draft or revision, are emotionally close to the text. You need an objective point of view from someone who didn’t just spent 6mo-6yrs pouring into the work. There’s a line about editing really being the act of “killing your babies.” (You must be willing to trim out some things you really love about a story but actually weaken it over all.) Think about a crime story written as a solid 5 on a 1-10 skill level… crime readers might find great enjoyment out of it, and the author really loves those few lines he penned that are truly an 11 on that 1-10 range. Cut those lines. They prove that the story is really a 5. Make it consistent and 5 will feel like an 8; inconsistencies in the writing make people wonder “how come he/she didn’t write so skillfully everywhere else.” Yes… this is why authors hate editing.


Do I have legitimate credentials to write this book: am I recognized in the field? If not will I work on gaining that recognition BEFORE I launch the book?

Everyone is a poet. I believe music is in us—it’s part of my theology. We are all made in the image of a creative God who (according to etymology) “sang the universe into existence.” The opening passages of the biblical Genesis are actually poems. Not everyone should write poetry. It is such a tedious field because everyone really loves only their poems resulting in such a small demand. For poetry to sell well you must have some sort of established credential that readers will recognize. The same can be true for nonfiction. Maybe World War Two interests you… or you enjoy discussing philosophy… nobody cares what you will have to say about nonfiction unless you have some verifiable credentials that point to your legitimacy. This is not always a hard and fast rule, but err on the side of caution—don’t just have a book: have a reason why the book had to be written. Credentials also help with fiction, but creative fields are less restrictive.


Are you willing to listen to voices about the publishing world even if their advice isn’t pleasant/you don’t want to do what they say?

The above point is a perfect example. If your reaction to “you need credentials for readers to take you seriously on XYZ” is to say “Screw you, I’m one in a million and my book is great—stop being so negative,” I’d like to say this: While breakouts happen, you are not the exception… you are the rule. (Maybe you are the exception to the rule, but if you cater to the rule instead of the exception your reception in the publishing community will be that much more spectacular.)


Do I have a timeline in mind and how much will it wreck my world if that date is delayed by 6months to a year plus?

Publishing is slow and tedious—and that’s the Indie world. Writing, rewriting, editing, getting feedback, all of these take time. You can cut corners, but your end result will suffer. Publishing your own book is a marathon, not a sprint. If you just want it published and want it now you can do that… but remember the above? That makes you a writer and not an If delays wreck your emotional state of being you should reevaluate whether or not your personal identity is wrapped up in your desire to be an author. If your emotional identity is a wreck you will get burned out by the process and fall apart every time someone is critical of your book.


How will you prepare for the book’s eventual launch?

Have a plan. Have a plan! Have a plan. If you want to succeed as an Indie you must not forget that marketing and platform building should be a part of your launch. As an Indie, unless you hire a publicist, you should prepare to do all of that work… think about it as a business person and prepare ahead of time. Doing interviews at blogs, sending press releases, advertising free book giveaways? All of those things take time to set up in advance. Stay on the ball and do things early. Did I mention it’s important to develop some kind of plan?

Once the book is out, there are new questions to ask.

Do I have a legitimate platform to be able to sell this book to?

If you’ve been blogging or participating in social media to develop a following you will have a better ability to move books. If you haven’t done that yet, it’s never too late to start. Word of warning: there are wrong ways to do this: it sounds counterintuitive, but if you spend the bulk of your time talking about your book your platform will fail to get traction. Your platform should be more like a television show than the commercial break.


What is the reasonable price of the book?

I talk about this elsewhere, but you need to do the research by reverse engineering the math so that you’re not losing money as an author by being so competitive with pricing that people “have to buy this book.” Trust me, once you factor in printing costs, shipping fees, and distributor discounts that too-good-to-be-true price doesn’t exist. You also can’t gouge readers and make it unreasonable (because you’re going to end up on Pirate Bay anyways within a week.) Split the difference and give people a good value for the story.


How will I market/advertise/make it so new readers discover me?

People won’t read you if they can’t find you. There are plenty of ways to advertise… all of them are easier if you’ve dedicated time to maintaining your platform and/or have legitimate credentials for your field. Whether it’s paying for ads or a full blown book tour, have a plan and seek new readers who are passionate about your subject.


What number of monthly/annual sales will make me content?

Knowing where you want to get to gives you a great way to measure success. Set attainable goals that can always be modified later. If you never set goals you won’t be able to fail… but you won’t have a way to be successful either. Your identity and emotions shouldn’t be wrapped up in this, but it certainly helps you craft your ad planning and future development. When you know where you’re going you’ll find it easier to get there.


If it all goes poorly, will I continue to write?

I find it prudent to often remind author’s that their self-worth is not wrapped up in success of their book—forgetting that is a big way to tailspin into burnout. There are many things that factor into an author’s life. Having unrealistic expectations are the chief way to fall into a funk and lose interest in something that once seemed like your life’s dream. Just because things seem bad in a moment, they may get better. Never judge your totality by a temporary state. If nothing has worked over the course of a long time and multiple books look for advice… it’s usually not the writing: it’s more likely the presentation, editing, promotion, or a host of other business things that can be fixed. But maybe it is the writing. That’s okay too. Take a writing class and improve. Everything can be worked out with some edits.


How much time (and energy) will I invest in promotion?

Building platforms takes time and emotional energy. It’s easy to say “I don’t feel like it today.” This is important to being discovered, however. Develop a plan; write it down; stick to it. Set an alarm if you have to, but dedicate some regular time to those tedious things that will help you connect with readers. It may feel off task, but this helps you be seen and get read and that is very much in line with your objectives.


What else that is similar is currently on the market?

Don’t view them as competition—nothing is really new, and an established work demonstrates there is a market. Remember that books are a consumable commodity, like food. These make great comparisons for shoppers and help you target advertising and begin conversations with people. DO NOT be so vain that you tell readers “there’s nothing like it on the market!” That’s not a sales pitch that works and will frustrate you. Is your adult book about a struggling wizard just trying to keep his bills paid? Then own it: “My book is like Harry Potter for grown-ups!” even if it’s only a little like Harry Potter. And trust me… grown-ups love Harry Potter.


Who will want to read your book/what is your genre?

Not EVERYONE will like/want your book. You cannot effectively market your book to an audience of “everyone who likes to read.” The more specific the better. Many people who only read certain genres will venture into something new and it’s better to be upfront and as detailed as you can regarding the genre niche. Think about it like a TV commercial. Your ad opens on a guy: “This product is for everyone. You really need this product, I can’t tell you too much about this product but everyone relates to the subject material in different ways—you’d be a fool not to buy it.” Nobody will buy it… there’s no reason to (and you’ve already been fine without it so it’s not really a “must have.”)

A better way is, “This book is all about a mid-30s wizard whose behind on his bills, thinks he has a lump on his neck, and can’t seem to hold down a job. This magical, urban fantasy story for grown-ups will make you laugh and be glad you’re not this loveable loser.” People will either relate to something in the story or be intrigued enough to cross the gap. Maybe they hate those sorts of stories. That’s okay too. Now you know that you’re wasting time. Limit your wasted time/effort and move onto the next person.

There are many questions to ask. It’s okay if you don’t know the answers right away—but you ought to be prepared to entertain them and if you have at least given these things some cursory thought beforehand you will be better prepared and equipped to handle the challenges of being an independent author/Indie and carve out your niche in the publishing world.

Review: Snow City

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I really want to like Snow City by G.A. Kathryns, but had a few problems with it that kept me from fully engaging. There are bright spots, but also some murk that overshadowed  them. I apologize if this review sounds overly harsh, it’s not intended as a hit piece, but shed light on some of the errors we can make as authors if we haven’t dialed in our focus.

The cover attempts to be unique and grab ahold of the reader, but ultimately fails to make the mark. The artwork is all fine and good, but that font threw me. Up until I went to write this review I thought the title was Snowy City (with a Y). There is no Y in Snow and while the cross from the T loops around and connects to Snow, the title becomes illegible and hard to locate (I actually had to search it by ISBN to find the listing which showed me where the failing was). The title should be easily read, even as a thumbnail, according to industry standards. But that’s just the cover.

The text waxes between being far too generic and being overly descriptive. You can read the title’s description for an example of this. We get the character’s name, “Her name is Echo Japonica and she lives in Snow City.” (Which is a cool name, but we need more.) Something vague happened and she went to someplace vague to get away from somewhere not discussed because of circumstances not defined. Snow City might be a dream, or not, but it makes Echo have feelings, even if she is not Echo? We’re not sure yet. But even though it’s her haven/refuge/sanctuary it’s not. (That’s the book description and it tells me nothing except that there is a person this book is about.) If you missed the description, it’s on the back cover. Right after the title page, it starts, “Her name is Echo Japonica…” I actually feel a little brain dead at this point, having read that same problematic piece three times, now. The one page prologue has some new, flowery prose, but it is still so vague that it has given us nothing new but some colorful words to describe feelings that someone has had… we don’t know who had these feelings, but they seem bad, and the feeler might not be a person, and if they were a person they might’ve changed his/her/it’s identity. I dunno. Then chapter one. “My name is Echo Japonica,” and I set the book down for ten minutes quite angry that I need to refresher on our protagonist’s name. It follows with two very long chapters giving detailed descriptions of the Snow City and what it looks like in every season they have… and then Echo tells herself that her name is Echo (in case we all missed it.) After a brief and grossly passive statement that again communicates no real data there is this sentence (and this is the kind of sentence we all need to watch out for as writers—again, note that I am not trashing on this author…we have all written sentences like this! This reinforces the need to have editors and beta readers who have permission to skewer us when we do this. FYI, my review on Amazon/Goodreads does not mention any of this sort of stuff—if you follow this blog you know that it is my opinion that the reviews section is the wrong place to trash an author and I post it on my blog with the hopes that we can all learn from mistakes… and then make revisions.) Also,  this is not anywhere near as bad as some terrifying prose sent to me by other authors requesting reviews (which I declined).

But I cannot shake my intimate knowledge of…before, and therefore at times like this, with the late-night rain at the window and the cars and the people outside passing by without cognizance of me or my gaze, the fear that such knowledge makes of me a kind of infectious blight that could all too easily mar the perfection of what I have made confirms me in my determination to remain apart and unobtrusive, to allow Snow City to live its own life with its own mix of human relationships, happenstances, misunderstandings, and even, yes, occasional tragedies…but tragedies that here, in Snow City, bring not continued sorrow and regret, but rather understanding and acceptance.

-Whew, that’s a 1-sentence mouthful and I could mark it up with editors notes, but you get the idea… it needs revision. I jumped to chapter two after this line so that I could finally get into the story.

Okay, okay. I’m just being mean. I want to point out that the story shines during the dialogue. Some of the verbiage choices really shine and help define the characters. Those characters do take on some great definition and the personalities are well rounded and believable—I also like that Kathryns used names that seemed to color the people in it and they cross pretty much the whole spectrum.

While the writing does pickup once you finally get into the story, it does suffer from some POV shifts and inconsistencies, as is common to first person POV books. It is still prone to bouts of passive language and purple prose as it tries to translate emotion (that’s a show vs tell problem and also easier to slip into in 1st person). I get it, the author is trying to go for a stream-of-consciousness kind of thing… but without anything solid to anchor the reader, it just kind of leaves us free falling.

Ultimately this is a book that really could shine if the author and/or the publisher invests in some good content editing to point out the specific problems I pointed out. I really did want to like this book, and there is a real story there… but the way that it comes out kept knocking me out of my ability to truly enjoy it. The publisher uses Createspace and so hopefully they can take the availability of the platform’s easy (and free) revisions access to make those future improvements.

I got a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. You can check out Snow City by clicking here.

 

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State of Writing

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I didn’t quite hit my two chapter mark this last week, but my weekend had something to do with that. It was St. Patricks day which is a pretty busy weekend for bagpipers. I drove through four states and piped in two of em, staying very busy… plus my job during the week.

Still, I managed to get almost my two chapters this week (plus sketch out rough notes on a novella and rough in an outline for a future nonfiction book.) I should make up for it this week and get in my two chapters plus the thousand words or so still to go from last week.

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