Elizabeth Butts's Blog, page 3

Pondering Publishing

So, here’s the good news – a publishing company wants my book!  SQUEE!!!!

Here’s the concern: I could possibly make more money self-publishing.

The way any publishing company/contract works is, they keep a portion of the profits for what they put in.  That’s just real life.  The marketing, the editing, the formatting – it’s not for free.  With self-publishing, you try to get the editing correct with the help of awesome beta readers.  You market it solely yourself.  You keep more profits.

I think the question comes down to:  am I in this for the money.  Deep, right?  Self publish – more work, more profits.  Traditional/hybrid publishing – take on a team, less work, less profit.

Writing is not my sole income source.  I wouldn’t be able to do that…not nearly brave enough!  I’m writing books because I’ve always wanted to be able to.  What defines success to me in this regard?  Is it financial?  Or is it having a company listed next to ‘Published by’, as opposed to my name?

I’ve contacted several authors who have published under the hybrid company who is interested in me.  One was not thrilled with the experience, the other two were quite satisfied.  One of the things that someone told me was that this publishing company accepted everyone.  One of these authors stated that was incorrect, as they had sent five authors to the publishing company and only 2 made it.

Then there’s the thought of an actual printed book. People have asked for a signed copy.  My own ego makes me want a printed copy of my book to hold in my hand.  If I say yes to this publishing thing, I can get books.  Yes, I pretty much only read e-books now…  same as the rest of the world.  But there’s something really cool about the thought of MY book in MY hands!

What to do….what to do…

Exclamation point!

My second beta reader has started to send me her thoughts.  Every aspiring author should have a successful author as a beta reader.  Why, you ask? Because she picks up on some crazy details you’d never think of.

Like exclamation points.  Or, in my case, the overuse of said exclamation points.

She suggested I get rid of about 60%.  That the excitement of the situation in the book will come through without the exclamation points, that people will interpret as if my characters are all yelling at each other.  Huh.  Never thought of that.

So I did a find/replace.  Apparently, I had 603 exclamation points.  Yikes!  Like, YIKES!!!!!!  That’s a real lot!   (yes, they were intentional in this sentence)

Then the next thing was, I had a tendency to use ” ” both for dialogue and for emphasis (as opposed to ” ” for dialogue and and ‘ ‘ for emphasis).

What does this mean to you, prospective reader?  It means that May 1 will not be the release date.  BUT the good news is, next week is probably very doable!

Oh, you want to know what 603 exclamation points looks like?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First round of beta edits complete!

A big thanks to Rachel H, who was good enough to send me her beta reading results!  She was awesome and found all sorts of stuff that my eyes continuously jumped over!  The really cool thing?  She had uploaded my .doc format book to her Kindle, and sent me screenshots!

This meant that I got the opportunity to see what my book looks like on an e-reader!  You know what?  It looked pretty darn cool! :)

That brings us just one step closer…

Patience… it’s never been my best virtue…

I’ve never been a patient person…

Book written?  Check!

Sent out to beta readers?  Check!

Re-read at least twice and edits made?  Check!

I want to publish it.  Now.  I keep going to Smashwords ready to upload it so that it will (hopefully) be distributed to all the major booksellers.  I’m ready!

But…I’m having to be patient.  You see, my awesome betas are still working their magic.  It would be really stupid of me to send my book out when it hasn’t gone through the proper process.  It would be like having a child and sending it to school in the winter buck-naked.  I can’t send my baby out naked.

It’s killing me, though!  UGH!  People are asking when I’m going to publish, and all I can say is “May”.  You see, Singleish is an absolutely perfect beach read!  I can picture women in their 1930’s style bathing suits, floppy hats and ginormous sunglasses giggling with each other while reading about Ashley’s mis-adventures!  I can see it so well that my mind is having a really hard time processing that I can’t have that NOW!

Oh – did I mention that I am the youngest child?  No?  Yeah, well, I’m the youngest of 4 kids.  That may explain the impatience and the need for it to be ‘now’!  Think Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka…yeah, it’s like that! 

Ah, well.  I have to wait.  I have to try to gain this elusive thing called ‘patience’ that has somehow evaded me for thirty seven years.  To take my mind off of it, I will continue work on ‘Second Hand Purses’.  What’s ‘Second Hand Purses’ you ask?  Why, thank you for asking!  It’s my second book!

Have a great day, everyone!

What’s In A Name?

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” ~Shakespeare

I’m new to this author stuff.  Really new…like, (obviously) not yet published, new.  So new that I have not yet updated my personal Facebook to reflect that I’m an author/writer, because I’m concerned that it’s an insult to real authors out there.  But I have found that there are things that writers/authors go through that I never thought about, until I put pen to paper (or fingers to keys).  Like names.  You never think of names as a big deal -well, I guess if you have a kid you do.

So, an author starts writing a book.  There’s got to be a lead.  So you start typing a name.  Until you realize that is your cousin’s name.  Can’t use that.  The next name is your sister’s.  Then it’s your best friend from fourth grade.  That won’t work.

Her love interest?  Well – in Singleish I initially named him Greg.  Until about halfway though when I realized that it was the same name as this kid who pretty much tormented me from seventh to ninth grade.  Control-F, Replace all Gregs to Craigs.

Should it matter?  Does it matter?  Well, probably not to the reader.  The reader doesn’t know that Greg is not an awesome guy in my past.  The reader will make Greg into who Greg is for them.  But, this is my baby.  So yeah – it matters.

I’m working on the next two books, while the final edits to Singleish are completed.  And here I am, once again, coming up with names.  And here I am, once again, discarding names.  LOL

When you are reading any author’s book, please, appreciate that they put a LOT of thought into the names of the characters!  It may seem like a silly little thing…but it’s a lot more of a challenge than you would think!

Happy reading, all!