Ana Spoke's Blog, page 10

The differences (however slight) between CreateSpace and Lightning Source paperbacks

Have you worried yourself sick over which one of these companies to pick as your PoD? Well, the good news is that there’s no need to stress – if you are planning to publish a fiction novel without graphics (as in the case of my book), then, in my opinion, one is as good as the other.

I have now published with both, mainly to:

Save on shipping costs. When I run Goodreads giveaways, I can now send a book to the winner directly from either publisher, depending on which option is cheaper. I also get to order cheaper, locally printed copies for my promotional mayhem in Australia.
Lightning Source allows a “return” option, which means I stand a chance of having my book ordered by bookstores, even though I take a risk of them returning my books at my expense.

Publishing with both was extremely easy, although Lightning Source does charge a small fee upfront (was $50 AUD for me). There are very slight differences in appearance of the paperbacks, and I’ve tried to document them below.

Let’s start with the first impression. Can you spot any differences? The Australian Lightning Source (ALS) version is on the left, the American CreateSpace (ACS) one is on the right:

The ALS version (left) is slightly lighter/brighter – noticeable in the red and gold of the title. Ignore the spacing between my first and last name and the position of the small gold line near the spine – I did those tweaks. The slight difference in color can also be seen on the back cover:

In both cases the printing is crisp – any differences/fuzziness of the font is purely due to my poor photography skills. The interiors are also very similar, if not identical (again, ALS is on the left/top):

The paper feels identical, although maybe, just maybe, the ALS is slightly smoother and ACS is slightly softer. The only (annoying) difference was that ACS did not want to lie flat, whereas ALS opened easier. This may be due to the differences in binding.

Speaking of binding, this is where I finally noticed a difference. In the photo below ALS is at the back (so the top of the photo). The ACS is next to my thumb.

ACS is thicker! Not by a huge amount, but it is probably due to the thickness of paper, so please make your own conclusions. For me, this is good news for when I mail signed books – both can be mailed as a “letter” at 248 pages (6×9 inch format), but it may mean that if my next one is slightly thicker, I may still be able to pay cheaper postage for the thinner book. The thicker book, on other hand, may appeal to others as more substantive? Also, not sure if it will last longer – but does that really matter with fiction paperbacks?

One last small difference in binding is the groove along the seam. ALS is on the bottom/left:

The groove is much more pronounced on ACS and is further from the spine (which explains why it is harder to keep ACS open). Does this mean it’s a better/more secure binding? I don’t know, but so far it doesn’t seem like either one will be losing pages soon.

So there you go, more info for you to mull over. Or, perhaps, to ignore? I’d say take a plunge and publish with either one – you won’t be disappointed :-)

 

Guys! Guys! I MADE A BOOK TRAILER!!

Ok, just look at it! I’ll tell you all about how I did it and how much it cost (in terms of time and lost hair) right after, I promise!

What do you think? I really wanted to make BDSM appear first and the explanation later, but to tell you the truth, this was so difficult that I will need a week to recuperate before I’m ready to try again…

So, how did I do that? How much did it cost? Did it make any impact on sales?

I made the clip myself, at a total cost of $0 and about 10-12 hours of customising, watching tutorials and searching self-help forums. The clip was created with Adobe After Effects CC, and I started the process with a free template from After Effects Templates and added  “Playing to Win” soundtrack from Free Stock Music.

Easy-peasy, right? If you don’t mind, I’m just gonna whine a bit now. If you’d rather focus on the positive stuff, just skip the following paragraph.

(Oh, my God, it hurt! I’m all for “you can do it!”, but in this particular case I have to warn you – it was hard! If you are pretty good with Photoshop, then definitely go ahead and try – just please don’t brag about how easy it is (like the kids in tutorials, seriously!). If, however, you don’t understand Photoshop layers, then save yourself from this stress. Not only the software is hard to understand, it was a nightmare to try and upload the clip directly to Twitter. After hours of trying, it turned out that while Twitter technically allows MP4 and MOV files, you can’t upload MOV from the desktop, only from mobile. What? And  for whatever reason, my After Effects does not have the option of saving the file as MP4 (perhaps because it’s a trial version). Then if you think you’re so clever, and you email the MOV file to yourself with the intention of saving it to your phone and uploading to the app, the phone refuses to save the file, as it is apparently unsupported. What? I’ve managed to start a YouTube channel and posted a YouTube link to Twitter, but it just looks like a boring link on the phone, and no matter how hard I’ve tried to figure out how to embed a YouTube link, I couldn’t. If anyone knows, really knows how – please help!)

Ok, back to the positive. I HAVE A BOOK TRAILER!! Yay! I have uploaded it to my Goodreads author page (easy YouTube link and instant upload) and Amazon author page (direct upload and up to 24 hours of processing). I don’t know if I could ever tell if this makes an impact on sales, but it sure gives Shizzle, Inc an aura of a professionally published book…

Once my nerves settle, I may try it again – in fact, I was thinking of perhaps running one of the free giveaways with the option of either a book cover or a book trailer. Again, if this interests you, make sure to sign up for the Don’t Miss It! email list (see the floating banner on the right).

Gotta go look at the trailer one more time…nope, it does not get old!

What do you meme?

If you know how to pronounce “meme”, you should get the jokey title. And if you don’t, don’t worry – you’re not alone! I kept calling them “me-me” up until the last week, and why not? Please, somebody, explain, why is it that a new word gets invented in this day and age, which is hard enough as it is, and for some reason it has to be pronounced exactly counterintuitively? I’ve made my peace with “choir” and “sixth”, and “knife”, because they were invented by your ancestors back when there was no electricity or canalisation. (My ancestors invented Russian, and yeah, it’s not for beginners either).

But why now? Why do you have to remember that a word spelled “meme” is actually pronounced “meem”? Is it to separate those “in the know” from late adaptors? Anyway, enough ranting, let’s get to what I actually was very excited to tell you – despite my pronunciation shortcomings, I now meme with the best of them.

Oh, and if you have not come across the term before – meme is basically something that goes viral, like a funny picture with an even funnier caption. Basically, every LOL CAT ever made. Here is my favorite one of all time:

I was posting quotes from Shizzle, Inc to my Buffer account, which feeds my Twitter, when it occurred to me that I could easily turn some of those quotes into memes. I was so excited with visions of the Internet exploding with all the sharing of Isa’s dubious wisdom, that I made a few of them right away:

I was so excited, that I even made a few with Mr. Hue:

So, have they gone viral? Well, not exactly (yet), but I’ve had a lot more “engagements” with these memes instead of the same quotes, which I’ve twitted before with links to Shizzle, Inc Amazon sale page. My average engagement rate with quotes was 1-2%, but the memes got 3-8% engagement.

The only issue was, memes did not get retwitted as much, so the number of impressions was lower. Still, where my quotes got 2-3K impressions and 20-30 “engagements” each, memes got anywhere from 1k to 2K impressions, but 30-80 engagements each. Not only that, my average sales per day (without any other promos) went from an average of 0.5 books per day to 1.5 books per day during last week. Not huge numbers, but enough to have me excited about making more of these…maybe introducing other characters as well?

Of course, I have to share lessons learned, the major one being the size and orientation of the photo. The very first meme I made looked like this:

I thought it was pretty good at the time, but the problem was that when it got uploaded to Twitter, it ended up looking like this in the feed:

That was a lesson in “don’t do anything without research”. I had a look at the suggested photo proportions and found that 1:2 was recommended, or 512×1024 pixels. I reformatted my meme. Close, but no cigar:

Finally, after a few trials, I figured out a perfect size: 512 pixels high by 908 pixels wide. The 1:2 ratio may have been true once, or maybe it’s a simplified version of 512:908, but I do believe my ratio is better:

I am using Photoshop to create my memes, but you can also use free online software – just google “free meme maker”. I can’t recommend any, unfortunately, because I have not tried them. If you do try a meme or two of your own, please let us all know how it has worked for you.

Have fun!

February’s Guest Storyteller, Ana Spoke

A big thank you to Sarah Potter for featuring me in her “Storytellers” series. A great idea that has resulted in a fascinating collection of short “stories within stories” – from fantasy to horror and, of course, comedy. Have a read of a Shizzle, Inc excerpt and other writers’ work – nothing is over 600 words.

Sarah Potter Writes

Ana Spoke is a self-published author and an unbridled enthusiast. She currently calls Australia home, but you can always find her on anaspoke.com

Sarah says: I’m delighted to welcome Ana as this month’s guest storyteller to share with us a snippet from her hilarious chic-lit novel, Shizzle, Inc.

Here are a few comments from my review of her book on Goodreads and Amazon, where I awarded it five stars.

This  humour novel is quite different from my normal reading material, but then that’s probably because it is quite different, full stop! …Initially, I decided to read it because the author connected with me via blogging and I admired her sense of direction re Indie publishing. …This début novel is the first in an intended series and I fully confess to looking forward to the next of Isa Maxwell’s escapades. …Shizzle, Inc kept me so fully engaged for a…

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This is how to get your book into a bookstore’s front window

If you walk past St. Kilda Readings today, you may notice a familiar cover in its window:

No, not The Martian! Right next to it, look!

Yep, there she is, looking a little freaked out to be in such distinguished company. How did she get there, you ask?

Turns out that all you have to do is ask.

This has gone a long way to power up my batteries – I’ve been feeling a little down lately and ended up reading a few ugly articles thrashing self-publishing, one going so far as to declare that self-published authors are “neither published, nor authors”. Well – up yours, dear critic. If it looks like a book, and it reads like a book, and, gosh darn it, people like it and are willing to display it on the top shelf next to a bestseller – well, that means I’m a published author. And the fact that I did it all myself makes it that much more special.

Aaaaahhh…Isn’t life grand?

Design for the free cover contest winner revealed!

Whew! I was quite a bit nervous when I started working on the cover for the Free Cover Design Contest winner – Amir Ghazi of The World of Horror. I mean, I love Stephen King just as much as every other person on this planet, but I can’t come up with a horrific image! Not unless it involves a cockroach in a soup or something…

I’m relieved to report that after a couple of mock-ups and a lot of back-and-forth discussion, I came up with a design that made Amir happy. Here it is, in paperback wrap and Kindle format:

And the best thing is, after the initial jitters, I had a ton of fun working on it! It was practically an addiction for a couple of days, I’ve learned new tricks, and can’t wait to start working on a final version of the cover for Indiot. Originally I was going to run this contest again in maybe six months, but now I think I might do it sooner – so if you are interested in submitting your pitch for a free design, sign up for my Don’t Miss It list.

Let me know what you think!

How to make Goodreads giveaway widget work on WordPress.com

Have you tried and failed to include Goodreads Giveaway widget on your WordPress.com site? Have you tried reading forums, only to find that the reason for it is that Goodreads uses Java or whatever else WordPress.com doesn’t allow? Oh, good, so I’m not the only one…

I was so frustrated with this previously, that I created a work-around using an image widget. I was happy with that for a while, but the image suggested that only few people have requested my book, when in actuality it was 1,699 over 2 weeks! I have just started a new giveaway, and already over 350 people have requested a copy, in less than 15 hours!

So I found a different work-around. Cause I just don’t take “no” for an answer and cause I feel omni-potent, having learned the very basics of HTML. Also, probably, cause I’m Russian-born, and we’ve been known to fix space stations with hammers. In movies, mind you, but that’s probably not that far from the truth.

WARNING: my method is equivalent to smashing the widget with a hammer. If you are a programmer, avert your eyes…

To start with, you need to get the code, which is available on your giveaway page:

Then you need to create a new text widget in WordPress.com, copy and paste the Goodreads html code into its content window. Unfortunately, this is what it will look like on your website:

Ugh, right? Enough to make you want to give up…unless you are willing to keep smashing the widget playing with code until you figure out what needs to be deleted. Feel free to play yourself, or follow these simple steps:

STEP 1: delete all of this code from the beginning of the code script, up to and including this bit:

.goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink:hover {

color: #181818;

background-color: #F7F2ED;

border: 1px solid #AFAFAF;

text-decoration: none;

}

Have a look at the picture above – it is basically the naked HTML that was visible above the “Goodreads Giveaway” title.

STEP 2: delete the very end of the script:

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/enter_choose_address/168663″>Enter Giveaway



https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/widget/168663″>https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/widget/168663;

That’s the link to the actual entry form. Unless you want to keep it, but I prefer the cleaner look, which goes to the giveaway page.

STEP 3: play with the code! For example:

A. I found the “text-align: center” and changed it to “text-align: left” to match my other widgets.

B. Clicking on the picture took you to the book page (with giveaway button underneath). I wanted it to point directly to the giveaway page – so I found the page I wanted, copied the url, then found the following bit of code in the second paragraph and carefully replaced the http address with the preferred one:

That’s it! Once you are happy with the way it looks, move the widget to the desired position, and voila! It looks great in my sidebar now.

Have fun!

Sequel to Shizzle, Inc – title and cover mock up reveal!

I was working on mock-ups for Amir, the winner of the free cover design contest, when it occurred to me that I should go ahead and create a cover for my sequel, even before it’s finished. That way I can do the same thing that Amir is planning on doing – pin the cover over my desk and use it as the motivation to finish the draft. Also, you guys were amazing in helping me develop the cover for the first book, so I feel comfortable revealing the rough draft and asking you for comments.

So here it is, the mock up for the second installment in Isa Maxwell’s escapades:

This is very rough, with images I have not yet bought, so that’s why the resolution is bad and there are some remnants of Shutterstock watermark – that will improve once I buy and download full-size images. I would love for you to comment on:

Title of the book. Isa continues to be…let’s say “naive” in India, hence the “Indiot”.
The overall concept for the cover.
Using “diamonds” for title.
Making “N” in the title different. I will make it look like empty settings, from which diamonds have been stolen.
Should I put “Isa Maxwell’s escapades” on the title? I kinda like the minimalistic look and that the covers are not too matchy, but everyone seems to love series covers that look like versions of the same and tell you exactly which book in the series it is…
Anything else!

Thank you, as always :-)

New Rafflecopter giveaway – win one of 25 digital copies of Shizzle, Inc!

Thank you to whomever mentioned this idea in comments! I’ve decided to take a plunge, although a free one at first, and created my very first giveaway on Rafflecopter. It was ridiculously easy to set up and the giveaway is free of cost to everyone – I am on the free plan with Rafflecopter, and giving away ebooks, so it will be just a matter of time to send files to the winners. The giveaway will run for 10 days and, as always, I will update you on the stats. I will also post my thoughts on whether or not I will upgrade to a monthly plan.

This time, in addition to more reviews, I hope for an impact on social media – in order to win, one would have to either follow me on Twitter, or tweet a message (or both, if they want to increase their odds of winning). I think multiple entries are allowed, so lets see what happens – currently I have 38, 705 followers.

Have you done one of these yourself? Was it worth it?

I will also test Amazon giveaways shortly, and will write a comprehensive comparison of all three soon.

And the winner of the free cover design competition is…

…Amir Ghazi of World of Horror! Let’s hear it for Amir, whose pitch entitled The Nightmare gathered an amazing 527 votes!

Just to remind you again, this was Amir’s winning pitch:

The Nightmare by Amir.H.Ghazi

When fourteen-year-old Allen Foster is diagnosed with parasomnia, a sleep disorder evoking vivid nightmares, he begins journaling each haunting dream on the advice of his psychiatrist, keeping the notebook safely hidden in a floorboard — that is until a new family moves into the Maine house. When Rita, the daughter of the new owners, discovers the book and begins experiencing Allen’s old nightmares, she tracks him down in an effort to rid herself of the misery, only to find he has no memory of writing them.

You can read other pitches on Who will win the free cover design? or the original post.

Thank you again to all who have participated, either by submitting a pitch or by voting for your favourite. I will run another contest in August – if you’re interested, sign up for my Don’t Miss It list (see the banner on the right).

I now have the difficult task of reaching deep down, switching my brain from the usual jokey mode, to produce the creepiest and most striking cover this book so justly deserves.

Wish me luck!