Skye Lansing's Blog, page 2

Legend of the Five Rings: Introduction

This was originally going to be something for my newsletter (for this month even) before other events overtook it and I realized this probably makes more sense as a series of blog posts anyway. Before I begin, allow a brief explanation about what Legend of the Five Rings is:

The Legend of the Five Rings (L5R) is a fictional fantasy setting that focuses on the empire of Rokugan, which borrows heavily from various feudal Asian cultures and (Japan in particular). It was originally associated with a Collectible Card game, however, this expanded over time to include a large amount of official fiction, a tabletop RPG system, and now a Living Card Game.

So all of that is nice, but why bring this up on a blog about my writing? Because it was probably the thing that introduced me to Asian culture and has undoubtedly had a strong influence on my writing as a result. Although there are a number of criticisms that can be leveled at L5R, notably that it westernizes the subject matter to fit the audience and portrays things in a (generally) idealized manner, it is a property that I have enjoyed throughout a significant portion of my life. That being the case, it seems worthwhile to discuss the setting and what I liked about it. Consider this an overview.

For now, I’m going to keep things short and simply discuss how I was introduced to the game.

At the time, I was in middle school—which in the US includes children from roughly 11-13 years of age—so it probably will not come as a surprise that I found out about the game through a friend. He showed me the game while I was visiting his house one day and showed me how to play. My first impressions were that the art was impressive (although in retrospect, not as good as I thought) and that the setting was very different from anything I’d seen before. What really sealed the deal for me, however, was when my friend started going into the game’s story.

Before we go any further, I think it is worth mentioning that L5R was not the first collectible card game I had been exposed to. By this time, Magic the Gathering had been out for a couple of years (I’d heard about it through a different friend). I liked what I had heard about that game, but it never clicked for me the same way L5R did. Ultimately I ended up playing both, but Magic was something I only did because sometimes my friends also ended up playing it. By contrast, L5R enthralled me, even though I was only ever a casual player.

I genuinely believe that the difference came down to the story aspects behind Legend of the Five Rings. The team behind L5R put a lot of effort into the narrative for the game, and that they allowed tournament results to impact the story in meaningful ways was a novel idea that heightened my interest. Although I am now aware that there is a story behind Magic the Gathering, it is not nearly as prominent. It is also worth saying that even if I had been exposed to Magic’s story, I likely would have still preferred L5R because the Asian-inspired setting seemed exotic.

This merely covers the very basics of why I got into the game. Obviously, there was quite a bit going on that kept me there as well, which I will be covering in later posts so keep watching here.

Reading List, January to April

This year I am trying to be more aware of how I read. It isn’t really a resolution so much as a desire to break a very bad habit I know I have. The problem is that I really enjoy reading to the point where I tend to binge read if I find a book I like. To really understand the problem, you need to realize that when I say binge read I mean that I tend to read to the exclusion of everything. Work, eating, sleeping. It isn’t unusual for me to start a book and read it straight through over the course of a day or two (depending on the length) while taking minimal breaks. Honestly, I don’t know anyone else who behaves the same way.

I think I developed the habit in high school, but while this was fine in the past it can be a huge problem when I am in the middle of a project something. This is especially true if the book happens to be part of a series. Often, I will immediately dive into the sequel if I enjoyed a book, possibly leading to multiple days of inactivity. Really counterproductive when I’m busy with a project.

That said, I also find that a good story often gives me ideas for my writing. Either it shows me how to do something I’ve been having trouble with, or introduces ideas and themes that nicely complement my work. So reading is good for my writing, but also bad for my productivity. Ideally, I would be able to keep the good parts while avoiding the bad. To that end, I have been working hard not binge reading by limiting the time I spend reading. Seems to be working so far.

Anyway, as I have put a lot of attention on my reading habits I decided that I may as well share my current reading list. This isn’t everything I want to read, but it is the things I will most likely be trying to get to.

 

Oathbringer

[image error]I’d been wanting to read this book since it’s release but hadn’t because I didn’t want to fall into my binge reading habits. I like almost much everything Brandon Sanderson writes. He is one of my favorite (living) authors right now, and amazingly prolific as well. Oathbringer is the third book in his Stormlight Archive series, which is tying together the rest of The Cosmere setting (which includes Mistborn, Elantris, and Warbreaker).

As of now, this is the only book on the list that I’ve already finished. Keeping myself to only reading a few chapters a day was remarkably difficult (as I knew it would be), and I ended up slipping near the end when the plot turns into an avalanche. Even so, I enjoyed myself immensely and started noticing things that Sanderson does that I could improve in my writing. It seems that happens every time I read something he’s written.

A Spell for Chameleon

[image error]This is the first book of the Xanth series, and that is about all I know about it. I only learned about the book because I was asking for recommendations, and had several different people suggest the Xanath series, then point me at this book as the first one when they learned I’d never heard of it. Since then, I’ve gotten it on my kindle, but have intentionally avoided any information about the book. I rarely get a chance to go into something blind.

 

The Three-Body Problem

[image error]Unlike the previous two books on this list, which are fantasy, this one is science fiction. That is part of the reason I got it, as I’ve been wanting to dip my toes into the genre sometime with a work of my own (once I feel confident). That I’ve heard a number of people talking about it recently is a good indicator that it has had an impact on the genre, so it just seemed like something to pay attention to.

There is another reason I ultimately decided to get this book: the author is Chinese, and I am especially interested to get a look at science fiction with a Chinese perspective.

How to do Things With Words

[image error]This is the latest in a string of books I’ve been reading about the craft of writing. It isn’t something I’m doing with any specific goal in mind, so much as exploring the topic to see what I pick up. At the very least, the different perspectives on writing give me something to think about while making me consider my approach. That cannot be anything but healthy.

If you are thinking about beginning to write fiction, this is something I highly recommend you begin doing sooner rather than later. I certainly wish I had. At worst, it will give you something to think about, but there is a good chance you will be exposed to ideas you hadn’t even considered before. If you aren’t sure where to start, my suggestion would be to go with more popular titles you may have heard about (such as The Elements of Style). Those are most likely to cover basics, which will become the foundation of everything you do. Later on, you can start to branch out into story theory, essay collections, and other topics.

By Duty Bound Book Launch Post Mortum

In-depth looks at my writing are something I try to avoid here, as I want this blog to be about more than just the craft of writing, however, I’ve got this New Year’s Resolution to keep my blog up more than I have been and only a few ideas for content. Ended up asking around for topic ideas, and this one came up as something that may be interesting to people (or at the very least other writers in of anthro fiction).

General Background

Before I get too deep into things, I want to give some context to the information I’m sharing. Currently, I only have two books published (In Honor’s Shadow and By Duty Bound, which I just published). Both books are anthropomorphic low fantasy targeting the young adult demographic and are part of the same series. Neither book moves in enough volume for me to really give hard data on trends or anything, but I do feel like I have some anecdotal impressions that may be worthwhile.

There are also some notable differences between the launch of the two books. In Honor’s Shadow was launched early in the year (late February), while By Duty Bound launched much later (early September). In Honor’s Shadow was released immediately upon completion, while By Duty Bound had a 1 month preorder period. Both books were initially offered for 2.99USD as part of a special launch sale. Both books also participated in Furry Book Month the year of their launch, where they went on sale for 2.99USD a second time.

With regards to editing, In Honor’s Shadow saw more people helping with proofreading it than By Duty Bound did, however By Duty Bound got more outside help on the structural side and benefited from automated assistance in editing which In Honor’s Shadow did not (initially) receive. It is also worth noting that By Duty Bound is roughly 30% longer than In Honor’s Shadow.

Finally, it is important to note that with the release of By Duty Bound I have decided to drop the price of In Honor’s Shadow to 0.99USD going forward.

Pre-Launch Experience

I must admit that the lead-up to the launch of my second book went MUCH more smoothly than the launch for my first one. This is probably to be expected, as I knew what I was doing this time, but I really feel like having the firm launch date set with my pre-order period made it easier to know where my focus should be at any given time.

By contrast, In Honor’s Shadow basically saw me doing a mad sprint to get the book edited one last time the week of launch, followed by a scramble to compile everything into the various formats used by the various stores. To be 100% clear, I was still making minor changes to By Duty Bound in the final days as well, but these were largely much less critical changes in my opinion.

I should also mention that despite having less human help on the proofreading side of things, I definitely had the sense that By Duty Bound was much better edited in that regard than In Honor’s Shadow. This is quite possibly because the types of errors I tend to make may be the sorts that are easily flagged by automated systems. It should also be pointed out that using automated tools did not reduce the amount of time the book spent getting proofread but rather was used alongside a more normal process to help catch issues that were missed.

Pre-order vs. Immediate Launch

Here I am going to again be clear that my numbers aren’t yet large enough to speak confidently about trends so I will be talking about how the results felt compared to the immediate launch.

Personally, I liked the pre-order period, and although I am not sure if the duration was correct I feel like for where I am (and my decision to not advertise yet) that going for only 1 month was probably the correct choice. The nicest thing about the pre-order is that all the sales from the pre-order period get piled into the day of the launch, which is great for store ranking. By Duty Bound got noticeably higher ranked in its categories than In Honor’s Shadow did at launch. Advertising coupled with a longer pre-order period would almost certainly compound this.

Did the pre-order get me more sales? Maybe. The sales were higher, but I am not sure if that is because of anything I did or just random chance causing a fluctuation in my numbers. I feel like it helped, but that may just be an illusion from having been able to see my sales numbers accumulate pre-launch during the pre-order period. What I can say for sure, though, is that it certainly did not HURT. If I was going to change anything, I think it would be to make the pre-order period have a unique deal instead of keeping the price at 2.99USD even after launch (which I shall address later).

Furry Book Month

Here is a major difference I feel results from the timing of my book release: I definitely feel that Furry Book Month helped In Honor’s Shadow noticeably more than By Duty Bound. When By Duty Bound launched it had been on pre-order for 2.99USD through August, and then on a launch sale for the same price all through September. Thus, when October arrived, I decided to simply continue the sale through Furry Book Month. I do not feel this was the incorrect decision, but given the timing of my book’s launch it meant that the book had been sold for 2.99USD for 2 straight months before Furry Book Month, so going on for an extra month really isn’t a big deal.

In Honor’s Shadow launched at the end of February, however. It also went for 2.99USD during its launch month, but then went up to the intended 4.99 price point for the next 6 months (April-September) before dropping back down to 2.99USD for Furry Book Month. This looks like a far superior deal to me, and allowed me to make a better advertisement push.

Although this isn’t something I would change, it is worth keeping in mind. I intend to participate in Furry Book Month again next year so it will be interesting to see if there is any difference.

Things to Try Next

Thinking ahead to my future book releases, there are only two things I think I should try going forward: advertising and pre-order window. This would be a big step forward in terms of what I am doing to get my books sold, but it seems like where I need to start headed as I will have 3 books out (when Honor’s Path #3 launches). This also brings into frame a whole mess of new things to think about. Book releases will need to have more consideration into their timing than just “when it is finished” since the pre-order window will need to coincide with an advertising campaign. This, in turn, means that ads will need to be designed and campaigns arranged ahead of time.

And of course, this also carries the risk of being bungled such that the return doesn’t offset the additional costs. I have a lot of questions about advertising that I’ll need to look into. For example, is it better to focus my advertising efforts on the period where the book first goes on pre-order, or should I ramp things up as it gets closer to the release? Or perhaps a sustained campaign is best, ensuring that my message is presented to the target audience as often as possible. How long should I continue advertising after the book’s official launch? This is all stuff that I’ll need to consider, and I’ll definitely be looking for some material to read covering it.

Furry Book Month 2018!

This is something I completely missed last year, but I’m a little more on the ball this time around. Furry Book Month is back!

[image error]

This is a month where publishers and authors of anthropomorphic fiction promote their work by offering deals for you to take advantage of. You can learn more about it by following #FurryBookMonth on twitter or by checking out the Furry Writer’s Guild’s page about it.

Because I was intending to have an offer this time around anyway, I will be extending my launch sale for By Duty Bound. It shall now be available for 2.99$ until October 31st! In addition, I had already decided to keep In Honor’s Shadow‘s price at $0.99 permanently. I know that technically doesn’t make this price a special promotion, but do feel free to point anyone you think may be interested in my writing at it.

For information on where to find all of my books, just take a look at THIS PAGE.

Promotion: Free Pre-release Copies of By Duty Bound (expired)

My new book, By Duty Bound (book 2 in the Honor’s Path series), will soon be available for pre-order on Amazon beginning on August 3rd, 2018. It will officially release a month later on September 3rd, 2018. That is very soon, but maybe you don’t want to wait. In that case, what can you do?

Fortunately, I am offering a chance to get a pre-release copy of the book a full week and a half before anyone else will get their hands on it. Interested? Then read on!

Review In Honor’s Shadow and get By Duty Bound

It is actually a little more involved than that, but only slightly. [image error]

To be eligible for a free copy of By Duty Bound, you must do two things before midnight on August 21st, 2018 (Central Time):

Write a review of In Honor’s Shadow (on sale for $0.99USD until this promotion ends) on Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, Barns&Noble, or Smashwords. Reviews on Goodreads are also acceptable. Send a screenshot of your review to me at: free_book@skyelansing.com (dead link)
Sign up for my Fan Newsletter. Make sure to use the same email that you sent me your screenshot with; otherwise, you may not get your book!

Do both of these things before the deadline (again, that is midnight on August 21st, 2018) and you will receive an email through my newsletter on August 22nd, 2018 containing links that will allow you to download a FREE pre-release copy of my new book, By Duty Bound.

It is as easy as that!

If you still have questions, please take a look at this handy FAQ (dead link). You should find your answers there. If not, you can always contact me HERE.

Promotion: Free Pre-release Copies of By Duty Bound

My new book, By Duty Bound (book 2 in the Honor’s Path series), will soon be available for pre-order on Amazon beginning on August 3rd, 2018. It will officially release a month later on September 3rd, 2018. That is very soon, but maybe you don’t want to wait. In that case, what can you do?

Fortunately, I am offering a chance to get a pre-release copy of the book a full week and a half before anyone else will get their hands on it. Interested? Then read on!

Review In Honor’s Shadow and get By Duty Bound

It is actually a little more involved than that, but only slightly. [image error]

To be eligible for a free copy of By Duty Bound, you must do two things before midnight on August 21st, 2018 (Central Time):

Write a review of In Honor’s Shadow (on sale for $0.99USD until this promotion ends) on Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, Barns&Noble, or Smashwords. Reviews on Goodreads are also acceptable. Send a screenshot of your review to me at: free_book@skyelansing.com.
Sign up for my Fan Newsletter. Make sure to use the same email that you sent me your screenshot with; otherwise, you may not get your book!

Do both of these things before the deadline (again, that is midnight on August 21st, 2018) and you will receive an email through my newsletter on August 22nd, 2018 containing links that will allow you to download a FREE pre-release copy of my new book, By Duty Bound.

It is as easy as that!

If you still have questions, please take a look at this handy FAQ. You should find your answers there. If not, you can always contact me HERE.

Back from Vacation, Announcements, and Such

I just got back from my vacation and figured I should make a post letting everyone who isn’t subscribed to my Newsletter (and why aren’t you? It is easy and make sure you get every update first!). For those of you who ARE subscribed to my Newsletter, there is only one detail that is any new (mostly because I only found out about it two days ago) and it shouldn’t change anything. I’m not attaching specific dates to anything yet because this is all tentative, however

By Duty Bound Release

As I already mentioned, there isn’t going to be a hard date for this (yet), however I am aiming for late August/early September. It is probably ready to go now, if I use In Honor’s Shadow as a measure, but I want to improve my standards with every book release. This is one area where I am trying to improve. I expect to be able to give a firm date sometime next month, so keep an eye out for that. All that said, I know for a fact it will NOT be out before August 20th (more on why later).

 

In Honor’s Shadow Revisions

This is something I already did earlier this year, however I am going to put it through a slightly different revision process as well to get it a bit closer to the quality I am striving for with By Duty Bound. Don’t expect major rewrites or anything like that. Mostly I’m just going to re-read it and throw a few new tools I’ve discovered at it. The revisions will (probably) go into effect sometime next month as I do not expect them to take terribly long.

 

Traveling August

This is the main reason I know By Duty Bound will not launch before August 20th: I will be away from home shortly before that, and feel like running a book launch right after traveling is a bad idea. As already stated, I’m not sure WHEN the book will launch, but once I have decided (and have a date), I do intend to have the book available for pre-order; which likely will be taking place during this period. Again, I don’t have firm details now, but watch for them next month!

Draft 3 of By Duty Bound Complete

Last Saturday I finished Draft 3 of By Duty Bound, which is a lot of progress. I’ve taken a short “break” in the interim, both to unwind from the grueling pace I set and to compile materials I know will help me with the next step: Proof Reading. I keep a checklist of common grammar and spelling mistakes, and a list of common issues I’ve noticed crop up in my writing. For instance, during my last editing pass I noticed that I am using the words “just”, “really”, “simply”, “immediately”, and “actually” far too often. Obviously I tried to fix that during my last edit, however this checklist reminds me to do a very through check by using common word-processing functions like Find and Replace, allowing me to locate every instance of these sorts of mistakes and be sure I fix them.

As I was editing Draft Three I was helped by a new beta reader who gave me some good comments (in addition to some flattery). Actually implemented most of his suggestions to some degree or another, in addition to fixing some other issues I noticed. There is only one major thing that he pointed out that I haven’t fixed, although not for lack of wanting to. The problem is that he believes (and I agree) one of my characters is underutilized. Unfortunately, correcting that would mean rewriting large swaths of the book and I am so late in the process that it would basically send me back at least 4, and likely more, since I would need to restart editing process.

In any case, I’m not exactly sure how long it will take me to work my way through this new checklist. It is about 9 pages long, and once I reach the end of it (and do a couple other things) I can say that I am finished with drafts and move on to release candidates. Doubt I will have the book ready by May like I hoped, but am definitely going to have it out by summer. Already thinking about how I want to go about handling the launch (if I want to have it up for preorder or what have you). Those are all business-y decisions, however.

Pens

This is a post I’ve been wanting to make for a while, which feels really weird to say considering this is going to be all about pens. How long you ask? Well, instead of launching into a hyperbolic story I shall answer you with a single image:

 

[image error]

Those of you with keen eyes will notice that the Last Modified date for the post was in December of 2015, nearly 2 years ago. If you have bothered to look you will also notice that it was just a few months after I first launched my blog. I have sat on this for a couple of years, mostly because I wasn’t sure I should ramble on about what I like about pens.

Why the change? Because I feel like I now have a post that is more interesting because my tastes have shifted quite sharply in the last year.

Previously I would have talked about why I preferred the Pilot Precise V7 Stick Rolling Ball Pens. For the record, I still think that these are great pens which I have used since High School when I was in the Speech and Debate Club. Any time I need a cheap pen, such as something I can carry with my checkbook, this would be my first choice.

The thing is, I mostly use pens with my writing. I write in my personal journal (which tends to be about whatever project I’m working on), or in my idea book, or brainstorming ideas, or laying out plot elements. So while I compose the stories themselves on my laptop, a lot of the creative work happens by hand. I write a lot.

For Christmas 2016 I got a very nice fountain pen from a friend who decided I needed one because by publishing In Honor’s Shadow I had become a real author. The pen he selected was the Hemisphere Rose Cuivre from Waterman. I wouldn’t call this a top-of-the-line fountain pen, those easily run into the thousands of dollars, but I would call it a very nice pen intended for everyday use.

Here is the part where I am about to start talking about stuff that will probably make me sound pretentious, so fair warning.

What I immediately noticed once I got used to writing with the fountain pen was that disposable ballpoint pens began feeling very cheap. Obviously that is because they need to be. My fountain pen had noticeably more heft to it (not that it was heavy, but disposable pens are surprisingly light). I found this gave me a greater feeling of control over the pen, which I enjoyed immensely. This had a side benefit of making writing easier since I can allow the weight of the pen to press down on the paper instead of pressing down myself, which in turn means that my hand doesn’t tire nearly so quickly.

This is probably in my head, but the added mass of the pen (and my ability to control it better) gives writing with it a sense of weight that I appreciate. It makes me want to slow down and think about what I am doing, which cannot be a bad thing, and is probably the driving force behind my recent wish to improve my penmanship.

Obviously the downside is that a $100+ pen isn’t the sort of thing you are going to travel with lightly since it is fairly small and easy to lose, so for my birthday I got a cheaper fountain pen for about $45 dollars. This one is even heavier than my first one (in fact, probably a little too heavy) and feels noticeably cheaper to hold, however I find it still feels far superior to write with it than a ballpoint pen. I was happy to find that while the pen itself feels cheaper that the manufacturer did create a quality nib, so it writes just as well as the first fountain pen I received.

There are some other weird things I learned as grew to like my new fountain pens. The first is that if you like convenience there are ink inserts that you can use with no fuss, although you will want to make sure you buy a pen that can take the standardized inserts. These are quite nice and create no mess, you simply snap them in and you are ready to write. Oddly, I found I prefer to fill my pens manually because I enjoy the slight ritual that is involved. This is also easy to do with no mess, although you will need to buy a converter for your pen and learn how to use it.

How To Update Amazon Books

This is just a quick announcement to everyone who has bought my book: I recently updated the book to correct some errors that I (and a few others) have found. Most of the corrections are fairly minor, however there are a few that I am actually embarrassed to admit made it through before now. If you’ve already bought my book you have probably received an email from Amazon telling you that you can update it. If you haven’t seen one it may have been caught by your spam filter or accidentally deleted, so I am making this post to tell you how to get the updates (if you want them).

Things To Know First

If you have any notes or highlights in the book, updating it WILL DELETE THEM. This is the reason Amazon does not automatically push out updates to customers. Fortunately, the update process is very easy and just requires pushing a button. You may also need to delete the book off of your device and re-download it. After you update your e-book you will no longer be able to download the older versions of the book (if you wish to have access to older versions, I believe you can buy a copy from Smashwords, as I believe that site allows you to choose which version of a file you wish to have).

Because you will be losing access to an earlier version of the file, here are the changes that you will be getting:

-fixed a few major grammar errors.

-slight tweaks to wording in several spots (to improve readability and clarity).

-fixed several minor grammar errors (missing commas, etc.)

The story’s plot is completely unchanged.

Ok, with that out-of-the-way…

How to Download Updates on Amazon

So the first thing you will need to do is manage your Content and Devices. This is very easy! Go to www.amazon.com and in the upper right corner of the webpage you should see something that says Hello (username). Hover your mouse over that and you should present you with a bunch of menu options. You want the one that says “Your Content and Devices”. Click on it.

[image error]

 

Once you are there, make sure  you have “Your Content” selected. You should see a list of ebooks you have bought through Amazon. It will look like this:

[image error]

You are almost there. There is one more step. Search your list of e-books for “In Honor’s Shadow (Honor’s Path Book 1)”. Upon finding it, you will see that there is a button on the right informing you that there is an “Update Available”. Clicking on that button will make the updated file available to you. Once again, if you have any notes or highlights in the e-book THESE WILL BE LOST if you update and, as far as I know, there is no way to roll back to an earlier version of the ebook. It should look like this:

[image error]

It will take a minute or two for the update to be delivered to your devices. They will, obviously, need to be connected to the internet to get it. If, for some reason, you find that you have not gotten the updates after clicking the “Update Available” button try deleting the book off your device and re-downloading it. If that fails to work, or if for some reason you do not have the option to download the book’s updates, you will need to contact Amazon Customer Support for help, which in my experience are very good and quick to resolve issues.