D.J. Small's Blog, page 44

News We've All Been Waiting For....I Think

By the end of this week I should have book 2 rewrites finished. It took awhile, but it is going to be well worth it. With this being said book 2 starts the beginning of my werewolf series. I won't give out too much detail, but the closer I get to releasing it the more I will reveal.

I will have to explain that I'm doing this series in a weird way, or at least I think it's weird. The manuscript which books one and two are originally written from is a massive one and honestly it would have been too much book. This is why I cut it in two and basically restructured the story a bit so the break would work. When book one ends it'll end sort of like a cliffhanger, but book two will pick up right where it left off at. This is why I'm able to release the two books next year. This means I'll be working extra hard to get the second half of the story rewritten so it'll be ready for publishing in 2018.

This is the plan, but I hope we're anxious about because I know I am. It's a little different from Pool of Lies since it a supernatural book, but this story was supposed to be my first book, but I'm glad I'm finally able to get it out.

Wish me luck because next is the two to four rounds of editing. Yay! 

Until next time...happy reading!

DJ Small

Side Gigs

I have been developing myself as a self-publisher and my enturpernarial skill in general. The more you know the better you are as an author and publisher in my opinion with this being said, this is a brief rundown of the things I know.

Book Formatting: From my prior post we all know I've been learning how to use inDesign to format a book. It took sometime, but I'm fairly confident about my mastery of it. I can make any book look like it had been published through traditional means.

Website Design: I've created my entire website. I used a template from my hosting site, but I have manipulated to something which suits me. The site is versatile and translates well on all devices. In my opinion, it is a good site.

Book Cover Design: Once again, after conquering the beast which is known as inDesign I have figured out how to design a book cover. Using my image site and GIMP, I can make pretty decent covers. I've actually designed the cover of my next book and I'm pleased with it.

Book Review Blog: I'm not really doing anything fiscally with this, but it's something I've wanted to do for awhile. I've had the blog for awhile, but I have gotten serious about it. It's an inclusive LGBTQ+ book review blogs. Our motto is "We review the books other blogs and sites don't." I've noticed some book review blogs have stringent guidelines for reviewing books, and that's their perogative, but my mentality when it comes to the LGBTQ+ fiction world comes down to one word: community. We want people to welcomed and comfortable. This goes for authors and readers. Indie and traditionally published. The only thing we don't review is erotica, but everything else is fair game. The blog is called The Queer Book Review and it is up and running. 

Now you're probably wondering why I'm mentioning all this. I want to help people, specifically other authors who are wanting to find their legs in the world. It's tough doing this self-publishing thing. You either have to pay out the wazoo for assistance or waste valuable time researching and learning how do things on your time. This is where I come in. 

I'm willing to do the book cover, formatting, and whatever else you need. You need a consultant I'm your guy. For the book and website design there will be a fee, but I'm not going to charge too much for it. Again, as much as I would love to make money, I also want to see other authors and writers grow. 

Book review is free. Spreading the word of new authors and their stories is what gets us an audience. All you have to do is go to the website and view the submission guidelines.

If you are interested in letting me be your self-publishing consultant do not hesitate to reach out to me. The best way to do that is, of course, through email at info@djsmallauthor.com or you can use the Contact page. I really am dedicated to helping other authors out there. 

Book 2 rewrites are still underway, but going along. Should have them done by the end of October then comes the editing process. The outlook for a early 2018 release is looking quite possible. Fingers crossed. Until then...

Happy Reading!

DJ Small    

How Adobe Captured My Soul

Okay, so the title may be a bit...intense, but it is the best way to describe what has occurred. I purchased a yearly subscription of InDesign, to be charged monthly, because Adobe doesn't let you purchase software outright anymore. You have to do a subscription. It's part of the collaborative and cloud based creative movement they're trying to go for. Insert an exaggerated eye roll here.

I got it mainly because I wanted my books to have a professional feel to them without paying hundreds, if not even thousands of dollars, for someone else to do typography and layout. I know there are freelancers out there who don't charge much, but I'm a writer with a day job and I have bills to pay. Sometimes dropping 60 measly bucks isn't feasible for me because sometimes shit happens. So I decided I would learn typography and book formatting. All roads led to InDesign. Deciding 20 bucks a month would be better I bit the bullet.

I took the time to learn the software via Google and the Adobe support page. I'm not a genius, but learning new software isn't hard for me. It's one of those known facts I know about myself. I've been that way since I was a kid. Moving on, I figured out how to use master pages and how to apply them to my book pages. How to get the text to do what I wanted to do. Fought for hours with justification. Making fancy symbols and so on and so forth. Pool of Lies was formatted in Word and there a minor issues with it still because Word isn't meant for typography. It's where you put the words down. But InDesign, is meant for such things and I'm tempted to redo Pool of Lies or put out a second edition.

This isn't where Adobe got my soul. I knew InDesign was the Holy Grail for book formatting and it's why I got it. Adobe got my soul when I discovered I can make my own book covers in it. Mind you, I'm still figuring out this indie author thing, so cut a guy some slack. It happened while I was talking to my friend and how much I spent on my front cover, back cover, and spine for Pool of Lies. It was almost two hundred dollars. My reasoning for it was because I wanted to make a good impression for my first self-published book. You know the saying about investing in your future. And it was talking to my friend I started trying to find alternatives and I stumbled upon this article about making your own cover outside of the Createspace book cover creator. It mentioned InDesign and I was like, "Hey, I have InDesign!" So I read the article which began my descent into book cover creating.

I had to download GIMP for graphic manipulation, subscribe to a stock photo service, and spend hours learning how to create book covers. Combined it took maybe ten hours over two days. It took trial and error, but eventually I created a front cover, back cover, and spine for thirty bucks. Twenty for my InDesign subscription and ten for my subscription for the stock photo site. The cover I created is for my forthcoming book which will be released in the winter. It is simple, but eye grabbing and its how I envisioned my book cover to be.

This was another driving factor in me learning how to do this. I always have a vision for my books. From the story itself to the cover. There are details I want to see happen and when you  have a third party involved details can get lost in translation. With this next book it will be the first of a series and with a series, depending on how long it is, your cover should capture the theme of it. Not just a random cover job which says, "Eh, close enough." I don't know, maybe I have more of an artistic vision approach to my books. 

In short, Adobe owns my soul but it is a small price to pay for a man learning how to fish. All right you crazy kids get out of here. Any questions you can reach out to me on the Contact page and don't forget to subscribe to the monthly newsletter which gets delivered to your email once a month on the 20th. Oh, and one more plug, don't forget to visit my Patreon page where I have exclusive short stories posted. A ten dollar monthly subscription gives you access to everything. Content is a little slow at the moment since I'm focusing on the second book, but I am in the process of developing several series which will be on there So go check it out. 

Happy Reading!

DJ Small

Introducing Newsletters

I have to be frank, I suck at blogging. It's not that I don't enjoy it because I have no problems with it, but it requires me to remember to blog. I'm not really blogging about useful information or facts and tidbits. I'm just updating readers in regards to my process and ramblings. 

With that being said I've decided to roll out a monthly newsletter. I'll still blog when I can, but with a monthly newsletter I can compile everything for the last month into one document and send it out to those who want to be kept up to date on what's going on with me as an author.

To sign up just fill out the form, which is actually near the bottom of this page, and it will put you on the mailing list. I will also have a page for prior newsletters which will hold old newsletters for six months then I'll get rid of them. Expect the newsletter to come out the middle of September. Any thoughts or suggestions on it would be greatly appreciated. Happy reading!

DJ Small

Update of Sorts

By some miracle my boss managed to get me the past week off so I could focus on my writing. I know I'm a jackass, but I have to say I am quite proud of myself because I have gotten into a groove with the story which will be the second book, so fingers cross this will continue and I will have a second book out by the end of 2017.

In other news I have also reformatted my Patreon page. It is no longer a rewards based page. It's a subscription page where subscribers who sign up for the base fee of 10.00 get access to exclusive stuff which will only go on there. It's basically a place for me to post my shorter stories. First story which will premier there is called VANISHED:Pandora. It was to premier on 8/5, but due to a Word complications, it will not premier on 8/12. Gives me time to jam out to the new Kesha album while editing. If you are interested in learning more about VANISHED: Pandora click on this link and it will give you a quick synopsis of the story and this link will give access to the excerpt I posted. I highly suggest subscribing because this is content will not be found elsewhere.

I'm going to be playing with newsletters because it will be a more direct way to interact with readers and keep you guys informed of what is going on in regards to books and everything I'm releasing out into the world. I'll post it on the homepage with how you can subscribe once I have it all configured. Until next time, which won't be a decade, happy reading.

DJ Small

Wanna Help Me Out?

This an announcement post to let everyone know that I have made a Patreon page for those who would like to support me.

I set it up because I need gain funding for this second book without having to sacrifice my time working on it by doing overtime at my day job. Also, I figure it would be a nice way to develop a relationship with my readers.

How it works is you sign up for a monthly subscription (FYI: you will be charged each month for however much you want to contribute) tier and you get the perks for that tier. They'll change over time, but for the moment I'm offering what I can and I'm hoping it will become something really cool. So click the link in the first sentence to check it out. 

Any questions let me know.

DJ Small

For Real This Time

With my current project winding down, and me throwing out ideas for scripts, I'm actually working on books 2 and 3. In my last blog post I stated that the story I had planned to be my 2nd book is too long to be one book, so I'm splitting it. Now that I'm actually focused on it I should have my first draft re-written completely by the end of July - barring any work complications. I'm actually taking a week off so that I can work on it. I won't be sleeping that week. Then I'll be sending off to my editor so the two of us can beat the crap out of it over the next two months. Then hopefully by October I will have book two ready and book three ready for publishing in November.

It's a serious undertaking since these two books will be the start of a series of werewolf novels. There is so much I have already written in the existing story, but I have to make sure it all makes sense. One of the most complicated things about books like this is the world building. I mean I could take the typical lore, but as a writer who likes to go against the grain, I can't do that. I have to put my own spin on it. I've done that, I feel like, but we'll see what happens. This means I have to put extra focus on things because I need to make sure they carry over into the other books.

I hope this gives anyone who is wondering about my next book some answers. I anticipate a preview of it at the end of June. Planning to release the first two chapters to get a pulse on things. All right let me go be productive.

Until next time gentle readers, 

DJ Small

Update On Projects

As we all know I've been working on my script writing and I will be submitting my first script to the WeScreenplay Diverse Voices contest. I don't expect to win, and honestly I don't expect it to make it pass the first round of judging, but this will give me some experience with competition as well as getting feedback. So I'm nervous, but not too nervous. This will help me for when I send my TV scripts out because that's my aim.

I've started writing a story that I have allowed to consume me while working on my script, and it is a wonderful story that I'm hoping will be received well. With that being said book two will be split to make two books due to length. This means there will be some massive rewrites, structure changes, and of course deleting things then putting them back then deleting them again. Ahhh editing. It is a joyous thing. I'm hoping to have the first part out by the end of summer.

I'm cutting back on the number of new projects I start so I can focus on the current ones, but once I get a good idea it's hard to stop. Well this has been an update and I hope it answers any questions out there. Until next time, have a good day and read a great book.

Disappearing Act

It has been some time since I have posted, but that doesn't mean I haven't been working. Book two is slowly, but surely, coming along. I took a break to finish up my script which I'm now in the editing phase for. That's my 1st quarter project and quarters 2 and 3 will be dedicated to my second book which I hope to have published by the end of quarter three. We'll see how life and things treat me. Anyway I just wanted to give an update about where things stand in case anyone was wording. Have a good day. 

Auction Take Down

Due to some technical difficulties, and me realizing a couple of logistic things about the charity auction, I have pulled it down. Will it be back? Possibly. I need to re-think things. So if you've some how have come to my blog for it, it isn't going at the moment. Sorry, but I need to process it a little more. Thank you for stopping by though.

DJ Small