Jeffrey Miller's Blog: Jeffrey Miller Writes, page 13

Picture of the Day: Portrait of an Artist

Seoul’s palaces are a magnet for artists and photographers, especially in autumn and winter. I snapped this photograph ten years ago on one of my visits to Kyongbok Palace which was not far from where I was teaching at the time, Yonsei University.

I thought this would make for a nice photo commentary in the Korea Times. Sadly, I never got around to submitting it.

However, I did write about it and other visits to the palace in Waking Up in the Land of The Morning Calm.

Long Train Runnin’

Sitting here in my apartment on a Tuesday night in Daejeon trying to finish my novel for the 2013 NaNoWriMo contest; in the distance I hear a Korean freight train rumbling through Daejeon Station (about a quarter of a mile away) and just like that I am teleported back to the Illinois Valley, back to my grandparent’s house on the east of LaSalle, where I am sitting at the kitchen table with the windows open listening to a train in the distance, down by the tracks that ran along the I&M Canal.

Just hearing the sound of the trains rumbling through Daejeon (a lot of train traffic in the evening from Pusan to Seoul) makes me think of back home and feeling extra homesick and nostalgic with Thanksgiving a few days away and only a few weeks before Christmas.

Trains do it to me a lot.

NaNoWriMo: Challenge Accepted

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is the annual month-long writing event whereby aspiring as well as published authors spend one month writing a novel of 50,000 words. Basically, it’s a contest for people who have always talked about writing that “book” one day, but for some reason or another have never gotten around to doing it.

The contest is simple and challenging. For one month, in November, participants are to write a 50,000-word novel. There are kinds of pep talks, gatherings, write-ins (which to me smacks more of social networking than serious writing, but that’s just me) all designed to help writers finish their projects. In order to finish on time, one has to write on average 1,667 words a day, which doesn’t seem like much, but this is every day. Fall behind and you just might not catch up.

I’ve known a few people who have done it in the past and when November 1st started getting close, I thought, what the hell, let’s see if I could do it this year. You know, just to say that I did it. As it happened, I had this one idea for a thriller set in Korea that I have been wanting to write for some time, but was too busy with other writing projects: Ice Cream Headache, When A Hard Rain Falls, and the soon-to-be-published, I’ll Be Home For Christmas.

How am I doing so far? I’ve managed to meet my daily word quota and as the contest started its third week, I have started to pull ahead of the word count quota; though this is more for insurance purposes knowing quite well of the corners we writers sometimes write ourselves in.

My original idea has gone through a couple of changes; surprisingly, these changes have actually given me more fodder to write. I love how writing is a journey of discovery: you start out with one idea and then suddenly you stumble across a twist or turn in the plot which takes your book on a whole new exciting path.

Enough said here. I need to get back to my book.

Yin and Yang

 

“Why do you have L-O-V-E and H-A-T-E tattooed on your fingers?” Glenda asked.

Nicky thought about Sarah back in Denver. She wanted to know the same thing. “Either you love someone in this world or you hate them. There is no middle. Just like there are only two choices we make in this world: the right one and the wrong one.”

Glenda smiled. “Oh, I get it. Kind of like yin and yang.”

“Yin and what?”

“Yang. The balance of life,” Glenda explained. “Love is just as strong an emotion as hate is and vice versa.”

“Yeah, it’s a yin and yang thing all right.”

When A Hard Rain Falls. You want this book. Yes, you do.

http://amzn.to/18FeDf1

How to Avoid the Self-Publishing Blues #2: You’re So Vain

You probably thought this book….

Let’s face it, one of the biggest challenges with self-publishing, other than how to best market your book is how to overcome the vanity press stigma which many people have with authors who self-publish.

Back in the day, an author would write a book, go to a local printer and print a couple hundred copies and then pawn them off on family and friends. If an author was lucky, they might get close to recouping their original investment, and perhaps, if luckier, break even. Those that didn’t ended up with a garage full of books and their dream of becoming a writer shattered.

Fortunately for authors, one doesn’t have to shell out a couple hundred or even thousand dollars to get published these days. In fact, one could publish an eB0ok or a paperback through places like Createspace or Lulu for nothing and depending upon the book’s subject matter, start making a profit within hours of the book going live. And if the book is good, an author could enjoy a brief run of success, perhaps even land a lucrative contract from a publishing house.

Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?

Anyone now can publish anything he or she wants and call themselves a published author.

However, that vanity stigma is still with it and from time to time, raises its ugly head again.

I recently published my sixth book, When A Hard Rain Falls, and I was all set for a good run. As soon as it went live on Amazon, I posted a photo of the book on Facebook and instantly the post received over 100 likes. That’s about as far as it went.

You see, people know the drill: author publishes book, author promotes book on Facebook. Friends like that the author has published a book. And sadly for many authors this is the cold, hard reality with self-publishing: it doesn’t go any further than that.

Some people will tell you that the best way to sell more books is to write more books with the idea that the more your name is bandied around as an author, the more likely folks will gobble up one’s books. On the other hand, there is the chance for overkill: can too many books spoil the author?

I’m not sure what to think two weeks into the publication of my sixth book. My first book, War Remains was received quite well, but I think a lot had to do with the novelty of the idea of one publishing his or her first book.

So, how do you avoid the self-publishing blues and escaping the vanity stigma?

That’s hard to answer given the preponderance of books being published around the clock. Obviously, there is a demand for some books, though for the life of me (no pun intended) I can’t figure out why books about zombies sell well. I think the biggest problem is that world has gone mainstream. It’s getting harder and harder to compete with a lot of crap being written these days which means it’s getting harder and harder to get noticed. I once had an agent tell me that she loved my first book War Remains, that it was a good story, but she felt that she couldn’t sell it. She suggested that I write a mystery or a thriller; so I wrote When A Hard Rain Falls.

Although the advice I am about to give might not help you if you have a book on Amazon or Barnes and Noble and your sales have convinced you not to give up your day job, but if you are going to self-publish, PLEASE make sure you have invested some money into editing and design. It might not help you sell a thousand or more books, but if we are ever to escape this self-publishing stigma we have to make sure our books are just as good as ones being turned out by traditional publishing houses.

Another thing you can do, and this is some advice I have seen a lot of published authors give, and that is to choose your categories wisely. That is one way to get a little more exposure to sell more books and free you from the shackles of the self-publishing stigma. I know an author who published a book a few days ago and already the book is in the top ten because of the category. People see that and they probably don’t care if the book was self-published or not. That my friends is another hard reality about self-publishing.

There is hope for us, though. We just have to keep on doing what we love and believe in the dream.

Photo of the Day: Put ‘er in the basket, Chief!

All I could think about after I took these photos was Jack Nicholson playing basketball in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Photo of the Day: SolBridge Sports Day

Students at the SolBridge International School of Business in Daejeon, South Korea, took time out on the eve of midterms week for some fun and games during the school’s annual Sports Day. Held each year in the fall, BBA and MBA students compete in a series of games and sporting events to unwind before their midterm exams. Organized by SolBridge’s hardworking Student Council and supported by Student Services, Sports Day is one of a number of events held each semester for students.

Photo of the Day: Midterm week at SolBridge

SolBridge students are burning the oil late at night as they begin their midterms.

What’s happening outside SolBridge these days?

Lots of construction happening outside SolBridge these days with a new bridge being built. Let’s hope all these road and bridge improvements will remove a lot of the traffic gridlock which has gotten worse the past couple of years.

Photo of the Day: President of Boeing Korea Speaks at SolBridge

The President of Boeing Korea and Vice President of Boeing International, Pat Gaines, gave an inspiring special lecture to the SolBridge student body on October 8, 2013. During his hour-long talk, Gaines talked about his career with Boeing and the importance of soft skills, especially the importance of mentoring in today’s competitive business world.