Ruth Nestvold's Blog, page 23

Shards of Glass for #WIPpet Wednesday, and a request for feedback on the cover

Hi again, everyone! Long time, no read. :)

While I was off visiting relatives, assisting with deck building, doing garden work in the garden of my daughter’s new house, and eating fresh crab, the nearly final cover of the third Glassmakers book arrived in my inbox.

I’m pretty happy with how it looks, but my cover designer agreed to allow me to run it past my readers on my blog and Facebook before finalizing it. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a lot of time for blogging in the last few weeks,...

Villa Diodati 14 (and 13 too … )

VD14

A little over a week before we flew to the States to visit relatives, I got back from the most recent incarnation of the Villa Diodati workshop. VD14 was once again in southern Spain, but probably for the last time, since we are losing our venue, unfortunately. Ah well. We will find other cool places to meet, I am sure.

This workshop was one of the biggest we’ve had, with ten participants.

Front row: Sylvia Spruck Wrigley, Ruth Nestvold, Grayson Morris, Christian Walter, Jeremy Sim
Ba...

The sadly rabid puppies: Link update

I’ve been hanging out with friends and family I don’t see very often, so I haven’t been following the whole sock puppies scandal very closely. But it keeps cropping up on various discussion threads and lists I’m on, and I can’t help but reading up on the scandal. Here are some of the better posts I’ve come across in recent days.

My Clarion West instructor George R.R. Martin wrote an excellent summary on why the sad puppies are rather deluded regarding their feeling of being excluded by the n...

Second quarter goals

I got a bit sidetracked yesterday by the hijacking of the Hugo Awards for SFF, which I wrote about in my last post. Now that is off my chest, I can get back to business: my goals for the next quarter.

For the next couple of weeks, this list and my blog will be largely on hiatus while I try to catch up with relatives on another continent.

Writing:

Write an average of 2500 words a week.

Finish Shards of Glass (that btw is not the final cover, so any and all comments and suggestions welcome...

The Hijacked Hugo Awards, 2015: New Tales of Beset Manhood

Well, that at least was what I intended to do when I first found out what was behind the exceedingly odd list of Hugo nominations this year. What, no Asimov’s? No F&SF, Strange Horizons, Interzone, or any of the other big names besides Analog? And who in the blue blazes is this John C. Wright person, who has THREE nominations in the novella category, as well as one each in short story and novelette? I cannot think of a single heavy-hitter in SFF in my lifetime who has dominated the ballot t...

A Note About the Hugo Nominations This Year

Ruth Nestvold:

What do do when the Hugos get hijacked:

Originally posted on Whatever:

It is:

1. Yes, Ive seen the slate. The slate shows up even in Australia! And I woke up early because I crashed from exhaustion last night before 7pm. Finishing a book takes it out of you.

2.Im very pleased for the several friends and/or writers who are on the ballot this year. This includes everyone in the Best Novel category, all of whom I consider friends, and any of whom I would be happy to see take home...

Cover Copy Primer

Some great tips in this blog post on how to write a book description:

Cover Copy Primer

Quarterly progress report and a #WIPpet snippet

I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to get to this today. I’m flying to Spain tomorrow for the next Villa Diodati workshop. But I’m almost done packing now, so my head is free for a blog post after all.

I’ll start with the final update for this Round of Words. If you’re here only for WIPpet Wednesday, feel free to skip. :)

Here are my goals from the beginning of the quarter:

Writing:

Write an average of 4000 words a week – MADE IT! 53,300 words in 12 weeks. The weekly output was up an...

What became of the apple? A #WIPpet Wednesday snippet.

Before I get back to Facets of Glass, a brief update on my progress for the week. I continue to move forward steadily on the translation. It certainly helps that the first book in the series, Ein Krieger der Wikinger, is selling like gangbusters. Since Jud and I have a translation model where I am paid much less up front for a much higher percentage of the royalties, that means it probably won’t be too much longer before I’ve earned out on my advance for the translation and will start earning...

Starting out as an indie author: Creating a wraparound cover for your print book

Last week, I provided some tips on how to format the interior of your book for print on demand. This week I will finish the POD publishing lesson by showing you a little on how to make the wraparound cover that you need for a print book.

The first thing you will need is a template in the size you want with the spine the correct width for the length of your book. You can either create this yourself using the instructions on your publishing site (here for CreateSpace), or download the template...