Jason Z. Christie's Blog, page 41
January 18, 2012
Woe to You, Oh New Writer
Life's really not fair. Can we all agree to that? Even for myself, who has an ideal family and looks forward to being married to the girl of my dreams, our situation doesn't really feel as perfect as it could be.
If I have complaints, I can imagine what the lives of others must be like, lacking the ideal companion.
The eBook revolution, as I call it, is both a blessing and a curse. Consider the plight of the new author. You have a single novel you've written. Your name is as of yet unknown. Perhaps you're not deeply ingrained with the ins-and-outs of computery things. You're not a promotion wizard. You just like to write, and you've decided to make the leap to ePublishing.
So you diligently type up the one novel, lovingly hand-written. You begin to struggle with formatting. You see that you need to make word changes in the text you previously thought was perfect. You squash typos and spelling mistakes, and introduce new ones.
Maybe you realize you didn't add chapters, or chapter titles. Perhaps what you had been calling the novel is already taken, causing you to rethink that, as well.
But let's assume you manage most of that. You have a good debut novel, you've started writing a second one. How exciting. And you're going to publish.
And you hit the wall at the uploading process. Maybe Smashwords' Meatgrinder has chewed you up and spat you out, rejected. Change all of my tabs to paragraph indents? Font size errors? A copyright page?
But I just want to write!
Suddenly, you're forced to become an expert on Microsoft Word, or the equivalent. Time that should be spent writing is now spent relearning a tool you thought you knew how to use already.
Let's assume you fix the mechanical errors. You're published! Yay!
You bug all of your family and friends, and get a few polite purchases. And then...nothing. So you start to work Facebook. A few more sales, perhaps.
And then watch your sales ranks drift slowly back down to #786,023 out of 984,857.
So you get on Goodreads. You solicit reviews from ebook reviewers. You make additional editing passes, as your readers deserve nothing but the best possible reading experience you can offer them.
Suddenly you realize that you haven't written anything in days. Weeks. You have somehow morphed into an editor and publicist. It's almost like the writer is another person entirely, and he or she is M.I.A.
Welcome to the horrors of ePublishing.
I'm really lucky. I have a name firmly established in several areas of the Internet. I wrote several novels before publishing. I have an editor who types up my pages and makes sense of my scrawl.
But even then, that doesn't directly, immediately translate into sales. It is a long, slow slog up hill, I assure you.
But guess what? It's still better than trying to deal with the print world...
If I have complaints, I can imagine what the lives of others must be like, lacking the ideal companion.
The eBook revolution, as I call it, is both a blessing and a curse. Consider the plight of the new author. You have a single novel you've written. Your name is as of yet unknown. Perhaps you're not deeply ingrained with the ins-and-outs of computery things. You're not a promotion wizard. You just like to write, and you've decided to make the leap to ePublishing.
So you diligently type up the one novel, lovingly hand-written. You begin to struggle with formatting. You see that you need to make word changes in the text you previously thought was perfect. You squash typos and spelling mistakes, and introduce new ones.
Maybe you realize you didn't add chapters, or chapter titles. Perhaps what you had been calling the novel is already taken, causing you to rethink that, as well.
But let's assume you manage most of that. You have a good debut novel, you've started writing a second one. How exciting. And you're going to publish.
And you hit the wall at the uploading process. Maybe Smashwords' Meatgrinder has chewed you up and spat you out, rejected. Change all of my tabs to paragraph indents? Font size errors? A copyright page?
But I just want to write!
Suddenly, you're forced to become an expert on Microsoft Word, or the equivalent. Time that should be spent writing is now spent relearning a tool you thought you knew how to use already.
Let's assume you fix the mechanical errors. You're published! Yay!
You bug all of your family and friends, and get a few polite purchases. And then...nothing. So you start to work Facebook. A few more sales, perhaps.
And then watch your sales ranks drift slowly back down to #786,023 out of 984,857.
So you get on Goodreads. You solicit reviews from ebook reviewers. You make additional editing passes, as your readers deserve nothing but the best possible reading experience you can offer them.
Suddenly you realize that you haven't written anything in days. Weeks. You have somehow morphed into an editor and publicist. It's almost like the writer is another person entirely, and he or she is M.I.A.
Welcome to the horrors of ePublishing.
I'm really lucky. I have a name firmly established in several areas of the Internet. I wrote several novels before publishing. I have an editor who types up my pages and makes sense of my scrawl.
But even then, that doesn't directly, immediately translate into sales. It is a long, slow slog up hill, I assure you.
But guess what? It's still better than trying to deal with the print world...
January 17, 2012
Point A to Point Z
Abecedarian angst
Belies my bountiful bliss
Concurrent the current currency
Exchanging the experience
Fragmented illusions like
Glass, each shard holds the whole of the
Hologram
I
Just love you
Kindling the flames of
My desire, forever inspired
Now, then and always
On-going, ever-changing
Perfection
Quietly explosive
Ridiculously unfair
Superlove
Terminally pretty
U understand, what I can't explain
V for vendettaless victory
We won't be unhappy
X marks the spot where you and I collide
Yvette
Zachary
Two Lions
We, the two stone lions
Sit outside the library
Where Alexandria works
Waiting patiently
For word from her
Her hair in a bun
Horn-rimmed glasses
We pounce
And devour her
When we're done
She says
Oops, sorry
I haven't read it yet...
Sit outside the library
Where Alexandria works
Waiting patiently
For word from her
Her hair in a bun
Horn-rimmed glasses
We pounce
And devour her
When we're done
She says
Oops, sorry
I haven't read it yet...
Just Say No to Review Exchanges
So, I've had my books online for a month now, and reviews are starting to trickle in. They're great reviews, four and five stars. People are saying great, sincere things about them. That's good.
But when I first got them online, I offered to do some review exchanges. That's bad.
I have to back out of that arrangement. That's bad.
But it's better than reviewing books I don't like, so that's good.
There is no way I could possibly give the first book I was given to review more than three stars. And I would give almost any book three stars for effort. So you know this one must be pretty bad. All I would be doing is setting myself up for a bad review from the author, so there is absolutely no benefit in me reviewing the books of others in exchange for them reading and writing about mine.
Just a word of warning to people starting out in the ebook game. It may seem like a good idea. It's not. Be patient. The reviews will come. Don't be afraid to hand out review copies like popcorn. It's much better to get honest reviews than filler, and you can maintain your integrity that way.
Because a writer without integrity may as well not write...
Pageburner, Zombie Killa, Perfect Me, Hurricane Regina, Radar Love
http://www.amazon.com/Jason-Christie/e/B006P7E0K8/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
But when I first got them online, I offered to do some review exchanges. That's bad.
I have to back out of that arrangement. That's bad.
But it's better than reviewing books I don't like, so that's good.
There is no way I could possibly give the first book I was given to review more than three stars. And I would give almost any book three stars for effort. So you know this one must be pretty bad. All I would be doing is setting myself up for a bad review from the author, so there is absolutely no benefit in me reviewing the books of others in exchange for them reading and writing about mine.
Just a word of warning to people starting out in the ebook game. It may seem like a good idea. It's not. Be patient. The reviews will come. Don't be afraid to hand out review copies like popcorn. It's much better to get honest reviews than filler, and you can maintain your integrity that way.
Because a writer without integrity may as well not write...
Pageburner, Zombie Killa, Perfect Me, Hurricane Regina, Radar Love
http://www.amazon.com/Jason-Christie/e/B006P7E0K8/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
January 16, 2012
Public Humiliation
It feels like public humiliation
Scrawling my feelings for you
On public walls in digital ink
Like a teenager with a can of spray paint
These poems were our thing
Private
For our eyes only
Now any mook with an internet connection
Can peek in at our lives
On the other hand
I'm not embarassed
I want the worlds to know
That I am yours
And you are mine
Perfect
Together
Forever
Scrawling my feelings for you
On public walls in digital ink
Like a teenager with a can of spray paint
These poems were our thing
Private
For our eyes only
Now any mook with an internet connection
Can peek in at our lives
On the other hand
I'm not embarassed
I want the worlds to know
That I am yours
And you are mine
Perfect
Together
Forever
