Rob Bignell's Blog, page 276

Avoid ���publishing packages��� if self-publishing

A number of companies offer ���publishing packages��� ��� often costing several hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars ��� to format your book, design a cover, and then upload it so it can be sold online as an ebook or paperback. Are such services worth the cost?

The straight answer is no.

The whole idea of ���self-publishing��� is that it���s a do-it-yourself operation. You write the book, you find volunteer editors for it, you format it, you design it, you purchase it, you upload it, you market it. Theoretically, this all can be done for free or at worse for the minimal expense of an ISBN. Granted, to a first-time author, self-publishing can be a daunting task. But there are a number of online tutorials and inexpensive (and even free) books available that take you through the entire process. Other than the commitment of time, you really can do it all yourself.

Let���s suppose, though, that there is one task you just absolutely can���t do, such as cover design, maybe because you lack an artistic eye. All too often, these ���publishing packages��� aren���t offered �� la carte, though. So, you can end up signing for consultations (read ���hard sell for more services���) and paperback copies of your book when all you really want is a cover designed for your ebook.

Even if you can purchase just the specific service you need, most of these companies are way overpriced. By shopping around, you can find those services for a significant fraction of the cost from freelancers with as much ��� if not more ��� experience and expertise. Often, freelancers also will provide you with just the specific service you need rather than forcing you to pay for services that you don���t need or want.

Companies offering ���publishing packages��� tend to eliminate a major advantage of self-publishing: If you spot an error in the text, you can quickly correct it and upload the revised manuscript for sale, again at no cost to you other than time. Packages generally limit the number of corrections you can make before you are charged; in addition, there���s often at least a several day lag between you requesting the corrections and the new version being uploaded and put out for sale.

Be forewarned, a number of companies offering publishing packages engage in unethical business practices. They are not interested in helping you become a successful author but in making a profit by preying upon novice writers. Do your research, and you���ll find several reputable and inexpensive freelancers who will help you achieve your dreams, should you even need assistance at all.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



<A HREF="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widg... Widgets</A>

Related articles

What is an 'imprint' in self-publishing?
Do I need to buy a barcode when self-publishing?
What does term 'in medias res' mean?

Fixing a broken word: Accidently vs. Accidentally

A lot of writers are messing up these two words, though for the most part, it appears to be done inadvertently.

Accidently seems to be right, as accident is just being used as an adverb, which means adding ly, as in He accidently knocked over the vase.

Alas, accidentally is the correct spelling. To get an adverb, rather than tack ly onto the end of a noun generally we add it to an adjective or a verb. In this case, accidental ��� an adjective ��� is the word we use to get to the adverb. The correct version of the above example sentence would be He accidentally knocked over the vase.

Of course, as accidently becomes more widely used, dictionaries increasingly are listing it as an acceptable alternate spelling. Until the spelling becomes universal, though, stick with accidentally.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



<A HREF="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widg... Widgets</A>

Related articles

Stretching your knowledge: warm-up vs warm up
No childish matter: middle age vs. middle-age
One or three? Nonetheless vs. none the less

Writing Inspiration: Lessen social isolation

Write in public places. While not a substitute for quality conversation, being around others and interacting with some of them can help lessen the sense of isolation you might get from writing in your own home. Coffee shops, public libraries, and cafes all are great places to write.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



<A HREF="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widg... Widgets</A>

Related articles

Three ebook formatting tips, part VII
When solitary activity of writing is too isolating
Make tables readable in your self-published book
Five Great Quotations about the Writing Process
Editing client publishes first paranormal novel

Three alternatives for your story���s climax

At the climax of a story, the main character typically overcomes the problem that he spent much of the tale attempting to resolve. For example, if the story was about a treasure hunter obtaining a priceless, ancient artifact, then he would do so in the story���s penultimate scene. Following that achievement, the story essentially is over with only some loose ends to tie up.

Of course, the main character need not succeed.

In the climax, your main character also might fail. For example, the treasure hunter could realize the item he obtains actually is not the priceless, ancient artifact he sought. In a more literary work, the main character���s internal flaws (say his inability lie, which seems to the reader like a virtue) likely don���t allow him to succeed, which is the moral of the story for readers (One must be dishonest to achieve the goal the main character sought.).

Another alternative to succeeding is that the character might simply abandon his efforts to overcome the central problem. The treasure hunter could decide after several deaths and the loss of a close friendship that the cost of obtaining the artifact is too high and not worth it. Or in the case of our literary work, he might determine a position that can be obtained only through dishonesty simply is not worth holding.

In most stories, the main character succeeds, so have him fail or abandon his goal only after you���ve out a lot of thought into it. Most readers want the main character to succeed and not ending the story that way can lead to great dissatisfaction.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



<A HREF="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widg... Widgets</A>

Related articles

Three potential ways to end your story
Zip two disparate stories into one tale
What is a 'blood and guts' scene?
Today's Writing Inspiration: Your first written sentence is the foundation of all of your dreams
Write winning query letter to editors, agents

Five Great Quotations about Fiction

���It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth.��� - Tim O'Brien

���Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.��� - G.K. Chesterton

���Humanity lives in its fiction.��� - Blaise Cendrars

���Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.��� - Albert Camus

���Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.��� - Jessamyn West

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

 

<A HREF="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widg... Widgets</A>Related articles

Five Great Quotations about the Power of Writing
Five Great Quotations about Fiction
Writing Inspiration: Replace your old books with the books you've always wanted to write
How many words is a novella?
What's the difference between 'mood'/'tone'?

Writing Inspiration: Your personal interest

When giving a gift, knowing what the receiver may need or want can help you decide what to get. As a writer sitting down for a session at the journal or keyboard, ask yourself what are your interests or on your ���wish list��� for books to pen. Writing about a personal interest or attempting to achieve a personal goal can result in a more productive and fulfilling session.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

 

<A HREF="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widg... Widgets</A>Related articles

Three ebook formatting tips, part VI
Editing tip: Has it been done before?
Five Great Quotations about Readers
Five Great Quotations about the Writing Process
Writing Inspiration: Seek another's advice

Organize blog tour to promote your book

Setting up a series of book readings and signings at bookstores, libraries and retailers carries a lot of risk. Primarily, you have to sell enough books to cover the cost of driving to the locations and probably for dining and lodging. Yet, even with a good promotional effort, very few people may show up for the event.

A much less risky alternative is to do a blog tour. Such an event involves you appearing on a different blog on several consecutive days. Each blog gets its own unique ���presentation��� from you ��� one might run a guest blog written by you, another might be a Q&A interview of you, another might be a news story focusing on some aspect of your book.

This virtual tour immediately eliminates the cost of gas, meal and hotels. Even better, it focuses on hundreds of people who would be specifically interested in your book; blogs attract like-minded people internationally whereas a reading at a brick-and-mortar store���s audience is limited to those who live in that locality.

A blog tour will take some effort to organize. You���ll have to identify and then contact blog owners to determine if they���re interested, nail down topics and dates that don���t overlap, create unique written material, and then cross-promote one another. You���ll want to start arranging the tour at least several weeks before the tour is to take place, which usually coincides with you book���s release.

Ideally, you want readers of each blog to follow you through the other blogs. This gives each blog owner an incentive to participate. The benefits of the blog tour then will be two-fold for you ��� more book sales and more followers of your own blog.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Charlotte, North Carolina, or a small town like Butts, Georgia, I can provide that second eye.

<A HREF="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widg... Widgets</A>Related articles

Writing prompt: Open story with foreshadowing
The theory behind Hypothesis vs. hypotheses
Use social media to market your book
Recent editing client publishes education book

Wait to format text until editing is done

One rookie mistake made by many self-publishing authors is that they start formatting their manuscript before it is completed. 

Formatting when writing to a small degree makes some sense. Many authors want to get a feel for what their book will look like in print. Or perhaps to get a ���head start��� while waiting for a proofreading to be completed, they start formatting.

Almost invariably, though, this actually will create more work.

Before formatting, you want to be absolutely done writing, fact-checking, editing and even proofreading the book. If you format in MS Word and then make changes to the text, you���ll likely run into one or more of the following problems:
��� Page numbers change ��� Book design traditionally places the first page of a chapter on the right-hand (odd-numbered) page. When text is added or deleted, this can alter the locations of headers and chapters, forcing you to add empty lines to the page or even entirely new blank pages.
��� Table of contents and index change ��� Usually regenerating the table of contents is easy enough���but editing after page numbers have been set requires you to redo this step. With indexes, you may recheck every entry.
��� Hyphenated words shift ��� To get wording to space properly across a line in MS Word, sometimes hyphens are manually added. Delete or add a single word, however, and usually those hyphens no longer appear at the end of a line but its middle.
��� Page breaks shift ��� Especially with MS Word, you might place artificial breaks in the text to ensure it is justified on the page. Changing a word can result in an empty line of text or push text to the next page.
��� Images and text boxes get cut off ��� Adding or deleting text also means that images and any text boxes (such as for drop caps or breakout boxes) will shift on the page. They may no longer appear next to captions or only parts of them may appear on the page.

This is not to say that you shouldn���t make changes to a formatted manuscript. If you notice a typo, by all means fix it. Usually a lone misspelling won���t cause major problems, as its impact on the formatted text is localized (such as throwing off hyphens within that paragraph). But the fewer typos you have to correct, the less likely corrections will mess up the formatting.

Of course, some minor formatting can begin the moment you start writing. Selecting the font, the font size, and the line spacing, as well as boldfacing the chapter titles and headers (presuming you want them boldface) makes perfect sense. But any formatting that might be impacted whenever you revise the text ought to wait.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



<A HREF="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widg... Widgets</A>

Related articles

Writing inspiration: Don't fret about poor writing
Writing inspiration: Model a story
Skip headers, footers, page numbers in ebook
Editing tip: Use parentheses and keep going
Writing Prompt: Pen your autobiography

Forever confusing: lifelong, life-long, life long

Here���s a set of words that have perplexed some writers their entire lives: lifelong vs. life-long vs. life long.

Most grammarists agree that lifelong ��� meaning lasting through one���s existence, as in a lifelong friendship ��� should be one word rather than two words or hyphenated.

Confusion over the spelling arises because punctuation rules say that compound words, when used as an adjective, usually require a hyphen, as in well-known man. ���Usually��� is the operative word here, as lifelong is an exception. The same applies to other ���long��� words that show a length of time, such as daylong, monthlong, weeklong and yearlong.

Life long is never correct. Typically compound words with a space consist of two nouns, such as ice cream.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



<A HREF="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widg... Widgets</A>

Related articles

No childish matter: middle age vs. middle-age
Stretching your knowledge: warm-up vs warm up
Word in transition: Co-worker vs. coworker

Writing Prompt: Focus on social issues

Suffering from writer���s block or need to add some spunk to your writing? The problem may be that you need to change up your routine.

To that end, try this tip: List a half-dozen social issues that you feel passionate about. For the next few days, write journal entries about each one. Do any lead to ideas for stories or books that you might write?

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Ventura, California, or a small town like Big Ugly Creek, West Virginia, I can provide that second eye.



<A HREF="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widg... Widgets</A>

Related articles

Five Great Quotations about Craft of Writing
Three ebook formatting tips, part IV
Five Great Quotations about Fantasy Fiction