Alexander M. Zoltai's Blog, page 204

World Peace ~ Fiction or Reality ?

I published a novel last May (for sale but also free) that explores what it takes to establish Enduring Peace.

I spent over 20 years doing the research for the novel…

Peace, in our day and age, is a very complex, multidimensional proposition.

Should fiction be used to encourage people to work toward World Peace?

There are three past posts that approach that question from varying angles:

Writing Fiction To Make A Difference In The World

Do Creative Writers Have Social "Responsibilities"?

Fiction and Social Justice ~ Can They Coexist?

While I absolutely don't feel and certainly can't imagine that all creative writers Must labor to weave social issues into their work, I deeply hope more of them will—I think our Human Family deserves it…

Whether you're a Reader, Writer, or Publisher…

If you have similar feelings…

If you want to help humanity…

If those people on the other side of the World are in your Family…

If you like challenges…

If you can maintain a positive attitude in spite of the mayhem of our World's Situation, you should be able to appreciate a video with Paddy Ashdown.

Even though he's a politician and diplomat, he makes some remarkable sense…

If nothing else, Readers can get ideas for books to seek-out, Writers can obtain some writing prompts, and Publishers can ponder global networking.

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Tagged: Fiction Helping The World, Fiction or Reality, global peace, Human Family, Paddy Ashdown, social responsibility, World peace, Writer's Responsibilities

Author Interview ~ Damaria Senne

Let's begin with a brief Bio:

Damaria Senne is a writer and publisher based in South Africa. Her published works include How To Get Quoted In The Media, a guide to help small business owners and non-profit organisations get free media coverage; The Doll That Grew, a children's book about a boy who takes revenge on his sister after she damaged his toy car for the second time; and, Waking Up Grandma,  the story of old Mrs McKay, who falls asleep anywhere, anytime. Her grandchildren take advantage of it and pull a lot of pranks on her while she's asleep. But is Grandma having as much fun as they are?

Get more personal information about Damaria.

Now, on with the interview :-)

Damaria, why did you decide to self-publish some of your books?

For the past couple of years, I have been reading about the changes that are taking place in the publishing industry. I was especially interested in the notion that writers are increasingly taking control of their works through self-publishing, and that this is no longer looked on as a last-resort for losers who can't land a traditional publishing contract, but rather a viable alternative which allows writers to make more money.

Also, some of my clients are traditional publishers for whom I work as a freelance publisher, overseeing the publishing of some of their books. I just finished a project where I oversaw the writing, editing and publishing of six books and am about to embark on another assignment publishing six books. So eventually it dawned on me that as a professional publisher, I understand the process of creating publishable material, so why don't I use the same knowledge and skill on my own works?

This does not mean that I no longer wish to look for traditional publishing contracts though, or that I will not submit some of my books to other digital publishers. My plan is to have as wide a variety of publishers as possible, so I don't keep my eggs in one basket.

Why did you choose to publish in ebook format and to use Amazon Kindle as your publishing platform?

As an avid reader, I meet a lot of readers online and what I found out is that many of them read ebooks.  Also, I don't have the resources to make a splash publishing a decent print run of a book, and I have not set up a book distribution deal for my self-published works. So it made sense that I would choose to publish in the digital medium, as it allows me to reach a wide range of people worldwide without having to spend too much time or money on the project.

The first ebook, How To Get Quoted In The Media, was basically an experiment for me to test the self-publishing waters. The ebook was published in October 2011 as a PDF document available on sale on my blog. And while sales have not been fantastic, the ebook helped me land a client who offered me a retainer. The income from that client paid back my publishing costs (graphic design, typesetting, short print run for promotional copies and POD sales).

Meanwhile, I read about Amazon's Kindle publishing platform and realised that it offered a more streamlined self-publishing process. Using it, I don't have to worry about typesetting costs, because Kindle formats the book for me. And Amazon already attracts a big chunk of the reading public—all I'd have to do is make sure that those readers who like the kind of books I write can find my books.

Once I was feeling confident about using Amazon, I released a children's book entitled The Doll That Grew  on that platform. The Amazon edition of The Doll That Grew is a second edition of the book. The first edition was published by Macmillan South Africa years ago. It's now out of print and the rights have reverted to me.

Please, tell us about your experience of the self-publishing process.

I found that publishing through Amazon was easier than selling a PDF book through my web site. It certainly cost me less money.  Also, Amazon has credibility and people seem to take me more seriously when I say that my ebooks are available through Amazon than when I said that they were available through my blog.

That said, the self-publishing journey has not been easy, even though I did have experience as a publisher. First of all, I am by temperament more of a writing creative then a business professional, and I would rather spend all day creating characters and writing their stories, so focussing on the business aspects of the publishing process is not easy.

Secondly, I do need money to hire a professional editor and book cover designer for my book projects. So I've had to be very frugal with my earnings and designate as much money as I can on the self-publishing process. I also need money to place strategic advertisements on Google and Gumtree (a local online selling platform, much like Craigslist).

The hardest part of the process though, is the marketing and promotion of the book once it's published.  This is a job that requires me to spend hours online, looking for free marketing and promotional opportunities. I have to admit that this is my least favourite job, as it takes a lot of time and does not yield immediate results (you have to be consistent and patient in your promotion efforts).

To try to ramp up this process, I hired a freelance social media consultant to help me with this task. She spends an hour every day promoting my books and while I don't believe that is enough time allocated to the task, it's a good start. At least I'm guaranteed that some marketing and promotion happens every day.

What are the lessons you've learned from the venture?

Marketing and promotion are crucial to the success of a self-publishing project.  If you don't do it, and don't do it consistently, people won't know that you have a good book available and, therefore, they won't buy it. And what's the point of writing, editing and publishing a good book if no one knows about it except you and a couple of your friends?

I also learnt to appreciate the role of a good editor in developing a good book. To be honest, the ebooks that I ended up publishing were very different from the books I initially wrote and that was mostly due to the editors who re-read the manuscripts and made very important suggestions on how I could improve them.

Publishing a non-fiction book as an ebook makes sense. But why do you also publish children's books as ebooks? I thought children preferred illustrated books that they can touch and feel?

There is no denying that hard copy books are ideal reading material for children. But I believe that ebooks also have a role in the reading life of children. Books can be very expensive and with ebooks, parents can more easily afford to create a collection of children's books to read for their children at bedtime.

I also write my children's stories with the storytelling aspect kept in mind: there is a lot of drama and sound effects in the stories, and I also expect that the parents can also take some leeway with my stories, adding their own brand of drama to make them interesting for their children.

You talk about a collection of children's books for parents. Are you planning to publish more children's books and if so, when and how frequently? Oh! Also tell us about your latest release!!

So far, I'm planning to publish at least one children's book a month, though I would publish more if I could write and edit the stories fast enough. My latest children's book, Waking Up Grandma, was released on the 26th of March. It will be followed by my retelling of the African folktale, Tselane And The Giant, in April. The next 3 children's books are in various stages of preparedness.

I'm also planning to translate the children's books to French, German, Chinese and several South African languages ( Afrikaans, Zulu, Setswana and Xhosa). The Afrikaans version of The Doll That Grew is already available on Amazon, and I have assigned translators to work on the other language versions of the book. These translated books will be published as and when the translations are completed.

Are these children's books all that you're planning to publish in 2012?

If I was smart, I would say no, because I definitely have a lot on my plate with my own books. But I would also like to publish other people's books on Amazon and a friend of mine has written two romance novels that are undergoing the editorial process to get them ready for publication through my company. The release dates have not been set yet, but I hope that these romances will be the start of more good things to come. I would also like to publish more non-fiction ebooks. I've asked Christelle Du Toit, my co-author for How To Get Quoted In The Media to write a sequel. Hopefully, she will be able to finish it this year and, maybe, we can publish it later in the year.

Damaria, you are a busy and delightful person! I do hope you'll come back to our blog for another interview about your writing process or advice about how to write children's books or, well, whatever more you want to share :-)

Folks, do go over to Damaria's blog, it's delightful, too!!

And, feel free to ask Damaria a question in the Comments…

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Our Comment Link Is At The Top of The Post :-)

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Tagged: Children's Books, Damaria Senne, E-book, How To Get Quoted In The Media, Publishing Children's Books, South Africa, The Doll That Grew, Waking Up Grandma

A Rave for My Favorite Author ~ C. J. Cherryh

I've been an omnivorous reader from the first time I could understand what those little symbols on the page meant.

I had to wait till I was in my thirties to find my favorite author—I'm in my sixties and she's still my Mega-Fave!!

C. J. Cherryh has had well over 60 books published and is still working to increase that number.

Plus, even though she's so prolific, her books still continue to challenge me as a reader. I've read two of her trilogies four times each and they still hold me enraptured and make my mind and heart spin-out new meaning—she's certainly not a fluff writer :-)

If you'd like to tune into the daily life of a successful writer, do visit her blog, Wave Without A Shore.

Here's a Summary Bibliography of Cherryh's work.

A while back C. J. and her two author friends, Jane Fancher and Lynn Abbey started a very special website: Closed Circle Publications.

Here's C. J.'s explanation of the endeavor:

"It's nearly impossible to get backlist back into print these days, with publishers struggling for survival. The mega-oil-companies that have bought up publishers don't want to print 'old books'. They clearly don't understand that science fiction and fantasy depend on backlist [note: all series books definitely depend on the backlist to make money and any author needs a strong backlist] so that new readers can get caught up. So we've gotten rights back for some of our books that are out of print, we are hunting down others, and we're putting those books back in e-print, so you can download a reasonably priced file in formats you can migrate into the Kindle, into a Mobi-based reader (Closed Circle will link you to a conversion utility), or an ePub reader—or—and here's the good news: your home computer can be a reader: get the software shareware from the left sidebar on my blog."

Here's a little "secret message" for my best friend: Have you started reading C. J.'s book Cyteen yet? << That link is an article about the book you should read :-)

So, to round out this post, here's a two-part interview with Ms. Cherryh:

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Tagged: Backlist, C. J. Cherryh, Fantasy, favorite author, Jane Fancher, Lynn Abbey, Sci-Fi, science fiction

Favorite Writing, Book, and Publishing Blogs

I have no idea how many blogs there are for Readers, Writers and Publishers.

But, I'm wondering how many folks have a few favorites in those categories.

"Writing" blogs are the ones I tend to not read—something about being well-along in years and deeply fond of my own way of doing things…

"Book" blogs can be of two kinds—blogs about things like bindings, covers, fonts, paper-quality, etc. and blogs that specialize in doing reviews of books.

"Publishing" blogs seem to be sprouting up like zombies in a B-grade movie. There're the ones defending Traditional publishing, the ones glorifying Self-Publishing, and the ones that vacillate between the two.

And, there're two varieties of each of those types of Publishing blogs—the serious/sincere ones and  the ones that focus on wild speculation about what will happen Just About Any Unexpected Time Now.

I only have a handful of blogs I like to keep going back to but there are so many that might be worth reading that I know nothing about.

Then, there are some I used to read but suddenly have reason to "rediscover".

I use Google Alerts to find news, articles, and blog posts I can talk about here.

This morning, I checked my saved links and pulled out Lost Sight of the Game? Find it Again. by Victoria Mixon—Great Post but, as sometimes happens, while reading it and pondering how to report on it, I changed my focus.

I'd noticed something on the blog, called Writer Unboxed—I'd been there many times in the past but forgot that this blog has over 20 regular contributing writers—perhaps, it can be one of my favorites :-)

Other blogs that are my favorites (plus a few non-blog links) are in my BlogRoll, in the left side-panel under that picture of a bald, alien woman…

If you're the kind of reader who likes certain blog posts but never makes a comment, I do hope you'll find a hidden reserve of courage (or, at least Daring) and mention some of your favorite Reading, Writing, and Publishing blogs in our Comments.

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Tagged: Book Blogs, Book Review Blogs, Publishing Blogs, Self-Publishing Blogs, Victoria Mixon, Writer Unboxed, Writer's Blogs, writing blogs

What if I'm A Writer But I'm No Good At Marketing?

Many writers are finding out that even the Traditional Publishers want much more of the promotion or marketing to be done by the writer themselves.

Many writers feel they are incapable of this kind of work…

Well, perhaps my guest post for Joel Friedlander, Virtual Book Promotion and Word of Mouth, can show you that radical creativity can come to a writer's rescue—writers are highly creative, right?

But, my personal solution to marketing promotion may not be what you want to do.

You may have to use that creativity to produce your own brand of promotion…

A free book that could be your catalyst for producing your own author's platform is Seth Godin's Unleashing the Idea Virus.

This excerpt from Wikipedia sums up Seth's views very well:

"Godin believes that the end of the 'TV-Industrial complex' means that marketers no longer have the power to command the attention of anyone they choose, whenever they choose. Second, in a marketplace in which consumers have more power, he thinks marketers must show more respect; this means no spam, no deceit and a bias for keeping promises. Finally, Godin asserts that the only way to spread the word about an idea is for that idea to earn the buzz by being remarkable. Godin refers to those who spread these ideas as 'Sneezers', and to the spreading idea as an 'IdeaVirus'. He calls a remarkable product or service a purple cow.

"Advertisements on television and radio are classified as 'interruption marketing' which interrupt the customer while they are doing something of their preference. Godin introduced the concept of 'permission marketing' where the business provides something "anticipated, personal, and relevant'."

I should add that many writers' methods of using Social Media could be called "Interruption Marketing" :-)

Yeah, I know, that Seth guy uses the dreaded word "marketing" a lot; but then, that's what he's an expert at and a huge number of people who are not writers just love the man.

Which brings up the concept that writers can find lots of stuff to use when attempting promotion by "translating" what those "nasty business folk" read—product = book, consumer = reader, factory = writer's cave…

So, if you're a writer seeking a readership, I hope you download and read Seth's book and I hope you'll also translate what he says in this video :-)

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Tagged: author platform, book marketing, book promotion, Finding Readers, Permission marketing, Seth Godin, Unleashing the Ideavirus, Word of Mouth

The Best Book On How To Be Successful As A Writer?

What's your definition of success as a writer?

Lots of money? Lots of books? Both? Something else??

I just may have discovered the best book to read, no matter how you want to be successful…

And, even though it's called The Newbie's Guide To Publishing, I feel it can help those who've already attained a bit of publishing success to find even more.

The author is Joe Konrath, and, if you click-through on that name-link you'll read stuff like this:

"Konrath…spent…12 years garnering close to five hundred rejections for nine unpublished novels."

He now has 12 published novels, 15 tie-in stories, and 22 other stories.

If you want an independent and forthright blog to read, his is it!

In January of this year, Konrath wrote:

"One hundred grand [$100,000]. That's how much I've made on Amazon in the last three weeks.

"This is just for my self-pubbed Kindle titles. It doesn't include Shaken and Stirred, which were published by Amazon's imprints. It doesn't include any of my legacy sales, print or ebook. It doesn't include audiobook sales. It doesn't include sales from other platforms.

"This is from my self-pubbed books. The ones the Big 6 rejected."

Needless to say, since I discovered him, Joe Konrath has been referenced on this blog many times.

So, that book by him has over 360,000 words. And, you can get The Newbie's Guide To Publishing, FREE!

If you still feel hesitant, I'll let Barry Eisler, best-selling novelist, speak to you from the forward to Konrath's book:

"There's no one in the industry more knowledgeable than Joe about both the craft and business of writing. A Newbie's Guide is the result of years-worth of thought, research, discussion, and, most of all, experience. Want to know how to develop compelling characters? Write crackling dialogue? Run the kind of guerilla marketing campaign publishers only dream of? Put together a cost-effective, kick-ass book tour? Want to maximize your chances of getting and staying published? Then you need to read Joe. This is a guy who never accepts the conventional wisdom, who never does anything just because that's the way it's always been done, who's totally unafraid to try new things, who's remarkably honest in reporting the results of his experiments, and who's obsessed with sharing for free his uniquely valuable insights. Yeah, you can get published without reading Joe. But you can drive a car with the parking brake on, too — it's just not the fastest way to get there."

And, if you still don't want to download Joe's book, here's a video from 2009 with Joe giving quite a bit of advice:

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Tagged: Barry Eisler, E-book, ebook, J. A. Konrath, Joe Konrath, publishing, Publishing Success, The Newbie's Guide To Publishing

My Friend ~ Micro-Fiction Writer & Prison Librarian

Johnpaul Mahofski—formerly known as Relish, now known as Brokali on Book Island, in the virtual world, Second Life.

I've never met him in "real life" but we do have a Real friendship…

We've had his Micro-Fiction here twice, so far:

Breaking Boundaries ~ Microfiction

Microfiction ~ Revisited

Johnpaul is also the librarian at a real prison in Maryland in the USA.

Recently, I asked him a few questions about his job:

From the figures you gave me, I notice you have over 9,000 books. What are some of the inmates' favorites?

The collection balance is slowly growing as many have donated books, and I have purchased books. We have a normal dewey system library. With Urban fiction circulating the highest, but Horror and Mystery being second. The number one author is James Patterson. I have an entire section dedicated to his work.

Also note that we constantly weed books due to the inmates reading them until they are tattered beyond repair. Your book was like that!

I'll be eternally grateful that you found a home for Notes from an Alien in your library :-)

So, do your patrons use the Internet?

Inmates cannot use the Internet. I can however look up things for them. Sometimes they are researching things and want more info. They like to learn about everything they read about and beyond. I have searched for them about Herod, Ring fingers, small towns, slavery, the 1968 Olympics, many medications they are prescribed and much more.

Do they use computers at all? Also, what about printed reference books?

Our reference collection, print-wise, is no different than any public library. The computers we have offer inmate resources including rehabs, outside programs once paroled, zip code finders, resume makers, typing tutors, Word, Excel, Power Point tutorials, Lexus Nexus and many other legal resources. I track stats for all of these.

They can even send for full case reports and use them to help with their legal motions. Everyone can order up to 5 cases a week.

Any special programs you'd like to mention?

Book discussions! Each unit has approximately 5-10 volunteers that read 2 books a month and then discuss them.

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I can't leave this post without mentioning that, whenever Johnpaul and I are on Book Island together, FUN  is a major part of the program :-)

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Tagged: Books In Prison, Flash Fiction, micro fiction, microfiction, Prison Librarian, Prison Library, Prison Life

My Bad . . . :-(

This is only for the folks who get this blog in their email. I knew of no other way to reach them all except with another post…

The post just before this one went out via email only partially written—I hit Publish instead of Update :-(

Once having committed a stupid act, one can only hope the shame serves as protection against a repeat fail…

One good thing: this is the only time I've done that in over 350 posts :-)

Tagged: blog fail, blog failure, mistake, my bad, stupid mistakes

Further Considerations On Traditional Publishers

Yes, the publishing world is getting as mad as the hatter.

Yes, there are major risks and opportunities out there.

If you haven't been keeping up with the changes, reading the five posts at This Link will help…

Also, reading an article from Kristine Kathryn Rusch can help. She's also published under a number of different pen names.

The article I'll be referencing says some clearly harsh things about traditional publishers yet they seem to have earned the comments.

I used a Publishing Aid company, FastPencil, for my novel and will stay with them. You can get a feel for my reasons for using this company in the post, Writer, Agent, Publisher ~ Changing Hats…

I really don't think I'd ever sign a contract with a traditional publisher and Kristine Kathryn Rusch gives amply reasons in her article, The Business Rusch: Competition.

Knowing that many blog readers don't click through on links, I'll give a few excerpts from the article:

"Just a few years ago, traditional publishers had a monopoly. They controlled the distribution of books. This meant that the publishers dictated terms to booksellers and they dictated terms to writers. What resulted was what happens whenever anyone controls a marketplace: lots of nasty business practices, lots of unfairness, and lots of take-it-or-leave-it ultimatums."

She goes on to detail many of the worst business practices, then, mid-way through the article, she says:

"I'm a realist. I know that most writers will never go indie, even if it is in the writer's best interest. Writers rarely make the hard choices for their best interest. Writers—established or not—are desperate to be published, and will probably sell their grandmother (for one-one-thousandth her worth) just to get their novel published by a regional press….if I had my druthers, I would indie publish and traditionally publish. I don't like having all of my eggs in one basket, even if I own the basket myself."

Later, she says two things she feels all writers should agree on:

"We should be willing to walk away when a traditional publisher offers us terms we don't like."

"We should never ever ever ever sign a blanket non-compete clause."

She goes on to explain, in detail, the dangers of that kind of contract clause.

I've wanted to reference one of this woman's posts for quite awhile—she's been there, she knows the pitfalls.

So…

Do you feel traditional is the Only way to go?

Do you know a writer who feels that?

Are you an Indie only person?

Are you completely confused about what to do?

If you have no other resources you trust, you might want to read posts on publishing here.  Don't forget to notice the "older posts" link at the end of each page :-)

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Tagged: Indie Publishing, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, publish, publishing, self-publishing, traditional publishing, Writer Resources

Diagramming Sentences ~ A Lost Art?

I have no doubt that the English language is always changing—usually extremely noticable in time-spans of centuries.

Still, grammar has remained remarkably stable—except for certain maverick creative writers.

Some folks gain the title "grammar nazi" while others leave all that boring stuff up to an editor.

Grammar is a branch of linguistics that deals with syntax and morphology (and sometimes also deals with semantics).

I still remember slowly slogging through books on grammar but spending hours happily diagramming sentences.

If you've never seen a diagrammed sentence here are a few examples (images from Wikipedia):

If you'd like a good read about the history of sentence diagramming, check-out Kitty Burns Florey's article in The New York Times, A Picture of Language.

Kitty says: "The curious art of diagramming sentences was invented 165 years ago by S.W. Clark, a schoolmaster in Homer, N.Y."

Did you ever do sentencing diagramming?

Was it taught to you in school or did you learn it on your own?

Over the years, I've asked many folk if they'd heard of the technique but found very few who have…

However, with many people considering self-publishing and simultaneously being unable to afford an editor, I thought I'd add a few links where you can learn it.

The first resource, called simply Diagramming Sentences, includes the download of a Power Point presentation so you can watch diagrams being constructed.

It begins with this quote by Gertrude Stein: "I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences."

The next resource is called Sentence Diagramming and begins with this rationale for learning it if you edit your own work:

"…we need to know how to recognize complete thoughts and how to vary our sentence structure. This makes our writing more coherent as well as more interesting to read."

The last resource, 500 Sentence Diagrams, amongst many other aids, includes sentences diagrammed from Charles Dickens, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Graves, Edith Hamilton, Henry Fielding, Thomas Wolfe, Oliver Goldsmith, Sir Walter Scott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and John Milton.

Hope these help :-)

If you explore this technique, I'd love to have you report your feelings in the Comments.

And, of course, if you learned it in the past, please let us know what you think in the Comments…

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Tagged: Diagramming Sentences, Grammar, Grammar Nazi, Kitty Burns Florey, Self-Editing, Sentence Diagramming, Sentence Diagrams, Studying Grammar