Dean P. Turnbloom's Blog, page 8
July 10, 2012
Reader reviews on Barnes & Noble…
AnonymousPosted June 26, 2012
“Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechaple Vampire” is a must read!
“Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Vampire” is a must read. I couldn’t put it down. Dean Turnbloom has an acute knowledge of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. A great summer read. I hope to see many more books by Dean Turnbloom. J Cromwell, reader at large.
Anonymous
Posted April 25, 2012
Great book
If you like vampire books plus Sherlock Holmes this is the book for you. I couldn’t put this book down. Highly recommended.
Tagged: book, Holmes, mystery, read, reviews, Sherlock, summer, thriller, Vampire 
June 29, 2012
kGreat Article by David Schlosser…
Posted by dbschlosser on Nov 15th, 2011 in Blog
David B. Schlosser is an author of award-winning fiction and non-fiction, and an editor of award-winning fiction and non-fiction.
I frequently hear from writers who are interested in a manuscript review or editing services, or who want to pitch an agent or publisher, and they tell me their book is 200 or 425 or howevermany pages long.
When I’m feeling indulgent and patient, I’ll spend some time explaining why I don’t care how many pages their manuscript is – and why they shouldn’t, either. What counts is the number of words in the manuscript, because that’s how “long” the work actually is.
Back in the day of Royals and Selectrics, “page” meant “page.” It meant, “About 250 words.”
Today, “page” means something so utterly removed from the typewriter days that it literally defies definition.
And if we’re talking about e-books, those things don’t even have pages.
As anyone who’s written (or graded) a high school or college term paper since the early 1990s can tell you, by tinkering with margins, fonts, line spacing – even leading, tracking, and kerning – an author can make a page whatever the author wants it to be.
That’s not necessarily what everyone in the publishing industry accepts “a page” to be.
To illustrate the difference between “how many pages” and “how long” a manuscript is, I altered several common formatting variables in a novel manuscript. You can see the details in the rest of this post, but the bottom line is this:
The difference between what two well-intentioned people mean when they talk about “number of pages” can vary as much as 185%.
Font
Typefaces are an embarrassment of riches that cause a lot of embarrassment. Different word processors default to different fonts. You can choose among hundreds of fonts. Fonts that are easy to read on a computer screen (sans serif fonts) are not as easy or comfortable to read on paper as serif fonts.
Without changing anything in “how long” the manuscript is (same number of words, same page breaks for chapters, same headers), I altered the font and font size of the manuscript to show the impact of several popular fonts and font sizes on “how many pages” there are in the manuscript.
The difference in number of pages based only on changing fonts and font sizes varied from 316 to 492 – a variance of 45% from the average number of pages in this spreadsheet.
As for the rule of thumb about 250 words per page, the average words/page in this spreadsheet is 246.4 (not shown). Different, and common, fonts and font sizes can vary the number of pages in your manuscript as much as 43% around that average.
Margins
Without changing anything in “how long” the manuscript is, I altered margins from manuscript format (1 inch) to the defaults of various word processors (1.25 or 1.5 inches) to measure margin’s impact on number of pages. I also considered a few popular fonts that produce about the same number of pages in the formatted manuscript.
The number of pages in the manuscript increases by an average of 11% if your word processor’s margins default to 1.25 inches, and by an average of 24% if your word processor’s margins default to 1.5 inches.
Formatting
Without changing anything in “how long” the manuscript is, I altered the formatting from traditional double-spaced lines and tabbed paragraphs to no formatting except paragraphs and tabs.
Within the unformatted manuscripts, the average number of words on a page varies from 414 to 545 – which is to say, a lot more than 250.
The number of pages varies between 173 and 228 – a 28% variance from the average number of pages – based only on font choice. These numbers are more dramatic, however, when compared to formatted manuscript:
Bottom line
The middle section of this spreadsheet – the white rows – is most compelling. If we look at the average number of pages in a formatted manuscript, considering various fonts and font sizes, and compare it to the average number of pages in an unformatted manuscript, considering various fonts (but not different font sizes), there is a 100% difference in the number of pages.
Two people talking about “how many pages” are in a manuscript may have a totally different interpretation of “how long” the manuscript really is.
Focus on the number of words in your work, not the number of pages.
The exception that proves this rule is that publishing pros – authors with multiple books and their agents, editors, and publishers – can shorthand “number of pages” because all of them operate on the industry-standard concept of a formatted manuscript.
You can learn more about proper manuscript formatting from plenty of books and web sites. A friend who teaches fiction writing at a university refers his students to the web site of author William Shunn, which you can reach by clicking here.
Tagged: agents, count, editors, pages, page_count, publishers, queries, query, words, word_count, writing
Great Article by David Schlosser…
Posted by dbschlosser on Nov 15th, 2011 in Blog
David B. Schlosser is an author of award-winning fiction and non-fiction, and an editor of award-winning fiction and non-fiction.
I frequently hear from writers who are interested in a manuscript review or editing services, or who want to pitch an agent or publisher, and they tell me their book is 200 or 425 or howevermany pages long.
When I’m feeling indulgent and patient, I’ll spend some time explaining why I don’t care how many pages their manuscript is – and why they shouldn’t, either. What counts is the number of words in the manuscript, because that’s how “long” the work actually is.
Back in the day of Royals and Selectrics, “page” meant “page.” It meant, “About 250 words.”
Today, “page” means something so utterly removed from the typewriter days that it literally defies definition.
And if we’re talking about e-books, those things don’t even have pages.
As anyone who’s written (or graded) a high school or college term paper since the early 1990s can tell you, by tinkering with margins, fonts, line spacing – even leading, tracking, and kerning – an author can make a page whatever the author wants it to be.
That’s not necessarily what everyone in the publishing industry accepts “a page” to be.
To illustrate the difference between “how many pages” and “how long” a manuscript is, I altered several common formatting variables in a novel manuscript. You can see the details in the rest of this post, but the bottom line is this:
The difference between what two well-intentioned people mean when they talk about “number of pages” can vary as much as 185%.
Font
Typefaces are an embarrassment of riches that cause a lot of embarrassment. Different word processors default to different fonts. You can choose among hundreds of fonts. Fonts that are easy to read on a computer screen (sans serif fonts) are not as easy or comfortable to read on paper as serif fonts.
Without changing anything in “how long” the manuscript is (same number of words, same page breaks for chapters, same headers), I altered the font and font size of the manuscript to show the impact of several popular fonts and font sizes on “how many pages” there are in the manuscript.
The difference in number of pages based only on changing fonts and font sizes varied from 316 to 492 – a variance of 45% from the average number of pages in this spreadsheet.
As for the rule of thumb about 250 words per page, the average words/page in this spreadsheet is 246.4 (not shown). Different, and common, fonts and font sizes can vary the number of pages in your manuscript as much as 43% around that average.
Margins
Without changing anything in “how long” the manuscript is, I altered margins from manuscript format (1 inch) to the defaults of various word processors (1.25 or 1.5 inches) to measure margin’s impact on number of pages. I also considered a few popular fonts that produce about the same number of pages in the formatted manuscript.
The number of pages in the manuscript increases by an average of 11% if your word processor’s margins default to 1.25 inches, and by an average of 24% if your word processor’s margins default to 1.5 inches.
Formatting
Without changing anything in “how long” the manuscript is, I altered the formatting from traditional double-spaced lines and tabbed paragraphs to no formatting except paragraphs and tabs.
Within the unformatted manuscripts, the average number of words on a page varies from 414 to 545 – which is to say, a lot more than 250.
The number of pages varies between 173 and 228 – a 28% variance from the average number of pages – based only on font choice. These numbers are more dramatic, however, when compared to formatted manuscript:
Bottom line
The middle section of this spreadsheet – the white rows – is most compelling. If we look at the average number of pages in a formatted manuscript, considering various fonts and font sizes, and compare it to the average number of pages in an unformatted manuscript, considering various fonts (but not different font sizes), there is a 100% difference in the number of pages.
Two people talking about “how many pages” are in a manuscript may have a totally different interpretation of “how long” the manuscript really is.
Focus on the number of words in your work, not the number of pages.
The exception that proves this rule is that publishing pros – authors with multiple books and their agents, editors, and publishers – can shorthand “number of pages” because all of them operate on the industry-standard concept of a formatted manuscript.
You can learn more about proper manuscript formatting from plenty of books and web sites. A friend who teaches fiction writing at a university refers his students to the web site of author William Shunn, which you can reach by clicking here.
Change your bookmarks…
I’ve just purchased the rights to use whitechapelvampire.com as my domain name for this blog. I hope that will make it easier to remember…and I hope I will get more people coming to my blog, and buying my book…shameless self-promotion…
:O)
June 27, 2012
Book Review: “The Holmes-Dracula Files” by Fred Saberhagen…
I downloaded this book for my Nook primarily because I had received a review from Publisher’s Weekly that mentioned it while saying my own book, “Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Vampire” wasn’t very imaginative in that the Holmes-Dracula connection had been done. Since it mentioned this book, I thought I would read it to see for myself. I must say I disagree with the reviewer as this book isn’t even close to my own except it does have a vampire and Sherlock Holmes. I thought and still do think that my book is original in its premise that Ripper could have been a vampire.
Having explained that, I will say I found this novel entertaining and would certainly have given it a higher rating had I not found the relationship described between Sherlock Holmes and the vampire to be superfluous, unnecessary and simply unsatisfying. In my opinion, the book would have been much improved had the author left the two with less of a personal relationship. Beyond that, which for me was just too much, I found the book a good read.
June 22, 2012
Story fragment…
I just wanted to share this beginning to a short story I penned a while back…the title is “The Fog”
Captain’s personal log, USS Cyclops (AC-4), 13 March 1918
The ship is en route from Bahia, Salvador, with a full load of manganese ore bound for Baltimore, MD, and the munitions factories. We’ve been sounding fog signals fore and aft every two minutes. The fog’s been with us for two days. Unable to raise anyone by radio and no beacons have been sighted to get a navigation fix. I suspect the compass is unreliable. By the dead reckoning track the ship should have made landfall yesterday. In all my years sailing these waters I’ve never seen such a thick, cold fog.
“Captain to the bridge!” came the call from the loudspeaker, squawking like a noisy parrot perched above Captain Worley’s cabin door. He didn’t need to be called twice. Anytime he was summoned to the bridge something serious was afoot and with this fog he knew it could easily mean his ship was in danger. Grabbing his bridge coat from its hook by the door, Captain Worley moved his six feet, four inch frame hurriedly along the length of the ship. It took him less than two minutes to get from his quarters to the bridge, traveling the length of the ship and up two ladders. On his way he scrutinized the ocean on the side of the ship he traversed.
“What’s the trouble, Mr. Higgins?” he asked, out of breath and sweating, despite the cold, from his efforts to get to the bridge quickly.
“Forward fog watch reports what he says looks like a boat in the water ahead, tracking across our bow,” Higgins answered but his eyes continued their attempt to penetrate the veil of fog.
“Where away?”
“Two points off the port bow, sir. I’ve slowed to bare steerageway.”
“Very well.” Captain Worley’s eyes sifted the fog, then, “There she is…crossing our bow, dead ahead. Go all stop, Mr. Higgins, then back down to take all way off.”
“Aye, aye, Captain. All stop,” he ordered.
“All stop aye, sir,” answered the lee helmsman as the engine order telegraph bells chimed away. A moment later he announced, “All engines answer stop, sir.”
“Very well, all back one-third,” came Higgins next order.
“All back one-third, aye, sir,” came the response from the lee helm followed by, “all engines answer back one-third.”
As the lee helm repeated his order, Higgins moved to the port side of the bridge where he could observe out the porthole the water alongside the ship, making a judgment on when to give the order to stop engines that would leave the large ship motionless in the sea. “All engines stop.”
“All engines stop, aye, sir,” came the reply followed almost immediately by, “sir, all engines answer stop.”
“Very well,” answered Higgins. Turning his attention back to the captain he asked, “Your orders, sir?”
“Hail them. Find out what the devil they’re doing out here without sounding fog signals and why the hell they didn’t respond to ours. I’ll be in the bridge office.” With the immediate danger to his ship passed, the captain was at liberty to vent his anger. Nautical rules of the road commanded ships and boats to sound signals in fog whether navigating or at anchor. To ignore those rules put all vessels at risk. It’s something mariners take very seriously.
Thirty minutes later there was a knock on the door of the small office just off the main bridge. This is where Captain Worley spent most of his waking hours while at sea when he wasn’t physically on the bridge. His more comfortable quarters aft were used primarily for sleeping, which came in short supply. “Come,” barked the captain.
“Captain,” said LT Meisner as he opened the door, “she looks to be abandoned. We hailed her with lights and bullhorns. No response. None on VHF either.”
“That’s strange; she looked as though she was under power when we first came upon her.”
“She’s adrift now, sir.”
“Very well, Lieutenant, take the whaleboat over for a look. Let’s see what’s going on over there.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
“And Paul,” the captain added using the young lieutenant’s first name in an unusual breech of decorum, “be careful.”
Giving the captain a smile that spoke of the lieutenant’s youthful confidence he replied, “Aye, sir,” and turning left the captain alone.
Taking his pen in hand, Captain Worley entered the following in his personal log,
‘Came across what appears to be a derelict vessel drifting in the fog. I can’t explain it, call it a Dutchman’s intuition, but I have an uneasy feeling about this boat. When I first saw it, the thought came to me from nowhere—death boat.
The captain spent the next hour and a half awaiting word back from the boarding team. He had the utmost faith in LT Meisner. He’d been Worley’s Executive Officer, or XO, for the past three years, an unusually long period for peacetime, but with the war on, transfers for career officers were rare. Worley had begun to think of the younger Meisner as a son. This, and the inexplicable unease he felt over the adrift vessel, made the waiting difficult.
Signals were exchanged at regular intervals between the ship and the boarding party, but the sparse information received back was negative. After an hour and a half the signalman delivered this message to the captain:
‘Returning to ship. Entire crew and all passengers missing except one.’
As he awaited the boarding party’s return Captain Worley paced the bridge. With each trip across he stopped to check the launch’s progress—now it was tied alongside the derelict vessel; now it’s bow turned back toward the ship, the bow-wave barely discernable in the fog; now it was halfway between the derelict vessel and his own ship, more clearly visible, though not distinct enough to make out faces. As the boat pulled alongside, aft by the accommodation ladder, the captain made his way to where the boatswains were securing the rigging for the ladder. He wrung his hands together in nervous anticipation, his earlier uneasiness increasing to dread, dread of the unknown. Who was this last remaining survivor, crew or passenger, survivor or murderer, friend or fiend? When he reached the top of the ladder he called down to LT Meisner, “Report to my cabin; bring your charge.” He didn’t wait for a reply. Without further word he walked aft to his quarters.
It was a full thirty minutes before the XO knocked on the captain’s cabin door.
“Come,” called the captain. He didn’t know what it was he expected to see, but whatever he expected, it wasn’t what accompanied the Executive Officer into his cabin. Standing there, shivering in a too large foul weather jacket was what looked like a ten-year-old girl, her dark curly hair spilling out from under a watch cap donated by a crewman. The jacket he recognized as belonging to the chief boatswain’s mate who’d been coxswain for the boarding team. The captain’s heart was instantly touched by the innocence of the young eyes peering up through the curls.
Tagged: chills, ghost, horror, short story, terror, thriller
June 19, 2012
Book Giveaway…
Please note on the menu to the right the link to Goodreads, where you can enter to win an autographed copy of “Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Vampire”…you can’t win if you don’t enter…
Contest closes 30 July 2012, the opening day of SHERLOCK HOLMES WEEK!
Tagged: autograph, book, giveaway, Holmes, novel, Sherlock, Vampire
June 6, 2012
Book signing…
I’m very happy and excited to announce a book signing at the world famous
Warwick’s
bookstore in La Jolla.
That’s right, world famous
Warwick’s Books
, the country’s oldest family owned bookstore. On July 29, 2012, I will be signing books to open
Sherlock Holmes Week
.
You might be able to tell that I’m very excited about this!!
Tagged: ad, advertising, book, bookstore, Holmes, novel, Sherlock, signing, store
June 4, 2012
Truth in advertising (another review)
When I first started this blog, I made a promise to myself to present every review of the book without trying to sugar coat or make excuses. After all, the review is just one person’s opinion. I am very happy with the way my book evolved and turned out. The fact that a major reviewer would even take the time to review the book of an unknown writer is a plus, in my opinion. So, here we have another review.
Publisher’s Weekly has reviewed my book. I’m afraid whoever did the reviewing wasn’t enthusiastic about it. What makes me think they just didn’t get it was that they selected a quote from the book to illustrate an example of “sloppy writing”, but it so happens to be my favorite quote from the book. So disappointing. from the review: “…having Holmes remark, illogically, ‘Coincidence, my dear Watson, is the residue of design,’ doesn’t capture the spirit of the originals…”
The full review can be read here
May 30, 2012
Challenges of getting published…
Whenever I speak to anyone about my book, one question that continually is asked is, “What are the challenges you’ve had in getting published.” Here is my answer:
Challenges doesn’t even begin to tell it. I thought I would have a leg up, having had a book series published, but the world of fiction is so very much different. The first thing I tried to do after having the book written (although it’s gone through an evolution since this stage) was to try and interest an agent in representing the work. I learned a lot in this process, about the business of publishing as well as about writing. When I first began to fish for an agent, I had to decide what genre of fiction the work was. Was it a mystery? A detective novel? Horror? Paranormal? True Crime? Historical fiction? I honestly did not know.
One of the big lessons I learned was that how I categorized it was a function of who I was trying to sell it to. Some agents only represent one or two genres. I went from one genre to another, writing well over a hundred queries, and being turned down well over a hundred times.
But along the way, some of the agents were kind enough to offer bits of advice, which I tried my best to incorporate and I believe made my work a much better novel in the end. By this time, though, I’d run through so many agents that I was afraid I had poisoned the well, so to speak. So, I started looking for publishers who would deal directly with authors, which means smaller publishing houses. I was lucky enough to find MX Publishing, a smaller publishing house in the United Kingdom, that specializes in Sherlock Holmes book, and while my book was never meant to be a purely Sherlock Holmes book, the publishers liked it and agreed to publish it.
The sequel, which is currently in the works, may be another challenge since Holmes will be absent. I hope I’ve learned enough to meet that challenge. Here I go again!
Tagged: Author, book, business, novel, publishers, writing
