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Keryl Raist's Blog, page 52
February 19, 2011
Indie Book Review: The Doom Guardian
This review features spoilers. Read at your own risk.
Say you go for a walk and find a milky-gray translucent pebble. It's all knobby and cloudy and encrusted with dirt. If you take it home, wash it off, polish it up, and cut it, you may have a diamond. You may have some nicely cut and polished quartz. Just like with pebbles, a rough story makes it hard to tell if you've got a diamond or quartz in your hands.
The Doom Guardian is rough. When I review stories I make notes of the grammar errors, typos, formatting issues, and then send them off to the author. One of the great things about Indie books, if you send the author a list like that, a new, improved version of the story is usually up in a day or two. So, by the time any of you get to it, The Doom Guardian should be less rough. Making those changes effectively washes the pebble. It's still unpolished.
Sometimes writers are puzzled when reviewers focus on the grammar. "But, it's a good story!" The Doom Guardian is a good story. I genuinely liked it and will very happily read the sequels. But the typos and incorrectly used homonyms in the version I got are a symbol for the story as well. Everything in the story just needs a bit of polishing.
Take the characters: they're a little too, whatever it is they're supposed to be. A little too smarmy. A little too wise-old-dwarf. A little too self-loathing. They aren't bad characters. They're fun to read. They're interesting people. But they're just a little too broad. They're a bit like watching the CGI in the first Star Wars. It looks good, but you know it's not real.
The love story is a good example of how the characters don't quite feel right. In less than ten days Nigel and Nadia go from barely tolerating each other to undying love. And, while Nigel's transformation of wary amusement into affection isn't too hard to believe, Nadia goes from trying to kill Nigel to in love with him in about three days.
The kicker is that speed of a love story is actually in character for Nadia. She's got no middle gears. This is part of the being 'too' whatever it is. In her case she's too emotional, too uncontrolled. Usually when someone talks about a woman character that's too emotional they mean she cries at the drop of the hat. Nadia stabs at the drop of a hat. The emotions in question are usually guilt and rage.
I like Nigel and Nadia. I want them to get together and be happy together. But the romance didn't need to happen that quickly. It's wrapped up well before the climax of the book. The love story could be drawn out further to let Nigel and Nadia get to know each other before professing love. I would have been very pleased to see both characters just fool around, build a relationship, and then, when faced with having to actually act on that relationship, decide it's really love.
The real plot of The Doom Guardian was character change. We watch Nadia go from an angry, destructive, unhappy woman, focused only on killing the undead, into a person. Nigel turns into Alexandros, (Yes, he literally changes his name.) deciding caring only for himself is a hallow life. I was pleased to see, even though the actual change happens pretty quickly, that Nadia doesn't immediately turn into a well adjusted person. She stays highly variable as to her mood, which is in character. Nigel turns into Alexandros pretty quickly and then stays Alexandros. We don't see him backsliding into the man he had been before.
The "plot" is probably the roughest element of the story. It's high quest fantasy, but Dawson makes it pretty clear that the quest doesn't really matter. The Necromancers are out to unleash the power of Vagruth, the god of the undead, and break the mystical spirit wall that's keeping the undead in hell. Darsideon, the wise old dwarf/comic relief/cleric of the earth, heads off to find the Chaos Diamonds so the wall can be reinforced and the world saved from Undead Apocylapse. He runs into Nadia, a dhampir paladin who hunts down the undead, and the maret (dark elf) thief she's captured, Nigel. Both of them look like they'll come in handy on the adventure, so he takes them along. But, while off on this vitally important mission that will save the entire world from being destroyed by necromancers, they'll go on a series of side adventures. Then when they finally get the Chaos Diamonds they're questing for, it will be written off in less than two pages and we don't get to see how it works or saves the world.
The Doom Guardian needed to decide if it was high quest fantasy with a romance, or a romance set in a fantasy world. I'm really not sure which it is, either. The climax of a romance is overcoming whatever and getting the characters together. Well, that's taken care of by halfway through the story. The climax of High Quest Fantasy is getting whatever you're questing for, and then using it to do whatever. It's not enough to get the Ring to Mordor, you've got to actually write the bit where it gets tossed into the fire. With The Doom Guardian, we got to Mordor, but skipped over the tossing it in bit.
Just like theology for the irreverent and well versed will make me squee with delight, sloppy moral thinking makes me want to cry. And unfortunately The Doom Guardian ran headlong into it. It's all throughout the plot. They are on a quest to save the world; time is of the essence. They have to get the Chaos Diamonds before the undead hordes ravage the world, so they take four days to save one boy. Then another few days to save the slaves they used as a ruse. I often found myself wanting to yell, THE ENTIRE WORLD IS AT STAKE HERE, FOCUS!
Nadia is tested. The gods themselves arrange it so that she'll be forced to decide who she is and what she truly wants. She's placed in a lake of molten iron and told by a magical/demi-god/fire elemental Salamander to pick one of her companions for death. If she picks one of them, she is cured of dhampirism and she and the other one get to live. If she refuses to pick, both will be killed, and she goes free. So instead of rationally going through it and choosing one of the guys, she refuses to chose, triggering the condition for both of their deaths, and jumps in the lake of molten iron to kill herself. Now, it is true that she may think this is all a dream (it's not entirely clear from the writing if she's decided one way or the other about that) even so, by the conditions set in the dream, her choice kills all three of them. Fortunately, the Salamander was lying and let them all live.
As Nadia slowly recovers, (Stepping into a lake of molten iron hurts!) unable to continue on the quest to save the world until she heals up, The Wise Old Dwarf King talked about her choice. How she decided she was going to keep fighting the good fight and hold onto her dhampirism so she'd have the strength fight more effectively. Um... no. That's not what she did. She killed herself. She gave up the fight. By the Salamander's conditions all three of them and, because they are on a quest to save the world from Undead Apocalypse, the entire world should have died because she couldn't bear to pick between her two companions.
Standing in the lake of molten iron would have been a great point for Nadia to decide she loved Nigel/Alexandros. It would have been a great moment to see her decide saving the world was worth living without him because he's not the one she has to keep alive if she wants to see the world saved. I would have loved to see her tell him after (because we learn Nigel and Darsideon were never in any danger) that she chose Darsideon because she needed him to get to the Chaos Diamonds and save the world. It would have been beautiful to see him, now as Alexandros, accept that choice, know it was the right one, and tell her he loved her because she had the strength to make it. Alas, we got crispy dhampir and an unimpressive speech trying to justify her actions.
More sloppy moral thinking: Darsideon and Alexandros capture a thief. They can't take him with them. They can't let him go. So they punt and let the sentient demon horse, who's joined them on their journey, chose. The demon horse (a felsteed, aka nightmare) kicks in the thief's head, and off they go. What are you saying about your characters when the clearest moral thinker in the entire group is a barely tame demon horse? Let me add this though, the felsteed, Firefly, is a great addition to the book, a lot of fun to read, and a truly nice touch. He's a little spark indicating maybe this story is a diamond and not quartz.
And he's not the only one. The world building is especially rich in The Doom Guardian. Much of it looks like typical Dungeons and Dragons fantasy, but it all has thoughtful little twists and turns to make it more real and vibrant. Quick example: the local vampires are looking into the gnomish discovery, electricity, to keep their herds of humans warm and comfortable. After all, fire is a huge risk for vampires, and if there's any way to reduce the risk of that, they're on top of it.
The dialog in this book is another spark. It's a pleasure to see these characters speak. All three of the main characters have very distinct voices that never stray. This entire book could have no dialog tags and you'd never be confused about who is speaking when. That's a very hard technique to pull off, and Dawson does it elegantly.
So, this little pebble I hold in my hand, is it a diamond or a quartz? I don't know. But I hold high hopes the sequel will be a diamond.
February 12, 2011
Indie Book Review: Chasing Tail
I'd like you to click on the image of the cover of Chasing Tail. Look at the big version. Notice how it's just a bit off? There's nothing wrong with it, but there's also nothing really grabbing about it either. Unfortunately this is a case where the cover really is a good predictor of the book inside.
I read a lot of erotic fiction. I've read a lot of just fantastically beautiful erotic fiction that so good it makes you want to hunt down the author and kiss them for benefiting the world with these stories. As a result this is a genre where I'm picky. Here's what I want in erotic fiction: decent plot, character development, dialog, and red hot sex. To add to that I'm also a firm believer that if you're going to write a fantasy set story the magic has to make sense, by which I don't mean it needs to be within the bounds of the normal world, but it has to be consistent.
So, let's start with plot. Chasing Tail is a collection of six short stories, all bound by one central plot. The central plot is a great idea; one I've never seen in erotic fiction before: a small community of shape shifters in northern Arkansas dealing with an unknown menace that is kidnapping shifters. So, we've got a set up with a mystery, magic, the promise of rescue oriented heroics, and the clarity of purpose and thought that comes when your home is threatened. But the execution of that plot didn't deliver. It really needed an extra fifty pages to develop the ideas and spend more time on the villain.
Next up: character development. Cox does a fine job of this. Her characters are unique. Playful, geeky, polished, sophisticated, comfortable, whatever the character is, he is well. There are never any bits of this story where you find yourself thinking, "Nope, I don't buy that. No one does that!" Likewise if you take the names off of the characters, you won't find yourself mixing them up.
The only weakness here is the villain. He's basically not there. If he had gotten his own story, this book would have been a lot stronger. If he had spent more time in any of the other six stories, this would have been a stronger book. Unfortunately, he's more like a character sketch than an actual character.
Dialog: This is probably the most uneven bit of the story. Some of the characters sound right. Some of them are perfect in their words. And some of them sound wrong: it's never anything glaringly off, just bits and pieces that are a bit out of kilter. Just like the cover of the book, when it's off, it's just not quite right, a touch too archaic or just slightly clunky, as opposed to a nun busting out a tirade of f bombs.
Smoking hot sex: I thought the sex was well done. Playful when playful made sense. Romantic when it needed to be romantic. Rough and fast where that worked. I've only got one quibble with it: too many characters use the same moves. Sex is like dialog, when you have a bunch of people who live in close proximity, it makes sense that they start to talk like each other. However, unless the majority of her characters have slept with each other, they're a little too similar in the sack.
Magic: This is probably the aspect of the book that most disappointed me. Let me give a little background here, I've read several of Cox's other works, so I know she can write beautiful, magical, Gaimanish fairytales. I know she can weave magic into the real world and do it elegantly. That came up short in this work. All the characters are shape shifters. But, why? They could have been any group of not easily identifiable minorities, gays or Jews for example. In fact, this story probably would have worked better if it had been set in a Jewish community facing a pogrom or the Nazis. (The lack of well developed villain would have been less glaring if it had been some random Nazi. We're all familiar enough with that concept to fill in the holes on our own.) There's no aspect of this story that won't work if the characters are just humans doing the human analog to whatever the animals did. The magic also has continuity issues. If you shift from a human into a significantly bigger animal, your clothing rips to bits. Good, that makes sense, it's a nice detail. Then one character shifts into a bear (listed as 8 feet tall) and is suddenly dressed again when he shifts back. Another example, we learn that the shifters choose their animal. But the second story is all about a horse shifter who is deeply uncomfortable with the sexual nature of horse magic. Well, why did he choose to become a horse? If you can't stand being part of a herd, why pick a herd animal? (I get the bigger point, a study of a man learning how to balance his libido with his work, but still...) That story would have made more sense if shifters were born shifters.
So, all in all, it's not a bad work, the characters are worth getting to know, but there's better out there. Some of it written by Cox herself.
February 5, 2011
Ye Gods! You Want How Much? Self Publishing with Outskirt Press
So, as a concientious blogger, I decided investigating the sites that advertise on my blog is a good idea. The first on the list of self publishers I decided to check out was Outskirts Press (outskirtspress.com). They often have a nice, large ad at the bottom of my posts.
Here's my first impression: Run Away! Run away fast. Do not look back.
You know how in horror movies you get a hint that something bad is going to happen as a way to build tension, like the flash of light off the menacing blade or the creepy soundtrack ramps up? Well, because of the contract with Google, I can't click on the ads on my on blog. So I googled Outskirts Press. As I was typing the letters in, Google showed me the second most popular search, Outskirts Press Complaints. (For comparison purposes Smashwords doesn't turn up anything bad, Lulu.com Scam is the second term, and CreateSpace Scam is the fourth search term on Google.)
I checked the complaints out. Alas, I really couldn't tell if they were just authors who didn't read the instructions carefully enough and were unhappy about a mess they got themselves into or were genuinely bilked. Until I got to the Outskirts Press page, I was leaning in the 'author didn't read the fine print' direction. Because, honestly, a lot of complaints tend to be people who are upset at a company that did exactly what they said they were going to do, in the fine print.
Then I actually visited Outskirts Press. Maybe it was serendipity. Maybe God was guiding my hands in an effort to show me the light. Either way, the first thing I clicked on was the Marketing Solutions tab. And what is at the top of that? Amazon Extreme Marketing at the bargain price of $299. Wow, let's see what you get for that $299. Look Inside (where Amazon lets viewers see the inside of your book), a Kindle edition of your book, and ten tags. Okay folks, we've been over this, you can do all of this for free, for yourself, in less than ten minutes. This service would have been overpriced at $29.00 and probably just about right at about $15.00. But, hey, if you just want a Kindle edition of your book or just want the Look Inside feature, they'll be happy to charge you $135 (each) to set that up as well. Here, let me make any of you who find this idea even remotely tempting an offer: send me a note and I'll do it for half that price.
Okay, so as my eyes bled with disgust at the exorbitant price gouging on Amazon, I headed over to see about their paper books.
At the top of that list is the ability to call and talk live to one of their sales people, er..."publishing consultants" about which publishing option would suit you best, for $35. Now, I've noticed that other services also charge to talk with publishing consultants, about formatting, and book design, and getting your manuscript set up to turn into an ebook. They don't charge you money to talk to the person who sells you the service in the first place!
Once you get past that there are different tiers of publishing services. For a basic novel, the most expensive version, "the Diamond Plan," at $999 gets you a soft cover book with either your own cover or one of their "customizable" pre-designed ones. (You can pick from 21 designs and then customize.) You get an ISBN and a bar code. They do the inside formatting for you. You get an author's webpage. A manuscript review (basically is the book salable) is part of the deal. Your book is available to be sold (if you can track down someone at the book store and get them to put copies of your book on his shelves) at many bookstores. You get an ebook edition (Their ebook. You've got to pay them more money to get on the Kindle store). You can list your book with Books In Print (though you have to do it yourself.) And you get ten free copies of your book.
And I gave up. This is total crap. $999.00 for ten books. Because you're paying that $999 before you sell a single book. Then after you've paid your $999, you can set your book up as POD, and when someone orders it, they print a copy and send it off. You set the price and the royalty, so they apply however much to your account. How nice of them.
Once again here's a comparison: For ten books I paid CreateSpace $117 and change (the costs of my books, their Pro Plan, and the cost of shipping the books to me). Now that didn't get me a free copy of How To Sell Your Book on Amazon, or a manuscript evaluation, or my very own marketing package (No they don't do the marketing for you, you get a list of helpful instructions to do the marketing yourself.), or weekly marketing email (all part of the Diamond Package). And CreateSpace just covered the print version of my book, I did have to take an extra step to get my ebook set up. But I also didn't have to spend close to a thousand dollars to do it. Ten books on Lulu.com would have cost me about double that amount, and once again, I wouldn't have had the marketing stuff, and I would have had to pay extra for the ebook, but the total would have been closer to $500 than $1000.
Hey, Outskirts Press will get your book on Barnes and Noble! CreateSpace doesn't do that! That's true. They do seem to get the book on the Barnes and Noble website. Now, you can do that with your ebook for yourself for free. And I haven't yet figured out how to do it for a paper back book. So, that's one thing Outskirts can get you. Is it worth $1000? Lulu.com will do it for you, too, and they'll charge a whole lot less for it.
But that's the super-duper deluxe package. How about the low end one? At their low end, you pay them $199, and they print you up a book. That's it. You get one "free" copy. And it's just a book, no barcode, no ISBN. You can't even upload your own cover. You have to use one of the two options they offer you. You can get that at Lulu and CreateSpace for just the cost of the book (and neither of those options would think of charging you extra to upload your own cover!)
Please, by all that is good and holy, stay away from Outskirts. They are charging vastly more for their services than anyone ever should. For $999 you can go over to CreateSpace.com and get a custom (as in designed specifically for you) cover or possibly some editing, plus almost everything offered by the "Diamond Package." Go to Lulu.com, lay down $999 and you'll get vastly more for your money as well.
As for me, as the next thing on my list is to figure out how to block Outskirts Press as an advertiser on my blog.
Here's my first impression: Run Away! Run away fast. Do not look back.
You know how in horror movies you get a hint that something bad is going to happen as a way to build tension, like the flash of light off the menacing blade or the creepy soundtrack ramps up? Well, because of the contract with Google, I can't click on the ads on my on blog. So I googled Outskirts Press. As I was typing the letters in, Google showed me the second most popular search, Outskirts Press Complaints. (For comparison purposes Smashwords doesn't turn up anything bad, Lulu.com Scam is the second term, and CreateSpace Scam is the fourth search term on Google.)
I checked the complaints out. Alas, I really couldn't tell if they were just authors who didn't read the instructions carefully enough and were unhappy about a mess they got themselves into or were genuinely bilked. Until I got to the Outskirts Press page, I was leaning in the 'author didn't read the fine print' direction. Because, honestly, a lot of complaints tend to be people who are upset at a company that did exactly what they said they were going to do, in the fine print.
Then I actually visited Outskirts Press. Maybe it was serendipity. Maybe God was guiding my hands in an effort to show me the light. Either way, the first thing I clicked on was the Marketing Solutions tab. And what is at the top of that? Amazon Extreme Marketing at the bargain price of $299. Wow, let's see what you get for that $299. Look Inside (where Amazon lets viewers see the inside of your book), a Kindle edition of your book, and ten tags. Okay folks, we've been over this, you can do all of this for free, for yourself, in less than ten minutes. This service would have been overpriced at $29.00 and probably just about right at about $15.00. But, hey, if you just want a Kindle edition of your book or just want the Look Inside feature, they'll be happy to charge you $135 (each) to set that up as well. Here, let me make any of you who find this idea even remotely tempting an offer: send me a note and I'll do it for half that price.
Okay, so as my eyes bled with disgust at the exorbitant price gouging on Amazon, I headed over to see about their paper books.
At the top of that list is the ability to call and talk live to one of their sales people, er..."publishing consultants" about which publishing option would suit you best, for $35. Now, I've noticed that other services also charge to talk with publishing consultants, about formatting, and book design, and getting your manuscript set up to turn into an ebook. They don't charge you money to talk to the person who sells you the service in the first place!
Once you get past that there are different tiers of publishing services. For a basic novel, the most expensive version, "the Diamond Plan," at $999 gets you a soft cover book with either your own cover or one of their "customizable" pre-designed ones. (You can pick from 21 designs and then customize.) You get an ISBN and a bar code. They do the inside formatting for you. You get an author's webpage. A manuscript review (basically is the book salable) is part of the deal. Your book is available to be sold (if you can track down someone at the book store and get them to put copies of your book on his shelves) at many bookstores. You get an ebook edition (Their ebook. You've got to pay them more money to get on the Kindle store). You can list your book with Books In Print (though you have to do it yourself.) And you get ten free copies of your book.
And I gave up. This is total crap. $999.00 for ten books. Because you're paying that $999 before you sell a single book. Then after you've paid your $999, you can set your book up as POD, and when someone orders it, they print a copy and send it off. You set the price and the royalty, so they apply however much to your account. How nice of them.
Once again here's a comparison: For ten books I paid CreateSpace $117 and change (the costs of my books, their Pro Plan, and the cost of shipping the books to me). Now that didn't get me a free copy of How To Sell Your Book on Amazon, or a manuscript evaluation, or my very own marketing package (No they don't do the marketing for you, you get a list of helpful instructions to do the marketing yourself.), or weekly marketing email (all part of the Diamond Package). And CreateSpace just covered the print version of my book, I did have to take an extra step to get my ebook set up. But I also didn't have to spend close to a thousand dollars to do it. Ten books on Lulu.com would have cost me about double that amount, and once again, I wouldn't have had the marketing stuff, and I would have had to pay extra for the ebook, but the total would have been closer to $500 than $1000.
Hey, Outskirts Press will get your book on Barnes and Noble! CreateSpace doesn't do that! That's true. They do seem to get the book on the Barnes and Noble website. Now, you can do that with your ebook for yourself for free. And I haven't yet figured out how to do it for a paper back book. So, that's one thing Outskirts can get you. Is it worth $1000? Lulu.com will do it for you, too, and they'll charge a whole lot less for it.
But that's the super-duper deluxe package. How about the low end one? At their low end, you pay them $199, and they print you up a book. That's it. You get one "free" copy. And it's just a book, no barcode, no ISBN. You can't even upload your own cover. You have to use one of the two options they offer you. You can get that at Lulu and CreateSpace for just the cost of the book (and neither of those options would think of charging you extra to upload your own cover!)
Please, by all that is good and holy, stay away from Outskirts. They are charging vastly more for their services than anyone ever should. For $999 you can go over to CreateSpace.com and get a custom (as in designed specifically for you) cover or possibly some editing, plus almost everything offered by the "Diamond Package." Go to Lulu.com, lay down $999 and you'll get vastly more for your money as well.
As for me, as the next thing on my list is to figure out how to block Outskirts Press as an advertiser on my blog.
February 2, 2011
Author Interview: Commander Pants
I tracked down Commander Pants in his fortress of solitude, and he was willing to answer some questions for me.
KR: Why did you decide to self-publish?
CP: When the first draft was done, I convinced Luke Rhinehart, author of The Dice Man - an American author who is virtually unknown here in the States, but a cult hero in England and elsewhere - to take a look at it. He loved it, and when I had no success interesting an agent, he insisted on paying for me to self-publish. I hemmed and hawed for a while, fearful that self-publishing would be a mistake, but in the end I jumped in the pool.
KR: Who did you use?
CP: I started with a place that shall remain nameless. We had our disagreements. For example, they kept reformatting the book in ways that I did not like. This led to my SENDING THEM ONE EMAIL IN ALL CAPS, and that led to them "firing" me on the spot (and refunding all of my money).
This was actually great, since working with them had taught me all about formatting and formats for
publication, which gave me the confidence to go to the source. The source being Lightning Source.
I don't know if your readership is aware, but most POD books ultimately come from one of two sources: Amazon, which does Create Space, and Lightning Source, which is owned by Ingrams, the largest wholesale book distributor in the world. Most of the other POD publishers use Lightning Source for their printing. Well, it seems that Lightning Source has no problem with little fish like you or me setting up our own imprints and using them for printing and fulfillment. I started Pantsateria with Luke's kind gift, and off I went. Yes, it's a bit more work. You have to do all of your own formatting, make your own cover and get your own bar code and ISBN number. But in the end, I think it's worth it; the profit margin is better, and you get to maintain more control of the finished product.
KR: Will you go with them again?
CP: Definitely. (I mean "Pantsateria" has a great reputation - and blood is thicker that water).
KR: What marketing are you doing?
CP: So far I have been giving books to reviewers, doing give-aways with bloggers, guest blogging and interviews like this. I have also been "trolling" by sending out the book to big names, hoping that someone would sit up and take notice. I would like to do more, but I just don't know what (I seem to be much better at the creation end than the marketing one).
KR: What's worked well so far?
CP: To be honest, not much. Although the book has had many extremely nice reviews, it languishes. It's sad really. I am finding that there's an attitude out there akin to the "Irish need not apply" for self-published authors. If you self-publish, then your product must be crap. It's interesting, because when it comes to music or let's say, board games (I also created the board game, Acronymble), there's a perception that going it alone is respectable, but not in publishing. The irony is that traditional publishing these days is much less open to anything that might not make a buck, and I suspect that many of the classics out there might end up self-published if their authors brought them to market today. That said, I do think that self-publishing is the
future, it just needs some time for people to get past that "Vanity Press" image.
KR: What was a waste of time?
CP: I can't say that any of it is a waste of time, but as I implied, none of it has been very fruitful in terms of sales. It is a wonderful feeling though, when you read a glowing review, to know that someone out there appreciates what you're doing.
KR: Who did your cover?
CP: That would be me. I had a lot of trouble with getting the stars to show up crisply (it's actually a bunch of starscapes stacked up. The "1st edition" of the book came out pretty awful. My savior was my brother-in-law, a professional photographer, who actually talked me through some Photoshop techniques while he was waiting for a table at a restaurant. It was amazing! He had no computer in front of him, yet still talked me through all sorts of different menus and settings. I swear, He must dream about Photoshop!
KR: Why "Commander Pants?" It's a rather *ahem* unique, pen name. I noticed another reviewer saw it and had the same gut reaction I did, that anyone using that name had to be an amateur.
CP: I like to think of myself as a Pseuper Hero (you know, a Super Hero without all of those pesky superpowers).
Seriously though, I already write music and do "found image" music videos under the moniker Commander Pants. And although all of my agent queries went out using the vanilla, dime-a-dozen, name that my parents bestowed upon me, when it came time to put a name on the book, I figured what the hell? and went with the one that I thought would be more memorable.
KR: What's the best advice you can give new self-publishers?
CP: Don't give up, and believe in yourself. Oh, and go with the technology. I do believe that Kindles and Nooks are only going to get bigger as time goes on.
KR: Anything else you'd like to say?
CP: Thanks for giving me this opportunity. It's been fun. Over and out.
KR: Why did you decide to self-publish?
CP: When the first draft was done, I convinced Luke Rhinehart, author of The Dice Man - an American author who is virtually unknown here in the States, but a cult hero in England and elsewhere - to take a look at it. He loved it, and when I had no success interesting an agent, he insisted on paying for me to self-publish. I hemmed and hawed for a while, fearful that self-publishing would be a mistake, but in the end I jumped in the pool.
KR: Who did you use?
CP: I started with a place that shall remain nameless. We had our disagreements. For example, they kept reformatting the book in ways that I did not like. This led to my SENDING THEM ONE EMAIL IN ALL CAPS, and that led to them "firing" me on the spot (and refunding all of my money).
This was actually great, since working with them had taught me all about formatting and formats for
publication, which gave me the confidence to go to the source. The source being Lightning Source.
I don't know if your readership is aware, but most POD books ultimately come from one of two sources: Amazon, which does Create Space, and Lightning Source, which is owned by Ingrams, the largest wholesale book distributor in the world. Most of the other POD publishers use Lightning Source for their printing. Well, it seems that Lightning Source has no problem with little fish like you or me setting up our own imprints and using them for printing and fulfillment. I started Pantsateria with Luke's kind gift, and off I went. Yes, it's a bit more work. You have to do all of your own formatting, make your own cover and get your own bar code and ISBN number. But in the end, I think it's worth it; the profit margin is better, and you get to maintain more control of the finished product.
KR: Will you go with them again?
CP: Definitely. (I mean "Pantsateria" has a great reputation - and blood is thicker that water).
KR: What marketing are you doing?
CP: So far I have been giving books to reviewers, doing give-aways with bloggers, guest blogging and interviews like this. I have also been "trolling" by sending out the book to big names, hoping that someone would sit up and take notice. I would like to do more, but I just don't know what (I seem to be much better at the creation end than the marketing one).
KR: What's worked well so far?
CP: To be honest, not much. Although the book has had many extremely nice reviews, it languishes. It's sad really. I am finding that there's an attitude out there akin to the "Irish need not apply" for self-published authors. If you self-publish, then your product must be crap. It's interesting, because when it comes to music or let's say, board games (I also created the board game, Acronymble), there's a perception that going it alone is respectable, but not in publishing. The irony is that traditional publishing these days is much less open to anything that might not make a buck, and I suspect that many of the classics out there might end up self-published if their authors brought them to market today. That said, I do think that self-publishing is the
future, it just needs some time for people to get past that "Vanity Press" image.
KR: What was a waste of time?
CP: I can't say that any of it is a waste of time, but as I implied, none of it has been very fruitful in terms of sales. It is a wonderful feeling though, when you read a glowing review, to know that someone out there appreciates what you're doing.
KR: Who did your cover?
CP: That would be me. I had a lot of trouble with getting the stars to show up crisply (it's actually a bunch of starscapes stacked up. The "1st edition" of the book came out pretty awful. My savior was my brother-in-law, a professional photographer, who actually talked me through some Photoshop techniques while he was waiting for a table at a restaurant. It was amazing! He had no computer in front of him, yet still talked me through all sorts of different menus and settings. I swear, He must dream about Photoshop!
KR: Why "Commander Pants?" It's a rather *ahem* unique, pen name. I noticed another reviewer saw it and had the same gut reaction I did, that anyone using that name had to be an amateur.
CP: I like to think of myself as a Pseuper Hero (you know, a Super Hero without all of those pesky superpowers).
Seriously though, I already write music and do "found image" music videos under the moniker Commander Pants. And although all of my agent queries went out using the vanilla, dime-a-dozen, name that my parents bestowed upon me, when it came time to put a name on the book, I figured what the hell? and went with the one that I thought would be more memorable.
KR: What's the best advice you can give new self-publishers?
CP: Don't give up, and believe in yourself. Oh, and go with the technology. I do believe that Kindles and Nooks are only going to get bigger as time goes on.
KR: Anything else you'd like to say?
CP: Thanks for giving me this opportunity. It's been fun. Over and out.
January 29, 2011
Indie Book Review: Whom God Would Destroy
Welcome to another book I'm having a hard time reviewing. Whom God Would Destroy does not fit easily into the traditional good/bad categories.
Let me start here, I really enjoyed reading Whom God Would Destroy. But, here's a little secret, I read for characters, not action. And Commander Pants is really good with characters. This book is filled with interesting, entertaining characters. People who feel real. Given how strange some of these characters are, it would be very easy to go off the rails and end up with farcically drawn comic book characters. But, even at their most insane, Pants' characters still feel real.
Of course, a book is not just a collection of characters. There also needs to be a plot. And this is where the problem is. Whom God Would Destroy doesn't so much have a plot as a collection of themes. The Vagaries Of Mental Health: it's in there. The Nature of God To Man: yep, got that, too. The Dissatisfaction That Comes From Looking For a Perfect Experience: in spades, my friends. Reality Is a Collection Of Layers, One More Complex Than the Next, and In The Whole Scheme Of Things Humans Understand Just As Much About The Universe As Bacteria Understand Quantum Physics: of course. One Man's Crazy Is Another Man's Truth: do I even need to mention it?
Instead of a plot, let us say there are two main themes. The Nature of God to Man, and One Man's Crazy is Another Man's Truth. Interestingly enough both involve aliens. Theme A is illustrated by the story of Jeremy, an alien playing God for kicks and giggles. (He gave the Jews the Shema, He did the Christ routine, and this time around He's apparently been reading some Heinlein, 'cause He sounds an awful lot like Valentine Michael Smith, you grok?) He's messing with humanity again because He enjoys it. He finds Oliver, an outreach counselor for a local mental health facility, and decides Oliver would be a perfect disciple. A modern day Paul if you will. So, in line A we watch as Jeremy manipulates Oliver into Discipleship. For Theme B we follow Doc, one of Oliver's clients, and learn about how Doc is being used by an alien race in search of the PERFECT experience. (The Ultimate Orgasm, they term it so mere humans can understand the idea.) They find said experience in Big Macs (why not?) and Doc is part of the team of humans being used to make sure they get their Big Mac fix.
As themes these two lines have similar focuses and illustrate different aspects of the same concepts (the levels of reality, for example). But as a story, they just don't have a whole lot to do with each other. What the book is missing is an overarching plot to tie these themes together.
Let me be clear here, Whom God Would Destroy is worth reading. It's five or so hours well spent. But if you want to examine it critically, there's a huge hole in the middle of it, and that's the plot. Whom God Would Destroy meanders from one character to the next, spending time in their interesting worlds, getting to know them, but it's lacking in direction.
Take Greg for example. He's my favorite character in the book. His purpose in the book is to illustrate how psychology isn't all that precise and with great ego comes the ability for a great fall. I really like his story line and think it's quite clever. But if you cut every scene with him as the main character out, it would have absolutely no bearing on the story. He's not vital or even tangentially related to either of the main themes. On his own and developed more fully he'd be a wicked cool novel or novella. As a part of this story, he's just there. Greg is a microcosm for what's right and wrong with Whom God Would Destroy. He's well written, he's fascinating, as a reader you want to get to know him better, and he's totally divorced from any plot the book may have.
So, how does a reviewer rank a book that was enjoyable, with well drawn characters and no real plot? Pants knows how to use words. His writing is clear and, if not poetic, well crafted for the purpose of the book. His themes and the way he treats them is not precisely new (see Heinlein comment above) but well done. His characters really are excellent. But plot is a major issue, and it's a writing 101 level skill. The whole purpose of a novel is to have something happen that ties all the elements of the story (characters, setting, writing style) together. And that's just not in this story.
I'll call Whom God Would Destroy a well recommended 3 stars.
Let me start here, I really enjoyed reading Whom God Would Destroy. But, here's a little secret, I read for characters, not action. And Commander Pants is really good with characters. This book is filled with interesting, entertaining characters. People who feel real. Given how strange some of these characters are, it would be very easy to go off the rails and end up with farcically drawn comic book characters. But, even at their most insane, Pants' characters still feel real.
Of course, a book is not just a collection of characters. There also needs to be a plot. And this is where the problem is. Whom God Would Destroy doesn't so much have a plot as a collection of themes. The Vagaries Of Mental Health: it's in there. The Nature of God To Man: yep, got that, too. The Dissatisfaction That Comes From Looking For a Perfect Experience: in spades, my friends. Reality Is a Collection Of Layers, One More Complex Than the Next, and In The Whole Scheme Of Things Humans Understand Just As Much About The Universe As Bacteria Understand Quantum Physics: of course. One Man's Crazy Is Another Man's Truth: do I even need to mention it?
Instead of a plot, let us say there are two main themes. The Nature of God to Man, and One Man's Crazy is Another Man's Truth. Interestingly enough both involve aliens. Theme A is illustrated by the story of Jeremy, an alien playing God for kicks and giggles. (He gave the Jews the Shema, He did the Christ routine, and this time around He's apparently been reading some Heinlein, 'cause He sounds an awful lot like Valentine Michael Smith, you grok?) He's messing with humanity again because He enjoys it. He finds Oliver, an outreach counselor for a local mental health facility, and decides Oliver would be a perfect disciple. A modern day Paul if you will. So, in line A we watch as Jeremy manipulates Oliver into Discipleship. For Theme B we follow Doc, one of Oliver's clients, and learn about how Doc is being used by an alien race in search of the PERFECT experience. (The Ultimate Orgasm, they term it so mere humans can understand the idea.) They find said experience in Big Macs (why not?) and Doc is part of the team of humans being used to make sure they get their Big Mac fix.
As themes these two lines have similar focuses and illustrate different aspects of the same concepts (the levels of reality, for example). But as a story, they just don't have a whole lot to do with each other. What the book is missing is an overarching plot to tie these themes together.
Let me be clear here, Whom God Would Destroy is worth reading. It's five or so hours well spent. But if you want to examine it critically, there's a huge hole in the middle of it, and that's the plot. Whom God Would Destroy meanders from one character to the next, spending time in their interesting worlds, getting to know them, but it's lacking in direction.
Take Greg for example. He's my favorite character in the book. His purpose in the book is to illustrate how psychology isn't all that precise and with great ego comes the ability for a great fall. I really like his story line and think it's quite clever. But if you cut every scene with him as the main character out, it would have absolutely no bearing on the story. He's not vital or even tangentially related to either of the main themes. On his own and developed more fully he'd be a wicked cool novel or novella. As a part of this story, he's just there. Greg is a microcosm for what's right and wrong with Whom God Would Destroy. He's well written, he's fascinating, as a reader you want to get to know him better, and he's totally divorced from any plot the book may have.
So, how does a reviewer rank a book that was enjoyable, with well drawn characters and no real plot? Pants knows how to use words. His writing is clear and, if not poetic, well crafted for the purpose of the book. His themes and the way he treats them is not precisely new (see Heinlein comment above) but well done. His characters really are excellent. But plot is a major issue, and it's a writing 101 level skill. The whole purpose of a novel is to have something happen that ties all the elements of the story (characters, setting, writing style) together. And that's just not in this story.
I'll call Whom God Would Destroy a well recommended 3 stars.
January 22, 2011
Self Pulbishing with Lulu.com: Options As Far As the Eye Can See
Do you want maximum options for how your book will look? Do you want marketing tools out the wazoo? Is endless possible customization your idea of a very good thing? Then Lulu.com may be the perfect self publisher for you.
If you are looking to do something beyond a standard novel, Lulu is probably the best option as well. They have templates set up and ready to go for picture books (like a photo album, but the photos are printed directly on the pages), cook books, yearbooks, and calenders.
But, if you are like most of the people reading this blog, you are publishing a novel. And there's only one thing I'd recommend Lulu.com for in that case, your hardback copy.
Why? Because there's almost nothing Lulu offers except a hard bound book that you can't get for less with CreateSpace.com.
Here's the oranges to oranges comparison: with CreateSpace you decide on the Pro or Regular plan, the Pro plan costs $39.00 regular is free. If you go pro your per page cost is .012 and regular is .02. With Lulu.com you pick the kind of paper you want Publisher Grade (.015) or Standard (starting at .02 and going up from there). Publisher grade gives you two size options, and you can't get an ISBN number. Standard comes in pretty much any size you can imagine, and you can get an ISBN. If you're actually planning on selling your book, you're already spending way more per book than you will with CreateSpace.
Why am I comparing Lulu to the Pro Plan prices instead of the Regular plan prices? Because when you buy the Pro Plan with CreateSpace you also get the distribution tools you want if you actually intend to sell a physical book. (I'm assuming this is where the term Pro Plan comes in.) With Lulu, if you really want to sell a book you have to pick the paper option that costs more and then pay more for a distribution channel on top of it.
So, for Sylvianna my CreateSpace author's copy costs $5.96. My Lulu author's copy costs $14.00. That was the moment I decided, unless I want a hardback copy of Sylvianna, Lulu was not going to get my publishing business.
Okay, so how do they do on ebooks?
I'll admit I didn't get very far in this process. I uploaded my file, and then they asked me what size I wanted my ebook to be. I found myself thinking, "Pick a size for ebook? Ummm what?" See, here's the thing with ebooks, they come in whatever size the reader's screen happens to be. So, my Kindle for PC screen is a lot bigger than my iPhone and my husband's Kindle is sort of in between. So it doesn't make a lot of sense to pick a size for your ebook. But, what do I know? I'm new to this whole thing, so I open the list of sizes. They're all standard book sizes. I pick 5x8, and it resizes my document for 5x8 pages, and it looks bad.
Now maybe if I hadn't already used Smashwords.com, and come out with a product that looks good on any sized screen, I wouldn't have been so picky about this. But I did go through the Smashwords conversion process and got an electronic book that looks good everywhere. So, seeing the 5x8 pages, and knowing I already had a distribution channel set up for basically any ebook format I could want, I gave up on Lulu's ebookery.
Lulu offers marketing tools, they offer promotional stuff, they'll build your cover for you, they'll edit for you, they provide pretty much every service you could possibly want, the only thing is: it costs a lot of money. CreateSpace offers almost all the same marketing, promotional, editing, and cover work, and they charge less. Smashwords actually understands how to build an ebook so that anyone can read it.
So, unless you are looking for your hardbound masterpiece, it's time to go looking for a different publishing house.
Next up in the Self Publishing series: Outskirt Press. I see their ads below my posts, so it's about time I go and see what they can offer! Also in the not too distant future, reviews of Whom God Would Destroy
and My Perfect Wedding
.
If you are looking to do something beyond a standard novel, Lulu is probably the best option as well. They have templates set up and ready to go for picture books (like a photo album, but the photos are printed directly on the pages), cook books, yearbooks, and calenders.
But, if you are like most of the people reading this blog, you are publishing a novel. And there's only one thing I'd recommend Lulu.com for in that case, your hardback copy.
Why? Because there's almost nothing Lulu offers except a hard bound book that you can't get for less with CreateSpace.com.
Here's the oranges to oranges comparison: with CreateSpace you decide on the Pro or Regular plan, the Pro plan costs $39.00 regular is free. If you go pro your per page cost is .012 and regular is .02. With Lulu.com you pick the kind of paper you want Publisher Grade (.015) or Standard (starting at .02 and going up from there). Publisher grade gives you two size options, and you can't get an ISBN number. Standard comes in pretty much any size you can imagine, and you can get an ISBN. If you're actually planning on selling your book, you're already spending way more per book than you will with CreateSpace.
Why am I comparing Lulu to the Pro Plan prices instead of the Regular plan prices? Because when you buy the Pro Plan with CreateSpace you also get the distribution tools you want if you actually intend to sell a physical book. (I'm assuming this is where the term Pro Plan comes in.) With Lulu, if you really want to sell a book you have to pick the paper option that costs more and then pay more for a distribution channel on top of it.
So, for Sylvianna my CreateSpace author's copy costs $5.96. My Lulu author's copy costs $14.00. That was the moment I decided, unless I want a hardback copy of Sylvianna, Lulu was not going to get my publishing business.
Okay, so how do they do on ebooks?
I'll admit I didn't get very far in this process. I uploaded my file, and then they asked me what size I wanted my ebook to be. I found myself thinking, "Pick a size for ebook? Ummm what?" See, here's the thing with ebooks, they come in whatever size the reader's screen happens to be. So, my Kindle for PC screen is a lot bigger than my iPhone and my husband's Kindle is sort of in between. So it doesn't make a lot of sense to pick a size for your ebook. But, what do I know? I'm new to this whole thing, so I open the list of sizes. They're all standard book sizes. I pick 5x8, and it resizes my document for 5x8 pages, and it looks bad.
Now maybe if I hadn't already used Smashwords.com, and come out with a product that looks good on any sized screen, I wouldn't have been so picky about this. But I did go through the Smashwords conversion process and got an electronic book that looks good everywhere. So, seeing the 5x8 pages, and knowing I already had a distribution channel set up for basically any ebook format I could want, I gave up on Lulu's ebookery.
Lulu offers marketing tools, they offer promotional stuff, they'll build your cover for you, they'll edit for you, they provide pretty much every service you could possibly want, the only thing is: it costs a lot of money. CreateSpace offers almost all the same marketing, promotional, editing, and cover work, and they charge less. Smashwords actually understands how to build an ebook so that anyone can read it.
So, unless you are looking for your hardbound masterpiece, it's time to go looking for a different publishing house.
Next up in the Self Publishing series: Outskirt Press. I see their ads below my posts, so it's about time I go and see what they can offer! Also in the not too distant future, reviews of Whom God Would Destroy
and My Perfect Wedding.
January 15, 2011
Indie Book Review: The Crown Conspiracy
I'd like to introduce you to The Crown Conspiracy (The Riyria Revelations) by Michael Sullivan. This is a six book series revolving around a fantasy world and the goings on therein. The Crown Conspiracy is book one in this series, and, having read it, I'm looking forward to books two through six.
I may sound a little hard in the coming paragraphs of this review, and I want to explain something up front, the Crown Conspiracy is a wonderful bit of old-school sword and sorcery (though this particular book was a bit light on magic) fantasy. If, like me, you grew up in the days DragonLance and Forgotten Realms, this story feels like an overdue homecoming.
Let me begin with the good: the writing is lovely, detailed enough to let you know what is going on, who is doing it, and why, without falling into the Anne Rice trap of describing everything in such painstaking detail you want to skip pages or fall asleep.
The Crown Conspiracy is a very carefully written book. One of the lessons I learned as a writer was 'if it's not vital to the plot, leave it out.' Writers don't always do that. Indie writers really don't always do that. I had a few spots through the story where I was thinking, 'and we're reading this why?' but all but one of those threads eventually got wound back into the story. No matter how obscure a bit of the story may feel when you are reading it, there's a reason for it, and I like that very much. That also means you need to pay attention to everything that happens, what looks like a throwaway line will come back and be important later.
I loved the main characters. Loved how they played off of each other. There is a sort of well done buddy film feel to this book. Royce and Hadrian genuinely like each other, making it easier for the readers to like them. We got enough back story so we didn't feel lost, but enough tantalizing details were left just out of reach to whet your appetite for more tales of Royce and Hadirian. That can be a hard balance to pull off, and Sullivan did a lovely job with it. He also pulled off another trick of the master writer, secondary characters that feel real, but don't clog up the story with unimportant back story.
Now for the less good: I can't call it bad, because it's not, but because the rest of the story is so strong little bits like this stick out.
This book has one mystery, 'Who murdered the king?' As the book begins, the only thing we know for sure is that Hadrian and Royce didn't do it. Beyond that we're left in the dark. And being in the dark works, it's good to go through the possible options and rule them in or out. Then we go beyond 'in the dark' into intentionally misled by the author. He dangles little bits of story in front of us to make us think one thing, and then whips them out from under us when he finally lets us know what's up. There's an almost sucker punch sensation when we find out what is actually going on because of the way the story is set up. Like the misdirection was written purely for the purpose of misdirection.
Sullivan wrote a very complex climax to the Crown Conspiracy. There are at least six lines of point of view he switches between as he keeps building the tension. Some of this is very gratifying, very clever. One of the points of view is a bit annoying. When you're that close to finishing up you don't want to suddenly break away to a point of view of a character who was last mentioned three hundred pages earlier for a few paragraphs and then dies two pages later. It would be like watching Return of the King, getting to the battle for Mordor, and then slipping away for two minutes to see what Arwen is up to. She might be doing something really interesting, but unless you're a diehard fan, you're going to fast forward to get back to the action. However, once the book gets back to the action... Oh yeah, it's so worth it.
Sullivan has given us a fantastic first course, balancing the elements of his composition almost flawlessly, putting just enough on the plate to leave you feeling satisfied but still wanting more. Lucky for all of us hungering for the next course, Avempartha, book two, is already out.
I may sound a little hard in the coming paragraphs of this review, and I want to explain something up front, the Crown Conspiracy is a wonderful bit of old-school sword and sorcery (though this particular book was a bit light on magic) fantasy. If, like me, you grew up in the days DragonLance and Forgotten Realms, this story feels like an overdue homecoming.
Let me begin with the good: the writing is lovely, detailed enough to let you know what is going on, who is doing it, and why, without falling into the Anne Rice trap of describing everything in such painstaking detail you want to skip pages or fall asleep.
The Crown Conspiracy is a very carefully written book. One of the lessons I learned as a writer was 'if it's not vital to the plot, leave it out.' Writers don't always do that. Indie writers really don't always do that. I had a few spots through the story where I was thinking, 'and we're reading this why?' but all but one of those threads eventually got wound back into the story. No matter how obscure a bit of the story may feel when you are reading it, there's a reason for it, and I like that very much. That also means you need to pay attention to everything that happens, what looks like a throwaway line will come back and be important later.
I loved the main characters. Loved how they played off of each other. There is a sort of well done buddy film feel to this book. Royce and Hadrian genuinely like each other, making it easier for the readers to like them. We got enough back story so we didn't feel lost, but enough tantalizing details were left just out of reach to whet your appetite for more tales of Royce and Hadirian. That can be a hard balance to pull off, and Sullivan did a lovely job with it. He also pulled off another trick of the master writer, secondary characters that feel real, but don't clog up the story with unimportant back story.
Now for the less good: I can't call it bad, because it's not, but because the rest of the story is so strong little bits like this stick out.
This book has one mystery, 'Who murdered the king?' As the book begins, the only thing we know for sure is that Hadrian and Royce didn't do it. Beyond that we're left in the dark. And being in the dark works, it's good to go through the possible options and rule them in or out. Then we go beyond 'in the dark' into intentionally misled by the author. He dangles little bits of story in front of us to make us think one thing, and then whips them out from under us when he finally lets us know what's up. There's an almost sucker punch sensation when we find out what is actually going on because of the way the story is set up. Like the misdirection was written purely for the purpose of misdirection.
Sullivan wrote a very complex climax to the Crown Conspiracy. There are at least six lines of point of view he switches between as he keeps building the tension. Some of this is very gratifying, very clever. One of the points of view is a bit annoying. When you're that close to finishing up you don't want to suddenly break away to a point of view of a character who was last mentioned three hundred pages earlier for a few paragraphs and then dies two pages later. It would be like watching Return of the King, getting to the battle for Mordor, and then slipping away for two minutes to see what Arwen is up to. She might be doing something really interesting, but unless you're a diehard fan, you're going to fast forward to get back to the action. However, once the book gets back to the action... Oh yeah, it's so worth it.
Sullivan has given us a fantastic first course, balancing the elements of his composition almost flawlessly, putting just enough on the plate to leave you feeling satisfied but still wanting more. Lucky for all of us hungering for the next course, Avempartha, book two, is already out.
January 3, 2011
On Writing Reviews
Spending some time online, and in the search for my next book to review has brought an issue to mind.
How do you know you're getting an honest review? More importantly how do reviewers deal with stinkers?
Well, I like to consider myself an honest reviewer. But those of you who are reading closely have probably noticed I never give a bad review. Why? I don't publish my bad reviews on my blog.
There are several reasons for that, first off, I don't want to finish reading a book I loathe. When I go book hunting I find a collection of possible books, download their free samples, and usually something like seven out of ten of the free samples are bad enough I don't read past page three. By page three I already know the grammar is bad, the formatting impossible to read, the writing inelegant and amateurish. I don't need or want to read further. And really, a review based on three pages isn't fair. A book has to be exceptionally bad for me to write about it on just the sample. Occasionally it happens, but I keep those reviews on the page of the book, so that the only people who see it are those considering buying the book.
Secondly, I hope to make some money doing this. I want you to click on those Amazon links and buy the books I recommend. Now, if I take the time to read a book I loathe and then write a bad review of it, I've cut into the return on investment in my reading time. I, like everyone else, have finite time, and I want to maximize the potential dollars I can make off the time I spend reading for review. Is that mercenary? Sure. Is it true? Oh, yeah.
Why not write a good review of a bad book? Because if you ever do click on that link and buy the book, you'll rapidly see the book is bad. I can't be the only person who found a well reviewed book, clicked on it, and rapidly decided all the reviewers had to be related to or friends of the writer, because no one else would give the thing a five star review. Once again, I hope to make money on this, if you buy a book on my recommendation, notice it looks like it was written by a ten-year-old, and I didn't mention that in the review, you're very unlikely to take my word on it again.
Sometimes people send me books to read for review. This usually makes my day because books people send me have so far been pretty good. I've had one I couldn't write at least a three star review for. I emailed the author and asked if he really want me to continue reading and write that review. He didn't take me up on the offer.
So, that's how I go about doing this. Other reviewers probably have other techniques.
How do you know you're getting an honest review? More importantly how do reviewers deal with stinkers?
Well, I like to consider myself an honest reviewer. But those of you who are reading closely have probably noticed I never give a bad review. Why? I don't publish my bad reviews on my blog.
There are several reasons for that, first off, I don't want to finish reading a book I loathe. When I go book hunting I find a collection of possible books, download their free samples, and usually something like seven out of ten of the free samples are bad enough I don't read past page three. By page three I already know the grammar is bad, the formatting impossible to read, the writing inelegant and amateurish. I don't need or want to read further. And really, a review based on three pages isn't fair. A book has to be exceptionally bad for me to write about it on just the sample. Occasionally it happens, but I keep those reviews on the page of the book, so that the only people who see it are those considering buying the book.
Secondly, I hope to make some money doing this. I want you to click on those Amazon links and buy the books I recommend. Now, if I take the time to read a book I loathe and then write a bad review of it, I've cut into the return on investment in my reading time. I, like everyone else, have finite time, and I want to maximize the potential dollars I can make off the time I spend reading for review. Is that mercenary? Sure. Is it true? Oh, yeah.
Why not write a good review of a bad book? Because if you ever do click on that link and buy the book, you'll rapidly see the book is bad. I can't be the only person who found a well reviewed book, clicked on it, and rapidly decided all the reviewers had to be related to or friends of the writer, because no one else would give the thing a five star review. Once again, I hope to make money on this, if you buy a book on my recommendation, notice it looks like it was written by a ten-year-old, and I didn't mention that in the review, you're very unlikely to take my word on it again.
Sometimes people send me books to read for review. This usually makes my day because books people send me have so far been pretty good. I've had one I couldn't write at least a three star review for. I emailed the author and asked if he really want me to continue reading and write that review. He didn't take me up on the offer.
So, that's how I go about doing this. Other reviewers probably have other techniques.
December 29, 2010
Author Interview: MeiLin Miranda
MeiLin Miranda was kind enough to answer some of my questions about her adventures in self publishing.
KR: Could you tell us more about crowdfunding? How did you learn about it? How did you do it?
MM: "Crowdfunding" is when the fans or supporters of a project put money behind it to make it happen, rather than hope a gatekeeper--a publisher, film studio or record producer, for instance--picks up the project. Sites like Kickstarter.com or Indigogo.com allow musicians, artists, filmmakers and writers to organize crowdfundings; some people offer premiums there, rather like NPR offers tote bags for certain levels of donation.
I first ran into a form of crowdfunding while reading the online serial Tales of MU. Its author, Alexandra Erin, was then using a donate-for-chapter model; if readers met a fundraising target, she'd write an extra chapter that week. She's since stopped doing that, but for a long time it was the most common model of crowdfunding support for online writers. I used it when I first started, and did pretty well with it.
But I needed to raise a whole other level of money to make the first IHGK book happen. It needed editing, and the closer I got to finishing what I thought was book three, the more I realized how badly the whole thing needed to be rewritten from the top--and how unsustainable it was as a serial. I needed to convert it into books, which meant money for an editor and for professional design services. I think my readers helped me puzzle out what would be attractive to crowdfunders, and this is what we came up with:
For $50, you got
--an autographed paperback
--your choice of ebook format
--an acknowledgment in the book
--and most importantly: the final unformatted hot-off-the-laptop raw manuscript before anyone else got to read it, the moment my editor (Annetta Ribken) and I decided it was done. I finished the book on August 31st, 2010 at 9:30 pm; the manuscript was in the hands of its funders the morning of September 1.
I raised about $2,500 this way from 48 people, some of whom bought two packages and some of whom bought an ebook-only version for $25; they got everything in the $50 package except the autographed copy.
I'll be doing the same thing again for book two as soon as I come close to sending a draft to Nettah the Edittah. Netta is fabulous, by the way: http://www.wordwebbing.com/ KR: Did you have any interest in going the traditional publishing route? Did you do the agent/publisher hunt? MM: I very half-heartedly looked for an agent. I think I sent out three queries. I really didn't want one, but thought, well, now I can say I tried, I guess. The material I sent was atrocious enough that it's no surprise I got turned down, and I did it having already decided to be independent.
That said, I do have two short stories coming out in different Circlet Press anthologies (http://www.circlet.com/); in fact, one of them goes on sale December 28th, 2010: "Like a Moonrise: Shapeshifter Erotica." Not sure when the second anthology I'm in is going on sale yet. And I just submitted a short story to a major online outlet, mostly for fun. If it gets rejected, I'm not concerned; I can put it out there myself. I'm just curious at this point.
KR: You have a book trailer video, has that been an effective marketing tool?
MM: I have no idea! :) The "Lovers and Beloveds" trailer has been viewed close to a thousand times, and the Scryer's Gulch trailer about 250 times. The funny thing is, the Scryer's trailer is about a billion times better than the LaB one!
KR: Who did your cover art/trailer?
MM: I did both my trailers, and it probably shows. :) I do the covers for the Scryer's Gulch books, since they're just compilations of the serial. Alice Fox (http://www.alicefox.net/) did the cover of "Lovers and Beloveds." Alice has been the official artist for that series for some time now. She is amazing. Fellow writer and all around cool guy MCM did the typography design for LaB.
KR: How many copies have you sold? What has been your best marketing tool?
MM: Speaking strictly of "Lovers and Beloveds," since the book's release in September 2010 I've sold about 75 paperbacks between direct sales, CreateSpace and Amazon. Ebooks, I've sold about 150 so far among Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and direct sales on my site.
My numbers are not that high compared to people like JA Konrath, but as Netta is fond of saying, it's a marathon not a sprint. And compared to the vast majority of self-publishers, I'm doing pretty darn well. I expect things will only get better as my catalog grows.
KR: When is the next book due out? Does it have a title yet?
MM: The next book is tentatively due out in October 2011. The working title is "Mothers and Fathers," though that may not be the final one. I'm about 10,000 words into the alpha draft. (I tend to "name" my drafts by software convention: alpha, beta, release candidate, final.)
KR: Lastly is there anything else you'd like to say about self-publishing?
MM: Sure! If you self-publish, take it seriously. Invest in your work: hire a professional editor (not your friend who was an English major in college). Hire a professional cover artist. If you're going to print, get a typographer to design the book block if you can; if you're staying ebook only, you can do the formatting yourself for the most part. There are a lot of good guides out there on how to format for Kindle and Smashwords.
Most important is to commit to writing. Finish the book. Put the time in, get it written. If it's finished and languishing in a drawer, pull it out, dust it off, give it a good shake. Then let someone who isn't invested in being nice to you read it. Revise. Design. Put it out there.
If you'd like to know more about MeiLin Miranda you can check her out at MeiLinMiranda.com.
KR: Could you tell us more about crowdfunding? How did you learn about it? How did you do it?
MM: "Crowdfunding" is when the fans or supporters of a project put money behind it to make it happen, rather than hope a gatekeeper--a publisher, film studio or record producer, for instance--picks up the project. Sites like Kickstarter.com or Indigogo.com allow musicians, artists, filmmakers and writers to organize crowdfundings; some people offer premiums there, rather like NPR offers tote bags for certain levels of donation.
I first ran into a form of crowdfunding while reading the online serial Tales of MU. Its author, Alexandra Erin, was then using a donate-for-chapter model; if readers met a fundraising target, she'd write an extra chapter that week. She's since stopped doing that, but for a long time it was the most common model of crowdfunding support for online writers. I used it when I first started, and did pretty well with it.
But I needed to raise a whole other level of money to make the first IHGK book happen. It needed editing, and the closer I got to finishing what I thought was book three, the more I realized how badly the whole thing needed to be rewritten from the top--and how unsustainable it was as a serial. I needed to convert it into books, which meant money for an editor and for professional design services. I think my readers helped me puzzle out what would be attractive to crowdfunders, and this is what we came up with:
For $50, you got
--an autographed paperback
--your choice of ebook format
--an acknowledgment in the book
--and most importantly: the final unformatted hot-off-the-laptop raw manuscript before anyone else got to read it, the moment my editor (Annetta Ribken) and I decided it was done. I finished the book on August 31st, 2010 at 9:30 pm; the manuscript was in the hands of its funders the morning of September 1.
I raised about $2,500 this way from 48 people, some of whom bought two packages and some of whom bought an ebook-only version for $25; they got everything in the $50 package except the autographed copy.
I'll be doing the same thing again for book two as soon as I come close to sending a draft to Nettah the Edittah. Netta is fabulous, by the way: http://www.wordwebbing.com/ KR: Did you have any interest in going the traditional publishing route? Did you do the agent/publisher hunt? MM: I very half-heartedly looked for an agent. I think I sent out three queries. I really didn't want one, but thought, well, now I can say I tried, I guess. The material I sent was atrocious enough that it's no surprise I got turned down, and I did it having already decided to be independent.
That said, I do have two short stories coming out in different Circlet Press anthologies (http://www.circlet.com/); in fact, one of them goes on sale December 28th, 2010: "Like a Moonrise: Shapeshifter Erotica." Not sure when the second anthology I'm in is going on sale yet. And I just submitted a short story to a major online outlet, mostly for fun. If it gets rejected, I'm not concerned; I can put it out there myself. I'm just curious at this point.
KR: You have a book trailer video, has that been an effective marketing tool?
MM: I have no idea! :) The "Lovers and Beloveds" trailer has been viewed close to a thousand times, and the Scryer's Gulch trailer about 250 times. The funny thing is, the Scryer's trailer is about a billion times better than the LaB one!
KR: Who did your cover art/trailer?
MM: I did both my trailers, and it probably shows. :) I do the covers for the Scryer's Gulch books, since they're just compilations of the serial. Alice Fox (http://www.alicefox.net/) did the cover of "Lovers and Beloveds." Alice has been the official artist for that series for some time now. She is amazing. Fellow writer and all around cool guy MCM did the typography design for LaB.
KR: How many copies have you sold? What has been your best marketing tool?
MM: Speaking strictly of "Lovers and Beloveds," since the book's release in September 2010 I've sold about 75 paperbacks between direct sales, CreateSpace and Amazon. Ebooks, I've sold about 150 so far among Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and direct sales on my site.
My numbers are not that high compared to people like JA Konrath, but as Netta is fond of saying, it's a marathon not a sprint. And compared to the vast majority of self-publishers, I'm doing pretty darn well. I expect things will only get better as my catalog grows.
KR: When is the next book due out? Does it have a title yet?
MM: The next book is tentatively due out in October 2011. The working title is "Mothers and Fathers," though that may not be the final one. I'm about 10,000 words into the alpha draft. (I tend to "name" my drafts by software convention: alpha, beta, release candidate, final.)
KR: Lastly is there anything else you'd like to say about self-publishing?
MM: Sure! If you self-publish, take it seriously. Invest in your work: hire a professional editor (not your friend who was an English major in college). Hire a professional cover artist. If you're going to print, get a typographer to design the book block if you can; if you're staying ebook only, you can do the formatting yourself for the most part. There are a lot of good guides out there on how to format for Kindle and Smashwords.
Most important is to commit to writing. Finish the book. Put the time in, get it written. If it's finished and languishing in a drawer, pull it out, dust it off, give it a good shake. Then let someone who isn't invested in being nice to you read it. Revise. Design. Put it out there.
If you'd like to know more about MeiLin Miranda you can check her out at MeiLinMiranda.com.
December 28, 2010
Indie Book Review: Lovers and Beloveds
Lovers and Beloveds: An Intimate History of the Greater Kingdom Book One
A while back an email popped up in my inbox requesting I read Lovers and Beloveds for review. I did my usual routine of checking the book out, looking at it's reviews, reading the back page copy, and bits and pieces of text. It looked good. My initial impression was steampunk erotic fantasy. It sounded right up my alley.
Then another interesting factoid hit my radar; it was groupfunded, a major plus. If that term means nothing to you, prepare to learn. Groupfunding (more on this in a later article on Kickstarter.com) is a technique where you get a bunch of people to give you money to pay for you to do your project. Call it modern day patronage. On a practical level that means this book was good enough, in the bits and pieces released by the author, to get total strangers to give her money to hire an editor, artist, etc. While total money generated is not a definitive ruler for a book's quality, I've waded through a lot of self-published fiction that no one in their right mind would buy, let alone decide to patronize. I was thrilled to get into this book.
It turns out my initial impressions of Lovers and Beloveds was off, but not in a bad way. It is a coming of age tale wrapped around a story of sexual domination (a story within the story writing technique is used to good effect in this book) exploring how the one story furthers the other. It's a tale of a young man preparing for his eventual kinghood and the paths he may take to get there.
It is set in a fantasy land with an 1890's-1910ish technology level. But the technology is just in the background. To call it steampunk would be similar to calling Sherlock Holmes steampunk, sure it's the right era, but to do so misses the point of steampunk.
It is erotica: coming of age, realpolitik, intelligently crafted with layers and story lines beyond the sex, and wrapped up in the sexual politics of what it means to be a man or a woman erotica. As such, if you don't happen to enjoy reading explicit sex or sexual violence, just put the book down and head for the next one on your list. Assuming such reading does not bother you, go get a copy, you'll be well rewarded.
Lovers and Beloveds uses erotic sex as a vehicle to explore the paths of power and the relationships of dominance and privilege. All things a boy needs to learn to become a man who will be a king. The sex is well written, very hot, and it's easy to see why the main character, Temmin, finds himself aroused and dismayed by that arousal when seeing the main character of the inner story raped.
I think calling this book fantasy might be a bit misleading. There is magic in this world, but it's use is minimal. My guess is that in later books in the series it will become important, (perhaps there will be a magical coming of age in the next book?) but for the opening book it's just sort of there. Really, this reads more like historical fiction than fantasy. Take out the few brief magic bits, and this could very easily be set in a fictionalized 1890's Colonial India or Hong Kong.
Temmin reads as a genuine young man. He's spoiled but trying to be a good person. He can be self-absorbed and whiny, but he's an eighteen-year-old who just had his world turned upside down. He's earned his whininess, and there's something wrong with a person who isn't self absorbed when his entire reality shifts. Basically, the fact that he is annoying on occasion is entirely in character and should the annoying bits be removed, he wouldn't read true.
The writing is tight. Scenes flow from one to the next with no major issues. If there were grammar errors, I didn't notice them. Dialog and voice may not be exceptional, but they were more than competent and worked with the characters. I never found myself thinking, "There's no way Temmin (or any other character) would say that!" There are bits where as a reader I found myself wondering why we were meeting certain characters and plot lines, but the quality of the rest of the story and knowing this is book one of a series makes me think they are the seeds of future plot points. The story within the story may have been a bit longer than strictly necessary, but that's my own personal taste (I tend to skim epic battle scenes), and for all I know in the next book the bits I thought were long may be vitally important. I look forward to seeing how Temmin will mature into his future.
Lovers and Beloveds is available on Amazon as a physical book for $14.95, a good price for a book that length, and it's a steal on Kindle download for $2.99. You can get it at Smashwords for most other eReader formats. MeiLin Miranda has offered me a free copy to give away, so if you want a shot at it for free, leave a comment, and I'll hold a drawing to see who wins it.
A while back an email popped up in my inbox requesting I read Lovers and Beloveds for review. I did my usual routine of checking the book out, looking at it's reviews, reading the back page copy, and bits and pieces of text. It looked good. My initial impression was steampunk erotic fantasy. It sounded right up my alley.
Then another interesting factoid hit my radar; it was groupfunded, a major plus. If that term means nothing to you, prepare to learn. Groupfunding (more on this in a later article on Kickstarter.com) is a technique where you get a bunch of people to give you money to pay for you to do your project. Call it modern day patronage. On a practical level that means this book was good enough, in the bits and pieces released by the author, to get total strangers to give her money to hire an editor, artist, etc. While total money generated is not a definitive ruler for a book's quality, I've waded through a lot of self-published fiction that no one in their right mind would buy, let alone decide to patronize. I was thrilled to get into this book.
It turns out my initial impressions of Lovers and Beloveds was off, but not in a bad way. It is a coming of age tale wrapped around a story of sexual domination (a story within the story writing technique is used to good effect in this book) exploring how the one story furthers the other. It's a tale of a young man preparing for his eventual kinghood and the paths he may take to get there.
It is set in a fantasy land with an 1890's-1910ish technology level. But the technology is just in the background. To call it steampunk would be similar to calling Sherlock Holmes steampunk, sure it's the right era, but to do so misses the point of steampunk.
It is erotica: coming of age, realpolitik, intelligently crafted with layers and story lines beyond the sex, and wrapped up in the sexual politics of what it means to be a man or a woman erotica. As such, if you don't happen to enjoy reading explicit sex or sexual violence, just put the book down and head for the next one on your list. Assuming such reading does not bother you, go get a copy, you'll be well rewarded.
Lovers and Beloveds uses erotic sex as a vehicle to explore the paths of power and the relationships of dominance and privilege. All things a boy needs to learn to become a man who will be a king. The sex is well written, very hot, and it's easy to see why the main character, Temmin, finds himself aroused and dismayed by that arousal when seeing the main character of the inner story raped.
I think calling this book fantasy might be a bit misleading. There is magic in this world, but it's use is minimal. My guess is that in later books in the series it will become important, (perhaps there will be a magical coming of age in the next book?) but for the opening book it's just sort of there. Really, this reads more like historical fiction than fantasy. Take out the few brief magic bits, and this could very easily be set in a fictionalized 1890's Colonial India or Hong Kong.
Temmin reads as a genuine young man. He's spoiled but trying to be a good person. He can be self-absorbed and whiny, but he's an eighteen-year-old who just had his world turned upside down. He's earned his whininess, and there's something wrong with a person who isn't self absorbed when his entire reality shifts. Basically, the fact that he is annoying on occasion is entirely in character and should the annoying bits be removed, he wouldn't read true.
The writing is tight. Scenes flow from one to the next with no major issues. If there were grammar errors, I didn't notice them. Dialog and voice may not be exceptional, but they were more than competent and worked with the characters. I never found myself thinking, "There's no way Temmin (or any other character) would say that!" There are bits where as a reader I found myself wondering why we were meeting certain characters and plot lines, but the quality of the rest of the story and knowing this is book one of a series makes me think they are the seeds of future plot points. The story within the story may have been a bit longer than strictly necessary, but that's my own personal taste (I tend to skim epic battle scenes), and for all I know in the next book the bits I thought were long may be vitally important. I look forward to seeing how Temmin will mature into his future.
Lovers and Beloveds is available on Amazon as a physical book for $14.95, a good price for a book that length, and it's a steal on Kindle download for $2.99. You can get it at Smashwords for most other eReader formats. MeiLin Miranda has offered me a free copy to give away, so if you want a shot at it for free, leave a comment, and I'll hold a drawing to see who wins it.
