Erica Lindquist's Blog, page 13

Edits to The Dead Beat

A while back, I got a bug up my butt to hire professional editors for all of our published books. It’s (sadly) cost us more than the books generally make, but I can sleep a lot better at night. These novels are my babies, snaggleteeth and all. Maybe that’s a bad metaphor, because I bought that ugly baby some braces.

But I have to admit that that’s a facet to these edits that’s incredibly awkward. Our editors, the awesome Hache Jones and John McClain, send us great ideas and catch all sorts of stuff for improvement… But we’ve already published the stories. The Dead Beat has already been recorded in audiobook! While through the wonders of self-publishing, we can make any and all changes to our titles that we like, Aron and I aren’t really comfortable making any major alterations to books that people have already bought.

On one hand, you might think that fixing the book would be the best idea ever, but I can’t help thinking of The Gunslinger, by Stephen King. A few years back, King decided to “fix” his book, expanding and changing it to better fit the rest of The Dark Tower series. It’s his art and his prerogative and I absolutely support his right to make it what he wants it to be… But I have to admit that it was just like the Star Wars special editions. I just never liked it as much. The big, empty, dead world felt suddenly crowded with stuff like taheen, which would figure into later books. The updated slaughter of Tull included Allie asking to be killed and that just diluted Roland’s hard heartlessness for me. Don’t get me wrong, The Gunslinger is still a great book, but I wish King hadn’t changed it so much. And it pisses me off to this day that I can’t buy an ebook of the old edition.

I don’t want to accidentally stumble into the same thing. I want people to be able to download the book they bought, not suddenly some new one that they may not like as much. But on the other hand, I really do feel like we owe our readers the very best book we can create. So I’ll be spending today figuring out how to balance not altering The Dead Beat too much, but making it a slightly experience book for everyone. Wish me luck!

Sexy novellas

I’ve always found Erika Moen and Jesse Fink incredibly inspirational. Not just as talented and successful artists, but both of them are incredibly sex-positive in their work. And straight-up sex.

And I like sex.

Not just in the bedroom, but in my brain. Sex is, for me and for many other women, intensely mental. I love sexy role-play, fantasies and stories… And have long had an ambition to write some erotic novellas. And after listening to an (admittedly year-old) Self Publishing Podcast interviewing Lexi Maxwell, I’m on fire.

I’ve even got a concept in mind. But the idea is setting-neutral. It could be real-work urban, historical, sci-fi, fantasy, urban fantasy… You name it. So what would make a good setting for some sexy stories? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Enter title here

Tonight, Aron and I took a walk to discuss some cover thoughts for the current series. I saw a remade cover that seemed just perfect. When talking about imagery for book number two, Aron picked out two of my words and came up with the perfect title! Book one will be The Hangman’s Cross; book two is The Burning Noose. We still don’t have a title for the duology, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out.

I win technology!

Today, I set up my first NAS. By “set up,” I of course mean that a far more tech-savvy friend walked me through every step even though I had a page of instructions sitting on the dining room table. And I still managed to get confused a few times. But it’s done! We can now replace 4 hodgepodge external USB HDs with a single unified RAID. Look at all those pretty acronyms! I feel technologically accomplished.

I’m not, of course, but it’s nice to feel that way for a little while.

Website update

After almost a week away – mostly down in LA, visiting family – I was all set to get back to work. I have timers and everything. And then, ten minutes before my scheduled start time, I got a migraine. Damn it!

So here it is, many hours later. I’m drugged out of my gourd on pain meds. While dis-en-skulled, I decided that writing might not be the greatest idea. Instead, it seemed like a brilliant move to do something I’ve been meaning to do for six months – fill in my WordPress blog. So I took some of my Tumblr posts off the old blog and put them here, then fleshed out the books page. Normally, that would have been pretty fucking boring, but as perviously mentioned, I’m high as a kite. So I had a blast.

There was nothing really wrong with Tumbr. I liked it, it was simple; but it’s not really considered professional. Search engines didn’t seem to crawl the blog, either, and I need to be visible. Like a nudist exhibitionist. I really hate the whole idea of platform-building, but if I’m going to be a self-published author, then I’ll have make myself care. If I think of it as talking to readers, instead, then the whole prospect becomes far more fun.

So come talk to me!

Health and diet

I really need to get my fat ass in shape. Not for aesthetic reasons, but because I absolutely intend to live to age 120 years. Can’t do that with crusty drinking straws for arteries. I already exercise a bit… I can increase that, just do it more regularly.

The real problem is my diet. I’m a 4-year vegetarian, but I’ve still managed to tamp a fuck-ton of cholesterol down my food-tube and into my body. Exercise will help me get rid of that, but I need to avoid replacing it with a shiny new batch. That is, eat more vegetables.

Ugh. I hate veggies. But I dutifully went to pick up a shopping back full of fresh and frozen vegetables from the grocery store and, last night, make myself a big plate full of asparagus. I tossed it in olive oil and parmesan cheese, then baked it for 10 minutes. Delicious.

The moral of this story is that anything becomes palatable with enough olive oil and cheese.

I’m not making it to 120, am I?

Health and Diet

I really need to get my fat ass in shape. Not for aesthetic reasons, but because I absolutely intend to live to age 120 years. Can’t do that with crusty drinking straws for arteries. I already exercise a bit… I can increase that, just do it more regularly.

The real problem is my diet. I’m a 4-year vegetarian, but I’ve still managed to tamp a fuck-ton of cholesterol down my food-tube and into my body. Exercise will help me get rid of that, but I need to avoid replacing it with a shiny new batch. That is, eat more vegetables.

Ugh. I hate veggies. But I dutifully went to pick up a shopping back full of fresh and frozen vegetables from the grocery store and, last night, make myself a big plate full of asparagus. I tossed it in olive oil and parmesan cheese, then baked it for 10 minutes. Delicious.

The moral of this story is that anything becomes palatable with enough olive oil and cheese.

I’m not making it to 120, am I?

Non-voting news

I can’t say I’m pleased with the results of yesterday’s voting, but… well, that’s sometimes what happens when people vote. I wonder, though, if everyone had gotten to vote if we wouldn’t haven’t gotten slightly different results. But I digress… Voting still good, writing still better!

In all of the political stuff over the last week, I forgot to make a major announcement! Aron finished the first draft of the new book. It’s still tentatively called Hangman’s Cross, though we’re not sure what the naming convention will be since we’re splitting this monster into two volumes. I’m about two-thirds done with the first round of coauthoring and the manuscript is a little shy of 120,000 words. I’m expecting it to end up around 150,000 words. The second book should be about the same length.

This has been a nerve-wracking one for us. Hangman’s Cross is a story we both feel strongly about, both in content and storytelling. I have a pretty clear vision of how I want the book to read and it’s… just not there yet. But then, that’s what I’ve said about every single first draft. We’ve got at least two more major revisions to get through before Hangman’s Cross even goes out to beta readers, to say nothing of the general public.

With this major landmark reached, we really need to think about how to publish Hangman’s Cross. We’re assuming that we’ll go self-published again, but we really want to create the best possible book. That means professional cover artists, editors, etc. And that takes a lot more money than the other books are bringing in right now.

So we’ve been considering an Kickstarter campaign to raise the necessary funds. Not sure how that would go, though, considering about five people read this blog. Most of the other people I know on Twitter are other struggling authors who are trying to get their own books off the ground… But nothing ventured, nothing gained. We’ll see what we can do to get Hangman’s Cross out there, flapping in the breeze.

…That came out wrong.

Vote, damn it

Go vote. Go vote. Go vote. GO VOTE. GOVOTEGOVOTEGOVOTEGOVOTE!

Seriously, go friggin’ vote. Whether you’re liberal or conservative, whether we agree or not. Even if some law passes that I loathe right down to its shriveled, twisted little heart, it’s better if it passes because a bunch of people actually believed in it, believed that it would do some good than because the only people at the polls were the fifteen folks who sponsored the thing. We get to make decisions as a nation. So let’s get up and do that!

No, I don’t think that if you don’t vote, that you forfeit your right to complain. Complain away.Whine until your throat and fingers are raw. But if you actually want anything to change, you’re going to need to vote.

How to respond to 1-star reviews

Privately. And don’t take it personally. Certainly don’t go all crazy-stalker-nuts.

Now, that being said, I have to admit that I did once react to a one-star review. A reader commented that they didn’t make it past the copyright page. I was surprised. Really? The copyright page? WTF?

But I took a look at it. The text had been copied and pasted from the Smashwords recommended text. I don’t recall what it said now – this was some time ago – but I’m pretty sure it involved wild badgers and honey-dipped genitals if the buyer so much as let a friend glance at a page.

I had to admit that it seemed a drastic. I don’t even DRM my books because I’m just not that freaked out by piracy. Do I removed the page and told the reviewer so, in case he was interested in reading that book. He did and gave it for or five stars.

So… yay. My story had a happy ending. But a lot of them don’t. It would have been really easy to get panicked and angry about the review from someone who clearly had not read the book. He even said so in the initial one-star review. And I’ve gotten plenty of one-star reviews since then. I’m not sure I know a single author who has never gotten one.

Bad reviews happen. Sometimes they’re left by weird people who get off on ruining your day, but most are just by readers who just didn’t feel your story was their cup of tea. By the time you’re getting Amazon or Goodreads reviews, your book is done and published. Time to let it go and stop panicking. The feedback you should care about, cultivate and listen to are your beta readers. Once you’ve gotten that, weighed and used it, then finished the book, you’re done.

Don’t worry about reviews and don’t ever take them personally. They’re for your prospective readers; not for you, fellow pen-monkey. Let the readers talk to each other while you get back to the important work – writing the next book.