A.J. Race's Blog, page 28

Hidden Dangers

esperate for another hit, publishers are flocking to fan fiction sites in an effort to create another lighting in a bottle sensation like that of Fifty Shades of Grey but is there a hidden danger in this lurking in the shadows for authors of fan fiction?

Say what you will about fan fiction, but the fact of the matter is, it’s growing in popularity and that’s actually a good thing for authors and readers, a like. Fan fiction is unique in the fact that it allows authors to explore their abilities and creativity while allowing readers to enjoy a story and characters that may have long since ended and keeps the story alive in the minds of readers. It can also make readers out of people who probably wouldn’t read traditional novel length books but would easily and happily read a 100k+ word fan fiction. But there’s a code to all of this, respect the authors and their rights. No money is ever made off a fan fiction, it’s purely for the love of story and creation.

Fifty Shades and it’s compatriots has created a dangerous precedent for copyright issues however because knowing that it started as a Twilight fan fiction (however Alternate Universe), the similarities between Bella Swan and Anastasia Steele are unmistakable. They are both self loathing, clumsy, and obnoxious yet loved by ridiculously good looking men with controlling attitudes, a bizarre and often disturbing affinity for blood and vast amounts of money completely inappropriate for their ages. In fact the only discernible difference I can find between Ana and Bella is their names, though both are monosyllabic in nature.

So where is the line and how does this not present some issues of it’s own? I understand that almost no idea is entirely original, but this idea has characters from one novel and a plot from a film called The Secretary (as best I can tell) and perhaps the only original thing about it is the terrible writing and even worse dialogue… and maybe that’s enough for publishers. I know that from a lot of authors of  fan fiction I’ve heard, they don’t believe it’s right making money off a fan fiction rather than creating their own original characters, but apparently for Ms. James and the most recent in an ever expanding list of fan fiction authors sprinting to get their name into traditional print with these stories, the moral code of fan fiction authors is irrelevant.

PS: Today’s the day where you can find both of my original novels, Bridge of Memories & Goddess of Carnage FREE on Amazon. Offer valid through 1/27/13.

TWO FOR NONE SALE!

esterday was sort of a hectic day for me. For those of you who follow me on Facebook you’ll likely have seen my total sort of melt down at my realization that after thinking I actually had everything set up, my Kindle file did not look as perfect as I would have liked and therefore needed some adjustment. Realizing that in fact this also extended to the Bridge of Memories kindle file, I was forced to update that, and upon the email early this morning that both books had been published I have decided since both books are on KDP to start my five free promo days! So starting on January 23rd (I don’t know why it felt the need to force me to start it then) you can buy Bridge of Memories & Goddess of Carnage absolutely free!!! Yaay, and this time there should be no problems.

I will naturally be reminding you of this sale including links to both books tomorrow. I’m very excited that book 2 is finally available, but more than anything I’m relieved that I can now dedicate my full attention onto the final book as it deserves. Unfortunately a lot of book 3 had to be put to the side during the editing and pre-publication process (that is, designing all the interior files. The same was of course true for Goddess of Carnage as I was putting the finishing touches on Bridge of Memories, but hope springs eternal, that I will not have to continuously stop book 3 to do something with Goddess. Needless to say I will probably not be reading anything of Goddess of Carnage for fear I may want to change something.

The Carnage is Here…

t’s been one month since my planned release date for the second book in the Secrets of Witches trilogy, and I’m very excited to finally release it to the world. Ironically, in spite of the fact that book 2 was the fastest book to write (at least in the first draft sense) it’s caused me no end in headaches with regards to getting it out. It has seen more editing than Bridge of Memories had, and my decision to resize the paperback version came with it’s own set of headaches, completely unrelated to actually getting the book out, but it’s here and I have to say I’m very excited. All the craziness that it took to get here, even the delay which was an entirely unilateral decision on my part, even though I was pretty much prepared to go ahead as planned in December, but I am glad I waited.

I want to do some kind of giveaway again, but being completely at a loss for what sort of contest I should hold… (I’ve never really been good at this), I decided instead to just make Goddess of Carnage, free for the first two weeks!! I’ve also decided that in spite of how limiting it may be, I think I want to stick with my Kindle exclusivity, mostly because its a surprising hassle getting the book onto other formats. Barnes and Noble’s nook platform is perhaps the only other simple one simply because you can upload an ePub directly (and Scrivener exports to ePub), and Apple if you go through them directly but that’s complicated in itself). Kindle however has made my life decidedly more simple thanks to its direct export from InDesign (where I’ve designed the paperback and hardcover interior files). So, if your interested in a free ebook copy, feel free to click on the cover image below for a direct link to the Kindle version (the book looks best on KindleFire).

buy it in paperback or via Kindle

Happy Inaugural Weekend

ecause the 20th lands on a Sunday this year, most of the public inaugural events will take place on Monday instead. And since Goddess of Carnage happens to come out Monday and I already have a post planned for that day, I decided to post this today instead. 2012 is the first year I was actually able to vote for President. I had been able to vote in the minor elections back in 2010, but hadn’t really felt the need or the desire, but I was definitely excited to be voting in my first Presidential election. I’m also not ashamed to say that the candidate I voted for, won. 2012 was an interesting year for me politically because it was filled with a great deal of political debates over Facebook from family members who definitely do not share my political beliefs. My mother has always been of the opinion that politics, like religion is one of those things you just don’t talk about, but I have never agreed with that sentiment. Especially where politics is concerned, it’s incredibly important and not talking about it doesn’t exactly make it go away. I get it, I’m not necessarily going to be changing anyone’s minds with my opinions, but I still believe we should be able to have an adult conversation about politics without getting into the whole your candidate is an idiot… well your candidate is a socialist. By the way, is anyone else tired of people throwing communist and socialist around like it’s the worst thing you can be called? It’s not an insult, it’s an actual political party, it’s not like Beetlejuice where if you say socialist three times Stalin appears or something.

Ultimately I realize that some of you may agree with me and some of you may disagree, but the point is regardless of your political affiliation we should be able to have an adult conversation about politics and political issues of the day, because if we can’t, then nothing gets done. And then we’re no better than D.C.

Submitting the Files

arlier in the week I put the finishing touches on the hardcover and paperback files of Goddess of Carnage and on Thursday night I uploaded them to CreateSpace and Lulu respectively. Friday I got the email that everything was prepared so, by Monday morning everything will be set.

I’d like to say that I’m not even a little bit nervous, but that would be untrue and also ridiculous. Perhaps I’m not quite as nervous as I was for book one, or maybe it’s a different kind of nervous, because now there’s expectations. Anybody who has read book one probably had an opinion about it, good or bad and I sincerely hope that all the extra work and everything I’ve done to make this book as good as I can possibly get it, will have paid off in the end. On top of everything else, I’m also excited, and hopeful for book 2 and I’ll be glad when it’s finally out and I can stop talking about it almost being here.

Meanwhile, I’ve actually been doing a bit of work on the final novel, which is currently almost 25k words in, unimpressive to say the least, but, considering how difficult it’s been getting there I’m happy all the same. Of course, I still have at least a hundred thousand more words to go before I’m satisfied, but I do find it amusing that less than two books ago 25k was a halfway mark. When all was said and done Bridge of Memories ended up being less than 54k words which while 4k more than my goal, is pretty short in comparison to Goddess of Carnage which clocks in at 80,100 (or thereabouts). Which is about 26-27k more words than book 1, and longer than I ever imagined I would be able to make a book. Interestingly thus far my books have come out longer after edits than they started. In fact, after one round of edits my final word count slipped to 71k (from 75k) then in another round skyrocketed to 80k. Considering the upward trend, of roughly 5 thousand words, the final novel may end up around 130 when all is said and done, a far cry from my original goal of 200k, but still better than I imagined it would be.

For some people word counts don’t matter, what matters is whether or not the words were put to good use, and I agree, a long book does not necessarily equal a good book, there are many books that are proof of this fact (I won’t name names but you get my drift). That said, I like the challenge that having a word count in mind brings to me, whether or not the book ultimately ends up higher or lower is irrelevant, the point is being able to say I made it to that word count. At least for me.

SERIOUSLY?!: Research Edition

hen it comes to research for a novel, the internet can either feel like a plethora of information the likes of which even most libraries could not fathom, or a vast desert filled with a dozen mirages of what look like an oasis of information but is actually just piles of bullshit. Unfortunately for the writer, it’s hard to tell which is which.

Recently while writing both book 3 and what I shall simply refer to from here on out as The Next Book, I’ve had to do a lot of research for my main character, which has been about as successful as you would imagine. In attempting to skirt Google’s policy of saving everything you search and using it to sell you things and possibly help others save you things and also send to the CIA that you may have researched ways to kill someone with a paperclip, I’ve started using a search engine called DuckDuckGo. Which in spite of it’s funny name, does not stalk what you search like Google does, and actually is supposed to give better results too.

Unfortunately for me (and I suspect this would be regardless of what search engine I used), the information available for this particular subject matter (my character is something of a hacker) was of literally no use to me. Sure there’s plenty of blogs about how to become a hacker, but they all say you need to know programing languages and frankly I barely know HTML. Plus, I’m not trying to become a hacker, I’m trying to write one. To make it sound as realistic as possible (I may need to go back and re-read those scenes in the Girl Who Played with Fire. I know you don’t really have to get extensive and god knows nobody wants to read actual command codes (which if you got wrong, every hacker in the world would probably be a bit pissed). I mean does anybody else find research for certain things to be incredibly difficult even in spite of the internet? Or perhaps because of the internet. This is probably going to require that I go to a psychical library or actually talk to someone who knows anything about computer programming. Meanwhile I think I’ll get back to writing book 3 and try not to obsess over researching this since being a hacker isn’t really a main factor in the story.

The Agent Game

ven though book three is still a bit of a ways off from being finished, I’ve come to an important decision about what I want to do after book three. The final novel in the Secrets of Witches trilogy will mark the third novel I’ve self published now, and while each time it’s been a fairly enjoyable experience I feel that with the book directly after Secrets of Witches I would like to start submitting to agents again. This is something I’ve been toying with for some time now and I’ve debated it back and forth, in the past I have received my fair share of rejection letters, but towards the latter years of my sending out most of the letters seemed a little less form and a little bit more personal. There was never specific mention about why the book wasn’t a good fit for them but there was often times a note along the lines of “while it is not right for us at this time… this does not mean it would not be good elsewhere” or something like that.

It’s been at least two and a half years since the last time I sent out and I’d like to think that the time will have prepared me better as to how I can make the best possible query and maybe even end up with a literary agent and possible publisher. I still have quite a bit of ways to go before I’m ready to send out again, book 3 hasn’t even got a full first draft yet and I don’t have much written for the next book either, but I think this is going to be an exciting next chapter in my life.

Crunch Time

oday marks less than one week before Goddess of Carnage is finally available to the world, and I have to say I’m incredibly excited and more than a little grateful that the deadline is finally here. Waiting, to my mind is probably one of the most difficult parts because I’m actually really excited about book two and I really want to hear what you all think about it. Like Bridge of Memories before it, I’m going to be making it available on Amazon through KDP select so it will be free on Kindle for the first week (maybe two depending on what I decide). For those of you who don’t own a Kindle you have several different options including a Kindle app for Mac and PC as well as for all smartphones and I believe all tablets as well. (Except maybe nook because that would be weird right?) It’s also going to be made available as a paperback, through CreateSpace. I still have a little bit of tweaking to do with regards to the actual InDesign file for book 2 (some headers got turned around with the page changes) but ultimately pretty much everything else is set.

Catch-22

On the popular social networking site Tumblr (one of my favorite guilty pleasures by the way), there’s something called the Unpopular Opinion Challenge where people write opinions that they have that are generally pretty unpopular with a lot of people. Today I’m going to get super controversial and a bit political all in one post so those of you easily offended or religious may want to ignore me for today. Consider this the only warning you will ever get about possibly offensive posts in the future by the way. 

or a while now on Facebook and actually all across the internet I keep seeing this poster that I both love and hate… the quote is: If you knew the fetus your trying to save was going to be gay would you still fight for it’s rights? I love this because it’s a pretty passionate argument for pro-choice and pro-lgbt rights the problem is… most people who are anti-gay don’t actually believe you’re born gay. So this argument is sort of lost on them. Not to mention the fact that the word pro-life is sort of a catch-22 because it intones that anybody who is not ‘pro-life’ is in fact pro-murder. See the thing about people who are quote unquote pro-life is actually they’re pro-fetus. Because while being ‘pro-life’ they’re also pro-death penalty. Pro-guns, pro-oil subsidies, anti climate change science, anti-stem cell research. Yes this is a generalization but I’m trying to make a point. If you’re going to be “pro-life” you have to be pro all life. This means caring about people after their born, even if they don’t agree with you, this would also mean realizing that killing a killer for killing is the whole two wrongs don’t make a right deal, climate change is happening whether or not you believe it, and stem cell research may be the key to saving a lot of lives, and realizing that actually vigilante justice has dangerous consequences, so no I don’t think more people with guns is going to solve any problems. In fact I think the evidence has pretty much proven during mass shootings, the well meaning civilian with a gun could accidentally get shot by the police just because how would you know he’s not the shooter? I mean the whole thing sounds like the plot to an action movie, the bad guy escapes pretending to be a good guy and nobody’s the wiser. No good can possibly come of that.

Secret Soundtrack

esterday I wrote how music has the ability to inspire a multitude of things (including several posts about inspiration on my part), but I also find that songs tell a story, and sometimes, quite unexpectedly that story is similar to the story you wish to tell in your novel.

As a general rule I like to make playlists in either Spotify or iTunes that I title with the current title of my book and fill it with songs that I think would be appropriate for the Soundtrack version of my novel when it’s made into a movie that occasionally I listen too while writing to help bring that mood across.

Once upon a time I had created a playlist for Bridge of Memories, but somewhere along the way I seem to have lost it, but I did happen to make one for book three which includes the song Cease Fire by Christina Aguilera off her new album Lotus. Even if your not necessarily a fan of Christina, this song is worth the listen just for the sheer fact of how powerful the story is to it. It’s what drew me to the song because something about it just fit so perfectly with the final book.

As of yet, I don’t have much else in my playlist for the final book, though I can imagine there are other songs which would fit. I’m going to have to go through all of my songs to see which ones sound about right.

As a finishing note am I the only one who does this or does anyone else make a soundtrack for their books too? For those who have a work in progress or at least an idea what’s one song that would fit the soundtrack perfectly? I want to listen to them and see if I can guess what your book is about, if I don’t already know. ;D. Sound like a plan?