Guy Antibes's Blog, page 18

What I Learned at IndieReCon

IndieReCon is an online writer’s conference for independent published authors.  There are three approaches to getting your novels published:  Traditional, Independent and Hybrid.  Hybrid, as you might imagine, is an author that does both traditional and independent publishing.

Independent publishing has two further classifications, Self and Independent.  In this case, independent encompasses using small publishing companies with an imprint.  I am a self publisher who has a close relationship with a small publisher so I use the CasiePress, but I do most of my own work, so I would probably be considered more of a self publisher.

The major takeaway from IndieReCon was that I need to do a better job at marketing my books.  Since I don’t write full time, I’ve neglected a number of promotional aspects of writing, so you’ll see a twitter presence (you can follow me at @guyantibes) and more facebook content… but not a lot.

My website was recently hacked, so I’ve redesigned it with all new content including links for visitors to buy my books.  I’ll be redoing some of my covers along with blurbs.   Lots of work.

One thing that was consistent throughout is write, write, write.  If you think you’d make better use of your time writing, then write rather than go off and do something else.

Last year was pretty much a disaster for my production.  No publications, but this year will be different.  More short stories in anthologies and at least two novels.  Warrior-Mage is written and I’m finalizing the cover.  Moonstone is in rewrites.  So I learned that I have to do things differently this year, including posting videos on my blog and setting up a YouTube channel.  I’m looking forward to that.

One thing that I will do is create a marketing plan.  What I need to do for each book and what I need to do to promote my writing career (not much of one to date.)  I consider the three days that I stuffed with articles, vlogs and online chats to have been worthwhile.

Hacked!

If you’ve visited Guy Antibes in the past, you’ll notice something different.  I was hacked and my virus-and-malware-laden site had to be destroyed.  I haven’t been able to find my old template so the new look.  It may change a bit until I settle in on the right look.

I haven’t blogged for quite a while on a regular basis, but that’s about to change.  Warrior-Mage is about to come out and I’ve got three drafts under my belt of my four novel series Warstones. Lots coming up in 2014.  Stay tuned.

Wow! Has It Been Eight Months?

I must say that I have been sadly remiss in my authorly duties.  2013 was a bit of a disaster for me as a writer.  I had a move and then I built out an office in my new place.  After lots and lots of visitors, I didn’t get much done on the keyboard and, of course, no blogs.  I’m unsure if anyone will read this post!

Anyway, I’ve still been writing.  The Brull novel, Warrior Mage is written and the cover done just this week.  I’ll have that published by the end of February in the usual places.

At the time of my last post, Moonstone was drafted.  I now have Sunstone drafted and am about 25% through Bloodstone.  Since the four War Stone novels have convergent points, I have to draft them all and have them go through a rewrite of some kind before I can even publish the first one.   I have the scenes outlined and then when I begin to write, the muse takes over.  Sunstone already will have to be rewritten to bring out a character that is only mentioned in passing.  But that makes for better books, I’m sure.  I’ll have a post on writing series in a few months (!) if I can get the blog moving along again.

Book sales have been limping along and unless new works come out, I fear self-published volumes tend to sink in the search engines.  I’ll have at least four new works out in 2014.  On my publishing schedule are Warrior Mage, Moonstone, Sunstone and Bloodstone as well as an anthology or two of my short stories.  Darkstone, the last of the War Stone books may linger for a few months and not come out in 2014.  We’ll see if I get held up like I did last year.

I’ve finished my first post in 2014.  My, my.  I hope there’s a lot more to come.

Has it Been Four Months????

Talk about neglect! Since my last post, I’ve written the draft to the first volume of the War Stone books. Moonstone is a story about young man and a princess linked through a magical Moonstone. The Moonstone is an ancient artifact that a mage originally created to communicate over long distances with it’s siblings: Sunstone, Bloodstone and the Purestone.

After an ancient war that destroyed the Purestone, a villiage simpleton dredges the Moonstone up from a pond, hidden in a boot. That act begins the story.

Brull Novel Rewrites Progress

I just got through with another rewrite pass for the Brull novel.  It’s now ready for professional editing.  It now stands at just a hair over 100,000 words.  I ended NANO at 88,000 words and it’s about right at the current length.   More feeling and more description, but the story still moves along smartly and I still like how it ends.

Now on to my next project while this sits for a bit.

Happy New Year!

I had a cold before Thanksgiving week that later developed into a mild case of pneumonia, so I didn’t feel much like writing and after NaNo, I guess my creative synapses were a little burned out or diseased or whatever.  So no productivity to speak of.

I done some re-writing on the Brull novel and am halfway through my second rewrite.  I’ve developed two other projects, a non-fiction book that I’ll publish under another name and a new quartet of novels based on a single world where magic exists.  Four epic fantasy novels.  Initially, I’m calling the books the War Stone Novels.  I’ve done treatments on three of the four, based on older short stories I wanted to do something with.  The first three stories trace three different main characters.  They are wizards, but with varying backgrounds and live in different countries.  In the final novel, all three will unite in various ways to fight against the Dark Empire whose emperor wields the Dark Stone.  There will be some history and prophecy interwoven to bind the four books, but you’re basically looking at three standalone novels and one to bind them all. (LotR reference).

My goal is to have these books out by the end of the year plus one more.  That doesn’t include publishing the Brull novel.  So, hopefully six books out in 2013 plus a non-fiction.  I guess I’d better get those fingers caressing the keyboard.

My Eight Step Writing Process

I finished the first draft of my Brull novel on November 12th.  81K NaNo words and 88K of total words.  The experience was intense, writing the words in just 12 days.  At the end, my goal of 120K didn’t make it.  The plot played out before my eyes and it changed from my scene outline.  I think the book came out better than planned, but I’m hardly the one to judge at this time.

So now I’m into rewrites.  I’m already embroiled in the first one, which is a clean up after drafting the novel.  Lots of typos and awkward phrases will be eliminated.  I’ve planned out an eight step writing process that I thought I’d share.  Rewriting is not something I enjoy, but it’s still part of publishing a novel.

 

My Process:

Initial Scrivener Draft.  This includes Characters, World Building, Outlining, etc.
First Scrivener Rewrite – get gross typos fixed, come up with plot expansion/fixit list generated on a different file as I rewrite.
Second Scrivner Rewrite – Take plot expansion list and add description and feelings
First MS Word Rewrite – Take the manuscript and run it through the grammar checker
InDesign Conversion – Apply interior graphic design.
First InDesign Rewrite – Focus on Polish and description
Proof: Second InDesign Rewrite – Order an actual printed book and do a proof on the book and then input the marked up changes. (Cover and Book Interior then sent to CreateSpace for publishing)
e-Book Conversion – Transfer manuscript to MS Word and modify it for e-book publishing

You can see from the workflow that I use three writing platforms.  Each one has it’s own benefit (and disadvantages).  I use Scrivener because it’s a great drafting tool.  MS Word because it has the only grammar checker and is used as the input format for Amazon, Smashwords and Pubit (B&N).  InDesign because it’s simply the best available (to me anyway) desktop publishing tool for precise control over a printed book.

This is my first formal attempt at this flow.  I used it with some variations for my last two novels:  Daughter Disinherited and Daughter Betrayed.  Slipped in there is an editing phase which happens after the MS Word Rewrite, but that’s an external thing so I didn’t include it in the above.  The editors/reviewers use MS Word track changes

NaNo Update and the Creative Side

Four days in and I’m up to 30,000 new words.  It’s been an interesting four days.  Two 6,000 word days (weekdays), and 8,000 word Saturday and a 10,000 word Sunday.  My outline has been torn to shreds.  Well, not completely torn to shreds, but around the 20% mark, the story took an unexpected turn.  Now there is a new character, who is more interesting and will now have a greater impact in the overall story arc than I had originally imagined.  This takes the book from heroic fantasy to epic fantasy… a bigger scope.  So we’ll have to see what happens, especially in the the 50-75% area of the book where I think I was going to run out of gas.  Now I have to plan for another element to the book and the implications for the ending now has much higher stakes.

The unfortunate thing is that I killed off a character much earlier than I thought I would, but this new character will substitute and make the story stronger.

I consider myself more of an outliner than a ‘pantser’, but sometimes you have to go what’s coming out of your fingers.  When that happens,  writing actually becomes more fun, but at the same time, for me, more challenging since I still have to turn the story around back to the basic ‘bones’ of the story in order get the story where you want it to end up.

Now we’ll see how I do next week.  I should eclipse the 50K minimum Thursday or Friday.

NaNO Progress

As mentioned in the previous post, I’ll be participating in Nano, just because there is a word tracker and that ends up motivating me.  I’ve got 6,000 words written already, but I’ll just deduct that from my totals and go from there.  I’ve got Brull laid out in scenes, but I’m not into the story yet.  I suppose I’ll have to write my way into it.  Too much time spent with Miss Featherwood.

So here goes.  Wish me luck.  113,000 words in 30 days.

 

Goal Met! Sara Featherwood Series is Published.

My four week process that I talked about on Oct 25, turned into a four day process.  Putting in a ton of hours, I got CasiePress to publish Daughter Disinherited and Daughter Betrayed. They will soon be up on Amazon as  ebooks and trade paperbacks and will eventually be on all of the e-book platforms.  That gives me eight ebooks and seven trade paperbacks produced (my salable WIP, whipped into shape) in 12 months.  My final 2012 goal is to get the Brull novel done.  I hadn’t intended to do NaNo, but I’ll track my progress through the NaNoWriMo.

I’m waiting for the end of the year before I gather my wits about me and figure out how to market.  I’ll do that and have a schedule of novels to complete next year… it will be five or six including sequels to my current output.

The cover art (which I did myself) for Daughter Betrayed is to the right.  The entire series of three books is over 700 pages – nearly 270,000 words.