Zoe Brooks's Blog, page 16
March 29, 2012
Girl in the Glass on Smashwords
I've just published Girl in the Glass on smashwords.com. Until now the full version of the novel has only been available on Amazon and in the kindle format. On smashwords it is available in a variety of formats readable on a range of readers including ipad, kobo, nook and pdf.
You can sample or purchase Girl in the Glass: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/146189
You can sample or purchase Girl in the Glass: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/146189
March 28, 2012
Smells
In order to give my main character Anya/Judith the skills to allow her to manufacture medicines and creams, I decided that she should train as a perfumer. As a perfumer she learns how to distill essential oils, make creams and powders - all essential if she is to make medicines.I've had tremendous fun researching both traditional medicine and perfume making. I spent several days in the Bodleian Library in Oxford calling up new and old books on the subjects. Both disciplines have ancient roots and are linked to alchemy. Both of course use a range of materials: flowers, bark, seaweed, animal fats, incense. And they both use copper alembic such as the one shown above.
She also needed to have an excellent sense of smell. And as she is narrator, that meant the story is full of description of smells. All of which was tremendous fun to write. But I decided not to just leave it at that, as I will tell you in my next post.
March 23, 2012
Problems or opportunties in plotting
One of the things I love about writing is the way solving logistical problems in a novel can open up creative opportunities.
The underlying story of the Girl in the Glass, Love of Shadows and the, as yet unnamed, last book in the trilogy is how Anya/Judith follows in her dead mother's footsteps to become a healer and a wisewoman. But from the word go I had a problem. Of necessity Anya's mother is dead when the first book opens, so how does she learn the healer's art?
a) how does she learn about gardening and propagating plants?
b) who gives her the first book on healing?
c) how does she learn to tend wounds and set bones?
d) how does she learn to distill medicines and make creams?
e) how does she learn to read and have access to medicine and herbal books?
f) what triggers her to become a healer?
The answers to each of these crucial questions are:
a) she works with the gardener in her Aunt's garden
b) the housekeeper Marta gives her the book
c) there's an earthquake and she works in a dressing station with the wounded
d) she works for a perfumer Elma and so learns to distil and make creams and other beauty products
e) Elma sponsors her use of the library, ostensibly to learn about perfumes,
f) Elma develops cancer and they cannot afford the medicine.
Each solution moves the story forward, often in ways I hadn't foreseen, opening the plot and characters to more twists and depth. In my next post I will talk more about how the decision to make Judith a perfumer.
The underlying story of the Girl in the Glass, Love of Shadows and the, as yet unnamed, last book in the trilogy is how Anya/Judith follows in her dead mother's footsteps to become a healer and a wisewoman. But from the word go I had a problem. Of necessity Anya's mother is dead when the first book opens, so how does she learn the healer's art?
a) how does she learn about gardening and propagating plants?
b) who gives her the first book on healing?
c) how does she learn to tend wounds and set bones?
d) how does she learn to distill medicines and make creams?
e) how does she learn to read and have access to medicine and herbal books?
f) what triggers her to become a healer?
The answers to each of these crucial questions are:
a) she works with the gardener in her Aunt's garden
b) the housekeeper Marta gives her the book
c) there's an earthquake and she works in a dressing station with the wounded
d) she works for a perfumer Elma and so learns to distil and make creams and other beauty products
e) Elma sponsors her use of the library, ostensibly to learn about perfumes,
f) Elma develops cancer and they cannot afford the medicine.
Each solution moves the story forward, often in ways I hadn't foreseen, opening the plot and characters to more twists and depth. In my next post I will talk more about how the decision to make Judith a perfumer.
Smashwords update
I gather from Smashwords that the taster novel Anya, Girl in the Glass has been approved and will be shipped over the next week.
March 18, 2012
E-book Cover Design
The cover on my new book is getting a lot of compliments and quite rightly so. The designer is John L Wilkinson and his graphics website is http://cargocollective.com/johnwilkinsondesignsJohn works as a graphic artist in film art departments and has worked recently on World War Z and Anna Karenina. But luckily for me he also designs graphics for the web.
For ebooks as for conventional printed books the cover is a major selling tool, but for ebooks there are additional requirements. It is essential when it comes to ebooks that the covers work well on a variety of screens and at a variety of size. For people browsing on Kindle it is also important that the cover works in grayscale. Have a look on Amazon and you will see many covers which just don't work when reduced to thumbnail size. John's designs work brilliantly.
John's cover also reflects the story in the book. Anya, the central character and narrator, is trapped in the house of her abusive aunt, but she is trapped too by the desert that surrounds the oasis town where she was born. I just love the way John combines the desert and the image of Anya, the way the line of the sand dune is also the line of her cheekbone and the sun on her forehead. What is Anya dreaming behind those closed eyes?
March 15, 2012
Problems with Amazon
Something strange has happened with the pricing of my book. On Amazon.co.uk it is fine - £1.03 but on Amazon.com this morning this pricing information is not there. What is going on?
For my readers with access to the British Amazon site - the book is here
UPDATE 16th March
amazon.com seems to sorted the problem - the book is available here
For my readers with access to the British Amazon site - the book is here
UPDATE 16th March
amazon.com seems to sorted the problem - the book is available here
March 13, 2012
The Gypsy Hunts
For the last two days I have been working on the third draft of my novel Mother of Wolves It's an alternative history novel. The alternative history being that of the Romanies.
The idea for the novel first came to me when I visited a castle in the Czech Republic. As is often the case in the Czech Republic the only way to visit the castle was on a guided tour. I was the only English speaker and stood at the back of the group of listening Czechs, reading a couple of sheets of A4 that was meant to be a translation of the tour. As the tour took an hour and I read the sheets in five minutes I spent a lot of time looking in cabinets and at prints.
In one room as the guide droned on in Czech and some annoying person kept asking questions I found myself examining three folk art pictures on the wall. They were not listed in the translation nor did they have any label. The guide did not refer to them and the rest of the party ignored them. They had no significance. But as I looked I was increasingly shocked by the subject matter. They were primitive but graphic pictures of the persecution of gypsies from, I guess, the 18th century.
It is two years since I saw the pictures, but I still remember them in detail. In one a man is hanging from a branch, while in the foreground a gypsy woman (perhaps his wife) is holding a babe while blood pours from her head where her ear has been cut off. As a historian I had known that the gypsies had been the victims of persecution through the centuries and that they too had been the subject of Hitler's extermination programme. In the Great Devouring as they called the holocaust the numbers of Romany victims varies but it seems that it was at least half a million. But as I investigated further I was shocked by the untold history of persecution over centuries. Gypsy hunts occurred in many European countries. Very simply gypsies were hunted as vermin, no different than foxes. In Jutland in 1835 a hunt "brought in a bag of over 260 men, women and children." A Rheinland hunter recorded in his list of game for the day "Item: A Gypsy woman with her sucking babe."
It is a sad fact that no matter how horrific a story one can devise, that reality can always exceed its horror. The tragedy of the Romany people has in some ways always been overshadowed by that of the Jews. They were/are rural, often illiterate, and poor. They also do not have and never had a state or a leadership to speak for them. But what if there had been such a leader...
The idea for the novel first came to me when I visited a castle in the Czech Republic. As is often the case in the Czech Republic the only way to visit the castle was on a guided tour. I was the only English speaker and stood at the back of the group of listening Czechs, reading a couple of sheets of A4 that was meant to be a translation of the tour. As the tour took an hour and I read the sheets in five minutes I spent a lot of time looking in cabinets and at prints.
In one room as the guide droned on in Czech and some annoying person kept asking questions I found myself examining three folk art pictures on the wall. They were not listed in the translation nor did they have any label. The guide did not refer to them and the rest of the party ignored them. They had no significance. But as I looked I was increasingly shocked by the subject matter. They were primitive but graphic pictures of the persecution of gypsies from, I guess, the 18th century.
It is two years since I saw the pictures, but I still remember them in detail. In one a man is hanging from a branch, while in the foreground a gypsy woman (perhaps his wife) is holding a babe while blood pours from her head where her ear has been cut off. As a historian I had known that the gypsies had been the victims of persecution through the centuries and that they too had been the subject of Hitler's extermination programme. In the Great Devouring as they called the holocaust the numbers of Romany victims varies but it seems that it was at least half a million. But as I investigated further I was shocked by the untold history of persecution over centuries. Gypsy hunts occurred in many European countries. Very simply gypsies were hunted as vermin, no different than foxes. In Jutland in 1835 a hunt "brought in a bag of over 260 men, women and children." A Rheinland hunter recorded in his list of game for the day "Item: A Gypsy woman with her sucking babe."
It is a sad fact that no matter how horrific a story one can devise, that reality can always exceed its horror. The tragedy of the Romany people has in some ways always been overshadowed by that of the Jews. They were/are rural, often illiterate, and poor. They also do not have and never had a state or a leadership to speak for them. But what if there had been such a leader...
March 11, 2012
Getting a book published on Amazon
In my last post I told you how I was waiting for Smashwords to vet my free ebook ready for their shipping it out to retailers. The idea of the free novel was that it was a tryout in all sorts of ways. It is the first book I had tried to publish myself. I have so much to learn. You can read all you like about ebook formatting and marketting (there seems to be a mini industry in advice out there) but in the end the only way to really learn is to try it for yourself.
I am conscious, of course I am, that I am an unknown, that my chances of selling many copies are low, that publishing is only the first step on a very long road. So one reason for the free book was to get some people to download it and hopefully read it. The free book is part (nearly half) of a longer novel. I could simply have published the latter and allowed the readers to sample 50%. But I wanted more control. I also wanted to publish the free ebook myself and distribute it through channels not serviced by Smashwords. More of those some other time.
Then almost on a whim I decided I would see how easy it would be to release a book through Amazon. Amazon is easily the biggest player in the ebook world, a whale among minnows, and in the British market virtually the only player in town. I couldn't release the free book through Amazon, so loaded up the full novel. I expected problems. I had had to create the original myself rather than have Smashwords do it and vet it for me. I created the book using a free software programme called Calibre, filled in the form, clicked the button and to my amazement within hours the book was available for sale on Amazon's site.
Here's the link http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007IROBEE The book is called Girl in the Glass and is priced at £1.03. I forgot that there is 3% VAT on ebooks - don't ask me why. It's $1.63 in the US. I will be looking hard at pricing over the next few months. It all feels very strange.
I am conscious, of course I am, that I am an unknown, that my chances of selling many copies are low, that publishing is only the first step on a very long road. So one reason for the free book was to get some people to download it and hopefully read it. The free book is part (nearly half) of a longer novel. I could simply have published the latter and allowed the readers to sample 50%. But I wanted more control. I also wanted to publish the free ebook myself and distribute it through channels not serviced by Smashwords. More of those some other time.
Then almost on a whim I decided I would see how easy it would be to release a book through Amazon. Amazon is easily the biggest player in the ebook world, a whale among minnows, and in the British market virtually the only player in town. I couldn't release the free book through Amazon, so loaded up the full novel. I expected problems. I had had to create the original myself rather than have Smashwords do it and vet it for me. I created the book using a free software programme called Calibre, filled in the form, clicked the button and to my amazement within hours the book was available for sale on Amazon's site.
Here's the link http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007IROBEE The book is called Girl in the Glass and is priced at £1.03. I forgot that there is 3% VAT on ebooks - don't ask me why. It's $1.63 in the US. I will be looking hard at pricing over the next few months. It all feels very strange.
March 9, 2012
Ebook publishing through Smashwords.
In my last post I told you that I had just published half of my novel Girl in the Glass with Smashwords.com.
Smashwords not only convert your file which you produced in Microsoft Word or Open Office Writer into a full range of ebook formats and sell it through their website, but they will also distribute it for you to all the major outlets: Amazon, Apples i-books, Barnes and Noble, Kobo (which supplies WH Smith), etc etc. This is great because some of these outlets won't take them from self-publishers plus they all seem to require different formats etc.
But there are downsides to Smashwords - they are dominating the ebook self-publishing world and with the boom in e-publishing this means that their trade has expanded massively but it seems that their staff numbers may not have. The web discussion boards are alive with people complaining about delays at Smashwords. Is that because the files people are submitting to them have errors or is it something else? I have to say that my experience so far has been pretty good, but then I have a relatively simple book and I am not fazed by technical problems in formatting and the like. I do not doubt that for others the process of getting the book through the Smashwords meatgrinder (a tongue-in-cheek name for their conversion software) is far from smooth. Then having got through that your book has to pass e-pub validation, which can throw up more problems. That said it is perfectly possible to check for problems beforehand (more of that some other time).
Once through the automatic validation your books appear on the Smashwords site for downloading, But they are not shipped to other distributors immediately, your book is now waiting in line for manual approval by some bod in the Smashwords vetting team. Only then will it be shipped to Amazon et al. Word on the web is that this last stage can take time as the team try to keep up with the large number of ebooks being uploaded. And then if you fail to pass muster you have to go back sort the problem and reapply. My book is waiting approval from the human vetters. I will let you know how I get on.
March 8, 2012
New Book
I have just published a shortened version of my novel on Smashwords.
Anya, Girl in the Glass is the first half of the Girl in the Glass novel which should be going online in a few days (solar storms permitting). Although the shortened version is a novel in itself and can be read on its own, the idea is that if you like part one, you will pay to find out what happens to the central character. You can download the free version from http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/139713
It's available for free in all sorts of formats:
epub - for nooks, kobo, sony reader etc
mobi - for kindle
pdf - for downloading on to a computer, with the option of printing out
html - for reading on line
You don't need to have a nook, kobo or kindle, as you can download the viewing software to your pc.
I do hope you like it.
More about the book (and about the trials and tribulations of epublishing) in future posts.
