C.M. Simpson's Blog, page 173

Titles Released in January 2015

Well, just one new release for me. So far it's only gone to DriveThruFiction and Smashwords. Other platforms will follow:


And then there were the releases to platforms that I didn't manage with the initial release last year.

These included the following CreateSpace releases in large print:








































and these CreateSpace releases in normal print:






















 and these were released in PDF form to DriveThruFiction:

Books Read in January 2015

In between, the writing and editing and publishing madness, I actually managed to finish reading another two Alan Dean Foster novels. Now I just have to work out where to find the rest. Novels are as follows:

Balance: Writing Time and the Demands of Independent Publishing

The general advice is that the best way to sell your current book is to write your next book. And I agree. I also follow the creed that I should finish my work, make it the best I can and so forth, and that got me thinking, because I have a lot of work to finish, and a lot of books to write, and, to be quite honest, I find balancing it all, quite difficult. I used to wonder why, when the returns were so much better, and the advantages so much greater, not everyone was ‘going indie’. Well, now I know. The short fact of the matter is that it’s not for everyone, that some people just want to write and they want someone else to take care of organising the cover, the formatting and uploading and all the administrative side of having a writing career. And I don’t blame them.I love writing, but I also love the publishing side of the writing. I love the control and the freedom to make my own schedule and all the rest of it but I wish, I very much wish I had more time to write, and I have to accept that I don’t.For instance, I aim at writing around 5,000 words a day when I don’t have university commitments. In truth, I usually only make around 2,000, and that’s because it is one thing to write the book, but quite another to actually get into the hands of readers.So, what else do I do with my writing time? Here’s a list of tasks, sort of in the order they get done in once the last word is written:
‘Shelve the book’: i.e. let it sit for a minimum of four weeks while I write something else, or several somethings else. This helps cut the apron strings and lets me get back to it with fresher eyes and a clearer head, when I start editing.See if there’s someone in my Beta circle with a bit of time to go through and do a read for continuity, spelling errors, grammar and so forth, and send the book out to them.Design the cover: which involves thinking up a vague cover, hunting down suitable cover art and altering the initial design to suit what’s available, and paying for and downloading the art. Format the cover art for each platform, ensuring correct sizes are achieved prior to upload (five formats in all).Put the cover art/photography credits in the front matter of the book.Print out thumbnails with credits and place on file for ease of reference.Once the four weeks is up, and the beta results are in, edit using the beta, and go through one beta at a time, if multiples were sent out. Make sure the beta readers go into the editing credits if they have been kind enough to do an edit as they’ve read.When the beta results have been incorporated, do another in-depth edit, and format, then nuke the manuscript to remove all formatting.Do a CreateSpace format, first downloading a fresh template for the formats to be used, registering the title on CreateSpace and remembering to add the CreateSpace ISBNs to the manuscripts prior to starting. During the CreateSpace format update the Nuke document with any corrections made. Rebuild the base document.Format a Base manuscript from the Nuke document and cover art, and format it appropriately for all other platforms, by opening the Base document and then using ‘save as’ prior to making alterations. Add in platform-specific links to each platform-specific document. Do this one platform at a time. Format PDF for two platforms, Word 97 for four platforms, HTML for two platforms, mobi for two platforms. This can take a while.Upload the manuscripts to each platform. It may be better to upload to a single specific platform a day, in order to allow writing time on upload days. Record the title’s ISBN, ASIN, or Product Codes as they are assigned on the different platforms.Record the publication date for each platform.Record the site link for the title on each sales channel.Blog the releases - BRIEFLY, share the platform links, try not to annoy social media friends too much.Continue writing the next release and keep up with editing and cover schedule during this process. Also, don’t forget to maintain royalty and sales records for each title.
With Dean Wesley Smith’s advice onpricing in mind, I am about to start tracking the time I spend on each title so I know how much I owe myself. This will be much easier now I have worked out what records I need to keep.


So, when I say I sometimes lose my writing time, this is why. For instance, we're four weeks into the new year and I have three 35,000-word Young Adult novels in the shelving stage, and I am hoping, by the end of the week, to have a 90-95,000-word science-fiction-fantasy blend novel at the same stage.

If I was traditionally published, they'd be off with an editor and I'd have a couple of months' grace, before having to work on them again. As it is, I'm staring down the barrel of the four-week mark for two of them and will be looking at the third in a fortnight. I also have to design and build them covers.  In addition to these, I have a 6,000-word short story at the Cover and Format stage (and it's been there for around 6 weeks).

If I'm not to fall behind in my writing, I'm going to have watch how much time I spend on non-writing tasks, and be careful not to rush anything in order to keep from having quality issues. The publishing schedule might be a little less stressful as an independent author, from the point of view of not having others waiting, but it is just as demanding, and needs to be treated with the same degree of care.


I am enjoying it, but I do feel the loss of writing time, and I almost miss just being able to hand a manuscript over, but the trade-off for control of the different elements that make up a project, as well as the ability to monitor my own royalties and sales, and maintain control over my rights is, for me, at least, worth the extra time. It's challenging, but it's not too much different to traditional publishing. You still have to try and produce the best product you can.

Writing Craft: Using Tradition to Give Depth to Your World

It’s Australia Day, today, and that, coming so soon after Christmas got me to thinking about what significance this sort of even might have for world building. After all, every society celebrates or commemorates something, whether those events centre around a religious festival, an event rooted in history that helps define national identity, a culturally significant day, or a personal event. Each and every one of these helps to give a society structure, and to build individual identity. They are often used to cement a society of individuals into a cohesive whole, and as such are an essential part of social fabric. And this means that a variation or replica of some or all of the events below should exist in every story that is peopled by individuals and communities:
Religious Festivals: Christmas, Ramadan, Passover, and Easter are the four events that come immediately to mind, and this reflects my own cultural bias and experience. Those of you from other backgrounds will come up with different event, as there are many religions and religious events observed around the world.Every culture has its share of deities (sometimes many, sometimes one) and the means of worshipping or appeasing them. And this is something that will probably remain true of any culture, no matter what its world setting.Human settlers might take a variant of a known religion to the stars, or develop a new one on whatever world they land. Aliens developed their own culture and their own way of explaining natural occurrences in the world around them. Who knows, from those explanations gods may have grown or demons evolved, and there will be religions based around them.How a person believes (whether they are human or otherwise) impacts on the way they view their world, and interacts with it. Regardless of whether religion is playing a central part of your story, if your character has a set of personal beliefs, then the behaviour resulting from these is likely to be apparent.
National Identity: Bastille Day, Australia Day, Thanksgiving, Independence Day, ANZAC Day and Veterans Day are all examples of traditions that are important to national identity, as well as being culturally significant, but it must be remembered that not every individual will feel the same way about an event of national significance.Australia Day, for example, celebrates the landing of the First Fleet of British colonists in Australia, but not all Australians celebrate this day. Some protest that it has no place in modern Australia because it signifies a period of theft and slavery, and others argue that it is a reminder of when all Australians were bound to a foreign power, while many see the day as the only one in our collective history that forms the pivotal point from which the continent became a single, unified country. I celebrate it because it is the day that was chosen to celebrate being Australian, but I am glad to be Australian, even if I am aware that not all the history tied to the day is happy. So, days tied to national identity can be fraught with contrast and conflict, and the emotions roused by these can enrich your story and add depth to your characters, even when these elements are not the central theme of your tale. And that is something important to remember when using national identity. Don’t let it become the central theme of the story, if the conflicts tied to national identity are not the main story point, as it could weaken the structure. At the same time, don’t water down or belittle the viewpoints of the characters who hold those emotions and beliefs.And, finally, days that are significant in this way are often tied to events that are pivotal to a nation’s history. If those events had not occurred, and the day not existed, that nation would be different to what it is today. When applying this concept to tales of alternate history, it’s important to look at events of national significance, and decide whether or not to keep them. When designing an entire new culture, it’s important to choose events that are significant to more than one group of the individuals in that culture, and to be aware of how different groups might view that significant event.
Culturally Significant: Spring or Winter Festival, funerals and wakes, or Hallowe’en are examples of culturally significant events, although the last could be argued to be more religious than cultural. How a group of people is affected by their environment, how they view death, birth and the afterlife, and the importance they tie to these events can deeply affect how they behave at any particular time of the year.For example, a culture that suffers from a long, cold winter, for example, is likely to place great importance on the arrival of spring and to celebrate something that signifies the winter is over. Likewise, that culture is likely to emphasise the importance of the harvest season preceding winter, given that the success or failure of that season is tied to their very survival. And these traditions, which are deeply entwined, have a very good chance of surviving into times when the seasons are no longer key to a group’s survival.
Personal Event: birthdays, christenings, coming of age celebrations, significant survival dates such as a fortieth , fiftieth or seventieth birthday, and wedding anniversaries are all examples of personal events that help make a character what they are, and which can sometimes dictate how that character responds to another.In some cultures, for example, young adults greatly anticipate the day they officially become adults. Some look forward to being to get themselves completely and legally drunk, or enter bars as themselves instead of that person on their fake id. Some just want to be able to drive. Others want the adult wage, or to have sex without the social beaurocrats having a hissy fit of spectacular proportions.However, before the modern world took many of the dangers out of survival, coming of age held a greater significance. For example, a young man or woman who came of age was able to make decisions for themselves and help provide for their society, where previously the society had dictated what they could do. Young men could go hunting, young women could marry, some had a voice in tribal decisions where their age had silenced them before and others were able to claim ownership of something, instead of having to hand the ownership and control of that thing to someone older.What a society values and celebrates on an individual level also influences how members of that society treat those who possess the characteristics so valued view others, including individuals who do not come from within the society.
Interactions between events that have a significance in tradition and other happenings can increase the emotion surrounding the new event. A death before Christmas or on New Year’s Eve or on a birthday, for example, has a greater emotional impact than a death in a month where no significant event was scheduled to occur. Likewise a birth on a culturally significant day often places a burden of expectation on the ‘lucky’ child. A mishap such as tripping over one’s own feet has a different impact if it happens on an unimportant day while a mundane activity is being undertaken, than if it occurs while doing something tied to a significant day: tripping while accepting an award, handing someone a present, or while buying someone a gift for a special day. How a character, or those around the character, view the world and the importance of the day is going to have an effect on how they respond to any single event. Including this in your story (provided you don’t explain it to death) helps to enrich your story-telling.

More Titles Now Available at DriveThruFiction

Hey all, just a quick note to let you know that the following titles are now available from DriveThruFiction:



Basofi's Choosing
There comes a time when a young person has to decide which path they’re going to take. There comes a time when conflicting tides of family influence break against the shores of the future and the first step towards independence must be taken. Basofi has reached that time, but will his family support his decision, or will his choice tear them apart?
Basofi’s Choosing is set in the same world and features some of the characters from Palmyra’s Ridge .
Basofi's Choosing is now available in PDF from DriveThruFiction 

365 Days of Poetry
Welcome to this gathering of poetry. It comes in a variety of styles and genres, and is arranged in no particular order save that there is one poem for each day. I have played with traditional forms such as the cinquain and englyn, and worked with free-form verse and rhyme. I have written about the world around me, and about worlds that probably don’t exist. I have tried to write poetry from the perspective of someone in the distant future writing about a new world, and I have written poetry with fantasy themes. Welcome to the worlds in my head. 
365 Days of Poetry is now available in PDF from DriveThruFiction
 



365 Days of Flash Fiction
Science fiction, fantasy, dark fantasy, speculative fiction and a touch of horror, this collection plays with just about every genre I could lay my hands on. In it, I explore new worlds, new settings and some ideas that just needed to be gotten out of my head. If short stories are your thing, and the shorter the better, there are a bunch of them to be found in this collection. Go ahead and take a look.
365 Days of Flash Fiction is now available in PDF from DriveThruFiction  


  C.M. Simpson: Short Stories and Poems from 2013, Volume 2: The Year Just Gone (2013)


Last year’s anthology consisted only of the short stories and poems published in 2012. This year’s anthology consists of all the short stories and poems that I created, edited or rewrote in 2013, regardless of whether or not they have been released. The tales are taken from completed anthologies, and anthologies yet to come, from my blog, and from my notebooks. Most are published as stand-alone stories, but some are yet to be published.
Also, where last year’s anthology was a single volume, this year’s anthology is two volumes long. I have divided them up chronologically, according to when the stories were first created and completed. This is the second volume, and it covers work completed or released in 2013. It consists of a mix of poetry, flash fiction and short stories.
C.M. Simpson: Short Stories and Poems from 2013, Volume 2: The Year Just Gone (2013) is not available in PDF from DriveThruFiction

Progress Report: Week 4, January 2015

A better week, this week. I tried to develop some sort of study routine in preparation for returning to university, started to get the hang of it towards the end, but decided that weekends were going to be for me, if I could in any way achieve that. So, I spent most of Saturday revising the next novel on my release list, in preparation for writing the ending. I am, at most, 15,000 words off the end, and I’d like to finish it before school goes back. We’ll see. I always seem to find the ending of a novel or short story, much harder to write than anything that goes before. Hopefully next week I’ll have news for you.
 
Overview
New words produced: 2,357Old words revised: 85,313Works completed: 0Works revised: 0Covers created: 0Works published: 0Works submitted: 0Competitions Entered: 0Bloggery: 5,389
Tier 1 Tasks
SciFiNovel1A—Freeman’s Choice: added 1,667 words, revised 83,385 words.
Tier 2 Tasks
YANovel9A—Andromeda’s Pledge (writing as Carlie Simonsen): Added 690 words, revised 1,928 words;
Publishing Tasks
Created 8 blog posts for this blog;Created 1 blog post for the C.M. Simpson Publishing blog;Created 1 blog post for the C.M. Simpson Art and Photography blog;
New ArrivalsThe following idea arrived this week:
SciFanNovel1C—Leaflen’s Tale: the story of an elven heroine.

Expanding Carlie’s Repertoire

Most of you know I write in multiple genres, and that I use pen names so my readers have a fair idea of what they’re picking up. This way, if they’re not into romance, they know Madeleine Torr is not for them. If they’re too grown up to read young adult and tween age fiction, then they know not to pick up Carlie, and so forth. Anyway, up to now, I have only written chapter books as Carlie Simonsen, and now I want to release young adult fiction so, instead of launching yet another pen name, I decided that Carlie could be the name on those as well. After all, she’s had a little practice in this field.
Anyway, the earliest work I have in this genre consists of three complete novels. Without giving too much away, they are as follows: Anna and the Rock Dragons : which was written and revised between 1991 and 1993, and then rewritten between December 28 and 31, 2014. You could probably call it urban fantasy, given it features dragons, but most of Anna and the Rock Dragons is set in the Australian bush, while Anna is on school holidays. Orb Wielder : which was also written and revised between 1991 and 1993, and then rewritten between December 31, 2014 and January 5, 2015, is more traditional fantasy, drawing on the much-used trope of a group of near-teens crossing from this world to a fantasy world to deliver a treasure to its rightful owner. Pyrie: which was conceived in June 1994, and written between July 25 and September 2 1994 in response to the . It was edited and rewritten between January 5 and 10, 2015, and will be edited again before it’s released. It is a piece of speculative fiction about how a teenage girl uses her imagination to deal with the threat of being molested by her father. Definitely for older readers and definitely a departure from the usual type of fiction Carlie and I write.And now, Carlie and I are working on a fourth novel, a science fiction story called Andromeda’s Pledge , but I’ll talk more about that later. It’s good to be getting back to writing that I loved and gave up on because I just didn’t see a market for it. I have wanted a reason to finish for a few years now, and now I have it.After that, we promise to get back to the next book in the Wheelchair series, and I promise to write some teacher’s notes to go with them.  

Why Release Titles from Earlier in My Writing Life?

There are many who will say that you should never release your first book, or your second or even your third. There are some who say, finish your work, do the best you can at it, (including having it professionally edited) and then put it out there, that your work will improve as you practice your craft, improve your craft, and work at continually improving your craft and doing your best work and that your readership will grow as put more work out. And I agree, but, like many writers I always doubt that any piece I do will be good enough, and like all writers who put their work out there, or submit it to a publisher, I have to find enough courage to write and finish and share my stories anyway.So, why release titles from earlier in my career? Why now? When I have over twenty years’ writing experience, why release something from early on? Why expose work that might be different to what I do now, maybe not as polished—especially on the internet? Why release this work when it will be around forever—when someone trying my writing for the first time, might buy the early versions and not something more polished?Because I believe in those stories. When I wrote them, I believed in them. In the publishing world that was, they didn’t have a chance, didn’t suit the market, didn’t hit the editor’s desk at the right time, were buried under a slush pile, were too different from the publisher’s target audience, or maybe even not good enough—well, not at the time.They’re going out there, now, but they’re not going out underdressed. They might be early works, but I have reworked them, giving them the benefit of what I’ve learned in over twenty years of writing, changing them so that they aren’t really ‘early’ works, and yet, remain so. I’ve smoothed the phrasing, corrected continuity, created a digital copy from type-written submission copies, and kept the story I had originally built, and added to it.I’m working on the theory that I don’t have a following made up from successes in traditional publishing, so this means I’m starting from scratch. As far as the writing world is concerned, I’ve only just appeared—or not, as the case may be.So, I’m just like any other author beginning their career in this new age of publishing. If an author was just starting out for the first time, they would probably begin by researching all their publishing options. And if they did their research and judged their chances of making a living by comparing independent, traditional or hybrid publishing, they would probably decide to go independent, rather than accept a contract that bought their rights and did not guarantee keeping their work available for the life of those rights. Or they would go independent, if they wanted to maximise their return for effort. Or because traditional contracts are limited by the space on the publishing schedule and work takes over twelve months after acceptance to start earning. Or for any other number of reasons. Or they might go hybrid, submitting work to publishers, while putting out other work independently. It would all depend on what suited them best.And if they decided to play in the independent sphere, then their earliest work would be the best work they could do at that time, and they’d have it edited or beta read and work it up the highest standard they were able. They would find or purchase their cover art, format and upload it for sale. Once that was done, that modern writer would work on the next book, and the next and the next, and their work would improve, not go backwards.So, with this in mind, I’m following the path that a post-Amazon-Smashwords-era author would take, if they were starting out today—except I’m doing it with over twenty years’ worth of material in various stages of completion. Like that new author, I’m putting out my earliest work first, while I work on something new, or, unlike that author, while I finish something I started long ago.And that’s where I’m at. I’m finishing what I’ve started, and what I stopped for any number of perfectly justifiable reasons, including the difficulties faced by publishers, agents and authors in the early 1990s. But, now, the world of publishing has changed, and it has become possible that stories can now readers, when once they could not be published, or were rejected, not because they weren’t good enough, but because they just didn’t fit the market, or because another novel in a similar vein had just been accepted, or because the publishing schedule was full and unknowns weren’t booked that far ahead, or even because the publisher went under before the release date.Tricky business, this publishing. Being good enough isn’t good enough… and maybe that still hasn’t changed. Maybe, it will never change, but now it’s not up to us, or anyone else, to make that final decision. Now, it’s up to our readers, and the longer our work is available, the more chance those readers have of finding us.And so I take the risk, the risk that my stories will be read and that they won’t disappoint, that my early work is something worth building on—and I thank the gatekeepers of old, the ones who took the time to encourage a writer whose work was good, but just didn’t quite fit, and I thank those who did accept the work that fit their business requirements and published it.And I thank the writers who have walked this path, and the traditional path, and who are now finding a path of their own, and sharing what they’ve learned, and for sharing their successes, their failures, their frustrations and their joys. They give encouragement to all who find them.And so, I start, yet again, down this path to publishing, beginning at the very beginning, along with everyone else, and so I publish my work, from the earliest to latest, just like everyone else. And I hope that there are readers out there who will find it, and like it, and look for more… just like everyone else.

Just Released: C.M. Simpson: Short Stories and Poems from 2013, Vol. 2 in Large Print

Yup - just clear of its last run through, Volume 2 of my 2013 collection is now out in Large Print in the CreateSpace store.




Last year’s anthology consisted only of the short stories and poems published in 2012. This year’s anthology consists of all the short stories and poems that I created, edited or rewrote in 2013, regardless of whether or not they have been released. The tales are taken from completed anthologies, and anthologies yet to come, from my blog, and from my notebooks. Most are published as stand-alone stories, but some are yet to be published.
Also, where last year’s anthology was a single volume, this year’s anthology is two volumes long. I have divided them up chronologically, according to when the stories were first created and completed. This is the second volume, and it covers work completed or released in 2013. It consists of a mix of poetry, flash fiction and short stories.

Formatting for CreateSpace—Part 3: Finishing Touches

Once my files have been reviewed, I receive an email letting me know their ready. To get that title out onto the market I take the following steps:
I head on over to CreateSpace and log in, select the title whose files are ready and click on it.This takes me to the Project Homepage for that title. Under the Review column, I click on ‘Proof Your Book’, which usually has a note under it telling me ‘Action Required’.This takes me to the ‘Proof Your Book’ page. I usually select the ‘View a Digital Proof’ option. This allows me access to a digital proofer as well as the ability to download a PDF proof, which I can print and go through with a pen, if I wish. I usually just click on ‘Launch Digital Proofer’, although there is also the possibility of ordering a printed proof.After I click on the ‘Launch Digital Proofer’ button, I am taken to a digital proof of the book. By clicking on the ‘Get Started’ button, in the pop-up box that appears after the proof is loaded, I am able to view the cover, and go through the interior content again, to make sure it really is exactly how I want it to be. I always dread this part of the check, because if I find something I know I’ll have to fix it and re-upload the files and wait for them to be ready, but it’s worth it. My readers pay more for a print copy. I try to make it the best quality I can.Once I’m happy with the proof, I click on the ‘Exit Digital Proofer’ button, and am taken back to the ‘Proof Your Book’ page. At this point I can click on the ‘Approve’ button in the ‘Approve Proof’ box.This gives me a pop-up that lets me confirm the approval, by clicking on the ‘Approve’ button inside the pop-up. If I have any doubts, I can still cancel the process at this point.Clicking on the ‘Approve’ button gives me a second pop-up that gives me a publishing time-frame for all my distribution channels and a chance to give feedback on the process. I can close this box by clicking on the ‘Close Window’ button.This returns me to the ‘Review Proof’ page, where I have the option of continuing to Sales Channels or returning to Project Home. At this point, I can also select the ‘Return to Member Dashboard’ option and start another project, or continue working on one of the others. I can also click on an option to visit my book’s CreateSpace page, and I often do this, so I can click on the Facebook ‘Like’ button there—mostly because I really do like the fact the book has reached a saleable stage.So, there you have it. It’s not scary or difficult to use, but it can be fiddly. If you have no other print option out there, I recommend it. Actually, I pretty much recommend it, even if you do have other print options, but that's just my belief in maximising the outlets for my work. Happy publishing.