M. Lathan's Blog, page 3

The dance. Juggling writing ,editing, dreaming, and checking sales.

Adding the final touches to the second novel in my series, Hidden, has been unexpectedly difficult. I wish I would have waited until I'd written everything and put it all out at once because now I am a slave to the dance.

One step up: I turn on my laptop and my manuscript is staring at me as usual since I never close it. Three steps back: I realize everything I wrote the previous day is heinous and I go at said manuscript with virtual scissors. Two steps up: I undo those changes and paste things I have cut in a new place or in a file to save for when I am a lot less insane.

Progress right? All a part of the process.

But that would be easy. Now, since I've so boldly published my novel on Amazon, I've added a few side steps, twirls, and dips - checking reviews, likes, and sales.

And now I'm dizzy. Now I'm distracted. Now I'm not writing ... because I want to pub and join things and lets not forget that I am first a reader and have purchased some good pickins' I just haven't had a chance to open. And I won't even mention my real job.

So when does the dance end? I've finally figured it out. I do not have superpowers like my character, as much as I would like them, and staring at Amazon and joining a trillion websites instead of writing this darn book will not keep that units sold 'a tickin.

Besides, I can't imagine a more profitable book promotion than putting out more work.

So back to writing. And hopefully reading. I've a few burning a hole in my kindle, just waiting for me  to settle down.

Ebook Cover Pro

I wanted to try my hand in ebook cover making again.
Contrary to what the title suggests, I am not an ebook cover pro. I am a writer who knows my story with the patience to look through hundreds of photos on shutterstock. After shutterstock, I went on pixlr and played around with all the fun tools and the result after some hilarious fails is the image you see above and will see on Amazon soon for the second book in the Hidden Series: Lost.

So some tips for all of the authors out there who have a few bucks to burn on shutterstock to make a cover.
1. Get creative with your search terms. This image comes from a moment in the story where my main character is underwater. I thought about that and searched drowning girl and a few other things. I had many other options to choose from but this one, to me, captured the tone of the novel the best.

2. Take your brand new image to pixlr.com and click the express one.

3. Get to know what each effect does. Even the ones that look crappy. They do really cool things to a photo that don't really come across on the thumbnail.

4. Cropping and rotating helps to find the best and most dramatic angle.

5. Graphic designers have figured something out that make our self-published covers look homemade. First it's fonts and font sizes. Don't go too skinny. Secondly, and most importantly, THEY ARE USING MULTIPLE TEXT BOXES TO CREATE THE ALL CAPS LOOK. Check it out. Make the first letter of your title noticeably larger than the rest of the text, but put them all in caps. So you'll need at least two different text boxes. I almost screamed when I noticed this today. Seriously, I was like Oooooooh.

6. filters are your friend. Have fun with them.

7. Add a border and crop out the sides to add a header/footer look if you're into that.

Happy Cover-making.

Editing

If you write - fiction, poetry, anything - you've probably figured out that the hardest thing to do is not to put the story on paper (or screen). By far, the hardest part of the writing process is EDITING.

I was inspired to write this blog after reading reading a section of my self published book Hidden. Wait ... that should read: Reading a section of Hidden inspired me to write this blog, right? Anyway, so there I am, enjoying my Sunday and scrolling through the book I posted on Amazon a month ago, and I see a fatal error. IT'S instead of ITS. I died. Not really, but I gasped pretty loudly. Over the last month I've seen good sales, hundreds, mostly during my promo days ... but whatever, my goal is to get readers, not millions.

So these readers now think I don't know the difference between it's and its. Wonderful. But that's why I wanted to blog. I've read my manuscript so many times that I fill in words. I can quote it word for word without looking at it.
Prologe. I know why she wanted to kill me .... I could go on. But because of that, errors can hide from me. I suspect this to be the issue with a lot of self published authors. We're not stupid, we're just blind.

Before I published, like literally the day before, I had waaaaay more errors however. By some act of God or whoever you believe in, I thought to get an app to read my manuscript out loud. For under 3 dollars, I got Read 4 Me and Alex read all 106,000 words in two days ... none stop monotone. I almost deleted the book and started over from scratch ... AGAIN.

Don't let Alex fool you into thinking it's boring, or do ... I have zero reviews so my story could very well be a snooze fest, but the main thing to use him for are those little words that you can't see are missing, but you will definitely hear it. I kept track of the errors, and after months and months of editing, after one pass, Alex and Read 4 Me found 104 errors - missing words such as a, the, of (especially when it's after off), my, me, you. NONE over four letters. So watch those, or have someone read them to you. OR a machine like Alex.

Be careful of words that would sound correct even if they aren't, like the wrong their or here. Also words that should be one and mean something else as two, Alex reads those incorrectly ... like you wrote it, but it will sound just fine.

Happy Writing and even happier editing (if such a thing is possible).

M.

New Cover

Doing a little experiment for my new kindle ebook Hidden. Amazon Link. Anyway, added a new cover, one with an actual person as opposed to the graphic of flaming flower I had before. I purchased it from a pre-made site. It feels more in line with the genre - mystical, YA. The experiment is to see if sales increase with a more "eye catching" cover. I'll let you guys know. As for personal satisfaction, I really love looking at it and it gives my book a more professional look, which is what self-published books need in my opinion.

Anyway back to writing.

How I made my ebook cover on my macbook.

After I finished my manuscript (after I finally didn't trash my manuscript when I finished it) it was time to do something fun and scary and completely out of my skill range - make an ebook cover. So I did what every other human would do, I googled: make an ebook cover. Millions of sites popped up. I found a few cool ones that would design it at a price that wasn't too outrageous. The problem was ... I didn't forecast making a truck load of cash from my debut YA novel, so spending a few hundred on a cover was a little much for me. I actually intended to post it for free permanently but accidentally signed up for KDP select in my tizzy to publish. So it will be free in 3 months. Anywhoo, I made a cover on my macbook pro and this is how.

1. I bought an image. Try istockphoto or shutterstock.
2. I downloaded said image to my desktop.
3. I clicked it. (Let me know if I'm moving too fast lol)
4. Clicking it brought up the previewer that came standard on my laptop.
3. Click Annotate. It's under the pencil graphic.
4. Under tools (on your mac options bar at the top of your screen) I clicked Adjust color.
5. I played with it for a little while until I changed the color on the image and the background. You can also adjust more things here. Another option is to open up iphoto and do enhancements.
6. Add a text box. Couldn't find it?  It's at the bottom of the annotate screen. Look again. Right under your photo.
7. The COOLEST thing ever---- change the color on your text and play with the Opacity. Makes it look more professional, doesn't it? (Okay, does it look like a graphic designer made it? Probably not, unless your image is just way cooler than mine, but be proud of yourself. 1. you wrote a freaking book. and 2. you're making your own cover.)

Questions? Comments? No? Then make your cover and be merry, my friend.

Adding book link

Link to amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A...

Pinterest

At the moment, as I take a break from writing book two, I am falling in love with Pinterest. I created a few boards for my characters (those crazy kids in Hidden that I hope readers will be meeting soon). It has been an interesting night, looking for photos that represent my characters or themes in my book. It forced me to think about it on a deeper level. This would have been incredibly useful while plotting. So if you're writing a novel right now, give Pinterest a try. It may help you discover something about your characters that you didn't know or perhaps something you want to add.

On another note, I'm feeling my way through all of these social media outlets, trying to spread the word. Basically, I'm trying to scream:  HEY EVERYONE! I WROTE A BOOK. GO CHECK IT OUT, to as many people as I can. This is harder than it seems --- as I probably write to no one right now, but what the hey, I like writing and do so because ... well ... what else would I do with my time but live in alternate worlds and write about them? It's my passion, so I'll write for my good health forever if it comes to it. However, there is this nagging person on my shoulder who wants others to read Hidden and it is forcing me to join every readers/writers platform out there.

So what's your favorite? Goodreads? YA Central (something I found today)? Twitter? Pinterest? Facebook? Amazon (reviews/shelfari)?

First Posting

Hi there. Thanks for visiting.

I am a spanking brand new author, and I just posted a book on Amazon. *Takes deep breath* I'm super excited about it. It's the first thing that I have ever written (that I am bold enough to put out to the world).
First off, let me just say, hats off to all of those people putting kindle books up. They make the process seem so easy, but it is anything but. Preparing a novel and making sure you put out something worth people's hard on money is a huge job. I really have no way of knowing if I accomplished that or not, but I pray that I have. So here's a little about my book.

It is the story of Christine Grant. As you will see as you get to page one, she goes by a few different names. But basically, we met her at a turning point in her life. She isn't remotely sure of who she is or what she is capable of. She wants to be good, but she struggles with it. I just chuckled. She more than struggles with it. She meets some - uh let's say interesting characters for now - that pull her in both directions. Good and evil. Dark and light. By the end of the last chapter, or possibly the epilogue, I hope I have resolved her internal and external battles enough ... for this book at least.

It is the first of the series, and as word spreads about the book (from my finger tips to God's ears) I will be posting more about the characters and clips from Book Two, Lost, that is in its final stages.

Anywhoo. I hope you like Christine. She's no typical heroine, especially since she could rip your throat out.

The book can be found on Amazon. M. Lathan- Hidden (Hidden Series).
Thanks.