Maegan Provan's Blog, page 6
November 11, 2015
Common ground, common sense, and one view of self-publishing
I recently read a blog post by Tahlia Newland entitled “Opinion: The Core Problem with Self-Publishing is Quality Assurance.” The post was well thought out, actually, and there was a lot that I agreed with her about. However, my one big issue was her solution: having self-published authors submit their work to big publishing houses for their opinions before publishing to determine whether the book is “good enough.”
Ms. Newland suggests that every self-publishing author submit their book to publishers and await feed back before deciding whether to publish or not. Her reasoning is that 10% of books submitted to publishers were well written, but not good enough for the publisher to sell, so if you’re lucky enough to have your book fall under that category, then you “deserve” to self-publish. I have a problem with that.
When did self-publishing become about who deserves to be out on the market and who doesn’t? I mean, let’s take a look at E.L. James. Her books are laughably terrible, poorly constructed, and worse than a majority of what is on the self-publishing market. However, E.L. James has become an international best seller and she was deemed good enough to fall in to the 5% of authors worthy of being picked up by a publisher. Just looking at her, do we really want to allow the traditional publishing houses to dictate the self-publishing market? Are their opinions really gospel? Hell no.
There are tons and tons of self-publishing authors who probably shouldn’t be releasing their material. First drafts and hack jobs that certainly need to be revised are more than common. But who are we to tell these people to stop doing what they love? Is crap work saturating the market? Sure! But it is not my place, it is not anyone’s place, to tell these people to stop. There are a few exceptions to this rule (hate books being towards the top of that list), but there is not a self-publishing police, nor should there be.
My friend Tricia always says that regardless of how crappy a book is, we should respect the fact that that author had the courage to share a part of their inner being with the world. Being mentally prepared to take people’s negative opinions and get over the fear of being a failure takes a lot of moxie that many people don’t have. They fear rejection. We all do. But when you are self-publishing, you’re saying to the world that you don’t accept that fear. That’s really something.
I have found several rotten books in the self-publish bunch, and that sucks, but if we continue to further the “all self-published books are terrible” ideal, we are not doing ourselves any favors. By relying on the opinions of traditional publishing houses, we are telling all of those people that think self-publishing is a joke that they’re right. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to validate an opinion like that.
November 6, 2015
Feel Like A Fraud? Give Imposter Syndrome The Middle Finger!
Originally posted on Sacha Black:
Does anyone else struggle to celebrate success? Maybe you ran a marathon, got a new job, published your first book, or even your third? Did you celebrate? Or like me, did you brush your last achievement under the carpet? And no, sending a text to tell a friend, sitting down to have a cupper or casually dropping into conversation you latest accomplishments does not constitute a celebration.
So why do we do it? Why are so many of us completely incapable of accepting praise, or internalising our achievements and attributing them to hard work and a bit of sweat rather than ‘luck’ or external factors?
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Into the woods
Originally posted on Suddenly they all died. The end.:
For today’s Writing 101 challenge, we were asked to write something based on one of four images. This is the one that spoke to me:
What follows is a sneak peek at the second book in The Lokana Chronicles, which is still in need of major revision. I hope you like it anyway. :)
***
Anna stumbled on a tree root. Her backpack flew from her shoulder and landed somewhere off to her right as she went sprawling forward and landed on her stomach. Groaning, she pushed herself up slowly, rising to her feet from a squat. She brushed the dirt and leaves from her clothes as she scanned the area for her backpack, but it was nowhere to be found.
With no flashlight to help her see, she gave up on finding her bag and took a step forward, causing her leg to throb. She explored her leg with her…
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October 30, 2015
When the Lights Go Out – In Print!
Originally posted on Amaranthine by Joleene Naylor:
Thanks to several requests, the Ink Slingers’ Anthology When the Lights Go Out is now available in paperback! You can get all the spooky/Halloween goodness for your bookshelf!
When the Lights go Out is a collection of twenty-five short stories just in time for Halloween. Enjoy thrills, chills, and mysteries. Meet ghosts, demons, vampires, and monsters everywhere from dark city streets to the English countryside. Scares lurk in the most unexpected places and, when the lights go out, no where is safe and no one will be spared.
Of course, you can still get it FREE from ebook retailers:
Smashwords | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Apple iBooks | Amazon
And read great stories like:
Midnight Summons by Tricia Drammeh
Karen has been a medium for a long time and she’s seen it all. Until now. A late night phone call summons her to…
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October 16, 2015
Claiming It
Originally posted on Tricia Drammeh:
Before I read these two inspirational and thought-provoking posts by Kristen Lamb (hereand here), I had been doing some serious thinking about my life as a writer and as a person. Or, more specifically, I had been doing a lot of thinking about how I’d abandoned my own writing in order to make everyone and everything else a priority.
If you’re a follower of this blog, you’ve probably read my previous posts about balance and prioritizing writing. As I’ve said before, balance is always going to be an issue. Not just for me, but for everyone. We’ve all got families, day jobs, animals, and other responsibilities that take up a great deal of time. There’s always an illness or a crisis or something to derail our plans or offset our goals. For me, major depression often steals my motivation and robs me of the ability to prioritize anything…
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October 15, 2015
Three Reasons Your Writing Career is Stuck
This is great! I definitely needed to read this.
Originally posted on Kristen Lamb's Blog:
Original Image via Flickr Creative Commons, courtesy of Mike Spasoff
Writing is a uniquely difficult profession for more than a number of reasons. There are a lot of things we could have chosen to do that would have been easier. For instance, discovering life on Mars, developing telepathy, or inventing gluten-free dairy-free calorie-free carb-free pizza that smooths wrinkles the more slices you eat.
:D
There are days that even I go. Really, Kristen? You HAD to be a writer? You could have been a brain surgeon by now.
Then my muse comes back and says, “What? And take the EASY way out?”
Me and my Muse
This is a tough tough job and I am here to let you know…
It never gets easier.
Ever.
It’s like Space Invaders. It just gets faster and faster and harder and harder…until you DIE.
Or give up.
You’re welcome.
This is why we…
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October 14, 2015
Events, Contests, and more!
Right now, this very moment, Joleene Naylor is hosting a week long celebration of “The Amaranthine Series”, one of the most original vampire series out there today. There are giveaways, jokes, conversations and more much more. Fans are gathering together to share their love of Jorick, Katelina, Verichel, and all of the other awesome characters. It is not too late to join in on the fun. Click here
Another exciting thing starting tomorrow and running through October 22nd is that I am giving away 5 digital copies of Becoming Night Touched: The Collection. All of the story of our main character brought together in one place for you to enjoy! Get your entries in starting tomorrow.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
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October 9, 2015
Conversations with Joleene Naylor
Originally posted on Rami Ungar The Writer:
I think this interview has been a long time in the making, and I’m glad it’s finally happened.
Today’s author is a woman who you might have seen commenting a lot on this blog. She’s an author of several vampire novels, as well as a contributor to Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, and a contributor/editor/compiler/whatever to the Ink Slingers’ anthologies, including Strange Portals and the recently published When the Lights Go Out. It’s Joleene Naylor, and I’m looking forward to hearing what she has to say!
Welcome to the blog, Joleene. So tell us, what are your short stories about and what inspired them?
Unforgotten is about a pair of old school chums in the UK who go on an annual trip every year on the same date. This years’ trip is complicated by Gordon’s missing wife and the ghost of a little girl who wants to be found…
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September 29, 2015
Does @Amazon Really Have the Self-Publishing Author’s Best Interest in Mind?
We’ve all had that one author friend that has had trouble with Amazon, and thought that maybe their issue was just a fluke. Then we hear about it from another author, and another. How can Amazon be affecting so many authors? Surely, we‘ll be okay. Then it happens to us.
I am hearing more and more lately about authors having one issue, or another with the Distribution King of the self-publishing industry. They know that as self-publishing authors, we come to them because ewveryone uses Amazon, the biggest ereader is the Kindle, and we rely on them to cover the bulk of our distribution. We could rely on the other platforms, but we know that we won’t get near the exposure. They use those facts to toy with not only us as authors, but our livelihood as well.
Personally, my biggest issue with Amazon has been pricing. I have two permanently free short stories that have had their prices changed 3 different times now. The stories are free on every other platform, including Barnes and Noble. The first (and second) time the prices were modified, Amazon’s excuse was that they reevaluate the price every so often to ensure accuracy. Um, really? If the stories are free literally everywhere else, then your price is not accurate. The third time, however, I had to write them and get serious. I was (surprisingly) responded to pretty quickly and the issue was resolved. But how long before it happens again?
I have to, of course, go back to my feud with a certain ertoica self-pub author. I don’t like to dwell on it, but I honestly learned a lot from that situation. During the worst of our fight, she had the nerve to use my name and my first novel as tags on her books. Whenever you searched “Maegan Provan” or “The Night Touched Chronicles” her name and that book came up. If you searched for her, my book came up. I spent almost two weeks on the phone with Amazon fighting about it. They said that she needed to call in and tell them why she had used me and my work as tags, and it became a huge mess. Now it’s resolved, but they made it a lot harder than it should have been.
The worst horror story from the crypts of Amazon comes from author Elaine Raco Chase. She recently had a flood of new reviews for her book appear on Amazon. 148 new reviews to be exact. Like any author, to see a sudden intake of reviews is thrilling. Once Ms. Chase started looking at the reviews, she saw that all of her new fans weren’t really her’s at all. The new reviews were actually for a non-fiction work that happened to have its wires crossed with her book. She contacted Amazon and they were quick to help her. Except, of course, that they took 10 legitimate reviews when they cleaned house, leaving Ms. Chase short and those readers without an opinion on her book. She has attempted to contact Amazon multiple times to resolve the issue, and now they’re basically refusing to help. In fact, they’re threatening her. The latest communication from Amazon was this:
If you can’t supply us with the direct link to the missing 10 reviews we can’t help you. Please do not contact us about this problem again.
What the hell, Amazon? I do not know a single author (at least not personally) that would sit and bookmark their reviews. How the hell is she supposed to directly link them to something when she doesn’t know where they moved it to? It is not the author’s responsibility to ensure that Amazon’s website functions the way that their coders wrote it to function. It is not the author’s responsibility to bookmark every single review they get. Please name one author, game developer, clothing designer (etc.) selling on Amazon today that does that. And how dare their customer service talk to an author like that. Do you know what would happen to a customer service rep that spoke to someone with Harper Collins, or Penguin, or Random House (etc.) like that? They would be fired!!
Just because we do the work ourselves does not make us any lesser than the big houses. To be completely honest, I think that we’re a lot more important than those companies. That might be a bold statement, but hear me out. Those big publishing houses have departments for marketing, cover design, editing, and even the actual process of publishing. We do all of that ourselves. We do not, and cannot rely on anyone else or nothing would get done because we are self published. I think that makes us pretty damn important.
So what can we do? Too many of our readers are comfortable and familiar with Amazon. If we cut ties, we would be alienating a whole group of readers. Amazon is close to running a monopoly on the self-publishing industry and they know it. Barnes & Noble can’t really provide too much of a competition because the Nook is not widely used. They don’t have a stable footing in the ereader field. As long as we continue to self-publish, even directing people to other sites like Smashwords, Kobo, and the others, there is still a Kindle format, which means that Amazon is still getting some cut of the profits. A good portion of self-publishing authors offer print books, which can be created and distributed at no upfront cost through Createspace, which is owned by Amazon. We’re kind of stuck. We can’t exactly stop publishing our books, that would be counterproductive.
It would be nice to see at least one big name company have some level of concern or care for self-published authors. It would be nice to know that we are not considered second rate authors that only self-publish because we can’t get picked up by a traditional publishing company. We are just as valuable as the big wigs, like Laurell K. Hamilton, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling (etc.) and we deserved to be treated a lot better than we are.
Do you have an Amazon self-publishing horror story? What are your thoughts? Comment below. Don’t forget to like and reblog, because I would greatly appreciate it!
Pre-Orders and Verchiel
Oh my gosh!! A couple of announcements from the fantastic Joleene Naylor!!
Originally posted on Amaranthine by Joleene Naylor:
If you missed the last Ink Slingers’ Anthology (Strange Portals), the included installment of the Tales of the Executioners – Verchiel – is now available as a standalone! Get your free copy from:
Smashwords
Barnes & Noble
Apple iBooks
Kobo
Verchiel wakes up in an unfamiliar room with a busty woman standing over him. He can’t recall who she is – or even who he is – let alone how he’s become an immortal blood drinker. As he tries to discover the answers, he must also learn to control his blood lust or fight an entire village of panicked people.
On a side note, the newest Tale is Beldren, which you’ll be able to get in the newest anthology, whose release date is October first.
And speaking of release dates in the future, Book 8, Masque of the Vampire,(publication date April 1st) is now up for pre-order at…
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