Amber Turner's Blog, page 3

NaNoWriMo 2013 – Final Day Progress Report

There’s only one thing to say:

Yes! My month has been crazy so the fact that I was able to win (with over 51,000 words) anyway is a miracle. I finished my novella and one short story for Grindhouse – I have one story left to go and I anticipate finishing that one either tomorrow or sometime in the first week of December.

Can you guys believe the year is almost over already?! Here’s to a wonderful 2014!

Related articles

NaNoWriMo is complete. Now, possibly, I shall blog once more (dollthermometer.wordpress.com)
NaNoWriMo 2013: What’s next? (kingmakersaga.wordpress.com)
NaNoWriMo: Win! (A Reflection on Wins and Losses This Year) (hiimakestuff.wordpress.com)

NaNoWriMo Progress Report

Here we are at the end of dreaded Week 2 of NaNoWriMo. Frankly, I don’t know why everyone thinks this week is the hardest – I find that this is the time of the month where I’m most in the zone. But that may also have something to do with the fact that I loathe beginnings. I really do. The three years I’ve done this main NaNo event, I’ve barely cracked 1,000 words in the first week.

This year I did slightly better, but I didn’t really begin digging into my first project (I’m doing two – more on that later) until Tuesday. I took off Tues.-Fri. so I could write and I’m proud to say I kicked NaNo ass – my first novella, Good Eats, was completed yesterday at 35,000 words. It will be released around Christmas this year and here is the cover:

and the synopsis:

Good Eats is a 35,000 word novella that tells the story of the Crawford family in 1960s Louisiana.

The Haitian Creole people, their religion, Vodoun, and the rumors of hoodoo rituals have brought esteemed cultural anthropologist Michael Crawford, his nine-year-old daughter Libby, and his Haitian Creole nanny, Virgine Santiago, to the area. Michael’s a skeptic of the Vodoun faith and hoodoo in general until the day his daughter is discovered lifeless at the bottom of a creek. Devastated and unable to let go, Michael makes a deal with the local bokor – bring his daughter back and the bokor’s debts will be paid for life. Two days later, Libby comes back. The question is: as what?

I am in need of beta readers for this story so if anyone’s interested, drop me a line using the contact form at the top of the blog, leave a comment with your email, or email me directly at indiespiritpress@yahoo.com. I need one or two betas who can give me a pretty fast turnaround (like a week) and I’ll be providing a questionnaire with the story so I can direct the feedback. Betas will receive a free copy of the ebook and a mention in the acknowledgements section. Plus – good karma

Now, got to get ready to finish this challenge with three short stories for a collection I’m releasing the end of next month. The cover for that is awesome and I can’t wait for people to see it.

Good luck to everyone participating in NaNo this year!

Poor Editors

Today I got my hands on Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep for the first time – I know, I’m late, but I’ve been busy.

All I can say is, if I had been his editor and he plopped that big ass manuscript on my desk, I would have handed in my resignation the next day. Or, did something like this:

Buyer Beware

I was going to get on here today and write something warm and fuzzy about my writing process for NaNo or the wonderful discoveries I’ve made in the premade cover world of indie publishing, but this morning has turned into an utter nightmare and has really brought my mood way down.

One of the cover designers I’ve recently worked with has been skating on thin ice with me for a while and has just fallen right through it into the murky abyss below. I first contacted this person a few weeks back on a Thursday after stumbling upon this person’s site the day before. I liked a lot of this person’s covers, even recommended this person’s business to other indie writers on Lousy Book Covers, so I read this person’s FAQ section that says they answer all email inquiries they receive in a timely fashion and their turnaround time for premade covers is 24 hours.

Perfect, right? I thought so, so I ordered one for an ebook I had coming out. I did this on Thursday. When I didn’t hear from this person on Friday, not even to say, “Hey, I got your email – I’ll get to your order when your payment goes all the way through” or “Hey, got your email – I’m swamped so I’ll get to it within X amount of days,” I emailed again Saturday night asking to be contacted immediately since I paid for a product on Thursday and had heard nothing from the seller about it. For all I knew, I was sending money to a dummy account and talking to thin air.

Finally, this person gets back to me Sunday and states they received my order, but that the site states they don’t work weekends and it’s obviously a weekend. Never mind the fact that my order was sent on a Thursday, not the weekend. Anyway, this person did give me my cover, along with a snide comment, but I let it slide because this person also claimed to have been ill all week and couldn’t get to a computer. Okay, fine.

Letting this person’s attitude slide was the first mistake. The second mistake was ordering from this person again.

I went back, foolishly, thinking that that experience was probably just a blip – two people who have never interacted before just having different styles of communication. I think that when one is running a business where people are paying you for goods, if you’re going to be out of the office or away from your desk, then putting an out of office message up to let your customers know what’s going on is good service. I do it all the time both at my day job and when writing. But maybe that’s just me.

I ordered two covers from this designer Sunday night, got them Monday morning, and Monday afternoon I sent this person an email asking for a correction to one of the covers. Now, I sent this email because I thought I’d sent one earlier that morning asking for the correction, but checking my sent folder later that day, it hadn’t gone through. So I sent an apologetic email that afternoon saying I was sorry to be spammy (I wasn’t sure if this person had gotten the first message), but could this correction be made. I heard nothing from this person all week. Then, I get an email Friday morning, this person’s newsletter to be exact, and I was stunned. I’d heard nothing but radio silence from this person all week, but you’ve been in your email to send out your newsletter?

I couldn’t believe the rudeness. I’d checked my sent folder again, just to make sure my message hadn’t been swallowed by the iPhone Yahoo mail monster again – it was in my sent box. The message had gone through.

So what am I meant to take away from this? To me, it reeks of unprofessionalism and looks as if I’m being ignored. So I send another email asking where this person is and then ask about future covers, you know, trying to keep the conversation cordial and businesslike. Hours pass and I’m up early into the morning doing research on cover designers and find a few that are cost effective and good. I decide then that I no longer want to be bothered with this other designer any longer so I email asking to be taken off the mailing list.

Well, this morning I wake up to a page-long rant from this person that I stopped reading the minute this person referred to me as “missy.” First of all, no one is going to come out of their face and condescend to me that way. Period. I don’t care who you are and what you do – when I approach you courteously, you approach me in the same manner or don’t approach me at all. It’s that simple.

But in the beginning of this epic rant, this person went on to say they never received the email I “claimed” to send so I forwarded the exact message back and pointed out if the message hadn’t gone through, and this person genuinely didn’t get it, that’s all they needed to say. The nasty and belligerent tone wasn’t necessary. I would have apologized for my mistake and moved on, but I let this person know that their response to me was all the confirmation I needed that I made the right choice in cutting ties with this person.

So the designer sends me another email minutes later with my corrections – and another 50,000 word rant that I didn’t even bother to read. I thanked this person for the corrections and said that once again, they proved how completely unprofessional they were by their response. All this person needed to do was either a) move on (as I did – I wasn’t even expecting to get the correction at this point and figured I’d hire someone else to fix the cover) or b) send me my corrections with no message attached.

This person chose to act like a butthurt three-year-old because I asked to be removed from a mailing list. Now, I could have avoided this entire situation if I had done my homework before interacting with this person. This designer posts on a board I frequent and is constantly getting into Internet skirmishes with people who post things this person doesn’t agree with. I was actually very appalled by this behavior when I discovered it yesterday because if you’re trying to promote your business to indie writers, fighting with them over nonsense isn’t the way to go about it. Again, it smacks of an unprofessional person. If I had seen these posts prior to yesterday, I would have taken my business elsewhere.

The real capper came a couple of hours ago. I’d told this person to stop contacting me, that our business was through. This person sends me yet another email (although, this one wasn’t the length of War and Peace so I guess I should be thankful for small favors) telling me that they are apart of a mailing list of other cover designers and this designer has told them about me, calling me “Rude, unprofessional, and not worth the time,” or some other such nonsense, and then basically threatens me by saying none of the designers in the business will ever work with me. This person then signs off, “Good luck.”

I was livid. I was shaking, I was so pissed, but you know what my response was? “Wow! Very classy.” And that’s it. I couldn’t say anything else or stoop down to this person’s immature level and I’m not going to let someone bring me to that point. It’s not worth it.

Moral of this story? Vet the people you do business with before any money changes hands. Seriously. Save yourself the headache.

Now I’m off to go ogle the beautifully weird cover I just received from another, highly respected indie cover artist this afternoon. It’s awesome and the designer was fast, courteous, and professional. Love it.

UPDATE: The person she was talking about has emailed her once again. The email has been deleted with no response and was not read. We’re looking into blocking the email address from coming to Indie Spirit Press’s account and if we receive anymore unwelcome correspondence after asking said person not to contact this company’s email box again, we will look into filing harassment charges. Internet stalking is NOT okay, folks.

A Call To Arms…Er, Something

I have been incredibly lax about posting here lately, but October was a busy month for me and I anticipate November will be the same. For starters, last month Dark Tales: eVolume One was made free on Smashwords midway through the month and I saw an increased number of downloads for that ebook. It made me step back and take a look at my product more closely. I was getting decent downloads with an okay cover and vague blurbs – but what kind of numbers would I get if I switched out the cover for something professionally designed and posted better descriptions?

Well, I did both toward the end of the month and saw my downloads increase. Then, I took the stories I’d written last month and put them together in a second volume. I wanted to release that ebook collection on October 28 in time for Halloween, but found myself hitting all kinds of roadblocks on the way. Dark Tales: eVolume Two was released two days late instead and I was floored by the response. After two hours of it being live, the collection had tripled my usual daily download rate. And after linking volumes one and two together as a series on Smashwords, both eVolumes quickly surpassed Indie Spirit Press’s other title, Preppy Little Liars, in downloads. Yes, my ebooks are free so that might have something to do with it. And yes, the holiday was probably another big booster. But people were downloading Dark Tales: eVolume One long before Halloween so I don’t think that’s the only reason it’s doing well.

More importantly, my ebooks are now selling on Amazon when they weren’t before. My numbers aren’t huge at either retailer, but I’m seeing a steady increase in sales and downloads so that is a very nice feeling.

But you know what would be better? More downloads. More reviews. More word of mouth. And that’s where you lovely blog readers come in. I’ve been so grateful for the support you’ve all shown me every time I post an excerpt here or a free fiction story – it means a lot to get the comments and blog follows. Unfortunately, many readers won’t know this blog exists or that I exclusively post here so the feedback on this blog doesn’t reach them.

A lot of readers, when looking to purchase books for their ereaders and smartphones, still look for good, quality reviews to help determine if a book is worth their time or not. If I want to reach a wide range of readers (and I do), I need more downloads. I need more reviews. So my plea to those of you reading this post is this: if you’ve read any of the excerpts I’ve posted here for either volume of Dark Tales and enjoyed them, please head on over to Smashwords or Amazon and leave a review. If you haven’t read all of the pieces in either volume, you can still review, just be sure to note that you’re only commenting on the story you did read in your review. And if you’ve read my stuff and aren’t wild about it, still leave a review. I won’t know what needs improvement if none of my readers gives me quality feedback. I write for you guys – I want to know whether or not the stories are resonating with you.

Another thing I’m going to ask is for more downloads. Both volumes of Dark Tales are on Smashwords for free at the moment. I was going to price both at .99 to match Amazon starting November 1, but then decided against it. For one thing, most of you didn’t even know the first volume was free in the first place and I was too busy the day of the second volume’s release to announce it’s free status for the day. So I think I’ll leave both free throughout the month of November to give readers old and new a chance to sample me without investing a dime.

But book covers aren’t cheap (okay, mine kind of are, but that’s for a later post) and the more I write and release, the more those costs add up. Dark Tales: eVolume’s One and Two are on sale for .99 at Amazon as stated above. I think for a collection of short stories, that’s a very reasonable price. What I’m asking of you, dear reader, is if you’ve read my stuff and liked it, please consider downloading the paid copies from Amazon. I know not everyone has a Kindle, but the sales would go a long way in ensuring I can continue to purchase quality covers for the Dark Tales series and any other fiction I decide to publish through Indie Spirit Press.

I also ask that if you know people who love horror or thrillers or general crime fiction, please pass the links to my work along and encourage these readers to download and review. Tweet about the books, post links on your blogs, talk about them in your newsletters – whatever works best for you. And I’d be happy to return the favor for any writer who blurbs me or sends readers my way. Indie Spirit Press is all about writers helping writers whether they are indie published, traditionally published, or somewhere in between (gotta love those hybrids!). Think of all the good karma points you’ll receive if you help get my work out there

Last but not least, if you enjoy the stories posted here by either myself or Amber Turner and you feel the information about self-publishing here is of value, please consider using the donate button over on the sidebar of this blog. You can give as much, or as little, as you’d like. Every little bit helps when it comes time to hire good cover designers and the like. We strive to release good, professional quality content, but that takes a lot of money we don’t yet have. So anything given would be deeply appreciated – and we will look into giving some nice donor gifts to those who offer their support.

Thank you again to everyone who follows this blog and to everyone who reads (and comments on and/or favorites) the stories. Amber will be around in a few days to talk about this year’s NaNoWriMo experience and her second hilarious mystery, Murder at Gilmore Manor. Stay tuned!

Excerpt: Lost and Found from Dark Tales: eVolume Two by Elle Chambers

Lost and Found goes back to November 2012 and is actually a salvaged scene from my scrapped first draft of my first supernatural suspense novel, The Man in White. The novel was set back in the ‘60s and Mr. Jones, my Big Bad (to steal a phrase from the Buffyverse), originally started as a traveling preacher from Georgia with a predilection for brutality—and small children. He’d go from small Southern town to small Southern town, teaching Sunday school classes to children twelve and under, and then when he’d find one that struck his fancy, he’d kidnap and murder him or her. (He wasn’t very particular about gender in my first draft.) My premise became, “What if Mr. Jones tried this on a West Indian child from the Louisiana bayou, right in the heart of hoodoo-land, but the child escaped? And what if this child’s family was connected to primal energy, something old and more evil than Jones himself, and he was made to pay for his crime? And what if after he’s put to death for his sins, he comes back connected to his victim?”

 

It was an ambitious novel to say the least (so ambitious it needed to be split into two books or risk being the length of The Stand) and I really didn’t have a clue how to start so I just wrote the first thing that popped into my head. This is a cleaned up version of that writing session.

 

 

He took the knife and ran it along the edge of his belt. The belt strap was black leather, thick and worn; the scratching sound the two materials made as they came together echoed throughout the deserted room.

 

He ignored the whimpering mass in the corner. Soon, she wouldn’t make a peep. She’d be little more than a blissful memory.

 

But first he would play. Taking her right now, like this, her fear turning her into a defeated mess, was no fun. He needed her to need to live. She wouldn’t, of course, but he didn’t see the harm in letting her believe otherwise. At least for a while. And if she was good, he might consider keeping her around a bit longer.

 

He untied the girl, removing the shackles from her wrists. She looked up at him with wide, watery eyes—he could tell she didn’t know what to make of this.

 

He knelt down beside her and kissed her forehead, relishing in the shiver he felt course through her. He could almost taste her adrenaline on his lips. He took his tongue and ran it across his mouth to really savor his handiwork.

 

“Please,” she whimpered. “Please, Mr. Jones—please let me go. I swear I won’t tell anyone about what happened.”

 

Mr. Jones smiled and ran his hand down the side of her face.

“I can’t do that, darlin’.” His sweet, Georgian accent drawled out the last word and to Josephine’s ears, almost sounded like a song. “I can’t let you go yet. First, I need you to do something for me.”

 

“What?”

 

He placed the knife against her lips and smiled, baring all of his teeth. “Run.”

 

Mr. Jones got up and stepped to the side. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned one shoulder against a wall.

 

At first, Josephine sat hunched on the floor. She didn’t move; she stared at him like he was a puzzle she was trying to work out.

 

He looked at his watch. “Tick tock, tick tock. Time’s a-wastin’.”

 

Sensing this was a trap, but knowing that if she could even risk the possibility of escape she’d take it, Josephine leapt from the floor and raced through the room. The basement was dark and full of old furniture. She could barely see where she was going and nearly tripped over an old coffee table. She strained her ears to hear over the pounding in her head, listening for footsteps. He wasn’t following her.

 

Her legs were weak from squatting on the ground for how many ever days she was chained up. She lost track of time days ago. Or was it weeks? God help her if it was longer than that. Her white cotton panties, the only bottoms she had on, were soiled—he’d forgotten to bring her the bed pan this morning. Or maybe he didn’t forget; maybe he finally decided to kill her after all so there was no need to account for proper hygiene.

 

The memory of him with his hand in her personal places, bathing her with a moist rag, almost made her vomit. She steeled herself. She had to find her way out. But which way was which? And what would she do if she did make it out of what she assumed was his house?

 

A bright yellow light shone in the distance. She squinted through the dark and her blurry eyes adjusted enough to make out something in front of her—a window. It was face level; it was her salvation. She ran harder than she ever ran before and reached up to the pane. It opened from the bottom. All she needed to do was somehow unlock the latches above it and push. She stood on her tiptoes and went to work on her escape, grunting through gritted teeth.

 

The window was stuck.

 

She frantically searched around for something, anything, to stand on. A few feet away sat an old toy chest. She dragged it over to the window and clambered up on it, gripping the windowsill so as not to fall. She continued listening for sounds of Mr. Jones, but didn’t hear anything. For some reason, that unnerved her more than if she’d heard him moving around.     

 

She pounded on the top of the window to loosen it up. Then she grabbed the bottom of the window and pushed. It creaked open and warm tears slipped down her face. She pushed again with all her might, but her tired arms gave out.

 

“Oh, God!” she screamed. She no longer cared about taking the Lord’s name in vain the way her mama warned her not to do.

 

She was going to die if she didn’t get this window open. She knew it as sure as she knew the sky was blue and the grass was green.

 

Josephine took a breath and pushed on the window again, praying for help. The window inched up just enough for her to get her tiny torso through. Steadying herself, she pushed herself up and managed to drag her body out onto the ledge.

 

The window wasn’t that high up from the ground and she was grateful for that small favor. She let herself drop down to the soppy wet grass. It must have rained recently. She didn’t remember rain the day she left school with Mr. Jones, the day he took her wherever he had taken her.

 

She didn’t have time to think about this—she had no clue where he was. He could leap out from behind her like in every horror movie she’d ever seen and stab her with his knife. That thought propelled her forward as if being pulled by an invisible string attached to a speeding car.

 

A car. That’s what that light must have been. Someone’s car passed by and the headlights shone through the window. That meant she was close to a street or highway. She’d run in the direction she remembered the light shining from.

 

She sprinted barefoot through the mud, not minding the goopy mess hitting her exposed legs.

 

“Help!,” She screamed as she got nearer to the break in the woods. “Help me, please!”

 

Her calves burned and her left leg cramped—still, she ran. Her chest hurt from a lack of rest, water, and her constant sobbing. She wouldn’t give up, though. No matter how bad she felt, no matter how long it took, she’d keep going until she found someone to take her home to her parents.

 

The girl stood out on the edge of the woods by the street. She forced herself not to cry when she saw the blackened night with no moving vehicles in sight. Was the earlier car a fluke, a random passerby making their way across the county line, or had she imagined it all along? It was completely possible that after how many ever days she’d been in captivity, she’d begin to hallucinate a savior. Maybe there wasn’t such a thing. God knows Mr. Jones wasn’t one, even though that’s exactly how he portrayed himself to her and her parents when they first met. How someone could be so charming and polite, so sincere and good, how that person could suddenly turn so cruel and evil was beyond her. She couldn’t believe the man who’d been hurting her day after day was the same person who’d helped her with her homework and sat at her father’s table for Sunday dinners.

 

“Help me, somebody!” she shrieked before racing down the street. A cold breeze whipped through her flimsy t-shirt and chilled her to the bone. She didn’t have time to feel embarrassed by her partially dressed state.

 

She needed to find someone before she was found.

 

A flashing light in the distance caught her eye and she sighed, stumbling down the empty road, ignoring the sharp stabs of rock beneath her feet. Josephine found herself drawing near the light and let out a laugh. It bubbled up out of her throat before she could catch it. She was becoming hysterical she knew, but who could blame her?

 

The flashing stopped when she approached the end of the street. Her eyes, blurred from tears and strain, narrowed to better see into the night. She saw a ravine, but no car. Her eyes darted to her left and she choked on a sob.

 

Mr. Jones stood beside a black sedan with an open trunk.

 

“No.” She dropped to her knees, burying her face in her hands.

 

For a moment, his face almost appeared concerned. Quickly, the look vanished and a grin played across his lips.

 

“Aw, darlin’—don’t cry,” he said, his voice low and calm. “It was a good effort.”

 

The girl’s frail frame convulsed as she doubled over, sobbing. He’d led her into a trap. Worse—she knew it when she ran. And now the chase was over.  

 

“Oh, sweetie—please get up.” Mr. Jones lifted her off the ground by her shoulders. She had no fight left in her to protest. He cupped her chin in his rough hand, pulling her body flush against his. “I want us to be close when it happens,” he whispered.

 

Josephine stared up at him with blank eyes. She was frozen; a statue. Her mind and body shut down, which was for the best she thought. Then panic seized her when she realized that was probably the last thing she’d ever think again.

 

 

Mr. Jones whistled a jaunty tune, swing maybe, as he carried a sheet-covered body to the trunk of his car. A fresh red stain pooled in the middle of the bundle. He gently laid the girl in the trunk, bending over to kiss the spot her forehead used to be. He hadn’t meant to mess up her face. Shame—he loved her face. It was so…open.

 

He said a quick prayer for the young girl, then tossed in his blade beside her. He slammed the trunk shut and resumed his song. It was definitely swing.

 

The hunger had been abated when they shared her last moments together, but now he felt the throbbing right below his navel resume. He was disappointed. This meant he’d have to get to another town as soon as possible and another town meant more risk.

 

He climbed into his car and drove into the woods. Tossing Josephine in the ravine would have been too easy. He didn’t want anyone to find her until he was clear of Indian Hills. Sure, he hadn’t given anyone any reason to suspect him of wrongdoing, but he didn’t want to overestimate his own intelligence and underestimate that of the townsfolk. They might have been out in the middle of South Bumblefuck and Hillbilly Hell, but not everyone around here was an idiot. People would talk. His absence so soon after Josephine’s death would raise concern. He needed to put her some place no one would find her for days.

 

When he got far enough in the woods to where he was confident animals wouldn’t scavenge the remains (and how strange it was for him to think of his sweet girl that way), Mr. Jones removed her from the safety of the car’s trunk. He found a semi-dry patch of land and laid her out. He removed the sheet and tossed it by the wayside. He wanted people to see his work. Obscuring it seemed like sacrilege.

 

Gazing down at what was left of Josephine Harvey, he wondered what she was thinking at the climax. Was she scared? Did she hate him? Was she thinking about her parents and sister or was he the only one on her mind? It bothered him that he’d never know the answer. Maybe he should have had her talk to him during. Well, she couldn’t really talk through all that screaming, he supposed, but maybe if he’d let her say something before he put the knife to her throat he’d know for sure.

 

The unknown would stay with him long after the memory of her faded. He’d feel that loss for quite some time, he was sure of it. And this town didn’t know it yet, but they too would soon feel that loss.

________________________________________

Dark Tales: eVolume Two will be released via Amazon and Smashwords October 31st for free until November 1st.

Dark Tales: eVolume One by Elle Chambers FREE On Smashwords until Nov. 1st!

Halloween is almost here and in honor of the holiday, Indie Spirit Press is making Dark Tales: eVolume One by Elle Chambers FREE on Smashwords.

Dark Tales: eVolume One is a micro collection of short, dark stories. The collection includes three tales:

“When Daddy Comes Home”: When Opal Brown’s husband leaves her for another woman, she doesn’t get angry – she gets determined to keep her family together at all costs. They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and Opal plans to make him a meal he’ll never forget.

“Child’s Play”: Maggie is worried about her five-year-old son after his father’s death. Max seems oddly detached from the tragedy and has invented a young friend named Edgar he talks to in secret in the middle of the night. Most kids his age have imaginary friends so Maggie tries not to be concerned – that is, until Max confides in her his young friend is actually an adult who comes to play with him when his mommy is sleeping.

and

“The Storyteller”: Elizabeth’s house has been on the market for weeks with no interest. One day, an old woman with a dead hand appears on her doorstep asking to see the place. As they tour the house, Elizabeth gradually becomes uncomfortable with the woman’s familiarity of both the house and of her since she’s never laid eyes on the old woman before in her life. Or has she?

The Great E-Book Cover Poll

Which cover would make you stop and read a sample? Post your votes/thoughts in the comments below!

Cover One

Cover Two

Cover Three

Before You Self Publish….

Research the indie market. Go on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. Study the covers of the books in the genre you write in and take notes on font use, kerning, color, imagery, aspect ratio, and titles. Ask yourself the following questions: Is the cover well designed or does it look DIY? If it does look less the professional, what changes could be made to make it better? Does this cover make me want to read the blurb or sample pages? Why or why not? If you read the blurb, does the cover adequately convey what the book is about? Then do the same thing with the blurb. Read it and then ask yourself: Is the blurb compelling? Do I want to read more? Do I care about the story being presented? Why or why not? Also, take a look at the prices of these books so you can get a feel for what other indies are charging for similar products. You don’t want to lowball yourself, but you also don’t want to set the price so high that no one will buy it, either.

Once you’re done researching the indie market, research the traditional market. Go back to the aforementioned distributor’s websites and study the covers, blurbs, and prices of traditionally published books in your genre. Ask yourself: Can my cover sit next to these covers on a virtual bookshelf and be virtually unrecognizable as a self-published novel? Is my blurb as enticing as the ones written by a professional sales team or could it use some work? Is my price too high or can it be lowered and still compete with other reasonably priced ebooks?

You don’t have to know all of these things ahead of time, but it will save you some time in the long run if you’re aware of what’s out there and what the public is buying. Pay attention to keywords and metadata while you’re at it (this is something I’m still working on myself and trying to get right – maybe with the next book?).

Make a business plan. We’d all like to be overnight success stories, but for many of us, that won’t happen. So think about where you want to be in five to ten years and plan for that. Make a budget for each book and/or short story that you plan to publish and try to stick to that budget if you can. Then figure out what you would like to be making per hour as a writer (this will be different for everyone) and calculate how many books/short stories/nonfiction articles/whatever you need to write and sell to make that money. Figure out how much money you’ll spend each year (and again, this will vary depending on each individual’s production schedule) and how long you have to write to break even, and then turn a profit.

I also can’t stress enough: plan for emergencies. My planned production schedule for 2013 was cut down from three complete novels and some short stories to one novel  and short stories because I wound up getting slammed with medical bills for a then undiagnosed stomach issue (I’ve since discovered I have celiac disease and a lactose intolerance) – I couldn’t afford to buy three covers, pay for editing, etc. Things happen sometimes and you have to have a backup plan (and a cash cushion) for when they do. You don’t want to derail your momentum.

Build a readership. A blog isn’t enough. From my own experience, I can tell you that 90% of the people who read this site aren’t average readers – they’re writers. And while I appreciate the eyeballs, other writers aren’t likely to buy (and read) my book. Same thing with Twitter. Most of the people who follow the @indie_spirit account are writers. 99% of my daily feed are tweets from those writers hawking their own novels. How likely is it that any of those people are going to see similar tweets from me about my book or Elle’s micro fiction collections (she has another one due out at the end of the month) and go purchase them?

Not very. Writers need to go where the actual readers are. There are many places online that people can post their complete stories or works in progress like FictionPress or Wattpad. There are online magazines and anthologies looking for everything from flash fiction to serials. If you prefer to venture outside of the interwebs for an audience (or if you want to do it in conjunction with online writing), there are many reputable short story markets you can send your work to. Wait times vary as does pay – some publications pay up to $700 for an accepted piece, others don’t pay at all or they only pay in contributors copies, but writers license their work with these pubs anyway for the increased visibility. Whatever avenue best meshes with your long-term plans is the one you should take.

Blogs aren’t completely useless either. They can reach readers if the writer in question does more than self-promote 24/7. Releasing free fiction on your site is a good way to get a following started, posting excerpts from published novels, maybe even doing an exclusive serialization will make your blog an attractive destination for non-writing readers. Experiment – see what works best for you. The more eyes you can get on your work prior to self-pubbing your own books, the better your novels will do sales wise. Do you need to have ten thousand Twitter followers to get on a bestseller list or have decent sales? Not really, but it doesn’t hurt. People are creatures of habit and comfort – we tend to seek out things that are familiar to us. If we already know an author and like her work because said author posts free stories on her blog every week, we’re more likely to read something else she puts out later on and may even pay for it!

Finally, read more. And more importantly, read books in the genre you plan to write in. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across writers who’ve said they either don’t read at all or they don’t read in the genre they’re writing in. My mind boggles every time I hear that. How in the world can you expect to understand narrative structure if you don’t read? And if you’re writing genre fiction that relies on tropes to work, if you don’t read the genre, how will you know what they are and whether you’re doing anything new or interesting with them? You don’t have to read five hundred books a year to be a writer, but you do have to read something. The more you read, the more ingrained in your brain the storytelling process will become and that will ultimately make your writing cleaner, clearer, and easier.

*Please note that all points above are opinions based off my own (admittedly brief) experience as a self-published author. Feel free to ignore the points you don’t agree with. Publishing is not one size fits all and there are certain things that will work wonders for one writer and fail horribly with another. Use your best judgment when seeking advice or help of any kind.*

Question Corner: How to Become Your Own Publisher

Dear Indie Spirit Press:  

I’ve just finished my first novel after years of writing short fiction and I’m not sure whether I want to send the manuscript out to agents. In fact, I’ve been reading some blogs that have suggested self-publishing may be the way of the future and so I’m thinking of bypassing a traditional publisher altogether. Can you tell me how much it costs to become your own publisher and to produce your own books?

- Newbie Ned

First of all, congratulations on completing your first novel! That’s very exciting. No matter what you ultimately decide to do with it, celebrate the fact that you did something many people dream of doing and never manage to accomplish.

Now – this question is very complex because the truth is, it’s different for everyone. Some people can indie publish and spend little to no money and others have to, or choose to, spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to get their work out to readers. We’re going to talk about the different steps of self-pubbing and the many ways you can try to make this cost effective if self-publishing is the avenue you choose to take with your manuscript.

1.       Find some good first readers to critique your manuscript. This is extremely important as you need to know before you put out any money to publish whether or not this manuscript is publishable. What we mean by that is, does the story work on a base level? If it doesn’t, you will need to find a way to rework the draft so it does. Readers will forgive spelling errors and grammatical slips if the story behind these mistakes is a good one. If the story is severely flawed or flat out nonsensical, readers will be less forgiving. You want to make the first best impression on readers you can so get some betas, preferably people who know your genre well, and find out where your story falls apart (if it does at all).

2.       Research distributors. Not all self-publishing outfits are created equal. Some are so expensive they might as well be vanity publishers, which is a means of distribution you want to avoid at all costs if you want to be taken seriously as an author and have a career. The biggest print distributor of self-published works at the moment appears to be Amazon’s CreateSpace. Lulu was pretty popular for a while, but we haven’t heard much from indie authors on them, good or bad, for quite some time.

Anyway, there are also outfits like BookBaby that state they will do everything from cover design to marketing for the self-published author so the author doesn’t have to. Personally, we don’t recommend these types of distributors because a lot of the things they charge authors for, like formatting, are things the author can learn to do himself if he takes the time to learn the functions of Microsoft Word.  Our philosophy is that the indie author should try to keep costs to a minimum, especially if the author intends to publish more than one book a year, and do as much as you can on your own. We don’t even recommend using CreateSpace’s design or marketing services, assuming you choose to go with them as a distributor, because most of their additional services are ridiculously overpriced.

However, CreateSpace is free for authors to use. Yes, that’s right – free. If all you want is your print novel in Amazon’s online catalog and your own separate e-store to sell books, all you have to do is upload your manuscript to CreateSpace, fix any formatting errors their system may find, proof your final document and press publish. You will now have standard distribution of your work through Amazon for free. If you would like to see your print book in other online retail stores such as Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, or The Book Depository, CreateSpace charges you a fee of $25 per title. Cheap, right? It’s a pretty good deal if you ask us.

If you are asked to spend more than this for trade paperback books from a self-publishing unit, we would strongly advise you to reconsider. You are the author – money should be flowing to you, not away from you. And run (don’t walk) away from any company claiming to help you self-publish and distribute your books in exchange for rights to your work. Self-publishing means all rights remain with you the author, NOT the distributor.

3.       Hire help. Now, if you decide to self-publish but you know that you don’t have the time to edit, format, design, and do layout all on your own, you can always farm out this work to a professional. But like we said above – you want to do this in the most cost effective way possible. Most first novels will not earn back the money spent on them right away so never put out more money than you’re willing to lose. With that said, there are some very talented freelance editors, designers, formatters, and public relations gurus out there looking for work.

Take the time to make a budget of how much you want to spend producing your novel, then get online and check out other indie published books. When you see covers you really like, check the credits or the front matter of the book to see if a designer/illustrator is listed. If so, Google that person and try to find an online portfolio of their work (many graphic designers will have this available on their own sites). Make a list of your top designers, then ask the authors they’ve worked with for references. You want to know how fast this person is, how much they cost, how willing they are to listen to ideas and how well they take direction, how many cover choices will you get to choose from, what their refund policies are, etc.  Then once you’ve figured that out, do the same thing for editors, formatters, etc.  

If you can do any of these things listed above yourself, do it. We know there are writers out there who are also graphic designers by trade or work as editors or copy writers. Think about what you can reasonably accomplish on your own given your time constraints and then make sure your skills are at a professional level before you proceed. You want your final product to be able to stand next to traditionally published novels.  If you’ve only been playing around with Photoshop for a week, you may want to have someone else step in and help you with your cover design.

Good freelance designers can be found online for as little as $20 or $40 and if you write YA, chick lit, or mysteries, we highly recommend you contact designer Allison Marie for help. She charges $60/hour for cover design, works fast (she finished the Preppy Little Liars cover in a few hours), and also designs other author must haves like Web site graphics, bookmarks, and business cards.

As far as editing goes, we’ve said it before and will say it again: if an editorial service is asking you to pay two cents a word or more for basic line editing, run in the opposite direction. Unless the editor in question has edited multiple New York Times bestsellers and has worked with traditional publishing companies, they have no business charging those prices to independent authors for their services. Do the math: if you have a 60,000 word manuscript and you’re being charged two cents per word, you’re looking at over a thousand dollars for one book. Now, if you have a substantial savings account, a rich spouse, or a trust fund, that price might not seem so outrageous to you.

But if you don’t have those things and your budget per project is modest, we suggest you get creative about having your manuscript edited. For example, if your local newspaper or magazine has a copy editor and proofreader (or someone who does both), why not reach out to the editor and ask if he wouldn’t mind looking over your work for a small fee? Then offer to pay him a reasonable wage that is within your budget. The worst that can happen is he says no. If that happens, there are free critique sites like Critique Circle where you can put your novel up, chapter by chapter, and get edits from fellow writers. And if you’re willing to pay a small fee, Critique Circle will allow you to have your own private reading queue where you can invite a select group of people to read your WIP without the general CC audience being able to see it.

As you can see, Newbie, there are many things you have to consider if you decide to go the self-publishing route (and this post didn’t even cover half of it!). But if you’re smart, and willing to put in some legwork, self-publishing your novel doesn’t have to be expensive. Amber Turner’s first novel Preppy Little Liars only cost $210 to produce – that is $150 for the cover, $25 for CreateSpace’s expanded distribution, and $35 for her copyright. We spent a whopping zero dollars producing Dark Tales: eVolume One by Elle Chambers. Her cover was designed by a writer/artist friend in exchange for future editing services and a photo credit.

If you want to learn more about self-publishing, we recommend you check out Dean Wesley Smith’s site for more in-depth information. Happy reading and good luck!