Skye Callahan's Blog, page 3

Friday Fives: Favorite Writing Tools

I thought it would be fun, now that I have my blog up and running, to share some of my favorite things. Every week, I’ll be back with a new top 5 list with everything from books to snacks. 

Today, I’m sharing some of my favorite writing tools. 

Atticus

Hello, game changer!

If you want to see my full write-up on Atticus, you can check out my post The Lowdown on Atticus, but when I say it’s a game changer–especially for those of us without a Mac–I mean it. This program has filled the void in my publishing life and streamlined the writing, formatting, and updating process.

Go get ’em, Atticus, check it out.

Airtable

I used to have collections of notes everywhere, a disorganized writing bible in One Note, spreadsheets, word documents, etc. but I’ve been using Airtable to organize all of my ideas and notes for a few months and it’s amazing! I can keep all of my character notes, images, and descriptions in one place and link between multiple spreadsheets. Best of all, you can set up an unlimited number of bases with up to 1,200 records in each for free!

Try it out!

Also, if you’re looking for a quick way to get started, I have a post for that and a template: Creating a Writing Bible with Airtable.

Remarkable

Sometimes, I just can’t get the words to flow unless I’m writing by hand. I have dozens of journals in my office filled with stories and ideas, but I forget which journal has the notes I need and then I have to go through the trouble of typing everything up before putting it all together and editing. Now, that isn’t an issue because I can keep hundreds of notebooks on a single device and automatically convert my handwriting to text and email it to myself. The conversion isn’t perfect, but it saves me a ton of work and stress on my wrists. 

Check it out.

ProWritingAid

ProWritingAid bills itself as a ���grammar guru, style editor, and writing mentor in one package,��� and is aimed at helping authors, editors, copywriters, students and even professionals.

It’s a great way to improve and clean up your writing as you work or before you send it along to your beta team or editors. It’s not flawless, but a very useful tool to have in your arsenal.

Give it a try.

Text-to-Speech

It’s amazing what a difference using text-to-speech can make when you’re rewriting or editing. It helps all of those awkward sentences and typos stand out in a way your eyes might miss.

When I’m working in Atticus, I use a Google Chrome plug-in called Read Aloud. It has a large collection of voices to choose from, including some very natural sounding ones.

Try it out.

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Newsletter Recap, Dec 2

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Friday Fives: Anime

I thought it would be fun, now that I have my blog up and running, to share some of my favorite things. Every week, I’ll be back with a new top 5 list with everything from books to snacks.

Today, I’m sharing some of my most prized autographs.

Noragami

Noragami means “stray god” and follows the efforts of minor god Yato as he seeks to gain fame and get his own shrine. Yato’s kind of lazy and sometimes an asshole, but in a completely lovable way. In the first episode, a human girls tries to save him from being run over by a bus, which leaves with an odd condition where her soul randomly separates form her body. It’s wild and crazy and generally hilarious, so I’ve had it on repeat several times over the last couple of months. It’s great subbed or dubbed, so I’d recommend checking out either version.

Blue Exorcist

This series has popped up in my recommendations several times, but for some reason I was hesitant to give it a try. I’m so glad I finally did!��Rin Okumura and his twin brother were both raised in a monastery with no idea who their real parents are. Rin is a wild child, and one day, he gets into a fight and learns that he’s actually the son of Satin himself and has inherited his father’s powers. Intent on killing his father, Rin joins his brother in following in their adopted father’s footsteps to become an exorcist. The series, while often light-hearted, has its darker moments as Rin grapples with his identity, harnessing his powers, and coming of age as a half-demon. There are two Blue Exorcist series, the second Blue Exorcist: Kyoto Saga actually goes back and negates the ending of the first to follow the manga more closely, so it’s a bit jarring at first, but I thoroughly enjoyed it all.

High School of the Dead

There are zombies! Mixed with the traditional Japanese anime humor and grit as a bunch of high schoolers try to survive the zombie apocalypse. To me it has a bit of a darker Shawn of the Dead feel mixed with Biozombie (a Chinese zombie horror comedy that is classic in my book).

Vampire Knight

This seems to be where my current anime binge started. Somehow I went form zombie movies to this series and its awesome!! Until the end, which left me a little flummoxed. Yuki is a student at a school that doubles as a traditional high school during the day and a kind of college for vampires at night. As a young girl, she was saved by a vampire named Kaname who happens to be vampire nobility, and through the series she struggles with her affection for him and her fondness for classmate, Zero who was orphaned after his family, vampire hunters, was killed by a vampire. I really enjoyed the love triangle through the first season and the tension between the characters.

In Another World With My Smartphone

Sir loves isekai (a genre that revolves around normal people being transported to, reborn or trapped in a parallel universe or fantasy world) and got me hooked on this one. This one revolves around a teen boy who was accidentally killed by God, so to make up for it God sends him to a new world with a ton of magic powers and allows him to keep his smartphone and most of its capabilities. As he ventures around this new world, he quickly becomes a powerful hero, taking on quests throughout the land, and collecting an impressive group of allies (ahem, his harem). Overall, it’s a light-hearted and humorous story, and I’m still angry at Sir for not warning me that the next season hasn’t come out yet.

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#SkyeWriting Black Friday deals for #Authors

Super discounts on stock images, mock ups, visual and text editing software.

If you know of more, use the form below to submit a deal.

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#SkyeWriting: Comparing Print Options

Draft2Digital

Note: Their print program is in beta, but I’ve been using it for a couple of years.

Trim: 5.5×8.5

Pages: 98

Sale Price: 9.99

Unit Cost: 2.36

Royalty: 2.14

Ingram Spark

Trim: 5.5×8.5

Pages: 98

Sale Price: 9.99

Wholesale discount: 55%

Unit Cost: 2.60

Royalty: 1.90

Ingram Spark w/ short discount

Because a lot of authors who decide to publish directly with Ingram choose to offer a smaller wholesale discount to increase profits, I ran the numbers again with a 30% discount.

Trim: 5.5×8.5

Pages: 98

Sale Price: 9.99

Wholesale discount: 30%

Unit Cost: 2.60

Royalty: 4.39

Amazon

Trim: 5.5×8.5

Pages: 98

Sale Price: 9.99

Unit Cost: 2.15

Royalty: 3.84

Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble’s pricing calculator works a little differently, so I couldn’t show a full breakdown from it. Instead, I pulled up one of my finished books to show the printing cost and royalty breakdown. (NOTE: this book is also a different size and slightly longer.)

Trim: 4.25×7

Pages: 110

Sale Price: 9.99

Unit Cost: 2.49

Royalty: 3.00

Here’s their estimated printing cost for an 5.5×8.5 Paperback (51-100 pages): $2.90

But they don’t offer a way to estimate royalties in this fashion and their estimated page count is broad.

What’s the best setup?

That depends entirely on your goals.

If your goal is to make as much profit as possible on each print copy, it appears that using Ingram with a lowered discount is your best option. Using Ingram gives you more control over the finer details like return options and retailer discounts. However, keep in mind you’ll be looking at higher initial costs (ISBN and setup fees) and possibly recurring costs down the road if you ever decide to update any of your files. Publishing with Ingram also offers the widest distribution since most bookstores and libraries order their books through the Ingram catalogue.

The next best options in terms of profit are publishing directly with the retailer. You’ll get a higher profit margin, but your books will be available in fewer places. Barnes & Noble paperbacks are exclusive to their store and Amazon offers extended distribution, but clicking that option drastically cuts into your profit margin. So, it’s best to only count on publishing through a retailer to sell only on their website.

Draft2Digital offers fewer options: you can’t adjust the wholesale discount or manage titles on a microlevel at this point. They don’t seem to offer bleed options if you want images to extend to the edge of the page. And they’re still in beta, so there’s a waitlist to get onboard. But from my experiences, they’re one of the simpler options to use, and offer competitive rates as long as you’re okay with using the standard wholesale discount. Plus, the customer service is top notch and they definitely make an effort to take care of their authors, so you won’t be stuck with a problem and no one to get ahold of. Finally, they distribute to the Ingram catalogue, so you have the benefit of the same amount of exposure. They provide an option for free ISBNs and there are no upfront setup costs or fees to make changes to your files as long as you wait at least 3 months between updates.

This is by no means a comprehensive look at all of your option. There are other print companies with their own distribution systems like Lulu or Blurb, but I hope this gives a general overview of what’s available and the pros and cons you should keep in mind when choosing a distributor.

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The Lowdown on Atticus #SkyeWriting

If you’re like me, you’ve been sitting at your PC for years coveting that magical formatting software available only on Macs. If you ask anyone how they got the beautiful formatting in their ebook or paperback, the most common answer is Vellum. And there’s a really good reason for that: Vellum has been the standout program for achieving professional formatting without requiring in-depth experience or recurring expenses. Those of us who aren’t Mac users, however, have been left to jump through hoops, like renting time on Mac in cloud, or finding another program to fill the void.

Times have finally changed!

Atticus brings the ease of Vellum (and more) to the PC and any other operating system you might be using.

I’ve tried the gambit of formatting options available to PC users from Word to Jutoh to Draft2Digital, and while they all have their strengths, none of them offer everything I’m looking for: ease, accessibility, and total control of the details. So, when I got the offer to sign up for the beta version of Atticus, I had a few reservations. Will it be everything I need? Is it worth the price tag?

Is it too good to be true?

What is Atticus?

Atticus is an all-in-one writing and formatting software that works on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chromebook.

Beta Testing

The program recently had its official launch, but I’ve been using it for a while now since I opted into their beta program as soon as I got the chance.

The first couple of days were glitchy, but nothing more than I expected from a beta version, and the initial program was pretty basic. I could see the vision, but we had a long way to go before we got there. I stuck with it, toying around with the features every couple of weeks and watching as the improvements rolled in. As the program grew, so did my excitement. Yes, there were hitches along the way and one massive moment of panic when I realized I’d somehow lost half of my work. But, the ultimate test of any company is how they handle those moments, and when they calmly responded to my email and told me that their tech team was on it, I relaxed a little. When their next email informed me that the team had restored my work and fixed the problem that caused my chaos, they solidified a life-long customer.

I’m glad I decided to be among the first to take the plunge with the beta and share in the ups and downs, bumps and victories, because I not only got to see this program grow into what it is currently, but I had the pleasure of being part of the process, giving input, sharing in milestones, and witnessing how the amazing team handled every aspect of it all.

Writing

I didn’t expect that I’d use the program much for writing, but I love having all of my work in one place (and I can save backups at any time, just in case the unthinkable happens–again). Plus, they’ve added goal trackers, so I can see how much I’ve written each day across multiple projects, and track how close I am to the goals on each of my individual manuscripts. And, like Scrivener, I have the ability to move chapters around with ease when I don’t write in chronological order. I’m eagerly awaiting the addition of dark mode, but if you prefer writing in a different font like comic sans or a dyslexic font, those options are already available as well.

Editing

Another future integration I’m excited about is the ability to use ProWritingAid right in the editor, but if you prefer editing in Word or need a Word document to send to your editor, you can easily export your project as a docx file.

Formatting

Yes, it’s the holy grail of easy, accessible, and full control formatting.

Built in themes: 17+

Custom headers

Build your own theme

Large Print

Full-bleed images

Full page images

Custom scene breaks

Reusable elements (also by pages, about the author, anything you want)

Drop caps

Lead in small caps

Control font sizing, line spacing, ebook start page, gutters, margins, and more.

With Atticus, I’ve been able to create layouts like this:

And it literally only takes a few minutes after I’ve created the images.

My favorite aspectsIf I need to make adjustments to the front matter or back matter of an ebook, I can open my project from the dashboard, make the changes, and have a new ebook ready to upload in minutes.I can easily change the look of an entire book (or series of books) by modifying my template. After the changes are saved, the updated look will be used for any book with that template the next time I export the ebook. I can control the finer details without having to worry about making sure those details are implemented across an entire project. This is exactly the balance between control and automation I’ve been searching for. Despite all of the images, headers, etc. my Amazon delivery cost for ebooks has remained negligible. I have the ease of online syncing without the need to always be online. Atticus functions differently from any of the other programs that I’ve used because it’s a progressive web app. Although you need internet to import and export documents or change the book you’re working on, you can easily download the program to your computer, open the manuscript you want to work on, and work as long as you like, with or without an internet connection. Once you connect to the internet again, all of your work will be synced up. I can preview the finished look before I export. Practically everything I need is in one place!Their customer service rocks and they’re always listening to the needs of authors.

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Newsletter Recap, Nov 18

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Character Profile: Kaylyn Anderson

Main Character: Darkness Bound Series

Birth name: Kaylyn Shelby Anderson

Hair: long, chestnut brown

Eyes: Dark brown

Age at first appearance: 24

Height: 5���4���

Residence: A single bedroom house on the outskirts of Chatham

Vehicle: Red ’68 Chevelle named Chelle

Education: BA in History from Chatham University

Employment: Aicil Foundation for Research, Chatham Office

Parents:

Siblings: Cole Anderson is her only sister. Although Cole is younger, she tends to be the more organized and level-headed member of the duo.

Characteristics: Turbulent ENTP

Kaylyn is strong-willed and puts on a confident front, keeping most people at arm’s length. She’s notorious for her history of casual relationships which have often interfered with other parts of her life. She struggles to connect with people and events on an emotional level, and often avoids acknowledging her problems.

Although she sometimes comes off as flippant, she takes her work for Aicil very seriously. She has always had a deep interest in the paranormal, and being able to investigate it professionally is a dream come true. Due in part to her background in history and research, she can often uncover documents and minute details that others would miss.

Pet: Frank, a red corn snake

Q&A with Kaylyn

What is your occupation?

Are you even cleared to know about this? Ah well, it’s not like you’ll believe me any other way. I work for the Aicil Foundation, and generally speaking, I research the history of Chatham, Oh–the weird, occult, hearing screaming in the forest when there’s really no one there kind of history. Then, I figure out why, or if, it’s still happening and we try to put a stop to it. I talked my sister into joining up with me, which has its ups and downs, but obviously I need someone to temper my lack of tact on a regular basis.

Do you tend to argue with people, or avoid conflict?

Haven’t you met me? I couldn’t avoid conflict if I were the only person on a deserted island on Jupiter. Actually, I think I’d find even more conflict in that situation because then I’d only have myself to argue with and the only person I disagree with more than Jonah is myself.

How do you deal with pain?

I don’t and that’s 99.9% of my problem. I just pretend it doesn’t exist until I explode on the next innocent bystander��� or my boss. These days, it’s usually my boss, but that’s what he gets for being an arrogant–never mind, let’s not talk about Jonah.

What smells do you associate with your childhood?

Banana pudding! We used to fix it for every family get together. Cole and I would layer the cookies, bananas and pudding, but them Mom would ruin it by adding meringue.

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**First Edition
Different POV from current versions.

Audible

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#SkyeWriting: How Paperback Pricing works

There’s been a lot of talk recently about paperback pricing for a couple of reasons. Several weeks ago, I saw readers and new authors on TikTok discussing how little authors make from paperback sales.

$1-2 on a book that might cost more than $10?

Yep.

And more recently, we’ve had a lot of talk about the recent increase to paperback printing costs due to supply chain issues down the line. Despite only being around a 6% increase in cost, it left a lot of authors scrambling to change their prices so they didn’t end up with royalties in the NEGATIVE.

So, why do authors make so little on paperback sales?

There’s a lot more that goes into a paperback (or hardcover) than an ebook sale because we’re talking about something that has to be physically produced:

Cost of productionRetailer cutAnd finally the author cut

There’s also a bigger risk factor for paperback sales if you want to get your book into brick and mortar stores. If you want to see how it can go really wrong, Marisa Noelle recently shared her story on Twitter of how she now owes Ingram $5K. For most retailers to carry your book in store, they want assurance that they can either make a profit or return the book and get their money back–which means offering an appealing wholesale discount and deciding if you’re going to accept returns and whether those returns should then be destroyed or sent to you.

So, what does all of this mean in terms of paperback pricing and royalties?

Well, right off the bat, you have the cost of production. There’s no getting around this part, and higher page counts mean higher costs, but the type of paper, sizing, binding, and even your font choices (because not all fonts are spaced equally, and over a 80k word book, those minor differences can add up to pages) have an incremental impact on the cost.

My book Entrust comes in at around 39,000 words.

For a 5.5×8.5 paperback, it’s sitting at 98 pages and my production cost is $2.36. Sounds like I should get a good bit of money if I sell it for 9.99, right?

Retailer Cut

Retailers aren’t going to pay full price for a paperback and then turn around and sell it to a customer just to break even. They’re going to take their cut out of this deal as well, which means they’re going to buy the book at a discount.

The Entrust paperback is published through Draft2Digital (and ultimately Ingram) which currently goes by the industry standard “trade discount” of 55%. If you publish directly through Ingram Spark, you can determine the amount of this discount, but again, you have to factor in whether or not you want to appeal to brick and mortar stores which will expect a decent discount.

That retailer discount comes off the retail price of the book. So, any store that buys Entrust can pay as little as $4.49 depending on their contract with Ingram.

So, after their discount, I have 4.49 to cover production costs and my royalties.

4.49-2.36=$2.13 left for me! (Actually D2D calculates it as $2.14 so YAY!)

And when it comes to print copies, that’s the tip of the iceberg.

If you publish directly through Ingram, you must provide your own ISBN and in the US, that’s about $100 a pop. Ingram also has upload and update fees, so when you first publish your book you pay an additional fee. Every time you need to make an update to the interior or cover, there is another fee (some memberships offer discounts to cover these fees, but without those costs can add up fast).

I publish through D2D and have less control over things like the “trade discount” but if I have an issue, I have an awesome customer support team to handle it. Plus, no upfront costs and I can update my files once every 3 months without paying a fee.

Barnes & Noble and Amazon also offer paperback and hardcover publishing and by taking advantage of this you can earn higher royalties for the book on that particular retailer. Expanded Distribution is an option through Amazon as well, so they will list your book for other retailers carry, but this comes at a significant cost to your royalties (and, let’s be honest, how many bookstores want to buy from their competitor?).

Then there’s the issue of returns, which fortunately, I haven’t had to deal with so I don’t have much insight into this aspect.

Offering paperbacks is a widely varied and complex part of the business, and authors definitely deserve a decent royalty for navigating the process after spending months completing the book. If you came into this with no idea of how the process, costs, and royalties work, I hope this was helpful in understanding the current circumstances in print publishing.

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Newsletter Recap, Nov 5

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