Jason A. Cheek's Blog, page 15
March 1, 2015
Leonard Nimoy, the passing of a great man
I was shocked to hear about Leonard Nimoy’s passing as I headed home Friday night, February 27th, 2015. My first thought was Sci-Fi lost a great hero. My second thought was to think how much Leonard Nimoy’s acting through his character Spock on Star Trek and the many other shows he played in changed my life. Leonard left his mark on multiple generations around the world, inspiring scientists and engineers that made the Sci-Fi of his day a reality that we now live in many ways. Not only in this way did Leonard Nimoy change the worlds, but through his acting with his character Spock he taught the world that intelligence was cool. He wasn’t just the hero to a generation of geeks, but a fighter for his beliefs in feminism and opposition to prejudice.
For me personally his characterization of Spock taught me valuable lessons on life, expanded my mind and pushed me to become a better person. Being a “latch-key kid”, a gamer and a geek, Spock was one of my personal heroes while growing up and affected my life on so many different levels. Leonard Nimoy was in many of the TV shows and movies that were personal favorites of mine and marked generations of hackers, gamers and Sci-Fi/Fantasy fans through shows like Star Trek, The Outer Limits, Mission Impossible, The Twilight Zone, In Search of …, World of the Unexplained Museum, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Ancient Mysteries, narrator of Civilization IV and so many more. It sounds crazy that an actor could have had such a major impact on so many lives and generations of people around the world, but none the less it is true.
Leonard Nimoy’s personal message of sharing such as “The miracle is this. The more we share, the more we have” and his work of giving back to the community throughout his life is another sign of his remarkable character.
For me personally his characterization of Spock taught me valuable lessons on life, expanded my mind and pushed me to become a better person. Being a “latch-key kid”, a gamer and a geek, Spock was one of my personal heroes while growing up and affected my life on so many different levels. Leonard Nimoy was in many of the TV shows and movies that were personal favorites of mine and marked generations of hackers, gamers and Sci-Fi/Fantasy fans through shows like Star Trek, The Outer Limits, Mission Impossible, The Twilight Zone, In Search of …, World of the Unexplained Museum, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Ancient Mysteries, narrator of Civilization IV and so many more. It sounds crazy that an actor could have had such a major impact on so many lives and generations of people around the world, but none the less it is true.
Leonard Nimoy’s personal message of sharing such as “The miracle is this. The more we share, the more we have” and his work of giving back to the community throughout his life is another sign of his remarkable character.
February 27, 2015
How much should you alter your writing style and story idea to fit your audience
Before I get started with today’s blog, I just wanted to give a quick apology for my recent absence for the last two weeks. I had to recertify on my VCP certification and I had to focus on that first and foremost … at least for those couple weeks, but now that’s finished and I’m back to writing and blogging once again.
Before I started writing I’d always thought this was a pretty straight forward concept. If you’re a writer then you right for a certain genre and that was it, but once I started writing I realized this was much more complex then I’d ever imagined. Hell, I wasn’t even aware of all of the subcomponents of Sci-Fi and Fantasy until I had to self-publish my first book, but then I’ve never been much for titles and names of things unless it truly was needed for the function. Maybe that’s my Geek/IT mentality, but either way I learned there was more to this then I’d ever thought.
Some good examples of this are The Dark Elf Series, The Dresden Series, The Demon Accord Series, Natural Consequence Series or The Foul Mouth Series (definitely worth checking out by the way, don’t let the bad cover artwork throw you off). These series either fall into the realm of Fantasy, Urban Fantasy or Epic Fantasy for most readers, but you will still hear some readers complain that these stories are more Dark Fantasy or Erotic Fantasy (depending upon which series above we are talking about). What I especially love about these series is that there is a certain grittiness and realism to them. There are bad things that happen, there are difficult sexual situations/relationships and a certain worldliness to the stories themselves. These stories aren’t the Twilight Series books (Doesn’t mean I don’t like the Twilight Series because I do) or Teen/Young-Adult stories that keep away from some of the darker evils. It’s like Never Ending Story compared to Ironman the movie. Hmm I’m still trying to think if I can use that simile or not. Anyway if you’ve read any of the above I imagine you understand what I’m trying to say.
When I wrote Flight I wanted readers to really hate the Tuonellians. I wanted you to wish for the evil Clerics of Loviatar to be killed. But to get readers to this point where they think a person is so evil that they need to die can be difficult. I’ve seen movies where the bad guy really wasn’t bad. I could have cared less if he died or not. Even possibly I could have wished he defeated the good guy in the film. I didn’t want that to be in question in my own story, so when I wrote about the Tuonellian atrocities they had to really be evil. Like the worst German SS troops fornicating with demons while trying to take over the world, while at the same time not having a slasher or horror story. I wanted readers to feel the Werewolves’ pain and anguish as the Horned Demons tore apart the young. I wanted readers to see Startüm defeat these terrible creatures because it was ridding the world of evil incarnated.
This turned out to be easy and not so easy of a task.
It’s hard to write about dark subject and not dip into horror. I think the distinction comes down to the level of detail and inner dialog you include in the story. It’s like a sex scene and fading to black instead of going through with the whole sexual intercourse. One is Adult Fantasy and one is Erotica, although I will say that Natural Consequence Series does this unbelievably.
After getting some feedback on Flight and the story line from some people who find the evil parts difficult to read, there was a part of me that wondered if I shouldn’t have left some of the detail to the story out. It was something I discussed with friends who are avid readers of Sci-Fi and Fantasy to get their opinions and a diverse group. At the end of it all I felt like I needed to have that in the story. It is the basis for the hate of the Tuonellians, even though I pay for it sometimes in negative reviews from people who find some of the scenes too sad to read. At the same time, I will probably not dip down that low into the evil again throughout the rest of the series. It will always be there with the Tuonellians and I will refer to atrocities that drive the heroes in their fight. I’m sure there will be more horrors that I’ll have to put into the stories, but I’ll be more careful to the extent of how much detail I give it. Even then I’m sure I’ll push away some readers, but in my current universe and how I tell a story and look at a scene, this detail is important to me.
It’s just something that I thought warranted a conversation on and something each of us authors must think hard upon when we are putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys).
Some writers would like to say that they only write for themselves and this is there artistic expression, all of which is well and good. For most of us indie writers, we want to get our books out and share our story and ideas with our readers and build a following. For those of us who look at writing in this way, I believe it is important to keep in mind your audience. Whenever you explore those questionable story lines, whether it's evil, sex or violence then you will get be opening yourself up to criticism. Criticism is not bad, it can actually be very helpful depending on what it is, but no matter what I would say it's important to be in touch with your intended audience and that no matter what, this awareness "will" and to a point "should" affect your writing style.
Before I started writing I’d always thought this was a pretty straight forward concept. If you’re a writer then you right for a certain genre and that was it, but once I started writing I realized this was much more complex then I’d ever imagined. Hell, I wasn’t even aware of all of the subcomponents of Sci-Fi and Fantasy until I had to self-publish my first book, but then I’ve never been much for titles and names of things unless it truly was needed for the function. Maybe that’s my Geek/IT mentality, but either way I learned there was more to this then I’d ever thought.
Some good examples of this are The Dark Elf Series, The Dresden Series, The Demon Accord Series, Natural Consequence Series or The Foul Mouth Series (definitely worth checking out by the way, don’t let the bad cover artwork throw you off). These series either fall into the realm of Fantasy, Urban Fantasy or Epic Fantasy for most readers, but you will still hear some readers complain that these stories are more Dark Fantasy or Erotic Fantasy (depending upon which series above we are talking about). What I especially love about these series is that there is a certain grittiness and realism to them. There are bad things that happen, there are difficult sexual situations/relationships and a certain worldliness to the stories themselves. These stories aren’t the Twilight Series books (Doesn’t mean I don’t like the Twilight Series because I do) or Teen/Young-Adult stories that keep away from some of the darker evils. It’s like Never Ending Story compared to Ironman the movie. Hmm I’m still trying to think if I can use that simile or not. Anyway if you’ve read any of the above I imagine you understand what I’m trying to say.
When I wrote Flight I wanted readers to really hate the Tuonellians. I wanted you to wish for the evil Clerics of Loviatar to be killed. But to get readers to this point where they think a person is so evil that they need to die can be difficult. I’ve seen movies where the bad guy really wasn’t bad. I could have cared less if he died or not. Even possibly I could have wished he defeated the good guy in the film. I didn’t want that to be in question in my own story, so when I wrote about the Tuonellian atrocities they had to really be evil. Like the worst German SS troops fornicating with demons while trying to take over the world, while at the same time not having a slasher or horror story. I wanted readers to feel the Werewolves’ pain and anguish as the Horned Demons tore apart the young. I wanted readers to see Startüm defeat these terrible creatures because it was ridding the world of evil incarnated.
This turned out to be easy and not so easy of a task.
It’s hard to write about dark subject and not dip into horror. I think the distinction comes down to the level of detail and inner dialog you include in the story. It’s like a sex scene and fading to black instead of going through with the whole sexual intercourse. One is Adult Fantasy and one is Erotica, although I will say that Natural Consequence Series does this unbelievably.
After getting some feedback on Flight and the story line from some people who find the evil parts difficult to read, there was a part of me that wondered if I shouldn’t have left some of the detail to the story out. It was something I discussed with friends who are avid readers of Sci-Fi and Fantasy to get their opinions and a diverse group. At the end of it all I felt like I needed to have that in the story. It is the basis for the hate of the Tuonellians, even though I pay for it sometimes in negative reviews from people who find some of the scenes too sad to read. At the same time, I will probably not dip down that low into the evil again throughout the rest of the series. It will always be there with the Tuonellians and I will refer to atrocities that drive the heroes in their fight. I’m sure there will be more horrors that I’ll have to put into the stories, but I’ll be more careful to the extent of how much detail I give it. Even then I’m sure I’ll push away some readers, but in my current universe and how I tell a story and look at a scene, this detail is important to me.
It’s just something that I thought warranted a conversation on and something each of us authors must think hard upon when we are putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys).
Some writers would like to say that they only write for themselves and this is there artistic expression, all of which is well and good. For most of us indie writers, we want to get our books out and share our story and ideas with our readers and build a following. For those of us who look at writing in this way, I believe it is important to keep in mind your audience. Whenever you explore those questionable story lines, whether it's evil, sex or violence then you will get be opening yourself up to criticism. Criticism is not bad, it can actually be very helpful depending on what it is, but no matter what I would say it's important to be in touch with your intended audience and that no matter what, this awareness "will" and to a point "should" affect your writing style.
February 14, 2015
an interesting writing technique that I think really helps to move along the story
I just got back from my business conference late Friday evening. The location of the conference was quite interesting. It was like stepping back in time to the 1950’s. The conference was in support for the debate teams from the DOD European Schools and the lodgings were in the middle of the country. It reminded me of the lodging in the movie “Dirty Dancing” but not as nice. Normally I tend to have my evenings free on these things and I had expected to get some good writing time in, but this conference ended up going until 2100 hundred hours for most of the nights and was steady enough that I really never had any quiet time to get some solid writing in. I did get some time throughout the day to piddle around with the new chapter I started, which was actually very nice. I should know better by now, but every time I think I’m going to do a quick page or two chapter to just bring in some point within the story it ends up being much more entailed then I’d initially planned.
I think this happens because of a particular technique I enjoy using. I call it using supporting characters to tell pieces of the main characters story. In this way you can get a different perspective, bring out some of your supporting characters more fully and it allows you to save the main character focus for specific things, while still getting the overall story out that you want.
When I’m reading a book I enjoy a number of different type of perspectives when it comes to telling a story. One of my favorite has always been a first-person-discovery perspective when it comes to the main hero/heroine, but from a friend of mine named Shannon I’ve learned that many people find this first-person-discovery perspective boring or simple old school. Now I understand there are all kinds of readers out there that enjoy a bunch of different types of writing styles, but after asking around with the people I work with on what perspectives they enjoyed it seemed like Shannon had a good point. Many people like a point-of-view that jumps around to different characters during the story. This works for me too and I’ve found it can be a great tool to use for enhancing the story of the main character. Sometimes it’s amazing just how much these little asides can help the overall story flow and filling in the gaps.
I have another friend who really enjoys that first-person-discovery perspective like I do. Luckily this style that I’m writing in still gives a flavor of that too. I think this is a good way to expand your audience and make both types of readers happy. In Destiny I needed to introduce the world of Irlendria, which meant bringing to life the world and new supporting characters with their own story to tell. Also, another point brought up by a few friends of mine and from some of the websites of other writers I enjoy checking is that people love discovering the world that you’ve created. For this, I like to think about JRR Tolkien and the Lord of The Rings and how he introduced his world and races. Although I’m not spending as much time on the landscape of the world like he did in the Middle Earth, I am introducing aspects of the world through the interaction of the new races and the supporting characters that I am introducing to the story.
Like I said in earlier posts, the book is turning out longer then I initially expected. There is a lot of story to tell and I hate to skip through important parts just to get to the point where I’ve planned to end the story at. There is just so much to tell. I’ve have done my best to focus on the exciting parts of what’s going on within the world. None the less, time must flow especially with the time difference between Earth and Irlendria. One day on Irlendria is a day and a half long on Earth, which means the time between worlds will grow and affect the overall story. Another component that I have to keep in perspective.
Anyway, that’s all for now. I’ll be back on my normal schedule next week. Well, except for the holiday on Monday. I hope everyone enjoys there long weekend.
I think this happens because of a particular technique I enjoy using. I call it using supporting characters to tell pieces of the main characters story. In this way you can get a different perspective, bring out some of your supporting characters more fully and it allows you to save the main character focus for specific things, while still getting the overall story out that you want.
When I’m reading a book I enjoy a number of different type of perspectives when it comes to telling a story. One of my favorite has always been a first-person-discovery perspective when it comes to the main hero/heroine, but from a friend of mine named Shannon I’ve learned that many people find this first-person-discovery perspective boring or simple old school. Now I understand there are all kinds of readers out there that enjoy a bunch of different types of writing styles, but after asking around with the people I work with on what perspectives they enjoyed it seemed like Shannon had a good point. Many people like a point-of-view that jumps around to different characters during the story. This works for me too and I’ve found it can be a great tool to use for enhancing the story of the main character. Sometimes it’s amazing just how much these little asides can help the overall story flow and filling in the gaps.
I have another friend who really enjoys that first-person-discovery perspective like I do. Luckily this style that I’m writing in still gives a flavor of that too. I think this is a good way to expand your audience and make both types of readers happy. In Destiny I needed to introduce the world of Irlendria, which meant bringing to life the world and new supporting characters with their own story to tell. Also, another point brought up by a few friends of mine and from some of the websites of other writers I enjoy checking is that people love discovering the world that you’ve created. For this, I like to think about JRR Tolkien and the Lord of The Rings and how he introduced his world and races. Although I’m not spending as much time on the landscape of the world like he did in the Middle Earth, I am introducing aspects of the world through the interaction of the new races and the supporting characters that I am introducing to the story.
Like I said in earlier posts, the book is turning out longer then I initially expected. There is a lot of story to tell and I hate to skip through important parts just to get to the point where I’ve planned to end the story at. There is just so much to tell. I’ve have done my best to focus on the exciting parts of what’s going on within the world. None the less, time must flow especially with the time difference between Earth and Irlendria. One day on Irlendria is a day and a half long on Earth, which means the time between worlds will grow and affect the overall story. Another component that I have to keep in perspective.
Anyway, that’s all for now. I’ll be back on my normal schedule next week. Well, except for the holiday on Monday. I hope everyone enjoys there long weekend.
February 10, 2015
Using the proceeding books of your series to fill in any plot holes you might have in your story
I’m still recovering from coming down with a cold from last weekend’s trip to Heidelberg Castle. For some reason I’m the only one who brings gloves with me when it’s snowing outside, which means when my wife and daughter start to freeze I’m the only one without any gloves then. That and for some reason we always love to travel in the middle of a sleeting blizzard. It’s not smart, but just how things turn out sometimes. Either way we got some great shots of the castle and the town and had a nice time, albeit while freezing our asses off.
Even though I’m heading out on a business trip this week, it’s close enough to the office that I can bring all of my gear to write and study as needed. I plan to hopefully knock out another chapter in the next few days.
After releasing a book each author then faces the next step, which is the proverbial reviews that will be coming in. For any writer reviews are necessary. Not just because it helps to broaden the audience to your book and help with sales, but they also can help an author get the necessary constructive criticism that each and every one of us need to become a better writer. While you’ll get those true reviews from readers who truly read your story because it peaked their interest and they are into the genre that you’re writing about, you will also get those reviews from people who either hated your writing style, storyline, choice of genre or are fellow writers who have decided to critique the hell out of your writing style. For both types of reviews it’s important to take into consideration the feedback that you are being given.
It’s important to know what your audience likes to help improve your overall writing style and storytelling ability. I’ve heard some writers scoff at this idea, believing that their writing is an art that is only for them and if people happen to like their work then that’s just a plus. While that’s fine and dandy for some people, for the rest of us who are trying to be successful and make a living at writing, I think it’s important to know what your audience likes. It’s always important to keep an open mind and look for the general flow of what people are interested in and see how that fits with your overall story that you have planned out. Sometimes there are small tweaks that you can do to really improve the interest and detail of your book, while other times it’s important to keep to the story that you have planned out in your head. No matter how you do it, there is a delicate balance to knowing when to tweak your style and when not to.
Another very important aspect of reviews is getting the criticism that will make your story and writing style better. Writing is a constant learning process and one that is very difficult to get negative feedback on until we release it to the public. Try as we might, it is a rare friend that can care enough to read your story, who are into your genre and will honestly tell you what they like and don’t like. When a writer does find a friend who can do those very difficult things, it’s also the rare writer who can take the criticism with an open ear and not argue their case for why they did what they did and not turn that one helpful friend off from ever telling them again what they don’t like about their story. Unfortunately that means for most of us we will not get that very important negative criticism until our book is released to the public. It’s important to know when and when not to listen to what is being said. Sometimes the negative feedback is simply that the reader was not into the story you were writing. They might have thought you were writing something like The Twilight Series when you were writing a story like the Underworld Series. Those negative reviews are fine to get and new readers who are looking at your book will not take that as a negative unless they are not into the style of story you’re writing about. Some of the normal negative reviews that you get might be simply pointing out some of the flaws to your story line or improvements that you might need to make to your writing style.
Reviews like these are good to listen to and you can even go back to your current story and make those changes relatively quickly if they are minor or learn from those mistakes for the next book in your series. Sometimes you can even make sure you close some of the questionable plotlines that were addressed in book one by how you enhance your storyline in the next book, which is something that I’ve been doing with Destiny. I was hit by some people who didn’t like Startüm’s harem of women in book one, even though I pointed out that most of his students had been men and this was one of his first classes of mostly women. Also I had some people question how this new made-up religion could be so popular when he wasn’t rich from the inflow of money like most churches in the real world. Both of these things were already in my story and explainable, I just hadn’t developed them within the storyline. In Destiny, I make sure I address some of these issues to make my story more solid and fill in the gaps that some reviewers tagged as not making complete sense.
Lastly you will have fellow writers who see that you are doing well and will try to bash your book as much as possible to hurt your ability to get knew readers. Some of these writers will give you nothing to work with, but just simply say something like “Meh… Could have been better” and rate you one or two stars, while others will pick apart everything about your story that they didn’t like. While much of this is probably nothing that you should worry about, there are some points of truth that you can do something to fix. Usually you can make these changes on the fly for your ebook and have those corrections in place two hours later or at least by that night. If someone points out that you overused a work in one location or that you said an engine block for a car was the wrong size in the real world. This feedback, although it was said to hurt your story, can be used to make your story that much stronger with a quick edit. In some ways having these writers pick at your story is helpful to the overall quality of your writing and is something you can use to critique your next book before it’s released. Also, you can always make a comment to the review and point out that this review’s self-interest might be in question due to their book being in competition with your own. So you get free editing help and a way to discredit their review at the same time.
Don’t get me wrong. It still sucks when you have fellow writers bashing on your book to tear you back down, but in a way (at least for the ones who critique your storyline to death) they are helping you improve your style and product by giving you the information you need to fix your current book and to help close the plotlines in your next book.
Even though I’m heading out on a business trip this week, it’s close enough to the office that I can bring all of my gear to write and study as needed. I plan to hopefully knock out another chapter in the next few days.
After releasing a book each author then faces the next step, which is the proverbial reviews that will be coming in. For any writer reviews are necessary. Not just because it helps to broaden the audience to your book and help with sales, but they also can help an author get the necessary constructive criticism that each and every one of us need to become a better writer. While you’ll get those true reviews from readers who truly read your story because it peaked their interest and they are into the genre that you’re writing about, you will also get those reviews from people who either hated your writing style, storyline, choice of genre or are fellow writers who have decided to critique the hell out of your writing style. For both types of reviews it’s important to take into consideration the feedback that you are being given.
It’s important to know what your audience likes to help improve your overall writing style and storytelling ability. I’ve heard some writers scoff at this idea, believing that their writing is an art that is only for them and if people happen to like their work then that’s just a plus. While that’s fine and dandy for some people, for the rest of us who are trying to be successful and make a living at writing, I think it’s important to know what your audience likes. It’s always important to keep an open mind and look for the general flow of what people are interested in and see how that fits with your overall story that you have planned out. Sometimes there are small tweaks that you can do to really improve the interest and detail of your book, while other times it’s important to keep to the story that you have planned out in your head. No matter how you do it, there is a delicate balance to knowing when to tweak your style and when not to.
Another very important aspect of reviews is getting the criticism that will make your story and writing style better. Writing is a constant learning process and one that is very difficult to get negative feedback on until we release it to the public. Try as we might, it is a rare friend that can care enough to read your story, who are into your genre and will honestly tell you what they like and don’t like. When a writer does find a friend who can do those very difficult things, it’s also the rare writer who can take the criticism with an open ear and not argue their case for why they did what they did and not turn that one helpful friend off from ever telling them again what they don’t like about their story. Unfortunately that means for most of us we will not get that very important negative criticism until our book is released to the public. It’s important to know when and when not to listen to what is being said. Sometimes the negative feedback is simply that the reader was not into the story you were writing. They might have thought you were writing something like The Twilight Series when you were writing a story like the Underworld Series. Those negative reviews are fine to get and new readers who are looking at your book will not take that as a negative unless they are not into the style of story you’re writing about. Some of the normal negative reviews that you get might be simply pointing out some of the flaws to your story line or improvements that you might need to make to your writing style.
Reviews like these are good to listen to and you can even go back to your current story and make those changes relatively quickly if they are minor or learn from those mistakes for the next book in your series. Sometimes you can even make sure you close some of the questionable plotlines that were addressed in book one by how you enhance your storyline in the next book, which is something that I’ve been doing with Destiny. I was hit by some people who didn’t like Startüm’s harem of women in book one, even though I pointed out that most of his students had been men and this was one of his first classes of mostly women. Also I had some people question how this new made-up religion could be so popular when he wasn’t rich from the inflow of money like most churches in the real world. Both of these things were already in my story and explainable, I just hadn’t developed them within the storyline. In Destiny, I make sure I address some of these issues to make my story more solid and fill in the gaps that some reviewers tagged as not making complete sense.
Lastly you will have fellow writers who see that you are doing well and will try to bash your book as much as possible to hurt your ability to get knew readers. Some of these writers will give you nothing to work with, but just simply say something like “Meh… Could have been better” and rate you one or two stars, while others will pick apart everything about your story that they didn’t like. While much of this is probably nothing that you should worry about, there are some points of truth that you can do something to fix. Usually you can make these changes on the fly for your ebook and have those corrections in place two hours later or at least by that night. If someone points out that you overused a work in one location or that you said an engine block for a car was the wrong size in the real world. This feedback, although it was said to hurt your story, can be used to make your story that much stronger with a quick edit. In some ways having these writers pick at your story is helpful to the overall quality of your writing and is something you can use to critique your next book before it’s released. Also, you can always make a comment to the review and point out that this review’s self-interest might be in question due to their book being in competition with your own. So you get free editing help and a way to discredit their review at the same time.
Don’t get me wrong. It still sucks when you have fellow writers bashing on your book to tear you back down, but in a way (at least for the ones who critique your storyline to death) they are helping you improve your style and product by giving you the information you need to fix your current book and to help close the plotlines in your next book.
February 7, 2015
A quick update on the progress of destiny and pictures from our visit to Heidelberg castle
I’m down to a handle of chapters left for Destiny. Maybe it’s better to say just a couple more scenes left to write. I had hoped that I would have everything written out by February and then have the editing completed by the end of March, but the need to study for my VCP certification has pushed everything back. February 26th is the day I take the exam. If everything goes well I’ll be back full speed on getting Destiny completed.
Either way I’m plugging away at these last chapters steadily. I also realized I needed to add in a couple smaller chapters to round out a few scenes. I really hate large gaps of time that are left untold in a story. Sometimes this works out. I was thinking if the winter was really brutal I could skip a few months and then refer back to the time, but I’ll just have to see how I feel once it’s written. If it doesn’t feel right I’ll have to go back and fill out the story a little bit more.
Startüm’s romances begin in Destiny and then become more intense and convoluted in books three and four. There have been a lot of questions about Startüm’s relationship with his “harem of women” and surprise that he wasn’t sleeping with all of them. I think some of the critique was due to a few readers wanting more in the way of intimate relations with Startüm and his students. For Flight such intimate relationships didn’t work within the story or his character as a Paladin, but in books three and four Startüm comes to terms with his Werewolf half and in doing so his relationships change with his ladies. I’m sure some people will give me a hard time about his polygamy ways, but trust me it fits well within the storyline. I don’t want to talk about it too much here, but I think everyone will like the flow of the story.
In Destiny’s last chapters I’ve been forced to introduce groups and elements that will be relevant to the rest of the series. Some of this has required a lot of research. Navel terminology has never been my strong point, but with the Fleet Actions that will be a part of the storyline I have been forced to educate myself on this topic. Much of Dr. Evan’s story is told from the Triumph, which is an old tramp freighter. I roughly picture the ships like a Victory Ship from the end of World War Two. Although I’m trying to keep away from using navel terminology as much as possible, sometimes the story requires it. I’m sure I’ll miss a few things and get hammered in my reviews from other writers about my failures. To assist with this I might beg for some help from my Chief of Staff for the office, who is a retired Navy Captain. He’s pretty cool and might be down with helping to correct anything I miss. Who knows, I’ll just have to see if he’s open to that.
Work has been busy as hell. I just make sure I do my best to get the mission knocked out and to do my best to leave work at work so that I can go home and write. Last weekend my family and I went to Heidelberg Castle in Germany, which was super cool … except for the part where no one but me brought gloves. Sadly that meant I gave a glove to my daughter and wife and I had none. Why is it that I make sure I have everything for cold weather but end up giving it away in the middle of a sleeting storm? Needless to say I got a little sick. I will say that seeing the castle was pretty awesome and was a great way to get the imagination working on parts for book three. One of the most incredible parts of Heidelberg Castle is that parts of it have been destroyed and instead of repairing the damage the city chose to preserve the damages, which just makes the castle that much cooler. Seeing the semi-collapsed massive stone towers is just incredible. It makes you feel like you’ve stepped back in history. To be honest the whole city is pretty awesome, but for me the castle is the best part.
This week has been pretty exciting. I was in the emergency room twice for my wife. She’s good, but it was still pretty stressful, which meant no writing was done on those nights. Things are relaxed though for the weekend, which is nice. It’s snowing outside, but we have a roaring fire to hold back the cold and I’ve baked two loaves of banana nut bread when I woke up this morning. I’m trying to get a little writing time in this weekend, but I’ll just have to see how that works out. I usually get tagged by my wife and daughter when I try to write on the weekends. I hope you enjoy the pictures I’ve included from our visit to Heidelberg Castle.
Either way I’m plugging away at these last chapters steadily. I also realized I needed to add in a couple smaller chapters to round out a few scenes. I really hate large gaps of time that are left untold in a story. Sometimes this works out. I was thinking if the winter was really brutal I could skip a few months and then refer back to the time, but I’ll just have to see how I feel once it’s written. If it doesn’t feel right I’ll have to go back and fill out the story a little bit more.
Startüm’s romances begin in Destiny and then become more intense and convoluted in books three and four. There have been a lot of questions about Startüm’s relationship with his “harem of women” and surprise that he wasn’t sleeping with all of them. I think some of the critique was due to a few readers wanting more in the way of intimate relations with Startüm and his students. For Flight such intimate relationships didn’t work within the story or his character as a Paladin, but in books three and four Startüm comes to terms with his Werewolf half and in doing so his relationships change with his ladies. I’m sure some people will give me a hard time about his polygamy ways, but trust me it fits well within the storyline. I don’t want to talk about it too much here, but I think everyone will like the flow of the story.
In Destiny’s last chapters I’ve been forced to introduce groups and elements that will be relevant to the rest of the series. Some of this has required a lot of research. Navel terminology has never been my strong point, but with the Fleet Actions that will be a part of the storyline I have been forced to educate myself on this topic. Much of Dr. Evan’s story is told from the Triumph, which is an old tramp freighter. I roughly picture the ships like a Victory Ship from the end of World War Two. Although I’m trying to keep away from using navel terminology as much as possible, sometimes the story requires it. I’m sure I’ll miss a few things and get hammered in my reviews from other writers about my failures. To assist with this I might beg for some help from my Chief of Staff for the office, who is a retired Navy Captain. He’s pretty cool and might be down with helping to correct anything I miss. Who knows, I’ll just have to see if he’s open to that.
Work has been busy as hell. I just make sure I do my best to get the mission knocked out and to do my best to leave work at work so that I can go home and write. Last weekend my family and I went to Heidelberg Castle in Germany, which was super cool … except for the part where no one but me brought gloves. Sadly that meant I gave a glove to my daughter and wife and I had none. Why is it that I make sure I have everything for cold weather but end up giving it away in the middle of a sleeting storm? Needless to say I got a little sick. I will say that seeing the castle was pretty awesome and was a great way to get the imagination working on parts for book three. One of the most incredible parts of Heidelberg Castle is that parts of it have been destroyed and instead of repairing the damage the city chose to preserve the damages, which just makes the castle that much cooler. Seeing the semi-collapsed massive stone towers is just incredible. It makes you feel like you’ve stepped back in history. To be honest the whole city is pretty awesome, but for me the castle is the best part.
This week has been pretty exciting. I was in the emergency room twice for my wife. She’s good, but it was still pretty stressful, which meant no writing was done on those nights. Things are relaxed though for the weekend, which is nice. It’s snowing outside, but we have a roaring fire to hold back the cold and I’ve baked two loaves of banana nut bread when I woke up this morning. I’m trying to get a little writing time in this weekend, but I’ll just have to see how that works out. I usually get tagged by my wife and daughter when I try to write on the weekends. I hope you enjoy the pictures I’ve included from our visit to Heidelberg Castle.
February 2, 2015
the importance of putting in the necessary research time to make sure your novel is accurate
It really doesn’t matter the genre of the story you‘re writing, because if you’re not 100% accurate with any information you’ve written within your book that someone can check you on then at some point in time you will have some reviewer come along and slam you for the mistake. Besides the possibility of being called out on by a reviewer (in my experience usually another writer), I think it’s overall important to have as much accurate information for the quality of the story itself.
There will always be some people who will tear apart your book. None the less I think it’s somewhat easier to accept when someone is just commenting on a storyline or I was caught by this by surprise on Flight when I made a mentioned a 10 cylinder Ford engine at one point of time in the book. Relatively quickly I had a writer point that out in a review that they did of my book that this was not accurate. Although a part of me laughed at having something like this pointed out in a book with demons, werewolves, clerics and paladins, I quickly made the change and updated the incorrect information. None the less it was still upsetting to me that I’d missed something, which became even worse when it was caught and pointed out. All in all I figure that wasn’t bad for my first novel, but it has made me very aware for verifying the information in book two.
In Destiny I have a lot of Military terms that are coming into play. Fortunately for me I am familiar with much of the terminology soldiers’ use from my time in uniform and my current job, which covers Army and Marine jargon for the most part. Of course there are some nuance differences, but for the most part they are relatively interchangeable. Unfortunately this doesn’t help me much when it comes to Navy terms. I’ve been doing my best to get some research done on the subject, but it has been hard to find a good site that lists the true Navy jargon that sailors use day-to-day. To assist me with this I just recently had a retired Commander send me a paper he did in the late 80’s that covers the actual jargon used by sailors. Also, he’s a nice enough guy that I can run terminology that I want to use in the book by him for him to help me tweak.
For some non-military people this might seem like an inconsequential point, but that is where they would be wrong. There are so many ex and active service members out there reading Sci-Fi and Fantasy that it behooves an author to make sure their information is as accurate as possible. Also, I’ve read book and have seen movies where they don’t have the typical military jargon and it really takes away from the quality of the film or book for me on a level that I think even most non-military people pick-up on an unconscious level.
This is important for any topic you’re writing about whether it’s about computer gaming or surfing. Knowing the slang, knowing the culture really gives life to any story. Now-a-day with Youtube.com, googlemaps.com, Facebook.com and all of the other multimedia sites out there we have the ability to really the ability to bring faraway places to life. Anyway, it’s a simple thing to make a better connection with your readers and to make your story that much more solid.
There will always be some people who will tear apart your book. None the less I think it’s somewhat easier to accept when someone is just commenting on a storyline or I was caught by this by surprise on Flight when I made a mentioned a 10 cylinder Ford engine at one point of time in the book. Relatively quickly I had a writer point that out in a review that they did of my book that this was not accurate. Although a part of me laughed at having something like this pointed out in a book with demons, werewolves, clerics and paladins, I quickly made the change and updated the incorrect information. None the less it was still upsetting to me that I’d missed something, which became even worse when it was caught and pointed out. All in all I figure that wasn’t bad for my first novel, but it has made me very aware for verifying the information in book two.
In Destiny I have a lot of Military terms that are coming into play. Fortunately for me I am familiar with much of the terminology soldiers’ use from my time in uniform and my current job, which covers Army and Marine jargon for the most part. Of course there are some nuance differences, but for the most part they are relatively interchangeable. Unfortunately this doesn’t help me much when it comes to Navy terms. I’ve been doing my best to get some research done on the subject, but it has been hard to find a good site that lists the true Navy jargon that sailors use day-to-day. To assist me with this I just recently had a retired Commander send me a paper he did in the late 80’s that covers the actual jargon used by sailors. Also, he’s a nice enough guy that I can run terminology that I want to use in the book by him for him to help me tweak.
For some non-military people this might seem like an inconsequential point, but that is where they would be wrong. There are so many ex and active service members out there reading Sci-Fi and Fantasy that it behooves an author to make sure their information is as accurate as possible. Also, I’ve read book and have seen movies where they don’t have the typical military jargon and it really takes away from the quality of the film or book for me on a level that I think even most non-military people pick-up on an unconscious level.
This is important for any topic you’re writing about whether it’s about computer gaming or surfing. Knowing the slang, knowing the culture really gives life to any story. Now-a-day with Youtube.com, googlemaps.com, Facebook.com and all of the other multimedia sites out there we have the ability to really the ability to bring faraway places to life. Anyway, it’s a simple thing to make a better connection with your readers and to make your story that much more solid.
January 30, 2015
A quick update on Destiny's progress
I was planning to have the story released by the first quarter of this year, but I’m still writing the last few chapters. Unfortunately I had a setback with needing to complete one of my VMWare certifications for my day job, which has been requiring several hours of studying a night for January and February. I’m still getting some writing time in, but only about a quarter of what I’d planned on if I was going to meet my first quarter deadline for completion.
The good thing is that I’ve had some time to tweak a few parts of the story that I realized needed a little more depth as to the action going on with the various story lines. Agent Ryan Moss and Beth Kurkowski are back in book two working together for the Extracurricular Action Group. The EAG is a subdivision of the CIA’s SAD/SOG divisions. The Special Action Division is responsible for covert related political, psychological and economic warfare operations, while the Special Operations Group is responsible for most of the high threat military / intelligence operations around the world and chooses their operatives from top tier special missions units such as Delta Force, DEVGRU, MARSOC and ISA. In my universe, the EAG has been created to deal with the recent alien threat.
I just finished a kick-ass chapter that laid out the story line for this group and how it relates to Startüm Ironwolf and sets part of the stage for the storyline in book three and four. When I’d first created the character Agent Ryan Moss of the Counter Terrorist Agency, I just needed a team leader for one of the counter-terrorist assault teams, but as I began writing the story Agent Moss’ character just came to life. It was as much of a surprise to me as it was to many of my readers that he survived the whole ordeal in book one. By the end of the story he had become a main character to the story who I happy brought back in book two.
Anyway, I’m still working hard at getting the story finished, while at the same time making sure I don’t rush. I’d rather have the story take a little longer and make sure it’s right. As you know, weekends are family time, so for now I’m going back to watch some Arrow, Flash & Grimm with my wife.
The good thing is that I’ve had some time to tweak a few parts of the story that I realized needed a little more depth as to the action going on with the various story lines. Agent Ryan Moss and Beth Kurkowski are back in book two working together for the Extracurricular Action Group. The EAG is a subdivision of the CIA’s SAD/SOG divisions. The Special Action Division is responsible for covert related political, psychological and economic warfare operations, while the Special Operations Group is responsible for most of the high threat military / intelligence operations around the world and chooses their operatives from top tier special missions units such as Delta Force, DEVGRU, MARSOC and ISA. In my universe, the EAG has been created to deal with the recent alien threat.
I just finished a kick-ass chapter that laid out the story line for this group and how it relates to Startüm Ironwolf and sets part of the stage for the storyline in book three and four. When I’d first created the character Agent Ryan Moss of the Counter Terrorist Agency, I just needed a team leader for one of the counter-terrorist assault teams, but as I began writing the story Agent Moss’ character just came to life. It was as much of a surprise to me as it was to many of my readers that he survived the whole ordeal in book one. By the end of the story he had become a main character to the story who I happy brought back in book two.
Anyway, I’m still working hard at getting the story finished, while at the same time making sure I don’t rush. I’d rather have the story take a little longer and make sure it’s right. As you know, weekends are family time, so for now I’m going back to watch some Arrow, Flash & Grimm with my wife.
January 26, 2015
one of the best resources for learning how to write the back cover synopsis for your book that an indie writer can find
Before we get started on today’s blog post I just wanted to explain that work has me buried again, so I’m blogging as time permits. Also, I just found out I have to cram for a certification to keep up my VMWare Certified Professional status, so I had to split my writing time in the evenings with studying for my exam. It will probably mean that I’ll have to push the release of Destiny back a couple months, but I’d rather do that then rush out something still rough. As a good friend of mine reminded me, right now writing is my hobby and Information Technology is my career, so I have to make sure I keep everything moving forward in both fields. But no worries, the book is coming along fine and I’m down to the last 1/5 of the story to finishing writing the rough draft.
It’s hard to rate the importance of the back cover synopsis of your book. It is nearly as important as the cover. I say nearly because the cover is typically what catches readers’ eyes, but your synopsis is the second best tool you have to hold their attention. While this sounds like a fairly simple thing to write, for me it was one of the hardest parts about the entire writing process I did to publish my book.
The goal of your back cover is to build interest in the story, while at the same time not giving your whole story away in a nutshell. Your back cover should give enough information to give people a feel for what your book is about, but leave questions open that need to be answered. Otherwise, why read the book to find out what happens if you’ve already got the whole plot line spelled out on the back of the cover?
Even explaining this process is difficult to say nothing about condensing the elements of your story and making it into a hit movie preview for readers to check out before they decide to purchase your book. Initially I went over the book covers of the writers I loved to read, but even still after sharing my first attempts with my friends and coworkers I discovered I was missing something important to the entire process. While searching through the web I ran across an amazing blog that helped me learn this process titled: Miss Snark, Literary Agent http://misssnark.blogspot.de/search/label/Crapometer-synopsis .
Miss Snark doesn’t maintain her blog anymore. She is a Canadian Literary Agent who created this blog to help writers get through the minefield of the whole publishing process. She has a pre plethora of about the whole publishing process whether you’re trying to go the traditional publishing route or going about it on your own as an Indie Writer. What is really interesting is that she has had a number of new writers send in their synopsis to have her tell them if it makes the cut or not. She lists out all of the points that are good and digs into the problem areas with a stringent tongue. She’s not unduly cruel, but she’s doing her best to show you what Publishers and Literary Agents are looking for. Then she re-writes the sample given to her, in some cases, to how she would picture it should have been written.
While Miss Snark no longer offers this help, there is a huge amount of gems for anyone willing to dig in and go through the old posts to help tweak their style. Even then you will end up writing fifty synopsis before you getting something sounding like you want it to be and by that time you will have driven your friends and close acquaintance crazy with re-reading sample after sample. Even though this is a major pain and might take a month until you feel like you’ve gotten it right, it’s time well spent.
I would also limit your synopsis to be two hundred words or less. This is Amazon’s requirement for their Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest. I figure that’s as good of number as any to keep you within the industry standard for a synopsis. Also from my experience more words then that just makes the writing difficult to read on the back cover of your book.
The first half month I tried writing this I kept summarizing my story, which is the LAST thing you want to do. Towards the second half of the month I started really creating something. I didn’t do it alone, but had a lot of help in determining what sounded good and what didn’t. I used my friends who liked Fantasy and Sci-Fi for this help and then compared what I wrote to the back covers of my favorite writers. What you see on Flight is the final result.
I have to start doing that process soon for Destiny, but I won’t do this until I hand this over to the DODEA Teachers who have volunteered to help me edit my manuscript. I’m sure I’ll be discuss this more in the near future, but for now I wanted to leave you with this advice from my own experiences.
It’s hard to rate the importance of the back cover synopsis of your book. It is nearly as important as the cover. I say nearly because the cover is typically what catches readers’ eyes, but your synopsis is the second best tool you have to hold their attention. While this sounds like a fairly simple thing to write, for me it was one of the hardest parts about the entire writing process I did to publish my book.
The goal of your back cover is to build interest in the story, while at the same time not giving your whole story away in a nutshell. Your back cover should give enough information to give people a feel for what your book is about, but leave questions open that need to be answered. Otherwise, why read the book to find out what happens if you’ve already got the whole plot line spelled out on the back of the cover?
Even explaining this process is difficult to say nothing about condensing the elements of your story and making it into a hit movie preview for readers to check out before they decide to purchase your book. Initially I went over the book covers of the writers I loved to read, but even still after sharing my first attempts with my friends and coworkers I discovered I was missing something important to the entire process. While searching through the web I ran across an amazing blog that helped me learn this process titled: Miss Snark, Literary Agent http://misssnark.blogspot.de/search/label/Crapometer-synopsis .
Miss Snark doesn’t maintain her blog anymore. She is a Canadian Literary Agent who created this blog to help writers get through the minefield of the whole publishing process. She has a pre plethora of about the whole publishing process whether you’re trying to go the traditional publishing route or going about it on your own as an Indie Writer. What is really interesting is that she has had a number of new writers send in their synopsis to have her tell them if it makes the cut or not. She lists out all of the points that are good and digs into the problem areas with a stringent tongue. She’s not unduly cruel, but she’s doing her best to show you what Publishers and Literary Agents are looking for. Then she re-writes the sample given to her, in some cases, to how she would picture it should have been written.
While Miss Snark no longer offers this help, there is a huge amount of gems for anyone willing to dig in and go through the old posts to help tweak their style. Even then you will end up writing fifty synopsis before you getting something sounding like you want it to be and by that time you will have driven your friends and close acquaintance crazy with re-reading sample after sample. Even though this is a major pain and might take a month until you feel like you’ve gotten it right, it’s time well spent.
I would also limit your synopsis to be two hundred words or less. This is Amazon’s requirement for their Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest. I figure that’s as good of number as any to keep you within the industry standard for a synopsis. Also from my experience more words then that just makes the writing difficult to read on the back cover of your book.
The first half month I tried writing this I kept summarizing my story, which is the LAST thing you want to do. Towards the second half of the month I started really creating something. I didn’t do it alone, but had a lot of help in determining what sounded good and what didn’t. I used my friends who liked Fantasy and Sci-Fi for this help and then compared what I wrote to the back covers of my favorite writers. What you see on Flight is the final result.
I have to start doing that process soon for Destiny, but I won’t do this until I hand this over to the DODEA Teachers who have volunteered to help me edit my manuscript. I’m sure I’ll be discuss this more in the near future, but for now I wanted to leave you with this advice from my own experiences.
January 20, 2015
my COMPARISON of Amazon kdp to smashwords.com after trying each service for six months and why i'm going back to Amazon.
I recently had a question from Jeff on a previous blog I wrote on May 24th of 2014 titled “STAY ON AMAZON KDP OR GO TO SMASHWORDS? THAT IS THE QUESTION”. The discussion helped make me reevaluate why I was using Smashwords.com and not Amazon’s KDP Select program, which was a good thing. So good in fact that I decided it warranted a blog post on the topic.
For those of you who are not familiar with Amazon’s KDP Select program, authors who use the program promise to not offer any other digital copies of their books from any other services for three months at a time. Amazon’s KDP is the sole proprietor rights to the author’s digital book for distribution. If at any time your book is discovered being offered on another website then they will remove your book from KDP and you will lose your profits for those three months.
One of my concerns were that although I was doing well in sales overall, at the time I was hardly getting any readers checking out my book from the Amazon Prime library, which made me question why I was staying registered with Amazon’s KDP Select program. I had heard of authors who had done well on Smashwords.com and I thought it would be great to be on almost every platform out there. My next concern was that I had received several comments from people interested in checking out my book, but they had an Ipad/Iphone or Nook and were wondering when it would be released on Itunes.com or Barnes and Nobles’ website. The last concern was that I only had one book, which in my opinion limited many of the benefits of utilizing Amazon’s KDP programs. Since my book was selling at my planned pricing point I’d came up with to encourage new readers to check out my writing, I didn’t use any free book giveaways except for what I found on Goodreads.com and self-promoting on Facebook during author meets.
Initially when I went with Amazon’s KDP Program I had a number of coworkers who approached me and said that they’d seen my book advertised in an Amazon email suggesting books they might want to check out based on the reading preferences. This was great news and awesome advertising for me via Amazon and something I felt like stopped showing up after I left Amazon’s KDP Program. Again no hard facts here, but that is the impression I’ve gotten over the span of a year of being within the program and of being outside of the program. Within the first three months my book was out I hit the #23 spot on Amazon’s Fantasy Superhero category. Although that is a small subgroup it is still a huge accomplishment for any writer, new or not. I held around that spot for another three months, which was basically up until the time I left Amazon’s KDP Program. After that my novel continued to sell, but the numbers started to dramatically decrease over the next six months.
I did keep my initial account on Amazon and only used Smashwords.com for all of the other sites. My sales in Smashwords.com were less than stellar. I would put them at the same level of my sales in Amazon’s KDP Program only without the email promotions from Amazon for my book. I felt like on all of these other websites my book was buried in a sea of novels and the companies that were hosting these sites had no need or desire to help promote my work in any way. It has been a real let down. On the flip side if I had a better marketing mind, this might have been a better option for me, but during some of my author meets the fellow writers I spoke with also seemed less than thrilled with their performance on Smashwords.com or were worried about changing what was working for them. After trying this out for myself I can understand their hesitation.
After answering Jeff’s question I realized I would be going back to Amazon’s KDP program once Destiny is ready to be released. Now that I have experience from both side of the coin, so to speak, I have a better understanding of this process. I don’t regret trying out Smashwords.com. If I hadn’t checked it out I would have been wondering the whole time if I’d made a bad call. You know that saying, the grass always looks greener on the other side. Well now I know. Also, I know in time for the release of my second novel.
Anyway, I hope this helps fellow writers out there looking at this same question. Thanks for bringing the question up Jeff.
For those of you who are not familiar with Amazon’s KDP Select program, authors who use the program promise to not offer any other digital copies of their books from any other services for three months at a time. Amazon’s KDP is the sole proprietor rights to the author’s digital book for distribution. If at any time your book is discovered being offered on another website then they will remove your book from KDP and you will lose your profits for those three months.
One of my concerns were that although I was doing well in sales overall, at the time I was hardly getting any readers checking out my book from the Amazon Prime library, which made me question why I was staying registered with Amazon’s KDP Select program. I had heard of authors who had done well on Smashwords.com and I thought it would be great to be on almost every platform out there. My next concern was that I had received several comments from people interested in checking out my book, but they had an Ipad/Iphone or Nook and were wondering when it would be released on Itunes.com or Barnes and Nobles’ website. The last concern was that I only had one book, which in my opinion limited many of the benefits of utilizing Amazon’s KDP programs. Since my book was selling at my planned pricing point I’d came up with to encourage new readers to check out my writing, I didn’t use any free book giveaways except for what I found on Goodreads.com and self-promoting on Facebook during author meets.
Initially when I went with Amazon’s KDP Program I had a number of coworkers who approached me and said that they’d seen my book advertised in an Amazon email suggesting books they might want to check out based on the reading preferences. This was great news and awesome advertising for me via Amazon and something I felt like stopped showing up after I left Amazon’s KDP Program. Again no hard facts here, but that is the impression I’ve gotten over the span of a year of being within the program and of being outside of the program. Within the first three months my book was out I hit the #23 spot on Amazon’s Fantasy Superhero category. Although that is a small subgroup it is still a huge accomplishment for any writer, new or not. I held around that spot for another three months, which was basically up until the time I left Amazon’s KDP Program. After that my novel continued to sell, but the numbers started to dramatically decrease over the next six months.
I did keep my initial account on Amazon and only used Smashwords.com for all of the other sites. My sales in Smashwords.com were less than stellar. I would put them at the same level of my sales in Amazon’s KDP Program only without the email promotions from Amazon for my book. I felt like on all of these other websites my book was buried in a sea of novels and the companies that were hosting these sites had no need or desire to help promote my work in any way. It has been a real let down. On the flip side if I had a better marketing mind, this might have been a better option for me, but during some of my author meets the fellow writers I spoke with also seemed less than thrilled with their performance on Smashwords.com or were worried about changing what was working for them. After trying this out for myself I can understand their hesitation.
After answering Jeff’s question I realized I would be going back to Amazon’s KDP program once Destiny is ready to be released. Now that I have experience from both side of the coin, so to speak, I have a better understanding of this process. I don’t regret trying out Smashwords.com. If I hadn’t checked it out I would have been wondering the whole time if I’d made a bad call. You know that saying, the grass always looks greener on the other side. Well now I know. Also, I know in time for the release of my second novel.
Anyway, I hope this helps fellow writers out there looking at this same question. Thanks for bringing the question up Jeff.
January 15, 2015
The creation process for the design of the cover for destiny, finished
Leo surprised me not even three weeks later with the completed image for the book cover. This was for two reasons. First, getting a cover designed easily takes about around a month and a half to two months if you’re lucky. Second, although we were working out the specifics, we never actually decided this was the final layout to pull the trigger on.
Now with Leo this is not a problem, he is an excellent artist and when we are working on a cover design I feel like we sync with each other. Also as I’ve stated before, while I have a pretty solid idea of the overall design I still trust Leo to make my ideas look good. I stated what I wanted for the main characters and what was important to me on how they looked, while letting him come up with something he thought looked good for the rest of the battle with a little input from me. Doing this allowed the cover to truly rock.
In the image below you see the two main characters for the front cover with the physical and emotional impact and body language I wanted shown. I went ahead and let Leo go with the two assault rifles, even though I had initially wanted a pistol and an assault rifle. Leo didn’t think it would give enough action if I did that and after running the idea by a few people it seemed like he was right. I’m sure this is part of the soldier in me wanting certain action scenes to have certain realism within its design. I know how crazy that sounds when I have Scourge and Minotaurs on the cover along with the Marines. Even so that’s how I feel. I felt with the clip being released on one assault rifle could signify that she is holding two rifles, but only firing them one at a time. Sergeant First Class Megan Driscoll of the Marine Raiders is pretty badass, but even she needs to focus fire.
The only change I made in Leo’s final design was to have the Marine woman given a dog tag around her neck. Due to how this is being released in worldwide, I wanted especially my fans in Australia, Europe, Canada and the USA to have the freedom to picture the soldier’s nationality as they wanted to. Also, in the story there are NATO troops going about doing their thing, but I figured this idea of no country/unit patches would affect readers looking at the cover on a more subconscious level.
The lead Minotaur doesn’t have a double-headed battle axe that he’s swinging one-handed like I’d originally planned, but I like how Leo did his right hand. I think the gauntlet punch comes off better for the overall image design. Also he looks like one powerful warrior.
The screaming Marine on the lower left of the cover and the smaller Minotaurs battle half visible on the front cover I hope will make people want to take a closer look at the cover and what the story is about. I loved how Leo positioned the warriors and brought the battle to life.
Lastly, I also worked with Leo on having the text slipped behind the Minotaur. I wanted it behind his fist and horns, but in front of his billowing cloak to give a sort of 3D effect to the cover. If this is something you'd like for your cover too then just make sure you work with your own artist to have a layer that you can update the font and the position they way you want it to look. Audio book covers and paperback/ebook sizes are different, so you need to be able to re-position the font as needed for each cover design. Having this built into the original image is necessary for this 3D layered effect and has to be done on the artist side. Any digital image can just leave those font layers open for you to adjust or edit or remove as needed. Of course you need to have Photoshop or a compatible software to do the work.
I'm not sharing the complete wrap around cover here just yet, but only the front of the cover portion of the image. There are more Minotaurs and Marines on the spine/back cover of the book. Once I get the book published I'll share out the whole image. Hopefully you all like it just as much as I do. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Now with Leo this is not a problem, he is an excellent artist and when we are working on a cover design I feel like we sync with each other. Also as I’ve stated before, while I have a pretty solid idea of the overall design I still trust Leo to make my ideas look good. I stated what I wanted for the main characters and what was important to me on how they looked, while letting him come up with something he thought looked good for the rest of the battle with a little input from me. Doing this allowed the cover to truly rock.
In the image below you see the two main characters for the front cover with the physical and emotional impact and body language I wanted shown. I went ahead and let Leo go with the two assault rifles, even though I had initially wanted a pistol and an assault rifle. Leo didn’t think it would give enough action if I did that and after running the idea by a few people it seemed like he was right. I’m sure this is part of the soldier in me wanting certain action scenes to have certain realism within its design. I know how crazy that sounds when I have Scourge and Minotaurs on the cover along with the Marines. Even so that’s how I feel. I felt with the clip being released on one assault rifle could signify that she is holding two rifles, but only firing them one at a time. Sergeant First Class Megan Driscoll of the Marine Raiders is pretty badass, but even she needs to focus fire.
The only change I made in Leo’s final design was to have the Marine woman given a dog tag around her neck. Due to how this is being released in worldwide, I wanted especially my fans in Australia, Europe, Canada and the USA to have the freedom to picture the soldier’s nationality as they wanted to. Also, in the story there are NATO troops going about doing their thing, but I figured this idea of no country/unit patches would affect readers looking at the cover on a more subconscious level.
The lead Minotaur doesn’t have a double-headed battle axe that he’s swinging one-handed like I’d originally planned, but I like how Leo did his right hand. I think the gauntlet punch comes off better for the overall image design. Also he looks like one powerful warrior.
The screaming Marine on the lower left of the cover and the smaller Minotaurs battle half visible on the front cover I hope will make people want to take a closer look at the cover and what the story is about. I loved how Leo positioned the warriors and brought the battle to life.
Lastly, I also worked with Leo on having the text slipped behind the Minotaur. I wanted it behind his fist and horns, but in front of his billowing cloak to give a sort of 3D effect to the cover. If this is something you'd like for your cover too then just make sure you work with your own artist to have a layer that you can update the font and the position they way you want it to look. Audio book covers and paperback/ebook sizes are different, so you need to be able to re-position the font as needed for each cover design. Having this built into the original image is necessary for this 3D layered effect and has to be done on the artist side. Any digital image can just leave those font layers open for you to adjust or edit or remove as needed. Of course you need to have Photoshop or a compatible software to do the work.
I'm not sharing the complete wrap around cover here just yet, but only the front of the cover portion of the image. There are more Minotaurs and Marines on the spine/back cover of the book. Once I get the book published I'll share out the whole image. Hopefully you all like it just as much as I do. I would love to hear your thoughts.
