J. Daniel’s Comments (group member since Mar 10, 2015)

J. Daniel’s comments from the Support for Indie Authors group.

Christina said: "No, that isn't a euphamism, I swear!"

I know this isn't the right thread for it, but I can't stop laughing.

"Prodigal" - I don't think it means what you think it means :)

I don't know if any definition related to being a prodigy.

Frickin' group filled with so many nice frickin' people! Less than twenty members away from 4000 and my stupid guess isn't until frickin' January!

So today it's the banter between Charles and B.B. in this thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Hey mods! Clean up on ... all the aisles!

This video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nvg0Lw...

Please let this be a good movie. I want so much to love it.

Seems like an awful lot of AP classes. I took 3 AP classes my senior year (Biology, English, and History) and that was considered a fairly heavy load. Granted, it was twenty years ago, but still, with your schedule I gotta think you would have one stressed/tired senior.

You'll also need an elective in there - I did debate for three years and drama my senior year.

I think Dwayne's schedule is pretty good, but classes around here start at 7:55AM.

LOL - need to be more careful posting from the phone - obviously I meant 2016!

1/4/15 4:26PM

James never believed in ghosts. Not that he ever admitted it out loud. I mean, why take a chance, right? Whenever anyone else claimed not to believe he simply smiled and nodded knowingly, but discreetly. And so he had made it through his life thus far. Then one night his four-year-old daughter, love of his life, looked him square in the eyes, and asked, "Daddy, do you believe in ghosts?" To hesitate would say more than any answer he could speak, so without missing a beat he answered, "Of course not sweetie. Don't be silly." And that's when the lights went out.

I love when the holier-than-thou villagers get what's coming to them. They never seem to understand the powers they're messing with, do they?

Great story Christina!

As a reader I prefer my blurbs short, 2-4 sentences max. If I've gotta hit the "more" button, I'm just skimming over the description you agonized over for countless hours. I really like the last bit: "TEN is more than just a Sci-Fi tale of impending doom…it is a story of devotion, courage and the will to embrace the greatest of human emotions…love.
Download TEN, set your sights on the stars and join the crew as they discover new worlds…and themselves." That's enough to get me to check out a sample.

Personally, I like the new blurb better because it doesn't have a lot of the extra details we don't necessarily need like you have in the current one. However, I don't feel like it changes the perceived tone of the novel - by which I mean, if you're thinking "high tempo adventure deal" with the first one, the second one wouldn't change that thought.

I read the "not so good" review and I don't think having a different blurb would have made a difference. Somebody just didn't care for your book. It's going to happen, and the more you sell, the more it will continue to happen. On the flip side, you'll also get more people that like your book, so the reviews should even each other out. Take a look at any book with a large number of reviews and you'll see everything from 1 to 5 stars, with reviews contradicting one another. As much as we're all alike, we're also all different.

Good luck, and I wish you continued success with your novel!

Thanks Christina! That's quite the compliment.

Loosely based on true events. By which I mean, my kids had a toy ride-on fire truck that blared out those three phrases at random when the batteries started getting low. It really was a little scary the first time it happened in the middle of the night.

Might be a little long, but hopefully you guys enjoy. Not so scary, but maybe creepy?


The toy fire engine had seen better days, but Johnny loved it. He pressed the siren button non-stop, except to switch to the radio button. It wailed and called out commands in what was definitely not an inside voice. Johnny's dad hated the toy, and had a small smile as the siren slowly changed from a screech to a muffled warble, and the voice became a mumbled whisper. Then one day, it happened. The toy was silent.
"What's wrong with it?" Johnny asked, a small hitch in his voice.
"The batteries must be dead," Dad replied.
"Can you fix it?"
"It's not the kind of batteries you can replace." He had no idea if it was true, but if he didn't check then he wasn't really lying. Johnny sniffled, but didn't cry, and pushed the toy to a corner of the living room. Johnny's dad felt bad at first, but a fire engine free evening went a long way to making him feel better.
The toy sat in the living room, silent for over a week. Then, one morning while the family was getting ready for work and school they all heard its louder than ever, deep voice announce, "LOOK BOTH WAYS BEFORE CROSSING THE STREET." The family walked slowly into the living room, and it announced the same warning again.
"You fixed it!" Johnny said, giving Dad a big squeeze, then dashing over to the toy.
"No," he admitted. "Must have been a little juice left in the batteries," he added, noticing it wasn't responding to his son's button mashing. Johnny soon gave up and sat down for breakfast. The fire engine made the same warning while they were eating, then bellowed it out one last time as they were leaving the house.
By the time lunch time rolled around, Johnny's dad had forgotten all about the toy, and was headed out to his favorite food truck for some spicy tacos. He exited from the back of the building, like he always did, but his ringing phone stopped him from walking blindly into the alley. Caller ID showed his home phone number, which was odd because no one should have been home. He clicked the button to answer and a car raced down the alley, the wind rippling his dress pants. "Hello?" he answered hesitantly, a little shaken by how close the car came to hitting him, but the line was dead. By the time he got home from work, he had put the incident out of his mind.
The next morning they all received another warning from the toy. "DON'T TALK TO STRANGERS." Again Johnny was excited, but couldn't get any more response from the toy. It made the same announcement two more times before they left the house, but Johnny's dad pretended not to hear it.
At lunch time he looked both ways before crossing the alley, but it was empty, like always. Well, except for the day before, of course. The entire day was uneventful and he had forgotten about the toy's warning by the time it was time to go home. He was walking through the parking deck towards his car when he saw someone approaching him.
"Can you tell me how to get to Main Street?" the smiling stranger asked him.
Johnny's dad's phone rang, and he put a hand up to the man as he saw it was a call from home. "Sorry," he said, "It's my wife. Give me just a minute." The stranger stood there as Johnny's dad answered the phone call. "Hello?" he answered, and received garbled static as his reply. "What?" he said, putting a finger in his ear, and moving away trying to get a better signal. "I can't hear you," he said as he reached the edge of the deck, and then the line went dead. He looked back at the stranger, still waiting on him, and shrugged. The stranger shrugged back, then was plowed over by a driver coming too fast around a blind corner. The stranger died instantly, and right in front of Johnny's dad. He was late getting home, and while he talked to several police officers that night, he didn't talk to any strangers.
The next morning Johnny's dad felt like he was holding his breath, waiting for the warning. There was only silence. Johnny tried the buttons again, but the toy wasn't talking. Breakfast was quiet, and no voice called out to them as they left for the day. Johnny's dad looked both ways before crossing the alley at lunch, and made sure he stayed out of the lane in the parking deck when it was time to go home. He checked his phone for any missed calls, but there was nothing there.
When he got home he noticed the toy wasn't in the living room corner. "Where's Johnny's fire truck?" he asked his wife as casually as he could manage.
"Oh, it started talking again, so I made him play with it outside."
He grabbed her shoulders, "What was it saying?"
"What?" she said, trying to wriggle free from his grip.
"What was it saying?" he repeated, squeezing her harder.
"I don't know," she said. "Something about calling 911 in case of an emergency. Ow! That really hurts!"
He didn't hear anything else she said. He just ran for the phone dialing the numbers even as he heard the screeching tires outside.

I received my first one star review yesterday, and honestly I was anxious to read it. What it turned out to be was a ding against my book because the reviewer's Kindle wouldn't download the book. I thought, "Well how's that fair?" I then came straight here, intending to ask about Amazon's review policies, and if I should flag it, but before I could post anything, a comment from Riley in my feed caught my eye. It was a link to a blog post from Christina about being positive, and here's the link for those interested: http://mcmullenwrites.blogspot.com/20...

After reading it, I realized not only was I being negative, I was also being selfish. I mean, here's someone that paid for my book, but didn't receive it. That's not fair either. They can't very well give Amazon's service a one star review, so I can understand their frustration. Or I thought I understood.

This morning "The Universe" made sure I understood. While packing school lunches for my kids, I opened a pack of graham crackers only to find about half the pack crushed to dust. I was ... angry. I paid for an entire box, but I couldn't use what amounted to a pile of sand in a lunchbox. I wanted to fire off an angry email to the company demanding some retribution. I wanted to give them a one star review. But is it their fault? How many hands did this box pass through before it got to me? Maybe the store I purchased it from needs the one star review. Maybe one of the kids, or my wife, accidentally dropped the box ( I would never suggest giving your children or your spouse a one star review).

So, I'm keeping my one star review. My hope is that the Kindle situation will work itself out, and maybe they'll come back and edit their review. If not, at least they got a chance to vent their frustrations, and I can't blame them for that. Besides, I hear all my favorite books have one star reviews, so I've joined a pretty big club - I wonder if they have jackets.

Thank you to Riley and Christina for keeping me from making a whining post that most likely would have spiraled downward into a post complaining about one star reviews. I hope Dumbledore would approve of my post ;)

Seriously, read Christina's blog.

Not sure about embedding fonts - I just stuck with plain old Times New Roman. I don't know the reasoning why you would convert to PDF either, but maybe someone else can help with that.

My cover is a landscape painting at 300dpi and looks great on the paper book. I cheated with getting it setup. Using the Amazon cover creator there's an option to upload your own cover and they'll place the text where it belongs on the spine. I didn't like their font options, so I just lined my own up with theirs, then checked the box to hide theirs from the cover. That was it - no math involved. Very "unprofessional" I'm sure, but it works.

FWIW, I only had to upload my book twice to get it the way I wanted.

I know others on here have elaborate ways of formatting to prevent problems, but I had very little problems using my Word document. Createspace has some good forum posts that include templates that should get your text looking good. My only advice would be to make sure and order that paper proof. I noticed a few tweaks I wanted to make that didn't show up when reviewing digitally. Good luck!! I love e-books, but there's no feeling like holding your own paper book!

You can do this!

Daniel

Micah - looks like this thread may be getting derailed. Sending you a private message that should answer your question.

Daniel

Just for the sake of comparison, my 6x9 12pt Times New Roman paperback is 286 pages, but my KENP count is 517

These are all great! I'll add Internet wandering to my bad habits as well. Write a sentence, check Goodreads, check email, check sales dashboard, edit sentence, write next sentence, repeat.