C.B.’s Comments (group member since May 01, 2015)

C.B.’s comments from the Support for Indie Authors group.

Charles wrote: "All I get are fan farts. :("

And you know, this thing.

A lady of light inspired by the cover of Nascent Decay (The Goddess of Decay Book 1) by Charles Hash. I am pretty sure that is what she is at least.

Charles wrote: "This is the best one yet."

Why thank you Charles!

Ann wrote: "Ah, fan art -- that'll be the day! :) Fun topic!"

I guess today is the day!

The Crimson Mistress from Rehab For Superheroes, by Ann Livi Andrews! I will admit, my only reference was the awesome name.

Christina wrote: "Honestly, CB, for drawing a scene that technically never happens in my book, you actually visualized one particular scene pretty darn well, right down to the sparkly floaty firework bits."

In my experience, when someone discovers magic for the first time, sparkly floaty firework bits have a good chance of showing up! ;)

Dwayne wrote: "No. I don't get fan art. I don't have a lot of fans. But, I've gotten lots of nice words of encouragement and support and that's good enough."

Also, you get fan art! Just sayin'.

Rachel and Roswell steal the Alien's ship from Rachel, Roswell & The Alien by Dwayne Fry.

Dwayne wrote: "These are pretty cool, CB.

No. I don't get fan art. I don't have a lot of fans. But, I've gotten lots of nice words of encouragement and support and that's good enough."

Thank you Dwayne. It is a quick & rough style that I use on my blog for post header images.

I will admit that drawing fan art based on only reading the book description and looking at the cover is not the easiest task, but imagining a scene from a book you haven't read was actually fun.

You don't have fan art either? Awe! Well once I'm done work I'll fix that for you. ;)

Micah wrote: "Fan art competition...Has marketing possibilities I suppose."

So far, I'm winning!

Chris wrote: "CB wrote: "I would be curious to know who you used to edit your work. Maybe refer us to a professional editor we can trust that edited your work? And how much did you pay for his/her services?

Reason I ask is because I am going to be in the market for a seriously good editor soon, and I realized I would need to break open the piggy bank for the best. Any help or referrals would be appreciated. "

I didn't know of any good editing companies at the time that would accept my work so after a lot of research I went to a website called Scribendi.com. I picked them because they were Canadian, and that was a big plus for me.

You give them a book description and then their huge group of editors from all over the world can pick which they want to edit so that you get someone that matches your style.

I can't say that every editor there would do as good of a job as the one I got, as I may have gotten very lucky, but for me it was excellent service.

On their website is a cost calculator to find the price, and they will do a free 'chapterish' edit for you to test before you buy. Their prices were better than anything local I could find and reasonable for the industry as far as my research could tell.

Micah wrote: "If it involves the word "fan" and pertains to my books, the answer is NO. Period."

In the words of Oprah... "Look under your chair!"

Here is Mysterious Man at Asteroid Phone Booth from Watching the Watcher by Micah R. Sisk.

Christina wrote: "I have now arrived at last! "

I'm glad! Hopefully more shows up soon! Be sure to share it! :D

Melissa,

I am also a very visual person, and would love to see what others have decided my characters look like. However, If I am lucky enough to get any art, I fully expect a lot of it to be NSFW.

This was a bit harder, as I didn't get a hint from the cover, but I am pretty sure this happens in your book. It might not, but still.

Ashima Nayar from The Toymaker by Melissa A. Jensen as she battles a giant mysterious monster in the mines with only her wits, rag-doll, and a piece of glass.

Christina,

I checked your website and quickly discovered your problem! No where does it say that you are looking for Fan Art!

I decided to rectify that. So here, I present to you a scene that I am pretty sure is in your book based on the cover and description:

Renee Ward from Kind of Like Life by Christina McMullen discovering that magic exists!



:)

Contrary to popular belief, no one ever writes books, designs games, makes movies, acts, or becomes a musician for fame, power, or money. They all do it for one thing and one thing only:

Fan Art.

I have drawn some for others in the past to let them know that they have 'finally made it'.

I have a section on my website all ready to display it! I get very giddy at the concept.

What about you? Have you ever received fan art? Made fan art for someone else? I'm interested to hear any stories, especially ones that end with 'but I didn't understand why all of my characters were drawn as cats.', 'but that wasn't even the gender of the character!', and 'but why do they keep sending me ponies?'

Micah wrote: "Why, oh why, would "said" be a flag word"

Normally 'said' wouldn't be a flag word. I am actually quite a fan of said!

However, my novel is set inside a multi-player video game. No one actually talks as they are technically typing in what they say, and then are reading the 'Text Box' entries of others. No one ever says something like 'Oh, but you said that thing and...', they would instead type "Oh, but I just read what you typed and...'

It eliminated all instances of 'said', 'say', 'and that ilk'. The characters show emotion mostly through what they actually type, but can do special yelling, whisper, and interruption typing actions to balance it out and keep it from getting stale. :) It reads a lot like a play.

Normally I wouldn't restrict words like that, but it was to serve the narrative as a whole and keep the story feeling like a video game.

I also restricted most real life time references, measurements, and various other things that reminded the reader and characters that the real world does exist outside the game they are playing. I exchanged them to video game terms to keep it feeling internally consistent with the world.

It was actually very fun!

Good topic idea!

Personally I think there is nothing wrong with said. All it takes is reading one 'he mentioned conversationally.' to really make you appreciate how effective it is.

That being said, too many 'said's can also start to become a bit flat. I don't mind it if people scream, shout, whisper, mutter, or speak through gritted teeth. I think it can help the narrative as a whole if it isn't overdone.

I didn't use 'said' in my novels and flagged it as a word to never use not because I disliked it, but because no one actually says anything. It is set in a video game, so they are all typing, not talking. It makes it read much like a play instead of like a traditional narrative.

If my novel wasn't like that, then I know I would have used said. :)

I will double check Riley, it might have snuck in there somewhere since the last time I looked and therefore must be deleted.

I hope it isn't, Said was one of the flag words that wasn't allowed to be in there! :)
I do appear to have a serious problem with the phrase 'text box' though... that shows up like 3000 times!

Dwayne wrote: "I am. And the number one word I use a lot is... "said". No matter what story I put through your machine, "said" is, by far, the most used word. ..."

Interesting fact Dwayne: In my novel the word 'said' is never actually said. *gasp!*

I will Double Jump into this conversation.

I really do think that editing is a must. Poor quality control is one of the main complaints that people seem to have with Indie Books, (flaming pits, even with published books) so we must all strive to not be offenders of this.

I really value my beta-readers, one of them read my book three times for me in various stages. They all found so many errors it made my head spin. I had about 10 people beta read it.

I have read my book so many times that even my own impressive jokes hardly make me laugh anymore! I have read it out loud, I have read it to others, I have not had a computer read it to me (Thank you Cristina I will do that, it is a great idea!), and I have done it all again multiple times!

Do you need to pay for editing services? Certainly not... here is the kicker to my story though.

I was getting ready to submit to traditional publishers. The sites all said that it must be professionally edited, and as this was my first book and I was an unknown I thought long and hard about it. Eventually, I bit the bullet because I thought it was the law or something and I couldn't try without doing that. (Even though I needed to take out a loan so that I could do it) I hired a professional editor.

They found so many mistakes that I had never noticed - no one had ever noticed. It wasn't just mistakes though, it was 1000s of little things.
- Paragraphs came back completely rearranged to improve the overall flow.
- Things were moved onto completely different pages, chapters even, to improve the overall flow of the story.
- A suggestion for a small cut away chapter was added to help remind the readers of an important character that was neglected and returning soon.
- Sentences were blitzed, rewritten, and improved.
- Jokes were critiqued, complimented, or better material advised.
- My ridiculous rules were immediately picked up on, and 50 or so things that should have been Bold, italics, capitals, or otherwise were corrected.
- Little things were doubled checked. (I was told I had miscounted the number of... uh... sexy minotaurs... :# in one scene)
- Facts were referenced, little things were inserted about 'It would be a good idea to this here', or 'foreshadow this', it went on and on!
- They gave me a two page summary of my story, what they really liked about it, what could change, what made it fun, what was clunky.

It was a sea of red and comments. I read all the advice many times. In the end I followed all of it. None of my Beta reads could have done such a fine job, and I love them all dearly, but even the author ones or the one with a masters in literature are not editors.

Then I re-read it. That was the first time that I read it and I thought to myself 'This really has a shot of getting published'!

So do you need to pay for editing? No. A thousand times no.
Was I incredibly happy I did pay for it? Yes. A thousand times yes.

I love my story now even more. Real editing took my work to a new level. I know much more now, and I can follow advise that I learned preemptively in future works. Maybe eventually I can avoid it altogether after I have learned it all, but even then...

That is my 2 Gold Pieces at least!

Lora: Two things.

1. Personally I think that if you are going to review swap with someone, set it up so that you each get to read the review before it gets posted. They are completely entitled to their opinion of course, but should realize that this can hurt your sales and should have at the very least talked to you about it first.

2. I really like your cover. You did a great job with it!

Sherri wrote: "Hey, people yelled a lot, what can I say."

Loud things? ;)