Tomas’s Comments (group member since May 15, 2018)

Tomas’s comments from the Support for Indie Authors group.

I think this comes down mostly to what audience ends up reading the book.
If you write a book and consider it, let's say, aimed at people in their mid-20s but people in their early 20s enjoy it (and become the main buyers), is it a book for mid-20s or early-20s?

So, I guess, this is mostly a matter of perspective. That said, I'd say the themes (and how mature or not they are), as well as the age of the main characters, will have an impact.

The best way would be to have a friend who likes to draw... and would draw for you.

Eldon wrote: "Just deleted an obvious bot posted comment. Tomas, Dwayne, do we know if we can boot JettLeadbeater from the group?"

Only the leader of a group can boot people, as far as I know.

As for covers, the GR approach is to add a new edition with the new cover, even if it still has the same ISBN/ASIN, and mark it as an alternate cover edition. And they're quite strict about it, as far as I know, they'd probably ask me to do an alternate edition if I asked them to update my cover which differs by a slight adjustment of contrast.

The desync between brain and fingers is real. The faster I write to get an idea out of my head before it disappears into the void, the more typos I make...

You can also try looking for genre and/or promotion groups here on Goodreads, but I doubt they have any major success rate.

Dwayne wrote: "Tomas wrote: "I've once seen a bus driver who was missing the middle finger on both hands - probably born without them, judging how his hands looked. A strange sight."

Heh. How does he flip people off when they cut him off?"

No idea - I've never seen him again as this was the only time I used that line. But, during the 30-minute break mid-way through, he managed smoking just fine holding it between the 2nd and 4th finger (though it looked hella weird).

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Anyway, on topic. Another piece from Secrets of the Eternals.

“It was not your fault, we should’ve been more careful,” she [Shianna] said. She reached for her flask and drank deep. “And so it’s just us three.”
“You should probably make your way out as well, you’ve suffered enough [context: she's just suffered and been healed from a serious injury sustained in the skirmish],” Tyr’eshal told Shianna.
She shook her head. “You’ve risked yourself to free me from the cult.” She shuffled towards him and embraced him. “I haven’t come this far to let you fight the Darkmaster alone. I am not leaving you, Tyr’eshal.”
“You’re in no condition to-”
Shianna tapped her quiver. Five arrows left. “-fight? I will stay in the back and use my last arrows when they’ll count the most. But I will stay with you until the end.”
Tyr’eshal rolled his eyes, then looked at Alesia. She grinned at him.
“You know I don’t have it in me to truly send you away.” He breathed out loud. “Stubborn girls.”

Dwayne wrote: "He ended up riding with Mr. Parker, the shop teacher, who was a miraculously good driver, despite having only four fingers and a half a thumb."

I've once seen a bus driver who was missing the middle finger on both hands - probably born without them, judging how his hands looked. A strange sight.

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I have one more from Secrets of the Eternals:

Ember took it [a vial he's handed] and sniffed it. “Reeks of mistrust,” he said. “I would recognize the scent of truth-telling serum if you woke me at midnight."

Hey, long time no see... and no quotes. Gotta fix that!

"So, here I am. A lone warrior in a forsaken land, chasing a flickering hope. If I fail, no one may ever know how I will have met my end. My ancestors risked their lives for one another. My parents did the same. Now, it’s my turn. For them, for everyone who ever cared for me, and for the world that is my home."
-Secrets of the Eternals [WIP draft].

For some people these days, the idea of staying 20 years in the same job would be very surreal... so, gratz to your job anniversary.

Good point - while I can't recall the exact amount, when I hired a cover designer on Fiverr, the site took something like 10-15%. I guess the cut will be the same regardless of what the task is...

I'm mostly speculating from my knowledge, not experience, but there may be many aspects in play - if the page fails to load (or the person closes it before it does), chances are it will count on BB nut not on your web.
Similarly, if the person uses some add-on or setting in the browser that prevents your web from seeing their visit (or where it came from), it may not register properly. Things like VPN, adblockers, and such can tamper with the process needed to register things.

To be honest, I don't know what it was called in past. My point was that crossbows are an older invention than it may seem.

Crossbows are actually quite an old invention - it's mentioned in The Art of War which is a tome 25 centuries old. Ballista is also mentioned in Greece in 5th century BC.

I'll take a look from the other side. I have a ton of books on my TBR pile, and it's always tough to choose what to read next. Most of them are series, and I like that for a simple reason - if the series is good, I won't have to repeat this difficult choice for a while. That said, there are times when I'm seeking out standalone books to read which, to be honest, isn't that easy.

I would think it may be similar when you're writing - sticking with one world (even if you spread it across different times in the world's history) means you won't have to build another world from scratch, so it saves a ton of background work. Then, some authors can create great stories with minimal backstory...

So, I'm biased towards a larger universe, mostly because worldbuilding goes very slowly for me.

Sure, I love to just write, but I'd love if people read my book as well - for which I need to give at least some idea about what kind of book it is. Because people need to buy the book to read it (or go read it via KU). So, yeah, you can go with literally whatever but the result will be affected by it and it'll make it harder to find. Keep in mind that discovery/visibility (whichever term you want to use, it's the same) is the hardest obstacle for new writers to overcome.

As I said (and so did many other authors), the cover should give a clear idea about the genre and themes of a book. That's my main priority when juggling ideas. But I have little idea about some finer details (contrast, positioning, size of elements, etc.) so I will consult a lot with the artist and try to find a middle ground between my vision and practicality.

As long as the cover does the abovementioned job, I think that a more general image isn't detrimental to the result. It should still be relevant to the story and plot. In my case, that led to a relatively generic background with my characters at the forefront for book one. For book two, I'm considering maybe five ideas - they each have their pros and cons and I'm struggling to see what may be the best, something I'll probably consult with my beta readers when the time to have the cover done is near.

Dawn/Rise of is something I would use for prequels if they're dealing with the beginning of something - that's where they seem to make the most sense.
Otherwise, I keep one thing in mind: both title and cover should give the reader a good idea about the genre and theme while also being specific to the book in some way (such as a plot element or the main faction). That, and it shouldn't be too long (2-3 words excluding prepositions).
During my process, I ran with placeholder titles most of the time: Project Eternity part 1, Project Eternity part 2, Project Eternity part 3 for the individual books (the files are still named like that, by the way). As for the final title, I may keep several ideas around and, until I finalize the book, it's not exactly set in stone.

For now, the working titles of my series (and the final title of book one) are:
#0.1 Legend of Saggitus
#0.5 Looming Shadows (originally two concepts, of which the first was Rise of the Eternal Defenders and the second Looming Shadows, merged into one concept)
#1 Eternal Defenders
#2 Secrets of the Eternals
#3 Eternity's End

As you see, "Eternity" and similar words are common for all three main books, which is another thing I'd like to strive for, but not at the cost of making the individual book names detract from their main purpose too much. That said, as the latest patch in World of Warcraft is named Eternity's End as well, I would consider renaming the book if it was to be released in a similar timeframe (but as it won't be ready sooner than in 2-4 years, I probably won't need to).

You're right that this sounds a bit cumbersome. Especially as PDFs don't have all the neat aspects of a dedicated e-book file.

Personally, I'd have a "sample" page with a full prologue (or chapter, if your book has no prologue) and buy links at the end. This may be shorter than the sample but manageable for someone who just came across your site.

It definitely looks strange.

Upload them somewhere else (such as imgur or some other service), then use the old-school way to put it into your post with HTML. That's the only way I know to work on GR.