Dale’s Comments (group member since Sep 15, 2017)

Dale’s comments from the Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie group.

Something a little different today: Well, Laugh, about signs I've read, or mis-read, or . . .

Theodore wrote: "The Kindle edition of Creative Ink, Flashy Fiction - Book 6 in my Flash Fiction Anthology series just went on pre-sale (it will be released August 5, 2018). Taken together, the six books comprise 438 stories (110,000 words), each prompted by a photograph (color photographs in the Kindle edition). "

My, you've been busy! I should probably clarify that I meant I only have half as many stories as you put into a single book (not your whole series).

The above numbers work out to 73 stories and about 18,300 words per book on average. Maybe with that many stories, a shorter collection would seem full. 18,000 words falls into novelette length, which would be far too short for a printed book. For an ebook, maybe not. I dunno . . .

But bear in mind that this is a short story, not a book, so it does have to grab the reader in the first paragraph or two. The main thing is that the competition is so fierce and the readers/editors probably so jaded that they may well be harder to grab than the average reader. It can also just be a matter of taste. Some stories they publish don't particularly grab me, but obviously did grab them.

Worst case, I know an editor who already said she'd publish it. And I'm married to her. ;-) But I'd need enough material to fill a book, and I'm not sure I'm entirely there. I only have about half the number of flash fiction stories Ted has put into his books, although I have some longer short stories I could also include. But I'd want a minimum of 70,000 words. I tend to think in terms of 70,000 - 100,000 as being ideal book length. But that's just me.

Yep, about halfway. Our fearless duo has already been to two exclusive parties in an attempt to execute on their contract to steal a curious family heirloom. They have two more to go, plus a party being thrown by an obnoxious neighbor who has nothing worth stealing but managed to twist Bernard's arm into accepting his invitation anyway...

Voting is now open. The voting page is https://www.indiesunlimited.com/2018/.... Thanks!

I've been a little stuck lately, but today I topped 40,000 words on Weasel Words, my Bernie and Melody novel. Progress!

Erica wrote: "Thanks so much, Dale! I appreciate your help. :) I plan to work on it some more this weekend."

You're quite welcome!

Rejected by F&SF. Submitted to Analog. I'll have to look into lesser venues when they (probably) reject it.

I rather liked the online submission and tracking system F&SF uses. They show you not only the status of your submission but it's number in your queue. When I submitted it , my position was over 500. It looks like they're burning through 70 or more manuscripts a day.

Which makes very graphic something we all know: why it's so hard to sell anything to a major publication

Double feature today:

Religion: It's Not What You Think

The Stolen Coat, a short story published in Lit Up.

Erica wrote: "That makes perfect sense. So if I pick a font that tends to be standard with most computers it should work on most machines/devices?"

Correct. There is a standard set of fonts considered safe for web page use. There is a list here, along with a detailed explanation, which you can read or not depending on how much you want to get into it. The list is the main thing.

Erica wrote: "I am trying to use a more kid-like font too, but for some reason it goes crazy on Internet Explorer."

Fonts on web pages are tricky. If you specify a font to use when rendering text, it will only work for users who have that font installed on their machines. This is because fonts are local to the client operating system.

The HTML document or style sheet can specify one or more fonts for a piece of text, and the browser will then use the first one in the list that the client actually has.

I hope that makes sense...

I posted a western (well, sort of) flash fiction contest entry today about an impossible escape from a posse. Stories are in the comments here. Voting is open Wednesday and Thursday. I'll post the voting link when it's available.

Oh, and ignore the typo at the end. It slipped through in spite of about five editing passes. *grumble*

My fifth Bernard and Melody flash fiction story is now on Medium: Washed Up.

I'm running out of stories to repost. Things will get difficult soon . . .

Michael wrote: "(There are two spaces after my sentences, despite this forum's erroneous removal of one of them.) ... The only downside of including two spaces between sentences is that computers frequently do not handle the extra space well if the next sentence begins at the left margin. Maybe computer programmers should take a basic typing class! "

Being a programmer . . . ;-)

Web standards dictate that browsers shall remove all extra whitespace. So if you type three spaces in a row, they will be there in the file that is served to the browser, but the browser will only display a single space. There are, however, ways to force the browser to keep extra space, including a special character called a non-breaking space.

Generally, a word processing document has the word wrap feature turned on, so when you reach the end of a line, the text automatically wraps to the next line. That doesn't remove anything you type; it's just a display feature. Of course, in wrapping, it keeps the letters of a word together, so a long word that crosses the right margin will display all in one piece on the next line. In ebooks, the same thing happens when you have a "reflowable" document. The words will wrap based on the displayed font size and the actual screen size.

The reason it doesn't work like a typewriter is, well, it's not actually a typewriter. ;-) But I understand your frustration. My wife frequently makes similar comments, and it's no good trying to tell her it's not a typewriter, because as far as she's concerned it should be!

Something new today: Unexpected Stories, which started as a Facebook post about a letter my grandfather wrote to my father.

By the by, I read and clap for everyone's Medium stories that are posted here, but I'm going to stop saying that I clapped because I think by now saying so is probably just clutter.

Eldon wrote: "And an Oxford comma is... ?"

That's the comma between the last two elements of a list:

I saw John, Sue, Mary, and Robert at the store.

vs:

I saw John, Sue, Mary and Robert at the store.

Theodore wrote: "Dale wrote: "Theodore wrote: "I don't know if everyone is going to be able to read it."

Hmm, yeah, I don't know that it's a large enough study to entirely conclude that one way is better than the ..."

I learned to type adding two spaces after a period, then later unlearned it, relearned it, and unlearned it again. My wife learned it that way and never stopped, so if we are working on the same manuscript, it can turn into a bit of a mess. :-P

Anita wrote: "Starting a new chapter on the odd page has fallen by the wayside. Even the large publishing houses don't adhere to it. It is only the first chapter that starts on the odd numbered page. From that p..."

My wife an I have always loved the "This page intentionally left blank" tag. We both like to point out that as soon as you put that on a page, it's no longer blank. ;-)

Theodore wrote: "I don't know if everyone is going to be able to read it."

Hmm, yeah, I don't know that it's a large enough study to entirely conclude that one way is better than the other. In fact, they say the difference is slight and only for some people, soooo . . .

As I recall, the "two space" rule was largely for manuscripts. Typographers don't necessarily set things the way the manuscript reads. I think in more recent times, most typographers have preferred a single space after a period, regardless of what editors want in manuscripts. But really, it's mostly a matter of how people think the end product looks. I don't notice any difference in my reading ease or speed either way. If it's not noticeable, it's probably not at all significant.

Julie wrote: "New here, looking forward to meeting some fellow indie authors - hopefully learn some wisdom.

I tried my best to follow everyone, for me Twitter is the easiest way to follow me, I am bad at updati..."

Welcome! I'm following you here and on FB and Twitter now.