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

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

I'll be at Greetings and Readings in Hunt Valley, Maryland today from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM signing "Ice on the Bay." My previous appearances there have generally garnered me from 3 to 5 sales. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks, everyone. I'll probably skip this one, then.

Anyone know anything about the New Apple Book Awards? Entries are being accepted for the 2018 awards, $40 for the first category. I imagine it's stiff competition and a great way for them to make money, but is it worth submitting to them?

At long last, my second Writing Cooperative article has been published: Clean Up Your Language, in which I meld writing with bonsai and present some beautiful photos, too. I think I achieved a nice effect, if I do say so myself. ;-)

Thanks, Alex!

I've posted a second piece today. I actually wrote it yesterday but held off posting it because I didn't want it to compete too much with my driving story.

The Quest for Unity is in part a response to another story I read on Medium over the weekend. It's a bit hard to characterize in just a couple of words, but let's call it a vision for the future . . .

I've posted a review of Alex's book An Unwanted Inheritance: Cas Dragunov #1 here on Goodreads and on Amazon.com. I'll be adding it to my blog later this week, along with (I expect) an author interview.

This morning's post, To Infinity!, garnered an honorable mention in the IU Flash Fiction contest for September 2, 2017. Enjoy!

Christine wrote: "No luck with signing in. I've sent an email for help. I'll catch up on reading everyone's articles soon."

You may need to clear your browser's cache. A quick way to clear the cache for just the site you're on is to navigate to the URL (in this case https://medium.com) and press +F5. This will cause the page to reload with the cache entries for it cleared out.

To clear the whole cache in Firefox, click on the option menu icon (three horizontal bars at the right end of the toolbar), the click on History (the clock icon). At the top of the history list will be the command "Clear Recent History". Click that to get a dialogue for selecting what to clear and then doing it. Expand the "Details" section if it isn't already to see selected options. You probably want to clear at least the cache and the cookies, although be aware that clearing cookies might cause the browser to forget a few things you normally expect it to remember.

Thank you all, and clapped for Erica.

Clapped for you, Christine. If I didn't have all this debt, I'd quit my job and go full-time writer, too. :-P

But I do have a new Medium post, which I hope you'll all enjoy: Driven to Distraction: Things I snarl at behind the wheel.

Christine wrote: "Dale, that's great that you're writing for the Writing Cooperative.
I'm looking forward to reading your next story!"

Thanks! I'm hoping they pick it up. Still haven't heard. The first one was accepted within a few hours, but maybe the holiday weekend slowed them down, or maybe the submission rate fluctuates wildly.

Sent mine in. Thank you!

For those who care, yesterday and today's postings, both flash fiction pieces:

The Warning
The Battle

I've submitted another story to the Writing Cooperative. Haven't heard back from them on it yet.

Carmel wrote: "Exception to that being song lyrics in the public domain. At least that's what I've been told by a lawyer who did a presentation to a group of local writers. Also had to exclude those lyrics from m..."

Yes, if a work is in the public domain, then no permission is required to quote it. One needs to do their homework on that, too, though, because copyright law has changed over the years, so you need to know if a work was ever copyrighted, if so when it was copyrighted, and how many years the copyright lasted under the laws at that time.

A lot of authors who provide epigraphs draw them from public domain works which is safe (no chance of lawsuits) and easy (no permissions to obtain) and cheap (free). Mystery writer Martha Grimes often uses public-domain poetry by great poets as epigraphs in her novels, for example.

Caught up on clapping, I think.

Amy & Alex: Writing Cooperative says that after you sign up, you must submit at least one article in the first 90 days or they'll drop you. I'm guessing that if you submit something every one to three months, that's sufficient for them, so there's not a lot of pressure on that score, really. They also don't want you submitting too much. They don't want more than 4 submissions by any one author in the hopper at one time. That's rather a lot, I think. I can't see myself submitting more than one a week to them, and possibly not even that much. I don't want to run out of material too quickly. ;-)

I've done something new on Medium: I asked to be added as a writer to the Writing Cooperative (a publication). My first article for them was submitted and published today: But I Digress. Please enjoy, clap, and share!

Alex wrote: "I was aware you had input, Dale, but wasn't sure if I had used all of your blurb or if I had put it together from several people's suggestions. It was done before yesterday so my memory of it is fa..."

No problem. My memory is questionable at best, too. ;-)

Eldon wrote: "Seems my innocuous little question has stirred up quite the legal debate :P I really didn't intend for this to wind up in "court" so to speak. Just wondered if an epigraph was needed or wanted?"

That's okay, it's always interesting to explore these avenues. I only brought up the legal issue because in the course of running a small publishing company my wife and I have run across a lot of ignorance among writers about copyright law. Ted's likely right that an epigraph taken from someone else's book isn't too likely to cause trouble, especially in a book that doesn't become a bestseller. But time and again we've run across authors who quote long passages from other people's material, and when we ask if they have permission they say, "What do you mean, permission? I cited them. Isn't that all I need to do?" The answer, of course, is, "Sure, if you want to get us all sued. But since we don't want to be sued, get permission."

And we do help with that if needed. It can be a long, cumbersome process in some cases, and may involve payment of fees to secure permission.

Amy wrote: "That’s a result, well done. I’m still getting my $10-$15 a month but I have earnt my fees back now."

That's where I was expecting to be. I was making enough each week to earn back my membership fee, so I thought by the end of three months I'd get into the black. This put me well over in just one month, which is a nice surprise.

It would be interesting to see what Medium considers "important" topics. But maybe that would make it too easy to bankrupt them. ;-)

Carmel wrote: "Dale wrote: "Today's Medium post: Flash fiction story "The Window"."

Nice!"

Thank you!