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

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

This week's review and author interview is with John Vassar and his SF novel Provider Prime: Alien Legacy. Please enjoy and share!

I've posted a new one: An Encounter. It's a real-life story. I don't tell those too often because, like Isaac Asimov once said, nothing has ever happened to me. ;-) Anyway, I hope you like it.

Carmel wrote: "That made me giggle...as a Trekie!"

Excellent. Mission accomplished. Ahead warp factor two, Mr. Sulu.

;-)

Faith wrote: "Congratulations and good luck to thriller author R.W. Adams https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... who has been signed up by a professional agent and has a new book on the way."

That's better than an unprofessional agent. Which is what I ended up with a decade and a half ago...

Alex wrote: "Latest article from me, I hope you all like it.

https://medium.com/@arcarver87/mental..."

Good reminder! One small typo at the beginning: "or even two or two", which I assume should have been "or three". Although "or two times two" wouldn't be bad. ;-)

Ben wrote: "Here's my latest free-to-read article on Medium!

https://medium.com/@ben.jackson.write..."

Clapped and commented.

I'll catch up on the latest links here, but Faith's comment on highlighting reminded me I found a link that may be helpful to others: Tips and Tricks for Medium Writers. I discovered this yesterday and bookmarked it (yes, you can bookmark articles so you don't lose them). They have other articles how-to out there, too, but I haven't browsed through them yet.

Okay, thanks. The reason I asked is that I'm going to repost some of my IU flash fiction on Medium and it only occurred to me after I posted the first one that it would be helpful to include the photos.

Alex wrote: "Clapped and tweeted. I'm not really into religion but you don't preach, I like that."

Thank you. I try to write my religion pieces in a way that invites people to think about things for themselves. It can be tough to reach people, because relatively few (it seems to me) really understand religion anymore, even if they claim adherence to a belief system. Which is part of the reason for the "asteroid strike," in the Baha'i view, but that's another story . . .

Erica wrote: "New article. :) https://medium.com/@egraham040/what-m..."

Good advice! A few more claps clapped your way.

So long as you own the copyright and have not licensed any rights to anyone else, there shouldn't be a problem with it. If the original collection was self-published, this should be the case.

Whether or not you indicate that the novella was previously published in the original collection is entirely up to you. There may be some small marketing advantage in doing that, so that people who already own the original collection will know that they aren't getting something new if the purchase the stand-alone novella.

The split infinitive is a question with a split personality. According to "official rules," one should not split an infinitive, but as I understand it, this is actually a rule imposed upon English from the Latin, where it is impossible to split an infinitive because a Latin infinitive is a single word. Because the infinitive in English is two words, it is entirely possible and sometimes can be done with good effect.

So is it truly an error egregiously to split an infinitive, or is it just fine to creatively split an infinitive? ;-)

The answer probably is yes, and which you do may depend upon the context.

Ted,

Just curious: is Kat letting you use the original photo prompts from IU?

New post, another repurposed from my Planet Baha'i blog (yeah, I'm being lazy): Possibilities.

Alex wrote: "Believe me, Dale, I am very aware of how lucky I got in those months. It was while I was published with Pronoun and I really wish I knew how that period of luck came about so I could at least try a..."

Inexplicable fortune can be good sometimes. ;-)

I now have a paid membership, so I can get to more of everyone's stories. I also published my IU Editor's Choice award-winning short story, "The Lighthouse". Enjoy, clap, and thank you!

Theodore wrote: "Some of it, perhaps, might have to do with genre...perhaps if we wrote bodice-rippers with a ton of sex under fem pen names, it might kick things up a notch. (;>)"

Maybe, but I write mysteries and although it's not the top genre, it's a very popular one, soooo . . .

Alex wrote: "No marketing savvy, Dale, I've just been lucky enough to have some very good months that resulted in a decent amount of sales. They've tailed off now unfortunately, but I could at least tell an age..."

Do you have any sense of how you got that lucky in those months?

Alex wrote: "I didn't notice that one, Dale, well spotted.

It might not be a A Song of Fire and Ice (just as well or we'd be getting sued by GRR Martin) but it could be a tale, lol."

I agree! ;-)

Theodore wrote: "I think, more and more today, the legacy houses are looking for authors who can bring TO THEM marketing platforms already baked into the pie."

That's probably true in at least some cases. I would like to have representation and publication through a larger house than my own mostly for the marketing reach. I don't have much reach at this point, and nothing I've done so far seems to have helped much, in spite of the help of a lot of people here in getting the word out. It could be I'm just a marketing dunce (which I would not protest).

On the other hand, I'm not sure I'm giving agents/publishers quite what they want. I think I'm a pretty good storyteller, but I may not be all that "literary" and I don't curse ever third word (either in my writing or my actual speech) . . .