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

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

I've created a Facebook event for my upcoming virtual tour for Ice on the Bay, I'll be posting info on tour stops to it as they become available. If you wouldn't mind, please indicate that you're "going." I'll post updates here as well as on the event. Thanks!

Chrys wrote: "Could I ask everyone to take a moment and vote for 'The Temptation of Dragons' as Book of the Month on the link below? Yes, you would have to input your name and email, but you can always unsubscri..."

I'll try to get to it later. That site is blocked here at the office...

This is a fairly minor opportunity, but it might pay unforeseen benefits. I'm posting a writing exercise on my Facebook page once a week--assuming I remember. It's based on the book Add Ten Words, which provides themed lists of words to use in writing a passage. I post the list and something I write using them, then invite others to write something from the same list and post their results as a comment.

My FB author page is at https://www.facebook.com/DaleELehmanA.... My plan is to post one of these every Tuesday, although I missed last week and this week am a day late. Just scroll through my posts to find them. The latest one is at the top today.

Enjoy!

Carole: Keep chugging that spinach. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

And thank you all.

Oh, I found it. (Blind, too.) All done. Thanks!

Carole wrote: "Glad to hear that, Dale!!!"

Me, too. How's it going at your end?

Carole,

I have an article for you but am a bit confused (my usual state). I've previously filled in the "Want to write for us?" form and don't see a place to actually submit a new article under an existing profile. Do I need to fill in that form again? Or can I email the article to you? Thanks!

Talena wrote: "Just catching up on things here after a very busy week or so. Dale and Carole, I hope you are both hanging in there, and your spouses even more so. I pray recovery continues and you can find joy in..."

Thank you. Kathy and I are doing good at our end. It's still a little up and down, but the downs aren't anywhere near as bad as they were a few weeks ago. Congratulations on your signings!

I'll try to come up with something for you this week.

Joshua wrote: "Yeah, if it blew up that would be a really expensive way to make popcorn shrimp!"

Which reminds me of an old joke about the method first employed by the Chinese in roasting pig, which turned into a comment in one of my father's math books from college.

That's likely a good beginning to a story, eh? And it's all true, too...

Thank you for the opportunity, Ben, and you Carole for sharing it!

Joshua wrote: "Awesome Dale! Either of the links work. I manually upload each person as part of my process to get to know each author so you should receive a welcome e-mail within a week.

And as for shrimp in space....we'll find a way to make it happen. The future isn't the future until shrimp have colonized the moon ."

Got it, thanks!

Now about those astroshrimp. I think you need to enter into a joint venture to see this done. SpaceX might be open to creation of such a venture. Call it ShrimpX. But make sure you put safety first. You want it to be ShrimpX, not ex-shrimp...

Amy wrote: "@Dale, yes I agree. Also it was good to discover that being rejected had no effect on me after all these years. The last batch were devastating. That was before I was published and before nice peop..."

Three cheers for being able to take it! ;-)

Congratulations to any and all who deserve it but who haven't yet gotten it from me.

Can you tell I'm behind and confused by now? ;-)

Joshua wrote: "Thanks Dale! It's part of my little joke to myself. The 'diabolic' is for my diabolic plan to get every author on there one day and ta..."

So what about sending shrimp into space? When does that happen? ;-)

Also, I used the Join! link, but I do I also need to do the Avid4 link? They looked kind of the same to me...

I'm all caught up to this point.

Theodore wrote: "No luck on Editors' Choices in July or August, either, Dale. That's a tough crowd."

Yeah, I just saw that. But in reviewing the winners, I see that I had only entered one story during those two months, so I guess I can't complain too much. You can, though, since you entered quite a few stories.

Anita wrote: "I couldn't agree more about going the traditional route. I don't want to give up the control, freedom and the fun. And ... my next Tracker novel is complete, yippee. Now, it's onto the editing phas..."

Congratulations!

Amy wrote: "Can I join in? I’ve had one rejection this year too. It only took two days. I’ll add it to the multiple ones I had twenty years ago and about six years ago."

Should I say congratulations? ;-) At the very least, rejections mean we're doing something!

Theodore wrote: "Most of all, I can't stand delays, and from what I read, it can take a year or more after a book is "sold" to a legacy publisher before it sees the light of day. That's nonsense!"

It takes my little company (my wife, myself, and one of my daughters) about eight months to a year to bring most books from submission to market. It's not at all ridiculous when one is juggling a number of projects all at once. It depends somewhat on the level of editing required, of course, and whether artwork is required. We also have permissions issues with some of our titles Mostly we publish nonfiction, and sometimes there are citations from other works for which permission must be secured.

Granted, you as a self-published author may be able to bring a work to market much faster, but you've probably also completed a pretty polished manuscript which might not need a great deal of editing, you're getting all your artwork from online libraries (not hiring an artist), and you're probably using online tools that automate the layout and typesetting processes as opposed to having a designer and a typesetter fine-tuning the product.

I wouldn't mind taking my time, since it usually takes me most of a year to complete a novel anyway. But we live in a time when there are options, so whatever works for each person is fine.