Theodore’s Comments (group member since Apr 01, 2017)

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

Sam (Rescue Dog Mom, Writer, Hugger) wrote: "Theodore wrote: "Eldon wrote: "Theodore wrote: "That's me, the court jester. After you get to a certain age, a lot of things just don't seem to matter much anymore.

Which reminds me of that old jo..."

I live to make you laugh (and, of course, to entertain my wife of 54 years, who has only let me live this long, she tells me, because she's not quite finished with me yet).

Eldon wrote: "Theodore wrote: "That's me, the court jester. After you get to a certain age, a lot of things just don't seem to matter much anymore.

Which reminds me of that old joke about the elderly man who we..."

My guess: he didn't get the job. (;>)

That's me, the court jester. After you get to a certain age, a lot of things just don't seem to matter much anymore.

Which reminds me of that old joke about the elderly man who went for a job interview.

"What would you say is your greatest weakness?"

"Honesty."

"Well, that's interesting, but I don't think honesty is a weakness."

"I don't give a flying f--- what you think."

Dale wrote: "Theodore wrote: "I still find it difficult to believe, from a business standpoint, that given the millions (!) of paperback books out there, and the opportunity cost (read: risk) to Amazon, that Am..."

You have to wonder why they made the requirements for KDP paperbacks different from those used for CS paperbacks if they've served Amazon so well for so long.

The decision to force authors to make the changes, of course, is the right one from a business standpoint. This might also be a way for Amazon to clear out the "underbrush"...that is to say, the rejection of CS books that aren't sponge-worthy would eliminate a lot of clutter on Amazon.com and free up a ton of storage space.

As for me, if they reject any of my paperback books and the fixes aren't easy, then the paperbacks will go out-of-print.

Life is short. And you know how it ends.

Anita wrote: "Theodore wrote: "Hey, Gang...

Between February, 2018 and this month, I published six books in this anthology series, and on every one of them, CreateSpace FAILED to set the percentage of pages to ..."

I can't recall what the nominal values are for KDP and CS (10% or 20%), but the fact is, you can call them and get them set to anything you want. In the cases I was dealing with, CS had failed to set even the barest minimum of pages (for some unknown reason). Everything has been resolved now...in fact, the problem with all six books was resolved within 24 hours.

Carole wrote: "I just moved all of the books to KDP print. I heard they will make everyone change sometime in November and I wanted to avoid having issues. It took over three months to move all the books."

I still find it difficult to believe, from a business standpoint, that given the millions (!) of paperback books out there, and the opportunity cost (read: risk) to Amazon, that Amazon is going to require its authors to move their books. It would make much more sense for CS to be subsumed within KDP, and the paperback books on CS to simply be moved "wholesale" to KDP without so much as a hiccup. But what do I know? In the meantime, given the number of paperback books I sell (like virtually none), I'm in no hurry whatsoever to spend my time shifting them to KDP.

Eldon wrote: "Theodore wrote: "Hey, Gang...

Between February, 2018 and this month, I published six books in this anthology series, and on every one of them, CreateSpace FAILED to set the percentage of pages to ..."

Actually not. The problem was rectified within a few days. I was quite surprised.

To boot, I just had another paperback released on August 5th, and have two more in the wings (for September 5th and October 5th). I have seen nothing in my interactions with CS that are any different from past years.

D.J. wrote: "That's great, but all that is written in the past. Not the present, which grates on my nerves. That was the point I was making."

And my point was, I find myself able to write more dramatically using the omniscient, all-seeing observer. A matter of taste, I guess.

[Third person omniscient is a point of view where the narrator knows all the thoughts, actions, and feelings of all characters. The author may move from character to character to show how each one contributes to the plot.]

Dale wrote: "Theodore wrote: "He walked into the sunlit room, sat, and picked up his saxophone, bending over to pick up the metal canister of reeds from which he picked one that he put in his mouth. Then, sitti..."

Ha! Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! Great opening for your next novel!

Dale wrote: "D.J. wrote: "(I don’t know what the sun shining has to do with picking up a saxophone, by the way! Probably nothing unless they’re now solar powered.)"

The sunshine and birdsong motivated the musi..."

But of course...they brought him joy. (;>)

D.J. wrote: "I don’t like, ‘I walk into the room and hear the bird sing. The sun is shining and I pick up my saxophone’. It feel’s awkward. I prefer, ‘I walked into the room and heard the bird sing. The sun was..."

Ah...but think about this:

"He walked into the sunlit room, sat, and picked up his saxophone, bending over to pick up the metal canister of reeds from which he picked one that he put in his mouth. Then, sitting back and closing his eyes, he thought about what truly gave him pleasure, this musician by day, this assassin by night."

D.J. wrote: "Excellent. Well done, Ted."

Thanks, D.J. A lot of times, these small newspapers are looking for material. There may be some in your area. Good to check out. We get several each month in the mail. Others can be found at the local supermarkets.

Dale wrote: "Nice article. Congratulations!"

Thanks, Dale.

Alexis wrote: "Oohh how lovely. P.s. I like your pen name."

Thank you. The pen name (Alyssa Devine) is one of three I use. One of the other two, in fact, I've used almost every year since 1976, but I only bring it out once a year, for April Fools' Day. (;>) The other I use only occasionally for literary works, just to keep things interesting.

Carmel wrote: "Very cool! Congratulations. I hope it helps you sell books!"

Thanks, Carmel! And yes...wouldn't that be a pleasant surprise?!

Thanks, Carole and Sam.

I was recently interviewed by a reporter for the Langhorne Ledger, a local monthly paper published by Times Publishing Newspapers, Inc., Trenton, NJ. The paper was just delivered to my mailbox a few minutes ago, and here's their article. I think it's a nice intro to flash fiction.

http://www.timespub.com/2018/08/09/fl...

Dale wrote: "Interesting, yes. I'd heard that a lot of agents and editors were biased against first-person stories, but I never knew why.

As for the three examples (formal third person, first person, close th..."

I agree with you about the strength that comes with the ability to switch POV. As for first-person narratives, I tend to find them sing-song and the equivalent of selfies.

I do wonder a bit about the author's switching POV in his third-person examples, though. Take the sentence:

Raye didn’t quite get it and (sic) first and then she did and smiled.

How did the observer know? Strictly speaking, for the omniscient, all-knowing observer, the sentence should have read:

Raye didn't appear to quite get it at first, and then, she smiled.

I know...picky, picky, picky.

Or this sentence:

Again, Raye didn’t get it at first, and then she realized he must have been at the meeting she’d first gotten up and spoken at.

Quite a switch in that one! Again, this was supposed to be a third-person example.

Better:

Again, it seemed Raye didn't get it at first, but then, it appeared she realized he must have been at the meeting where she’d first gotten up and spoken.

Most readers today wouldn't even catch these, but an agent/editor at a legacy publisher would bounce these manuscripts like a rubber ball.

Whether first of third person, anyone who doesn't use an editor puts themselves at a distinct disadvantage if they have any thoughts whatsoever about reaching out to an agent.

Interesting article:

http://writersinthestormblog.com/2018...

Well…you learn something every day.

I just got off the telephone with Samantha at ACX.

Turns out that immediately after an audiobook is published by ACX, it AUTOMATICALLY becomes a candidate for Whispersync and is put through their automated validation process. The process determines how faithfully the voiced text matches the Kindle edition. All extraneous material—frontispieces, copyright pages, photographs, dedications (unless voiced), sound effects, whathaveyou—are ignored. Their system looks only at the text. This process can take up to 30 BUSINESS days or more, which means it could be early October, perhaps, before Whispersync is available for French Pepe. If by that time it’s NOT available, I am to give them a call and they will run their validation process again (although the agent was not sanguine the second run would yield a different result).

Basically, if you have a Kindle edition, there’s nothing you can do to stop the automatic test for Whispersync short of making changes to that edition such as to deliberately “fail” the ACX test.