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

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

R. wrote: "I personally allow myself at least two "suddenly's" per manuscript. It's a word after all, and a useful one at that."

I can understand that, especially in a children's book.

Mary Ellen wrote: "If human editors aren't catching those words try ProWritingAid. It taught me my overused words...just is my downfall. I ran a 92,000 word manuscript through PWA and went down to 89,000 just (lol) b..."

Interesting!

Mary Ellen wrote: "Update - I got a very weird e-mail from an Amazon manager whose command of English was clearly not the best. It said little but sorry you are having a problem.

In the meantime, the formatting err..."

Well, the important thing is that they corrected the issue. Yes, at times the e-mails aren't in the best English, but I've always found that sooner or later, Amazon does make good on our complaints and fix the problems. Good that you were able to get it corrected so quickly, given it's a holiday weekend.

Lori wrote: "Thanks for the quick, honest feedback. That's kind of what I was thinking. Maybe I'll do an Amazon giveaway instead at some point."

Lori, I went to your Website. Congratulations on your books. They look terrific. And I understand your frustrations in attempting to gain traction as an independent author/publisher.

I've published three illustrated children's books. The first, Pepe [the penguin} Builds a Nest is on the subject of bullying. It's available in three languages (English, Spanish, and French). The English edition is available in Kindle and paperback; the others only in paperback.

Local bookstores won't have anything to do with me (one did say if they had room, they might let me put some books on a table, but who knows how much they would take from the sales and in what condition the books they return to me would be in?) Local elementary (K-2) classes, on the other hand, are thrilled to have me come in and read the books to students, and I always leave books behind for the teachers. Unfortunately, this has not translated into sales because the teachers don't want to commercialize these visits nor become involved with touting a product.

So, it's been a slog! I tried running a sale on the Kindle edition of the penguin book using Ereader News Today (ENT), which I've discussed on this board, but was very disappointed. That's a marketing venue best left to mystery and romance writers, among a few other genres. I did have some luck with my YA novel by contacting the local high school, where that novel, The Hypnotist, was incorporated in the school's Core Genre (mystery) Writing Program and now is one of two books (the other is Witness for the Prosecution) used by all 9th grade students. The library purchased a ton of both the Kindle and paperback editions as well as several other of my books.

Perhaps outreach to school librarians and teachers in your area may be one of the best ways to kickstart your marketing efforts. That and attending any educational events/shows in your area. One idea might be to see if you can get on the program, perhaps as a panel member, to talk about children's literature and issues discussed in your books. The whole idea, of course, is to gain both exposure and credibility.

Just some thoughts from my loft on a rainy day. Perhaps this is all old news to you. In any event, have a great day.

I've only seen one sale on CreateSpace that might have resulted from the flyer. Difficult to say.

Interesting, however, are the sales I'm seeing of my short-story anthologies. These may be a result of participating in the Indies Unlimited weekly Flash Fiction competitions. The exposure is terrific. Even if you don't win, participating gets your name and Website out there.

Here's the URL Have some fun today with this week's contest, especially if you're stuck in the house because of the weather. Remember, entries are limited to 250 words.

http://www.indiesunlimited.com/2017/0...

I have done multiple Goodreads' Giveaways on multiple books. Not one resulted in an review. In at least one case, one of the books showed up on a used-book site in Texas within a week of it having been sent to the winner. One participant in a Giveaway even had the audacity to request that if she won, I should just sign the book and not put her name in it. To my mind, unless you have some way to collect names and e-mail addresses for subsequent mailings, Giveaways are worthless.

Carole wrote: "Great post. Guilty of all of them- Makes you want to go back and pull in the work and redo it.

Makes me wonder what the heck all those editors were doing if they read our work- why didn't they su..."

LOL Good point. That may be why some are our "erstwhile" editors.

Mary Ellen wrote: "When I checked my look inside feature on my e-book it was totally screwed up. Font was huge and different sizes all over. It was center justified and looks awful. I previewed it on Amazon and on my..."

I would send an e-mail to Author Central. You won't be able to talk with anyone until Tuesday, at the earliest, but the people in India will be working through the holiday weekend, so e-mail them through the Help link. Be sure to give all the pertinent into on the book site (i.e., URL) and the problem you observe. They have always been very responsive to my requests for fixes.

Anna Faversham wrote: "I'm glad you've reported it - that is so helpful for future publishing. Thank you."

The problem seems correct on two of three covers. They still have yet to explain the third irregularity.

Carrie wrote: "I agree with him on 'suddenly'. I try to stay away from it. But I have a problem with 'just' and end up editing most of its use out. I think 'now' has its uses, but as he mentions, it all depends o..."

Thanks, Carrie.

I love to "play" with words. And the English language is so robust!

Theodore wrote: "I was thinking this morning about Anthony Bruno (He wrote The Iceman, among many other fine books.) He was my wife's step-brother-in-law and a damn good crime/mystery writer to boot. He died way be..."

There are lots of "bad" words.

In speaking, don't you just love people who begin a sentence with:

"So, blah, blah, blah."?

I'm getting old. (;>)

I was thinking this morning about Anthony Bruno (He wrote The Iceman, among many other fine books.) He was my wife's step-brother-in-law and a damn good crime/mystery writer to boot. He died way before his time, on August 28, 2014, leaving behind a beautiful wife and daughter...and his blog, which every aspiring writer should read.

It matters not which genre piques your interest; Bruno, as he liked to be called, had something to say about everything. And today, as I was looking through his many blog entries, I stumbled upon this one, which I commend to your attention:

https://anthonybruno.net/2014/06/06/2...

This piece struck a chord with me because the two words he mentions happen to be two I find myself using from time to time in my own writing. They are terrible! And yet they sneak in like a thief in the night, stealing the quality from my efforts. See if you don't agree they are the worst!

I think you will enjoy what he had to say.

Amy wrote: "Awesome. Well done!!!"

Thanks, Amy.

I submitted a piece for the new competition yesterday, so will be coming back to the "well" on Wednesday (;>)

Stand by.

BTW, they should announce their literary reviewers' choices at the end of the month (these are the pieces that will be included in the 2017 anthology), so keep your fingers crossed.

I want to thank everyone who voted for my story this week in which the photo of the bridge was the prompt. I was fortunate enough to win the competition, the first time that has happened.

goo.gl/4gnRgE

Sandy wrote: "This link came in this morning via another group to which I belong. It may, or may not, apply to the discussion, but it does talk about RGB and the colors we see.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu...."

I always loved light and optics in college. This is very interesting.

The problem, of course, is that CMYK is what's used in the printing industry, and the conversion of material executed in RGB to CMYK is at the root of many of our (MY!) problems.

Theodore wrote: "Earlier this year I published an illustrated children’s storybook (Pepe Builds a Nest) in paperback through CreateSpace (CS). I’ve used this Amazon publishing service for many years and have always..."

Well, as far as I can tell, the 'fix' worked on two of the three re-submissions...which makes no sense whatsoever. The covers on the CS sites for the books in those two cases now are blue instead of blue-black, and the digital proof covers were bright royal blue. But the cover on one book's CS site still is dark blue, and the digital proof appeared darker than the other two, as well.

Given the three covers were redone using the exact same technique, there must be something CS is doing that is causing a problem.

I have (again!) written to them.

Watch this space.

Bernard wrote: "Thank you so much for the information and the CMYK tweaking suggestion.
I don't think the problem is limited to the blue color."

You are correct...the problem extends across the spectrum, as you can see in the graphics provided by the author of the article I cited.

Earlier this year I published an illustrated children’s storybook (Pepe Builds a Nest) in paperback through CreateSpace (CS). I’ve used this Amazon publishing service for many years and have always been pleased with the quality of their print-on-demand (POD) products. You can imagine, then, how disappointed I was when I saw the proof copies of this book for the first time. The almost totally royal-blue cover I developed in the Red-Green-Blue (RGB) format—which was absolutely brilliant on my computer screen—arrived with a dull, gray-blue cover.

I redid the cover art several times, thinking the problem was “cockpit error,” but subsequent proofs still arrived with color errors, some with dark blue covers. Quality control aside (there were differences in the hue of the covers printed by CS’s plants in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina), an explanation eluded me.

Until today, when a search of the Internet yielded this site:

https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.c...

To make it easy, here’s the equivalent, small URL:

https://goo.gl/nkeuLj

In a nutshell, what you submit to CS is converted by them to the Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Key (or black) format for printing. Technically, this means that instead of using an additive process for printing your cover, CS uses a subtractive process. And the result, according to the author of the article is: “When you work in RGB and then convert in CMYK, you often have to make some tweaking on some colors because the automatic conversion (like changing the color mode) sometimes makes the colors even more dull than they should be.” You can see this in the example below for the color I used. Other examples are given in the article. It's pretty ugly, believe me! And perhaps it explains some of the things you've noticed in your covers.



What to do? Well, obviously, it would have been better to avoid this color to begin with! The cover of another of my storybooks, Rufus Finds a Home, though created in the RGB format, is almost cyan in color, and it skated through untouched. Ditto my cover for my third storybook, Fuzzy Wuzzy, which just happened to be yellow.

That said, I decided to try another technique available in my version of Photoshop (PS Elements 9 (yes, I know…I’m a bit behind the times)). Under “Edit,” I selected “Color Settings,” and then, chose “Always Optimize for Printing.” Using this technique, I redid the cover for Pepe Builds a Nest and now await the results. At the least, I’m hoping I can obtain a printed product with the cover rendered in something closer to the royal blue I originally intended for the book.

Keep your fingers crossed!

I do know they wouldn't let me post my first review on your book about Peru, Carole. I made mention of my friend who lives down there, discussed Mira Flores (where he has an apartment), and attempted to post a photo I took of the area in 1961. They simply rejected the review. So I went back with a much simpler discussion of your book and why I like it. (;>)

Carole wrote: "I think there are people who review and a lot that don't. I also think people are less apt to leave a review if there aren't any others on the book. Most people are afraid to get noticed or their r..."

What new rules?