When should you buy cover art?

When I first started this journey of writing, I never expected to self-publish. I thought I was going to submit Always & Forever to a publisher and keep trying until I landed a contract. I never figured I would make the decision to completely forgo submitting anything to anyone. Yep, that's right. I never even tried for a rejection slip. I'm still of the belief that I could probably get a contract, especially with all the smaller publishers available for romance titles. I really, really considered submitting to The Wild Rose Press and Samhain, who both seem reputable and I believe my work is strong enough to have warranted a contract. But I became worried about all the changes I might be forced into making, and whether A&F would still be the story I set out to tell. 

Amazon Product Link

So, once I made the decision to self-publish, I had the funnest task of all. Picking out cover art! In reality, getting my cover art for A&F wasn't all that fun. Don't get me wrong, in the end, I ended up loving the cover art. However, apparently red heads with curly hair aren't popular model choices, and my cover artist had a hard time finding a woman that would satisfy me to represent Lilly. I'm still not happy with the 'Lilly' on this cover. My Lilly is sweet and a bit fragile in my mind. This Lilly is scheming and a little sneaky looking. However, since Lilly is also a suspected murderess, I think this model does work, and the cover has absolutely gorgeous colors that I love! 

All in all, I think LFD Designs for Authors did a fabulous job!






Now I'm in the editing stages of Crime & Passion, so I've decided to commission the cover art from that. When I first started writing Crime & Passion, I saw a picture of the perfect couple to represent Donovan and Madeline. These people were an exact match of what was in my mind, but I decided to wait until the book was finished. I don't know, for some reason I just felt like that was what I was supposed to do. So, I contacted my cover artist...Guess what? She sold my perfect couple! Now what? Now, she will have to find someone else and it's back to the drawing board with me. I'm so disappointed. Hopefully, she can find a couple that I will at least be marginally happy with, but I realized I made a huge mistake. I have these characters firmly in my mind now. It's going to be hard to be happy with any art work, no matter how lovely, because the characters won't look right. She doesn't have time for the art work until the first week of January. At that time, I'll share with you whatever we come up with. She is fabulous at what she does, so I'm sure it will turn out, but I really wish I had ordered my cover art as soon as I found the models I liked. 

While finishing up writing Crime & Passion, my muse starting dinging me with ideas for my next book. She was rather insistent. Unfortunately, once I know the ending of a story, my muse is bored and thinks we should be all finished with the telling of that one. She always starts in on the next book, no matter how hard I will her to behave. My solution this time was to spend an afternoon listening to all her ideas. I wrote a blurb for her new idea and told her I would write it, but she had to finish Crime & Passion first. So, I had a vague idea of my characters for the new project and the title - Love & Deception. 

By pure accident, a cover artist I know through Triberr was offering a sale on a premade cover art. I decided to look since I had a new book in mind. I didn't like the models because the man had long hair, and told her thanks, but no thanks. She said, "What are you looking for? I can change the models." Well, I only had the vaguest idea, so I didn't need to be too picky. A blonde woman, a muscular man with short, dark hair. Those were my only qualifications. 

Holy cow! She came back with this smoking hot cover and it was the most fun I've ever had picking a cover! I love this. I haven't even written the book yet, but decided to share. Here's the cover and the blurb as I've come up with it so far:

Coming in Fall 2013

Nick Kendall works for a top-secret government operation as a spy. He takes pride in his job, protecting unsuspecting Americans from danger they never know about. But his new assignment to investigate a suspected terrorist makes him question everything he’s ever known. 

Carlie Hollis is the proud proprietor of a struggling delicatessen in downtown Portland. Working twelve-hour days to meet the demands of her growing customer base, she has no time for romance.  Nick sweeps into town and sweeps Carlie off her feet, changing her mind about love. She never suspects he is playing a role, only interested in her secrets.

As Carlie falls deeper in love, Nick struggles against his own feelings. It’s against the rules to get involved with the target, but his heart doesn’t want to listen to his brain.

Everything changes with a single phone call, and Nick receives new orders from his boss: Kill the target.

What about that art, huh? I love it! No fuss, no worry. Took me about five seconds to say, "That's perfect!" Now I have another cover artist who's work I love. This was made by edh Graphics. 

So, I began to wonder what everyone else does? Do you pick your cover art out first and then fit the story around the artwork or do you try to make your art match what you've written? I had no clue this house and lake were in my story, but now my muse is pitching all sorts of new ideas about how they get to that house and what happens at the house. It's awesome. I think my days of picking art out after the fact are over!

What about you guys? Before or after? Which is better and why?

Happy cover picking, my friends! Have a terrific day!

eeeChantelfff

What should you EXPECT to pay for when self-publishing?

Last week I posted a warning about unscrupulous 'publishers' charging money to help authors self-publish their books. You can read that here. I thought it might be helpful for some of you to know what kinds of things you should be expecting to pay for, in the event you are thinking of self publishing your book, and some places I know that are reputable to get them done.

There are three main things that need to be done to turn your story into a novel after you have edited it to the best of your ability. You can do some of this on your own, but you want to look professional. I recommend hiring these things out and getting professional help, but if you have knowledge you might be able to handle some of this on your own. 

Cover Art:
The first thing your potential reader sees - can't stress the importance of great cover art enough.  If you're a regular reader of my blog, you know that I endorse hiring out cover art professionally.  This can run anywhere from $20-plus for a pre-made cover to several hundred. For Always & Forever, I used LFD Designs for Authors and their covers run $75 for a custom cover or they have premades available. I know currently they have a waiting list, so get in line. Here's their web site if you're interested http://mycoverart.wordpress.com/services/  They only do front art for a digital book, but you can find other cover artists who do wrap-arounds for print books as well.

I recently had artwork done for the book I'll be working on next, Love & Deception, by a new artist, edh Graphics, and I love her work. She does romance covers and also graphic work for your website/FB page. Her prices are very reasonable. Check out her web site http://edhgraphics.blogspot.com/p/custom-covers.html

Also, if you are looking for a wraparound cover for your paperback or an ebook cover or other graphics work, I've heard good things about http://jayceedelorenzo.com/sweetnspicy/services.html though I haven't used this one myself.

Professional Editing:
I do think you need to hire an editor, though when looking through the quality from various editors, I'm starting to wonder if there is any way to be guaranteed a good editor. They say you get what you pay for, but I had a writer friend pay a significant amount for an editor who didn't seem to get the story and made a lot of suggestions that would have ruined the novel. So I'm feeling a bit dubious about whether you absolutely have to have a content editor. However, I do think you need a proof reader to help with missing words and grammar. 

Most editors will offer a 5-page sample or so. I suggest you take advantage of this before shelling out the money. Make sure that editor has ideas you agree with and seems like a good fit before hiring them. Unfortunately, I do not have any editors to recommend at this time, but a search on the internet will give you plenty to check out. 

You can actually get fairly decent content editing from critique partners. The place I love to use to get critiques is www.critiquecircle.com. My critique group helps me work out all my content problems and helps brainstorm story ideas for things I'm having issues with. I rely on them a lot to help bring my book from start to finish. Also, critiquing their work helps my improve my own writing skills, so it is a win-win situation. 

Quality editors or even proof readers can cost a lot of money, so you definitely have to shop around if you are working on a budget. You might even interest an English Major at your local college who is looking for something to add to their resume if you don't have the resources to pay for an editor. 

Formatting:
Finally, I think it is important to hire a formatter. I did Always & Forever myself, but couldn't include a table of contents or the code that allows customers to swipe down and jump from chapter to chapter (apparently this is an NCX file). However, it appears that Amazon is slowly changing their minds about this issue and want to start making a TOC mandatory. So, for my piece of mind, I hired a formatter to fix Always & Forever and will do so for my future books. I just do NOT speak computer code. I used Rachelle Ayala, as I was happy with both her prices and the quality of her work http://www.rachelleayala.com/p/book-formatting.html

As stated last week, unfortunately, it seems there are plenty of companies who want to do you the service of uploading your books and charge you a lot for the privilege of this. However, it is simple to do this yourself. Here are the links to the various publishing places and their guidelines and instructions. It is really a super simple process once you get your account set up, and something simple to do for yourself.

USA links for digital books for self-publishing:
Amazon Kindle: https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help
Barnes & Noble Nook: http://pubit.barnesandnoble.com/pubit_app/bn?t=support
Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/about/how_to_publish_on_smashwords
Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/companyinfo/authorsnpublishers.html

More resources:
Romance writer, Maggie Jaimeson, was nice enough to send me a list of the services she uses and recommends so I could share them with you all. Thanks, Maggie! Check out her books and website while you are looking around http://maggiejaimeson.com/ 

Maggie says: Here are the people I recommend and other resources I use.

Gilded Heart Designs - Christy created my webpage header, bookmarks, and FB timeline (all the same image). She also does book covers. Though she didn't do any of mine I've seen the ones she's done for others and because of that, I will use her in the future.

Red Circle Ink - This is run by Jessa Slade, multi-published paranormal romance writer. I've known her for 8 years and heard her critiques. I've also seen what type of feedback she gives writers. She's reasonably priced and has a variety of packages. The thing I like most about her is that she is what I would call a "developmental" editor. Meaning she doesn't just copy edit, she understands novel structure, character arcs, tension, turning points, etc.

PrintRunner - This is who I used for my bookmarks. I got 500 for about $50. I really great deal and that was for two-sided, full color glossy print. They are absolutely beautiful. And they were delivered within 5 days. I do not use business cards ever. I tried that before I published and a little after I published my first book. What I found is that people lost them or threw them out. But bookmarks are actually useful, and mine have all the information needed for people to contact me (website, email, QR code that goes to my website) and shows all four of my current books as well as my brand) I used to use VistaPrint, but I like the quality of PrintRunner and the pricing better.

Earthly Charms - For my Signed by Author Labels and Local Author labels for print books. They are the best prices I've found and you can get rolls of only 100, instead of having to buy 500 to get a decent price.

Book Tour:  GoddessFish Promotions - http://www.goddessfish.com/

E-book formatting faeries who do such a good job with the formatting. Here is their website. http://e-bookformattingfairies.blogspot.com/p/services-offered-by-e-book-formatting.html

I hope some of this is helpful. Make sure you read everything carefully and shop around. You can produce a quality book, even on a budget. Good luck and happy publishing. Have a fantastic week, my friends!
eeeChantelfff

How much do you pay to 'self-publish' your book?

I've had an interesting question come up a few times in the past several weeks. Several of my friends who are thinking about self-publishing have told me they are looking at publishers, but they all seem so expensive. 

What? The first time this happened, it took me a little bit to make sure I understood correctly...people are charging to 'help' you self-publish? Apparently that is, indeed, what is happening. So, I decided to post a blog just in case someone else out there is thinking about forking over a huge amount of money to 'self-publish' their book. 

I'm not sure how all of these work, but I did receive an email from a company who wanted to represent me. If you receive an offer, read everything carefully! I'm surprised by the amount of people this particular company represents.  

In essence, this is the offer they had: All I had to do was commission my own cover art, hire my own editor, and get my formatting done. Yes, they wanted me to pay for all of this. Are you curious what they were offering to do for me? I certainly was. They would kindly put their name as my publisher, upload my book to all the various vendors. I think they might have offered to arrange a blog tour. It actually said something like - for all of this, we will only take 60% of your royalties. 

Excuse me? Thank you very much, but if I'm paying for everything anyway, why don't I go through the very simple process of uploading them to the various sites myself and earn 100% of my royalties? Okay, it's not really 100% of what the book makes, but I will take 100% of what the book vendors pays me, not 40%. Also, organizing a blog tour isn't that hard of a process. You can hire a company just to do this. Or, if you don't have that in the budget, it's usually pretty easy to get bloggers to host you. Look around and find bloggers who feature other authors on their blog and then ask them if they would mind hosting you. Many will be willing. 

If it is important to you personally to have a publisher behind you and you are willing to pay for all of these things and take this deal, I would just recommend you see how much it is going to cost and weigh all your options. Avoiding the stigmata of "self-published" is worth it to some people, but make sure you read everything and aren't being taken advantage of.

I am fortunate because I have a very wonderful group of author friends who went through everything before me and told me what I needed to do. However, if I hadn't know any better, I might have been taken in by an offer like this, thinking it was what I had to do to self publish. Don't be taken in. You do need the three things that particular place asked me to get on my own, but after that it is a simple process of signing up for an account at the various vendors and uploading your file. 

Here are links to instructions at the most common book sellers (USA links):
Amazon Kindle: https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help
Barnes & Noble Nook: http://pubit.barnesandnoble.com/pubit_app/bn?t=support
Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/about/how_to_publish_on_smashwords
Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/companyinfo/authorsnpublishers.html 

If you want a paperback book available, you have two options that I know of, Amazon's CreateSpace or Lulu. I use CreateSpace and have been very happy with the quality of the books. These are on-demand publishers, so they only print books when a customer orders them. They take care of inventory, customer complaints, shipping, everything. You just upload your book (it does need to be formatted differently than a digital book but there are instructions at CreateSpace on how to do this), check it for quality, and set it live to sell. 

CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/
Lulu: http://www.lulu.com/ 

If you are going the traditional route, money should flow from the publisher to the writer, and you should not be responsible for the costs associated with publishing your book. A legitimate publisher will pay for the cover art, editing, and formatting.

Read every offer carefully. Whether you self-publish or go with a publisher, I wish you all luck. 

Happy writing, friends. Have a great week!

eeeChantelfff

Are Indie Authors Ruining the Publishing Industry?

I have a little rant today...well, okay, it might end up being a big one. 

In the last week, Amazon has gone on another witch-hunt to get rid of so-called 'fake' reviews. I've been relieved in that, so far, all of my reviews have remained intact as well as the reviews I've given to other books. I do know a few authors who have had reviews removed. The stupid thing is, the ones removed are from people that weren't even known to the authors. This means that, in fact, the reviews most likely getting removed are the true reviews. The only thing that makes sense to me is that a small group of people (including some publishers and traditionally published authors, as well as readers) are speaking out against Indie authors and putting pressure on Amazon to "do something about this problem!" So, is Amazon just arbitrarily deleting reviews? It seems that way. At the same time, I'm not sure what else they can do about it. I actually understand their position. 

The thing is, there are a lot of terrible Indie books out there. I'm not trying to be mean. I'm really not. But if you are a follower of my blog, you know I agonized over my decision to self-publish particularly because there are so many people out there publishing books who shouldn't be. My very first experience with an Indie book was something so horrible, I swore I would never buy one again. 

Once I met some Indie authors who actually are writing just as traditional authors, using editors, cover artists, beta readers, whatever they can to improve their product and make it fabulous, they slowly changed my mind. With proper editing, I think even a bad book could become a good one. Hiring an editor is the answer to every Indie author's problem. That and critique groups. I can't believe how terrific some of these people are at what they do. Truly talented folks!

I've been wrapped up in my own little world now, associating with people who are doing things the right way--people putting out top-quality books even though they are the dreaded "Indies." I started to get really upset by Amazon deleting reviews, picking on Indies, it would seem (although I've recently heard of traditionally published authors losing reviews too--I just think the people complaining about reviews are spurred on by Indie's and dishonest people paying for reviews **cough** John Locke **cough cough**). However, I've recently been reminded of why I once vowed never to buy another Indie book. 

I've fallen into being a book reviewer quite by accident. I never intended to become one. Really, I like such an eclectic mishmash of book genres, that I just figured it would be fun to put up reviews for the books I'm reading that I really like. I love writing, but reading has always been a passion for me. I wanted anyone who found me to be able to learn a little more about me by what I'm reading. Maybe get them to tell me more about them by what they are reading. I never really expected authors to start sending me their books and asking for reviews. 

In the beginning, I thought it was sort of neat. I get free books to read, and I can share the message with my readers about new books out. I've moved on to author interviews too, all more of a chance to let my readers connect with new authors. The problem is, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, so I've told people, 'if your book isn't at least a 3-star for me, I won't post a review.' My books I love feature was truly just supposed to be books I love. 

Here's my problem--I've received a few books in the past few weeks, some even with a so-called 'publisher' of the small-press variety. They are, in a word, horrible. Either I can't make heads or tails of the story line, or there is just a bunch of talking heads sitting around chatting and I can't focus on anything as my eyes glaze over, or the dialogue is so stiff and the writing so passive, it's obvious to me the person didn't even bother to submit to a critique group and get basic help, let alone attending writing classes or hire a quality editor. Heck - even just ask some English major at a college to go over it. Anything! 

I made it through around 15% of the first book, though I set it aside several times and proclaimed I wasn't going to finish it. Then, I'd get to feeling bad. I looked at the book on Amazon. It has glowing reviews. Am I just too jaded by my "critique" mentality from helping my partners at www.critiquecircle.com? Was I being too hard on other authors? I tried so many times to read that book, making it through a few pages at a time before I finally couldn't handle it. If it is just me, I guess that's the way it rolls, but I would never read that book for pleasure.

So, I moved on to the next book. The person I got this book from is super sweet, and we've talked quite a bit. As a person, this author is great. The story line of the book might even be fabulous--but I will never know. The problem? Talking heads the entire way. Number one rule in every class I ever took says don't have talking heads (where your characters are just talking back and forth with nothing else going on). This book is the worst case I have ever seen. Pages and pages of just dialogue. No modifiers even to tell who is speaking through PAGES. What happens if I lose track of whose speaking? Do I go back to the beginning of the chapter where there was a so-and-so said, five pages back, and then count lines to figure it out? Sorry, but I'm not willing to do that. 

An editor could have fixed these issues, should have fixed them. What scares me is that these books were both supposedly put out with a publisher. Is it a fake publisher that is actually just the author's business name? I'm not sure. When I chose to self-publish, I put my own name as the publisher, but I know some authors create a publishing company to try to lend legitimacy to their work. I figure, my work speaks for itself. I'm willing to embrace the fact that I self-published. You may be asking, am I so cocky I think everyone will love my book? Of course not. I'm not writing for the masses, but for a target audience.  And even within that audience, some people won't like what I've done. We all have different tastes.  But do I think my book is high-quality with good sentence structure, great plot elements, and a basic comprehension of proper grammar? Yes, I do. And even though I had a few problems with these things in the beginning, that's what my critique group and editor were there to help me with. 

To make my long rant even longer, here's my new policy. I just received two unsolicited manuscripts this week. The authors didn't even bother to ask me first if I wanted them. I deleted them, because I've had enough right at this moment with reading Indie material, though I'm sure I will get back to it eventually. If you want me to review your work, ask me first if I'd like to, send me the MS when I ask for it, and know this...if I take the time to load your book to my Kindle, and it is horrible, I am going to say so. If you want a review from me, it will not only be posted if it fits my "books I love" slot. I will give an honest opinion. 

As far as whether Indie's are ruining the industry, cheating readers with fake reviews, yadda, yadda, yadda - I still think the answer to that is no. Even if you don't have an ereader - you can download the sample on Amazon itself to see if the author has a clue about what they are doing in the department of writing. I don't buy any books anymore without reading the sample first. It's just a good practice to get into. If I can't make it through the sample, I'm not going to enjoy the book, so I'll save my money. This can't guarantee that a technically proficient writer will be able to tell a story that will satisfy me overall, but even traditionally published authors can't always fulfill that with their books. At least if I read the sample, I'll know they took the time to write the story in a manner that the writing itself won't present a problem. 

Amazon may continue deleting reviews.  I don't really think this will help the problem. Sample reading is the answer. At least for me. What are your views on this issue?

Thanks for reading everyone, and letting me rant. That's been building up! Whew! Have a great week.

eeeChantelfff

Self-publishing and pricing your ebook

Always & Forever has been published for a little while now, and it's been quite the learning experience.  One thing I've learned for certain, it is a lot of work to self publish! And, there is no guarantee that anything you do is actually gathering in sales for you. 

The thing that helped me the best? When I first put my book up, I put it at 99 cents for friends and family, and didn't advertise it at all. If you remember, I had a post a while ago about Self-publishing and Money in which I said I thought free and 99 cents was way too low to sell your work at, and asked what everyone thought was a fair price (because I also thought, and still think, that anything above $5 is too much for an e-book, no matter who wrote it).  I was adamantly against selling for 99 cents, but here's what I discovered:

In the first week that my book was 99 cents, I sold forty copies (although I only had about 10 people I knew buy it). I wasn't telling anyone, people just found my book at 99 cents and decided to take a chance on it. My ranking rose fast, and everything was kind of cool.  Then, I raised my price to $3.49 in preparation for announcing that it was available. Really, this is a more than fair price, I think.  I sold exactly 3 copies the next week (and two of those were sold before Amazon raised the price). 

Hmmm... that wasn't good! So, I joined http://www.worldliterarycafe.com and their tweet teams the next week, hearing this is a good way to get exposure for your book. At the same time, a book blogger put up a 5-star review for Always & Forever on their website. I sold one book that week. I have no clue if it was the tweets or the review. Over the next week, I sold a couple, but nothing to write home to Mom about. 

So, I'm eating crow now with my previous opinion. I've decided maybe for your first book, you have to sell at 99 cents, at least for a while, to get your name out there and start getting great reviews. I've lowered the price on mine back to 99 cents for the time of my blog tour, and might keep it there for a while longer afterward to see what that does to sales. 

After all, the whole point is to build a readership, right? If no one takes a chance on my books, I'll never sell any. However, no matter how much I love writing, I need to be able to at least break even on the price I'm paying for cover art and editing if I'm going to continue to publish them. Eventually, I'd like to make much more than that and make writing my full time job--isn't that every writer's dream?

One step at a time. If, in a few years, I can pay my power bill every month with what my books are earning, that would be success!  I read yet another blog article this week endorsing the idea that the way to sell books is to write more of them, and that marketing doesn't matter as much as having a large shelf of books available.  I agree with that, and my energy needs to go toward finishing my work in progress, Crime & Passion, not marketing. When I'm looking for a new author to try, unless a book is recommended to me by a friend, I always look for one with a lot of titles out because, if I like them, I'll have things to read for a while without taking a chance on yet another new author. I wonder if other people do this as well...I'm sure some must.

After writing this article, a friend of mine brought to view this very informative blog post on pricing.  Seems no one knows exactly what the answer is, but this is a good read http://thewritersguidetoepublishing.com/the-ruth-harris-reports-case-study-1-ebook-pricing

Don't miss my interview today with Melinda Dozier on my book tour for Always & Forever. Check out her blog while you're there. She just received a publishing contract and her book will be out next summer! Yay, Melinda!

Happy writing everyone! 

eeeChantelfff

I Might Be Crazy... Time Will Tell

Well, I've finally reached that moment I've been waiting for. Always & Forever's publication plan is on track and things will start on September 14, 2012. I'm really excited to send Zach and Lilly out into the world and see what people think. I've loved creating them, living in their world, going through their struggles with them. I hope other people enjoy reading the book as much as I enjoyed writing it.

There is so much associated with publishing a book. I'm so busy getting everything ready that my head is spinning. It goes much further than writing the book and being done with it. You have to get the cover art, hire an editor, write the blurb, come up with an author bio. Not to mention read the book a ton of times trying to catch any errors you and your editor might have both missed (already found some of these and I have advanced readers on the lookout for anything else). On top of that, there now comes marketing. How do I get the word out about my book and let people know when it goes on sale?

I already joined the wonderful world of Twitter, I'm on Triberr, and I have some followers for this blog. I figure I'm a step up in the world as far as beginning marketing. However, for a new release it is important to spread word to the masses. Most of the people who know about me are authors, and while I greatly appreciate their support and the friendships I've made along the way, what I really need to reach are readers.  I already have a small base of reading fans through friends and family who are advanced readers, and I know they will be out there selling my book for me. But I need a bigger reach.

Entire blog touring. I knew about this in theory, but I wasn't sure how to implement it in practice. Well, all I really had to do was ask. I'm so amazed by all the generous folks who have agreed to interview me, do book spotlights, and just be a part of helping me spread the word for my book release. You all should check out their blogs in the meantime, but I'll remind everyone either through here or on Twitter when the blog tour starts. So many people reached out to help me, that now I'm worried about getting everything completed in time. Even though it's added a layer of stress, I am so thankful and grateful to all these wonderful people for their kind help.

You can get links to the other blogs and see my schedule by clicking on the tab above that says Always & Forever Blog Tour.  You can also read my finalized blurb and the first two chapters of my book by clicking on the tab that says Always & Forever.

Have a great rest of your week, everyone! On Friday I will have another author spotlight highlighting the work of my good friend and critique buddy, Michele Shriver.  Visit her blog at http://micheleshriver.com/ in the meantime.

~ Chantel 

Is Self-Publishing Taking the 'Lazy' Way?

Sue Grafton is a writer I've respected over the years, read a few of her books based on a recommendation from my best friend's mom, and generally thought highly of her. After all, she's one of the lucky few who had lightening strike and was able to make a career from her writing. I know a lot of people feel this way. Imagine my dismay when I read her interview at LouisvilleKY.com http://louisvilleky.com/2012/08/louisville-author-spotlight-welcomes-sue-grafton/ and read her response to the question of whether she had words of wisdom for young writers. Her response?  "Quit worrying about publication and master your craft. If you have a good story to tell and if you write it well, the Universe will come to your aid. Don’t self-publish. That’s as good as admitting you’re too lazy to do the hard work."

Lazy... really? While waiting for the Universe to come to your aid, you can read the entire interview--the digs against self-published authors continue. Many authors I know in the SP world are highly offended. I have to admit that I am as well. She makes it sound as though we aren't taking classes, learning our craft, putting in hours and hours of work writing, critiquing, editing, editing, oh - did I mention editing? On top of that, so many of us that want to do this right hire cover designers, content editors, copy editors. The book then needs formatted and a few more reads to make sure the formatting came out okay before it can finally be published. If all that isn't work, I don't know what is.  Besides the fact, Indie authors pay for all of these things out of their own pocket, just hoping it will turn out to be worth it in the end. It's a labor of love that most of us do because we've found that we can't NOT write.

The difference is, at this point, Ms. Grafton is pretty much done with her book. She sits back while her big publisher promotes her book and helps it sell, with very little work on her part. Maybe that's not fair. I'm sure she does some things. Attend book signings and whatever else, but the heavy lifting is done by her publicist and her publisher. Don't get me wrong, that's great for her. She got lucky and her books took off. A "lazy" self-pubber now has the long, arduous process of promoting their own book, paying for their own advertising, and doing everything they can to make that lightening strike for themselves.

No one seems to know why one book does better than others, but sometimes everything comes together perfectly, and an author takes off. I would rejoice for them all, normally. But reading this interview, I have to wonder what makes some traditional authors think they are so much better than anyone else. Self-published authors are getting lucky too and having their work read by millions. It happens. I would think any author would be happy for another one who became successful. If most readers are like me, I have room for more and more great authors. I'm not going to quit reading my favorites just because I found another one I like too--I get to enjoy them all. Obviously, there are a few people sucking on sour grapes in the publishing industry. I feel a little sorry for them.

I do need to say that I think there is a valid point in this argument against SP. Indie's who put their work out without editing, without having it critiqued by others, basically write a book and slap it on Amazon without any work are taking the lazy way and make me angry too. I thought this was what all Indie's did for the longest time (based on one SP book I bought and tried to read), and I'm a bit ashamed I didn't know better. Anymore, Indie's are taking much pride in their work. We are hiring some of the same people the Big 6 publishing houses are using. We learn our craft and do everything traditional authors do, we just choose to do things differently.

My writing hero, Holly Lisle www.hollylisle.com, has decided to self-publish all her work. She's putting all her old books (at least the ones where the rights have reverted back to her) out herself and she is planning to self-publish her new book and is in the process of self-publishing her writing courses/clinics. It is heartening to me to know that some highly successful authors, people I truly respect, are taking this as a viable route.

The reasons I finally made the hard (for me at least) decision to self-publish were these: I want to control customer cost, making the price affordable for them while still making a profit myself. I also want creative control. Always & Forever deals with some tough issues, that are very important to me, and I have a few scenes I'm not sure would be acceptable to the traditional publishing world. I wanted to tell the story I had in me, not a watered-down version that fit someone else's vision. Finally, I have heard horrible things about the current trend with contracts signed with traditional publishing, where the writer is basically being paid almost less than nothing for their work and retaining none of their rights for foreign, movie, and electronic editions. If they want to stay with the publisher, they are forced to agree to these terms that strip them of most of their ability to make money. If you can't make money at your craft, it won't be long before you cannot continue doing it.

So, maybe I'm lazy, but I didn't want to deal with that. I wanted to tell the best story I had in me to tell. If people enjoy it, I don't really care if I took the supposed lazy way. I'll be grateful to whomever takes the time to read it, to appreciate the world I created, and the story I wanted to relay.

For a few interesting articles on self-publishing, these are some I really enjoyed and they deal both with the way publishing is being looked at and the difference in the amount of money an author stands to make going the Indie route:
Sticks & Stones: The Changing Politics of the Self-Publishing Stigma
http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=6481 (This one deals with the money and was very eye-opening for me)
Ebook Publishing Trends

Is there room for both traditional and independent books? I've read many books in my life, and I have to admit that there are many a traditional published book that should never have received a contract. There are also some traditionally published books I love so very much, I read them over and over again. I recently read a few independent books that are so fantastic, I'm going to share them on my blog in the coming weeks to help spread the word about them. I think there is room for both sets. I think readers don't care about it one way or another, as long as they are getting a good story worth the money they paid for it.

Where do you stand on this issue? 

Thanks for reading. Have a wonderful week!

~ Chantel

Since I wrote this article, Ms. Grafton has issued a clarification on her statement. I will post the link so you all can read it. http://louisvilleky.com/2012/08/more-from-sue-grafton-on-publishing-indie-writers/

Write with joy, friends!

DRM and Copyright and Format ~ Oh My!

Besides the things I listed last week, there is still much to do before self publishing that has nothing to do with the actual writing of the novel.  I wanted to share with you a few more steps I am currently working on while waiting for my editor to finish proof reading Always & Forever.

COPYRIGHT PAGE:  If you self publish, it is up to you to create your own copyright page. There are certain aspects that must go on this to protect your rights and save you from a lawsuit. Here's a website you can get more information from and sample copyright pages you may legally cut and paste to your own book. http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2010/01/copyright-page-samples-you-can-copy-and-paste-into-your-book/  What I didn't know is that copyright pages are, in fact, copyrighted, so don't copy one out of a book without changing the wording.


I've saved mine as a generic Copyright Boilerplate so for future books all I have to do is change the copyright date and insert the correct ISBN/MOBI/EPUB numbers.

DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT: You also need to decide whether you are putting DRM on your electronic book or not. This is supposed to help stop piracy of your work, but what I've heard is it just makes things hard for honest customers who might read books on multiple platforms (they can't do this without buying multiple copies of books with DRM). Interestingly, someone also said if the company hosting the DRM goes out of business in the future, the reader will no longer be able to access the book. My favorite books I will re-read many times over for years and years. I would be very upset if I suddenly couldn't access it ten years from now.

For these reasons, I've decided against DRM, but each author must make this choice for themselves. On my copyright page, I included a paragraph about where my book can be legally bought and if it wasn't purchased from those sources, the reader has received a pirated copy and where to report it. I think the convenience not having DRM provides to readers is worth the risk, but this is another thing to think about if you are self publishing.

FORMATTING:  Once my book comes back from the editor, I will need to format it for publication. This is a tricky process, but I'm going to try to do it myself. If you are not confident in your abilities to do this, you can hire a formatter. My friend and fellow author, Rachelle Ayala, formats e-books.  Check her out http://www.rachelleayala.com/p/book-formatting.html

However, I took a writing course How to Think Sideways from author Holly Lisle, and it has a comprehensive lesson on formatting. I'm giving it a go. We'll see how this turns out.

Someone also said you can have your books formatted by using this website - http://ebook.online-convert.com/convert-to-epub but I will caution you that I've not tried this and I don't know how it works.

Instructions are also provided for Amazon through their KDP program here.  Barnes & Nobles has information for their PubIt! formatting here.  Smashwords has instructions for the "Meat Grinder" (seriously, this is what they call it!) here. I'm not doing the meat grinder, as I've heard it is a headache and a half! I've decided to only submit to Amazon and Barnes & Noble for now.

I'm sure there are things I've forgotten to do and I will discover them as I get closer to publication. However, right now I'm waiting on my editor so I'm going to spend time writing my newest book.

Have a terrific week, everyone! Thanks for reading!

Mini Checklist for Self Published Book

So, I made it through my final edit that will include major rewrites. Yay! Party time! I'm nearly done! Er - maybe not.  While the book itself is going to require only one more read from me before I send it back to my editor to be proof read, yesterday I realized I still have a lot of work to do.

GOODREADS:  In a writer's group I belong to, someone asked if you should put your book up on www.goodreads.com prior to publication and the answer was yes. I didn't even know I could do this. I went and checked it out. You have to have fifty books on your Goodreads shelf and then you can apply to become a librarian. Once a librarian, you have the ability to add books; thus adding your own book pre-publication. I try always to listen to the advice of people who have done this before, so decided to add my book, and then realized I have some things to do before this step.

COVER ART:  When submitting to Goodreads (or when you publish the book) you will need cover art. This is the first shot you have at grabbing your readers attention, so it needs to be catchy. I know a lot of people who are doing this on their own and if you have the skill, you can save some money. I'm not so skilled, unfortunately. My cover art was done by LFD Designs for Authors at http://mycoverart.wordpress.com/services/ and I've been extremely happy with the outcome.

BLURB:  I wrote a blurb for Always & Forever once, but I didn't really perfect it and decided to worry about it later. Now, it's time to worry. I submitted it to my writer's group and they had great ideas on tightening the writing and cutting information that doesn't need to be included. What I mean by blurb is the short book description that can be found on the back cover of a paperback book or in the product description on-line. This is important to get right, because it's the first sample of your writing potential readers will look when making a decision on whether or not to read your book.

AUTHOR PICTURE AND BIOGRAPHY:  This is tough too. I'm still working on the bio, but I finally found a picture to use. The tough thing about pictures, I'm usually the person who runs the camera. Most shots of me are pictures I took by turning the camera backward and snapping the picture myself! :-) Not a good picture for something professional. I finally found a few decent photos and picked one. Perhaps in the future I will have one professionally done, but for now I think this is fine.

My bio is trickier, I'm not sure what to include. Other authors have suggested people like to know a little personal information about the author, so I'm trying to include some of that. Do people really care that I live happily with my family and our pet cats?  I'm not sure, but I'll probably include that information anyway. I plan to go on Amazon and read other author bios to get a better idea of what to do here.

There is more work ahead once I get my book back from the publisher, but hopefully having all these things done in advance will save me time as I get closer to publication.

Happy writing, my friends. I hope you have a terrific weekend!

Adventures in Editing ~ What I've Learned

I wanted to give an update on how editing is going for me. Honestly, this has been the hardest week I've ever had writing. Editing, for me at least, is an exercise in patience. I hear some people rave about how much they love editing and it is their favorite part of the process. I wish this were true for me!

My editor, Stephanie Pace, is absolutely fabulous. She did much more work than I paid for. I honestly feel bad about how much she did, never understanding how difficult the job of copy editor must be.  I'm hiring her to do my proof read when I finish the revisions, and I'm very grateful to have found her.

I tried very hard to be a low-maintenance client, only sending in questions once for each set of chapter submissions she sent me, and limiting those questions to things I truly didn't understand. Stephanie was very patient when I did ask questions and tried to incorporate things more into the next batch of edits if she found I had a hard time understanding what she said. I think it is important to work with an editor you trust. If you find one, hold onto him/her!

The perk to self publishing remains in that I don't have to take her advice. Even though I do understand this, it has been a very hard thing for me to implement. I've found some of her ideas do not mesh with the book I intended to write and would change my novel completely. However, a part of me worries if I don't take her advice, I might do something wrong and ruin my chance to make my book the best it can be. This has led to a lot of rewrites, which I then realize are wrong for my novel after changing things.

I think this is where a lot of writers struggle. How do you know when what you've written is good enough? Although ten different people (only one of them a friend/family member) read my book before I sent it to the editor and each expressed their enjoyment in my creation, I'm still left looking at the editor's suggestions and wondering if it's really okay to ignore her advice.

Silly, perhaps, but there it is. So I write, rewrite, hate the new stuff, reread the old version, love that, plug it back in, move on. The reason I keep doing this, however, is because several of the ideas she shared are so great, so mind-blowingly brilliant, I know my book is better for taking that advice.

Perhaps when I have more experience I will be able to objectively look at the editor's advice in the future, accept the changes she suggest that are wonderful, and reject the ones that don't match my vision before I rewrite the scene. For now, I slough through it all, frustrated if the new scene doesn't work, but even more grateful when something she inspired enriches a scene far beyond what I first imagined.

Through it all, my critique partners have been there for me. Thank goodness for them! They have been willing to read through some of the new scenes, tell me what's better, what's worse, what they loved about my book before and wish I wouldn't mess with. It's a great help to me on this frightening journey toward perfecting my novel.

I'm at the half-way point in my revisions and I will be happy when the major rewrites are done.  Then, I'll send Always & Forever off for the proof read and move on to the next book. That's when the fun starts for me. First draft is my favorite part of the writing process. 

Happy writing! I'm wishing you a productive week!

Adventures in Editing ~ Are We Done Yet?

I promised to do a post about my experience hiring a copy editor for Always & Forever. All in all, I'm very happy I did this.  It has meant quite a bit of work, and I'm not quite at the finish line, even though I thought I was.  Honestly, editing feels like a never-ending battle, but other authors do this all the time.  I'll make it through.

Here are a few things that I plan to check and double check in any future novel:

Point of View Character - Honestly, I'm not certain I've ever heard a rule on how to pick a point of view character.  I simply picked the character I thought worked best and went for it.  My editor explained that the POV character should be chosen based on who in the scene has the most to lose if/when things go wrong.  Unfortunately for me, this rule means there are three scenes in Always & Forever that I've chosen the wrong POV.  Since this is essentially more Lilly's story than Zach's, sometimes I picked Zach when it should have been Lilly.  Let me tell you, changing the POV character is not a little fix.  I'm sloughing through, but I don't want to make this mistake again!

Does Something Change in Each Scene? - Another thing she nailed me on a few times is that my POV character started the scene thinking one thing and ended the scene thinking the same thing.  Although something changed in the scene story wise (and they were important things that needed to happen in the book) she said if something doesn't change for the POV character then I didn't do my job as a writer.  Easy enough fix, really, I just need to tweak a few things, but definitely something to look out for in the future.

Does the Plot Make Sense? - Honestly, this is why you need another person to look at your work.  I think it is too hard to figure this out for yourself and it is important to have someone looking over your shoulder to make sure your plot holds together.

I think I got a lot out of the experience of hiring a copy editor, but honestly, I'm not taking all of her suggestions.  She is, after all, merely a person with an opinion.  I panicked and started changing everything at first, until I remembered that fact.  I think it is a good idea to get a lot of people's opinions, and then make a decision from there.  Lucky for me, I have a great group of critique partners (remember, you can do this for free at www.critiquecircle.com if you don't have a group in your area or you prefer to work on-line).  When I had a hard time deciding whether or not to take the editor's advice on certain plot points (and really, this meant almost totally changing my book from what I had envisioned) they were able to tell me what they agreed with about what the editor said, what they disagreed with, and why.  It's really helped me to understand what parts of my book worked, and where I need to work on clarification.

When it comes down to it, part of the reason I'm self publishing is so I don't have to listen to an editor if her vision doesn't agree with mine. One of my critique buddies reminded me, "This isn't an editor at Random House telling you make these changes in order to get a six figure advance."  That really helped me put things into perspective. 


Still, I've gained insight into my characters and into the story I wrote.  There are many, many places in the novel where the editor has reminded me to add more internal thoughts, suggested flashbacks that would help bring things together, and suggested changes to certain scenes that will strengthen the whole of what I have done.  She also made a wonderful suggestion to change one of my secondary character's personalities.  I would never have seen this on my own, but I think it makes the book that much stronger. 


Oh - she also nailed me a few times for telling and not showing...I hate that! But thankfully she caught them, because I thought I had eradicated all those telling problems.


Overall, I'm very pleased with my experience with an editor.  I don't know if a copy editor is 100% necessary if you have a good critique group, but I learned more than I thought I might.  Now, all I need to do is finish implementing the changes I've decided to make and send this baby off to my proof reader! And yes, hiring a proof reader is mandatory if you want to put out the best book possible. 


Happy editing! Have a wonderful weekend! 

Self-publishing and Money

So, there has been a lot of conversation going around lately and I've been devouring blogs, trying to discover the magical price a self-published author should set for their first book.  It seems the "gold rush" of 99 cent books or free Amazon Select giveaway days is gone.  Word on the web is that Amazon has changed their program, and there is no longer a post-free bump to boost your book's ratings and gain visibility.

Does it even make sense to sell our books for 99 cents?  My answer to this question is a resounding "No!" I am willing to do giveaways and hand out a few free books here and there, but I have decided there is no way I want to take place in the mass giving away of thousands upon thousands of my book.  I have had the very good fortune of making many friends in the writing community, and they are so wonderful about sharing information.  Through the knowledge gained with their experiences, I've learned I'm not willing to give my book away, especially if there is now little benefit gained from doing so.  I've worked hard on Always & Forever, as have my critique partners and my editor, and it is worth way more than 99 cents.  Now, I am a new author, and I'm not so confident in my ability to market that I am going to price it at $9.99 either.  I've been thinking $3.99 seems like a good, fair price range.  Then again, a recent blog by Ed Robertson explains how Amazon has changed their algorithms so that higher priced books will rank higher on the popularity rankings, even if the lower priced book is actually selling more.  You can read that article in its entirety here.  What does this say for Indie authors who are trying to gain visibility?  Does it make sense to price your book lower than $5 when $5 and above seems to be the price point getting the most exposure?

I think books have been devalued in the eyes of the consumer.  They are so used to getting free books (and I basically think a 99-cent book is the same as free) that they think all books should be priced at this rate.  This image has been going around, and I really think it says it all.  Why is a book someone reads while drinking a Double Mocha Iced Coffee worth less than the drink, which took someone a few seconds to whip up?  My Kindle app is full of free books and cheap books that I will probably never read.  But if I pay $5-$15 for a book, you bet I'm going to read that sucker.

{After getting a few comments this morning and sleeping (so tired when I wrote this last night, but I'd promised it would be up) I want to make something clear. I do not think it is the readers' fault the book has been devalued. They've come to expect this because it is what so many of us are doing when we price our books, thinking we have to price at 99 cents to sell because of what "experts" told us.  This is neither an attack on authors nor readers. I think things just got warped in the "gold rush" mentality that started happening, and now we are starting to see a fallout as authors realize they aren't making a fair wage. Not that mid-list writers have ever made a fair wage.}

Many Indie authors are starting to speak out against the idea of a 99 cent book, and I'm happy they are.  I think devaluing something that takes so much work and effort is not a good idea.  Rob on Writing recently ranted My Novel Is Worth More Than John Locke's Comb (warning - this link contains some explicit language), and he's right. Why should we sell our hard work for the same price as crap that can be bought at the dollar store?  Lindsay Buroker discusses how it doesn't matter if you are a new author. Even established authors are unknown to people who have never read them.  She claims you just need a good cover, an interesting blurb, 5-10 reviews (that don't all need to be good), and a clean novel (meaning you hired an editor and didn't just throw a bunch of error-riddle crap up on Amazon).  You can read her entire article here.

I think the view points of Indie authors are slowly changing. We are slowly banding together and realizing there is no reason to sell our work for an amount that will never make us a decent living, let alone pay a single bill.  Heck, at 99 cents a book, only earning 35 cents on each sale, you would have to sell quite a few books to even afford that Double Mocha Iced Coffee.

Honestly, my expectations for a cheap book are low to begin with, and for that reason I may never read it. If someone wants more than a few bucks for their novel, I'm going to assume they've gone through all the proper channels to edit and present a book worthy of reading. Of course, it's always a good idea to read the free sample and make sure the book isn't full of errors beyond the norm in the traditional publishing industry.

I want to find the readers who are at least willing to spend as much on an entire novel of mine as they would on their coffee, or even if I price higher, it still would be cheaper than a combo meal at many fast food places.  If they pay a little more money for it, they'll probably read it, and then *crosses fingers* they will rave about it to all their friends! That's what I'm hoping for, anyway.

Where do you stand on this issue?  Do you think my plan to charge $3.99 for my book is too much, too little?  What are you willing to pay for a really good romantic suspense? What is your top price for an Indie book, or even an eBook?

Thanks for reading! Have a wonderful day everyone!

Publishing?

Well, as many of you know, I finally made a decision.  It was not an easy one!  I must have changed my mind thirty-seven times.

Ever since this idea of writing entered my head, I always assumed I would write the next Great American Novel, it would magically be wonderful, and I would send it off to a publisher, land an agent, and the rest would be history.  Okay, that's really never what I expected.  Though I did expect I would one day be published, I never imagined it would be an easy process.  And I know it isn't!  I have nothing but admiration for all the traditionally published writers out there.  It is a hard world to break into.  Many terrific books are passed over in favor of other books, as publishers try to guess which fad will catch on, what book will catch the attention of millions of readers.  Self-publishing is an entirely different ball game.  You can make this a very easy process in which you put forth no effort, and most likely will end up with a product that will not sell and will hurt your reputation.  Or you can go about it the correct way, professionally, just like a traditionally published author, and build a brand for your name that will eventually lead readers to you *crosses fingers and takes a deep breath*

Now there is the new  world of E-books and the publishing venture offered through Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Smashwords, Google Books, and many others.  Suddenly, anyone who strings a few lines of text together can slap a book up on the internet and attempt to sell their work.

Honestly, I didn't view these as "real" books.  Please don't come after me with the pitchforks and burning torches.  In fairness, the only self-published book I had ever read was absolutely horrible.  I downloaded it for 99 cents, thinking that for the price it was worth taking a chance.  Boy, was that a horrible assumption.  Spelling errors, basic grammar structure problems, and the plot ... let's just say it was not well thought out.  I swore I would never buy another self-published book.

Enter Critique Circle.  Suddenly, I'm reading works in progress (WIPs) by awesome authors and I'm excitedly sharing my work, getting great help, perfecting my craft.  Everyone is talking about their editors, and I'm so naive and clueless about this new way of publishing, I think they must have publishing deals.  I was amazed that all of these people seemed to so easily land a deal, and wondered what the heck the secret was! :-)  When I realized they were self-publish authors, who actually hired editors just like traditional authors, my brain suddenly started wondering what world of possibilities could be opened by this new development.

I gave self-published work another chance, and I have to say, it's unfortunate I happened upon that first book.  The majority of these self-published novels really deserve to be published, as much as any other book I've read.  There is something a little sad about reading digital books, but I'm slowly getting used to this new way of reading--I love the feel, smell, and experience of holding a book in my hands, turning the pages.  I've told my family I want a Kindle for my birthday this year.  We'll see how that compares to a paperback.  It has to be better than reading at my laptop.

My plan is to publish Always and Forever on Amazon.  I'm learning a lot about promotion, Facebook, Twitter (I'll have more on my experiences with this later).  It's a scary world, but also fabulously exciting.

My editor, Stephanie, sent the first 5000 words of Always and Forever back to me this evening.  She has some great ideas and some great catches.  In fact, Chapter One listed on this site is not going to make it to the final edit--well, parts of it will, as far as information given about Lilly, but the chapter itself will undergo a radical change.  I will update the website in the future and put the final Chapter One up.  Stephanie made a suggestion for an alternate first chapter.  Interestingly, it's the same suggestion my good critique buddy and fellow aspiring author, Travis Casey, made.  It was a good idea when he made it, and it's still a good idea.  I'm going to run with it.  She had a lot of other great suggestions.  I can already see the benefit of hiring an editor.  I'm very, very excited to embark on the next phase of editing.

Here are some of my favorite blogs that have information about self-publishing, what authors are doing about promotion, and just some general guidelines:
Rachelle's Window
Victorine Writes

Good luck to everyone, in whatever dreams you pursue! Anything is possible!