Now that I’m winding down on the edit, it’s time to look at cover designs. I participated in Indies Unite for Joshua (a great cause, by the way, check it out) and bid on a cover designer, and that’s how I’m now working with Sessha Batto. Here are a couple:
Then there’s this one:
Can you say “excitement?”
🙂
I’ve been writing for a long, long time. One could say that I’ve been writing since I learned how to spell. The Internet gave me many wonderful opportunities to practice what natural ability I had, to find out where and how I could improve on my skills, and to let my inner Muse stretch out on uninhibited wings, where it could get as naughty or as serious as I wanted to go.
It wasn’t long before I found a market for my work. By “market” I mean more than an occasional high five or the promise of cyber margaritas after a long day of witty comebacks. Sure, I wasn’t making enough cash to retire to a beach on a deserted atoll, but it was nice to see the occasional deposit into my PayPal account. After a year’s worth of occasional deposits, I had nearly enough to buy myself lunch at a decent establishment.
Mostly, though, I was writing for free. Free stories, free opinion, free reviews, free editorials, free photo-essays. I didn’t mind; after all, I’m a writer and writers as artists are known to be [somewhat] narcissistic. Internet writers, especially those who use their real names like I do, are way out there, as vulnerable as if they were to step outside on Main Street sans clothing. It’s the nature of the beast. Writers write to communicate, to tell a story, and we do so because deep inside, no matter what Internet troll tells you different, we’re pretty damned good. Not Stephen King good or Carly Phillips good or Dan Brown good, but good enough to be a few rungs above the masses.
Now that I’m an e-pubbed author, I have a book for sale. Not for free, like my pithy essays, but for a mere pittance. (I have given out free copies, and my BETAs have read it, but it’s not the same.) I don’t know how many I’ve sold to date, but I do hear back from people who have read it, so I have to estimate, oh…maybe four or five? Maybe more? One author at the GDRWA, of which I’m a member, recently commented that she sold 18 e-books and is feeling pretty good about it. (I have since upped my goal to 19.) 🙂
I have to say that it was agonizing to come up with the price. In fact, I lowered the price in between proofs, just because in my years and years of writing for free, it felt weird to charge anything at all. I know that the retailer is going to take a cut, and Book Baby is going to take a cut, which will likely leave me with just enough for lunch after a year. But a price? I’ve purchased e-books by major authors for $14.95. I’ve also purchased books for $.99. I know Virtually Yours is not $14.95 material. It’s also worth more than $.99. On the other hand, I can’t just give it away. I put in major effort, major time, and major money (in hiring a professional editor) to put this baby together.
I’m acquainted with authors who have tried “free-bie” days on Amazon just to up their downloads. While offering freebies will cause a momentary bump in activity (in one case, my friend had 16K downloads. 16K!), as soon as the giveaway day is over, the activity usually (and I could be proven wrong by some author somewhere) falls back down to nothing. And I wonder if giving it away for free helps. Do those who download free books actually read them? Or are they just participating in the freebie mentality? If it’s for free, maybe I should get it, just in case, the “just in case” never happening.
Personally, I love the books that I have purchased, and I have purchased tons of books, both physical and e-format. I’m also given tons of books for free, mostly in the hope that I’ll read and review. With very few exceptions – and there are a few – I am far more likely to read and cherish a book I’ve purchased.
My take is this: There is a value of words, of art, and of hard work. To give your art or product away consistently means you do not value your work. Why should anyone else value it if you don’t? McDonald’s serves crappy hamburgers (sorry, McDonald lovers, but I’m a food snob), yet they still charge for a cheeseburger. Cash money.
I have plenty of free material out there on the web. If you want to read me for free, you can. Virtually Yours (and the novels that will follow) can’t be free. There is too much blood and sweat involved. If you want to taste that blood and sweat, you’ll have to invest a little to experience it.
My first novel, Finding Cadence, is currently going through developmental editing, Edit One. Unlike the other books I’ve completed, this one is deep, dark, and somewhat depressing, especially at the beginning. I’ve spent a lot of time laboring over this particular story. It took me two full years to write. I have enrolled in writing classes for the express purpose of helping me to find the best way to tell this tale. I’ve researched the minute aspects of the story, using my friends, acquaintances, and employees in my quest to make the story as true as it can be.
This novel has angst, heartache and heartbreak, and an awful lot of bad things occurring to my main character. In the end, however, she pushes through her pain, through the obstacles in her life, to “find” herself. While not based on my life or anything that has happened to me, the story offers a reflection of some of my life experiences. I couldn’t help it; it was my first finished work, and I was the stereotypical writer who folded in every familiar nuance I could think of. You can do the back and forth and compare and contrast me and my life to Cadence and her life, and in many cases, I inserted themes or characters or story lines that were somewhat relevant to me.
Someone once asked me, “Why did you choose to write this story?” (I’m not certain, but I think he was floored by the amount of pain I ladled onto my character.)
Why does anyone choose to write any story?
The main reason is because the writer wants to tell a story, meaning beginning, middle and end, and I have to admit, my initial motivation was just finishing. As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m lazy. Two years is a long time to invest in any product. Writing was a way of giving myself a goal and striving to achieve the goal.
Once completed, I realized that, while I had a story, the mechanics were off. Plus, it was way too long. This period marked the initial hatchet job of stripping away thousands of words and changing the voice from third to first person.
After that, we come to the era of giving the story and characters more depth. This is where I am now. I’ve come to see where in order to make an adequate story a great one, I’m going to have to dig deeper inside myself.
But another reason to write, and to write this particular story, is for the therapeutic value. Writing, especially a story like Cadence, is like sitting in a psychiatrist’s office.
I’ve discussed this story and this character with so many people, Cadence has now become real. My characters appear to have some real inner maladjustments. They have been profoundly influenced by their life experiences, which causes their judgement to be clouded and their actions to be flawed.
It’s not just me, but I know people who’ve beta read Finding Cadence who have said they can visualize the characters. We discuss their motivations and their reactions, dissecting them as much as I would have had I sent them into therapy.
In a way, writing is therapy, for ME. I have learned so much, not just about the skill involved in crafting a story, but also in understanding human nature.
Even my own.
It’s been a long and sloggish journey. First you have to have a germ of an idea (which you poached off your best Internet buds, with their consent); then you actually have to commit to time and energy to get your idea out of your head and onto paper and/or Word document (which is much harder to do than you think); after which, you have to commit to making it better (meaning surrendering your baby to a real, live editor and re-writing massive parts of the story); and after shiny and new, you enter it into several contests and query for a year (with high hopes and few positive resulting answers), before finally making the leap (because the sequel is nearly ready for the first edit and you have to get that out) to self-e-pubbing (and that alone takes a lot longer than you thought it would).
(For those Grammar Police: Yes, that was a very long sentence. Bite me. 🙂 )
With Book Baby, you don’t know exactly when your book will hit the “For Sale” shelves. (Maybe this is true of other e-book publishers as well, I don’t know.) Amazon was to take two or three days; the rest, two or three weeks.
At this point – between writing, re-writing, editing, formatting, and the dreaded Real Life sagas (which are too many to list here) – I am completely spent. I have officially entered the Virtually Yours anticlimactic black hole.
Imagine my surprise when I received a Facebook message from a friend telling me my book was out! So I investigated, and sure enough, it is!
So now the worries: I’m not sure I like the blurb. I’m not sure I like the cover design. And I’m for sure not sure I like that someone else wrote another Virtually Yours which appears several titles above mine. (Not that I’m angry she scammed my title and launched on or about the same time I did. My Virtually Yours is soooo different.)
For a brief summary, see below. For purchase on Kindle, go HERE.
Genre: Mom-Lit. Which is chick-lit, matured. Think of chick-lit as a bottle of Boone’s Farm. Think of mom-lit as a bottle of Kendall Jackson.
Characters: Six major, plus one interloper. It’s a lot, but there are stories bubbling with each of the six women. And the interloper.
Theme: Things aren’t ever what they appear to be.
Big Reveal: OH, LORDY, YES! But you won’t know until you read to nearly the end, so don’t give up too soon.
As for me and my anticlimax: After getting my employees paid, I’m going to retreat to my hole and write a few hours this afternoon. Because I should, and I must.
Today I finally decided to check my status on Book Baby to gauge the progress of Virtually Yours.
Yes, I am the most lackadaisical writer/author you’ll ever meet. I’m not one of those who clicks back and forth for a progress report. I’m from the old school: A watched pot never boils.
(In case you were wondering, My virtual book will hit Amazon in a couple of days. *WHEE!* For the other vendors, like Nook and iBookstore, it could be a few weeks.)
My reaction? Meh…
Besides never watching a boiling pot (and this is hard to admit), there’s a part of me that just can’t believe I’ve done this.
Come on, admit you feel the same way.
I’m a writer-wannabe. I dream of writing fine literature, and I practice constantly, but I come to the craft with a deficit. I don’t have weighty credentials behind my name. I have written stories ever since my mother handed me a pencil, but thanks to my own poor economy, I didn’t finish college. I thought it was more important to have a roof over my head and an occasional dinner. I’m a late starter, only beginning to write “seriously” after the kids grew up and moved away, so there was a twenty year gap between the last “serious” thing I wrote (a poem for my husband, coincidentally) and the next “serious” thing I wrote (my first novel).
I’ve been writing online (in some way or another) for years. (YEARS and years and years. Google me, and be amazed.) There have been times when the criticism has ranged from ho-hum-yawn to flat out excoriation. But I can take it – obviously, or I wouldn’t still be here. I know some people won’t like my work at all and that doesn’t bother me in the least. Virtually Yours is not literary fiction. Puh-leeze. I wrote it in thirty days, during NaNoWriMo 2009. It’s a light and silly beach read, which I hope is mildly entertaining to most of the people who enjoy light and silly beach reads.
So now I’m looking at ways of tooting my horn and announcing to the world that my baby is due to be hatched, without looking like I’m a narcissistic huckster pushing a product. Book Baby sent me some great articles on how to do just that.
Once I finish the yard work, I might take a look at those articles. (Lackadaisically, of course.) Because I’m a realist, I know that just launching a book doesn’t mean I hit the lottery and can afford to quit my day job – or my duties.
Off to the fields! More spouting when Virtually Yours is ready.
Whee!
Late last night, I received an email from Book Baby informing me that my proof was (finally) ready for inspection.
Of course, since I’m tucked into bed by 9 p.m., I was too tuckered out to investigate last night. So the first thing this morning, I opened up my account and downloaded Virtually Yours into my iBooks.
For some unexplained reason, the download went off flawlessly fast. Lightning quick! As some of you might recall, the first download took me a few days and much mental anguish and technical jerry-rigging to get the book into my iPad. I have no idea what I did this time to get it to upload so quickly. (I have no idea what I did last time, either.) I’m from the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and “if you can get it to work, don’t over analyze it” schools of thought, so I’m not even going there.
There were some minor glitchy problems with my first proof. The resultant formatting wasn’t as I envisioned. This story takes place online, with plenty of email, IMs, and blog posts. My email exchanges were off center. All scrunched up, it was difficult to read. The blog posts weren’t immediately recognizable as such. Plus I made the error of using spaces and tabs. (Note to writers: NEVER use spaces and tabs! Set up your document correctly before you type the first word!) And worse, my emoticons were running into the text.
Plus I noted spelling errors I thought I had changed (I was in between computers, my main laptop nearly succumbing to the Blue Screen of Death before I bought another) and other typos that were glaringly painful to look at.
My re-worked manuscript had no tabs or unnecessary spaces. I cushioned my smiley faces with a space before and a space after. The phrases I wanted italicized were, and the ones that shouldn’t have been weren’t. I made certain that each block of text was separate and readable.
Enter now my returned proof, which looks pretty good. So far, my only complaint would be that there may be a little bit too much space in between text blocks. (I know. I am super picky.) I also inserted a disclaimer and questions for discussion, and that looks good as well.
*Deep cleansing breath*
I guess I could do one of two things. 1. Pick it apart some more and send it back to see if the spaces can be tightened up. (Crazy, I know.) or 2. Kiss my baby goodbye and send it off into the world.
Let me finish up my proofing, but you know which way I’m leaning.
🙂
So far, I’m up to page 200 of proof reading. There is one word on one page that bothers me thus far, and I’m not sure I want to change it. I’m not sure it’s worth it to change it. I’m not sure anyone will notice.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
