Where to read your eBook news
If you’re thinking (like I am) about self publishing (Chasing The Will) an eBook, then you’ll want to see what’s happening in the trade to qualify your choices. eBook news from meadiabistro looks full of updates to keep your interest keen. You’ll find them here:
http://www.mediabistro.com/ebooknewser/
Here’s what they’re showing today:
British publisher Bloomsbury’s eBook sales spiked 564% in the first half of 2011. eBook sales brought in £2.5 million for the company, in the six months that ended August 31, 2011. This is up from the £0.4 million that the publisher earned from eBook sales during the same period in 2010.
Overall, the publishing house that publishes the Harry Potter books and Elizabeth Gilbert‘s bestseller Eat, Pray, Love, had a successful six month period. Turnover was 16% to £44.9 million, from £38.6 million in 2010. The adult division, which focused on digital investment during the period, generated 49% of group sales. This was down from 52% of group sales in 2010, however, sales were up by 10.5% year-over-year to £22.1 million.
and also:
Lagardère SCA, the company that owns the Hachette Book Group, announced its third quarter revenues today, and reported that its digital book business continues to grow.
According to the company, eBooks now represent 21% of HBG’s net sales, which is up from 9% of net sales for Q3 2010. This is a 134% growth over total eBook sales in 2010.Bestsellers helped contribute to these sales as Hachette on the New York Times’ new eBook bestseller list.
According to the press release, eBook sales helped the company, since net sales in English-speaking countries during the quarter. Net sales fell 8% in the US and 10% in the UK which the company attributed to the impact of lower margins from eBooks and retail bankruptcies such as Borders going out of business.
Perhaps the days of going to a major publisher is diminishing quicker than the book people realise?
Will the publisher say yes or no?
While I’m wading through the agent’s and publisher’s different demands as I’m making decisions about publishing my fiction novel Chasing the Will, I came across this website page that lists a few writers who were originally turned down by publishers and between them went on to sell a billion books.
John Grisham was turned down by 30 agents and publishers before going on to sell 250 million copies.
If you’re good or better still – great – you will (probably) get published, but today’s book publishing model has changed as advances have almost disappeared and publishers don’t want to risk new writers partly because of high marketing costs. The onslaught of Kindle and eBooks allows authors to start up direct with Amazon (and the others) and once enough copies have been moved digitally, the publishers will knock on your door.
Will you say yes or no?
Literary agents are not all the same
Some respond in a day. Some, as I found out while searching after finishing my novel ‘Chasing the Will’ don’t respond at all despite sending them a query letter telling all about the latest fiction epic which is bound to outsell JK Rowling, Agatha Christie and John Grisham together.
Submission guidelines vary considerably. It’s essential that writers check company’s online submission requests – rules. If a writer doesn’t meet the rule and requirements, their work may not be read.
Some agents want an email query, some still insist on the mail to deliver your letter.
Some want to see your first 30 pages, some want the first three chapters and some require your synopsis only. Do you send the exact 30 pages or if the chapter break is at page 34, do you send all 34?
Do you send your work in email body text, as a word attachment or as a PDF? Will the agent open an attachment?
Some want a one page synopsis; some will accept two and all want to know how your story finishes.
Some want your query and first three chapters by email followed by the full manuscript by mail, if, in fact, they want to see it at all. How could they have refused you?
It’s said you can’t get a publisher without an agent and it’s tougher than ever to find an agent prepared to take on a new writer. After all, if fewer books are printed (although many more are selling on eBook readers) then less new writers are getting through. Why should an agent waste time on a new writer who might not make them their 15% in the next couple of years when current writers will ensure a smooth income for agents during this recession?
It’s not a level playing field so learn the rules and present your best query.
Author’s delight or ID theft predators paradise.
There are two distinct views that arise after looking over a fake name generator website. Either it’s a brilliant idea for fiction authors and screenplay writers or it’s the most excellent piece of software available for people to commit today’s most increasing crime; that of identity theft.
Simply choosing a male or a female name, their country of abode and finally, the country base of their name (with many global options), you’re presented with a full character profile providing a full character listing. I wish I’d had this available before I started writing ‘Chasing the Will.’ It would have made my life easier. Listing:
• Name
• Address including post code/zip code
• Telephone number
• Website
• Email address which can be turned live
• A password for online access
• The mother’s maiden name
• Date of birth and age (for those without calculators)
• Credit card number and expiry date
• Insurance number or social security number
• Occupation
• Blood type
• Weight and height in imperial and metric versions
From an author’s point of view, this presents a detailed character map that can be used throughout a novel. Often writers map out an entire character’s life story so they’re consistent throughout a novel or screenplay. You still need to add their favourite likes and dislikes, their school record and their greater family make up, but you’ve saved hours of work. Just checking whether the person is online and seeing if you can use the name carefully is another task. You don’t want to use Joe Brown or Fred Smith or Barack Obama for your character’s name, which is the beauty of this software for authors. It provides real names from all aspects of the globe. You want a Japanese name, it’s yours in seconds. If you need a Polish name for a man working in Denmark, all the necessary accurate details are provided.
The problem begins with the incorrect use of this information. Knowing the credit card number is a valid number and all the other information provided starts a team game. Registering gas or electric in the new names, the criminal starts to map out a future. Eventually he’s able to provide full information for opening a bank account and pulling stunts to gain goods and services illegally. This is then just one step away from identity theft. Our criminal can mix real knowledge with false information gained from this website to take over someone’s life.
So how do we ensure only fiction writers use this website?
http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/
Trusting in your spell checker
Should you trust your spell and grammar checker; that’s the question? Probably not, is the answer unless you’re determined to triple check each suggestion your computer tells you is essential.
It may be that the grammar checking is really at fault and your spelling was right all along. Here’s an example from a sentence; ‘…chilli con carne I consumed a few minutes ago…’ Now should that be ‘I’d consumed’ or be left alone, as is?
One sentence contained ‘the person laid out before them is and clearly dead and ready…” My mind blowing expensive word processor software didn’t find anything wrong with the grammar. Didn’t it see the ‘and’ was out of place?
‘He didn’t know what which model…’ Clearly it didn’t notice that ‘make and’ had been removed by mistake after the ‘what.’
How it missed ‘…is nearly always the one area these sort let themselves down.’ We all know, don’t we that it’s either ‘this sort’ or ‘these sorts’ not a mixture of the two, even if we use the incorrect version in real time?
I asked the software why it missed these grade one errors and it simply blamed my dictation software. It reasoned that as I’d said the (possibly muffled) words, I must have guessed them to be correct so it didn’t wish to get involved unless the mistake was more obvious. I pointed out that if it insisted on indicating errors which I knew to be correct and therefore, didn’t change the offending direction, (daring to press the ‘ignore’ selection) how could I trust it? Arguing with the world’s top selling software proved to be a fruitless task. It simply went quiet suggesting “Just you wait for the upgrade!”
My motto stays the same; carefully check all the suggestions offered; you can refuse them. Secondly; read every line and every word to ensure you’re left with your favourite decisions as the software may disagree with you – you know who’s in charge.
Beta readers & the Galactic Empire.
The five beta readers all took different approaches to making their comments and observations when they tackled ‘Chasing the Will.’
One gave detailed comments about sections they couldn’t get on with. This helped me to change elements of the first chapter so it’s better ‘in the real life’ and can be more believable even though the situation in the first chapter is almost unbelievable. This reminded me of the phrase, ‘suspension of the disbelief.’ We all believed in Luke Skywalker’s search across far space dealing with the Galactic Empire because it appeared as though it could all happen. The viewer didn’t question the validity of the robot assistant or his furry tall friend Chewbacca.
The ‘why did she do that when she should have done this’ needs to be clear in the viewers mind. If amateur detective Lara makes strange choices we have to believe in why she made those decisions, not question why she did this or that and be turned off from reading the next twenty-nine chapters.
A second reader just read the manuscript as though he was reading on his kindle on the beach. He didn’t question strange actions or situations; just went with the flow and told me what a great story he thought it was.
Reader number three was quite pedantic about grammar. She didn’t pull any punches when asking why some sentences needed further explanation to link them together better. This viewpoint was most useful because it helped me to see what the reader’s might think. Did something I knew well and fully understood come across as missing a piece of information that I might know in my head, but the reader might miss?
I’ve repeated the ongoing choice of which CD the protagonist plays in his car, throughout the manuscript. He’s very choosy. This occurs ten times in the novel to make the point about his character, his concerns about his fellow companions and what music they might want to listen to, or not. The culmination of this is shown when his co-protagonist buys him a CD to play in his car because his choices are so far out of date. This shows the differences in ages and the way the two communicate. My beta readers concentrated on the actual songs (some or most they wouldn’t know) trying to find hidden meanings when I meant the song titles were enough to act upon thinking that most readers wouldn’t know each CD in detail. I might need to rethink this ingredient.
One beta reader hasn’t replied at all so I can either decide they didn’t get past the first chapter, let alone page one because it didn’t gel with them or they didn’t like the long questionnaire that came with the PDF of the novel to help everyone answer the same questions and points I tried to direct them to. Simply, they might have been too busy and I’ll find it in my email later today.
They have all been a great help in making the original better, as a consequence of their time consuming attention to detail. Thanks to one and all. I wonder if I’ll be allowed to mention them by name, at some stage?
Three synopsis versions of Chasing the Will
Writing the third version of the synopsis has been a difficult exercise. In the first version I could write almost anything knowing that editing would strip away the excess. Also, I knew the word count would be far too high to even resemble the final edition.
The second version stripped away the ‘b’ and ‘c’ stories so the final synopsis only covers the main ‘a’ story. That’s sufficient to get the general idea of the story and not trying to take in too many characters (and maybe cause confusion) in a short document.
The second version is set in the UK English language so it’s acceptable for UK agents and publishers. Colour needs a ‘u’ in it, and the roads are motorways and not highways.
Version three is for the US side of the pond. There are words in every single paragraph that could be considered one side of the Atlantic and not the other. Football in the UK (and 99% of the world) is called football, but in the green fields across the US it’s known as soccer.
The ‘elderly’ in the UK become ‘senior’ in the US and while you can ‘bugger about’ in the UK you can’t in the US. Well you can, but it’s under a different name.
Setting contact information and titling the document ’Synopsis’ sets the paperwork up. US letter size for the US and A4 for the UK. The number of words (approximately) and the number of pages with the genre style follows. A publisher will take the page count and times by 250 for the word count. This would leave them over by two thousand words for my novel as I’ve used 30 chapters which means that at least sixty pages aren’t full; the first and last of each chapter.
Double spacing takes the page count to four, although accurately it’s three and a half. An inch of space all around leaves plenty of space for the potential agent to write notes and reminders for further questions.
Another heavy edit and we’re down to two pages, double spaced. It does’t fit on one page when it’s single spaced, but we’re getting much closer.
One agent has’ buggered up’ my final synopsis by asking for a one page version; no more. While Times at 12 font size is the norm, this may be one occasion where I’ll change to Ariel, font size 8 and move the margins out. That gets it all on the page. Or maybe not as the standard of synopsis should be industry right. They don’t want you to stand out of the crowd for your presentation, just your content.
With most requests coming via email, the letter version is almost obsolete. Your email program(me) now defines your layout as most agents won’t accept attachments, just body content.
Almost at the end of the second re-write
Working hard these past two, long, weeks has shown mixed blessings for Chasing the Will. While performing the second re -write after the editor’s views have been read and discussed, I’ve also been preparing a twenty meter pathway and playing in a football tournament.
The sun has been roasting me as I’ve dug out the trench and filled it with rubble. Just moving a ton of rubble five pounds at a time is worth more than a weekly gym visit.
The football tournament has meant playing matches on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. That’s a lot at my age, especially as our team were so awful. When you play well it all feels so much easier.
I’ll leave the mixing of concrete and laying it in the long hole until after a short break waiting for my arms to return to their normal length.
Finishing the last re-write was a marvellous time. I still enjoy the story and I’d buy it if I saw it on the shelves. My final task for this stage of the manuscript is to have Dragon Naturally Speaking software read the entire manuscript back to me. This task finds a word of two for final changes, per chapter. I do, however, believe that finding each last word is essential for the finished product to be right and ready. I’ve chosen Audrey as the voice to read to me, but she takes around thirty minutes for each chapter which means fifteen hours if there were no interruptions like the film school judging I’m supposed to complete by two days time.
Nevertheless, I’m off for a break in two days so whatever stage the book is at, it’ll be turned into a PDF and sent off to my panel of five trusted viewpoints who will give me honest feedback, not just what I want to hear. Based on their thoughts I’ll then source the agent willing to place the book for financial gain.
Those two weeks will give me time to finish the play I’ve almost completed, which a producer wants to see as soon as it’s ready. Audrey has only reached chapter six and I’ve another football match tonight. I wonder if I can find a way for her to read quicker?
Who rit that?
‘So in light of the palpable’ just had to disappear from the ‘Chasing the Will’ manuscript. Who even wrote that line? I would guess a stressful meeting between Microsoft Word and its thesaurus. Once it’s replaced with ‘and so’ the lines fall together in a manner that makes them understandable.
It’s been a good day looking over the editor’s suggested changes and the current version of the novel. Finally I’ve seen the end of chapter eleven so over one third of the book is now behind me during the second re-write.
‘The silence from my end of the line was optional and not compulsory’ changed to ‘I said nothing.’ Again, I couldn’t have written the original line; it must have fallen from mixed pages in the dictionary.
Bring on the weekend.
Editing the editor’s work
Mostly the editor’s suggestions for Chasing the Will are straightforward.
The meal after the main course isn’t called a desert, it’s a dessert. I know that, but the spellchecker didn’t. A comma after ‘…thank you, Mr Shelton’ is obvious, but missed after writing and reading the same passage up to ten times previously. Removing ‘constantly’ before ‘interrupted’ is a no-brainer so we don’t have (almost) double speak of the same meanings while changing ‘intelligence’ to ‘brain’ took a little while to mull over and finally agree.
I didn’t really accept replacing ‘overlooking’ with ‘missing’ but the latter work improved the sentence. A contradiction was removed and I’m at a loss to know why the sentence existed in the first place; at least it isolated 26 words bringing the grand total under the 88,000 mark for the first time. I’m hoping to reach 85k.
Amusingly, she suggested I replace ‘to enable her to’ with a simple ‘for.’ I wish I’d seen that ease before sending it off to the editor for suggestions and improvements. I don’t know why I used the word ‘end’ in relation to world domination when I really needed the opposite – the situation now bettered with the editor’s suggestion.
I pondered over ‘fashion experts’ to replace ‘grapevine’ and decided to go with the new choice, but refused ‘surreptitiously’ for my original ‘subconsciously’ as it better explained the circumstances.
I like the choices of moving some paragraphs to a new location where they fit better, but while I agreed to cut out a slice of legal jargon from one chapter, I did replace it with easier English rather than remove it altogether.
To date I’ve left in the cynical points of view as they help build the lead sleuth’s character.
Two sessions on the updates and still chapter six isn’t in sight. It’s going to be a busy weekend. It takes time to make even small changes. The consideration might involve reading and re-reading the same passage a few times. Reading the paragraphs either side are often a forced issue to ensure continuity. If a larger slice is being removed or replaced, reading the whole page either side is a balanced idea. After the changes have physically been typed, the same process of checking is used to see if the suggestions are going to stay until the next editorial suggestions arrive.
The painting will have to wait a while. It’s okay, I stopped the work of art (wall) at a good point where joins won’t be required.
