Book stuff

I set up an author's page at Amazon and then had to create one at the Amazon stores in other countries. It was fun and a bit weird because I had to make my way through screens of questions written in other languages. But it wasn't that hard because they were replicas of the original English page. I could tell what to click on. As a result, my author's page is up in France, Germany and the UK stores. I think I did another country too, but I'm not sure which. Greece? Japan's site wouldn't let me in at all. It just didn't like me. I get that sometimes. And the links Amazon provided for authors' pages at its stores in Spain and Italy were incorrect. I never got there. (Yes, I can look up the stores' URLs. But just try to find the author's page at one of those sites when you don't speak the language.)

Yup, this is what it's like to be a self-published author: you have to do everything yourself. They don't even provide maids or masseurs. You're totally on your own. Still, it's kind of fun. Xmas Carol is out there. And if I'm not mistaken, Christmas is coming. And this won't be just any old Christmas. It will be the Christmas of Xmas Carol. I like the sound of that.

Next step: publishing

The book is finished. Soon, very soon, everyone will be able to read Xmas Carol. I'm not sure how long it will take before it appears in the Kindle bookstore. I'm working on that now. Once the Kindle version is out, I'll figure out how to publish the other versions. It's like the PC/Mac divide -- there are different e-reader platforms with different rules.

I spent the morning wrangling with formatting. Professionals want a lot of money to format your ebook. Not gonna happen. If the book is successful, I'll return to the formatting issue one day. But for now I'm just going to put out a clean-looking, basic book (with a fabulous cover).

As for the blurb, I think I've got one that works. I looked at the blurbs on current ebooks and didn't like them at all. Everything is written in the present tense, like this:

When Ginger realizes that Bubba intends to kill her, she pulls out all the stops and tries to kill him first.

The present-tense seems clunky to me. Mine will be different. That's all I'll say for now.

I'm a bit worried about the length of the book. People don't seem willing to read a "long" book these days. It might hurt their head, I guess. Current fiction is quite brief. The books are more like novellas than novels. My book is more than double the length of most horror novels out there. But I swear it's a quick read. Readers just fall into the book and tumble out the other end. Xmas Carol goes down like candy. I really can't see anyone (except religious wingnuts) wanting it to end until the final page. Even then, they'll want more. So I'm going to toss my worries aside and release a 200,000-word novel to an 80,000-word public. We'll see how it goes.

I'll report back when I reach the next stage. But hey, the book is done!

I'm almost there

I've edited 3/4 of Xmas Carol -- and this time it's for real. Within a few weeks I'll be able to say it's done. Phew. Only took forever.

I like the way it sounds. Soon I'll look into finding someone to do the cover. (Casey's not a definite at this time.) But somehow, some way, I'll get the cover done and publish the book. Xmas Carol needs to see the light of day -- or perhaps the dark. In any case, it needs to leave my house and venture out into the world. It's time.

Amazon's payment scale for self-pub authors

It's getting close to the time when Xmas Carol will be released to the public. Since I plan to make the book available on Amazon, I went there the other day to check things out. It wasn't what I'd imagined.

If you sell your book for $2.99 or more, you get 70% of the purchase price. But if you sell it for less (I was thinking 99 cents for Xmas Carol) you only get 35% of the purchase price. In other words, Amazon is pushing authors toward the higher price range.

I think books should be as cheap as possible. Authors want people to read them, right? So I like the 99-cent price. It's easy to click "buy" when something is under a buck. The only thing that worries me is that people sometimes view lower-priced items as junk, and treasure expensive things simply because they're expensive. This prejudice is rampant.

I sometimes visit a web site run by an established author who is publishing all his new books digitally (after being published many times in the brick and mortar world). He rails against the terrible deal publishers give authors, and I must say he extinguished any idea I had of going the traditional-publisher route. His take on Amazon's pricing is that it's better to publish at 99 cents because you'll sell many more books and in the end, you'll make more money.

I'm not sure what to do. Should I let Amazon force me into the $2.99 price (and tell myself it fluffs the book up in potential buyers' eyes because they'll see it as having greater quality than the "99-cent junk")? Or should I go with the 99-cent price and the lower remuneration? I'd like reader input on this. Which way do you think I should I go?

A weird publishing notion: endless morphs

First the background: when you self-publish a digital book, you have the odd ability to change the text anytime you want. Just replace the book for sale by uploading a revised version -- and that's that. The problem, of course, is that readers will end up with different versions of the book. While musing about this, I wondered if an author could embrace this capability to the Nth degree.

What if there could be a new kind of writer -- one who constantly alters his book? If you bought it last month, you would have a significantly different version than someone who bought it today. A writer could conceivably write only one book -- and then alter it for the rest of his life and call this process "art". Hopefully, a loyal cult of readers would buy the book over and over, thrilled by the changes.

With each different version the author could invite readers further into the book, sometimes by changing events but often simply by presenting different angles from which to view events familiar from prior versions. The reader's perceptions would change with each new version. In essence, the writer would not only be toying with his book but with his audience, over years and decades -- nicely, I hope. And the cult of loyal readers would in the end have gone on an extended artistic journey with the author. Sounds quite intimate, really.

With enough creativity, this could become a a viable (albeit exhausting) art form. As icing on the cake, I think it would be great fun if the writer kept no records of previous versions, believing the book to be only what it was at the moment. And of course, the moment wouldn't last. Maybe the genre could be called "active morph".

(And a wise author would always hold back the latest version, to be released in case of his death -- ideally, one year later. One must always be prepared.)

Fran Liebowitz would be all over this. Just think. She'd never have to write that next book.

The cutting room floor

I finished writing the new scenes for my first book and can put it aside for a while. The next task is getting my third book, the horror tale, out to a publisher. But the book, Xmas Carol, is too long and I'm going to have to trim it down.

This is an odd task for me to face as a writer. Trim the book? How do I do that? The terrible answer seems to be that I'm going to have to axe a goodly number of scenes, and some story-lines are going to end up on the cutting room floor. This is a painful prospect.

But the writing software that I use, Scrivener, will be a major help in this endeavor. It gives you the magical ability to select any number of scenes or chapters (or whatever) and see them as one long block of text. In other words it lets you hide the scenes you're considering deleting so you can see how the book would look without them. That is so cool. I almost can't wait to try it.

Plus this news bulletin: I've got a plan for how I'm going to deal with publishing this year. Here it is:

1. Send Xmas Carol to a brick-and-mortar publisher and see what happens.
2. Edit the first sci-fi book, The Worlds, into final form and give it away free on the net.
3. Self-publish the second book of the sci-fi trilogy, The Pod, the God and the Planet, and sell it on Amazon.

That's the plan and I think it's a go.

Self-publishing? Yup.

I've decided not to submit my books to a traditional publisher. I haven't stated it clearly before now, but I intend to self-publish. I don't have the time do deal with publishers, editors and book tours. I'm going to be 63 this month and I need to spend every minute writing the next books. Plus the time for my books is now, not later. I have no urge to enter into a painfully slow process. Submit your book and maybe we'll get back to you in four months? I don't think so.

There's more to it than this, of course. The pay structure is excellent for self-publishers, with the bulk of the money going to the author. Also, traditional publishers seem to be in denial about the pricing of ebooks, selling them for much more than they should. I'm thinking $2.99 is a good price. I want more people to read it, not less, and that price strikes me as sensible for an intangible thing like an ebook.

As for the benefits of being published by a reputable house, meh. Being famous is not something I crave -- quite the opposite. Awards and fame sound oppressive. As for the basics, I don't need an editor because I edit my work. The only thing a publishing house could do for me is create a cover for the books. But I'll work that out on my own.

That's only touches the surface. Publishers expect things of you and they have rules. I don't do the things other people want me to do. I never have. I'm a loner with his own vision and his own loose rules. While it would be wonderful to meet someone who could give me excellent advice about my writing, that seems a fantasy and I'm not at all convinced I would find this in a publishing house. But mainly, I just don't have time for this.

In the early part of 2011, I will publish "The Worlds". It may take a while for people to find the book without anyone advertising its existence, but I'll do my best to get the word out. And I'll have readers. That's really all I want.