Having announced on Facebook that I was going to publish Outcast on the 26th, I have to make that happen. I've got the annotated manuscripts back from all three of my First Readers and I've nearly finished working through all the mistakes and some of the changes.
I say Some of the changes. FR2 thought the opening battle scene was too long and technical, but FR3 liked it. FR1 had some fantastic ideas for the plot - she's seriously twisted - but I couldn't think how to get them in without a complete rewrite. Many of them will be appearing in Echo 3' though.
I've been very lucky to have three people who will give their time to read through my stuff and come up with three very different views. FR2 is well widely read in all sorts of genres and can see what doesn't work. FR1 sees lots of things that could be done differently and often better. And FR3 reads for pleasure and can suspend belief and ignore the clunks if she's enjoying it.
Some of these views clash and, ultimately, I'm writing to please myself. I'm thrilled if other people like what I've written and even more thrilled if I recoup my costs (the inner Yorkshireman is never that far away). I wasn't too sure about the first twelve chapters of Outcast (over a third of the entire book) but the feedback has been positive, so I've got away with it.
Two weeks to go before I foist it on the people who are kind enough to be waiting for it. The fourth edit (bits I don't like) is underway and should be finished in the next couple of days. I'm then going to work through some of the dialogue and try and separate out some of the voices (several of them sound too much like me). Then I have to try and remember how to format and upload to Kindle. It's been a long time since I did that for Echo.
Later this week I will be trying out some of the sales pitch for the Amazon page. If you're around, I'd love your feedback. Hope to see you then.
Showing posts with label Kindle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kindle. Show all posts
Monday, 12 August 2013
Sunday, 6 May 2012
How do you comfort the grammar police?
Give them a big hug and say "Their, there, they're."
I've been reading the hard copy of Echo and the typos are just flying off the page. I went through the e version, then printed it out and went through it again, although to save trees it was two pages per side, so it wasn't that big.
Everybody says you should get a professional editor to avoid these things but something like that would have been a massive outlay when i didn't expect it to get read by more than a handful of people.
A few people have expressed an interest in buying the actual book. It's slightly embarrasing when people are shelling out a couple of quid, but the paperback is £7.99 on Feedareed.com. If people want the book i'm going to have to go through it, make all the changes and upload it again. I can also re-upload to Kindle and list it for free for a week so that people who bought it can download a copy without all the mistakes (including one use of the wrong sort of their (there, they're). Not that i mind, but it's not as much fun as writing Echo2.
Having said that, Echo2 isn't much fun at the moment. I've just finished chapter 3 but there's a pressure for it to be as good as the original. Self imposed pressure, but still real. Echo was never meant to be read which allowed me to write whatever i wanted. I'd like to write E2 with the same freedom, but i don't think that's going to happen. I now understand the difficult-second-album syndrome that effects bands.
Does it matter if E2 is rubbish? Not in the grand scheme of things, no, but a remarkable number of people have said very kind things about Echo and i don't want to disappoint them with a disappointing follow up.
Anybody else have this problem?
I've been reading the hard copy of Echo and the typos are just flying off the page. I went through the e version, then printed it out and went through it again, although to save trees it was two pages per side, so it wasn't that big.
Everybody says you should get a professional editor to avoid these things but something like that would have been a massive outlay when i didn't expect it to get read by more than a handful of people.
A few people have expressed an interest in buying the actual book. It's slightly embarrasing when people are shelling out a couple of quid, but the paperback is £7.99 on Feedareed.com. If people want the book i'm going to have to go through it, make all the changes and upload it again. I can also re-upload to Kindle and list it for free for a week so that people who bought it can download a copy without all the mistakes (including one use of the wrong sort of their (there, they're). Not that i mind, but it's not as much fun as writing Echo2.
Having said that, Echo2 isn't much fun at the moment. I've just finished chapter 3 but there's a pressure for it to be as good as the original. Self imposed pressure, but still real. Echo was never meant to be read which allowed me to write whatever i wanted. I'd like to write E2 with the same freedom, but i don't think that's going to happen. I now understand the difficult-second-album syndrome that effects bands.
Does it matter if E2 is rubbish? Not in the grand scheme of things, no, but a remarkable number of people have said very kind things about Echo and i don't want to disappoint them with a disappointing follow up.
Anybody else have this problem?
Thursday, 26 April 2012
My Precious
So far Echo has only existed virtually. On Amazon and on my laptop and on some of your Kindles / iPads /iPhones. The other day i decided it would be really nice to actually have a copy. A real copy. A real book. (Would that make me a real author?)
I love books. Kindles are great - half of my luggage for the last holiday was books - but there's just something about an actual book.
I looked at a couple of sites and they looked a bit complex. eventually i picked Feedaread.com, although that was a bit complicated and i had to have several goes before they'd approve what i uploaded. I'm still a bit concerned that the formating template didn't work out properly and the first letters of every right hand page will be too far down the crack to read. It'll be a bit like trying to play some of the music that somebody in the band has photocopied badly and missed off the key and time signatures and the first note.
Anyway, i've sent for a discounted author's copy. It's still relatively expensive compared to the price that ASDA sell older Lee Child and Andy MacNab paperbacks for but who cares. It'll be mine! The advantage of print on demand is that, if the formatting isn't right, i can upload a new version and there's only one copy that is wrong. I knew somebody who wrote a novel and had a couple of hundred copies printed. At the top of almost every page there was the title of the book - The White Sleeve. Apart from page 1, which had, in the header, The White Sleve
So, in a few days i should have my hands on my own book. It's very exciting. Although not exactly career changing, being a writer continues to be very rewarding, even after the writing is finished.
I love books. Kindles are great - half of my luggage for the last holiday was books - but there's just something about an actual book.
I looked at a couple of sites and they looked a bit complex. eventually i picked Feedaread.com, although that was a bit complicated and i had to have several goes before they'd approve what i uploaded. I'm still a bit concerned that the formating template didn't work out properly and the first letters of every right hand page will be too far down the crack to read. It'll be a bit like trying to play some of the music that somebody in the band has photocopied badly and missed off the key and time signatures and the first note.
Anyway, i've sent for a discounted author's copy. It's still relatively expensive compared to the price that ASDA sell older Lee Child and Andy MacNab paperbacks for but who cares. It'll be mine! The advantage of print on demand is that, if the formatting isn't right, i can upload a new version and there's only one copy that is wrong. I knew somebody who wrote a novel and had a couple of hundred copies printed. At the top of almost every page there was the title of the book - The White Sleeve. Apart from page 1, which had, in the header, The White Sleve
So, in a few days i should have my hands on my own book. It's very exciting. Although not exactly career changing, being a writer continues to be very rewarding, even after the writing is finished.
Friday, 13 April 2012
The wisdom of Gary Player
I've been struggling a bit with E2. I spent a lot of time thinking about it, but getting something worthwhile down wasn't going too well. Because of the arm (and a house full of in-laws), i was only writing in short spells and it wasn't very satisfying. Partly there's the pressure to make sure that Clarke satisfies my legion of fans (that would be you, Paul) and partly i hadn't figured out the underlying theme - is Clarke still about the relationship between Echo and York and, if so, where can i take it? Is it about the clash between a secular culture and one with a strong belief system. Is it about discovering your past.
And then i discovered the wise words of Gary Player (or at least the wise words of a golfer and the majority of the net thinks it was Gary Player).
He said - The more i practice, the luckier i get.
Translating this to writing - the more i write, the easier it is to write.
I was in fracture clinic yesterday and had a couple of hours to kill and a laptop. By the end of it i had 1500 new words for chapter 3. But, better than that, i'd figured out how i was going to end the current scenario and move on, the cause of the relationship twist between Echo and York, where i'm going to insert the prequel stuff that i posted on here a few weeks ago. I now have so much stuff in my head that i'm struggling to get it down before i forget them. It doesn't help that some of you kind people keep adding more exciting ideas. So many i'm drowning in them. It's great.
We have lift off.
Friday, 16 March 2012
After the fuss dies down
It's been two weeks since i published. After a couple of days of good sales it's settled down to one every couple of days. I've just hit twenty copies sold, which i'm really pleased about.There are a few more expected from facebook contacts who are reading other stuff but the initial burst is over.
When i started down the publishing route, i set some goals -
1) Sell one copy - tick
2) Sell a copy to somebody who's not a friend - tick. The comms department asked me to write a guest blog on the PCT site and people whose name i've seen in emails got in touch and said they'd bought a copy
3) Sell a copy to somebody i don't know - tick
4) Sell a dozen copies - tick
5) Break even - there's still some way to go on that one. I need to sell around 60 copies in the UK to do that. (I've sold a copy on Amazon.com but, unless huge numbers of US readers start buying, i'm unlikely to see that money as Amazon will only pay up once they owe me $100)
6) Get a good, independent, review. I was really pleased to see Jim Graham get a fab review on Republicbot.com. Somebody wrote that writers only feel jealousy when other writers do well, but i really don't think that's true. There's room for all of us. Ross and a couple of other people retweeted about Jim's review so i'm not alone in thinking that. So, as soon as one of my readers puts a good review on Amazon, i'll try and use that as a tool to get a review site to have a look at Echo.
So future sales will be a long haul and i'll need to work at if i'm going to cover my costs and be able to pay Cathy for the cover to book 2
Happily it's not about sales. I wanted to be both a writer and an author. I've ticked the author box now, which makes me happy, but the real pleasure is in being a writer. Book 2, which has the working title Clarke (as in Arthur C Clarke) hasn't progressed too far as i wasn't sure what themes i wanted to explore. But i've had the space to give that some thought and i've got some ideas about that now.
7) Get an actual copy printed - loads of people are raving about Kindle and one person bought a kindle just so they could read it (i'm really flattered - happily they think it's a great thing for their holiday reading as i didn't want Echo to cost them £91). ebooks are great, but i think there's still something about having a book in your hands. Particularly if it's mine.
When i started down the publishing route, i set some goals -
1) Sell one copy - tick
2) Sell a copy to somebody who's not a friend - tick. The comms department asked me to write a guest blog on the PCT site and people whose name i've seen in emails got in touch and said they'd bought a copy
3) Sell a copy to somebody i don't know - tick
4) Sell a dozen copies - tick
5) Break even - there's still some way to go on that one. I need to sell around 60 copies in the UK to do that. (I've sold a copy on Amazon.com but, unless huge numbers of US readers start buying, i'm unlikely to see that money as Amazon will only pay up once they owe me $100)
6) Get a good, independent, review. I was really pleased to see Jim Graham get a fab review on Republicbot.com. Somebody wrote that writers only feel jealousy when other writers do well, but i really don't think that's true. There's room for all of us. Ross and a couple of other people retweeted about Jim's review so i'm not alone in thinking that. So, as soon as one of my readers puts a good review on Amazon, i'll try and use that as a tool to get a review site to have a look at Echo.
So future sales will be a long haul and i'll need to work at if i'm going to cover my costs and be able to pay Cathy for the cover to book 2
Happily it's not about sales. I wanted to be both a writer and an author. I've ticked the author box now, which makes me happy, but the real pleasure is in being a writer. Book 2, which has the working title Clarke (as in Arthur C Clarke) hasn't progressed too far as i wasn't sure what themes i wanted to explore. But i've had the space to give that some thought and i've got some ideas about that now.
7) Get an actual copy printed - loads of people are raving about Kindle and one person bought a kindle just so they could read it (i'm really flattered - happily they think it's a great thing for their holiday reading as i didn't want Echo to cost them £91). ebooks are great, but i think there's still something about having a book in your hands. Particularly if it's mine.
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