Editors Are Friends, Not Food

I recently posted a bit of flash fiction. I wrote that story for Lightspeed Magazine’s “Women Destroy Science Fiction” issue, due out this summer. They decided they weren’t interested, so I was free to publish it here. That is often the case with self-publishing: stories are rejected (for myriad reasons that don’t always involve the quality of the writing) but authors decide they really want their work to be read. I’m a huge proponent of self-publishing. I’m a bigger supporter, though, of self-publishing authors using editors.

I learned the hard way that no matter how many pairs of eyes read through your manuscript, mistakes slip through. This happens to all published works. Yes, mistakes happen even to the big boys. The goal with editors, though, is to limit the number of mistakes and improve the reading experience. When you sign a book deal with a major publisher, part of their cut of your royalties goes to pay for editors and proofreaders. When you are self-publishing, you need to spend this money up-front in order to realize the full potential of your book. Because, again, no matter how wonderful a writer you are, mistakes happen.

Just as self-publishers and small publishing houses have sprouted like mushrooms across a Seattle lawn, so too have small “mom and pop” businesses catering to these authors. Editors, proofreaders, cover artists, e-book formatters, even reviewers, offer their services to the mass of writers. I’ve been fortunate to meet many of these fine folk since my book launched in March of 2012. The editing group I’m writing about today, though, is headed by two people I’ve known for years. In this business, like in so many others, who you know is just as important as what you know.

I met Ed and Natalie Warneke through on-line gaming. After Dremiks was published, Ed came to me with several errors he’d found. I was properly mortified but also impressed by his thoroughness and professional demeanor. When Natalie approached me months later asking if I knew of anyone who’d be interested in paying for editing services, my answer was a resounding “YES”! After consulting current industry price points for both editing and proofreading (yes, there is a difference), crafting a website, and spending many hours networking on-line, the Warnekes launched Warneke Reading.

I could spend the next several paragraphs summarizing their website. However, as any good editor will tell you, it is better to show than to tell. Here, then, is an example of the edits made to my flash-fiction entitled “NBRUs”.






The Warnekes do more than just check for proper comma placement and count the number of spaces between sentences. They offer stylistic changes and are brutally honest when a passage makes absolutely no sense. Further down in the manuscript ( not pictured) they make this comment:

This sentence is confusing. In the beginning you make it sound as if none of the crew know the captain has been injured. If so, then how would this first officer know about the repair bot? Maybe you mean after the fact? Like the first officer might tear it apart after he found out it injured the captain? If so, this hasn’t happened yet.

Any writer will tell you that there are times when a sentence makes perfect sense in his or her head, but sounds like alien gibberish when written down. The Warnekes, and all good editors, catch those instances and bring them to your attention.

Another example of stylistic advice:

I know you don’t have the word space to explain this, but how come the first batch of bots had to be removed via syringe but the second just degrade?

While I absolutely fixed every single punctuation error that they caught, I picked which stylistic changes worked for the mood and purpose of my piece. This was a (very) short story that did not require much effort or consultation—but I know from experience that the Warnekes are willing to trade emails late into the night to explain their edits and suggestions. This was a professional editing job offered at a price well within a self-published author’s budget. Self-published authors absolutely must consult an editor, but there are financial limitations involved with that relationship. I’m happy to report that authors can find thorough, polite, informative, and knowledgeable editors at a price that won’t require a Kickstarter to cover fees.

We authors are very protective of our work. Our characters are our life-long friends and our plot points are absolutely, 100%, always necessary. Except… they aren’t. We don’t need editors governed by the price to print each word and thus ruthlessly chewing-up our prose with their red pens. On the flip side, we don’t need to be predators willing to maul anyone who dares to make a suggestion. This professional relationship only works when there is mutual acceptance of our roles. We cannot be sharks and clown fish and expect to produce a masterpiece. (That only works for Pixar.)

You can read more about the Warneke’s services on their website and connect with them on Facebook and Twitter.


No promotional consideration was given for this post.

Kindle MatchBook

I received, this morning, an email from Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing team. It read:

Hello,

We are excited to introduce Kindle MatchBook, an innovative new program which enables you to offer your Kindle book at a discount when readers purchase your print book, so you can sell more books. It's easy to enroll.

Here's how it works:

1. Select your Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) title on your KDP Bookshelf and check the Enroll box for Kindle MatchBook on the "Rights & Pricing" page.
2. Set the discount for your book by choosing a promotional list price of $2.99 or less.
3. Save your Kindle MatchBook preferences.

By enrolling your book, you will be among the first to be able to take advantage of this new program. The Kindle MatchBook discount you select will not appear on Amazon.com until the program is fully launched in the coming weeks. We will notify you by e-mail as soon as your Kindle MatchBook discount is live. Your readers will soon have an easy and affordable way to read your book in both print and digital formats.

Visit your KDP Bookshelf today to enroll your books in Kindle MatchBook.

Best regards,
The Kindle Direct Publishing Team

My first impression is that this program is very similar to Amazon's AutoRip service.  When purchasing certain "hard copy" (CDs mostly but there are a few vinyl options) albums,a consumer can automatically download MP3 versions of the music for free.

I find this approach works better with music than with books.  I like having a CD for my car and MP3 for my computer or MP3player.  The only time I've purchased a digital copy of a book after having already bought a hard-copy was when I had a book sustain water damage during a move. Furthermore, the majority of my paperback sales have not been via Amazon, so my paperback customers would not be able to take advantage of this program.

However, I am the queen of "early adopters"; so, I have enrolled Dremiks in the program.  I'll keep you updated on the status of sales and the efficacy of this new program.

Oh the Excuses You'll Contrive

Just slightly over a year ago I wrote a post that said: "I very much want to finish the first draft of Lilly's story before the end of August.  My kids go back to school on the 22nd and Guild Wars 2 starts on the 25th, so I'll be super busy and distracted after that day. "

Excuse me while I double over from wry laughter.

Oh, if only the start of the school year and a game launch had been my only distractions in the past year...

One day after writing that post, my husband broke his leg in three places.  He required a 4 day hospital stay and major surgery.  He couldn't place any weight on his leg for nearly six weeks and was on crutches for some time after that.  I had to play the role of home-nurse as well as wife and mother.

Two weeks after writing that post, my broken-legged husband was laid off from his job. We were faced with finding a new job for him while he couldn't walk or drive. He did, thankfully find a great company to join...in Seattle.

Three months after writing that post, we were unpacking after our THIRD 900+ mile relocation in the space of THREE years.  I spent my days trying to shepherd my two learning-disabled boys through the processes of new schools, new friends, and new routines while my nights were spent unpacking.

Also, in the past year, I've had to fly across country for a wedding, had major abdominal surgery, and managed to (barely) hold onto my sanity.

What's the point?  I've come to the realization that life is never going to be any easier or less stressful.  I will never have fewer demands on my time or a magical cave to which I can escape and spend my hours leisurely typing out fantasies.

I'm going to have to write as I always have: hurried snippets scribbled in margins of school notebooks, grocery lists, and Little League scorecards. I'm going to have to  struggle for every second it takes to get Lilly, John, Lance, Ailee, the Roman, Teriwyn kho'Khanna, and the rest of my characters onto paper.

If these imaginary friends of mine want to survive, they're going to have to fight for it.  Buckle up, it's going to be an interesting (Wash definition of interesting) ride.

Coping

I am, quite simply, overwhelmed with the amount of "author work" I have on my plate.

--I have an 11 book backlog of reviews to write.  I sincerely want to write thoughtful, insightful, reviews of these books.  I just cannot find the time to sit down at the computer and do it.

--I have 4 half finished books on my Kindle and several more waiting to be started.  At least once every day I think about sitting down and reading for a few hours to finish one of these books.  It never seems to happen.

--Lilly's story, which was supposed to be published by Christmas, doesn't even have a title.  I have several plot points outlined in my head, but woefully little on paper

-- I cannot remember to sign-up for, and then post for, Science Fiction Fantasy Saturday. I've been equally bad about reading all the wonderful work presented each week.  Work, I might add, posted by people I consider honored colleagues.

I have a rash of excuses for why each of these  situations exists, but the excuses really don't matter in the end.  I've got to adjust priorities and complete at least some of these tasks.  I can, after all, afford to miss a few meals and a couple nights (months) of  sleep.

Character Wars

I very much want to finish the first draft of Lilly's story before the end of August.  My kids go back to school on the 22nd and Guild Wars 2 starts on the 25th, so I'll be super busy and distracted after that day.  I'm having difficulty focusing, however, because a certain long suffering Roman and a mysterious female Briton keep invading my thoughts.  While they are an entertaining pair, they do NOT belong on a futuristic far-flung space station.

Pesky characters....

Please Format Your Ebook Correctly!

One of my pet peeves when reading a book on my Kindle is finding that the chapter hyperlinks do not exist or work properly. Worse, I often find that books don’t have a working link to their Table of Contents and have blank pages where none are needed. Then there are the truly regrettable offerings that have poor paragraph spacing, odd font changes, or incorrect typographical characters.

Formatting an ebook is not hard. Yes it takes time. Yes it can be frustrating when, as an author, you realize that you have to learn yet another skill-set in order to self-publish your work. News flash: self-publishing means doing, by yourself, all the work of a publisher. Traditional publishers pay editors, copy-editors, marketing professionals, cover artists, and ebook formatters out of that huge chunk they take from your royalties. You can either pay people to do all of those tasks for you, or learn how to do them all yourself. Actually, scratch that. DON’T edit your own work, or proofread it, or do your own cover art (unless you are also a gifted artist). Ebook formatting, however, you CAN do by yourself.

I did it, and here’s how:

Go to this link (don’t worry it opens in another window) and read Guido Henkel’s excellent nine part series on how to format an ebook. Yes, I said nine parts. Take an hour of your day and read what he wrote, in its entirety. Then, read it again and take notes. This is not hard material. If you can put together adjectives, nouns, and verbs and take a reader of those words to another time or place, then you can string together an html search string.

Mr. Henkel uses a program called TextMate to edit his html document. He also mentions a program called Jedit. I tried Jedit and it made my head hurt. I have the great honor to be friends with a brilliant computer nerd. I asked her what I should use for html editing, and then cried (through text messaging) until she agreed to help me through the process. (You can find Mrs. Maples information on the “Links” page of my webpage. If all of this gets too overwhelming, send her an email. She might take pity on you, for a price.) On her recommendation, I now use an html editor called Html-Kit.

Now that you’ve read through Henkel’s nine part saga, flipped out, calmed down, downloaded a text editor, griped about all the damn trouble you’re going through, and calmed the frack down—again--, follow Henkel’s instructions starting in Part VI.

Yes this process will take time. I had expert help and it still took me the better part of two days to correctly format a .mobi and .epub version of my book. Please, though, don’t wimp out, give up, and just throw up a word document onto Kindle Direct Publishing. You are doing yourself and your potential readers a huge disservice.

If you get stuck, send me a note through my “Request Information” form, on Twitter, or on Facebook. Friends don’t let friends publish broken ebooks.

Blog Changes

I started using Blogger/Blogspot way back in 2005, so I'm very comfortable with the interface and services offered.  When I started my "author blog" last October, Blogger was a logical choice.  In March of this year, though, I decided I wanted a more robust website with my own domain.  I started working with the hosting services provided by Intuit.com.

I have been 80% satisfied with how my site is working.  Feel free to check it out at www.cassandradavis-author.com (You can also click on the "Home" link at the top of this page)

The part of the site I was never happy with, however, was the imbedded blog feature.  The Intuit Sitebuilder service lets you add a blog to your site.  Honestly, though, this is barely more than an automated script for a text box.  Their blog service does not offer an archiving or post labeling system, has the most obnoxious "Captcha" word verification for comments I've ever seen, and it is incredibly hard to add pictures to your posts.  Adding the ability for readers to add my blog to an RSS feed required almost an hour of tinkering and editing.  Furthermore, there's no built-in html editor for the site.  If you want to tweak your page's html code, you have to recreate the code in your own editor and reload the files.

As an author, my blog is my gateway to my fans and my fans are my customers.  I cannot have customers frustrated by their inability to comment on a post, easily read an entry (I often had an issue with competing scroll bars for long blog posts), or find posts on a similar topic. The "Archives" section you see on the old blog?  I had to create those links myself, and update them whenever I had the chance.  That's time out of my day I could have spent writing a new novel.

After months of trying to find a work-around for these myriad problems, I finally gave up.  This blogger.com site will once again be my blog.  Visitors to my website who click on the navigation bar link "Blog" will be directed here.  If you wish to go back to my site, simply use any of the page buttons above (Home, Reviews, Blog, Links, Old Blog). And, I really hope you do go back to the site, because I work hard to provide informational links, new reviews of "Dremiks", and updates on my writing.

All of my old content will remain live and accessible.  I left the old blog "up" because there are several link-backs to those posts on marketing materials and other authors' sites.  All new content, however, will be posted here.  There is a link to the old blog above (Old Blog) and also on my site's "Links" page.

Yes I'm taking a risk that I might lost a few customers through the confusion of a different domain name for my blog, and the movement to a new (old) site.  However, I felt this was a risk I had to take to preserve my sanity and grow my fan base.  I'll let you, my readers, decide which of those two is more important.

Dremiks Progression

I finished the first draft* over the Christmas holidays. I had a lot of time on my hands and a self-enforced deadline to meet. With the help of my loving, and patient, husband, I managed to slog through the climax and wrap everything up.

But, as the afore-mentioned husband loves to point out, that was just the beginning of the work load. I mailed off copies to four people whose opinions I trust and value. Then I had to wait. I’m not good at waiting. To be more precise, I SUCK at waiting. All of those four people, though, have jobs and families to attend to. I could hardly harass them about being slow when they were editing for free!

The last of the four editors has finally finished. Now I have to fix the plot points that weren’t clear enough, tighten up some dialog, change a name that REALLY irritated one of the editors, and re-write the first chapter.

Again.

*While it might be the first complete draft, this certainly isn’t the first version of this story. I’ve been working on it on-and-off since 1987. Granted, it spent almost 10 of those years in a drawer being ignored, but, still, there’s a lot of writing and re-writing that goes into a work over twenty-five years.

A perfect example is that first chapter. It doesn’t set the hook quite as deeply as I want. The tone and pacing are great (in my opinion), but there’s not enough to snag a reader ( again, in my opinion). So, I’m slicing and dicing and trying not to wince as I do so. The unedited first draft was over 150,000 words. That’s on the high side for space opera. People like descriptions and fleshed out characters, but people (read: potential readers) also don’t have hours to devote to reading a book. The exception to that statement being an epic work like the final Harry Potter novels or George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. However, those books really are the exception and those authors already had well established fan bases before the first word hit an editor’s desk.

So that’s where things stand right now. Later this week I’ll update you on the marketing strategies and the (surprising) headaches of e-publishing.

Fear of completion

First, a point that SO needs to be made. Mozilla Firefox has a built-in spell check. Do you know how freaking awesome that is for those of us that are still spelling-challenged? I SUCK at spelling. My laptop does not have Firefox on it. I'm still running IE. (shudder). I could spell check if I wanted to. I don't wanna.

It's late. I'm tired and I've been sick for over a week. I'm staring listlessly at the computer screen. I know I have to get the crew of the Hudson from deep space to their destination planet and that it needs to happen soon.

Here's the thing: The beginning and end of this book have been written, and re-written, for years. It's just the middle chapters, the intervening 4 months of the character's lives, that have had me stumped. *I* know how these characters develop their relationships - acrimonious and otherwise- because they have lived in my head for some 15 odd years. While I would love to be able to pluck them from my crowded brain and plop them on the page (or screen) in front of you, the technology to do so just doesn't exist. I have to make these people come alive for you through words - and words are HARD, y'all.

So I'm stuck. And, while quite literally navel gazing, I've had to admit that part of me is really afraid of how nearly finished this book is. It's SO close. If it does ever get "finished", though, then I will have to face up to some hard truths. I have to put it in front of my husband, my best friend, my family.

I'm really not sure I'm up to disappointing everyone.

It's kind of nice, having folks believe I can do something. I've been dabbling with fan fiction writing. It's easy (stock characters! short plot lines! smut!) and doesn't tax my abilities - or lack there of. I can get instant feedback and it is 99% positive. That's not because my writing is necessarily good, though. People reading fan fiction don't generally take the time to log-in and leave nasty comments about bad writing. There's a LOT of fan fiction out there. If you don't like a particular work, or author, you just go back to the index and find a new sample. So, yes, I've gotten some nice reviews that make me feel glowy. Fat lot of good that does me professionally.

I should probably finish this book. If for no other reason, it allows those I care about to be honest and say "Yeah, you know what? Turns out you kind of suck at this. Maybe find something else to do with your life while you still can?"

The husband thinks it would be funny of me to leave this post incomplete. Marketing majors are cute that way.

Going to try and sleep now. I'll get back to work tomorrow. Maybe.

Dremiks as Space Opera

I used to wince when people described my first novel, Dremiks, as a space opera. The term made me feel tawdry and seemed to cheapen my writing. I’ve come to embrace the description, though. Opera, in all its mediums, deals with the emotions of the human condition. If I had to summarize the work I’ve been struggling with all these years, it would be just that: an examination of human interaction and behavior and the contrasts it presents with alien races.

So much of science-fiction and fantasy futuristic fiction assumes that man overcomes his inherent tendencies toward violence, xenophobia, and avarice. I’ll admit that at the tender age of 13, when I started writing Dremiks, I subscribed to that ideal as well. Surely by the time man conquered inter-galactic travel we would be kinder, smarter, more noble. The slap-in-the-face that is day-to-day adult life made me cynical in my writing as well as my political out-look. Dremiks has evolved from a giggling teenage short story to an imagination of the continued war between man’s demons and angels. The setting is still deep-space and most of the character names are the same, but that is where the similarities end.

There are elements of romance involved in the novel. I’m a romantic at heart. I find it difficult to believe that a group of people thrown into the unknown and living together for over a year would not develop some intimacies. It is far more un-realistic to assume that all officers and crew of a starship would remain celibate and platonic in their relationships than it is to let human nature take its course. There it is again- that basic belief that man has not changed so very much, despite our technological and sociological advances. Of course part of my belief that men and women (or any other pairing you choose to make) naturally fall in love, or lust, while working together is personal bias. I met my husband in college while we both worked in the same dorm.

There’s betrayal, lust, deception, love, life, and death in this novel. I try to interject light-hearted moments because no one’s life is wall-to-wall drama. While I hope the adrenaline junkie reader will find enough action to keep his interest, Dremiks is not a militaristic, space-battle, novel along the lines of Battlestar Galactica. You’ll be three quarters of the way through the book before you find a character wielding a gun. (A few knives make earlier appearances. Stabbings are fun!)

Here is a short excerpt dealing with some of the themes I’ve just discussed. For reference, the commanding officer of the spaceship Hudson is Captain Brett Hill. His executive officer and chief pilot is Commander Margaret (Maggie) O’Connell. This scene takes place half-way through the book. The setting is the officer’s mess (dining room).


“So what do you think, Cap’n?”

Brett sipped his water. When he glanced sideways at O’Connell his lids drooped slightly and his left eyebrow rose a fraction. A quirk of his lips, so fleeting it was possible the others never saw, let Maggie know that he had noticed the shortened, more familiar, form of address.

“Do I think it was inherent nobility that brought us out here?” He shook his head. “Maybe. I don’t call it nobility, though. I think it’s our innate human need to champion the underdog. We are constant optimists. We’re the emotional descendents of the caveman who stood defiant in the front of the wooly mammoth. We rebuild cities at the base of Vesuvius, get back on the bicycle when we fall off, whack that hornet’s nest every spring. Humans cheer for the couldn’t be, believe in the shouldn’t be. We love causes; the harder, the more lost they are, the more we love them.

“Is that nobility? Maybe. Maybe it’s a pernicious genetic defect that makes our species susceptible to shared delusion. What ever it is, it keeps life interesting.”