From On the Road

Not a Bing Crosby-Bob Hope movie… I hope. Who remembers them besides me?

We’re back in the land of no internetz, well except for Panera Bread. In Norfolk, on the way to meet the grandson at The Mouse, in Florida. He, with parental units, will arrive Sunday, the same day we plan to get there. While he goes by plane (school vacation is all he has), we’re driving, hence the intermediate stops, here at Gramma’s house and then outside Savannah. Us old people don’t want to drive all that long any more, LOL.

As for writing, my job for now, I’ve finally finished up two critiques for wonderful people that I can’t say any more about since their work isn’t public yet. I’ll try to let you know when they’re available.

Freedom Does Matter has a review on Goodreads. I’m not sure about the proprieties of reposting, but it’s linked from my book page, here. She discusses Mercenaries, too. Sales are existent, but countable on hands so far.

The third book, which has gone through maybe ten titles starting with Background Check, is currently called Connections for now. I’m trying to find a photo or two I can work both the English and Spanish words into. I have, two days ago, finished a major revision, recommended by my readers, and I’m letting it stew for a week or so, till we return home at the end of the month. If I can get it read again, I’m hopeful for an April release. I’ll post more about that later, along with some ideas for the cover. Reaction is always welcome.

The fourth book, working title Coda?, will be coming up for more work now that I’ve set Connections aside. Lessons learned from Connections are being applied, and that should make the story both stronger and clearer. But new scenes are required! It’s about 70Kwords now; the goal is 110K +/-, similar to Freedom and Connections.

I don’t believe I mentioned it before, but the hand-hewn map I used in the front matter of all the Mercenaries books describing the Nest, has been redrawn by Tommi Salama, find him at tommisalama (at) gmail.com. I think he did a great job; he’s looking at another map of the Nest, used in the reference material section, again, of all the books. You could find a worse cartographer. He does graphic design as well.

There are interesting posts at Ramblings of a Grumpy Old Man, . Try it and see if you like it.


Your thoughts and comments are always welcome!

CreateSpace: Why would you not?

While e-books are likely the wave of the future, many people I know have no interest in adding a Kindle or Nook or whatever to their electronic library. Some don't like e-books for what are to them, perfectly valid reasons. And some reserve their savvy for other than computer-based work. Probably, you have friends in one or more of those categories. And there are potential readers out there who also fit. Given the small amount of additional work needed to create paperback copies of your wonderful novel, doesn't it make sense to do so? No, I'm not acting as a shill for Amazon; it just seems like a no-brainer to me.

Of course, the decision is yours. I'm relating my experience to give you an idea about the effort needed to take a book already available in e-book format to CreateSpace. If you do it, and sell enough to clear the (low) royalty hurdle, congratulations! If not, at least you didn't close off the path.

I spent about ten hours over the past several weeks formatting and proofing Mercenaries; A Love Story for the print on demand service CreateSpace. Most of that time was spent on learning the (admittedly few) ropes needed to select a trim size - I based my selection on a survey of the paperback books in my library and the page count estimates from the processor. That was probably the most difficult task.

For printing, the things you need to choose are the trim size (the actual page size) of the book, the font and size of the interior text, and the line spacing. Assuming you are not planning a different edit for print, these are the major determiners of the page count, which drives the cost, and therefore the sell price.

I went back and forth a few times in making these choices for my book, and I plan to keep them for other books in the series, to keep them cosmetically the same.

I asked my wife, an avid reader,  for input on the font and size by printing a few pages in the same size and layout as the book in different fonts and sizes, and having her review them. Between us we selected Georgia in 10 pt for the font, with 1.1 x line spacing.

CreateSpace takes PDF files for the internal text. I created these directly from Scrivener, using their compile option to override the project page set-up with a specific one for pdf. Along with the page size, I set up the headers and footers as I wanted and ’pressed the button, Max!’ (Apologies to Dr. Fate.)

After a review of the resulting PDF file, I selected it in the internal file section of the CreateSpace process. It was then a matter of waiting until their review process ground its wheels. Any errors are flagged. The first time I tried this, I didn’t understand the requirement that the size of the pages in the PDF file had to match the page size selected in CreateSpace. I know, I know, it's obvious, right?

I fixed that in the Scrivener options by choosing the 6 x 9 page size with margins* to fit CreateSpace suggestions, and lo, my file came back error free!

I would note that while Scrivener makes the process of changing the page set-up easy, your own experience may vary. I believe that it would be as simple if using Word, but my experience with Word is several years old. I have been unable to accomplish this with Open Office, since they tie the page size to Styles, and I haven't ever figured out how to use Styles. My guess is that LibreOffice is the same as OO. To be fair, since Scrivener does the job, I've spent very little time on it.

Other choices affecting page count are requiring chapters to begin on "a recto page" (the right hand side), the font size of the Chapter headings and the padding used to lower the Chapter heading toward the center of the page. These, however, won't affect the page count by more than five percent, in my experience, if you make reasonable choices. Starting on a recto page will have the biggest effect; with optimal bad luck, it could amount to an extra page per chapter. Plan on half that.

Here are photos of the interior, showing a chapter opening, and a two page spread. Focus isn't too good, sorry.

 

The second hurdle was creating a table of contents. In the ebook version, I had entries only for  individual sections, but I wanted to add the chapters in the print version. This was more trouble, because of the various options for TOC creation in Scrivener, and rather than detail it here, if you need or want more detail on that, contact me.

The last item is the cover. Once you've chosen a trim size, it also defines the cover size, and therefore the requirements for the image. For the 6x9 trim size, the image you select must be 6.25" x 9.5" with a resolution of 300 DPI. Another requirement is that there be no useful information within a quarter-inch of the edge. This typically means the title and the author's name must be well within the finished printed area. Other trim sizes will have their own requirements, determined when you begin the process. You will select one of the templates that allow you to add your own cover image.

An Author photo is nice to include, but not required. The image should be 1.5" x 1.5", again with a 300 DPI resolution. I haven't checked, but this requirement probably fits all trim sizes.

You'll need the text for the back cover (the book description may be what you want), and if you choose, an author biography to go with the picture.

That's really about it. The CreateSpace process is dead easy to follow, and it gives you feedback at every step to keep you headed true.

Once everything's been approved, proof the result. I suggest you order the physical book at least once. When you receive it, make sure it's what you expect. Check the cover: front, back and spine. Check the front material to make sure you got the one for the printed version! Inside, make sure the chapter first pages look the way you want, including whether they start correctly, and have the font and size you expect. Make sure the padding is the same from chapter to chapter. Several places through the text, check the page numbers and the other header/footer text you added. Make sure it doesn't overrun the text.

Before finishing the process for Mercenaries, I did the same process for an editing copy of my WIP, Freedom Does Matter. For this copy, I printed it myself, on my overworked HP inkjet printer.

Because I didn't want to cut the sheets down, I bought a ream of legal paper and set Scrivener for a trim size of 7" x 8.5", half a sheet. I used Cheap Impostor to do the imposting (the re-ordering of pages into signatures). It makes a nice package... especially if a duplex printer is available. For Freedom, 292 pages the way I printed it, I had 73 sheets of paper (four pages per sheet) to fold, which took something over an hour.

Because my printer is not duplex, I first printed the even pages, then turned them over and printed the odd pages. For whatever reason, the HP printer doesn't pick up freshly printed pages as well as it does unprinted sheets; I had to help the printer pick up each of the sheets when printing the odd sheets. That added about an hour, so the marked-up copy in the photo required three plus hours to put together. You can tell that it is not glued--much better for editing.

I was glad I went through the exercise. Not only did I get a different format (making editing easier for me), I got additional experience in the process of making input files for CreateSpace.

If this seems like it would be useful to you, feel free to experiment. At the least, if you decide to have someone else do this work, I hope you'll have some insight into the work they will be doing for you. If you’d like more details on any part of the process, contact me. And as usual, comments are welcome!

*The inside margin (the left in Scrivener) is determined by the page count, to allow the text to be read when the book is bound. As the page count increases, so does the depth of the inside margin.

Photos of Freedom Does Matter editing copy:

Binder Clips. That's what they're for, right?

With the beat-up cover-don't mind where the cat licked!

Two piles of folded signatures. I did edit, see!

One of the signatures, open

It's not ignoring you if I'm working... Right?

It's been a while since I posted anything here. If you've been waiting with bated breath, I apologize. I've been busy, not only with householdy kinds of tasks--as all us househusbands, and virtually all women, are aware--but some writing related ones as well.

I'm doing a couple of dedicated reader critiques for Critters, and another review for one of my beta readers, whose story is moving along with only a couple of minor adjustments needed... in my opinion! It's all my opinion!

In the past week, I've been working on formatting Becka Sutton's The Storm Child for e-book delivery. It's the second book in her series, The Dragon Wars, and like Land of Myth, the premier one, it reads well. I'll be able to recommend it... once I've delivered the files back to her and it's available. Watch her web site for news. Note, Land of Myth is available other places; check Becka's Books page for details.

I set a pretty low goal for the year, word count wise, 15Kwords per month, except 30K for April (Camp NaNo) and 50K for November (NaNoWriMo). That adds to 230K words. Even with that low target, I missed February and March. However, April went over enough to cover March's shortage.

The target for April was set to finish the first 'vomit' draft of Background Check. While I got just over 30k words into it, it's not quite finished, but the draft is at 108K words now, and I really thought I should be done at 100K. Oh well. Start at the beginning and write to the end. It will be what it will be. Or possibly, there's room to cut!

However, I set BC aside because one of my beta readers finally gave me the complaint that's bothered all the critters who've read Freedom No More--and that just before I built the ebook to send it to Amazon! Importantly, he used the words I needed to hear to recognize what the issue was. Since then, I've been rewriting the first arc of the story. It's certainly different; I hope people think it better.

He also thought it could do with more cutting. At 116K, I'm inclined to agree, but I'd taken 4 or 5Kwords out of it to get to 116. I've not checked it with the new first arc, but it doesn't feel any shorter.

The last thing--that I'm going to talk about, anyway--is that I finally got off my duff and used the CreateSpace account I'd set up almost a year ago to publish Mercnearies: A Love Story in paper. My 12Worlds friend Brian Drake blogged about his experience, and mine mirrored it. It is unbelievably easy! I'll do a separate post on the process, but this is the result:

Front and back. This version's available at both CreateSpace and Amazon.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Nick

Originally written August, 2006.

I learned last Sunday that we’d lost Nick. Donna, Kathryn, others of his family, Ina and other co-workers, we’d all lost him. I wrote to Donna that day of my sorrow, and my hope that she and Kathryn would be able to forgive Nick, as he apparently took his own life. The news made me re-evaluate my feelings on suicide.

Like most experiences, I have probably suppressed bad events with Nick, for I certainly don’t recall any, except of course the one that defined the last two years of his life: the death of his son, Eric, on Valentine’s Day, 2004. I was sitting downstairs checking my email when I read Nick’s message that he had terrible news to share: that Eric had died. It was Saturday. The next day, I flew to San Francisco for the Intel Developers’ Conference. While I tried to call Nick, and failed, I did talk to my boss. He was thinking of going out for Eric’s service, which would be on Thursday. From the IDC, I flew to Seattle Tuesday night for a meeting — Boeing, I think — and then back to Ontario Wednesday night. I stayed overnight before the morning ceremony at Bobbitt Memorial Chapel, the same place where Nick’s service was today.

Eric’s service was filled with his peers, several of whom spoke with conviction of their loss at his death. Along with other co-workers, I had a few minutes with Nick and Donna as they tried to meet with all the visitors to the chapel. I drove from the chapel to Nick’s home in Yucaipa; perhaps fifty or sixty others did likewise. It is a pleasant home, set on the side of a hill in a residential neghborhood. Pines in front, stone walls in the front and back and a flagstone patio beyond the kitchen to the backyard.  I stayed a bit, spoke again to Nick (But really, what do you say?) and left to drive to Las Vegas to catch my flight back home. My life continued.

Other times were much more pleasant—how could they fail to be? Nick joined Numerix Corporation as an application engineer in the mid 1980’s. During her college selection phase, I took my daughter to Chicago to visit Northwestern and DePaul. While we were there, Numerix was setting up for a trade show; Nick was involved in arranging the equipment and the booth. I recall her smiling as he worked, first kidding with me, then showing her—terrified of math ever since inaccurate Advanced Placement recommendations—a book on prime number theory and telling her his hobby was computing ever larger new primes. It is safe to say she was taken aback rather than impressed, but she enjoyed his company more than less, both then and when she briefly worked at Mercury.

My history of customer involvement started at Numerix, as I did not only design and development work, but also pre-sales and post-sales visits. By the nature of the beast, this led to knowing the Sales Group (including AE’s) and attending Sales Meetings with them. Those were held in a variety of places, and I remember Nick's invitations to come out and spend every evening shooting pool, drinking cold beer and talking. The pool and talking parts of that held true for almost every Sales Meeting we both attended. One place where our plans were overcome by events was the last Numerix Sales Meeting in Orlando, when the plan to accept an offer by Mercury was revealed, and their CEO talked about the opportunity. I had rented a Mustang convertible, and after the formal meeting, we cruised Orlando, talking about what would happen once we became one with our heretofore competitor.

I continued to attend Sales meetings, as the position I accepted with Mercury involved even more customer input than I’d had with Numerix. However, the Mercury sales guys are just jealous of their customers, so I kept in contact with them, and of course the AE’s, all of whom were friendly, Nick most of all.

Remembering little things.

One of the perks of attending Sales Meetings was the unique tee shirt given to those present. Since Nick had attended all the meetings, he had the largest collection, and he brought to subsequent meetings a selection to choose from. The president was always interested to see which ones Nick wore.

Nick, as moderator at the back of the room, holding up the signs: 15; 10; 5; Quiet! to let speakers know when their time was up.

Trying to convince him to get a ‘real’ sports car to replace his Corvette.

Phone calls to check an innovation he wanted to try on a customer; unlike some sales associates, Nick was willing to check feasibility before advertising it. And he was willing to listen to problems with his ideas. If there were issues, they usually evolved from information he didn’t have, rather than an error or misunderstanding. He was always excited to be helping a customer solve his problem in the best way for this customer. Nick was easy to work with if you kept that in mind.

The past five or so years, he traveled less to be at home more. For him, even customer visits in Southern California took extravagantly long times due to traffic. With less on my plate while traveling, I was willing to drive halfway to meet him out in San Bernadino (near the I10 and I15 junction) at a Japanese restaurant where we could get sushi. When I got out for VITA meetings in Long Beach, or a customer visit in LA (defined for this purpose as between Simi Valley and San Diego), I’d arrange to drive out there to meet, have sushi and just talk. I enjoyed it; I hope he did as well.

I have always been of two minds about suicide. My aversion to the act varies inversely with the age of the person involved: at young ages, under the early 20’s perhaps and certainly for 12 to 16 year olds, suicide seems much too drastic a step taken far too early, before the wonders of life can possibly be manifest. To me, this argument holds less and less water as the person ages.

But, if the guess is correct—I’ll never know for sure—Nick had other demons. Eric’s death brought him depression; he never said so but used terms which one smarter than I might have recognized. Perhaps it was something else entirely, but not in my knowledge. Was it that, in death, Eric became more important to him, perhaps, than Donna or Kathryn, or others who now miss him so?  Was he right to focus there, decline to participate in our lives any more—as Chief Joseph said: “I will forget no more forever!”

My thoughts remain conflicted. I fear that because I wasn’t available, or as feeling as I should have been, perhaps I contributed to his depression. I feel a sense of loss in my mind and head. While my parents have both passed on, I thank God I’ve not had the pain of the death of a child. Even friends of mine have been exceptionally healthy, I guess, and lucky. The exception: before Nick’s death, Paige, an eight year old daughter and granddaughter of friends, with Down Syndrome and a host of other problems, died… She spent months in hospital suffering from leukemia first. Her passing seemed to me a pointless exercise in something—failed medical technology, faith, I don’t know. From the faith point of view, it just didn’t seem at all fair to put her through all that and then withhold the benefits. I think a little the same with Nick. I’d like to have some assurance that he’d tried everything he could to resolve the pain and loss he felt before taking that final step.

My loss is selfish: I like Nick; I don’t want to not have him. I hope that he did exhaust the possible alternatives before taking the final step on this plane. If he did, I can come to grips with his decision. But without having talked to him, I’ll never know. That’s the root of the problem. I want to be convinced that his disease was, in fact, incurable, and I’m not. But that doesn’t change the world.

I believe my feelings about suicide remain unchanged. While I would not choose it myself, it grows more acceptable—to me—as age increases; that it is a decision to be honored if made after other viable alternatives have been exhausted.

Goodbye, Nick. I already miss you. 8/25/06

Those of you who have looked at my book, Mercenaries: A Love Story may have noticed the dedication; this is some of the backstory to that dedication. I also thought it appropriate because Nick was the first person to read Black Sky, Dry Rain, the first part of that saga. Like any good reviewer, he was willing to say what he thought didn't work. I wish he'd had the chance to see it now.

Back Again, With Questions

Last night, about 8:30, we arrived back home - whew! - after 4400 miles and 21 days, one graduation from US Army basic training, one wedding, visits with brother and aunt, not to mention Gramma's azaleas (not going to mention...).

I published Mercenaries: A Love Story on March 21. So far, it's sold two copies to people who are not family or friends - or if they are, they haven't admitted it. I hope that's not the case! It's in the Select program, but no borrows, so far.

This leads to a question: on Amazon, is there a way to see what the book's page views are? On Smashwords, the samples downloaded stat hinted at that, but I haven't found that for Amazon yet. If there are no page views, that would lead me in the direction of trying to increase visibility, but if there are page views that don't get converted, that implies that either the cover or the blurb aren't doing their job. Or at $4.99, the price is too high. Different things to fix. If there are page views, reviews might help, but there aren't any of those as yet.

With 35K words (about a third) of one WIP being looked at by a beta reader, and 130K words of a second WIP going out to a second reader, I have a minute or two to think on these things. If only I knew what to work on... If any readers feel they could provide an opinion on either the cover (visible to the right) or the description (below), please feel free. I won't hold anything you offer against you. Of course, you could say, work on everything... but I'd like to focus.

Description
Mercenaries: A Love Story

Beckie Sverdupe, typical high-school student and accomplished equestrienne, has a best friend, a younger brother, and no plans beyond homework and the upcoming pep rally.

Then, she is kidnapped to be buried alive. Her strength and resourcefulness during that ordeal causes the enigmatic young mercenary, Ian Jamse, to ask for her help in rescuing another abducted girl. During spring break, she and her best friend play exotic dancer in London and, within a day, find themselves being massaged in a Italian villa! The sex-trader is thwarted this time, but he continues to ply his evil trade in San Diego by hijacking a middle-school school bus.

Beckie chooses to put herself back on the stage, within the slaver’s grasp, to free the California girls. Jamse sees financial gain. The two of them chase the fiend from London to Arizona to Thailand, where Beckie learns what she really wants from life.

This is Mercenaries: A Love Story complete. All four stories are here in one volume.
Bonus! An excerpt from Freedom No Matter, the next book in this series.
Mercenaries: A Love Story is recommended for 16+ for language and mature situations

The book is just over 153K words and it's not available in paper. Does anyone think having a 500 page book available would add to its success?

News - Mark Your Calendars

I wanted to say something about the Clown Car primary struggles going on, but thinking about it makes my head hurt and my heart bleed, so I'll just ask: "Where are the women? I know they're smarter than this..." And Senator Scott Brown (R:MA) responded to my complaint about his support of the Blount amendment with a repeat of his position, which truly must be based on a different Blount amendment than I read. He ended by saying it was defeated, as if that makes it all better.

I removed the censorship flag over the blog title - I know, you never noticed - but only commented the code out so when SOPA and PIPA return, I can respond again.

Almost finished with Mercenaries: A Love Story. I'm doing a final read on my Kindle to make sure it's formatted ok and all the nasty editing marks are gone. I think it'll be up Monday or Tuesday. Mark your calendars!

I've mentioned Becka Sutton's web serial Dragon Wars before. She's moving to publish the first story arc in ebook and paper, and I offered to assist with the e-book formatting, so if you don't like it, you know where to address your complaints. She's got an Indiegogo crowd fundraiser in process for this month, so stop by and see if you could be minded to help. Even if you can't, read the web serial.

Last Friday, Joe Konrath linked to Catherine Ryan Hyde's post: Friday Author: Barry Eisler. Since I doubt that Joe needs any additional traffic, I've linked to Ms Hyde's post directly. Everyone should read it, especially the comments half-way through on offense, and the human reaction. Mr. Eisler's words certainly seem to apply to others of us than just authors. For example:

Okay, let’s clarify that principle, and consider it.  The principle is, “If someone finds something offensive, you shouldn’t do it.”
But this doesn’t make any sense as an organizing principle if for no other reason than that it’s impossible to implement.  Because what if I find your reluctance to cause offense offensive?  What do you do then?

And also:

Comedians should push people’s buttons.  They should reveal uncomfortable truths about uncomfortable subjects.

Nota bene: Rush Limbaugh is neither a comedian nor an entertainer.

As always, comments welcome below.

It's been a while

Sorry 'bout that, especially if you actually looked for new content.

Politics:
Been watching the R primary season. It's interesting, in a train wreck kind of way. I am in the demographic that's supposed to love, cherish, and honor Republican values: over 60, white, male. I find that the values I love, cherish and honor: women's rights (as well as, not instead of, men's), freedom of choice unfettered by governmental influence (mostly - I agree with not calling "Fire! in a crowded theater) and religious influence, and courtesy in public debate, are apparently not much valued in the Republican mindset.
As holder of three graduate degrees, I firmly believe that education past grade school is critical to our country and indeed our world, and deserves support.
I think rape is the forced imposition of one's will on another, and of course, abortion opponents are all over that one, aren't they?
So, I'm seeing no one in the R camp that I could even not vote against. Or as Bob Cesca says: "Keep going, Repubs, you're doing great!"

Mercenaries:
I decided to publish the whole story, instead of keeping it two books. I may take some of the deleted scenes (so to speak) and offer a collection of short stories later on. I'm planning an availability later this month.
Anticipating that, I sent Mercenaries: A Love Story (which is the whole thing, 157K words) to my beta readers, and did that cause some #amediting! I'm waiting on the last batch of edits, and will then publish. I'm thinking of KDP Select, so if anyone has experience, good or bad, or can point to a useful source of information, that would be appreciated.

Paypal:
I depublished Book One on Smashwords in anticipation of KDP Select, but the recent brouhaha over censorship raised my eyebrows. I'm fairly certain that the root cause was pointed out by a commenter at Joe Konrath's blog (note: I linked to the 'offensive' blog post, not the overall blog):

Ummm, why's everyone coming down on PayPal because of this? Last I checked, they're catching heat from the credit card companies, and PayPal stands to lose far more by losing the credit card companies than Smashwords does by losing PayPal.

And another one said:

PayPal's reason for exercising its right in such a forcible manner certainly stems from its own agreement with the Credit card companies and banks who have their own masters pulling the strings. I think, if you follow the money long enough, you will find a wrinkly old man with lots of money, who is in love with his dog, but feels guilty about it, and now wants to force his moral dilemma on everyone else.

I think these people have put their finger on the root cause. After all, the process, for CC companies anyway, began ten or so years ago, when no one complained that, under pressure from government, they refused to accept payments from those "lolita" web sites, or so I've heard. The current position seems a natural progression from that one, and it's likely to continue. It's a function of where the most money can be earned at the lowest cost (read: risk).

I think that's enough for today. I'll try to not make you wait so long next time.
Comments welcome.

Pre-Christmas Update

First, SOPA (HR 3261) and PIPA (S.968) are still alive, so while I took down the cover, I'm keeping the "Stop Censorship" bar over the title. Click on the bar to see how to help, if you haven't. If that doesn't appeal, get in touch with your Representative and Senators and tell them what you think they should do about these two bills. I hope you'll ask them to kill both of these bills, but that's my opinion. Make up your own mind, then tell them. Otherwise, you may be out in the cold with no free interwebz and a bumper sticker that says "I voted for Muffy."

Next, the tree, all 12 feet of it, is up and decorated. It looks pretty good, thanks to the wife's good work in decorating - and catching when the darn thing tried to fall over a couple hours after we finished. I think it's 'cause all the ornaments are on one side...

I finished reading the 900 000 words of Game of Life (working title), which is next on my list to rework. The read was to see just how much work it will take. There are five books planned, and the second and third ones are in pretty good shape. The first and fifth need a fair amount of rewriting, and the fourth needs to be finished, along with some heavy rework.

But before I actually start on that, I will do a quick reread of Mercenaries: A Love Story, Book Two, and send it off to my beta readers, to see what they think. Having removed between 10 and 15 000 words, I'm hoping it's a bit more... direct? With fewer non-plot related scenes at least.

I hope each one has the best Happy Christmas and Holiday season you can wish, and an excellent New Year! Thanks for reading.

Guest Post at Derek Canyon's Blog, Adventures in ePublishing

Go check it out, please.

I really appreciate Derek's willingness to share his space with other writers. Of course, my experience with Twelve Worlds indicated nothing else. It was his idea, and he did a lot of the grunt work, helping the others of us out a lot.

Mercenaries: A Love Story Book One remains available. See the cover to the right. Click here if you need a link for the B & N store.

I'm through the heavy editing for Mercenaries: A Love Story Book Two. It's at 93000 words right now, and will be headed to beta readers next week, I think. I know, great time of year to ask someone to read and comment on a 100 000 word ms!

Comments welcome.

Updates

First, NaNoWriMo: By my word count, an unmitigated disaster. Not quite 10% of the 50 000 word goal. However, the words I did get written will not be lost (I think). And they led me, not astray, I don't think, but somewhere I hadn't planned to be. The two primary characters came to me after the last few words flew from my fingertips into Scrivner's memory. The less primary one said, "You know, it's not gonna work for her this way. I have to die." The other one just nodded, not particularly happy. And neither am I. Not big on killing girls. So, I have to either accept her words - she does know what she's talking about, after all - or I have to rethink where the story is going. I haven't made that decision yet. Hopefully I'll have it done before NaNoWriMo rolls around next year. But I gained that from the experience. That's good. I'm happy and I'll do it again.

Second, Sales: None, so far. Oh, well.

Third: Book Two: Almost complete with the latest round of world-changing edits. Dropped something like 18 000 words, and focused the story better, I think. I'll be out to my beta readers soon to see what they think. Then to decide if I should make it all one big book...

That's it for now. I hope all the holidays you celebrate are wonderful for you.

Price Drop

For anyone who thought I priced Mercenaries: A Love Story Book One too high, I've dropped it back to  $0.99.

It will be interesting to see what difference it makes, if any. At Smashwords, they track the number of sample downloads in addition to the number of sales, and while there have been several samples downloaded there, none have converted to sales. Oh, well. My experience is likely to have a slower start than Derek Canyon, for example.

The image to the right will take you directly to Amazon. If you prefer a non-Kindle version, the Smashwords page is here. Read the blurb and the reviews. If it looks interesting to you, try it out. You can comment here, too.

Thanks for reading!

NaNoWriMo

I waited till day two of NaNoWriMo to sign up, thinking that, in spite of being a procrastinator of the highest water, I could use the effort to get at least most of a draft of Freedom No Matter (working title), the sequel to Mercenaries: A Love Story complete. I had blasted about eight thousand words on flights to and from Hawaii - nothing like writing to keep your mind off the fact that you're five miles over nothing but water, and you're not in a seaplane - and another fifty thousand would move that into striking distance of the 80 - 100 Kwords I'm hoping the story can be told in. I've not sat down for today, and yesterday only offered about ten words, so I'm well behind the benchmark! But I can make up the ground.

Tune in next time when I talk about Beta Readers, and how no writer can be without them. Or how I can't at least. YMMV.

Time for the Not Fun part - Marketing

Mercenaries: A Love Story Book One is now available. So, in addition to keeping up with my other commitments (crit partners, I haven't forgotten you!), and finishing Book Two so it will be ready later this year, I have to try out some techniques for boosting awareness.  Like many others, this is the part I have the most trouble with - I have never been good at Sales!

In any event, Book One is up and ready for you to click through to look at and buy (Amazon link in sidebar, Smashwords here) if you like.

Any ideas you are willing to share would be welcome. Really!

This One Is Complete

I published Book One of Mercenaries: A Love Story this week on Amazon and Smashwords!

It has been an interesting journey, and I have had a lot of help along the way in getting to a product that tells the story I conceived in a way that I hope readers can connect with. I anticipate that readers will follow Beckie's story through the two volume Mercenaries: A Love Story, and the sequel, Freedom No Matter. Book Two of Mercenaries is due before the end of this year, and Freedom, next year.

The description:

A teenager saving hundreds, maybe thousands of kids from slavery? Beckie Sverdupe never thought about it. But it’s the role she took in this two book series. In book one, she and her brother Mike are kidnapped by Ian Jamse, a mercenary (who doesn’t follow quite all the rules), and his team. Successful extrication allows them a year and a half respite, after which Jamse remembers her as he deals with another girl's abduction.

This second abduction brings Jamse to hire Beckie, along with her best friend Melissa (amorously engaged with Mike), for a brief run as exotic dancers. Beckie finds Jamse's confidence in her appealing, as she does his appearance and demeanor. It’s quite a school vacation for two girls from Minnesota, but they don’t get to sight-see much either in London or Rome.

Once the kidnapped girl is successfully returned (along with Beckie and Melissa), Jamse meets Werner, who is responsible, and learns that he is in the business of buying, or stealing, both girls and boys and selling them into slavery in households, brothels, anywhere money can flow from. Beckie and Jamse learn of a third abduction in Southern California, this one: a dozen middle-school girls. While Jamse is motivated by the billions of euros in Werner’s vaults, Beckie finds her drive in freeing trapped girls and stopping Werner from continuing his activities.

Book One is recommended for 14+ with some adult language and situations.