epublishing

A Novel’s Journey: A Reason to Live

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Almost four years ago, an idea for a crime fiction series wriggled its way into my subconscious. Although I’ve always enjoyed reading Parker, Child, and Crais, I was hankering to write about someone who wasn’t always right, wasn’t indestructible, and had flaws and problems that weren’t of his own making…but had to be solved anyway.

The protagonist I started noodling with became retired Washington DC homicide detective Marty Singer and his first novel, A Reason to Live, is so close to done I can taste it. Final edits are done and only the formatting and launch remain.

I thought this might be a good time to recount where it all started.

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Correcting Mistakes with Errnet

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One of the challenges facing indie writers is how to recreate the editorial support that a traditionally published author receives (or is supposed to receive). If you take your writing seriously, having a handful of volunteer readers isn’t enough; you need true editorial help.

There are many types of editors, however: substantive editing, line editing, copy-editing, proofreading. All of these steps and stages are important, but in my own case, I felt that there was no substitute for substantive editing since it requires a high degree of experience, knowledge of the genre I was writing in (crime fiction), and a kind of understanding of the whole project, not just individual pieces. Consequently, I hired my own at considerable cost and it was worth it.

Since I don’t live under a money-tree, however, I hoped to cut a few corners by looking for proofreading alternatives. This is still an important step, but one I hoped I could look for a more automated solution.

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Printing Your Book With CreateSpace: Part III

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This is Part III of a three-part series on my attempt to print my short story collection, one bad twelve, using Amazon’s CreateSpace method. Part I covered many of the basics; Part II covered the “short list” of tips and tricks that helped me get my title to CreateSpace.

In many ways, this is the easiest part of the CreateSpace process and is more about reporting than tips or tricks. Once I’d been through the formatting and artwork (cover) stages of my book, much of the “creative” process was over. There are still a few issues that might be of interest to writers new to the print format, however.

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Give It Away! Strategies for making your ebook free

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For authors going indie, it quickly becomes apparent that the best way to get the word out about your books and stories is to give some of it away for free. Although handing out novels like they are candy doesn’t have quite the same impact it did two or three years ago, it still may be the best strategy for newcomers to the digital publishing game.

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Using the Kindle to Edit

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When the manuscript for my novel A Reason to Live was ready to move from critique groups to professional editing, I was lucky enough to land the wonderful Alison Dasho (nee Janssen), a former editor for Bleak House Books and Tyrus Books [visit her at http://www.alisonedits.com/].

She’s in Wisconsin, I’m in Virginia; obviously, this was going to be a digital relationship. But there are a million ways to exchange documents online. How best to get my 90,000 words to you? I asked. Just send the Word document, she said, I’ll put it on my Kindle.

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