Book Launch - WIN A KINDLE

MY ZOMBIE DOG has officially launched for the Kindle version and as this is the first book I've launched, I'm taking notes of my progress and promotions for this release. As you may know there is a giveaway with this launch, for every person who purchases the book, or simply blogs about the book or the contest, they go into the draw to win a KINDLE! This is open international, so get your entry in!

If you would like to enter, simply go to the last post to find the entry form HERE.

I've posted about creating a professional book cover, and when the competition is over I'll share all the data on how I formatted my ebook.

In the meantime, I've signed up for the following reading challenge - how could I resist? 

And I'll leave you with the book trailer for MY ZOMBIE DOG (I'll tell you how to make those soon too - promise):

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DIY Book Covers

MY ZOMBIE DOG is nearly here!

Confession: I got it wrong. I thought I should format my ebook before the cover. You can learn from my mistake. The ebook needs to be formatted when it's ready to go live, BUT, you can use your cover for promotions and marketing leading up to the release of your book. I think you should finishing writing your novel first, but then get an image to place on your blog or on other peoples blogs. Get people familiar with your book before it's released. That's why I'm posting on covers before formatting:

Book Covers for the Indie Author

I've come to see there are two effective ways to produce your book cover, the first will usually generate a more professional effect and is a lot easier.


1. Pay a professional graphic artist to do it for you.
I know, it costs money and that worries you. This is an investment in your art. It doesn't matter how good your story is, if you do not market it to your target audience in an effective manner, they will never read it. I have been interested in the blurb of books, only to dismiss them because the cover looks crappy. I know I'm not unique, there's a whole cliche supporting my view. If the cover is crappy, it stands to reason that the formatting might be crud, which probably means the writing sucks - this is the train of though of your potential customer. Give them 100% on the WHOLE package. And if you do it yourself and you struggle, isn't that a week you'll be behind in your writing? Shouldn't you be getting the next book out there too? Budgets for book covers seem to range online from $50 to $200. I have a talented graphic artist working on my covers and my website. The end result will scream 'professional'.

2. Create your own book cover.

Despite telling you my first choice is to pay a professional, I did create a book cover for MY ZOMBIE DOG. This is for the same reason I formatted the book myself. This is my first book release and I wanted to understand and experience every step of the process. In future, I'll be able to have informed meetings with my graphic designers and digital publishers. It was also curiosity - I have a philosophy in life: how hard can it be? I then proceed to discover... quite hard.

If you are going to create your own book cover and you feel you have some talent in design, composition and colour, you'll need the following:

• An up-to-date computer with reasonable speed.
• Background image
• Fonts for text
• Tagline, Title and Author Name sorted (back blurb, review quotes, ISBN and barcode for back cover if you're producing a print book)
• Program for editing pictures, such as Photoshop
• Program for producing quality print media such as InDesign
• Pool of honest people to give feedback and advice

Background image

I love Shutterstock for photos, illustrations and vectors. It does have a subscription system where you can pay to download unlimited pics for a month etc, but I just buy a bundle of 5 pics at a time. This works out to about $10 per picture and you can download it in any size from small to extra large. There are plenty of other sites, just Google 'stock photos'. When you purchase a picture you are purchasing the license to use that picture for a particular use, such as book covers, t-shirts etc. You can manipulate the picture in Photoshop and I recommend you do, if it resembles the original too much, there is nothing stopping another author using the same pic for their book. I do see a lot of book covers duplicated on Amazon.

Fonts

Surprisingly, I think this element is the most important and even more important than your cover picture. The easiest way to spot a DIY cover seems to be in the typeface. Too many authors are just throwing any old text as their title on the cover and thinking 'that will do'.

Clarissa Draper did a great series on book cover design and this is her post on fonts.

The text type will depend partly on your book's style and genre, but titles should be big and easy to read (unless you're as well known as Stephen King don't put your name as big or bigger than your title).

To read more about why fonts should be big and clear go to Joel Friedlander's:

5 Great Fonts for Book Covers

One important thing to know about those 'free font' sites, is that some of them only give you license to use the font for private use. You need to find a site that offers commercial use, a good one that still has free fonts is Font Squirrel. I think it's also polite to acknowledge the font designer somewhere in your front pages (or back pages) where you would put credits for the graphic artist who designed your cover. By receiving recognition, artists can continue to find value in offering free products.

Play with your fonts, make your title pop. You can do this in InDesign by adding a 'stroke' (an outline to each letter), outer glow (light shines from behind each letter) or a drop shadow (kind of obvious what that is). I suggest making shadows anywhere from 30% to 75% opacity, solid 100% looks a little clunky and draws attention away from the letters.

Make sure your text contrasts nicely against your background, which means you need to make sure the colours stand out against each other but also that the tones and shades are different. If your blue text is the same shade as your green background, when Kindle converts your cover to greyscale (black and white) it will not be easy to read.

Text content

Of course your title has to be decided by this stage. Make it short and snappy. There are a few examples of successful long titles, but when appearing as a thumbnail amongst many other book covers on Amazon, a snappy title will stand out. I like big titles, I like to be able to read what they say even as a tiny thumbnail. Author's names can be small, even smaller should be your tagline, which can be read when the cover is opened. Check out the size of covers on Amazon and make sure you can read your text at that size. 

Pool of honest people.

I have you. My bloggers. For my cover art for MY ZOMBIE DOG I also used twitter (you can attach pictures) and asked people to please critique the cover. Google+ was great too. I mostly use my circle of writers in Google+, but I have another circle called 'iFriends', these are all the computer, techie and graphic people I follow. I rarely post to them (they're not so interested in hearing about my writing adventures) but I did post my cover to them and got some great suggestions for changes (my name was originally thicker and stark white, but it stood out too much). People like to be helpful, but I've noticed friends (including blogger friends) are reluctant to say anything negative incase they upset you. You need to give people permission to be honest in their feedback, and when you get negative feedback you need to be genuinely appreciative of it. This is the feedback that will help you improve.

This is also where you can get review quotes for your book. I'll be asking blog reviewers soon if they would consider reviewing MY ZOMBIE DOG or hosting me on their blog to talk about the book or about writing/publishing the book.

Want to know exactly what dimensions and size file your book cover should be? This is a detailed post by Webbish Books that will explain why you need two different sized images for your book cover:

Kindle Book Cover Size

You can also see:

4 Rules for Book Covers

Ugh - I have rules about blog lengths, but today I really needed to share all this information with you, hoping that some of it will help you out in your journey to publishing your book. And feel free to add honest criticism for the MY ZOMBIE DOG book cover! It's still a work in progress (my daughter wants to add a chomp mark out of one of the letters and I love that idea).

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The Writing Business - My Plan

In my last post I spoke about the need for a writer to have a plan. This could be as elaborate as a detailed business plan or as simple as a list of steps you need to take to become published (and then don't forget the steps to market what you publish).

Today I thought I'd share with you my list - this is not complete, there are previous steps I've already completed (write an author bio, get a blog or website, get a good author pic... oh yeah, write a novel...). Maybe you'll find some helpful ideas on there, or maybe you can suggest some things I've forgotten! As I tick off each step I'll share my experience and you can learn by my (hopefully rare) mistakes. I'll be sharing my experiences organising book covers next.

From Manuscript to Book:

Edit book

• Check out professional editing organisations
• Circulate amongst Beta readers

Cover design

• Search contacts for artists, graphic artists and professionals at book cover design.
• Check Shutterstock or other photo sites for good stock photos.
• Check online resources.

Format e-book and Print On Demand book

• Check with State writers groups for contacts for digital publishers.
• Look at CreateSpace
• Kindle
• iBooks
• All others: Smashwords, Dymocks, Fishpond etc.

Advertising material:

• Bookmarks
• Postcards 
• Book Trailer - speak to Luke or Rhonda
• Slogans ('cause I have too much time on my hands):
• Zombie Dog hates your guts... loves your brains.
• Tell Zombie Dog to heel, and it’ll bring you a nice fresh one.
• Zombie Dog’s best trick: ‘play dead’ (Zombie Dog is not playing).
• Zombie Dog thinks you look nom nom.
• Zombie Dog, nom nom nomming her way into your heart (cross out, replace with brain).
• Brrrraaaains means I love you.
• (picture of two mafia guys tossing a body rolled in a rug to the doghouse) Sometimes Zombie Dog comes in handy.

Read Amazon guidelines

Decide on release date - promote book leading up to release

PROMOTE

• Check out books on promoting your novel.
• Read the John Locke guide
• Check out guides to ebook publishing
• Giveaway - Kindle?
• Organise blog hop
• Look up other promotional ideas
• T-shirts (overkill???)
• Talk to contacts in programming about creating a game app to pair with the ebook.

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Writing Business - Step 1

MY ZOMBIE DOG is ready for production and I've been looking into the business of writing. There's so much involved in getting your manuscript from story to book (or ebook), so I started by making a list of everything I could possibly think of that would need to be covered. Now it's time to start tackling that list.

Making progress through lists is so satisfying, I think I could be a professional list-ticker. I've now accomplished the first step to becoming professional at this writing gig (other than actually writing something). I've set up my ABN (Australian Business Number), this registers myself as a business and can be done (in Australia) by contacting the ATO (be ready to be on hold for over half an hour) or going to their website:

http://www.abr.business.gov.au/

You can be a writer without an ABN, but this way I can set up my business of writing and keep it separate from all other expenses/incomes. It also allows me to set up a business name or trading name for digital publishing. Here's hoping I have lots of tax to pay next financial year due to the overwhelming success of my ebooks!

My next steps include sourcing an illustrator for the cover art and organising to have the manuscript file formatted into an ebook.

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Writer Reading

I'm in the middle of reading Be The Monkey which is a conversation on the future of publishing and ebooks between J A Konrath and Barry Eilser. I've seen this book raised online often, so I may be the last writer to read it.

The text explores the growing popularity for digital books vs traditional publishing and they certainly put forward a good argument for self-publishing. It's definitely worth reading if you are uncertain of which path to take or just want to support your decision to produce an ebook rather than paper copy of your novel.

The speakers are well informed on the subject, J A Konrath running the popular blog:

A Newbie's Guide to Publishing

And Barry Eilser hosts:

The Heart of the Matter

There is a lot of talk about the future of books, will paper eventually die out? I doubt it, I love books as do most writers, but I love ebooks too. Probably like most of you, I worry for the popularity of the traditional book, and most definitely for those cute little boutique bookstores I love to frequent, and I've found some new ones up here in Brisbane. But what about the traditional publishers? Does anyone worry for them?There are some that I love and look for in bookstores. One of my favourites was Black Dog Books - why? Because they had a little dog as their logo. Now they've merged into Walker Books (which are still a great children's book publisher). I'd be sad to see some of these publishing houses go. I guess they can turn to publishing digital books, but once again, what about the bookstores? What will they sell?

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Writing 2012

2012 - it's arrived, but I won't have time for the end of the world, I'll be too busy with changes to my world.

I'm proud of my productivity in 2011, got quite a bit of writing done and learned a lot about the craft. This year my focus shifts to publication. I'll need to:

Edit - Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. I've a few manuscripts that need polishing. I need to prioritise my manuscripts and work through them one at a time.

Submit - Time to circulate finished manuscripts. I had a taste of this when I had a meeting with a representative from a popular children's publishing house for MY ZOMBIE DOG. The main thing I came to learn? Putting your work out there does not have to be scary, this is a very supportive industry.

Connect - I'll be attending writer's workshops and events in Brisbane and I'll focus on growing my blog and online groups.

Read - In 2011 I read 102 books. My plan is to lower that goal this year and pay more attention to what I'm reading. I'd like to read and implement 5 good guides on writing/publishing and learn from the fiction I read. It's also time to delve back into reading blogs, I gain so much from those and promise to share links to the best ones with you.

Write - But of course! My optimistic goal is to finish WARRACKNABEAL KIDS and THE PIRATE GIRL. I flunked NaNoWriMo in 2011, but will aim to write one new novel this year in November. My other favourite type of writing? Lists. I'll be making lists for each of these resolutions with ideas and steps to achieve them.

Those are my writing goals for this exciting year - the year of possibilities. My whole world is not just writing, I've started going to the gym and want to get super-fit, I'll be renovating my new home in Brisbane and plan to add a library. As a family we are aiming to reduce waste and excess. Packing up a house really brings to light how much stuff (i.e. crap) you accumulate. 

2012 - BRING IT ON!

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Surviving a Pitch Session

I have pitch-fear!

Next week I pitch. Not the safe kind of online, or written pitches I've tried thus far... no... I pitch in person. I really didn't think it would be a big deal. After all, I've sent my first ten pages in, they'll either like it or they won't. So what's 15minutes chatting with a publisher?

Gulp.

Now that it's fast approaching I am in panic mode. Eeek! What if I just make a fool of myself - and not in the good way I usually intend to make a fool of myself? So, in preparation for the CYA Conference in Brisbane, I am searching for advice on pitching in person. Here's what I've come up with so far:

Don't:

• Act like they are providing a service to you. You are not doing them a favour, treat them like you have a product to sell to them. (Fabianspace)


• Assume they will make allowances for you because your work is just so special, play by the rules. (Fabianspace)


• Spend the whole time talking about your manuscript and going over what they've already read. Make a personal connection. (Nathan Bransford)

Do:

• Welcome feedback. You don't have to implement every change suggested to your manuscript but take it all in for serious consideration - this person knows what they're talking about and the feedback is generously provided to help you. (Nathan Bransford)


• Know the summary or synopsis of your story by heart. You might be asked to refresh their memory. (Redlines and Deadlines)


• Have a synopsis handy for any other manuscripts you have ready or nearly finished. You might have time to discuss those. 


• Do your homework. Know a little about the publishing house you are pitching to. I'm pitching to Black Dog Books and know that they have novels aimed the same age group as my manuscript and in the same genre. I can specifically point to some of their current books and say my novel is like a cross between this novel and this one. At the very least, know that they publish the sort of genre you produce. (Writing World)

That's all I got - any suggestions????

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Phooey to the End of Books

I don't think so!

Many conversations about the future of books, publishing and reading seem to be gloomy these days. I read blogs, hear radio conversations and even meet authors that think authors will suffer great income loss over:

A. the introduction of ebooks

B. cheap ebooks (99c)

C. competing with tv, movies, internet and gaming for children's attention.

I say phooey to all that. I think the future of books is brighter than it's ever been. Here's how I validate my excitement for this industry:

1. The introduction of ebooks has enabled MORE people to access fiction in a variety of mediums.


2. By having a novel available online, you have opened your readership up globally. You don't have to rely on only reaching a national market. If an Australian publisher prints one of my novels, I will still have to try to secure an agent/publisher for each other international market such as the UK or US.


3. Cheap ebooks have excited readers and tweaked an interest in otherwise cautious customers. This in turn develops a fad of reading, the more you read the more you want to read. 99c will gain initial interest, but readers will evolve to be more aware of their own taste and more discerning towards the quality of fiction they read. I now scrutinize my purchases and do not base my choice on price. I trust other readers to do the same.


4. Hooray for technological distractions. The iPads, laptops and iPhones might be popular with teens for the games they supply but the wonderful phenomenon I'm noticing is kids that wouldn't usually want to buy books now want to, all because they can download them onto their iPod etc. I had a yr7 media class (12-13yr olds) and introduced them to online books via Amazon. I showed them how you can get Kindle for your iPod. They were all so excited about this and most downloaded the app. A lot of these kids would have scrunched their noses up at me suggesting they borrow a book from a library.


5. Ebooks are making reading a very popular trend. This in turn makes people want to own books and buy books for their shelves as well as their iPads. It has almost become a fashion statement for our living rooms. Don't believe books are trendy? Department store catalogues are expensive to produce and distribute, this makes space on them prime real estate. As you can imagine, front page is pretty special. In the past. I've only noticed books get a small corner of a page in the middle somewhere. Yesterday I was so surprised and pleased to see a Big W catalogue feature the first TEN pages all for books and that they now sell the Amazon Kindle here in Australia!

So, aren't you excited?!

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7 Things Publishers Want

Does your story have what publishers want? At the recent YA workshop I attended hosted by Jeni Mawter, we discussed what publishers look for in a novel. This was the consensus (for YA fiction):

1. YA appeal - but what appeals to young adults? They want a story they can relate to, but also different enough from the everyday that they can be swept away. Paranormal fiction is so popular because it's dangerous, but the magic element means that the reader is safe - this doesn't happen in real life (unlike thrillers).
2. Morally acceptable - What? I hear you say - sounds boring? No. There can be unethical characters, but the essence of the story will support the societal concept that this is wrong. For example, you can have racist characters, but it will be made obvious in the story that this is not the way to live among each other. 
3. Innovative - Vampirebots? Time-travelling monkeys that can tell the future? Every now and then a novelist hits on something fresh. The irony of this is that the market will then demand a stream of the same type of novels.
4. Characters you can't forget - Who can forget Rue from Hunger Games? (sniff). Write characters that haunt our memories long after we close the last page.
5. Original Voice - The best way to do this (I think) is to write true to your own voice, don't try to imitate someone else's style. The world does not need another Steinbeck, we already have his novels, write your own.
6. Fresh use of language - language evolves radically, in fact 'radically' is not a buzz word anymore, nor is 'buzz word'. Although I see it in a lot of novels, none of the teens at my high school spell out OMG when they're speaking. It's not hard to see how teens and YAs speak, just check out their Facebook pages and blogs (but not in a stalky way).
7. Story that moves the reader - does your story evoke emotion? It doesn't have to be sadness or joy, perhaps fear or anger?

Can you think of anything else to add to this list? I think if I was to ever self-publish I'd still use a list like this to make sure my work measured up.

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The Post-Rapture Post

Glad to see everyone got through the Rapture (surely that close call will have been enough of a warning to put a stop to my writing procrastinations?).

Yesterday I spent the proposed last day at a YA Workshop hosted by Jeni Mawter (check out her website for her books and writing tips). I'll blog more about that and my trip to Sydney later, but one thing I wanted to raise was this continuous conversation amongst writers about the role of traditional publishing, the gatekeepers and the self-publising options. Perhaps it was just Rapture for those gatekeepers? 

Until yesterday, my position on traditional publishing vs self-publishing for my own situation was that:

It is possible to produce a quality ebook and publish it on Amazon and like sites, you can even have paperback copies produced. The big if, is if you are prepared to put in a LOT of work. Once your book is written, it needs to be edited professionally or at least screened by many readers, until it is as good as you could possibly get it. Then you need great cover art, this is where I find a lot of self-publishers let their book down. You need an online presence and you need your ebook formatted. And of course you have to promote your book with your target market in mind. At least there are no query letters or synopsis' needed.

BUT. Being accepted by a publishing house will lift your status as a writer. There are still many people who are wary of self-publishing. As Jeni Mawter said in her workshop, the problem is there is too much white noise on Amazon, there needs to be a way to sort through the masses to find quality self-published books. This is starting to sort itself out with reviews and blogs to recommend books. The consumer may become the new gatekeeper and you'll have to work even harder to win them over. A publisher will do all the work to produce your product, and it will be available in Bookstores. That was my biggie. I was leaning towards traditional publishing because I loved the idea of seeing my book in a bookstore.

Now my stand is a little shaky. Jeni pointed out that bookstores are in serious trouble. We already knew about the Borders situation (or you can read my blog on Books without Borders). With the ebook outselling paper books, and the introduction of the book apps on iTunes, bookstores may not be the best location for selling books (this hurts), especially for debut writers. I LOVE bookstores, I know most of you LOVE bookstores, but eventually, we might not be enough to keep them :(

So now I'm immersing myself into research and opinions on the traditional publishing vs self-publishing options. Here's what I've found so far - what are your thoughts, or are you as uncertain as me?

The New York Times:

The Case for Self Publishing?

Nathan Bransford:

Self Publishing vs Traditional Publishing: Which way will make you more money?

The Literary Analyst:

Self Publishing vs Traditional Publishing (the pros and cons)

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S is for Synopsis Bleh

Need some motivation to write that synopsis?

I would have loved to share with you the inside secrets of writing the perfect synopsis. But, as I am currently working on the crappiest synopsis ever, I think I'll steer you towards some that know better than I.

From the Holly Lisle course, How to Revise Your Novel (my all-time favourite course on editing), I found the key is to have a conflict sentence for each scene you write. This conflict sentence will outline what the character is doing and what is stopping them or making it worse. Here's some examples from my novel Dog Show Detective:

• Kitty is nervous about entering the dog show with Spade, but forgets all that when she finds a lost dog.
• Miss Norfolk explains that her grandmother left her a fortune in her will - but only if nothing happens to her beloved dog, Ozzie.
• The Walkers attend to the mess left by the intruder, wondering why nothing is stolen, until Kitty realises the intruder was after the dog.
• The killer is unconscious and the girls could escape, but Jack has a broken ankle. Kitty decides to stay with him and let Jessica go for help.

A conflict statement will usually be MC tries to.... BUT Mr X...... or MC gets into trouble..... AND ........ makes it worse. Holly Lisle refers to this as 'The Sentence'. 

If you need some help making sure there is conflict in every scene, you can check out my earlier post:

Get a Little Conflict in Your Scene

There seems to be different advice on how long your Synopsis should be, but in Australia, most publishers advise they want 1 page double-spaced.

Some sites to visit for your synopsis writing:

Author Aaron Paul Lazar outlines how he wrote his synopsis at Murder By 4

Elana Johnson's How to Write a Synopsis

A Synopsis Workshop by Sheila Kelly

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Traditional Publishing

Saw this and had to share :-)

Why writers must also be promoters:

Share

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I Love Links

These are the writer's sites/resources I'm lovin' this week (no particular order):

• Ink-fever - Writer's blog, check out The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Dogs. Also has the link to Think Sideways course with a discount.
• How To Think Sideways - I'm in the process of completing this course and have found it to be detailed and motivating. Takes you through writing exercises and step by step process of getting the job done. Well priced compared to more expensive but shorter courses (for a further discount go to ink-fever's site above). I'm finally keeping up my word count with this one!
• Critique Circle - For writers. Upload your drafts for other writer's to critique for you, and critique other people's work. Great way of polishing your novel. Feel free to look for me on there, I'm 'Cmclancy'.
• Lulu - I've only just discovered this one, you can publish your book online, in e-book format or hard copy. Me thinks it very exciting! (if I ever finish a book).
• The Creative Penn - Writer's blog - free downloads on writing and promoting your book, also really good podcast.
• Plot Builder - Tool for organising your notes, chapters and characters. Discount offered at the moment if you follow them on Twitter.
• Twitter - If you still think it's about people telling you what they had for breakfast, then I just can't help you *shakes her head*. Best used with an application - I like Twhirl.

Happy scribbles!

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