A Post In Which I Do Nothing But Flail

I flail Sokka style but without the cactus juice

The big explosion is my nerves — in a good-bad way. Good because I’m super excited. Bad because I’m super nervous. I’ve been told this is normal though, especially for nervous first-timers such as me. Also this is an excuse to post something Avatar: TLA on my blog. Just saying Sokka’s the best.

My editing is finally done. The novella is at a solid 32,000 words, and I’m at the point where I feel like it’s the best possible story it can be. My diligent beta readers caught most of my heinous typos (including one where Lilia wanted to rip the face off of someone’s face). So basically my thought is that if Dominant Race does well, awesome, but if readers write nasty reviews and say it sucks, okay fine. I did the best I could, and I’m confident in that (which is where I wanted to be when I finished these edits anyway).

So all that’s left is editing the Smashwords file (dangit Mark Coker why can’t I just upload my own epub and/or mobi file instead of using a MS Word file?), making sure the cover image is the optimal size for each place I’m uploading it to (Apple, B&N, and Amazon have different ideal image sizes. I have to follow Apple’s minimum requirements to get in Smashword’s premium catalog thingy anyway so), and I think that’s it.

Oh yeah, getting ISBNs. Also! Once this is all done I’m submitting this puppy to get an official registered copyright or whatever (cost: $35). That gives me a leg to stand on if someone decides to copy and paste Dominant Race and sell it as their own work.

This is so close to being done, guys. I’m sorry for flailing so much — like I said it won’t happen as often after this first round — but a girl’s gotta flail when a girl’s gotta flail.

How’s your Friday?

How to Build a New York Times Bestseller (or Maybe Not)

Reblogged from Whatever:

A question from the gallery:

Now that Redshirts has become a New York Times bestseller, to what do you attribute its success? Anything that could be replicated by the rest of us?

To answer the second part first: Maybe. To answer the first part second, there are several factors which I think came into play, which I will lay out below.

Read more… 1,670 more words

Honestly, I feel this list is important for all writers to understand. There's a lot of guesswork that goes into a commercially successful novel, and what works for someone like Scalzi won't necessarily work for a different writer (even one in the same genre with a similar publisher and/or fanbase).

Apologies + Editing Updates + ISBN Advice

Apologies for my no-post yesterday. My mom and I went to the IRS, after which I had planned on blogging. When we got home, out of nowhere I got a super bad stomachache and all but passed out in bed until 6am this morning.

In any case, editing is still underway. My formatting seems solid on both Kindle and iBooks so this is good. An epub validator also said the file passed, so there’s that. All that’s left is the final revisions — I think I accidentally took more out than I should’ve so I need to fix that — and getting the ISBNs.

Why get ISBNs for an ebook?

Because:

1. I plan on uploading the book directly to Apple instead of through Smashwords. I wasn’t entirely confident in Smashwords’s quality and I like the thought of 70% instead of 60% royalties. Apple requires you have an ISBN for your ebooks and doesn’t provide you one (unlike B&N and Smashwords, who will give you an ISBN if you don’t have one [or you can pay around $10 for the ISBN to be in your name] — you don’t need an ISBN for Kindle ebooks because Amazon assigns their own identifying number, the ASIN). Also faster processing time. Smashwords apparently takes forever and a day, but if you upload directly to Apple it goes quicker.

-tl;dr: Apple requires ISBNs, therefore I get ISBNs.

2. If I decide to do paperback copies of my work (and I might in the future if my novellas do well enough), I need ISBNs for that. Might as well get them earlier.

-tl;dr: Laaaaazy.

3. Honestly, I have the money for them now, I might as well. ($250 for 10…)

So here’s my advice to self-publishers: if you want to spend the least amount of money, just go through Apple via Smashwords. If that bothers you (like it bothers me), you’ll have to pay an extra $250 upfront for 10 ISBNs. Not pleasant, but I guess there could be worse. I just wish my old ISBNs from my failed (and pathetic) publishing business venture were valid, but alas, you can’t transfer ISBNs to different names. Oh well.

Also, the reason I don’t want to just try out Smashwords and then go to Apple if I dislike it is because you lose any reviews you might’ve had on that book. Why go through that? I’ll skip ahead and just fork over the cash. Grudgingly.

Happy Tuesday. Got any plans?

Some Extra Assembly Required

There’s been some personal issues that came up this week that put me a few days behind on my editing, and then I got sick.

At this rate I think Dominant Race’s release will have to be pushed back a week. Apologies for the delay.

The new release date is July 2nd and won’t be pushed back again.

I just don’t want to rush the final revisions (typos, consistency, formatting quality, etc.) and end up with a sloppy ebook.

Hope y’all have a great weekend. Got any plans?

A General Editing Update

Today’s post is going to be brief. Sorry about that. I’ve been editing and editing and editing some more. There are a lot of things being changed for the better, and I’m excited with the finished results. Lilia is becoming a less YA type main character and more like the twenty year-old she actually is, which is good. Also, I’m trying to figure out formatting and such — it’s such a pain, but I think my files are coming out fairly clean so far. Scrivener is a big help in that regard.

My plans for the week all involve more editing. There’s some minor touch-ups and some last-minute revisions that need to be completed, and then it’s hello world! Also, on Wednesday I’m posting some backstory about modified and the animal abilities the main protagonists have. Stay tuned for that, and I hope y’all have a great week (and that Monday wasn’t too-too painful).