writer

Smashing my Words and Other Vicissitudes

/ inkspeare / 3 Comments

I decided to offer Moonlit Valley via Smashwords because it offers a wide distribution option for electronic books.  In a way, it was like killing many birds with one stone (ouch).  It offers the ePub format (nook, apple,kobo…) and others like the Sony reader, Palm, pdf, rtf, and of course plain text, as well as library lending.  This seems the perfect all-in-one, one-stop-shopping deal.  For someone like me, who gets easily overwhelmed by too many sites to keep track of, and too many profiles, joining Smashwords was a plus.  There is only one thing I did not like – the look of the end product of an electronic book.  Unlike Amazon Kindle, it is a bit messy and limited on what you can do with font type and font size.  Your chapters might end anywhere in the page, and the worst is that when you are trying to fix it, your book is out there available to the public – there is no in-between or prelude to the publishing button.  I was so worried that I could not get Moonlit Valley as spiffy as in the Amazon Kindle, that I became frustrated.  However, I hadn’t finish fixing my file when I already had three downloads for a sample of the novel – I guess a good thing.  How I dealt with this feeling?  It was easy.  I searched for the books of famous and best-selling authors, then looked at their file – they were having the same issues and troubles with how the novel looked.  Then,  I guessed that there was no way getting around that – Smashwords electronic books will never look as perfect as Amazon Kindle, but at least will offer readers who use the e-formats mentioned above the opportunity to find my books, and sample them.

I find that offering Moonlit Valley through Amazon in paperback and kindle format, as well as offering it through Smashwords in various e-formats covers pretty much everything (check the Novels tab in this blog).  So I am sticking with this way of doing things.  I advice that you  create profiles in Amazon USA, UK, France, EU, and that you do it in the main language (use goggle translator) as well as follow-up with an English description underneath (just in case).  Making use of the forums on Amazon/CS from time to time is a good idea as well. One thing I wish I could do is to manage all the Amazon stuff from one Hub, meaning the CS, Kindle, and Author Central – it would save much back and forth.

As far as social networking goes, I love Facebook because it offers so much, and although I don’t love twitter’s format that much, I am trying to get used to it.  To me, FB is more geared to follow-up in conversation, while Twitter feels like a bunch of birds chirping at the same time, with little or no interaction between them.  I will give it some time. One word of advice to new authors trying to get into social media, “it is not that easy to transfer all your people from your personal FB account into your Author Page – most of them will not click to join the new page, but they are more than happy to interact with you through your personal FB account.  So my advice is that if you are like me, who cannot bother with too many profiles and accounts (hence why I condensed two blogs into this one and this one will serve as my author blog as well), the best thing is to start your FB or Twitter accounts with your author name – it will be much easier in the long run.  I made that mistake, so now I share on both. I guess if you are using a pen name, then you have to keep multiples of everything, and to me that translates into nightmare.

For me, keeping it simple works best, despite all the advice out there saying that you  have to be in every format/platform available.  For me, doing that would be contra productive because I would end up tired, overwhelmed, and dreading the whole thing, and with no desire to write, which is the main purpose – writing novels.  For me this is what works:  Amazon +Kindle + Author Central + Smashwords + Facebook + Twitter + WordPress = A happy writer.

In the end, we want to be happy writers and enjoy the process.  Too much of anything gets in the way, that is how I feel.

MOONLIT VALLEY

MOONLIT VALLEY

I am adding this link as I think it is important news about the battle between Amazon and bookstores – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/drm-lawsuit-independent-bookstores-amazon_n_2727519.html

Seagull Latest Gossip

/ inkspeare

Ok, I could not resist doing this to these adorable seagulls.  I took the picture at the Keyport, NJ waterfront.  It looks like the are gossiping about something quite juicy, so of course I had to imagine it.  Click on the picture to make it larger 🙂

Photo by Maria Diaz

Photo by Maria Diaz

Look at What the Asteroid Brought – a Piece of the Moon

/ inkspeare

I am just kidding; however, I am extremely happy to announce that Moonlit Valley is available through Amazon (US, UK, EU) in paperback or e-book (Kindle or PDF).  It will also be available via extended distribution through the Ingram, Baker & Taylor catalog, in about 6-8 weeks, meaning that you will be able to order it at your favorite bookstore.  I will be celebrating tonight, of course.  Here is the link to Moonlit Valley

You can also find it here – Moonlit Valley, and through Smashwords here for all of you who have ereaders in the ePub format (nook, apple, kobo…), Sony, palm, and other electronic formats.

This is a picture of the cover,

MOONLIT VALLEY

MOONLIT VALLEY

And the back cover,

back cover Moonlit valley

And a spread picture (because I’m so excited),

moonlit valley spread

Here is a bit about it,

Moonlit Valley

Rose Carrigan never imagined what awaited her when she left her New Jersey hometown to live in an old farmhouse located in a small southern town called Moonlit Valley.   After a series of mysterious clues and unfortunate events, once more, her world turns upside down. This time, the man who she loves, Jeremy Sandbeck, her irresistible and seductive husband, is the one responsible. When she discovers his identity, she must decide between love and destiny, defying the surreal world that she has discovered.  Jeremy struggles with love, and what he
thinks is his true supernatural and divine duty.

I hope you like it.  I will keep you updated.

Novel Update Brought to You by a Turtle

/ inkspeare

Slow as a turtle; this is how I describe the process.  Well, so far I have worked in getting Moonlit Valley ready to publish, and in the meantime, I have been working on small changes and tidying up of Ramblings of the Spirit.  I started writing The Book of Sharon, and can’t wait to have all these pieces that may seem apart now, fall together in harmony.  Self publishing is tons of work, that I can tell you.

I came across this beautiful song and immediately thought of Moonlit Valley – it fits the story perfectly, so I wanted to share it with you.  It is “No Sound But the Wind” by the Editors.  It is an awesome song.  I love their songs.  Here is a video that I found in YouTube from theseboredkids, who did a great job with it.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.  In the meantime, I will go back to work 🙂

New Writers – Beware of Writing Sites

/ inkspeare / 2 Comments

I am writing this post for all new writers who are thinking about joining writing sites.  When I started writing online, I wasn’t sure of what venue to choose so I selected a few popular sites to write for them, thinking that this would be beneficial for my writing career.  Unfortunately, I started to notice that one of those sites – called Triond, started allowing very bad writing – mostly from people who wanted to make a quick buck and didn’t care about writing garbage and ill edited articles.  The staff let those articles go through, without editing them.  Some of these articles were actually unreadable – just picture a string of keywords with no meaning to them.  Fearing that associating with that site would hurt my career, I contacted them and asked that my content be removed and my account canceled/closed.  My account was closed, and at that time, it seemed that my articles were blocked and they did not show as published.  This happened more than two years ago.

Today, while reviewing some links on this blog, I came across old content that had a link to one of those articles.  I clicked on it and to my surprise, the article did show up published.  I kept clicking on some of the old links and most of them were showing active.  Not only that, but there were all kinds of ads running on them, making Triond money.  I am disgusted.  Immediately, I clicked the contact link and wrote to them asking that my content be removed or blocked.  Lets see what happens.  I hope I get a response this time.

In the meantime, my face and work is plastered on that site, along with all the craziness and bad writing going on.  There are very good writers on that site too, not all  is bad writing, but a huge percentage is bad written content, and that is the only reason I wanted to disassociate my name from it.  I never had a problem with the site otherwise; I just did not agree with their practice of bad editing and letting anything go through to publishing.

Let my experience serve you as a measure to choose a writing site very wisely and carefully, to avoid situations like this one.  I hope that Triond listens and blocks all of my content, which they are not authorized to publish anymore.

Writing Candy – Sifting the Husks

/ inkspeare / 2 Comments

Let me start by saying that the path to a writing career requires a certain amount of study and learning, and tons of practice.  I say a certain amount because, writing should be your  primary focus.  Learning and reading other authors will teach you a great deal; however, it is by writing and rewriting that you will learn.  I wish I knew this when I started on this journey, it would have save me some precious time, but no ones knows it all.  With this in mind, from time to time, I try to share with you any blogs or sites that I think would have saved me much time, if I had known of them earlier.  This is in the hopes of saving you some time so you can embrace your writing.  Although everyone learns in different ways and pace, I can tell you that in my case I had to sift between much hay and debris to get to the grain.  For me the learning process was exhausting at times.  This is the reason I get so excited when I come across a blog or website that gives me the feeling of “Wow, I wish I had found you sooner.”  Here are a few that will certainly teach you or inform you in the right direction.

I don’t know how long these sites have been around but I recognize that these are professionals in their craft, and reading them early in your writing journey will help a great deal.  I hope that you enjoy these sites, as much as I do.

Self Publishing – The Rule of Plenty

/ inkspeare / 8 Comments

Let me start by saying that when you decide to embark on the voyage to self-publish, plenty will  undermine your confidence.  As a self-publisher, you will be acting as the writer, the contractor to find an editor, cover artist, interior designer/cover designer … and much more.  If you are doing all this yourself, there is much to learn, little time, and tons of roadblocks, that is, if you want to end up with a product that looks professionally created.  Print on demand may be inexpensive, and if you are just doing e-book format, then your initial expense could be $0.00.  However, this doesn’t mean that you will end up with an excellent product.  If you are a quasi-perfectionist, you may end up becoming your biggest roadblock.

So far, I have embraced the path to self-publishing and I have worked hard towards publishing my first book.  Since I decided to start the process, the rule of plenty has made its presence in my life.  I have had plenty to learn, plenty to do, plenty to cry about, plenty to ignore, plenty to work against, plenty to resist, plenty to embrace, plenty to doubt, plenty to stumble upon, plenty to create, plenty to hate, plenty to whine about, plenty to change, plenty to redo, plenty to cry about again, plenty to disagree with, plenty to fear, plenty to deal with – computer viruses, computer hackers, computer issues, software malfunction, hacked accounts …   And it may have seem that all of this has happened at once.  However, I’ve also had plenty to like, plenty to enjoy, and plenty to love.  Even that my confidence might have been undermined by the Rule of Plenty, I wouldn’t do it any other way.

I have chosen this path, and it is not an easy one.  I have found that the only way to beat the Rule of Plenty is to embrace Randomness when it shows up, and keep going.  Yes, embracing the random is the only medicine to cure a bad dose of the Rule of Plenty.   So, if you have been getting an incredible dose of the Rule of Plenty lately, don’t despair, embrace the randomness of it all, and push forward.  Sooner than later, there will be plenty to celebrate.

Announcing a Few Changes to Inkspeare

/ inkspeare

This is just a quick post to let you know that I have rearranged the site a bit and added a section at the top tabs – NOVELS.  Here, you will find announcements and updates about these projects, as well as release date – as soon as it is available, and other information …  Also, I will keep you posted via regular posts.

I added a FB link to the right of this blog, where you can link to my FB author page, if you would like to friend me.  If you Tweet, you can friend me there as well.

In addition, you may notice that under Inkspeare, I added my author name. I opted out of a pen name for a single reason, and this is thanks to a comment that was made by Indi author Cliff Burns on one of my older posts –Writer’s Wisdom 17, Pen Names – he commented,

“I have a real aversion to pen names/pseudonyms. I’m aware that some very fine writers have employed them but I want my real name on everything I write (including postings on the internet, I never hide behind safe anonymity).
Any book or writing project I would resist putting my name on probably isn’t worth publishing. I take responsibility for what I release and when it’s bad, I’ll to take my fair share of blame…”

Until I read that comment, I had considered the possibility of writing under a pen name that might sound a bit more “sophisticated.”  I have to say that Mr. Burns’ comment opened my eyes on this topic, and I thank him for this.  Therefore, I am using my real name as my author name – Maria Antonia Diaz.

Writers hand with pen

Writers hand with pen (Photo credit: Wikipedia)