There is a Learning Curve to Creating Ebooks

When I was formatting my first ebook, I found a lot of advice for Kindle and Smashwords, but much more random advice for PubIt and Nook. I am currently compiling useful tips so that my next formatting efforts go smoothly.

From a word .doc to .epub with one (or two) free programs: Calibre and Sigil. Both programs are fairly intuitive to use, and have decent documentation, but they can still trip you up. There is a learning curve of trial and error.

An .epub is a Nook-friendly file you can upload directly to Barnes and Noble Pub-It if you are publishing through their direct line. But it's also a legit file that you can load onto your Nook directly or read with Adobe Digital Editions.

Two Nice, Free Programs: Calibre and Sigil
Converting to .epub is made super-easy with Calibre. Download here. I have only used the Windows version, so I can't speak for the other OS. But Calibre has so far been a champion. (Though their previewer is a little flaky.) To find guides on formatting a word .doc for Calibre, help on the top bar of their website sends you to this guide and this general guide. Somewhat useful. Easy to find through the Calibre program's help, impossible to find through their site. Perhaps very easy to find, but if so, I got lost.

And if you have last minute changes to make and don't want to add more files to Calibre and reconvert the whole thing - Sigil is a good wysiwyg editor. Download here.

A Note on Kindle formatting: 
Epubs are not Kindle files. To make a .mobi file, you will follow most of the same rules for .epub formatting, but conversion is different. You will have to first make a .prc, which requires MobiPocket Creator (also free), and you'll have to check it with Kindle Previewer (note: this is the third orange heading).

Tips for Calibre: 

• How you format the document in the first place matters a lot. Simpler is better. It's a good bet if you stick to the Normal style text except for Heading 1 and Heading 2. 
• Note: there is a lot of overlap between Amazon formatting advice and a Calibre-friendly document - I used the same doc to generate both Nook and Kindle. Amazon KDP guidelines can be found here. 
• Note: For fiction, the vogue seems to be to get your text to mimic the layout on a real book page. Thus use indents for first lines and avoid spaces between paragraphs, because that smacks of the internet. It is important that you go into paragraph styles to make these changes. The Smashwords guide has the best paragraph style tutorial I've read so far.
• Within the .doc, you can use H1 and H2 to build a table of contents (TOC) - this works with Field Codes, and is great for .prc/.mobi (Kindle) and .epub (Nook). It creates an effective linking TOC
• Note that field codes will jack up your Smashwords conversion (for Smashwords, you should definitely follow the Nuclear Method and strip the document). 
• You will have to save the .doc as a "Web Page, Filtered" which will give you a .htm/.html file
• Add your that document to your Calibre Library, edit the Metadata to reflect correct name, title, etc. 
• When you press the Convert Books button, you will get a lot of options. 
• Make sure under "Epub Output," you have checked the box to "Preserve Cover Aspect Ratio" otherwise your cover will stretch and your heroes will look abnormally wide. 
• Under "Table of Contents," you probably want to check the box for "Do not add detected chapters to the TOC." I did not check this at first, and my TOC, which had H1 and H2 levels, had an extra set of Heading 1 chapter links frontloading the TOC. This was not desired.  

The Case for Self Publishing Today

This post continues the series of "To indie or not to indie? That be the question." We now present the case for self-publishing today. And there is a case. What pushed you one way or the other?

Ultimately, the case for indie is thus: you have written a book, a good one, and it is a crime against your creativity to let it rot in your desk drawer or hard drive.

Self-Publishing is a great idea, if:

• You LOVE the internet, and have a good internet connection.
• Internet is your friend, you need it for social networking, ebook sales, uploading, etc. 
• Fun fact: I love the internet, but my wireless tower is being dismantled. Going from the flaky internet I have to the zero internet I will have until a good solution is found  will not help my self-publishing initiative. 
• You have a very strong need for immediate gratification. 
• Let's be real. If you want to publish a book, there's no faster way. Sure, it will take some time to muddle through the formatting. But if you have a book and can cobble together a cover, you can find your name on Amazon in about two days! You are now prepared to face the problems of building a platform while riding a bubble of self-satisfaction. 
• You are really enthusiastic about all aspects of the publishing process.
• You are excited to find editors and a cover artist, to explore your options for printing physical copies, and to learn all bout the formatting required of ebooks. But wait, there's more! You are stoked about platforming and marketing. You have good ideas for exciting ways to deliver the message of your book to your readers. Maybe you already know a lot about marketing. Maybe you want the excuse to learn. 
• You want creative control.
• You're an artist, damnit! There is no reason that a publishing house should rip your book out of your hands and stick some slapdash art on the cover. Other artists don't care about your project, they don't "get it." But your cover art captures the soul of the piece. 

For bonus points, Self-Publishing may be a great idea, if:  

• You've already been banging away at your platform. 
• Er, I was going for a hammer and nails and building metaphor there. Moving on.
• If you have a presence, if you have contacts with bloggers, and you have a number of people who are interested in what you have to say in these webby platforms, you have a much better chance of generating some interest. 
• If you have built a parallel presence in another context, like, say, a Twilight fanclub, this may only help you if you have written a similarly claustrophobic and sparkling romance. 
• You have multiple books already that you want to do something with. 
• If you've been trying traditional for a while and churning out books, now's a great time to try indie. 
• If someone discovers your book and likes it, it helps if they have more books to buy at once. Impulse and immediate gratification can multiply your sales!
• Bonus: If you debut with multiple books, you will not be hounded immediately for the sequel, so you will get to postpone the guilty conscience.  
• You're in it for the long haul.
• You don't expect your book to be an instant success. You know these things take time, and that you will face a learning curve. But you are committed to writing and promoting your work (without looking like you're trying, of course). You have to start somewhere. 
• You can test-drive the self-publishing approach with a manuscript you think is solid, but doesn't seem to appeal to agents. It isn't for everyone, but you just might like being so closely involved with the process. 
• Self publishing works very well for some people. These are the people that put in a lot of effort and do not give up, a few months in, out of frustration.
• You want to write shorter fiction
• Ebooks are a good solution for novellas and novella-chunk serials, which are an awkward size to print either in magazines or in very slim book format.
• They (the grand They who give advice) used to advocate writing a lot of short stories and getting published in literary magazines. Some people still advocate this. I can't remember the last time I voluntarily read a literary magazine that I wasn't published in. However, this did give writers a chance to try different approaches to writing, and more quickly analyze what worked and what didn't. Writing shorter fiction is a good learning technique and opportunity to find your voice. 
• It is good practice to write some stories on the shorter side to learn some valuable experience before breaking into fully epic length fiction. A novella is long enough that you can have a satisfying plot and character arcs. When sampling a new writer, I am more eager to read a story I could finish in a few hours--I tend to finish the books I read, so shorter fiction is less of a gamble. 
• Full disclosure: Once upon a time I read an esteemed 400 page fantasy novel by an esteemed writer I had not previously read. I suffered massive burnout and decided I would have enjoyed a 200 pager a lot more. 

Psychologically, Self-Publishing may be a good idea if,

• You have trouble letting go of your WIPs
• Some people have trouble giving up their manuscripts. It could be that you do want to pull an Emily Dickinson and leave all of your writing until your death, but then you would have zero control in how your works were treated. If you find yourself unable to label a manuscript 'finished' for fear that it isn't perfect, it might help you to turn one loose and publish. There is no such thing as a perfect manuscript. If the story is polished, the themes are clear, and you have already edited it many times, you maybe should let it into the wild. Though there are scary critics with dart guns, you have to give the story the chance to run free. 
• If a reluctance to release is an issue, it might help you to release a story so you can move onto the next one. It can bolster your writing self esteem to release it and have a book. It'll be easier the next time, because you know you can do it. You can let go. 
• Note: No work is perfect. This is not to say that you should write half a book and throw it online. This is not to say that "nothing is perfect" so you shouldn't bother editing. No. This is to prevent the hoarding the story and hiding in the safety in your own grand potential. 
• You have tried and tried and tried traditional
• They beat you down, but you get up again. Never gonna keep you down.
• The Gatekeepers have turned you away, time and time again. As countless (Amanda Hocking?) examples have shown, readers genuinely enjoy things that get turned down and lost in the slush piles. 
• If they are turning you down because they don't think the story is marketable - well, here's a chance to showcase your creativity and ingenuity! You will have the challenge of succeeding where they did not think they could.

Especially if you have a body of work, self publish and market. Don't let the stories rot. If you're on your first full length novel, it might be wise to shop it around for a while. Not writing that long? Try self-pubbing. After all, who wouldn't buy a great story that's only a dollar!

The Maxim of eBooks

I have thought it over and decided that eBooks are undeniably superior to real books. This is despite or perhaps because of listening to a talk yesterday: http://www.vabook.org/site11/program/details.php?eventID=153

It was a very good talk, but I remain unconvinced that books are a good thing. They take up space, they kill trees, and even if they're bad, you're reluctant to get rid of them because you bought them. Also, they are cheaper.

So we've established that

a) eBooks save space

b) eBooks do not kill trees

c) eBooks are cheaper

Too often, it is thought that eBooks are cheaper because their insubstance makes them an inferior product. But they allow you to save space and prevent you from having tree-murder guilt. Thus I assert that they are NOT an inferior product.

I went to a bookstore today and found myself staring at rows and rows of books that all looked bad. Reading a couple of back covers and such, I realized I have no use for books sitting in bookstores, getting lost on the shelves. What good is your cover of a picture of fun and excitement next to every other cover that promises fun and excitement? The only reason I would invest in one of these books was word of mouth. And how does word of mouth spread? In person, online, email, or by other insubstantial means.

Yet if someone tells me to read a book, I'll say sure, and it will be a good three months before I manage to track it down, which I may or may not remember in the first place. The library may not have it, the bookstore may be out of copies.

But eBooks - the instant gratification potential is endless. Pay a dollar for a story. What else would you be doing with a dollar? Buy 1/10th of a physical book? Buy most of a stick of gum? If you like the story as much as you would like a $10 book, the author has saved you $9. Therefore, you owe the author nine dollars. You can pay the author back with $9 of word of mouth advertising. It is only logical that you settle the score by telling nine other people how good the book was.

This is the only way eBooks can possibly work.

Verse vs Verse

In varying degrees, there is a certain poetry to prose. Hemingway didn't hold with girly things like poetry and description. That's why, as well as a poor structure for dialogue, The Old Man and the Sea is so bleak. Other writers, in the Faulkner fashion, try to inject poetry into every turn of phrase. This sometimes leaves the reader lost in abstraction trying to pass as plot and character.

The amount of wordplay and poetry in the writing gives a certain feel to the text. Wordy, writerly, ornate, extravagant, flowery text must only fill a certain percent of the novel. Purple prose by any other name would overfill a tweet. If verse crowds out the plot or characters, the readers may be found lying dead, smothered on their couches, book draped over their face. A purple shroud. On the other hand, if the prose lacks poetry, you may be better off reading a newspaper to tally puns in the titles.

The words create a sense of atmosphere which is critical to the story's universe (or at least to preserve life on the planet). An honorable knight can only exist in the two dimensional space of parchment, scrawled over with epic poetry. Cthulu can only breathe in Lovecraft's dripping, overwrought, and anxious prose. No matter what world your fiction is placed in, your tone needs to match it and supplement the story. This applies especially if it is fantastical or sci-fi; you need to find a tone that will aid and abet the suspension of disbelief.

Twilight and every other supernatural romance is changing the tone for the supernatural from the unnatural to the pedestrian romance. But hey, it sparkles. There must still be some magic! A farce, but in a sense it works; the twilit tone is one of denial. Denial that vampires are a bloodthirsty lot. Denial that the relationship is inherently and utterly deranged. Please, dear supernatural romance writers, kick it up a notch. I think it is high time that this genre takes its psychopathology out into the open.

The Importance of Solitude

Being a writer is easy. All you have to do is show zero inclination to get a real job, make sarcastic and/or pretentious comments every half hour, and drink a lot. People will believe you. 


The act of writing is another kettle of fish. 


And I do mean kettle of fish. Seriously. Your head is the kettle, and inside that cast-iron skull of yours, all the influences of the schools are swimming around, disturbing your creative waters, and slamming the sides of your kettle-skull. They leave your vision doubled and your balance shaken, those schools. You have to off them, those pernicious literary influences and threatening concepts of style and conceit. 


Fortunately, if shooting fish in a barrel is cheating, killing them is even easier in a kettle. Simply turn on the heat.  The fish? Their eyes will turn to cute little x's, and the school will drift to the top. You'll be left with a roiling boil of inspiration. 


Now all you have to do is find a quiet place to write. Turn your WiFi off. Hide from the people you live with, or, if you are rolling in money, plant yourself in a coffee shop. You can pay for your new, noisy, boisterous office space with cup after cup of coffee and espresso. The bonus to this approach is that you won't sleep for days. And the hours between 1-4 are the best hours for creativity. Your critical defenses are down, your thinking is sloppy and loose, but focused enough to put words on a page. The beauty of these late hours, is that everyone else - unless you're in college - will be asleep. Then the only distracting demons you have to face are your own internet withdrawal symptoms.  Good luck with that.

Writing Query Letters

A proper writer should have a set of query letters available at all times. I'm working on it. I tried to draft a letter, but I kept having to start over. What approach would you take?

Drafting a Query Letter: 

1. Dear Sir, Ma'am or N/A, 

Enclosed is a short chapter-by-chapter discription of my Writing Project. Don't worry, I didn't include the last part; I wouldn't want to spoil the end for you. 

2. Dear Agent Orange, 

I may have to warn you that Agents Pink, Chartruse, and Mustard have reviewed this document and deemed it best that the contents stay classified. However, it is unfathomable, in my society, to withhold a document of this much aplomb and pretension. 

3. Dear Agent, 

I am a blogger; please restrain your enthusiasm. 

4. Dear Agent, 

I am a William and Mary graduate. The fact that I have this expensive paper must impel you to read the story.  

5. Dear Agent, 

I would like you to read my story because it is good. If not, please consider reading it because I'm cute and cut a good figure, so when I go on the interviewing segment people will be sure to buy my book. I am also open to publicity stunts and social networking. 

6. Dear Agent, 

Do you want to experience the occult or pop-cult? If you, like me, believe you don't have to choose, this project is for you. Synthesis, Tarot, references from books.

Together, we can nail that key Literary and Cultural Studies demographic!

7. Dear Agent, 

I deeply enjoyed meeting you at that conference, that one time. As I recall we had a lot to talk about, and we laughed and laughed when we found that the cafe offered drinks called a Holden Coffield. And for the after party, I believe you ordered a Rum-Tum-Tugger, and then you went wild, lifting up girls shirts, blowing raspberries, and calling yourself the tum-tum-mugger. 

8. Deer Agent, 

It must be tough for you to find good writers when your clients lack opposable thumbs.

9. Dear Gentleman-Agent, 

I presume there is an old boy's club that meets every friday at five for happy hour. I know you all sip martinis with olives and discuss the query letters you have received during the week. I know, old boy, that some nasty character started a rumor about me being a pushy broad who won't fit into the industry.  

10. Dear Agent, 

Please answer, this time, damn it! Why don't you agents ever answer? If I don't recieve a response in a timely manner, you can bet I will not hesitate to follow in the footsteps of my heroine on page 37. Just you wait!

11. Dear Agent, 

Enclosed is my 500 page treatise on the inverse relationship between speed and frequency of typing and length of fingernails.