Doubt

Can one be "more" doubtful? Is doubt, like the word unique, so emphatic that it can't (or shouldn't) be modified, embellished, or increased in value?

I guess it doesn't matter. What's more important is how the word applies to you (and me) as a writer.

Once I put the finishing touches on The Mine, a different kind of thriller, I set it aside for years. It had been gone over by an editor who enthusiastically recommended some changes and polishing, which I attended to -- before storing it on a floppy disk, a CD, and a backup drive. Storage and backup had nothing to do with doubt, understand. I just didn't want to face the arduous task of looking for an agent. Something to do with rejection, I'm sure.

As I began working on other projects, I allowed this manuscript to linger until finally, I decided to put it in eBook format.

It was well after submitting the work in kindle and smashwords format that the doubt set in. Was it good enough? Would anyone buy it? Did I have what it takes to promote the book myself? Was it priced right?

Months and months later, I decided to look for answers to some of these questions, and to do that, I pulled up my final draft and read the novel again.

I think overall it's good enough. In fact, it's pretty darn good -- except. I think it starts too slowly. After the prolog, the pace could use a little help. However, about half way through, the plot gets more involved and eventually, it turns into a rather exciting finish. People have purchased it, although not as many as I'd like. As for self-promotion, I'm working on that. But, even at the bargain price of $2.99, only one person reviewed the book on Amazon.

I hate to tell you how I feel about my second novel, the start of a detective series, but I will. It, too, starts slowly.  I think the twists and turns of the plot are good enough and the ending is great, if I say so myself.

I'm just wondering ... how does doubt fit into your work? Do you ever wish you could have a do-over? More importantly, do you make amends for your doubts in your next work?

Related articles

• Doubt (changedbychange.com)

What's your novel about?

One of the toughest tasks for a writer comes after the last period on the last page.

It's summarizing all that hard work, all those words, all those characters and plot developments into a comprehensive summary for submission to an agent or a publisher or to use as detail information on their ebook sales page.

I found this very interesting and helpful blog post from another author's site. Mike Wells has done a good job of identifying the points to include by using The Wizard of Oz as his example.

If you have a kindle, you can download this and the entire related archive for free.

A new vocabulary for ebooks

Now that I’ve successfully formatted and uploaded two novels for the Kindle (see the links on the sidebar), I’ve started researching ways to get people to read them. Of course, the first step is to use a search engine to look for advice from other (successful) ebook writers and publishers.

That’s when the first two problems crept into my journey.

Naturally, I expected the results to bring a ton of links to Amazon and the gazillion ebooks already online. These were rather easy to cull.

What I was surprised to find is many references to methods for publicizing and selling how-to publicizing nonfiction works aimed at making money. Too many of these touted affiliate marketing and reselling the rights to tired old manuals.

This directed me to an idea.

Why don’t we get more specific when we refer to our work?

Why not call our work:

enovels
efiction
enonfiction

These can be further delineated into subcategories that reflect genre or content. For example:

emystery
esuspense
eromance
epoetry
etextbook
espritbook
ereligiousbook

Now when it comes time to research methods to promote a ebook novel, the engines might be more amenable to returning results targeted at the specific request.

Just a thought.

The ebook journey - Part seven and a half: Images

Okay, so I guess the real answer to getting everything right the first time around is simple: Read the directions!

But, being adventurous, I usually don't resort to that when all else fails.

And, of course, previewing The Mine on Amazon had me upset because my images didn’t show up … so all else failing, I read the directions – and there are tons of them.

Seems images don’t show up in the preview.

The ebook journey - Part seven: Finding formatting gliches

Finally!

It’s time to upload the spiffed up, cleaned up, formatted, reformatted, html file of the novel.

Or so I thought.

After following the directions and confirming the coding by searching for and finding several sources, I believed the product was ready to upload and preview.

Hmmm. We know about those “best laid plans.”

Apparently, after fifteen reformats, there’s a problem getting the images to show up in the preview. I’ve used only two – a version of the cover and a little vignette to separate some of the sections in the novel.

Neither image shows in the preview. In fact, there’s some little camera icon with that scary little exclamation point inside a triangle – you know, the one that serves as a warning that you’ve done something wrong.

Interestingly, both images displayed properly in the two ebook readers I used to review my changes.

So it’s back to the drawing board to see if I can figure out what the deal is.

The ebook journey: Part six- cover design

I've made a mock-up of the cover for the novel I've been putting into ebook format. 

How does it look?

The ebook journey: Part five - editing and proofing

Following the guidelines from Guido Henkel, the first pass of the ebook formatting went well.

Viewing the results in my browsers (I used Firefox, Explorer and Chrome), I was able to read it over. This doesn't show page breaks, of course, but it's a good way to check for coding errors. I also noticed a couple of problems with chapter heads and italics. (I use italics a lot.) So, it was back to html for redo.

I'm not a perfectionist in my everyday life. Good enough works for me most of the time. You know, a swift wipe with a cloth works; no need for polish and wax. That sort of thing. But when it comes to something that's going to last, it has to be as perfect as I can make it.

Even though I have kindle for the PC, I'm not able to use the app to review my own work. So my next step was to look for some kind of software that would output the look and feel of an ebook. For this, I downloaded Calibre and followed the directions outlined in Henkel's post.

Great! Except! Viewing the draft wasn't okay but some cliches did occur, so I opted to get some additional reader software, just to double check. Firefox has a an add-on reader called EPUBReader that worked well.

Finally, we're getting somewhere! I'll soon be ready for a kindle upload.

How I learned to love Amazon and why that might change

From the day Amazon first appeared on the web, I disliked the company. I didn’t care for the whole concept of selling books at a deep discount. I had this smug “principle” thing going; I believed Amazon was out to destroy the independent bookstore.

I guess the attitude came from my youth.

Many years ago, folks in my hometown bought their meat at the local butcher shop, their vegetables, their baked goods from the side door of a house where a little old lady baked things daily, their bread from a local baker who delivered by truck every day, and their canned goods and other foods from the locally owned market. One day a big sign went up three miles away, on the main highway, announcing the groundbreaking for A Big Supermarket. This was a huge deal for a small town. The advent of a one-stop shop with low prices was the topic of conversation for months, and the words were not always encouraging for A Big—at least the words from the mouths of the butcher, the baker and the little bread maker and friends. The people feared their personal relationship with the local vendors would disappear because A Big would drive them out of business.

They were right.

Sales at the A Big were slow to start but within a few months, residents were driving the few miles every couple of days to purchase all their food. Not long after, the butcher closed his shop, the bread maker laid off most of his help, the general grocery too, and the baker stopped baking. (To be fair here, I think she died but some blamed A Big for that.)

In essence, A Big drove the independent businesses out of business.

I missed getting a free cupcake; I missed watching the butcher make sausages in the middle of the store; I missed the handful of red cherries the grocer let me sample while picking up our orders. I missed walking to the store every day.

Then something tragic happened.

A Big decided traffic in their big store wasn’t good enough. After about two years, they closed the store.

This is why I disliked the idea of Amazon.

Smugly, I relished every report of losses Amazon suffered in the beginning days, months and years. I hoped the experiment would result in a total failure.

Of course, that didn’t happen. Bit by bit, the company grew, diversified, grew some more and eventually turned red ink into black, making investors very happy.

And bit by bit, as Amazon flourished, independent bookstores began to fade into the proverbial sunset.  And turned to Amazon for titles my local library didn’t carry.

Eventually, I learned to like Amazon. Good prices, great selection, fast delivery—what’s not to like, especially when there’s no independent (new) bookstore in this city? 

Then, I read an eye-opening blog post about how Amazon is “banning” books. Well, not books, per se but ebooks, and not banning, exactly. These aren’t necessarily the kind of books I would read but the idea of removing them from inventory doesn’t sit well with me, especially since this is being done without clear guidelines or reason.

What’s even scarier to me is that after delisting certain titles, Amazon might also have removed the titles from consumer kindles. (This information came from a comment on the blog post noted above so I can’t confirm that it actually happened. However, kindle owners know they are just paying to borrow their titles.)

I know. I know. Amazon is a business and as such can decide what to sell and what not to sell, and that’s what they’ve done. They’re not banning; they’re just not selling.

But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

If I want to read any of the delisted titles, I’ll surf over to Barnes and Noble where the authors report their Amazon-delisted books are selling better than ever.

Zane Grey and my brother

In his youth, one of my older brothers was an avid reader. I should qualify that. Paul read and read the same books over and over, constantly.

I can picture him still, decades and decades later, his skinny body perched on a wooden stool next to the refrigerator, his feet set firmly across the rung, his head down close to the paperback in his lap and his fingers close to his mouth. (He was a nail biter.)

It’s not so much the image that evokes memories as it is my brother’s focus on his reading. He read nothing but Zane Grey novels and it didn’t matter if this was his first, second or fifth reading. There was no way to divert his attention from that damned book – short of smacking him somewhere.

We could call his name, ask a question, call his name louder, make a statement, call his name even louder, ask another question, shout his name loud enough to wake every baby in the complex. Paul never heard. (That's where the smack came into the picture.)

Thinking about this now, there’s a lesson to be learned. I realize I have to read something by Zane Grey. I have to find out what it was about Grey’s characters and his plots that consumed Paul to the point of deafness to the world.

Amazon has a number of Zane Grey titles in print version and for the kindle. (I’ve already selected two.) Now, all I need is the time to read them. (Sigh.)

Query letter from the Holy Ghostwriter

(In my last post, I wondered how the authors of the Old Testament might query an agent regarding publication. I’m sure this isn’t an original question but since I’ve never heard it asked before, I think I’ll just make a feeble attempt to guess—with apologies to whomever—how this might work.)

Dearest Agent:

The Old Testament is the story of how a superior entity, who goes by the name of God, created the world in just six days, seven if you count His 24-hour coffee break.

In the beginning, He just wants to create Earth but somehow that doesn’t seem like enough. After all, what good is this big round beach ball if it’s just rotating around the sun? God has this drive, this need to populate His universe, to see where his invention goes. Maybe He is just playing a game; maybe it’s an experiment; maybe it’s for real.

If God knows, He isn’t telling.

As the hours and days go by, God tinkers with His project, adds a little day and night to the mix, some firmament, a bit of fruit, even a couple of human beings and a creature that lurks around apple trees.

It’s hard work, creating the earth. After six days and nights, God was a bit on the weary side so He takes a day off -- and when he does, all hell breaks loose.

The Old Testament follows up on God’s creation as it progresses from those early days to the birth of His Son, ages later. Between the two events, we experiences a horrendous flood, watch towers being built, learn how to worship idols, get some important commandments, discover a Holy Land, and realize how God’s children had to come to terms with their sins.

The Old Testament is a fast-paced 500,000 word (more or less, depending on which version will be submitted) mystery manuscript, part of a two-book series, the second of which (titled The New Testament) is in the rewrite stage.

We respectfully await your response.

Sincerely,
Anonymous

P.S. I think the ebook version will be a gangbuster!

A book for right-brain people

I'm inserting a totally unrelated post as a 

recommendation for someone. 

It's a kindle version of a book 

someone recommended to me.

I downloaded it with the kindle to review and now I'm passing it along. That's all...

The new era of publishing

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs about publishing lately. Based on what I’ve seen, it isn’t much of a stretch to realize that writers are leaning toward the ebook version of their potential best sellers rather than jumping through the almost impossible hoops of writing snappy query letters and synopses (I had to use a dictionary to find the plural of synopsis, by the way.), finding an agent and hooking up with a publisher. It seems there’s a plethora of complaints that even if (I should put that word in upper case.) a writer manages to hit the target in all three areas, he or she still has to do a ton of self-promotion to get the darned finished product in the hands of the important people – the readers.

I think there’s still a place for printed books. While they might not be as handy as the kindle versions, they’re still nice to take to bed with you, or pull from the bookcase and flip the pages to look for and remember favorite passages, to enjoy the cover art, to collect, even to enhance the décor of your rooms.

But, unless I’m being totally deceived (and I don’t think I am), the same self-promotion you need to publicize your work will mean a lot more money in your pocket and in the end, that’s the result that can make you a full-time, self-supporting author.