I’ve been buried in editing this week, finishing up the third Flash Gold novella (it’s off to the editor now, so almost done!), and I’ve been neglecting the blog. Fortunately, I have a couple of guest posts in the queue, so I can offer you something to read in the meantime. Today one of my Twitter buddies Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali (she’s the lady who interviewed me about my assassin, Sicarius, a couple of months ago) is here to talk to you about getting the details right when you’re writing.

It’s All In the Details

I’m that person who rolls her eyes in disgust when I watch a movie where the doctor checks for the patient’s pulse using his thumb.  I groan when a laboring woman gives birth to a baby with no umbilical cord who already looks mature enough to get up and walk away.  I hate when movie characters wake up with perfect make-up and hair.  I yell at the screen when a character doing CPR has his arms bent while giving chest compressions…way too slowly.  And for the life of me, and don’t get me wrong, I love the Walking Dead, but shouldn’t all those walking dead, emphasis on the word dead, have melted into puddles of rotten goop in the summer heat by now?

But that’s television.  In books, we get it right.  Right?  Not so much.

Who would ever notice?  Who cares?  I do.  While there are few things about which I can claim being an expert, believe me when I say that I am paying attention to everything.  If I’m paying attention then rest assured that there is some nitpicking picker who is scanning your prose with a magnifying glass.  If you don’t get the facts right, those little details, you’re likely to lose credibility.  Check out 5 Common Medical Errors in Movies.

When I wrote An Unproductive Woman almost fifteen years ago, I included a character named Khadijah who had recurrent breast cancer.  While I didn’t give hard details or facts about her disease or treatment, I did say enough to get it wrong.  After completing AUW, the manuscript spent the next ten or so years in a box in my garage.  Who would have thought that in the interim, as I raised my two eldest children, I would eventually go to nursing school and become a registered and certified breast oncology nurse?  Not me, that’s for sure.

When the opportunity to self-publish AUW presented itself, I grabbed it with both hands.  I immediately got to work re-reading and re-editing.  It is while doing the final edit that I realized how wrong I had been.  Chemotherapy typically lasts six months, not nine.  Radiation may burn the skin but does not cause the hair of the head to fall out, unless that is the area being radiated.  Not all chemotherapy causes nausea and weight loss.

Wikipedia is a terrific source of information for some things, but sometimes, it’s the small details that count.  Personally, I am impressed when I read about a character who’s received an intramuscular injection in the right hip as opposed to a shot in the butt.  I’m not talking info dumps here, nor am I looking for any House-like rare conditions with cures that are even more off the wall, but the basics should always be spot on if we are to earn our reader’s confidence.  Unless we’re writing fantasy, we can’t just make it up as we go along.  Actually, you can’t always make it up with fantasy either.

For an accurate and up to date medical reference, Medscape is a terrific online resource.  Look up any medical condition and you’ll get an explanation about disease presentation, diagnostic procedures, and possible treatments.  PubMed, while a tad scholarly, is a pretty good resource as well.  The regular old Centers for Disease Control also provides information that’s easy for the lay person to understand.  When in absolute doubt, just ask an expert.  If you’re the shy type, send an email.

Ah, so, it’s not medical information you need?  For more general knowledge try The Order of Things: Hierarchies, Structures, and Pecking Orders by Barbara Ann Kipfer.  This book is a fantastic organized reference book with dozens of lists about everything from religion, to philosophy, to economics and more.

The long and short of it is, it’s all in the details, and as a writer, you need to pay attention to them.  If you don’t, your reader will.

And for the record, if you want to take out a zombie, a gunshot to the frontal lobe isn’t likely to do the trick.  You’ve got to destroy or sever the brain stem.  Just saying.

*****

Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali lives and works in Houston as a breast oncology nurse. She is married and the mother to three brilliant artistic children who far outstrip her in intelligence. She writes because she loves to and also because she has a story (or two, or three…) to tell.

You can catch her online at her website, Goodreads, Facebook, Google+, and Twitter.

Her novel can be found on Amazon and Smashwords. (She’s offering a coupon code to grab the novel for free for the next couple of weeks at Smashwords: LC23T)

Most of us who decide to self-publish have to handle the ebook creation, book blog tours, social media marketing, and just about everything else ourselves. Sometimes, though, you get lucky and you have a husband, wife, or significant other to help with all the work. Today we have a guest post, a “self-publishing checklist” from Rose Andrade, who is out in the blogosphere helping promote her husband’s new sci-fi/fantasy novel, Bleedover.

I’m not sure if she has a website of her own, but if you like what you see, you should be able to contact her through Curtis’s site or the blog that they maintain together. I am sure that she’d be tickled if you checked out Curtis’s book. It’s a 99-center for now. They’re also running a $5o-gift-card “blog tour giveaway,” so be sure to check that out as well.

A Checklist for Self-Publishing     

Many authors are deciding to self-publish their novels. And often, along with the excitement of that decision comes an overwhelming feeling of everything that needs to be done: create covers, edit manuscripts, formatting, creating web platforms, participate in social media, etc. The list is so huge it nearly made me give up before even starting. Now, a few months later, I realized there’s no need to run and hide. It may be scary at first, but it’s doable. Here’s a general checklist and timeline that will help you prepare for each milestone.

What stage are you?

1) I just finished my manuscript.

If you’re here, you should be thinking and planning to:

1.1) Hire a cover designer: Your e-book cover is one of the most important promotional tools you’ll have. So make sure you have a great cover. It’s possible to design your own cover, but I’d advise otherwise unless you’re very comfortable with digital design. (There are plenty of affordable cover designers on the market.)

Duration: 4-5 weeks. Plan to spend a week or two quoting and negotiating with designers. They’ll ask you for two weeks to get the first cover draft, one week for applying your recommended changes (if any), and another week for final approvals/receipt of final artwork.

1.2) Hire a professional editor: This is a crucial step to creating a professional e-book. Lindsay recently posted an excellent piece entitled “How editing works for independent authors” that details the types of editing services available, average costs, etc. The article is a must read that will help you make an informed decision when hiring editing services.

Duration: 5 weeks to 3 months. Allow two weeks for quoting and negotiation with editors. Once you’ve selected and hired one, depending on the scope of your project, the level of editing you’re contracting, how many rounds, and the availability of the editor—it can take anywhere from 3 weeks to 3 months to have the editing completed.

2) I just got my book professionally edited and designed.

Your product is complete, congratulations! Now you can make it live for sale, right? Wrong! There’s a whole new world you must understand.

2.1) E-book distribution channels selection: At this stage, you have to decide where and how to distribute your e-book. You can select each e-book retailer individually or use a free distributor such as Smashwords to deliver your work to e-book retailers. Some authors rely solely on Smashwords for distribution. Most authors, however, use Smashwords to reach a larger number of e-retailers, then sign-up individually with the most popular ones such as Amazon, Apple, and Barnes and Noble. They do this to have more control over the quality of the e-book design.

Duration: 1 – 2 days to make a decision on distribution strategy.

2.2) E-book retailer sign-up and manuscript formatting: You’ll have to create an account in each e-retailer of choice, as well as perform the next steps for each one. You’ll be asked to upload your formatted manuscript. Each e-retailer has specific file requirements. Check out author Curtis Hox’s guest post, “How to Generate Your First Professionally Formatted Mobi File,” to see an example of how to create a .mobi file (required for Amazon).  Smashwords requires your manuscript in a .doc file with very specific formatting. They provide a guide to help you achieve a perfect file that will work with their infamous meatgrinder (although, I’ve heard they’ll start accepting .epub formats in 2012).

Duration: 1-5 days per retailer. Depending on your computer and HTML skills, formatting your manuscript and outputting the required files can take a few hours for each retailer, or weeks of frustration. If you’re not computer savvy, you can hire professionals to format and create .mobi files, .epub, files and Smashwords’ .doc files for as little as $25. Those professionals also offer packages where they’ll output multiple types of files for a set fee. Many people attempt to design Smashwords’s .doc files on their own. I’m proficient at MS Word and it took me two days in the first time. The next time, it took me six hours. If you’re not very savvy or have an e-book with lots of different font, formats, images, and boxes, I highly recommend that you hire someone who can format it for you.

2.3) Upload a formatted manuscript to e-book stores: Here you’ll “assemble” your virtual book for each retailer, which means, you’ll upload the cover artwork and the formatted file and submit for the particular e-retailer review/approval. Assuming there are no errors in your files, your product gets generated and made live fairly quickly (less than 24 hours). (If you chose Smashwords as a distributor, after your e-book is live on their site, you’ll need to submit a request for it to be included on Smashwords’ premium catalog—the catalog distributed to other e-retailers—and the approval can take up to 14 days. Once approved, Smashwords then begins delivering your e-book, which can take up to 2 weeks to complete.)

Duration: A few hours per individual retailer.

3) My book is up for sale on e-book stores of my choice.

Congratulations! Now you’re ready to create a web platform to promote your product.

3.1) Build an online platform: The first thing you should do is to build an online presence by joining social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Google +, LinkedIn, Goodreads, etc.), building a website, and/or starting a blog. * The process of creating an account on the differing social networks is simple and cost free. The creation of a site and/or a blog can be cost free, but it requires some knowledge of HTML and web design, and usage of free web templates. If you’re not savvy about web development, or want to have a more customized look to your blog, you can hire a freelance web developer to create your blog and site.

Duration: 2 – 4 weeks. Allow those weeks to focus on the creation of your blog and/or website, test your pages, build content, stylize your Facebook page, etc.

* Creating a web presence can be your first step, even before you begin writing your manuscript! Interacting with your potential readers is a great strategy to gain readership and build momentum so that when you finally publish your work, you have a group of expectant readers eager to purchase your e-book.

4) My e-book is up for sale, I’ve built my web platforms, and I want to focus on marketing

Here you’ll have to leverage all the web platforms that you’ve created to help drive sales to your e-book. This is an extensive topic that requires a whole post about it. But if I could provide only one bit of advice, it would be that you create a marketing plan. A marketing plan will help you see what strategies work, what needs improvement, and where you should focus your efforts. I have just finished my own marketing plan where I detailed goals to be reached, where I created an overall strategy, and where I listed smaller marketing actions that’ll help me achieve my objectives.

It’s also crucial that you study the market and learn from other successful writers and bloggers. Bloggers such as Lindsay Buroker and sites such as Savvy SelfPublishing will provide excellent insights.

Duration: You’ll keep at this step as long as your e-book is up for sale. It should be a constant, ongoing part of your journey as a self-published author. Marketing plans and strategies will change, grow and evolve along with your career as an independent author. Good luck!

In the world of e-publishing, you don’t have to worry about the economics of print where a book needs to be between such-and-such number of pages to keep publishing expenses down. It’s not surprising that we’re seeing more short stories and novellas coming out as ebooks, and I’m also seeing more authors trying serialization.

As with the old-style radio shows, and even with some of today’s tv shows (any Lost fans out there?), stories are broken into several pieces, often ending on cliffhangers, and they’re published as separate ebooks. When Gregory J. Downs offered to write a guest blog post sharing his experiences with serialization, I said yes right away. He’s had an Amazon sales ranking as low (lower is better, remember) as #900 (I shall not be bitter when I point out that I’ve only briefly reached those levels with my ebooks and only because of ads purchased on popular blogs!) and is closing on 10,000 sales overall.

So, let’s here from him, eh?

Serial Fantasy

I was talking to a friend one time. Funny how many interesting (and/or awkward) things start out that way.

Anyway, we were talking about writing. See, he’s this incredible short story writer who wins just about every contest he enters. I had just finished a few novels during high school, and had self-published one of them. It was doing… not so well. Anyway, we were thinking how cool it would be to build an ongoing short story series, sort of like the old serial novels people like Charles Dickens wrote, publishing chapter-by-chapter in a newspaper. I even hear that Tolkien guy sent serials of his book to his son during WWII.

Our idea (okay, it was my idea, I’ll be humble about it) was to use the new indie e-book market, graciously pioneered by Amazon, to re-vitalize the old serial formula. Basically, we’d write a story every week, e-publish it for cheap, and see what happened. It could be a series of short adventures, or bits of a bigger story, or both.

Well, as so many things go in life, it never ended up happening. But I swear there’s a reason for telling you about it. Really.

This past September, I made ready to self publish my second novel. It was something like 600 pages/ 150,000 words. When I showed it to my mother, she read the first third, turned to me and said, “This could be the whole book right here.”

Oh.

Here’s where I actually get to my point. The thing about serialization is that generally, you’re taking an 80,000 word-or-so story and splitting it into 8-or-so sections. I follow a Facebook page called Timeslingers that does serialized podcasts in the thriller/time-travel genres. That’s what you normally think of when you think ‘serial.’ Action/adventure. Thriller. Horror.

I propose two things to you. One, that serials are not dead. If you’ve got a good story and you’re willing to try something new and unproven, serialize it. Sections of 10k or 20k work, and I’ve seen it done in other genres than Action. Look up B.V. Larson (and I actually have Lindsay Buroker herself to thank for this), and you’ll find that he serialized one of his fantasies into like 6 parts. And it worked!

The second thing is about fantasy itself. Usually, your average fantasy novel will be way, WAY longer than your average thriller. The genre doesn’t exactly lend itself to serializing- especially if the book in question is a George R.R. Martin or Stephen Erikson wannabe. But think about it… you have options.

This is where this long ramble ties back into my own adventures. I ended up publishing my second novel in three 50,000 word sections. Luckily it’s plot already split along those lines (almost exactly), so there wasn’t much re-writing needed. The novels have done much better than I expected, though I believe some people read past the first book only because I ended it on a nasty cliffhanger…

Do you see what I mean? Fantasy isn’t the easiest genre to serialize. But it can be done, just in larger fragments. As long as you have something in the first installment- something to get the reader ‘hooked’ as it were- they’ll keep reading. Oh, and price that first one cheap, say $2.99 or even $.99. Then the rest can get more expensive, but the reader will (theoretically) already like you enough to pony up the cash.

Now, granted, technically my stories were still individually long enough to be considered novels. But that’s a bonus! If you go into a long writing project, say the next fantasy-political-epic of the century, plan on writing it in segments. 30k, 40k, 50k… big enough chunks to count as a full story, but small enough to keep the reader wanting the next installment. Have an idea of where you’re going, so that you can create believable ‘hooks’ every time.

I’m not saying I know everything about this (obviously) untried method. And yes, people will complain sometimes that your story’s ‘too short.’ But you know what? It gets mentioned a whole lot less than you’d expect. Through trial and error, I’ve deduced that when a person reads your first ‘episode,’ one of two things will happen.

A: They will dislike your story. This will prompt them to leave you a crappy review on Amazon or Goodreads, saying how it was too short and bland and la la la.

B: They will like your story. They will proceed to buy the next episode, even if it is priced significantly higher. They will probably not leave a review. Silence = approval.

Those are results I can live with… especially when 97% of my sales result in option B. Speaking of which, I’m not doing too badly with this new method. I’ve got 5 installments out so far of my epic fantasy, Song of the Aura. The 6^th and final installment comes out next month, bringing my total words in the project up to 320,000 or so.

If a kid like me can do it… so can you.

Bio:

Gregory J. Downs is a not-quite-college student currently enjoying life as a self-employed author. He wrote and published 6 books during high school, and when they started selling he started telling people how he did it. Gregory lives in Number 3 Bagshot Row, Hobbiton, The Shire, where he is working on the final book in his fantasy series. He can be found tweeting on Twitter, blogging at Epic Blog, and you can check out his nasty cliffhanger novel at Amazon.

 * * *

Thanks for stopping by, Gregory! Authors, have any of you tried serializing your novels? Readers, do you enjoy stories that are broken up, so long as they’re a good value, or does it drive you crazy?

Today’s guest poster isn’t an author; she’s a book blogger. Misty Rayburn is someone who encouraged me when I was getting started. She was very friendly on Facebook and invited me to participate in some ebook giveaways. She’s since branched out from Facebook and posts reviews over at The Top Shelf.

Misty’s here today to offer some tips on getting book bloggers to review your book. She’s also hosting a giveaway: Loramendi’s Story by Angela Carlie. If you’d like to enter to win a copy, please leave a comment at the bottom of this post.

* * *

Lindsay graciously invited me to her blog to share some tips that would be helpful for authors regarding book reviewers!  I really must thank her for being here and I hope these tips help you.

First and foremost, be friendly! I like to join author pages or even personal pages of the authors I’m doing reviews for.  When you email a reviewer, make sure to include Facebook page / Fan page or twitter.  It tells me that this is going to be more than a “You throw your book at me and I spit out  a review” situation.

Be sure to include your book’s synopsis in your email.  I don’t know how many times I’ve had to email someone back and say “Can you tell me a bit more about your book?”

Check out the blog of the blogger.  Some blogs are very genre specific and some aren’t.  Don’t limit yourselves to blogs that just fit your genre either.  Branch out a bit!

DON’T be afraid of book bloggers that review erotica! The genre may not be your cup of tea, but that doesn’t mean their audience isn’t open to other material.   The Top Shelf reviews erotica as well as everything else under the sun.  Why?  Because I like variety!

When you’re enquiring about the status of a review, don’t just outright be like “Have you read my book yet!” Or “When will my review be up?”  That’s a tentative thing.  A blogger can tell you around what month and we can try to stick to it but we don’t get to read all the time for one reason or another.  We wouldn’t just shove off your book for any reason that wasn’t serious!

Offering to do something else with the blogger is a great way to integrate yourself more and touch base with fans.  When you’re doing a request, offer to do an interview or a guest blog.  Maybe even a giveaway.

The last and most important tip I can think of is, promote whenever you’re being posted somewhere else.  You’ve given the reviewer a book and they’ve reviewed it for you.  They’ve accepted you on their blog for an interview or an event of some kind.  The least you can do is drive attention to it.  It’s not only good for you but for them too!

I want to thank Lindsay once again for having me over here.  I really hope these tips help you out.  If you have any questions, please comment!  I’ll answer them!  Be sure to check out my blog at http://www.the-top-shelf.com!

* * *

Thanks, Misty!

And, guys, don’t forget to comment if you’re interested in a copy of Loramendi’s Story.

Today, for your reading entertainment, we’ve got a guest post from indie fantasy author John Abramowitz. I met him on Twitter (I thought I was a night owl, but he’s really a night owl) and have read his fun short story, The Antlerbury Tales. He’s here today to talk about the importance of loving what you write. Thanks, John!

* * *

“Love. You can learn all the math in the ‘versse, but take a boat in the air you don’t love, and she’ll shake you up just as sure as a turn in the world. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down. Tells you she’s hurtin’ before she keens. Makes her a home.”

That, according to Captain Mal Reynolds, of Firefly fame, is the first rule of flying. But for me, it’s the first rule of writing, too. It never fails — I can have the most detailed world imaginable, and characters with histories that I spent hours creating, but if I don’t love my story and my characters (even the ones I hate), none of that will be worth anything. My writing experience will be very short, and very frustrating.

Recently, someone asked me what advice I had for aspiring authors. My first response to that question was to laugh, since it’s still very much an open question whether I know what I’m doing as an author. But the answer I ultimately gave was: love the story you’re telling. I think sci-fi/fantasy fiction gives you a unique opportunity to do just that.

To explain what I mean, we’ll need to spend a moment discussing John’s Cardinal Rules of Fantasy Fiction. (Now, pay close attention — there’ll be a quiz at the end of the class.) The rules are:

1. Wish fulfillment; and
2. When in doubt, turn a trope on its head.

In my experience, wish fulfillment is the best way to hook an audience on a story. Do not confuse this with the creation of Mary Sue (or Marty Stu) characters, which is among the quickest ways to turn an audience off on a story. What’s the difference? Whether a character is a Mary Sue or not depends on the nature of the character, wish fulfillment depends on the nature of the action the character is performing. Wish fulfillment involves giving the protagonist a task that the reader or viewer has always dreamed of doing, thus allowing the reader to slip into the person’s shoes and share in the thrill. Thus, for instance, surely everyone who has ever dreamed of firing a rocket launcher at an unkillable demon (surely every fantasy fan that ever lived) can long to be in Buffy’s shoes as she does that very thing, even though Buffy proves throughout the series that she’s far from an ideal character. (Season 6, anyone?) The Death Star trench run at the end of Star Wars: A New Hope is similar. No genre provides more opportunities for wish fulfillment than fantasy fiction, simply because it’s the only genre where literally anything is possible.

Which brings us to my forthcoming novel, Atticus for the Undead (available November 21st on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com). The novel started out of a long-held desire to write a John Grisham style legal thriller. After all, I’m a lawyer in my day job — sewing together my lawyer hat and my author hat into one mega-hat made sense. Plus, then I could make a protagonist who actually knew something about practicing law, as opposed to my own approach to the legal practice, which usually involves large amounts of confusion and many bottles of Excedrin. (Okay, so sometimes wish fulfillment is about the character. So sue me. Or something.)

In any event, there was a problem: Grisham has written approximately 7,181,924 novels, and television is also cluttered with legal procedurals. I had no interest in (and no love for) the idea of writing one more to add to the crowded shelves. If I was going to do this, I wanted mine to be special. And then it hit me.

There have been lots of legal stories, and just as many zombie stories — but how many times has a zombie been put on trial?

The idea of zombies with constitutional rights tickled me, and I was pretty sure it would appeal to my readership, too. Both parts of my premise (zombies and trials) were fun — combining them seemed like a winning formula. But I’d written a novel before (that’s Weaver, folks, available now for 99 cents!), and I knew that a strong overarching premise wouldn’t be enough to overcome the hard work, many headaches, and (very, very) little sleep involved in writing a book. I had a good start, but there wasn’t enough love yet to keep that ship in the air.

So I turned to my other Cardinal Rule: when in doubt, turn a trope on its head. Lots of zombie movies have involved a horde of zombies chasing a hapless human through a shopping mall. Ho. Hum. So I wrote a prologue in which a horde of humans chased my zombie protagonist through a mall, instead. After all, I had a brain-eating supernatural creature to humanize, a world to introduce, and an audience to keep awake while I was doing it.

I added extra helpings of fun to the mix throughout the novel. For instance, my first chapter featured a girl suspected of witchcraft — because she was seen rehearsing for a production of Macbeth. And not just any girl, but a teenage girl named Sabrina. I also decided that my law firm’s slogan was “We Get Results — Like Magic!” And so on.

Even with all of that, writing Atticus was still one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I lost more sleep (and pulled out more hair) than I care to talk about. But love kept the project in the air when it should have fallen down.

It kept me writing, and hopefully, soon, it will keep you reading. (And I promise, I don’t use this many parentheses in the book.)