Tag: Self-Publishing Page 1 of 2

Kindle Create

Let me explain the process I follow to create a trade paperback version and the Kindle version of my novels for Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). This may surprise you.

I write with Scrivener 3 (from Literature and Latte). I have been for years now and I LOVE the programme. The new Scrivener 3 boasted an improved compiler from that found in Scrivener 2 and I was excited about it. Excited until I started using it. It is supposed to be more user friendly. It’s not. It’s supposed to allow you to format your novel in whatever manner you wish. I don’t find it does. You need a PhD. It is NOT intuitive. Try something like Vellum and you will immediately see where Scrivener fails to support the author in formatting what should be a simple thing.

So what I do is compile to a Microsoft Word docx format and an ePub3 format. The docx is for the paperback and the epub is for the Kindle. With me so far?

The paperback version of my novels is so easy to do. I open the Word doc and tweak it. I make sure chapters start on the right side page. I add drop caps (where the first letter of the chapter is enlarged), correct fonts, add blank lines, etc. Once I am happy, I export to PDF, upload to KDP, preview how KDP processes it, and nine times out of ten it is perfect and I can publish the paperback. For those in the know, yes, KDP accepts docx. The conversion is poor though and I find PDFs almost are never modified by KDP and come out exactly as you wanted.

The Kindle version is not so easy. First, you need to understand that Kindle publishes eBooks in their MOBI format. KDP will convert your epub to a mobi when you upload it. KDP has been criticised by many for not describing the specific html code it uses to format the Kindle and invariably the mobi will not match what you formatted the epub to look like. It can be quite frustrating.

What I have been doing is the following:

  1. I compile from Scrivener 3 to ePub3.
  2. I open the ePub3 in Sigil (software to format ebooks). I spend around 2-3 hours formatting the epub with html code until it looks right. I save the epub.
  3. I open the epub in Calibre (an ebook library programme) and CONVERT the epub to mobi.
  4. I upload the mobi to KDP and cross my fingers. Nine times out of ten it looks the way I want the mobi to look (with drop caps, etc.)

I just did this with Cill Darae (Volume 5 of the New Druids series, pick up yours on April 30th!). After I was done, I noticed a little hyperlink on KDP introducing Kindle Create. I was like “wuh?”. I downloaded it, opened it, and cried in joy. Now, I know this has been around for a while (now I do, anyway), but to me this was NEW and SHINY! The good news is all I need to do now is load the docx paperback version, tweak the content to my ebook content (i.e. the ISBN for Kindle is different than the paperback), and save the file in the KPF format. I upload the kpf and BAM! I have a perfect mobi version of my novel.

I’m so happy right now. Time for wine.

Beta Readers, Sci-Fi and Urban Fantasy

Beta Readers

Cill Darae, Volume 5 of the New Druids Series is almost through the second draft. I have a few beta readers lined up and I am still interested in more. Beta Reading is a task. It requires a critical mind and sense of what good epic fantasy is all about. If you are interested send me an email requested to be considered and why you think you are a good fit.

I’ve had the good and the bad with beta readers. A few I consider exceptional. Their feedback to me was invaluable and I’m so glad to have met these people. Some simply took my novels and that was it. Beta reading is critical to authors; it is through the back and forth that a novel starts to polish. Freamhaigh was the novel that saw the most feedback from beta readers and I find it stands above my other novels. So please, if interested, shoot me an email at donalddallan@gmail.com

Urban Fantasy

I adore urban fantasy. Its my dirty little secret. There is something about reading fantasy in a modern, urban setting that I really, really enjoy. There are some truly talented authors writing urban fantasy today [shoot me an email and I will share with you my list of favourite authors in this genre]. I would love to be one. I’ve wanted to write something in this genre for a while now and I think I have the start of a concept. That’s all: just a concept. The New Druids series was always much more than a concept: I had visualised the entire series, you see, almost in one painful flash of insight.

So, I need to flush out my urban fantasy idea a little (okay, a lot) more. Then I am going to try traditional publishing. I am prepared for rejection. I feel I have already become an accomplished author and have nothing to prove to myself. If it fails the big houses, then I will self-publish, again. The premise, in case you are curious, is a man finds a single torn page hidden inside an old book. It contains a spell for finding things, written in old English. He tries it, and it works. Then he wants more spells. But there is another group(s) looking for the same thing. And another trying to wipe magic from the world. And history, ancient history, from Arthurian legend starts to expose itself [with a nod to Mary Stewart]. Dun dun dun!

Anyway, that’s the premise. It doesn’t sound like much, but with my imagination, I am sure it is going somewhere interesting! I can say that I love my heroes simple: Honest people like you and me that suddenly find themselves having to do something extraordinary. And not knowing why, or how. Not like a certain series where the main characters are all omnipotent demigods. They would have a problem, struggle through chapters and chapters and then suddenly realise: “Hey, we’re gods…” and snap their fingers. Yes, I hated the Belgariad… The struggle is real, dammit!

Science Fiction

I still have a sci-fi novel on the back burner. It is the prequel to the New Druids series, but set in today’s time. Yes. I have a sci-fi novel that prequels my fantasy world.  I had flushed this story out (single novel) a number of years ago. Then I wrote myself into a corner by writing something truly horrible (I had an AI carrying on a conversation with the protagonist’s subconscious…shudder). Happily, the New Druids series sprouted from that seed. But, I need to write it and I will. It’s not a truly happy ending kind of book. It’s a little On The Beach, if you know what I mean. It yells at me for not writing it. It has an attitude. Nasty thing.

Indie Publishing News Issue 17

create

Claire Plaisted has published a new issue of her Indie Publishing News. I love that she does this and supports indie authors as she does. She is such a kind soul and we are all the better for her attention to our work.

Issue 17 features an interview with yours truly and even has a small piece of flash fiction I wrote a couple of years ago (and posted here somewhere in my blog). I love that she uses HTML5 formatting. Bonus points for that.

Here is the link to the ezine: http://online.fliphtml5.com/ohxp/uzas/

Here is the link to Claire’s blog: https://claireplaisted.wordpress.com/

It’s a wonderful ezine and full of details on other indie authors. Please support us and support Claire! She and other indie authors work so very hard for your attention!

Ciao!

Indie Author and Mainstream Publishing

Support Indie Authors

I’m biased. I am an Independent Author (AKA Indie Author) and so I will gravitate more toward Indie Authors than mainstream authors. I want to say that up front. This is an opinion post. Not well researched and completely anecdotal.

I remember when paperback prices started to rise back in the 80s and 90s. There was anger by the readers and articles were written about it. The rationale of the big publishing houses? It cost more to produce a paperback or hardcover novel. The cost of paper, ink, binding, etc. all had increased and so did the cost of the novel. Many people, including me, didn’t believe it but had no choice but to accept that argument. I have tried to find articles on this but failed to find any – it was in the early days of the internet and I am pretty sure it was in an Ottawa Citizen newspaper article. I remember the gist of it though. Back then I paid for those paperbacks myself over at the House of Speculative Fiction on Fourth Avenue in Ottawa. [I miss that store, by the way. I still have those books downstairs on many bookshelves.]

When paperback prices started to rise, I was angry and couldn’t understand why, but when it was explained by the publishing houses I had little choice but to accept but I never forgot their explanation – even today. Thankfully along comes the eBook, and I rejoiced. The arguments I was fed for the high price of paperbacks no longer applied! I was happy (and yet deeply saddened at the loss of holding a book in your hands for an e-reader).

Indie Author; Bored?Fast forward to today. An author I follow, Patricia Briggs, a New York Times Bestseller who writes Urban Fantasy published the latest in her Mercy Thompson series and is charging $12.67 USD ($14.99 CAD) for the Kindle version of that novel as of today. I am flabbergasted. What justifies that cost? Can it be the cost of producing the novel that raised the price so high? I hardly think so. Ebooks are frakking EASY to put together. Writing is the hard part – formatting is easy. A child could do it. Takes about a day to do it right. So what is it? Greed? The cost for the most amazing and perfect editing job ever seen on Earth? Gimme a break.

$14.99? For an ebook? That is far too much, IMHO. We are starting to see more and more established authors charging more and more for their work. I wonder what the next A Song of Ice and Fire novel will cost? Probably more than $14.99 CAD. Shameful.

In comparison, another author I favour, Faith Hunter, also published a new novel in her Jane Yellowrock series. Faith is another New York Times Bestseller but her novel is only $7.60 USD ($8.99 CAD) on Amazon. While I find that a little high in price it is acceptable for someone who has made it “big” and can start to demand more for her work.

This is not hypocrisy on my part. I suppose everyone has a price that is their line in the sand. Everyone has a threshold for what they can accept. Mine is less than $10 CAD for an established author. Note that I can buy two of Faith’s books for one of Patricia’s. So, guess where my money goes?

What’s the difference? Who is the better author? They are both New York Times bestsellers. Yet one is pricing her novel at almost twice the cost of the other author. Does this mean that Patricia Briggs is twice the quality of Faith Hunter? I wouldn’t say so. They both have strengths. I personally prefer Jane Yellowrock over Mercy Thompson but that is a personal preference.

Who chooses what to sell the ebook at? I believe that is the publishing house that represents the author. So who published each novel? Penguin Group USA. The same company for both authors. Interesting, no? So, like the sailor I am, I boil away the water and see two piles of salt. One is larger than the other and is wrapped in dollar signs.

The good news: People will see those prices and say “fuck that” and go buy a reasonably priced Indie author’s novel(s). Yay, me. Publishing companies are shooting themselves in the foot, IMHO.

Segue: Some bloggers have been arguing that Amazon has been intentionally driving the price of ebooks down to corner the market. Others are saying that publishing companies are increasing the costs of ebooks to drive out the market. I don’t know what to believe. This anecdotal evidence seems to support both these arguments. I just know as an Indie Author I scramble to make the small amount of change I make off the sale of my novels. These prices frighten me and anger me because I buy all my novels. I have since I was a kid.

Will I crank my price up to $14.99 when I become famous? Not if I have any say in the matter. I want the 14-year-old kid of today to be able to click my novel and pay for it with their own pocket money and not have to take out a line of credit to do so.

Sorry to rant but wow, what a piss off to see ebooks gouging people like this.

Ciao.

Here are a couple of interesting articles I found after about 10 seconds of Googling:

Have Publishers Shot Themselves in the Foot with Costly Ebooks? by Caleb Mason (January 19, 2016)

Publishers Initiate Predatory Pricing on e-Books to Destroy the Market by Michael Kozlowski (September 26, 2015)

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