Like so many of us this morning, I find myself thinking about the tragic events in Boston yesterday. My thoughts and prayers are with everyone who was there, who knew someone who was there and to all who were impacted by the blast.
As for today’s post, it is going to be delayed. My shoulder has dislocated a couple of times over the last few days and is now hurting badly enough that I’m trying to get in to see the doctor today. That makes typing — or doing much of anything — painful. So, I’m going to throw the floor open this morning and will be back later today — probably this afternoon — with a full post. So, here’s your chance to suggest a topic for me to expound upon.
Any questions you have about topics we’ve covered in past posts, any other publishing topics you want me to write about, let me know.
Be back later!
Mad Genius Club 
16 responses to “A quick announcement and a post to follow”
I’ve been reading about converting documents to e-book formats for a year. I took your workshop. I’m reviewing my manuscript in Word in reveal codes to make sure the paragraph indentations are not tabbed. I’m doing this to get it ready for Kindle. Is it really this easy? I use a Mac, and, according to the instructions, I go from Word to html and upload.
Do you have any cautions or warnings?
Just from my experience, you have to finally just push the button and publish it. Get a copy, put it on your kindle or whatever, and check it over. Edit the original manuscript as needed. Republish. _Then_ tell everyone. 😉
You might mention where you are going to send it. Amanda knows all of them, where my knowledge is mostly kindle.
Last question. I read the guides. I googled. It seems pretty obvious I should put the manuscript in single space, but there’s some confusing stuff out there about the use of the “exactly” function in the line spacing box. I finished my cover this morning, need to get an EIN number but am otherwise ready to push the button. Sorry for all the noobish questions, but, given that this isn’t in the guidelines, I’m figuring it should be single spacing, but nothing is what it appears in this process, it seems like,
Laura, don’t apologize. You are asking very good questions. As for line spacing, use either 1 or 1.5. I have used single spacing up until recently when I moved to 1.5 simply because I like the way it looks better on the screen. So play with both and choose which one you want. The “exactly” language is so folks don’t use the “multiple” or “at least” functions in line spacing. I wouldn’t worry about setting it with the “exactly” function. Just hit 1 or 1.5.
Good luck!
Thanks, Amanda! Loved your workshop last year, too.
Laura, I actually go ahead and convert to either epub or mobi before uploading. Mobi for kindle because it takes one step out of their conversion process. Then I can compare what I uploaded against what they say is their version. Also, by doing the conversion to mobi, I can check for possible problems before uploading it to Kindle (epub conversion first and then mobi is how I usually do it because it is easier to go from epub to mobi than vice versa.)
Then do as Pam said. Download the preview version — don’t just look at it in the online emulation because that isn’t always accurate. Check the downloaded version closely, tweak as needed and then either approve or upload a revised copy. Then wait for it to “publish” and announce it to the world.
Thank you kindly, both of you!
Amanda and Pam,
Just wanted to say thanks again. I put my book up on Kindle this weekend, and it worked! I’m stupendously excited.
Hope your sholder gets better.
One correction. Boston was not a tragedy, it was an atrocity. Tragedys are accidental or natural. Boston was deliberate.
Scott, thanks for the well wishes. Yes, yesterday’s events were an atrocity. That doesn’t make what happened any less of a tragedy either. Not going to get into the politics of it — that’s not what this blog is about.
I seem to recall you having shoulder dislocation problems before, hope it gets better. Looking on the bright side, you have an advantage over most of us if ever put in a straitjacket 🙂
I do have issues with the shoulder, more as I get older. Of course, you have just revealed my secret weapon should the men in the white coats ever come after me…guess I’ll need to find a backup plan just in case ;-p
Don’t worry, Amanda. If you can’t escape, if we can’t rescue you, we’ll go before a judge and perjure ourselves about your sane and equitable nature, wouldn’t hurt a fly, and is certainly NOT plotting world domination of anything except the publishing industry.
Let me see if I can pull this together in some sort of sense.
First of all, as I understand it, and I actually haven’t studied closely the history of it, but my understanding is that part of the history of publishing was concerned with bankrolling the process. An author with his manuscript in hand could go to a printer, who would tell him that for a minimum 1000 copies, the typesetting cost would be this much, and running off a thousand copies would be this much. Usually quite a bit more than the author had in his pocket. Into this gap stepped the publisher. Basically, he bought the authors manuscript and paid the printing costs, in order to make a profit by selling the books. Basic economics, with the publisher in some ways acting as a banker, putting up the funds for the upfront costs and hoping that the long-term payoff exceeded it.
There were several ways to play this game. For example, some authors got advances based on proposals, allowing them to live while they wrote the book. Authors often were promised some portion of the profits, a.k.a. royalties. But these are really frills, the basic process going on is paying off the short term initial costs to make a long-term profit.
The thing is that when I hear people discussing just what the publisher does for the process, the economic bankrolling never seems to get mentioned. Editing, publicity, distribution, lots of other odds and ends, but that fundamental pay for the upfront manufacturing – sorry, printing – to take a profit out of long-term sales rarely seems to be considered. Yes, the advances in royalties to the author are the most visible part for the author, but frankly, typesetting and printing used to be pretty darned expensive. The computer has simplified typesetting, to some extent, but getting a publication run is still fairly expensive.
Anyway, I think it might be interesting to look at how the “bankroll” aspect of publishing is shifting. I mean, we have Kickstarter, where people basically put their proposal up for public scrutiny, and if enough people sign up… bingo! We have funds to write the book. Storyteller’s Bowl, subscriptions… people are coming up with creative alternatives. What are they, and how do they work? What should a starting writer expect in terms of financing their dream?
Sorry, got carried away. But the finances of independent publishing I think are shifting as much as the technology.
Interesting questions, Mike, and some I’ll have to give some thought to. My immediate reaction, however, is that most of these alternatives are chock full of pitfalls — both for the readers and for the writer. Kickstarter is a win-win if the author already has a following and one that has proven it is willing to buy the author’s books. But for a new author, not so much, unless that author is really adept at marketing his idea. Storybowls have the danger of starting off really well and then donations dropping and, as fragile as most writers’ egos are, that can kill a book. Killing the book will alienate those who have been donating. So big danger. Same potential problem with subscriptions. I think we’ll see things like these fine tuniing over the next few years and it is going to be interesting to see what happens.
As I said, I need to give some real thought to the issue and do a post on it. Thanks!
No hurry. Too many mysteries taught me to search for the money, working on projects over the years made cash flow and such questions almost automatic, and it just seems to be a part of the process that gets ignored a lot. When you’ve thought about it, I’ll be interested in reading the post. I think it’s part of the old publishing picture that gets ignored a fair amount, and I’m not sure what we will end up with. As you point out, most of the existing new alternatives for funding seem aimed at people who already have a following. Maybe we need Open Source books, where people can put in their part scribbling in the evenings without quitting their day jobs?