That Looks Self-Published—Common Mistakes

Here’s a sneak peek at my article in Line Zero magazine coming out next week. While the most common complaints about self-published work reported by readers is editorial (poor writing, editing, proofreading), there are distinct production and design issues that make a book look amateurish. Here’s what I have to say about those:

1. Flat, drawn cover art and bland cover typography. Photo art on covers sells books. Only in instances where the book is targeted to younger readers or has fantasy artwork should the cover not be photographic.
2. Times or Times New Roman. Using default computer typefaces screams “Amateur!” At the same time, the typeface shouldn’t be different for the sake of being unusual. Select an appropriate, readable typeface. Popular professional typefaces include Garamond, Caslon, Baskerville, and Book Antiqua. Good san serif faces include Franklin Gothic, Helvetica, and Frutiger (not Arial or Calibri).
3. Double spaces after punctuation and between paragraphs. You have entered the world of professional book typesetting, not blogs, web pages and software. The correct convention for spacing is single spaces after punctuation and first lines of paragraphs indented with no additional space between.
4. Typographer’s punctuation. While most word processing and layout programs automatically convert quotation marks to “curly quotes,” it is not uncommon to see self-published works produced with typewriter quotes (") and apostrophes and double hyphens for em-dashes (—). Use the proper symbol for ellipses (…), not three periods.
5. Expanded spaces in justified text. Use layout software that will maintain visually consistent spacing between words and letters rather than just spreading the space between words to get even line lengths. Good dictionary-based hyphenation is an aid to well-justified text. Also monitor widow and orphan controls to make sure that the bottom margin of text is consistent throughout the book and does not change in order to prevent single lines at top and bottom of pages.
6. Rough or flimsy paper. Unless you are making a reputation for yourself in “pulp” fiction, your book should be printed on 60# white paper or better. Printing on coarse, low-grade, or flimsy paper stock will make your book look cheap and uncared for.
7. Oddly sized book. While bookstore shelves are slowly filling with books in more and more sizes, the standard for trade paperbacks continues to be 6x9 inches, and for mass market paperbacks 4.25x7 inches.

You can read more about the mechanics of publishing in the new issue of Line Zero and see pictures illustrating a couple of common problems in both print and eBooks. I’ll also be speaking on this subject Thursday, April 21, at the PNWA Monthly Meeting in Bellevue. (http://www.pnwa.org)

Self-publishing or Independent Publishing—What’s the Difference?

I’m not attempting to give a definitive answer to this question. It wasn’t even a debate five years ago. It’s been brought to the forefront by the rise of online book sales, print-on-demand, eBooks, and enabling technology. There are those who still cling to the absolute thesis that there is no difference. If you publish your own work you are a self-publisher no matter what you call yourself. And by that narrow definition, I have to agree. But fundamentally, I believe a difference is evolving and I’d like to contribute to the debate even if I can’t openly declare a winner.

Congratulations! You're Pregnant!

No, that’s not news from my family. That’s you as an unpublished author of a beautiful new book that you’ve just labeled “finished.” I don’t mean finished as in you just got done with NaNoWriMo; I mean finished as in you’ve edited and revised and reworked and rewritten to the point that you know you have a future best seller and all you need now is a million dollar advance. You’ve printed a copy of your book on clean white paper and lovingly and tenderly tucked it into a box marked “for submission.”

 

Well, writing that little gem and the afterglow that resulted when you wrote your little version of “happily ever after” was the easy part.

 

My new guide to independent publishing will show you exactly what to expect over the next nine months as you get ready to push that little baby out into the big wide world.

I’ll be using a few of my Journal posts in the next few months to explore some of the issues and procedures for moving your book from “finished” to “published.” I’ve just completed the process myself with Steven George & The Dragon, so both the successes and the failures are fresh in mind. I’ll even be speaking on the subject at the Pacific Northwest Writers Association (PNWA) monthly meeting on April 21 at Chinook Middle School at 7:00 p.m., then again on a panel at the summer writer’s conference.

 

The tentative title is “Writing was the Easy Part: A guide to becoming an Independent Publisher.” I’d love to hear what you think of it and what questions you wish someone would answer about the publishing process.

 

Let me know!

Need a Killer Title

Tomorrow starts Script Frenzy, the April version of NaNoWriMo that promotes film, stage, and graphic novel scripts. I participated last year and generated a full two-act stage adaptation of my recently released novel, Steven George & The Dragon. Now I’m ready to try my hand at a film script. Here’s the tagline:

Cyber-sleuth Dag Hamar takes to the streets when he discovers a link between stolen identities and real women abducted from the streets of Seattle.

It’s a younger look at the hero of my book For Blood or Money, when he was just getting into computer forensics. Think “Taken” with an actual human as the protagonist instead of a superspy (and a story-line). It’s packed with action that Dag is completely unequipped for. The world he knows is inside the gray box of his computer, but the world he is thrust into runs from executive board rooms to the violent depths of human trafficking and focuses on the intersection of the two.

 

My working title “No Escape Key,” is frankly boring. I wouldn’t see a movie with that title, so why would I expect anyone else to. I liked the fact that it implied a world where the conventions of the computer that Dag is used to no longer work. And that there was no way out of it. But it needs something that actually sounds interesting.

 

I’m taking suggestions. Got any?

Post-Opening Euphoria

I’ve experienced it in the theatre on many occasions. You slave over the scenery, lighting, sound, action, and publicity. Three hours before opening curtain, when you are getting into makeup and costume, warming up your voice, running a hair dryer on places where the paint is still wet, you hear that the house is “small.” But it is opening night and the rip in your tights, the door that won’t open, the sudden allergic reaction to spirit gum, can’t bring you down from the excitement you feel. “Overture. Curtain. Lights. This is it: the night of nights.”

 

The curtain opens. The house is much bigger than you were led to believe. Your mother (or her ghost) is sitting in the front row. The energy you get back from the audience laughing, applauding, even weeping, propels you to the top of your game and before you realize it started, the final curtain comes down and you take a bow.

 

That was last night and the launch of Steven George & The Dragon at Jitters. The house was literally packed. As many as 65 people were buying books, sipping coffee, standing in line for my autograph, and listening enthusiastically as I read passages from the new book.

 

Then everyone was gone. We packed the car. Lissi vacuumed the floors and Maggie cleaned up the espresso machine. The DW and I left and realized we hadn’t eaten yet, so stopped at Red Robin for a late burger & fries. Then it was home. We’re still here, looking at the remaining unsold books, trying to reconcile the reports of credit cards and cashbox with the inventory. And asking the big question that hits after every opening; Now what?

 

Does selling more than our goal last night make me a famous author? Will royalties, movie contracts, and bids for my next book come rolling in? Will I finally get a decent night’s sleep tonight? Any of these would be fine.

 

In theatre, you face a closing curtain. You start rehearsing the next show. With publishing, you start looking for another audience. A book has to have a run of more than one night, and you need an audience that doesn’t share your last name (literally or figuratively). You need Amazon sales and Barnes & Noble. You need to see the hits on your website and plan the next reading. As the famous title says, you need to “get your act together and take it on the road.”

 

But for today—just today, mind you—it is okay to enjoy the euphoria and glow of that opening night.

Day of the Dragon

This is it! Steven George & The Dragon is now officially released!

Steven George has known since his earliest memories that he would be his village’s dragonslayer. He has had the best education the people of the village could give him. He learned from the village elder, the hunter, the shaman, and the wise woman. As a young man, he is as ready as his village can make him.

When at last he is sent to slay the fearsome beast, Steven realizes he doesn’t know what a dragon looks like, exactly where it lives, or how to slay it! But Steven’s village has fostered the talent of telling tales. Steven trades once-upon-a times with a melon farmer, a village idiot, a tinker, a woodcutter, a knight, a merchant, a thief, and a gypsy. Each remarkable story leads him a step closer to understanding the true nature of his quest and that all that looks like a dragon is not a dragon.

Lost, robbed, and in despair, Steven finally discovers that all roads lead to the dragon, but a dragon may not look like a dragon!

Steven George & The Dragon is available in paperback and non-encrypted ePUB eBook from http://stngeorge.com.

Available for NOOKbook from Barnes & Noble.

Available for Kindle eBook from Amazon.com.

Available in paperback from Amazon.com.

Available in paperback from CreateSpace.com.

Release party open house at Jitters Coffee in Redmond from 5:30-8:00 with readings at 6:00 and 7:00. Come on over!

 

Pass the word. Today we meet the dragon!

What’s a deluxe PDF eBook?

I’ve been experimenting with eBooks for ten years now. I love the industry standard ePUB format and am committed to producing all books I publish in both that and Kindle versions. But sometimes the vision for a written work exceeds the technology that is available. Let’s face it, I miss big fat leather-bound books with letterpress type and hand illuminated illustrations.

 

Okay. I never actually lived in an era of that kind of book, but I have some of them and they are cool. I imagine my words on those soft textured pages, being pored over by my inner child discovering a world outside the confines of my little log cabin.

 

Well, no one I know can afford to produce that kind of a book. They aren’t practical. Would cost too much to buy. Shoot! We don’t even have coffee tables to put them on anymore! But…

 

We do have the miracle of computers, and as an artist I’m able to realize my dream in pixels instead of paper. That’s where PDF comes in. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with that file format for years. Right now, I think I can use it to the best possible effect in showing people what my inner vision of my book looks like. My intent is to produce a deluxe PDF version of the book on a CD-ROM that will play on your computer. Yes, I know that isn’t the greatest reading environment in the world, but it is a great display environment for artwork. I’ve started by producing a test book, just 16 pages total. Here’s a picture from inside.

Now doesn’t that look like something you’d like to read? Turn the pages. Smell the musty odor of old paper?

 

It’s going to take longer to produce an entire book if I take the care I’ve taken with this sample. So, I’ve taken the buy button off my website for that particular edition. But I do have the sample available and would love your comments on it. You can click the link at Steven George & The Dragon titled “What the Sergeant Didn’t See” in the bottom right corner of the page. This is a story that doesn’t appear in the book, so you get a bonus story as well as the cool deluxe layout. You can go straight to the PDF with this link: What the Sergeant Didn’t See.

 

What could be better? Free story. Beautiful book. New concept. Let me know what you think.

Writing Was the Easy Part

Fortunately, I knew what I was getting into when I started this project. I’ve been working in publishing for 30 years in one aspect or another and I specialized in electronic layout, design, and production of documents. I designed and produced several magazines in the 80s, training manuals and curriculum in the 90s, and both paper and electronic books in the 00s. My designs and production won prepress, printing industry, and technical communication awards and I traveled the country converting traditional publishers to desktop technology. Yes, I have credentials when it comes to the publishing process.

 

But even I was surprised by the time and commitment it took to publish my own book. Sure, I’ve published other people’s books and even my own through a publishing company where there were other people to depend on for editorial and marketing services. But in becoming an independent publisher, I suddenly realized that writing was the easy part.

 

I can sit at my computer and generate a thousand good words at a sitting (out of 5,000). The story ideas flow so fast that I keep a file of opening lines and chapters for works I want to pick up later. I have a publishing schedule of completed works that goes for the next five years. Editing, designing, laying out, and producing those works takes months.

 

Take, for example, editing. Steven George & The Dragon went through several editorial passes after I had finished rewriting the book to my own satisfaction and before it was ready to lay out. In a traditional publishing house, the book would have been read by a professional editor who would compare it to other books of a similar nature currently on the shelves. She would be an expert in young adult literature and would recommend changes based on a tightly defined target market. When I wrote Steven George & The Dragon, I didn’t even realize it was a young adult novel. It was my first independent beta reader, Katy, who told me precisely where it would be shelved in a bookstore. Jason, the book doctor, reviewed the “finished” draft two years ago and made substantive suggestions, largely focusing on story arc and transitions. Michele, the copy editor, sought out typos, missing punctuation, bad or confusing sentence structure, and places where words were poorly chosen. And finally, when I thought I was ready to design the book and lay it out, I sent it out to half a dozen beta readers, including some in my target market. They gave me feedback on what was missing or confusing, additional missing punctuation, and words that were too hard or unfamiliar.

 

I had to manage that process myself with this book. A staff editor might have used the same processes that I did, but when I finished it would have the validation of an independent third party. I guess that means I could have said someone else was responsible and relieved myself of the onus of the final say. But it all rests on my head now.

 

I’ll be writing more about the production process in the future, including a May article in Line Zero magazine and a presentation at the PNWA members meeting on April 21.

 

But I still say, writing was the easy part!

Changing Hats, Again

I wear a lot of different hats, both literally and figuratively. This month, for example, I’m wearing my chef’s hat a lot. I’m promoting the sale of my cookbook at Studio East’s production of “Singin’ in the Rain,” but I’m also cooking for some pretty big groups. I had 14 men over for breakfast earlier this month and served baked apple-cinnamon French toast. That went over big. Last Friday, I did both Greek pastitsio and baklava for a hundred people at the gala opening of “Rain.” This coming Saturday I’m doing Umbrian pasta sauce for 100 at Northlake UU Church. And then there is the release party for Steven George & The Dragon coming up on the 25th and I think I’ll be serving baklava at that.

 

But I have hats of almost every shape and style for different occasions. Andrew once commented that I seemed to have a hat to go with every outfit I have (and they aren’t all black!). Jo commented that I was so well coordinated with my two dogs when I wear a black jacket (Lucy) and a golden tan hat (Bliss). I didn’t actually buy the hats to go with the various sport coats or jackets or dogs. I bought the hats because I “didn’t have one like that.” That just happened to leave me with a hat for all seasons.

So it was natural to have a hat as one of the central characters in Steven George & The Dragon. It is a sheepskin hat, modeled in my mind after a kaciula hat from Eastern Europe. The idea of decorating the hat with feathers, snakeskin, a talisman, and a chicken bone came from our NaNoWriMo municipal liaison, Mandrina. She challenged everyone to include a duck that sat on the head and made a strange sound in our novels that year. And thus came the Implausible Hat. Steven includes something about the hat in each of the stories that he tells, after the fashion of “country people who tell fantastic tales of the adventures of various items of clothing,” as the thief tells his guests. I keep thinking that I should wear such a hat when I read from the book at the release party.

 

Hmmm. I don’t have one like that!

Changing the name of my office

In honor of the release of Steven George & The Dragon, I’m changing the name of my office. Here’s how it came about in the first place.

 

A few years ago, my wife and daughter shared a small office in my basement that they dubbed The Wolf Lair. I had the larger office/storage room next door. They called it The Wolf Lair because our big greyhound, Val, shared the office with them.

 

About the time I was beginning to conceive the idea for Steven George, I was sitting in a lobby wearing my greyhound sweatshirt (Hundus Speediensus: Latin for Fast Dawg) when I spotted a little girl about 4, I’d guess, who seemed fascinated by the stylized picture of the greyhound on it. I attempted to engage her, asking whether she had a dog and telling her about my greyhound. Finally, she pointed at the shirt and said simply, “I thought it was a dragon.”

 

Thus was born the idea of a dragonslayer who really didn’t know what a dragon looked like, where it lived, or how to slay it.

 

We changed around our offices to accommodate my teen daughter’s life and she got my office as a living suite. I got The Wolf Lair and my wife moved her office upstairs to the guest room. Sadly, Val passed away and now there are two more greyhounds taking grudging turns lying in my office. But every time I see them I think, “I thought it was a dragon.”

 

So, in honor of Lucy, Bliss, and Val, and the release of Steven George and The Dragon, I’m officially renaming the office, The Dragon’s Cave.

 

You can decide for yourself it it refers to the dogs or me.

The Prequel Timeline Dilemma

When I wrote the original draft of For Blood or Money, all the action took place in 30 days. The sequel, Municipal Blondes, took place in the next 30 days, and this year I wrote a second sequel, Stocks & Bondage, that took place on the following 30 days. That started five years ago. The novel I just finished took place four years ago according to this timeline. Sue Grafton has done this extraordinarily well with the Kinsey Milhone alphabet novels. They started years ago and the timeline has remained consistent. No cell phones clutter Kinsey’s world.

But times—and technology—change, and I find myself wanting to challenge my hero with today’s tech instead of what was available four years ago. And this problem is multiplied when I consider writing a prequel to For Blood or Money that follows Dag Hamar soon after he has become a computer forensics detective. In the timeline of that world, strictly speaking, the book would take place in the late 80s or early 90s. But that seems so dated.

So, the question is whether to write according to the strict timeline of the first story (which by the way, has no overwhelming construct of dateable tech and holds together well as a “contemporary” piece rather than a “period” piece) and deal only with the world as he would have seen it in the 90s, or do I simply write in the moment for each book I develop. I’m thinking the latter is the right course for Dag as he deals with a case of stolen identity and possible human trafficking. The tentative title is “No Escape Key” and I expect to develop it as a screenplay first and a novel later in the year.

Any suggestions?

Step 37: Panic!

I’m reminded of Hemingway’s supposed comment that “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” When I hear about people in awe that someone wrote a book, I have to say to myself, “That was the easy part.” I wrote Steven George & The Dragon in 30 days in 2007. I edited it for two years. But even that was comparably easy.

It was (is) putting the book through the publishing process that was (is) hard. I’m not sure it will be easier with the next book, either. I wrote an article in the current issue of Line Zero magazine titled “10 Reasons You Should Become an Indi Publisher.” I decided to validate my reasons against a live project. So, I’ve been documenting the process with Steven George & The Dragon. Great story, publication ready manuscript, care for design. Check check check. Realistic expectations, knowing who will buy. Check, well… sort of. Let me put it this way: I know a lot more people who have said they will buy the book than have ordered it. But, I’m still getting the word out and it’s early, so I’m not going to let that stop me.

Business in place, funds to invest. Check, well… sort of. There’s always a money crisis. What I didn’t think about was that the cost of the books is not the only cost. There are promotional materials (even a fee for the email invitations), postcards, posters, ISBN numbers (lots of 10 for $250), membership in the Pro-plan for publishing, Website setup cost and domain registration, Paypal fees, and what we used to call in the building industry “sweat equity.”

Marketing plan, check. Family and friends willing to do the author promo and sales bit. Reluctantly, check. No illlusions about how easy this will be. OUCH!

That’s where step 37 in the process comes in. When you find out your books will be printed in South Carolina and will be shipped to you via the Panama Canal unless you pay double to get them on a steam locomotive across the country, or quadruple to get them by truck with the possibility they will arrive for the release party… Panic! When your social media promotions yield minimal results for your surveys and pre-orders… Panic! When you discover you’ve scheduled your release party opposite a performance in the theater… Panic! When you cut the quantity of books to be ordered in half so not to become the cliché author with a garage full of unsold copies… Panic! When you find a misspelling on page 37 after the print order has been shipped… Panic! When you are two weeks away from release and still don’t have the ePUB design finished… Panic!

And after you have hyperventilated, hug the dog, go for a walk, write it all down, and keep going. Because that’s what you committed to in the first place. Follow the plan and you will get there. As Leonard Bernstein said, “To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.”

The Joy of Paper

I know. For years, I’ve been extolling the virtues of eBooks and electronic reading. I’ve worked in the industry. I’ve produced eBooks of my own and others works. I’ve filed patents. I’ve designed defaults. I’ve done everything but digitize myself and live in the computer.

But even I succumb to paper.

Holding my new paperback proof of Steven George & The Dragon that arrived yesterday is an unfathomable experience. Granted, two of my novels were included in After Hours anthologies that were printed. One of my books came out in eBook three years ago and paperback last year. And they are all exciting. But this one…

I think it is part of the “launch” concept. Remember when Microsoft launched Windows 95? There was so much pre-launch buzz that my 80+ year-old father-in-law who had never touched a computer in his life was asking me if he needed to get Windows.  Now I’m sitting here with a copy of my book in hand thinking of all the things that need to be done before the release party on March 25th.

What do you mean the invitations haven’t gone out yet?????

Everything is so real now that there is paper in my hands. I’ll be ordering the first print run today. The evites will to out today. Paper invitations will start going out this week. (If you want one, let me know your address!) The poster will go up this week. The ePUB version will be finished this week and checked into Barnes & Noble and Amazon. The deluxe PDF on CD-ROM will be designed in the next 10 days and a special sample will go out.

And it’s all because of this little stack of paper that I hold in my hands. The word "proof" has so many meanings!

The moral of the story

When Aesop told fables in the sixth century B.C.E., he always had a moral to the story. “Slow and steady wins the race.” “The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.” “It is wise to turn circumstances to good account.” The stories were all meant to teach something. We are told that Aesop was a slave, but also that he was honored in ancient Greece and there are statues of him dating back to the same period. His stories, usually just a couple of paragraphs, still survive. Moral: “Low estate does not prevent honor.”

Well, I made that up. What I was really trying to get to was how storytelling has evolved. We would be hard-put to publish stories that were only a paragraph or two. Our reading public wants a story that will absorb them and get them involved. Aesop is a classroom technique, not a storytelling technique. Yet satisfaction in reading a story is still often derived from the moral, or in contemporary language, the punchline.

We want to see Harry Potter triumph because good needs to conquer evil, and there is no power like love. We look for the hero’s journey in everything we read, and are disappointed if the last line is not perfect. I have personal experience with this based on my first book, For Blood or Money. Six words can make a huge difference.

By this time, in fact, we’re probably all aware of Smith Magazine’s Six Word Memoirs. It’s not a bad technique to use when planning your book or story. Summarize the point in six words. For Steven George & The Dragon, I can summarize the entire point in six words: “All roads lead to the dragon.” Within the book, each of the 19 original and recast folktales also has a moral, even though we don’t have to be hit over the head with it at the end of the story. “Sometimes fools are the best teachers.” “People care for people who care.” “Bridges are meant to be crossed.”

Whether you are working on a book, a story, a poem, or a term paper, “Know the point before you write.”

Killing the Sacred Cow (metaphorically speaking)

I finished the layout for Steven George & The Dragon yesterday and sent it off to the printer for a proof. That should give me just enough time to get copies in hand by the March 25 release date. Whew! There are some interesting things about doing your own layout. I’ve been on both ends of this. I’m a layout artist and a real stickler about letter spacing, line lengths, widows and orphans, and ligatures. I use good professional grade tools to handle the typography. But when laying out my own work, I have another tool that I learned back in my days of publishing magazines: Write to fit.

If I’m laying out someone else’s work, I have to make it look good based solely on the typography. But when I lay out a page of my own work and there is a “-ing.” sitting by itself on the first line of the next page, I don’t have to go back eight pages to pick up an extra line of type and crowd the letters in the offending paragraph to suck the suffix into the previous line. I can also look at the whole paragraph and say “I really don’t need ‘that’ in this sentence.” Voila! cut the word and close up the space needed. I was surprised at how often I edited a little something in the text in the layout application to gain a line or improve the layout.

But those were all pretty meaningless edits. The copy was just as good or sometimes better after the edit than before. It was in the last pre-layout edit of the book that I killed the sacred cow. From the time I started writing this book back in 2007, I had the idea that there was a confusion between Steven George and Saint George based on similar abbreviations in old manuscripts: Stⁿ vs. St^e. It was a clever conceit that allowed me to treat Steven as though he were the one the stories of St. George & The Dragon were all about. I was proud of this cleverness and explained it in the first paragraph of the book.

In the last edit, I killed it. I even changed the name of the book from Stⁿ George & The Dragon to Steven George & The Dragon. The truth is that people don’t need to have that little cleverness explained. No one can miss the connection between the two and the cow had to be sacrificed.

Sometimes I wonder how many other sacred cows I carry around in my life. There could be steak for dinner.

The Independent Confederacy--a novel idea

Reading about the “celebrations” in Alabama this week of the anniversary of the inauguration of Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederate States of America got me thinking, and that’s always a dangerous thing. Rather than present my ideas as a political statement, however, I’m going to suggest an idea for a novel. Since I’m not much on writing historical fiction, feel free to grab it and run with it. I might even read the book when it comes out!

Suppose Lincoln had let the South secede. No Civil War. Now, I’m not saying there would have been no war, because the North would have remained a haven for run-away slaves and there would have been a war over it and continuing tensions along the Mason Dixon line. There would also have been a war over California, but I’m not going to change history too much. There would be a continuing line of connection from the North all the way across to California, while the South would not have been able to push enough people westward to colonize California. As for Texas, of course, it would be a nation independent of either of its parents, comprising Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona, and it would still be at war with Mexico.

Wait. Is that part fiction or history?

Well, knowing what we know now of the ultimate demise of slave states, we could assume that sometime (probably within the last 50 years) there would have been a revolution in the South and ultimately it would have become a black fundamentalist state. I don’t know if it would have been fundamentalist Christian or Islamic, and I don’t think it makes much difference. You pick.

Of course, the United States would likely not have been quite such a world power or influencer during the World Wars, and it is likely that under Kaiser Wilhelm, a united Europe would have fended off the advance of communism.

So, what we would have today would be a world very much different than the one we currently live in, or not so much, depending on your perspective—all because preserving the Union was not a priority for Lincoln.

Take this novel idea and run with it.

How to help promote a new novel

People have asked what they can do to help promote Steven George & The Dragon. I'm happy to let you all know. It's really simple. Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

1. Visit StnGeorge.com and read about the book. If you have a Facebook account, click the like button at the bottom. Share the link with your friends. (And of course, you can reserve your copy of the book.)
2. Visit the Facebook fanpage and “Like” it at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Steven-George-The-Dragon/190084564346235. (Or search for "Steven George & The Dragon" from Facebook.) Also, “Share” the page with your friends. Feel free to leave comments.
3. If you have a Twitter account, Tweet the web address http://stngeorge.com.
4. Reserve Friday 3/25 in the early evening (open house from 5:30-8:00 p.m.) to come to Jitters Coffee in Redmond for the release party and readings.

Of course, the more people you tell, the better it will be. When we talk about "word of mouth" campaigns, we're talking about your mouth!

Thanks to all the friends who have helped so far!

Steven George & The Dragon

We can finally announce the date! March 25th will see the publication of the young adult fantasy novel Steven George & The Dragon. The presale site is now open at http://stngeorge.com. Half of gross profits from presales will be donated to Room to Read for the building of libraries in developing countries. Before you buy, you can read the first chapter online.

The book will be available in both a print edition and on a CD-ROM eBook that includes both the deluxe color PDF and a non-copy-protected ePUB that will play on most eReaders and computer eBook readers. The reserved copies will all be signed by the author and the order form includes a space for your instructions on how to personalize your copy.

Stⁿ George was originally blogged during NaNoWriMo 2007 when it was enthusiastically received. Comments from readers were influential in determining the final version of the story as it now appears.

Raised from birth as a dragonslayer, Steven discovers that he is poorly equipped to deal with the overwhelming world outside his small remote village. That might be because none of the village elders actually knew what a dragon looked like, exactly where it would be found, or how to kill it. Armed only with his naivety and his ability to tell stories, Steven exchanges "once-upon-a-times" with every willing stranger he meets. Each improbable tale leads him closer to the true meaning of his quest. Ultimately he discovers that if all that looks like a dragon is not a dragon, then it follows that all that is a dragon may not look like a dragon.

Join in the fun by ordering your copy of Steven George and The Dragon at http://stngeorge.com!

A Round of Words in 80 Days

I'm contemplating participating in A Round of Words in 80 Days, sponsored by Kate Nolan. The idea is to set a word (or other accomplishment) goal to be done in 80 days, four times a year. I think she's got a great idea, and if I can pull myself into focus for these short but realistic periods, I might be able to advance my writing career a little. The first one doesn't start until January 3, so I'll be figuring out the goal between now and then. We'll see.

Setting New Goals—What Comes Next?

Okay, I have two new novels written, what’s next? I don’t know about you, but I have a lot of trouble taking the next step. I’ve written nine novels and one play script since 2004. Yeah. Cool huh?

One novel has been published. For Blood or Money was published in 2008 by Long Tale Press. One novel has been polished and submitted to one agent. Gutenberg’s Other Book won second prize for thriller in the PNWA Literary Competition this year. It is time to start sending it to more publishers/agents now. The first of those will go out this weekend. I need to put this on a schedule of one submission per week until someone bites and puts this up. If it has not been picked up by March, I’m taking it private and will self-publish. It will be available next summer one way or another.

I have a rewrite to do on the play, an adaptation from two of my novels, Steven George & The Dragon and Steven George & The Terror. Those were NaNoWriMo novels in 2007 and 2008. They’ve got good bones, and if the play is picked up for production in 2011-12 season, I’d like the books available by the time we go into production. Those are definitely self-publish eligible.

So, priorities. What do I do first? (Especially when I’m already thinking of another novel idea in the back of my head. Down boy!)

1. Weekly submissions of Gutenberg’s Other Book shouldn’t be that difficult to orchestrate.
2. Polish first 25 pages of The Volunteer and prepare it for two submissions. This summer I had an editor express an interest in it, so I’ll send it to him. And it will be my entry into this year’s PNWA Literary Competition. Both should be ready by YE2010.
3. Finish polishing The Volunteer over the course of the next few months so that it is ready to hand over if I get a request at the next PNWA conference or from the editor. This should be top writing priority.
4. Start putting the two Stn. George novels in shape for publication by fall. They should be ready for Holiday season 2011.

Well, the question now is whether I can exercise the discipline it takes to focus on “only” these tasks, while writing blog articles, stories, and presentations that might mean actual payment for work instead of bread and water. Here’s hoping.

EDIT: 12/11/2010 As to number three, I've accelerated that item to have a polished draft before Christmas because I have an editor request to see it over the holidays. That should simplify my objectives for the next two weeks!

2010 NaNoWriMo is Victory 7 & 8

Well, It's all done. I finished both "The Volunteer" and "Stocks & Bondage." Here is the wordmap for "Stocks & Bondage":

And here is the wordmap for "The Volunteer":

Grand total of 101,000 words plus change.

I just figured it out

Typically, when I sit down to write a book I have a pretty good outline and I know what the outcome is supposed to be. Sometimes (in fact, often) that outcome changes as I write, but I start with a direction. For example, I know what the outcome of The Volunteer is expected to be. I know how I'm going to get there. The rest is writing.

When it came to Stocks & Bondage, though, I've had a lot of what happens in mind, but not what the outcome is. I know that the key has always been in the six computers that the dead woman has in her home. (Why else would you hire a computer forensics detective to investigate the death?) But I really had no idea what was on the computers that was so important. I had thought vaguely that it had to do with finance or credit card theft. But this morning as I tossed between not enough sleep and have to get up, it finally dawned on me. Oh my! Suddenly, my book not only has action, it has an outcome and it is mind-boggling. No wonder Deb Riley has to get into those boxes. Now if she can just do it without being exposed...

If you'd like to read the adventure in November as Deb blogs it, just go to my Sponsor Me page and make any donation. Send me a note (comment here) with your email address, and I'll unlock the blog for you. There's other great prizes, too.

Now that I know where I'm going, I can't wait to get started.

Stocks & Bondage plan is progressing.

When I write a mystery, especially one that happens in real time for 30 or 31 days, I do a lot of planning ahead of time. Having only decided to do this mystery 2 weeks ago, my planning time is short to say the least. This story has been in my head for quite some time. In fact, I intended to write it immediately after Municipal Blondes was finished. but I've learned a lot about the few factual events that surrounded a somewhat similar case than I did at the time. Nonetheless, I have to do planning. I thought you might be interested in seeing the first week of the plan for Stocks & Bondage.

1 Monday	2 Tuesday	3 Wednesday	4 Thursday	5 Friday	6 Saturday	7 Sunday
I got kissed. Her new assignment. Going to a party at Jordan's house.	I met Detective Handsome. I have to get new car tabs. I'm running errands. Jordan wants to talk to me	I hate funerals. Dealing with Davy. Running into Simon. At least Brenda is dead.	Call from Det. Handsome. Going to visit Grover Sat. Getting a new look… or two.	Date night. What do you do with a man?	Savannah. Stepping into a dead woman's shoes.	Seeing Savannah through the eyes of Georgia. A ragged old man.

Win great prizes by supporting my NaNoWriMo effort!

Dear Friends, Family, and Righteous Supporters,

This November, the nonprofit Office of Letters and Light will be bringing together the most mighty of endurance novelists for an event that will define our generation forever. I'm speaking, of course, of National Novel Writing Month. It's a global writing challenge in which participants spend November (and portions of our sanity!) writing a 50,000-word book in just 30 days. This will be my 7th NaNoWriMo and my 8th and 9th novel since November 2004!

My good friend Cloister has a way of bringing out the best in me, whether it is as a book doctor analyzing and improving what I write, as a business partner choosing books to publish, or as my own personal social conscience egging me on to do some good. I met Cloister in 2004, just after finishing my first NaNoWriMo novel, Willow Mills. Over the course of the next few months, I convinced him that he should join me for the next NaNo and he finally agreed, providing we find some way to use our books for a good cause. Joined by "GCK" the three of us combined our first drafts of the 2005 NaNo into an anthology and used sales of the book to raise over $5,000 (including Microsoft matching funds) for The Office of Letters and Light (sponsor of NaNoWriMo).

When the idea of sponsorships came up this year, Cloister beat me to it and pledged to raise $1,000! What could I do but commit to match this great fundraising effort for the Young Writers Program at the OLL? The problem is that neither of us work for Microsoft anymore, so we can't get matching funds there. That means we're really counting on the generosity of our friends across the country to help us out.

In order to reach this goal, Cloister has put up the offer of a bunch of prizes for those who sponsor him, so I of course, I'm putting up some prizes, too. I'm upping the ante a little, too. I have a novel that "needs" to be written called "The Volunteer." It will be my cradled baby during November. But I also have a novel that "wants" to be written called "Stocks & Bondage - A Deb Riley Mystery." Yes, Deb Riley is back! So I'm going to do them both! At the same time! Now, here are the prizes:

The Wallet Quick-Draw winner: The first person to donate (other than me) gets the first bound and printed copy of their choice of "The Volunteer" or "Stocks & Bondage". I'll produce a special edition from a print-on-demand service just for you, sign it, and ship it.

The Luck of the Draw winner: From the list of sponsors who don’t win any other prize, I’ll pick a random person in traditional raffle-style fashion. That person shall receive a free Book Cover Design for their own novel. Don't think that you have to be a NaNovelist to enjoy this prize. You come up with the title of your novel (even if you haven't written one) and a two sentence blurb about the story. I'll create a cover for your novel, and print the dust jacket. Even if you haven't written the story, you can frame this full color print for your wall!

The Grand Prize winner: Whomsoever shall donate the single largest lump-sum to this sponsorship drive shall receive a free Book Cover Design for their novel, a complete print layout in PDF form, and an industry-standard ePUB of the book, delivered on a CD in a case with your cover on it. Yes, that assumes that you've actually written a novel. If the grand prize winner has not actually written a novel, he or she may either donate the prize to their choice of budding novelist, or a short-story written by me following the blurb they provide, designed and delivered as above.

The Everybody’s a Winner winner: This is the one that everyone really wants. In the tradition of "For Blood or Money" and Municipal Blondes, I will be blogging "Stocks & Bondage." Because everyone who donates deserves something, each donor will be recognized in the "Sponsors" sidebar of that blog (unless you prefer not to be) and will have access to the new novel while it is being written on Deb Riley's blog. You will be able to interact with the story as it takes shape, communicate with computer forensics detective Deb Riley of DH Investigations, and become an active part of the story from the inside! I've blogged several previous novels, but this one will be locked for access to sponsors only until the end of November.

That's it! Click here to donate and win a great prize, but more importantly, support the great work being done in the Young Writers Program, encouraging kids to put their dreams in print. And, by the way, after you donate, leave a comment to this post so I can unlock the story for you. You'll get a sneak peak at what Deb's been up to when you do!

Stocks & Bondage

I'm thinking I may do two novels during NaNoWriMo this year. Yes, crazy, but "The Volunteer" is going to pretty much write itself and I've been thinking about a sequel to "For Blood or Money" and "Municipal Blondes" for some time. To recap, FBOM introduces computer forensics detective Dag Hamar and his assistant Deb Riley. It is told from Dag's perspective. "Municipal Blondes" is fully a Deb Riley mystery in which she chases down a corporate cartel using cell phones to rob the industry blind.

In "Stocks & Bondage" Deb is back and in disguise as she investigates the apparent suicide of a 50ish woman who had a roomful of computers. Working with police in a sting operation to catch the woman's boyfriend, Deb is trapped in her new identity, unable to risk her friends, her business, and her life as the boyfriend relentlessly pursues her. And at each step of the way, the dead woman's computers reveal a little more of the story.

If you want to get caught up, "For Blood or Money" is available in eBook and paperback from Long Tale Press. "Municipal Blondes" (and Deb's view of the FBOM story) can be read on-line at Municipal Blondes. (The story starts with the blog entry on November 30, 2006.) If I pursue the Deb Riley story, you'll be able to follow the daily action on Twitter at http://twitter.com/dhinvestigation.